Crow had put much thought into how he’d frame his request. It was an unfortunate fact that, much unlike Astra, thought had never been something he could count among his strengths. Which was why, even in spite of the hours he’d spent racking his brains over the problem, the only certainty he felt was that he had achieved as much as she might have in a quarter of the time.

Nonetheless, the longer he waited and thought, the harder and more fearsome he found the notion of actually making the request. In the end, he’d realised that he had to ask sooner rather than later, lest his apprehension grow stronger than his courage.

Leaning past the door frame, he glanced back into the living room. Astra and Unity remained exactly where they had been when he’d last checked. Both sitting still, noses in books and apparently doing their best to pretend the other didn’t exist.

That shouldn’t have come as a surprise, given that Crow had last checked only five seconds ago. Nonetheless, it felt disheartening to have his last scrap of hope, that the Teary Eyed God would see fit to spare him his conversation by spontaneously evaporating the pair, disappear in such a way.

Biting back his irrational disappointment, Crow stepped into the living room and made his way across to the sofa.

“Hey,” he said, doing an admirable job of hiding his nerves.

Astra immediately dropped her book, staring up at him with an arched eyebrow and giving him a look he could still vividly remember from the time he’d been caught messing around with the firework.

“What did you do?” She asked, the accusation plainly clear in her tone.

“What?”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing!” Crow answered, truthfully. Astra frowned, eyes narrowing a fraction.

“Then what are you acting so nervous about?”

“Does it have something to do with the Gemini?” Unity chipped in.

Crow turned to see the boy had let his own book fall, shifting his focus to he and Astra’s conversation- apparently deeming it more entertaining. Things were not going as planned.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he answered the artificial. Unity only grinned wider at this, a laugh pulling at his voice as he pressed on.

“Really? I seem to recall seeing her looking extremely annoyed right after the two of you spoke, was that just a coincidence?”

“I guess it was.”

Eager to move the conversation on, Crow turned away from Unity and back to Astra. Much to his display, she’d begun to lean forwards as she stared pointedly at him.

“You’re a terrible liar,” his sister mused. “What in God’s name did you say to the Gemini?”

It occured to Crow that Astra was asking about something that really wasn’t her business, and that, if he simply put his foot down and told her so, she would almost certainly back down and stop pestering him.

And yet as his mind turned back to that disaster of a conversation, his certainty was sapped away by curiosity. He never had quite found out what he’d done, and surely knowing such a thing would be helpful in avoiding other well-hidden minefields.

“Well,” he began, trying not to pay heed to the disconcerting way in which Unity and Astra seemed to eagerly lean forwards slightly, “I heard from, uh, well from someone that Gem probably only wanted to be friends with me because of my strain.”

Astra and Unity vehemently assured him such a thing was untrue, and hastily told him to stop wasting time pointing out the obvious respectively. Somewhat disgruntled, Crow continued.

“Anyway, it kept bothering me, so I decided the best thing to do would be to just… ask her about it.”

“And how exactly did you do that?” Astra asked, almost suspiciously.

Crow concentrated on recalling that abominable conversation, trying to pick through the confused haze to what he’d specifically said. He felt his stomach lurch as the first of it came back to him.

“Well, you must understand that I was very nervous about the whole thing.” He mumbled. “Gem’s all powerful and confident and pretty, and that meant that her only being interested in my eyes rather than me as a, uh, friend… well it wasn’t a nice prospect.”

He tried a small smile, but found it did nothing to reduce his sister’s severity. Nor, for that matter, Unity’s obvious impatience.

“The problem is,” Crow continued, “that I sort of minced my words a bit…”

With his face burning like it had been slapped, and the ever-growing look of horror and elation at his audience’s faces, he went through exactly what he’d said. Or at least as much of it as he could recall, his memories of the event seemed obscured behind a great fog.

When he finally finished, freedom from the continued mental exertion of piecing together his every word nearly made Crow laugh with relief.

The laughter got no further than his throat as he took another look at Astra’s expression.

“You’re an idiot,” she snapped. Before he could reply, she frowned, nodded slightly, and then spoke again. “You’re really an idiot.”

A sudden wheezing sound to Crow’s right drew his eyes away from his sister and to Unity. Turning to glance at the boy, he wasn’t entirely surprised to see him folding over, face reddening and twisted in a mask of utter amusement.

Pushing the artificial aside for one moment, he turned back to Astra.

“I agree I’m an idiot,” he conceded, “but what did I do-”

“Seriously?!” She snapped, leaping to her feet as she stared at him.

“Yes!” Crow answered, rather more defensively than he’d intended. “It’s all well and good to say I’m stupid, but if I don’t know why what I did was stupid then I won’t be able to avoid being stupid in the future!”

His sister’s eyes seemed to widen further, as though she were witnessing a horrific accident unfold. She and Crow locked their gazes silently for a few moments, the quiet around them interrupted only by a whimpering Unity’s laughter-strangled declarations that it was the best day of his life.

“No,” she said at last. “You don’t get to say something this completely idiotic and still ask for an explanation. It should be obvious you arsehole.”

“Please tell me,” Crow begged, desperate for some kind of answer to add order to the confusing mess his friendship with Gem had become.

That seemed to anger Astra further.

“Eclipse, why don’t you just ask Gem if you want to know so much?”

Crow paused at that, withering under Astra’s scrutinising glare before reluctantly answering.

“I’m worried I might accidentally say something else to annoy her.”

He’d hoped that, truthful as it was, Astra would find some solace in his response. Instead it seemed to redouble her annoyance, even as Unity’s breathless cackling reached a new height.

“Bloody hell, fine. Let’s try and work this out shall we?” She snapped. “Gem was cheering up until the precise moment you said she wasn’t vain because she was one of the only people in the world who wasn’t in love with Karma Alabaster, yes?”

“Yes.” Crow nodded, surprised by the lack of surety he felt even regarding such a concrete memory as that.

“Alright then,” Astra growled. “So what can we glean from that?”

Sensing a test, or a trap, Crow took a moment to think extremely carefully before he spoke.

“Because giving a specific reason for why it’s not true implies that it’s worth considering in the first place?”

It was a good answer, he thought. And yet hearing it sent Astra’s eyes rolling, and elicited another howl of laughter from Unity.

“Let’s give this a bit of thought, Crow.” The artificial said in-between hysterical gasps for air. “You told her that she wasn’t vain, because she had absolutely no romantic attraction towards the beautiful woman she follows around all the time like a lost puppy.”

“Yes.” Crow said, then frowned as Unity’s words began to sink in. “Oh. Wait, but I didn’t know Gem was… you know.”

“Into women? It’s not exactly hard to tell, I noticed almost immediately, and it was only partially because the thought of her and Alabaster rolling around in the hay is one of my fantasies.”

“I didn’t know either,” Astra practically growled. “But I figured it out from what you told me, since I have superior pattern recognition to an alphoe.”

“Okay!” Crow shot back, a touch of heat to both his face and voice. “I get it, I’m stupid and should feel bad.”

“You are stupid,” Astra agreed. “And you should most certainly feel bad, but now that we’ve established both of these facts, I see no reason to dwell on them.”

That surprised Crow, it was very much unlike his sister to simply forget about such things as that.

“Unless this was the thing that you came over here to tell me?” She asked.

For a brief moment, Crow felt the overwhelming urge to lie. To tell her that it was, in fact, his intention to tell her about Gem and nothing else. However, whether for better or worse, his backbone proved just a hair stronger than he’d thought.

“No, there was something else,” he replied. The reluctance with which he admitted it must have been audible, for Astra’s face fell back into one of concern and focus as she heard his answer.

Taking a few moments to gather his thoughts and work back over his planned speech, Crow spoke.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “and I want to be in all of our next tasks.”

Astra stared at him, a smile pulling at one corner of her mouth.

“What?” She asked incredulously.

“All the tasks we have from now on, I want to be put in each one.”

“You stupid fucking moron,” Unity snarled, shocking Crow with the abruptness of his tone. “You can’t be stupid enough to take this from what I told you before.”

“Excuse you,” Astra said, “but what exactly did you tell him?”

Unity paled, and Crow could see the wheels turning in that great gearbox of a brain he had. Cautiously, the artificial answered her.

“I told him that his being so focused on the Eclipse’s Nectar was idiotic, because he didn’t have even half the credits necessary to earn it. Apparently the idiot took that in the stupidest possible way.”

Her next question was directed at Crow, and it made his stomach roil like a butter churn.

“You’re trying to get the Eclipse’s Nectar?” She nearly roared, gaze as focused and hard as the point of a spear.

Crow found himself struggling to find the words he needed. The room suddenly seemed far smaller than it had been just moments earlier, the exit far further away, and Astra’s accusing face a mere fraction of its previous distance.

“I am,” he finally admitted, unable to think of any better answer than that. Her vehemence was like a fire, and he’d hoped the truth would serve to extinguish it. Unfortunately, its effects were closer to black powder than water.

“And you’re planning on earning enough credits to win it? How exactly, by completing all our remaining tasks to absolute perfection?”

Catching Unity’s eye, Crow immediately knew what the boy was about to say, and he begged him to stop wordlessly. With a fractional shake of his head, as if to condemn him for bringing it on himself, the artificial spoke heedlessly of the silent plea.

“His plan is to avoid spending any credits on healing relics or other treatment for himself,” the boy said grimly.

It was perhaps a testament to Astra’s growing concern for Crow that she didn’t even bother challenging him to deny the claim before turning back on him.

“Are you insane?”

“It’s worked well enough so far,” he answered defensively. That bought only a bitter scoff from his sister.

“Has it? You were healed free of charge at the end of the first stage, left stiff and bruised after risking your life to recover from your only severe injury in the second and fortunate enough to go against one of the many members of team Fate too weak to seriously risk hurting you in the third. What will you do if another task has you go up against one of the heavy hitters?”

Crow was painfully aware of how lucky he’d been, and yet having it spelled out for him sent an anxious pang twisting into his gut. He could still recall the pathetic display he’d made fighting Ra in the second stage, and that had been when his opponent had been toying with him- even giving him advice out of pity.

He dismissed his concerns. It didn’t matter how slim his chances, nor how severe the consequences of failure. He had an obligation to fulfil.

“Astra, I won’t need to do all these tasks on my own. And I’ll have time to recover in-between anyway. There’s a risk I’ll get hurt, sure, but it’s not a guarantee. Trust m-”

“Don’t you dare tell me to trust you,” she shouted. The sudden intensity and volume to her words silenced Crow. “Not after you’ve still refused to tell me what you think happened to Galad, even a year later.”

For a few seconds, Crow didn’t say anything. The words were brought to his lips only reluctantly.

“What I think happened to Galad?” He asked.

He’d not been sure what to expect on Astra’s face, but somehow the lack of regret he found there was unsurprising.

“Yes,” she breathed icily. “What you alone think happened. As opposed to what the knights who arrived at Serasis think happened. Or the group of mystics who confessed to the massacre after being captured think happened.”

That sparked a flash of anger in Crow. There had been several arrests made, a group of mystics had confessed to being responsible for the massacre at Serasis when questioned, and the investigation had been closed by the knights involved.

But none of that explained what he had seen.

“The group of mystics who wouldn’t have matched Galad’s power, even combined and doubled?” He asked, not bothering to hide his rage.

“The group of mystics who got lucky and scared Galad off before he realised they were weaker than him,” Astra countered.

“That was fortunate,” Crow spat. “I can’t imagine Galad would ever do something like that, I wonder what caused him to change his personality and abandon every lesson he ever taught us.”

Astra’s mouth moved wordlessly at that, and Crow thought for a moment that he’d actually rendered her speechless.

“That’s it,” she growled. “I’m sick of playing along with this horseshit. Crow, the reason the official investigation’s revelations don’t make sense to you is because you’re basing your version of events on an idealised image of Galad. He was scared, he saw people dying, and he ran away rather than risk joining them. That’s all there is to it.”

“WHY ARE YOU SO SURE!?” Crow screamed, his own voice seeming a distant, echo in spite of its magnitude. “WHY CAN’T YOU JUST TRUST ME?”

“BECAUSE YOU WON’T FUCKING TRUST ME!” Astra roared back, her face growing red. From rage, shame or simply the exertion of shouting, Crow couldn’t tell.

“Do you realise that you’re asking me to take a leap of faith by letting you tear yourself apart, but you won’t even share what you think happened to Galad with me?” She continued, more quietly. “I go off the knight’s investigation because the knights aren’t deliberately withholding information from me, you are.”

Crow found himself dropping his gaze to his feet at that, unable to think of a response. With a bitter tut, Astra began to walk away.

“Wait,” he called after her. She stopped, and Crow looked back up at her- seeing the tears in her eyes.

“You’re right,” he said. “I can’t expect you to trust me if I’m still holding back what I know, so I won’t.”

The ghost of a smile began to creep onto the corners of her lips.

“You mean…”

“Yeah,” he answered. “I’ll tell you the rest of what happened tonight.”

***

Unity had been less agreeable than Astra, mainly due to his worry that her hearing Crow out would cause her to allow him to enact his plan of entering all remaining tasks.

The matter of sharing the remainder of his account was further complicated by Astra insisting that Gem and Xeno needed to hear, as well. As they would be placing their chances of victory on his shoulders, Crow couldn’t disagree with his sister.

He just very much wished she’d been wrong.

Xeno had been more than willing to sit in for his tale, while Gem, from what he’d heard at least, had been somewhat more reluctant. In the end it took Crow personally apologising to sway the girl.

And even after all that, he was still sure she had something just itching to get free of her mouth. She fidgeted in her seat, between Xeno and Astra, animated by the same kind of energy Crow had witnessed build up before a thousand marital screaming matches back in Selsis. Like the pungent sweetness that filled the air before a storm.

“So, you all know why you’re here.” He said to his team, more to avoid sitting in silence than to actually check.

“No,” Unity snipped. “I managed to forget in the last hour, because I am actually stupider than fucking mud.”

“It was a rhetorical question, you prick.” Astra said corrosively.

The familiar, wide grin began to sprout on Unity’s face once again, and Crow realised that he had only a small window to prevent things from descending into nothing more than a barb-hurling contest.

“Anyway,” he hurriedly blurted out, “I started telling everyone why I’m competing last time, and I didn’t quite manage to finish. So… this time I’m going to set things right, give you all the full story”.

“So then everyone will feel too guilty to say no to your suicidally moronic idea?” Unity sneered.

“What idea is this?” Gem asked, before Crow could answer the boy.

“Birdie here,” Unity gestured at Crow with a thumb, “wants to put himself through all our remaining tasks so he can win the Eclipse’s Nectar.”

Gem turned to Crow, staring at him like he’d drooled on his shirt.

“That is dumb,” she remarked.

“Can we please just be quiet and get on with it?” Astra erupted, apparently running out of patience. Crow couldn’t blame her, she’d been waiting to hear what he was about to share for the better part of a year.

“Thank you.” He said to his sister. Then cleared his throat, straightened his back, and reached into his memory.