A/N: Hello, people! Much to my excitement, I got the writing bug for this story, so I'm managing an update this week, despite any previous fears of hitting a wall with this fic. I even have most of the next chapter done, so expect that to drop next week. (It's gonna be a doozy XD)

(Edit: Many thanks to Sephie for catching a nonsensical sentence! It has now been fixed to meet the usual nonsense standard!)

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Chapter 11

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The Bedlam waits for her.

He sits in Baron's armchair, claws out and face elongated, surrounded by a Bureau draped in cobwebs. The threads weave into his suit, dipping down and disappearing into his fur, like a spider at the centre of its web. Every time he shifts, the silk strands rustle around him.

Haru moves just shy of the sofa, following the thread from Muta's orb. It ends at the heart of the Bureau, buried into the floor. Evidently Baron is here, somewhere... and that is as far as the Bedlam's sense of fair play goes, apparently.

"Still wearing that shape, I see."

The Bedlam smiles in response, lips widening too far across the mockery of Baron's face. "It is such a handsome shape. You certainly thought so."

Haru tears her gaze away from the Bedlam's face – her mind keeps seeing the Baron in him, between the razor-teeth and angular features – to the Bureau about her. There's something about the cobwebs, something... off. "Baron wears it better. It looks like it's... slipping on you."

There. She sees the oddity among the webs. For buried deep in the threads is an orb, identical to the ones she'd freed Toto and Muta from.

She starts for it – but then freezes with her fingers inches from success.

One guess. That's all she has.

She can't afford to waste it, not yet.

And the Bedlam only watches. His button eyes somehow gleam, glittering with a malice that matches his smile, and Haru is sure it cannot be that easy. He wouldn't just let her find Baron this quickly, not after the chaos of Toto and Muta.

Unless he wants her to second guess herself?

"What's the matter?" the Bedlam croons. "Having doubts?"

Haru turns to snap a retort and then sees the Bedlam's game at last.

For, behind him, is another orb caught in the webs surrounding the grandfather clock.

Another is trapped in the cobwebs beneath the desk. Another held between the chandelier lights. The bookcase. The teapot. The mantelpiece. The more she looks, the more she sees. All identical, all caught in the webs, and all but one dooming her and Baron if she chooses it.

She mutters something distinctly uncouth.

"Do you really think I'd make the game that easy?" the Bedlam goads. "Come now, Miss Haru; where would the fun be in that?"

Everywhere Haru looks, more orbs seem to appear. It's like a magic seeing book; once she has her eye in, suddenly the orbs are easy to spot.

Slowly, she begins to pace.

She has time.

She can feel the Bedlam's gaze following her as she moves methodically between the orbs, fingers hovering around the webs but never touching. Never choosing.

"Perhaps I should have preyed upon your Creation instead," the Bedlam purrs, eventually breaking the silence. "I've never eaten a Creation's soul before, but I'm sure an immortal one would have kept me full for some time."

Haru snorts and passes by the grandfather's clock. "He wouldn't have fallen for it."

The Bedlam laughs. "Everyone falls for it. It's just a matter of... finding the right corrections."

"Corrections?"

"Exactly. For example, for you I created a reality where you no longer needed to keep secrets from your best friend or mediate bickering between Toto and Muta. A reality where Baron loved you as you had always wished; honestly and openly."

A nausea rises through Haru. She bites it back.

"I wonder what world I would have crafted for him?" he continues. His claws tap against the armrests of his chair. "Perhaps it would have been one where you were also immortal. Where he wouldn't have to worry about a poor, fragile human, but instead have an equal–"

"Enough."

"Indeed. A reality where you would be enough for him."

"If you could eat a Creation's soul," Haru growls through gritted teeth, "I suspect you would have hunted him from the get-go, instead of a mortal with tenuous links to immortality." She's stopped moving. When did she stop moving? "So forgive me if I don't take your ramblings seriously."

"You know it to be true," the Bedlam continues. "Even if you don't want to admit it, some part of you has always known he would never accept you, even if he returned your feelings."

"And how are you so sure of this?"

"I'm sure because you're sure. Because you stepped into my world and stayed."

"Almost stayed," Haru reminds him.

"I may have created a lie, but you were the one who wanted to believe it." A spindly hand rests on her shoulder and Haru freezes, even as the Bedlam's voice draws closer. "Do you really think my world would have had any sway over you had everything been rosy at home? I set the trap, yes, but a trap is only as good as its lure. And you walked right into it."

Do you know the funny thing about lying?" Haru exhales and straightens, shrugging off the Bedlam's hold. "Once you get caught, it makes it really difficult to take anything you say seriously." She turns to face him. "How do I know you even have Baron?"

The Bedlam stares. It's hard to tell, since with his button eyes he's technically always staring, but Haru's learnt enough of the Bedlam's mannerisms to read him. She's thrown him.

Good.

"He's gone, isn't he?"

Haru shrugs. "Could be on a case."

"What about the offerings I threw through the door? The hat and cane. Are they not the Baron's?"

"You've proven you can mimic most things. Why should a cane and top hat be any different? Perhaps you can even mimic Creation magic. Perhaps," she said, "you even created a second Muta and Toto to lure me into believing this."

"You don't honestly believe that, not after all the trouble you went to rescue them."

"I left them outside, didn't I?" she asks. She watches the Bedlam's face, marks the beginning of doubt – just a flicker, but there nonetheless. "No point in bringing more of your potential allies into here."

The Bedlam leans in. The playful malice is gone, and instead the smile carries something almost feral. "Then what do you suggest?"

"Show him to me. Let me see him, talk to him, and then I'll know you're telling the truth."

"And how, given your apparent suspicion of the cat and crow, will you know it to be him, if I can replicate so perfectly?"

"I would know him," she says. "There are some things you never got right, never could; mistakes that I would recognise blindfolded, after all the time we've spent together."

The Bedlam sneers. "Tell me, what does he possess that I lack?

Haru snorts. "Try not being a soul-eating monster."

"Even before you knew me for what I was. I erased every flaw in him, smoothed every rough edge, became the Baron you wanted – and still you clung to him and his world when I gave you a better alternative."

She scoffs. "You wanted me to give up everything to be with you – my friends, my family, my life here..."

"You were doing that already."

"But it was my choice."

"It would have been your choice again."

Haru raises an eyebrow. "Really? I have a choice?"

"You always had choices. Just like how, right now, you still have the choice to take the buttons and guarantee your friends' safety." He leans back. "Or you could still leave. Abandon them – abandon Baron – to their fate. You could have walked away from my Bureau sooner – but you didn't. No. You kept returning because, deep down, you knew that the Baron I offered was better than the real one."

The anger twists within her, weaving between the latent fear and becoming all the more potent for it. "You want to know what this world is missing?" she demands. "Fine. It's the same major flaw my own one had: a Baron who doesn't let me make my own choices. That's why I wanted to walk away from you and your buttons. Because at the end of the day, you proved you mimicked him just a little too well."

"And yet you would still choose him," the Bedlam snarls, "even after he didn't choose you."

"At least he doesn't pretend to be what he isn't."

"No. He just breaks your heart instead. So show me. Show me you know your Baron so well you'd know him blindfolded. Show me you'd willingly choose him over me, should you not know the difference."

And the world goes dark.

No, not the world. Haru blinks and feels the tickle of something brush against her eyelashes. She tentatively raises a hand to her face and traces the silken blindfold across her eyes. She tries not to shiver at the thought of it most likely being spun from spiderweb thread.

"You took the blindfolded comment a little literally," she says, and she almost sounds as unimpressed as she's aiming for. She also notes the way her voice bounces back at her – or rather, the lack of it. Not the way it should have done, had she still been in the faux-Bureau. "Where am I?"

"I've brought you to your Baron," the Bedlam croons. "As you asked."

"I think I asked specifically to see him."

"Ah, but that would ruin the game."

"So the only way you can think of winning our bet is to cheat?" Haru asks. Her heart is hammering; it makes it difficult to hear her own words over it. "I'm actually kind of disappointed."

"I'm not talking about the deal," he replies. "Consider this... more of a mini-game. Something to satiate a curiosity of mine."

"And if I win?"

"You can have your conversation, assure yourself that he's unharmed."

"And if I lose?"

She can hear the smile in his voice. "No penalty. But you'll know, for however long you have left, that you chose the monster over your Baron."

"I can live with that. When do we start?"

She's met with silence.

"I said, when do we–"

"Haru?"

She freezes.

Two identical voices had called her name.