Three nights. It had been three nights since those dreams started happening. Each one of them revolved around the same girl. She had dark red hair, a red cape to match, and gray eyes that shined like silver. Each night I would see her in different situations. One night I could see her fighting against hooligans with what looked like a giant scythe. The next night she was fighting creatures that were different from anything we had faced in the Singularities and Lostbelts. The previous night I could see that she was laughing and smiling. The girl looked as happy as could be. Tonight was different, though. This time I could see that the girl was sad and in pain. Why? What had happened? Who was she? Can I even help her? How could I? I don't even know where she is, let alone who. Was she even alive? How could she be knowing that the planet had been bleached by the Foreign God? Why do I keep dreaming about her? Was the universe trying to tell me something? Were we somehow destined to meet each other?
Ritsuka's eyes opened quickly as she awoke from her sleep. She slowly sat up in her bed and pondered the dream she just had. "Another dream with that same girl again," she said to herself. Before she had time to think about it, she heard a knock come from her door. She had no time to respond before the door opened on its own, allowing a cute, pink-haired girl to enter her bedroom.
"Good morning, Senpai," the pink-haired girl exclaimed, "I brought you some tea to help wake you up."
The redhead on the bed yawned. "Good morning, Mash," she said with a groggy tone, "some tea would be nice." Mash took the kettle she had with her and poured the tea into a cup she had also brought. She handed it over to her Senpai then proceeded to pour a cup for herself. Ritsuka waited a moment for the tea and hot water to brew together. When it was ready, she took a sip of the tea and could immediately feel her body warming up.
It didn't take long for Mash to notice that her Senpai looked tired from the night before. "Senpai, you still look tired. Did you not get a good night's sleep last night?" Mash asked with a concerned look on her face.
Ritsuka shook her head, "These dreams I've been having recently are starting to bother me a lot. I'm not sure what they mean. Maybe it's just my subconscious trying to tell me something. There's no need for you to worry about them, okay Mash? For now, let's get ready for breakfast. I'm sure Chaldea's finest cooks have something delicious prepared for this morning."
Mash was hesitant to let the subject go, but she put faith in her Senpai's words and went with it. "Okay, I'll let you get ready and meet you there."
"Sounds good," she replied. As soon as Mash had left the room, she got up from her bed and walked over to the bathroom to prepare for the day.
Ritsuka Fujimaru, the last master of Chaldea. She saved humanity from destruction before from the Beast, Goetia. Her celebration was short-lived though. It was about a year later that the world she tried to protect was destroyed by someone she only knew as the Foreign God. Right now was not the time to worry about that. She showered, brushed her teeth, tied her hair, and put on her Chaldea uniform. As she walked out the door, she put on a smile so that she could put on a good look for all the servants currently residing at Chaldea. A happy master was good morale for them. Even though she was still contemplating the dreams she's been having recently, she knew that everyone expected her to guide them in battle. Ritsuka walked towards the dining hall to join Mash for breakfast, greeting each servant she met along the way.
When she reached the dining hall, Ritsuka took her place in line for breakfast. The servants were rowdy as usual. Each demanding different items from what was seemingly an endless menu. Especially the King of Knights, Artoria Pendragon, whose order was bigger than any of other servants in Chaldea. Ritsuka couldn't help but smile as she watched the servants overwhelm the kitchen. As she approached the front of the line, the red-haired queen, Boudica smiled, "Good morning, Master. What can I get for you this morning?"
Ritsuka smiled back, "Good morning, Boudica. Hmmm…I guess just omelet rice would be good for today."
"Of course," Boudica replied, "I'll prepare it for you myself." The Queen of Britannia immediately went to work. Ritsuka only watched in awe as she and the other servants worked around each other to serve their Master and the other servants at the same time. Soon Boudica had created the most delicious looking omelet rice Ritsuka had ever seen. "Here you go Master, enjoy."
Ritsuka's eyes glistened at the sight of her delicious looking meal, "Thank you very much."
With breakfast in hand, Ritsuka scouted for Mash among the servants also enjoying their meals. She quickly spotted her Kouhai and sat down to join her. "Ah, Senpai, you got the omelet rice today?"
Ritsuka nodded, "Boudica made it herself, so I know it's gonna be good." The Master put her hands together and whispered, "Itadakimasu." Without delay, Ritsuka began to dig in. With each bite melting in her mouth, it was like all her worries were disappearing. As she finished her meal, the intercom came on throughout Chaldea.
"Attention! Ritsuka, Mash could you come to the command room immediately? Rituska and Mash, please come to the command room immediately."
Ritsuka and Mash looked at each other. "That sounded like Da Vinci," Mash said.
"We better she what's going on," Ritsuka replied. The two got up and headed for Chaldea's command room.
In another far away world, a young girl was waking up from her night's sleep. Ruby's eyes slowly opened as she awoke from her slumber. She leaned herself up on her bed and proceeded to stretch her arms as she gave a great, big yawn to compliment it. Her brain was coming back from dreamland as she got a sense of her surroundings. She looked out the window and saw that the sun was starting to rear its head over Mistral. She then looked over to the other bed and saw her teammate, Weiss, was still asleep. Ruby watched for a moment as her body moved gently up and down with each breath she took. As she did, memories of what had happened at Haven a few weeks prior started coming back to her. She quickly tried to shake them off. Now was not the time for that. Everything was fine now. Team RWBY was back together, and that's what mattered most to her right now.
Not wanting to disturb her sleeping teammate, Ruby slowly got up from her bed and got dressed as quickly and quietly as possible. When she was done, she headed downstairs to see who else was up. She quickly scampered down the stairs and towards the kitchen. As Ruby made it to the bottom of the staircase, she could hear some voices coming from the kitchen. She peeked around the corner and saw Ren and Blake preparing breakfast.
"Alright," Ren said while holding a pan, "You take your pan. Give it a little shake to make sure it's not sticking. Aaaand…." Ren gave the pan a quick upward flick, sending the pancake into the air. The fluffy cake did a perfect flip and landed back into the pan on its other side. Ren looked over to Blake, "Now you try."
Blake was impressed with how smoothly he was able to perform that flip. Blake looked at her own pan and tried imitating Ren's actions. She even repeated his instructions to herself as well. She prepared herself to flip her pan. Before she could flick the pan up, she would get cold feet each time she tried to do so. Losing confidence, Blake gave an annoyed sigh, "Just…give me the spatula."
Ren couldn't help but laugh a bit as he handed Blake the spatula near him. "You'll get it next time then."
Blake grabbed the spatula from Ren's hand and used it to flip her pancake to its other side. "You make it look so easy," she said. "How do you do it?"
"Like anything else, it just takes practice," Ren explained.
Ruby couldn't but laugh as well, giving away her presence. The two looked behind them to see Ruby standing there. "Well, good morning." Ren said.
"Good morning!" Ruby replied back full of energy. Using her semblance, Ruby approached the stove too see what was cooking. "Oooh it smells soooo good."
"Well, everything is almost ready. It would be a big help if you could set up the table for us," Ren said.
"You got it," Ruby said gladly.
Ruby swiftly grabbed the stored away plates and placed one at each seat around the table. She then grabbed utensils and laid them next to the plates. Her semblance made the small act of setting up the table much more trivial. Ruby examined the table real quick to make sure that she didn't miss a spot. "Alright, now I'll go wake everyone up."
Ren nodded, "I'll go wake up Nora and the others."
Ruby went back up stairs to the room where the rest of her team was sleeping in and saw that Weiss was still fast asleep. Ruby went up to Weiss and tried gently to wake the Ice Queen up. "Weiss…" she whispered, "it's time to get up." Weiss' unconscious body tried to reject the minor noise by shifting away from Ruby. Ruby then tapped her body, causing Weiss to shift back to facing Ruby again. "WEISS," Ruby said again in a quiet shout. This time she got a response as Weiss' eyes slowly opened up to see Ruby right in front of her face.
"Good morning," Ruby whispered.. As her brain caught back up with reality, seeing Ruby right in her face caused the former heiress to let out a quick scream in surprise. Ruby was caught off guard by Weiss' reaction and screamed as well, causing her to fall back on her rear.
Weiss leaned up on her bed to gather herself and process what had happened to her first thing in the morning. "Ruby! What in the world are you doing?" Weiss said in a frustrated tone. Wondering why her partner would scare her like that.
"I was just waking you up. Why did you shout like that?" Ruby asked.
"Because you were in my face," Weiss replied.
"Well I figured it'd be nice to wake up and see your BFF first thing in the morning," Ruby said back.
Weiss couldn't retort that, otherwise she'd probably hurt Ruby's feeling. Weiss only sighed, "Well…don't do that again or else I will-"
Before she could finish her sentence, she was interrupted by a loud yawn behind them. The two looked towards the source to see Yang at the room's doorway, still groggy from just waking up. "Geez," Yang said, "it's still early in the morning and you two are already bickering like an old married couple?"
Hearing that flustered Weiss, "We're not a coup- Shut up!" It was all that Weiss could get out. Yang chuckled, seeing that her words had struck a nerve in her teammate.
Breaking the tension, Ruby put her hands together, "Well, now that you're both awake, breakfast is almost ready. So get changed and get your rear ends down stairs because it's time to eat." Ruby dashed passed Yang, and out the room.
Weiss sighed, "Guess I'm still getting used to her being around again."
"Don't act like you didn't miss her?" Yang said.
"I missed all of you, Yang. Though, I guess I missed her just a little bit more," Weiss replied.
Yang smiled, satisfied with the answer she heard, "Come on, let's get ready." Weiss jumped out of her bed while Yang headed back to her own room.
Back in Chaldea, Ritsuka and Mash had arrived at command room. "Sorry we're late," Ritsuka said.
The two were greeted by Chaldea's Administrative Assistant, Sherlock Holmes, "Ah, Ms. Fujimaru, Ms. Kyrielight, glad to see you made it."
"Holmes!" Ritsuka said with excitement. She looked around and noticed that Sion and Da Vinci were missing. "Where are Da Vinci and Sion?"
"They stepped away for a moment. They should be returning any- ah, there they are now," Holmes said as if on cue, the door opened to reveal Da Vinci and Sion.
"Hey, hey," Da Vinci said with cheery attitude, "Sorry about that. Sion and I went to check on a few things real quick before we get started."
Ritsuka smiled, happy to see her friends and allies, "So what's going on? Do we have another minute singularity forming?"
Sion and Da Vinci looked at each other. "Not exactly," Da Vinci began, "You see…"
"Don't think you can start this meeting without me," a manly voice said, cutting Da Vinci off.
The group looked to see that Chaldea's director had arrived. "Ah, my bad Gordy," Da Vinci said in a playful tone.
Goredolf cleared his throat, "Now then, everyone is here so go ahead and brief Ritsuka and Mash on the…unique situation."
Da Vinci nodded, "So recently we picked up on an unfamiliar energy signal. At first we didn't pay it any mind, but here's the kicker. Recently, we've noticed that's it's been absorbing Mana from the planet."
"Like a parasite of some sort?" Mash asked.
"Precisely," Da Vinci answered.
Rituska asked, "Why is this happening? Is it something to do with the Lostbelts?"
"No, this is definitely not the work of the Lostbelts. We made sure of that," Sion answered, "We weren't sure what was causing it until yesterday when we managed to track its point of origin."
"So…where is this energy source coming from?" Mash asked.
Da Vinci stepped in, "That's the…complicated part. After tracing it back, it doesn't seem to be sending it anywhere on Earth. Rather, it seems that Mana is being transferred...somewhere else. Like another world."
Ritsuka's eyes widened. "Another world? You mean like world of the Foreign God?"
Da Vinci shook her head. "Not at all, unfortunately. Rather we fear it might be something bigger. Whatever it is, it will be a major problem if something isn't done."
Goredolf nodded in agreement. He was annoyed that they were being forced into such a bizarre situation. "As much as we all hate ignoring the threat of the remaining Lostbelts, I agree that this is something that we cannot look passed. Mash, Ritsuka, your next mission will be to infiltrate this foreign world, find the source of whatever is absorbing the planet's Mana, and destroy it."
Ritsuka nodded, "Understood, Director."
"I have a question," Mash began, "How are we even going to get to this world?"
"You leave that to us!" A new voice interrupted. The group looked back to see one of the Nemo Marines enter the room. The Nemo saluted, "Reporting that everything is coming along smoothly. We are estimated to be ready for takeoff soon."
"Thank you very much," Sion replied.
The Nemo sprinted off. "Well you heard him. I recommend preparing yourselves before you all depart." Sion suggested. With that, everyone split off. Da Vinci and Sion made final preparation to the Storm Border while Ritsuka and the others decided to rest, at least for a little bit.
Before long, Nemo's crew was on the last stages of preparation before departing. Rituska and Mash joined the others inside the Storm Border. While they were waiting Ritsuka asked, "By the way, Da Vinci, I forgot to ask about any Servants that will be coming along with us."
"Heh heh, of course I gathered a couple of volunteer Servants that agreed to come with us. While normally I'd like a larger team for an expedition like this, I fear going to an unknown world without knowing how it'll even affect Chaldea's Servants would be unwise. So, I thought it best to keep us limited to only two servants. That being said, I thought carefully about who would be right for the job and I think you'll be satisfied with whom I chose."
Ritsuka smiled. "That's our Da Vinci, always ahead of the curve."
"Though I don't think 'volunteer' is the right term," a mysterious, yet familiar male voice replied.
"I agree. Da Vinci was practically on the floor begging for us to go," another voice added, this one sounding feminine.
The two servants appeared from almost out of nowhere. Ritsuka was filled with excitement, "Emiya! Scáthach! You're the ones coming along?"
Emiya nodded, "Da Vinci was insistent that I be one of the ones to join. Of course, I couldn't refuse Master being in need of my services."
"I was reluctant at first," Scáthach answered. "However, I felt bad seeing Da Vinci look so pitiful. How could I possibly say no? Besides, I would be lying if I said I wasn't at least curious about this new world as well."
Mash and Ritsuka looked over at Da Vinci who was intentionally avoiding eye contact with them. "Well, thank you for joining us. I look forward to working with you," Ritsuka said while bowing.
After some time, Nemo spoke over the intercom, "Attention! We have been cleared for takeoff. Best fasten yourself in if you don't want to get tossed around."
"Senpai, we better buckle in," Mash said.
Ritsuka nodded. Ritsuka, Mash, and other members of Chaldea who weren't in charge of flying the ship went to their seats and buckled in for the prelaunch. All the Nemos took their stations while Captain Nemo took his at the lead. "Da Vinci?" he asked.
"Everything looks good on my end," she answered over the intercom.
"Status check," Nemo called out.
"Everything is green across the board over here, Captain," one of the Nemo Marines replied.
"Lock on to the energy signal," the Captain ordered.
"Locking on now, Captain," another Nemo replied as he pushed some buttons on the control panel. "Locked on, Captain!"
Captain Nemo smiled, "Alright, let's set sail."