A/N: As you can see, this is a long one. I tried breaking it in half after a certain conversation but it just didn't work for me, so… well, at least you won't have to wait an extra chapter to see the Battlefront! Partially an OUAT-reading chapter (possibly the last?) but I did my best to summarize. Anyway, thanks to Shiranai Atsune, Seiram, and the Guest Formerly Known As ZainR (XD) for the reviews!

ZainR: Right? Circumstances as they were, he could very well have wound up in the Afterlife we know and love! (Oh, dude, AU where Kimito and Cora are together and Regina and Naoi are stepsiblings. THEY HAVE THE SAME DEMEANOR.) I can't believe you thought that was actually part of the show! Consider me flattered - I wanted it to fit into canon as well as possible. Can't prove it's not! ;) As for Rumple, we will see him again at some point. Questions to be answered, motivations to be revealed...

Seiram: Very true! Milah left her husband and son (the way Ayame never could); Ayame was physically there but still at a distance. I've never compared them like I have the dads and sons but it's pretty interesting now that I think about it. And you're right on the dot about Kimito (his dad is only mentioned a few times in this series but Grandpa Naoi was no picnic). Also, I love the idea of Bae and Ayato bantering. I think Bae would be a stark contrast of Ayato in the afterlife - they led similar lives but Bae has a lingering goodness to him and would try to stop Naoi from harming innocents the way he struggled to stop Rumple. (You might have a possible story idea right there) And thank you so much! I love Saki too; when I get back to TPS I fully intend to play with her some more!

Alright, OUAT spoilers ahead. (And Battlefront moments, I promise)

Enjoy!


[Chapter 46]: Love and Other Curses


The weekend arrived, quickly and unexpected for Ayato. If it had been an assassin it might've gotten him, with his nose in a book practically the entire time. Fujimaki and Ooyama had invited him out again on Thursday but he dismissed them with half-assed excuses. He wasn't going to trade precious reading time for drinks and takeout and video games when he was just going to see them in a couple of days anyway!

Not that he said this out loud, of course. But it was true. And then he probably wouldn't have time to read until the weekend was over.

"Aw, fine." Fujimaki had given an amiable grunt. "You snooze you lose."

"I guess it'll just be you and me, then!" Ooyama could be heard saying to Fujimaki in the background, neither of them sounding all that disappointed.

"Well, far be it from me to ruin date night," Ayato had replied dryly before hanging up.

Since the discovery of the pages on Wednesday evening, he'd picked up where he left off at Daniel's death, wanting more than ever to get to the bottom of everything. Cora forced Regina to become King Leopold's queen, to the point of capturing her with enchanted vines when she tried to flee the palace grounds. Desperate to be rid of her mother, Regina called upon Rumpelstiltskin for help.

As the imp introduced himself, his expressed interest made one thing quite clear – he had been waiting for this day. He wanted to teach her magic and power. He wanted her to enact the curse. It was just as Yui said, his master plan remained the same.

To be honest, Ayato was a little relieved to reach this part. At least now he knew he wasn't supposed to cast some curse or whatever; for all he knew, the imp was here because Regina had already done it. Assuming these stories were true, that is. Now he just needed to make sure someone else was destined to break it, and another brought him to Baelfire.

And so the gilded pages turned.

When Regina pushed her mother through a one-way portal with much gusto (Ayato grinning down at the illustration all the while), the girl relished in the power it gave her. She wanted freedom, but more importantly she wanted revenge, and so she allowed Rumpelstiltskin to teach her magic. Soon she could rip out hearts and crush them or control people just as her mother did, and this was the origin of Snow White's evil stepmother.

After pretending to love a genie (who would later become her magic mirror) and tricking him into killing the king for her, she hired a huntsman to take Snow White into the forest and slaughter the little tattletale. But the princess was so pure of heart, accepting her fate with only a final gracious message she'd written to the queen, that he could not do it. He sent her running into the woods and returned to the queen with a stag's heart. Of course, she saw right through it and ripped out his own.

But that was when the story became Snow's.

Oh, there were stories in between. Regina rescuing her father from Wonderland. Another ogre war that killed Belle's mother. Rumpelstiltskin agreeing to protect their land in exchange for Belle's servitude. The two of them slowly falling for each other, over opened curtains and chipped tea cups and libraries. Rumpelstiltskin letting her go when she asked about Baelfire. Belle coming back after a heart-to-heart with a simpering Regina, and delivering an ill-advised true love's kiss. ("Any curse can be broken.")

Ill-advised, because Rumpelstiltskin had gone berserk.

"I knew this was a trick," he'd snarled, as the darkness her kiss had faded came roaring back. "I knew you could never care for me. You're working for her. Or is this all you? Is this you being the hero and killing the beast?"

Belle had grabbed his hands. "This wasn't—"

"SHUT UP!" he'd roared.

"This means it's true love!" she'd cried.

"SHUT THE HELL UP!"

"Why won't you believe me?"

Rumpelstiltskin seized her by the shoulders, shaking her violently, spittle spraying as he screamed in her face: "BECAUSE NO ONE! NO ONE! COULD EVER, EVER LOVE ME!"

Ayato had had to put the book down after that and take a long walk in the late spring night. He let the loud screeching of cicadas and the fresh air numb whatever it was that he was feeling. And then he came back and started reading again, at the part where Rumple returned to the dungeon he'd locked Belle in for the night.

"Go. I don't want you anymore, dearie."

"You were freeing yourself! You could've had happiness if you'd just believed that someone could want you. But you couldn't take the chance."

"That's a lie."

"You're a coward, Rumpelstiltskin. And no matter how thick you make your skin, that doesn't change."

"I'm not a coward, dearie. It's quite simple, really. My power means more to me than you."

"No. No it doesn't. You just don't think I can love you. Now you've made your choice, and you're going to regret it. Forever. And all you'll have… is an empty heart, and a chipped cup."

(At that point, Ayato had honestly just closed the book and gone upstairs to sleep.)

(If you could call it sleep.)

(He didn't really want to talk about it.)

But yes. Anyway. There was that story, and then a tale of a dwarf named Dreamy who became Grumpy when he gave up his love for a fairy. (Honestly, were there any successful true love stories in this book? He thought Yui said it was supposed to give him hope.) But after that, the story turned to Snow White's adventures as a bandit in the woods.

Regina had posters all over the place claiming Snow was wanted for murder and treason, so the girl was always moving from place to place, getting money and food where she could. Running from the queen's men when she had to. Jumping off a cliff into the ocean and being saved by a little redheaded mermaid named Ariel. Befriending a girl named Red, whose barn she'd been hiding in, and solving the mystery of a wolf together. (Red's boyfriend Peter ended up getting eaten alive by said werewolf – see, this was exactly what he was talking about!) Seeing an entire village murdered because they'd helped her, and questioning the good in Regina after all (painfully enough, with a disguised Regina right by her side).

The book then came to a familiar chapter, where King George's adopted son Prince James was killed before he could slay a dragon for King Midas. They brought in farm boy David, the twin brother, to take on James's identity and make sure George got that gold. Turned out David had a bravery all his own and beheaded the dragon himself, saving the knights who were meant to do it for him.

He brought the head to Midas, who gilded it and offered him his daughter Abigail's hand in marriage. Before David could refuse, King George quietly threatened to kill him and burn down his mother's farm unless he accepted the deal.

David had no choice. He was stuck as a prince now, as James, which meant he could never see his mother again. He went to her to say goodbye, and with her blessing she gave him her ring to give to Abigail in hopes that he would learn to love her. So one day, the ring in his satchel, he and Abigail rode off in a carriage to King Midas's castle for the celebration of their engagement.

When they coasted down a dirt road, a fallen tree blocked their path. Up above in the branches, a familiar bandit was lying in wait. While the prince was inspecting the tree, Snow White snatched the satchel of jewels and fled. David gave chase but lost her in a scuffle where she hit his chin with a rock.

"You can't hide from me!" he yelled after her, wiping the blood from his face as she took off on horseback with his mother's ring. "Wherever you are, I will find you!"

Thus began the love story of Snow White and Prince Charming.

Find her he did, by trapping her in a net outside her hideout tree. He would only let her go without turning her in to the Queen if she returned his jewels, so off they went on a whirlwind adventure filled with tricks, trolls, and honorable rescues. He got his ring and she got her gold, so the prince and the bandit reluctantly parted ways at the end. But not without unnoticed longing looks over their shoulders.

Then came the potion storyline, the one Yui had told Ayato all about. Snow went to Rumple for help getting Charming out of her head. Received the potion, and then a letter from Charming confessing his love. Went to the palace, got captured by King George's men. The king threatened the death of the prince unless she told him she didn't love him. She obeyed, breaking her own heart in the process. Some dwarves she'd helped escape found her and took her home with them, making her promise not to take the potion until the pain was too much.

Days later, it was announced that the prince had left Abigail, but for Snow it was too late. She became vicious in her anger, threatening the dwarves and going on a mission to kill the queen. The only thing that stopped it was Charming, who had been given her location by Rumpelstiltskin in exchange for his cloak, and dove in front of the deadly arrow to stop her from filling her heart with darkness. While his first kiss from earlier had failed to revive her memories and gotten him knocked unconscious, the kiss she gave him then for his sacrifice was true, and everything came rushing back in a flurry of subsequent kisses.

Their reunion was short-lived. Charming's failure to go through with the wedding had put him on George's kill list, and he was captured and taken away despite Snow's protests. King George was just about to publicly execute him when Regina appeared and turned the blade into water. Buying the prince off George's hands, she took Charming as her own captive to lure Snow White into a parley.

Snow met her at the place where it all started, where Regina had saved her from that runaway horse. It was there Regina showed her Daniel's grave, and what she had caused so many years ago. The death of her true love. For that, Regina offered her a poisoned apple. Refuse it, and her true love would be killed as well. Snow bit into the apple and fell down upon the grassy hill as if dead.

Knowing Snow was in trouble, once saved from another execution by none other than the heartless huntsman, Charming escaped from the castle to find her but only found himself lost in the endless forest around Regina's castle. Rumpelstiltskin appeared to him, taking his ring and offering it back if he helped him hide a bottle of true love inside a dragon. (True love that, unknown to Charming, Rumple had created from strands of the couple's hair.)

Despite being the second dragon he'd faced, it was no easy feat, but Charming accomplished it, and Rumple gave him back the ring, which he'd enchanted to glow brighter the closer he came to Snow. Charming followed it deep into the forest until he discovered the dwarves surrounding a glass coffin that held Snow's body, pale as death.

He told them to open it so he might say goodbye. They complied and pulled the glass lid away. True to the original fairytale, Prince Charming woke his precious Snow with true love's kiss.

That was where Ayato allowed himself to go to bed on Friday night – or, rather, 2:39am on Saturday.

Before he woke at 8:15 with an epiphany and promptly started reading again.

Because he heard it in his head, in Rumpelstiltskin's raspy voice, in a dream and then echoed in the morning as the sleepy haze began to fade. A line he'd come across in his reading from last night.

"Let's just say… I'm invested in your future."

He'd said it to the amnesic Snow when he gave her the weapon to kill Regina and she asked him why. And then, there was something else he'd said to Prince Charming when he'd given him the ring to find Snow. Understandably suspicious, Charming had wanted to know why he was helping them. Why he wanted the two of them together. What he got out of it.

"I'm a fan of true love, dearie!" Rumpelstiltskin had replied. "And more importantly, what it creates."

And in the morning, the meaning of those words hit him. Ayato had literally shot up in bed and let another quote fall from his lips like the obsessed imbecile he was: "True love's kiss will break any curse."

He wasn't supposed to break Rumpelstiltskin's curse. Snow and Charming were.

That was one more load off his back, at least.

But there was still no sign of the boy, so he had to keep reading.


Only pausing for breakfast (he might not be afraid of Yui – if he was lying to himself – but he still didn't want to stain the book), Ayato hunkered down in his usual spot on the couch and engrossed himself in more of the love story. Charming proposed to Snow White, who suggested they take back her father's kingdom together.

With Snow's fearless leadership and Charming's bravery as well as his confidence in everything, particularly in her, they recruited and rallied their troops to fight the Evil Queen. However, there was more than one big enemy burning with hatred for them.

As King George's army crashed their camp in a nighttime attack, Charming told Snow to flee on her own, that he would meet her in two days at his mother's cabin. Those plans fell through when King George's general Lancelot cut off her escape and took her to the palace, with the wicked old man himself as her host.

"Would you bring our guest some water?" King George said, and turned to Snow. "Times have been good for you, haven't they? I can see a light in your eyes. Cherish that, because that light can die and be replaced by something else. Pain."

"The only thing you know of pain is how to inflict it."

"That is where you're so very, very wrong," the king said coldly. "I've had my share of pain. I had a son that I loved die before his time. I tried to replace him with your Charming. Offered him the world. But he rejected me. Humiliated me in front of my kingdom. All for the sake of true love."

"Something about which you know nothing," said Snow, and took a smug sip of her water.

The king corrected her again. He had loved someone once. His wife, his queen. But their happiness was shattered when someone cursed her by means of a potion she drank, a potion that left her unable to conceive a child.

"Family is everything, my dear," George told her. "Losing all chance of having one, there is no greater misery."

As he spoke, Snow looked down at the goblet in her hand and realized what he had done. Because Charming had only furthered his suffering, King George wanted him to know the same pain he had felt so long ago.

"You poisoned her," said Lancelot.

"I cursed her," the king snarled. "She will never bear a child."

With that, he ordered his men throw her back into the forest where they had found her. But she gained an unexpected ally in Lancelot, who warned her that King George had sent his men to the cabin to kill Charming's mother. The cabin where Charming was waiting for her.

Sure enough, Charming was there with his mother, who was happily decorating the garden in preparation for Snow's arrival.

Hearing a noise in the distance, Charming urged his mother to go inside, bolt the door, and stay inside no matter what. (The emphasis there gnawed uncomfortably at Ayato's chest.) He ran, drew his sword, and was immediately surrounded by King George's men.

One by one, he fought them off valiantly, cutting them down and dodging the arrows they shot from their royal crossbows. And one by one they fell, until there was none left. Only silence, birds chirping, a horse's nervous whinny.

And then his mother's voice, tremulous. "Son?"

Charming turned to see Ruth standing in the road, bloodied hands clasped around the arrow protruding from her heart.

"Mother!" he cried, running to her as she fell to the ground. "Mother! I told you to stay inside!"

"I know," said his mother. "But I heard you. I thought you were hurt. I'm sorry."

"No, you're going to be okay," Charming said desperately, cradling his mother's face in his hands as tears blurred his vision. He would not let George take her from him. "Everything is going to be okay—"


The piercing trill of the telephone knocked Ayato back down to earth, and in his shock the book almost toppled right off his lap. He quickly set the book aside and moved to grab the phone from its cradle, hesitating when he saw the indents in his fingers. He hadn't realized he'd been gripping the book that hard.

But that scene…

Ayato glanced down at the phone in his hand, still ringing, the caller ID glowing up at him with a familiar number. One that hadn't called him at all this week. The coincidence of the timing left an acidic taste in his mouth. He swallowed and pressed talk.

"Hello, Mother," he said.

A pause. Then, his mother's cheerful voice in full force.

"Rain coming tonight. It's all but guaranteed now, at least an overnight shower," she said, not even bothering to quiet her chipper greeting. Kimito must've been long gone, hiding out in the workshop if not already at the store. "Made me think of you, so I wanted to say hello."

"That'll be nice for your flowers," he said, albeit a bit absently. His mind had sunk its claws into that last story, and it was difficult to think of anything else.

"The ones by your old walking bridge will be quite happy," she agreed, releasing a mix between a hum and a little wistful sigh. "What a beautiful season, don't you think? A time for things to bloom anew."

Ayato gave a small grunt of acknowledgement. "Or a time for things to dry out," he said, staring out the window at his lawn.

The reply didn't seem to satisfy his mother, who drew out another pause before harrumphing into the phone.

"Am I interrupting something?" she said, almost wary of him. "You sound distracted."

He bit the inside of his mouth in guilt. First time she'd called this week and he was practically in a whole other world. "Sorry. I've just…" he said wearily, and faltered. "I've been reading."

Thankfully she didn't ask what. She told him, "I worry about you."

"I worry about you," Ayato countered.

"I mean it," she pressed, and he remembered he didn't get all of his impatience from his father. "You haven't sounded like yourself since—"

"Can you really even say that?" he interrupted before he could hold his tongue. "Excluding the past month, we haven't seen each other in four years." And what did she mean he didn't sound like himself? Hadn't he been sharing more than enough with her about his weekends with the Battlefront?

She sounded upset by this. "You're my son. Four years is enough to miss you, but not enough to forget you."

"It's enough to change," Ayato replied.

Another pause. He could hear her frowning on the other end. "What are you saying?"

He heaved a sigh. With that story on his mind… He shut his eyes and sat down on the couch, leaning his head back. Grabbed his cap from the end of the armrest and set it on his head.

"I'm saying that I'm fine," he told her. "I'm somewhere Kin – Kimito can't touch me. I have my own job and life away from him, and I've had this life long enough that whatever problems I have here, I can deal with them. I am the last thing you need to worry about. The last thing I want is to be another worry in your life." He paused to look down at the phone, as if her face would appear like a magic mirror. "So don't. You hear me? I'm fine. Everything's fine."

The other end was quiet for a moment. "It's Yuri, isn't it?"

Ayato groaned in frustration. "You aren't listening."

"Oh, I hear you loud and clear," his mother said haughtily. He heard a tea cup clink in the background. "You're so ashamed to be vulnerable, Ayato. You lash out at anyone who might've seen it. Or you try to push them away. That's what I worry about. It can get very lonely."

"I'm not," he said petulantly. "I find a new friend every week."

"I can do without the sarcasm," said his mother.

At this, Ayato snorted a little. He straightened his cap with his free hand and added, "Seriously. Everyone's coming over again today. I'm in good hands."

She mulled it over, uncertain. "Well, as long as they're competent…"

"I didn't say that," he replied.

His mother managed a light but appreciative laugh. "Well, your father will be back for his lunch break in a few minutes," she said, and threw in a rather dramatic sigh for good measure. "You boys are such downers. I'll hope for better things when we speak again."

They said their goodbyes and he reluctantly let her go, staring at the phone's dulled screen for a second before placing it back in the cradle. As he turned to retrieve the book, her words struck him – lunch break? – and he did a double take at the time on the phone screen.

Almost noon already. The Battlefront would probably be arriving soon.

He kept reading anyway.


Snow White arrived at Charming's side with Lancelot in tow right after Ruth had fallen. They came as soon as they could, she'd said. But not soon enough.

Ruth smiled up at her weakly, and asked, "Is this Snow?" She was just happy to finally meet her son's true love.

According to Lancelot, the arrow King George's men had shot Ruth with was poisoned. A poison no antidote or fairy dust would be strong enough to cure. So Charming told them of Lake Nostos, a lake of powerful magical healing water. In a previous chapter he'd used it on Frederick, Abigail's true love, who had been accidentally turned to solid gold whilst defending King Midas from robbers. A trickle of those waters and he became flesh once more. No doubt they would cure countless other devastating ailments. Lancelot prepared a wagon and they set off.

Later, while Lancelot and Charming scouted ahead, Snow tended to Ruth and the women began to bond. Though weak, Ruth insisted on thanking Snow for giving her son something to believe in. She told her how he'd always dreamt of having a loving family, a wife and child. From her neck, she unhooked a silver medallion, gifted to her by her mother when she was pregnant. It was enchanted so that the direction it swung would reveal whether your firstborn would be a girl or a boy, even before you conceived.

Unaware she was breaking Snow's heart, Ruth begged her to try it on herself, if only to distract an old woman from the pain. Snow held out her hand and let Ruth dangle the trinket over her palm. Nothing happened. Ruth hastily tried to reassure the girl, but a tearful Snow confessed what the king had done to her.

"Worry not," said Ruth. "If the water from Lake Nostos can heal me, it should be able to do the same for you."

"Do you really think so?" Snow asked, her eyes filling with hope.

Ruth beamed at the girl, her pale face shining with certainty. "You are going to be a wonderful mother."

But when they arrived at Lake Nostos, there was no lake to speak of. Only parched, dry dirt and sand, and the bones of the siren Charming had killed during his quest for the water. Wise Lancelot, who had been raised near a lake, found but a thimble-sized shell filled with a sip's worth of water left. Ruth quietly offered it to Snow, who refused to let Ruth give her life for this.

"That's what parents do," Ruth insisted. "They put their children first. Someday you'll understand."

"No," said Snow. "Maybe it's for the best. I was raised without a mother. I wouldn't even know how to be one. This water is meant for you."

Before Ruth could protest further, Charming ran to her with his canteen and told her to drink. She did so, promising Snow they'd find another way. But to Charming's confusion, the water didn't heal her in an instant as it did with Frederick. He hastened to find more, only to be stopped by Ruth. She knew there was nothing left, and did not care now that her son had found true love. Her only regret was that she wouldn't live to see him marry Snow.

"Yes you will," said Snow, and called upon Lancelot to perform their wedding then and there.

And so Ruth watched peacefully from the wagon as Snow drank from Lancelot's ceremonial chalice, followed by Charming, and they shared their first kiss as husband and wife. When they turned back to her, she had passed, a secret smile playing across her lips for eternity—


THUMP-THUMP-THUMPTHUMPTHUMP!

Ayato instinctively slammed the book closed and jumped up from the couch, his heart briefly going haywire. It took a few seconds to recalibrate his brain to the real world but then he registered the obnoxious knock. Rolling his eyes, he took a moment to compose himself, then set the book on the coffee table and headed to the front door.

As soon as he unlocked it, Hinata came parading into the foyer with Shiina and Yui and his usual carefree greeting. He and Shiina were shouldering Yui's bags as well as their own, which they dropped effortlessly by the side of the door. The only thing Yui brought in with her was a single charm bottle, its golden specks glinting through her clasped fingers. She squeaked happily and waved it in his face.

"Don't drop it," Ayato warned.

"I won't!" she promised, looking mildly offended at the thought as she cradled the bottle in her palm. "After all the trouble Yukine went to this week. She had to go out of town as soon as possible to visit her brother's gang friends, but she made sure to finish the charm and deliver it to Shiina right before she left! Because she knew it was that important to me! Isn't she nice?"

Yui's fluctuating attitude towards Shiina's ex-girlfriend never ceased to bemuse him. But that wasn't the part that snagged his interest.

"She has gang friends?" he repeated.

Hinata laughed as he returned to the hallway. "Yeah, that's what I said."

Coming up behind him, Shiina leaned against the wall with her arms crossed. "They're very nice."

"But is it like… 'Battlefront' gang, or the 'fists and guns and knives' kind of gang?"

Shiina glanced at him. "What's the difference?"

"The Battlefront doesn't use weapons anymore," Hinata deadpanned.

She blinked slowly, somewhat catlike. "Good, that means you haven't found my shuriken yet."

Hinata's eyebrows shot up his forehead. "Are you joking?" He sweated slightly and looked over to the other two. "Is she joking?"

Shiina's lips curved upward into a smile. Her eyes glinted with mischief as she leaned against the wall some more. Hinata didn't look totally reassured by this, but he did relax and break into a grin. They started talking about something, but Ayato had already tuned out with a scandalized scoff as Yui was busily prodding at his shoulder and demanding his attention.

"So where are you at now?" she pressed. "Did you get to the glass coffin part yet?"

"Already passed it," he replied, shifting the bags around by the door to make more room. "Charming's mother just—"

Yui squeaked and threw her hands to her ears, all the while still holding the charm bottle. "No, don't even say it! That scene always makes me cry!"

"Don't drop it!"

"I WON'T!" Yui hollered defensively. But she lowered her hands carefully after that, gently grazing her thumb across the cool glass as her expression once again turned pensive. She continued, in a softer tone, "It's really sweet, though. What she did for them."

Ayato, having taken a moment to peek through the door's glass windowpane at Otonashi and Kanade who were still out by the car, turned back to wrinkle his forehead at her in confusion. What, die at their wedding…? "What do you mean?"

"You know," Yui prodded some more, "getting Lancelot to put the Nostos water in the wedding chalice!"

"I thought she drank it and it didn't work!" Ayato countered, sounding embarrassingly indignant even to himself. But it was then that he realized – the secret smile. The muted peace. Of course.

"Oh no! Spoilers again!" she yelped, clapping both hands over her mouth. Ayato stared doubtfully at the current precarious position of the charm bottle against the girl's face, so she lowered her hands with a small shrug. "Well, now you know. That's why it didn't work." Her eyes sparkled brighter than the Locus Felicis. "She gave her life so that they could have a family."

"It never should have happened," he replied briskly. That aspect of the story still rubbed him the wrong way. "She shouldn't have gone out into danger like that. If she'd stayed inside like he said, she wouldn't have gotten shot. Snow could've told Charming what happened to her, and he would've brought her to Lake Nostos. Everything would've been fine if she had just—"

"Watched her only son get ambushed?" Yui finished for him, looking cross.

"He had it handled!" Ayato shot back. Only faltering a little bit when out of the corner of his eye he caught Hinata and Shiina looking at them oddly.

Yui just folded her arms over her chest, the bottle of Locus Felicis dangling under her elbow with its stopper pinched between her fingers. Honing in on this, Ayato barely hid a grimace.

"It's a mother's love, Naoi. It's her instinct," she said matter-of-factly. "Mothers can't just sit around watching their children get hurt."

Ayato's grimace only deepened as her words grated against a cobwebbed corner of his mind. Maybe hers couldn't, but now that she mentioned it… he could think back to quite a few instances in his own childhood where his mother had done just that. Lowered her eyes, hid away in another room, looked the other way and minded her own business while Kimito beat the hell out of their only living son. She'd known as well as he did that if she dared interfere, he would not stay his hand for either of them. She'd likely get it worse for being an insubordinate wife.

It was an "each man for himself" kind of household, and she knew that. There were some times in the past that she'd stretched the truth for him so that he could be with Yuri, moderately charmed and emboldened by the prospect of forbidden love, but otherwise… she knew her place. Quiet and diligent in her husband's shadow, at home in Akuma, despite Ayato's offer four years ago before he left for Mizuzaka.

The Ayame Naoi he knew would've bolted that cabin door and meekly wrung her hands until the fighting was over. Just as she had always done.

In a painful sort of irony, knowing this assuaged some of his fears, but not all of them. "I just think it's a cheap shot," he muttered.

"People do die in fairytales," Yui reminded him, her tone surprisingly somber in its mournfulness. "Especially parents."

Somehow this truth didn't placate him. "And who kills King George?" he demanded. "When does he die?"

Yui's features scrunched up in scrutinizing thought, mentally scouring the pages of the storybook she knew by heart. Finally, her brow smoothed in surrender and her frown remained as her arms fell to her sides.

"I don't remember what happens to him," she admitted. "I don't think it ever says."

Ayato scoffed and made a slight swooping gesture at her like point proven. The mother got a sad death because she was the mother, and the bloodthirsty old bastard got to just keep being a bastard somewhere. Where was the story where Charming ripped out George's heart?

Probably nowhere, because he was good old Prince Charming.

(Then again, he had cut down those soldiers, but being a faceless nobody in armor was a death sentence in stories. To the readers he might as well be crushing spiders.)

"Oh!" Yui burst out, startling Ayato out of his musings. She'd perked up and grabbed at his arm (he could feel the charm bottle pressing into his elbow now). "That reminds me! You have to show me the pages!"

Ayato looked at her, flabbergasted. "I already showed you! I sent you pictures – I even read them out loud!"

"I need to see them for myself!" Digging her purple fingernails into his sleeve, Yui pulled him along down the hallway and marched towards the TV room with a knowing look in her eye as if she'd picked up OUAT's scent. Ayato begrudgingly followed along, sending a weary glance in Hinata and Shiina's direction. "You better not have shoved my book under the couch again…"

"What book?" Hinata called after them, scratching his head. He turned his inquisitive bewildered gaze to Shiina, who just raised an eyebrow as she watched Ayato and Yui disappear into the other room.

Making a small sound of pleasant satisfaction when she spotted the book reverently seated on the coffee table, Yui set the charm bottle down on the edge and swept the storybook into her arms in one quick motion. The bottle tremored from the jostle and fell on its side; Yui spared it a second's glance before returning her attention to OUAT. She studied it, tongue tucked between her teeth, until she found the spot where the loose pages poked out. With a triumphant squeak, she cracked the book open and let her eyes feast on the chapter illustration.

"This is too cool!" she cried, hopping down on the couch so hard she bounced a little. "They're real! They're really real!"

Ayato considered her reaction for a moment as it played out, rubbing his chin. "So you're certain you've never seen them before. This isn't a prank—"

"Of course not! I thought you were pranking me!" said Yui, and smoothed her fingers over the glossy picture. "Hideki said he found a sketchbook in your closet once and your drawings were pretty good. But there's no way you're this good!"

Ayato frowned, throwing a speculative squint into the hall before turning it back on her. He didn't even know where to begin with that.

"But if they're as real as you say," he mused, deciding to ignore it altogether in favor of a more pressing matter, "then where did they come from?" He crossed his arms impatiently, pacing halfway around the coffee table. "They can't have just materialized out of nowhere, as if by—"

"—magic?" Yui finished for him, finally peering up from her book with an arched brow. "That does exist in this world, you know."

Ayato stopped in his tracks and threw another scowl over his shoulder, fuming at her insolence.

The corner of her mouth twitching into a careful grin, Yui closed the book and stood back up, then set it neatly on the coffee table where she found it. "Maybe the book is trying to tell you something," she said. "You wanted answers, so maybe it's giving it to you."

"These aren't answers," he argued, clutching at his cap in frustration. "All this tells me is that Rumpelstiltskin used to think his son was dead. Why would I need to know that?"

Yui took a moment to consider this, tapping her finger against her chin. A sudden light came on in her eyes and her gasp looked like it was going to turn into an answer – but then a flick of her devil tail sent the overturned charm bottle spinning off the table. She yelped and dove to rescue it, while Ayato face-palmed at the agony of it all.

"Be careful with that!"

"It's fine, I got it!" Yui squealed, cradling the bottle in her palm. "It's not like it was going to break anyway!"

"But I don't want to vacuum your lucky charm glitter out of my carpet."

"Just so you know, that sounds really weird out of context," came Fujimaki's casual yet booming voice as he rounded the corner into the TV room. Ayato, still massaging his temples, coupled this with a roll of his eyes.

Otonashi, Kanade, and Matsushita the Fifth filed in after him (going by the excited patter of paws in the hallway, and a sharp intake of breath that could only belong to Shiina, Mitsuo and Ooyama weren't far behind). "I'm not sure I understand how your mind works," Otonashi said, his arm strong and steady around Kanade's shoulder as he shot Fujimaki a puzzled grin.

Fujimaki just shrugged and crossed his arms. "Hey, you can make anything sound dirty if you put a little thought into it."

"Anything?" Ooyama echoed curiously from the doorway, Mitsuo at his heels.

"Yeah! C'mon, give me a random sentence."

Ooyama mulled it over for a second. "Um… wanna play another round of Gnarled Flesh?"

Breaking into a huge smirk, Fujimaki quickly disguised a snort and leaned toward Ooyama with a half-lidded look. Then, in an absurdly husky purr, he murmured, "Wanna play another round of… Gnarled Flesh?"

Ooyama flushed bright red, while Ayato curled a lip in unimpressed distaste. It was a rare thing to make the title of a zombie shooter game sound seductive. Yuri had taught him this trick years ago, it was all from the power of a sultry voice. But unless you were actually attracted to said voice, it was just creepy.

Then again, Kanade, Yui, and Otonashi seemed to be chuckling over it. Maybe his sense of humor was just lacking today.

"Wow!" Ooyama said, eyes sparkling with astonishment. "You're really good at that!"

Fujimaki's grin stretched even wider, and he opened his mouth to reply, only to be cut off by Otonashi's hand.

"Hey now, don't do anything with that one," Otonashi said sternly. He noticed Fujimaki's significant eyebrow raise and added, "Or that one. Yuri will be here any minute and we'll need to get started soon. I'm sure Yui doesn't want to waste another second."

"Look who's talking," Hinata said with a lighthearted scoff, entering the room from the kitchen with Shiina by his side. "What took you two so long, man? You carpooled with us and you were out there five extra minutes."

Matsushita the Fifth raised a hand. "That was partially our fault," he said with his usual amiable cheer. "We saw them in the driveway and stopped to talk with them."

"But I think they'd already been out there for a while," Ooyama pointed out, stooping down to scratch Mitsuo's ears. "When we pulled up, Otonashi was insisting on carrying Kanade's bags for her."

Fujimaki laughed and elbowed the man in the side. "Yeah – geez, Otonashi, I didn't know you could be so macho."

Otonashi's ears turned pink, and he cast a furtive side glance at Kanade while wrapping his arm more snugly around her waist. "Don't want her to strain herself, is all," he said softly. Kanade just beamed and leaned into the embrace, sinking a little into his shoulder as her eyes closed.

"Look at that," Fujimaki teased, leaning aside to Ooyama. "Has there ever been a more nauseatingly romantic couple in all of Battlefront?"

As if on cue, the chime of the doorbell rang out through the hall. Fujimaki went to peek out the window next to the couch, and his eyes promptly lit up with glee.

"Speak of the devil," he said giddily, looking over his shoulder at the group. "Hey Naoi, your girlfriend's here!"

Ayato jolted at the title, fuming at the involuntary warmth that seeped through his cheeks. They would never refer to their darling Yurippe – their revered fearless leader – simply as his girlfriend while she was in the room to hear it. Now they were just trying to rile him up. This weekend, it wasn't going to work.

"Somebody else can get that," he muttered, striding into the kitchen for a bite.

He hadn't had anything since breakfast, and that was more important than the Battlefront's teasing. Or another cold or awkward encounter at the front door. It didn't take a clairvoyant to know that it would just turn into another battle of snide remarks, and he needn't waste his time.

No, today he wasn't even going to bother. Why put his hand on a stove's glowing red burner?

He would leave her alone. Stop calling her an NPC as he'd promised. Avoid teasing her if he could help it. Put some well-needed space between them. This whole time he'd been only rubbing salt into old wounds, mostly his own. No longer.

He was tired. He was done.

He didn't want to play this game anymore.


A/N: Alright folks, the book is down and the Battlefront has arrived! What surprises are in store for them this time? Is this Yui's big break? Or will she collapse in disappointment once more? I'm possibly getting chapters ahead of myself because the next one is considerably shorter... but hey, so is the wait!

Until next Saturday!


Preview:

"I'm not hiding out."

"Yurippe doesn't bite."

"You're about to witness a miracle."

"What if it makes you change your mind?"

"I told you not to drop it!"

"You don't need to worry about me."

[Chapter 47]: A Change in the Air.