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Looking back on it now, he should’ve stopped her from using the Black Bullet. The thing with the Chaldeans was that they always felt like the embodiment of a deus ex machina. No matter how terrible things got, no matter how dire the straits, they always had a way of finding some idiotic reason to push on and survive. A bunch of cockroaches armed with the kind of luck that could kill gods.
Deus ex machina. A god out of a machine. What irony, then, that it was a machine god that led to her demise. But he couldn’t even say they killed her, because what killed her was, plain and simple, that starry-eyed determination of hers.
She held her life in her hands, loaded it into a monstrosity designed to kill gods, and let her life fire away for the sake of a humanity that would never know her name. Demeter was shattered all the way through and Ritsuka crumpled to the floor, face gaunt as the blood drained from her cheeks, and even when Mash screamed her name she didn’t open her eyes to reassure her servant as always.
Instead she lay there, gasping for breath, and she said, “Kadoc.”
He hated the way she said his name. “Kadoc,” she repeated again, with a voice that could hardly be heard but he heard it anyway. “Are you there?”
“No,” he said firmly, but all the same he stepped towards that helpless Master and her splayed limbs, spread out like a body which hit the pavement from ten stories up. It was a pathetic sight to see. He had seen worse from her, but when he saw the way she took in shallow breath after shallow breath, he was starting to have the dreadful notion that her immortality had finally run out.
Mash took her hand. Ritsuka, cruel as ever, spared her last miniscule store of energy trying to look for him instead. Her eyes were hazed over, unable to see him knelt before her, but even then she spoke in her vain hopes. “Kadoc,” she murmured, “you have to take over.”
So that was how he ended up as the only Master of Chaldea; the only one fit enough to work, at least.
---
He joined Chaldea, not by his own will but by necessity, after the destruction of his Lostbelt. It was less that he joined and more that he was informed, really.
“Da Vinci says you can join me for missions,” Ritsuka tells him, early in the morning before he’s even sat up yet. This is an utter invasion of privacy. They just let anyone walk into his room like that? It’s demeaning. It’s—
“What,” he says.
“But she’s going to make you wear a collar that will destroy your magic circuits if you betray us. Sorry. I asked her if it was okay not to, but she insisted.”
“Hello.”
“And she said to say you don’t have a choice since we’re the ones providing for you right now. The Director said he’d stop feeding you too.”
“Can you even hear me?”
“I don’t think he’d really stop feeding you, but if he does, I’ll give you half my food.” Then Ritsuka smiles at him, that same irritatingly pleasant smile which looked like something belonging more to a sales associate than the one he had been fighting against this whole time over the fate of Proper Human History. “I’m listening to you, by the way, but don’t you think this is more important?”
So she was a smartass too, who would’ve thought. “Why would you even think to have me help you? And better yet, what makes you think I will?”
She says, in the most genuine way possible, “Aren’t we on the same side?”
“Are you an idiot? Why on earth would we be on the same side?”
In that same genuine, thoughtful tone, she continues on, saying, “Well, you want to live, right? And I want you to live. So if you don’t want to be pulverized or kicked out into the wastelands, you’re going to have to help us.”
There is that part of him that longs to spit some smart words and march out into the barren nothingness outside of the Lostbelts, just to prove her wrong. But there is another part of him, stronger for the moment, that holds his life in regard. For Ana, if no one else. If not for himself. So he says, “Don’t expect us to be buddy-buddy.”
“I won’t,” she promises him.
“I’m only going along with your demands because you’re holding my life at stake.”
“I know,” she assures him.
“And if you want me to cooperate, first of all, stop with that disgustingly patronizing tone.”
She blinks. “But this is how I normally talk.”
“Then stop talking.”
“I will,” she says, and for five minutes he’s given blissful silence to contemplate the humiliating experience of being shackled to Chaldea for the time being. But five minutes later she begins speaking once more, and Kadoc has never wanted to be outside in the wasteland of erased civilization more.
---
Kadoc stands in the back, far away from everyone else in the meeting room. He catches little fleeting snippets of their conversation— critical condition — unlikely to survive — unexpected toll —but brushes each away with callousness he’s surprisingly able to muster up.
Some part of him wonders if it means what little humanity he retained has crumbled away. The other part of him takes pleasure in how easy it is to disregard Ritsuka’s current condition, mock her in his mind. Look at you now, Master of Chaldea, in a critical state and unlikely to survive after killing just one god. What happened to the other Lostbelts you conquered?
And he idly thinks, if she hardly took a scratch in my Lostbelt and is now dying in Wodime’s, what does that mean? But these thoughts are meaningless. He’s well aware of who was on his side the whole time; knows that the person vouching for him and standing up for him against the overwhelming majority who dislike him is the one on her deathbed now. He’s not a doctor. He’s not even a Master at this rate, with no servants to command and no standing within Chaldea. There is laughably little he is able to contribute, for someone once part of the A-Team.
“Mash, I know you don’t want to think about it, but a replacement—”
“No!” Her shout echoes through the room, and Kadoc realizes this may be the first time he’s seen Mash like this—a vulnerable young girl throwing a tantrum. “We—we can’t! There’s no way senpai can’t pull through this, like she always does, so—”
“Mash,” da Vinci repeats again, a soothing quality to her young voice, one which she echoes across the cramped room. “Of course we can’t rule that out. Ritsuka’s holding on very well right now. But she needs time to recover, time that we don’t have. So for her sake, we need to be able to take care of the rest of the Olympians. Can you do that?”
She takes a deep breath. “Yes,” she finally mumbles. “I’m sorry for overreacting. I’m just so worried…”
“There’s no need to worry,” Holmes says. “We have the magecraft left to us by the alliance.” He projects an air of confidence, one strong enough where Mash slowly begins to buy it.
At that point he’s had enough of the touchy feely encouragement fest, so he slips out the room. He knows they see him go; they don’t call him back, which is for the better, so he escapes their uncaring looks and walks and walks until he finds Ritsuka’s room.
---
She catches him on their break at night, perched on the roof as the stars glitter overhead. He hears her footsteps first, as she balances a path across the tiles and towards where he sits. He has half a mind to leave, but then she stumbles and his head jerks up involuntarily as she tumbles towards the edge.
And just in time, she catches herself. “Whoops!” she laughs, all bright and cheerful as if she were not just a fall away from wiping off humanity’s last hope. He watches her eyes go from him to his outstretched hand, and quickly retracts it. “Aww, were you going to catch me?”
“No,” he spits. “Of course not. I was hoping to push you, in fact.”
“Well,” she says, “if you want to, you can.” She comes balancing over again, one foot in front of the other, until she stands right before him. As the wind whips through her hair, she waits, giving him his chance to shove her off the ledge and watch her body crumple on the floor.
And he thinks about it. Really rolls the idea in his mind, like a colorful glass marble in a child’s hand, like a hard candy in a child’s mouth. Swirls it around and indulges himself in the image, until he’s imagined so much of her dying he’s back to being calm again. “I’ll die if I do,” he tells her simply. “Looks like you’re trying to get me killed too.”
“I was thinking it’d be more like a trust fall. Or a trust push.” She tucks her hands behind her back, leaning over as the tips of her hair fall past her shoulders and dangle in the air above him. “Peaceful, isn’t it?” she asks. The stars gleam behind her, lighting her face up in a soft glow.
He rolls his eyes. “It’s still a Lostbelt. Are you getting soft already?”
She gives him a shrug, leaning back as she sets her hands on her hips. “I still know what I have to do,” she says self-righteously. “It’s not going to get any easier, but…I guess it’s not as bad when you’re here.”
Kadoc almost gags, so instead he makes a noise in the back of his throat to convey the depth of his disgust. “Don’t say that shit. I’m not your friend. Hell, I’m not even your ally .”
“Oh, you know what I mean,” Ritsuka says, waving her hand at him dismissively. “Yes, yes, we’re enemies. But we’re enemies shouldering the same burden in the end—no one else in the world, Proper Human History or Lostbelts or otherwise, would understand. So, in that regard, we’re together in this.”
When he doesn’t say anything, she takes it as a sign she’s right. Which is honestly the worst. Her smile widens and she takes a step to the side, perhaps hoping to step next to him—except her foot slips and she topples backward.
Without thinking he shoots forward, grabbing her arm as he tugs her forward. She topples into his chest as her legs crumple between his, and her face stops just short of his. They blink at each other, and idly Kadoc realizes the tips of her hair is long enough to tickle at his shoulders.
She pulls back first, but just a few inches back. “Thanks,” she says in earnest. “Looks like you caught me after all.”
Does she have no concept of personal space? He leans backwards just a bit more, turning his head to the side for good measure. “They’d have my head if anything happened to you,” he grumbles. Though the weather in this Lostbelt is downright tropical compared to his, the chill of the night means he can feel the heat radiating from her. He still feels the burn of her skin against his, and clenches his fist to be rid of the feeling.
“Looks like I owe you one,” she says, unfazed. “Congrats, Kadoc! You get a favor to chip in, any time.”
Though he knows it won’t happen, he says, “Get this collar off me, then.”
“Sorry.” He doesn’t need to see her face to know she’s smiling apologetically. “Anything within my power,” she amends.
There is nothing he could want from her, so he doesn’t say anything more. He also has too much pride to move away first, so he pretends she’s not sitting right before him and turns his gaze to the distance horizon beyond.
---
Ritsuka is awake when he slips into her room. She doesn’t react when he pads over to her side, eyes pointed towards the wall as her head lolls to the side. “Took you long enough,” she teases him. “You were outside for five minutes.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t think you’d want to see me,” he says, but it lacks much of the bite it would normally have. He steps to her side and looks down at her. She still doesn’t look his way, but even the side profile of her face is gaunt and bloodless. The rosy blush on the apples of her cheeks are gone; the luster to her hair is gone; her cheeks are just beginning to sallow, and her breaths rattle around in a way that makes her hard to watch.
“Of course I’d want to see you,” she says, though she still doesn’t look at him. “How are the others?”
He snorts derisively. “What do you think? They’re in shambles now that their precious last Master is—bedridden.” He almost says dying, but stops himself.
“That’s not true.” It almost seems like she’s about to contest her death, but instead she says, “I’m not the last Master. You are.”
There is something boiling in his blood that he cannot place; it roils and burns and itches something fierce, but emotional introspection has never been something he’s favored, so he swallows it down and calls it hatred, the same as everything else he feels towards Ritsuka. “Like hell I am.” She’s still turned away. Fed up, he snaps, “We’re having a conversation here. Why aren’t you looking at me?”
She breathes in, out. Her lips are a far cry from the pink they once were. He notices this now, of all times. Oblivious to his thoughts, Ritsuka sighs. “Why would I want the person I like to see me like this?” she asks softly. Not for the first time, he finds himself at a loss for words.
Ritsuka is always— always —like this. “You have terrible taste,” he says bitterly.
This time he does see her turn to him, sheepish and forlorn in equal parts. “Is that any way to talk to a dying girl?” she asks jokingly, lightly, as if her impending death means nothing to her. She’s always like this, smiling and cheerful and facing certain doom with misplaced optimism. But that’s not true, is it? She knows more than anyone this time there’s no wriggling out of this one.
“You’re—you’re not going to die,” Kadoc says. He’s normally the one spelling out their miniscule chances and she’s usually the one insisting they can find a way out, but now that the tables have turned, he feels a sinking dread pushing up his throat. “What kind of Master just gives up that easily?”
“It’s because I know you’re here, Kadoc,” Ritsuka insists. He hates that she does; he hates that she’s always depended on him so intently. Cold metal rings his neck, a constant reminder that no one else thinks the way she does. “Even when I’m gone, you’ll still be there.”
She moves her hand, as if to place over his. He snatches it away in a flash, backing off from her bed. “No,” he spits. “You’re going to survive. Don’t pin the fate of the world on me .”
“Oh.” Her shoulders fall. “I didn’t mean…” But he turns away and stalks out the room, each footstep crashing against the floor. When he’s a few turns away from her room he slams a fist against the wall and hisses at the sting.
He still sees the flash of her eyes before he stormed out. He knows she doesn’t mean it that way—but when they’re the only two Masters left, it sure as hell does feel like a curse.
---
In the rarest of occasions, it’s only the two of them in Novum Chaldea today eating lunch. The others are busy with something or another and Ritsuka calls it a bonding exercise, forcing him to eat in the middle of the empty cafeteria. With her.
It does not slip his notice that she’s fallen silent since her babbling earlier, and he cautiously looks up from his meal to see her staring right at him. It creeps him out. “What?” he asks, a touch testily.
Her eyes dart from his face to his ears to his neck. “You have a lot of piercings,” she says, pointing to one of her ears. “Did they hurt?”
If that isn’t something he’s heard again and again. “No,” he deadpans. “My magic circuits completely numb my sense of pain. I don’t feel a thing.”
Ritsuka pouts. “Ugh, you know what I mean.” She stretches out her hand a little. “Can I…”
Immediately, Kadoc bats her hand away. “ No .”
“Aw.” Still, she pulls her hand back with that same bright smile. “I remember you had piercings on your neck too.” She angles her head, giving him a view of her throat. “Here, right?” She taps a finger against the smooth skin, where his once were.
He had to take them out for the damn collar to fit right. They’re somewhere in his room, tucked away. “What about it?” he says, poking at his pierogi with his fork. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to get one too.” He can’t seem to imagine Ritsuka with anything like that.
“No way.” She exaggerates a shudder. “It looks really painful—and besides, I’d never get a job with piercings. You’re not from Japan, right? It’s pretty strict there; only yakuza walk around with tattoos and piercings.”
He forgets, sometimes, that they come from two different worlds. He’s been raised in a magus family; she’s some fresh high school graduate out of Japan. He was recruited into Chaldea; she took a blood test and was whisked away to the arctic. Most magi would find leniency in such a disparity, but he only sees his failings.
If his silence bothers her, she doesn’t let it show. Ritsuka turns her head again, tugging lightly on her earlobe. “I did pierce my ears in high school, though,” she says, “secretly. But I got such a scolding from my teachers afterwards… And I guess I just forgot to maintain them over the past year, so they closed.” When he squints, he does see two little dimples in her earlobes.
“You can’t have piercings in high school?” he asks. She nods, perhaps a little too excited he’s now asking questions. It’s almost cute—it would be, if she weren’t Ritsuka.
“It’s frowned upon,” she explains, running her finger along her earlobe absentmindedly. “They think you’re a delinquent. Same with dyed hair or tattoos.”
“And you still got one.”
Ritsuka laughs lightly, setting her hand back down on the table. “Well, I was feeling a little adventurous,” she says. “So my friend and I, we snuck out during lunch break and she introduced me to her friend who’s helped pierce other people before.”
That much is adventurous to her? He eyes the faded scars along her cream skin, the outline of lean muscle beneath her clothes. From that good high schooler to the woman she is now, it must be a big difference. He wonders, for a moment, what she looked like before joining Chaldea, but such idle thoughts have no room between them now.
He does not reply, and she does not prod at the subject any longer. She picks up her chopsticks and picks up her final gyoza, before she looks over at his meal and waves her gyoza around. “I got this to match you, by the way,” she says, very naturally. “Let’s swap! I’m curious what yours tastes like, anyways.”
Before he can protest, she’s already swapped out his pierogi for her gyoza, plopping her stolen treat into her mouth without further ado. She chews obnoxiously as he glares, swallowing before she throws him a thumbs up. “It’s good!” she says. “Okay, now you go.”
Kadoc is very, extremely close to just getting up and leaving, but he looks between her puppy eyes and the innocent gyoza. With a sigh he takes a bite. It’s still warm; the seared bottom crunches between his molars as he chews. It’s not bad. When he doesn’t immediately berate the taste, Ritsuka’s face grows delighted, and she leans across the table. “Good, right?” she asks. “I should introduce you to more food! Foreigners all love ramen and sushi, but I’m thinking we can at least get some oden or—”
This time, it’s not him that cuts her off. She stops herself, peering at him curiously. “You’re not going to ask me to shut up?” she asks, raising her eyebrows expressively. “Like usual?”
To his surprise, he wasn’t. “You want me to?”
“I like you better this way,” Ritsuka says. “Isn’t this nice? We are bonding. I estimate that collar will be off your neck by the next Lostbelt.” Unbothered by social norms—really, he thought the Japanese were supposed to have stricter social customs—she leans closer, still, practically sitting on the table at this point. “It’s not painful, is it? The closer I get the scarier it looks.”
“If you like it so much, get one of your own,” he drawls. Ritsuka’s proximity makes his stomach crawl.
“I’d rather match piercings with you,” she replies easily. “How does it work? You get a bar through here, right?” She runs her finger across the middle of her throat. “Do you feel it when you swallow?”
“Well, I’m used to it so—”
“You have a tongue piercing too?” she asks, interrupting him as she widens her eyes for a better look. “Hey, stick out your tongue!”
The nerve of that woman. “Am I just a zoo animal to you?” he hisses, but rather than cower back she only grows more confident. Maybe he’s been too lenient recently. With a roll of his eyes he decides to comply anyways, if only to get her off his back.
“That definitely had to have hurt,” she comments, practically staring down his throat. “I always thought westerners were so brave to do all that. Did you know I cried when I got my ears pierced?”
He blinks. “Wow. You’re really weak.”
“Was,” she corrects him. She smiles—but this time, it’s more subdued. She leans back a little, sitting back down on the table. “You look very tough, though. You’d definitely be the scariest one in high school—but I’d still be friends with you.”
His eyebrows crinkle. “We aren’t friends now.”
“Aren’t we? We work together, save each other’s lives, eat lunch together…” She ticks each point off with a finger. “I’d say we’re well on our way to becoming best friends.”
“As if I’d become best friends with you,” he scoffs, in a way meant to disparage her, but instead it only motivates her. “Someone who has me captive, and…what are you doing?”
Very, very lightly, Ritsuka leans in closer, fingers tracing along the collar around his neck. Her breath ghosts at his skin, and he squeezes his eyes shut in exasperation. Tell her to stay away and she finds a way to get close regardless. Truly, there is no one else like her. “I’ll talk to da Vinci about getting this off,” she says lightly. “Will you trust me then?”
“Do whatever you want,” he says in return. “You wouldn’t listen to me anyways.”
“I would,” she protests, leaning back. Underneath the strobe lights of the cafeteria, she casts a solemn shadow. He’s not too fond of being forced to look up at her, sitting on the table as she is. Makes him feel too small. “I listen to you all the time.”
“Yeah, well, not this time,” he grumbles. She smiles, and that’s the end of that.
---
Mash waits at his doorway, face shadowed by her hair as she looks down at her feet. Kadoc doesn’t turn back to her, even as she stands there waiting for acknowledgement. Her impatience wins over his patience in the end, and she says in a quiet voice, “Senpai’s been asking for you.”
“So?”
“What…what do you mean, so?”
Kadoc lets out a sharp sigh. “ So , what the hell does she have to say to me ?”
“You’re really asking that?” The raise in her voice jerks his shoulders, and he turns back to see Mash with her fists clenched tight and her eyes wide in her anger. Grief, too. It mars her delicate features into something despairing. “You really don’t know?”
Of course he knows. “I have nothing to say to her.”
“How can you…” Mash walks closer. The timid girl he once knew had been transformed by the Singularities, and though sometimes they overlap, this time he can see for himself just how much one year changes a person. She stands before him, looking down at him with furious eyes. “She pleaded with da Vinci to have your collar taken off, you know? She made sure the servants were cordial to you—and she’s the reason why we’re still here now!”
“That has nothing to do with me,” he says coldly.
“Do you not care about her?”
“Of course I don’t!” he exclaims, but his voice cracks at the last syllable. Such a response is nothing but a knee-jerk reaction, and finally silence rings clear through his quarters. “She’s just—we’re just—we’re working together out of necessity,” he finishes.
They saved one another, over and over again, through the past Lostbelts because they had to. They worked alongside one another, over and over again, because it was demanded of them. There was nothing else to it. There was nothing else to see. She destroyed his Lostbelt and took him captive, forced to ensure a Proper Human History he had long since thought was discarded.
There was nothing between them. Because what would that mean, that he had grown soft? Grown weak? Developed feelings for the object of his hatred, proof of his mediocrity, a young girl who knew nothing of magecraft pushed to save the world, a girl who had to learn magecraft from him .
Kadoc Zemlupus has never once wanted to be weak. Not if he can help it. He inherited a magecraft obsolete in this day and age and a legacy that earned nothing but scoffs from the magi of better, well-reputed lineages.
“You’re an idiot,” Mash says stiffly. “We should’ve—we should’ve never helped you.” Her nose scrunches up tightly, and her lips press into a flat line. “But it doesn’t matter what I think. I don’t care what you think, either. Senpai wants to see you. I’m not asking you. I’m ordering you.”
Kadoc’s shoulders slump. “Why would she even want to see me?” he mutters. On her deathbed, as it is, surrounded by comrades that trust her and would do anything to be dying in her stead. It’s no place for someone like him.
The way Mash looks at him turns his mouth dry. It feels all too shameful to behold her inscrutable, withering stare. Pitiful too, in a way, which only makes it worse. She does not answer his question, and he doesn’t ask for one.
Ritsuka. Fujimaru Ritsuka. How he hates her; hates how she trounced him thoroughly, hates how she has no regard for personal space or boundaries, how she can be so open and care so much for someone once her enemy, hates how she can make him feel so sick to his stomach at the thought of her death.
Yeah. He knows. He just doesn’t want to admit it—doesn’t want to see her, because then it’ll finally sink in. But with Mash at his heels, he slowly steps out of the room and walks down the hallway. Olympus is before them; they stand at the cusp of a battle with the machine gods, and he has no choice but to watch Ritsuka die.
---
“Hey.” Though rare, they still have moments of downtime between Lostbelts. Ritsuka raises her head to see him step through the doorway to her room. He reaches her side, shuffling from foot to foot as she peers at him.
“What’s wrong?” she asks. “Upset stomach? Got an ouchie? Let me kiss it better for you.”
“Not that,” he snaps, and then holds out his hand. A small box sits in the center of his palm, and she blinks at the box, then at him. “Take it.”
She picks it up and flips it open, eyes glittering as she sees the pair of earrings inside. He doesn’t need to see them; he’s too familiar with the dangling flowers, having toiled over them all of the previous day. “For me?” she asks, clearly delighted.
“Yeah, who else?” Kadoc shuffles again sheepishly. “Look, I… I appreciate that you asked da Vinci to get the collar taken off. I asked her if she could help me with making something you’d like, so…”
Her eyes are still wide and glimmering. “You made this for me? Are you sure this isn’t a prank or something?”
“I just don’t like owing people, okay?” he snaps, but the lack of venom behind his words only makes Ritsuka smile harder. She bounces up and down, before she goes completely still. “What?”
“My piercings closed, though,” she manages to get out, completely sullen unlike moments before. “How would I…”
Kadoc holds his other hand out, this time with a small bag with needles and antiseptic. “Also from da Vinci,” he says. “She let me have it on the caveat that if I messed up, she’d have the collar back on.”
“I guess you’re going to have to do your best, then.” Really, her mouth would split if her smile grew any wider. She quickly takes hold of his arm and pulls him into the bathroom with her, lights flickering on with her entrance as she hops up on the counter and sits down. “Well?” she asks, eagerly turning her head.
Kadoc huffs. “I’m getting to it,” he says, before he pours out all the supplies and lays them neatly in a row. Antiseptic wipes, a pen, lighter, sterilized needles still in the packaging, more antiseptic wipes, and a special aftercare solution guaranteed to speed up the healing process.
She holds perfectly still as he disinfects her earlobes and dots with the pen where her old piercings were. She watches quietly when he takes out the first needle and holds it over the flame, and she doesn’t so much as twitch when he pierces her first ear.
The second goes by just as smoothly, and he’s quick to insert the starter studs before wiping the area clean and applying the aftercare solution. It’s only when everything is done that he becomes aware of how close he is to her, tugging at her ears. He backs off with a stumble as she lets out a light laugh, turning her head to the mirror to get a good look.
“You could do this for a living,” she says.
“No way.” He sweeps everything back into the bag, ready to drop it off at da Vinci’s later. “And this is just a one time thing—don’t expect me to do any other ones.”
“Okay, okay, I hear you.” She turns this way and that, watching the starter studs glitter under the bathroom lights. “When can I wear the ones you made me?”
“Da Vinci says two weeks.” Meanwhile, he waited two months for his.
Ritsuka says, “Wow. We’d probably have the next Lostbelt done by then.”
“Then you’d have something to come back to,” Kadoc adds. Realizing he’s a bit too nice, he snipes, “Since you’re so impatient you can’t even wait two weeks.”
She looks at him in affection so sincere it closes up his throat for a moment. Her eyes glitter, lips curled up sweetly—and Kadoc quickly swallows and jerks his head to the side. “No, I can’t wait because this is the first thing you’ve gotten me,” she tells him. “I’m really happy right now, can you tell?”
“Yeah, considering you wear your heart on your sleeve.”
Rather than respond verbally, Ritsuka hops down from the counter and sweeps him up in a hug instead. Kadoc goes deathly still, stiffening up even as her arms curl affectionately around him. For a minute he thinks the hammering in his chest is his heart, but he realizes belatedly it’s on the wrong side.
She pulls away, cheeks a touch warmer. His mouth goes dry. “You shouldn’t just hug random people,” he stammers, feeling a similar flush come to his cheeks too.
“You’re not random people, though,” she retorts. “Would you say we’re best friends now?”
He blinks down at her. She smiles up at him. “We—” His mouth stays open for a minute, before he snaps it shut and regains his bearings. “We are coworkers,” he says stiffly, before he picks up his bag and marches out. He hears her giggle behind him as he goes.
In hindsight, that was the last they spoke before Olympus. If he had known, he would’ve stayed longer. Hugged her back, maybe. Said, I’m sorry, Ritsuka, for everything I’ve done to you.
And maybe she would’ve said, Kadoc, I don’t care about any of that. I care about you now.
Could you ever forgive me?
I’ve never been mad at you.
I like you. Did you know that?
I always have, but it means the world to me you’re telling me now.
He would’ve told her this, but this is not that story, is it? This is a different one, and that kind of thing never happened.
---
Kadoc must’ve waited forever at her bedside. It feels like that, but in reality it’s only been a minute. But forever goes by in his mind, without her response.
She opens her eyes, finally. “Took you long enough,” she rasps. “Thought you ran away. Am I that ugly?”
“Uglier when you cry,” he retorts, only to be met with sharp stares from everyone else. “...no, you’re not.”
She laughs, a dry, broken sound that can barely be heard. “I’m sorry, Kadoc. That you’re left with this.”
“It could be worse,” he says.
“And I’m sorry I can’t go on with you.”
“Just focus on—on getting better,” he says.
Ritsuka says, “You’re funny.” He’s not funny at all, and neither is she. “You have to take care of everyone. Mash. Da Vinci. Holmes. The staff. Sion. Nemo.” She lets out a breath of air that he belatedly recognizes to be an attempt at a laugh. “The world, too. Proper Human History.”
“That’s a lot of demands you’re making of me.”
“Well, I’ve always been demanding.” She reaches out for his hand, and this time he doesn’t move away. She pats the back of his hand with her palm; she feels cold to the touch already. “And let Kirschtaria know I’m sorry I couldn’t pay my respects to my senpai.”
“Sure,” Kadoc says.
“All the contracted servants too. Let them know I’m sorry.”
“Okay.”
Gently, she settles her hand over his. “And stop crying, would you? You’re an uglier crier than me.”
Kadoc squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “I’m not,” he says. “My eyes are just a little damp. It’s too dusty in here.”
“So…coworkers, huh?” Ritsuka comments wryly. “I’ve never cried over a coworker.”
“Do dying people always have such smart mouths?” he retorts.
“Kadoc!” exclaims da Vinci.
Ritsuka lets out another gasp of air, further and further from the laughter she once had. “Love you too,” she rasps, before she tilts her head over to the side, one last smile on her face. “I’ll miss you all,” she says quietly.
The last master of Chaldea died quietly, without a fight. For someone who had gone tooth and nail against every expectation, defied them with a ferocity only humans could procure, she met her end in dead silence.
The world did not wait for her. Proper Human History would not remember her. Here, in Olympus, unmoored from the world she gave everything to save, she alone became a thing of the past.
---
The bell rings for lunch. As usual, Kadoc is dragged by Ritsuka up the stairs and to the roof. He’s only here because she makes his lunch, he tells himself. No other reason. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here in the first place.
Ritsuka takes a seat, as does he, besides the chain-link fence. She unwraps the cloth and sets down two separate bento boxes, unveiling each with the same enthusiasm as a YouTuber. “Today is a real classic; onigiri, octopus sausages, and rolled omelet. I was thinking you deserved a real stereotypical meal.”
“I’ve already been in Japan for three months.”
“And you still have trouble with kanji,” Ritsuka says. “Have some humility first.”
“Yeah, whatever.” He picks up one of the onigiri, biting into it. Lightly salted rice bursts into his mouth, as well as the distinct taste of pickled plum. “Ugh. It’s sour.”
She gives him a pat on the back as she bites into her own. “You’re a big boy. You’ll get used to it.”
Kadoc peers over at the filling of her onigiri, and says, “You gave yourself salmon.”
“Your shortcomings should not be projected onto me,” she says, which is a long way to say she’s a hypocrite. “Anyways, forget about that—did you get any of the math class?”
“Yeah, it was so easy.”
Ritsuka nods. “Yes, of course—it was so easy, in fact, I dozed off. So, as a good friend, would you be willing to donate your notes?”
“You’re going to go through my bag even if I say no,” he deadpans. “Why ask now?”
“Hey, I wouldn’t do that. I’d stand behind you until you opened it yourself and take pictures behind your back.”
“That’s just as bad.”
“You,” Ritsuka says, “are just too narrow minded. Japanese culture is all about social harmony and being magnanimous to your neighbor.”
Kadoc finishes off his onigiri, clumsily picking up his chopsticks to reach for the side dishes. “And you’re a piss poor example of Japanese culture, then,” he says. “What’s with those piercings?”
Instinctively, Ritsuka clasps her hands over her earlobes. “I don’t wear earrings to school,” she protests. “Just outside of school when it’s allowed!”
“Sure, sure.” Kadoc’s attention is wrestled away to his hands, where his chopsticks cross over and over again until he gives up and stabs the sausage with one as a skewer. Ritsuka gasps in mock offense, quickly grabbing his hand and prying the chopstick out, before she wields them perfectly and picks up the same sausage.
She holds it up to his mouth expectantly. “No way. That’s humili—” He doesn’t finish his sentence before she stuffs it into his mouth, and with no other choice he stews in his embarrassment as he chews silently. When he’s done, he holds a hand over his mouth and says, “I can eat by myself.”
“You should learn how to use chopsticks first,” Ritsuka says, before putting them back in his hand. She arranges his fingers, before she settles hers over his and moves his fingers with his.
As endearing as this is, Kadoc’s attention is arrested by something else. “Your hands are freezing.”
“We’re on the roof,” she replies calmly. “Why wouldn’t they be?”
His eyes snap up to hers. “You’re a bit pale.”
“I’m just a little under the weather today.”
Kadoc springs to his feet. “You’re thinner than usual.”
“I’m on a diet,” she replies, looking up at him from where she sits. “Come on, don’t tell me you’re doing all this to get out of learning how to use chopsticks.”
“This is a dream,” Kadoc says, at once lucid. “I’m dreaming right now.”
Ritsuka says, “I mean, really, they don’t have chopsticks at all in Poland? Or you’ve just never had Asian food?”
“None of this,” breathes Kadoc, “is real. Especially not you.”
Her smile falls forlornly, and Ritsuka sighs through her nose. “You’re no fun, Kadoc,” she murmurs. “Not even in a dream.”
“You died,” he says, for lack of anything else to say.
“Mm.” She nods, as if they’re discussing onigiri fillings and math lectures and not her death. The Ritsuka of his dream tilts her head a little. “Are you excited for the rest of class?” she asks evenly.
“What—you’re dead, and you’re just a fragment of my dream,” he protests. “What point is there in asking about school? We’re adults. We’re Masters. We’re meant to save the world, not—”
“It’s not we,” she says. “You. And why not? I’m fresh out of high school, after all. I drew blood and ended up in the arctic by chance. If I had known just one act of kindness would turn out this way—well, I don’t know. Maybe I would’ve done the same thing.”
“Just to die again,” comes Kadoc’s bitter voice.
Ritsuka draws her lips into a small smile as she rises to her feet. “Not to die,” she replies, “but to save the world. To meet so many people, to have so many adventures, to see you. It wasn’t a bad life.”
“You’re not even Ritsuka,” he says. “You’re my dream. You don’t get to decide what she’d do.”
“Yeah, well.” Ritsuka flips her hair behind her back. It’s longer now, he realizes belatedly. It’d never get that long in times of war because it’d be a liability. “You’re the one dreaming it up.”
“What do you want?”
She blinks innocently. “What do you mean, what do I want?”
“There’s a reason I’m lucid right now, right?” He looks around the rooftop for a sign, anything, but only the wind blows and in the distance, the hazy school grounds sit. “Or are you just going to stand around and do nothing?”
“You’re so mean,” she complains. “Here I am, physical manifestation of your regrets—”
“ Regrets ?”
Ritsuka says, “Sure I am. You never said I love you. You never even said I like you. You, what, made her earrings, pierced her ears, called it a day?” She scoffs in amusement. “I mean, we’re even enacting a high school fantasy. Pathetic, right?”
He opens his mouth to say something equally scathing back, but his mind comes to a shuttering stop and he only stares on. Something heavy sits in his stomach, rolls around his gut, and his mouth squeezes shut as he only stares at the ground, face made up in something like anguish. Not so extreme, but just a little, he finds himself lost.
Ritsuka’s hands settle on his shoulders. “Chin up,” she says. “You’re going to save the world, aren’t you? You’re the only one who can.”
“And a pep talk from the one dissing me,” he scoffs. “What kind of dream is this?”
“Not a bad one, I promise.” She pats his shoulders a few times. “Hey, look at me for a moment.” He doesn’t. “You’re really gonna keep a dead girl waiting?”
Finally, he does. He raises his head just in time to see her set her palm against his lips and press a kiss to the back of her hand. “There you go,” she says, “a good luck charm. Power of love triumphs all, you know.”
He blinks. His cheeks run red, despite himself. His mouth hangs open, then he forces his jaw to snap shut.
“The earrings are in the left desk drawer, by the way,” she says. “Too bad I never got to wear them.” She stops, and cocks her head slightly. “Mash is calling for you, I think. You’ve got a lot ahead of you, hm?”
“No thanks to you,” Kadoc finally says, still fighting to keep his blush down. “Saddling me with all your baggage…”
Ritsuka rolls her eyes playfully. “You’ll be fine. C’mon, the world’s not going to save itself. You owe me that much, don’t you? I saved your life by bringing you with us—make mine worth it by finishing the job.”
When his eyes open, it’s to Mash hovering above him. “We need to go,” she says, eyes rimmed red but her mouth set into a determined line. “Even if it kills me, I’m going to put an end to this.”
In truth, it does not kill her. Chaldea comes out triumphant in the end, even after the loss of their master. Kirschtaria remarks his sorrow in not having met his kouhai, and then the world moves on. The stars will follow his command. Beryl Gut makes no comment on Chaldea’s last master and sets off betraying regardless. Their return to Novum Chaldea is somber and silent, and Sion does not say a word. Neither does Goredolf.
The world moves on. After the dust has settled, Kadoc will walk into Ritsuka’s empty room and open the left desk drawer. At the very back, he will find the untouched box and a pair of earrings inside, same as the day he gifted them.
He won’t cry—but he will sit there for a very, very long time, until the memory of the girl who once held them fades. The world moves on.