Battler will believe it if he sees she looks like the portrait.

"Well, it isn't that hard, is it?" Battler was clearly beginning to get impatient. He reached for his blindfold another time, growing even more frustrated as Eva caught his hand. "Just show me your face! Just like everyone else, I got a good look at your smiling mug where granddad hung it up in the mansion. Show me that face, show me the blonde hair, and I'll have to believe it."

"That won't work, idiot!" Eva growled as she tried to resist Battler's attempts to remove his blindfold, which were growing more and more spirited. "Humans with, uh... no magical... talent, or something... can't see my true form! Your eyes can't comprehend me, dumbass! I'm- wait- no!!"

The powerful young man had finally decided to quit playing nice for the mystery woman, shaken his hand free roughly, and gotten his blindfold off. However...

In a **** last bid, Eva had hugged her almost completely naked body to him, smothering his face between her bare breasts as she frantically attempted to hide even a hair of her un-blonde hair from his curious eyes. She wrapped her arms around his head and kept him there, determined to keep him from seeing. "This is enough, right? Look, these huge boobs are obviously the same as that witch Kinzo loves! I have the same fair skin, too. You don't have to see my face to know it's me, the same damn witch from the damn portrait!"

"Hey! You're... I... can't.... Agh!!" To my surprise, Battler didn't seem to be able to break out of this hold. Maybe his love of breasts was actually a weakness, in this case...

"Give up! Give up and say it! Give up and say it, Ushiromiya Baaattleeeeer!!" Eva let out a hoarse yell befitting of a wicked witch as she smothered her nephew against her chest, until...

He passed out. With her jaw gaping open, Eva released Battler, allowing his **** body to slump against the loveseat. "No... What? N-no! Battler, wake up! Wake up!!"

I watched first in amusement... then in shock. The woman wasn't playing around. She'd been shaking him roughly to start, but now she was slapping him across the face with a look of desperation. "Wake up, dammit! Damn you, you idiot kid, wake the hell up and make me a witch!! Why... After I tried so hard... Why am I not a witch?! Why can't I be a witch?! Why can't I be magical and powerful and... wealthy... and satisfied?! I did all of this... for nothing...!! Auuugh!"

Eva collapsed against Battler, whose cheeks were red and bruised from her anger, and sobbed into the young man's coat. I wanted to remind her that the money I'd given her earlier and the stacks she'd gotten from Battler were hardly "nothing," but it didn't seem appropriate.

"I threw away my pride... I disgraced my dear family... for nothing...! I'm sooo humiliated... I'm..."

"Angry," Eva's pretend voice spoke for her, from the candle-lit darkness of the room. "You're angry, aren't you? That's understandable, isn't it? You worked really hard, and for what?"

"F... For nothing..." Eva spoke again, glancing around... before her eyes settled on something in the dark. Something I couldn't see.

"And now you're giving up? That's fine... Why don't you just give up and die like an old lady, then? An old lady with a happy family, but one that's going to have to scrounge to pay her funeral expenses when she croaks... I feel sorry for them. I really do."

"What... else can I do? This is the end of me... isn't it?"

"Is it? I mean... the money's still here. If what that creep said earlier, ALL of the money is still around, waiting for someone to spend it. You've just gotta get him to give it to you, don't you? Ah... You're so useless! As usual, I'll take care of everything. Grab that broomstick again, would you? Think of it as a magic staff. If you focus aaaall of your anger into it... my red magic will work, whether a human acknowledges me or not. Hehehe... haaaahuhuhaaahahaha!!"

"Heehee... Haha...! Did you hear that, Player? I get to be a witch, after all!"

Wait, put that down! Look, Eva, this was all a game! I don't actually know where your family's gold is, I was just irresponsibly throwing money around! I'm sorry, but there's nothing more that I can give you! Just let me-

"You already gave me a great gift, though, Player! You gave me... the chance to be a witch!!" she declared with a mad laugh, swinging her magic staff and casting blood-red magic on me, over and over, until I was covered in an inescapable web.