I Reincarnated As A Minor Villainess and I Survived Past My Death Scene

Arc I, Chapter 14

There wasn't a lot to do except sit in my carriage and think while we made our way back to the Yuy estate. Asahi was driving and Quatre and his men had their own horses, so I got time to myself within the carriage. I could glance out the window at the passing view but Quatre rode at the side and seemed attuned to my every move, meeting my eyes whenever I chanced a look outside.

I knew I could only take my 'amnesia' so far.

It explained the gaps in my memories but not everything else – like the engineering, or the change in tastes or personality. I'd managed to bluff my way through Hilde's suspicions, but something told me Quatre wouldn't be so accommodating. I guess the novel got tired of me surviving its bullshit and sent me Quatre.

So now how was I going to work this...?

There was a small army greeting us by the time we reached the front steps of the main residence, Hilde at the front of it looking as murderous as ever. She only became more incensed as she took in Quatre's party effectively escorting my carriage towards them. I had never wanted to live in my carriage more.

Howard looked like he'd been swallowing lemons prior to our arrival, although he and the rest of the staff – even Hilde! – gave Quatre little bows in greeting. Quatre and his men disembarked from their horses and Asahi looked ready to help me off the carriage but was beat there by Hilde, who was definitely glaring at me. I wanted to live in my carriage!!

"Welcome back, Master Winner," Howard said, lemon-sour face only vaguely haunting his smile.

Quatre's smile was bright. "Thank you, Mr. Howard, it's so good to be back!"

Uh-huh, sure it was.

"Thank you for escorting the Duchess back as well," Howard continued. Hilde breathed a little heavier next to me in her effort to control herself and not wring my neck.

"It was no trouble at all, I was fortunate enough to run into His Grace in the town square," Quatre answered. "I accompanied him on his...shopping trip."

Hilde glared at me. "Did you recognize him?" she asked me in a whisper.

"...Not until it was too late," I whispered back.

To be fair to me though, it wasn't like Quatre exactly matched his book description. The blonde hair and blue eyes were the same but that wasn't too unusual here. Master Winner in the novel was known for a garish scar that laid horizontal across his throat, as if someone had tried to slash his neck open. The novel had never mentioned his overwhelming cuteness either, which felt very unfair in hindsight.

"You must be tired from your journey," Howard was saying. "We maintained your rooms in your absence so please feel free to rest."

Quatre's smile didn't lose even an ounce of cheer. "Oh, I'm not tired at all. In fact, if you're free, I'd like to speak with you and Miss Hilde about something."

I could not more obviously be that 'something'. That's it, I'm officially revoking his angel status too!

It was obvious that Quatre had the lead here. If this continued on, we'd all be sequestered in different rooms for interrogation. I had to get the upper hand back, and to do so – I needed to draw on every dandy Duchess lesson I'd ever learned from Lady Aurora.

Time to shine.

"Before we have a meeting, there are some things we need to take care of first!" I announced, strutting forward with Lady Aurora's cutting remarks about my posture haunting my every step. "Now that Master Winner has returned, we mustn't be negligent in our duties!"

Everyone stared at me in surprise. I smiled at Quatre, turning up the wattage by several degrees. "We must of course celebrate your return with a magnificent feast," I told him.

"That's quite alri—"

"It would have been better to let us know of your return earlier, of course," I cut him off, voice light and airy and not at all implying that he had been incredibly rude in not sending prior notice of his arrival via messenger as was customary for all returning forces. "But I understand you had just been so excited to come home quickly, isn't that right, Master Winner?"

Quatre's smile froze on his face, gaze turning calculating. Damn, he'd caught on earlier than expected.

"Apologies for not sending prior notice," Quatre stated. "In light of this oversight, you don't need to concern yourself with a celebration—"

Oh no you fucking don't, Quat! "Nonsense!" I cut him off again. "It would be a great insult to not provide our hardworking men a good meal!"

"...Sorry to trouble you." Score for me!

I turned to Howard. "Please inform the kitchen of our change in menu. As it's already quite late in the day," You didn't even give us enough time to prepare a more fitting meal, was obviously implied there. "The feast will have to be for tomorrow, but please make sure there's enough food for Master Winner and his men."

"O-Of course, Your Grace," Howard said.

I glanced around, eyes finally finding Jiroh – one of the butlers of the estate. "Jiroh, please notify Catherine at the stables to be prepared to help Master Winner's horse and the horses of his men."

"Yes, Your Grace!"

I turned my eyes to the next person. "Kaori, can you—"

With this, I effectively started handing out jobs to the servants still clustered around the entrance. Quatre could only stand nearby and watch me work; it would be impolite to demand my attention in this circumstance, and until I was finished, he couldn't ask any of the servants for a meeting until he was sure they didn't have to prioritize my orders first.

By the end of my flurry of orders, the only ones left standing in the entrance were myself, Quatre, Quatre's not-brother, Hilde (who informed me via eye contact that she was not going to leave my side), Mikhail (eyeing Quatre and his attendant stonily), Commander Broden (muttering something under his breath that I was actively refusing to hear), and Asahi (who tried to flee but was halted by the furious glare Mikhail turned on him). I also think I saw Sayaka crawl up the manor walls, but I stared very hard in the other direction so I didn't have to deal with that for now.

Now that we were on a good foot, time to get the real party started.

I turned to Quatre with a bright grin. "Master Winner – if you don't wish to retire to your room for a short rest, would you mind joining me for a cup of tea?"

I could hear Hilde's sharp inhale next to me. Too bad for her, nothing and no one could stop me now. And it wasn't like we could just put this off indefinitely – Quatre would eventually corner one of us down. I had to strike while the iron was hot.

Quatre smiled back at me gently. "I would love to! Thank you, Your Grace."

Geez, he's really good at this...

I had one of the nicer rooms prepared for us and one of the rarer teas we had served, along with some desserts. We parted ways briefly to change clothes before reconvening in the parlor, although I made sure I arrived first to establish I was the one welcoming him and not the other way around.

"I'd like to speak with Master Winner alone," I said, glancing at the only other people in the room with us: Hilde, Mikhail, and Quatre's not-brother (the actual Mr. Rashid). Hilde looked like I'd asked to be left alone with a serial killer but she obediently followed my command. Mikhail actually scanned the room for threats first before following her, and Mr. Rashid trailed after them after Quatre waved him off.

Quatre took a slow sip of his tea. Despite the gentle look on his face, I could tell he was ruminating over my choice not to allow Hilde to take part in this discussion. It may have been a lot easier to allow Hilde or Howard to have this talk with him; they knew him better than I did and could probably come up with something to deflect his inquiries, but only I knew how badly I'd butchered my first meeting with him today and how incongruent that would fit with his image of other-me.

While this may not have been a real issue with others previously, Master Winner was different. He wasn't one of the main characters, but he was still a major supporting character in the book – this gave him a lot more weight than background characters like Hilde or Howard, much less dead background characters like myself or Meilan.

Master Winner was the master strategist of the novel. He was the one to help Relena outmaneuver the likes of Dekim Barton and Treize Khushrenada, who developed the battle tactics employed by Heero against the forces of Oz and Romefeller. His intellect and knack for strategy were frightening enough, but paled in comparison to the real reason why I was hesitant to let Hilde field this conversation.

Quatre Winner was a goddamn psychic.

It had never been explicitly stated in the novel, but all the evidence was there: the frankly astounding leaps in logic that always turned out right, the ability to just know when Relena (or Heero) were hitting roadblocks in their relationship, or even if someone was not telling the whole truth. It wasn't telekinesis or the ability to read minds – if I had to label it, it was a something like empathy, the ability to feel and understand another person's emotions.

So the trick to dealing with Quatre was something only I could do.

"You're suspicious of me, aren't you?" I asked him frankly, because if you can't lie to Quatre – then hit him with honesty like a sledgehammer.

Quatre blinked.

"Of course you are," I nodded, taking his silence as a yes because if I let him get a word in edgewise too early then I'd lose control of the conversation. "Why wouldn't you be? I completely messed this up."

"Oh?" Quatre's eyes were particularly steely. "I don't quite understa—"

"I have amnesia."

That shut him right up.

"I remember very little from before the greenhouse fire," I continued because Quatre was still staring at me like I'd suddenly proclaimed myself king of all dandies. "At first, I didn't know where I was or even who I was, but a few bits and pieces came back after a couple of weeks. After that, though, it's been nothing – Doctor Po thinks the amnesia is permanent now."

"...Amnesia," Quatre echoed. His voice was calm and even; his eyes were doubtful.

Time to sell it!

"To be honest, I don't really understand how it all works either," I admitted to him, eyes widening in earnest. It's not like I was lying, technically speaking. "It's like knowing some obscure facts off the top of my head but no idea how they got there. After I regained some of my memories, I knew that Heero was my husband and some of my...conduct...during my time here prior to the fire, but nothing very detailed."

"But—"

"I know what Heero looks like because of his portrait in the study," I cut him off ruthlessly. Now's not the time for your questions, Quat! "I know I ch-cheated on him at least twice, but I don't know with who. I had to learn– re-learn everything about Sanc, the Yuy province, and even this estate so I could figure out what was going on."

Quatre's brows furrowed but he kept his mouth shut. I guess he figured out that I wasn't going to let him speak until I was done.

"But I don't only have these, er, random facts just floating up in my head every now and then," I continued on, trying to sound as frazzled as I really felt. "There were also some things I just already knew – like fiscal management, or how to make a distiller."

Quatre stared at me. "...You gave me an impassioned description of a new steam engine invention just two hours ago. That was something you just knew?"

I think I just heard every mechanical engineer cry out at once. "Well, it was more like I just knew how to make a steam engine and enough foundational knowledge to build up from that to hypothetically make a steam locomotive," I lied flawlessly. "I don't know where the foundation came from though."

Quatre's brows furrowed again. "So you just know some things and not others?"

"Yes!"

Quatre leaned back in his chair, expression contemplative. I waited with baited breath – this was the deciding moment. Either I laid out just enough of my 'conditions' to get this to work, or this all blows up in my face and Quatre beheads me where I sit.

I'm not kidding about the beheading part either – for all his angelic looks, Quatre was a straight-up monster in a fight. He probably had broken that man's wrist back in town square for getting handsy with me even though he'd been holding back; the pure physical strength of those considered to be in Heero's "inner circle" was insane.

"Initially," Quatre began. "I thought you may have been a body-double – but I know that Hilde or Mr. Howard would never do or accept something like that. Their loyalty to the Duke is unquestionable. But I'd never thought you would have developed amnesia."

I shrugged, keeping silent.

There was no way I could physically overpower Quatre. It was also extremely unlikely I could outmaneuver him or feed him a long-term falsehood, so what I had to do is lay the groundwork...

"But this does answer some of the lingering questions I had," Quatre mused. "If you don't remember the context of your particular circumstances, I can see how your attempts to reach out to others is different to how you did before."

...and give him all the 'facts' without telling him too many overt lies, throwing these pieces of almost-truths at him like a collection of shiny jigsaw pieces with no clear end picture. He had to put them together himself, never once realizing that the pieces I gave him may not even all be from the same puzzle and so the picture they made after he was finished fitting them together was not the picture it should have been.

The trick to beating Quatre is letting Quatre beat himself.

"But what about the foundational knowledge I have?" I asked him in concern. Please tell me what excuse I have for that, Quat.

"We can assume that knowledge was kept, along with your ability to read, write, and speak our language," Quatre said. Come to think of it, I was literate here. Everything looked to be in English so I never questioned it. "If you already knew engineering and fiscal management, then whatever you were thinking before that stopped you from sharing that knowledge has been forgotten, so you're sharing it now as it comes to you."

So what – he thinks other-me knew how to make steamboats all along but never shared that information because he hated Heero that much? Damn, that's kind of intense. It's almost like I purposely sabotaged the Yuy province's progress with my inaction.

"I wonder where I learned engineering," I mused. Fiscal management could be explained by other-me's Duchess studies – since Duchesses were responsible for the estate management so it wasn't that far of a reach. I didn't think Quatre would actually know where I learned engineering, but me verbally wondering about it would reinforce the image of me just being at the mercy of my foundational knowledge.

"Oh, you likely learned from your family," Quatre replied brightly.

I stared at him. "...the Maxwell family?"

Quatre nodded.

Were they renown engineers or something?!

"I don't really... remember much about my family," I admitted to him. Hilde had said I had a father and an older brother, but since other-me was married off to a guy he hated for a political marriage, I hadn't thought we were that close.

"The Maxwell ducal family is known for their intelligence network," Quatre told me blithely. "Infiltration, sabotage, and assassination are their strong suits."

....What?

"You may have studied engineering while with them. I hadn't thought you would have been so taken with the subject, but clearly you were. I wonder if any other skills carried over as well..."

What?!

Was... Was Quatre just fucking with me? I eyed him suspiciously.

"It's not common knowledge," Quatre assured me with that ever-present smile of his. "But as we are the military arm of the kingdom and close friends with Duke Maxwell, we were made aware of your family's true occupation."

I stared at him.

I swear there was nothing about this in the novel. The only thing mentioned about the Maxwell family was that they were allies of the Yuy family, supporters of Relena's eventual bid for queenship, and that the second child had been Heero's first spouse. I definitely would have remembered if it had mentioned a fictional family with the same surname as me being medieval secret agents!

And when the hell had an intelligence network been used in the novel?! True, there had been the political drama of the court Relena had been subjected to, and the battles with Romefeller and Oz – but the latter had never gone into too much detail, as the focus of the novel had been on the romance. The war was practically a backdrop to Heero's and Relena's developing love story.

Not to mention that, as far as infiltration went, that had been Knight Commander Barton's specialty. He personally trained the soldiers that specialized in spying, so what need could another intelligence-oriented family serve in the plot?

And shouldn't this information just have made Quatre more suspicious? If I was from some crazy spy family, then wouldn't he suspect I'm faking all of this? I mean, to a degree I was faking it – but he wasn't supposed to know that!

"By the way, is this mint tea?" Quatre asked me pleasantly. "It's wonderful!"

God he's so cute, I just wanna hug him!

...So this is why Quatre is such a dangerous character...

---

Quatre was so cute that I just wanted to strangle him.

I never really understood the differences between how a dandy was treated in comparison to how most nobles were treated. The closest person to my position of power had been Meilan, who kicked the shit out of the knights under the excuse of 'training'. The other ladies of my tea parties weren't technically even nobles, and the only noble I had met had been Trant Clark; I would never dare use that interaction as a baseline example for how to treat other nobles.

Thus, Quatre was the first proper noble I'd ever properly met. He may be from a foreign country, but he was still of a noble class. From what I understood, he was closer to the title of Count, although in reality his family's economic power was more in line with a ducal family. As such, he'd been well-trained in etiquette since birth and this was no more obvious than now.

"It's a bit too chilly for a garden stroll today," Quatre had said, unknowingly vetoing my plan for a quick jaunt to the garden to see if Esther managed to actually get the mustard seed to grow. (We'd been stealthily planting crops in the garden as this was one of my several backup plans to expand my culinary options.)

"A tea break would be lovely right about now, wouldn't you say?" he'd advised, pulling me away from my review of the town of Kotohira's tax records. My hesitation to leave my work was waved off; he'd go through it himself later, after all, and the management of the duchy's finances technically fell under his job description rather than my own.

"Your tutor's a bit busy today, perhaps we should just go for a light walk around the grounds?" he'd suggested after turning up at my physical training session. Geralt, a barely-visible figure in the distance half-hidden behind a tree, gazed over at us with saddened puppy eyes.

Listen, I know I said I really wanted Quatre back here to help – but now I just wanted him to go back to Heero. This wasn't even him being a mother hen, this was him being fucking patronizing! For all his dandy looks, I definitely wasn't going to spare him when the time came for a dandy revolution!

"Do you think he's doing it on purpose?" I bemoaned to Hilde, idly picking straw out of my braid.

Hilde's flat expression looked especially sinister in the shadows of the stable's interior. This was quite impressive because she was sat next to me on a bale of hay, making sure to keep out of sight of the stable door so that no one could see us if they glimpsed inside.

"He's just showing you proper courtesy as the dandy of the house," Hilde told me, as she'd painstakingly explained to me for the past week again and again.

It's not my fault Quat's manners were more like some kind of sick punishment game.

"He won't let Geralt teach me anything but how to do a light jog," I said bitterly. I had worked so hard to earn the right to physical training too!

Hilde was unimpressed. "Maybe you should consider this to be training in how to run away from dangerous things instead of trying to fight them," she said coolly.

"Why do I bring you along again?"

"The alternative would be Lady Meilan, and she would just challenge Master Winner to a duel."

A thoughtful look crossed my face. I hadn't considered using Meilan as a weapon against the affable Quatre, but maybe—

"No," Hilde cut into my thoughts with finality.

I pouted. "You like Quatre more than me, don't you, Hilde?!"

"I wouldn't bother hiding out in a stable with Master Quatre for two hours."

Aww, she really does care about me!

"I have been meaning to ask, Your Grace," Catherine – the stableman – began tentatively. She was also an (unwilling) party member to my hideout in the stables, as I knew I couldn't trust her to not tell people where I was. Connor and the other stableboy, Nathan, were acting as my little lookouts; they were keeping watch, all under the guise of doing their chores. "Why did you choose to hide here?"

"It's important to bond with horses, right?" I said. "They can see your souls or something."

Catherine stared at me. Hilde didn't even bother with a response.

"I believe you're thinking about familiars, Your Grace."

I glanced up. Mifune dropped down from the ceiling, landing softly beside me. "Familiars are animal-like in appearance but have abilities beyond our realm, and essentially bond with their partner's soul," she continued.

"Wait a second, was she in the rafters—"

"But magic isn't real," I interrupted, cutting through Catherine's startled exclamation. No good would come of questioning the knights of the Duchess Guard. (Sometimes I could still hear Asahi's screams of terror throughout the day, a result of having failed to "protect" me from Quatre.) I turned an accusatory look on Hilde. "You said magic wasn't real!"

"It's not," Hilde replied with a sigh. "Despite what some people claim—"

"There's magic in everything," Mifune interjected dreamily. "There have been stories of people wielding magic and bonding with familiars—"

"Fairy tales!" Hilde said heatedly.

"There's historical sightings of magnificent beasts—"

"—any fool can claim to see a wyvern when facing a lizard—"

"—the ruins of Libra are evidence of—"

"—absolutely ridiculous—"

I inched closed to Catherine. This was clearly a hot button between the two women, and one I never meant to press. For her part, Catherine just looked mildly disgruntled, although she gamely turned to me in a clear show of refusing to join in the debate.

"You have hay in your hair, Your Grace," she said with a soft frown.

"I'm starting a new fashion trend."

The corners of her lips traitorously twitched upwards as she fought a smile. "Here, allow me..." She reached forward and pulled my braid closer to her, deft fingers quickly but gently relieving my hair of its unwanted additions. "Your Grace, if I may speak freely...?"

"Huh? Oh, sure," I waved her on. I almost forgot what it was like to not have someone speak their mind freely to me. The knights had stopped holding back, I couldn't get Kaori and the other maids to stop, and Hilde's eyes said more than enough.

"If it's any consolation to you, Your Grace, I believe Master Winner is treating you this way because he believes it's the way you prefer to be treated," Catherine explained, soulful gray eyes latched onto my hair. "He painstakingly studied the mannerisms and etiquette of the Sanc court in order to better get along with you."

...why could I hear a silent 'since you were an asshole and no one else could bear to spend time with you,' at the end there?

"His behavior is exemplary, especially as a noble from a foreign state," Catherine continued on. "He's dutiful and has always shown you respect and kindness." Despite how rudely you treated everyone, you piece of shit, was again silently tacked on at the end. I stared at Catherine, then glanced back at Hilde who was still arguing before turning my gaze back to Catherine.

Holy shit, there's two of them!

"You're quite..." I struggled to find another word for 'defensive', "...knowledgeable about Master Winner, Miss Catherine. You know him well?"

"...You can just call me Catherine, Your Grace," was her reply. "And yes, I'm lucky enough to call Master Winner my brother-in-law."

I froze. "What?"

Catherine had a constipated look on her face, almost like she couldn't believe I didn't know this. "Commander Barton is my younger brother, Your Grace," she said patiently, although her eyes were definitely showing signs of homicidal tendencies. "They were married three years ago."

Wait, what? Master Winner and Commander Barton are married? I don't think I ever read about that in the novels! I mean, there was some chemistry there but they were only supporting characters and nothing was ever confirmed. I just thought the author had been queerbaiting.

"Why are you working in the stables?" fell out of my mouth first. Wouldn't being Commander Barton's sister make Catherine's status closer to that of Commander Broden's wife, Lady Fuyunari, or even Lady Meilan's?

Catherine tensed up. "I like horses," was her swift answer, eyes challenging.

I wasn't really concerned with her defensiveness, preoccupied with flashing an accusatory look at Hilde. "Oh, I see," I grumbled. "So if a lady wants to work with horses or practice martial arts, it's fine, but if I want to learn self-defense, that's just too much..."

Catherine blinked. "Um..."

"No no, it's fine," I continued. "It's great that you get to make a living doing something you're passionate about. I mean, I just want to make sure I live to see another day so I thought – hey, why not learn to defend myself? But I guess that was just crazy talk."

"Uh..."

"I should just embrace death with open arms, right? Die young, leave a pretty corpse and all that."

Hilde sighed from behind me. "Your Grace," she began. "You have at least two guards on you at all times now, so we just don't see the need in training you for self-defense."

"...what do you mean, two?"

Berion then dropped down from the ceiling.

I remained frozen, eyes locked incredulously on Hilde. "I thought we agreed that one guard was enough while I was on estate grounds?!"

"That was before you snuck out to the town square with only one guard and got accosted by a local thug."

Asahi, you goddamn traitor! I hope Commander Broden is putting you through training HELL!

Before I could begin to defend myself, Connor's brash tones reached our ears. He wasn't in our line of sight, concealed as we were in the very back of the stables, but when the kid was under pressure his voice level tended to rise like he wanted to shout the problem away.

"G-Good afternoon, Master Winner, s-sir! Wh-What brings youse to o-our humble barn?"

I choked down a giggle. Connor's acting was terrible but goddamn was it entertaining.

"Good afternoon, you must be new!" I could practically feel the sunshine pouring out in Quatre's voice. Be strong, Connor! "I was wondering if you've seen His Grace the Duchess?"

"I've ne'er seen that man once in my life," Connor replied vehemently. I nearly choked - has the kid been reading crime novels or something?!

"...I see." Quatre's ability to keep his composure was really something else. "Then do you know where Miss Cathy is...?"

"I've ne'er seen that woman once in my life."

"...you've never seen the stableman?"

Catherine stood up, heading outside to save Connor from himself.

"Master Quatre," Catherine's voice floated back to us.

Quatre's joy was palpable. "Cathy!"

"Oh, you mean that Miss Cathy..." God, Connor, just give it up.

I turned to my co-conspirators. "Is there any other way out of here?" I asked. Both Mifune and Berion pointed upwards, but Hilde shot that idea down with a brilliant glare. I guess in hindsight, hiding out in a place with only one door wasn't the best idea. My college professor always did say that if I was on the run, I should stay in a place with more than one exit.

"I have a feeling you're thinking something dangerous," Hilde muttered.

"Don't worry about it," I waved her off.

Quatre's voice broke through our escape plans. "Cathy, have you seen the Duchess?"

I couldn't trust Cathy to hold the line. To think, a spy had been in our midst – if I'd known she was related to Quatre in some way, I wouldn't have hidden out at the stables.

"I've never seen that man once in my life," was Catherine's answer.

I stared at the hay. Does it do something to their brains?!

Quatre didn't reply to that. I guess even he had his limits.

---

I had successfully evaded Quatre for the better part of the week. This was mostly due to Hilde's help, since it turned out she was not a fan of barn squatting. I'd become somewhat of a normal fixture in the knights' training grounds as it was one of the few places Quatre or his men never thought to look for me, and Commander Broden was more than happy to show me around.

It was really hard to look my guards in the eyes for awhile after that.

There were some unavoidable tasks that had to be done within the manor walls though; Quatre had resumed his work as a financial advisor and took back his position overseeing the duchy's budget, but I still had the responsibility of managing the estate's funds. While working, Quatre was sequestered away in his own office in the manor (which I didn't know existed previously) so I was usually left unbothered, but he finished far more quickly than my small army of accountants – which left him plenty of time to hover over me.

It was never described in much detail where Heero had picked up his band of merry men. As the illegitimate heir of the Yuy ducal family, he hadn't been well-liked by the other nobles of Sanc and so his ability to draw talented people from their lines was hampered.

Fortunately, Heero's work on the frontlines put him in heavy contact with people of lands who didn't share the same prejudice. There was Chang Wufei and his wife Meilan, from a seclusive town in Lagrange; Trowa Barton, a former mercenary initially raised in the wilds of the barbarian territory; and then Quatre Winner, son of one of the richest noble families of Lagrange.

They'd all sworn loyalty to Heero by the start of the novel, and served as his closest friends and confidantes. (With the exception of Meilan, who died via backstory.) They may not have been main characters, but they were considered major supporting characters and pretty much acted as one-man armies that further boosted Heero's esteem as the main love interest. They each, in turn, came to show Relena that same level of trust and loyalty.

Which is why I only expected the barest minimum of loyalty to me – the unfaithful husband of Heero.

"What...is that?"

Quatre's smile was heavenly. "Shotels," he answered brightly as my eyes drilled into the two long, curved blades holstered on his back, the handles of which peeked out from over the top of his shoulders. "I'm proficient with them, do not worry, Your Grace."

Your proficiency is the last thing I'm worried about! I read the novel, I knew exactly how damn "proficient" he was – he was a goddamn living weapon with them!

"We're going to the town market," I said, instead of the 'oh my god I know I said you looked like an angel but I meant the innocent cherub version, not the warrior of god version' in my throat. "Not to battle..."

Quatre chuckled like I'd said something funny. "Of course, Your Grace!"

He made no move to pass his weapons to Rashid. I stared at him, turned to look at Hilde who was looking out the window and clearly didn't want to be involved in anything between myself and Quatre, then turned back to Quatre.

"I think it's fine if he brings them," Meilan piped up. "Knowing you, it's better to have more protection than less."

I glared at her. "We're going to the town market. I've been perfectly fine there so far!"

Meilan knocked twice on the wooden banister, Hilde knocked on the window frame, Howard knocked on a nearby side table, and both of my guards – Mikhail and Sayaka – knocked on the wooden wall lining. Commander Broden even went to knock twice on a doorframe. Quatre seemed startled by their sudden actions, but I couldn't fault him for that – it's not every day you could witness so many people stab me in the back like this.

"You know what? I don't care. Bring whatever," I grumbled. "Bring a live bear for all I care."

Commander Broden perked up.

"Do not bring a live bear," I immediately amended.

Now Quatre just looked alarmed. Good, now he knows how I've been feeling all this time.

---

"We'll start with lunch first," I said as we all filed out of the carriage. Given the limited space, my little market-going party consisted only of myself, Hilde, Meilan, Quatre, Mikhail and Sayaka as guards, and Gary the carriage driver. For their part, my usual crew just nodded absently as they scanned the crowded town square, although Quatre looked rather excited.

"Oh, are we having meat pies?" Quatre asked me.

Meilan scowled. "His Grace the Duchess likes meat pies. He takes everyone there," she told him testily.

Quatre smiled at her. It was...unsettling.

"Don't worry, guys, I'm sure Paul has enough meat pies for all of us," I sighed. Why the hell were they getting defensive over meat pies?

Behind us, Mikhail stifled a snicker. I ignored him.

We made a beeline for the meat pie stall. As usual, I was the one placing the order, but before I could pay for it – Quatre handed over the payment. I tried not to pay it any mind but Paul (the vendor) looked a little surprised. Probably because of the shotels.

"By the way, Max, heard ya had a run-in with Janus," Paul said, leaned over his goods and getting his crusty apron all over his rabbit and chicken pies. No wonder that stuff always tasted weird. "Guy's a right asshole, he didn't give you too hard a time, did he?"

I chewed on my pie in thought. Nope, that name wasn't ringing any bells. "Dunno a Janus," I told him.

"Heard he went into it wit' ya at Gin's. And yer friend," Paul's eyes skittered to and away from Quatre. "Er, helped ya out."

That's a nice and understated way of saying 'broke his fucking arm.' Not bad, Paul.

"Hear that, Quat?" I turned to the blonde and smiled. "You're famous."

Quatre's smile was frozen on his face.

I kind of underestimated just how much I enjoyed watching Quatre become uncomfortable. This was probably the result of having been on the other end for so long. At least here we were even.

"It was fine, Quat served him his ass," I said, slapping Quatre on the back in a move that looked friendly but may have been harder than necessary. He didn't even budge. "This guy's got the face of an angel but the strength of a warhorse."

"You flatter me," Quatre remarked. He was smiling but the words came out a bit dry.

I fluttered my eyelashes at him. "I speak nothing but the truth, sunshine."

Hilde sighed behind me. Quatre just blinked, taken aback by the moniker.

Leading my little troupe away from our lunch supplier, we ended up idling through the stalls of the town market. I'd like to think we naturally drifted apart, but I knew for a fact that even though I couldn't see Mikhail or Sayaka, they were nearby and had me in their line of sight at all times. Quatre had remained next to me because he was clearly trying to see what he could do to make this trip as annoying as possible, while Hilde and Meilan hovered around us – Hilde keeping an eye on me, Meilan on Quatre.

"What are we looking for?" Quatre asked me, eyes moving over the various stalls of handmade crafts.

I inspected an ornate comb at one, the glossy painted flowers having caught my eye. "Just whatever you're interested in," I answered distractedly. "Hilde, it's Esther's daughter's birthday next week, right? I think she was turning 10..."

"Yes, Your Grace."

A pretty comb should be a good gift for her then. I remember the gardener mentioning how often her daughter played with her accessories, so something pretty should be acceptable.

I grinned at the vendor. "Three coins for the comb," I offered.

"Ten. I painted it meself."

"Five, then." Since it has the gloss.

"Seven," she repeated, her eyes flicking to Quatre then back to me.

Ugh. "Quat, no offense, but go stand somewhere else," I told him frankly. "Being with you is like wearing a sign that says 'overcharge me please'."

"E-Excuse me?" Quatre blinked.

"'E's right," the shopkeeper agreed. "You look like you sleep on pillows stuffed wit' coin."

Quatre stared at me like I was the one who'd somehow announced his wealth to the world, as if it wasn't obvious from just the way he stood. What? Rich people carry themselves differently, it's obvious to anyone who wasn't raised with a golden spoon!

"You... You could just pay the full amount..." It's not as if you don't have the funds, Quatre seemed to continue on silently.

Both me and the shopkeeper sighed. "It's not about that, Quat," I shook my head, disappointment in my voice. "It's about the artistry, the passion!"

The shopkeeper nodded enthusiastically. "Haggling is a skill not everyone has, so when yer good at it, you need to show it off!"

Quatre stared at us.

"He'll never understand true art," the shopkeeper grunted, turning to me. "Yer a pretty one, you should find someone better."

I sighed, a martyr taking the full brunt of the truth. "I can't. He may not understand the delicate and complex art of marketplace bargaining, but he can still crunch numbers like the most ruthless accountant to ever grace the world," I told her, fishing out seven coins to hand over. "Besides, he's cute. What more could I ask for?"

She nodded in understanding, pity shining in her eyes in equal vibrance to her glee as she tucked the coins out of sight. Quatre kept quiet, probably trying to decide if I had been directly insulting or not to him, as Hilde took the comb from my hands. She walked a bit further off and into a gap between two stalls, briefly disappearing from view before coming back empty-handed.

I turned away, refusing to face reality.

Quatre's eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "Did she hand that off to an attendant?"

"I try not to think about it too hard."

"...But that's not even an alleyway, where do they—"

I wrapped my arms around Quatre's arm and forcibly pulled him away. I absolutely refused to divulge just how deep the Duchess Guard ran in the marketplace nowadays, partly because even I wasn't sure and mostly because I refused to know. As far as I was concerned, Hilde sent all the things I bought straight back to my room using a magical chute.

"Meilan, Hilde - Quat and I are going to check out that shop waaaay over there," I told the girls, pointing to an indeterminate area across the marketplace.

Meilan glanced up from her careful consideration of a seed peddler's goods. "I'll be there in a moment. Don't ditch Winner."

What did she think I was gonna do, knock the guy unconscious and throw his body in the river? I know I didn't exhibit perfect dandy behavior but I wasn't that much of a thug!

"You wait 'til the next tea party, I'm gonna fill the table with so many sugary goods that even looking at them will give you a stomachache," I swore to her darkly as I began to pull Quatre away.

Meilan waved me off dismissively. That's it! I'm making sure she swallows the goddamn mont blanc next time!

Hilde followed along after us because of course she would. After my last jaunt to the marketplace without permission and with only Asahi for company, she'd become even more paranoid. I was lucky to get away with only being mildly harassed, because if I'd come back with another scar, I'm not sure if either myself or the town would be left standing after Hilde was done with us.

That did remind me, though... "Hey, I haven't seen Asahi in awhile..."

Hilde made a noncommittal noise but didn't reply.

I stared at her suspiciously. "Where is he?"

"In training, Your Grace," Hilde responded because she couldn't get away with not answering my direct questions. This didn't stop her from being vague and unhelpful though.

Somehow the words sent a chill down my spine. I turned back to Quatre, who had been obediently following my lead but his expression seemed vaguely unsettled. Probably because of the Asahi talk, god knew I found Hilde's "training" explanation ominous.

The spot we ended up going to was a row of shops I only knew I passing. One was a shop in women's clothing, and after several minutes of heated debate, I finally managed to convince Hilde to go inside and get herself something. I remembered from the novel that Hilde Schbeiker had favored trousers more than the skirts and dresses she'd been wearing every day since I got here, and couldn't help but notice the way her eyes lingered on the shop window's model outfits, one of which being a rather handsome outfit of dark blue trousers with white-collared shirt with a dark blue vest.

Hilde gave Quatre her signature murder-eyes, somehow silently conveying the impression that he better keep an eye on me or she'd kill him herself, before she left to enter the shop. Quatre turned a cheery smile on me, and after readjusting my eyes to the brightness, I steered him away from the high-grade clothing store he was clearly about to escort me into, adrenaline pumping through my veins.

I absolutely refused to add even more clothes to my vast collection back home! It was bad enough I'd only scaled it down to one closet, given the size of the closet was bigger than a normal NYC apartment! This didn't even include the room dedicated to the jewels and accessories I possessed, as the majority were gifts and thus, I couldn't sell them.

"Oh, this shop looks interesting," I said desperately, tugging Quatre into a store off the main street and further down the alleyway. Going by the window display, it seemed to be selling either rusted tools or birdcages full of dusty books. As neither of those were clothes nor accessories, I judged it to be safe.

Have you ever just had your expectations completely and thoroughly obliterated, mere seconds after having set them? It was like walking into a corner store expecting to come out with a bottle of soda, only to realize they'd replaced every single beverage with boiled eggs. No soda, no alternative beverages – just eggs.

Anyway, walking into that store made two things readily apparent: I would never know what their display was meant to be selling, and that it was an entire room full of stinkin' gas station eggs.

The five burly strangers occupying most of the space within turned at our entrance. If this was back in NYC, I probably wouldn't have thought much about it; it seemed unfair to assume something foul in the air just because someone had the physique of a semitruck. But now I lived in a romance novel whose villains ranged from the sneering Bandit Leader to the theatric King of Oz.

"Ya lost, little lambs?" one of the men cooed at us mockingly.

A rush of vindication filled me. I knew I wasn't the only one who thought Quatre had dandy potential!

Quatre's smile was blinding and ominous. "Not at all, my friend here was interested in your wares," he answered, moving a step ahead of me.

"I don't think they want to sell their birdcage books," I muttered to the blonde, eyes flicking over the what I assumed to be illegally-obtained jewelry. Or maybe it was legally obtained, maybe these guys were actually model citizens and the novel actually had some goddamn depth—

"Well, would you and your friend be interested in something more fun?" one man leered at us.

Ugh.

Quatre's smile dropped instantly. I guess that crossed the line – maybe he didn't being hit on. Or maybe he didn't like Heero's husband being hit on, since he probably thought other-me would have taken them up on the offer, if only to piss Heero off. I could have told him that other-me would never have entertained someone that didn't have that precious noble blood he loved so much.

Quatre turned to me. "This shop doesn't appear to have anything of value," he said with a small smile. "Why don't you step outside, Your Grace, I'll be with you in just a moment."

I wonder if his psychic powers told him something was amiss, or if he was just as genre-savvy as I am. "Um, okay," I acquiesced with my own smile. I'd have to wave down one of the hidden guards to help clean up the mess once Quatre was through with these people anyway.

Stepping outside the shop and wincing at the sound of shattering glass and pained screams that soon erupted, I glanced around the alleyway. Now if I was a ninja knight, where would I be...

It turned out there were no guards in the alleyway, as everyone very much trusted Quatre's skills.

It also turned out they'd severely underestimated my skills, because someone was waiting in the alleyway for me.

Hilde was going to be so mad.

---

For all of the things I get up to, I have to admit – this was a first.

"You kidnapped me?" I asked again, incredulous. My hands were bound tightly behind my back with rope, something they'd decided was necessary after I tried punching one of their guys out. "What use could I possibly have?!"

My kidnapper – someone I could only assume was associated with the thugs in the shop Quatre had been in the process of thrashing – glared at me in irritation. It was a look that reminded me of the Bandit Leader, which meant I wasn't reacting the way I should have been again.

Damn, being a romance novel protagonist was a lot harder than I thought it'd be. How did Relena muster up the energy to react to everything so perfectly? I tried to pull on a frightened expression but it immediately slid off my face when the carriage I was riding in hit a particularly nasty bump on the road. God, maybe Mifune really had been frightening the horses to travel smoothly, this was practically torture.

"Your lover has the money to pay your ransom, doesn't he?" my kidnapper sneered at me. Dammit, Quatre, I knew everyone could tell that you were made of money! "My buddies are gonna rough him up a bit but they'll let him go so he can pay to get you back."

I didn't know how to tell him that the ones being roughed up were his buddies. I don't think Quatre was known for mercilessly cutting down his enemies; if possible, he did tend to spare them so long as they surrendered.

Maiming was still on the table though.

"He's not my lover, he's a friend," I told the guy instead because you had to learn to pick your battles. "Also, he is way cuter than I am. Why didn't you kidnap him? Not that I condone kidnapping or anything." I, of course, was going to pick all of the battles.

The kidnapper looked at me like I was stupid. "Look at yourself," he scoffed. "You look like a right dandy."

I hate this book.

"He looks as dandy-like as me!" I said in outrage. Sure, technically Quatre wasn't, and he was highly-trained and considerably more deadly than most everyone, and yeah he was carrying shotels around while shopping—

"You know what, I don't even care anymore," I declared, not at all sullen. As soon as Relena appeared and Heero swept her off her feet, my dandy-ness would be an inconsequential factor. "Kidnap me. Ransom me. Whatever."

I couldn't even step inside a random shop now without being victimized by whatever criminal plot the novel was brewing. And there was no telling where the hell they were bringing me; the carriage windows were curtained shut and it felt like we were going at top speed to somewhere. Maybe after Quatre and the others refused to pay the ransom (because honest-to-God, who would?), they'd start sending me back piece by piece and Heero would return home to some morbid puzzle piece rendition of his husband.

The kidnapper frowned. "Hey, you should care a bit more about this..."

"No! You kidnapped me, you care about it!"

"That- That doesn't even make sense!"

"Shut up! I don't have to!"

It wasn't the longest carriage ride I'd been on, but it was definitely one of the roughest. It finally came to a stop in a shabby alleyway I didn't recognize, meaning that it wasn't anywhere within the first few blocks around the market area or any of the orphanages. I was dragged out from the carriage and into a nearby establishment; I wouldn't call it either a shop or a home, looking more like a seedy dive bar than anything. The air was choked with smoke and there were about maybe a dozen people milling about inside, none of whom gave me any shocked glances.

"Oh, you have a pretty little thing this time, Robard," one woman grinned at my kidnapper.

I shot him a disgusted look. "This time? You make a hobby of this?" Heero was going to flip when he learned he had this kind of criminal ring in his city.

"You shut up," Robard hissed at me. "And you can't take a bite of this one, Becka, we need him in pristine condition if we want a good return."

I don't think I had to be in pristine condition to be returned in exchange for ransom – which meant that they weren't planning to return me at all. Damn, another human trafficking ring? And in the heart of the provincial capital no less!

"Oh my god, you're going to be in so many pieces," I told Robard frankly. "I may not be alive to see it, but you are doomed."

"What the hell is he going on about?" someone nearby asked.

"Nothing, this one is a little off in the head," Robard dismissed me.

Wow. I'm sure Hilde and some of the others thought that, but they never said it to my face. "I hope they feed you to wild dogs so that you can be who you truly are: dog shit."

That earned me a vicious backhand that made my ears ring. I blinked the disorientation out of my eyes for a moment, tasting the blood in my mouth.

"I thought he was supposed to be in pristine condition," the woman, Becka, sneered mockingly.

Robard flexed his hand with a scowl. "He's pretty enough to sell with a few bruises."

"Ugh, you even smell like dog shit too," I told him flatly. "Then again, that could be all of you. Is that the aesthetic you all were going for?"

Robard hit me so hard that I actually ended up on the floor. I guess it wasn't surprising he packed more of a punch than the Bandit Leader; he had almost double the size and that looked to be pure muscle. Not as many trite villainous lines too, so I guess he was a higher tier of villain.

"That's not how you discipline a pet with that kind of mouth, Robard," another man sighed. He'd been watching the proceedings for awhile now, and from the way Robard looked at him, this guy was a higher up the food chain. I guess this must be the boss. "Plain violence won't work."

...well that was ominous.

"Hold him down."

I was seized around my waist and then thrown into an open chair; hands pushed down on my shoulders to keep me in place, another pair pinning my left arm to the top of the table. The man who spoke before picked up a pair of metal tongs, holding the jaws over the open fire in the cavernous fireplace.

It didn't take a genius to see where this was going.

So the novel had gotten to the point that instead of just killing me off swiftly, it wanted to torture me first. I could only imagine the sob story my murder would turn into for Heero's tragic background: seemingly-reformed husband that he never got the chance to see was viciously tortured and murdered by a criminal organization in his own province. I do suppose that this would lead into Heero pulling out the criminal elements by the roots, but I was the one paying the price, huh?

I really, really hate this book.

Boss-man pressed the smoking jaws against the exposed underside of my arm. The scream I must have let out had to have been unearthly – being fucking barbecued was a new experience, even for me – and the pain was so intense that I couldn't see for a moment. By the time I came back to my senses, I was heaving air into my desperate lungs and trembling all over.

"That was for the first insult," I was told, the leader's words fairly purred out. Boss-man leaned forward to get a better look at my face. "But you made two insults, didn't you?"

I spit in his eye.

The second burn was no less painful than the first. I couldn't hold in the scream this time either, but this turned out to be in my favor since it covered the panicked shouts and pained grunts from the entryway. Boss-man and the little crowd that had gathered around the table for my impromptu torture session had been so engrossed that they didn't know what was happening until one of the guys holding me had a dagger lodged between his eyes.

The gang members scattered with several loud shrieks but there was simply nowhere to go; ominous shadows stood at every window and the doorways - both the entrance and the backdoor to the storage area - were open and allowing more familiar figures to spill in.

The flying dagger had come from the backdoor area where Hilde stood at the front, Mikhail beside her with his sword already drawn. The rest of the Duchess Guard stood behind them, armed to the teeth and viciously knocking out anyone who came near.

They were, somehow, less frightening than the group at the front door. There were more knights there as well, quite a few of them being faces I recognized from the market, along with some of the Maguanacs. Meilan was at the front of the pack, looking more angry than I'd ever seen her.

All of them paled in comparison to Quatre.

His clothes, the outfit that got him greedily side-eyed in the market, was liberally splashed with blood. It was no wonder from where – his dual shotels, one gripped in each hand, shined crimson in the light streaking in through the windows. His usually-gentle face was wiped blank, the tactical commander Heero trusted in the battlefield standing here before us now.

Which meant holy fuck we were in trouble.

After their explosive entrance, the only people near me were Robard and the Boss-man himself. Robard had been the one holding my arm down, and Boss-man was still holding the tongs. I could see every single one of my people put the clues together and the murderous intent went up a hundredfold.

"Do you people even know who I am?" Boss-man growled.

I knew that was the moment Quatre identified Boss-man as the leader. The fastest way to bring down a gang would be to take out its head - so the moment Boss-man outed himself, those shotels would find his neck and his decapitated head would find the floor.

Thank god I was right next to him. That wouldn't stop Quatre from decapitating him; it just meant I had enough time to lash out, kicking Boss-man at the back of his knee and sending him collapsing to the floor – just as Quatre's shotel skimmed the top hairs of his head.

"Quatre, do not kill him!" I snapped. "We need him alive!"

Quatre's voice was very calm. "I disagree," he told me evenly.

Ooh, scary. I thought I heard some of the gangsters whimper at that.

Before I could explain that we very much needed Boss-man alive in order to give us all the information about his business practice so we could nip this organization in the bud, the bastard jumped to his feet and pressed a knife to my throat. "Don't you fucking move!" he snapped to the room, putting his back to the fireplace so he could keep everyone in view. "If I see one person so much as twitch, he gets his throat slashed!"

"Oh my god," I murmured, turning gleeful eyes on Mikhail. I get to experience being held hostage again? And this guy didn't even reek as badly as the last one too! Time for my dandy self to shine!

I quietly cleared my throat. "Oh no, p-please don't hurt me," I pleaded, widening my eyes for that deer-in-the-headlights look and clutching pathetically at the arm keeping me trapped. There, Mikhail! I even had that little terrified wobble in my voice, surely that was enough to pull at their heartstrings!

Mikhail audibly sighed. Bastard!

Everyone else didn't have their eyes latched on to my perfect expression of terror and fear, but rather on my arm. I glanced down, mildly annoyed – where was the appreciation for my damsel in distress performance?! – before I saw what had gotten their attention: my two new burn marks, fresh and definitely going to scar in the future, branded right there in clear view.

I wasn't the only one who just felt the chances of Boss-man's survival plummet. The knife pressed more into my neck, drawing a small weeping of blood. Stop, stop – they're already planning to kill you, you're only making it worse!

Okay, well, they'd probably kill Boss-man before they could grill him for answers, so I really hoped Robard knew more information. "They've been abducting and selling people!" I rushed out, ignoring the knife that dug deeper into my throat. "This place is their base of operations!"

"Shut up!" Boss-man hissed at me, pressing the knife even closer. Shit, if I did survive this – that was definitely another scar. Three scars in one afternoon! Hilde would never let me breathe a moment of freedom again.

"You shut up," I snapped back, satisfied at having said my piece. Now they knew to try and keep Boss-man alive, or at least some of his men so they could interrogate them to find the whereabouts of the people they'd sold.

Boss-man glared down at me. "You little—"

I had no idea what unimaginative insult would have followed that, as inspiration struck me in that moment. The others were clearly hesitant to act while Boss-man still had a knife to my throat, and I didn't want to play into the guy's hands that much, so I decided my course of action before anyone else did after hearing one thing: the sound of the crackling fireplace right behind our backs.

With all the strength I could muster, I launched myself backwards – and we both fell back into the flames.

Now I had no intention of finishing what the novel had started with its first go at other-me, and knew that even if I did fall back into the gaping maw of the fireplace that didn't mean I would burn to death. I was hoping the shock would have loosened Boss-man's grip on me enough to slip away, thus the only danger to me would have been the knife at my throat moving the wrong way and effectively slicing my neck open.

I did not expect to freeze up.

It was the smell that did it – more than the shocked yells around me, the pained scream from the man at my back, the sudden influx of heat or the slicing pain at my neck; it was the smell of fire meeting human hair that seized my body and took away all motor control from my limbs.

I don't think it was some lasting trauma from the time the Maxwell Church burnt down. No, this response seemed inherently tied to the body I inhabited: the Duo Maxwell of the novel, who had met his death in canon through the greenhouse fire. I suppose in this way, we were similar - we both held a harrowing fear of fire.

It was this fear, so intimately buried into the bones of my body, that left me helpless. I couldn't get my body to respond at all, as if it wanted to burn up in the flames and right the flow of the story, started with the correction of my continued existence. I had thought the novel wanted me dead, but maybe it was more than that – maybe this body wanted me dead.

It turned out that quite a few people wanted the opposite.

I was jerked roughly out of the fireplace, the clear panic on Quatre's face startling in its honesty as he dragged me halfway across the room, putting distance between me and the flailing, burning form of Boss-man. Hands were coming at me from all sides; what parts of me were smoking were effectively patted out, and Hilde had already torn at her dress to wrap the makeshift bandage around my bleeding throat. Meilan was holding my injured arm out gently, assessing the burn degree of the two marks, as Mikhail and some of the others doused Boss-man in water and rounded up the rest of the gang members.

It took me a moment to realize that I was hyperventilating. Meilan reached out to pat me awkwardly on the head, but that sure wasn't helping, and Hilde had started barking out orders to the nearby Duchess Guards to start getting ready to escort me out of there. I wish I could tell her that I didn't think this body was up to moving at the moment, but I was too busy trying to breathe.

"Stop."

Quatre's word stilled all motion in the room. His eyes were locked on me, although his words were directed to everyone else. "Give him some space. Lady Meilan, Hilde – stop touching him," he ordered, stepping in front of me but not into my personal space. "Your Grace, please hold your breath and count to ten..."

Clearly Quatre had experience handling this kind of thing, which wasn't a surprise – he'd been on the battlefield after all. A little panic attack would have been nothing unusual there. I followed the instructions he gave me, and around us, the others started to bundle up and escort the gang members out. From the glimpse I managed to catch, even Boss-man was still alive, so we got to keep our possible information lead.

Just as I got my breathing under control and could finally feel the full range of pain from my new slew of injuries, I grabbed the nearest person: Quatre. To his credit, he didn't look surprised or disgusted – I had to have been pretty grody now from all the rough treatment – and instead drew closer to me, leaning over to get a better look at my eyes.

"How are you feeling, Your Grace?" he asked me kindly.

In quite a bit of pain. Kind of nauseous, because there was definitely a lingering smell of burnt human hair in the room. Gross from all the sweat after the little torture session, combined with all the blood making my shirt stick to me like second skin. Mildly panicked because I knew for a fact that Hilde wouldn't let me leave my bedroom, much less the estate, once I'm out of here for the foreseeable future.

"So it turns out I'm afraid of fire," was what I told him.

A swarm of people immediately blocked the fireplace from my view. I didn't have the heart to tell them it was more the burning-human-flesh flame that incited the fear response rather than the innocuous-warmth-giver kind of flame. Or, at least, I didn't have the energy to do so.

"Yes," Quatre murmured, one hand clutching the front of his shirt right above his heart. "I know."

His eyes glowed with a very familiar look. It was one shared with the majority of people in this room.

Oh no.

---

My personal office was going to run out of space at this rate.

The study reserved for the Duchess served as their personal home office, and was usually the place where I worked on the estate's budget and, before Quatre's return, the duchy's fiscal management. It also held a lot of personal notes I kept, including the ones from Hilde's multitude of lessons about Sanc and the Yuy province. It was closer to my personal bedroom than Heero's personal study or the conference room reserved for larger meetings, thus it was decided that this little meeting would be held here so I didn't have to "exert" myself from my once again mandatory bedrest.

It had been only one day since my kidnapping and retrieval. Much like any other time I was injured outside of estate grounds, Doctor Po had been called and I'd been poked and prodded all night. Salves were applied to my burns, the slash on my neck had been carefully stitched and a fresh bandage reapplied, and every available Duchess Guard was now crawling about either inside or outside any room I occupied.

"We can brick up the fireplace," Meilan offered, gazing at said object like it was some kind of traitor. Mikhail was standing beside it, as if he were personally making sure the flames wouldn't somehow gain sentience and crawl out.

I never knew how much I hated being the voice of reason until I'd arrived in this place. "We are not doing that," I told her.

"We'll be installing grates," Howard said. "To ensure there's no spillover."

I ignored him, and continued to do so as the others made various noises of agreement. Hilde placed a teacup and saucer in front of me before resuming her stance nearby; I knew if I so much as moved my injured left arm, I'd be dragged back to bed. I very carefully grabbed the cup with my right hand.

Commander Broden was hunkered over several sheets of paper, muttering under his breath feverishly. I didn't need to look at what was written on them to know it was about another update to the training regimen, and could only imagine what he was trying to add to it now. At this rate, we may just end up with state-sponsored firefighters too...

Quatre looked the most composed of the lot gathered here, and also the least likely to forcefully escort me back to my bedroom if I so much as winced. I couldn't trust that impression completely though, because he was also the one who had scarcely left my side since I'd returned to the manor. The only one more attached to me had been Hilde, and I had the horrible feeling they were taking turns hovering over me to go pay the gangsters locked in our jail cells a visit.

Staring at Quatre's unblemished neck got me thinking – when was he supposed to have gotten his own renown neck scar? Now that I had my own, I didn't like the idea of sweet (if somewhat scary) Quatre experiencing the same thing. It hurt like a bitch.

If I remembered correctly from the novel, he had mentioned receiving it while taking down a large, hostile group that had spread like an invasive species of vine throughout the kingdom, shamefully originating in the Yuy province.

When he'd tracked down the group's head, the ensuing fight with the man known for his sadistic cruelty had been a tough and bloody affair, but one that Quatre ultimately won with the cost of his new, garish neck scar. It wasn't that the leader was strong, it was that he'd taken hostages and until the Maguanacs arrived as back-up, Quatre was at the leader's mercy.

...

...wait.

"So what do we know about the human trafficking case?" I asked the room abruptly, hoping to get their attention back on what actually mattered and forcibly tearing my eyes off the blonde and away from reality.

"There are seven disappearances linked to the organization," Mikhail promptly responded. "Five of those have been tracked down in-province, but one was trafficked out to Armonia and the other to the Maxwell province. We've sent messengers to both."

"Armonia again?" I echoed. This was the second human trafficking case in the Yuy duchy linked to them already. "Find out if it's the same people or same area as the one in the Ishigaki case."

"Yes, Your Grace."

"Were they involved in anything else?" I asked.

"They were smuggling stolen goods, as we saw when we walked into their shop," Quatre said. "That was their main source of income. Human trafficking was more a crime of convenience to them."

Oh, just a little slavery to spice things up? Fucking assholes. "Make sure to prosecute them to the full extent of the law. I also want anyone who even remotely enabled them to be found. If we don't pull this out from the roots, it will just end up springing back up again."

"Yes, Your Grace."

I reluctantly turned my attention to the next topic. "Commander Broden, do you have something to add?" Please don't say live bears, please don't say live bears...

"We're planning to set up more patrol routes throughout the city," Commander Broden responded, to my pleasant surprise. "If we can't even keep the Duchess safe while shopping in broad daylight, then we have been remiss in our duties as knights of this province!"

Well, at least he wasn't adding more to the Duchess Guard—

"And the Duchess Guard will be expanded to 15 members and you will have five knights with you at all times when you leave the property, Your Grace."

Why!!

I stared morosely down into my cup of tea. I tried to remind myself that they were always a little more paranoid after one of these jaunts, but they'd calm down eventually. Right?

I gripped my teacup a little harder. Right?!

"I will also be escorting you," Quatre said serenely. "Please include me in the Duchess Guard rotation, Commander."

Oh no you don't! "Do not include him!" I interjected. "Quatre, guarding me isn't your job!" I'm not Heero or Relena!

"It's something I want to do, Your Grace," Quatre said, turning the deadliest weapon I've seen to date on me: puppy eyes. Holy fuck, those baby blues were powerful! I felt guilty for even thinking about contradicting him!

I rallied myself together - one Hilde was enough! At least Meilan gave me some breathing room; Quatre nearly took off a guy's head because of me. "You have enough work managing the duchy's money and planning battle tactics with my husband, there's no need for you to take responsibility for my safety. I can take care of myself anyway."

There were several disbelieving snorts around the room. I scowled, "You know, if we had started my self-defense training earlier, we could have avoided—"

"A Duchess shouldn't have to take self-defense classes to avoid being injured!" Hilde cried out. "You've been taken hostage by bandits, attacked by a corrupt governor, attacked by a corrupt nun and her lover, and now you've been abducted and tortured by human traffickers!"

For the first time ever, Hilde looked very close to bursting into tears. I really wanted to comfort her, but telling her something along the lines of 'Heero would be better off without me' probably wouldn't do me any good right now.

"Now that all sounds really, uh, dangerous when you say it like that, but I was perfectly fine—"

"You were nearly beheaded!"

"That disgusting old lech had his hands all over you!"

"Your arm was bleeding so much that we could see your footprints in the puddles!"

"They burned your arm and nearly sliced your neck clean open!"

Alright, this was damn well turning into a town hall meeting solely concerned over my health. "Okay, okay, calm down! Thank you for being so worried about me, but..."

This earned me a host of mulish looks. What? I could be concerned about my own well-being too! I wasn't that much of an adrenaline-junkie!

I sighed, "Listen, when it comes down to it – this is karma."

That got me nothing but blank looks. I guess the concept of 'karma' hadn't come to Sanc yet.

"Karma means that whatever is happening to me now is because of something I did in the past. So if I did something good, something good can happen to me later – and if I did something bad, something bad can happen to me later," I explained. "So everything that happened to me so far is karma - because I was such an asshole for so long, now I'm getting the payback for all that."

I didn't really believe in karma; in my own humble opinion, this was all happening because other-me was supposed to have died and now here I was walking around as him. The story was trying to correct itself by throwing me in these situations; rather than trying to avoid it, it was best I face them head-on – so that I could at least use the cliché tropes to my advantage. Death-defying situations had the boon of revealing things useful to my and others' survival, such as the iron ore mine in Aoba-ku and the corrupt governor in Ishigaki. Without the former, I'd never have found another source of income for the duchy; without the latter, Meilan would have been killed.

"So you're saying you deserve this?" Quatre asked. His tone was eerily calm and he had that bland expression he got right before breaking someone's wrist or lopping someone's head off.

I nodded, excited he was catching on. "Yes, exactly!"

"...His Grace the Duchess needs more rest," Hilde said in a tone I'd never heard her use before and couldn't place. Her expression was dancing somewhere between murderous and haunted. "He's obviously speaking nonsense."

I scowled, especially as the others made noises of agreement. "No, no – look, see, I definitely earned karma's kick in the ass!" I argued, opening my desk drawer to pull out a roll of parchment I'd been saving just for this. I'd intended to hand it to Heero as soon as he returned, but convincing his staff and friends ahead of time would be good too.

I passed the parchment to Quatre, who unrolled it to reveal what I'd been working on when I'd first arrived in this world.

The List. Or, more accurately titled now: Reasons Why Duo Should Be Banished.

1. Abused and degraded the servants.

2. Cheated on my husband, with at least two different people.

3. Abused and degraded my husband.

4. Insulted my husband.

5. Insulted my husband's friends and allies.

6. Mismanaged the Yuy estate.

7. Embezzled funds from the Yuy duchy.

8. Didn't pay the servants the appropriate amount of money for their service.

9. Bought way too many dumb things that I did not need.

10. Did not check up on the people of the duchy even once.

11. Did not appreciate Master Winner's accounting skills when I had the chance!

Quatre turned an incredulous stare on me. "You want to be banished?"

"He WHAT?!" That was cried out in so many voices that I wasn't even sure who said it, as it could very well have been everyone.

I crossed my arms. "Did you even read everything I wrote, Quatre?! It's not about what I want – it's that I deserve to be banished!" Or, more accurately, other-me deserved this but I was taking one for the (unwanted) team now.

Hilde tore the parchment out of Quatre's hands to read, the others crowding around her. Quatre had all of his attention on me now though, and I gotta admit, even his bemused expression was adorable. I'd miss looking at him when I was eventually kicked out of the province by Heero.

"Your Grace, you said you don't even remember doing most – if not all – of these transgressions..." Quatre started. "And yet you still want to take responsibility for them?"

"Just because I don't remember doing them doesn't mean I'm absolved," I replied. I personally knew I hadn't committed these transgressions, but to everyone else in this world, other-me and me were one and the same – and only one of us was alive right now and walking around as the Duchess of the Yuy province.

Quatre mulled that answer over quietly. This gave the others the chance to voice their thoughts, Meilan being the first: "So all this time, you were just trying to kill yourself as some sort of means of repentance?!"

"No, I don't want to die," I corrected her. "If I did, that would be a 'Reasons Duo Should Be Executed' list." I really hope Heero wouldn't go so far as executing me. He was the male lead and inherently kind-hearted; other-me might have been an awful person but executing him seemed a bit much for the circumstances, especially after I spent so long trying to right his wrongs.

"Do you want to go back to the Maxwell estate?" Howard asked. "We can always arrange a visit, Your Grace, and if you really want to, I'm sure we can arrange a long-term stay. There's no need for this." He gestured to the list in disgust.

"I'll leave the terms of the banishment up to Heero. He doesn't have to send me back to the Maxwell province, I'll go anywhere he tells me to." I was confident I could make a living anywhere. Being a survivor was second nature to me anyway.

"This is because we've failed to protect you so many times, isn't it!" Commander Broden tearfully exploded. Oh god. "So now you believe you would be safer anywhere but here!"

"No, that's not it at all, there's nowhere safer than here! But me deserving that safety net is the real issue."

"His Grace the Duke will never forgive me!" Commander Broden continued to wail.

I stared at him. "I'm pretty sure after Heero sees that list, he's going to agree with me..."

"You intend to show this to His Grace the Duke?" Mikhail gaped at me.

I nodded, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Of course! Why else would I bother writing it all out?"

"You don't even remember doing any of it!" Hilde retorted hotly.

"That's not important! What's important is justice!"

"You think you almost dying and then getting banished is justice?!" Meilan glowered. "Hilde is right, you need to rest more and cease all of this crazy talk!"

Why is everyone always trying to send me back to bed!

Quatre raised a hand, forestalling the next heated response from my gallery of nay-sayers. Unlike them, he looked rather calm, which I took as a good sign – this meant he could listen to reason. When he was sure the others weren't about to interrupt, he looked back to me.

"I want to be perfectly honest here, Your Grace," he began. "I didn't believe you had amnesia."

I blinked. I mean, that was a bit surprising – I really thought I had convinced him earlier – but I was more surprised he was bringing that up now of all times. Whether he believed my amnesia or not didn't really affect Heero banishing me.

"So when you started correcting your mistakes – particularly items six through nine on that list – I took it as a sign you had reflected on your behavior and were trying to improve yourself," he continued. "I thought you were masking your impetus of change through lying about having amnesia, so that your previous wrongdoings could be excused and you could pretend to be someone new."

...which meant that, now that I had shown everyone I had no desire to hide behind the excuse of amnesia and fully intended to take the full blame of other-me's crimes, that the "amnesia" was in fact real. Which meant Quatre now fully believed it.

This meant I now had Quatre on my side!

Quatre took the parchment from Hilde's hands. "Let's address these one at a time, shall we?" he said, eyes skimming over the words. "One: abused and degraded the servants."

Quatre glanced over at Hilde and Howard. "Verdict?"

"Not guilty!" they chorused vehemently in answer.

"Hey, wait, why are we doing this like it's a public trial?!" I interjected.

Quatre gave me wide, innocent eyes because – as I was starting to realize with sudden, horrifying clarity – he was an absolute fiend. "You said you were interested in justice, Your Grace. A trial seems more than fair then."

I scowled; I can't believe he's using my own words against me. "Fine, if this is how you guys want to do it!" I even have to be my own prosecutor, what kind of kangaroo court was this?! "Hilde said before that I verbally abused and degraded the servants!"

"I said you corrected us, Your Grace," Hilde replied primly. "And if we're taking a holistic approach, all the servants you reprimanded have long forgiven you. You were hardest on your maids, after all."

Shit, Kaori and the others loved me now. There's no way they would say a word against me if it meant me getting banished.

"I'm sure if you'd really like to, you can apologize to them personally," Quatre pointed out in his oh-I'm-so-reasonable voice. "So we're going with 'Not Guilty' for this one. Now item two: cheated on the Duke."

I perked up. There was no way to defend me on that one!

"You know that isn't really uncommon for nobility," Quatre said. "So we can strike that one out too."

What! "Hey, don't just strike it out because it's commonplace! That doesn't make it any less wrong!"

"But you ended your affairs, Your Grace," Mikhail piped up. "You even blacklisted Trant Clark, and defended His Grace the Duke."

"Oh?" Quatre looked pleasantly surprised by the news.

I glared at Mikhail. Et tu?

"And you can't be banished for an extramarital affair either," Quatre continued. "Otherwise half of the Sanc Court would be roaming the barbarian territories."

Why does he even know that?!

"Item three: abused and degraded the Duke, and also item four: insulted the Duke." Quatre frowned. "Well, I do admit you were emotionally abusive and often insulted His Grace in both words and actions..."

Finally!

"But only Heero has the final say in that - and he hasn't made any plans to punish you for it, much less entertained the idea of banishment," Quatre said. "So we'll strike those out as well."

Dammit!

"On to item five: insulted the Duke's friends and allies." Quatre glanced over at Meilan. "That's us then."

Meilan glowered at me imperiously. "Any insult you've given me prior to your reform was returned in equal measure," she sniffed. "And I consider you a friend now, so any insult given in the future will be discussed."

Oh so now she's reasonable and not out for blood?

Quatre nodded. "I've forgiven you for any insult received and don't believe it should be grounds for banishment. I know it's the same for Trowa."

"Honestly, I don't think you've insulted Wufei enough," Meilan added.

"Item six: mismanaged the estate," Quatre continued. "Whatever mismanagement occurred you've already corrected."

And now it was clearly Howard's turn to betray me. "His Grace the Duchess also created and implemented the program that allowed orphaned children to work in the estate," he explained. "And developed an even greater orphanage reformation program that we intend to present to the Duke."

Quatre beamed at me. "So that was your idea, Your Grace? How wonderful!"

"That's different! I still was the one who originally messed everything up!" I refuted.

"The Duke was kept informed of your management or lack thereof," Quatre dismissed. "That's why Mr. Howard was usually doing the work."

Heero really should have just banished other-me much earlier. Is this that bleeding heart his novel character was known for having?

"Item seven: embezzled funds from the duchy." Quatre glanced at me. "Same as item six – you've already corrected this one, by a hundredfold." I knew he meant through the technological innovations, along with the discovery of the iron ore mine and the sharing of the recipe for whiskey.

"I still committed embezzlement," I pointed out.

"Actually, as this was before your provincial budget reform, the duchy's money was considered your own personal wealth and was free to use," Quatre corrected me. "So unless you can embezzle from yourself, this one is void."

Oh my god, no wonder it had been so easy for other-me to do it!

"Item nine: the buying of superfluous things," Quatre read on. "We're hardly going to persecute you for poor shopping habits."

"And you already returned or sold all of them," Hilde said.

"Item ten: did not check up on the citizens of the province." Here, Quatre smiled. "I believe we can consider that one fully rectified. You've personally checked on them so many times that almost everyone in the market recognizes you on sight. And the engineers of Taketoyo are still in awe of you."

"If anything," Hilde muttered. "You should stop checking up on them so much. That would vastly reduce your chances of being injured."

"Last item, number eleven: did not appreciate my accounting abilities," Quatre chuckled. "I'm very flattered by the praise, Your Grace, but again – this is not a punishable offense."

I glared at the blonde sullenly. "This was a sham trial," I told him.

Quatre hummed noncommittally, rolling the parchment back up. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Your Grace, but I must conclude that you're not guilty and will not be banished for anything listed here. And as the Duke's advisor and one of his closest friends, I know he would feel the same way and reach the same conclusion."

He then proceeded to throw the roll of parchment directly into the fireplace.

"Shall we start anew then, Your Grace?" Quatre smiled at me. "My name is Quatre Raberba Winner. From this day forward, it's an honor to be at your service."

And just like that, the deadliest nail in my coffin was hammered closed.