#and well. dead fujimaru would do it

[violetnaps]

studying for tests is makinh me sad so ive decided to make the blorbo sadder to cope

[versegm]

The Sun is dazzlingly hot on his bare skin, seemingly drilling all the way into his bones. With a sigh, Goredolf, heir of the Musik family, director of the prestigious Chaldea organisation, collapses under an umbrella with all the condensed dignity of a wet dog. But who could blame him? He is on vacations. This is his hot girl summer, and he's going to enjoy it as he sees fit.

Someone chuckles next to him. "Having fun, I see."

"Quite." He does sit up at the voice though, feeling the sand run off his back. "This was long overdue. I needed that."

"I'm glad you're taking care of yourself." The person responds. Then, ever so helpful, they bring a tray of drinks up to him. "Would you like a cocktail, perhaps?"

"Why, thank you." His mustache quivers as he smiles. He directs his gaze down to the tray; many colorful glasses stare back at him, each filled with the most inviting of colors. "Don't mind if I-"

He pauses.

The liquid in the glasses is trembling. The whole tray is trembling, in fact. Trembling in tandem with the hand holding it, fingers charred black.

"Director?" Ritsuka Fujimaru blinks down at him. "Is everything alright?"

Goredolf flinches.

"Director-"

"You cannot be here." He cuts them off. Frantically, he looks right, left. There is no one else on this beach. How has he not noticed? "You cannot be here. You are dead."

"Oh." Fujimaru, true to themself, reacts with an underwhelming amount of shock. "Am I?"

"Don't play with me!" Goredolf yells, scrambling up to his feet. "I saw you die. I- I saw them die. I don't know who you are, but-"

"Hey, hey! Calm down, Director." Fujimaru raises both hands palm up to placate him. "I know I'm not in my body right now, but I don't know if it's still. You know. Around."

It's... not. They never recovered the body. Though, that also means, they never confirmed the Master's death...

"I don't- you- are you truly here?" He asks, heart beating out of his chest. "Is this real?"

Fujimaru makes a face that is difficult to describe. "Real. That's a loaded word, Director. We've both seen our fair share of real dreams and nightmarish realities, haven't we?"

That is true, though this does not help in the slightlest. "Th-then, is it you? Or are you just- some image I made up to torment me?"

And now Fujimaru's eyebrows are shooting up, concern evident on their every features. "Do I haunt you so badly, Director? That you would call upon me even as a ghost, even as a dream?"

"Of course you do. You- you- we couldn't save you." All of this, all of this, all this pain and suffering and watching them physically deteriorate before his eyes- and he couldn't get them home. He couldn't even bring back a body to bury.

Fujimaru's face softens. They reach out to touch his cheek. Their fingers are cold. They've always been; the blood just doesn't flow that well in half-necrosed flesh. "Do you know the parable of the dream of the butterfly?"

Goredolf blinks up at them. Belatedly, he realizes he's starting to cry. "What?"

"Once upon a time, there was a man." Fujimaru carries on. "He dreamed he was a butterfly. Upon waking up, he wondered: is he a man dreaming he is a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he is a man?"

"I, uh," Goredolf can do nothing but stare, speechless, "okay?"

"He didn't know which one was real. If the human or the butterfly was real. I don't know either. I haven't been awake in a very, very long time." They smile at him. It's different from their usual smile. It's much more genuine. And much sadder. "But thank you. Thank you for loving the butterfly."

They lean in, and press their forehead against his. This, this is warm. "Now, wake up, Director. You still can."

[melonisopod]

The thing about Oberon is that it's hard to talk about the two sides of his personality - Oberon the Fairy King and Vortigern the Abyssal Insect - without sounding like they're two separate halves of a split personality. When that's the thing, they're both him. And what those two halves of him want can at times be actively contradictory.

Vortigern in the general sense is just a terminal for the Abyssal Worm, a manifestation of a doomsday device that's meant to destroy Fairy Britain. He's reincarnated at least three times, and frankly just wants to do his job and be done. "Vortigern" isn't even a proper name, but really a title.

'Oberon' (or the Saint Graph of him) was in a sense, a role given to him by the Welsh Fairies, at a time when his very being was basically on life support. He's still ultimately aware of his role as Vortigern, so he isn't 'brainwashed,' but the role of 'Oberon' was so thoroughly integrated into his being that it is essentially now part of who he is.

Taking the mantle of 'Oberon' was a mixed blessing, and really more of a curse than anything. 'Oberon' is the reason why everything he says is twisted into lies, but one specific feature of 'Oberon' (namely, A Midsummer Night's Dream) gave way to the notion that there is someone who will love him, no matter how twisted or amoral he is. Of course, 'Titania' is a fabrication, yet she represents something that he (both the Fairy King mantle and the doomsday device) lack.

Before the Welsh Fairies influenced him, Vortigern wanted nothing. At least, that we know of. He was content simply to destroy everything because that's what he's created to do. But now, he's the Fairy King. He has to be the Fairy King. And isn't there someone out there who would love him unconditionally?

What results is someone who is at times fully at odds with himself - he hated the feeling of being crawled on by insects, and yet they're what saved his life and welcomed him to their home. They were weak and powerless, but how can he fault them for this when he's also terribly weak on his own? He is the Fairy King, even if he isn't, because that's what the Welsh Fairies wished for. He wishes someone, anyone, could ever love him despite his cruel and twisted nature.

He hates Fujimaru because they come from Proper Human History, a world that draws a line between 'reality' and 'fantasy' and separates him from his beloved Titania, and hates them further because they attempt to sustain a Lostbelt that should have long been dead. And yet, the grow to love Ritsuka, come to wonder if they are their dear Titania they were searching for...

...obviously none of this sits with him well because this person is his enemy, whom he hates. What is he going to do now? Well, Oberon accomplished his goal, there's nothing left, and yet, why did he answer that summon? Is he here because he's finally found his Titania in Ritsuka? Or is he simply biding his time to fill out 'Oberon's' plan to destroy Proper Human History?

He's not sure. He's going to sit in his room and mope about it.

[akumanoken]

Speaking of weddings~ Sakura, now that you are officially engaged to BOTH Bael and Dantè, think it high time to tell your father that it is perhaps in his best interest to let you plot your wedding's course. I mean, your dad ain't looking too good whenever he pops in and sees the boys surrounding you~

@moonxsuncelestials @cirquedenightmares

It was high time, of course, so when Sakura decided it was time to speak with his father his steps were sure as he made his way to the study. He was quite surprised to see a member of the council there, but the man smiled with a bow. "Ah, your Highness I wanted to congratulate you on your engagement…"

The king looked over at the princess, his lips set in a thin line. "Yes, and what brings you here instead of tending to your future husband?? Your wedding shall be soon after all, and we are--"

"That is why I have come here, father," he said softly. "As it will be my wedding to the princes, I believe it is best if the wedding plans are placed in the care of myself and my betrotheds. After all, I want to in--"

"You want to plan the wedding?? As if there is anything special to plan!!" he scoffed. "You are to be wed as is tradition for the royals of Makoto in the grand temple…what else needs to be done??"

"….I do not wish for a traditional wedding." His soft comment made the King's face turn a spectacular shade of scarlet. "Furthermore, I wish to incorporate their traditions so it is not just a ceremony for the people of Makoto but for everyone who will be in attendance… and there will be members of the Thanos royal family in attendance, including Syrina-heika… she will ask to be a part of it and to help plan, and I will be happy to let her. If you wish to help in the planning of our wedding as well, you are more than welcome to do so, but I think it is best for everyone involved if I take over. After all, you don't seem to be too happy with the course I have decided to take."

It was no secret. Knowing that he would be connected to the infamous "Queen of Hell" via marriage wasn't something he had in mind when he laid out his plans all those years ago. Fujimaru stared up at him, clenching his jaw. "And so are you asking me?? Or are you telling me, child?"

Sakura brought himself up, straightening his back. "I am…telling you that I will be planning the wedding. That you have too many things on your plate already and therefore should leave such an occasion for those who are actually able to focus on the task at hand, while you concentrate on ruling Makoto."

The councilman who had been there the whole time, staring between the two of them in nervous interest, spoke up. "I believe the princess has a point. We can leave the wedding to them, I am sure. Meanwhile, we can focus on the other tasks we have at hand. Once Her Majesty comes to visit, there will surely be talks we will want to have about the further nature of our alliances. Should we not prepare for that?"

If Fujimaru had turned toward the councilman, the poor fellow would've been dead on the spot, but he nodded instead with as soft gruff. "Very well, child. Do as you will." it wouldn't be the first time the damned boy would do something like this, he could tell. He wasn't pleased by the way things were going at all.

[mako-neexu]

He can't refute what the Pretender had said.

Cursed. Of course his existence is already cursed, doubly made unbearable when he was summoned with the original purpose of aiding a foolish Beast that didn't align with his views.

But after breaking free from those hellish chains cast upon him by the false Mage King, Monte Cristo had clipped on another, around his neck connected to the only person he will only ever listen to in this life of his.

...Simply that the curse his accomplice had cast upon him was far too lethal, far too effective to the point where he would willingly destroy himself all for her sake.

Although Vortigern had been right, they differed in their nature and thus differed in how to care for the star they loved.

"Not once have I thought that she would remain by my side forever." He replied, but he can't deny that a part of him wished for it. He longed for it. It was just simply not meant to be. He knows that. He has accepted that.

Still, the Fairy King's last words made him want to laugh. Ritsuka was sleeping though, so there was nothing to do but express his amusement through a grin.

"And there is no such thing as stealing her away from me if she doesn't belong to me in the first place. Neither you nor I, or any of the Servants."

Because that is what the ultimately are. Servants that are meant to aid their Master, the dead and the damned who can only be tools for the living.

Much as Monte Cristo has had his moments and desires, he has no intention of monopolizing her as well. Similar to how his fate was Fujimaru Ritsuka herself, but he will not claim that he is hers on the other end of the spectrum.

Feel like cursing you today with the thought that shrieked through my mind at mach 2 just now, a vortigern/dantes interaction about guda, because it spiked through my mind while reading your comments on the latter

Vortigern sneers at the Count. "My curse means I can't say it, or else it becomes a lie. What the fuck is your excuse?"

studied edguda so hard i took a nap earlier and started dreaming of dantes and oberon arguing over ritsuka and opening tumblr lo and behold moth's perfect timing ww

funny automatic response i came up with in my brain was dantes looking away with his mouth pressed into a straight line but then before i knew it i have this:

Monte Cristo looks at the Pretender, a glance made from the corner of his eye, before turning away to continue focusing on their sleeping Master, having been thoroughly exhausted from the singularity. Soot stains Ritsuka’s cheek, with one hand, he lets his thumb gently brush it away. “...Even for someone such as I, there are many things I can’t change nor do I have any intention of changing,” He spoke, softly so as not to wake her up, “Speech for one, as it does not matter to me if I’m understood by my peers. What matters only is a mode of communication that would aid her in her endeavors.” A man difficult to understand. Even in his early days as a new summon to their Master, that was almost automatically attributed to him. He doesn’t mind. The masses’ perception of him matters little, barely worth any mention as he is already an Avenger through and through. The Fairy King—along with a majority of the Servants may not know, but Monte Cristo’s speech becomes simplified when alone with his Master. But if she asked him to explain his words clearly in front of the many people around them, then there is no reason to hesitate when it comes to his accomplice. Because whatever Fujimaru Ritsuka desired of him, the Avenger who would burn a brilliant path for her forward, he would follow through no matter what.

i love oberon and dantes interactions watch these bitches fight over their views of a star uheheheh

[recurring-polynya]

BLEACH Anime Celebration

Day 1 Prompt: The Rain A character is concerned for one or more characters The character/s get caught in the rain Features something sweet or bitter A character shares something with another character

Characters: Renji, Fujimaru, Kosaburou, Mameji, and, of course, Rukia

Rating: General audiences, contains child rudeness.

| ao3 | ff.net |

☔ 🍵 💕

“Renji,” said Fujimaru, “are you worried?”

“No,” said Renji.

“It’s getting dark,” said Fujimaru, watching Renji poke the fire. “It’ll get cold after the sun goes down and they’ve been out in the rain.”

“Rukia said they would be back by dark,” Kosaburou chipped in. “So they’ll probably be back very soon!” He was sitting away from the open hearth at the center of their hut, trying to weave dried straw into a raincoat, the way Rukia had shown them. She was clever at things like that, but so far, she’d only had time to make them for herself and Mameji, the two smallest of them. Fujimaru had been helping earlier, but he’d evidently gotten tired of it and come over to bother Renji, instead.

“What if they don’t, though?” Fujimaru wrinkled his nose. Renji could tell the other boy wanted a turn with the fire-poking stick, but he was trying to get some water to boil, and that was never gonna happen if Fujimaru knocked the hot coals all over the place like he always did. “Would you go out after them, Renji? I would go with you.”

“Not if I can help it,” Renji grumbled. “Rukia knows these woods a lot better than we do. If we go out stumbling around in the dark and the rain, she’s just gonna get home and then have to go out again and find our sorry asses.”

“Are you gonna cook rice, Renji?” Kosaburou asked. “That would be nice, for Rukia and Mameji to have hot rice when they get home.”

“The whole reason they went out was to check the snares!” Renji reminded him. “The rice’ll last a while, no point in wasting it if there’s fresh meat coming.” He paused. “If they come home empty-handed, and Rukia’s hungry, I’ll make the rice.” He paused again. “I’m makin’ tea.”

Fujimaru made a grumbling sound deep in his throat, and pulled his knees up to his chest.

Renji would have liked to be more reassuring, but he honestly didn’t know what he could say.

Was he worried? Of course he was worried. Renji did not like to think of himself as a guy who worried. He considered things and weighed probabilities and made back-up plans, but he didn’t worry. Well, he didn’t used to. Then, a late summer storm named Rukia had roared into his peaceful little existence, and upset everything.

Rukia existed on an entirely different wavelength from his own. Rukia did not consider things, she just did them. If her actions had consequences, that certainly wasn’t any of her business. She never talked about her past, but she’d been in Inuzuri for a long time, and knew all its rhythms and riptides. Renji sometimes wondered if she was maybe part yokai, like if he could look fast enough while she wasn’t paying attention, he might catch her casting a fox’s shadow instead of a girl’s. Rukia sought no one’s counsel, least of all his, and cared even less for his concerns.

If she had maintained her distance, none of this would bother Renji in the least. In fact, at least within the confines of his own head, he had to admit that he rather admired her, and if he had the luxury of doing so from afar, he had to admit he’d probably be down pretty bad for her.

The problem was that Rukia, for reasons Renji had yet to discern, had attached herself to their little gang, and thrown the entire dynamic into disarray. Renji didn’t care what Rukia did, but the other boys adored her, and so he now found himself subject to the ever-shifting tides of her whimsy. He still wasn’t sure how, a few weeks ago, she had convinced them all to move out to this ramshackle hut she’d found in the woods a few spirit-miles outside of town-proper. Renji had lived in Inuzuri-town for as long as he’d been dead, and felt completely out of his element here in the quiet and dripping woods. If Rukia wanted to go out traipsing around in the rain and take Mameji with her, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it, aside from stay at home and make a fire.

At least the squat had a usable hearth. Renji had stayed in places that had them before, but he’d never gotten to be in charge of one before. Usually he and the boys got shunted off to some drafty corner, while the biggest and meanest kids took over management of the heating conditions and any cooking that might be going on. Getting hot water had always required waiting your turn and also some amount of bowing and scraping and possibly receiving a wet willie or some other form of puerile abuse. Feeling a slight pang of conscience, Renji resolved to give Fujimaru a turn with the poking stick as soon as he got the water boiling.

For a few minutes, the three of them sat without speaking. The rain pounded against the thatch of the roof, making dribbly noises in the gap at the bottom of the door that Renji had already made a note to fix. Kosaburou’s straw made little rustling sounds. Renji’s coals hissed and popped. Fujimaru sighed and blew his hair out of his face.

Kosaburou suddenly perked up. “I think I hear something! I bet they’re back!”

“I think it’s just this water finally coming to a boil,” Renji scowled at the kettle judgmentally.

“No, it’s outside,” Kosaburou insisted.

Abruptly, the door slammed open. “GET A LOAD OF THIS HARE WE GOT!”

Renji jumped half out of his own skin, but fortunately, everyone else was too busy mobbing the two tiny, sopping figures who had just stepped inside.

“Wow, Rukia, it’s huge!”

“Can we all have some? Is there enough?”

“Yeah, of course! Mameji found some mushrooms, too, we’ll make a whole feast!”

“What does Mameji know about mushrooms? I’m not eating any mushrooms Mameji found!”

“I showed ‘em to Rukia first! She said they’re called ‘dancing mushrooms’, and they’re good to eat!”

“Make Renji look at ‘em!”

“I don’t know crap about mushrooms,” Renji grumbled, wrapping a rag around his hand so he could take the kettle off the fire. “And take yer raincoats off, you’re making puddles in the house!”

Mameji immediately began peeling off his rain gear, but Rukia strode to the center of the room and held up her prize for Renji’s inspection. Renji paused from stirring up a bowl of powdered tea long enough to look carefully. It was an adolescent buck, long-limbed, but lean at a time of year when it should have been putting on fat for the winter.

“Nice,” Renji declared with a curt nod. “Take care when you skin it. I know a guy down at the tanner’s who’ll give us a few kan for the hide.” For all her savvy at navigating the idiosyncrasies of Inuzuri, Rukia had somewhat of an aversion to what little above-board economy existed. She tended to avoid dealing with people whenever possible, and if she regarded Renji as good for anything at all (unlikely), it was for his man-about-town connections.

Rukia returned the nod. “Sorry we took so long.” She turned her head back to address the other boys who were busy admiring the mushrooms. “The main trail is completely washed out just north of where the creek curves around that big boulder. I showed Mameji how to get over it, but don’t try going that way without him or me, it’s a giant, slippery mudpit.”

“Okay, Rukia!”

“Sure thing!”

Rukia turned back to Renji. “You starving? I can skin this right away and we can get it cooking. Nice job on the fire, by the way.”

“I’m not that hungry,” Renji shrugged. This was only partially a lie. Renji was always hungry. In the grand scheme of things, he wasn’t anywhere close to how hungry he could get. He glanced at her hand, bony knuckles under pale skin as she held the hare up by its back legs. “You should warm up first. You’ll cut yourself if you try to dress a rabbit with bare hands.” He scowled. “Or I could do it. If you’re starving.”

Rukia raised one eyebrow. “Do you know how to dress a rabbit?”

Renji wrinkled his nose. “Not…the correct way. I could get the meat out. If I had to.”

Rukia regarded him for a long moment, then set the hare down and started to untie her rain gear. “I’m not starving either,” she said. “I’ll do it after my hands warm up. I’ll teach you, if you’re interested.”

Renji made a noncommittal noise.

“You can show me, Rukia!” Mameji announced. “I want to learn!”

“Me, too!” Kosaburou added. “I’m not afraid of rabbit guts!” This was extremely a lie, but the relief of having the gang back home again, safe and in one piece had put Renji in a very generous mood, so he didn’t say anything.

“Me, three!” Fujimaru was not to be left out.

“Mameji, your tea’s up,” Renji called.

“Thanks, Renji!” Mameji said, propped his straw cape up to dry near the door.

Renji plunked a second steaming bowl onto the floor next to Rukia’s feet. “Here,” he said. “Take off your raincoat and drink it. Fujimaru, Kosaburou, you guys want tea?”

“Yes, please!” Kosaburou chorused.

“Yeah, sure,” Fujimaru agreed.

Rukia divested herself of her rain coat while Renji poured a few more bowls of tea and passed them around. Slowly, she sat down in the spot between Renji and Fujimaru. She picked up her tea bowl and examined it, turning it carefully with her tiny, pale fingers. “This is pretty,” she finally said. It wasn’t, really. It was the same heavy, grayish-brown pottery that was ubiquitous throughout Inuzuri. It did, at least, have a curl of dainty little flowers painted in dark blue around the rim.

“Take care with that, it’s yours now,” Renji informed her, taking a sip. His own cup had a little fish on it. He was almost certain he had owned a cup with a fish on it when he was alive. A koi, just like in his name.

“You lift this just for me, Abarai?” Rukia asked, her voice dripping with fake tenderness.

“Something like that,” Renji muttered. “People should have cups.” He wasn’t about to admit he’d spent actual kan on it, but he’d wanted to take the time to pick one out, and the pottery seller down at the market had been watching him like a hawk.

“Don’t drink it yet, Rukia!” Kosaburou suddenly waved a hand at her. “It’s too hot, it’ll burn your tongue.”

Rukia’s eyes slid over to Renji. He took a long, slow sip of his.

“There’s something wrong with him,” Fujimaru insisted. “He drinks it way too hot.”

“There’s lots wrong with him, actually, but we like him anyway,” Mameji giggled.

“Shut up,” Renji replied good-naturedly.

“I’ve never actually had tea before,” Rukia admitted, her fingers slowly warming to pink as she wiggled them against the cup.

“It’s not actually tea,” Renji quickly pointed out. “It’s herbal stuff.” Nobody had actual tea in Inuzuri.

“Renji and I help the old herb lady set up her stall on market days, and she gives it to us,” Kosaburou explained proudly.

“It’s kind of terrible,” Fujimaru conceded, sniffing at the steam of his.

“I like it!” Kosaburou argued.

“It’s bracing,” Mameji declared.

“It keeps off the choking cough,” Renji snapped. “We don’t need any of that around here, so we drink this when we come in from the cold. That’s the rule.”

It’s not that Renji actually believed in the medicinal power of the tea. But two years prior, choking cough had swept the slums and taken out probably a third of the children that prowled the town’s fringes like rats. Mameji had gotten it pretty bad and to this day, wheezed a bit in the lungs when the weather turned cold. The old herb lady was so old that she sometimes seemed to go transparent around the edges (Kosaburou said Renji should probably try to get more sleep) and forgot what she was doing most of the time, but it’s not like there were many better options, and Renji figured it was better than doing nothing. To be honest, he rather liked the tea, which he had come to associate with the vague notion of being home, even if home was more a sense of having your people around you than an actual place. A few times, they’d managed to get ahold of some honey, which Renji had another half-baked human memory of being good for colds. It cut the bitterness of the tea almost entirely, made it downright pleasant.

Renji realized that Rukia was watching him carefully over the rim of her tea bowl. She did that a lot--watched him, that is. He didn’t know why. All the other boys spent half the day trying to get her attention, and all she ever did was stare at him, like he was some weird clockwork contraption she couldn’t quite figure out.

Renji nudged the poking stick over to Fujimaru. “Oi, Fujimaru, if you aren’t drinking your tea, stir the coals around a bit, would you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Fujimaru agreed enthusiastically.

Rukia finally lowered her eyes, her lips pursing like a kiss as she blew on her tea. She took a slow, cautious sip. “Oh!”

“Burn yourself?” Renji asked gruffly.

“Hm? Oh, no! It just didn’t taste like I expected it to. It surprised me.” She turned a pretty smile on Mameji. “‘Bracing’ was a good word for it.”

“Pretty sure Renji brews it at about four times the strength you’re supposed to,” Fujimaru, lordly with the power of his poking stick, announced.

“No one got the cough last year, did they?” Renji retorted.

“I like it,” Rukia interrupted. “It’s good.” Then she took another sip, long and luxurious.

Kosaburou took a tentative sip and immediately gave up, blowing on it some more instead.

“I can show you how to make it, if you want,” Renji said off-handedly, figuring that would put them even again for the rabbit thing.

“I guess,” Rukia replied, “but I kinda like it when you do it.”

[hadjalterdoneanythingwrong]

Jeanne rushed down the hall, making her way to the medical bay.

It had been days since the incident; weeks, even. Every day she came here, praying for things to be better.

And every day, not a single god answered.

"How is she?" She asked, stepping inside without hesitation.

Roman, Da Vinci, Mash, and Merry sat by an occupied bed. Merry's hand clung to the hand of the girl in the bed. None of them gave any response.

"...Well?" Jeanne repeated. "How is she?"

"Jeanne..." Mash whispered. Her voice quivered, as if she herself was on the verge of screaming.

"She can't still be stuck like this. She can't." Jeanne's voice maintained the same volume, but something was still rising deep within it; whether it was panic or fury, no one could tell. "We're Chaldea. There's no way we'd just let her—"

"Jeanne," Roman interjected, "you've known longer than anyone else that she's something beyond us. Whatever happened to her, if it was powerful enough to hurt her—"

"Then we'll hit back even harder as soon as she wakes up!"

The lights flickered and dimmed. The air grew warmer.

"You can't tell me there's nothing we can do, not after everything we've already accomplished! We've come so far, and I'm not about to let some—"

"Jeanne."

Merry's voice was the quietest, yet it cut through the air like nothing else could. Jeanne immediately stopped talking as Merry's eyes went from her lifelong partner to her partner's Servant.

"...Please. Let her rest."

"...Merry..." Jeanne stepped closer. "...you can't tell me... you can't tell me you're content to just sit here. You..."

"I'm not content." Merry's voice cracked. Her eyes flickered with flames, both burning blood red and a somber, dulled blue. "...But I... we don't have a choice."

"Like hell we don't—"

"Jeanne." Steam poured out from Merry's eyes, trailing up to the ceiling. Her tears were burning away before they could escape. "I'm asking you... as someone who loved her just as much as you did—"

"Stop." Jeanne's voice also broke. She got even closer. "Don't... say it like that. You still love her. I still love her. She isn't gone. She isn't gone! She..."

Her eyes gazed down at the girl in the bed.

Her fiery orange hair, pulled into a sidetail with a deep sapphire-blue scrunchie.

Her face, scarred in many places, yet still soft and unbetraying of any age.

Even her hands seemed as soft as they were the day Jeanne met her.

But there was hardly any color left in her skin.

No light left in the soul of her Master.

Deep down she knew.

She knew that Ritsuka Fujimaru was dead.

Her knees hit the floor. The lights flickered and fizzled until every light in the room was out.

The negative energy swarmed around her. Every awful emotion imaginable seeped into her skin.

But there was no roar. No rage.

No hatred.

Everything she absorbed, she bottled up, and it threatened to eat her from the inside.

Hours passed. Not another word was spoken. Most of the others eventually left.

Even Merry felt the need to give Jeanne some time alone.

And alone she was.

Now.

Forever.

All over again.

Slowly she rose, and she went to the bed's other side.

Her hand found Ritsuka's other hand—

—and found something in it.

A box.

Small and velvet.

And as lifeless as her body was, her hand gripped it tightly.

Jeanne made no attempt to pull it out. She simply wrapped her hands around Ritsuka's hand, and pulled it closer.

"...You wouldn't want me to cry." Jeanne whispered. "You always said... that if anything ever got to you, you would want us to find it and hunt it down.

"But I know what killed you... and I don't know if we can even touch it." Her hands gripped tighter, feeling them become warmer. "Your killers... are free. Free of consequence. Free of judgment. And parade their escape like you were the monster all along.

"But... even still, I will not stop fighting. I will not stop fighting. For as long as I breathe, I will carry on the way you would want me to. I will kill. I will kill everything I see.

"I will kill for my love. I will kill for the only true love I ever knew. And I will kill for the endless lifetime of hate before me." Jeanne's eyes closed. "...I love you, Ritsuka. And someday I swear I'll see you again. Even if we have to meet each other cutting through fiends in the deepest depths of Hell."

The hand released the box. It clattered onto the floor, opening up. Jeanne's eyes shot open and gazed down upon it.

Inside was a ring, shimmering like the moon, inlaid with stones that sparkled like the night sky, from Ritsuka to the girl that died before her.

A small note also fell out, and Jeanne reached down and picked it up, slowly unfolding it.

The words were written in a dull red-brown. The note itself smelled like rust.

It read,

"I could never dream anything more than what you've given me."

[bethanybeatdowns]

atlantis lostbelt thots & ramblers

no need to say abt SPOILERS FOR ATLANTIS LOSTBELT, it's like in the title. this covers prologue to chapter 2.

Beryl: inhabitants insist on BRITISH lostbelt not ENGLISH made me holler

Kirschtaria sounds so sheltered lmaooo. knows poor people exist but doesn't like... know them as people- the kind of well-meaning naivety that would 10000% ask "so why are you poor?" in like genuine fashion vibes. passed the hardcore college entrance test with outstanding scores, but daddy donated a $20M building kinda energy.

i still want to know where pepe stores his makeup stash. or if koyanskaya could do my sephora shopping for me.

Fujimaru Ritsuka: WANTED FUGITIVE. DEAD ONLY. imagine a whole-ass pantheon planning an utter eradication of your guerilla ground crew, i'd be honored.

CAENIS HORSE EARS. CAENIS HORSE EARS.

Artemis orbital bombardment...a womb, uteral, yonic.

Love the himbo men in Orion and Bart.

Low-key wanted some Titans in here, especially Prometheus. Hell I'd take Kronos that child-eating deadbeat. Titanomachia.

Odysseus: *exists*. Me: *slaps Achilles into the party* I have the prequel protagonist right here!

God I wish Penelope exists somewhere, how would Lostbelt Odysseus react. She could probably suplex the King of Ithaca with her 20-years-on-the-loom jacked arms.

[randomlywanderingmoth]

My mind was a hollow blur as I was stirred from my sleep.

"Wake up, dammit. It isn't safe here." The voice sounded coarse and harrowed, yet strangely comforting. I managed my eyes open, to glance up- the man kneeling over me had a white blouse with a black fur trim, and a dark, grim gauntlet. His black hair was adorned with a crown of blue stars, and his expression was one of worry and frustration.

I couldn't place him. "... who are you?"

He stopped still as stone, before slowly glancing down at me. "What?"

I couldn't place anything. "... who am I?"

The man looked like he'd seen death. "Do you not remember? Anything at all?"

I blinked slowly, trying to place even a single puzzle piece. But I lacked any pieces to begin with. I shook my head.

For a moment, he frowned. He seemed to be thinking- could he have forgotten too? Then, in an instant, so abruptly I wasn't sure if his first form had been a mirage, the man's appearance changed- as though he was different with the sunbeams through the trees. Suddenly he was wearing a white-fur trimmed cape, and similar white attire. The gauntlet was gone, his black hair turned a snowy white, the blue stars of his crown turned to gold.

And his expression gently softened. "You are..."

===== =====

Ritsuka was missing. Well and truly and properly missing. Her signal had vanished completely- even Mash couldn't feel her connection.

And what poor timing too- across the Bleached Earth, Singularity after Singularity was rapidly opening up. A large one in Canada. One encompassing half of Greenland. A small one in Britain, deemed safe to leave for later. Two that seemed stuck together along the horn of Africa.

With Ritsuka missing, it was up to Kadoc to helm the closure of the Singularities. "I'm confident you'll be able to handle this mission," Sion had cheered him along.

The Canadian Singularity came first. Then Greenland. Then Africa. The last of those was the worst- the two Singularities had to be untangled to resolve them simultaneously, and there were numerous, powerful gods in the conflict.

Kadoc had almost died more than once, even with his caution, even with Mash and the others acting as his Servants.

The worst of it wasn't the fighting, though.

It was the helping. Necessarily, Kadoc was forced to help people in these Singularities. Necessarily, he started to care about them. Even if he knew what would happen at Singularity's end.

When they died, he grieved them. When the Singularity closed, he quietly hoped for them. At some point he realized: this must have been what it was like for her.

He envied the durability she must have built up, to grow strong enough to handle such things and keep moving forward, keep smiling in spite of the hell she'd marched through to survive.

=====

"Fujimaru-san is still missing," Sion concluded the meeting.

Previously Goredolf was fuming, declaring her absence a grievous dereliction of duty. Now, he was quieter, more concerned. "There is a possibility that she is a casualty of the efforts to restore the Human Order."

Nobody could object to the grim possibility. Even Mash felt defeated.

"Until we find her body, she's missing. Not dead." It was the most Kadoc could offer, the sternest he could be. He felt like a candle in a storm.

"... well, we're ready for the last Singularity on listing," Nemo commented flatly.

Kadoc blinked. "The last? What, the one in Britain? Hasn't it dissolved yet?" He felt an itch on the back of his neck. A premonition.

=====

It was not at all what he was expecting. Firstly, for Artoria Caster to be one of the valid Servants. Secondly, what he saw on landing.

It was supposed to be a simple forest.

Instead, Kadoc, Mash, and Artoria landed in a city.

Buildings built across the firs, across the forest floor. People, and fairies, chatting amicably. A larger man that looked akin to a sailor carried bags from somewhere out of view, presumably a dock. A girl that looked closer to India played with a boy more fit for China. A blonde girl danced in the street with her sister, and a smaller, winged fairy, singing a song he couldn't place. A pair of what Artoria identified as Fang Clan were speaking- one with a scar over his eye, one wearing a flatcap and coat in spite of the temperate climate.

The mishmash was incredibly strange. Stranger still was Artoria's reaction. "Is that-" Her eyes tracked to a younger woman- a fairy, with blue hair and butterfly wings, bussing tables. That fairy spotted the trio, and ambled over.

"Ah, you must be the foreign visitors the king and queen are expecting! I'm sorry for making you wait, I can't help but help when I see it. My name is Hope." She curtsied. Artoria looked fit to crack. She held together admirably, at the face clearly familiar to her.

The crowd parted slowly as Kadoc, Mash, and Artoria were lead to an utterly titanic oak tree, with a gorgeous carved portcullis that lifted at their approach. They made their way up to the upper floor- sunbeams fell through the branches, and the grassy soil was gentle underfoot.

At the throne were the king and queen of this forest. The king, was Oberon. The queen...

The queen had a crown matching the king's, and large, beautiful butterfly wings that glimmered as they beat. There was a gentle, delicate, inhuman beauty to her as she opened her hazel eyes. Her autumn hair hung long over her back. "Oberon mentioned you might be coming. Greetings, visitors from Chaldea. I am Titania, Queen of the forest." Elegant. Regal. Flawless. And yet...

"... Senpai?"

=====

It was hard to describe the whirl of emotions going through them. They'd been struck silent by the revelation. Titania, for her part, had entertained the audience mostly to greet them. After they had no real response, she'd busied herself with heading down into the city, to mingle with her subjects. An unqueenly thing to do, but as all present could attest, so very much like her.

"WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?" Right, Artoria Caster. Capable of projecting her voice rather well by force of lungs alone.

"Volume, please." Oberon waved her down. "Believe me or otherwise, this is only partly my fault."

"She had a Saint Graph," Mash muttered despondently.

"I'm getting to that, please stop interrupting me-"

"She didn't recognize us at all." Kadoc glanced over at the doors the queen had taken to leave.

"Would you please let me speak?" Oberon stepped out of the sunlight- and Oberon Vortigern scratched at his head with his gauntlet. The others remained silent as he stepped back into the sunbeams, and Oberon Vortigern became Oberon. "Thank you. I found her here, without any tangible memories. I wasn't the one who brought her out here, I only found her. I don't think even she's realized she isn't alive anymore."

The trio stared dead at the king. "Technically, she's a Servant. Class Ruler. And she's happy now. I think she's earned that, at the very least, don't you? A happy, uncomplicated life?"

He took long strides back to the throne, and around it. "Anyway, we took steps to stabilize the Singularity, so there's no worry for you about destabilizing your precious world. As for Titania..." the fairy king stopped, with a merry smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Think of her as wearing your Master's face. Like how you have a dozen lookalikes, Artoria Caster."

===== ===== =====

It was a Singularity they were unable to resolve. It was a Singularity Chaldea would have to return to, one day. A stable, gentle dream that they couldn't rouse the dreamer from.

The question that lingered over the Storm Border was just... what happened?

Only one soul knew. I can't. I can't do this anymore. The girl with a will of steel had finally snapped. The girl who'd overcome her despair had finally reached her breaking point. Perhaps it had only been a moment of weakness. But they'd seen the tears run free from her eyes. Nobody cries that badly that does not need respite, and this girl needed so much more. She'd broken, and she'd broken too badly to ever be of use to Chaldea again. To force her to get back up, to force her to keep fighting now, would be cruel and pointless at best. At worst, their inaction could let her turn into something truly horrible. That was a sin they could not make twice.

They stowed her yellow scrunchie away quietly, the last marker of their crime.

The door slid open. "Bedivere?" Mash sounded as somber as she'd been since the Singularity. "We have another mission." There was never enough time to grieve.

The silver armed knight stood slowly and nodded, following her out of the darkened room.

Maybe something with ritsuka actually being selfish for once and taking up hajime saitous offer to run away with him? Or any servant really, he was just the first to pop to mind.

Help this fellow escape the narrative!!

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #Gudako: Gudako

Happy April Fools! We were going to do Scathach today, but this thing crawled into my home and it won’t go away until I make a build of it. So here’s Gudako.

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

We’ll then return to our regularly scheduled Scathach.

Race and Background

Ritsuka Fujimaru is a human, but you’re an awful little gremlin with a penchant for lechery. In other words, a Lightfoot Halfling. That gets you +2 Dexterity, +1 Charisma, and makes you Lucky, Brave, Nimble, and Naturally Stealthy. This means you can re-roll ones on attacks, checks, and saves, have advantage against being frightened, can move through larger creatures, and can hide behind them as well.

We’re also making up a Gambler background for you, giving you proficiency in Deception and Insight. 

Ability Scores

Even if you’re a weird awful version of FGO’s master, you’re still FGO’s master, so your Charisma is pretty freaking good. After that is Constitution- I don’t know how you survived the end of that last book but you did, so that’s probably con based. After that is Dexterity. It might just be the art style, but you’re kind of noodly, and incredibly fast. Your Strength isn’t amazing just yet, you’re still kind of a nerd. After that is Intelligence, then Wisdom. You play a gacha game. Enough said. 

Class Levels

1. Sorcerer 1: Mages in the Nasuverse are kind of a weird mix between sorcerers and wizards, but since you never really learned about magic that means you’re 100% the former! 

Thankfully, being a sorcerer opens us up to the gacha of the magic world, Wild Magic! At first level you can cast Spells using your charisma, and first level or higher spells can activate your Wild Magic Surge. After casting such a spell, you roll a d20, and on a 1 you then roll on the big ol’ table and get weird magic stuff. If you’d rather roll more often, your Tides of Chaos can force the issue. You can spend it to gain advantage on an attack, check, or save once per long rest. That being said, you can speed things up at your DM’s discretion, recharging the tides with a mandatory roll on the wild magic surge table.

Speaking of spells, you get a bunch of cantrips here. Friends and Mage Hand will improve your relationship with Mash, Prestidigitation takes care of all of that “actual magic” stuff, and Message lets you use your phone like a phone. Weird, I thought this was a gacha console?

For first level spells, Chaos Bolt brings the gacha into your combat, with the spell’s damage type based on the damage roll you make. It also has a chance of bouncing off and hitting another target for theoretically infinite damage. Expeditious Retreat will give you that gremlin speed you’re known for.

Finally, you get proficiency with Constitution and Charisma saves, as well as the Arcana and Intimidation skills. You just kinda give off this aura, y’know?

2. Sorcerer 2: Second level sorcerers become a Font of Magic, giving them sorcery points equal to their level that they can spend to make new spell slots. You can also do the reverse, but that won’t be useful until next level. You also learn how to bring out a creature’s hidden desires with Id Insinuation, which forces a wisdom save (DC 8+chr mod+ proficiency) or the target is incapacitated and takes psychic damage. There’s a reason your little eggplant has trouble fighting you off.

3. Sorcerer 3: Third level sorcerers get Metamagic, ways to use your sorcery points to enhance your magic. You strike me as a buster meta player, so Empowered Spell will let you get the most damage out of your spells (and also let you cheat a bit on Chaos Bolt). You also learn how to skip the casting animations on your spells thanks to Quickened Spell, turning an action casting spell into a bonus action.

On top of that, Hold Person lets you hold a person down while you have your way with them. By that I mean attack them, duh. Get your mind out of the gutter.

4. Sorcerer 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Strength. Trust me, it’ll help out later.

You can also cast Create Bonfire for the survivalist in you, or you can Mind Thrust on the people you’re holding. It’s still nothing lewd, it just deals psychic damage, and if a creature fails the intelligence save it can’t take reactions until the end of its next turn and has to choose between moving, taking an action, or a bonus action next turn.

5. Sorcerer 5: Fifth level sorcerers get third level spells, and Conjure Lesser Demon lets you summon Mephistopheles to the battlefield! Actually it’s just eight manes or dretches, but it sounds like it would summon Mephistopheles. Those demons are just as loyal as Mephy though, so... keep your distance.

6. Sorcerer 6: Sixth level wild mages can Bend Luck as a reaction, adding or subtracting 1d4 from any check, save, or attack you wish near you. Now you really have protagonist powers! You can also cast Haste now for additional gudaspeed.

7. Sorcerer 7: Seventh level sorcerers get fourth level spells, and Conjure Shadow Demon does exactly what you think it does. You can conjure a shadow demon- I think Cursed Arm would probably count for this? Also, this demon’s slightly more cooperative, but it will probably turn on you after the fight’s over.

8. Sorcerer 8: Use this ASI for more Charisma. You can also Conjure Barlgura, which also does exactly what you think it does; conjures a barlgura. What, you don’t know what a barlgura is? Yeah right, everyone knows barlguras! They’re so iconic I don’t even have to tell you which servant they’re like!

----------------------------------------------------------

What the hell? It’s been eight levels already and we haven’t even summoned a four star yet! I’m so salty I’m gonna....

9. Barbarian 1: Going into barbarian lets you turn your gacha salt into Rage, giving you extra bonus damage on attacks, getting advantage on strength saves and checks, and you get resistance to physical damage types. You also get an Unarmored Defense, letting you continue your fight even in the nude.

10. Barbarian 2: You can now make Reckless Attacks, gaining advantage on all attacks for the turn at the cost of taking attacks at advantage for the round. Your Danger Sense also gives you advantage on dexterity saves that you can see coming. You might think that’ll help when Berserker of Learning with Manga turns on you. You’d be wrong.

11. Barbarian 3: Did you think the gacha was over just because of a class change? Hah! Thanks to Tasha’s, you can set down the Path of Wild Magic at third level, giving you Magic Awareness, an action to sense magic within 60′ of you proficiency times per long rest.

More gachaly, you get a new Wild Surge when you rage. It’s a smaller table than your sorcerer surges, but it’s more consistent. It’s the friend point gacha to the other’s quartz gacha.

You also get Athletics proficiency from your Primal Knowledge, for better sprints.

12. Barbarian 4: Bring your Strength even higher so hitting people is actually a good idea.

13. Barbarian 5: You get an Extra Attack each action now, and your Fast Movement adds 10′ to your movement speed, making you not the slowest person in the party any more!

14. Barbarian 6: At sixth level, your Bolstering Magic lets you spend an action to either A) add a d3 to a creature’s attacks or checks for 10 minutes, or B) regain a creature’s spell slot, with the level based on the roll of a d3. You can use the second one once per creature per long rest, but your total number of uses is equal to your proficiency bonus each long rest.

15. Barbarian 7: Seventh level barbarians let their Feral Instinct take hold, gaining advantage on initiative rolls. You also can ignore surprise by raging. Your Instinctive Pounce lets you move up to half your speed when you rage. You like pouncing.

16. Barbarian 8: Use this ASI to bump up your Constitution for more health, more AC, and stronger rage spells.

17. Barbarian 9: Your Brutal Critical gives you an extra die of damage when you deal a critical hit, as you rub gacha salt in the enemy’s wounds.

18. Barbarian 10: Your last wild magic goody is the Unstable Backlash- when you take damage or fail a save while raging, you can roll on the wild magic table and replace your current effect. More gacha, MORE GACHA! 

You also get more Primal Knowledge for Survival proficiency. I think you kinda ended society as we know it in at least one timeline, so you’ll need it.

19. Barbarian 11: Your Relentless Rage gives you a guts skill of your very own! When you would normally drop to 0 hp you can make a constitution save to say at 1 hp instead. The DC increases each time, but resets on short rests.

20. Barbarian 12: Your final level is another ASI for more Strength. Hit people, it’s real simple.

Pros:

You are just so random, which makes it hard to strategize against you. Your enemy can’t know what you’re gonna do if you don’t!

You’re pretty beefy, but you can also send in a demon squad to cause chaos in your stead when you’re feeling lazy.

Halfling’s lucky is so useful it honestly deserves its own pros spot. Nat 1s are for nerds!

Cons:

Mixing conjuration and rages is never going to end well, especially when those conjurations want you dead.

You’re so random that you can’t really strategize for anything. Yeah, it won’t be boring, but you can’t be as precise as other builds.

For a lot of this build, your shortness can be an issue when it comes to mobility. Being the slowest person in the party when running from demons (that you may or may not have summoned) is a serious problem.

[havetheavengersdoneanythingwrong]

An Interlude — Warmth Under the Covers

The Master of Chaldea — Ritsuka Fujimaru — checks in on his allies, only to find them slacking off yet again.

What’s a Guda to do?

[POV-Ritsuka]

—

I am a Master of Chaldea.

That is what I am — nothing more, nothing less.

The guy operating the summoning system most of the time — one of the two guys who keeps the contracts between the Servants that Chaldea summons.

Mash’s Senpai.

I’m a Cause, and so is my coworker.

“...That’s right. That makes me a badass now, sort of!”

I can feel my fingers run through my hair as I wink at the mirror before me. Comparing my two options to figure out which one I preferred in the Combat Uniform, I ran over my daily routine.

Step one, of course, was figuring out how much I wanted to do myself up in the morning. The Chaldea bathrooms had the perfect lighting to check my face and skin, ensuring my skincare routine was up to snuff. Making sure my eyes weren’t bloodshot from the two hours’ sleep — making sure the bags under my eyes were concealed with a little bit of makeup.

“It’s like every day, Suzie’s training becomes a little more useful.”

That’s right — a closer look, and my cheeks were smooth as a baby’s bottom — my eyes as normal as they could get, considering their bright orange shade. At least the curtains matched the windows — always something that did bother me about my other look, that my hair wasn’t blue.

“...Then again, that would look awful with the uniform.”

The thought made my spine shiver. Like a genderswapped Rei — not bad, but not exactly the visual I liked seeing.

Truly, it was preferable to have that set form — anything else would be nauseating to even think about.

“...That should do it.”

Yes, truly — I looked perfectly fine, now. Care had to be taken to ensure I looked like my best.

That, of course, was easier than worrying the others.

...

...The bathrooms led to the Chaldea halls, just as well as they led to my quarters. Why the creators did this always confused me — even moreso, that the doors were one-sided, and were flush with the wall, so you couldn’t even get back in.

“Goddamned mages and their one-way bathroom door magic.”

Adjusting the plugsuit that never failed to get bunched up near my arm, and trying to imagine the map of Chaldea in my head, I put one foot in front of the other and started course to the cafeteria. Simply a hop, skip, and approximately twenty-five different hallways that look exactly the same away — my only saving grace being how many times I’ve made this journey before.

That, and the burning Olive Garden due east of the Cafeteria, whose smoke signalled the food area from a mile away.

And for much of the trip, it was the same as it always was — simply my footsteps echoing in an empty hallway, the only accompaniment being the odd intercom message from Da Vinci letting the staff know of a Singularity that had only recently cropped up.

“Just calling to let you all know that we will begin our scheduled Rayshift in four days~! Prepare yourselves for it!”

...We never really had a break. Even walking down these empty, empty halls, my footsteps served only to momentarily break up the endless thoughts of what came next.

‘A mystery Singularity. Is that what it is? I’ve never heard of it. We had the four Pseudo-Singularities handled already. There shouldn’t be any Pillars left! On top of that, we still don’t know the first thing about its location, and even if we did...’

Tap.

‘...It’s not like we can do anything to stop it. All my research, and nothing about this makes any sense at all. Maybe a Foreigner could do it, but—‘

Tap.

‘—Why? There’s no reason to make a Singularity anymore. No Demon Pillars left. The Lostbelts are already destroying mankind. There’s nothing left to do. And—‘

Tap.

‘...We need a break. We need a break from this — from ALL of this. Cadence needs a break, and that’s to say nothing of myself. Can’t we have a moment to sleep..?! Can’t we have even a second to rest our eyes, snooze, and..?!’

The smoke overwhelmed my thought. Against the harsh fumes of a burning building, and the strange smell of spice, rational thought was impossible to maintain — and the growing headache of a nightmare-riddled sleep wasn’t exactly helping matters.

Tap.

It wasn’t far now, surely. Another step forward, and —

...

...Between the tables of the cafeteria, there lay a kotatsu.

I made it with Da Vinci’s help just a few days before. A little wooden table, at least compared to the surrounding cafeteria tables — a red blanket sort of thing, and a heater underneath that Da Vinci cleverly placed carefully to avoid burning oneself. It could sit, I reckoned, four people on a good day —

—I didn’t account for Gorgon, clearly.

Finally directing my gaze to what was coming out of the blanket of the kotatsu — and moving forward as to get the damned Olive Garden smoke out of my eyes — I was met first with the ever-clear figure of Gorgon. Eyes just barely shut, a hand positioned to form a makeshift pillow, and a tail surrounding something out of view, she drew a figure much unlike what I’d previously seen — only made a little more curious with the resting Lobo just behind her, which made its resting spot close to her in order to be as warm as possible. Hessian, for what it was worth, was still awake, sitting at a table nearby — offering me a wave of recognition as I returned my gaze to the table.

Jeanne Alter lay — more accurately, sat — at the kotatsu, almost as if she were awake, her hand still gently grasping a bag of chips that had by now spilled across the oak surface of the table. If it weren’t for her loud snoring, and her face smushed against the table, she would’ve had me convinced she was still awake.

Circling around, I found an Artoria that seemed quite familiar — Lancer, clad in a black turtleneck sweater, dark grey jeans, and her esteemed headpiece, resting her head on her hand and looking almost wistfully at whatever Gorgon had wrapped up in her tail. Even as I approached, she didn’t even look back in recognition — as if I never existed at all, or as if she were staring through a window that wouldn’t accommodate for anything Ritsuka-shaped.

And as I followed her unshifting gaze, I found —

—Wrapped in Gorgon’s tail, a young lady, sharp black hair tied up in an impressive style I couldn’t quite describe. Her face, uncovered by a mask I’d grown accustomed to seeing, seemed at peace — eyes gently shut, arms wrapped around...

“...Cadence, you motherfucker.”

The careful, wistful gaze of Lancer Alter, the comically tight squeeze of a sleeping Gorgon, and the gentle hold of Ushiwaka, all contained a cowardly Master that somehow bonded with the most hateful, evil beings alive.

In a sense, it would bring about the ultimate safety, being around those that would always fight to protect that which they care of — even if their ultimate fate is to burn all that lives, surely some safety remained in keeping close to those who would protect you from anything they hated most.

“...This guy claims he’s a one-on-one sort of guy, yet he ends up like this.”

...It wasn’t like I had any right to complain — I did have Mash, and that was utter perfection, so I supposed he had the right to find a portion of that.

“...I’m never letting him live this down.”

“...Ritsuka.”

...I glanced over to Lancer Alter, who seemingly only now clued into my existence — her almost hazy eyes, as if overlaid with a world both like and unlike reality, gazed both at me — and through me.

“What is it?”

“...Rest well. Your journey will not end so easily — you would do well to follow his lead.”

...Her gaze moved back to Cadence, who hadn’t moved a muscle. If not for the subtle sound of his breath, I’d have presumed him dead — though he wouldn’t have much room to move, the way he was.

“...I don’t think I can rest that well, Lancer. He’s got two ladies keeping him warm, and a third keeping an eye on him. Can’t tell me I’ll ever rest like that.”

...At that, the Lancer only smirked.

“...It shocks me as much as any other, Ritsuka, that this has happened. But... You have your own who would be all too willing to provide, no?”

I could hear myself let out a snort in a desperate attempt not to laugh.

“Only one with Ritsuka cuddle privileges is Mash. Serenity gets a pass, but the others terrify me.”

“...So be it. Find those two, and rest. If that is how you rest best, then so be it.”

...Keeping a close look at her eyes, the fog faded ever-so-slightly as she kept watch over the other Master. I reckoned it was probably due to the contract being transferred to him — though Cadence did always have the strange habit of bringing Alters down to earth. If he weren’t so scared of the others...

“...You do the same, Lancer. Don’t watch over the guy forever. If you wanna get in there, Gorgon could probably fit you, too.”

As I briefly procured me phone to snap a picture of the scene before me, to tease Cadence with later, Lancer only laughed back.

“I am already dreaming, Ritsuka. I have no need to rest.”

“Right, right.”

Even as I turned around, and began setting foot outside the cafeteria with a wave Lancer’s way, my eyes remained on the photo of Cadence.

A lot had changed — a lot would still yet change.

Friends had been made in unlikely places, enemies made of friends, and friends of enemies.

But in all this, even a guy as paranoid as Cadence found time to rest — he found company with Avengers, and those more evil than he could even hope to be, and he found safety in their loyalty and affection, so it seemed.

...

“...I guess I don’t need to worry about him, hm?”

...It was best to listen to that Lancer while I still had time —

—while, instead of the ceaseless nightmares, I would dream instead about teasing the coward that remained so affectionately in such a silly place.

...Perhaps it was time to dream.

[castilium]

Kama/Mara (III/L)

                                       Chaldea’s story was one of hope and love.

Ritsuka had always carried the mantle of hope. Roman had always embodied the notion of love itself. They had each paid a terrible price. It had been natural that the culmination of the Grand Order would see those two on the stage facing Goetia. Mashu had no regrets that she had expired too soon. Well... one. But she had said her goodbyes to Roman prior to their dispatch, even if meant for him to emerge the survivor. Ritsuka hadn’t. To encroach on that opportunity, it would be unjust. She had paid such a heavy toll up until that moment, and the price stacked higher each day since.

Ritsuka was hope, and the world had pushed all its dependence on her, demanded so much that a solitary human could never bear the brunt. Her bones snapped, her skin split and bled, her heart crushed, her mind breaking evermore. Roman was love, and that sentiment tortured him each and every single day for more than a decade. It encirlced him with the beastial gnawing fangs of fear, dread, despair, doubt, failure, their snarls which kept him up at night, and pushed him far further than a solitary human could bear.

In that time, Mashu had been neither.

Roman’s passing left her an inheritance — Mashu would become love.

The journey had been hers and Ritsuka’s from beginning to end, whatever that end may be. From the beginning, Roman had entrusted Chaldea’s Master with a flame, a tiny ember. A spark that grew and spread, so that by the time Romani Archaman left the stage, his successor could pick up where he left off. At the end of the journey, Ritsuka had already expressed her intent on doing the same.

               “And then, I’ll pass the baton to her because I know she’ll carry it to the end.”

For seven months, Mashu Kyrielite had lived without hope inside of her. The hardships of morality had tested her, and on too many occasion had she failed. It must have only brought pain and frustration to those who bore witness to her, not least the woman who entrusted her with that gift and the Beast whom had been the audience to her conviction.

Love and hope were much a coin each, warped into a curse when a flip landed them on tails.

        “What you reside in is none a human body, but that created by Beast’s Magic"/

    “Despite what you may think and what everything seems to suggest, you are not turning into Beast IV.”

She wasn’t a Beast, but she was love. The same kind of love that birthed such creature. She understood Goetia much more with time — that boundless love for humanity, that desire to protect and watch it flourish. She knew love hurt. She had seen it many times.

                    Through the Beasts. And on the other side of that lightning strike.

Tonelico loved. She loved so much that the Fae crafted a weapon out of it and tortured her all the same. They beat her love. They mangled her love. They burned her love. They pushed and pushed until her love grew cold as winter ice. And then the story was rewritten, painting her as the villain, like the Beasts.

She had spared Mashu the horrors through measures taken to see her survival through millennia. Much like how Pepe spared her, Ritsuka and Arturia those inflicted curses. How he urged Ritsuka to take Mashu and run, to leave him — one at death’s door — behind to perish, protect her as a Master would.

       That love, that endless love from avenues infinite. That was Roman. That was Mashu.

That love she had for her Master which tormented her like Roman and Tonelico before at the imagined vision of Fujimaru Ritsuka, humanity’s saviour, dead. The fruits of her labour toppled from the cold palm of her hand. The shadow of two years that would loom over her male twin from which he would never emerge. Humanity’s hope, leaving behind a gift for their successor. The last price they would be troubled to pay.

        Hope and love would converge in one entity: humanity’s testament, but not its saviour.      The story of hope and love was authored by hands of others, she was merely the storyteller.                  Romani Archaman. Fujimaru Ritsuka. Their story. Their story... concluded.

                                  Hope and love.                                   Hope and love.                                   Hope and love.

At a distance from the festival’s offerings, they had taken to the Sky-Strewn Isles, beneath the stars. Watching them, Mashu’s thoughts of the Time Temple came to ease her frayed nerves. At the culmination of a tremendous journey, there had been something wondrous in that final push — a magic in the air alight with the blessing of so many Servants converged into the same battlefield. On the other side of the seventh Lostbelt, she anticipated no such miracle. She could hardly imagine such a thrilling conclusion, something breath-taking that exceeded the trepidation of what failure would permit reality. She was not that pure girl who held her head high, even as the end of the world blazed above their heads.

“I thought about it a lot. Even when I died, Senpai kept going. It must have been tremendously painful — her body was at its limits, and she had dreaded seeing me go — but she kept going. She kept summoning Servants even though doing so put an enormous strain on herself, because she couldn’t afford to give up”.

                              You were dying even then, weren’t you, Senpai?                 You were dying when you limped back towards Chaldea all by yourself.

“The legend says you knew about your death the moment before you pulled the Sword of Selection, and yet you did it. You pulled it and sacrificed yourself for a cause far greater”.

“Yes.

Merlin enacted one final evaluation to test my resolution. I surrendered my humanity in that moment and accepted the end, whatever may come. Ritsuka did the same, but that is where the similarities end. Not a country, but the world was asked of her, and all while human. Whether she has written herself off as one too steeped in sin to be worth the title, the fact remains she is human”.

Among those lights, Saber had not been one to tread the Time Temple. Why King Arthur herself would not appear among humanity’s greatest army, to fight for its future... there had never been any reasonable explanation. The Lion King and her knights, the Round Table, they had been the representatives. The stoic manner in which she carried herself, it wasn’t unfamiliar to Chaldeans, but something had changed. She’d hardened herself to bear the weight of demands made upon Chaldea, the way Mashu had tried, the way Ritsuka had to.

“When she fought Goetia, I wonder how far off she was from now? When she was so worn down and her spirit alone kept her moving. What went through her mind. What burned brightest in her.

I began to think about if the ending that waits beyond the Lostbelts would demand the same, when she’s already falling apart. That maybe I could do it in her place, just one more time, and not leave everything to her like we have all this time. Maybe I could fight with rage in my eyes, teeth grit with fury, a dedication to fight the entire world for her, a resolution to have her last long enough to see even a second more, maybe even enough anger that I would think to burn the world that wasn’t worth it if it meant getting her back.

If it meant sharing her pain, her scars".

Saber’s eyes closed briefly. Familiar notions had driven her charge previously; that of phenomenal determination against all odds. “Mashu. I cannot begin to help Ritsuka, not if she won’t allow it. None of us can. It’s a fact that feasts without satisfaction. You and the Count are no doubt overcome by the same, yet he maintains his composure. As one inexperienced, you’ve heard numerous interpretations on the matter, each accompanied by beliefs. Nothing I can say will be new or comforting.

It is quiet infuriating... to suspect she will not survive and witness what was salvaged by her sacrifice. For there to be no apparent means to overturn that outcome, in spite of everything she has given. always". As a Servant, who could do naught for her Master. It had nothing to do with the echo of Arthur’s death; Ritsuka was human. Whether she had accepted that ending or not, she was hope. She was the brightest light in the world. Moreso than any Servant, any star. Without her, the whole world went dark. Without meaning. Like those brief lives they fought for — Mashu’s wish was not eternity for the brightest of Chaldea’s stars, but milliseconds more on that fleeting blink that was a human lifespan.

                                 Hope and love.                                  Hope and love.

“After all the pain she’s suffered, and all the deaths she’s witnessed... yet how she carried herself, then and now. I’ve disliked so much how weak I’ve been these past months. I haven’t held my ground and rebelled against how everything is so unfair. I folded in and my heart grew weak. If faced against something as powerful as Goetia’s Noble Phantasm, I wouldn’t hold up, and everything would have been for nothing. Everything she endured, but still stood up after. I thought about turning my heart to stone and try to close out the pain”.

Their eyes met. A silent acknowledgement. Saber didn’t reply.

“But I can’t. Doctor Roman gave me so much, and I have to carry it on in his stead. I don’t want to disappoint him

Senpai treats herself like a martyr the way you did, and I would gladly sacrifice myself again for her. But I can’t. I have to live because it’s what she wants. The way I want so much for her to. If it came down to a decision, we’d choose each other to carry on. I would give her love, she would give me hope. We’re as bad as each other, but that’s the price of Doctor Roman’s gift. I don’t regret carrying it for him, but I do feel unworthy. How I feel so unworthy of hers.

Some days, I feel as though the tenacity she always has, and just how brilliantly it shone for no-one to see, is enough to climb over the hurdle and cope with an ending she doesn’t get to see. I feel pride swell in my chest and feel inspired to do the same, and that would be the legacy of her memory I would carry. But they’re just temporary, like everything else”.

Momentary peace descended, the noise of skiers a distant hum. “I can’t make peace with it yet. When she came back from the Time Temple, I thought we’d lost her, and never wanted to feel that again. But now it’s every day, and nothing has happened. I can’t save her, like you couldn’t save Britain. Holding her final gift but unable to hold her hand scares me. But Doctor Roman was scared. Senpai is scared. And they did what they had to, they didn’t close in on themselves. I want to be strong again, so they can rest assured their mantles would be in safe hands, and they can watch without fear when I fight the way they did, beyond the border of human and wielding impossible”. They would speak pride of her no matter what, but she wanted to be the Mashu Kyrielite who could believe and feel the same. Their champion as they were hers and Chaldea’s.

                                Hope and love.

[versegm]

Rin doesn't do "mistakes." It's a Tohsaka thing. As the heir of such a prestigious family, it is only natural that failure would be completely unknown to her. At worst she's had slight miscalculations in her plans. That's it. Success follow her every endeavor, and in her opinion, it is well earned.

But. She has to say. That was perhaps not the best start for a Holy Grail War.

"I think we did well." Berserker says, perched on the couch, legs kicking into the air. "Neither of us have died yet!"

The cheerful tone only irritates her more. "We need to do better." She hisses. "We could barely hold our own against Lancer-"

"Oh, I think he only wanted to gauge our strength. If the Hound wanted you dead, we would be." (Hound is not the first comparison that would come to her mind. Panther, maybe. But Berserker is right in that Lancer was definitely a wild beast.)

"Saber is very clearly a powerhouse-"

"She seemed weaker than she should be. I think she was wounded when we met her."

"And we only survived Archer by teaming up with Emiya."

"I honestly did not know that Hercules also qualified as Archer. It's good to know!"

Rin lowers her face in her hands, and allows herself one scream.

"Are you okay, Ishtar?" (They have a weird way of pronouncing Master. Rin figured it's the madness enhancement at work.)

No. "This is going to be. Tricky." Okay. Okay. She can do this. She just needs a plan. And Rin Tohsaka excels at plans. "I'll be playing the offense from now on." Berserker's madness enhancement is rather low, which, nice, lucid conversations! But also she might have landed the weakest servant of the whole war even with magical reinforcements, which, less nice.

Berserker nods. "Sounds good. I wasn't much of a frontal fighter in life either." (Rin files away that tidbit of Berserker's backstory for later, because while Berserker didn't hide their true name from her, the fact is that she has no idea who "Ritsuka Fujimaru" is or why they'd qualify for the throne of hero, so any info helps.) "I'll take the hits from you. I'm really hard to kill."

That's how they'd described their Noble Phantasm to her earlier. I'm really hard to kill. She doesn't quite know what it means, but so far it seems pretty literal. For all their fight against Lancer had been an embarrassment to watch, Berserker had successfully diverted every blow away from their vitals, without so much as a groan at their injuries. As for Saber...

"That reminds me, how did you survive Saber's blow?" The invisible sword had cleaved them in half, from shoulder to hip. Yet when the blade came out- it was like it'd been slashing at air. No cut. No blood. Nothing. "Is that your noble phantasm?"

"Hah! I wish." They chuckle. "No, that's just because Caster doesn't want to hurt me."

"Caster...?" Rin blinks. "You think that was Caster in disguise, and not Saber?" Couldn't they mention it earlier-

But Berserker shakes their head. "No, no. Caster didn't want to hurt me. Artoria very much did. Not a single one of that girl has known restraint a day of her life." They tilt their head to the side. "Except Lily, I think, but I don't believe that was her? Could you describe her to me? I couldn't tell which Artoria that was."

...

"What," Rin starts, articulating very carefully, "are you fucking talking about?"

"Artoria! The girl who tried to run me over with a sword! Did you forget her already?" Berserker's hand flash through the air as they speak. "I'm guessing she's a Saber, since she had Caster with her and all, but I don't know which one she is."

"... So Saber? Is she a Saber or a Caster? You're not making any sense!" Rin pinches the bridge of her nose. Why, oh why did she get saddled with a berserker of all people. "And why Artoria? That's a weird name. Is that british?"

"I call her Artoria because that's what she's called." Berserker answers with a frown. "I am bad with names, for once I can remember one right, I figure I should use it." And-

"... Berserker." Rin asks very, very slowly. "Are you telling me. That you know Saber's true name?"

"Yes?" Berserker raises an eyebrow. "Of course I do. I remember every person I fought alongside. I remember so much it keeps overlapping. Which is why I ask once again- what did Artoria look like?"

[ziracona]

[FGO AU -- The Kid (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ?)

“…Still nothing?” Her hands are perfectly still, muscles tensed and brow furrowed with all the concentration I ever seen on any mage, but, I think she can tell the answer before I give her a sympathetic smile. “AUGH,” she exclaims, flinging herself back unhappily into her seat, “Why! I’m trying my hardest! I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong!”

The mage folds over like a camp chair and deflates with unhappy sounds, sliding back against her own seat.

“Hey, come on now,” I try reassuringly, “It’s not so bad. I don’t know any magic at all, but pretty much all skills take more than an hour to come together.”

She lets out another long sigh and blows some hair out of her face, then straightens up a little. “Yeah, I know,” she admits, “But it’s not like I only tried today. Actually, I’ve…been trying to practice it like all week. So I’d be ready…”

Whoa.

I…guess I shouldn’t be surprised—I keep underestimating her, and her level of plannin’. She strikes me as impulsive, and she is—to the core—but, she’s smart too, and reasonable. Knows how it works, and thinks, just, goes for the long shots anyway. It’s a combination of traits I both like and can relate to.

“Still,” I offer, “You ain’t got a teacher, ‘n mage stuff’s complicated to learn.” She still looks incredibly down, but she nods as she stares vacantly through the bed past me. “…’Sides,” I add, “That medicine you gave me’s helpin’ a lot already—I’m feelin quite a bit better. And you don’t need to worry about havin’ to heal me, sooner or later. I’m getting’ a steady supply of mana from you, even if it’s slow, so my spirit core’s rebuildin’. It’s just gonna take it a little time. It won’t be like a real—human—bullet wound would be to heal.”

“Really?” she asks, perking up immediately.

“…Yeah.” I’m kinda surprised she didn’t know that. Girl seems to have a roulette-wheel of a library about my kind in her head. “At this pace, I should be back on my feet by mornin’.” Crap, it is morning. I forgot. I give the blinds a glance. “Or, --I mean a few hours.”

“That fast?” she asks, eyes widening.

I shrug, which hurts. Ow. Why…do I keep doing that? OW. DAMN it, Bill. When I’m not moving, I forget how much the entire left side of my chest is in agony when I do. “Not back to normal, but, on my feet,” I manage with my teeth clenched, trying not to let on how much that hurt.

She nods, thinking that over. “Can I do anything to help speed it up?”

I still can’t get used to that.

Kid’s so….fervent, and sincere. And nice to me. I’ve been awake for maybe an hour with her now, and I’m still not remotely used to it.

I refocus quick, and give her a smile. “Not more than you already have.”

“I could get you more food,” she suggests eagerly.

That’s probably true, actually, and I could use it. Just. “…Well, if you got some,” I stutter out. I am not used to feeling flustered, but I am realizing quick I am even less used to people bein nice to me. The odd heroic spirit maybe, but humans? Feels totally off now. Like I’ve snuck in somewhere I’m not supposed to be.

Happy, the kid snags her tray, but before she can leave I say, “—Actually though, uh, --before you go—I’m realizin spectacularly late here you still haven’t told me your name.”

She freezes with her hand on the tray and her face turns red. “CRAP, YOU’RE RIGHT!” the mage whips around to face me and gives a distressed bow. “I’m so sorry—I can’t believe—”

“—I-It’s fine, really,” I assure her, “Just you got me at a little bit of a disadvantage right now-”

“—Right! I-I’m sorry. I totally forgot! I’m Ritsuka Fujimaru,” she says, offering me a hand. It takes me a second to get she wants me to shake it, and I awkwardly do.

“Ritsuka Fujimaru,” I echo, “Well, you already know my name, but seein’ as I got several to pick from, Billy’s good. –Oh, uhm—you got a name you prefer me to call you?”

“Uh.” She gives me a glazed stare like someone looking at an oncoming train. “My…friends in high school called me ‘Gudako’ sometimes.”

I stare right back and forget to take back my hand from our handshake. Damn!! “…Your friends weren’t too nice, huh?” I offer sympathetically.

Her face turns crimson and she gives me a look saying she was praying and expecting that I wouldn’t know what that meant and is crying on the inside that I do, and I feel real bad for her that we spirits get such decent language translation built into us on summon. “No,” she offers in a tiny, beaten voice, staring past me.

It’s real hard not to grin, but I beat the impulse down internally with a shovel and give a sympathetic smile instead. “Well, I really just meant ‘do you prefer ‘Ritsuka’ or ‘Fujimaru’,’” She turns a deeper shade and I see her wish for death a little. “But if it’s any consolation, I would definitely not describe you as boring.”

The kid finally looks me in the eye again, a bit like a kicked dog, but she smiles back after a second and seems to bounce back with it. We both remember we’re still holding hands then and let go.

“Well, thank you,” she says like she means that, “I guess I’m not this week anyway.”

“Hardly,” I agree with a smile.

She returns it and takes the tray and goes back into the kitchenette I gotta assume is back there somewhere, and I get another second to think alone.

I’m doin’ better—a lot, I think. So far I think I’ve been up something close to an hour. All this is very strange to me, and it’s not been a great couple of months, but I’m feelin’ less and less dead by the minute, and the answer to ‘does pain medication work on Heroic Spirits’ seems to be a solid ‘yes’—which—considerin alcohol still does and I knew that, in retrospect shouldn’t be such a surprise to me. A glad one though, for sure. Still.

What now? That’s the real question.

Kid says she just wants to help, and at this point I mostly believe that. There’s usually a catch somewhere down the line, but maybe not. I do think at the least she thinks she means it right now. …And…and. I wish that was all I had to worry about. But, the less pain I feel, the clearer I’m starting to think, and either way, she’s right; I can’t just go back to the throne, or I’ll get resummoned. I’m stuck here like this, tied to her right now. But I can’t stay here indefinitely, and neither can she—actually, come to think of it, if they got any kind of security at that workshop, she might be in danger now, for breaking me out. Mages are…known for their ruthlessness. There could be people already on the way to deal with her. Okay. Better find that out, and fast.

Then, third and last on the list of things for me to figure out and deal with is those mages themselves. And that’s the big one. I’m not the only one of us that’s gonna happen to, if it ain’t already happened to more of us, and I can’t leave the place like that. If they have more spirits already, I need to break them out. And either way, I need to destroy that research and probably the people in charge, so they don’t just rebuild, or they absolutely will. And fast. Not sure this new master is just gonna let me go on a wild murder tear either, though, no matter my motives. Which is a problem…

She’s back then, though, so I’m out of time to focus.

“More okayu, plus some chocolate, if you’re feeling good enough,” she offers hopefully, setting her tray back down, “and I brought you some tea too.”

See that’s the problem, I think mournfully at the sight, I can’t do nothin’, but I can’t just betray her after this either, even if I got a good reason! No one’s ever been this good to me—I can’t just go lie to her and then pull a bunch of bloodshed on her dime—even if she don’t sign off on it, she’ll find out, and she’ll feel responsible, and she’s a kid, I’ll have done that to her! I don’t wanna give some kid who saved me a bunch of guilt trauma! After all this? …Hell. I… But I can’t do nothin’ –I can’t. I got friends in the Throne, and even if I didn’t, I ain’t about to allow that to keep on goin’. We don’t deserve that; it ain’t right. But if I tell her what I got in mind, she might use a command spell and bind me, so. …But still. I can’t… I can’t…do either, but. …Maybe I could convince her to absolve the contract, and get it done after that and before I vanish, just, once I got more strength? I got my Independent Action that could keep me goin’ for a little—even Gunner, I got a lot of my Archer traits, so, once I’m healed, it might be enough to get- …No. Ain’t enough. She’d still see what happened, and know the only reason I got it done was her. Same problem as before. Shit. Shit, this sucks… I’ll be doing somethin terrible no matter what, then…

And I know myself. And that the thing I’m eventually gonna do is not leave that place standin’ with people like me trapped dyin’ inside it. As much regret and guilt as that’s gonna buy me too…

“What?”

I glance up, and she’s got her head cocked. I gotta stop bein’ an open book here. Let me think…

“About Ur-shanabi,” I start hesitantly, “Master, did—”

Her expression changes drastically to distress and she immediately cuts me off. “—Oh, please don’t call me that.”

I forgot I even said it, so it takes me a second to get what she means. “’Master’?”

“Please?” she says again, “I know you’re supposed to, and I’m supposed to call you my servant, but I really hate that.”

Everything else I’ve been thinkin’ about just kinda shuts off and I stare at her, blink. … Y…yeah, me too. Always…

“You’re all heroes, or famous artists, or explorers, or fighters, and we’re just mages. –I mean, even if it was different, I’m pretty sure I’d still hate it,” she continues with a sigh, somewhere deep in thought in her own head, but she comes back and meets my gaze, “But please don’t. I don’t want you to have to think of me that way either. I guess I don’t know how this all usually works in a lot of detail, and I know you’re stuck bound to me right now, but I don’t want you to worry I’m gonna try to make you obey me. I won’t! That’s not why I helped you!” She looks so intense. Leaned forward, one palm on the bed, look on her face that makes me believe she means it. “I want you to know I’m never gonna do that; I mean it. I won’t ever use a command spell on you to make you do something you don’t want to do, I promise.”

Her eyes are amber and bright like coals and full of intent. I find it impossible to look away.

“Not ever. I don’t want to try to use you or control you; I. …I’m…really just trying to help…” She finishes, pulling back once she’s made her statement and looking just a little embarrassed only now it’s done.

“…Well, good,” I finally find my voice, “Because I’ve never been much for the Master-Servant thing anyway. Can’t ever seem to stick to it, and it tends to cause problems down the road.”

She smiles back, happy with my answer and that I’ve accepted her proposal.

Some kind of a mage... This is…almost too much to really even understand right now, but I think she…meant it. She thinks she did. I’m beginin to think calling her a mage at all was plain off. She’s somethin’ else. I always think the kid’s thrown me for about as many loops as she can, and then I get knocked down again, and it’s been less than a day. Don’t bode well and really does for me at the same time.

“’Boss’ then?” I suggest, but I can instantly sense her dislike.

“’Partner?’” she counters hopefully.

That does have a much better ring to it, I gotta say. “Partner,” I concede with a wink, “If you’re sure that’s what you want.”

Never had a master that wanted me to un-know my place before.

“Well, you could also call me ‘Ritsuka’,” she says hopefully and then immediately becomes embarrassed. “Uhm,” she hurries, glancing away when I grin at her, “A-And you’re sure you prefer ‘Billy’? Not Henry?”

Lord it’s been a while since anyone called me that. Sends me a long, long way back. And not really in a good way. I appreciate the thought though.

“No,” I reply.

She seems surprised a little, but I can tell she’s not gonna press me, so, there’s really no reason to say this, but for some reason I want to tell her.

“That’s my middle name, actually,” I say.

“Huh?” says the girl.

“Henry,” I clarify, “Middle name. It’s William Henry McCarty, actually.”

Her brow furrows. “…But I thought…?”

“Step-dad had the same name, and it was too many for one household, so mine got shortened,” I gloss over, “Took it back when I picked my own name on the lamb.”

“So. …You outlaw-named yourself … ‘Your Name The Hot One’?”

It’s my turn to suffer nickname shame, though I’m not too ashamed of that, because it’s pretty funny. Does suckerpunch me a little to get called on it more than 100 years later.

“…I-I don’t know…” I answer automatically before thinking of what to say, “Maybe. …yeah.”

She almost chokes on a laugh. I grin.

“I mean, if you got the opportunity—wouldn’t you? I’m just sayin,” I say casually, past the slight amount of embarrassment I felt and pretty proud of myself again. It was a slick name.

“It’s got flair,” she says approvingly.

“Thank you,” I reply.

“So, what were you gonna ask—before I interrupted you?” she asks, picking up the cup of tea and offering it to me. I take it, feeling immense guilt as our hands touch for a second and I’m stuck thinkin about all the things she’s done for me for no reason other than bein’ kind, and the fact I’m definitely going to turn on that and her, and how awful that is.

I…wonder if it would make things some kind of right if I came back and let her kill me after? No. No, that’d make it worse. Mage or not, I don’t think this kid’s ever hurt anyone. I don’t know what I can do to soften taking this kind of kindness and drawing blood with it, but…

“Ur-shanabi,” I say quietly, working hard to pass off my internal distress as distraction as I hold the little clay cup and feel the warmth. It smells good. I know I have to drink it, and I’ll feel physically better, but everything nice I accept is piling on guilt.

…I wish. I wish I had a choice here, but I can’t let them keep this goin’. I wish I knew a way to make that right, or at least explain to you I’m sorry. And everything she says and does just makes this worse! I don’t want to hurt her. I really don’t. In any other situation, I wouldn’t, but I have to, and I hate it. I don’t want to betray her. I don’t want to make her regret showing me kindness. I don’t want her to feel the way it feels to not do something cold but safe, and then get shot for it.

Hot water slips over the top of my hand and I jerk back and just spill more of the tea, sucking in a sharp breath at the unexpected pain.

“Whoa! –Are you okay?” she asks worriedly, passing me a napkin and leaning over to catch onto my hand and help steady the cup and what’s left inside it, “What happened? Are you feeling worse again?”

Hell! My hands are shaking and I can’t quite get them to stop. Calm down. You don’t gotta do anything right now. You can feel bad later. Just think a second.

“Nah—s-sorry,” I manage, trying to smile at her and not quite sure how well I do, “I uh—I guess I’m just still a little weaker than I thought. I’m fine now.”

“Here,” she says, brow all scrunched up in concern, taking back the tea and passing me the ice pack to set on my hand.

I hate this. I’m terrible. It ain’t fair—it ain’t wrong for me to go back, I gotta, but. I hate this. I hate it.

I take the pack and try to look grateful. “Thanks.”

“Sorry about your hand,” she says.

I wave it off. “It’s already done hurting.”

“…” She waits a second, leaned a little forward expectantly, and I forget what for until she prompts me again. “What? About Ur-shanabi?”

“Oh,” I say. Right. “I was gonna ask how much you know about their operation. –How you even ended up in the right place at all.”

“Oh,” she says, and she loses some color.

Huh?

“Uhm,” she glances away, then back, and seems more herself, but I’m not sure I buy it this time. I don’t think she’s lyin’, per-se, but there’s something else she’s not saying. “Well. I’m from a mage family, but, not a ‘mage’ family—we know about magic, I did—growing up. But, I didn’t ever get any formal training, or anything. So I guess it was more like mage-adjacent in a lot of ways. There was this test I heard about from a friend—a research project on magical circuits, and I was curious.” She glances down at her legs again, but this time she looks far away and almost happy, like she’s revisiting a better moment in her head. “I’d always been curious about myself and magic, and I was excited, because if you participated in the research project, you got to know stuff they found out about your magical circuits—stuff you might be good at.” She glances up at me and gives me an embarrassed smile. “It sounded really cool. I had wanted to know for so long, and I thought—I still think—it would be really great to learn how to do more magic. So, I went.”

The girl—nope—Ritsuka, thinks for a second, then holds out her hand and looks at it. “Apparently I’ve got really unusual circuits.”

“Unusual?” I echo, kind of intrigued. I know jack-all about magic, but I am curious.

She glances over and nods. “Yeah. I thought I did really badly in the study, because I didn’t know any real spells at all, and everyone else did. They pulled me aside after and I thought they were just going to kick me out before we even got results, but, apparently my circuits were so unusual they wanted to do a case study. I’ve got ‘Almost no practical control or ability to utilize them, but possess a nearly inhuman amount of mana.’”

“Really?” I ask. I can’t feel that at all. I’m getting enough to keep me sustained, sure, but that’s it.

“I know, right?” she agrees, nodding and leaning forward, “That’s what I said! But apparently I do. They asked me if I’d come in to do more studies, and I said yes, because I was also curious. And that was Ur-shanabi. I’ve been going there for a while now,” she adds, then stops, gives me a guilty look, then looks away and keeps going in an almost dejected tone. “Uh. But I worked, or, was allowed in, I guess, a totally different part of the building. You were up on the 12th floor. I was on the 4th, R&D testing labs.”

“Oh,” I say, very confused by this reaction from her, and a little concerned by it too if I’m honest, “What brought you up to the 12th?”

“The mage I met with the most was named Nakata. He worked in a lot of projects more important than mine too. I think that was maybe the only time I was ever on the 12th floor,” she answers, “That day, I showed up and waited for a couple hours, and he never showed up in R&D. There were other people who wanted to use the room we usually used for another test, so I asked if I should go home, and the secretary said yes, but I bumped into Dr. Nakata in the elevator on my way out. He said he’d been swamped by a last-minute schedule change, and still wanted to do our test, but he’d be maybe another hour, and that I should just wait for him by his office. Which, is on the 12th floor. I was just standing there, and this big group of mages went into a large room at the end of the hall, so I was curious and watched them, and.” She shrugs.

Yeah, I can fill in the rest.

“I guess you don’t know a lot about what they were doing with me, then,” I say, a little disappointed. Any new information would have been useful. I don’t know that I expected another answer, though.

“…Actually, yes,” says Ritsuka, looking uncomfortable. I glance at her in surprise and she looks flustered and guilty and glances away again. “Uhm. After I saw you, I asked Dr. Nakata what was going on up here, and who you were.”

You coulda been killed, I think in a frozen kind of horror. What were you thinking?

“He told me,” she says simply, “You were a heroic spirit, and they were doing tests on things you could do using them. He even told me what the test was.”

I don’t know what to think or how to feel about that, so I just listen. I wonder why on earth he’d tell her?

She glances up and holds my gaze this time, an undercurrent of almost…incensed feeling somewhere deep in her eyes. “He said they had found a way to keep a summoned spirit away from the throne for a long time at low mana cost, and instead use the connection to their Saint Graph and essence as a fixed unit outside of time now, to generate a potentially limitless source of energy. To…make a heroic spirit into a battery.” I can tell while the rest of it was her echoing, the last statement is her own, and she’s bitter. “I asked how, and he told me,” she continues, “He said you had to trap one right between life and death, so they would give as little presence as possible to anything looking, and wouldn’t find a way to escape or retaliate on their own, but couldn’t actually vanish either. ‘An art and a science, to find the perfect thread to stop at, and keep them in place on the edge of death.’ Stuck. In pain, and too weak to fight back, but here.”

She lets out a long sigh and glances at me and says, “I said that sounded awful, and what about the spirits, and he told me a lot of stuff about heroic spirits being familiars that are meant to serve mankind in whatever way they’re summoned for, no matter how painful, and aren’t people anymore and that’s their intended use.”

Ow. I mean, it’s not new; I hear this from mages all the time, but it’s never fun to hear one say it right to your face. Fuckin mages…

“But, I think he could tell I didn’t like it, even though I was a little scared by then and trying not to seem as much like it,” she continues, glancing down at her hands, “And he told me ‘Don’t trouble yourself. You’re new to this, but it’s a normal part of being a mage. If it helps you rest easier, the one we summoned was Billy the Kid, an outlaw and a murderer from the old American west,’ a-and. That…” her voice gets quieter, like suddenly she thinks maybe she shouldn’t have said any of this, “…I could think of it as divine punishment, in a way. And not have to feel bad.”

…

That. It really shouldn’t bother me to hear. People always act like that to me. Even when I was alive. I think about being sent to hang for a murder I didn’t commit for a moment. I had so many murders on my record by the end of it, but I’ve never pulled a trigger that wasn’t in self-defense or a last resort. But it’s never mattered. You are what people make of you, in the public eye, and in history I guess, no matter what the truth is. And eventually that tends to push you to an ending written about the person you’re described as. I never thought of any of the fights I was in as murder. I guess it’s been a long time since I could even pretend that mattered to anyone but me, though.

…I still hate it.

It hurts. Not so much people sayin’ that—don’t care too much what people think; I know who I am. But, the fact that it just straight up don’t matter what’s true, at all. Even a little… I could have lived a completely different life and not been remembered as any worse at all.

“He thought I’d agree with that.” Her voice is angry. I glance back up, train of thought broken, and Ritsuka looks as mad as she sounded, somewhere else in her head too. It’s a quiet, deep anger. “I didn’t.”

There’s something about how she looks, like she’s an embodiment of what she’s saying, and again it becomes hard to look away if I’d wanted.

“He was wrong. I guess there are some people who deserve to die,” she continues, “I’ve thought about that. About if I think if…if someone killed my family or something, I’d want them to have to die too for it. If I think that’s fair, and right. But. …Even if some people probably deserve to die, nobody deserves to be just kept in pain forever. Even the worst people. I don’t know how anyone could think after more than a day anybody at all could possibly know it’s right to go on hurting someone. Not even the worst person.” She looks distressed by that for a moment, then glances back at me and smiles a little. “I decided that, and that I was going to try to do something, and then I went home and looked you up, and you didn’t even sound that bad.” Her eyes go big immediately and she looks mortified. “—Wait—That sounded bad! I’m sorry! I-I said that wrong. I—I meant—I didn’t—I just mean—he’d said—uh—a-and you didn’t sound like—it seemed like you weren’t so—like stuff went wrong for you more than you were a bad person actually, a-and you didn’t seem like you were really a murderer—"

The poor kid is sweating buckets now. I think she thinks she’ll have offended me sayin’ that, but it’s very much the opposite.

“—I should stop talking. I’m sorry. I-I just—uhm. You were different sounding than I thought before I looked you up is the only thing I was trying to say—I’m so sorry I don’t know why I said any of it at all!” She gives up and hunches over apologetically in shame.

“…I ain’t mad,” I try to assure her after a second.

Ritsuka glances up between her bangs and gives me a sorrowful, worried look.

“…I…think I actually appreciate that,” I continue after a second, figuring it out as I go and then giving her a smile, “I ain’t sure what you read about me, or how true it was, but I’ll take what goodwill I can get.” She raises her head a little more, but still looks worried, so I keep going. “Ain’t offended me—I get it. You were already thinkin of doin’ something dangerous. Gotta know what you’re in for best you can, with a heroic spirit. Only smart to try’n be prepared.”

Looking a little better, she cautiously un-hunches. “Yeah. …I really didn’t mean to say it how I did, though. I don’t think you’re bad! I mean, I know I don’t know you, but I-”

I hold up a hand. I feel like after all this, I really oughta let her off the hook.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say with a sure smile, “You don’t gotta explain yourself, or tell me what you thought, or what you think now. I don’t have to know. I’m aware you’re takin’ a risk on me, especially with my kind of record, and I appreciate it. Probably ain’t easy for you.”

Shit, haven’t thought about that before, but it’s true. Kid might have command seals, but I’m quick, and she’s not experienced. Pretty much any heroic spirit she summoned that wanted to could kill her easy. She didn’t think to use one immediately to order me to not. I’ve been so strung out and nervous of her, I haven’t thought for a second about the fact she’s probably scared of me.

“…Uhm. In light of that, Ma-  Partner,” I correct, “I’d like to set a few things straight for you, if you don’t mind?”

She seems to recover a little, straightens up and gives me a very serious nod.

“If you’re worried about me, don’t be. Whatever you heard, truth is I never killed anybody except when it was them or me, or I was defendin’ someone else. I never was a fan of it, either. Only crimes I ever set out to commit were thefts, mostly outa need,” I say, “Where I grew up, once you had a reputation, that was all you had left. I stole food when I was on my own at sixteen, and there weren’t no turning back after that. ‘Bout that simple.”

The gal’s listening attentively, head cocked. Takin this serious. And I’m still thinkin over how this has probably been for her. Angering a group of powerful mages is scary enough. Now she’s contracted to an outlaw spirit, and she’s apparently a mage who’s got no real practice usin spells. She’s basically just a civilian. She’s all alone here too, and somethin like sixteen or seventeen, and she’s got no real idea what I’m gonna be like, or want, or do. I’m not in great shape, but I’m still a heroic spirit, and a lot more powerful than her, and I’ve killed people. That’s a pretty good reason to be scared. I don’t want her to be, though. At all.

“I know all you got’s my word on this,” I say, working hard to convey my sincerity, “But it is the truth. More importantly, you saved my life, and I owe you. I really am grateful. I got no plans to try and hurt you; I promise—you got nothing to worry about.”

FUCK. What I’ve just said hits me like a ton of bricks. Fuck, I should’ve phrased that differently!—no no no—damn it damn it; I should have thought about it first! Hell! I am gonna hurt her! Probably. Not physically, which is what I was thinkin’ about when I said that, and meant, but it’s not technically what I said, shit shit shit, I just promised her something I’m gonna break—oh great, and I must have some amount of that showin’ on my face because she actually does look nervous now. I lied and I actually made her more afraid of me. Great job! Damn it damn it damn it.

“I’m really not the kind of person to do that,” I add quickly, trying hard to save it. This is bad this is bad. “I wouldn’t have a reason to anyway, but you definitely don’t gotta worry about me—” Everything I am thinking to say is wrong. All of it. ‘turning on you’ – a lie. ‘repaying that by making you sorry’ – a bigger lie. Shit. And I feel like it now too, more than before. I’m the worst—I’m terrible. I know I don’t have an alternative, and I have to go back, but this is awful, and I feel very appropriate amounts of guilt about it. I deserve this. “attacking you or something,” I go with, even though it sounds weird in my ears, because I don’t want to outright lie again, and even this much is making me feel miserable. “after you’ve been good to me.”

I hate this. I hate myself. Maybe. …Maybe there’s another way, maybe I can… Can…

She smiles for a moment, happy I said that I think, then slowly looks worried. “You look worried.”

Oh. I guess I’m the one who looks worried.

I…

I can’t. There’s nothing I can do to work this out better than it’s gonna be. I just. …I just…

…Fuck it.

“I am,” I say honestly, turning my head to look at her. She’s so sincere, and so worried. She’s been so good to me. I just. … I just… “I’m worried about Ur-shanabi,” I say, so sure I’m going to regret this in seconds, but doing it anyway because of some deep inherent flaw in who I am, “I’m okay right now, but I figure with me gone, they’ll just take another one of us and do the same thing. If they haven’t already.”

I watch slow horror creep over her face as that clicks. “…I. Would…? Oh. They will. And it’ll be my fault.” she says, glazed-over expression on her face.

What? “No!” I say immediately, “That it’s someone else and not me? It ain’t your fault. It’s theirs—they’re the only ones doin’ it, aren’t they?”

She comes back to herself a little and looks at me, but her face is still drained of color.

“It won’t be your fault,” I say again, “That’s ridiculous, and you know it. …They will keep doin’ it, though. Probably to more and more of us, if they can. Probably they’ll sell the idea to other mages too.” I hesitate, give myself one last solid chance to reconsider this, and don’t. Just pray for luck. I’ve gotten a lot of it the last 24 hours—maybe I have a pinch left. “…Unless I find a way to go back and stop them pretty fast. It’s that, or this is gonna keep happening to us. And it’s only gonna get worse. …I got friends, in the throne. …I don’t want that to happen to any of them. Even for the ones I don’t know, even the ones I don’t like, it’s like you said: nobody deserves that. So. I think. …I gotta go back.”

Her eyes are huge and I can see her running what this means, trying to process it all. I’m praying she’ll agree with me, but it’s such a long shot to get from an idealistic teen.

“Please!” I try, going for the best pitch I can before she decides to force me not to, “I-I know you’ve met those people, and I’m askin’ a lot, but at least think about it. You helped me because you knew what they were doing was wrong—I know it too, and I’m the only one in a position to shut it down. I can’t do nothing, and this is the only way to end it. You don’t know what it’s like. We-“ I’m getting to desperate, and I know it, but I hold up a hand and plow on because so long as I keep talking, she isn’t, and I don’t know what else to try. “—Our bodies are pretty close to what they were before; we feel pain the same, we can just survive more of it. I-I’m lucky, I got shot—I’ve known spirits who were bled to death, or hung, or burned, or decapitated—you can’t imagine what it would be like to be stuck chained down forever with your head just not quite severed all the way enough to kill you. I know it’s not your fight, and it’s not fair for me to ask this, but I have to try and stop them. And I—can’t. Without an anchor. Please...”

Maybe this won’t be a terrible idea. Maybe it won’t backfire on me immediately. Maybe she’ll let me go. Maybe she’ll understand. Maybe I won’t have to—

For a moment, she stares at me, motionless. Then her eyes well up.

Damn it. Damn it; I knew! I knew she’d feel like she had to stop me, and I showed her my hand because I felt bad, and now promise or no, she—

“I’m so sorry…” she whispers, and I’m fully expecting the threat of a command spell to follow that, but instead she tucks her knees up to her chest and folds over into a little ball and starts crying again.

I don’t…rightly know what to do about that, so for a second I just stare at her like an idiot.

“I know it was bad,” I hear muffled and choked up from the little bundle she’s made herself into, “I. I don’t—don’t know how awful it was, I know, but I know it was—I know it was so bad. And it’s my fault it was you.”

What?

“You have to go back?” she asks pleadingly, looking up at me for a second from over her knees, like she’s asking me if I gotta go die in a war, “What if they catch you and put you back where you were? O-or kill you and just summon you into a trap again? I’ll never get back in if—”

“Wait, what do you mean ‘your fault’?” I ask, still stuck on that and very lost again. So much so she’s halfway through her next paragraph before I even clock that me potentially getting trapped again is the only thing she has immediately objected to.

Ritsuka looks at me with her big, tearful eyes, then looks defeatedly at her knees. “…I. One day, several months ago, I showed up for a research day and Doctor Nakata had these boxes on the table, and a bunch of papers.” The kid looks and sounds completely miserable, and exhausted.  “I didn’t know what any of it was, so I asked him. He said it was for another project, and to just wait a few minutes while he packed it up. …And then he changed his mind, and said actually, would I come over? He told me they were deciding between a few candidates for a project, and at this point it didn’t really matter which one they started with, and would I like to pick one. I asked what the project was, and he said it was a secret. But, it looked so important, and cool, and I wanted to be involved, so I said yes please, and I went up and picked. I didn’t know what they were.”

Ritsuka grimaces and looks sadder, rests her chin on her knees and exhales slowly. “No, I think I did. I just didn’t know what they were for. I could sense they were all magical, and they were all odd, and specific. An old little clay vase. A shuriken. An earring. A coin. A letter. And a photograph.”

I stare. She makes herself look up at me, and I can see how sorry she feels. “I picked the photograph.”

Ah.

“He even told me later,” she adds quietly, all the spunk gone, “That I picked you. When I asked, after seeing—”

“Good.”

She looks up quickly, surprised.

“I appreciate you feelin’ bad for me,” I continue sympathetically, “But it ain’t your fault, what happened to me. You didn’t know what was goin’ on, and if it hadn’t been me, it’d have just been someone else. Luck of the draw; just how life happens. On top of that, they’d have gone after every one of us on that list eventually, and if I hadn’t been here and now with you, I might not have ever gotten out.” It’s true, and I give her a smile. “Also, this whole thing is a pretty big relief.”

“A relief?” she echoes, confused.

I nod. “You get summoned with a catalyst, ain’t much you can do but show up, like it or not, but I wanted to answer the call when I got it. Up till now I thought my sixth sense had plain stopped workin’ or something. I guess it was actually just because I thought I was answerin’ your call.”

She looks confused for a moment, then smiles slowly. “…Really?”

I give a little head tilt. “Best I can guess.” I honestly don’t know if a summon can work that way at all, but I’d like to think so, and why not? Makes us both feel better.

I meet her gaze and try and get her to smile back, and this time it works.

“I really am sorry,” she says, “even if you’re not mad.”

“Well thank you,” I say, accepting the apology, “But consider it behind us.”

Something she said earlier that I had running in the back of my head comes through hard, and I feel the bottom of my stomach drop out.

“…You said a coin?” I ask, really, really, really hoping my gut feeling is wrong for once.

She nods, catching my expression and getting sympathetically worried along with me.

“…Was it kinda silver, with a face on one side, and a short cross and some words on the back?” I ask.

“Uh. I only saw one side, but it did have a face,” she says nervously.

“Was there a scratch across it? Deep? Diagonal on the face?”

“Yeah,” she says, surprised, “How did you know? What is it?”

Oh no. Oh shit that’s bad. Okay. Okay, this is gonna be okay. I can figure this out. He might not even be here yet, and I can snag the coin and he’ll be fine. All this means for sure is that I have to figure this out, more than before now.

“A friend,” I answer when I remember I need to, “—a catalyst to summon one, I mean.”

“Oh,” she says in a voice like I feel.

For a moment, we look at each other in silence. I got no idea what she’s thinking, but my mind’s far away and frantic, trying to piece together some kind of plan.

“…What do we do?” she asks.

“Huh?”

“You said you gotta go back in,” says Ritsuka as I refocus on her, and I can see she’s come to some kind of decision, “And need me to help, and now you know they’re gonna hurt your friend unless we can stop them. I’ll help you, but I don’t know how. How do we go back and stop them?”

I gape.

“…You…want to help me?”

She gives a nod, looking confused that I’d ask her.

“You-? I mean—it might. …I might have to…shoot someone,” I say. Wow. Great job Billy you sure did sugar coat that and make it sound real fine. Nicely done.

Her eyes widen, and she glances away, hesitates. Then says slowly, “…But if we don’t, they’ll keep torturing heroic spirits for energy.” Working through it herself.

“That’s about it,” I agree sympathetically. It…can’t be easy for her. She’s a civilian, a kid. And she seems like a bleedin’ heart who doesn’t want to hurt anyone. She’s already been a lot more understanding towards my perspective than I expected.

“…So it’ll be bad either way,” she says finally, looking back and meeting my gaze.

I’m kind of taken aback that she’s put it into almost the same words I did to myself, but I nod.

“…That sucks,” she says to herself sadly.

“Yeah,” I agree quietly, looking at my own knees and thinking it over.

“…Is there a way to do it without killing anyone?” she asks after a second, hopeful.

Probably not. Even if I destroyed the whole building, there’s the people in charge who know how to do it, and can and will rebuild. I think she can see that on my face, because her expression falls.

“I…don’t know for sure,” I answer, “But. I think…probably not. … They’d rebuild. –Not all of them—not all of them would know how, but, at least a few will.”

She stares off at nothing, thinking.

I feel worse, somehow. Thought I was doing the nicer thing, basically giving her a chance to stop me, and risking my success. But. Now I think maybe I’ve accidentally been more heartless.

She shouldn’t have to carry a choice like this. Life ain’t fair, and I know that, but I’m finding I like being on the giving end of that even less than the receiving.

“…How old are you?”

The mage turns and looks at me, surprised, and flushes a little. “…I. S-seventeen?”

“Yeah?” I ask.

She nods.

Seventeen. She’s about the age I was when my life started really fallin apart. I hate being a part of that for someone else. I don’t want to.

“You don’t have to have anything to do with it,” I offer quietly, “You could dissolve our contract. Fifty-fifty chance I get the job done before I vanish, fifty—”

“—No!” she cuts in adamantly before I’m even halfway through my pitch, “No way! You’d get trapped there again! That’d be even worse! I made a deal with you to protect you if you trusted me! I’m not just gonna abandon you now.”

I blink. Tilt my head, taken aback by her fervor.

Did you? Is that what the contract was to her? I try to recall her words. ‘My soul becomes your will; your spirit becomes my destiny.’ Right, she said that wrong. But what I want to remember is before that. I try hard. “Please—If you die, they’ll summon you back! I-I can ground you! I can keep you here!” I can’t see much in the image in my head, but I can hear it, I can feel it—the pain and her hand on mine.

…I guess she did.

I don’t know how to respond to that. Look down at my own hand, playing it again in my head.

The kid is thinking still, her brow furrowed with worry. Taps the edge of the little bedside table agitatedly with a finger. “…So. Either we find a way to destroy their research, and get any other spirits they have out, and…maybe fight some of the people in charge,” she says finally, “…or they keep on doing this to you all, forever. There’s no other way things can go? You’re sure?”

I’ve already thought about it, but she’s so sincere and sad I think again, and then nod.

She sees that and glances at her hands and then back at me. “Then. …I guess we have to go back and stop them. You’re right.”

I stare at her. A-are you serious? Even as such a bleeding heart, you really—?

“But nobody gets hurt that doesn’t have to, okay?” she adds fervently, “And. I-I want to try to talk to the people in charge first! I know they won’t change their minds and it’s probably a waste, but.”

“—We can try,” I agree readily, overcome with relief, “Are you sure, though? You don’t have to stay contracted to me, and you sure as hell don’t have to come. You—you’ve already taken a lot of risks for me, big ones, and I know I’m basically returnin that favor by involving you in bloodshed. I don’t want to do that.”

It’s her turn to look surprised, and she blinks and tilts her head right back at me, and for some reason it makes me feel a whole lot better and a whole lot worse at the same time. But also more like I understand her.

“You’re not doing anything to me,” she says simply, “They’re the ones doing something that has to be stopped. It’s not your fault you’re the one who knows about it.”

I…guess that’s true. Feel like I’m getting my own words thrown back at me; maybe I am.

“It sucks,” she adds, “And I’m scared. I don’t want to hurt anybody, or get anyone else hurt. But. Mom and Dad always said it’s just as bad to stand by and let somebody be hurt as it is to hurt them yourself, if you could have done something about it. So. I want to help you, and I will.”

“You’re sure?” I ask again, “It’s…it’s a whole lot, and it ain’t gonna be easy, or safe, and you’re—” If I say ‘a kid’ I think she’s gonna get offended because I would have when I was seventeen. “Young. It shouldn’t be on you to fix.”

“Well, you’re young too,” she says.

Ow. I’m twenty-one. I know I’m short, but at least I’m an adult.

“And you’re mostly dead, so let’s just agree it’s unfair for both of us, but we’re partners, and someone has to do it, and we’re here, so that’s us,” she says very diplomatically.

I give up and sigh, then offer her a hand. “If you’re sure, Partner.”

She takes my hand and shakes it.

“So, what can I do?” she asks as she lets go.

“Well, anything you know about the building’s layout’ll help, and what defenses they might have. Mostly, I just need to get back to fighting shape,” I answer.

She nods. “Food, then?”

I give in again and smile. “Thanks.”

[bonmotx]

three thoughts

Ophelia always saw Beryl as an odd one.

Perhaps it was that his possibilities changed so frequently, yet so rarely. Perhaps it was that his tongue was as blood red as his eyes, and that around his mouth an eternal stain remained, rusty and dried, no matter how often she blinked the afterimages from her vision, colorless sight failing on him and his bloody visage. 

But maybe it was rather... he was someone like her. Surely, Pepe would disagree. (Especially now as the Ophelia of the future considers looking back on these thoughts, as time marches on and more and more coldness grows in the void of a place uniting them. The A Team truly is dead.) There’s an ire she wants to gather, when Mash, the girl she desperately wants to be her friend, seems to be nearly fearful, to avoid him with an attitude that breaks her empty nature.

Yet the thought, despite her uncertainty behind it (she saw even less color back then, after all,) still remains.

Beryl always seems to talk like a normal person, but even without searching out his possibilities, he feels... off. Whenever she says a white lie he calls her out, and in an odd way, it’s as reassuring as it is unsettling. Ophelia searches through his future as much as everyone else’s, because it’s her role, (because she’s curious,) (because it’s the only way she has to get to know them,) and yet it’s sterile and bloody.

There is always such an overabundance of life in Beryl’s future. It’s unavoidable. He never goes anywhere that isn’t populated with life in some capacity.

Yet it’s always, so quickly, dead. Always in that order. There was always life, vibrant and beautiful in color, surrounding Beryl Gut, and then in every possibility, at some point, sooner or later, it died by his hand.

Ophelia, ever hungry for knowledge, sometimes wishes she thought as to why, and what that strictly defined sequence of events meant.

Sometimes, especially now, she still wonders.

Sophia always saw Beryl as a temptation more than a person.

There’s something about meeting someone your body seems to recognize that’s unsettling, and a tool on the run knows that better than anyone, yet this killer in red doesn’t startle her. The girl with the purple hair may be closer to what she should be, but Sophia is easily capable of recognizing their differences.

Sophia has someone to defend. To protect. To exist for. (The girl with the purple hair never did, never had the chance to, and she never truly knew her name until she was long dead, in a learned display of first sympathy then genuine empathy, in a timeline where a blonde woman becomes the Master of Chaldea, and she is cold, cold, and never took a girl’s hand, but when she sees the after-effects she regrets it, just a bit.)

(But that was later, months and years of slow unravelling and building back up, making a tool into a person. Back then-)

Beryl Gut, however, was a different kind of familiar. Something deep inside her marked him as ‘similar’, yet despite rational thoughts, not in a way that was a threat. Anyone that can threaten her position is a risk, a danger, someone to stay on guard around.

(Of course, a woman who acts so much and has lost so much of her humanity wouldn’t realize that sometimes, people want to be caught in the act, so they aren’t alone.)

Carefree violence is so tempting, alluring. Easy, easy, so much easier than acting soft and sweet and so saccharinely fake. It’d be so much easier, to be made of toxic waste and cruelty. Really, Sophia is, always has been, a petty and vindictive thing, but this unassuming fluff she hides her sharp corners with is safer. It means she doesn’t have to be intelligent, rational, to bear other’s burdens upon her.

They never really talked.

Maybe, Sophia can’t help but wonder, saddled with this new, fledgling sense of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and ‘doing good’ and ‘caring for others’, that was for the best. Maybe, Sophia can’t help but wonder, cracking under the weight, that was for the worse.

A nameless executioner finds an old work acquaintance familiar with an easy smile they both share.

They met him once before, in a place where they were both outsiders, killers. It was never quite friendship, though maybe it was, too. Neither of them knew how to do that sort of thing, after all. It’s funny, almost.

It wasn’t, so they were being punished with some more annoying jobs that required more finesse. A shame, really. But there were benefits, in the long run. They met another killer in the woods. Really, it was fun.

They had met a few months after a failed job. It was a shame, really, it was! Hired by a father to kill his son... what a cruel sort of thing. Not that it altered their course of action. They dumped him, all but dead, and figured it was good enough, right?

Well... no.

They never met someone who smiled so much, especially not as much as them! Neither of them gave out a name, or said who they were, but they could see all that mattered in his eyes.

Bloodlust meeting bloodlust was fun. It was the only reason they didn't kill him. They bet it was vice versa, too, because for two weeks they made a 'friend'.

They didn't take it personally when he left. They left soon after.

Then, years later, they took an identity in a form way less literal than him, and 'Ritsuka Fujimaru' came to Chaldea. It was funny.

'Riko' had a few jobs here. One was to finish what they started.

It was funny, then, to meet their old 'friend'. Neither showed recognition, but they bet they'd get to talk to him soon.

Years later, after that, they would finally get their chance.

[mako-neexu]

カドぐだ | mystic code.

“...I’m honestly not going to say anything anymore, to be honest.” Kadoc bluntly says after giving Fujimaru a dead-pan stare.

The Master laughs, bringing her sunglasses down to her eyes as the snowstorm only grew stronger. “Suit yourself, Senpai.” She aims at another soldier, gandr sparked and gathered at her fingertip before shooting point-blank at the enemy. “But it’s Arts season and there’s no way I’m missing another chance to strengthen this mystic code.”

Kadoc regrets the fact that he didn’t take a few tablets of painkillers today to deal with his kouhai’s insane bullshit.

Honestly, Hinako- Yu Mei-ren should be dealing with her! Not him!

He clicks his tongue loudly before wrapping an arm around the girl’s waist (don’tlookdown,don’tlookdown,don’tlookdown-!) to fling them away from the explosion of an attack that were aimed at them seconds prior.

Before he could berate Ritsuka further, her smirk turned into a wolfish grin as she brought her communicator up and opened the battle sequence. “Give us an all-out attack, guys!” She shouted over to the Servants before sending her instructions to them.

Xu Fu held down the giant hydra with her arts- Pope Johanna then prayed for her allies-

Then, Ryouma and Oryo finally dealt the finishing blow.

“Yeah, yeah! You guys are the bes-AGHK!?” Kadoc barely had time to react before he covered this stupid Master with his body, shielding her from the impact of the dragon’s blow.

Ghhh---!!! This is the worst! Pressed up against her while she wears nearly next to nothing---!!! He was seriously going to put on that damn collar again if it meant that she avoid doing unpredictable and crazy shit like this again!

Kadoc chalked his blush up to the cold of the environment and looked anywhere but Fujimaru before him.

When everything had finally settled, including the storm that raged earlier, he sighed in relief. Dear god. He would never ever get used to being in constant danger with mythical beasts.

Warmth- a hand cups his cheek.

“Thanks for supporting me back there, Kadoc-kun.”

He saw a smile from the corner of his eyes. Unable to resist, he half-heartedly glared up at Ritsuka. But the pink that spread across his face deepened. He merely rolled his eyes in response before pulling on her cheek with his gloved hand, “You seriously have to learn defensive magic that protects your body after this.”

“Oh? So you won’t tell me to stop using this mystic code instead, hm?” Her cheeky smile combined with the fact that she leaned in close to him, her warm hand now pulling his face closer-

“Wha-!?” Kadoc scrambled to pull away but was stopped by Fujimaru clinging onto him like damn koala-!!!

“Nooo!!! It’s cold! Don’t leave! I want to hide inside your jacket!”

“Then, I’ll take it off for you! Just let go!” He tried to pry her off of him, but she only clung to him tighter and buried her face in his neck.

“I don’t want that either!” She whined. Upon looking down at this stupid kouhai of his, he Kadoc realized his mistake.

He willed all the powers of the Zemlupus family to fucking calm his blush down lest his face turns into the same shade as Tristan’s hair. This idiot below him basically wanted him to hold her on the way back to the Border. Great.

Sighing, he sat them down with Ritsuka on his lap to avoid getting burnt by the cold ground on the snow before unbuttoning his coat. “Wha- What are you doing?” She asked, bewildered.

He cocked an eyebrow at her, “Uh, getting us ready to go back?”

Ritsuka cutely pouted- ugh, he was going to give up on himself as well at this point. 

It didn’t take him long to rid himself of the clothing before draping it aorund the girl’s body. He took his gloves off as well and gave it to her. “Hey, it was just a joke. You don’t have to do this y’know? The mystic code wards off most of the intense temperatures. So I’m not really affected at all.”

Keyword: most.

Years of being a mage forced to play a death game taught him to be perceptive no matter how light or extreme the situation is. And he certainly didn’t miss the slight chatter to her words whenever she spoke.

Kadoc sighed as he closed the jacket around the girl before making sure his gloves were secured around her hands. “I’m doing this because I want to.”

Looking back up to see her be the one to blush has him averting his eyes and clambering for words to follow up on that confession. “A-And that you’re seriously in for a lecture on magic later.”

Her response was a soft smile that made his heart skip a beat. “Okay.”

-

Kadoc dies as soon as they reached the command room when Ritsuka kisses his cheek with a flirty ‘thanks Kadoc-kun’ before running off to skip on class.