Archive of Our Own ^beta

You will return to the dirt you were born from,

but hold still for the child of love shall come.

Together find truth in strangers wordless,

together be lost in starless darkness.

The child of roads may lead the way,

but eyes of iris, be never astray.

“I just don’t get why we have to work with him,” Yuri hisses, shooting a glance behind his shoulder to make sure the him in question isn’t listening in. “I mean, what kind of variety in powers do we even have? Two Hermes kids and… and…”

“Well, it’s what the prophecy dictated,” Ashe says blandly, like he’s been saying for the past ten minutes. In an undertone, he adds, “Also what Seteth dictated, for that matter.”

Yuri wants to tear his hair out. “It just doesn’t make sense. Do we have to listen to the stupid—”

“Yuri! Don’t call the prophecy stupid!”

“It sounded pretty stupid to me!” Yuri groans, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets. “Ugh. I give up. Fine, whatever, but I’m only gonna be counting on you, Ashe. I don’t have time to waste teaching a newbie everything they should’ve learned, like, five years ago.”

Ashe scowls. “What’s with you? Usually you’re all over doing exactly that.”

“Wha—”

“Every time someone brings in a new demigod, you leap at the chance to show them the ropes, don’t you? Don’t tell me you’re doing this just because…” Ashe tilts his head in the general direction of the boy behind them. “You know.”

Yuri crosses his arms. “I just don’t like him. Okay?”

The arrival of the new demigod had shaken up Camp Half-Blood more than any of them had been expecting. Of course, it was always news to hear of a new kid who was older than fifteen years old, but this guy is a year older than Yuri, who’s already eighteen—how had he survived this long without knowing a thing about himself? He’d even been personally escorted by Seteth, who refuses to leave the camp too long in case of any emergencies, but he’d left for an entire week just to fetch this kid… who isn’t really a kid, Yuri supposes.

What’s stranger is that the new guy isn’t even a son of the Big Three—if he were, maybe Yuri would understand more. As it is, his godly parent is the last Olympian Yuri would have thought of.

“Um…” The boy clears his throat behind them. “This is the train station we’re supposed to take, isn’t it?”

“What? Oh.” Ashe turns around, giving him a smile. Yuri tries not to bristle. “You’re right, you’re right. Thanks, Byleth. Are you from around the area?”

“No, I just… traveled a lot.”

“Ohh. Well, where we’re going is mine and Yuri’s hometown, so we’ll be happy to show you around if you haven’t already been there,” Ashe cheerfully says, placing ridiculously special emphasis on we. Yuri wants to scoff, but he has enough manners not to do so in front of Byleth’s face.

Byleth. Even his name sounds special. Yuri feels the corner of his lips curling downwards in disdain—what the hell is so special about this guy? From what he’s observed over the past few weeks in camp, Byleth doesn’t have much of a personality at all. He took to swordfighting easily, sure, but plenty of other demigods do too, but Seteth hadn’t personally given them a one-of-a-kind Celestial bronze weapon, had he? Byleth survived long enough without one, so why…!?

“Yuri.” Ashe frowns. “I asked if you want anything from the vending machine?”

“Uh. No.” Yuri sighs, running a hand through his hair to try and get his thoughts in order. “Are you going to—”

But Ashe is already gone, lithe frame weaving through the crowd of people towards a pair of vending machines, all the way at the other end of the train station. Leaving Yuri alone with Byleth.

Yuri had never known a train station could be this silent. He stares at Byleth, who stares blankly back at him, before Yuri huffs and turns away, folding his arms over his chest again. It feels childish and petulant and Yuri shouldn’t be like this, because he’s supposed to be a model for the newer, younger demigods, but…

What is it that made Byleth so special? What is it that made him be treated so well by Seteth and embraced by the rest of the campers so easily? It’s only his first year at Camp Half-Blood, too, but he’s already been sent out on a quest by the Oracle. He barely has any experience fighting with his ridiculously overpowered sword. How is any of that at all fair?

And where was all that welcome treatment when Yuri, fourteen years old, ragged and bleeding, had dragged himself and Ashe through the camp’s magical borders begging for someone to help them?

“Hey,” Yuri mutters, doing his best to keep from snapping. The longer this day goes on, the worse his mood is getting. “Quit fidgeting.”

“I’m not…” Byleth stops fidgeting.

“You ever been where we’re going?”

“Once. But I don’t remember much about it. I was a little…” Byleth looks down. “Distracted.”

Curiosity itches at Yuri’s neck, and he wants nothing more than to ask how Byleth had survived this long as a demigod. If he’s somehow important enough to require Seteth’s attention, then surely he’d been important enough for monsters to chase after. But asking for that sounds too insensitive, even for Yuri, and he’d rather not talk too much to the guy anyway unless he absolutely has to. So he just mutters a nondescript, “Huh,” and leaves it at that.

Ashe returns some five minutes later, his bag stuffed with snacks easy to eat on the road. “Did you two talk much?” he asks, easily falling in step beside Byleth, who looks relieved to have Ashe back. Despite his irritation, Yuri can’t exactly blame him.

“Yeah, plenty,” Yuri grumbles, much to Ashe’s exasperation. “Come on, let’s just go already.”

Disregarding the (stupid) prophecy, their quest is fairly simple: a series of missing persons cases, most of them children, have been popping up in the same area where monster sightings have been reported, and that area just so happens to be Ashe and Yuri’s hometown, where Yuri hasn’t gone back to since he’d first left for Camp Half-Blood after a tip-off from Hermes. Ashe still lives there with his younger siblings, so the two of them had been a clear choice to be sent out on the quest. Yuri would have been fine with just Ashe—it used to be that way all the time, after all. But now…

Yuri sneaks a glance up at Byleth, who’s sitting across him in the train while Ashe chatters on about something-or-other next to him. But now some newbie’s here, and what sounded like a fairly easy quest at first has turned into what is starting to look more and more like some screwed-up social experiment.

He’s twisting his ring absently around his pinky finger, more out of habit than anything, and the movement catches Byleth’s attention. “Your rings look nice,” he says. Beside him, Ashe visibly lights up. “Um… where did you get them?”

Yuri wants to roll his eyes so bad. So bad. “My dad. Hermes.” He tries not to sound like he’s bragging too much about having a personal weapon too, but it’s hard when Byleth’s own absolutely refuses to stop reflecting the light directly into Yuri’s eyes, as if forcing him to acknowledge its existence. “Just the gold one, though. I commissioned a Hephaestus kid to make this silver one for me.”

“Commissioned?”

Yuri taps the silver ring on his right index finger, and doesn’t bother hiding his snicker when Byleth nearly jumps out of his seat when the adamantine sword forms in his hand. “In exchange, I helped him out in Capture the Flag.” Though really, Raphael and the rest of the Hephaestus cabin had hardly needed his help—all Yuri had to do was give them their strategy map, and they’d neatly won in a matter of minutes.

Ashe clears his throat. “It works like your sword, Byleth,” he tells him. “Speaking of, I haven’t gotten to see it up close—can you bring it out, please? I heard it’s, like, every sword fanatic’s dream!”

“Oh, um…” Byleth pinkens. Which is absolutely unfair, because unlike Yuri, whose pale skin contrasts badly with the splotchy red that comes whenever he gets embarrassed, Byleth just looks dainty and shy. “It’s not… I don’t know… well, okay.”

He tilts his head just slightly, hair falling over his eyes at just the right angle to look cute, and reaches up to tap at the single red earring dangling off his left ear. Instantly it morphs into the strange sword Yuri keeps catching glimpses of at the Sword Fighting Arena—made of faintly-glowing Celestial bronze, and embedded within the center of the hilt is that red stone that Yuri can’t figure out the material of. Ashe ooh’s and ahh’s, more for Byleth’s benefit than anything, while Yuri does his best to scrutinize the weapon without looking like he’s actually paying much attention.

“Seteth called it the Sword of the Creator,” Byleth says, slowly. “But… I don’t know if this belonged to any ancient heroes or gods. It certainly wasn’t from my godly parent.” The last part he says under his breath, a hint of bitterness creeping into his tone.

“Careful there,” Yuri says, tapping the hilt of his sword so it shrinks back into the silver ring. “Gods and goddesses have an awful tendency of hearing anything you say about ‘em.” Especially yours, he doesn’t add.

Byleth’s expression sours, but he doesn’t say any more and follows Yuri’s example, reverting his sword back into its earring form. Yuri cannot even begin to articulate just how much he hates that it looks good on Byleth instead of dorky or weird or out of place, or literally anything other than attractive.

“At least you guys get special weapons,” Ashe says, pouting. “I have to settle for archery. Not always the most reliable weapon, you know.”

“Hey, hey, that’s what long-ranged support’s for. Plus,” Yuri adds, nudging Ashe’s foot with his own, “you got, like, literally everything else. Even freaking lock manipulation, hello!”

Ashe blushes, and then blushes even more when he sees Byleth staring starry-eyed at him. “Well, that’s… that’s just… I-I mean, anyone can do it!”

“Sure, anyone can just up and curse the lock on their cabin doors when they’re in a real bad mood.”

“That was one time, Yuri…”

The train rattles to a stop there, cutting off whatever else Ashe would have said, and the doors slide open with a hiss. “There’s our stop,” Yuri says, getting up and stretching. “Thanks for the ride, Ashe.”

“Ride?” Byleth echoes.

“Something about Hermes being the god of roads, and then something else about being really fast,” Yuri explains, as vaguely as possible, if only because he’s a tiny bit envious he didn’t inherit being able to decrease travel time whenever he wanted. Yuri may have gotten some combat-oriented characteristics, but when they both grow up and get out into the adult world, he’s fairly sure Ashe’s little niche abilities are going to come in handy way more often. “Let’s go and get this over with already.”

For all his talk, though, Yuri wants nothing more than to jump back into the train and get as far away as possible from this place. He hasn’t been back to his hometown in well over four years, going on five now, and yet somehow it has staunchly refused to be erased from his memory. The streets and alleys are the same, twisting and curving under the cover of shadows—some storefronts have switched around, but the department store Yuri had once stolen from is still standing at the corner of the road—he’s sure that if he looks hard enough, he might still be able to find the house he’d once lived in.

The house his mother’s body might still be in.

“Yuri?” Ashe looks up at him, touching his wrist just slightly. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Yuri ruffles his hair, hoping Ashe always stays shorter than him. “You wanna stop by your family first?”

Ashe leads the way to the tiny, rundown apartment building he’d managed to get for his siblings after he and Yuri saved up enough money doing odd jobs—this, unfortunately, means Yuri is stuck walking beside Byleth behind Ashe. For the first few minutes, it’s silent between them again, Byleth looking around him and staring at whatever catches his eye while Yuri twists his rings again.

“Taking in the sights?” Yuri eventually asks, voice dry. He doesn’t particularly want to talk, but he’s never done well with too much quiet.

Byleth jolts, looking almost guilty. “You know, just in case.” At Yuri’s prompting look, he reluctantly adds, “In case we need to… make an escape, stuff like that.”

“You’re paranoid. Been on the run a lot?”

“It’s all I ever did.”

“Hmm.” Yuri inclines his head, casually arranging his hair so it falls down his shoulders. He’s been mistaken for an Aphrodite child far too many times for it not to go straight to his ego, but at least he’s aware he has a big head at all. Much to his ever-growing irritation, Byleth seems unfazed. Then again, Yuri supposes that makes sense, all things considered. “How’d you stay off the radar for so long anyway? Or survive ‘til this age, for that matter.”

Byleth shrugs, glancing over his shoulder—there’s a missing child poster stuck to a telephone post, fluttering lightly in the wind. “I… ran. That’s it, really.”

“That can’t just be it,” Yuri scoffs. “Were you on your own? Or did some other demigods help you out?”

Byleth shakes his head. “No. I was alone.” He pauses, and slowly adds, “My dad was with me for a little while… but he died when I was. I don’t know. Twelve, maybe. So after that it was just me. You get used to it.”

Twelve? How had a demigod survived for seven whole years alone on the run, much less someone of Byleth’s parentage? His half-siblings certainly aren’t known for their prowess on the battlefield, and yet he’d been deemed important enough for Seteth’s personal treatment and a weapon that looks too powerful for anyone to wield. At least Yuri and Ashe had each other, back before they made their way to Camp Half-Blood, but Byleth had been on his own.

What crazy powers could he have inherited from his godly parent to have kept him alive for so long? Yuri wracks his brain for anything he can remember, but nothing particularly powerful comes to mind. That might be because he doesn’t really interact with Byleth’s half-siblings at camp anyway, but he’s sure he would have heard of something.

“We’re here!” Ashe suddenly says, hands clasped in front of his chest. Yuri doesn’t even blink at how they had only walked for approximately five minutes when he’s fairly sure it should have taken half an hour. “Byleth, you should meet my younger siblings, I bet they’d love you! And Yuri, you know they haven’t forgotten you, they ask about you all the time. Can’t you at least say hi?”

“Ugh.” Yuri sighs. “I didn’t even bring, like… a souvenir or anything.” Ashe’s younger, non-demigod siblings are as close to his heart as Ashe is, but he’d rather no one know about that, least of all Ashe himself. He’d never hear the end of it. “You two go ahead. I’ll stay here.”

Ashe frowns. “It’s dangerous to stay alone. What if… you know, something happens?”

“I’ll be fine, I’ll keep watch like always. Just be quick.” Yuri yawns, scanning the street for any place that looks suspicious, and spots an electronics store instead. Nice. “And ask them if they’ve heard anything about the kidnappings here.”

“If you’re sure,” Ashe grudgingly relents, before smiling up at Byleth. “Come on! We’ll be able to use the computer there to search for any news articles.”

“Oh—okay.” Byleth gives Yuri one last glance, but doesn’t say anything and disappears into the apartment building with Ashe.

Yuri meanders over to the electronics store, idly watching the news channels on the displayed televisions—none of them seem particularly important, though, and he lets himself zone out.

Being back in his hometown is driving him nuts. No matter how much he denies it, he knows a part of him had wanted to return ever since Yuri had first left, if only because familiar territory has always been comforting, especially after constantly running as far and as fast as he can away from the place. He hates it, but he misses it, too—the department store where the employees always turned a blind eye to his stealing, the river downtown where he, Ashe, and Ashe’s siblings used to play in the water… his house, where his mother was always happy to welcome him back in no matter what state of roughed up he was.

Was, Yuri reminds himself. Was. Past tense. There’s nowhere for him to return to now except the Hermes cabin at Camp Half-Blood. The only home he has left.

He reluctantly tunes back in to reality, gaze refocusing on the TV screens in front of him. There’s one news channel talking about the recent missing persons, but without sound, Yuri has to rely on the side-scrolling text at the bottom. 7 missing, 4 minors… no leads on the suspect… Yuri sighs. This is starting to look more and more like the work of monsters snapping mortals up. But why children? Maybe because they’re easier to fool?

Something shuffles behind him, and Yuri whirls around, only to meet the sunken, haunted eyes of a child shrouded in the shadows of a nearby alleyway. He blinks—they stare at him, wordless, then fade into the darkness behind them with nary a sound.

So there are still children like him in this town, Yuri notes. Children choked tight by the rope called poverty strung around their necks.

“Yuri!”

“Hey, Ashe,” Yuri responds, near-automatic, as he turns to face the apartment building again. He’s ready to tell them that there are already seven missing people, only to falter when he sees Ashe running at top speed towards him, before he seems to grow impatient and shortens the distance between them—in another second Ashe is in front of him, steadying himself on his knees for balance. “Whoa, whoa—what happened? You okay?”

“Yuri, Yuri, the—m-my—”

“Easy,” Yuri manages, hoping he doesn’t sound as panicky as Ashe does right now. Behind them, Byleth finally catches up, and though he barely looks winded his brow is furrowed in what looks like concern. Yuri gives Ashe his arm to steady him, then turns a glare on Byleth. “You. What happened?”

“His…” Byleth glances down at Ashe, frowning. “Ashe, um—”

“My siblings,” Ashe gasps out, gripping Yuri’s arm so hard it hurts. “My brother and sister—t-they’re gone.”

When they were younger, the sidestreets and alleyways of the city had been one of Yuri’s refuges. He learned how to navigate them as early as possible, and so he always had an escape route on hand whenever he was caught stealing, which wasn’t often. The food he smuggled always ended up in Ashe’s siblings’ bellies rather than his own, though, but Yuri had never minded.

He stares at the alleyway before him now, the one the child from earlier had disappeared into, not sure if he’s relieved or not that he somehow still perfectly remembers the layout of this labyrinth.

“You think they’re in here?” Byleth asks, softly. Ashe is in the apartment unit, searching for any hint or clue of his siblings’ whereabouts, and had practically ordered Byleth to stay with Yuri.

“It’s the best place to hide some kidnapped victims in this city, that’s for sure.” Yuri twists his rings over and over, trying to focus on the motions—it was here where Hermes had given him the Fetters of Dromi, too, and it was here where Yuri learned about the existence of Camp Half-Blood for the first time. “Stick close and don’t get lost. ‘Cause it’s really easy, in this maze. And keep an eye out for any monsters.”

Byleth nods. Yuri takes a deep breath and steps forward.

The alleyways are as dark and unwelcoming as he remembers them, though his younger self had always taken comfort in the fact that in here, everyone was just like him. Now, though, it’s completely devoid of other people—where Yuri used to sidestep thugs and mafia members at every corner, there’s only an abandoned trash bin or two. It should be a relief, but it only unsettles Yuri further.

Then—he stills. Byleth bumps into him and exhales a little harder, but thankfully stays silent as well. Yuri strains his ears, wishing he could swivel them around in different directions like some animals.

There—a voice, distinctly feminine. It’s hardly a lead, but it’s the first sound he’s heard since they’ve entered the alleys, and that has to mean something. “There,” Yuri whispers. “You hear that? Follow me.”

He tracks the voice—no, voices—as well as he can, backtracking several times whenever he seems to be moving further rather than closer, and it feels like it takes hours before he finally turns down a promising alley. Byleth, for his part, doesn’t complain once, even though Yuri’s sure he must be exhausted by now; he knows he is. He hasn’t had to sneak around like this in so long, he’s grown out of practice. But the voices are much clearer now, and every step only makes them clearer.

“…are they? It’s been ages, girl, I’m startin’ to wonder if this was a total waste of time…”

“Oh, quit whining, I know he’s here! No demigod smells this delicious. Just gimme another day and… hold on.”

Yuri freezes in place. Demigod? Could they be talking about one of them? They’d only mentioned demigod, singular, after all. But then—could they be hunting Ashe down? Kidnapping his siblings sounds like a surefire way to lure him out to a place like this, after all. But Ashe is just another Hermes kid out of several others. There’s no reason to single him out. What, does low-scale spatial distortion taste like roast chicken or something?

More importantly, why had the voices suddenly gone quiet—

Yuri shoves Byleth back just before a pair of claws wrap around Yuri’s arm and yank him forward—with a curse, Yuri manages to summon Killing Edge and slashes upwards, but the monster before him only swoops away with a beat of her wings. Empousai, Yuri realizes—blood-sucking monsters, and the basis for the popular modern vampire. He should’ve known.

“Stay back!” he shouts, both to Byleth and the empousa hovering before him, her claws frighteningly sharp. It’s a miracle she hadn’t pierced his skin, really. The second empousa is just behind the first one, her wings sprouting out from behind her back to help bring her up beside her friend. “What in Tartarus are you monsters doing here?”

But the empousai are completely ignoring him, their blazing red eyes fixed on Byleth instead. The first one licks her lips with a forked tongue. “There he is! Mm, you smell his blood? Now that’s the good stuff!”

No, no, no—“Byleth, get out of here!” Yuri orders, charging forward to slash up at the empousai, but they simply flit out of his sword’s reach and make a dive towards Byleth, who’s standing motionless behind him, eyes wide and fearful. Yuri runs again, trying to kick that Hermes speed into overdrive, but it doesn’t matter if he can’t reach enemies in the air—closer, closer, closer—

“Stop!”

The empousai halt in place—and so does Yuri. His sword nearly falls out of his loosened grip, and it takes everything in him not to topple face-first onto the hard concrete. With a growl, Yuri tries to push forward—but his feet refuse to move an inch, and he can barely do anything but blink and breathe.

With a start, he realizes the light breeze that had been blowing earlier is gone, and a rat scurrying across the ground has frozen in its tracks, too.

It isn’t just Byleth’s targets. Everything has stopped.

Byleth takes one unsteady step back, then another, until he’s a safe distance from both the empousai and Yuri. For one infuriating second, Yuri wonders if Byleth’s going to turn tail and run and just leave Yuri there, but instead Byleth shakily reaches for his earring. In one second, the Sword of the Creator is in his hands; in the next, the empousai are gone in two neat slashes of the Celestial bronze sword.

They dissolve into golden dust without so much as a squeak. Something cold creeps up the back of Yuri’s neck, and it takes him a second to recognize it as fear. What kind of charmspeak was powerful enough to last even in one’s dying moments?

“S… Sorry,” Byleth murmurs, and suddenly everything moves again—the breeze blows, the rat disappears behind a heap of trash, and Yuri slumps against a wall, sucking in deep breaths. He’d barely been able to take in more oxygen than absolutely necessary for a long few minutes. “I… I panicked, and…”

“It’s fine,” Yuri manages, glancing up at Byleth—he still looks more than shaken, and the fear from earlier hasn’t left, making Byleth’s blue eyes look darker than Yuri knows they are. “Are you—”

He reaches out to touch Byleth’s shaking hand—and something blazing hot ignites in his chest, as if setting his insides on fire. Yuri would stumble back from surprise, only he can’t, because this tiny bit of skin contact is nowhere near enough to satisfy the sudden desire burning in his body. Yuri wants more, wants to pull Byleth’s hair, see his beautiful eyes water, pin his wrists to the wall—he’s moving without thinking, grabbing Byleth’s hand and pressing closer so their chests are flush together, digs his fingertips into the line of Byleth’s jaw to force those wide eyes to meet Yuri’s own—

“No—” Byleth pushes him away, terror etched in his face. “No! N-No, I’m sorry, I’m—Yuri, I—”

The loss of skin contact is enough to snap Yuri back to his senses—he blinks rapidly, stepping back and trying to regain his balance. The heat is already leaving him, as fast and abrupt as it had come, leaving him dizzy with leftover desire…

Desire!?

“I’m sorry!” Byleth repeats, looking so genuinely anguished that Yuri can’t bring himself to be mad. “I didn’t mean to, I-I—it was an accident, I don’t—I don’t know how to control it, it just… it…”

“It’s fine,” Yuri says again, even though his head is still spinning. That had been a single second of skin contact, and yet it had driven him and his usually composed self absolutely wild with desire he’s never felt so strongly before. He knows what it’s like—Camp Half-Blood has no shortage of pretty boys and girls alike—but he had never reached this level, this intensity.

And now that he has an actual, legitimate reason to dislike Byleth even more than he already does, he can’t bring himself to actually blame him. Yuri recognizes an accident for what it is, and Byleth just seems so utterly repentant that getting angry at him when no real harm was done seems pointless. “It’s fine. I’m fine,” Yuri says, possibly for the third time. “I get it, it was an accident. Alright? Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t you hate me?” Byleth mumbles, not meeting Yuri’s eyes. Yuri tries to take a step closer, but Byleth just takes another step back. “No, don’t… don’t come close. Please.”

Yuri feels his face soften of its own accord. Byleth had known this whole time. Of course he had—Yuri hadn’t exactly been subtle—but he hadn’t thought it would bother Byleth so much. Great, now he just feels bad. “Hey, I… of course I don’t. I mean, we just met, so I’m not exactly friendly with you and all, but I don’t hate you. And calm down—I told you, you didn’t hurt me.”

“But…”

“Let’s go back to Ashe,” Yuri suggests, sighing in relief when Byleth relaxes at that. “We both need to catch our breaths after… that. Alright? It’s getting late too, so we should rest for the night before we search again.”

Byleth doesn’t respond for a long moment, but eventually nods. Yuri supposes that’s as good as he’ll get.

Back at Ashe’s apartment, Byleth putters around in the bathroom, which gives Yuri plenty of time to explain what little they’d found in the alleyway. “But I don’t think those empousai were involved,” Yuri muses, stirring the instant noodles Ashe had prepared for the three of them. “They didn’t say a thing about kidnapping mortals. Mostly they just seemed to want a good meal.”

“Oh.” Ashe stares down at his food, looking like eating is the last thing on his mind. Yuri tries not to fidget in place—it’s been a long, long while he’s seen Ashe this miserable. Which makes sense, because getting your siblings kidnapped isn’t exactly the sort of thing that happens everyday, but Yuri just wishes he had been able to do something more substantial than get himself attacked by empousai and then almost jump one of their teammates in an alleyway.

The thought has his cheeks heating up in what Yuri decides to interpret as embarrassment. How had that happened? And why had he submitted so easily to that power? He’s strong, he knows that, and that isn’t just him being arrogant—he’s trained far too long at Camp Half-Blood to know he’s a little more durable than he was four years ago. Which means either Yuri needs more training…

Or Byleth’s abilities are far more potent than he had first judged.

“That Byleth,” Yuri mutters, making sure to keep his voice down; “did you know about his powers?”

Ashe blinks. “Powers?”

“Yeah, you know. What made him so important for Seteth to personally fetch.”

“Well, no. I mean, I assumed it might be because he’s older than most other demigods? I didn’t really worry about it too much, Yuri.” Ashe shrugs. “He’s a son of Aphrodite. That’s all I know.”

Yuri leans back, crossing his arms. “Yeah, that’s… yeah.”

When Aphrodite had claimed Byleth, it had been barely a few days after Byleth’s arrival in camp—Seteth had known, Yuri’s sure, but he had waited for an official claiming anyway. When Byleth had first arrived, he’d been a complete mess: covered in dirt from head to toe, dressed in clothes that looked one battle from falling completely apart, and his hair had made Yuri subconsciously run a hand through his own to make sure it was all fixed. It was sort of why Yuri hadn’t particularly paid attention to his appearance right away—there wasn’t much to see, after all.

But then Aphrodite’s Blessing had come and gone in the middle of a campfire, and suddenly everyone was fawning over Byleth. Yuri couldn’t even blame them—even without the new clothes, the combed hair, and the dash of expertly-applied makeup, Byleth is far from unattractive. It’s his mother’s genes, most probably, though Aphrodite probably doesn’t really have any concrete genes Yuri could pinpoint, but whatever. The point is that Byleth is easier on the eyes than any of them had expected. But that was it—attractive. Yuri couldn’t figure out what else was so special about Byleth to warrant equally special treatment.

Until now.

Just Yuri’s luck, there’s only one bed in the apartment—Ashe’s siblings are small and young enough to share it, and Ashe sleeps on a mattress on the floor. Ashe doesn’t even bother asking before he’s arranging his mattress and settling in for the night, and only notices the predicament when Yuri and Byleth are motionless in front of him. “Oh… um, it shouldn’t be too hard to share, right?”

The thought of accidentally touching Byleth’s bare skin again unnerves Yuri more than he’d like to admit, but he can’t exactly say that. “I’m fine with it,” Yuri declares—he can’t let Byleth think he’s scared of him. Because he isn’t. He’s just been taken aback. For the past few hours.

“Okay, then,” Ashe says, managing a smile that looks so forced, it must be painful. “I’ll set an alarm. Let’s… get up early tomorrow.”

“Hey.” Yuri perches atop the edge of the mattress, laying a careful hand atop Ashe’s trembling one. “We’ll find them. Alright? It’ll be fine. I’m sure they’re waiting for you, so don’t worry.”

The bed might be comfortable for two kids, but Yuri has to curl up and press against the wall just so half of Byleth’s body doesn’t hang off the edge. Even then, they’re still close enough that Yuri can feel his body warmth, the lingering heat from earlier beginning to rise up in interest again—how on earth is he supposed to sleep like this? He hasn’t slept with someone else in the bed for years.

The bed dips slightly beside him, and Yuri chances a glance over his shoulder—only to meet Byleth’s eyes, probably in the middle of chancing a glance at Yuri, too.

They hold eye contact for the most awkward five seconds of Yuri’s life before Yuri gives up and flops onto his side to face Byleth. “Hey,” he greets, like they haven’t been lying there in silence for nearly half an hour now. “Uhh. Can’t sleep?”

Lying on his side probably makes shaking his head hard, so Byleth mumbles, “No.”

Nothing follows. Yuri suppresses a sigh and forges on. “I didn’t know you could use charmspeak,” he says, keeping his voice low for Ashe’s benefit. “Or the… whatever you did earlier, too.”

“Amokinesis.”

“That,” Yuri says. “Every Aphrodite kid I know can do it. But I never heard of… you know, anyone reaching that extent.”

Byleth shrugs, or at least tries to. “It’s always been this way,” he murmurs. “My father told me just living was dangerous. Because I was too powerful, I’d… attract the attention of monsters. That’s why we were always on the run. I never knew there were others like me—demigods, I mean—so when I was… maybe fifteen years old, and these satyrs tried convincing me to come with them, I figured it was a trap. …Um, I know it isn’t now, but…”

Yuri winces. The camp had taken notice of him four years ago, and he’d evaded every satyr that went after him? No wonder Seteth had grown tired enough that he went after Byleth himself. “Yeah, well… don’t worry. I get that. So, uh, what else can you do?”

Byleth looks thoughtful. “Aside from amokinesis and charmspeak? Um… I can speak French really well.”

“Cool?”

“I can grow plants sometimes. Only flowers, though.” Byleth extends his hand, and a pink rose pops into existence. Yuri scrambles backward before realizing there’s no space behind him to scramble anywhere. “I can deflect light and stuff. If I try really hard, I can make illusions.”

“Wh—illusions?”

“Umm, I can make small explosions too. They’re good for sending up smoke for cover.”

“Explosions?”

“And I can talk to some animals. Doves, sparrows, swans, hares… a dolphin, once.”

Yuri mentally runs through a list of abilities the Aphrodite kids at camp have, and cannot, for the life of him, remember any of them being able to do more than half the stuff Byleth can. Since when could Aphrodite cause explosions anyway? “You can really do all that?”

Even in the dark, it’s easy to see Byleth’s cheeks darken. “It’s not that impressive.”

“Of course it is! That explains how you stayed on the run for so long.” Apart from just how powerful his amokinesis and his charmspeak are, anyway. Yuri can imagine hundreds of ways he and Ashe could have survived on the streets longer if they could order rich people around. “And now you’ve got a giant sword. What’s better than that?”

Byleth falls silent, and immediately Yuri knows he screwed up. A whole lot of things could be better in any demigod’s life. “You say that,” Byleth mutters, “but… I’ve never even met my mother. Aphrodite. Even when Dad died… or when I arrived in camp… it feels like the only time I ever felt her presence was when she claimed me. And even then it happens to everyone, so it doesn’t even really count.”

“O… Oh.” Yuri frowns. He’s only met Hermes twice—the first time was in this very city, and the second time was in the middle of a quest, but the details of the latter are so hazy that Yuri can only clearly recall George and Martha, the twin snakes on Hermes’ caduceus, making fun of his hair. Which was perfectly fine, by the way, he just so happened to have been fighting off a horde of monsters in the middle of a mud field.

Still, he’s met his godly parent two more times than Byleth has met his, and he received a personal weapon too—though the Fetters of Dromi are more protective equipment than anything, the point remains.

“It can’t be that bad,” Yuri says. “It doesn’t mean Aphrodite doesn’t care about you. Gods and goddesses are a little… difficult to understand. What I mean is that she might have helped you out in the past, and you didn’t realize it.”

Byleth is quiet again, before he sighs. “I guess.”

That’s probably as good an answer as Yuri is going to get out of him. “Don’t worry about it. In the end, blood family doesn’t matter as much as the family you choose, you know? Anyway, get to sleep. It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.”

He turns back on his other side to face the wall, not bothering to wait for a response. In another few minutes, Yuri hears Byleth’s breathing turn even, and silence descends upon the tiny apartment unit.

Yuri spends a little longer staring down at his ring, twisting it in time to his heartbeat.

Going on quests with Ashe always meant something that would usually take a full day of work got shortened to a few hours. When they were younger, manipulating distance tired Ashe out so much that he could only use it to get away from security guards or police officers chasing them down; as they grew older, and after they found Camp Half-Blood, he got better at controlling this ability to the point that it hardly affected him anymore, even after extended usage.

Today, though, Ashe looks dead on his feet. Yuri’s torn between asking him to shorten the distances between where they are to their next destination so that he’d have to walk less, or just walking so that Ashe wouldn’t have to use his powers.

Byleth doesn’t seem as bothered as he checks the latest warehouse they’d infiltrated off the list. “Next is an abandoned store down that way,” he mumbles. “Slated for demolition, so there wouldn’t be anyone there…”

Yuri reluctantly looks away from Ashe to respond. “Yeah, uh… Ashe and I used to go there all the time. I know it says it’s going to be demolished, but really, the people here don’t care about it that much. A lot of kids go there to play sometimes, so that’s why I thought the monsters might be hiding there and waiting for…”

He shuts his mouth when Ashe’s shoulders shake tellingly. Why does Yuri have to be so bad at this talking thing? Even Byleth has more tact than him by this point.

“Excuse me,” someone murmurs beside them, and Yuri tenses—but when he looks, it’s just a tall young man next to them, shoulder-length hair curling up slightly at the tips and bright eyes shifting from crystalline-green to lavender. “Are you looking into the recent kidnapping cases?”

Yuri frowns. His eyes… They refuse to stay a single color. On any other day Yuri would chalk it up to the light, but something about it looks unnatural. “We—”

“Yes,” Byleth blurts out.

He’s staring directly into the man’s eyes, and at first Yuri’s terrified he’s been hypnotized or something, but then he realizes Byleth’s taking in everything else, too—his hair, the little curve of his lips, the way his clothes hug his body—and Yuri huffs out an understanding oh. “What’s it to you?” Yuri butts in, pinching Byleth’s wrist in hopes of snapping him out of it, but Byleth doesn’t even look at him.

The man tilts his head with a little smile. “You should check the camera surveillance systems instead. I think you’ll have a better idea of your suspect.”

And then, too fast for Yuri to process right away, the man’s appearance flickers and changes to that of—of a woman, with flowing dark blue hair and slightly-slanted eyes that look exactly like Byleth’s. She winks at Yuri, once, and then slips away into the crowd; by the time Yuri’s blinked again, the stranger’s already gone.

“Who was that?” Ashe frowns. “And the camera surveillance…? Of what, exactly? There wouldn’t be any working systems in the store. It’s been left there for years.”

When neither Yuri nor Byleth respond, Ashe smacks the both of their arms, just enough to jolt Yuri back to attention. “Hey, what’s with you two? Just because he looked pretty doesn’t mean you get to space out all of a sudden.”

“That’s not it,” they both say simultaneously, only Yuri actually means it and Byleth sounds panicky.

Yuri levels a suspicious glance over at Byleth, whose face has gone red enough to toast bread on. “I was just thinking about something,” Yuri says, “but you were totally distracted, weren’t you? Get it together. You can ogle everyone you like after this quest.”

Byleth scratches his cheek, looking chastised but still visibly flustered. “I-It’s just—wasn’t he beautiful? Didn’t you see his eyes?”

Ashe, at a grand age of fifteen years old, looks thoroughly unimpressed.

But his words have the cogs in Yuri’s head turning at a rapid speed—beautiful, especially, sticks to his thoughts. And the woman who had appeared… neither Ashe nor Byleth seem to have noticed, considering they hadn’t mentioned it despite how jarring a sight it was. The shifting, multicolored eyes… the way the stranger had looked exactly like Byleth for a moment…

Yuri’s thoughts grind to a halt. Aphrodite is known for taking on whatever appearance suits an individual’s personal epitome of beauty—and despite being a goddess, there aren’t any rules stating she can’t change the gender of her disguise.

“Does that happen often?” Yuri says, trying to sound casual and teasing rather than more than a little excited over his discovery. “Pretty strangers stopping you on the street and giving you weird cryptic clues?”

Byleth frowns. “Well, there was one time, when a deserter broke me out of those mafia headquarters.”

“Wait,” Ashe says, “broke you out of where?”

“And there was this other time, when I was about to get swallowed up by some sea serpents but a nice sailor helped me out.”

“Wait,” Ashe repeats, sounding a little more concerned, “you went in the ocean?”

“It was a long few years,” Byleth says, as if that’s any explanation at all. “There were a couple other times, too… Strangers are really only nice when they’re strangers, don’t you think?”

Yuri replays the vision in his head—the long blue hair, the sparkling, ever-changing eyes. The wink. How the man’s appearance had completely appealed to Byleth’s ideal of beauty. “Yeah, sure.” Then, before Ashe can look any more confused, “What was with that camera comment, though? We hung out in that store dozens of times, and there weren’t any online CCTV systems. I doubt they’d bring one out now.”

“Maybe he wasn’t talking about the store, then,” Byleth ventures. He’d probably sound a lot smarter if he weren’t still sneaking looks over his shoulder.

“Then…” Ashe’s eyes widen. “The apartment building! They don’t have cameras in the units, but I know there’s one at the end of the corridors on each floor! If… If my siblings were k-kidnapped there, maybe we could find a suspect?”

“That’s up to you, then.” Yuri pokes Ashe in the chest. “You know your way around anything our dad invented, which is basically everything. Hack in the surveillance system while Byleth and I go check out the store in case we find anything there, and then we meet back up at the apartment. That sound good?”

Ashe frowns. “Not this again! What if you get attacked by monsters like yesterday? You don’t have to keep babying me, Yuri!”

“I’m not, I’m saying you’re the only one who could work with the CCTV because I definitely don’t know how, and Byleth here probably doesn’t either.” Yuri shoots Byleth a look, and Byleth hurriedly nods. “See? We’ll be fine, Ashe, and I know you will too. Splitting up means we get more work done and we can find our family faster.”

Ashe doesn’t respond at first, then huffs out a shaky laugh. “You said our.”

“I said nothing,” Yuri retorts, nudging Ashe back in the direction of the apartment building. “Alright, get a move on. Byleth, let’s go.”

Yuri still knows the shortest route to the store, and they’re there within almost half an hour of jogging—Yuri has to grudgingly admit that Byleth is fast, considering he’d kept up even when Yuri amped up his Hermes speed. The store is just as wrecked as Yuri remembers it: piles of rubble are gathered all around it, and construction signs are everywhere, but hardly anything is actually barring entry as long as no one catches them.

“Watch your step,” Yuri warns, picking his way through the gravel and cracked pavement; “ground’s a little unsteady. I mean, it hasn’t been touched by construction equipment since forever, but still.”

“You used to come here a lot?” Byleth asks, following close behind. He steps exactly where Yuri does, and it’s weirdly endearing.

“Yeah. It was sort of like a hideout for me and Ashe, and a couple other kids our age.” If Yuri digs around, he’s sure he’ll still be able to find evidence of them staying in here—candy wrappers, chip bags, soda cans. Notebooks filled with doodles of them doing random stuff. Some of the jewelry they didn’t pawn off were tucked and hidden away in secret spots, which gave hide-and-seek a new prize. Vaguely, Yuri wonders how those other children are doing.

The front entrance is blockaded, so Yuri leads Byleth to the passage he and Ashe always used to sneak in—he’s sure there are other entryways, but this one had been the most stable and least likely to crumble apart at the time. It takes a bit of squeezing, but finally Yuri manages to tug Byleth out of the cramped tunnel and into the store. “The place is a bit big,” Yuri says, dusting his jeans off. He’s going to have to get his jacket washed the second he steps back on camp. “If there are any monsters around, it might be hard to find ‘em.”

Almost as soon as he says that, something flutters overhead, like the flap of wings—Yuri’s thoughts leap to empousai right away, but these sound more like feathers, unlike the bat-like wings of the empousai variation they’d run into yesterday. Nesting birds, maybe? In this store, though…?

A gust of wind ruffles Yuri’s hair, and he absently sweeps flyaway bangs out of his eyes. “Alright, let’s—”

But when he turns around, Byleth is gone.

Yuri barely has to think about the motions before Killing Edge materializes in his grip, but by then the wind from earlier is picking up, sending the smaller objects flying everywhere. Great! Great. Of course there are monsters here. Yuri should have just kept his jinxing mouth shut. “Byleth!” he shouts, running a hand through his hair whipping in the wind. “Byleth—where are you!?”

He knows Byleth can take care of himself—the guy had survived seven years on the run, after all—but all Yuri can think of is the momentary panic he’d seen in Byleth’s eyes when those empousai had rushed him, the seconds he’d spent frozen when he could have reacted right away—

More out of frustration than anything, Yuri slices blindly at the rapid winds, and only instinct keeps him from stumbling back when he feels his sword actually cut something. There’s a shriek, distorted by the roaring wind, before the gales abruptly die down—under Yuri’s blade is a trembling harpy, flailing wildly to drag herself across the floor and away from him. “Stay still!” Yuri snaps. “What are monsters doing here?”

“H-Hungryyy,” the harpy whines. “Demigod smell… soooo good… just like chicken nuggets…”

That’s a disturbing thought. Harpies like chicken nuggets? Isn’t that technically cannibalism? But anyway, it makes sense—harpies are known to snatch up people and things with a gust of wind, which means they might be behind all the disappearances… including Byleth’s. Yuri levels the tip of his sword under the harpy’s chin and bites out, “Where’s my friend? And where are the rest of the missing people?”

The harpy looks up at him with big wet eyes that do nothing to dissuade Yuri. “What missing people? Hungry harpies only want demigod!”

“Quit lying. Kids from this town keep disappearing, but I bet you already know all about that.” Sudden, mysterious disappearances were often attributed to their kind, after all. It makes Yuri wonder why he hadn’t thought of the possibility of harpies earlier.

“Harpies. Only. Want. Demigod!” She bares her teeth in a vicious snarl, sharp canines glinting in the dusty light. “And you… smell like chicken nuggets without sauce… but you’ll have to do!”

She leaps up at him, claws at the ready, but Yuri had been expecting it—one good swing of his sword, and the harpy is screeching as she dissolves into golden dust. Yuri waits until the particles fade, just to be sure, then turns back around and surveys the area—it seems to be devoid of any other monsters for now, but based on the way the harpy had been speaking, he’s sure there are more waiting deeper inside. Plus, there has to be another harpy wherever Byleth had been taken.

Thankfully, the store’s layout is still clear in Yuri’s head—he taps the golden ring on his left pinky, and the Fetters of Dromi stretches out to enfold around his hand. It’s been a while since he’s had to break this one out, but the only available light in here is the sunlight that comes through the windows—further in is complete darkness.

Yuri grits his teeth, grips Killing Edge tighter in his hand, and forges through.

It’s deathly quiet, which unnerves Yuri more than it should—he’s heard particularly experienced harpies can even have a grasp on blocking or amplifying sound using the wind, but he’d rather not dwell on that. Carefully he picks his way through the wrecked store, feet automatically stepping over the broken tiles without needing conscious thought, body instinctively moving towards the corners easiest to hide in. Every so often something shuffles along the floor, but every time he looks over his shoulder, it’s gone quiet once more.

Yuri’s just begun to step foot into the darker areas where sunlight no longer reaches the interior when he hears something again—it isn’t a footstep or some other indistinguishable noise, but something frighteningly similar to a voice. “Byleth?” Yuri hisses, turning around. Nothing again, but he hadn’t imagined that—he’s sure he’d heard it. “Byleth, is that you?”

“Y-Yuri?”

Relief crashes against Yuri like a tidal wave. “You’re alright!” Yuri exclaims, forgetting to lower his voice, then deciding it hardly matters when Byleth sounds close enough to reach out to. The darkness is blinding, and Yuri has to pick his way through the maze of empty aisles and abandoned grocery carts, blinking fruitlessly to try and get his eyes accustomed to the shadows. “Where are you? Follow my voice!”

“Yuri,” Byleth calls again, his voice coming out as a whimper, and fury rises to clog up Yuri’s throat—is he hurt? Had the harpies tried to eat him? Could he be immobilized somehow, and that’s why he doesn’t seem to be moving? “Yuri, help me!”

“Just wait!” Yuri pushes past rows of shopping carts, uncaring by how loud they clatter and crash behind him—he has to save Byleth, he has to, it’s his responsibility—

“Yuri?”

Yuri skids to a stop. Wasn’t that—

“Yuri, we’re over here! Please, they took us away!”

“I’m s-scared! I want Ashe!”

No, no, no—“Are you two hurt?” Yuri asks. Byleth’s voice had come from somewhere to the left, but Ashe’s siblings’ had come from somewhere to the right. Byleth’s a demigod and can take care of himself, but he’d sounded so frightened, and hadn’t the harpies been targeting him anyway? But Ashe’s siblings are mortals, children, barely even ten years old, and Yuri can’t just leave them—

Up ahead, the darkness shivers, trembles. “Yuri,” a voice—that voice—murmurs. “My little songbird. Here you are.”

No. It can’t be. “M…”

“Come here. It’s been ages since I last saw you.”

It can’t be. Yuri saw her die with his own eyes. Yuri watched her die with his own eyes, watched as the Stymphalian birds attracted to his demigod scent had torn her body to shreds. It had been years ago, but the memory of it remained clear as running water in his mind—how Mom had yelled for him to run, how he’d collapsed by the alleyways, how he’d shouted and cursed at Hermes when he arrived, asking why he hadn’t helped, why he only showed up now after Mom was dead.

It can’t be. And yet—and yet Yuri isn’t thinking when he takes a single shaking step forward, where the voice is coming from. “Mom?” he whispers. He hasn’t said that word in four years.

“My child…”

Another step, and another, until Yuri is running at full speed, the wind whistling in his ears. Somewhere at the back of his head, a voice screams at him to worry about Byleth, about Ashe’s siblings, about the people still alive and breathing, but even as Yuri stumbles and nearly twists his ankle, he can’t think further than Mom, Mom, Mom—

Something glows in the darkness, and Yuri skids to a stop. The shadows cling to his arms, growing colder by the minute.

Above him, the glowing red eye of the Cyclops blinks; then, slow and deliberate, it speaks in a perfect imitation of his mother’s voice: “It’s been too long.”

For once, he isn’t fast enough—the Cyclops’ giant hand comes out of the darkness to wrap around Yuri’s middle, fingers digging hard enough to bruise. Yuri curses and jabs at the thick, meaty palm with his sword, but the adamantine blade practically bounces right off the monster’s skin. “Damn it—let go!” Why couldn’t Yuri have inherited anything else from his father? Anything more useful?

“Mm… bit of a dull appetizer,” the Cyclops grunts, squeezing tighter until Yuri gasps for air. “Guess ye’ll make the main course taste that much better. Heh! Did’ja like my li’l bit of voice acting? I’m thinking of going for an audition somewhere soon!”

“Get your hands off me!” Ashe had literal space-and-time distortion, and Byleth got everything from his godly parent—what does Yuri have? A little bit faster than most mortals, a little better at stealing than most robbers? What was the point of being a demigod if he doesn’t even have the powers to back it up—what was the point, if he wasn’t even strong enough to save Mom from a fate that should’ve been his?

Yuri manages another weak slice down with Killing Edge, but as he’d expected, it hardly even dents the Cyclops’ thumb. What’s the point? he thinks, numbly—I couldn’t save Mom, I can’t save Byleth nor Ashe’s siblings. I can’t even save myself anymore.

This is why he had disliked Byleth so much at first, he realizes—because Byleth was strong, he got special treatment, got dozens of satyrs sent after him and eventually even caught Seteth’s attention before he’d even stepped foot in camp.

And what did Yuri and Ashe get, when they were knee-deep in poverty, stuck in the city slums? Not a single satyr or camper sent to help them, not a single piece of information about Camp Half-Blood until a literal god took pity on his children. Because they were weak. Because they weren’t as important.

Even the surprise he feels when something flashes in the darkness and the Cyclops’ head is cut clean off only registers vaguely in his head—Yuri lands neatly on his feet when the hand around his torso dissolves into golden dust. “Yuri?” Byleth calls—and this is the real one, because Byleth steps into the light of the monster’s remains, river-blue eyes tinted green in the imitation of sunlight. “Are you okay?”

“I’m… I’m fine.” Yuri can feel his legs wobbling, but it’s more out of exhaustion than any actual injuries. He steadies himself on a nearby shelf, blinking the spots out of his vision. “How did you… Where…”

“A harpy brought me somewhere else in here,” Byleth explains. A brief flash of red light, and the Sword of the Creator has reverted back into an earring. “I fought her off, and another Cyclops tried leading me further away. It’s a shame they used my father’s voice. If it were anyone else, I would have been easier to kill, I think.”

Yuri frowns, looking up at him. “What do you mean?”

“They’d have to try a lot harder to convince me he’s still alive.”

Yuri doesn’t know how to respond to that, considering the exact opposite had happened to him—he’d hardly even needed any more evidence other than hearing his mother’s voice for the first time in four years. Thankfully, Byleth doesn’t seem to have been expecting a reply; he steps closer to Yuri instead until Yuri can make out the glow of his earring and the glimmer of his eyes, even in the dark. “I asked the Cyclops before killing her if they had kidnapped anyone,” he says, “but it looks like they only collaborated with the harpies and followed the scent of demigods here. I don’t think they had anything to do with the disappearances.”

“Yeah, I… I heard the same.” Yuri swallows. “Let’s get out of here. I’m sure Ashe is about done, too.”

They walk in silence for a while—without the monsters, it looks like some of the darkness has been lifted too, because it’s easier to see without having to grope blindly around. Yuri hardly has to think to know where he’s going, and he spends most of the walk back to the exit deep in thought until Byleth clears his throat. “Are you okay?” he asks, again.

“I told you I’m fine.”

“Yeah, but… you look a little… out of it.”

“Out of it,” Yuri echoes, shaking his head. “That Cyclops from earlier lured me in using my dead mom’s voice. Sorry I wasn’t smart enough to get out of there without your help.”

Byleth’s quiet, before murmuring an, “Oh.”

Yuri wants to jump off a roof. Why can he never say the right words? More than that, why does he keep saying the wrong ones? “No, I… Sorry. That was rude. I just… I feel like shit, okay? It’s not your fault. It’s, like, the opposite of your fault. You saved me.”

The last part he says in a whisper, too reluctant to even admit it. A total newbie had saved him… although Yuri supposes Byleth is the last person he should be treating as a ‘newbie,’ even if he is technically new at camp. He’d survived seven years alone on the run, and though Yuri and Ashe hadn’t had the best childhood, they’d still had each other and their family. Byleth… must only be as strong as he is now because he’d been forced to be.

“It was nothing,” Byleth mumbles. “Don’t worry about it too much.”

There’s more Yuri wants to apologize for—antagonizing Byleth right off the bat, hating him just for getting special treatment. But the words get stuck in Yuri’s throat, and he doesn’t have the strength to spit them out without choking along with them.

So he keeps his mouth shut, and they trudge the rest of the way back out to the apartment.

“You kids are a real handful, y’know that?” the CCTV operator mutters, hands stuffed in his uniform pockets. Beside him, Ashe smiles sheepishly at Yuri and Byleth. “I only did this ‘cause I’m nice and this serial kidnapper’s been gettin’ on my nerves, too. I found you the address of the suspect here, so wise up and get the police on the move or do it yourself, hell if I care.”

“Thank you,” Yuri manages, because Byleth is too busy ogling the man’s windswept hair, perfectly-coiffed fringe, and sea-green eyes to respond. “What was the footage anyway?”

The man huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. His bicep muscles flex slightly at the motion, and Yuri has to keep himself from rolling his eyes to the next dimension when Byleth’s cheeks flush red. “This guy, all suspicious-like, rolls in the corridor like he owns the place and then swipes the kids out while they were sleepin’… or unconscious. Dunno how the guy who was on shift that night didn’t notice, but at least the suspect’s face was clear enough to identify.”

Ashe holds up a slip of paper. “This is his address! It’s really easy to find anything on the Internet nowadays, huh?”

Yuri decides against pointing out that their father was the literal inventor of the Internet and nods at the CCTV operator instead. “Alright, thanks again for the help. Ashe, Byleth, you two go ahead—I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Byleth blinks, finally looking away from the man’s arms. Seriously, what’s his deal? The man’s aren’t even that impressive. Maybe Yuri should wear his denim cut-offs next time he goes on a quest with Byleth, just to show off his own leg muscles… and, wait, that isn’t important right now. Or ever. “Huh? Why?”

“I forgot something at the apartment,” Yuri easily responds, shooting Ashe a meaningful look that he hopes conveys the message of “I just need to do something quick, don’t bother me, and get this guy out of here.”

Ashe, thankfully, nods and tugs on Byleth’s wrist. “Let’s go! Yuri will be fine.”

Yuri waits until they disappear behind the elevator doors before looking back at the CCTV operator… who isn’t a CCTV operator anymore, and is instead the woman from earlier, with her flowing blue hair and slightly-slanted eyes. “So,” Yuri says, slowly, unsure how to speak without accidentally offending her, “Aphrodite. When are you going to tell your son you’ve been helping him out for the past seven years?”

Aphrodite looks unimpressed. “My relationship with him has nothing to do with you, dear.”

“I guess, but Byleth told me all about feeling unloved by his mom,” Yuri says, knowing Aphrodite must be well aware of exactly that. “Seems like it’s your responsibility to, you know… tell him?”

She frowns, and for a moment Yuri wonders if she’s going to blast him to bits for disrespecting her, but instead she just turns away, hugging her sides. “I know I’m often painted as the shallow, selfish goddess of the Olympians,” Aphrodite sighs, “but… I’m allowed to show a little bit of favoritism every once in a while, aren’t I? Byleth… I never expected him to inherit so many of my abilities. Too many, enough that monsters attacked his father and I the instant he was born.”

“How come you can’t reveal yourself to him?” Yuri asks. It isn’t at all related to what she’s going on about, but he can’t bring himself to care. “Wouldn’t it be nice, knowing your mom’s out there helping you even if she can’t be around all the time?”

“Oh, I know he dislikes me. I’m not a fool.” Aphrodite shakes her head. “Call me a coward all you like… well, don’t, actually. I might get a bit too annoyed and erase you from existence. But telling him I’ve been here all along sounds like a cheap cop-out to me, dear. It’s better this way, helping him when he can’t see. And anyway,” she adds, “I’m sure he likes the occasional eye candy every now and then.”

Your priorities are whack, Yuri wants to say, but he’s fairly sure that’s toeing the line between ‘existing’ and ‘getting blasted out of existence’ a bit too much. Instead, he goes with, “Fine. But I think he’d like it a lot more if his mom just let him know she’s there for him, rather than letting him go on thinking he’s hated.”

He doesn’t wait to hear what else Aphrodite has to say before turning on his heel and walking off.

Even without Ashe’s help, the address indicated on the paper isn’t far at all—it would take ten minutes maximum to get there—but Ashe insists anyway, apparently all fired up now that they have a solid lead. They make it to the seedier part of the city in under a minute, and immediately Yuri recognizes this area as just one of the dozens of places he had spent time in running away from and losing police officers chasing after him.

He has to resist the urge to pick at the skin of his nails when they approach the rundown flat. This person, this kidnapper, whoever they are—they’re just like him and Ashe, Yuri thinks. At least, they grew up in conditions too similar to the rest of the world.

The door is locked, but Ashe only needs a literal second to take it apart and toss it to the ground. Wordlessly, he eases the door open to pitch-black darkness—with the curtains drawn, only the sliver of sunlight that comes in through the door provides any light. Yuri tries not to shudder—after the run-in at the grocery store, he has a newfound fear of the dark that he hopes goes away sometime before their next quest.

“Where could they be?” Ashe mutters. “It’s too dangerous to just head inside…”

Byleth gives Yuri a questioning look, and though Yuri has no idea what Byleth is trying to ask him, Yuri nods anyway. After everything, he has to grudgingly admit that he trusts Byleth enough not to do anything stupid. “Give me a second,” Byleth says, gently pushing past Ashe to step inside the house.

Yuri tenses, expecting something to happen—the kidnapper barreling out of the darkness with a gun, or some monsters to come swooping from the ceiling for dinner—but Byleth just stands there for a moment, looking around the house despite there being absolutely nothing to see. Then, in a voice level and steady and completely different from the last time he’d used charmspeak, “Come out.”

Something thuds further inside the house. Then shuffling footsteps, as if the person were dragging their feet along the floorboards. Ashe is gripping at the hem of his shirt hard enough that the fabric looks close to tearing; Yuri waits, not sure why he’s holding his breath but unable to let it go.

From the darkness emerges a scruffy, middle-aged man—there are dark circles under his eyes, he’s thin enough that his clothes sag off him, and his entire appearance screams unkempt.

In his right hand gleams a cleaver, the end of its blade stained with dried blood.

A muffled sob escapes Ashe’s mouth, and Yuri’s halfway to grabbing him by the shoulders and dragging him away, anything to get the man out of Ashe’s line of sight, but Byleth’s speaking again and Yuri finds himself immobile. “Why the kidnapping?” he asks, voice still perfectly neutral.

It takes the man a few seconds to talk. When he does, his voice is scratchy and rough from disuse. “Organs,” he says. “They sell millions on the black market.”

Byleth is talking again before Yuri can even think of reacting. “Your victims. Are they still alive?”

A pause. “Three of them.”

“Release them.”

The man’s movements are slow and stilted. When he disappears into the inky darkness once again, Ashe crumples to his knees, shoulders shaking—the space around him wavers as if distorting, and Yuri has a terrible feeling getting too close might mean getting a part of his body distorted right along with it. “Why—I-It’s my—”

“It’s not your fault. It’s not.” Yuri crouches down beside him, unsure if he should be touching Ashe or not. “Ashe. Calm down. They’re fine, okay, they’re fine—” He shoots Byleth a troubled look over his shoulder, but Byleth can only point further inside the house, where the man has yet to come out of. “Fuck it,” Yuri growls, standing up. “Ashe, stay here. We’re going in.”

Byleth doesn’t even argue—he follows Yuri inside instead, and Yuri ignores the choking feeling of darkness wrapping around him. He closes his eyes instead, imagines weaving through this unknown territory just like going through the maze of sidestreets and alleyways in the city, and the layout of the house unfolds before him—a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchenette with a refrigerator. Yuri swallows back the disgust in his mouth and moves forward, one step at time, never opening his eyes.

Hermes is the god of roads, he remembers. And while Ashe may be able to travel anywhere he likes, Yuri’s never been lost before.

The smell is almost enough to knock him out, but Yuri grits his teeth and does his best to breathe through his mouth. Byleth takes a step back at the bodies scattered on the cold, bloodied tiles of the kitchen—Yuri steps forward, forward, forward until he’s standing in front of the man and three children, all of them shaking and staring up at Yuri as their kidnapper unties their restraints.

Two of the children cling to Yuri’s legs as soon as they can run. “There, there,” Yuri murmurs, bending down to smoothe their ruffled hair so similar to Ashe’s. “It’s alright. You’re alright. I’m here now.”

When the last child is freed and totters unsteadily towards Byleth, the man straightens and faces them, cleaver discarded atop the kitchen counter. Byleth’s eyes narrow. “Go confess everything to the police. I don’t care what you do next. Die for all I care.”

The man says nothing. He picks up the telephone resting on the counter and dials three numbers. Yuri looks up, meets Byleth’s eyes, and nods. “Come on, you two,” Yuri mutters. “Your big brother’s waiting.”

They lead the children outside—Ashe envelops them in a hug, and all three are unable to say much of anything coherent. The third child sticks to Byleth the entire time, which Yuri finds ridiculously adorable—which is, in turn, an inappropriate thought for the situation. They wait a few ways away until the cops arrive, and though Yuri absolutely despises the so-called justice system in place, he supposes they can do their job for now.

“The monsters were unrelated after all,” Ashe eventually murmurs. “They just happened to be here at the same time.”

There’s a comment to be made about humans being the real monsters here. Yuri doesn’t say it—he doesn’t think he needs to.

“…so yeah, it was pretty crazy,” Yuri ends, because in his opinion, that’s not a bad way of summing the whole thing up. “It wasn’t much of a quest at all. From the beginning, it was totally the job of the police, but you don’t see anyone complaining they’re not doing their job.”

Constance crosses her arms, huffing loudly. “Once again, the government is a complete failure. As usual, it’s up to us—” She emphasizes this with a twirl of her parasol—“to set this country straight.”

“Alright, calm down there,” Hapi says. “Not that I don’t agree with you, Coco, ‘cause I do, but maybe give it a couple years. You might end up using too much magic, and then you’ll be lying sunburned in the concrete like last time.”

“But the kids are fine, right?” Balthus asks. “You think they watched that guy carve out a kidney or two out of those bodies? Jeez, that’s gonna give them some kinda trauma.”

Yuri worries on his lower lip. Ashe had adamantly refused to leave his siblings unsupervised for the rest of the summer, and so they’d asked Mercedes, an older demigod who left camp a few years back, to watch them until Ashe could return. Yuri doesn’t expect those two to be completely fine, though—he can only imagine the sorts of nightmares they’ll be having. As for the other child they had rescued, she had refused to be separated from Byleth, and Seteth had grudgingly allowed her to stay in Camp Half-Blood until they found her family.

“I’ll have to visit as soon as summer break’s over,” Yuri muses aloud. “Kinda regret not having visited them that much before, so. You know, might as well, right?”

Hapi rolls her eyes. “Just say you love the kids and go, Yuri-bird.”

“I’m gonna be generous and ignore you just this once.”

“But, moving on—how was that Byleth over there?” Constance asks, leaning over their already-cramped table. Yuri leans back in turn. “Was working with him as nightmarish as you predicted? Or are you two friends now? Because I overheard some gossip the other day—”

Balthus nudges her back on her seat before Constance topples onto the table entirely. “Chill, man. You sound more and more like an Aphrodite kid everyday.” But he shoots Yuri a look too, like he can’t wait to hear about whatever he has to say as well. A quick glance at Hapi confirms she looks equally interested.

Yuri scowls, willing the blush on his face to die down. “You three are insufferable. I’m going.”

He pushes back from the table and stalks away, snickering when he hears Constance whine after him. Now that he’s actually walking, though, Yuri’s not sure where to escape to—he could return to his cabin, he supposes, but the rest of his half-siblings are just as gossipy as his other friends are, and the whole reason he had come out in the first place was to escape them anyway. Maybe the sword fighting arena, where he could practice some new moves with Killing Edge, but he’s a bit too tired for exercise right now…

“Yuri!” someone calls—Yuri hardly has to turn to know who it is. Byleth easily falls in step beside him, panting slightly and looking rather haunted. “Uh, are you going anywhere right now? Because my cabinmates won’t stop trying to test the limits of my amokinesis, and it’s giving me a bit of a headache…”

Yuri gives him an assessing look and winces—by now he can tell that just touching Byleth is going to be dangerous again. “You still don’t have control of that ability, do you?”

“I-It’s hard, okay?”

“Sure, it’s hard living everyday being a total love magnet…”

“Yuri,” Byleth pouts, and he just looks so annoyingly cute that Yuri’s torn between slapping his face and… well… doing something entirely different that he’d rather not elaborate on. “So? Are you going anywhere? Do you wanna… I don’t know… hang out?”

Yuri snorts. Hang out? What kind of invitation is that? “Well… I dunno, I am kinda busy…”

“Liar,” Byleth huffs. “You looked like you were going to walk in circles. Let’s go… fishing or something. There’s a river near here, there should be fish too.”

Behind Byleth, Yuri can spot a gaggle of Aphrodite kids whispering amongst one another—when they catch him staring, they giggle and disperse, but not before Yuri spots some mortal money and a couple of drachma being exchanged. He sighs—looks like Cabin 10 will never stop betting on relationships.

“Fishing, huh,” Yuri says. “Sure, why not. Here’s to hoping we don’t reel in too big of a sea serpent.”

“Sounds tasty,” Byleth remarks, a little smile growing on his face. “Um, do you know where they keep the fishing rods though? Seteth wouldn’t answer me when I asked…”

Yuri rolls his eyes. He’s never had to look for one, but at the same time, he supposes he doesn’t really need to. “Yeah, yeah, just follow me. It’s this way.” Without thinking, he picks a direction at random and heads down the grass, listening to Byleth talk about different types of fish as he lets the camp lay itself out in his head.

He’s never gotten lost, after all.