Quick warning: This one goes pretty mentally dark for what Afterlife has touched so far. Not too terribly, but just thought I'd let you know.

The grasp of a Reality Marble closed around them.

The world shone a bright blue, forcing Ereshkigal to cover her eyes. The dazzling light reminded her of her sister, adding to the many reasons this battle drained her. The goddess mentally checked on Olga- luckily, her half-Master seemed to be holding her own.

Ereshkigal was used to (and, admittedly, spoiled by) the humans of the Age of Gods, so she didn't quite understand until the battle started that most Masters of this age couldn't physically keep up with battles between Servants. In her original timeline, while she couldn't remember the details of the fight at this point, she wasn't the one in charge of keeping Ritsuka safe. She hadn't even taken it into consideration.

Here, now… the Archer took every chance he got to take pot shots at Olga Marie, much to Lancer's chagrin. Defending someone was annoying. If she were able to focus fully on Archer, the fight probably wouldn't have left her as banged up as it did- however, she could concede that her injuries were shallow enough. She was tired, but confident in her abilities to fight the Saber next.

She made that observation before entering the Reality Marble. The Reality Marble shook that confidence.

The Archer, as weak as she perceived him to be, was resourceful, clever, and an all-around pain in the ass. He should've been dead minutes ago. But every time she held his life in her hands, every time she was poised to end it easily, there was just… a twinge. The twinge didn't stop her from doing anything, and saying it 'made' her hesitate was giving it too much credit. She hesitated because she didn't know why his life mattered to her. She hesitated because she didn't know why this battle had made her so unbearably sad. She hesitated because, as much as time was of the essence, she wanted to know why Archer looked at her like he knew her.

And that inexcusable stupidity got her and her charge trapped in a Reality Marble. Curiosity be damned, they were now cut off from Ritsuka and Mash and at the mercy of whatever Archer conjured. Ereshkigal failed to do her duty. It was unforgivable, and she would hold herself accountable, but not forgiving herself would have to wait.

Ereshkigal lowered her arm to observe the mental image made real. Already, spears of red orbited her, ready to strike or defend her as the situation changed. She cast her gaze over the barren landscape. Broken swords, rusted and chipped, sprouted from the sand like the dry husks of burnt foliage. The world itself gasped, a quick rush of air snuffed out in an instant, sending particles of the sand-like rust into the air- Ereshkigal amended her previous observation. There was no sand here. The dunes, coated in the dense burgundy of iron, were entirely made up of the broken down remains of the armory's previous generation. Enormous gears stuttered and shook in the sky above them, but their functionality has long since expired. They held in the iron-tinted atmosphere as a remnant of what once was; whatever mighty forge (how did she know it was supposed to be a forge?) this was supposed to be was now falling apart at the seams.

Literally, she noted. Pockets of void, areas of pitch black, chewed at the boundary of the Marble. The horizon stirred and cracked, reality pushing and prodding in an attempt to break down and absorb this pocket dimension. Whatever warped the Archer eroded the essence of his inner world.

Archer stood across from her, the strain of life pressing down on him. A normal human, and probably most maguses, would not be alive after the injuries he suffered. His silhouette barely resembled the broad, muscular man he once was- the spirits had completely consumed his left arm, and what remained of him as a whole looked like a dog's month-old chew toy. But still he stood, determination in his eyes. Even bloodied, his white hair gleaned under the red sun.

He seemed… softer, somehow.

Why was he still standing? Why did he summon his Reality Marble when he can barely stand? Why did he keep fighting? Why wouldn't he just rest?

Archer smiled at her. Even as she tried to reject her host's feelings, the grin ripped at her heart. "I'm sorry, Rin."

Without missing a beat she responded, "I'm not Rin."

His smile didn't waver. "I know. She's been gone for awhile. I never got to… say that to her, so..." The Archer let his gaze drop to the ground. "Lancer, whatever Heroic or Divine Spirit you are that inhabited her… heh..." he coughed, blood flowing from his lips like molasses. "Saber doesn't talk to me much anymore, but… I got the gist of it. You're… you can fix this, right?" A glint of desperation. "Please tell me you can fix this."

Olga stepped up and eyed the blades around her warily. She still held a respectable distance back from the two Servants, but the three spirits Ereshkigal had assigned to the director bubbled at her feet, ready to pull the ghost girl back at any second regardless of how far she was. Still, Ereshkigal watched the Archer's movements like a hawk as Olga Marie spoke. "Chaldea is here to correct this timeline. We will fix the corruption in this singularity. It will be like nothing happened at all."

"Thank goodness…"

It was barely a mutter on the breeze. A second later, far behind Archer, a flash of gold flickered on the horizon.

"Thank you." A gleaming golden sword inlaid with blue metal flew into his open hand. It was the same blade he broke through Ereshkigal's defense with earlier, but… clearer. The blurriness, the flaws in its first appearance were gone. This was the perfect imitation. He didn't look her in the eyes anymore, even though his ever-present smile remained. "After you defeat me… please tell Saber that Shirou says he's sorry for failing her again. She's… she's the only one I have left."

"This goddess has heard your request," Ereshkigal nodded. Foreign emotions racked her soul, but she stifled them with her divine presence. Her host's feelings retreated further into her mind, but the melancholy remained. She couldn't let the twinge draw this out any further

The pockets of black at the Reality Marble's edge bubbled and seethed. Gallû spirits ripped themselves out of the darkness, packs of dark beasts descending on the lone Archer like wolves falling on an injured deer. The rhythmic pounding of their feet against the sand replaced silence, but even as dust rose a calmness fell among the inhabitants of the world.

"A Reality Marble is someone's inner world made real… my spirits attack the soul." Ereshkigal took one step forward, then another and another. "Infiltrating an inner world is nothing to them."

The smaller spirits that reached the Archer first dissipated in a flash of gold. "Keep track of how many I take down, will you? I have a reputation to uphold." Even now, a small smirk danced on his lips. The Archer twirled the golden blade in a storm of strikes and slashes, mowing down Ereshkigal's spirits with expert grace, but both servants knew that he would eventually fall. Still, he fought, if only to prove a point and… slow them down.

Three flickers of light in the distance foreshadowed three blades ripping through the air and slamming into masses of spirits with explosive force. Her army thinned for just a moment, enough for Ereshkigal to see the deep gash mutilating the left side of Archer's face. Still, the holy blade flashed.

"... urk!"

A light gasp of pain drew Ereshkigal's attention. She looked back over her shoulder to see Olga Marie hunched over, a light sheen of sweat covering her face. The goddess quickly scanned the spirit for blood (which, admittedly, was not her brightest moment because spirits did not bleed) but found none.

"Animusphere? What's-"

Olga's figure flickered into transparency for a moment.

Mana.

Ereshkigal was stealing her mana. In her haste to dismiss Olga Marie as 'not her Master,' she forgot that, regardless, the director was her source of mana. She couldn't drain her like this- summoning this many spirits would drain any mortal. The ones in the real world had been summoned sporadically over a length of time- after switching planes, she had to summon many more at once. Ereshkigal, while divine, still inhabited a mortal body and took mana from a mortal spirit. Why did fighting as a servant have to have so many restrictions?! She'd have to do it personally, then-

"No! Keep going! We can't afford to risk you getting hurt, Lancer!" Olga cried, apparently tapped into Ereshkigal's psyche enough to understand what she was about to do. "Don't engage him directly! I can handle this!"

Obviously, Olga Marie didn't know her body was now see-through. She did, however, probably feel the same wave of vertigo that nearly brought Ereshkigal to her knees. A second wave of nausea pushed her even closer to the ground. The mana drain finally overwhelmed the link between battery/Master and Servant, hitting Ereshkigal with its full force. She only vaguely registered Olga Marie falling to the ground behind her.

She dispelled her spirits. Archer raised an eyebrow, confused, then put the pieces together. "Oh. It seems my dramatic last words were a bit premature." He tried to chuckle, but it devolved into a mess of bloody coughs. He recovered just enough to make another jab. "Seems like a masterless rogue like me might be better off than a fancy lancer with some dead weight for a Master."

The Archer tried to stand tall, but the extent of his injuries brought him to one knee. The golden blade clattered out of his hand, dispersing into golden dust over the sand. He barely constituted a living being- even as a Servant, Archer barely held himself together. There was no part of him unwounded or free of blood. Still, he looked up at Ereshkigal with defiance. "Just kidding," he muttered, his legs caving beneath him. One of them, barely connected in the first place, started fading away. "I always knew you'd be the death of me, not-Rin." He flashed a grin just as living became too much to bear and the rest of his body began unravelling at the seams. "Eighty-four, by the way."

The false world held its breath as he Reality Marble groaned and creaked, but didn't instantly disperse. Ereshkigal watched as the void on the horizon began eating away the forge-world, slowly at first, but gradually speeding up like a drop of water falling down a window.

She felt empty.

What an awkward last stand for a guy who tried so hard to be cool. Maybe he'd be at peace now, knowing that someone else was there to put a stop to this malignant singularity. The thought brought the faintest of smiles to her face.

"Battle complete, Animusphere. It may take a little bit of time before the Reality Marble dispels, but-"

Ereshkigal paled when she finally turned to the flickering, fading spirit of Olga Marie.

She was so tired. The pain of having mana ripped out of her fell into the background of her mind, covered by the static of exhaustion. Somewhere, somehow, Olga Marie noted that she was conscious, but none of her senses registered anything.

She felt like she was floating in a vat of nothingness, empty and dark. She felt the dull pain, like she was ripped apart and put back together then pumped full of painkillers. It felt… hauntingly familiar.

Flashes of the inside of sensory-deprivation chamber clawed up to the surface of her memories, tinted red with pain and magic. She remembered the sensation of her magical circuits being pulled and stretched, cut and restitched, forced into a mold that might bring her the compatibility she craved. Power. Acceptance.

The doctor said it had a five percent chance of working. She was more than willing to sacrifice her body for that.

She also remembered being told that she might die and thinking, 'If this doesn't work, that's the next best alternative.'

And yet, it didn't work, and she didn't die. She couldn't even fail like she wanted to, instead just adding one more to the list of many increasingly drastic measures she took to change herself into someone Father would acknowledge.

It was the capstone of her idiocy, and the final nail in the coffin of their relationship. The point where he looked at her and said, "Stop wasting our precious money and time. I've let you be a part of this project because you're my heiress, but if you continue to drag down our family name I'll disown you without hesitation."

"Don't be dead weight."

She finally reached a point where Father would be able to find a use for her, only to fail again. If she'd gotten this opportunity years ago, when Father was still alive… she rayshifted! She fought alongside a Servant, maybe not as a full Master, but as something close enough! She was doing something!

Maybe… if this had happened earlier, he wouldn't have killed himself.

… She was holding Ereshkigal back. That's all she was really doing. If Olga Marie had just sat back and let Ritsuka have the full contract, or let Ereshkigal make the decisions for herself… why was she even here? No matter what, she was in the way. She was dead weight.

She was so tired of trying.

The exhaustion started pulling her further and further down, further away from consciousness. She could resist it; she knew she could resist it, but why would she? Olga Marie couldn't remember the last time she actually rested, and… well, maybe just fading away would make everyone happier. Her mind started drifting outward like a fog. Her thoughts stopped linking together, starting then trailing off before reaching their conclusion. She could just… let go.

But the bars of a cage closed around her, locking her in place in a cold embrace. She wanted to travel to the darkness beyond the bars, but she couldn't push through it. She couldn't get out. Someone was holding her back. Why? Why would they? Why wouldn't they just let her disappear? She knew they hated her, knew they couldn't care less. She knew Ereshkigal thought she was some petulant brat, she knew Ritsuka thought she was some bossy bitch, she knew Mash… she knew Mash had every right to kill her herself.

'No, let me… let me go.'

"It's okay, Olga Marie."

Her drifting mind snapped back to reality, accompanied by physical awareness hitting her like a truck. The muted world she was drifting through was replaced by one of fiery pain, grating noise and the taste of metal. It hurt. She was doubled over, curled up on the sand. Her own sweat pulled her down, making each shuddering breath heavy as her chest tried to push back against the weight. Her sense of touch, absent for so long, sparked with overstimulation at each grain of rust grated against her fingertips, slicing at her like a dune of daggers.

Her eyes flew open, to her immediate regret. Visual information assaulted Olga Marie's brain- what was supposed to be burgundy burned her retinas as an oversaturated scarlet, as if the ground was the sun itself.

She shut her eyes with a gasp, the taste of iron choking her. The feeling of particulates grating down her throat threw her into a coughing fit. She curled up into herself, hacking into the ground, trying desperately to shut out the world. If she covered her ears, the light from the world pushed through her eyelids. If she covered her eyes, a sound of radio static pounded against her eardrums. Everything hurt.

She wanted to scream out, to beg for someone to make it stop. Each and every one of her senses was turned up to eleven, and it hurt so much more because, somewhere in her mind, Olga Marie realized that she just moments away from peace before being dragged back from the brink.

"Shh, shh, shh," a soft, angelic voice soothed, a stream of cold water against the fire of her world. "It's okay now."

Something fell over her shoulders. The weight pressed down on her, but it was cool and the heaviness comforting. A cloak. Colder hands pulled it snug around her, then traced around to rub her back gently. Olga Marie felt her harsh breaths soften under the goddess's hands.

"The fight's over now. You're okay."

And then she was pulled closer.

It was a comforting hug, nothing more, but she still gasped at the contact. One hand rubbed light circles into her back, the other held her steadily. Olga wanted to feel uneasy, to prove that she didn't like hugs, never liked them, and that was okay, but Ereshkigal's voice whispered reassurances to her, calm and clear and benevolent, and Olga's resistance melted away. Each 'It's alright now' chipped at her walls, every 'You're okay' cracked her facade. All spoken to her with a warmth she'd craved but never got, in an embrace she'd told herself she would never need because she knew she'd never feel it from those who mattered most.

She let out a shuddering breath. She hadn't returned the goddess's hug, not yet. How could she? She nearly cost Ereshkigal the fight by running out of mana. She was dead weight. She didn't deserve this. The reason her mother never hugged her was because she didn't deserve it. The reason her father never praised her was because she never earned it. Why was Ereshkigal comforting her?

Lev told her that comfort bred complacent, and reassurance, weakness. Olga believed those words for so long, clawing and clawing and clawing her way higher, higher up the ranks of the magical society that forsook her family. She didn't need this. She felt the tears building in her eyes, the sob in her throat, but she pushed them back.

"That must've been really scary for you. It's alright, I've got you now."

Something warm and wet streamed down her cheeks. She refused to admit they were tears. A strangled hiccup broke through her lips, but she bit down on them before they could betray her further. She sniffled.

"W-why d-d-didn't you j-just let a u-useless Master like m-me d-die?"

Master? How could she be so presumptuous?! She wasn't even close to a Master, she knew that, then why did she..? Olga would've cringed at her mistake had she not been fighting back against her body. Talking that much almost broke the floodgates, and she was an Animusphere. She would not cry. Lev told her. Never cry. Don't let anyone see you at your weakest. Don't let anyone see you acting weak at all. Be strong, always. Be strong, Olga Marie Animusphere. Tell yourself that, because no one else will.

"Shh, no more of that, now."

"B-but I-"

"You did well, Olga Marie Animusphere."

Olga choked on her next breath. Something in her struggled to resist, tried to find some way where that wasn't praise. There was no way, right..? But Ereshkigal squeezed, and her meaning was made clear. The young girl broke into an ugly sob, burying herself in Ereshkigal's shoulder and, for the first time in years, letting someone else see her cry. Ereshkigal's hand moved up and stroked her hair in a slow, calming cadence.

"It's so hard leading Chaldea all on your own, isn't it?" The director nodded into the deity's shoulder. She barely registered the growing wet spots where her eyes were as Ereshkigal hummed in affirmation. "You've been alone for so long, haven't you? Doing everything you can to prove yourself, living up to the expectations placed on you even though there was no one around you to see. You've thrown your entire life into your duties, and you made something great. Chaldea, your Chaldea, it's going to save the world, Olga. And I promise that I will support your vision as best I can. Because you've done so, so well, and I want to honor that. You have this goddess's blessing, Olga Marie Animusphere. You have my praise, Champion."

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A/N: This... ho boy.

This one was a journey. It's a shorter chapter, yeah, but it just reached a point where I said what I wanted to say and just had to let it breathe. That last scene... would you believe I wrote it physically, in a notebook, while sitting outside of a Jamba Juice? That makes it the only physical draft of Afterlife to exist, period. Just a fun little tidbit.

The next chapter will bring an end to Singularity F (unless something changes, don't trust me on this), and will finally let me write the scene that gave birth to this entire idea. I have started up classes again, so just as this chapter took some time to get out, the next one will take a little bit.

Quick shout-out to Pallan Minerva for helping me brainstorm music to inspire this. He and the crew on his discord have been really supportive of this story, and probably hold a lot of the responsibility for me still being so excited about writing it. That, and the reviews, follows and favorites I've been getting from all of you. I couldn't ask for a better community, thank you so much.

Best,

Endy