Disclaimer: Tales of Vesperia is not mine. If it were you'd get to choose who to bang at the end and you'd be able to take the gay option just because.
Anyway, this is might not be canon, and I could not be arsed to check whether it is or not. I claim my right to use my artistic license and assume that right after Yuri falls, the Adephagos appears and they have to immediately figure out what to do about it. If that's what happened, great! If not, well, consider it an AU, we have plenty of good AU stories in this fandom, right?
Also, Rita might be OOC here, so please give me some feedback. I do not find writing in the voice of a fifteen-year-old genius girl to be easy, so I'll need all the help I can get.
A thunderous crash, a great rising cloud of dust. The tower shook, and Yuri Lowell fell, and she could see him, falling for an eternity, then hitting the water, his body breaking apart, his limbs torn to the four winds, his guts sinking into the ocean, his head eaten by the fish-
And Rita Mordio woke up.
Her head heavy beyond belief, she sank down again, trying to recall what day, what time it is, what she had done and what she had been doing.
Ah, right. She was thinking of ways to get rid of that obnoxious blot in the sky. And failing.
Right. Why was she failing again? Oh, yes, because Yuri is quite probably dead.
All her plans in one way or another required him, and that, of course, rendered them impossible. She kept brainstorming for courses of action that would not rely on the leadership and the strength of Mr. Lowell, but that just made her think of him all the time. Realizing that she was in the middle of a total mental block, the young mage had admitted defeat and retreated to the sanctum that is her bed, whereupon she got her long overdue sleep.
And perhaps, because of that lack of sleep, and perhaps because of that nightmare she had already half-forgotten, she woke up feeling twice as horrible as before.
She buried her face in the bed, trying to sort out the messy cauldron of feelings inside her. This is an important matter, because one little thought involving Yuri leads to another and that one to yet another one and on and on it goes until she can't even think about the Adephagos a.k.a. The End of The World as We Know It because Yuri keeps popping up in her head and asking her about unimportant stuff and teaching her about unimportant things such as cooking and then he'll laugh at her-
Rita snatched the pillow and pressed it against her head, hard. He's dead, no use thinking about him, she tells herself again and again. The others have faith, of course, because he might have fallen into the water. But that's not how it works; falling into the sea from this height would be no different from hitting hard granite since the surface tension will just destroy him.
But she couldn't say that, not in front of Estelle, who kept believing that Yuri's fine. Rita couldn't blame her. His confidence, his strength, his courage; all his qualities make it very easy to think that he's invincible, and even Rita herself couldn't help but hold on to one sliver of hope-
It's not working, she thought in desperation. It's like telling people to not think about elephants. She threw away the pillow and moved her head to the side.
Why is this happening?
She decides to confront herself. Psychological problems are not solved by willing them out of existence.
Why do I feel so horrible about this?
Because he is an important piece to my plans. Without him, nothing works. But that is only partly true. While it is true that, somehow, he is the glue that keeps them together, they will be able to manage without him. They have Judith, Raven, and most importantly, Estelle. They can pull us through. And about his skills in combat, well, they'll just have to find a replacement. Although she doubt that they'll find anyone as good as anyway, the thought of him being replaced sickens her.
Why is that?
Perhaps because he is her friend. One of her first friends, in fact. Her second, to be exact. Back then, Estelle had welcomed her immediately while Yuri and Karol were less enthusiastic. But Yuri gave her his trust soon enough and Karol accepted her not long after.
Friends help you, accept you for who you are and walk beside you through difficult times. They are irreplaceable. It would be horrible if a friend of yours died, right?
She wouldn't know, she never had one before Estelle.
But she had a feeling that this isn't something as simple as mourning the loss of a companion. There is something more complicated here, something far deeper than just missing someone.
It's the thought that, as she gets older, he wouldn't be there to see it, and as she accomplishes things, he wouldn't congratulate her for it, and as she blows things up, he wouldn't tease her for it.
What is so horrible, she realized, is that she won't get to spend her life with him in it.
And thus that tempest within her abates and sorts itself out into a gentle breeze, leaving her with a calm that is tempered by horror.
I love him, she realizes as her pent-up tears silently spill onto the bedsheets.
Quite some time later, Yuri Lowell will be desperately trying to comfort a crying Rita with a hug, and he will be slightly happy while being absolutely bewildered because Rita will be returning the hug very tightly.