Work Text:
“No,” Andersen said, “and don’t ask me such idiotic questions ever again. No one will forgive you for squandering resources while we’re on the precipice of death.”
Ritsuka Fujimaru bore his venom as she always did: with a patient smile, never wavering. She only laughed at the end of his tirade. “Aren’t you even a liiiittle bit curious?”
“Grand Servants are the pinnacle of human achievement. Gods among gods, you hear? No matter how lovely the dress is, finery does not change a pig into a man.” Andersen swiveled his chair to face his Master. “You ought to be considering William as a candidate. The man is swine, yes, but he’s Lord of the Swines. I wonder, sometimes, why he wasn’t summoned at a higher rank—”
From across the study, Shakespeare chimed in. “Good Master, if Andersen continues to bellyache, I would be more than honored to be your first test subject.”
“... never mind, I don’t like the smug look on William’s face. Strike my recommendation from the record. Keep his grubby mitts away from the project.”
“Hans! You wound me!”
Ritsuka watched and listened to their inane banter. That was like the Master. No matter what occurred, she absorbed everything her Servants laid before her: good, bad, ugly, beautiful. There were times when, looking at her, Andersen no longer saw the girl, only the mirror she hid behind.
It was the girl he glimpsed now, tapping her fingertips together in slow, methodical fashion. Ritsuka waited. These days, she seemed to always be waiting for something.
“Da Vinci and Sion think we can convince the World,” Ritsuka said.
“Geniuses always think they can bend the rules. It was because the rules were broken that we’re in this predicament.”
“Grand Servants are supposed to help preserve humanity. If we have enough, then maybe—”
“Master,” Andersen said. “You don’t really believe that, do you? Taigong, Hassan-i Sabbah, Orion. All of them sacrificed their claim as ‘Grand Servants’ when they accepted Chaldea’s summons. Tell me. Who else have you asked?”
Ritsuka, kind even when cruel, answered, "Only you, Andersen."
“... ha. Ha ha ha ha ha!”
He couldn't help himself. He leaned back in his chair with his head thrown back, because wasn’t it funny, how a Faustian bargain was placed before him by the only person he’d accept it from?
“A draft is a far cry from publication,” Andersen said. “Are they scribbling, or do they have a proper outline?”
“They need someone, now.” Humanity’s last Master laced her fingers behind her back. “I don’t know the theory. All I know is... they’re certain it’ll work. And I trust them.” Don't you?
Ritsuka Fujimaru, who wasted hours preparing chocolates for each and every one of her Servants. Who offered her bare hands to slavering Servants that were more beast than man, who stood before her Servants in the face of hellfire and lightning and ice without backing down, who looked at Andersen with a smile more mask than emotion, all traits imposed on her from years of living with the feuding dead.
She can’t even drink to forget herself, he thought. Shifted in his chair. Sighed.
“If you really have no one else on your sorry list,” Andersen said, “I suppose I’ll put myself on the chopping block. Don’t bother anyone else.”
“Thank you, Andersen.”
The worst thing was she meant it.
Nested among screens and wires, da Vinci expounded on how to fundamentally change a man. “We technically aren’t breaking any rules,” she said. “What we’re doing is imitating the structure of a Grand Servant’s saint graph. Think of it as adaptive mimicry.”
“A cuckoo egg in a robin’s nest isn’t against nature,” Andersen said. “But there’s hell to pay if the faker’s spotted.”
Da Vinci yanked hard on his ear. Andersen yelped. “Don’t lecture me on birds, gramps! Now shut up and listen. Sion’s certain there won’t be any issues with a Grand Graph because we’re not demanding any special privileges from the World.”
“You’re really saying that with a straight face,” Andersen said, unable to shut up.
“A Servant operating with an activated Grand Graph 24/7 would also be a massive strain on our resources. Which means our imitation’s only to be used when absolutely necessary.”
“What makes you think the Ordeal Calls will accept these changes? The prerequisite to re-enter panhuman history is a return to baseline. Do you really think this will benefit us when the gavel comes down?”
Da Vinci looked him in the eye. “We lost the Avengers. The likelihood of losing the other Extra classes is high. We need all the power we can get, Andersen.”
Heroic Spirits were malleable existences. They were the echoes of a legend, their bodies molded to elicit a certain pattern. Altering their parameters would be easier than beseeching help from a deaf World. Da Vinci laid it out before Andersen. Stellar sand, hearts, quills - another form of ascension, only it would be dictated by man and not the Root.
“... I understand, now,” Andersen said quietly. “You need my Noble Phantasm.”
“Bingo.”
“If that was all you lot needed, you didn’t have to burden Ritsuka with asking me.”
“Would you write anyone else into this story?” da Vinci asked, the brilliant light of the screens behind her obscuring her face.
“I’m not as kind as you’re trying to make me,” Andersen said. “I’m the lamb, little miss, nothing more and nothing less. Let’s see if the universe will slit my throat.”
It is time for a story, and once it is finished, you will know more than you did before.
There once was a man who, like most men, was dissatisfied. What the root of his dissatisfaction was unknown to him. Money, fame, and love: all these he tried, yet he still chafed against his life. His only reprieve was in ink and paper, by which he invented the ideal world. Beautiful, just, and fair...
Yet the man couldn’t turn away from his fellows, though he was unable to stomach the sight of reality. "How miserable and dark the world is," sighed the man. "If only I could make my stories come true."
“Hello,” Merlin said, appearing upside-down.
Andersen nearly fell out of his seat. He swore. “You fairies are all the same! None of you know to knock, you all think you can waltz in and out as you like without consideration...!”
“Relax, my little friend. Mind brewing me a cup of coffee?”
“I do,” Andersen said.
Merlin, still in the air, waved his fingers. The coffee pot and cup floated over. Their obedience irked Andersen. Items had no will of their own, but they were still his — that ought to count for something! To his irritation, no coffee spilled on the wizard’s pristine robes.
“The new barista’s finally gotten into the swing of things,” Merlin chirped. “Lucky for you, huh? Even the torments of hell can’t keep away his top-rate customer service.”
“You never come in here.” Andersen shuffled his manuscript’s loose sheafs together. “What scam do you have up your sleeve this time? Who’d you piss off, you bum?”
“Why does everyone treat me like a criminal? What did I ever do wrong?!”
“Murasaki’s got a copy of de Boron in her library. You want a reading?”
Merlin landed on the tips of his toes. No matter how he bumbled about or how uncouth he acted, he glowed with an inhuman, ethereal aura. It shone in the way his fragrant hair still swayed in dead air, how his gestures flowed as part of an uninterpretable dance. He raised a slender finger to his lips and winked.
“I heard someone's getting a promotion, so I came by to congratulate the lucky fellow.”
“Did you now? Even the dead can’t help running their mouths. This is supposed to be a discrete project.”
Merlin chuckled. “Waiting for the next trial does get rather boring. What else can we do but gossip?”
“Are you alright with it?”
“The coffee? Could use some cream, actually. I love cappuccinos, so if you could have your barista note that down—”
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about! And the Count isn’t taking requests from freeloaders!”
“Now, now, let’s not be rude. I’ve been paying my rent, haven’t I!”
“Merlin,” Andersen said, quiet. “Will there be consequences for copying a Grand?”
The Grand Caster sipped his cup. Even in the brightest of rooms, Merlin never appeared still. The light would touch his face one way, then shift in the next. Here was the human - here was the incubus - here was something neither or, the mystery of a flower with an alien hue, never to be defined by the senses.
“I like happy endings,” Merlin said. “No surprise? I can tell you understand the type of storyteller I am. But you don’t understand my method. No one can, because they aren’t, well, me.” He tapped his nose. “What if I told you, ‘I don't know?’”
“I’d say you’re full of it... if you were anyone else.”
“Spot on. Let’s be honest, no Caster in Chaldea can hold a candle to what I do. Perhaps Ritsuka’s journey would be easier if we changed that. ‘A proper Servant to panhuman history should ease their Master’s burdens’ — that’s the mindset some of you have. It’s beautiful, but not always right.” Merlin looked through Andersen. “You aren’t scared for yourself.”
Within the Wandering Sea, it was easy to forget that here walked humanity, frozen. The noise and joy and fury and tragedy of it all was a performance that hinged on a singular actor.
“You can fit what remains of mankind in a bedroom,” Andersen said. “To hell with it. If after all we’ve done, Earth can’t be salvaged? It never deserved Ritsuka Fujimaru. Throw it all away. The story’s reached an admirable conclusion.”
“But she would never agree,” Merlin said with a smile.
“No, she’d never,” Andersen said, expressionless. “And we’re her readers as much as we are her supporting cast. The Master, out of all of us, deserves to go home. We owe it to her to make it the home she recognizes.”
“Whatever happens, happens. The path is long and winding, the journey arduous and treacherous. Take your uncertainty in one hand and your faith in the other, Andersen. A grain of sand and a mountain are equally important.”
Merlin set down his cup. With his right hand, he pried open his left eye.
“To be a Grand is to see the world as it was, is, and will be,” said the wizard. “You must rise above humans, even as you bend down to reach them. Hear me: this task is beyond you, Hans Christian Andersen.”
“What are you—?”
There was no blood. Not a sound passed through Merlin’s lips as his fingertips slipped into the wet, pink space between eyeball and skin. He pulled and the flesh obeyed as if it were fruit upon a branch. Out came his eye, adorned by a tangled cape of optic nerves and blood vessels. A gentle tug was all that was needed to sever its connection to its host.
“Like I said, your chances are low.” Merlin winked, lids closing over empty space. “But I’d like to give you a little help, nonetheless. Don’t worry about me. I can always whip up another one.”
Andersen didn’t want to hold out his hand. He forced himself to offer it. “There’s your problem,” he muttered. “You’re too sympathetic to losing dogs.”
The eye, warm and wet, landed gently in his palm. It weighed no more than a flower petal.
“Perhaps,” Merlin said. “But I’ve always been fantastic at fixing the odds.”
It happened on a cold winter night. A young girl looked to the starry heavens, seeking the constellations of her fate. A brilliant light fell across the sky with a hammer’s arc and struck the girl with fire, ice, and lightning. She did not scream, though her flesh seared and her eyes wept. She raised her arms and embraced the light, for she recognized what it was:
Her destiny.
Ritsuka Fujimaru never walked alone. At her feet followed the world: heroes and monsters, nature and its perversions, the shades of those without a true legacy. She stood in empty rooms with her head canted, eyes distant. She looked out the windows with projected landscapes, devoid of people. She never spoke first in groups. She listened. She waited. And she waited. And she waited.
She couldn’t solve geometric problems. She had never celebrated with friends at a bar. She never owned pet. She had never confessed to a classmate. She never graduated. Ritsuka waited and listened to her Heroic Servants recount their full lives — she kept her head held high — she kept her fingers twisted behind her back—
“Amazing,” Ritsuka would say, “you’re all so amazing.”
She accepted it all, and because she did, they poured more out for her. She smiled. And still she waited.
On a whim, Andersen asked her, “What will you do once humanity’s restored?”
“It’s not something I think about. Is that strange?”
“Not at all. But it’s better to think about it now than later.”
Ritsuka, with her hands hidden, smiled. “I could go back to school. Maybe see the world, pay a visit to everyone’s home? After everything, I can’t imagine staying in one place.”
It’s an empty wish without an honest ring to it. Andersen clicked his tongue. “Master.”
“Yeah?”
“Take the time to think long and hard about the future. One day, you’ll need to return to the land of the living.”
“… ha ha, you always have the strangest ways of saying you’re worried, Andersen.”
Away Ritsuka went, her steps dogged by the spirits who loved her.
The man met the star-touched girl at the crossroads. She was on a journey charted by fate, and she sought companions. “Won’t you join me?” asked the girl. “I’ll bring your stories to life if you’ll help.”
“What do you want in return?” answered the man.
“I am on a great and sacred mission,” said the girl. “Join hands with me, and the world you seek will be yours.”
The man, who was capable of seeing into the hearts of men, looked into the girl. He saw the great hollow the stars had made of her chest. Within that seared hole lived the light that had struck her: brilliant and shining, as long as it possessed something to burn for.
Someone must look after her, else the girl would sputter out at the end.
So the man took the girl’s hand. He said, “Very well. I will walk with you.”
For once, Andersen finished a manuscript before his deadline. He delivered the completed work to da Vinci, careful to fix Merlin’s eye atop it. She pulled a face at the sight.
“Eugh. Since when did you dabble in horror?”
“You haven’t read my works thoroughly, then.”
“How did you convince him to part with it?”
“I didn’t need to. After some monologuing, he was more than happy to place his bets. I’d normally throw such gestures away, but I’ve the feeling we’ll need this.”
Da Vinci held the eye up to the light. Its pupil dilated. “It does cut down on the modifications we must make. With your Noble Phantasm and Merlin’s sight, the rest ought to go smoothly.”
“I’m practically jumping for joy.”
“We’ll back your memories up prior to the operation. Should anything go wrong, we’ll have you up and running without issue.”
Servants, at their core, were tools towards whatever cause they were summoned for. To be used, damaged, and sacrificed was merely the foundation of their existence. They could not ‘die’ and so did not fear death, nor did they wish for another life. But the one who summoned them— the one who held onto them with all her might because there wasn’t anyone else for her to hold onto—
“—hey, da Vinci. How much of ‘me’ should be shaved off?”
She blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“Your first concern should be the stability of the Grand Graph. I am not, and never will be, a skilled mage like my higher-ranked fellows. I suspect you chose me because it’d be easier to re-summon a weaker Servant, yes?”
“That’s… only one factor to it. Anyway, the point isn’t to erase you Andersen.”
“You won’t erase me,” Andersen said. “However, it’d be a waste of energy to re-summon me again and again because of my incompatibility with the Grand Graph. Don’t look at me that way. So many Servants running around here mix all manner of impurities in their cores — especially during the holidays!”
“There’s no one we can toss in.” Da Vinci waved Merlin’s eye. “This will already lower the energy threshold we can work with. If we impose the identity of a talented mage on you, why, that’s like putting paint on an ancient car! It’ll look nice, but it won’t fix the trouble with its engine and it’ll cost a pretty penny.”
“You said Chaldea needs power. What’s the point of having an alcoholic fairy tale writer with clairvoyance, but no ability to act on his visions? If you want this to work with other Servants, you need to consider these matters.”
“Fiiiine. Talk, since you look like you’re going to die if you don’t.”
Andersen spoke. Da Vinci stared.
“Well, I’ll be,” she said slowly. “That may just work.”
The star-touched girl and the man traveled to the ends of the world and onwards. Long they walked, towards a destination neither of them knew. No matter how wicked the storms, how vicious the hail, the girl marched forth. Together, they sought to make the world beautiful and just.
They took the sword to the imperfect.
They burned the possibilities of the incorrect.
They scattered the ashes of those forgotten by the universe.
And with each act they committed, the star-touched girl grew darker and darker.
“What do you do this for?” asked the man.
“I cannot stop,” answered the girl. “I must not stop.”
“Who do you do this for?”
“Everyone,” said the girl. “This is for everyone’s sake.”
“How badly does the fire hurt?”
“It doesn’t hurt, not at all. We must continue. There’s still so much to do…”
The man looked at the star-touched girl. He found he could no longer see her clearly, as if she were a glint of sunset upon a mirror.
“Once it’s all over,” said the girl, “I’ll look at the stars like I once did.”
Deep in the bowels of the Wandering Sea nested an author. Curled up in a cocoon of wires and fluid, he dreamed. His bones stirred in answer to a silent call. His hair grew, like kelp beneath the waters. With an eye that bloomed bright as coral, he watched the present undulate in stark, naked violence.
He saw the planet’s corpse, starved of life, pockmarked by parasites.
He saw the lives of humanity’s remains unfurl and intertwine, knotting together and snapping.
He saw Ritsuka Fujimaru among them all, brighter than Polaris ever could be, countless threads wrapped around her in a brilliant, shining web. He saw the darkness she walked towards. He saw the light she left behind, the hot dinners on cool winter nights, the meaningless chatter as she walked the streets, the idle dreams hung on bamboo.
And with his eye that watched in the hue of the lonely bluebird, he saw her: Ritsuka, behind the mirror that was her shield, on the cusp between future’s abyss and the razed past, tears and blood on her face.
One more step, she whispered to herself. Just one more step.
The author understood, then, what the wizard had spoken of. He must not touch her, for rooted to her heart were countless destinies, countless futures. He must watch over her, but must not grant her weary feet rest.
He reached out. How she burned like a dying star.
“You can’t keep her from going,” whispered the flowers in his ear. “But you can send her off. You’ll have the chance to say goodbye at the end.”
“It shouldn’t be her.”
“Someone must do it. Don’t you see? She knows it.”
They watched, the author-becoming-another and the flowers ever-blooming.
“And what happens at the story’s end, mage? When we are gone and she remains?”
“That,” said the flowers, “was never ours to decide. We can only bring her to where she must go.”
“You’ll remain, won’t you?”
“And you will, too. All of us, in the bend of the grass, the whisper of the wind, the warmth of the sun. We’ll be with her for as long as she needs us — her strength and her devotion, her sword and her shield. We’ll return to the world, and the world will embrace her.”
“Is that what you told yourself back then?”
The flowers laughed. “The King was the King,” they said. “But Ritsuka Fujimaru — she has a choice. Let her claim it, Andersen. It’s what she’s fought for for so long.”
At the bottom of the universe, the man turned to the star-touched girl. “Was it worth it?” he asked. “Are you happy?”
“I would do it all again,” she whispered, and with her words she bloomed in the darkness, set alight by the star in her heart. “Yes, I truly had a wonderful, beautiful journey—”
“—dersen? Andersen!”
He cracked open his eyes. Bent over him was Ritsuka, worry etched across her face. “Will you pipe down?” he groused. “You’re giving me a headache with your screaming.”
Ritsuka slumped in her chair. “Thank goodness. When I saw you I thought— I thought it went wrong.”
Andersen sat up, brushing away long locks of hair from his face. He shook his head like a wet dog and squinted up at the fluorescent lights. “Well, I’m talking to you. That means this ‘me’ is still around. Don’t look so concerned.”
“You’re my friend, Andersen. Why wouldn’t I be?”
He didn’t have to look at her to know she was being painfully sincere. He turned his hands over, flexing each finger slowly. A realization struck him; he leaped to his feet and nearly tripped over himself. Ritsuka squeaked.
“Whoa!”
“I am taller!” Andersen slapped his knees, gleeful. “Ha! What about that! I don’t know why I hesitated with the operation to begin with!”
Ritsuka stared at him. Bit by bit, laughter broke apart her confusion. She snorted. Giggled. Covered her mouth and turned away, even as her shoulders shook, and Andersen laughed along with her.
“I’m so glad,” Ritsuka managed at last. Her eyes shone wet. “I’m so, so…”
The mirror broke. She cried — for the Lostbelts, for her friends, for the life she once had and the life she now had — her tears rolled down her face and Andersen pulled the sickbed’s curtains together to hide her from the world. He knelt before her.
“Sorry,” she murmured.
“Ugh, don’t start. Even the greatest of heroes have their moments. If you’d like me to edit this scene out, I’d be more than happy to strike it from my manuscript.”
“I was worried a Grand Graph would change you. But you’re the same old surly man I know.”
“And I always will be.” Andersen pressed a hand over his chest. “Ritsuka Fujimaru. I am the weaver and defiler of fate, the hero and villain in every story. I hereby dedicate my pen to your happy ending.
“This, I do swear as Baba Yaga: the Witch of Fairy Tales.”