Chapter 279: Ritsuka and Mashu Were in a Mess in the Wind
"Ahhhhh, why are there monsters like these here too!?"
In the first century AD, within the Roman Empire, fierce winds swept across the wasteland. Sand and dust rose like a heavy curtain draped over the world. Behind two fleeing figures, a group of yellow, rotten monsters pursued them. They looked like withered plants that had decayed and then been forced to move again.
Red short hair fluttered wildly in the wind as an agile figure in a white uniform leaped forward.
Ritsuka had once been nothing more than an ordinary person, but after so much training in Chaldea, she had long since developed respectable physical strength.
She simply had never wanted to use that physical strength in a situation like this.
"Senpai!"
Mashu, running beside her, wore a helpless expression.
"I can protect you..."
"I do not want that!"
Ritsuka cried out in sheer resistance.
"They are too disgusting. Just thinking about stopping and letting them get close makes my skin crawl!"
Mashu's expression became even more helpless.
Still, that really was Ritsuka's reason.
The moment Chaldea received news of a new Singularity, they had transferred in at once.
And then they had immediately started running.
Yes, the reason they were being chased was not that they could not defeat those monsters.
It was simply because Ritsuka found them revolting.
And, to be fair, they truly were revolting.
As she ran, even Mashu glanced back and felt her stomach twist.
For her, it was still barely tolerable.
But for an ordinary person, merely seeing them would probably be enough to make them throw up on the spot.
A nauseating dizziness lingered around them. Beneath that dizziness there was also a strange rhythm.
The monsters pounding after them struck the ground with their twisted feet. Their withered bodies danced and jerked beneath yellow shells, and every step they took landed like the beating of invisible drums.
Low moans spilled from their mouths, as if they were singing some chaotic, deranged song.
They were monsters.
And yet they also resembled a procession of mad singers.
"Haa..."
Mashu exhaled and steadied herself.
Her long, agile body shifted fluidly as she ran. The black combat suit that covered her beautiful figure rose and fell with every stride.
"Wait."
Ritsuka suddenly stopped.
The raised hand of the red haired girl made Mashu halt as well. She slid a few steps forward before stopping completely, then looked ahead through the blowing dust.
Across the broad wilderness, yellow soil churned as figures crawled upward from underground.
They were the same yellow monsters that had been chasing them from behind.
They tapped their feet.
They muttered those same invisible whispers.
They waved yellow tentacles. They roared. They spun. They leaped.
Front.
Back.
Left.
Right.
In an instant, Ritsuka and Mashu were surrounded on all sides.
Mashu became alert immediately. She clenched her hand, and light spread over her palm like flowing water. A black shield of magical energy formed in an instant and locked firmly into her grasp.
But enemies were coming from every direction. She could not protect her Master from all of them at once.
Ritsuka, however, suddenly sneered.
"So there is nowhere left to run..."
"If that is how it is, then I will not run."
Her expression was utterly different from the disgusted panic she had shown before. A cold smile appeared on the face of the red haired girl.
It was the smile of someone whose scheme had succeeded.
Mashu blinked, then jolted.
"Senpai..."
Could it be that all of this had been part of Senpai's plan?
Feigning disgust.
Feigning retreat.
Just to gather all of these monsters in one place and wipe them out at once.
"Mashu, can you do it?"
Ritsuka asked in a low voice.
"No problem, Senpai."
Mashu nodded without hesitation.
This was not blind confidence.
It was certainty.
Both she and Ritsuka were already different from how they had been in the French Singularity.
That change had come from Rowe.
Although Rowe had stated clearly, after arriving at Chaldea, that he would not interfere too deeply in the Singularities that followed, he had also made something else clear.
The resolution of each Singularity was something Ritsuka, as a living person of this world, had to accomplish herself.
At most, Rowe would nail down their existence at the final stage.
Everything that came before that, he would leave to Ritsuka.
And only Ritsuka could truly accomplish it.
But not interfering did not mean ignoring them.
At the very least, before the discovery of this Roman Singularity, he had personally trained both Ritsuka and Mashu in Chaldea.
Training for the Master.
And also training for the Demi Servant.
Or rather, for the girl who had once only seen herself as an artificial life form.
"Mash Kyrielight, let go of the fear in your heart. I am not speaking of your fear toward the Heroic Spirit inside you. I am speaking of your fear toward yourself."
At that time, Rowe had pointed directly at the obstacle that had always existed inside Mashu.
Her fear of herself.
Mash Kyrielight was not an ordinary human.
She was an artificial life created by combining magecraft and modern scientific technology, a being with extraordinarily high compatibility for Rayshifting.
She was not normal.
Nor could she ever be called healthy.
In exchange for that compatibility, her body had been left fragile beyond measure.
Accelerated aging.
Accelerated collapse.
Without the possession of a Servant, she would never have been able to endure the battles required to repair the Singularities.
Without that borrowed strength, she would not even have been able to stand here.
And because of that abnormality, because of that special nature, Mashu had never truly thought of herself as human.
Even with the care and kindness of Ritsuka and Doctor Roman.
Even though neither of them had ever looked at her strangely.
Different was still different.
Mashu knew that better than anyone.
But then Rowe had said:
"Only by letting go of the fear in your heart can you truly grow. Only then can you truly master the power within you."
"You should remember this. From the moment you developed self awareness, you ceased to be a mere tool. You were never just a doll brought into this world for someone else's purpose."
"You are human."
"A human, just like your name says."
At that moment, with those words flashing across her mind, Mashu's heart suddenly grew firm beyond comparison.
Mr. Rowe, I will not disappoint you.
After that special training, Mashu had learned to wield her strength far more completely.
With that strength, defeating these monsters was no difficulty at all.
Senpai must be thinking the same.
This is your growth too.
"Mm. Go for it."
Ritsuka smiled as she saw the steadiness in Mashu's gaze. Then she patted down the pleated black skirt beneath her white uniform, her long legs in black stockings swaying lightly.
"You go ahead. I am going to throw up for a bit."
"Ugh..."
Mashu froze.
Had I... overthought the whole thing?
For the first time in a long while, the Demi Servant truly felt an urge to say something back.
Then, suddenly, a bright voice rang out.
"Oh? Oh my. I did not expect there to be people here."
"Hmm, hmm. Innocent civilians caught up in all this?"
"No... that does not seem right."
"Travelers who cross time and space? Saviors of human order?"
"It does not matter either way. Since you are here, then listen to my song!"
That sudden voice stopped Mashu just before she swung her shield into the surrounding monsters.
Ritsuka, who had been in the middle of throwing up, also froze.
The nausea in her stomach receded at once.
It was not just them.
The yellow monsters turned their heads in unison and looked toward the source of that voice.
Under the blazing sunlight stood a figure atop a raised hill.
It was a beautiful young girl.
Her brilliant golden hair had been tied with a red ribbon into an elaborate style, while her lovely face shone beneath softly swaying bangs. Her blue green eyes gleamed like precious gems.
She wore a long red gown, and through the open front one could glimpse the full, rounded curve of her chest. Her waist was slim, and the long trailing skirt hung at both sides, faintly revealing her graceful legs beneath its sheer layers.
Who was that...?
The moment they saw her clearly, both Ritsuka and Mashu paused.
It was not only her beauty or her fiery noble bearing that mattered.
What startled them even more was the reaction of the yellow monsters.
Those strange decaying things, hidden beneath yellow shells, seemed to be flinching.
They were afraid.
Ritsuka and Mashu exchanged a glance at once.
Both of them thought of Rowe.
So far, the only one they knew who could instill fear in the kin of such indescribable beings was him.
"People of later generations."
Though she stood far away, the beautiful girl on the hill seemed to read Ritsuka and Mashu's thoughts exactly. She lowered her gaze, narrowed her blue green eyes slightly, and smiled in dazzling fashion.
"You need not worry. You need not fear."
"I am Nero Claudius, emperor of the world beneath your feet, the one and only supreme artist of this world, and its most perfect emperor!"
"I have been waiting for you for a long time."
That was true.
Once the Incineration of Humanity had begun and Singularities had appeared, resolving them required Ritsuka, a person from the future, from the starting age of human incineration, to arrive as the point of correction.
That was why the girl had been waiting for Ritsuka.
She had sensed their arrival long ago.
She had known they would come.
Naturally, it was impossible for Ritsuka and Mashu not to know the name Nero Claudius.
"It seems... she is not an enemy."
Ritsuka let out a breath of relief.
Mashu nodded as well.
"Yes. That person... is alive."
This Singularity's time period was the first century AD.
And the Rome of the first century AD was the era in which Nero Claudius, later remembered as a tyrant, had once lived.
Although it was admittedly strange that Nero was such a beautiful young girl, at the very least she had shown them no hostility.
And those monsters clearly feared her.
The distinction between friend and foe was obvious enough.
"Then next..."
Since you are fortunate enough to behold my form, listen well!"
The young emperor standing high above them suddenly spread her arms and smiled brilliantly.
"I shall bestow upon you the magnificence of my imperial singing voice!"
"Rejoice. Listen carefully."
"Outside of my Adjutant, this is the only performance you shall ever hear from me."
The clear voice of the girl rang through the wind, filled with a blazing passion even more intense than the noonday sun.
And yet, for some reason, both Ritsuka and Mashu felt a terrible premonition at exactly the same moment.
No.
It was not only them.
Even the group of yellow monsters started showing unmistakable terror.
"Mashu."
"Senpai."
"You feel it too, do you not?"
"Yes, Senpai."
"Should we run?"
"I really want to, but it is already too late, Senpai!"
It was indeed too late.
Because in the next instant, Nero opened her beautiful red lips and let her voice spill forth.
The sound was astonishingly clear.
Every syllable possessed its own exquisite charm.
And yet when those countless beautiful notes joined together, the result was not wonder.
It was nightmare.
"Mashu, do you see it?"
"I do."
"I can see paradise, ahhhhh!"
At that moment the grotesque yellow monsters twisted and shrieked beneath the sound. Their tentacles clutched at their faces, and their already elongated bodies twisted more violently still, like maggots writhing in agony.
Ritsuka and Mashu, caught among them, seemed all but assimilated into the collective scream.
If Ritsuka had been calm enough to analyze the scene, she would probably have thought of a later age masterpiece like The Scream.
But sadly, at that moment, she too had become part of that scream.
"Umu. Umu. And what do you think of that?"
As her song rang out, Nero Claudius, the crimson rose of Rome, raised her jewel like eyes and looked far into the distance.
Toward the heavens above the Roman Empire.
At this very moment, a colossal presence loomed over the entire age.
The unspeakable figure in yellow robes.
The ancient Great Old One.
The creator of theatre.
The King in Yellow.
Hastur.
"Artist of the Evil God..."
"How do you find my performance?"
...
"Nero's singing was learned from my aspect that bore the chaos core. Leaving aside scale, the voice of Azathoth is not something the King in Yellow can compare to."
In Chaldea, Rowe sat calmly in his room.
He tilted his head slightly, listening to that voice echoing through the pages of history itself, and smiled faintly.
"That is only natural," said the man seated before him, "because it is yours."
The man wore ancient garb. His skin was dark, his long pale hair unruly, and the nine rings on his fingers clicked faintly against one another as he smiled bitterly.
"But I still do not understand."
"What exactly is it you want to do?"
"With you here, the Incineration of Humanity is nothing but a joke."
"No."
Rowe lifted a hand.
"It is not a joke."
"For me, it is an opportunity."
The crisis called the Incineration of Humanity had begun when someone claiming to be King Solomon declared that the world would be purified and mankind destroyed.
But that had never been the true King Solomon.
That much Rowe knew very well.
After all, the real King Solomon had already been summoned in this world's only Holy Grail War by Chaldea's former director, the lord of the Clock Tower's Department of Astromancy. After winning that war, he had used the Grail to wish to become human.
The man once called Solomon now existed in Chaldea as Romani Archaman.
And the one who called himself Solomon...
"The moment you appeared, I knew my plan had already failed."
The tall, broad shouldered man with dark skin and a shock of pale hair smiled bitterly.
"I took control of Solomon's corpse with the aggregate of the Seventy Two Demon Gods sleeping within him. I inherited all of his power. But in the end that power was bestowed by you."
"But I still do not understand why you appeared, or why you insist that I continue with the Incineration of Humanity."
"No. Strictly speaking, Solomon's power was not bestowed by me."
Rowe glanced toward the window.
Beyond Chaldea, the polar storm still raged. There was nothing to see but white.
And yet that sight still brought a faint smile to his lips.
"I merely enlightened him."
Just as he had known that Romani Archaman was Solomon, he also knew exactly who the man before him truly was.
His true name was Goetia.
He was the aggregate of the Seventy Two Demon Gods, the very formulas that Solomon had created through revelation after touching the supreme spirit only once in his life.
Yes.
Later legends described the Seventy Two Demon Gods as devils from hell, spirits Solomon had enslaved with the power of ten rings bestowed by the Lord.
But the truth was different.
Those Seventy Two Demon Gods had not originally existed as demons at all.
They were magecraft formulas, patterns Solomon had derived from countless divine systems after comprehending revelation.
They were seventy two formulas.
Seventy two pillars.
The very foundation that later supported what the West would call modern magecraft.
And yet those very formulas awakened after Solomon's death. They united, seized his corpse, and inherited the divine power of King Solomon, the might to command modern magecraft itself and all fantasy species bound beneath it.
They judged humanity filthy.
Sinful.
So they sought to purify the world and reshape mankind.
At the same time, they intended to burn away human history and incinerate human order in order to gather enough power to return to the dawn of creation itself, to draw near to the Lord they worshipped, the being older than the primordial gods, the one they regarded as the true supreme existence.
The first desire belonged to Goetia as the Beast of Pity, one of the Evils of Humanity.
The second was the true desire of the Seventy Two Demon Gods themselves.
That was why, once Rowe appeared, Goetia had already given up.
He had abandoned the plan to incinerate humanity.
He had abandoned his desire to purify mankind and rebuild the world.
Because although he had become the Beast of Pity, his true root remained the Seventy Two Demon Gods. To approach the Lord and bask in his glory directly was always the greater desire.
And yet when Goetia tried to stop the Incineration, he found that he could not.
The Incineration of Humanity could no longer be halted.
The crisis had already grown beyond his control.
Because of the man standing before him.
The Lord before him had forbidden him from stopping.
Rowe, however, seemed unbothered.
"Solomon's power came from humanity. From humanity's own wisdom. He dispersed the mystery that once belonged to the gods across the world, fixed the decline of mystery into a uniform course, and thereby prevented the kind of massive upheaval that would have come from its sudden disappearance. He eliminated countless possible disasters."
Solomon had never wanted to preserve mystery forever.
The king who ruled Israel in the seventh century BC, the one later revered as the Holy King, had been far more divine than human.
And yet whether in divinity or humanity, Solomon always stood on the side of reason.
He had no selfish desire.
He had never intended to let mystery remain forever in the world.
All he wanted was for humanity to pass safely through the age when mystery faded away, and then someday master a new kind of strength for itself.
That was why he let mystery decline.
That was why, despite wielding power greater than gods, he still died as a man.
At that, Goetia could not help showing bitterness.
"That supreme divinity, and the humanity born from all mankind... yes, that is exactly why we could never accept him. It is why we took control of his corpse after his death and began the Incineration of Humanity."
"Even after you taught him."
"Even after you rebuked him."
Rowe had once appeared in Israel in the form of a man and rebuked Solomon for the coldness of his reason.
That had happened when Rowe was dragged into countless loops of time and space by the spirit of the void.
And it had also become true history in this world after his descent twisted the worldline.
"And yet even after that rebuke, even knowing that as a human one should not live only by reason, he still chose that same path. That is who King Solomon was, was it not?"
Rowe smiled.
"Goetia, you are a formula Solomon created. You harbor resentment toward him, but that resentment exists only because you loved him."
"You loved Solomon, and so you wanted him to accept his own emotions instead of remaining cold and mechanical."
"You love humanity as well. That is why you pity it. That is why you became the Beast of Pity and tried to erase mankind's sins by remaking the world."
The Evils of Humanity were, in essence, twisted forms of love.
Rowe rose slowly to his feet.
He smiled.
"And the reason I would not let you stop the Incineration is similar."
He loved this world too.
This world called Moon.
The world that had once carried so many of his fantasies before he crossed into it, and after his descent had given him countless bonds as well.
Friends.
Lovers.
Family.
Kin.
Those moments had already become precious fragments within his heart.
The people he had come to know had become the reason he wished to protect the world.
All the helplessness from those countless failed attempts at death had likewise become precious memory now.
At times he had wanted to destroy the world.
But what he wanted was not to reset it and begin again from nothing.
What he wanted was to let the world use the Incineration of Humanity as a starting point for an ultimate sublimation, a rebirth through fire.
Goetia lowered his head.
Rowe remained standing.
"You should go now, Goetia."
Rowe smiled.
"Continue carrying out your duty. But remember this well. The Incineration of Humanity is not for destruction."
"It is for sublimation through destruction."
The words echoed through the room.
Goetia took a long breath and slowly bowed before the Lord he revered.
"I shall obey your revelation."
In that moment, he too heard the apocalypse.
He had been given a duty.
He had been acknowledged by the Lord.
He was no longer merely a formula made by Solomon.
He had become a true individual.
His form twisted.
Then vanished.
Rowe turned his gaze to the storm outside the window. His molten eyes, woven from gold and red, flickered softly.
"Time really does pass quickly..."
...
Outside Chaldea, the storm still raged.
Within the central control room, Romani Archaman and Da Vinci watched the Lostbelt displayed upon the human order observation device with unbroken tension.
The Roman Singularity of the early Common Era was a duel of art against art.
The wavering song of Nero Claudius, who had left her name in history as the emperor of the world, clashed against the chaotic song of the King in Yellow.
But amid the distortion of that era, Ritsuka saw the truth of the world itself.
She saw humanity's past.
Whether the Lord, the Great Old Ones, or even the lingering ancient gods of this era were concerned, all of them, in the end, still had to rely upon humanity.
That was what Ritsuka realized in that Singularity.
And it was what the red haired girl herself needed to do.
"In the first Singularity, Jeanne d'Arc entrusted the banner that led humanity forward to the one who would save humanity in the future."
"In the second Singularity, Nero Claudius placed the authority to rule the world into Fujimaru Ritsuka's hands."
That was the present.
And later...
"The third Singularity..."
Upon the great seas of the sixteenth century, navigators crossing Okeanos opened a gate from the present world to the abyss beyond the stars.
The endless sea trembled.
The one called Drake handed the light of pioneering to Fujimaru Ritsuka, leaving behind the spirit of those who opened the path for future generations.
Then, aboard a starship that raced across the cosmic sea, she shattered the abyssal terror before her.
The fourth Singularity.
Eighteenth century London.
Jack the Ripper called forth the fear in human hearts, while the phantom spirit of that killer, appearing as a little girl born from mankind's dread, dragged out the ugliest rumors from the darkness.
But Sherlock Holmes, the great detective recognized throughout the world, peeled away the layers of fog and passed on the wisdom needed to face fear.
The fifth Singularity, America, where Abigail summoned an avatar of Yog Sothoth.
The sixth, Holy Camelot, where Ramses the Second scorched the heavens with the heat of Cthugha.
The seventh, where the Hero King Gilgamesh used the arrogance of the oldest king to contend with Nyarlathotep, the Thousand Faced God who toyed with the human heart.
Time seemed to speed forward.
Outside Chaldea, the storm became an endless blizzard.
Just as he had promised from the beginning, Rowe never once intervened directly throughout the entire process.
And yet traces of him remained in almost every Singularity.
Those Great Old Ones from the ultimate abyss, those beings that had silently seized control of those Singularities, had all been nailed down one by one.
But to Goetia, the mastermind behind the Incineration of Humanity, the most striking change was not the fixing of those Singularities with the Great Old Ones acting as nails.
No.
What he felt most clearly was Fujimaru Ritsuka.
The last Master of human order.
The final savior of humanity.
Or more precisely...
The present of this world, embodied in Fujimaru Ritsuka.
The people who were still alive.
With every era Ritsuka crossed, what she encountered most often were not its heroes, not its infinitely sacred great figures.
She encountered ordinary people.
The sailors who followed pioneers across stormy seas.
The workers trapped in fogbound London, reading newspapers and living under fear.
The men and women in America who suffered beneath war and oppression.
Heroes deserved reverence.
But without realizing it, Ritsuka had already grasped that the ones who truly represented humanity were the ordinary majority.
Just like herself.
A girl who had once lived an ordinary life and become a Master only by coincidence.
Fujimaru Ritsuka.
The reason she could cross disaster after disaster was never because she was the strongest.
Nor because her will was uniquely extraordinary.
It was because she remained ordinary.
And that ordinariness was precisely what made her great.
"All humans are great."
Seated behind the scenes, the King of the Demon Gods finally understood Rowe's purpose.
What could save the world had always been the world itself.
What could save humanity had always been humanity itself.
The Lord could not save mankind.
But mankind could believe in itself.
Believe that it could overcome endless obstacles.
Believe that it could cross the ultimate abyss of the universe.
Believe that it could shine its own brilliance across the galaxy.
Only then could the spark of life in the world be reignited.
Only then could Rowe graft this world onto the Origin Universe.
That was something only the people of this world could do.
Something no outsider could accomplish for them.
"So the desire to reshape the world from nothing was only another form of avoidance."
"The information of the world is fixed. The universe has its own Fixed Belts. No matter how many times you reset the beginning, no matter how often you return to the moment the stars were born, in the end you will still be forced to face the future you fear."
"So instead of looking backward, you should look forward."
The voice echoed in his ears.
Goetia sat within the temple at the very end of human order, in the place toward which the Incineration itself pointed. He looked down upon the world with quiet depth in his gaze.
Now he would wait there.
Because without realizing it,
the girl called Fujimaru Ritsuka had already passed through the final Singularity.
She was about to arrive before the true mastermind.
"At last. Another success."
Within the central control room, the red haired girl had already changed into more advanced battle gear. The black body suit clung tightly to her slender and athletic form, while beneath her short flowing hair her lovely face shone with a smile from the heart.
Romani Archaman scratched at his hair.
"She really has grown into someone you can trust."
It was almost like an elder watching a junior finally come of age.
"Oh dear. It is nearly time for us to retire too, is it not, Romani Archaman?"
Da Vinci smiled beside him.
"Of course... once the world is restored, I want to travel everywhere. I want to taste cakes from all over the world."
And, more importantly, go to Japan and buy every game I want to play.