Chapter Text
When Ritsuka woke, he was laying in the grass of Sumer, Mash next to him, her cotton candy hair falling gently over her sun-kissed face. He stared at her for a long moment, content and smiling. And so, so tired.
They were back on the surface, not an udug in sight. He could hear birds, as if the calamity had never happened. The best they could figure, the Singularity had been stabilized -- for all intents and purposes resolved, but because they still had yet to recover the Holy Grail, they were still there. The only thing they could see to do was to begin the trek back toward Uruk -- or what remained to mark where the proud golden city once stood.
It was a short trip, all things considered. They didn't know how they had come back to the surface, but they hadn't been moved far from where Uruk had sunk. The crater left in its wake, quickly becoming a lake fed by the waters of the Euphrates, was a peaceful, even beautiful sight. The water was dark with mud and silt as the new lakeshores shifted and settled, but it was the opaque greenish-brown of life -- not the oily-black darkness of the Abyss. Creatures, deer and foxes and falcons, came to drink from the new source. Ritsuka hadn't been sure those animals had even survived the udug.
Even more unbelievable than the serene picture before them, as if the dark soil had never been flooded by the Chaos Tide, were its human denizens -- or humanoid. Two figures lounging on the shores of the new lake, overlooking what had once been their home, and utterly convincing Ritsuka that he must have died in the fight against Tiamat after all.
"Inanna!" Ritsuka yelled, racing over the grass to reach them, afraid to be a single second too late. "Gilgamesh!"
"Who else would you expect?" Inanna asked them, grinning broadly and, when they reached her, lifting them both into a tight hug. "I could not witness my city's last moments… the least I should be bound to do is stand a short vigil at its grave."
"An acceptably beautiful mausoleum, I think," Gilgamesh added. Without thinking about it, Ritsuka threw himself at the king as well, but Gil only laughed heartily as he returned the embrace.
"How?" Ritsuka asked. "I thought you were… And Inanna--"
"We have our Berserker to thank for that," Gil said.
"Rasputin? He's still alive, too?"
"He found me, fading, in the depths of the Chaos Tide," Inanna said, "And used another healthy chunk of those Command Spells of his to save Siduri and I."
"But I… I felt our bond snap. I was sure that…"
"I don't know," Inanna shrugged. "You'd have to ask him, but unfortunately, he's elected to remain with Ereshkigal for the moment."
Gilgamesh chuckled to himself. "She may soon reconsider her desire for company."
"But be careful around him, you two," Inanna warned. "That so-called priest isn't all that he seems. Nimue--" she shot Gilgamesh a dirty, knowing look "--hid it well, but I knew I was right when I first thought I sensed divinity within him."
"Divinity?" Mash repeated. "But… Kirei Kotomine was a normal human according to our records at the time of his death, and Rasputin isn't a deity."
Gilgamesh held up his hand in a gesture of calm assurance. "Kotomine Kirei holds multitudes and contradictions... in this particular twisting of fate especially. Let it be enough that he has been, despite everything, truly earnest that he is your ally. However… in the infinite turnings of the cosmos, all things are still possible in the future. Inanna's wisdom should not be ignored. Not completely."
"Oh? How incredibly thoughtful of you," she glared again.
"Is yet another chance at life so mundane a thing to you that you cannot continue to stand my presence in exchange?"
"Clearly you've never had to deal with yourself," she shot back.
They bickered as strongly as before, but Ritsuka saw the way their eyes lingered in each others' direction, the relieved curve to their proud smirks. He would never forget the rage of Gilgamesh when he had been told of Inanna's fall.
"Nimue…" Mash chewed on the thought. "Why would Morgan le Fae help us?"
"Because she, too, is a denizen of this same world?" Gilgamesh guessed. "I only know she asked me to abide by her ruse, and conceal her identity from you."
"Morgan le Fae could have been a lot more helpful!" Roman cried out, exasperated and spent.
"Would you have trusted her?" the King countered. "Even had you, she does not require your trust. She provided her aid at all the times we required it, and we would not have this victory without her. So why does it matter what you believed?"
"Where is she now?" Ritsuka asked.
"Back in Avalon, I would imagine -- with King Arthur."
"And… what happens to you two, now?"
Gilgamesh reclined on the ground, lacing his fingers behind his head and closing his eyes to the sunlight. "I have been relieved of my duties. I have only been granted this brief reprieve to congratulate you on your hard-fought victory -- on saving the people of Sumer."
He snapped his fingers, and a small gilded table of wine and fruits was left on the shore beside him by one of his gates.
"I didn't think you'd retire until you worked yourself to death -- again," Ritsuka said.
Inanna laughed.
"What?"
Gil sighed. "Unfortunately, I am dead. I died on that ziggurat. I have now taken the place appointed to me as the Judge of the Underworld -- a job with a great deal more work ahead, with all that has transpired in the past few months here. Ereshkigal, in her infinite mercy, has allowed me one day here to see to the necessary arrangements for your departure -- a privilege allowed by Enlil and the others only because of my own divine heritage, and surely because of an unspoken knowledge that Inanna alone would be woefully incapable of resolving things correctly."
"You really should be more careful how you speak to the one who will be telling the survivors of Sumer about your final stand," Inanna warned. "I, for my part, will spend what time I have remaining as a Servant shepherding our people to a new home, wherever that will be. Well… Siduri will lead them, that is. That is how it should be; the crisis is over and now humanity will have to lead itself. But since I am still here for now, my power will be hers to call upon for as long as it may be required."
"So she must be saddled with the burden of responsibility and leadership as well as your incessant voice remaining within her head for the rest of her days? I should beg you to spare her such torture."
"I'm sure Siduri can handle things without me. But if I left, then who would keep you in your place down in Irkalla? Ereshkigal surely isn't prepared for you."
Yeah. They liked each other. Ritsuka chuckled. "And you can keep repairing things with your sister."
Inanna bit her lip, tilting her head just a bit -- unable to say no, but still unwilling to say yes.
"What about the… the real gods?" Mash asked.
"Solomon's seal remains in place, for now," Gilgamesh said. "I believe they have chosen to make their forced step back permanent. Already during my reign, their influence has ever been on the decline. Although our people still believe in the gods and pray to them, they have come to understand the strength in self-determination which I sought to foster. Inanna and Ereshkigal, meanwhile… as Heroic Spirits of humanity, they have chosen where they now stand."
"You're talking like this world is going to keep going," Ritsuka said. He didn't want to, but he had to know. Maybe Gilgamesh could give him answers. "But these Singularities… when we fix them, the quantum timelocks are corrected, and things go back to normal, don't they? This world… for all intents and purposes… it disappears, like... like editing out a chapter that doesn't fit the new manuscript."
"Not exactly," Gilgamesh said. "The concept of quantum timelocks ensures that the general course of history, important pivotal events, cannot be changed once they are past, but it does prevent alternate events from unfolding. All beginnings and ends already exist in the universe; it is by our actions that we determine which path we follow. That is why Solomon's plan relied on a series of Grails placed for maximum chaos at pivotal timelocks, and why all those changes can break the system, when executed so. By resolving this Singularity, you have ensured once again that this timeline does not end in the utter collapse of humanity; therefore, although you may return, in time, to a world where Sumer suffered only a slow, natural decline, our world here will not simply disappear. Your time here, the lives lost and the lives you saved, are real, though our paths diverge."
"Even if we did disappear," Inanna interrupted, "There's no point worrying about what's unchangeable before the laws of the universe. The only thing we can do is keep moving forward under the assumption that tomorrow, and every day after that, we will still be here, defiant, and we will still need to find our path."
"That's… so like you," Ritsuka laughed. "When you… When we thought you died…"
Inanna grinned. "You beat Tiamat. That's what you did. Without me, without Gilgamesh, without Kirei. It wasn't Morgan or Ereshkigal who did it. It was by you, and you alone, that a Grand Servant was summoned to defeat the Primordial Goddess of Creation."
"Now drink!" Gilgamesh raised his cup. "Your king demands it!"
The petulant "I thought you retired," from Inanna was drowned out by the enthusiastic "Yes, your Majesty!" from the Chaldeans.
Ritsuka wanted nothing more than to spend the day there, relaxing like they hadn't since that single day before their expedition to the observatory. They had made a promise to Gilgamesh, on that same trip, to regale him of the tales of the rest of their Singularities. But the sun of the Age of Gods was already beginning to dip toward the horizon, and it was time for them to part ways: Gilgamesh to return to his new duties in the underworld, Inanna and Siduri to return to their people, and Mash and Ritsuka to return to Chaldea, to face their final challenge.
"We still need the Grail," Ritsuka said. "We have to remove the source of instability from this time, and we need to trace Solomon back to his base."
"I told you when you first arrived, no Grail will solve your problems, or mine," Gilgamesh dismissed. "And as I just said, I have already taken care of all the tasks necessary for your departure."
Mash scowled. "No, but--"
Gilgamesh held up an imperious, silencing hand, stopping even Mash's determined objection. "The King--"
"Former King," Inanna corrected.
Gilgamesh scowled. "The former King of Uruk -- and current reigning King of the Dead -- the Great Gilgamesh, has spoken. I bid you now return to your own time. If you are so insistent on baubles and souvenirs, why don't you keep those wine goblets?"
Ritsuka opened his mouth to snap back that they needed to retrieve the Grail, but stopped short. Something about the way he said that…
He stared down at the two goblets held by himself and Mash: shining gold, warm to the touch, like a running engine.
Inanna winked at them.
"Take your souvenir from your battle with Tiamat, with gracious farewell from my new employer in Irkalla," Gilgamesh repeated with a smile, "And a twin parting gift from Kingu and myself, to always remember Uruk."
"... We will," Ritsuka swore.
"Grail… retrieved, Doctor," Mash reported. She couldn't believe it any more than Ritsuka could. Immediately, the two Chaldeans' forms began to blur with light at the edges, the return Rayshift to Chaldea beginning immediately. No matter how much they may have wanted to spend even a few more minutes with their friends, every moment spent in Rayshift was another moment Roman and the Command Staff needed to constantly verify their existence, or risk losing them completely to the world's own corrective processes.
Inanna and Gilgamesh watched them fade.
"Did your vaunted clairvoyance predict this?" she asked him.
"Our victory?" Gilgamesh sighed. "No. I can see only the most likely outcome. Figuring out the correct path to avoid it is up to me."
"No wonder we needed help."
"But I believed, as I always have, in the power of humanity to pull through in the most desperate times."
"Not that… This," Inanna said. She tugged his head back by the hair and kissed him from above, floating behind him.
"That I should be cursed with you even beyond my grave?" Gilgamesh chuckled. "I should have guessed. But no -- my clairvoyance allows me to read everything around me with perfect clarity, but reading oneself is not so simple."
"Oh, you think I'm easy to read?"
"Like a clay tablet. It says: I am a terrible goddess."
"How boring. I'll have to work extra hard to keep your life entertaining, then. Your after-life, I mean."
GIlgamesh stared out over his Sumer, so peaceful now that all was done, even with the soil still dark and fragrant with the mark of the Chaos Tide.
"Tell me, then, with your perfect sight…" Inanna said, suddenly serious. "Do you really think they'll make it through what’s still to come?"
Gilgamesh straightened his back, crossed his arms. "Of their victory over the Beast of Pity, I am absolutely sure. It is not a matter of strength of arms, but of the tireless efforts they have already seen through to the bitter end. If they are capable of meeting what will come after… of that I cannot say. Sometimes what is lost should remain lost -- but who can blame the lost if they do not agree?"
He should have been resting. Everyone should have.
Neither of them were going to, of course. Sleep avoided Ritsuka like the plague. He could still hear the alarms. They had been silenced hours ago, but the ringing lingered in the back of his mind.
In less than three hours now, Chaldea would collide with Solomon's Temple of Time. They didn't have much time left. As soon as Roman had managed to figure out how to find Solomon's lair from the Grail they brought back from Tiamat, they had begun the work to Rayshift the entire facility to its location. This is what they had been preparing for -- they had less than a day before the history Solomon had established, the Incineration of Humanity, was set in stone, so there was no use holding anything back. Ritsuka needed all the Servants who had gathered in Chaldea for this final push.
When Ritsuka entered the cafeteria, he paused. Most of the lights were dark, shrinking the room designed for use by more than 200 staff down to just the small front counter in the middle of a sea of darkness. But the light coming from the counter wasn't the normal fluorescent white. It was more like... the light of a sunrise filtering through a wavering leafy canopy, gold the sort of wild fields of grain.
Almost as soon as Ritsuka could detect the difference, it faded, and Mumei's head jerked up to look at him. Luckily, the Archer had a penchant for staying up far too late.
"Master," he greeted.
"Hey," Ritsuka said, blinking, still unsure what exactly he had just seen. "Am I... interrupting?"
The Archer scoffed. "Of course not. I was just lost in thought. But you should be--"
"Resting -- I know."
The Servant smirked ruefully. "Let me make you something, then."
He turned away and used magecraft to project a pot in his hands, placing it on the burners.
"What is it?" Ritsuka asked.
"This? Yazdi coffee. Or, something close, anyway. Traditionally it would be boiled for four to six hours. There's a whole process of filtering with silk and a hot coal... But we don't have that kind of time. I'm going to bring a nice batch of grounds to a hot and quick boil instead."
"Can't sleep, so may as well not try?"
"Something like that."
"I thought you'd want to make me some kind of healthy food, or tea."
Mumei shrugged, almost helplessly. "No time to make enough food for everyone this time. MREs are more efficient; they'll get you the calories you'll need. And everyone seems to have taken a liking to my coffee."
"Okay. So what defines this particular kind of coffee?"
"The long boiling process, firstly; until the coffee grounds are completely dissolved in water, and then however much sugar you want for taste and texture, too. Then a little infusion of rosewater and cardamom. Ginger is also traditional to the region, but I'll be leaving that out. Going for a little cinnamon instead -- it always pairs nicely with coffee."
"What region?"
Mumei looked back over his shoulder. "Yazd, Iran. About 500 kilometers, roughly, due east from the mouth of the Euphrates. It's traditionally drunk during the mourning rituals of Al-Muharram."
Ritsuka's eyes lowered to the countertop in front of him, suddenly feeling heavy. "… But we don't have anything to mourn, right? Gilgamesh said so. All those people… they lived because of us. History is going to live because of us."
"Not us," Mumei corrected. "You, Ritsuka. But I know you too well to think you really believe that."
His face crunched in on itself. Unable to bear the weight. He buried it in the crook of his elbow.
"I fucked up," he croaked. "A hundred-and-thirty-thousand people, Mumei. I know we can't save everyone… the people in France… the people on both sides of the war in America, in Rome… all those people at the gates of Camelot… but this…"
"I know," Mumei said. "… I know."
He slid the cup of coffee down gently in front of Ritsuka. The boy raised his eyes to appraise the cup cautiously, then the Servant -- who had already turned back to begin cleaning his equipment. He was always considerate like that, in his own ways. In time, Ritsuka raised his head again, and began to drink.
"It's good." Coffee for mourning. This was as much as they could offer those people. "... I lost my head. Six Singularities and I've managed to keep it together somehow, but this one, the one where I needed to be an anchor the most…"
"Nobody can stand alone against the tides forever," Mumei said. "I know that better than most. It's not fair for anyone to expect you to be fearless and smiling in the face of every single calamity the world keeps throwing at you. It's not fair for you to hold yourself to that."
"Maybe," Ritsuka said tiredly. Your worst enemy is yourself. Mumei said that often. "But I wish I could be that person."
Mumei paused. "No, you don't. No matter how much weight you bear for others, it still takes its toll on the inside. It doesn't heal anything. You need time -- to not have to hold up under that pressure, to relax, to just be yourself, and safe with people who care about you. That's the only thing that will really keep you -- and them -- sane, and healthy, and able to keep going."
He sighed. "Unfortunately, we've got less and less time."
"I just… I can't be like that," Ritsuka choked on his words. "Vulnerable. Weak. I -- I should be able to, but I can't--… I-I'm terrified. Inanna was right. I'm so afraid that -- that if I show people how much I really hurt, I -- they'll just leave. They always leave. Even my -- my mom. She couldn't even--"
He made a pathetic sound, the kind of quiet, breathy whine that hurt his throat as the tears began to spill out onto his cheeks. "It's not fair that anyone feels this way," he sobbed. "Nobody should have to feel like I do. It's not fair that -- that so often, I'm right, and the moment you can't keep up the act, people are -- are disgusted with you."
Mumei let him cry, just standing there patiently, exuding acceptance. It didn't last too long -- Ritsuka was too tired to have many tears in him, and too scarred. The fear and self-loathing was too overwhelming for mere tears.
"If you're so afraid, why can you tell me?" Mumei asked.
"I don't know," Ritsuka croaked. "I guess I think you're the same."
Mumei blinked in shock, then laughed. "Sort of, I guess you're right. I've never been good at letting people in. I'll let them help me, I'll tell them everything, but when the chips are down -- the last thing I want is to be the one anyone else thinks they need to save. It's not easy, Ritsuka. It's not something you can fix overnight. You just have to keep being brave, and mindful, and keep working on it. You've got it wrong: it's easy to be strong for others. It's much, much harder to let yourself be weak. That takes trust… which is all too often betrayed."
"I trust everyone in Chaldea," Ritsuka said. "I trust Mash. I trust you all with my life."
"This isn't about your life," Mumei said. "You value your life a lot more than I ever did, to your credit, but this is about something more valuable still. But despite your fears, you don't deserve to be alone, and we're not going to leave you like that. You can stay here as long as you need to."
Ritsuka sipped more of his drink, trying to soothe his now-aching throat. The rose fragrance was interesting; not something he would have sought out, but not unpleasant. Siduri would have liked it, he mused.
"I met Arthur," he said suddenly.
Mumei blinked rapidly again, seeming just as stunned. "The real one this time?"
"I think they're all real, from different… you know," Ritsuka shrugged. "But… yeah. The one you see in the books. He... you could just tell."
"What did you think of him?"
"He… had a soft smile," Ritsuka recalled. "It's weird, that that's the first thing I think of."
"Not at all," Mumei said. "He always did. But I hope that's not the smile you're hoping to emulate. Arthur sacrificed his whole life for his kingdom, for duty, and it was that implacable smile that cost him in the end."
"What do you mean?"
"Arthur grew up in a world where morality was defined by the strongest. Warlords and petty princes squabbling over the remains of the Roman frontier, while raiders stole land and lives from them. He wanted to use his power to not only protect his people, but build a system that changed how people thought, a societal mindset that would continue to protect everyone going forward."
"That sounds good."
"It is. It's a beautiful dream. But it's hard to achieve perfection in an imperfect world. The people didn't understand why Arthur did the things he did, why he was so obsessed with writing laws instead of throwing lavish parties. And with no legitimate heirs, less and less war to keep everyone united and occupied... They started to think of him as weak, even crazed -- even though he showed them nothing but what he thought was the perfect picture of a king. Then things with Lancelot and Guinevere…"
Mumei chewed over his thoughts for a moment. "Arthur didn't allow enough thought for himself. He wanted to be the anchor for all of Britain. Even after his death, as a Servant, he thought he had failed, and that the only answer was that he never should have been king in the first place. It took a long time to convince him that it wasn't his fault."
"You knew him," Ritsuka realized, for the first time. "Not just in Singularity X -- you knew the real Arthur, before that."
Mumei smiled enigmatically. "I told you: a long time ago, I had my own Holy Grail War. It's complicated."
"But he seemed… content."
"Good. I hope so. I hope I seem content, too. But I wasn't always. You've seen that, in both of us; back in Fuyuki… in Camelot. You want to be the light for everyone around you… But you have to make sure you don't burn them, or burn out."
The color, the radiance, and the lifespan of a star alike -- all are determined by what they burn deep within their heart.
"You're going to stumble. You're going to fall. Someday you won't be able to get back up on your own. Everyone goes through that, a billion wanderers each trying to find their own paths. You can stay down for as long as you need to, and you don't have to do it in the dark, alone. Let others help you, forgive yourself when you stumble, and you'll be able to keep going."
"Is that how you do it?"
Mumei barked a short chuckle. "No, I'm terrible at it. That's why I'm telling you to do better. Arthur seems to have gotten it. And if that stubborn fool can, anyone can."
The Archer leaned back against the countertop, sipping at his own plain black coffee. "It's going to be hard, this next part. But we're all going to be there for you. We know you can do it. We trust you -- the real you, not any brave face you put on. We trust the Ritsuka who feels so deeply that he's been able to bond with eight different Servants at once. That's our Master -- the one who's going to save humanity."
Ritsuka looked up at the clock. Two hours left now.
"I hope you're right," he said.
"Trust yourself," Mumei advised. "I know that's hard. But you've made every right move so far. Because we're all still alive to talk about it. Now… go back and spend some time with Mash. Put your nerves at ease. There'll be time to worry once the alarms start up again."
Mumei watched him finish his coffee and go, leaving the Archer in the dark cafeteria. The boy reminded him too much of himself. Which, ironically, had in the past meant that Mumei should despise him vehemently.
But here he was, fulfilling his dream -- helping the world more than he ever thought was possible, and dragging Mumei right along with him. If that was some kind of vindication for everything else Mumei had done as a Counter-Guardian, he'd take it. But he'd give it all back again if it meant keeping Ritsuka from ending up like him.
He held his hands out over the countertop again and let his mind drift. Beneath his fingers, the traced edges of Avalon, the scabbard of Excalibur, appeared in faint gold, like blueprints in mist. An afterimage of his heart and soul. Without Arthur, its healing properties were minimal, but the calming effect it had on Mumei's mind were almost as valuable.
"Since he's not here, I'll be your sword, Ritsuka," he muttered. "You've got six other Servants all thinking the same thing. And what else are we good for, but granting wishes?"
Mumei didn't kid himself. Not everyone was going to make it through. Not a chance. But Ritsuka would. He still had a long road ahead of him, a lot of life left to live. If it cost the rest of them everything, he deserved that much.