"Kyuu... kyuu! Fou!"
"Mmm..."
A small, fluffy creature has discovered a girl collapsed in the corridor outside Chaldea’s Command Room, and is crying out desperately in an attempt to wake her.
Why had this girl collapsed in a place like this? Was she the sort who could only sleep on a hard floor like a tatami mat? She was sleeping so soundly that someone could carry her off without her even noticing.
"Hehe... gacha..."
"Fou!"
Perhaps it knows that it would not be good for her to lie here for too long. The little creature shakes her body and cries hard, trying to draw the fallen girl’s attention.
Normally, it would be the kind of creature to pass by without so much as sparing a glance for anything unrelated to it. Why, then, was it this agitated now, crying loudly enough to raise the roof off Chaldea?
Just who was this girl?
"Ah, Diego! I found you. To think you were in a place like this... Huh? Who is this person on the floor?"
"Fou?"
A purple-haired girl calls out as she walks down the corridor, then blankly asks the question upon seeing the orange-haired girl sound asleep on the floor.
"It seems she is suffering from aftereffects of her Spiritron Dive following a simulation."
"Ah. Then this must be the last Master admitted through the civilian selection..."
"Kyuu?"
The purple-haired girl’s pure eyes shine. Had she seen something in that girl just now?
After pondering for a long while, the girl finally seemed to reach an answer. A bright smile spread across her face as she spoke.
"Then she is my──"
The purple-haired girl.
Mash Kyrielight.
The survivor of Chaldea’s Demi-Servant experiment, and──
"Senior..."
"..."
...Well, well. It seemed this girl, peacefully sleeping on the floor just before the director’s briefing, had caught the interest of another person who was second to none in peculiarity at Chaldea.
In a different sense from the fluffy little creature, Fou, Mash Kyrielight is more sensitive than anyone at Chaldea to humanity’s malice, and is a girl who draws a line between herself and those who are not quite human. Yet─
"Diego. I will take my senior with me, so..."
"...I shall head to the director’s briefing first. I’ll put in a good word with the director so she doesn’t take a dislike to you."
"...Thank you, Diego."
For the purest girl in all of Chaldea to show that much interest, the other girl must surely possess some shining quality that other humans lacked.
He could not let the first genuine human relationship of that clumsy yet kinder-than-anyone girl be ruined.
"...Do your best."
"─Yes!"
"Fou!"
──────!!!!!!!
As the world gradually turned monochrome, he slowly began to walk away.
Today was the day of the Rayshift briefing, meant to repair the Singularities. From that girl he had just met, he felt the same powerful ‘pull’ he had felt when he decided to come to Chaldea.
It was like a star’s gravity: once he began to feel it, it was a powerful attraction he could not endure without following to its very end—the manifestation of the intuition possessed by a boy who had crossed between life and death.
Whether this signified the ill fortune that would mark the beginning of an incident, or an encounter with someone capable of shining more brilliantly than anyone else, he could not yet know─
I should make sure to speak to the director on her behalf.
Until now, Mash had been businesslike and had made little effort to build relationships with anyone besides Doctor Romani and Diego.
And Fou, who had shown interest in no one except Diego and Mash, was reacting this intensely. It surely meant it had seen something in that girl that set her apart from the others.
Good grief. Even an hour of scolding won’t be enough.
Having always lived at the center of fate’s vortex, he could feel it. He did not know exactly what would happen, but from today onward, many things in Chaldea would change.
─────────────────────────────
"Mmm..."
"Fou...? Kyuu... kyuu?"
The sound of something crying...?
"Fou!"
...Did something just lick my cheek...?
"Excuse me. It is neither morning nor night, so please wake up, Senior."
"You are...?"
My eyes open beneath bright lights. Why was I here again? Right. I came to this place that seemed like some high-paying part-time job... then I did a combat simulation... and after that...?
My memories did not connect clearly. When had I walked all the way here? And more importantly─
"An introduction... That is suddenly a very difficult turn of events, so I find it hard to say. I mean, introducing my name alone would not be... enough? Is that what I should say?"
"Huh, you don’t have a name?"
Who was this cute girl before me? Whoever she was, she was so pretty that comparing her to my younger sister would feel rude to my sister.
"No, I do have a name. I simply have not had many opportunities to say it, so I suppose an impressive introduction is impossible..."
"Heh..."
"......Ahem."
What was I supposed to do with a girl who could not give an impressive introduction? Well, I had heard that mages were generally like this, but this was...
"Fou!"
"Oh, I nearly forgot. Fou, it is not good to accept snacks from Diego and then sneak away."
"Kyuu..."
"Even if you were not running away, revealing yourself before my senior... It seems you have taken a liking to her."
Whoa. Now there was another fluffy, adorable creature right in front of me.
One was big and cute, while the other was small and cute. Was this heaven? More importantly, why was she calling me Senior? We had only just met—did she know my age? No, does it even matter? Gold-rimmed glasses really are something else.
No, no, no. Is this some kind of strange signal? I should not act like this in front of someone I have just met.
Was my brain going haywire from the simulation’s effects? What was this strange sensation, like another self had been surfacing within me since earlier...?
"Ah, come to think of it, the director’s briefing will begin soon. Aren’t you going, Senior?"
"The briefing...? Ah, now that you mention it, I think I heard there was something like that..."
"Senior..."
Ugh, it hurts my heart when such a kind-looking girl stares at me like I am pathetic... Besides, my memories are all jumbled up. I think I need to sort them out a little...
"Your memories must be confused due to the aftereffects of the Spiritron Dive. It seems I will have to explain the basics to you again."
"...Thank you."
Chatting away, before I knew it, I had lost track of time talking with this purple-haired girl.
As I spoke with her, my mind began working properly again, and I clearly remembered why I had come here.
I was the forty-eighth and final Master—one of ten civilians among the forty-eight Masters Chaldea had recruited to prevent the collapse of Human Order.
Though putting it so grandly, I was really just a spare part for the elite Masters in front of me, someone who might never even be assigned to a Rayshift.
Still, a reserve was a Master all the same. Attending Director Olga Marie’s Rayshift briefing was mandatory, which was why I had come all the way to Chaldea this time to make an appearance.
"It feels odd to keep calling you Senior, so though it is late, shall we introduce ourselves?"
I did not know how far someone as unremarkable as me could go here, but.
"I’m Fujimaru Ritsuka! Nice to meet you, junior!"
An encounter with someone new, someone I did not know. That alone was enough. I thought that alone gave me a reason to have come here.
"...Yes! I am Mash. Mash Kyrielight. It is a pleasure to meet you, Senior!"
"What you need on a journey is a friend you can trust! Really, it is me who should be asking for your support, junior!"
I was sure thrilling days awaited us from here on out. I believed that.
It seemed my first working life was going to be─
"Ah. Come to think of it, the director’s briefing─"
"I forgot!?!"
Quite a turbulent one.
───────────────────────
"──To think you could not even arrive precisely on time."
"Ahahaha..."
Against all expectations, the two of them really had arrived late.
"Sigh... I have no obligation to repeat what I have already explained. But I do not want a single one of you disrupting the operation, either. Therefore─"
"...Ohh."
It was fortunate he had spoken in advance. Had Director Olga Marie truly known nothing, that girl would have spent the next year in the director’s bad books. At least she had walked into the Command Room on her own two feet.
"I will make a special exception, if only for Diego’s sake, and explain briefly..."
"......Zzz."
"...Huh?"
Of course, that was assuming the girl’s physical condition was normal.
Were temporary symptoms akin to narcolepsy and sleepwalking appearing due to the aftereffects of the quantum dive? Unable to regain consciousness, she fell asleep again.
Perhaps Director Olga Marie knew this. Or perhaps she thought it did not matter if one civilian Master did not attend the briefing.
"Sigh... Someone, remove her. Judging by her condition, she is excluded from this operation."
"Yes, Director. I will do it."
"...Mash. Yes, do so."
Having calmly issued the order to remove her, Director Olga Marie continued the briefing. Was the girl who had been sent out all right? The aftereffects were not usually severe or long-lasting, but since he had experienced them himself due to his own lack of Magical Energy, he could not help worrying.
Judging by Mash’s expression when she returned after taking the sleeping girl to her private room, nothing seemed seriously wrong. Still, they could not simply leave alone one of the regular Masters, who had much work ahead of her.
『All Masters, please board your respective Coffins.』
Once the briefing concluded, the forty-eight Masters would undergo Rayshift. Preparations to properly assault the Singularity were beginning. Missing a single operation was not a disaster, but it would still be best for that girl to have her Coffin calibrated at least once.
As Diego quietly considered a solution and casually looked around, he soon noticed one more person who was absent.
Doctor Romani. Was he thrown out by Director Olga Marie before that girl was?
Who could have imagined that chicken-hearted doctor would be kicked out of the Command Room simply because the director disliked having him nearby?
At least, the doctor’s frequent place to slack off was this forty-eighth Master’s My Room. If they met there, they could perform everything from Coffin calibration to a vital check.
To think I would worry this much about a girl whose name I do not even know.
He still did not know why he felt such a powerful pull toward a girl he barely knew, but his wish for her was sincere: that she would not suffer a serious injury in the operations to come, and that she would remain safe.
Not only her, but the roughly one hundred staff participating in this operation.
The still-inexperienced Director Olga Marie. And the forty-eight Masters. He wished for the day when they would all survive, resolve this operation with smiles, and dismiss it as nothing more than an incident.
But───
"Ah, hurry up. You are in the infirmary now, correct? You should be able to get here from there in two minutes."
The darkness closing in was descending faster and more sharply than they imagined, secretly aiming for their throats from a place none of them could anticipate.
Flicker
"Huh? A blackout?"
"The lights are out, what───"
After a single moment of darkness──
"...! Everyone, get down───!!"
KWA-AAAAAANG───────
───!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Along with a blinding light that erupted despite Diego’s cry, the world began to crumble.
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