Signum can't do anything now but stare ashamedly at her feet as the past Hayate continued her diatribe. Why would she do this? Why wouldn't she do this. After all, Signum was a failure as a knight and as a protector. She wasn't there when Hayate needed her...never.

"How could ya even think I forgave you for what happened ten years ago?" the tiny girl demands. "Ya only ever made things worse, then got yerself killed like an idiot! An' it was your fault in the first place! Almost fifteen years I couldn' walk at all because of your stupid Book! I wish I'd never met you...no, I wish you never existed! That's my wish! That's how I can be happy! Bein' a whole person and not gettin' dragged into stupid wars that'll get me killed!"

All Signum can do in the face of this diatribe from the person she loves most is cry silently, tears running out from under her bangs as she hangs her head like a whipped dog. That was all she was. A dog who couldn't even perform a simple task like staying by her master.

Until she starts thinking. Obviously, Hayate was unhappy with her. She deserved it. She was the lowest of the low, an honorless, useless waste of matter. However...was she really unhappy with everything else?

"You don't..." Signum starts, haltingly, controlling the need to sob. "You don't like...even being a mage?" she asks. There was something wrong here, and it was something that was sneaking around the edges of her mental eclipse self-loathing. The girl in the wheelchair seems a little taken aback, although for all she can tell, Signum was ignoring her and talking to Marisa.