I could feel everything again, including a throbbing headache. My skin felt way too hot. There was something fluffy and heavy on top of me as well.

I cracked open my heavy eyelids to completely unfamiliar surroundings. I seemed to be in a large four poster bed with several thick, soft blankets piled on top of me. It was some strange, dimly lit room in muted shades of pink and purple.

'Where the hell?...'

I groaned and turned my head to the right. To see a small red-faced girl staring back at me from across the very spacious room. She was almost doll like with silky black hair, porcelain skin and plump rosy cheeks. I blinked and she blinked big drowsy red eyes at the same time.

It took my sluggish brain a minute to realize I was starting at myself in a bureau mirror.

'That... can't be right.'

Then it all came back to me. Papa strangled Mama! I ran and fell into the pool!

'I'm drowning!'

I sat up so fast that my head span, causing me to flop back into the fluffy pillows.

"Young Mistress!" Came a panicked voice from somewhere nearby followed by hurried footsteps.

The kindly face of a middle-aged woman appeared in my line of sight as I struggled to get upright. She placed her small hands on my shoulders and pushed me back onto the bed. I struggled yet found that I was weaker than a kitten. My body also felt way to small and fragile. What happened to me?

"She is delirious!" The woman said to someone over her shoulder.

'You're the one who's delirious!!' I wanted to shout, but I was too busy trying to untangle my thoughts.

"Where am I?!" I demanded, unable to keep the frantic wariness from my hoarse, cracked voice. "Who are you?!" The woman looked shocked for a minute.

"Lady Veronica, it’s me, Madeleine, your nurse maid!" She said in confusion, trying to get me to lay still. I opened my mouth to shout out that I didn't know her when a sharp pain sliced through my head and memories kept pouring in. Memories of a kind older brother, and a very warm presence from a nice man, long ago.

'I am... Veronica?... But... I'm Aki...' This new set of memories clashed with the old and I was suddenly in turmoil. My mind was telling me that both these sets of memories were correct, but if so, which one was I?

Without warning, I burst into tears.

The poor maid-- "Maddie" my tangled memories supplied, was caught off guard by my sudden shift in mood and immediately began trying to placate me.

I finally grew tired and slumped into the soft, warm nest of blankets still hiccupping. Even as I sank back into blissful sleep, I could feel a damp cloth being pressed to my heated face.

'What... happened to me?'

The next time I awoke it was to the feeling of fingers brushing ever so gently through my hair in a painfully familiar way.

"Mmm..." I groaned, lifting my now heavy-as-lead eyelids.

"Hm?" A childish voice drifted to my ears. "How do you feel?" Sitting by the side of the bed was another shockingly good-looking person. I didn't think I'd ever seen hair that red before, but my mind kept telling me that this was preposterous. Of course, I'd seen it all my life... or at least the life from the second set of memories.

"... Who?..." I rasped.

"Kaoru," my mind supplied, 'my big brother.' This person should be a stranger to me by all means, but there was something in my memories as Veronica that resonated with something from my memories as Aki, a kind of sure familiarity. '...why?' I studied him closely and he blinked worried, mismatched eyes back at me, before extended a delicate hand to feel my forehead. 'Geez, he's really too pretty to be a boy. I wonder if I'm not remembering it wrong.'

"Sweet girl, it’s me, Kaoru," He said in a nice soothing voice. "If you don't feel well you can go back to sleep."

It was like getting electrocuted. Yet again my memories as Aki started to flip through my mind. 'Did he just call me...'

I summoned up all my strength to grip the hand still resting on my head.

He seemed shocked, but I was too lost in that tiny glimmer of hope. Looking through my memories as Veronica, some of this person’s mannerisms...

In my excitement I sat up, way too fast and ended up swaying a little from dizziness. I ignored his attempt to get me to lie back down and stared at his face intensely trying to maybe pick up another detail to confirm this wild probably pathetic hope of mine.

"Sweet girl?" Came his soft, soothing voice as he brushed my hair in that still painfully familiar way. That nickname, that tone, that touch.... I couldn't hold myself anymore.

"Mama?!" I all but choked out, hoping against hope.

"!?" He stiffened momentarily, pursing his lips.

'Please tell me I'm not wrong! This person... My brother in this life?... But he acts so much like mama. What if just like me...'

"No, sweet girl, it's me, Kaoru... your brother, remember?" He tried again to persuade me, but the familiar tension in his shoulders immediately let me know he was troubled.

"I know that..." I quickly cut off that conversation. I somehow ended up in this body, even though I only recalled my memories as Aki recently. Was it not possible that maybe... My situation might not be unheard of. "But you're not really right? You're Mama!"

There was a sure-fire way to find out if it really was her, so I steeled myself and strengthened my grip when he made to stand and blurted out what I really wanted to say.

"I'm not crazy!" I said firmly. "Mama... it’s me, Aki!"

He froze on the spot, and a rare expression of surprise surfaced on his flawless cherub features. He turned slowly to me and peered straight into my eyes. I almost couldn't hold that piercing gaze. Bingo!

"... What?" His voice was hushed.

I gave him my most resolute and firm stare, but I imagined it didn't hold as much weight now that I was a chibi... A small slender hand caressed my still warm cheek.

"Chiaki?" He asked quietly, tentatively. That did it. I burst into tears and threw my arms around his middle.

"Ma... hic... Mama!" I buried my face in his (her?) stomach uncaring about his expensive looking clothes. I thought I'd never see her again. I thought she'd died. Didn't she die? How were we here? The confusion did nothing to staunch my tears of relief as I felt him pat my back gently. "I thoud... hic... you daaaidd... hic," I slurred out between hiccups.

"Aki, slow down," My Mama soothed.

It was so strange to hear that childish voice instead of her mature womanly one, but then again, I'm not one to talk.

"Aki," She said tilting my chin to give me a serious, searching look, "What happened to you? How did...?" He gestured to my current body which was that of the six-year-old girl that I was.

Still hiccupping every now and then, I told him (her?) all about the scene I came home to, how I panicked and the subsequent fall into the pool in the middle of winter.

"That jackass." By the end of my story, I was pretty sure he was spitting nails. He looked like he wanted to maim something. Slowly he breathed out and slumped back into the chair with his head in his hands, his posture looking far too defeated. "Not you too... anything but you..." He scrubbed his hands up and down his face before heaving another sigh. "It's ironic that all this time you were actually Veronica. Should I thank Claire or curse her for knocking your head into that tree and causing you to recall those kinds of memories?"

Now that I look back on it with the eyes of a modern day high schooler, it seems that my home situation isn't all that great huh? This place was positively medieval. I was pretty sure there was even magic too. What was this a light novel? When I jokingly asked this, Mama showed a painful expression.

"What's wrong?" I asked feeling kind of worried. Ooooi~ Mama? What's with that pitying look. You're scaring me~ "Don't tell me were actually in a light novel?" I laughed nervously.

"... It’s not a light novel..." He hesitated, strumming his fingers against the armrest if the chair for a minute.

"M... Mama?"

"You wouldn't happen to remember an otome game you had me play once, would you?" He asked slowly. "One called... "The Magus' Romance"? I stared at him blankly for a minute before gaping.

"No way!!" I squeaked horrified. "There's no way, right?!"

He gave me Mama's patented I'll-give-you-a-minute-to-cope-because-this-is-definitely-happening smile. I opened my mouth to beg him to stop joking when another realization blindsided me.

"Wait... Veronica Verne?" I said, eyes bulging. "The villainess Veronica Verne? The same Veronica Verne that gets humiliated, stripped of her status and exiled to hell-on-earth to die a dog's death? That Veronica Verne?!!"

He sighed again before nodding, confirming my biggest fear.

"BUT I DON'T WANNA BE A VILLAINESS!!!" I wailed. Clinging to my mother turned brother (I still hadn't come to terms with that thought yet).

The door opened to a rather concerned Maddie, but Mama waved her away again saying it was fine.

I couldn't believe of all the people I could have been born as in this world, it had to be the one with the most vicious death flag!!

"It's all right," Mama soothed as he continued to rub circles on my back. I was practically in his lap though, and it was a bit jarring to realize that my mother was really a small boy now, my own situation aside. It would have been infinitely weirder if I had ended up the older sibling.

At least I still had my original sex. Mama must have it rough as well, huh?"

"It okay. You're not the Veronica from the game after all. I surely hope that you don't have a crush on that pipsqueak prince either."

'Mama... That's a pretty ironic statement considering that the last time I checked he was taller than you...' I thought wryly but didn't say this out loud. I get the feeling he'd still smack me for smart mouthing.

"But before that... Aki?" He looked at me seriously.

"Mm?"

"You do realize that you died right? You either drowned or died of hypothermia in that pool, you know. You can't go back."

"I know, Mama." I really did realize this. It's not like I had much to go back to anyway. Mama had already died in that world and Papa was a deranged murderer now. It's not like I had any close friends on that side either...

That thought depressed me.

While I was busy wallowing in my supremely bad luck Mama looked at me thoughtfully.

"You didn't happen to have met a half-naked lady in the border between life and death, did you?" Well that came out of the blue. I gave him a quizzical look before remembering something.

"Now that you mention it, there was this voice in the darkness that said something about an apple not falling far from the tree." I paused. "At least I think that's what it said."

Mama gave another more put-upon sigh and grumbled stormily, "Of course she had something to do with this." His eyes flicked back to me. "You remember the status screen from the game, right?"

I nodded.

"I want you to go ahead and... just will one to pop up with your mind."

I gave him a confused look but sat up and did what he said anyway. As soon as I barely prod this thought with my mind a glowing blue screen popped up in front of me so suddenly I squawked in shock before falling back into the pillows. Surprisingly, even as I fell back to the bed, the screen remained firmly, directly in my field if vision.

I looked questioningly at Mama, only to find him staring at-- or was it through me in complete exasperation.

I studied the screen properly, raising my eyebrows a bit at what I saw.

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

Name: Veronica Onyx

Level: 2

Title(s): Verne House Young Mistress

HP: 50/50

MP: 9550/9550

Affinity: Fire

Properties:

Strength: 4

Speed: 8

Dexterity: 5

Mentality: 150

Intelligence: 97

Luck: 46

Passive Skills:

Blessing Of The Love Goddess (S)

Blessing Of The War God (SS)

Charm (S)

Charisma (B)

Ethereal glow (A)

Muse (B)

Indifference (C)

Leadership (C)

Active Skills:

Seduction (A)《locked》

Appraisal (D)

Bloodlust (E)

Endure (B)

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

"Eh? Eh? Is this mine? What the heck does "Seduction" do?!"

"..."

"Mama?"