"Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game."

-Voltaire

********

"Are you here to kill me?"

"I haven't decided," I admitted easily.

"Don't expect me to beg."

Despite finding me here, Amanda Waller walked into her office with all the Bad Bitch Energy I expected of her.

For maximum disrespect, I was in her chair, my feet on her desk. Yet she stared me down as if expecting me to move.

I didn't.

"I should joke about 'No, I expect you to die,'" I said in my best Goldfinger impression. "But to tell you the truth, I'm not in the mood. So I will just ask this. How did you get the animals off my Island?"

Sinister hadn't cared how the woman in front of me had gotten him his samples so long as she did. And any hopes of records were lost when Cadmus was destroyed. Confronting the woman was the fastest way to get that information.

If there was a hole in my defences, I needed to find it and plug it.

"You want information," Waller narrowed her eyes at me. "I do, too. An exchange."

I blinked.

Sitting up and putting my feet on the ground, I stared at the woman in front of me.

"Are you serious?" I asked, incredulous.

"I need to know what happened to the heroes you took," Waller nodded. "The Avengers and every other PRT team that disappeared in that Hall. Until you agree, I won't tell you anything. Torture me, kill me, I won't talk."

I blinked again.

She was serious. Amanda Waller was seriously trying to negotiate with me.

Unlike Luthor, who had been cautious but polite, Waller treated this like my intrusion in her office was nothing more than an inconvenience. She wasn't happy but willing to use the situation to her advantage.

A part of me admired the balls on this woman. Or the ovaries, in this case.

A much bigger part of me was fucking pissed.

"You're too used to dealing with heroes or prisoners. I am neither. I should kill you and interrogate your ghost. The dead have looser lips than the living."

I saw her tense, her hand instinctively reaching out behind her to no doubt grab a weapon.

Then Waller stopped, likely realizing how pointless such an action would be.

She scowled at me.

"Why don't you then?"

She was trying to call my bluff. I hadn't killed her yet, so there must be a reason she was still alive.

In a way, I was bluffing. I had no way of forcing the dead to talk. They tended not to keep secrets, but if they were stubborn, I couldn't do anything to them. They were already dead.

But Waller was making a mistake.

I already had what I wanted.

I just needed to bring it to the forefront of her mind, and Emma, hidden under an illusion beside me, would pull it from her mind.

Now, I was just deciding what to do.

"Just tell me why," I sighed, wishing I had Medea to rub her tubby tummy. "I warned everyone. If anything from my home gets out, it would risk the end of the world. I stressed it over and over again. I get the first few invaders. I do. Spooky land has always been the call of adventurers. Dr. Fate's bullshit speculation about it being a 'source of power' and I hadn't given any warnings yet. But after weeks of no survivors and repeated warnings, why? Why take the risk?"

"You wouldn't understand," Waller scowled, crossing her arms.

"Try me."

"To protect my planet, my country, and my people."

"By dooming them?"

"By taking every opportunity I can to make them safer! Reality is not kind enough to keep those who will not defend themselves safe."

"You have defenders. Even if you ignore the League or random vigilantes, you are the head of the PRT. You literally have hundreds of Supers at your beck and call!"

"The PRT are glorified babysitters. Our job is to corral children that can destroy cities. When they think they know better, they ignore the law. They play along when it suits them and run around when not. And we have to let them!"

"But why fuck with me? I haven't even broken the law yet."

"Yet. But you will. And when you do, we need to be able to stop you."

"And how'd that work out for you?"

"While the destruction of Cadmus was a failure, the fundamental principles that led to its founding were not wrong. Humanity needs to grow strong enough to defend itself. From villains, vigilantes, and from everything else out there. How long do we have until the next Skrull invasion? How much time do we have until Galactus starts feeling hungry again? When the next Elden Lord comes, what if they just keep flying? Our planet turns to dust, and seven billion people die because we cannot touch him? We cannot let that happen."

"So you will create your own doom to try and save yourselves from a possibility? Ignoring all the heroes that fight and die just so your miserable little planet, country and people can keep going? Earth isn't special. There are planets with trillions of lives. There are billions of countries out there. Millions of species. And you would doom them all just because you cannot trust the people who die to save you to do their damn job!"

"And when they fail? When they aren't there? They couldn't stop you. They couldn't stop the Endbringers. And now, they're who knows where. If I do not do everything I can and take every opportunity, we will die. All of us. And that is unacceptable."

"You break your own laws, you kill your own people, and you doom everyone else with your folly. You are the worst sort of hypocrite."

"This is why I said you wouldn't understand. You have so much power that you cannot understand those who don't have any. The wolf cannot understand the sheep. When the sheepdogs fail, when the shepherd is gone, the lambs must take drastic action. To safeguard the flock from extinction, every alternative is preferable."

I glared down at the woman in front of me. I had marched right up to her in my anger, engulfing her figure in my shadow. She glared right back, not intimidated in the least despite the fact I was over a foot taller than her.

"Tell me this then. When I warned everyone, why did you not listen?"

"I am supposed to trust you?"

"Then why not take the power for yourself. You had a few drops of my blood. You knew it made people better. Knew it could make people into Supers. Why did you not take it yourself if you cannot trust heroes? Combine it with the dozens of other ways to gain powers you no doubt know of. If you cannot trust others, make yourself the hero this world needs."

For the first time since I had arrived in this office, I saw Amanda Waller off balance.

It took me a second to recognize the look.

"You never even thought about it, didn't you?" I looked at her in realization.

"Irrelevant," Waller snapped her glare back in place. "One more hero would not make a difference. We need dozens. Hundreds. We need to make the weak strong and the strong stronger. We need to be able to defend ourselves from empires and monsters that eat planets."

"Armies. Soldiers. That's what you want," I sighed in weariness. "Not heroes. Supers that will fight and die for you, but only under your command. Those are the only people you can trust."

"Not my command, but humanity's command," she rebutted. "We cannot trust our fate to the whims of a percentage of a percentage of the population. Some of which only defend us based on their whims."

"And I am sure humanity's best interest will be best represented by people who look like you, think like you, come from where you do, pray like you do, or act as you do."

Waller glared but didn't answer, knowing there was no correct answer to my sarcastic statement.

She didn't have to.

I had made my decision.

Despite my criticism of Waller, I agreed with much of what she was arguing for.

By definition, any world I entered would not be 'canon.' There was no guarantee the heroes would always win. No writer made sure everything had a happy ending. No promise of Superman catching Lois Lane in time.

In every world, it was up to the inhabitants to ensure they had a happy ending.

In a world with heroes and villains, doing nothing was the same as entrusting your fate to the whims and abilities of others. You could end up as another statistic on the evening news. Your entire universe could be wiped out in the next 'Crisis' or multiverse collapse that comics are so fond of.

Had I been in Waller's situation, I would have done something similar. I wasn't so hypocritical to not recognize that I wouldn't have trusted me either, had I been in her place. Searching for a tactic against a foe already defeating you is common sense.

There was a significant difference between her and me, though.

I was an egoist.

It had screwed me over a thousand times in the past and would screw me over in the future.

My arrogance had doomed me to centuries of prison and eons of inactivity.

Her arrogance had doomed what she sought to protect.

I gambled with myself. I would take the radioactive spider bite, the super soldier serum, or the experimental surgery. I'd break my Walls or die trying.

Either I'd be Free, or I'd cease to be.

Waller gambled what was not hers to gamble. Either she succeeded, or everyone would pay the price. She'd force the serum on others. If a Wall was in her way, Amanda Waller would have others tear it down for her.

I was an individualist born into a world that rewarded collective effort.

She was a collectivist born into a world that rewarded individualist effort.

Only one of us had escaped our worlds.

"I am going to give you a chance to live," I said solemnly.

"What gives you the right to decide whether I live or die?" Waller glared at me, undaunted, even now.

"Power," I answered simply. "You were right about that. The strong do what they will. The weak suffer what they must."

"You are no better than any other villain," she snarled.

"I am not," I agreed. "I am just me. Now stop delaying. If you haven't caught on yet, nobody is coming in here. You aren't getting rescued. I made sure of that before you arrived. No cameras will catch this, no signal will ring, and those alarms disguised as your sleeve buttons have not sent out any message."

Waller glared at me, but she didn't run.

I'd give her this. She was no coward.

Another difference between us.

"What do I have to do?"

"I am going to show you what you have unleashed on this world," I said simply. I won't lie. I was appreciating the irony of what I was about to do.

"Give me my gun, and I'll take on however many monsters you want to throw at me."

"You misunderstand," I chuckled. "I won't be throwing you into a coliseum, just a memory. You won't be fighting anything. You won't even have to do anything yourself. Just last long enough to wake up."

"Wake up?" Amanda Waller's glare, present this entire time, took on a more suspicious edge.

"Oh, don't you worry," I nodded gently with a smile. "Whatever happens... You may think it all a mere bad dream..."

My hand, altogether void of its human shell, clamped on Amanda Waller's skull. Half-real tentacles wrapped around her head as her eyes slowly, gently, closed in slumber.

I kindly carried her to her desk chair, placing her in it comfortably.

"What did you do to her?"

"She's just Dreaming," I told Emma. "I may just be an infant Great One, but putting one person in a Dream is well within my abilities. More so if I am just replaying my own memories."

"Was that wise?"

"I am not showing her anything to do with our Family or my ascension," I nodded. "Apart from that, she is in my Nightmare. She will see what I saw. Feel what I felt. But she will not have any of my thoughts or memories. A passenger in my body with her own mind. If she survives all seven weeks in Bloodborne, she will wake up with no injuries and a few dozen points of insight, but that is all. A kindness she probably doesn't deserve for potentially dooming this universe."

"Do you honestly think she will make it," Emma asked.

"I hope she does. Once Waller sees what we are dealing with, she will be a good ally in doing damage control. Having her incommunicado for a few weeks will give us time to plan. The PRT and protectorate lost both their leaders. They won't bother us for a little bit. When she returns, we can use her position to direct PRT efforts. Hopefully, by then, we'll have found our missing heroes."

Part punishment, part educational briefing, and part long-term plan. I loved solutions like this.

"Killing her would have been kinder," Emma said, but it didn't sound like she was complaining about the punishment; she was just stating a fact.

"I didn't die once in Bloodborne. And it is only seven weeks. If I was being cruel, I would have put her in Dark Souls," I chuckled at the thought. "Besides, if she doesn't see what we are facing firsthand, she will work against us, not with us. She's the type to only trust things she can control, but also willing to make a deal with the devil if it means keeping her people safe."

"She will not make it," Emma said firmly. "No matter what you think, not everyone can go through what you did."

"I think she will. Waller's a certified badass in most timelines, even if she's a stone-cold bitch. A little blood and horror won't break her."

"She'll feel what you felt? Your emotions?" I nodded at her question. "Then I guarantee she will not make it."

"...I did."

"Amanda Waller is not Mikael. Her mind, her will, is only..."

Human.

That was what Emma stopped herself from saying.

"...That's why I am being kind," I said softly after the awkward pause. "She's getting a better deal than I did. At least if she gives up, she will be able to die."

That had been the worst part about Bloodborne, one of the reasons it had stuck with me just as much as the Kiln despite experiencing so little pain compared to the other worlds.

I had lost Melina. My plan to escape in Elden Ring had failed. I had stared down endless worlds that would be my prisons if I didn't escape. I would have to face down my deepest fear and let Emma into my mind to make that escape. I would have to kill thousands of civilians to try and give that world hope of survival after I left.

Through it all, every brutal murder, every eldritch horror, every minute of fear for my identity, anger at my situation, and blood-drunk frenzy, I was perfectly, maddeningly, painfully sane.

No matter how much I tried to lose myself, to become the beast to escape, I never could.

I could feel all the bloodlust of a monster, all the despair of an undead, yet never give in to them.

I could never go beast.

I could never go hollow.

That simple right, humanity's one privilege, had been denied me.

Because of my preparation, because of Diana's Order, and now, because of my own choices.

I let myself wallow for a moment.

But just a moment.

This was not the Cell, the Kiln, or Yharnam.

I was Free.

"Let's grab lunch," I said, shaking my head clear of the fugue. "I'm in the mood for sushi. You can tell me what you found, then we can talk to Batman."

"After we do, let's have Medea scry for any of your blood that is still out there," Emma said as I teleported us to Japan for a meal. "I don't like that they had a few drops."

"To be fair, the Defences prevent cloning, poisoning, cursing, or other nefarious things they would usually use it for," I said with a smile. "But yes, we should do that. Even if a bunch of mini-mes running around causing chaos would be absolutely hilarious."

"You say that now," Emma rolled her eyes. "Clones are always a headache and a half. I loved my Cuckoos, but the mischief they got up to with my face... It was a trial."

"But imagine: a dozen or so clones, a command seal to give you the power to link our minds together, and suddenly, everyone gets their own Mikael. Or two. Or three. One mind, multiple bodies."

My limitations on having one Avatar would probably prevent that, but I was fucking with Emma, so the actual logistics were less important than what I could put in her head.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"That would just give you more opportunities for your terrible sense of humour," Emma said haughtily.

"You can't tell me you haven't imagined me with Robin's power before." I grinned evilly as I stepped closer to her, close enough that my breath tickled her ear. "Three me's. One you. I could make you airtight."

Emma paused mid-step, her eyes going hazy and her breath hitching.

I laughed, dancing away from her and towards the hole-in-the-wall restaurant I had chosen and held the door for my wife as she got her salacious fantasies under control.

"Now tell me the details you got from Waller. I bet it was some sort of Suicide Squad thing, wasn't it?"

*******

Amanda Waller would be found peacefully sleeping in her office less than an hour later. When efforts to rouse her failed, she was carted off to a medical facility and an investigation was launched.

No sign of forceful entry or proof of malfeasance ever appeared. There was no wound on her body, no sign of any poison in her blood. Even the Supers and magic specialists called in to check up on her told the investigators the same thing everyone else was saying.

She was just sleeping.

Within a medical bed, strapped to the best machines medicine could buy to keep her alive, Amanda Waller Dreamed for twenty-four days and nights.

While the cause of her coma-esque state would forever remain a mystery, the cause of death was easy to diagnose.

Her heart had stopped.

Not from a heart attack. It just stopped.

Like it had decided to give up.

Amanda Waller would be buried with her lost children and husband. She had no surviving relatives.

When I heard, I visited the site of her death.

The ghost of a woman who had stared me down, who would glare down gods and dragons alike for her beliefs, who had kept some of the worst criminals this world had produced on leashes and faced death with her back straight, was not there.

The shape of the spirit I found was the same; her muscles hadn't atrophied, and she had been well cared for while she Dreamed.

Everything that made her 'Amanda Waller' was gone, though.

All I found was a crumpled, huddled thing. A wretch of a human remnant.

The soul looked back at the world with vacant eyes, seeing none of it.

There was an emptiness in that gaze that wasn't present with the other dead in this hospital.

Yet the feeling it gave off was of such profound relief that I instinctively knew this soul would never speak a word to me or anything else living.

Death was its salvation, its reward, and it would remain with the dead until the multiverse collapsed.

Amanda Waller, famed for her stubbornness and iron-hard willpower, gave up in less than four weeks.

Less than half.

What did that make me?

I left.

I wasn't even angry at the dead woman anymore.

I was just tired.

********

"How long are you going to run away from the problem?"

"Excuse me?" Diana asked Yoruichi, setting down her burden.

The apartment building hit the ground with an earth-shaking rumble. The frame held it together in one piece, but huge chunks of debris fell from the hole in the wall the villain had torn open. Diana had intended to place it a little further from the city, with the other destroyed buildings, but this would work just as well. It was only out here until Glynda had a moment.

"You heard me," the dark-skinned woman said, hopping to sit on the ruin and look down at the Amazon while she kicked her feet. "How long are you going to keep running away?"

"I am not running away from anything," Diana said, turning from Yoruichi. She intended to return to the city to continue helping clear the wreckage from the battle with Bizarro.

"Glynda and Medea are helping Artoria with the cleanup. They should be done in a minute and will meet us at home," Yoruichi said, appearing in the air in front of the heroine in a burst of speed. "Before that, we needed to talk to you."

"We?" Diana asked, looking around.

She spotted the approaching woman instantly. The sand from her passage left a clear trail through the desert outside Vegas.

"I will remind you that I am still unable to travel as fast as you all," Melina, enveloped in a fiery aura that flickered in the light, said as she flew up to the pair. She glared at Yoruichi, who looked entirely unrepentant, as she steadied herself in the air with them.

"Think of it as an incentive to train harder," Yoruichi grinned at the Phoenix Host before looking back at Diana and setting her face back into a neutral, almost hostile expression. "Now answer my question."

"I did," Diana said, crossing her arms. "I am not running from anything."

"You have not been home in three days," Melina stated. Not an accusation, just a fact. Unlike Yoruichi, her gaze was without judgment.

"I've been busy," Diana said honestly.

A massive chunk of the hero population of the US and the League had disappeared in a moment. Not only that, they were some of their hardest hitters. She was doing the work of at least a dozen heroes, and there were still incidents she couldn't reach in time to be of significant help.

And most villains weren't aware of the vacancy as it hadn't been made public. Once they learned of their opportunity, crime rates would explode.

"Artoria made it to dinner."

Diana couldn't hide the wince at the Shinigami's words.

Mikael had supported their desire to be heroes, as well as everyone else's desires, hobbies, and plans and had only asked for one thing. A meal, once a day, where they could all eat together.

It didn't have to be dinner, and it didn't have to be long, but it had been one of Mikael's only requests. Baring a few emergencies, everyone had been able to make at least one meal a day ever since they had arrived on Earth.

Until recently.

For a long moment, nobody said anything.

"Did he send you?" Diana eventually asked, flying back down to the building. She set herself down where she had cut it from its foundation to carry it away.

"No," Melina denied as she floated down as well. "He won't do anything until you make a decision for yourself. Whatever that is."

"The only thing that scares him more than you leaving is the idea of forcing you to stay," Yoruichi said, plopping herself beside the Amazon. "Which is insane. I don't think he could force us to stay. We can fight the seals. Especially not Di."

"He could," Melina denied. "Remember, our Defences come from him. All he would have to do is remove them, give Emma a command seal or two, free her from her limits, and we would agree to anything."

Diana looked at her bracers, slipping the metal away to fiddle with the leather underneath. A reminder of her time with her husband.

As always, they sent a flutter of emotions through her.

"Huh," Yoruichi grunted. "She'd do it too. I'm pretty sure Ice Queen likes us, but there is no contest if it's that or going against him. That is a horrifying thought I hadn't had before. Thanks for that."

"You are welcome," Melina responded, ignoring the sarcasm in the other woman's voice. "It is irrelevant, though. He would never do that."

"The greatest freedom is being able to choose who you give up your freedom to," Diana said, partly to herself, partly to the women. Then she looked at them. "Do you two ever wonder where we are going?"

They both looked at her, Melina with a blank expression but Yoruichi with a raised brow.

"We're going home," she said as if it should be obvious. "Tits is cooking dinner tonight, and we're all going to be there. You too."

"I meant in the future," Diana shook her head, still fiddling with the small bits of leather on her wrists. "In a year. In ten. In a thousand. In a billion."

"That is a bit out of my prediction range," Yoruichi drawled. "I'm more of a day-to-day girl. Maybe a century or two. The oldest person in my world was only a few thousand years old, so I don't think about that far in the future either."

"I've been thinking about it a lot," Diana admitted. "Ever since Heartbreak and Tsunade got pregnant. What we're building. Where we're going. Who we will be. How our little Family will look like, and who will be with us. Who won't be."

"Unless Mikael dies, we all will be," Melina said.

"No," Diana denied. "Not all of us. Not everyone can handle the weight of time. I saw it with some of my sisters in my home world. They didn't kill themselves. They just... stop. Life just isn't worth it anymore. Even right now, one of us has already reached that point."

"Scathach."

"She does not intend to die soon," Diana nodded. "But after we've scoured the multiverse after she's seen and fought all she wants, she still wants to fight Mikael and die at his hands."

"He will do everything to change her mind," Melina pointed out.

"He will succeed," the Amazon agreed. "For a thousand years. Ten thousand. Maybe a million. But eventually, he will fail. And he will be forced to make that choice. And he will let her go, let her rest. Because we are Free."

"You don't want him to?"

"I am glad he can let her go, let me go if I were to ask..."

"But?" Yoruichi prompted as Diana fell to silence.

"What happens when Tsunade wants to join her children? What happens when Glynda loses one student too many? Sure, he can bring them back, but how long will they want to come back? What will he do when Robin no longer finds the universe's mysteries worth investigating? What happens when, one by one, we leave him?"

"A few of us never will," Melina said firmly, the fiery aura of the Phoenix Force flaring around her despite the placid look on her face.

"I know," Diana sighed. "I don't intend to either. There will always be people that need heroes. I knew my battles would never end when I first left my Island. Artoria is the same. Our sense of justice may cause us to argue, but it is also why I can say with certainty that we will never ask him to release us. We aren't the only ones. Emma will never leave him. Ever."

"Then he won't be alone," Yoruichi said. "And so long as he lives, neither will we. So stop worrying about it for now. Our Family is weird; it will grow, shrink, and change, but none of us ever need to be alone."

"I believe that is the problem."

There was a moment of silence at Diana's words.

Eventually, Melina asked the question.

"Why did you slap him, Diana? Why did you leave, and why do you not want to return?"

"It wasn't because of his plan, was it?" Yoruichi words were phrased as a question. It wasn't. "Not that he killed people, that he killed innocent people, or that he would have to do so again here was it?"

"It wasn't," Diana gave a pained smile. "I don't like it. I will fight to avoid it. But sometimes, the only cure for a disease is to cut off the infection. I can't say I wouldn't have done something different if I only had the options he had then. Hades, I don't know if either of you two have read any of the 'comics' in the library or seen the other media based on versions of my world, but other versions of myself have done much worse for far less noble intentions. I would only have had a problem if he insisted it was the only solution and refused to look for ways to save the infected."

"He's not," Yoruichi's eyes had progressively narrowed. "So what is the problem?"

"...Did you see his face while he was talking?"

"We were there," Yoruichi answered sarcastically as Melina let out an 'Ah' of acknowledgement. The Shinigami looked at the Kindling Maiden in question. "You know what she is talking about?"

"It is something I had noticed before," Melina nodded. "I have communicated my concern to Medea. We had believed it to be in relation to his Avatar's nature as a Great One. A mindset related to his power."

"It's not," Diana shook her head. "I saw his Avatar when he was fighting the Gods. He had no problem being his usual self."

"I thought it was because of what he had to do in Bloodborne," Yoruichi admitted. "He clearly didn't like what he did, even if he thought it necessary. I'd find it weirder if he was his usual self while talking about it."

"Neither of you two were summoned while he was in Bloodborne," Diana shook her head. "Scathach, Medea, Me, Tsunade, Artoria, and Glynda were. Raven was the last in Elden Ring, and Emma was the one he was waiting for. I remember it clearly because it has only been a few months since then. He was covered in blood, his clothes were torn to shreds, and he looked half feral. I had never seen him so enervated before. They weren't good emotions. Rage. Fear. Pain. But they were strong. Like he was glaring the world down. He wasn't like... that."

"He's been through a lot," Yoruichi tried to shrug casually. It came off as stiff. "We all have. We all have our problems. What is a bit of PTSD between friends?"

"I do not believe it is so. In my world, he had quiet moments," Melina said gently. "Like all emotion drained from him. But they were rare things, once every few years. And once he snapped out of them, he always recognized what happened. I am not sure he notices when he does it now."

"Maybe the others saw something you missed," Yoruichi proposed to Diana. "You were third summoned. Maybe it happened, ya know, after he had to do what he did?"

"Artoria told me he was similar when she was summoned. I asked," Diana shook her head. "Worse off physically, but his emotions were even more potent. And only Glynda and Emma were after. So it wasn't his... solution to the plague that caused him to look like that. No, I think something else is the problem. And I think it is why he and Emma have had issues since his release."

"...She wanted to say something after you left," Yoruichi said slowly. "Mikael stopped her. She wasn't surprised by his actions."

"He hasn't hidden a thing from her since he's been free," Melina shook her head. "Even when they are fighting, she knows the most about him. Even more than I."

"I think..." Diana paused, trying to put the thoughts she'd been mulling over in the last few days into words. "I think something happened between them. Either when she went into his mind to free him or after. Do you remember that dinner when we finished scouting this Earth? She seemed shocked by something. At the time, I believed it to simply be his promise to support us instead of having plans of his own. Emma is an ambitious woman, so I believed it was the lack of ambition on his part that caused their conflict. But after seeing him like that, I had another idea."

"Like what," Yoruichi asked, leaning forward, fully engaged in this conversation.

"What if..." Diana hesitated to even say her following words. "What if the problem is us? What if he wanted me to leave?"

There was a moment of silence.

Then Yoruichi broke it.

"That's stupid," she deadpanned. "You saying he was trying to chase you off? After everything? I don't know if you've noticed, Princess, but that man is head over heels in love with you. With all of us. And after everything he's done to support us, support you? He'd fight tooth and nail to keep you with him. I'd bet my life on it."

"I know," Diana nodded, but her face was grave. "I would, too. That is all he has done since he's been Free, right? Support us? The one time he's been angry at us was when he wanted us to take better care of ourselves. He's never truly alone; there's always at least one of Raven's clones in his shadow, and he's with one or more of us most of the time. It is like he has no will. No drive. Like a machine that cannot operate without us. But he doesn't want us to tell him what to do, so it's not like he wants orders to follow. It's like he has no clue what he's doing and just using us to figure out what he wants. That also doesn't make sense. It goes completely against his Freedom."

"What are you saying," Melina asked, her aura a visible corona of light that burned bright even in the desert sun.

"I... I don't know," Diana growled in frustration. "I've been thinking for days and can't think of a clear answer. Over and over. That's why I hit him. Not because of what he did or what happened. I just needed him to stop looking at me like that. Like a beast waiting to be put out of its misery. And when I did? He looked... satisfied. Like he wanted me to hit him. I couldn't stay there after that. I needed to leave."

"You aren't making sense," Yoruichi shook her head. "He wants to be with us but is chasing us off? He both wants to be alone and doesn't? And you haven't seen him these last few days. Every time he sees your empty seat, it's like someone killed his cat."

"I am not saying it makes sense," Diana shook her head. "If it did, I would not have such problems."

"Does it not make perfect sense?" Melina asked with a tilt of her head. "Did he not do the same, if in opposite, while imprisoned? Be kind to you yet wish you would eventually depart?"

Both women froze.

Then Diana shook her head again, running her hand through her dark hair.

"That was because he thought his emotions were not his own. He thought he was being controlled. He was rebelling."

"I do not mean the motives were the same," Melina said. "Just the action is. For all his talk of logic, Mikael is a man who moves by emotion. Whims. He only takes 'logical' actions because they fit his emotions most of the time. I do not believe he ever truly loses his emotions. He just withdraws within himself. You said it yourself. You saw something in him."

"Seeing him look at me like that," Diana shivered. "It is like an entirely different person. Like the man I love is just a mask, and underneath is... that thing. And it isn't Mikael."

Because Mikael would never, should never, look like he was begging for death.

"It is," Melina denied, standing over the Amazon. Both eyes were alight with flame. Literally. "He is that man. That monster. You need to recognize that. We can, and will, find out why he acts the way he does, but that does not change that even if you do not like that part of him, it is a part of him."

"Ha! Well said. You know, I like you better with the bird. More fire." Yoruichi exclaimed, shaking her head as she stood and looked down at Diana. "You got scared, Princess. Admit it. Saw something that you didn't like, and you ran. And you didn't want to face it again until you could understand it. You forgot what this Family really is, Princess."

"And what is that?" Diana asked.

"We're a bunch of losers," Yoruichi said bluntly. "Our worlds lost. We lost. All of us, even Priscilla, Ranni, and Melina. We're just a bunch of fuck-ups, failures, and exiles. We are just too stubborn to die when given the choice. We're not heroes. We're not characters in the comics you read. You found out your husband has a side you didn't know before. You'll deal with it. I know you will. Because losers like us need to stick together. We're the only home we have left."

Diana stared at the hand Yoruichi extended, then looked at the Shinigami in the eye.

The damn cat had the audacity to wiggle her eyebrows.

"I am still going to find out what is going on," Diana said, grabbing the woman's hand and looking at Melina. Yoruichi pulled the heroine to her feet with a roll of her eyes. "You might not be a hero, but I am. We heroes are a nosy bunch."

"I am already working with Medea and trying to piece together a consistent pattern of when he falls into such a state," Melina said. "We hadn't gotten far before Heartbreak and have been busy since. The more eyes we have on him, the easier it will be."

"You both are missing the obvious solution," Yoruichi sighed.

"You have an idea," Melina asked.

"Watch this."

Yoruichi opened a portal to the Island and stepped through.

After sharing a look, the other two women followed.

"Honey~," Yoruichi sing-songed loudly as she opened the door to the mansion. "We're home~."

"Welcome back," Mikael said as he appeared teleported into the entryway. For half a second, he looked at Diana in surprise, but then his smile widened, and he continued with the joke he no doubt had planned as soon as he heard Yoruichi's bombastic arrival. "Would you like dinner, a bath or..." Mikael put his hand over his cheeks like he was shy as he looked at all three of them. "Maybe...me?"

Maybe it was the relief of seeing him again.

Maybe it was his casual acceptance of her return without question or judgment.

Maybe it was how he looked so alive, so different from the last time she had seen him.

Maybe it was because of the stupid way he batted his eyelashes, like a newlywed bride welcoming her husband home for the first time.

It was probably a combination of all of them that had Diana smiling at the terrible joke.

Yoruichi barked out a laugh, pouncing at Mikael.

He caught her, dropping the joking facade to raise a brow at her in question.

"Princess wants to know why you get quiet sometimes," Yoruichi asked bluntly. "You know, all scary and blank, like a haunted doll?"

Mikael looked at the woman in his arms, then at the other two women who entered with her and their surprised expressions.

He shrugged.

"You ever spend time in the shower thinking up conversations that will never happen? It's like that, only I've been told I look like a serial killer waiting to strike. It's nothing that bad. I just get caught up in my thoughts," Mikael said simply. "It was my default defence when I was a kid. Withdraw when things get bad. I had to fix that if I didn't want to just be the creepy guy that never spoke. As I got older, I got better at faking extroversion by helping distract myself with music, books, or other media. Humour became my defence instead.

I did it for so long that I eventually learned to like it. I didn't have those distractions in my prison, so I did it with music. Sometimes, I slip back into old habits. Follow a train of thought too deep or wander down memory lane too long. It's not too bad. Once someone points it out, I generally shake it off."

There was a beat of silence.

"That's it?" Yoruichi asked incredulously. "No secret trauma? Dual personality? Not even a spirit sword talking to you? You just turn into a moody introvert?"

"That's about it," Mikael nodded with a laugh. "I do believe everyone is entitled to their 'Emo' moments, but yes. It is that simple. Don't get me wrong, I've gone through a lot more shit since I first woke up in that Cell, so there definitely is trauma there, but nobody is without trauma. I just choose not to dwell on the bad stuff and focus on the good stuff. And it is hard to be a moody, broody asshole when I have a Family filled with beautiful women, power, immortality, wealth, and can travel the multiverse."

"Mrow!"

"And I have the Floofiest of Floofs," Mikael yelled to the meow from deeper in the house, his smile wider than ever. "Can't forget her. But yes, I have it good. I just need to be reminded of that sometimes. People are so obsessed with the bad they forget to look at the good. There are silver linings in everything. So I laugh when I can, even if I do turn into an edge lord every once in a while. If you see me like that, just wake me up. Melina's done it a bunch of times."

Diana looked at the kindling Maiden, who nodded, but her lips were pressed into a line.

Mikael wasn't lying. Or at least Diana didn't think he was.

And it did give her a starting point of why his reaction was to withdraw within himself. But it also told the Amazon that Mikael didn't realize what he was doing. He had a blind spot.

He had said it himself. He had worn his mask so long it had become who he was. Was this the same?

Melina had been right. That... husk she had seen three days ago was a part of Mikael. But did he know that?

"Did that answer your question?" Mikael asked, looking at the three of them. None of them disagreed.

"More or less," Yoruichi shrugged casually.

"Well, feel free to ask me anything." Mikael put on his most innocent look. "I am an open book. No secrets. Even my most depraved thoughts are available to all of you. Shame? What is that? Can I sleep with it?"

Yoruichi snorted a laugh, but Tsunade's voice rang through the house before she could call Mikael out on his BS.

"Food's ready if everyone's home."

"Everyone's here," Mikael called back as he jerked his head toward the kitchen at Melina and Diana. Yoruichi flung over his shoulders like a bag of potatoes.

"HEY!" The Shinigami protested, kicking her legs and pounding his back playfully. "Unhand me this instant! I am a head of the Four Noble Families! I will not be treated in such a brutish manner."

In response to the dark-skinned woman's protests, Mikael smacked her on the ass.

"Unga-bunga," he grunted. "Woman. Food. Snu-snu."

Yoruichi paused her flailing to look at the man carrying her in confusion.

"What's snu-snu?"

As they pair left, Mikael's loud laughter bounced off the walls, and Diana and Melina shared a look.

At once, fond exasperation as it was one of worry.

They'd get to the bottom of this eventually.

For now, it was time for Family Dinner.

********

The meal was as lively as it ever was. An hour of jokes, laughter, repeated arguments, and enough alcohol to kill a fraternity during a rush.

Diana's return was putting everyone in good spirits. A tenseness that had been there the last few days had left everyone else's shoulders.

I hadn't been worried. I knew she'd be back.

But everyone else had been on edge, so some celebration was called for. Even when the world could fall to a beast plague any minute, we needed little moments like this. We could spare an hour or so before we got to the mess outside.

Artoria was in an eating contest with Medea The Cat over who could consume the most Mochi.

Almost everyone had bet on Artoria. They believed the difference in the size of the mouth and body gave her an advantage.

Suckers.

I bet everything on Medea. I was going to win big.

Mwahahahaha, I had bunny-girl suits for everyone. A plan that had been in the works since Scathach had unintentionally pulled a prank on Batman and the Titans.

So many people will be confused. I could picture the world's faces in my mind. Chaos would descend.

Mwahahahaha.

Was it a stupid, pointless joke? Yes. Yes, it was.

But it would also give the world something to focus on that wasn't their misery. And it would make my eventual announcement easier to digest.

'I made an oopsie, and there is a plague that will turn everyone into beasts. My bad. But look! Bunny Girls! All is forgiven.'

A foolproof plan.

Now, I just needed to win enough 'favours' to get everyone to wear one for a whole day. Medea and Melina were the only holdouts, but they would lose this time.

Mwahahahaha.

Diana was back.

I had cleared the world's largest drinking water sources over the last few days.

The girls had a lead on distinguishing infected en masse that they were testing tomorrow.

I would soon have an entire fluffle of bunny girls.

Despite my fears, things were looking up.

So, of course, that was when Priscilla's phone started vibrating.

"What is it?" I asked her as I saw her frown in confusion.

"I am unsure," she told me. "A message from Victoria. And I am receiving hundreds of messages at once from fans?"

With finger movements that would leave you in disbelief that she was from a medieval world, Priscilla quickly navigated through her phone.

Then she froze.

"Sir Bard," my floofy dragon said, her voice trembling. It was enough to gather everyone's attention. Even Artoria looked over as she continued to eat at a steady pace.

"What's wrong?" I asked, getting genuinely concerned.

"Are we at war?"

Wut?

"Wut?" I blinked stupidly. "With who?"

Who'd be stupid enough to declare war on me?

Even ignoring my size, my wives had just killed most Endbringers, and I had healed literally everyone on the planet.

Even if a government didn't like me, their people sure as hell would.

"Um," Priscilla continued to scroll through her phone. A half dozen languages flashed across the screen as she read her messages. "With... everyone?"

In the confused silence, Medea's mouth opened wide enough to eat all the food in one bite.