"Turn of the Golden Witch"?

But will the outcome be any better with the witch as narrator?

Lion was very tempted to down the entire bottle of aspirin Natsuhi carried around. But he decided a corpse would only be another burden on her shoulders. And that if anyone here should be the one given the duty of handling his corpse, it should be Will.

He rolled up his sleeve and checked his watch. "Why isn't he here yet?" he muttered, growing more irritated by the second.

Bernkastel returned to the table, folding her hands in her lap, and trying to appear sober. "Are you talking about Willard?" she questioned.

He narrowed his eyes. "Yes."

Willard H. Wright was not fond of actresses. Or more specifically, he was not fond of the actresses of Beatrice's theatre group, namely a Miss Frederica Bernkastel.

Before Lion had a chance to warn Bern to leave Will and himself out of her buzzed plans, Beatrice commanded everyone's attention.

"Okay, okay, Bern, here you go!"

Lion and the actresses at his table looked up. Natsuhi was still sound asleep.

The blonde actress took a drink out of the wine bottle, and pointed to Shannon. She beckoned for the brunette girl to come to her.

Shannon bit her lip. She looked around to see if she could get out of being involved. She met eyes with Kinzo.

He grinned and shrugged at her, as if to say Do whatever you want, but it would be amusing if you played along.

Shannon sighed, and trudged up, Kanon giving her a salute that probably wasn't meant to be funny. "Y-Yes, Miss Beatrice?"

Beatrice grasped the young maid around the shoulders. "Okay, Battler, here's where you went wrong."

Battler challenged her to go on, a dull look in his eyes.

"For the story does not start with your return to island, but the reverie of two pairs of young lovers!"

Shannon nearly jumped a foot into the air, and started sweating heavily. She looked at Kanon sharply, as if to confirm they were thinking the same thing. He wore the same facial expression as his sister. Jessica and George also looked extremely nervous.

Surely Beatrice, who Battler had only formally introduced to the Ushiromiyas in 1986, could not know of the incident at the 1984 conference?

"Don't you remember, Shannon?" Beatrice asked, the alcohol clearly making her over exaggerate her emotions. "The mirror? The butterfly pin?"

Shannon gasped. "How-how do you…? How do you know about that?"

Beatrice laughed for the umpteenth time that evening. "The more accurate question is how do I not?" she said, almost falling off of the table and taking Shannon with her.

Shannon steadied herself against the wall and sighed. "Then…then please educate us, Miss Beatrice."

From her seat, Eva grew nervous. The incident was an embarrassing time for the Ushiromiya family, George and Jessica especially. For her son's sake, she had hoped it never would have to be brought up again. She considered going up and trying to interfere with the "story", but got looks from George telling her that he and Jessica could handle this on their own.

"What should we do?" George whispered to Jessica, trying his best to appear perfectly relaxed.

Jessica laced and unlaced her fingers anxiously, trying to her best to think of an idea. "I-I don't know…it's not like can just go up there and duct-tape her mouth shut."

But the next words out of Beatrice's mouth both relieved and further agitated the cousins and siblings.

"…so Shannon here called upon the power of the Golden Witch of the island."

Battler shook his fist at his wife. "You weren't here in 1984!"

Beato ignored him, and continued to elaborate on the story of the mirror and butterfly pin.

Although they held some merit, the stories surrounding them were far from the truth.

Shannon cringed when she was reminded of the time when she accidentally broke one of Kinzo's "sacred mirrors" while cleaning, and in the process, came upon the butterfly pin his dear Bice had commonly worn and left him as a parting gift when she was dragged away.

George and Jessica felt more confused than they had ever felt. Did she or did she not know what had happened? She must have known somewhat, otherwise she couldn't have told this "tale", embellished as it was.

Rosa and Maria seemed to be the only Ushiromiyas locked out of the loop. While Maria was simply content with listening to Beatrice, engraining all she said into her memory as the new "truth of the matter", Rosa was not.

"But of course, Kanon would not believe~"

She leaned across the table. "Eva? Sis? What's going on now? Why does everyone look nervous?"

Eva raised her eyebrows accusingly. "Don't play dumb."

Rosa was taken aback. "Play dumb? Excuse me? I-I genuinely have no idea…"

A look of recognition passed over Eva's face. "Oh, yes. I forgot, you had a bad case of influenza during the 1984 conference, right? You came anyways but were passed out in one of the guest bedrooms nearly the whole time…" The elder sister rested her head in her hands, and the younger chose a seat closer to her, ready to listen for the truth.

"Ah, well what started things were when George proposed to Shannon."

"Wh-what?" George. Shannon. Engaged?

As far as Rosa could tell, the two always seemed to have a little affection towards each other, perhaps a little bit more than they should have for a maid and the son of the family she served…but not anything to the point of engagement.

Reading the look of complete surprise on her younger sister's face, Eva went on. "Turns out they'd been dating secretly for a while then, but hadn't wanted to reveal anything because of the oppression they'd meet." Eva held up her hands, as if being accused. "Now…I admit that got to me. I thought it outrageous. I was very angry, understandably…but then…erm…"

Eva gulped.

"What? What?" Rosa pressed.

"Apparently Jessica and Kanon were in the same kind of relationship, with neither George nor Jessica knowing of Shannon and Kanon being siblings, and neither Shannon nor Kanon knowing about their sibling's relationship." Eva glanced at the passed out Natsuhi. "Needless to say, there was a huge…incident, an explanation of the misunderstandings…and the engagement was broken off."

Rosa started to give her opinion of this tremendous occurrence, unbeknownst to her all of these years, when Battler's angry voice rang out.

"What the hell did any of that have to do with the story?"

Beatrice had just let Shannon go, and was about to start on again. Beatrice pouted. "Don't interrupt me." The wine bottle was drained just a little bit more. "And it had a lot to do, alright? Lemme finish."

Maria giggled at the proceedings, and once again took a seat on Battler's lap. "Uu~, where does Maria come in?"

Beatrice raised one finger. "A little bit. In fact, you are quite important to this story, Maria. "

"Uu~, Mama, did you hear? Maria's in the story—"

"So Battler and I started arguing." She pointed a finger at him. "About whether it was magic or a human. Then…we cut back to the rose garden, where Maria is searching for the rose lost in the storm!"

"Miss BEATRICE?" Dlanor asked, looking bored. "Excuse me for INTERRUPTING. But I thought this story was about the meeting of you and Mr. BATTLER. And why, all of a sudden, are you speaking of MAGIC?"

"When did we ever say that?" She looked to Battler for approval, and received it in the form of a head nod. "And witches can use magic and I am the Golden Witch, that is why, silly Ronald."

"Dlanor is my NAME. Have you gotten so inebriated that you have forgotten THAT?"

"Very well then!" Another drink.

Dlanor said nothing, and watched Beatrice.

"This story doesn't sound very good," Battler said. Another glass became empty. "In fact it doesn't sound very different from mine…"

Beatrice suddenly grew angry. "Excuse me? As a storyteller, you are incompetent!"

The room went silent again. Beatrice took another drink. "I've said that in red text. I win. Battler is incompetent."

Battler looked like he was trying to search through his sober mind to find the meaning of "red text". When he failed to do so, he asked, "What the hell is red text?"

Bernkastel stood up. "I-I got it," she announced. "Red text is absolute truth. Anything said in red is automatically true. Right?"

Beatrice made a heart symbol with her hands. "Ahahaha exactly, Bernkastel. Do you want a cookie for your right answer?"

Bernkastel sat back down, triumphant.

"Hey, hey that's not fair," Battler protested. "I want to use red text."

"You can't."

"WHY NOT?"

"Because you don't have magic, that's why." Yet another drink. "Only witches and sorcerers can use the red text!"

"Then I'll use blue text!"

"Uu~! Colors! Maria likes colors!"

"Not yet," Beatrice warned. "Soon you may be enabled to blue but not as of now!"

As the two squabbled on about coloured text and who got to use what and when and why, Bernkastel turned her attention back to Lion, amused by the chaos.

"So when is Willard getting here?"

"That's what I would like to know."

"Oh my, Mistress," Erika commented, putting her sleeve up to her mouth and cackling, "do you have a history with this Willard person?"

Bernkastel suddenly became defensive. "Did I ever say I did? Back off!"

Erika and Lambdadelta exchanged curious glances.

"Bern," Lambda started, "I think you've had enough to drink."

Reaching over, Lambdadelta pried the champagne glass out of Bernkastel's hand, the latter gaping in awe.

"So when did you start deciding to be the straight man?" Bernkastel accused, shaking a little.

Lambda frowned, and turned to Erika. "Did you happen to see how much of that wine she drank?"

Erika put a hand up to her chin and recalled, "The bottle was closed when we got here. She only started drinking it when—"

"Stop-stop talking about me behind my back."

"It appears, my lovely Bern, that you cannot hold your liquor," Lambdadelta said, cracking her knuckles. She fished for something in her shoulder bag.

Bernkastel's eyes widened. "What are you doing?"

"Making sure you don't do anything you regret, that's all…"

Tohya started chuckling.

At that time, Lion formally blocked out the goings next to him, and started astral projecting.

Therefore, he did not catch when Beatrice resumed the story. With herself as an inserted character.

"And then people died, right?" Battler asked.

"Yes, in the chapel. Haha, Happy Halloween…"

"Uu~, Maria had a good Halloween that year."

"Sure you did. Now anyways. And then—I unleashed my goat-headed servants upon yourselves."

"And then I think Jessica and Kanon kicked the bucket."

"I am the game master, now shut up." Beatrice's inner, sober mind told her that what she was thinking of doing next was something she'd regret later. However, that inner, sober mind was fully drowned out by the champagne and wine. So Beatrice then picked up a full glass of champagne, and hurled it at Battler.

Battler had to admit it: despite being drunk, Beatrice had very good aim. The glass hit him square on the side of the head. To make matters more severe, the glass shards and dripping champagne were only on him; Maria was not even fazed.

"Uu~, Battler okay?" Maria twisted around, and picked a few pieces of glass from his hair. "Glass didn't hurt Battler, did it?" She pointed at Beatrice. "Uu~, no throwing glasses at people, Miss Beatrice!"

When Rosa saw what her daughter was doing, she instantly sprang from her seat. "Maria! Maria, don't touch the glass, you'll get cut!"

She lifted her daughter off of Battler, and took the glass from her hands. She was about to go help her nephew, and see if he was alright, when she saw that Beatrice had hopped down off of the table, and was picking up the remnants of the glass—both from the table/floor and Battler's head—herself.

The two were angrily screeching at each other in some foreign, but mutually-understandable drunken tongue. But she thought she could see faint smiles on their faces.

Rosa resisted the urge to smile like a condescending adult. She took Maria's hand, and said to her, "Come on Maria. Let's not bother them for now."

"Maria had the key to chapel with her!" Battler insisted.

Beatrice found another, very small, piece of glass. "I already said no, dumbass."

By this time, once everyone was aware the glass had done no harm to neither Battler nor Maria, they had gone back to minding their own business. Not that the two minded. They were absorbed in clarifying things amongst themselves.

Battler held up a finger, feeling triumphant. "But, my dearest Beato, have you forgotten about the envelope?"

"The envelope I gave to Maria?"

"Exactly! For someone could have put the key in there, and then…" he scratched his head, trying to finish his sentence. "I forget where I was going with that."

"Then that means I win," Beatrice declared, intending to point her finger at him but instead shoving a glass shard in his face.

Battler fell back, trying to avoid the glass, and glared at Beatrice. "Th-then let's discuss Jessica's locked room…"

"You…you keep handcuffs in your purse?" Lion said incredulously, as if the metal object in front of his eyes was just an illusion.

Lambdadelta smirked. "Ohohoho, of course. It is a good trait of any actress to carry around stolen props for necessary times like this!" the object she had been fishing around for was exactly that: a pair of handcuffs…with which to chain herself to Bernkastel.

Tohya put her hands together and smiled. "Please remember to put it back when you are done."

Bernkastel drew her lips into a tight o, and, as if her gaze itself would dissolve the chain, glared down at the handcuffs.

"What are you so angry about?" Lambda asked.

"I don't want to be chained to you."

"Pfft. Since when? And besides, this for your own good."

"This-this doesn't count!" Bernkastel suddenly became flustered. "We're in public and there's nothing kinky about—"

Lion held up a hand. "I really, really don't want to hear about your sex life. Please, dear God, keep it to yourself."

Lambdadelta winked. "What makes you think we have a sex life? Or any romantic life for that matter?"

Lion looked like he was about to implode on himself. "She just said—"

"She said nothing of importance. You cut her off, ohohoho."

Lion resisted the urge to run up to the front table, and stab himself in the neck with a glass shard.

"Fake Kanon!"

"There's no damn fake…Kanon."

"Then where'd the bodies go, huh?" Beatrice snapped her fingers and took another drink. "Magic, I tell you!"

"There's no such fucking thing as magic, you crazy woman."

"Then prove me wrong!" She opened her arms wide, as if to invite all theories he could give her.

Before allowing her husband to even provide an alternative, she went on, "and then I had Belz stake Gohda while he and Shannon and George were looking for Natsuhi's mirror. And then Shannon was all like, 'I have a mirror. I can beat you, bitch'. And bzzzt she did her shield but then she and George died too. Ha. Ha. Ha. I win."

"You…didn't even let me think of s-something."

"That's because you surrendered to me next! Don't you remember? The chain? The GOATS?"

"That is not worksafe!"

Bernkastel, and by extension, Lambdadelta, was standing behind Beatrice at her mention of the chain. "Don't…don't discuss things like this in the presence of children…"

She made a grab for the wine bottle, still hanging in Beatrice's hand, but a swift tug on the chain by Lambdadelta sent her falling backwards.

"Uh-uh. No more alcohol for you, Bern." She smiled, and looked up at the two. "So, as the only sober person amongst you all, I would like to announce my chaperoning this…" She coughed. "…story of yours. Please begin again, Beatrice."

Bad chapter is bad. I did not do justice to my favourite arc ;_;

I promise the next chapter will not suck. Also…some suggestions on how to incorporate Eva-Beatrice into it? I'm having some issues with her.

And a last thank you to everyone's who has been reading this stupid story, especially Ozimul (;_; I am flattered).