[That is definitely another clue. He has to pick up these puzzle pieces, but he can, as she scatters them about, and slot them into the complete picture. Kadoc watches her from across the table, grabbing his coffee now with his free hand, eyeing her keenly through his bangs.]
So you're recovering from poison. Kyrielight isn't here, so the last of it hit you harder than you're used to. But you're not actively poisoned anymore, just working it out of your system. Am I on the right track?
[He hadn't answered her question, and he knows it. Part of him wonders if she even really wants to know, or if it'd just been a way of getting to the point. But after a beat, he shrugs; maybe she really was curious.]
. . . And yeah. I could handle the cold in Russia better than I would've been able to without my contract. It wasn't the difference between life or death, but it was there.
[ That would be the most useful thing for him, wouldn't it? Just like being shielded (ha!) from status effects was useful for her. She tears off a piece of her sandwich, nibbling on that as she considers. ]
And, yeah. Koyanskaya had one in, and she shot her shot. Didn't really work, as you can see, but... yeah. It wasn't something that Da Vinci could fix on her own, even with Holmes helping her, which meant we had to go for the raw ingredients.
So--if a universal genius and the world's greatest detective couldn't do anything... I dunno, call me superstitious, but I don't know how much anyone here would be able to help me on that.
[He nods minutely to himself as he sips his coffee. There's an aspect of this that's an intellectual exercise too; in a way, that's easier to focus on than actually worrying about Fujimaru. They're tied up together, but one side of it doesn't come with complicated feelings, and it's the side where he gets to think about magic.
Besides, she should actually get this information eventually.]
I get where you're coming from. But take my advice and forget everything you think you know about magecraft from home. . . . For you, that shouldn't be much of a challenge. I'm just saying that nothing about this world's system works the same way. We can't draw correlations between how difficult something is in our world and how difficult it might be here. I've been trying, and they don't exist.
. . . But even with that aside, what I'm suggesting isn't an antidote for the poison. You've already got that, I gather. I take it you managed to take down Akuta in the process. I'm suggesting treating the symptoms, since they're nothing but holdovers from a status you've already cured.
[ She shrugs. It's not even her belief in the magic system where they came from versus this place, it's more--maybe there's a part of her that doesn't want to believe that people could do something Da Vinci couldn't. Especially with how tenuous her existence is right now. ]
I'll think about it, at least. And I'm already feeling better, so it might not even be necessary. --The food is definitely helping, though.
[ Another piece of her sandwich gets carefully torn off and nibbled on. ]
Hinako is... uh. I think this is the kind of thing that I shouldn't actually tell you about? But if you're going to come back to Chaldea someday, then...
[Mmmmmm, all right. Good enough. Kadoc can tell something's going on there; he can't guess at what it is, but it at least seems more complicated than just her being weird about getting help anymore, and he's not going to pry any deeper than that. It's her decision in the end. It was weird of him to even push it this far! Like he gives a shit!
. . . But, eugh, Koyanskaya. He'd let that little tidbit of information roll off him initially, but now it's stuck in his mental shoe. Whatever he may feel about Fujimaru, he is not terribly conflicted about feeling relief that she didn't die thanks to Koyansyaka of all people poisoning her to death. Koyanskaya failing at anything, especially something Kadoc had also failed at, brings a little smile to his heart. Thank fuck she hadn't gotten away with it!
That's an aside. He doesn't say anything about it, at least not yet. Instead he sets his coffee aside with a frown and grabs his spoon again without eating.]
Is that what you think's gonna happen? There's a lot standing in the way of that right now. Our situation here is only the tip of the iceberg.
[ That is one of Ritsuka's secrets to success: that she does believe, wholeheartedly, in living through her trials and coming through them. Maybe it's stupidity, or maybe it's to spite people who believe otherwise... but even when she understands and respects the stakes, she commits to success as hard as she can.
In the end, that was part of why he'd come so close to breaking her--and why Paxti's words had snapped her out of it, in the end. ]
Like what's going on at home is that simple? Maybe it wasn't like, dozens of different universes or whatever, but it's not like Chaldea's mission was simple even at the beginning.
It's because of the combined complication of here and our world that it's hard for me to even imagine the road from A to B. I'm not saying this to put you off. I'm just thinking about it realistically.
[Another sip of coffee. Does he want to put her off? Well . . . no. He's committed to surviving this too, even if he doesn't have Fujimaru's faith that things will work out that way. All he has is his will that he'll make it so for as long as he possibly can. But Kadoc knows well that he's only alive because he's been allowed that luxury—not just once, but at least three times over, at this point. And more will have to come if he's going to make it through this.
Knowing that, defecting to Chaldea is the most realistically safe option for him, but that doesn't make it an easy plan to execute.]
Not only do we have to see this calamity through to success—and I dunno how good the odds are of that—even if that happens as planned, it's not like I can just get out from under the thumb of the Crypters. They have good reason to want me alive, and it's not because we're comrades.
[ Given what she's seen that priest do, the fact that he didn't kill Kadoc is significant, somehow. She knows that. It's just that she's neither deductive enough, nor has enough of the information, to actually make a good guess at the reason. Surely if they'd just wanted to keep him from telling any secrets, it would have been better to kill him, therefore--
But then she fixes him with a mildly quizzical look, head cocked, brows furrowed. It's honestly more confused than anything. ]
But you know what, it's kind of funny to hear you telling me that you don't know how good the odds are for beating this. It's not like Chaldea ever had great chances for success, did it?
[Because it's hard to think of them as the same entity. Kadoc runs into this over and over again in his head: Chaldea Before and Chaldea After, two different things entirely. Even notwithstanding the Lostbelt situation, or this Novum Chaldea she's mentioned that he wants to know about . . . the aspects of the facility that had remained constant before and after Lev Lainur's sabotage were very few. Dr. Roman, Da Vinci, the handful of other surviving staff. Mash Kyrielight, but her role and nature had changed so drastically from everything that had been planned to that point. Fujimaru herself had not been a presence in Chaldea Before in any sense of the word.
There had been a group of people with a culture, relationships, an understanding of how things were meant to go if they went according to plan. And all of that had been replaced very quickly when everything had happened all at once that day.
Kadoc doesn't even say it with any bitterness. Bitterness isn't precisely what he feels about it. It's a tangle of things he hasn't managed to unravel in himself yet, including a strong rope of grief he's just never dealt with. And he doesn't explain what he means, either, wondering if she'll know. Maybe she thinks of it the same way. But maybe she doesn't. He wonders, so he watches her levelly, hand curled around his cup, just waiting to see.]
[ She might not know exactly what he means, but she thinks she understands, at least to a degree. During that first year, no one really talked about what Chaldea had once been, except maybe a passing comment about missing some specific restaurant, or perhaps mourning the scarcity of resources. If people talked about the other Master candidates, including Team A, they did so outside of Ritsuka's hearing.
And even now... even now, Mash only brings up her former teammates on practically a need-to-know basis. The awkwardness between her and Ophelia hadn't solely been because of Ophelia's own emotional stunting. Ritsuka can only guess what sort of gulf exists between the Mash that she knows, and the one that had been given to Team A like an extra piece of equipment.
But in answer to his question, she shrugs. ]
Both, I guess. You guys had all of the resources and help and everything, but--no one even knew what was supposed to be the event that kicked everything off, right? Even with all of the technology and magecraft and whatever stuff that the Director and her family poured into it... no one knew. I don't know why anyone thought you guys could deal with an enemy before it became a problem, if they couldn't even tell you what it was.
[ It's all half-formed conjecture for her, things that she has thought about, on dark nights during the first year of the Grand Order, before the "Solomon" had revealed himself. How was anyone supposed to take out an enemy whose identity and location remained unknown? Especially someone powerful enough to gather seven Holy Grails to scatter them across the span of human history--never mind someone who had been powerful enough to do what he'd done in the first place. Maybe Kadoc's right, that Team A could have handled things with less casualties, but at the same time... had their odds ever really been over 50-50? ]
[Kadoc listens to this, sipping his coffee, and idly reaches down inside himself for the dregs of anger at hearing her say something like that. . . . But they aren't there. Fujimaru isn't right, but neither is she wrong. How could she know? No one had. The rest of mage society had looked down upon Chaldea very openly for that very reason, and Kadoc had never been able to muster offense at that, either. If anything, it had made the whole affair feel more like a secret club. A dark horse team that knew they were going to rise above and win, and the members knowing that had always been what mattered.
If anything, thinking about this now, he feels more akin to Ritsuka than he ever has before. They have many similarities—but this is the one he feels deep.]
I never doubted us. And I doubt myself all the damn time, as you well know. But when it came to Chaldea and Team A dealing with what we knew was coming, I believed, because I knew there wasn't another option. At the time, it was us or nothing. The Plan B that ended up being you and Kyrielight was no plan at all—nothing we could rely on. It wasn't even a twinkle in the Director's eye. No . . . we had to win, and I knew we would. And I know you feel the same way. Even now, you know you can take down Wodime and the others, even though you can't imagine what's in store for you. Why? Because you know you have to. Everything rides on it.
When that's the situation, even when you're someone who obsesses over failure the way I do, you push through it.
[ She says it simply, because there's no need to argue it. She doesn't have to guess that he understands; no one talks like that without knowing the exact way she felt--and still feels, even here in this place. ]
Maybe I'll wind up being wrong. I don't know that yet. But right now, what I know is that I have to do whatever I can to make it through.
[ There's a longer pause, a thoughtful one, as she fiddles with the remains of her sandwich, eaten slowly as he spoke. Part of her wants to tell him about what it was like, at the very end, alone at the Temple of Time and staring Beast I down. She wants to tell someone about that time.
I want to live, she'd screamed into the unyielding dark. And somehow, despite all the odds, she still is. ]
So that's why I think that, whatever is happening here, it'll be solved. We'll all make it through, and after that... I still have our own history to save.
[He works on his soup while she talks. . . . Why is it that he doesn't feel the same way about what's going on here as he did back then? Kadoc's got to admit that the parallel is obvious. He'd basically described their exact current situation. But this time, that certainty isn't there. Is it him, or Camelot?
Of course he hadn't felt it in Russia either, even though that had been another do or die situation. The difference had been as stark as the Russian Ice Age wasteland he'd been given to nurture. Thinking about it, he'd always chalked that lack of hope up simply to The Wodime Issue: no matter what he managed to pull off in his Lostbelt, it always would have come down to a showdown between himself and Wodime, and Kadoc had barely even entertained the dream that that might swing in his favor. He knew better. As Team A, he and Wodime had been on the same side, and that had surely also factored into Kadoc's confidence in the eventual success of Chaldea's mission.
And now he isn't here. He's a non-entity, frozen in time outside of this place, doomed to be devoured by the Calamity if they don't succeed here.
God, does it suck to think that Wodime's mere presence here or there or over there has that kind of influence over Kadoc's mission confidence. He frowns down into his soup, which he's now just kinda looking at as he thinks. It isn't the only factor in his feelings, but it's a more major one than he likes to admit. Just sitting here zoning out thinking about the guy like a huge loser with a chip on his shoulder!
He grumbles and sets his spoon down, leaning on his elbow now.]
. . . It's just not that easy to feel like we have any control over this situation the way we did back in our world. For better or for worse, the pressure was more squarely on our shoulders back there. For me, that's for the better. I can't deal with lax expectations when the stakes are high.
[That does not involve Wodime at all. But it's all also true, and more of what Kadoc is willing to admit to as a factor in why he never feels like he's actually getting anywhere in Camelot.]
[ She cocks her head, quizzical as she looks at him. ]
I think that was more the case for you guys. You said it yourself, right? You guys were meant to take care of everything, and the rest of us were just for a quota. I probably wouldn't have ever even had a Servant, never mind anything else. It was all riding on you directly.
But with me... it wasn't like that. I might have been the only Master, but I had a lot of backup. There were more Servants than there would've been if every candidate got their own, when I went through it. So it really was just like--a whole community making it happen.
[ And maybe she'd still been a focal point, as the only Master for so many. Maybe things had hinged on her shoulders more directly than anyone else.
But it had never felt like that. Ritsuka doesn't really feel like she deserves all--or even most--of the credit for her accomplishments. If not for the staff, if not for Roman, if not for every Heroic Spirit that had heard her call for help and chosen to answer, she would have never succeeded. ]
Stuff like this doesn't get fixed because of one exceptional person. Even what's his name, your leader. If everyone's world is at stake, then everyone should have the chance to contribute somehow. Right?
[He lets out a surprised laugh, tinged with much more than just humor. God, what a hilarious, twisted accidental counterpoint that makes to his own musings. This is truly the difference between them, for as much as they have in common: Kirschtaria Wodime, to Fujimaru, is just that guy. It's not even like Kadoc doesn't get why. It's just as fucking alien as that creepy silent priestess.
But Wodime's not the point. The whole point, in fact, is that he isn't the point. He wasn't among those chosen by this system, however it does that. Kadoc picks off a chunk of his bread bowl to dip into the soup, mulling on that one now too, not for the first time.]
. . . You know, I knew you'd show up here. I dunno if I mentioned that before. It felt more and more inevitable every month. Not because you're exceptional, though. This place doesn't discriminate about that. That should be obvious by the fact that I'm here myself.
Have you looked at his name? There's so many vowels.
[ That's not actually the point, but look. The only member of Team A that has any sort of reasonable, normal name in Ritsuka's opinion had been Hinako, and with her true identity... well, "Yu Mei-ran" isn't so bad either, but it's still a thing! It's still an issue with the rest of them! Even Kadoc Zemlupus isn't exactly a name she instinctively knew how to pronounce.
But he is just a guy to Ritsuka. No matter how powerful he might be, no matter how lauded, in the end, he's her enemy. There's no way he can be as terrifying as Beast I; in the end, Kirschtaria Wodime is just a man.
It takes her a second to catch up with the fact that Kadoc has said something else, but even when it registers, her expression doesn't change: something both deadpan and confused at the same time. ]
...? What's that supposed to mean? Not the bit about you downtalking yourself, we can come back to that. The first part.
[There is no need to revisit his negativity! At least the sniping breaks the tension some. He shoves a soupy bread in his mouth; it's good soup today. He's going to have to come back to this place, huh? But once that's politely eaten, fine, he can address the rest:]
It was just a feeling. Gareth and I arrived here at the same time, six months ago, and at the time, she was the only Servant or otherwise from Chaldea here. Everyone else was from an alternative timeline version of the Fuyuki Singularity you dealt with in your first trial as humanity's last Master.
[The one he was supposed to deal with. He swishes his bread in his soup again.]
But since then, Servants have been showing up in a pretty steady stream. I dunno how the summoning works here—trust me, I've wondered endlessly how they bring us here and why they choose the people they do, if they have any choice at all. But regardless of the mechanism? They were dipping into Chaldea's reserves. It just felt inevitable you were on your way.
[ They might not, but he's said it. Ritsuka will remember this. ]
Yeah, I've met a couple of them. It's been a little weird, but... I mean, the weirdest part is that one of them definitely recognized me, but like... a guy me? So he's technically one of mine, but also technically not.
[ And it's been weird! She's been mulling over that off and on ever since she found out! Now it's no longer a matter of do you know who I am? if another Servant appears; it's got to be do you know who I am? this specific version of me? Wild. She picks idly at the crumbs on her own plate, more for something to do with her hands as she considers. ]
I dunno. It's not even like I disagree, but stuff like this usually happens for a more stupid reason. Someone touched something they shouldn't have, or pushed a button marked "don't," and then it's like oops! Send Ritsuka in to clean it up.
But I think you've got a weird idea of who I am, if that's what you think of me. Everything I did, I did with a lot of help.
[ Even if, at the very end, she'd been completely alone. Even now, years later, she still sometimes wakes up with nightmares of that moment--the instant of staring at the shield standing tall amidst the melted slag, and looking past that to the Beast and knowing no one would be coming to save her. There's a flicker of that in her expression now, a strained sort of old hurt that she isn't aware of herself. ]
[Wait, a guy her? What? Kadoc stops chewing for a moment when she says that, lifting his head from his bowl to fix her with a confused stare, but his mouth is too full to say anything about it; he keeps it in his head to ask about immediately when he's done. Immediately!
Except not, because actually, there are relevant topics happening here that aren't just the weirdness of an alternate universe with a male Fujimaru who's still Fujimaru. It turns out that can wait for a time. By the time Kadoc swallows, he's got plenty to say on the topic of Humanity's Last Master here.]
You're creating a false dichotomy if that's how you're thinking of it. I never said you didn't have help. Trust me, I know. The way you guys ended up using the Chaldea summoning system, all the shit you had to go through to come out alive on the other side—that stuff's totally alien to me, but I at least know what it means to be a Master with a Servant, backed up by the staff and anyone else you could scrape together onto your side in each Singularity. You should know I get it. . . . That doesn't mean you're still not the person who saved the world in a sense. Be realistic already instead of just spouting humble platitudes.
It's not a false platitude, it's how I really think.
[ If they were friends, this would probably be the point where she would kick him, just gently under the table. As it is, she expects it'll just set him off, and since he did buy lunch, she's not going to just (metaphorically) spit in his eye for that.
What she can do is project her annoyance, and that she definitely does. If he didn't notice her slip, that's all that really matters. ]
Realistically speaking, I was the person who was in the right place at the right time. I don't really care about getting the credit or glory or whatever. Everyone keeps getting held up on that part, and meanwhile, I'm here yelling it's just me!
I'm not the humanity's savior or anything big like that... I'm just Ritsuka, and I managed to pull some million-to-one odds. That's all.
[He grumbles and crosses his arms on the table, leaning on them, making a face at her. Why is she so much like this? By now, he can tell she believes it. She honestly thinks this way! They're speaking two different languages here: he is never going to convince her, because she's approaching the question from a different angle than he is, focusing on her own perception and experience when that isn't his point. Kadoc levers one hand up to rub at his face. Ugh indeed. It's not like he wants this to be the world's stupidest fight, but neither can he really let it go when he feels this misunderstood.]
You're not getting what I'm saying on more than one level here. Let's start with this one. I know you can grasp this, because you have even more experience with Servants than I do. You know that how you think isn't the only thing that defines who you are. I'm not talking about whether you think you deserve any credit for saving the world, I'm talking about whether the other people who were there think you do. Are you really telling me no one in Chaldea thinks of you as the Master who pulled it all off?
[ She makes a face back automatically. It's an instinctive little-kid sort of gesture, the desire to give as good as she gets. When it passes, though, she leans back in her own chair, cocking her head.
Does anyone think that? The problem is she's almost never the topic at hand, at least to her own face. There'd been the conversation Mash had overheard, with the staff falsifying her records before the Mage's Association could get their hands on them, but other than that... usually, when she does talk about herself, it's all the small things. Hobbies she had before the end of the world, her time with the volleyball club, favorite foods, books and TV dramas and movies that she'd enjoyed... all those little things. It's nothing to compare to the weight of the Master, or a savior, or anything like that.
If he's looking at her face at all, he'll be able to clearly see the confusion as she mulls through the question. Her voice comes slowly, not quite uncertain, but hesitant. ]
I... don't know? I guess if anyone does, it would be Mash...
[ They're a few years off from a Saito Hajime in Chaldea, telling her in all seriousness that all she needs to do is say the word, and he'd take her and run from all these responsibilities, from everything the world has demanded of her. Right now, Ritsuka still hasn't had much time to process the weight of everything that's happened, but pulls off casual confidence enough that this might very well be the first time she's had this sort of conversation at all.
Huh. ]
Or, I guess, if anyone does, they haven't said anything to me. I've always felt like they care about me, and not, uh, the role that I may have played in anything.
You keep saying things like that when they're not mutually exclusive. It makes it sound like I'm insulting you when I'm not. . . . Trust me, when I am, you'll know. I'm not gonna be subtle about it.
[He's bolder with her than anyone else in that way, though he's not unable to muster some snark even in the faces of people who intimidate him under the right circumstances. But Fujimaru doesn't. If anything, Kadoc would say that he serves as proof that someone can give her credit for her singular role in saving humanity without being cowed by her, or reducing her image to nothing but that of a great hero.
Of course he's watching her face. Now, of all times, he has no trouble making eye contact.]
People can give a shit about you as a person and still acknowledge your role. Or so I hear, anyway.
[ She remembers the lashing out in Russia. She remembers how the insults had felt--things that had both hit home and felt weirdly off, like they weren't really meant for her, even as he was flinging them into her face. Coupled with his earlier self-disparaging comment, she's not so sure she would know for sure.
But right now, Ritsuka meets his gaze evenly, without faltering herself. Even if she's still a little confused, it's the sort of thing she can put aside for the moment. ]
I can only know for sure what people think about me when they say it honestly to my face. I'm sure you're right... but it's just not something that's ever come up.
[Okay, she's got a point. He snorts lightly at the question, and while he doesn't answer it, the little shrug and the sheepish look on his face may indicate that, sure, she might not actually notice after all. Not the point!!!
Either way. He does want to make his second point, but he too doesn't actually want this to be a fight, so his tone is a smidge more gentle when he goes on:]
I just know how people think. The other thing you've gotta keep in mind is that no matter how humble you are about it, you can apply the exact same logic to anyone else it might've been in your position. Everyone out there's got some advantage they'd have happily used to do what needed to be done. No one out there does anything alone with nothing at all to their name. Not even me. . . . I used to think that was my position, but I can easily admit I've got my own set of advantages over you when it comes to being a Master. And I'd have used every one of them I could. Would you refuse to give me credit in your position? Or Wodime—he was born with every advantage imaginable.
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fujimaru
no subject
Date: 2021-09-09 03:18 am (UTC)So you're recovering from poison. Kyrielight isn't here, so the last of it hit you harder than you're used to. But you're not actively poisoned anymore, just working it out of your system. Am I on the right track?
[He hadn't answered her question, and he knows it. Part of him wonders if she even really wants to know, or if it'd just been a way of getting to the point. But after a beat, he shrugs; maybe she really was curious.]
. . . And yeah. I could handle the cold in Russia better than I would've been able to without my contract. It wasn't the difference between life or death, but it was there.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-09 03:26 am (UTC)[ That would be the most useful thing for him, wouldn't it? Just like being shielded (ha!) from status effects was useful for her. She tears off a piece of her sandwich, nibbling on that as she considers. ]
And, yeah. Koyanskaya had one in, and she shot her shot. Didn't really work, as you can see, but... yeah. It wasn't something that Da Vinci could fix on her own, even with Holmes helping her, which meant we had to go for the raw ingredients.
So--if a universal genius and the world's greatest detective couldn't do anything... I dunno, call me superstitious, but I don't know how much anyone here would be able to help me on that.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-09 03:40 am (UTC)Besides, she should actually get this information eventually.]
I get where you're coming from. But take my advice and forget everything you think you know about magecraft from home. . . . For you, that shouldn't be much of a challenge. I'm just saying that nothing about this world's system works the same way. We can't draw correlations between how difficult something is in our world and how difficult it might be here. I've been trying, and they don't exist.
. . . But even with that aside, what I'm suggesting isn't an antidote for the poison. You've already got that, I gather. I take it you managed to take down Akuta in the process. I'm suggesting treating the symptoms, since they're nothing but holdovers from a status you've already cured.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-09 03:49 am (UTC)[ She shrugs. It's not even her belief in the magic system where they came from versus this place, it's more--maybe there's a part of her that doesn't want to believe that people could do something Da Vinci couldn't. Especially with how tenuous her existence is right now. ]
I'll think about it, at least. And I'm already feeling better, so it might not even be necessary. --The food is definitely helping, though.
[ Another piece of her sandwich gets carefully torn off and nibbled on. ]
Hinako is... uh. I think this is the kind of thing that I shouldn't actually tell you about? But if you're going to come back to Chaldea someday, then...
no subject
Date: 2021-09-09 04:35 am (UTC). . . But, eugh, Koyanskaya. He'd let that little tidbit of information roll off him initially, but now it's stuck in his mental shoe. Whatever he may feel about Fujimaru, he is not terribly conflicted about feeling relief that she didn't die thanks to Koyansyaka of all people poisoning her to death. Koyanskaya failing at anything, especially something Kadoc had also failed at, brings a little smile to his heart. Thank fuck she hadn't gotten away with it!
That's an aside. He doesn't say anything about it, at least not yet. Instead he sets his coffee aside with a frown and grabs his spoon again without eating.]
Is that what you think's gonna happen? There's a lot standing in the way of that right now. Our situation here is only the tip of the iceberg.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-09 04:49 am (UTC)[ That is one of Ritsuka's secrets to success: that she does believe, wholeheartedly, in living through her trials and coming through them. Maybe it's stupidity, or maybe it's to spite people who believe otherwise... but even when she understands and respects the stakes, she commits to success as hard as she can.
In the end, that was part of why he'd come so close to breaking her--and why Paxti's words had snapped her out of it, in the end. ]
Like what's going on at home is that simple? Maybe it wasn't like, dozens of different universes or whatever, but it's not like Chaldea's mission was simple even at the beginning.
And this place is nice, but it's not home.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-10 03:09 am (UTC)[Another sip of coffee. Does he want to put her off? Well . . . no. He's committed to surviving this too, even if he doesn't have Fujimaru's faith that things will work out that way. All he has is his will that he'll make it so for as long as he possibly can. But Kadoc knows well that he's only alive because he's been allowed that luxury—not just once, but at least three times over, at this point. And more will have to come if he's going to make it through this.
Knowing that, defecting to Chaldea is the most realistically safe option for him, but that doesn't make it an easy plan to execute.]
Not only do we have to see this calamity through to success—and I dunno how good the odds are of that—even if that happens as planned, it's not like I can just get out from under the thumb of the Crypters. They have good reason to want me alive, and it's not because we're comrades.
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Date: 2021-09-10 03:14 am (UTC)[ Given what she's seen that priest do, the fact that he didn't kill Kadoc is significant, somehow. She knows that. It's just that she's neither deductive enough, nor has enough of the information, to actually make a good guess at the reason. Surely if they'd just wanted to keep him from telling any secrets, it would have been better to kill him, therefore--
But then she fixes him with a mildly quizzical look, head cocked, brows furrowed. It's honestly more confused than anything. ]
But you know what, it's kind of funny to hear you telling me that you don't know how good the odds are for beating this. It's not like Chaldea ever had great chances for success, did it?
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Date: 2021-09-11 02:48 am (UTC)[Because it's hard to think of them as the same entity. Kadoc runs into this over and over again in his head: Chaldea Before and Chaldea After, two different things entirely. Even notwithstanding the Lostbelt situation, or this Novum Chaldea she's mentioned that he wants to know about . . . the aspects of the facility that had remained constant before and after Lev Lainur's sabotage were very few. Dr. Roman, Da Vinci, the handful of other surviving staff. Mash Kyrielight, but her role and nature had changed so drastically from everything that had been planned to that point. Fujimaru herself had not been a presence in Chaldea Before in any sense of the word.
There had been a group of people with a culture, relationships, an understanding of how things were meant to go if they went according to plan. And all of that had been replaced very quickly when everything had happened all at once that day.
Kadoc doesn't even say it with any bitterness. Bitterness isn't precisely what he feels about it. It's a tangle of things he hasn't managed to unravel in himself yet, including a strong rope of grief he's just never dealt with. And he doesn't explain what he means, either, wondering if she'll know. Maybe she thinks of it the same way. But maybe she doesn't. He wonders, so he watches her levelly, hand curled around his cup, just waiting to see.]
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Date: 2021-09-11 03:08 am (UTC)And even now... even now, Mash only brings up her former teammates on practically a need-to-know basis. The awkwardness between her and Ophelia hadn't solely been because of Ophelia's own emotional stunting. Ritsuka can only guess what sort of gulf exists between the Mash that she knows, and the one that had been given to Team A like an extra piece of equipment.
But in answer to his question, she shrugs. ]
Both, I guess. You guys had all of the resources and help and everything, but--no one even knew what was supposed to be the event that kicked everything off, right? Even with all of the technology and magecraft and whatever stuff that the Director and her family poured into it... no one knew. I don't know why anyone thought you guys could deal with an enemy before it became a problem, if they couldn't even tell you what it was.
[ It's all half-formed conjecture for her, things that she has thought about, on dark nights during the first year of the Grand Order, before the "Solomon" had revealed himself. How was anyone supposed to take out an enemy whose identity and location remained unknown? Especially someone powerful enough to gather seven Holy Grails to scatter them across the span of human history--never mind someone who had been powerful enough to do what he'd done in the first place. Maybe Kadoc's right, that Team A could have handled things with less casualties, but at the same time... had their odds ever really been over 50-50? ]
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Date: 2021-09-11 05:04 am (UTC)If anything, thinking about this now, he feels more akin to Ritsuka than he ever has before. They have many similarities—but this is the one he feels deep.]
I never doubted us. And I doubt myself all the damn time, as you well know. But when it came to Chaldea and Team A dealing with what we knew was coming, I believed, because I knew there wasn't another option. At the time, it was us or nothing. The Plan B that ended up being you and Kyrielight was no plan at all—nothing we could rely on. It wasn't even a twinkle in the Director's eye. No . . . we had to win, and I knew we would. And I know you feel the same way. Even now, you know you can take down Wodime and the others, even though you can't imagine what's in store for you. Why? Because you know you have to. Everything rides on it.
When that's the situation, even when you're someone who obsesses over failure the way I do, you push through it.
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Date: 2021-09-11 05:18 am (UTC)[ She says it simply, because there's no need to argue it. She doesn't have to guess that he understands; no one talks like that without knowing the exact way she felt--and still feels, even here in this place. ]
Maybe I'll wind up being wrong. I don't know that yet. But right now, what I know is that I have to do whatever I can to make it through.
[ There's a longer pause, a thoughtful one, as she fiddles with the remains of her sandwich, eaten slowly as he spoke. Part of her wants to tell him about what it was like, at the very end, alone at the Temple of Time and staring Beast I down. She wants to tell someone about that time.
I want to live, she'd screamed into the unyielding dark. And somehow, despite all the odds, she still is. ]
So that's why I think that, whatever is happening here, it'll be solved. We'll all make it through, and after that... I still have our own history to save.
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Date: 2021-09-12 04:55 am (UTC)Of course he hadn't felt it in Russia either, even though that had been another do or die situation. The difference had been as stark as the Russian Ice Age wasteland he'd been given to nurture. Thinking about it, he'd always chalked that lack of hope up simply to The Wodime Issue: no matter what he managed to pull off in his Lostbelt, it always would have come down to a showdown between himself and Wodime, and Kadoc had barely even entertained the dream that that might swing in his favor. He knew better. As Team A, he and Wodime had been on the same side, and that had surely also factored into Kadoc's confidence in the eventual success of Chaldea's mission.
And now he isn't here. He's a non-entity, frozen in time outside of this place, doomed to be devoured by the Calamity if they don't succeed here.
God, does it suck to think that Wodime's mere presence here or there or over there has that kind of influence over Kadoc's mission confidence. He frowns down into his soup, which he's now just kinda looking at as he thinks. It isn't the only factor in his feelings, but it's a more major one than he likes to admit. Just sitting here zoning out thinking about the guy like a huge loser with a chip on his shoulder!
He grumbles and sets his spoon down, leaning on his elbow now.]
. . . It's just not that easy to feel like we have any control over this situation the way we did back in our world. For better or for worse, the pressure was more squarely on our shoulders back there. For me, that's for the better. I can't deal with lax expectations when the stakes are high.
[That does not involve Wodime at all. But it's all also true, and more of what Kadoc is willing to admit to as a factor in why he never feels like he's actually getting anywhere in Camelot.]
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Date: 2021-09-12 05:08 am (UTC)[ She cocks her head, quizzical as she looks at him. ]
I think that was more the case for you guys. You said it yourself, right? You guys were meant to take care of everything, and the rest of us were just for a quota. I probably wouldn't have ever even had a Servant, never mind anything else. It was all riding on you directly.
But with me... it wasn't like that. I might have been the only Master, but I had a lot of backup. There were more Servants than there would've been if every candidate got their own, when I went through it. So it really was just like--a whole community making it happen.
[ And maybe she'd still been a focal point, as the only Master for so many. Maybe things had hinged on her shoulders more directly than anyone else.
But it had never felt like that. Ritsuka doesn't really feel like she deserves all--or even most--of the credit for her accomplishments. If not for the staff, if not for Roman, if not for every Heroic Spirit that had heard her call for help and chosen to answer, she would have never succeeded. ]
Stuff like this doesn't get fixed because of one exceptional person. Even what's his name, your leader. If everyone's world is at stake, then everyone should have the chance to contribute somehow. Right?
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Date: 2021-09-12 08:44 pm (UTC)[He lets out a surprised laugh, tinged with much more than just humor. God, what a hilarious, twisted accidental counterpoint that makes to his own musings. This is truly the difference between them, for as much as they have in common: Kirschtaria Wodime, to Fujimaru, is just that guy. It's not even like Kadoc doesn't get why. It's just as fucking alien as that creepy silent priestess.
But Wodime's not the point. The whole point, in fact, is that he isn't the point. He wasn't among those chosen by this system, however it does that. Kadoc picks off a chunk of his bread bowl to dip into the soup, mulling on that one now too, not for the first time.]
. . . You know, I knew you'd show up here. I dunno if I mentioned that before. It felt more and more inevitable every month. Not because you're exceptional, though. This place doesn't discriminate about that. That should be obvious by the fact that I'm here myself.
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Date: 2021-09-12 09:01 pm (UTC)[ That's not actually the point, but look. The only member of Team A that has any sort of reasonable, normal name in Ritsuka's opinion had been Hinako, and with her true identity... well, "Yu Mei-ran" isn't so bad either, but it's still a thing! It's still an issue with the rest of them! Even Kadoc Zemlupus isn't exactly a name she instinctively knew how to pronounce.
But he is just a guy to Ritsuka. No matter how powerful he might be, no matter how lauded, in the end, he's her enemy. There's no way he can be as terrifying as Beast I; in the end, Kirschtaria Wodime is just a man.
It takes her a second to catch up with the fact that Kadoc has said something else, but even when it registers, her expression doesn't change: something both deadpan and confused at the same time. ]
...? What's that supposed to mean? Not the bit about you downtalking yourself, we can come back to that. The first part.
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Date: 2021-09-13 05:03 am (UTC)[There is no need to revisit his negativity! At least the sniping breaks the tension some. He shoves a soupy bread in his mouth; it's good soup today. He's going to have to come back to this place, huh? But once that's politely eaten, fine, he can address the rest:]
It was just a feeling. Gareth and I arrived here at the same time, six months ago, and at the time, she was the only Servant or otherwise from Chaldea here. Everyone else was from an alternative timeline version of the Fuyuki Singularity you dealt with in your first trial as humanity's last Master.
[The one he was supposed to deal with. He swishes his bread in his soup again.]
But since then, Servants have been showing up in a pretty steady stream. I dunno how the summoning works here—trust me, I've wondered endlessly how they bring us here and why they choose the people they do, if they have any choice at all. But regardless of the mechanism? They were dipping into Chaldea's reserves. It just felt inevitable you were on your way.
You're the World Saver and all.
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Date: 2021-09-13 05:14 am (UTC)[ They might not, but he's said it. Ritsuka will remember this. ]
Yeah, I've met a couple of them. It's been a little weird, but... I mean, the weirdest part is that one of them definitely recognized me, but like... a guy me? So he's technically one of mine, but also technically not.
[ And it's been weird! She's been mulling over that off and on ever since she found out! Now it's no longer a matter of do you know who I am? if another Servant appears; it's got to be do you know who I am? this specific version of me? Wild. She picks idly at the crumbs on her own plate, more for something to do with her hands as she considers. ]
I dunno. It's not even like I disagree, but stuff like this usually happens for a more stupid reason. Someone touched something they shouldn't have, or pushed a button marked "don't," and then it's like oops! Send Ritsuka in to clean it up.
But I think you've got a weird idea of who I am, if that's what you think of me. Everything I did, I did with a lot of help.
[ Even if, at the very end, she'd been completely alone. Even now, years later, she still sometimes wakes up with nightmares of that moment--the instant of staring at the shield standing tall amidst the melted slag, and looking past that to the Beast and knowing no one would be coming to save her. There's a flicker of that in her expression now, a strained sort of old hurt that she isn't aware of herself. ]
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Date: 2021-09-14 12:28 am (UTC)Except not, because actually, there are relevant topics happening here that aren't just the weirdness of an alternate universe with a male Fujimaru who's still Fujimaru. It turns out that can wait for a time. By the time Kadoc swallows, he's got plenty to say on the topic of Humanity's Last Master here.]
You're creating a false dichotomy if that's how you're thinking of it. I never said you didn't have help. Trust me, I know. The way you guys ended up using the Chaldea summoning system, all the shit you had to go through to come out alive on the other side—that stuff's totally alien to me, but I at least know what it means to be a Master with a Servant, backed up by the staff and anyone else you could scrape together onto your side in each Singularity. You should know I get it. . . . That doesn't mean you're still not the person who saved the world in a sense. Be realistic already instead of just spouting humble platitudes.
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Date: 2021-09-14 12:57 am (UTC)[ If they were friends, this would probably be the point where she would kick him, just gently under the table. As it is, she expects it'll just set him off, and since he did buy lunch, she's not going to just (metaphorically) spit in his eye for that.
What she can do is project her annoyance, and that she definitely does. If he didn't notice her slip, that's all that really matters. ]
Realistically speaking, I was the person who was in the right place at the right time. I don't really care about getting the credit or glory or whatever. Everyone keeps getting held up on that part, and meanwhile, I'm here yelling it's just me!
I'm not the humanity's savior or anything big like that... I'm just Ritsuka, and I managed to pull some million-to-one odds. That's all.
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Date: 2021-09-18 04:59 am (UTC)[He grumbles and crosses his arms on the table, leaning on them, making a face at her. Why is she so much like this? By now, he can tell she believes it. She honestly thinks this way! They're speaking two different languages here: he is never going to convince her, because she's approaching the question from a different angle than he is, focusing on her own perception and experience when that isn't his point. Kadoc levers one hand up to rub at his face. Ugh indeed. It's not like he wants this to be the world's stupidest fight, but neither can he really let it go when he feels this misunderstood.]
You're not getting what I'm saying on more than one level here. Let's start with this one. I know you can grasp this, because you have even more experience with Servants than I do. You know that how you think isn't the only thing that defines who you are. I'm not talking about whether you think you deserve any credit for saving the world, I'm talking about whether the other people who were there think you do. Are you really telling me no one in Chaldea thinks of you as the Master who pulled it all off?
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Date: 2021-09-18 05:27 am (UTC)Does anyone think that? The problem is she's almost never the topic at hand, at least to her own face. There'd been the conversation Mash had overheard, with the staff falsifying her records before the Mage's Association could get their hands on them, but other than that... usually, when she does talk about herself, it's all the small things. Hobbies she had before the end of the world, her time with the volleyball club, favorite foods, books and TV dramas and movies that she'd enjoyed... all those little things. It's nothing to compare to the weight of the Master, or a savior, or anything like that.
If he's looking at her face at all, he'll be able to clearly see the confusion as she mulls through the question. Her voice comes slowly, not quite uncertain, but hesitant. ]
I... don't know? I guess if anyone does, it would be Mash...
[ They're a few years off from a Saito Hajime in Chaldea, telling her in all seriousness that all she needs to do is say the word, and he'd take her and run from all these responsibilities, from everything the world has demanded of her. Right now, Ritsuka still hasn't had much time to process the weight of everything that's happened, but pulls off casual confidence enough that this might very well be the first time she's had this sort of conversation at all.
Huh. ]
Or, I guess, if anyone does, they haven't said anything to me. I've always felt like they care about me, and not, uh, the role that I may have played in anything.
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Date: 2021-09-19 03:20 am (UTC)[He's bolder with her than anyone else in that way, though he's not unable to muster some snark even in the faces of people who intimidate him under the right circumstances. But Fujimaru doesn't. If anything, Kadoc would say that he serves as proof that someone can give her credit for her singular role in saving humanity without being cowed by her, or reducing her image to nothing but that of a great hero.
Of course he's watching her face. Now, of all times, he has no trouble making eye contact.]
People can give a shit about you as a person and still acknowledge your role. Or so I hear, anyway.
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Date: 2021-09-19 03:40 am (UTC)[ She remembers the lashing out in Russia. She remembers how the insults had felt--things that had both hit home and felt weirdly off, like they weren't really meant for her, even as he was flinging them into her face. Coupled with his earlier self-disparaging comment, she's not so sure she would know for sure.
But right now, Ritsuka meets his gaze evenly, without faltering herself. Even if she's still a little confused, it's the sort of thing she can put aside for the moment. ]
I can only know for sure what people think about me when they say it honestly to my face. I'm sure you're right... but it's just not something that's ever come up.
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Date: 2021-09-19 11:04 pm (UTC)Either way. He does want to make his second point, but he too doesn't actually want this to be a fight, so his tone is a smidge more gentle when he goes on:]
I just know how people think. The other thing you've gotta keep in mind is that no matter how humble you are about it, you can apply the exact same logic to anyone else it might've been in your position. Everyone out there's got some advantage they'd have happily used to do what needed to be done. No one out there does anything alone with nothing at all to their name. Not even me. . . . I used to think that was my position, but I can easily admit I've got my own set of advantages over you when it comes to being a Master. And I'd have used every one of them I could. Would you refuse to give me credit in your position? Or Wodime—he was born with every advantage imaginable.
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