'It wasn't supposed to be like this.'
That's what she thinks to herself, stepping into the room that had a Summoning Array painted on the floor and walls with words for a ritual she didn't truly understand sitting on her tongue.
This was supposed to be a simple job she took for her gap-year after graduating highschool with honors. Now she was stationed who knows where in a facility that was severely damaged after one of its own members had sabotaged everything with bombs.
There were no other viable Master candidates, they'd told her. She tries not to think about the fact that if she hadn't fallen asleep and nearly missed the orientation that she'd be a charred, mutilated corpse the same as all the others.
Ritsuka Fujimaru wasn't anything special, really. A girl with fiery orange hair and bright golden eyes, sure.....but she wasn't special. She'd had good grades in school and had been part of the volleyball club, but there was nothing notable about her.
A normal girl from a normal family in Tokyo who'd applied for an overseas job on a whim, just because it sounded like a fun way to spend a year after graduating.
Now she was being called the Last Master of the Chaldea Security Organization.
Oh, and magic was real, apparently. Or magecraft, as Da Vinci had explained to her. Yes, that Da Vinci. Leonardo Da Vinci. Who was a breathtakingly beautiful woman and called herself a Servant with a capital 'S'.
Her one saving grace is that the temporary acting Director of Chaldea, Doctor Romani Archaman, seemed genuinely apologetic about everything that was happening.
'I'm so, so sorry Fujimaru-chan. But you're the only one left who can do this. I know we're asking a lot of you, I know it's unfair. But I still have to ask anyway. Will you do this? Will you try and undo all the damage that Lev's betrayal has done?'
She tried not to think about the fact that her parents, her little brother, all her friends and teachers and everyone she'd ever met or heard about was dead right now. She can't let her mind linger on it. As far as Doctor Romani and Da Vinci could tell, the entire world except for Chaldea itself had been incinerated in flames.
They didn't know how. They didn't know why. All they could do was point to their fancy tools and instruments and try to explain to a teenager unfamiliar with the world of Mages what the readings meant.
It didn't matter, really. What other choice did she have? If she didn't do this, if she didn't go through with the Servant Summoning Ritual....if she didn't fight, then humanity was as good as dead.
She'd never see her family or friends again. She could feel the weight of eight billion lives pressing down on her slender shoulders as she takes a deep breath to try and steady her shaking hands.
No pressure, right?
The intercom crackles to life and Ritsuka finds herself grateful that it's Doctor Romani's voice that comes through.
"Okay, Fujimaru-chan. Just like we practiced. You can do it!" The false cheer in his voice is obvious to her ears, but she tries not to show it.
"Right. I'll do my best!"
She steps into the room alone, staring at the....shield? Table? They'd explained that King Arthur's round table was built into the shield and somehow that allowed it to work as a focus for the ritual. It didn't make any sense to her, but she didn't need to know how it worked - she just had to do it.
She approaches the shield-table-thing and kneels at the edge of it, resting her palms gently against the rough-hewn surface. Her fingertips tingle where they make contact with the shield and she wonders if that's normal.
It doesn't matter. She has to do this, right?
The girls' tongue briefly flicks over her lips and she ignores the way the tingling sensation is starting to spread, traveling up her fingers until both of her hands are tingling and creeping further and further higher still. The words she'd spent the better part of two days memorizing spring to the forefront of her mind and fall from her lips without effort.
"Let silver and steel be the essence.
Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation.
Let black be the color I pay tribute to.
Let rise a wall against the wind that shall fall.
Let the four cardinal gates close.
Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching unto the Kingdom rotate."
Something's happening. The tingling spreads at a quickened rate and runes etched into the shield begin to glow, lighting up the room with a blue-white glow. She's dimly aware of Romani praising her through the intercom, but she won't let her focus break enough to figure out exactly what he's saying.
She has to do this.
"Let it be declared now;
your flesh shall serve under me, and my fate shall be with your sword.
Submit to the beckoning of the Holy Grail.
Answer, if you would submit to this will and this truth."
The glow intensifies and her entire body is tingling - every nerve alight and present in this moment. The sigils on the shield project upwards and rotate as three glowing concentric circles form above it and slowly spin.
"You're doing it, Ritsuka! Good work!" Romani's words are audible this time and she feels warmth bloom in her chest. She could do this. She would do this.
"An oath shall be sworn here.
I shall attain all virtues of all under Heaven;
I shall have dominion over all evils of all of Hell."
The light filling the room is blinding now and she has no choice but to tightly screw her eyes shut. The intercom crackles to life but she can't hear what's being said through the tingling sensation leaving even her teeth buzzing.
"From the Seventh Heaven, attended to by three great words of power,
come forth from the ring of restraint, protector of the holy balance!"
The blinding light intensifies further. That was it, those were all the words for the ritual. Her eyes remain tightly screwed shut as she pleads with anything that's listening with everything in her heart and soul.
'Please! Help me! Help us!! Everyone is dead or dying. I don't know what's going on. I'm so, so scared. They said I'm the only one who can do this, but I'm terrified. I don't want to die. I don't want everyone else to be dead. So please, if you're out there. If you can hear me, please.....save me! Save us! I can't do this alone!!'
If the light was blinding before, it's downright incandescent now - an all consuming vibrant, dazzling rainbow hue. The tingling in her body grows so intense she swears her skeleton is going to vibrate right out of her skin. Dimly, she can hear alarm sirens blaring and Romani's panicked voice over the intercom before it cuts out and everything goes dark.
She's blown back by an unseen force and it's only the pounding headache between her temples that let Ritsuka know she isn't dead yet. Her back rests against the cool wall and the room is awash with a dim red glow courtesy of the emergency lights still flashing in the otherwise inky darkness of the summoning room.
***
"Do you really think she can do this, Da Vinci?" Romani turns to the woman at his side as Ritsuka steps into the summoning room and the metal doors seal behind her with a hiss.
The woman at his side takes a sip from her almost ever-present coffee mug with a small frown on her immaculate lips.
"She has to. You know that as well as I do, Romani."
His gloved hands fold around his own long-empty coffee cup and peach-colored brows knit into a furrow.
"It's unfair. She's not a born and raised magus. Now we're placing the fate of the world on her shoulders? I just wish there was something more I could do. I could-"
Da Vinci shakes his head. "You can't, for the same reason I can't."
His thumb brushes over the slight bulge of the ring hidden beneath his glove.
"I know. But I wish there were some other way." He takes a deep breath, stows away his worries and presses the intercom button.
"Okay, Fujimaru-chan. Just like we practiced. You can do it!" The cheer in his voice rings false even to his own ears, but he hopes the poor girl saddled with all their hopes won't notice.
He and Da Vinci watch silently as the orange-haired girl approaches the shield and kneels down to begin the ritual. Her incantation is flawless and he finds himself impressed that she memorized it so thoroughly with only two panicked days to prepare.
Romani's eyebrows raise slightly at the light emanating from the shield. Da Vinci's voice cuts through his surprise and he redoubles his attention on the task at hand.
"Magical energy levels are all within expected parameters, though trailing towards the upper end."
He remembers a note from Ritsuka's personnel file that reported her Servant Compatibility rating was 100% - a blatantly unheard of number that had more than a few staff members wondering if the blood test had been faulty.
Romani focuses intently on the camera feed for the Summoning Room. The light is growing brighter with every spoken word and he presses on the intercom button again.
"You're almost done, Fujimaru-chan. Keep it up, you're doing amazing!"
The teenager finishes her incantation and he lets out a sigh of relief, right before alarms and sirens start shrieking and he turns to Da Vinci.
"What's going on, Da Vinci?!"
The Universal Woman's fingers are flying over the command console and her brows are knit into a tight furrow.
"This is....these values are...!" There's an edge of panic in her voice that he'd never heard before and he rushes to her side so he can see what she sees.
"God above....the Summoning is draining the magic reactor dry! Da Vinci, we can't afford to lose power like that. Shut it down!"
Her lips are pressed into a thin line and she shakes her head.
"I can't. The system is refusing all commands, even the Director-level overrides. We can't stop the ritual at this point."
The lights around them flicker dangerously and then fail entirely - leaving all of Chaldea in inky darkness before the back-up diesel generators kick on enough to power the dim red emergency lights.
Romani rushes back to his own console and presses on the intercom button. "Ritsuka! Ritsuka, can you hear me? Please say something!"
He turns his gaze to the lilac-haired girl that had been silently keeping vigil in the command room.
"Mash, get to the summoning room and check on her. Be prepared for combat just in case!"
Mash, God bless her, gives him a stern nod and rushes from the room at speeds most humans couldn't reach with only a stern "Yes, Doctor!" to indicate she'd heard him at all.
Romani returns to Da Vinci's side with a grim expression on his face as the magical reactor kicks back on and Chaldea shifts from the emergency diesel power to its proper power source. The lights flicker a few times before the red emergency lights are replaced with their brighter white LED counterparts.
"Was the system able to get any readings on the Servant that was summoned?"
Da Vinci wordlessly gestures to the screen in front of her and Romani glances down, only to feel his heart skip a bit and his stomach twist itself into knots. Without a word spoken between them, the two are sprinting from the command room to the summoning room.
***
Ritsuka rubs the spots out of her eyes as the summoning room is lit up once again by the proper LED lighting and it's only then that she realizes she isn't alone. There's a man in the room with her standing atop the shield.
He looks like he's of Japanese descent - with lightly tanned skin, messy brown hair so dark it nearly looks black and two vibrant blue eyes. He's clad in simple attire that almost looks like Chaldea's standard uniform, if not for the fact it's unbranded with their logo. An outfit of black and white that looks as if it was tailor made to fit him.
He's....smiling at her. A warm, gentle sort of smile that makes her feel at ease instinctively. His voice is deeper than she would have expected, since he really doesn't look like he could be much older than twenty five at the latest.
"Sorry about that. Are you okay? I hope I didn't scare you."
Why does he have to be so handsome?! And his voice is just her type, too. Belatedly aware that she's been staring at him with her mouth agape this whole time, Ritsuka's mouth snaps shut with a faint click of teeth on teeth and an embarrassed blush blooms atop her cheeks.
"N-No, I'm fine! Um...are..you my Servant?" She doesn't quite like how that word feels in her mouth, as if the idea of implying anyone belonged to her was just wrong.
The door hisses open and suddenly Mash has placed herself between the mystery man and Ritsuka with her fists raised in a rudimentary fighting stance.
"Don't worry Senpai! I'll keep you safe, no matter what."
Was she seeing things, or did the man's eyes widen when Mash showed up? He slowly lifts his hands in the universal gesture of surrender with a small smile on his lips.
"Calm yourself, Shielder. I have no intentions of harming our Master."
Our Master, he said. That means he is a Servant. Her Servant.
Not more than ten tense seconds pass before the door hisses open and Doctor Romani and Da Vinci step into the room as well.
There it is again. A glint of recognition in the man's eyes at the sight of them. Does he know them? She'll have to ask him later.
Ritsuka doesn't miss the way both Doctor Romani and Da Vinci position themselves subtly between her and the new Servant.
For his part, he seems to take everything in stride before letting out a soft laugh.
"I guess introductions are in order."
His stance straightens and suddenly the relaxed air is broken. Ritsuka finds herself staring in awe at the man who looks only a few years older than her, baffled and wondering how he can radiate an aura of such....power doesn't feel quite right. Benevolence, maybe? A tangible weight pressing down on everyone in the room like a father's protective embrace....and she swears for the briefest of moments there was a glowing golden halo behind his head. But in the moment between blinks, it's gone.
"You called, and I have answered the call. Servant, Grand Saver. Worry not, Master. You will not fight this battle alone. I shall be at your side from the first to the very last."
She doesn't know what a Saver is, let alone a Grand Saver. But the words clearly mean something to Romani and Da Vinci, judging by the twin gasps and the way Romani's fingers are trembling ever so slightly.
Ritsuka pushes herself to her feet and steps passed the three people guarding her, reaching out with one hand and a bright smile on her face.
"So what do I call you, then?"
The dark-haired man reaches out to accept her hand in a gentle but firm grip, a small smile dancing on his lips like he's about to tell a very funny joke.
"For now at least, call me....Gudao."
***
Author's note:
Hey all, this is just a quick little one-shot I wrote down to get it out of my head. Hope you enjoy it!
Author: halotv