When Anri starts coming to again, he can feel that he is in a bed. That means he isn't lying dead on the ground, which is surely a good thing. But it also means that he's going to have to deal with healers fawning over him, and that's the last thing he wants right now.
"You can stop pretending to be asleep now," a familiar voice says. "If it wasn't obvious before, it certainly was when your breath just hitched."
"R-Robin…?" Anri asks.
"Well…"
Anri blinks open his eyes. Robin is standing at the edge of the bed. Only… Robin's eyes are golden, not bright red.
"Grima?" Anri exclaims.
"Yes…" Grima says. "I—"
"How dare you!" Anri cries, lurching forward. "I… I thought you… "
He catches Grima's hands in his own. Well, they're Robin's hands, but he knows Grima can feel it."
"I know, I know…" Grima says, looking down. "You thought I was so set on dying that I'd forget about my other options. I admit I considered it. I still think it would have been for the best. But I… I couldn't do something like that to you again."
"Again?" Anri asks.
"... There's something I have to tell you," Grima says. He slips his hands away. "You may want to lie back down."
"Are you going to tell me more of your secrets?" Anri asks.
"Yes…" Grima says. "The worst of them all, perhaps."
"In that case, you have my full attention," Anri says. He sits where he is. He can see Grima's eyes well from this position. They're wide with fear. At least, he assumes it's Grima's fear and not Robin's. There's no way for him to be sure, but he smiles reassuringly anyway. "You can trust me."
Grima sighs.
"First…" he says. "Before you get the wrong idea, Robin, this Robin, is fine. I'm dominating his body at the moment, but for some reason, our souls… Well, they aren't compatible to merge. I suppose they never were."
"Merging?" Anri echoes. "As in, you two would have turned into one person if that had happened?"
"Something like that," Grima says. "It's hard to know the particulars, given that it didn't work as I thought, but… It doesn't matter now. I am merely borrowing this body until I create another. It shouldn't take long, now that I have access to a more or less infinite supply of this blood."
"Okay…" Anri says. "That's not much of a secret."
"Right," Grima agrees. "I'm getting to it. Er… The thing is, the nature of souls is that it is very difficult to call them back to life. I told you that without a body, my soul would slumber until it faded. Because I am a dragon, that would take thousands and thousands of years. Humans, on the other hand, tend to fade away within months… perhaps a year at most. Powerful magic can wake a spirit, but even a god can't bring back what has already been lost…"
"Oh…" Anri understands what he's saying. "You mean, my Robin… You were never going to bring him back, were you…"
That hurts. Granted, this was before Grima had his life-altering change in perspective… It was a manipulation tactic. Of course he had considered the possibility that he was being lied to. And yet, in the end, he really had believed that Grima would keep that promise…
"I'm sorry for deceiving you so terribly…" Grima says, closing his eyes. "However, I'm not finished."
"Get on with it, then," Anri says tiredly. Maybe he should have taken Grima's advice about lying back down after all.
"I deceived you into believing that I could bring Robin back from the dead for you," Grima says. "But the truth is, his spirit was never actually gone. Or rather… MY spirit wasn't."
"… What?" Anri doesn't understand. "YOUR spirit? But you aren't…"
"But I am," Grima says. He opens his eyes. They are still red, not golden. But they are also filled with sorrow. "I'm sorry. I know you suffered over me. But how was I supposed to tell you that your tactician had suddenly turned into a monster? A monster that had already tried to destroy humanity long, long before you ever existed to give him pause."
"But… HOW?" Anri asks. "Humans don't just turn into dragons!"
"Of course they don't," Grima says. "I… I've been the fell dragon since the day I was born…"
"All along?" Anri shakes his head. "But you never… You never acted like you hated humanity!"
"I didn't remember that part," Grima says."You don't know the half of the Grimleal's convoluted plans. Ever since I was sealed away, they've been trying to free me. First, they needed a vessel that could contain my soul and my power. And after a thousand years, the Fire Emblem's original seal was weakened enough for their rituals to work. A child was born with the fell dragon's heart and soul. But given my mind was a blank state, they ran into some difficulties. My mother stole me away. I never knew that I was the reincarnation of Plegia's god… I never would have known had I not died. It turns out that death has a certain way of revealing the truth… Because Validar was around at the time—we never had the opportunity to kill him in our world—and because I suppose losing the newly reborn fell dragon would have made him the worst leader the Grimleal ever had, he quickly offered his body as a temporary vessel. But try as we did, we could not create a new body for me with only his dilute fell blood. So I came up with a plan. I would go to some other world, merge with my other self, and take my revenge there… Humans are the same in every world, after all."
"But then it didn't work," Anri says.
"It didn't work," Grima agrees. "And I can't tell you how glad I am. Because it forced me to stay with you, and look around again. I… I never WANTED destruction to be the solution. I just couldn't see any other way. Even when I thought I was a simple human, fighting next to you, I wondered… I wanted the world to be better, but it didn't seem like anything we were doing was helping. I feared maybe there wasn't a way to find peace at all. I thought perhaps we would be fighting that war for the rest of our lives. Then I remembered my past life, and… it just seemed like I was right all along."
"Sorry…" Anri says. "I guess I failed you more than I realized."
"You…" Grima shakes his head, "You'd really apologize to me. After I've just confessed how I kept you in the dark all this time. Unbelievable. Should I remind you of every time I used my own name to threaten you? How I treated you like my servant? All I've done is be cruel to you."
"And yet you opened up to me, you aided me at every turn, and you protected me no matter the cost," Anri counters. "I know what we've been through. If you're trying to make me say that I hate you, give up now. You'll never get it out of me. I could never mean it. You do realize that I'm hopelessly in love with you, don't you?"
He smiles, but it only makes Grima cover his face with his hands.
"But you aren't!" he cries in anguish. "You're in love with the man you thought I was. But I'm not… I… I can never go back to how I used to be…"
"Hey…" Anri stands up. "No… Look at me… You don't understand."
Grima removes his hands from his face, but only so he can fidget with his coat.
"I do love you. I can't imagine the world without you," Anri says, caressing Grima's cheek. "You can't blame me for not being in love with you because I was too busy being in love with you,"
"… I'm the fell dragon, and you love me?" Grima asks, gaze flickering uncomprehendingly to Anri's hand.
"Hopelessly," Anri says, smiling again.
"You're unbelievable," Grima laughs breathlessly. "I wish I was still in that head of yours…"
"I'll tell you as many times as you need to hear it," Anri says. "The only question in my mind is… Grima, after all this time… Do you love ME?"
"You have to ask?" Grima laughs again. "It's an understatement to say you're worth the entire world to me."
"Grima…" If Anri were to smile any wider, he thinks he'd break his face. "Will you stay by my side forever? I know the two of us can bring the world to a bright new future."
"Okay," Grima says. And he smiles. And Anri is dazzled.
Slowly, he presses his lips to Grima's. It feels like a dream to have the love of his life here with him. He's afraid to go too quickly, lest it all turn out to truly be nothing but the wildest of his dreams.
But Grima is impatient. He deepens the kiss, wrapping his arms around Anri's neck. They have to break for breath, but even that is too long for Grima, who lets out a growl.
"I'll kiss you as many times as you need, too," Anri says. "You don't have to rush."
"We've been in this world for over a year now. That makes two years I haven't been able to touch you," Grima says. "Someone will interrupt us eventually. I want my fill first."
They give it a good run, but someone does indeed interrupt them after a while. That someone is Chrom, who happens to walk in while their lips are still locked.
"Er… Oh, hell…" Anri says. It occurs to him that this looks a lot like he's making out with Robin, who is presumably quite together with Chrom judging by their victory kiss. "I can explain," he says.
"He was there when I possessed Robin. He's aware of the situation," Grima says, completely unapologetic.
"Oh… So how much did you tell him?" Anri asks. "About us being…?"
"Not THAT much," Grima says.
"Very little at all, actually," Chrom says. "Your… friend… was possessing you. You became ill as your body tried to expel him. Now he's possessed Robin to save you. He knows how to create a new body for himself, but he refuses to explain how that's possible. And… Robin supposedly agreed to all this… Is that the gist?"
"Yes," Grima says.
"Grima, we have to tell him the truth," Anri says. "About everything. We can't leave without them ever knowing."
"… Fine," Grima agrees. "Our story could have been theirs, after all."
"I confess I've spent considerable time pondering your mysterious identity, Anri," Chrom says. "I look forward to knowing the truth."
"I warn you, it is stranger than anything you could have imagined," Anri says. "But I have to admit it feels good to uncover this again after so long…"
His Brand, kept constantly under armor or cloth since his arrival in this world, once again sees the light of day.
"I knew it," Chrom says. "I knew the family resemblance was no mere coincidence. And yet… How odd it is for your Brand to appear in the exact same place as mine…"
"It isn't odd at all," Anri says. "For I do not belong to your world. In the time and place I am from, I go by my true name: Exalt Chrom of Ylisse… And Grima, my partner, is the counterpart to your Robin."
"But… How could that be possible?" Chrom asks.
And so Anri tells his tale of grief and anger. Of what it takes to grow from it all. Grima tells his tale of long-told lies and hard-earned truths. Of what it takes to learn to hope again.
"This is indeed far beyond anything my imagination could conjure," Chrom says when it is all laid plain. "To think I would meet my own future self…"
"But your future won't come to pass this way," Anri says. "You and I are different men. My hope in saying all this is only that you might learn from the mistakes I've made without having to live them out."
"I will try," Chrom says. "I never wanted to be in a situation like this… It brings me no pleasure to be taking up the position of exalt… But I will make the same promise you have. I will find a way to bring peace to the people of this world."
"You won't be alone," Grima says. "Robin vows to stand beside you until the end."
"Thank you, Robin." Chrom says, smiling. "… Er, and exactly how long are the two of you going to have to share a body?"
"Now that Anri is awake, I can stop watching over him every second," Grima says. "So I will prepare the ritual at once."
"Anything I can do to help?" Chrom asks.
"Stay out of the way," Grima says. "You do not know the ancient craft of alchemy, as well you shouldn't."
"What about me?" Anri asks. "You were already planning to let me help you, were you not?"
"YOU need to let the healers check you," Grima says. "Maribelle kept screaming that I was unqualified. I believe Libra was contemplating the use of force. But you know I do not easily back down. This does not fall within my gruesome reputation, but what god does not know how to heal?"
"In other words, you want to leave before they can yell at you again," Anri says. "And I am the distraction that permits your exit."
"A sound strategy," Grima says, taking Anri's hand. "Yet, I… I will miss you, though it will only be for a short time. To be away from you after our souls were so entwined…"
"Go get your body, Grima," Anri says, squeezing Grima's fingers. "Then I will hold onto you and never let go."
And when Grima returns, identical to Robin beside him in every way except the eyes, Anri embraces him with all the strength he has.