I... it was nothing like that. It just... I was so caught up in my own despair and hurt and anger and guilt that I felt that the best way I could resolve the vengeance I felt was to hurt the people I thought responsible.

[ Sharing this hurts, too. It's a vulnerable sensation - but that's the point isn't it? He shifts his weight a little in his seat as he considers. How does he describe it? How does he really convey how it felt and what happened to him? ]

...we were in the tomb beneath the Academy. We - my classmates and I, the professor - we were trying to prevent what we believed were unknown assailants from making off with powerful artifacts that could be misused.

[ His gaze goes a little distant. ]

They arrived. We fought. There was one called the Flame Emperor who I believed, at the time, to be responsible for so many ills. And... during this fight they were unmasked to reveal the face of Edelgard. A... girl I had known once from my childhood, but who did not then seem to remember me. And the idea that she was responsible for so much suffering, for the death of my own family... it made me laugh. Now, of course, it seems foolish. She was a child as I was. She couldn't have been responsible. But at the time...

[ He trails off with a frown. ]