His hand touched her, light as a feather and weighted as she’d imagined Chaldeas would all at the same time. He held on, and for a moment, she felt as though her arm could crumble beneath his tenderness. His words likewise. Just how resolute he was; the iron cast heart that beat behind a front of bumbling and light-hearted. A man who dedicated his entire human life to one cause, and saw it through, even though the cost were himself. Just like Ritsuka. If she was lost, would that really be humanity saved? Or would her sacrifice be a matter of buying time? A whole year… so many days and yet so brief as it breezed by in a blur. Something looked back upon and asked where the time went, almost as though it were a dream.
“Senpai said the same thing”. She’d gone so far as to threaten punching him if he were to prove them wrong. Mashu never lost faith in him, but in herself, and feared that reflection shine through on him. When their methods ran like parallel lines. When she questioned if Chaldea had any right to commit the atrocities they did. When she yearned for Ritsuka to be more than that beautiful, transient moment she envisioned in herself whilst breaching her limit in front of him. That must have been why it was a figment of him, a Goetia who existed inside her head, who sowed the seeds of questioning what she was. What she could become. If they were even more alike than she understood. Putting aside the Beast IV fears, she’d been hesitant to face him before the mists brought them together in the echo of London, where the Mage King’s corpse flew. Where Roman’s nightmares doubled. “I think… it’s me pushing feelings of disappointment in myself onto him. He didn’t judge us for taking this path in Atlantis. But… how could he have confidence entrusting the future to us now? I’m just a shadow of the girl who took on his Noble Phantasm and burned out. And if we lose Senpai…” The battle to maintain composure had forever been uphill since that June morning; so often words faded into silence, lumps that clogged her throat and forced downward only to fight back the visual giveaways to emptiness and grief, tears swelled with threat to spill over as they breached their dam.
She wanted so much to talk with Goetia about what he knew. If there might be a key to solving the puzzle which had been laid in his hands. But she was afraid to face him. Afraid to test that Servant’s scolding. Afraid that pushing further than she knew would invoke the Stars’ sadistic game once more. It was lose-lose, whatever the route and whatever the outcome. ‘I don’t know what to do about Ritsuka’. If she chased, would she be met only with confirmation that her worst nightmares were lying in wait? The blissful ignorance — or as close to it as they had guarded — abandoned to a point of no return, unable to live with hope, no matter how feeble the flickering candlelight.
In his hand, her wrist turn, and fingers closed around his. “Was this what you felt every time you saw us off? Every day, I dread it. That she lives through another Lostbelt, the last one, and we lose her. That here becomes a sanctuary for her ghost, the way you, Da Vinci and Olga Marie are only here. She’s in so much pain, she gives up so much to everyone else, she’s gone so far past the limit of any human. But she keeps going anyway. I’ve tried to think of everything, but… but… I think she’s just too tired”. Like she didn’t want to be saved. Her face crumpled; violet retreating behind their last defences, lips twisted into a jagged trail across. “She said she doesn’t want to keep standing by and letting everyone else fight, but she’s doing so much. And I abandoned her. I hurt her more than anyone else because I thought getting away would keep her safe. But that was never going to happen. I felt like I was suffocating her and then…” The hand separate turned as its twin, fingers quivered and curled into a fist in search of a means to let loose the overflowing guilt, if it could only be driving nails into her own palm.
“Because I wasn’t careful enough, she got killed. She died somewhere in Savior’s Respite. The Mashu who went through the Grand Order with her could have stopped all of this. She wouldn’t have been so careless. She would have kept going strong". She took in his words, rearranged them a hundred-thousand times to find something. A way. The way he spoke of. The face cast up toward him was like that of a lost puppy, uncertain which direction would take it home, back to the people who loved it, back to safety.
“How do I?” There was a hint of desperation in her voice, a hint of pleading for an answer he could never have. Not this time. “The only way we’ve seen ahead is to reject the Lostbelts, but doing that is burning her away as well. All of Team A. It’s like… no-one else is going to survive”. And she’d face that empty world alone, the corpses of Chaldea strewn across the canvas behind. “I want to find another way. I have to. It feels so impossible to find”. The fingers circling his wrist squeezed; she’d spoken of feeling a mere fraction of the Shielder she’d once been, her falling apart tantamount to weakness. But she just nodded. He wasn’t a liar, and she knew she was being far too hard on herself. The past few months, the most recent in particular, had simply been so much to process, and left her feeling frail. The girl who told him she hadn’t any concerns about her own lifespan, faced death and apocalypse head-on without hesitation, it was debatable if she were alive.
Of course Ritsuka would. She-- actually, he’s not sure how things went after his ending at the Temple, but he has some ideas. Of them, a passing of understanding between the first Beast and the last Master. Maybe. It’s not as if he can get them in the same room these days. “You should ask him. Goetia’s a little gruff around the edges, but he’s not going to lie to you about anything, you know. Of all the people here, I think you’d understand him the best and vice versa.” It brings to mind siblings, or something like that.
But this isn’t about Goetia. This is about Mashu and her worries, the way they build behind the wall of time and her own self-control. “Really? Just a shadow? I see the same girl I did, all those years ago. The same resolute girl who stood at the Temple of Time and didn’t flinch.” A little older and much more wiser, but the same Mashu Kyrielight still. Time can erode a good number of things from the world, but people -- the way people are, the core of themselves -- rarely shifts all that much. Time can run its fingers through Mashu’s hair, force her to frown, bring forth worry lines to her soft face, but he sees her just as he left her. It brings a smile to Roman’s face, small and quiet.
Then his smiles wavers for a moment. “Something like that. It was-- ah, like a stone in the back of my throat. I was always hopeful for your missions, but the coward in me always expected the worst. I still do. Some habits die hard, even after death.” But he understands that fear. That long, dark streak of terror that’s nestled in her heart like a splinter. It’ll fester over time if it isn’t plucked and treated, transforming to an infection of the soul. But there’s little he can offer in that moment, for either Mashu or Ritsuka. He’s six lostbelts behind, still at his end point. A ghost can only do so much for the living; it lies with them to make their choices and hold themselves to it, bitter though the thought is.
For a moment Roman lets go, and that anchor shifts marginally; the storm too strong to hold that ship in place. Then his hands fold carefully over Mashu’s own, the weight of his fingers pressing into the softness of her hands, like the pull of a blanket around a child before bed. Here is safety. Here is something he can do. There are new callouses there, new memories, new scars he isn’t aware of. But they are the same hands; still small, still young, still Mashu’s. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Still the same young girl, new and bright. Still the same Fujimaru Ritsuka, brash and resolute. There’s a crumb of worry in Roman’s heart, outweighed by the insistent beat of comfort and the warmth of hope it gives.
“You’ve been through this six more times then I have, but the way I see it... There are multiple possibilities out there, Mashu. Sometimes we pick one and we think it’s correct. The only way. But later, down the line, we find other ways to change the status quo. There’s always hope for those who look for it. There’s always something more out there, just waiting to be discovered and help. Be cautious, and be brave. I trust you all to do what you think is right on the matter.
It’s a story of love and hope, after all. Remember? Do you really think it’s going to end on such a quiet note, Mashu? I don’t think so.”
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