The cold start to her marriage is not entirely unsurprising to hear. Of what Mizu has said regarding how others tend to view and receive her, that was likely the best outcome she could have likely hoped for in a husband and not just limited to the beginning. If that was all her relationship had been to this disgraced samurai, Mizu likely would have considered it a good marriage in the end. But as Mizu continues to describe her time with her husband, it becomes clear that something else began to blossom between them. Their co-existence lent itself naturally, learning about one another as they learned to fall into a comfortable rhythm with one another. In a sense, nothing about what Mizu describes is all that remarkable. It is likely the sort of thing that happened between many of those in an arranged marriage wherein strangers gradually grow into friends and with enough time and attention, they grow into something more.

Strange as it may be to think given that no small part of Vergil does quietly bristle at the idea of another having such intimacy with Mizu, but Vergil is glad Mizu had something more. That there was something in her life that at least gave her the notion for even a short while that she was lovable, and that she felt safe enough to part with pieces of herself that she in all likelihood intended to never share for even a moment with another person.

Which really only serves for Vergil's own anger to rise, matching the anger Mizu cannot entirely contain when she describes his betrayal of that trust she placed in him. (Little does Vergil know that it is merely the beginning.) Were he still on that line between sleep and wakefulness, what she says would have likely pulled him firmly on the side of wakefulness. She told him not that long ago how commonplace it is for others in her world to consider her a demon, a monstrous thing incapable of anything but destruction and suffering. But this is not some stranger who happened to see the true color of her eyes in a fleeting moment. This was her husband. Someone who claimed to have loved her. And he could not accept her for who she is in totality. That, Vergil believes, is not love. Not true love as it is meant to be and what Mizu deserves.

"He was a small, weak man then," Vergil says bluntly. He ceases his tracing of patterns along her shoulder blade to more firmly wrap his arms around her, tight and protective. "His pride was fragile enough that you managed to bruise it, and he chose to be a coward in response."

Vergil is not unaware that her heritage was likely a factor in that fragility of his pride, as was her sex. Being bested by his wife of mixed descent was likely a significant blow to a man already brought low by his previous disgrace and exile. But the factors being known and having some understanding of her husband's perspective does not somehow make any of this right. He knew giving away Kai was only ever going to hurt Mizu. It was a cowardly attempt to make Mizu feel small and asserting himself as the superior because he felt entitled enough that he could not just rescind something he gifted to her, but that he could rescind anything.

Including his love. Or what he pretended to be love.

Love can be damaged. It can be spoiled and ruined and broken, and it can even be morphed into something far uglier than its former self. But it is simply not something that can be taken back so readily and easily. Her husband cared for her for a time, Vergil will not deny that much. But he did not love her.

So, it is not that Mizu is or ever was unlovable. Her husband was too small, too weak, too cowardly to ever truly love her.