Disclaimer: Nisekoi is owned by Naoshi Komi and Campione! by Jou Takedzuki. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either of these works, except for the plot of this particular story.

When Chitoge came to, her throat felt swollen and gritty, as if stuffed with sandpaper. Not surprising, considering what had happened before she blacked out.

Mages. Flames. Heretic God.

With that particular thought came all the memories of what spared her from the God in the first place, and she crawled to her knees as she rasped out the name of the one who so foolishly, foolishly tried to save her.

"R...Raku..."

"Chitoge-chan!"

Hearing a voice she didn't expect, she looked up. Against a backdrop of broken buildings and fallen bodies was Onodera Kosaki, of all people, cradling the bloody and beaten form of a teenage boy in her arms. Chitoge's heart sank; the other girl's tear-streaked face told her everything.

"H-he's not moving... I-I think he's not even breathing..." Kosaki hiccupped, her voice despairing. Her key lay forgotten on the ground by her knee, as was Raku's closed locket. "No... Not after all this..."

Chitoge crawled over to them, feeling weak in her arms. It was worse than she thought. She looked at the dismembered arm lying still and inert some distance away, and knew the sound of it being lopped off her friend's body would haunt her nightmares for years to come. His torso was sunk in horribly, pulverized by some inhuman blow, while blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. His face was ashen. But when Chitoge saw his expression, she bit back a choked sob and clenched her hand so hard it hurt. She cursed him. She cursed Raku—so kind, so altruistic, so concerned with his friends and not nearly enough about himself—for having the gall to make that faint, almost relieved, smile on his lips.

"Stop being so cocky, bean sprout..." Chitoge muttered, her throat still burning with pain, but feeling the need to say something, anything, regardless. "What did you even do? You were just getting tossed around like a rag doll all the time...! Idiot... You idiot...! Don't let it end like this...!"

Somehow, Chitoge missed it at first when Kosaki's eyes turned determined and her voice became firm.

"No," she agreed, "I won't end it like this. A sacrifice, an offering, a blood-soaked man. By three gifts mortal hands placed upon mine altar, hear me, sleep for me, accept from me."

Chitoge's gaze drifted to her. "Kosaki-chan...?" she whispered, and then her breath caught.

The other girl was luminous. Like the sun shining through a gap in the clouds, Kosaki was hard to look at, and difficult not to feel the warmth radiating off of. Chitoge could feel the divinity washing over her, nearly sweeping her away with its pressure alone, and it was only then that she wondered: why had she assumed that the Heretic God simply walked away from them?

Kosaki leaned in and sealed the boy's lips with her own.

The spectacle that played out rendered the blonde girl dumbstruck. Raku was healing; or rather, it was as if the very world was quickly patching together the boy, in the manner of a child hiding a half-eaten lollipop behind his back, to deny that Raku had been hurt in the first place. The dismembered arm shot up to its rightful place where the damaged tissue smoothed over, while his caved chest area rose as if he were taking a deep breath of life. Every drop of his spilt blood vanished without a trace, and his regular skin tone was restored in the blink of an eye.

In the midst of it all, Chitoge remembered. The words her father had told her, so long ago, of beings so powerful and fantastical even her child's mind had deemed them nonsense. The beings whose existence had been proven to be real, beyond a shadow of doubt, before her very eyes.

Godslayers. She was standing in the presence of a Campione.

In her peripheral vision, she saw her father with Raku's father land from somewhere outside her view, making his way towards the girls, and suddenly, Chitoge felt relief blossom from the bottom of her soul. She was safe. With a Campione right next to her, and her father making his way to her, she was finally, finally safe.

"Chitoge-chan..." The voice drew Chitoge's attention back to the Campione, who was staring at the blonde as if she had just noticed the bruise no doubt swelling on her neck. "You're hurt too..."

Chitoge smiled weakly, the other girl's attention make her feel tingly. Maybe it was all that magic in the air. "I'm fine," she rasped, and then winced. "All right, I could be better. But it's nothing to—"

—worry about, she was about to say, except this was the moment that Kosaki leaned in to kiss her on the mouth.

Her father stumbled. She saw that out the corner of her eyes. Right now however, the majority of her attention was fixed on the fact that one of her dearest friends had, well, locked lips with her.

Later, Kosaki would apologize. She would explain, with a blushing face, that at that time, with her Authority called and magic filling every fiber of her being, when she had seen the other girl injured, she sought to heal her friend and, in her addled state of mind, had the epiphany that the best way to do so was by using the remaining vestiges of her Authority, for which the quickest and most efficient method meant pressing her mouth against Chitoge.

At this moment Chitoge only knew the taste of strawberry and there was only one real response she could give.

She fainted.

"And that," Chitoge said in a mortified tone, her flushed face hidden behind her hands, "is why Papa thinks Kosaki-chan swings both ways."

Kosaki was blushing equally red. Still on the hospital bed, as the adults had left earlier (and what a small mercy that was), Raku was gaping at them both, eyes darting between the two like one might break down and admit they were joking.

Needless to say, they were not.

"I...okay," Raku said, still looking stupefied. "That has...got to be the weirdest yet hottest story I've ever heard."

"Raku!" Chitoge snapped, her face going an even deeper red.

"Ichijou-kun!" Kosaki squeaked at the same time.

"Gah! Sorry, I didn't mean to say that out loud!"

"That doesn't make it any better!" Chitoge cried, wishing she had a baseball bat with which to beat out her "boyfriend's" most recent memories.

"Th-then what am I supposed to do, stop thinking?!"

"Can't you at least talk about something other than the k-kiss itself?!"

"Well—well, okay. Uh, then, j-just how serious were my old man and your father in, you know, g-getting us both engaged to Onodera?"

Chitoge screwed her eyes shut and took a deep breath: in, then out. Close enough, she conceded through the rough mental equivalent of gritting her teeth.

"With the papers they signed, our engagement to Kosaki-chan is a fact from a legal perspective," Chitoge said in the most neutral tone she could muster, since Kosaki on the chair beside her was indisposed as a blushing and stuttering mess. "But what they actually said to her was something along the lines of, 'Hey Kosaki-chan, we know you're pretty close to our kids here, so if you fancy them, feel free to take them with no questions asked'. You can't actually make a Campione get engaged, after all. So in practice, this arranged engagement with Kosaki-chan is more a move to reserve the top positions of her harem in case she finds new partners later in life."

There was a very pregnant pause when Chitoge finished speaking, which she tried to ignore by staring straight ahead at the opposite wall.

"Chitoge-chan," Kosaki said with a voice on the verge of trembling, and this time she was the one hiding behind her hands. "I can't believe you said all that with a straight face."

So much for her stoicism.

"You don't need to point that out!" she wailed, diving under Raku's bedcovers to hide the blood suddenly rising to her cheeks. "Change the topic, change the topic!"

"Um, um—so, Raku-kun!" Kosaki said in a flurry, naturally having turned to the only person in the room whose mental state was fit to converse. "How are you feeling? Any itching? Pains, sore muscles? Some premonition you can't explain where you got it from that your arm's about to burst into flames without warning?"

"Uh, w-well, I guess I'm all right for the most— Wait, did you just put a really, really scary suggestion in there?!"

"Kyah! I, I'm sorry, I'm still don't know how I know how my power for healing works even now when I just finished using it many times in a row so I'm worried whether I did it wrong or it won't power down somehow—"

Chitoge jerked her head out. "K-Kosaki-chan, calm down!"

"There's no way you messed anything up!" Raku added. "Er, just checking, but this is, well, my arm, right?"

"Yes and you're not helping!" Chitoge snapped. "Kosaki-chan, look, Campione get to understand their abilities on an instinctual level—you, as a Godslayer, just don't make a mistake while using your power, and it's just as impossible for it to fail in any way. I know for sure Papa mentioned that to me before."

"Didn't you say—" Raku began, but Chitoge threw him a glare promising a lifetime's quota of pain if he tried to bring up the point that the Beehive head taught this to Chitoge over ten years ago. Raku wisely shut up.

"So don't worry about it. I have full confidence in you, Kosaki-chan," Chitoge said. "If you're still not sure, how about trying to explain what you learned of your power up until now? You might be surprised at how much you actually do know."

"W-well..." Kosaki hesitated for a moment, unsure, before she took Chitoge up on her suggestion. "My, um, my Tribute Before Dreams need three things to activate as far as I can understand: something to give up, something to give, and the person who did both actions. I don't know how to explain it well, but these three things can be almost anything—one act can fulfill two of them at once—and I'm really surprised at how much I can interpret things to fit in the context of the three conditions. For example, Chitoge-chan, I could heal your neck injury because I accepted you telling me that it was nothing as giving me reassurance, and giving up your sense of comfort. On the other hand, Raku-kun, I could heal you because I accepted your fight with the Heretic God as a display of giving your effort, and your self-sacr—y-your near-self-sacrifice as the life you were willing to give up. It could be as abstract or material as that—in fact, there's no one that I wasn't able to heal yet, and my power heals them completely."

"Yeah?" Raku seemed interested. "I dunno how to put this, but it sounds like something that lets you heal only people you accept—but since it's you, Onodera, since you accept everyone, it lets you heal anyone. Looking it that way, it really suits you the best."

Whoa. Chitoge looked at him from the corner of her eyes, and thought: He actually said something that corny out loud? Did he always shower compliments like that? Though of course, this being Kosaki, it was quite obvious that a blush was incoming in three, two—

"Yes!" Kosaki gave a positively luminescent smile. "So if you ever get hurt, Ichijou-kun, promise to come to me right away, okay? I'll definitely heal you as much as you need!"

For the second time in a row, Chitoge felt stunned. On the bed, Raku looked about the same, except with a healthy shade of red to go with the full blast of the Campione's radiance that hit him in the face. Whatever happened to the demure, shy Kosaki who would flush whenever a boy tried to ask her out?

"W-well, see?" she said, putting on a grin. "You are confident in your power!"

"Oh! You're right... Looks like your suggestion worked like a charm. Thank you, Chitoge-chan!"

Raku scratched his cheek, seeming somewhat nervous...or more likely, abashed. A smile as dazzling as the sun and just as warm accomplished wonders like that. "S-speaking of which, a little while back, Adelt-san mentioned that everyone who's been afflicted by Endovelicus was healed. I guess you were the one who did that, huh."

"Ah." Chitoge recalled what Kosaki said earlier. "You did mention you used your Authority many times in a row..."

Many times in a row...used her Authority...

And suddenly, Chitoge's mind flashed back to when she tasted the touch of sweet strawberry. In other words, that fateful moment where Kosaki's lips had met hers.

She could not tell what kind of face she was making at the moment. Perhaps it was some concoction between frozen realization and pure flabbergast. "You...healed...all of them...?"

Kosaki and Raku turned to her at the same time, obviously wondering about the strangled tone behind her words. "Well...yes?" Kosaki said. "It would be horrible of me not to, since I had the capacity..."

"But...your Authority! It—it—" Chitoge gesticulated wildly, words failing her. "Doesn't it—doesn't it need—you know—!"

"What, Chitoge? Just spit it out already," Raku said.

And then Chitoge could sidestep the issue no longer.

"You mean you kissed every one of them!?" she blurted out.

A pause. Then:

"Eh?"

Kosaki's eyes slowly widened.

"EHHHHHH?!"

Raku stared at Chitoge, slack-jawed. "That...makes a disturbing amount of sense..."

"No, no, no! No, it doesn't!" Kosaki cried, flailing her arms in denial. "Chitoge-chan, you're misunderstanding this completely! I mean, I know you might think that's the only way I can do it, since that's how I did it to you and— Ichijou-kun, why are you crying?!"

And indeed, great fat drops of tears were spilling out of the corner of his eyes while the boy gazed into the distance somewhere beyond the confines of this hospital room. His expression showed a swirl of intense emotions only he himself had any hope of naming.

"I'm not sure," he answered, sniffing. "I just felt I wouldn't be a real man if I didn't."

"I—what—" Kosaki's mouth worked fruitlessly for a few moments, but apparently had nothing constructive to add, so she cut her losses by rounding back on the blonde. "Chitoge-chan, honestly!" she wailed. "Can you really see me doing something like that? Think about it a little! Please!"

Chitoge did as she was told. She tried to imagine it. Granted, the only inspiration she had to draw from was the miniscule amount she heard from Seishirou of the previous Japanese Campione's legendary womanizing habits, so instead of seeing the usual Kosaki in her mind, what her imagination actually consisted of was some curious mixture of devilish seduction, uncontested dominance, and kiss orgies. Lots of kiss orgies.

She looked at the other girl with something akin to reverence. "I...I don't know whether to call that frightening or magnificent..."

Kosaki really should have denied it right off the bat. She finally decided to do so now. "I DIDNNNNNN'T! All I needed to do was hold their hands! Kissing only makes it more efficient! I'm sorry I didn't explain this to you fiiiiirrrst!"

She broke off panting for breath, face red as a tomato, and Chitoge was snapped out of her rather deviant fantasies with a healthy dose of mortification.

"Oh. Oh!" She looked away in a fluster, suddenly unable to believe she had said such things. "I—I—I'm really sorry, Kosaki-chan! I was too hasty, and jumped to conclusions, and I really should've known better—"

"No, no, don't worry about it," Kosaki said quickly. "It was partly my fault too, for forgetting that kind of detail."

"F-for what's it's worth, Onodera, I apologize too," Raku said in embarrassment. "For, er, losing myself like that. Since, well, I'm still having trouble believing we did that too. K-kiss, I mean. Us two."

And with that brought up again, both girls, the innocent teenagers they were, could only flush at the complete and utter mess their lives turned into. There really was no denying it when the boy had to specify which kiss among three people he was referring to. Chitoge stared down at her lap, convinced that there was something witty she could say that would defuse the situation and at the same time steer them away from it. She was coming up with a blank.

"That was my first kiss," Raku muttered very unhelpfully.

Just like that, an uncomfortable silence descended again, each of the three stewing in their respective seats and not at all sure how to face the others. Chitoge could not help but to compare the stiffness in the room with how they had mingled before the Heretic God had come along. Yes, a part of it was that it wasn't usually just the three of them; there had been Ruri, and Seishirou, and that ever-infuriating Marika and let's not go into Shuu. But before, it had been clear-cut. Two people fake-dating, plus the rest of a group of mutual friends, and it had been fun. And now... Two of them had kissed the same person, which apparently qualified them for an engagement on the spot, with perhaps one more joining the apparent harem, should Marika actually get over her obsession with Raku. Fun was apparently feeling a little twitchy from having awkward staring daggers into its back.

"Will we really be all right like this...?" Chitoge said softly.

The other two looked at her. "What do you mean, Chitoge-chan?" Kosaki asked.

Chitoge raked her hair in frustration. She didn't especially want to say it out loud, but someone had to. "I mean, this whole—engagement thing. For goodness' sake, it's just a stupid idea a few old geezers came up with when they had nothing better to do—I'm sure you two don't like the fact you were forced together—"

"That's not it!" two voices blurted out at the same time, and Chitoge was startled into looking up fast enough to see Raku and Kosaki meet each other's eyes in surprise and then turn away just as quickly, red colouring their faces.

"Huh?" Chitoge said blankly.

"W-well, that's—my old man has a point, with a good connection to the magic side of the world like he claims he is, Onodera would have an easier time as a Campione," Raku stammered. "If so, well, I kind of want to help her as much as I can, you know?"

"A-and Ichijou-kun is the closest male friend I have who knows I'm a Campione now," Kosaki added. She looked down in embarrassment; her steadily reddening face made it look as if kettle pot steam were about to gush from her ears, but she kept talking. "I...I want to have a family one day, so...I honestly can't pick better than him, right?"

Chitoge looked at the two of them, fidgeting in embarrassment, staring at everything but each other, not able to spit out the honest truth until the very end...

And she had to hold back a laugh.

She couldn't believe she didn't see it before. How skittish they were around each other when in their own world. How red in the face they could go when their proximity was particularly close. How they backed each other every single time when connected by a quiet, unspoken agreement...

There had been enough hints, hadn't there? About who each of them had been secretly crushing on, even before the whole fake-dating shenanigan even started.

Suddenly, Chitoge felt like an intruder.

"But what about you, Chitoge-chan?"

That comment made her jerk her head, and meet Kosaki's eyes, those eyes that were so kind yet so strong-willed. The blonde realized that the Campione was still talking about the marriage thing—the, frankly, sorta embarrassing part about Chitoge's own engagement to Kosaki—but somehow, she knew it wasn't entirely in the context of Are you okay being with me? Instead, Kosaki's voice was tinged with concern over her and...

The Ichijou heir blinked, seeming confused.

She knows, Chitoge realized. Kosaki knows who Chitoge's own object of affection was. And yet she still prodded the blonde girl towards the sole path left to her—she still wanted to help her get closer! But that was the entire reason Chitoge couldn't, wasn't it? Even if Kosaki herself might be all right with it—which, by the gods, she pretty much confirmed with what she just said—Chitoge was suddenly afraid of stepping into the perfection of the inevitability that was them and together. She was the third wheel. An intruder.

After all, she didn't even know if Raku felt the same way towards her. There was an oft-used label to the kind of people who acted despite that. To take advantage of the situation just to get as close as possible to Raku, when in all likeliness it would only end up a pointless affair—that would be disgusting.

"That actually reminds me of something," the boy said abruptly, saving Chitoge from the imperative of answering. "Back when Adelt-san first told me about his and my old man's...plans... Well, the thing is, in his own weird way, he was telling me what they were doing, why they were doing it, and gave me the chance to back off. Didn't he do the same to you, Chitoge?"

The girl frowned, somewhat thrown by the question. It almost sounded as if he were subtly telling her she wasn't welcome, but she doubted that was the case; Raku could be rude and annoying, but never mean. It was more likely he legitimately worried that going through with the engagement would make her uncomfortable. "Yeah, they did. Before you woke up. I'm not sure what you're getting at though."

Raku made a slight grimace. "Okay. Don't take this the wrong way, but why didn't you just refuse?"

"Oh, that? That's obviously because if the Beehive was going to commit an important member to Kosaki-chan, if I refused, Claude would be the next logical choice."

A few seconds after Chitoge said this offhandedly, she became aware that there was silence filling the air. Both Kosaki and Raku were staring at her, the former in confusion and the latter in a horrified sort of way.

"What?" she said defensively.

Unexpectedly, Raku leaned forward and clasped her hands in his. "Chitoge," he said solemnly, "I could kiss you right now."

At once, the blonde flushed. "Wha—what?!"

Kosaki let out a delighted squeal and clapped her hands together, her eyes sparkling. "Really, Ichijou-kun?"

Raku suddenly seemed to have realized what he said, and when he looked down on the hands he held, he instinctively let go. "I—gah! I didn't mean that literally, I swear! It's just—it's, well—"

For whatever reason, he snatched up Chitoge's hands with both of his own again, and said to her earnestly, "Look! I actually appreciate this. I'm really, really grateful for the fact that you did so much to keep that guy from trying being engaged to—oh god, I can't even bear saying that out loud! For the love of all things holy, Chitoge, please, marry Onodera. Marry her so that no one else like that will have to."

"I get it, Raku, your face!" she yelped. "Too close, too close!"

And indeed, the boy had been unintentionally leaning closer with every word his face was almost touching hers. He started, backing off quickly. "S-sorry! But, uh, yeah, please do that, I'm begging you. I'll be relieved if it's you with Onodera than that four-eyes." He smiled, apparently forgetting entirely the fact that Kosaki could have rejected such an advance herself (not that there was a need for Chitoge to point this out though). Then, Raku looked away in embarrassment. "And, um, about that k-k-kissing-you-right-now thing—"

"I get it," she said hastily. It was a slip of the tongue, he hadn't really meant it, he'd like for her to please forget that tiny detail, et cetera et cetera. Chitoge opened her mouth to convey her agreement.

What actually came out was: "But I don't know, you're asking a lot from me. Isn't one kiss a pretty cheap payment for all that?"

Oh, now she's gone and done it.

"Ch-Chitoge?" Raku stammered.

The blonde girl was saved by the timely interference of Kosaki, who apparently decided that the boy would not get away without things ending the way she wanted. "Ichijou-kun! You can't back off now!"

Raku suddenly looked doubly afraid. "O-Onodera?"

"Since I kissed you first then kissed Chitoge-chan, it's like you've indirectly kissed already! There's nothing to be embarrassed about, so you should take the next step!"

"What kind of world operates by that convoluted logic?!" he yelped.

"The kind of world where you're both members of my harem and have to get along as that position demands!" she said triumphantly.

"...Damn. Damn, I actually can't argue with that..." Raku seemed to be mind-blown by the infallibility of such logic, before he noticed something. "Wait, Onodera, did you just say 'my' harem?"

"Eep! U-um, I mean—oh!" The Campione somehow managed the incredible feat of cutting herself off mid-blush to pout at the boy. "Ichijou-kun, you are not changing the subject!"

Chitoge stared bewilderedly as Kosaki egged Raku on further. Amazingly, the boy was losing ground quickly. Honestly, Campiones really were superhumans that could do anything if they set their minds to it. Either that, or Raku just couldn't bear having to say no to Kosaki. Maybe both.

The blonde girl chuckled weakly, shaking her head. She couldn't help it, the tiny bud of relief that sprouted inside her. She had worried about getting between them, had worried that it would only be an exercise in forcing herself onto them, but—the boy had insisted. He had been adamant. He wanted her.

And so did the sweet, kind-hearted girl who even now was looking out for her in whatever way she could.

"Thank you, Kosaki-chan," Chitoge said under her breath, so quietly that even the Campione's hearing might not have caught it. There was still a tinge of red on her cheeks left from the vibrant shades that had coloured through her face earlier.

It looked like even as they are, marital statuses mangled beyond all relief—well, it looked like they were going to be all right after all.