Author's Note: Oh my gods it's been forever since I've updated, but I'm trying to get better about keeping up a schedule. If you follow my tumblr, you know that a lots been going on, but the good news is that a lot of things should be updating in the next few days! Thank you everyone for sticking with me and reading while I've been nothing but radio silence.


From Hypinioia, they headed straight across the Inner Ocean toward Zaphias, looking out for the Heracles as they went, but any peace they might have expected aboard the Fiertia was non-existent. Yuri had been dreading the day when he would have to tell Karol who he really was and just how bloodstained his hands were. The cold heaviness in his stomach only made him feel worse.

"What did Yeager mean back there, Yuri?" Karol looked at him as if he already knew the truth and was only waiting for Yuri to elaborate. The boy was no doubt still shaken in the wake of Raven's betrayal and death. Yuri was too, even if he didn't show it. It rocked him to the very core.

"Let's talk about this in the cabin." He couldn't keep hiding this. It was impossible now.

"Why? Are you afraid of everyone knowing?"

If Flynn, Judith, and Rita had been paying attention to the conversation, they all turned away, leaving Yuri stranded to deal with this on his own. This was his burden.

After a standoffish moment of getting glared down by Karol, they moved into the cabin, shutting the door securely behind them. Yuri knew the others wouldn't intrude, but he needed a barrier between them and him. Karol's back was turned to him, and Yuri had never felt more distant from the boy in his whole life.

"You killed Ragou, didn't you?"

A metallic taste, sickening like blood, filled his mouth. Yuri had never wished for death before. This was a terrible, heavy, sinking sensation, but he felt like he'd rather die than have to confess his crimes to Karol. Anything but this, he begged, but he knew that he had to endure. It was too late now.

"Yes."

"Why? He should have been punished by the law."

Yuri didn't have an explanation to satisfy Karol, so he kept quiet.

"How many more people?"

Yuri gave names, dates, and places, listing for Karol all of those who fell to his blade in the course of five years. The angry shaking in the boy's shoulders grew harder with each word.

"You've been lying to me my whole life?! What about my parents? Did they really die in the war, or did you kill them, too?!"

The boy's unrestrained words where like a thousand swords running Yuri through. He could hear a tremble of tears in Karol's enraged voice that only made those swords sharper and stronger. Nothing in Yuri's whole life had been this hard.

"You killed the Don and Raven, too! You're a monster!"

He couldn't speak. There was no defense for this and even a thousand years wouldn't have prepared him for this pain.

"You're heartless!"

He wished he was.

"I hate you!"

Something inside of Yuri suddenly stopped, as if it had broken beneath the weight of the cold truth and hot, raw emotions. He wanted to think that Karol didn't mean that, that he was just upset after everything that had happened. But it was as true as the list of crimes Yuri had committed. Karol had every reason and every right.

"I'm not asking you to accept what I've done."

"Leave me alone."

Wordlessly, he granted Karol's command and left him alone in the cabin that had become very small suddenly. Repede slid in after him with a promise to comfort Karol, to try to make things right, but Yuri didn't have much in the way of hope. The cool ocean breeze across the deck was no comfort either, and Yuri found himself cold, bare, and raw, with his dark secret laid out in the open for all to see. Even if they had not intended to eavesdrop, there was no doubt from the way that none of them looked at him, they had all heard the conversation through the thin wooden walls of the cabin. If they hadn't they were all smart enough to guess what was said.

Thoughts and regrets took the place of those spiny words, and Yuri was suddenly desperate. If he was left alone to these things, the things he had done, the dark and thorny path he had chosen and the weight of Karol's judgment, he would go mad. With his partner trying to handle Karol as best as the dog could, he needed something, anything, anyone to distract him.

"Yuri, is everything all right?"

His prayers were answered in the form of Flynn, who was standing alone and tending to some rigging at the rear of the deck. When Yuri looked him in the eyes, he felt like Flynn could see right through him, just like he had in Dahngrest, and there was no hiding this.

He grabbed Flynn by the collar and felt him brace for the impact of a fist in his face, but Yuri had other plans. He slammed Flynn against the well of the rudder and crushed his lips against Flynn's. An unbearably hot and rough kiss followed before Flynn wrenched away from him. Yuri pulled him back, shoving him harder this time.

"Cut it out!" Flynn pushed back stronger the second time, face red with either embarrassment or anger. Yuri didn't care which. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, those blue eyes never wavering from Yuri's glare. "What's wrong with you?

Why Flynn? Why did things always have to come back to Flynn? Why was he so attractive and yet so intolerable? Why had their paths crossed at all? Why was he so stupid, so naive? And why did Yuri suddenly want him so badly that it ached? Anything to block out everything else threatening to drown him. He didn't care anymore about the deal they made outside of Heliord. My freedom for a night. None of that mattered. He just wanted the screaming in his head to stop and he could get something of a release out of Flynn one way or another.

"Sleep with me."

"Y-Yuri!" His face went a shade redder.

Yuri repeated himself. After everything, after seeing what Yuri was really like, maybe Flynn found himself disgusted. Yuri didn't blame him.

"No." The answer came firm.

"Then fight me."

"Yuri..."

"Fuck me or fight me!" (A/N Bonus reference to Suspicious Popsicle's /Fight or Flight/.)

Flynn turned his back to him and Yuri hated that. Before he could take his rage out on him for that, Flynn spoke. "You should get some rest. You've gone through a lot lately."

"Shut up."

"How much longer can you bear a burden like this before you fall apart?"

The desire to fight, or anything else, fizzled out of him, and he was left merely standing there as Flynn moved on to his duties on the other end of the ship. His legs collapsed beneath him, knees hitting the deck loudly. He wanted to stand, but couldn't. He wanted to tear the whole ship apart with his bare hands, but he barely had the strength enough to lift them.

Those words and thoughts threatened to consume him, like a beast of his own creation. He had never regretted his actions before. It had been the path he chose, but now, that path was drifting into darkness. He had never wished that things could have been different, but now all he had was doubt.

An hour of flight did little to clear his head of the muck of guilt and self-doubt toiling there. He had since sat down by the rudder of the Fiertia, making himself as small as possible and no one bothered him. He was fine with that. He didn't need their judgments of him either. Long ago, he had told himself that he didn't care what the others would think, and it was still true. Flynn had been the first to find out his dark secret, and judged him harshly for it. Estelle was softer and kinder about it, and although she disapproved, she didn't fear him. He did not know yet how Rita and Judith felt and he wasn't sure that he wanted to. Karol's judgment, though, had been a burden like he had never felt, like he was trying to shoulder the weight of a crumbling world.

But Yuri couldn't let it break him. There was still so much he needed to do.

The disappointment and pain didn't wear away, lingering so heavy in him. He couldn't go on like this. He needed a distraction, something to focus his mind on and Flynn had proven to be no help there.

Yuri took that hour to calm down and focus. There were things that he couldn't do right now and things that he could. He had always moved forward, one small step at a time and that hadn't changed now. That's what he'd had to do after the Don's death. That's what he had always done and that's what he was going to do now.

Their party had dwindled from eight to six, and he had no idea how many of them were still interested in fighting. They all had shown interest in saving Estelle, but a lot had changed since the fight with Schwann. They now had the young Imperial prince, Ioder, in their care, although he was still unconscious from his extended ordeal. Supplies were low and tensions were running high and Yuri was stuck with only one thing in mind that kept him from wallowing in guilt and self-doubt: Save Estelle. Her fate, and that of the whole world, was at stake right now if they didn't catch up to Alexei and stop him from abusing her power. That would be his focus.

He stood, reinforced in his actions for the time being, and set his eyes on the horizon. It wouldn't be long until they found the Heracles.