The Hearts Mirror (Twisted Wonderland One-Shots + Requests)

Every Rose Has Its Thorns (Overblot!Riddle x Reader)

Requested by Ananimefan182827

Warnings: yandere, blood, canon divergence
—

You charged through the rose maze, cursing how loud your footsteps were. You'd heard Heartslabyul students talk about how insanely hard it was to even get halfway through the maze, but you never thought it would be this bad. Why, out of everything you could have done, did you think it would be a good idea to run into here?

Everything had gone so wrong. All you'd wanted was to help Ace and Deuce get out of their punishment - and if solving that with a duel meant helping the other students, great! There's no way it could end up worse than what happened in the Dwarf Mines, right?

You envied your past self's innocence.

In a weird way, you blamed yourself. If you hadn't opened your mouth, Riddle wouldn't have retaliated, so Ace wouldn't have decked his dorm leader in the face, someone wouldn't have thrown that egg at Riddle, Riddle wouldn't have freaked out and started beheading everyone, and he wouldn't have turned into... that. With that... thing hovering behind him like some sort of cruel puppeteer, looking way too familiar to whatever had tried to hurt you and your friends in the Dwarf Mines. Had you always been this unlucky?

Crowley had barely been able to say a thing before Riddle had cast Off With Your Head on the headmaster, then on Trey, Cater, and whatever poor souls that hadn't yet escaped Heartslabyul, tying them up with rose bush roots. Once again, you'd been the only one without a collar - maybe it was because of your lack of magic, maybe it was because you were from another world, you didn't know. You didn't hang around to find out - once Grim's yells at you to hurry up and get out of there snapped you out of your horrified trance, you bolted. Unfortunately, Riddle had noticed your sudden departure and chased after you, screaming your name.

You'd ducked into the Rose Maze hoping to shake him off. You wished you hadn't - all that you'd accomplished was getting yourself lost. Riddle's voiced seemed to be getting closer and closer by the minute, too.

"(y/n)!" Speak of the devil. The sudden shock of his voice nearly made you trip. "Come out this instant! Do you want your punishment to be even more severe!?"

Shaking off his words (or were you literally shaking?), you turned the corner. There seemed to be more and more roses as you went on - maybe a sign you were nearing the exit? Hoping so, you followed the blood-red flowers.

"(y/n)! I'm saying this for your own benefit! Tell me where you are, now! (y/n)!"

The leaves seemed to be disappearing under the red petals. A war between the two pieces of nature, two things that should be living in harmony instead being tainted by greed and ruining their peace. You had to be nearly out.

"(y/n)!!"

There were barely any leaves left now.

One last turn. One last turn and you should be--

Stuck. The roses didn't lead to the end of the maze at all. They led to the center of it.

A statue of the Queen of Hearts, like the one in the school among the other Great Seven, seemed to mock you with her smug expression. Now that you got a good look at her, she looked eerily similar to the specter haunting Riddle. Of course she did.

"So this is where you've been."

You turned so fast you fell over. Your mind couldn't even register the pain from your new cuts as you stared up in terror at the twisted form of Riddle. The boy himself seemed to be conflicted on whether to look at you with sympathy or smirk.