Aizen stared at Zeref as if trying to see through the darkness in the depths of his soul.
"From the mastery of black magic you've shown, and your extraordinary understanding of curses and contracts..."
"I believe your own experiences must be extraordinary as well, perhaps no less so than Subaru's."
The moment those words were spoken, the entire space of the Star Council fell silent.
Natsuki Subaru, Perona, and Joseph all cast curious looks his way.
Faced with Aizen's suggestion, Zeref showed a rare hint of hesitation.
Complex emotions flickered through those still, black eyes of his.
That four hundred years of loneliness, pain, and despair
was the scar buried deepest in his heart, the one he least wished to touch.
To bare his heart to a group of people from the Otherworld whom he had only just met
did not suit his usual way of doing things.
But...
Zeref's eyes swept faintly over Aizen beside him.
If I tell them about the "Contradictory Curse"...
he thought to himself, perhaps in this miraculous Star Council, I really can find a way to lift the curse—or perhaps find a way for me to die.
At that thought, Zeref gently closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, the hesitation in them had vanished completely.
In its place was a sorrow that seemed to have seen through all things in the world.
"If you all wish to hear it, then I shall speak of it."
Zeref's voice suddenly became ethereal and distant.
He began from the perspective of a third party, as though recounting a legend, slowly drawing back the curtain on four hundred years of history sealed within his heart.
"In the era roughly four hundred years ago, it was not a civilized world ruled by humans, but a dark age