Ritsuka opened his eyes very slowly, wiping off the sleep. He was surprised to see himself on his feet. Mash was helping him walk, and now they're both outside the Command Room. She noticed him stir.

"Are you alright, Senpai?"

Suddenly he remembered. He was just in the orientation, in the front seat, in front of the director. Remembering Lev's warnings, he was suddenly very afraid for his life. "..Uh-oh…"

'Yes, it seems that you were in REM sleep. Anyway, the Director's slap seemed to wake you up completely, thank goodness."

"Um… Where are we going now?"

"Oh, you've been left out of the first mission, Senpai." Mash explained.

"O-oh… Well… That's alright, I guess. It's my fault for sleeping." He was disappointed, of course, but there's always the next mission, he told himself. "Where are we going now?"

"Well I was taking you to your room and-" She was stopped mid sentence by a flying white ball of fur flew through the air, aimed directly at his face.

"Squirrel incoming!" Ritsuka warned her but it was too late, the "squirrel" was already clinging onto her face.

"No, no, this is normal, senpai! Perfectly normal!" The creature crawled down Mash's jacket, up again, and settled on her shoulders, letting out a satisfy purr as it settled down. 'Fou likes to do this a lot."

"Fou, huh." Ritsuka looked at Fou, who seemed to be looking at him as well. "So you're the one who named him… uh… her? It?"

"That's right. No special reason. When I saw Fou, the first thing that came to my mind was 'Fou'." Mash pets Fou. "I'm surprised you knew that, Senpai. You're very perceptive."

Fou sniffs Ritsuka's hand and jumps onto his shoulders, causing the young man to giggle. "Fou! Kyuu kyuu!"

Mash looked surprised. "Hmm.. I see."

"Did he say something?"

"It looks like Fou has accepted you as one of his own, but can a squirrel who sees humans as rivals really exist in the world?"

Ritsuka looked at the animal sitting on his shoulders who was staring at him. "He sees me as a rival?!"

"Well, knowing Fou as I do, I'm sure he'll forget by tomorrow. Oh, we're actually here, Senpai. This is your room." They stopped in front of a room near the end of the corridor.

"Thanks for coming all this way, Mash." Ritsuka thanked her.

"It's no problem, Senpai. Maybe we can have lunch sometimes."

"I'd like that. What team are you on, by the way, Mash?"

"I'm on Team A, first mission."

"Fou! Kyuu…" Fou jumps off of Mash's shoulders and sits next to Ritsuka's feet.

"Ah, Fou says he'll look after you. That puts me at ease. Speaking of which, I need to go now. Goodbye, Senpai." Mash gave him a small smile and waved goodbye.

"See you later." Ritsuka waves back.

Now on his own, with Fou by his side, he checks his pockets for his key card. "Now where did I put it… Ah, there we go." He put his keycard up to the scanner. The doors opened to reveal his empty room.

Or it would have been if there wasn't a man in a white coat eating cake on his bed while tapping away at a laptop.

Ritsuka scratched his head and wondered if Mash made a mistake. As if sensing his presence, the man looked up from his laptop, dropping the fork he was chewing on.

"Wait whaaaaat?! Who are you?!" He reaches for the fork that dropped on the floor and in consequence, his laptop also fell on the floor. "Aaaaaah!"

"I… um…"

"This is an empty room where I slack off- I mean, who gave you permission to go in?"

Ritsuka held up his key card. "I was told this was my room but I could be wrong."

The man got himself together and stood up. He was a little bit taller than Ritsuka, and he has flowing orange hair with a very kind face.

"Ah, so this is your room. So the last one arrived. Well, nice to meet you. I didn't think we'd meet like this. So let me introduce myse- why are you looking at me like that?"

Ritsuka gestured to his cheek. "Whip cream."

"Ah. Well never mind that. Let me introduce myself. I'm Romani Archaman, head of the medical department, but people call me Dr. Roman." He wipes the cream off his face, looks at it for a while, and licks it clean. "I don't know why but it's easier to pronounce, so go ahead and call me Roman. Fact is, Roman sounds very endearing doesn't it?"

Ritsuka was pretty shocked to find how… safe he feels with the Doctor. Seems like he's the most honest person he's met so far. He smiles unconsciously. "So you're the fluffy type, doctor?"

"Fluffy? You mean my hair?" Romani unconsciously fixes his bangs. "Well, I'm usually pretty busy so I just let my hair grow. Looks pretty good, I'll say."

"Yeah, it looks good."

"Glad you agree! We'll get along just fine." Romani gave him a wide smile. "Oh, on your shoulder… Is that the mysterious creature I've heard so much about? Nice to meet you, mysterious creature." Fou kept quiet. "Mash told me a lot about him but I never really thought he existed. Hey, how about I teach it some tricks?" Romani held out his hand. "Ok, shake hands. If you do it well, I'll give you a treat."

"Fou." Fou simply stared at Romani and turned around.

"Uh, why do I feel like it just gave me a pitying look and ignored me?" Romani looked sad for a bit then turned to Ritsuka with a nervous laugh. "Why don't we sit down? I still have another slice of cake I haven't touched. Help yourself."

Ritsuka sat on the chair near the desk while Romani returned to sit on the bed, next to his half-eaten cake. The young man caught Romani's laptop where aside from the work he was definitely doing, there was a virtual youtuber on it. He was probably familiar with it, but he was still groggy.

"Anyway, I think I know what happened. You're the rookie who just got here and got an earful from the Director, right?"

Ritsuka nodded. "I fell asleep during the orientation."

"Yeah, that'll do it." Romani continued to stuff his face with cake. "You and I are alike though. I also got yelled at by the Director."

"That so, Doctor?"

"Yeah. You know the Rayshift experiment's about to start, right? The entire staff's been sent to help out, but since my job is to look after everyone's health so I had nothing to do." He finished his piece of cake and drank from his coffee mug with an anime character on it. "The Director said, "When you're here, Romani, everyone slacks off!" Then she threw me out. So I've been sulking here. Can you believe it?"

Looking at Dr. Romani right now, Ritsuka thought to himself that he can believe it. Still, having someone like Dr. Roman in the workplace would liven up things and raise morale, he thought. He also had good taste in cake. Strawberry cream.

"So that's why I just started sulking here. But that's when you showed up! This is what a blessing in disguise looks like. So since we're both rejects, let's bond and deepen our friendship!"

"Sure. Let's be friends, Dr. Roman!" Ritsuka gave him a smile.

Roman's face brightened at that statement. "Yeah! That means I'm visiting a friend's room! Woohoo! I've made a new friend!"

Dr. Roman then told Ritsuka more about Chaldea as they went through his entire box of cake. About how Chaldea is structured, its purpose, how long he has been in Chaldea, and other things. Ritsuka found out that Romani was really into virtual youtubers, and he was watching AI channel before he entered the room.

Suddenly, the intercom rung with Lev Lainur's voice.

"Romani, we're going to start the Rayshift. Can you come in case there's an emergency? Team A is in perfect condition…"

Ritsuka remembered that Mash said she was in Team A. He wondered if he should go with Roman and tell her good luck but the Director is probably still mad at him.

"...but Team B is less experienced and is experiencing some abnormalities. It's probably the anxiety, the inside of those rayshift Coffins is like a cockpit."

Roman nodded. "I feel bad for them. Why don't I give them some anesthesia?"

"Yeah, hurry up, will you? If you're in the infirmary, then you can get here in two minutes."

The intercom died.

"But you're not in the infirmary, Doctor." Ritsuka pointed out.

Romani whispered. "Don't be too loud. They don't need to know that. From here I could get to the Control Room in 5 minutes."

The doctor stands up and fixes his coat. "Oh yeah, that was Lev Lainur, he's the one who created the Near-Future Observation Lens - SHEBA. A telescope we use to observe the pseudo-planet Chaldeas, but it also observes this entire facility. It's all very incredible." He sighs. "To be honest, everything here is so amazing. I'm just a normal doctor. But if I was summoned, I must go."

Ritsuka nodded. "See you later, Doctor."

"Thanks for chatting with me, Fujimaru-"

"Please, just Ritsuka. We're friends now, right?"

Dr. Roman smiled at that. "Yeah. See you later, Ritsuka. Once you get settled, come see me in the infirmary, I have more cake in there and some high end tea-"

The entire facility shook, as if hit by an earthquake. The lights suddenly went out, screams were heard from the corridor, and red light began flashing. Romani instinctively grabbed the bed frame and Ritsuka to prevent themselves from falling to the ground. "What's going on?!"

The intercom started to blare. "Emergency. Emergency. A fire has broken out in the Central Power Station and the Central Command Room."

"A fire?!" Ritsuka found his footing.

"Containment wall will close in 40 seconds Those remain in Central Area, evacuate immediately—"

"Shit!" Dr. Roman brought up the monitors. "Show me the Command Room! I need to know what's happening! Is everyone alright?"

Ritsuka saw the Command Room, on fire and blown to bits, no survivor in sight of the monitors. He then remembers the girl who told him that they'll have lunch together later. He couldn't see her among the dead. That means there was hope.

Romani grinded his teeth. "Ritsuka, evacuate right now! I'll go to the command room. The containment wall is about to close. Get yourself out before it's too late!"

Fou simply stared at Ritsuka, as if waiting for his decision. Dr. Roman ran out of the room in a hurry, leaving the monitor up for Ritsuka to see. There was no one left, a pile of corpses slung over metal and stone, amidst a burning field. Ritsuka looked at Fou and nodded.

"I know. Let's go save Mash."

"Fou!"

Ritsuka began to run too.