Chapter Text
Just as the blindingly bright light began to fade from Yuto’s vision, his sense of gravity shifted, forcing him to quickly come to terms with the fact that he was now hurtling through the air towards the ground.
Yuto had only seconds to react and utilized them to the best of his ability. Given that he was tired, injured, and had just been flashbanged by a magus’ parody of a planetarium, his ‘best’ proved barely sufficient. In the split-second that it took for him to comprehend Fenna van Blair flailing in the air beside him he pulled her into a close embrace, the effort causing them to rotate in the whistling air. His eyes widened as he watched the black ground rush closer to them.
This is gonna be close!
Yuto’s off-hand sifted through his pockets frantically until he felt the smooth surface of one of his jewels. He ripped it out of his pants pocket and thrust it forward towards the ground, his fist tightening around it until he could feel it shatter. Yuto’s heartbeat pounded in his ears as mana surged along his Magical Circuits, warping and shaping itself in conjunction with his will to gather into his fist.
Yuto gritted his teeth as he sent a spark of od through his hand, crunched the emerald shards in his fist, and thrust his open palm towards the ground.
“STURM!”
Green energy arced through his fingers as a concentrated torrent of wind erupted from his hand to strike the ground. The air rushing past them as they plummeted forced tears from Yuto’s eyes. He willed as much mana as he could conjure into his spell, the surge of power travelling along his Magic Circuits burned inside him like a hot iron pressed against his skin. But Yuto ground his teeth in frustration and poured what little od he had into the spell like gasoline on a fire.
With another roar of frustration, Yuto strengthened the gale issuing from his palm into a veritable cyclone. His eardrums popped at the sudden change in pressure and Yuto took that as a good sign. The air blasting up into his face lessened somewhat, the force of Yuto’s spell slowing their descent bit by bit until they finally hit the ground. Yuto stumbled into a failed combat roll, the impact of his fall sending him tumbling across the ground.
He took a moment to steady himself, wiping the sweat and tears from his face before checking himself. His jeans were torn somewhat from the impact with large tears having opened up above both knees, but aside from that he felt fine. It was then that Yuto remembered that he wasn’t supposed to be alone, his calm demeanor gaining an edge of tension.
“Fenna?” Yuto cupped his hands around his mouth to project his voice, though he doubted that it was accomplishing much. His voice echoed all around him, the only sounds Yuto could hear in response being the crackling of flames and the shifting of dirt beneath his feet.
“FENNA!!!” Yuto tried again, straining his voice to the point of breaking.
“Here… over here…”
Yuto was already in motion, hopping over the nearest pile of rubble and skidding to a halt along the rubble. He knelt down beside the doctor, who was too busy clutching at her ankle to pay his arrival much mind.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow…” Fenna whimpered like a mantra. “Yep, definitely broken…”
I really hate being right sometimes, Yuto mused with a grimace as he looked the doctor over. Unlike Yuto, who had dressed with the assumption that some physical activity might be required of him, Fenna’s casual office attire was totally ill-suited to the fiery hellscape that was… wherever the hell they were. Her thin black office trousers had been torn to ribbons below the knee and her smart leather shoes glittered in the firelight from the glass shards embedded in them.
“Sorry,” Yuto apologized between panting breaths. “For dropping you.”
Fenna elicited a small, pained huff at that. “I’ll take… being dropped over dying any day. So, thanks for saving me. Again.”
Yuto allowed himself a thin smile of his own, wiping away the sweat beading upon his brow with the back of his hand. His gaze flickered away from her to the fiery ruins around them for a moment before commenting, “Not sure either of us are safe just yet.”
“W-where are we?” Fenna asked, laying her head back as gently as she could onto the ground.
Yuto scanned his surroundings with clinical precision just as he’d been trained to do. The walls of flame clawing at the night sky and the ash lazily drifting through the air made his vision somewhat unreliable, but the melted shells of cars and the blackened cinder block structures arrayed in a line straddling a warped metal fence told him that they were…
“We’re in some kind of… residential area. Probably a suburb of some —”
Yuto’s voice caught in his throat.
Fenna said something else but Yuto’s attention was firmly fixed on the shadows drifting in the distance. Specific details were lost amidst the haze and darkness, but Yuto could tell they were vaguely humanoid in shape and size.
“Yuto!”
He was shaken from his concentration by the sharp hiss of Fenna’s voice. Yuto looked down at her to see that whatever she could read from his expression had terrified her. Rightfully so, in this case.
“Fenna,” Yuto whispered in as calmly and quietly as he could manage. “I’m going to get us out of here, but I’m gonna have to move you. I need you to be as quiet as you can. Not a sound, unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
By now, Fenna had noticed them too, her eyes widening into saucers. “W-what… What are they?”
Yuto kept himself perfectly still, not daring to move a muscle, not until he was completely certain that those things wouldn’t notice them. He chose to risk answering Fenna, if only to help keep her quiet. Their lives might very well depend on it now.
“I think… I think they’re probably the people who lived here… before whatever happened, happened. Now, they’re…” Yuto caught himself again. The last thing this woman needed right now was to be told the horrendous, likely truth at the heart of whatever magecraft animated these things. “Whatever they are, we need to get as far away from them as possible. That, and find somewhere safe.”
The creatures were getting closer — a few meters away, at the best — but they still hadn’t noticed them. But Yuto knew that wouldn’t last much longer. If they were gonna move, it needed to be now.
“Fenna.”
The woman was terrified, clearly scared witless by all that had happened in the last hour, but to her immense credit she managed to steel herself enough to tear her eyes away from the monsters and nod up at Yuto.
He wasted no time, slowly but deliberately shifting Fenna’s body around to face his crouched back. A small gesture, and Fenna wrapped her arms around Yuto’s neck to steady herself. He heard her stifled gasp die in her throat as he hoisted her legs up into his grasp, her swollen ankle dangling in front of him as he carried her in a piggyback.
“Yuto… Promise you won’t drop me.”
Yuto nodded. “I promise.”
Yuto huffed beneath her weight, but the burden was an afterthought as he focused all of his remaining energy and will to moving as silently as possible. His eyes remained fixed on the shadows he worked towards putting distance between.
~~~
I’m afraid I’m starting to get used to the smell of burning, Waver thought sullenly as he came to in yet another field of debris, the flames dancing amidst the rubble casting a warm miasma over the whole area.
Waver sat up and wiped the sweat from his brow before taking a good look at his immediate surroundings. A few skyscrapers loomed tall and black off in the distance, a grove of great twisted knives jutting up from the ground at odd angles like wind-battered trees warped in the wake of a heavy storm. Waver judged them to be a good few kilometers away, though in what cardinal direction he couldn’t confirm. Aside from them, there were virtually no buildings still standing in good enough shape for Waver to ascertain his immediate location. As for the general location, well…
… COORDINATES SET… JANUARY 30, 2004 AD…
The shrill mechanical tone of Chaldea’s P.A. system echoed in Waver’s mind as he glimpsed an arched bridge that spanned the river that divided the ruined city in two. It was a sight so perfectly ordinary that anyone else may have even failed to acknowledge its existence, but for Waver, it was something else entirely.
“Fuyuki City,” Waver whispered.
With the Fuyuki Bridge’s position confirmed, he could use it as a landmark to determine where everything else was in relation to it. Waver turned back to regard the skyscrapers again.
Those skyscrapers must be downtown Shinto, which puts me somewhere on the east side of the river… I need a better vantage point.
Waver looked around him at the charred shells of the ruined buildings and found one that seemed somewhat intact, its cinder block foundation having survived the devastation with a stone maintenance stairwell snaking up into the air at least one story above the ground to what had once been a second story of some kind. Waver trudged across the cracked asphalt road and climbed up the free-standing flight of stairs to crouch down on the steps about halfway up — Waver wasn’t exactly keen on climbing up all the way up only for the stairs to crumble beneath his weight. From his elevated position, he could see that much of riverside Shinto had been demolished by something… a wildfire, maybe? That’d track with all the flames, but Waver suspected something far more potent was responsible — a Servant’s Noble Phantasm. Not having anything more than the ghost of an idea to work with, however, Waver stowed his supposition away for the time being and focused on gaining his bearings. The murky blue band that stretched across the horizon was undoubtedly the sea, making that ‘north.’ To the west in the direction of Miyama Town was a fireball the likes of which Waver had only seen once before - and had hoped to never see again. The conflagration covered much of the residential area, belching clouds of inky black smoke into the air, covering the ruined city in a haze of smog. It would be next to impossible for him to investigate that area further in his current condition or without proper protection.
Waver looked down at the wristwatch on his arm, reading ‘15:10,’ though he supposed that such information meant very little in this situation. Even if the Rayshift didn’t mess with the watch’s record of time, the thick blanket of black smoke in the sky made concepts like ‘day’ or ‘night’ meaningless. All that said, there wasn’t much of a way for Waver to confirm how much time had passed between his being Rayshifted here and him waking up in the street. To make matters worse, none of the others from the Command Room were with him when he woke up… which could mean any number of possibilities ranging from ‘bad’ to ‘worse.’ Had they all been scattered during the Rayshift? If so, why? Had they arrived together and, for whatever reason, left him behind? Again, if so, then why? Discounting the two later arrivals Waver had barely registered before the Rayshift, from his brief time interacting with Ritsuka, Waver didn’t think it in the boy’s character — let alone Mash’s — to leave him behind either willingly or intentionally.
Or maybe I just don’t want to consider it.
A woman’s shriek pierced the air, causing Waver to immediately lurch to his feet. A survivor, he considered as he scanned his surroundings for the scream’s source. But of Chaldea or this Singularity? Waver supposed that the difference didn’t matter here either. All that mattered was that someone else was in trouble and Waver needed all the help he could get to figure out what was going on here. The benefits were likely mutual in that respect.
A second scream rang in his ears, but this time he was sure of the source — that being somewhere close to him, probably within a few hundred feet within the maze of ruined houses. “STAY WHERE YOU ARE!” Waver yelled hoarsely, his lungs still having not healed from all the smoke he’d inhaled earlier. “KEEP YELLING! I’LL FIND YOU!”
As Waver bolted down the stairs and raced in the direction of the woman’s screams, more questions popped into his mind. Was this risky? Absolutely. Did it probably make the situation worse for the both of them? Of course. But as far as Waver could tell in the immediate sense, this made certain that he had a direction to run towards and that whoever she was knew that someone was on the way to save her.
I just hope I won’t need to save myself, too.
Waver ran down the street at top speed towards the woman’s screams, soon closing in enough to hear the frantic whimpering of the woman just around the corner of the next building.
“Stop! I mean it! Stand b-back before I curse you!”
Shocked relief gave way to further resolve just as Waver rounded the corner into the entrance of the alleyway, arms outstretched to form a finger gun aimed at the silhouette leering over the terrified white-haired woman.
“HEY!”
Both people in the alley turned to face Waver, the woman’s eyes widening in recognition and the creature snarling in the presence of a new threat. Unlike his boss, Waver didn’t hesitate and fired a Gandr curse straight into the creature’s center of mass, launching it backward through the alleyway into the charred brick wall of the nearest building.
Waver waited a moment, watching the rubble the creature landed in for any sign of movement, before turning his attention to the woman. He knelt down and put his hand on the shivering woman’s shoulder. “Director, it’s alright. You’re safe now.”
Olga-Marie Animusphere leaned into him, sobbing into his shoulder. “L-Lord… Waver, I…”
Waver forced a smile. “It’s alright, Olga. No one else is watching.”
Olga-Marie wiped her face with her dirty sleeve and choked back a sob. “I-I-I tried running! From, from that thing and it just kept…” She sniffled, trying to steel herself. “I broke one of my heels trying to get away from it,” she explained tiredly, gesturing to her ruined designer shoes. “That’s when it caught up.”
“Those were a gift from Luvia, right?”
Olga-Marie chuckled mirthlessly. “More like a hand-me-down. Half my wardrobe are ‘gifts’ she thrusts on me every time we meet up.” She looked at him curiously, her bloodshot eyes screwed up in a conspiratorial look. “Is this one of your ‘detective tactics,’ trying to distract me from… all this?”
Waver’s smile turned into something a bit more genuine. “Is it working?”
She looked down and nodded a few times, very slightly. “Yes, yes I think it is.”
Waver looked over at the rubble again. “We should get moving. There’s no telling what else heard you screaming. Can you walk?”
“I think…” Olga-Marie struggled to her feet, her legs quivering like a newborn fawn. Waver helped her steady herself against him, the both of them deciding to ignore the awkwardness that such a gesture evoked within the two of them as the older magus led them out of the alley into the open street.
The two hobbled down the street back to where Waver first woke up (it was the only ‘safe’ place that came to mind), coming to a stop beside the ‘stairway to nothing.’ Olga-Marie collapsed onto the worn cement steps in a heap, her breaths labored and her breast heaving. Waver chose to let her have the stairway to herself, instead leaning the majority of his weight onto the cinder block door frame.
“So,” the Director said between exhausted huffs, “What now?”
What indeed? Waver looked down at his watch again and frowned. It still read ‘15:10,’ the hands frozen in stasis. So much for that possibility.
“First, we need to get in contact with Chaldea.”
Olga-Marie struggled to sit up on the steps to face him. “There were other survivors? Is there anyone left there?”
Waver grimaced. “I can’t say for sure. After the explosions, Romani sent one of the Master Candidates to look for survivors in the Command Room while he went down to the power complex to turn on the auxiliary generators manually. The boy, Ritsuka, rescued me from the debris and stayed to help look for other survivors.” Waver paused for a moment in thought before continuing. “There were also two others. Late arrivals, showing up just before the Rayshift that sent us here.”
“Who were they? Were they part of Chaldea?” Olga-Marie asked insistently, but the real question she was asking could not have been more clear: ‘Were they the saboteurs?’
“I don’t know,” Waver said, his answer eliciting a rather unladylike groan from the Director. “I didn’t manage to get a good look at their faces before the emergency Rayshift — they could have just been some staff members who came in at the wrong time.”
“You think they Rayshifted with us?”
“I sincerely hope they did,” Waver confirmed. “Otherwise, we may very well be alone out here.”
The older magus pored back over the facts of their situation once more. The two of them (and hopefully the others from the Command Room) had been sent through time and space to a version of Fuyuki, Japan, in 2004. A version because the Fuyuki City of 2004 that he recalled had never been blown to hell and set on fire. Not in 2004, anyway. As far as Waver had been able to see, everything within at least a ten kilometer radius had been destroyed almost beyond recognition with only a handful of large structures surviving to serve as blackened landmarks — so finding anything in the way of food or supplies was going to be unlikely at best.
Meaning whatever we have on hand is what we’re stuck with, Waver concluded bitterly, noting all of the nothing he had on his person.
Waver lowered himself into a crouch and began rummaging through his coat pockets.
Olga-Marie looked over at him curiously. “What are you —”
“Empty your pockets,” Waver said, not bothering to look up from his labors. “We need to know what we’re working with.”
The Director nodded wordlessly and began sifting through her own pockets.
After about two minutes of silence, Waver sighed, shifting his weight to sit cross-legged against the concrete wall. He brushed a sweaty clump of his hair out of his eyes as he surveyed the fruits of his labor.
Waver’s search had turned up a small piece of lint; a fountain pen, though Waver was dismayed when he discovered it had burst open inside his coat pocket at some point during all this; his smartphone, its screen shattered though its internal mechanisms seemed intact (Thank God); and his wristwatch, its stainless steel band now darkened by smoke and dusted with ashes.
“That’s it?” Olga-Marie asked in a strained voice.
Waver shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, I didn’t have an impromptu Rayshift on my docket today. What’d you manage to find?”
“Not much,” the Director’s brow furrowed in frustration. Olga-Marie’s search had turned up little better than his, all things considered: Aside from a few folded-up documents she’d had stashed on her person, there really wasn’t —
Waver’s mind short-circuited as he noticed the small wafer of metal on the ground, immediately snatching it up and fidgeting with it as he began to pace back and forth in the ruined stairwell.
Olga-Marie was flabbergasted at the sudden jolt of movement, her wide eyes following him as he paced. “Lord El-Melloi II, what — ?”
Waver paid her no mind. There was no time to explain. “Not much,” huh? Waver thought with the barest hint of amusement as he flipped the communicator around to look at its backside. He ran his cracked fingernail along the device’s surface until it caught on the edge of a thin panel sealed into place with some kind of glue and proceeded to try to pry it off as gently as he could. It was nothing short of a miracle that this comms device had survived the last few hours. Waver was almost certain that he had never before been so lucky in his life.
Olga-Marie stood up from the stairs and came over to him to observe his work.
Before the white-haired woman could ask her question, Waver cut her off with his own. “Why do you even have this?” He asked incredulously, his hands beginning to shake as he increased the pressure on the device.
“I - I - I was going to use it as a prop for the orientation,” Olga-Marie explained, totally taken aback by the euphoria beginning to grip the older magus. “You know, show off some of the tools Da Vinci developed to use in the Singularities —”
“Hah!” Waver cried as the panel gave way, popping off the device with a barely-audible click. Waver raised the small wafer close to his eyes, inspecting the circuitry. “Light… there’s supposed to be a light flickering on and off inside here, right?”
Olga-Marie nodded slowly. “R- right, but that’s the thing — I couldn’t show the communicator off because the damn thing wasn’t charged!” she complained. “It’s not going to work!”
“Don’t be so sure about that.” Waver fished his phone out of his pants pocket, his excited gaze lingering on it for a moment.
No greater emergency than this. Thank you, Grey, Waver mused before ripping the battery out of the battered phone. He stowed the phone’s shell back inside his pockets before kneeling onto the ground, laying the communicator down with the phone battery hovering over the exposed wiring in his grasp.
“What are you doing?”
“Charging the damn thing,” Waver snarked mirthlessly before activating his Magic Circuit. A burst of comfortable warmth surged through the magus’ body as his od was filtered through his nerves and refined into magical energy. Just as the energy flowed into his fingertips, he lowered the battery to press up against the exposed internal battery of the communicator and closed his eyes. Waver felt almost embarrassed using such a crude method, like a mechanic using cables to jumpstart a car’s dead battery. Unbecoming as it was for an elder magus, Waver had come to wholeheartedly believe in the adage ‘desperate times call for desperate measures.’ And much as he might have bemoaned their usage, Waver would have welcomed a set of jumper cables right about now.
“YAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!!!!!” Waver yelled in pain as electricity arced through his fingers from the phone battery, the surge following the flow of his magical energy as he poured it into the communicator. Light flickered rapidly as the surge singed his fingers.
A moment of searing pain was all it took before the communicator gave off a little chirping sound as a little green light began flickering rapidly from inside. Waver’s fingers, scorched a bright red and tingling as if he were being tickled with needles, nearly dropped the communicator as he sat back down on the ground in pain.
Olga-Marie sidled up next to him and clutched at the device excitedly. “It worked! It actually worked!”
Waver sighed. I could really use a smoke right about now. He flipped the device back to its front side and pressed the ‘call’ button after a moment of fumbling around with his numbed fingers.
“You’re calling the Command Room?” Olga-Marie asked excitedly.
“If Romani survived, he’ll be searching for us using Sheba,” Waver muttered tiredly. “Even if we can’t actually hail the Command Room, Sheba should pick up the outbound signal from our comms. With any luck — which I’m sure we’ve all but exhausted by now — he’ll get the hint and…”
Beep, beep, beep… Beep, beep, beep…
Both of the disheveled maguses’ eyes lit up at the tiny chirping coming from the communicator, their eyes staring at its silvery surface like it was manna from heaven — which Waver supposed it was, in a sense. He pressed the call button and held the communicator out as a blue haze of distorted mana appeared before him. Olga-Marie slid over to squeeze next to Waver to see the projection better, their close proximity somewhat irking him despite the circumstances.
Within a few moments, the digital fog coalesced into a stable holographic image of the man Waver Velvet most wanted to see at that moment.
“Oh, thank God,” the frantic voice of Dr. Romani Archaman crackled through the hologram. “I was starting to think I wouldn’t find anyone.”
“Roman,” Waver said quietly. “Are you alright?” The doctor’s face was grimy with sweat and dust, with a small trickle of dried blood running down the side of his face.
“Better than you. I’m fine, just a little roughed up is all.” The doctor seemed to notice Waver’s grimace, adding, “Really.”
Waver seriously doubted that, but decided against pressing the issue for now. “What about the others? Did anyone else survive?”
Roman nodded wearily. “Yeah, so far I’ve managed to confirm twenty or so survivors… besides myself and you guys, of course. But the lockdown is still in effect so until Da Vinci manages to lift it we’re all pretty separated.” The doctor paused for a moment. “Until then, there’s really no telling who all we have left.”
Olga-Marie cut in. “What happened, Romani? Do we know what caused this?”
“Da Vinci went with me to look at the Central Mana Reactor after fire suppression finished its job; right now, she’s thinking it was a bomb or explosive of some sort but said there’s no proving that theory until she has time to process the wreckage and find the bomb’s pieces… if there even are any. That said, we were incredibly lucky, all things considered. Whatever destroyed the reactor room only damaged it enough to sever its link to Chaldea’s systems. Once we repair the damage, we should be able to lift the lockdown.”
“What’s the timeline on that?” Waver asked.
“Once Da Vinci’s done stabilizing the Masters, she said it’d only take her a few hours.”
The relief Waver felt in being reminded of the Caster’s hyper-competence immediately gave way to dread at being reminded of the Master candidates. “‘Stabilizing the Masters?’” he repeated almost inaudibly. “How many did we lose, Roman?”
“Most of them were in the Command Room with you when all hell broke loose. Of the ones we’ve accounted for, none died, thankfully, but they’re all critically wounded. That’s one silver lining in all this. Da Vinci and I decided it was best to put them into the Rayshift Coffins to keep them stable — keep them on ice until we can figure something else out.” The phantom image of the doctor shrugged tiredly. “Besides, I don’t want to risk any serious operations until I have the Medbay back in order — too much risk of contamination right now. Gangrene and… so on.”
Waver nodded at the explanation, taking it all in. It was the Director who aired his next thoughts, though.
“Romani, who haven’t we accounted for?”
Roman grimaced. “Team ‘A,’ Director. When you guys got Rayshifted, Team ‘A’s Coffins went with you — at least, that’s what Laplace’s report indicates. After that, Sheba lost track of them.”
Waver’s heart sank. Team ‘A’ — the elite team of magi recruited by Lord Marisbury Animusphere himself — was supposed to be Chaldea’s vanguard. Without them, there was no ‘Grand Order.’ No saving humanity’s future.
“Roman,” Waver struggled to keep his voice calm for the Director’s sake, “what are the chances that Team ‘A’ made it here safely?”
“Lord El-Melloi, I’ll be frank: I- I don’t know. There’s no telling how damaged the Coffins were in the initial explosion… and then sending them through space with a Rayshift like that…” The doctor trailed off, struggling to find the right words.
Waver grasped his meaning. If Team ‘A’ is lost… No, he wouldn’t dwell on that possibility. If there was even a chance that they were still alive, then he had to do everything to find them. Chaldea — no, the world depended on it. If they could just —
“Roman,” he said suddenly, “is Sheba intact enough to do a scan?”
“I think so, but we may only get one low-range scan out of it before the auxiliary power limiters put it on standby observation. What are you looking for?”
The Director perked up, realizing Waver’s intent. “The Coffins?”
Waver shook his head lightly, his mind abuzz with purpose. “Not exactly, but this should help us find them. Roman, can you do a scan for these?”
Waver raised his wrist up to the hologram, the blue haze illuminating the thin band of silvery material wrapped around it.
Olga-Marie’s eyes lit up. “The security bands!”
“The security bands?”
“Every member of Chaldea’s staff wears one to get around the facility,” Waver explained. “All seven of Team ‘A’s members should have been wearing them in their Coffins, as well as anyone else unlucky enough to be sent here with us.” Waver strode outside the dilapidated stairwell to face the distant black river.
“That’s genius! I’ll switch Sheba over to do a short-range scan right away! Give me a second…”
The Director followed him outside, saying excitedly, “Romani, point us in the direction of the nearest Coffins. If they were scattered like we were, then we’ll need to rendezvous with them.”
“Okay, and rendezvous where, exactly?”
Waver already had a place in mind. He pointed at it for their sakes, the structure’s red arch glittering like a beacon amidst the firelight.
~~~
“How far back?”
Fenna whipped her head behind them for a moment before turning back around. “Thirty-ish meters, give or take. Maybe twenty… God, I don’t —”
“It’s okay, just calm down,” Yuto tried to reassure her like the blatant hypocrite that he was. No, it wasn’t okay. Nothing about this was ‘okay.’ Much as Fenna needed to believe that right now, Yuto couldn’t afford such luxuries.
Yuto slowed his pace for just a moment, just long enough to get a quick look over his shoulder. Great… There were three of them still following them. He huffed with poorly concealed exhaustion as he readjusted his grip on Fenna before hurrying off.
‘Zombie,’ while accurate, didn’t quite do justice to the things shambling along behind them. Visually, they reminded Yuto of a story the Old Man had told him once, about the people who’d survived the atomic bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Their blackened, charred skin and withered frames gave them an almost scarecrow-esque appearance as they moved in the distance. And the way they moved wasn’t quite slow but constant. Unceasing. Early on in Yuto’s heroic getaway plan, they’d faded into the smoky haze altogether; Hell, he’d felt so confident that he’d lost them that he allowed himself a few minutes to catch his breath, maybe survey the surroundings for any idea of where to go next… at least until he realized just how close he’d let the things creep up on them. They’d learned their lesson, much to Fenna’s horror and Yuto’s mounting dread. It didn’t seem to matter how much distance Yuto put between them.
The Ant People were always just over the last hill of rubble. And Yuto… Yuto was running out of steam. It was only a matter of time until —
“SKREEEEEEEE-AHHHHHH!!!”
Yuto whipped his head around again to see the Ant People screaming their heads off before bolting in every direction but towards their prey. Yuto’s confusion was immediately overwritten by his basic survival instincts and he acted accordingly. Whatever it was that had spooked those monsters did not sound like something Yuto wanted to meet.
“Fenna, we’re hitting the deck! Roll off and lay still!” Yuto wasn’t sure how loudly he’d said that, but that hardly mattered to him now. He practically dove onto the debris field littering the wasteland around them; it took every ounce of willpower Yuto had left not to cry out as shards of rock and glass prickled what felt like every inch of his body. He could feel Fenna rolling off his back and lying prone next to him. Yuto’s eyes scanned the area until he caught sight of it.
A blur of motion, a black shape moving against a background of smoke and firelight, leaping through the air to land upon a smoke-blackened concrete pillar some fifteen yards away. Yuto’s eyes widened at the sight of it. It was a humanoid figure, distinctly female judging from the outline of its chest and the long hair spilling down its back and shoulders, crouched low upon its perch, a form that seemed to be made from pure shadow. Its very skin seemed to swallow the firelight around it — a woman-shaped hole in reality. But it was the feeling Yuto got from it — that familiar, faintly magnetic tug on his Magic Circuits and the phantom pain prickling on the back of his hand that confirmed his fears.
“A Servant…” Yuto muttered, almost in disbelief.
“A Serv —”
“Quiet!” Yuto cut her off, not daring to allow his gaze to stray from the female Servant before them. “It doesn’t know we’re here.”
“How can you be sure?”
Yuto could feel his heart thumping like a drum against the ground. “Because we’d be dead already.”
Fenna couldn’t help but shiver a little as she watched the figure cock its head in a few different directions, but otherwise remained perched and silent. “What’s it doing?”
“I think… I think it’s looking for something.” Yuto hoped to God it wasn’t them.
While Yuto continued eyeing the strange Servant he worked his brain into overtime. What the hell kind of Servant was this? He had never seen a ‘blackened’ Servant like this before; the closest comparison would have been the Archer from… back then. Its Class had to be Assassin… but with that kind of speed it could also be a Rider…
A bright, blue light — utterly alien to Yuto now after being surrounded by black and brown for so long — lit up the horizon, far off into the distance in the direction of the ruined skyscrapers. Just like that, the dark Servant catapulted itself in the direction of the explosion, vanishing into the night.
A few moments passed in total silence save for the sound of crackling fire and the heaving of their chests as imminent danger slipped away. Yuto let out his breath long and slow, before turning to give Fenna what he hoped was a reassuring look.
“I think she’s g—”
CRSSSSSHHHHH
“JESUS!” A sudden crinkling sound like radio static filled Yuto’s ears until a pale blue haze solidified between them. Yuto leapt to his feet, a hand already slipping into his pockets to deal with the threat.
“No! Yuto, wait!” Fenna hurriedly turned herself over to sit on the ground as the hazy outline of a person’s upper body came into focus. “Dr. Archaman?”
“Oh, Fenna!” an elated voice echoed in the air between them. “Thank God you’re alright! When you weren’t in the Medbay, I’d thought —”
“Thank Yuto, he’s the one that got me out of there.”
The bushy-haired man blinked up at Yuto as he knelt down to the hologram’s level. “Yuto,” the doctor repeated as if tasting the name. “Thank you. For keeping her safe.”
Yuto huffed. “Not sure how safe she can really be out here, but I’ll keep trying.”
Dr. Archaman nodded absently at that. “Yuto… Your last name was…?”
“Tohsaka.”
“Tohsaka,” the doctor repeated again. “You were a Master Candidate, right?”
“Right.”
“Good. That’s good, perfect, actually. We’re gonna need all the Masters we can get. Servants, too.”
“Perfect how? You can’t summon a Servant out here. I don’t even have a catalyst, let alone the mana for it right now,” Yuto argued.
“That’s not a problem. We have a way to do it, I’ll walk you through it step-by-step. Once you have a Servant to protect you guys, you’ll rendezvous with a couple more survivors who got stranded with you. I’ll tell you how to get there.”
“Okay, no, hold on," Yuto knelt down to get a better look at the holographic man. "What the hell is going on here? What happened back in Chaldea? Scratch that, where the hell are we?"
"Yuto, you'll have your answers, but right now you two need to get to safety. And the best way I can come up with right now is to summon a Servant to protect you." The doctor's grim expression managed to calm Yuto somewhat.
"Yuto." He looked over to meet Fenna's pleading, sky-blue eyes, before his gaze drifted ever so slightly to her swollen ankle. "Please."
Yuto closed his eyes and nodded to himself. The doctor was right; the hows and whys could wait until they were out of imminent danger. Well, less imminent danger.
I'm really gonna need a raise after this, Yuto reflected blandly.
Yuto sighed, opening his eyes to meet Dr. Archaman's expectant gaze. "Alright, I'm on board. Lead the way, Obi-wan."
~~~
“Senpai… Senpai, wake up…”
Five more minutes… Just, five more minutes…
“... He won’t wake up. Maybe I should use the official title…”
Who is that? Ritsuka’s sleep-addled mind wondered. Her voice is… nice…
“Master! If you don’t wake up, I will kill you.”
Ritsuka’s eyes fluttered open to see Mash kneeling down in front of him looking relieved. He tried to pick himself up off the ground but stopped with a chill running down his spine as he finally began to process his surroundings.
He was no longer in Chaldea, that much was obvious. Collapsed buildings and the warped steel frames of various city structures loomed all around them amidst a sea of flames and devastation. The air around them was nowhere near as sweltering as the destroyed Command Room had been merely moments ago, but the hot miasma wafting through the air still sent rivulets of sweat beading down Ritsuka brow and beneath his once-white Chaldean uniform. But the strangest sight had to be Mash.
“Thank goodness you’re awake, Senpai! We were starting to get worried about you.”
“Mash, what are you wearing?”
Ritsuka’s face reddened as he took in the sight. The girl, who had been bleeding out right in front of Ritsuka not that long ago, had completely changed wardrobes. Her tattered jacket and casual clothes had been replaced with a black iron one-piece that barely seemed to cover anything, especially her navel. Her arms were clad in purple and black wrist-length gloves and her legs were wrapped in small metal greaves that did nothing to restrict her movement… or at least, that’s how Ritsuka chose to rationalize the strangely erotic choice in clothes in his head. In her hand was a cross-shaped shield so massive that even propped up on the ground next to her, it stood a good foot-and-a-half taller than the kneeling Mash, at least!
Mash’s cheeks flushed. “I - I can explain that later. But -”
The sound of shifting debris caused Mash to quickly about-face towards the source, a vaguely humanoid figure covered in reddish-brown rags about ten or so meters away.
“Arrrgghhhhh…” the stranger growled lowly as it crept towards Mash.
“What is that?!” Ritsuka lurched to his feet as Mash moved in front of him.
“Linguistic communication impossible… Identifying life-form as hostile,” Mash noted passively.
She’s still talking like that — like some kind of robot.
Mash raised her shield in an odd stance, holding it more like a weapon rather than a defensive feature. The creature dropped into a lower stance before sprinting towards them with all the grace of a drunkard.
“Master, your orders, please,” Mash spoke, not bothering to look back at Ritsuka.
“Huh?! Why?”
“I’m new at this, so I’m… not confident in my fighting ability yet,” Mash admitted. “Please, your orders, Master?”
Ritsuka had so, so many questions by this point but he managed to stow them for the time being with some difficulty. That… whatever it is, won’t be waiting for me to ask questions. “Okay, Mash. Keep us safe and take that thing out!”
A dull sensation - too light to be registered as pain - danced along the nerves of Ritsuka’s left hand as he gave his command.
“Affirmative, Master! Now, stand back, please!”
The creature had closed the gap to less than five meters before leaping towards them like a pouncing tiger, its pained wails ringing loudly in their ears. Mash shifted her stance, planting her feet firmly as she swung her shield in front of her just in time to intercept the monster. The robed creature slammed into the shield with a dull thud. Mash grunted at the force, crying out as she took a step forward, flicked her shield to bash the monster away by a few steps before angling her shield to hammer into the monster’s chest like a rocket. Ritsuka could hear the crunch of bone as the monster flew back several meters from the force into a pile of debris, sending up a dust cloud.
Ritsuka smiled in relief. “Good job, Ma-”
The slight shuffling of cloth far to the right-most corner of his vision was all the warning he was afforded. Ritsuka wanted to turn to face whatever was there but fear and uncertainty had short-circuited his brain. All he could do was retreat backwards and stumble over loose pavement as a long metal razor swung down into the space he left a mere moment before. The creature wielding the razor merely grunted at the lack of flesh-rending resistance before slowly turning to look at its prey.
Well, look being the operative term considering that the attacker didn’t even have eyes — just empty sockets that still somehow bored holes into Ritsuka as the monster turned around to stalk towards him. This creature didn’t have rags to conceal the mangled, rotted corpse beneath. It barely even had flesh; what little it had was sloughing off. Thick, fatty strands of meat hung from the corpse’s exposed jawbone and Ritsuka watched with abject terror as blackened muscles pushed and pulled to propel the monster forward on awkward footing to kill him.
Sweat rolled down close to Ritsuka’s eyes, the salt stinging at the touch. His mind had gone blank, utter terror erasing all thoughts of survival or resistance from him. The monster stood over him now, its improvised weapon raised over its head again with both skeletal hands. Her head.
Oh. A thought crossed Ritsuka’s mind as his death neared. Mom wanted me to call her when I got the job.
The corpse suddenly lurched as the edge of Mash’s shield slammed into it and sent it flying out of view.
“Enemies eliminated,” Mash noted before turning to look at Ritsuka with concern. “Senpai, are you alright?”
The boy barely processed her words, simply nodding in silence as he tried to will himself to calm down. He looked down at his quivering hands before clenching them as frustration replaced his mortal fear. Ritsuka mentally kicked himself. I gave up. I gave up and almost died… like a coward! Ritsuka fought to his feet and dusted himself. I have to stay calm… I can’t just ‘shut down’ again.
“Senpai? Does your stomach hurt, or does it feel heavy?”
Ritsuka ignored that odd question. “Mash, what… happened to you? Were you always this strong?”
Mash shook her head in dissent. “No, combat’s actually my weak point. I barely passed the physical to serve on Team ‘A.’” Mash looked down in mild embarrassment. “I couldn’t even do a pull-up.”
Ritsuka blinked. How the…
“The reason I was able to fight like that just now —”
Mash was cut off by a crackling sound. She held out her hand and a small device materialized in her hand before displaying a blue-tinged hologram of —
“Dr. Roman!” Ritsuka cried out. “You’re alive!”
The doctor smiled with palpable relief. “Oh, thank God. I finally got through to you guys. How’s the connection, Mash?”
“There’s a lot of static, but we can understand you,” Mash said. “It’s good to know you’re alright too, Dr. Roman.”
“Thank you, Mash,” Dr. Roman said gratefully. The hologram turned to face Ritsuka, who winced at the sight. As much as the doctor may have wanted to appear to be fine, he sure didn’t look like it. His lab coat had been torn and singed at the edges and his face and hands were grimy with soot. Even his fluffy orange hair was matted with debris with little motes of glass reflecting in the hazy blue light of the hologram. “I’m sorry, Ritsuka. I didn’t realize that turning on the generators would force a Rayshift. That’s on me.”
“It’s alright,” Ritsuka said.
“Dr. Roman, can I give my report?” Mash said expectantly.
“What?” Dr. Roman turned back towards Mash before understanding dawned in his eyes. “Oh, of course. Go ahead, Mash.” Ritsuka was surprised; If Dr. Roman was at all surprised to see her dressed like some kind of knight, he sure didn’t show it.
The lilac-haired girl cleared her throat. “This is Mash Kyrielight, of Team ‘A.’ At this time, I’ve completed the shift to Singularity F. With me is Fujimaru Ritsuka, a Master candidate. Our conditions are stable, mind and body both intact. Rayshift compatibility and Master compatibility are both satisfactory. Dr. Roman, please register Ritsuka as my official Master.”
Dr. Roman nodded in understanding, his face wearing the same grim expression from when the explosions first happened. He turned away for a moment, his phantom fingers surging across some unseen instrument though Ritsuka assumed it to be a keyboard. “What the…? Physical strength, Magical Circuits, everything’s improved,” he noted with alarm. “Mash, you’re -”
“Yes, I’m a Servant,” Mash stated simply, even more to Ritsuka’s confusion. “I don’t remember how or why, but the facts don’t lie. It seems I survived by fusing with a Servant.” She turned now to Ritsuka. “To investigate and resolve Singularity F, a Servant was summoned in advance at Chaldea,” she explained. “This Servant lost its Master in the explosion that destroyed the Command Room and was doomed to vanish. But at the last second, he offered me a contract. In return for the abilities and Noble Phantasm of a Heroic Spirit, he wanted me to fulfill the purpose of his summoning: to investigate and eliminate the cause of this Singularity.”
Dr. Roman nodded in understanding. “A Demi-Servant, huh? So Chaldea’s sixth experiment finally succeeded…”
Ritsuka raised his hand like a student. “Um, question: What’s a Demi-Servant?”
Mash looked at Dr. Roman for approval, who nodded at her to continue. “A Demi-Servant is half-human and half-Heroic Spirit, Master. I fused with a Heroic Spirit, gaining his abilities.”
“So who was he?”
Mash looked away from them both for a moment. “I… don’t know.”
“You could always ask him,” Dr. Roman pointed out. “Does this Heroic Spirit still have consciousness?”
“No, he gave me his combat abilities and vanished. He never revealed his True Name, either, so I don’t even know which Heroic Spirit I am… I don’t even know what kind of Noble Phantasm this is,” she said, hefting her massive shield to accentuate her point. “I just… there’s too much I don’t know right now.”
Mash jumped a little when Ritsuka put his hand on her shoulder. He immediately pulled away, embarrassed.
“Well, I suppose we ought to look on the bright side,” Dr. Roman said gently. “Not every Servant who gets summoned is cooperative. That Spirit could have very easily tried to seize control from you when you fused; but he chose to fade into the background, instead, letting you maintain full control.”
“But, why? Why would he…” Mash stammered.
“Only he could say for certain,” Dr. Roman said simply. He seemed to have more to say, but chose not to, instead saying, “But this works out for us. In fact, this might be close to the best case scenario.”
“What do you mean?” Ritsuka asked. He started pacing back and forth to calm his nervousness.
“Well, we’re going to have to find a way to get you guys out of here — all of you. I’ve got signals for two other groups of survivors from the Command Room. Now that I’ve made contact with each of you, we’ll need to rendezvous somewhere to figure out our next steps to get you guys home. Luckily, Lord El-Melloi II has a spot in mind for us to meet. You two may end up being the first ones there; since Mash became a Servant, you two shouldn’t have too many problems getting there so long as I can steer you away from major threats.”
“What about the other groups?” Mash asked.
“Well, first thing’s first: They’ll need to summon Servants to protect them en route, so they’ll be making a detour to do that along the way. But you two don’t need to worry about that; for right now, focus on making it to the rendezvous point at Fuyuki Bridge — it’s a big, red, arched bridge across the river. Can you see it from where you are?”
Ritsuka looked to the horizon and traced the thin black line of water in the distance until he spied a bridge glinting red in the firelight. “Yes, Dr. Roman, we see it.”
“Get to that bridge and hold position. I’ve got two more groups of survivors that’ll be coming to meet you there, but they’ll be making a pit stop along the way. Until they arrive, you’ll just need to hang tight. Can you do that for me?”
“Yeah, okay. I can do that,” Ritsuka nodded emphatically. He turned to Mash and gave her an almost embarrassed look. "Um, well... I guess it's more you than me, really."
Mash shook her head, her expression so static that it reminded Ritsuka of one of the figurines on his desk back home. "Not at all, Master. A Servant is nothing without her Master. I'll be relying on your support, Master."
"Hehe, you've got it Mash," Ritsuka laughed nervously.
We're screwed.