Battler recognizes the girl and the witch. (SPOILERS, Pink Trigger)

Battler's thoughtful frown in spite of being covered by the beautiful witch showed that he was trying to actually use his head and give her words the weight they seemed to deserve. "It seems useless. It's definitely useless... If you're someone who hates me, you're obviously someone who knows me. I must have done something to you in the past. And if you're planning to kill my entire family, either I did something incredibly terrible to you, or all of us did something to you, together... It just makes no sense! I haven't been here for years! I even left the family register until the old folks died. Nothing I did should have had any effect on anything on this island... u-unless I did something as a snot-nosed brat, that is. Am I getting any warmer at all?"

If Beatrice appreciated his thought, her face didn't show it, remaining impassive. Nonetheless, the fact that she remained in position over him seemed to beg him to think about it now, as though there was some reward if he could come up with the answer immediately. I didn't think I'd be able to leave her alone... "I can not... Will not... offer any more hints than I already have, Battler. You can blame that on my fickle nature, my magic, or simply my hatred of you, as you like."

"Dammit... Okay, I'll turn the chessboard around! I'll think about you as my opponent..."

Faintly, an unhappy smile formed on Beatrice's face. That made sense... Scholars of the Witch Hunt had dedicated their lives to trying to understand why Beatrice had done the things she claimed to do. After coming to know her the way I had, I strongly suspected her reasons weren't ones a human could understand. Trying to reason it out from a human viewpoint was, likely, folly... Nonetheless, Battler seemed determined to try.

"You want me to solve this riddle, but you won't offer me any hints. That's just because you want me to suffer, isn't it? Ah, but if you really hate me that much, aren't there much worse things you could do to me? And rather than offer me no hints at all, you gave me three pretty big ones without me even asking for them! So you've invited me to challenge you... wanting me to suffer... but also wanting me to play. It's like... the answer is something I should know... but don't. Yeah, that makes sense: otherwise, how could you expect me to come up with it pinned to this bed, without any resources to research anything?"

"You're thinking, human," Beatrice told him with a small grin, one that seemed more like a reflex than a gesture of satisfaction. "Remember your sin."

Was that a hint? If so, Battler seemed to miss it, still stuck on his train of thought. "So, I'm going to draw a connection... It might be bad reasoning, but I have to try something. The reason you hate me is that I don't know the answer to this question, when it should be something I can easily think of. Like, uh... like those damn teachers at school, when you slept through class and can't repeat something they said just minutes ago. But I never even met you before today! What could I have done to you that made you want to kill me so badly on the other side of the sea?! I wasn't here to do anything... I... wasn't here..." The young man's eyebrows suddenly lifted, as though coming to a realization. "Is that it? You wanted me here... But I wasn't?"

As if compelled, the witch, who seemed to have resolved to remain stone-faced and uncooperative, couldn't stop tears from rolling from the corners of her eyes and onto Battler's face. "Yes... Battler... That is true, but not the whole truth. The riddle is not yet complete. Remember your sin. Who am I...?"

"Someone who wanted me here, but I wasn't..." Battler thought harder. Of course, he now seemed to realize he could get answers from the witch if he asked a pointed-enough question that she couldn't resist answering. He was probably thinking of how to exploit that. Or... maybe that's just what I would be doing. The uncharacteristic flush across his face suggested he was thinking of something else. "This whole show for my benefit... And the reason that person wanted me here... Whoever you are, you love me, right? No, that isn't it... You did love me, but when I didn't show up for years, it changed to hate. That's true... isn't it?" He paused, looking into her eyes. I didn't understand, but I clearly recognized tears forming in his own eyes, as well. "Then... it has to be you. That's it. I... couldn't recognize you like that... n-no, I'm just a huge idiot. I could have if I'd even remembered your damn face..."

"Yes... You huge idiot," Beatrice agreed with him, smiling with a new face... a face that was familiar to me, but not one suited for her. It was soft, and so, so familiar... But I couldn't place it! It was as though Battler had just solved the mystery and passed it to me for my turn, but... I didn't think I had any hope of solving it.

"I get it now. I'm sorry. Even when I wrote those letters, I didn't... I didn't think... I didn't think...!! But, dammit! Dammit!! What the hell is this?! I may be an idiot, but you're an even bigger one! We're the two biggest idiots I know together, the King and Queen!" Without waiting for permission, he grabbed Beatrice in his arms, pulling her chest to his and speaking into her ear as she rested on top of him. "You don't have to do magic tricks or a striptease... You don't have to kill anyone! Why didn't you just tell me...?!"

"You huge idiot!" Beatrice repeated in a voice that sounded like a different woman, without any of her usual affect of being a thousand year old witch. Her voice came muffled as she spoke into Battler's shoulder, clinging to him. "Until I caught you in a web of magic, until I performed for you, and yes, until I threatened to kill your family, you didn't recognize me, did you?! Even when I was right in front of your face! You had to rebuild me in your mind like a puzzle, when, all along... All I thought of was you, for years! It was too painful! Without magic, without tearing out a part of my soul, I couldn't have survived it...!"

"Aaah! I don't understand it, and maybe I never will..." Clenching his teeth as if in pain, Battler nonetheless gently stroked the back of Beatrice's blonde hair, wrapping his arms around her tightly. "But I'm here now, and I'll try! I... can tell you were being honest. That means you really did have plans to kill everyone here, and you seem just crazy enough to do it. But you haven't done anything yet, right? I'll forgive you... If you can forgive me...!"

"For me to forgive you, you must acknowledge me. Acknowledge me as Beatrice, the Golden Witch, who has suffered for a thousand years due to your careless promise, who has existed as nothing but a jar to store the love you carelessly poured out, and who was cursed to continue storing that love until it spoiled into something foul... Acknowledge my magic, which was granted to me in love and which your twisted, forgotten love bent into a necessary and wicked shape. While recognizing me as many others, you must be willing to kill them to acknowledge me, even if it destroys the love of your family...!"

Battler's stunned silence suggested he understood the weight of the request, but, with conviction, he eventually nodded, clutching his fingers to her body powerfully. "I will, Beatrice...! I'll kill those servants. I'll fight George, my parents, and whoever else it takes if I have to! But you don't have to kill anyone, Beatrice! Forgive me...!"

"Forgive me, Battler..."

After begging for each other's forgiveness, the two said noting, only held each other's bodies with a silence that was heavy with meaning. Meaning that I, the writer of this story... had no way of understanding...

Beatrice is Battler's hated enemy, who kills his family over and over.

Battler is her lovable but thick-headed opponent, who struggles to deny her existence over and over.

As the room grew dim around me, I tried to square the true and beloved versions of those characters, the ones I had written in my tale, with these unknowable and softly crying versions lying in the bed before me. Golden butterflies enveloped them, as though to hide them from my sight. As though to tell me there wasn't any use in my trying to comprehend it...

I felt a hand on each of my shoulders. I noticed each of those hands, the man's on the right and the woman's on the left, wore a special ring signifying the Ushiromiya family headship, although one was a silver version I'd never seen before. It didn't escape me that they were placed on the ring finger, as though the two were a married couple.

Battler stepped forward from my right, wearing Kinzo's cloak around his shoulders that gave him a dignity entirely foreign of an eighteen-year-old perverted idiot.

Beatrice stepped forward from my left, wearing her usual ballroom gown and her usual amused grin, everything in place except for that mysterious ring on her finger. And, strangest of all...

The two joined each other in front of me, Battler wrapping his arm comfortably around Beatrice's waist as though they were a married couple. No, not "as though" they were a couple... These mysterious characters were man and wife.

"If only it had been that easy for you, hm, Battler?" Beatrice asked her husband, elbowing him roughly in the ribs. "Oh, imagine! If you could have reached this same point at the beginning of a single game instead of at the end of a number of them, without dying or losing anyone you loved, and getting a strip show out of it, too! You're really jealous of this board's Battler, aren't yooou?" Beatrice's eyes opened wide as they ordinarily did when taunting Battler, although this was clearly teasing.

"I gotta say, I am pretty jealous of that show he got," Battler admitted, rubbing his ribs and grinning shamelessly. "Hey, pieces do what comes naturally to their owners, right? That means you're definitely capable of this, too! You're gonna show me, okay? I won't let you get out of it now!"

"Ahaha! Ahaha..." Beatrice cackled, although she blushed a bit awkwardly, having this brought up in front of a third party. She was laughing as though to turn it into a joke, but I thought to myself... this wife-ish Beatrice probably was thinking of doing that for her husband, now... "Oho! Actually, I was thinking what a shame it was that he didn't turn it around and do it the other way! Where's my sexy striptease, Battler?!"

I interrupted them. I had to. I'm... the writer, H. I. Player. I have... no idea who you people are. Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you want from me?

"Ah, yeah." Battler straightened his tie, then stood straight with the dignity of something I was sure was called a "Territory Lord," though I have no idea why I thought so. "Beatrice and I have watched over your game. You accidentally seem to have stumbled onto a certain truth, here. That must be a miracle, but still: a miracle isn't a lie. So, congratulations."

"Congratulations!" Beatrice agreed with a nod, although I could tell she had a mix of emotions behind her fixed smile. "I understand it is your nature as a magician to die and return many times, and to shuffle the pieces in a one-player game repeatedly, hoping for a certain miracle of your own. I now believe there may be meaning in that ritual, although I cannot understand it, even with my thousands of years of knowledge. While that game appears vulgar to me, I believe I now understand that it contains love... Therefore, it cannot be worthless. Before you returned, we wanted you to know that."

Because there is love... it cannot be worthless.

Beatrice and Battler... were acknowledging my game...?