I just got started on the Atlantis arc, so some things in this will definitely be incorrect regarding post-Lostbelt story, but I couldn't get this idea out of my head until I wrote it all down. This is also quite a bit less polished than my usual stuff, and probably counts more as rambling than prose. Now, please enjoy my RitsuCardo thoughts and Ritsuka headcanons!
As the world healed, things came back in bits and pieces. Of course, there were still huge gaps in both history and geography, but no longer was Chaldea the sole point of humanity on a bleached Earth. They could finally interact with locations and people from Proper Human History as they navigated and stabilized the many singularities and anomalies caused by the Foreign God’s interference. So, when a singularity manifested over Ritsuka’s home town, the entire crew — both human staff and ephemeral Servants — were abuzz with excitement at seeing the place the last Master of humanity grew up.
All except for Ritsuka herself, that is.
She does her best to feign delight; she doesn’t want to let down all her friends, after all. But internally, she’s recoiling from the prospect of seeing her family again. Ritsuka loves them, of course, but their expectations were just too high. She’d been born with higher quality magical circuits than the Fujimaru clan had seen in generations, which probably said more about the family than it did Ritsuka herself. Especially when she turned out to be a third-rate mage who couldn’t even cast one spell without a Mystic Code. That didn’t stop the heads of the family from placing all their hopes on her; she was the last chance they had to stay in the mage game.
Leaving Japan for Antarctica had almost been an upgrade.
Da Vinci and Sion help Ritsuka narrow down the possible teammates, leaving a squad of just four Servants. It wasn’t that big of an anomaly, anyway; the danger wouldn’t be so great they couldn’t summon more Servants on-site. But to start, Ritsuka would be joined by Mash (as always), Pope Johanna, Astolfo, and Mandricardo.
Their forays into the anomalous areas are simple and straightforward, leaving ample time for the gang to explore the town. Ritsuka proves to be a fairly good tour guide, but of course they eventually run into some of her cousins, and she can’t come up with a good excuse to avoid visiting them. So the gang gets dragged back to their estate, eager to hear everything Ritsuka’s been up to while out of the country.
There’s back and forth about the truth of the disasters, widespread rumors, and what Ritsuka is allowed to reveal about her missions in the Singularities and Lostbelts. It’s enjoyable, and Ritsuka starts to relax until she sees the one person she wants to see even less than her overbearing mother…
Her fiance. Akuma.
He was from a slightly more prestigious mage family, but his ego and irritability drove away every single marriage candidate before the Fujimaru clan reached out to them. They’ve barely said some polite “hello”s before Akuma immediately starts berating Ritsuka for running away to Antarctica, accusing her of avoiding her familial duty to provide suitable heirs to their families’ legacies. Mash’s insistence that Ritsuka was integral to Chaldea’s success is able to dissuade him from pursuing that line of thinking further, but he continues to subtly insult her and maneuver her away from her friends whenever possible.
The Servants don’t intervene at first, thinking that Ritsuka will put him in his place soon enough or somehow charm him into acting decently. But she doesn’t. She’s too scared of letting down her entire family to risk driving him away and canceling the marriage, as he’s threatened to do so many times before. Her Servants trust that she’ll ask for help if she really needs it, but that assumption wears thinner by the day.
Then, one night after returning from a longer than usual battle with demonic beasts, Akuma is waiting for her, more than a little tipsy, and declares that they’ll consummate their marriage that night since she’s dragging her feet with the official stuff. When Ritsuka turns him down, he grabs her arm, calling her “no better than a hooker” due to how everyone is apparently allowed to bang her except him. Mash, Astolfo, and Johanna almost can’t believe this guy’s audacity. Mandricardo, though?
Mandricardo sees RED.
Within a second, he’s at Ritsuka’s side, grabbing Akuma’s arm hard enough to crack the bone and nearly throwing him against the nearest wall. “You’re engaged to the bravest, kindest, most selfless woman in the whole world, and you’re treating her like a broodmare! Someone in this room needs to learn some goddamn respect, and it sure as fuck ain’t her!”
“You her boyfriend or something? I’m not looking to take anything from you,” Akuma laughs through tears. “I couldn’t care less how many men she’s got on the side; I just want what’s mine.”
“That does it!” Mandricardo throws Akuma to the floor as Ritsuka’s cousins cautiously come to check out the commotion. “You think she’s yours?! Then fight for her! I hereby challenge you to a duel for Ritsuka’s hand!” Grabbing a bokken from a nearby umbrella stand, he points it at his inebriated foe. “Tomorrow, when the sun reaches its zenith, bring whatever weapon you wish to the courtyard, and we’ll settle this once and for all!”
Everyone is staring by the time Mandricardo finishes his proclamation. Ritsuka’s too worn down by Akuma’s abuse and the earlier battles to really process what’s happening, so Mash helps her to her room while Johanna calms the small audience that had gathered. Mandricardo and Astolfo sleep outside Ritsuka’s door that night, ready to protect her from the monster her family let into their midst.
Not that Akuma would try anything that night anyway. He was too busy readying his defensive and offensive spells to teach this ill-tempered brute not to meddle in the affairs of mages. By the next morning, Akuma is confident this “duel” will be nothing more than a one-sided beatdown.
Which, ironically, he is correct about.
The entire Fujimaru clan comes to witness this scuffle. The family heads are dismissive of the whole thing, only going along with it because Akuma accepted the challenge, though they don’t believe the outcome could really influence the plan to marry Ritsuka to him. Her cousins, however, are supportive of Mandricardo, and sit by Ritsuka as the two men face off, quietly expressing the hope that she will end up engaged to the man who clearly thinks the world of her.
Ritsuka doesn’t quite know what to think. She’d already accepted that she’d be Akuma’s wife eventually; the possibility of anything else never crossed her mind. But with Mandricardo actually fighting for her, she wonders if maybe — on the off-chance her mother will accept the outcome of the duel — she might like being Mandricardo’s wife better.
Johanna agrees to referee, laying out the rules clearly. “This is no fight to the death, and I will not tolerate any lethal blows. The duel will be considered done when one party surrenders or is rendered incapable of fighting. Are we understood?”
“Fine by me,” Mandricardo growls.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Akuma huffs.
Johanna nods. “Then… let the duel commence!”
Akuma immediately activates a cascade of defensive spells to ward off physical blows, then begins casting a spell to immobilize his opponent by increasing the air pressure acting downwards on him to an unbearable level. It’s a foolproof plan. Once Mandricardo is pinned to the ground by the very air itself, Akuma could easily dispose of this barbarian at his leisure.
What he fails to account for is the sudden spike in magical pressure coming from Mandricardo the moment he drops his civilian facade in favor of his armor and wooden sword. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that Ritsuka’s friends were Servants. Why would he? Ritsuka may have had an abundance of mana, but without any control of her magic circuits, she shouldn’t have been able to manifest anything, much less a Heroic Spirit.
Akuma desperately tries to speed up his casting as Mandricardo rushes towards him, suddenly keenly aware of his own fragility. It works as intended, but the amount of force he’s able to apply is woefully insufficient to incapacitate a Servant. All it does is slow Mandricardo down. Akuma slings spell after spell at his foe, but he’d put all his eggs in the “air pressure incapacitation” basket, so the most he can do is give Mandricardo a few scratches by the time the Servant is close enough to swing his sword.
It’s over within seconds. Mandricardo smashes the magical barriers Akuma created with sheer, brute force. His Noble Phantasm sits in the forefront of his mind, which he dearly wishes to use, but doing so would break the rules of the duel. And so, he contents himself with driving Akuma back, step by step, savoring the increasing panic and terror swirling in the mage’s eyes.
Then, Akuma trips, falling backwards onto his ass, and Mandricardo raises his sword for one last strike.
“I give! I give!” Akuma blurts out in a panic. “Call off your goddamn attack dog, Fujimaru! I give!”
The tension permeating the household finally breaks, with half the family practically cheering Mandricardo and the other rushing to Akuma’s side to beg his forgiveness. Of course, the engagement wouldn’t be called off just from the outcome of one duel. There was no contract drafted, and Mandricardo didn’t believe for one second that Akuma would abide by the results if he didn’t want to. But even with all three heads of the Fujimaru clan desperately trying to hold onto their sole heir’s one marriage option, Akuma is well and truly done with Ritsuka.
“She’s all yours, brute!” Akuma bellows, batting the dirt off his pants. “I certainly ain’t fighting for her. Bitch isn’t worth the effort.”
That insult was the final straw.
Brigliadoro is summoned in an instant, and Mandricardo runs Akuma from the household and all the way to the edge of town, hot on the mage’s heels the entire way. He only stops because his mount could only manifest for short bursts, and Astolfo comes to collect him while Akuma puts all his wind-based spells to use putting as much distance between himself and those crazy people. The two Servants awkwardly arrive back at the household on Hippogriff’s back, where the other Servants, Ritsuka, and her cousins eagerly await their return.
Ritsuka feels like a weight’s been lifted from her shoulders. Even if her family is upset by Akuma’s departure, and she knows she’ll have to face their disappointment eventually, seeing Mandricardo rush in to defend her without hesitation is a memory she’ll cherish forever.
As he apologizes for going overboard, Ritsuka gives him a playful punch. “It’s okay,” she says with a relieved smile. “Guess you’re my fiance now, huh.”
Mandricardo freezes.
“Wat?”
A third-rate Servant like him? Engaged to the most perfect woman in the world? Impossible.
Then he remembers what he said. How he worded his challenge. The prize? Ritsuka’s hand in marriage.
And Mandricardo had won.
* * * * * * * * * *
Mandricardo spends the rest of the day in a daze, letting Johanna and Astolfo deal with Ritsuka’s mother and the other family heads. He wants to tell them that he didn’t really want to marry Ritsuka — that he just couldn’t stand seeing Akuma hurt her like that — but he can’t get the words out. He couldn’t bear to hurt Ritsuka himself by insinuating that she wasn’t worth marrying, but every time he hears a cousin say “Congrats!”, it’s like a lance going through his heart because he knows he can’t go through with it.
After all, he’s a Servant. He couldn’t keep a marriage oath, as he’d disappear the moment she doesn’t need him to help protect the world. If he was human, maybe, but…
Despite the lightness in her step, Ritsuka still sees how everything is weighing on Mandricardo. Before bed, she sits with him on the balcony of her house, just chatting like they had so many times before. She tells him that Akuma contacted her mother, officially calling off the engagement, and despite how angry she was with her, Ritsuka couldn’t be happier. Though, if Mandricardo isn’t comfortable with it, she can dial back on joking about her “new fiance”.
Mandricardo laughs. A joke. Of course it was a joke. He’s relieved, saying that he doesn’t mind the jokes… so long as she knows he wouldn’t actually be able to marry her.
Ritsuka laughs, too.
It’s just a joke. A playful bit of teasing. Nothing more.
But then why does it feel like Mandricardo lost something?
* * * * * * * * * *
The “joke” comes back to Chaldea. How could it not, with Astolfo bringing it up at every opportunity? He keeps asking to be invited to the wedding; no one’s sure if he’s joking, but Mandricardo and Ritsuka definitely are. Most people understand immediately that they’re only playing along with “being engaged” as an inside joke and start doing similarly. Some don’t realize that it’s all in jest until much later, usually after an earnest attempt to get details of a possible wedding out of the two.
It takes half a dozen Servants and a Command Seal to keep Kiyohime from challenging Mandricardo to a duel. She simply won’t listen until Odysseus proposes that all the Servants make an oath like he did when Helen’s suitors were on the brink of war: agreeing to protect Ritsuka’s future marriage regardless of who she chooses, even if it ends up being with a non-Servant. That pacifies Kiyohime, though she also doubles down on her attempts to woo Ritsuka.
Mandricardo thinks that’ll be the end of the jokes, but apparently it’s just too enjoyable to poke fun at him. He doesn’t object, though he and Ritsuka do keep mentioning that it was a joke.
Over time, they stop reminding people that it’s a joke. After all, everyone making said joke knows.
“Ah, yes. Of course, it’s a joke,” Chiron says with just a hint of that knowing smile. “I’ve long since known who she will choose to bind herself to. Hm? Who, you ask? Oh, one doesn’t need clairvoyance to see that.”
* * * * * * * * * *
Mandricardo and Ritsuka spend more and more time together. There seems to be nothing they aren’t comfortable sharing with one another. Neither has really thought of their “engagement” in a long time. The jokes don’t even feel like jokes anymore, but they never gave it much thought.
One day, when they’re just cuddling after a mission, Ritsuka finally asks if he wants to keep their engagement as “just a joke”.
Mandricardo is surprised to find that he already has an answer. “No, I want it to be for real… but I won’t be around long enough to make good on it unless you waste a Grail to incarnate me, yeah?”
“I asked Da Vinci to hold back one of the uncorrupted Grails.” Ritsuka snuggles into his chest. “It wouldn’t be a waste.”
Mandricardo doesn’t know what to say. He’d never considered his Master would use such a powerful object just to give him a second chance at life. But he also knows that Ritsuka wouldn’t lie like this. She already had a plan.
And what wouldn’t he give to continue being her partner once the world was no longer on the edge of catastrophe…
He holds her closer, like she’s the most precious being in his world, whispering against the top of her head. “Guess I’d better start thinking about how to propose properly then, huh?”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
After Kieran accepts a job offer to work for the Paldea League, he jumps on the chance to be closer to his long-term girlfriend, Juliana. However, moving halfway across the world is hard for a young man, in more ways than one.
(takes place several years after the events of Pokemon Scarlet)
