When consciousness finally dragged him back, Fujimaru Ritsuka's first sensation was cold.
Water seeped through his clothes, clinging to his back as if the ground itself were trying to pull him under. He blinked against the dim, colorless light, breath shallow, until his vision slowly cleared.
Above him, the sky was wrong.
A vast white void hung overhead, pierced by a single, familiar ring floating in the heavens—an impossible halo etched into blank eternity. The air was still, the world silent. As Ritsuka pushed himself up, his hands met smooth, chalk‑white earth stretching out in every direction, endless and empty.
He knew this place.
"I'm back here..." he murmured, voice hoarse. "Back when I met him..."
The watery Bleached World
The memory struck with the sharpness of a spell.
The first time he had been dragged here, the future had been described to him as nothing— a plain, white canvas where all color, all possibility, had been scraped away. He had stood in this same bleached world, one year ahead of his own time, and demanded an answer.
What happened to our future?
His enemy had not answered in words at first. The figure that appeared had been wrapped in white light, a man who felt at once distant and intimately familiar. And then, slowly, his identity unfolded.
The knight who had once granted Mash Kyrielight the power to fight... the purest among the Knights of the Round Table...
Sir Galahad.
Galahad had repeated Goetia's final, poisonous words to him: Your happiness lies in doing nothing. The phrase lingered like a curse in Ritsuka's mind, a truth he had refused to accept. Yet as Galahad spoke, visions followed—of their desperate battles, of the Lostbelts, of the day they had crossed paths again.
In that future, compromise was impossible. Fate, stubborn and cruel, demanded blood.
Galahad had not come alone.
She appeared at his side: Lilith, a Servant whose savagery was wrapped in beauty and madness. Her eyes glinted with a hatred that seemed to be carved directly out of Mash's shadow. By Galahad's hand, her power was constantly adjusted, restricted, nerfed, until she stood as their equal—no more, no less. He toyed with the battlefield like a strict, unyielding Master, eerily similar to Ritsuka himself, save for the absence of mercy.
When Lilith finally fell, panting and broken upon the white earth, the true confrontation began.
Galahad stepped forward.
For a strange, suspended moment, Ritsuka felt as though he were looking into a mirror. A Shielder who had chosen a different path; a knight whose ideal of protection had twisted into something iron‑walled and unbending.
Galahad's shield was no longer merely a wall. It shifted and reformed, metal flowing like living light as it took on the shapes of sword and spear. Chains and thrusters bloomed from its surface, engines of destructive power that roared at a thought.
Mash Kyrielight, by contrast, planted her own shield before her—a dark, broad bulwark, built not to crush, but to shelter.
Two shielders. Two philosophies.
Protection as domination.
Protection as salvation.
They clashed until their limbs shook and breath came ragged, each blow ringing with fragments of their ideals. When at last they could no longer continue as they were, both Mash and Galahad reached for their final trump cards.
Noble Phantasms.
Galahad straightened and drove his shield into the ground. The moment it touched the white earth, it disintegrated into a storm of luminous cubes, each fragment streaking away to form towering walls behind him.
Camelot.
An idealized fortress exploded into existence, a citadel of stone and light rising from nothing. Gates rumbled into being; the sky above darkened as if weighed down by the sheer force of his conviction. Galahad rose before the gate, his figure framed by the looming walls.
His voice, clear and terrible, echoed across the flat world.
"The wedge and tower of the Human Order. Behold this noble end."
"With my true name, I proclaim the ideal! Shatter — High Lord Camelot!"
The Bastion of Humanity roared to life.
But Mash... did not flinch.
She stepped forward, shield firm in her hands, light gathering at its heart.
"Sir Galahad!" she called, her voice trembling not with fear but with resolve. "I'm sorry, but no matter what you say, I cannot hide this feeling!"
Twelve sigils flared to life around the rim of her shield, each orb of light resonating with the distant echoes of countless worlds and countless bonds—Chaldea's miracles, one by one.
Mash drew in a breath and declared her own oath.
True name: inscribed. This is our oath connected by many worlds and dreams. Thank you for the many miracles! Thanks to you, I have become someone I could be proud of!"
"Let it be proven — Lord Chaldeas!"
Ritsuka stepped in behind her, instinctively taking his position at her back. The two of them stood together, Master and Shielder, as Galahad's Noble Phantasm crashed down.
Camelot's radiance slammed against Mash's shield.
The impact was like the meeting of two worlds. White light howled outwards, but instead of being swallowed, it struck Lord Chaldeas and bent, refracted, turned aside. The Bastion of Humanity met the Future of Humanity—and failed.
The beam dissipated, scattering into harmless motes.
Mash had won.
Yet hatred dies more slowly than light.
While Galahad's attention wavered, Lilith—trembling, furious, wounded in pride more than flesh—reached for the last of her power.
One hundred Holy Grail Drops.
She burned them all.
Her Noble Phantasm flared into a brutal, desperate thing, reshaped into nothing more than a killing blow. She cared nothing for collateral damage; she cared nothing that the blast might annihilate not only Mash, but both of their Masters.
All she wanted—all she had ever wanted—was to surpass Mash.
But she had never held the Black Barrel. She had never carried the weight of the hope Mash bore, or the scars.
Mash, realizing at last that Lilith was not simply another enemy but the darkest reflection of herself—the accumulated malice, jealousy, and despair that she had never allowed herself to voice—straightened.
Lilith's hatred screamed toward her. Mash's answer was calm.
She raised her shield.
Once more, Lord Chaldeas manifested—absorbing the oncoming blast, drinking in the blinding torrent of energy instead of simply deflecting it. The Paladin Shield drank deep, humming with a renewed strength as light bled into its core.
Then Mash invoked a power beyond protection.
Her voice cut through the storm.
"Anti‑calamity, anti‑space‑anomaly Noble Phantasm: deployed. Anti‑Black‑Barrel: constructed. Begin space‑time repairing operations in standard position. Area correction: complete. Layer: Safe lock. Decode counter: from paradox to reality!"
"Strike out! I won't miss even by a millimetre! Rayproof Kyrielight!"
Radiance erupted.
Rayproof Kyrielight cleaved through Lilith's corrupted attack, cutting through the dark thoughts that had festered in her heart. In that single, blinding instant, Ritsuka understood: Mash and Lilith were not truly enemies.
They were two sides of the same coin.
Light and darkness. Acceptance and resentment.
One chose to protect despite the pain.
The other chose to drown in it.
Return to the Bleached Earth
The memory faded.
Ritsuka found himself once more in the bleached expanse, the water at his back now still and cool. Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet and glanced down.
The surface beneath him rippled faintly, reflecting not only the pallid sky but the glow of something new.
His Paladin Shield materialized beside him in a shimmer of blue light, followed by a floating briefcase etched with Chaldea's sigils. At his touch, the shield's core activated, and a holographic interface unfolded into the air like a gently blooming spell.
Static crackled.
"...itsu... Ritsuka! Do you read me? We lost your bio‑signatures for three localized hours!"
Tomarin's voice bled through, distorted but frantic.
Then Da Vinci's sharper tone followed, equal parts worry and curiosity:
"Ritsuka! Speak to us! The coordinates for New York collapsed the moment you entered. We thought the Beast had intercepted your soul!"
Ritsuka exhaled in relief and tapped the slim bracelet coiled around his finger. The "Communication" node pulsed a soft cerulean.
"I'm here," he answered. "I'm... I'm in a gap between textures. It looks like home, Da Vinci. It looks like the Bleached Earth."
Olga Marie's voice crackled through shortly after, brittle with poorly concealed concern.
"Well, thank goodness you're alright. We need a report from you. What happened in 1926? Did you find the Beast?"
He told them everything.
The briefcase helped.
As he spoke, spectral images emerged above the Paladin Shield's projector: New York's alleys and rooftops, the shadowed confines of MACUSA, an Obscurus coiling like living smoke, and the gaunt figure of Credence—fragile, doomed, targeted.
The staff listened, all but holding their breath.
Elron was the first to speak, his analysis clipped, professional:
"The Beast's trace appeared faintly. It was interesting in the young boy named Credence."
Status screens flashed into view. One glance at Credence's parameters left even the most jaded engineers stunned.
"No wonder it's attracted to it," Meuniere muttered. "Look at that stat..."
Ritsuka's voice lowered.
"The Beast isn't fighting us directly yet. It's..." He hesitated, searching for the right words. "It's playing with the timeline. It tried to turn a boy named Credence into a conceptual bomb. I stopped the immediate explosion, but the Trace didn't disappear. It moved."
Azrael's tone cut in, cool and decisive.
"See if you can find the last location of the trace."
"Confirmed," Kawata replied after a beat. "We picked up a spike in 1927. Location: Paris, France."
Ritsuka stared at the hovering coordinates, Paris glowing in faint blue atop the holographic globe.
"Grindelwald is in jail," he said quietly. "But the Beast is planting seeds of negativity. I saw it in the subway... One of the MACUSA Aurors that shouldn't have been there had the magic power of a magus—and he killed Credence."
A heavy silence followed.
Then Da Vinci spoke, her words measured.
"Listen carefully. We're considering initializing a 'Force Rayshift Jump'. Or... you can stay where you are and wait for two hours. We'll give you time to rest in that world with the Servants you have inside the briefcase before you're rayshifted to the next year."
Ritsuka glanced down at his bracelet. Its runes recorded not only his Chaldean status, but a strange new metric—his magical presence relative to the wizarding world.
Master Auror.
That was the level it had assigned to him.
Olga's voice broke his thoughts.
"Ritsuka? You still there?"
He smiled faintly.
"Yeah. I've decided that I'll stay until it's ready."
Mash's soft, anxious voice came over the line.
"Senpai..."
"Don't worry, Mash," he reassured her. "It'll be fine. Besides... I want to fight beside you and the Servants I have. Not just stand at the back and give orders. It's not because I crave battle. It's just..."
Words failed him, but Mash understood.
"I understand, Senpai," she said. "We will be rooting for you from here."
"We will be waiting for your progress, Ritsuka," Azrael added.
"Don't let us down," Olga finished.
The call ended. The holograms faded, leaving him alone once more with the shield, the briefcase, and the quiet.
Ritsuka looked down at his hands, then at the white horizon.
Two hours.
He would make them count.
The Briefcase of Heroes
He touched the briefcase.
It opened with a soft, resonant chime.
Seven familiar icons blazed to life at once—the standard classes: Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Caster, Assassin, Berserker. One by one, the extra classes lit up around them: Alter Ego, Moon Cancer.
All save two.
Avenger.
Ruler.
Their sigils remained dark, bordered by flickering text: Link Lost.
Memories of the Ordeal Calls surfaced—
Ordeal Call II: Inescapable Gehenna.
Ordeal Call IV: Reckoning Singularity.
In those trials, he had known he could not cling to everyone.
Avenger, left unchecked, would drag him into a spiral of vengeance that would consume them both. Ruler, meant to serve as an impartial judge, had been dragged onto the front lines too often, forced to act against the very neutrality they embodied.
He had let them go.
Not destroyed, not truly gone... but sealed. Their connections are cut.
Still, some bonds remained.
Moon Cancer, tied to the Moon Cell rather than the planet's own history, had proven its worth in Ordeal Call III, the Trial of Entrustment. They had chosen to stand with humanity rather than remain aloof anomalies.
Alter Egos—fragments of souls, "shaved off" pieces rather than complete Heroic Spirits—had faced their own test in Ordeal Call I. They had fought to prove they could exist as stable, independent beings who upheld the Human Order, despite their unnatural origins.
Many had passed.
Many were gone.
Ritsuka swallowed the ache rising in his chest. These Servants were not dead, not like the old swordswoman who had walked into the end with a smile.
But they had become... echoes. Shadows.
Then, without warning, the Link Lost icons flickered.
Glitched.
For a heartbeat, the sigils of Avenger and Ruler sparked faintly, as though something—someone—were still reaching out from the far side of severed bonds.
Monte Cristo's words drifted back to him:
Wait and hope.
Ritsuka laughed under his breath, the sound choked but genuine. His eyes stung.
They were still out there, somewhere.
Waiting for him to reach them.
He wiped his eyes and returned his focus to the task at hand. The original seven classes spun slowly before him.
"Alright," he murmured. "If I'm going to keep up... I'll need a proper teacher."
His finger hovered, then tapped the Lancer icon.
A cascade of names and faces unfurled: Lancers he had fought beside across countless battles—kings and warriors, demigods and dragonslayers. He scrolled through them, heart tightening nostalgically, until he found the one who could cut him down and rebuild him, body and soul.
He selected her, then pressed the Paladin Shield's summoning sigil.
A blue summoning circle flared to life at his feet.
Circuits of light traced complex rune‑patterns into the air, wind rushing outward in a sudden gale. A card materialized above the circle—Lancer, shimmering gold, its edges burning brighter and brighter until the image upon it blurred into pure radiance.
The light burst.
When it faded, she stood before him.
Shady.
The Queen of the Land of Shadows, clad in violet, has eyes sharp enough to pierce anyone who gets in her way.
"Dear Ritsuka," she said softly, a rare warmth in her voice. "It's been a while since you've summoned me back."
"I'm sorry," he replied, stepping forward. "It's been a while since I talked to any of you."
For a moment, words weren't enough.
They closed the distance between them and embraced. Scáthach's hug was steady, grounding; Ritsuka clung to her like a boy who had been wandering in a storm for far too long. He thought of Skadi, of the Servants of Lostbelt II, of links that had suddenly vanished.
Here, now, one bond remained solid.
When they parted, Scáthach regarded their surroundings—the endless white, the still water, the familiar wrongness.
"So," she asked, tilted head, "for what purpose have you called me? And where, exactly, are we?"
Ritsuka told her.
Of 1926. Of Credence. Of the Beast's game with history.
Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
"I see," she murmured. "You have walked strange paths since we last spoke."
He nodded.
"I need you to train me," he said. "Alongside Medea. I'm going to summon her in a few minutes—the circle needs time to cool."
One of Scáthach's brows rose.
"Train you? For what?"
He smiled, a little nervously.
"Rehab training," he answered. "Like old times. But this time... mixed with wand magic."
For a heartbeat, Scáthach was silent.
Then, slowly, she smiled.
"Interesting," she said. "Very well, my student. We shall see if the boy who walks with Heroic Spirits can also dance with the wizards of your borrowed world."
Far from the pale stillness of the Bleached Earth, deep beneath New York City, another prisoner stirred.
In the lowest levels of MACUSA—the Magical Congress of the United States of America—there lay a high‑security basement carved from stone and sealed with enchantments older than the city itself. Torches guttered in their brackets, flames shifting in colors no Muggle eye would recognize.
Here, chained to a chair within a glowing circle of layered wards, sat Gellert Grindelwald.
He had been confined here for a year.
Time had not softened him. If anything, it had carved him sharper.
His hair had grown long, white locks falling in unkempt strands around his gaunt face. A roughening of stubble hinted at a beard, shadowing the pallor of his skin. He stared not at the runic barrier that encircled him, nor at the cold metal of his restraints, but at a particular corner of the far wall—watching shadows slide and stretch in the flickering light.
Only one creature shared his cell.
The Chupacabra—part lizard, part homunculus—was shackled to the leg of his chair. Its many eyes gleamed as it watched Grindelwald with animal devotion, needle‑sharp teeth glistening with the memory of spilled blood.
Above them, the sky over New York had been behaving... strangely.
At night, the usual velvet darkness had begun to warp, smearing into a deep, unsettling red. MACUSA's wards crackled uneasily under the shifting tension; Aurors hurried through corridors, wands drawn, yet none could find the source.
It wasn't a spell.
It wasn't a ritual.
It was something else.
Something that felt like a Beast playing with the firmament.
They interrogated Grindelwald, of course. Over and over. He laughed at them, danced around their questions, and used nothing but his eyes and voice to sway guards three times in a row.
On the fourth attempt, MACUSA grew tired of words.
They took his tongue.
The memory lingered in the room like a ghost.
They had also tried to extract secrets from a different prisoner: a fragment of Obscurus, harvested from a young village girl and locked away after MACUSA had ransacked Newt Scamander's suitcase the year before.
It had yielded nothing. No reaction, no breakthrough, no insight.
So they were left with dead ends.
And one very patient wizard.
A small slot in Grindelwald's cell door slid open with a clack. He turned his head just enough to see Abernathy peering in, the man's expression carefully neutral.
Beyond him, footsteps approached.
President Seraphina Picquery walked the narrow corridor with Rudolph Spielman at her side. High‑security cells stretched along the passage, each containing witches and wizards whose very names were forbidden in polite company.
"You'll be glad to be rid of him, I expect," Spielman said lightly, though his eyes lingered on the door with a trace of unease.
"We'd be more than happy to keep him here in custody," Picquery replied coolly.
"Six months are enough," Spielman countered. "It's time for him to answer for his crimes in Europe."
Abernathy slid the viewing panel shut and turned to face them, posture straight.
"President Picquery. Mr. Spielman. The prisoner is secured and ready to travel."
He opened the door just enough for them to glimpse Grindelwald's current state—chained, silent, tongue removed, body spellbound. Mockery flickered in their eyes, but in Grindelwald's there was only a cold, dangerous calm.
"You have thrown everything at him, I see," Spielman observed.
"It was necessary," Picquery answered. "He's extremely powerful. We've had to change his guard three times. He's very persuasive, so we removed his tongue."
Soon after, preparations were complete.
Grindelwald's body was suspended in the air by magic, limbs locked, eyes frozen forward. The procession moved through rows of cells, where lesser criminals rattled their bars and hissed or even cheered at the sight of him, as though he were some dark messiah.
He gave them nothing.
No glance. No smile.
At the end of the ascent, an elevator carried them up, up, up, until the carriage bay opened beneath a stormy sky. Rain pelted the gray stone.
A carriage waited, drawn by eight Thestrals—skeletal winged horses visible only to those who had seen death with their own eyes.
Two Aurors climbed onto the driver's bench. Two more guided Grindelwald's hovering form into the carriage interior. Others circled on broomsticks, wands at the ready, eyes scanning the skies.
"The wizarding community worldwide owes you a great debt, Madam President," Spielman said, offering Picquery a slight bow.
"Do not underestimate him," she replied.
Abernathy approached, cradling a small box.
"Mr. Spielman, we found his wand hidden away in this," he said.
Spielman took it, brows knitting with wary interest.
"Thank you, Abernathy," Picquery said. "For your loyalty and service to the community."
"And we also found this in his pocket," Abernathy added, producing a small vial of white liquid threaded with a single, ominous red line, suspended on a chain.
Spielman frowned.
"Curious," he muttered, but he accepted it anyway, tucking it into the box as he climbed into the carriage.
The door swung shut and sealed itself with a rapid series of locks. Outside, the lead Auror snapped the reins, and the Thestrals surged forward, hooves clattering briefly on stone before launching them all into the storm‑washed sky. Four Aurors rose after them, brooms slicing through the rain.
Far below, in MACUSA's laboratory, the Obscurus pulsed—just once. No one noticed.
Up in the tower, Abernathy found himself momentarily alone.
He walked to the edge of the platform, cloak flapping around him as thunder rolled overhead. The carriage was a dark speck in the distance now, swallowed by clouds and rain.
He checked to see that no one was watching.
Then, with practiced calm, he slipped a hand into his coat and withdrew something he should not have possessed.
The Elder Wand.
Its pale length rested perfectly in his palm, weightless yet immeasurably heavy. A red tattoo coiled over the skin of his hand, lines shifting faintly as if alive. It's a red tattoo that is a mix of a circle with a star layering the inner circle and an eye at the center.
Abernathy smiled.
A moment later, he vanished—disapparating from the tower and reappearing on the underside of the distant carriage, fingers hooking around the wheel shaft as the storm howled around him.
Inside, Spielman sat across from Grindelwald's floating form, two Aurors bracketing them with wands leveled unwaveringly at the prisoner. The box with the wand and vial rested near Spielman's hand.
He lifted the vial, holding it up between them.
"No more silver tongue, hm?" he said to Grindelwald.
Outside, Abernathy tightened his grip on the Elder Wand and gave it the slightest flick.
Inside, Grindelwald's face began to change.
The Aurors exchanged a startled glance. Skin shifted, bones subtly reshaping. At the same time, outside the carriage, Abernathy's own face warped, features flowing like melted wax until a new identity emerged.
When the spell settled, the truth stood stark:
The Grindelwald chained inside the carriage... was Abernathy.
The Abernathy clinging to the carriage's underside... was Gellert Grindelwald himself.
Their allegiance was sealed, their roles perfectly reversed.
When the illusion broke fully, Spielman recoiled, his composure cracking, while the Aurors shoved their wands even closer to the now‑tongueless Abernathy's throat.
The real Grindelwald disapparated from beneath the carriage, reappearing atop it in a spray of rain.
The two Aurors guarding the rear jolted in alarm, wands snapping up, but Grindelwald was faster.
He leveled the Elder Wand at the reins.
Blackness rippled along the leather straps, twisting, coiling. In an instant, the reins convulsed and turned into living snakes, slick and sinuous, wrapping around the driver's arms and throat. The man cried out and tumbled from the bench, vanishing into the storm below.
Grindelwald flicked his wand again.
The second driver was bound by invisible force and flung forward—just in time to slam directly into the face of an approaching Auror, sending both tumbling away, brooms spinning.
Panicked shouts rose as the remaining Aurors tried to signal MACUSA, but the storm itself seemed to snarl and close around them. Lightning forked overhead, interference crackling so fiercely that no Patronus, no spell, could pass through.
Inside the carriage, the Aurors' wands dug into Abernathy's neck. Spielman, pale but determined, turned to the small window and caught a single glimpse of the truth: the real Grindelwald riding atop the carriage in the rain.
The carriage lurched.
Spielman opened the box in a rush—and found a Chupacabra inside.
It hissed viciously and launched itself at him, teeth bared, claws raking as it tried to sink its fangs into his throat.
"On the roof!" he shouted, beating at the creature and pounding on the carriage ceiling. No help came.
Abernathy lunged for the vial.
It flew into the air, spinning slowly. Spielman reached for it, fingers brushing the chain, but Abernathy snapped his head forward, biting onto the chain and clenching it between his teeth. Spielman grabbed his collar, trying to wrench it free, but Abernathy only bit down harder, even as the Aurors struggled to throw him against the window.
Outside, Grindelwald seized the reins—both snakes now obedient under his control—and steered the carriage in a steep descent.
Down toward the Hudson River.
They crashed onto the water's surface; the Thestrals galloped over the dark waves as if they were solid earth.
Grindelwald lowered the Elder Wand toward the river.
Water surged upward in response, slamming into the carriage and flooding it entirely.
Inside, Abernathy, Spielman, and the two Aurors were suddenly submerged. Bubbles rose from their mouths as they fought for breath, spells sputtering uselessly in the roiling current. The vial floated between them, casting an eerie white glow through the murky flood.
Spielman lunged for it, but the Chupacabra slithered in front of his hand, hissing, blocking his reach. Abernathy kicked off from the carriage wall and snapped his jaws around the chain once more, securing the vial between his teeth.
High above the river, the carriage burst free of the water's surface.
The Thestrals climbed back into the stormy sky, their wings tearing through sheets of rain. The Aurors on brooms tried to regain formation, but Grindelwald now ignored his wand entirely.
He simply raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
The red tattoo on his skin flared, pulsing like an eye.
Far behind, one of the broom‑riding Aurors stiffened. His irises darkened; his face went blank.
He turned his wand on his comrades.
A Killing Curse flashed green through the rain.
One Auror, then another, fell screaming into the storm, their bodies disappearing into the churning dark. The last barely had time to register what was happening before a final curse struck him from behind.
Above the roar of the wind, a voice cried:
"We're in the clear, Master! The MACUSA is now in shambles enough to hold them back!"
The enthralled Auror guided his broom toward the front, taking control of the driver's bench as Grindelwald nodded his head to his Servant, moved to the carriage door, and rapped sharply.
Inside, the door burst open.
A tidal wave of water crashed out, dragging the two Aurors with it. They plummeted toward the river far below.
Grindelwald climbed inside, clothes dripping, eyes gleaming with satisfaction.
He plucked the vial from Abernathy's mouth with a casual motion and, with a soft incantation, regrew the man's tongue. It emerged forked, serpentine.
"You have joined a noble cause, my friend," Grindelwald said.
The Chupacabra, having sated itself on Auror blood, rubbed its bloody snout affectionately against Grindelwald's temple. He regarded it with the faintest fondness.
Then his mouth twisted in annoyance.
"So needy," he muttered.
With a flick of his wrist, he threw the creature out of the carriage.
It vanished into the storm below.
Spielman dangled before the open door now, cloak whipping in the wind. Grindelwald held him there for a long, measured moment, studying his terrified face.
Then he let go.
Spielman tumbled into the void, wand slipping from his fingers.
He did not die.
A slowing charm, hastily cast, softened his fall. He crashed into the river, battered but alive.
Or so he believed—until something moved in the dark water beside him.
A shape—no beast of that world, but a Servant, monstrous and hungry—cut through the river like a great, silent shark.
Spielman had just enough time to feel a surge of true, bone‑deep dread before the creature reached him.
Above, Grindelwald closed the carriage door.
MACUSA was in ruins and chaos.
Within minutes, emergency spells lit up the halls. Healers dashed through corridors, conjuring stretchers, stabilizing the wounded, and grimly counting the dead. Wands lay shattered, scorch marks streaked the walls, and the distant laboratory churned with residual, unfamiliar magic.
President Picquery stood in the damage‑scarred atrium, cloak heavy with rain and smoke.
One of her most trusted men had defected.
Unknown intruders had infiltrated the deepest levels of MACUSA.
Their prized Obscurus was gone.
The collapsed lab bore no signs of an Obscurus rampage. The destruction was too focused, too deliberate. This had been the work of orchestrated magic—and something beyond normal wizarding understanding.
Something like a Servant.
Picquery's thoughts drifted to Tina Goldstein, now a full Auror.
Her last, truly trusted field agent.
Tina was already in Paris on a classified mission, tracking the growing network of Grindelwald supporters that coiled like a serpent beneath the City of Lights.
On one of the intact surveillance panes, they replayed the final image of the escape.
Grindelwald, atop the carriage, snapped his fingers.
Red light flares across the tattoo on his hand.
Picquery stared at that mark, unease gnawing at her. It felt like an echo of something beyond her world—a seal or command sigil of a kind she did not fully understand.
She breathed out slowly.
"Is he also...?" she whispered, the memory of a certain young man from another world surfacing. "Mr. Fujimaru... the wizarding world might need you once again..."
Outside, above New York and far across the ocean toward Paris, the sky darkened a shade deeper.
The storms were indeed approaching.