Chapter CXXI: No Worse for Wear
"I feel fine," Ritsuka said.
"I'm sure you do," Romani replied patiently. Fittingly, it carried the air of a doctor who had heard this sort of thing from patients who most certainly weren't. "But we're still going to make sure you actually are, okay? Breathe in."
Ritsuka obeyed, taking in a long, slow breath, and then letting it out just as slowly. Romani held the knob of his stethoscope in place for the duration, and once Ritsuka had gone through his first breath, moved it.
"Again."
Again, Ritsuka obeyed, although the expression on his face told the tale of his impatience and frustration.
Several more times, Romani repeated this cycle, and Ritsuka acquiesced each time. He didn't seem to be having any trouble breathing at all — or sitting up for the tests, or standing and walking, which he'd done on his own to get here to Romani's office. In fact, he seemed so entirely unaffected by his ordeal that it was like he'd gone to bed the night before, gotten a normal night's sleep, and gotten up in the morning like nothing had happened.
Romani did a few other tests, checking things like Ritsuka's blood pressure, his reflexes, his vision, his hearing, and generally anything it seemed he could think of that didn't require specialized equipment, all the while Da Vinci hung in the background, running her own tests through some combined function of her staff and tablet. Ritsuka passed each with flying colors, and by the time he'd run through the entire gamut, Romani's brow was furrowed, his mouth was pulled into a line, but he looked confused and frustrated, not concerned.
"Well," he said, "at least medically, I can't find anything wrong with you. A little anemic, somewhat dehydrated, and your electrolytes are low, but that's to be expected after you spent three whole days completely unconscious. Other than that, you're perfectly healthy."
"I didn't notice any lingering damage spiritually, either," Da Vinci noted. She sounded somewhat puzzled by it, too. "Nor even remnants of that curse in your Magic Circuits. It's just as Romani said, Ritsuka: you're perfectly healthy, and frankly speaking, I don't have the slightest clue as to why or how."
"Great," he said. He slanted a look over in our direction. "Is this really something everyone needed to be here for, though? I thought there was that thing called doctor-patient confidentiality."
"In civilian circumstances, you might be correct," Marie said sternly. "However, Chaldea isn't a strictly civilian organization, which means anything about your health that can affect your performance in the field is directly my concern!"
"And mine, as your team leader," I added.
Even if I'd been shooed out of the room, I would've asked Marie about it at the first possible opportunity, and she would've told me herself.
"If you think I was going to just wait outside after what you put me through, you've got another thing coming, buster!" said Rika, and although it came out with her usual humor, there was an underlying shakiness to her voice.
If she let him go anywhere but the bathroom alone for the next week, I would be surprised.
"I…guess I didn't need to be here," Mash admitted reluctantly. "But… Senpai…"
She had been worried, too. Even if she'd had every confidence that he would manage to make it through everything on his own and come out the other end alive and well, it didn't mean she hadn't been at least a little concerned. I had to wonder how much she'd buried it and how badly it had burned to know that there was something so dangerous that she couldn't protect him from with her shield.
Ritsuka sighed.
"Are there any more tests you need to run?" he asked, resigned.
"Without getting invasive?" Romani asked.
"If we were going to find something, we should have found it by now," Da Vinci said. "At this point, any test we could do to look deeper would be essentially pointless."
Ritsuka's shoulders sagged a little, and some of the tension left his body.
"So… So that's it, then?" Rika asked hesitantly. "He's… He's okay? There's nothing wrong?"
"Against all expectations," said Da Vinci, "yes, Rika, he's okay."
"Thank goodness." Rika sighed, and putting on a trembling smile, said, "H-he's the only brother I've got, you know! I've spent almost eighteen years breaking this one in, I don't want to have to break in a new one!"
None of us missed the fragility of that smile, but none of us commented on it either. The last few days had been rough on all of us, but Rika most of all.
Ritsuka grimaced. "So does…that mean we're done here?"
Romani shrugged. "I don't see why not —"
"Hold it!" Marie said. "The examination might be over, but there's no reason we should waste any time getting through the debriefing!"
"Debriefing?" the twins echoed.
"Director," Romani began, "don't you think we could cut them some slack and maybe do this someplace a little more —"
"We've already lost precious time!" Marie insisted. "Now that you've confirmed he's in good health, we need to find out what happened to him while the memory of it is still fresh!"
Her stomach chose that moment to growl loudly, and her cheeks flushed pink.
"None of us has had a chance to eat yet," Romani said reasonably, "maybe we should all get some breakfast first and —"
Jeanne Alter suddenly appeared in the room with us, startling a shout out of everyone. "Sup, bitches!"
Marie shrieked. "I've told you to stop doing that!"
"Yeah, and I've ignored you every time," Jeanne Alter replied, grinning, and then ignoring Marie's indignant snarl in turn. She looked over to Ritsuka. "There you are, Master. Looks like you managed to make it out of there just fine. That's too bad."
Ritsuka smiled. "Thanks to you, yeah. You really pulled my butt out of the fire there."
"Ha!" Jeanne Alter barked out a laugh. "Goddamn right! You would've been toast without me!" She gave an irreverent wave. "Anyway, I'm gonna get out of here before I catch something. Try not to get into any more life or death situations anytime soon, okay? I won't always be there to rescue your sorry ass!"
And as suddenly as she appeared, she left.
"Stop doing that!" Marie shouted at the door.
"She's already gone, Director," Da Vinci said.
Marie huffed. "It's the principle of the thing! Ugh, that Servant is more trouble than she's worth!"
"I'm not so sure about that," I said, and I turned Ritsuka. "I'm guessing we were right and Jeanne Alter wound up inside Château d'If with you?"
"Yeah," he said. "She really did save me."
And evidently cared enough about him to come and check on him afterwards. He must have made some kind of impression upon her during their time together in there.
"She did?" Marie and Rika said simultaneously.
"So she fought beside you, Senpai?" Mash asked.
"Until the very end," he confirmed.
Romani looked to Da Vinci, who could only shake her head, and then back at Ritsuka. "I think you'd better start at the beginning, Ritsuka."
Rika nodded. "Forget breakfast! Story time now!"
Ritsuka grimaced and leaned back on the table he was sitting atop. "Alright," he said. "So I thought I was just really tired at the time, but I guess this whole thing started that night we watched a movie together…"
And he told us all about his time in Château d'If. About how he'd started having hallucinations that night while we were on our way to our beds, and when he'd laid down to go to sleep, he'd woken up in a prison cell. About the man in the hat and cloak with the flyaway hair who called himself an Avenger Servant and explained the situation to him. About trying to contact Chaldea and summon shadow Servants to help him, only to find out none of it worked. About agreeing to forge a temporary contract with Avenger — Edmond Dantès, it must have been — and fight his way out. About the so-called Lords in the Halls of Judgment who were there to test him, and how the first one had already been killed by Jeanne Alter when they arrived.
"Phantom of the Opera?" Marie asked. "Not Emiya?"
Ritsuka shook his head. "Emiya wasn't until later. The Phantom of the Opera was supposed to be the first Lord of Judgment, according to Avenger."
"Then our numbers might have been off, too," Da Vinci said thoughtfully. She sighed. "Well, it was only ever a guess to begin with, so I suppose I can't feel too bad about it."
"Keep going, Ritsuka," I told him.
"Well," said Ritsuka, "things almost broke out into a fight, at first, but I managed to keep them from trying to kill each other, and with the first Lord of Judgment dead, we went back to my, um, cell…"
Where he'd taken a rest for a while until it was time to face the next Servant that had been dragged into things — Gilles de Rais, or as Rika had called him a while back, Mister Starfish.
"And Jeanne Alter didn't take his side?" said Marie, brow furrowed.
"She didn't even seem tempted," said Ritsuka. "She, um, actually seemed to have a lot of fun setting his starfish monsters on fire. From the way she was laughing, I mean."
Of course she did. Although she might have been built on the original Jeanne as a core, Jeanne Alter also seemed to be her opposite in a number of different ways. Fitting, seeing as she was Gilles de Rais' edgy revenge fantasy made flesh.
"I'm curious, though," said Da Vinci. "Was he acting abnormal in any way? Did he seem stronger or weaker than he was when you fought him back in Orléans?"
"About…the same, I guess?" Ritsuka answered uncertainly. "If he was any different, I didn't notice it. And Jeanne Alter and Avenger didn't have any trouble fighting him, but then, he wasn't all that impressive when we fought him back in Orléans either, so…"
So they'd beaten him without too much of a fight. Between Jeanne Alter's flames and Dantès' concentrated curses, they made short work of all of his summoned monstrosities, and Gilles himself hadn't been able to put up too much of a fight, not as a Caster, although more of one than a Caster should have been capable of.
Probably because he'd been a knight earlier in his life. Those skills didn't just vanish into thin air, even if his Caster form put more of an emphasis on his descent into madness and the occult.
Nonetheless, they'd still beaten him, and then they'd gone back to Ritsuka's cell to rest again before facing the next Lord of Judgment. According to what Dantès had told him, they had to start from there each time, even if the path they followed through Château d'If was different for each of the Lords of Judgment.
On their way to the next fight, however, and the third Lord of Judgment, they'd found a woman there in the prison with them.
"A woman?" Romani asked, bewildered.
"And you didn't think that she might have been an enemy Servant?" Marie demanded.
Ritsuka shrugged and smiled a little awkwardly.
"She was alone and she sounded so scared," he answered a little sheepishly. "Maybe she really was playing us from the very start, but… When I talked to her, she seemed genuinely confused and frightened. She didn't even remember her name or how she got there."
My lips drew tight. On the one hand, there were plenty of people who could lie that easily with a straight face and tell a convincing sob story without giving anything away, and in a world like this, there were even people who could hypnotize themselves into believing they really were helpless and weak until the moment came for them to put their plan into action and stab you in the back. Especially in a place like Château d'If, or Dantès' Noble Phantasm version of it at least, being suspicious of anyone in there was the safest thing to do.
On the other hand… That willingness to help a random stranger out of the kindness of his heart was the thing that had convinced Mash to make him and his sister into her Masters, hadn't it? In a very real sense, it was the only reason the twins were still alive, and without that trait, neither of them would have made it this far.
"You said she might have been playing you from the very start," I chose to focus on. "Does that mean she turned out to be an enemy later on?"
Ritsuka winced. "Ah. Yeah, about that… U-um, so, before we get to that, there's some other stuff that happened first, and we should probably keep going in order…"
Marie sighed. "Fine," she said sourly. "We'll get to that when we get to that. If we start jumping around, then things will just get confusing, so you might as well just tell us everything in the order it happened."
The tension in Ritsuka's shoulders eased a little. "So we decided to bring her along, and since she said she couldn't even remember her own name, Avenger gave her the name Mercédès —"
I couldn't stop myself from snorting. Dantès hadn't even really tried to hide it, had he? He might as well have waved a giant flag with his identity emblazoned across it. It would have been more subtle.
"— and made me responsible for her," Ritsuka went on, either not noticing or ignoring my reaction. Then again, not everyone had a literature professor for a mom, so maybe it was more obvious to me than it had been to Ritsuka. "Then, we went on to fight the next Lord of Judgment…"
In other words, Emiya, who apparently went on and on about the selfishness of trying to save everyone you could and tried as much to browbeat them into submission as he did actually trying to kill them with his weapons. As Ritsuka described it, nothing Emiya said to them was necessarily wrong, but it had felt like those words were designed for and aimed at someone else.
Considering how tight-lipped he'd been about it a few days ago, I somehow doubted that he'd be willing to admit who that person might be.
Through the combined efforts of both Avengers, they managed to beat Emiya — made easier, or so Ritsuka claimed, by his erratic behavior — and returned back to his room to rest again. Time moved strangely in Château d'If, according to Dantès, so it was hard to tell exactly how long they spent doing anything, but after relaxing for a little while to regain some energy, they left to fight the next Lord of Judgment. This time, it was Aífe, as expected.
Also as expected, Aífe had acted just as strangely as Emiya. Ritsuka said that she'd held back to a massive degree, trying to prolong the fight, and cackling like a madwoman every time they landed a solid blow. She was louder and more deranged if they drew blood, and uncharacteristically sloppy, and that combination had made it easier to beat her than if she'd been fighting normally and taking them seriously the whole time.
"Even like that, though, Avenger had to use his Noble Phantasm to beat her," said Ritsuka.
Immediately, half the room perked up.
"Wait," said Romani, "his Noble Phantasm?"
Ritsuka blinked. "Um, yeah? Like I said, even if she was holding back and fighting so weirdly, it was still Aífe. She's way too tough for us to beat without going all out ourselves."
Marie's brow furrowed. "Were we wrong, then?"
"Maybe," I said, although I was the one who originally suggested the theory that the curse was the result of his Noble Phantasm. I could have been wrong, of course, but… Ritsuka hadn't corrected us when we referred to the place he'd been trapped as Château d'If.
Ritsuka looked around at us. "Wrong about what?"
"We were under the impression that the place you were trapped inside was a manifestation of a Noble Phantasm," said Da Vinci. "The Château d'If of Edmond Dantès, to be more specific. The Count of Monte Cristo."
"Oh," said Ritsuka. "No, I don't think so. At least, he never gave me any reason to believe he was the one behind it. Avenger might not have told me everything, but he never actually lied to me, as far as I can tell."
So maybe my first guess had been more correct, and Dantès had been drawn in because of his connection to Château d'If. The prison itself, then, would have just been a construct to give shape and form to the curse itself. A shell it used to strengthen its structure by borrowing the name and identity of a famous prison.
"You said he used his Noble Phantasm," I said. "Did you get a good look at what it did?"
Ritsuka nodded.
"He called it Enfer Château d'If," he answered. "And it was, um… Well…"
"Well, what?" Marie asked impatiently.
Ritsuka hesitated. "It was…like something out of an anime. Like Dragon Ball or something."
"Ha!" Rika blurted out abruptly. She slapped her hands over her mouth, cheeks blossoming with pink.
"How do you mean?" asked Romani.
"He created afterimages," said Ritsuka. "He moved so fast that he was… I think he was actually attacking from multiple places at the same time. It was like there were six or seven Avengers all firing blasts from all around Aífe, that was how fast he moved."
If I ignored the ridiculousness of that — and on the face of things, maybe it wasn't quite so extraordinary compared to things like Herakles and his Godhand that gave him twelve lives — then that would — somehow — be a Noble Phantasm based on Château d'If. Since a Noble Phantasm was the crystallization of a legend or a deed into a weapon, armament, or a blessing that somehow reflected that legend, he shouldn't have another one related to the same part of his myth.
In that case, it really would seem that Dantès had been dragged into the curse because it had borrowed the structure of the original prison as a base. The name of the Noble Phantasm even confirmed that it was Dantès, and I…could deal with the implications of that later, on my own time.
"Ultra high speed movement," Da Vinci murmured. "Perhaps related to his escape from the inescapable? A conceptual Noble Phantasm rather than one with a more physical basis? Interesting."
At least one of us had some theories for how that could work out.
"Well," said Ritsuka, "it was enough to defeat Aífe, and that made four Lords of Judgment, so we went back to my, um, my cell again…"
And while he was resting with the mysterious Mercédès, Dantès went off on his own for a while with the excuse of "scouting." Ritsuka didn't seem particularly suspicious of that idea, but I doubted Dantès was actually off doing any such thing. Maybe he'd gone to prepare the stage for the last few Lords of Judgment, or maybe he'd gone to try and investigate how and why Jeanne Alter had been pulled into things without being twisted the way our other Servants had been.
Whatever the case, Dantès eventually returned and they went off to tackle the fifth Lord: El-Melloi II, who reportedly spouted something about taking the entire world for himself so that he could fulfill the dream of his king. That one, I admit, threw me off a little, because as far as I knew, the current ruling monarch of England was a queen, and more than that, he'd never struck me as particularly patriotic. Never so much as a "God save the Queen!" had passed his lips in the entire time I'd known him.
Motivations aside, he'd fought them tenaciously, like a man literally possessed (and in a way, I guess he was), but they brought him down, too, and went back to the cell again, which was getting deeper and deeper into the prison with each "day," according to Dantès. I took that to mean that Ritsuka was getting closer and closer to the end, although I hadn't ruled out the possibility that the whole thing was a farce and Dantès had misled him into fighting in order to pull him deeper into the trap.
Either way, of the Servants we knew about, that only left Bradamante, who, it turned out, was indeed the next Lord, only instead of being some strange, twisted version of herself…
"It was like we were talking to a different person," Ritsuka told us. "The way she spoke, the words she used, even, um, no offense to Bradamante, but the confidence in her voice, too, it was all really different."
"How so?" asked Da Vinci.
"Well…" Ritsuka hesitated. "She honestly sounded…more like Jeanne than herself."
"Huh?" was Romani's eloquent response.
"But, like," said Rika, "wasn't Jalter right there with you?"
Ritsuka shook his head. "I mean the original Jeanne. The one we met in Orléans. It, um, also pissed Jeanne Alter off pretty badly, too, because she noticed it as well."
"That's…" Marie began. "That…shouldn't be possible. If there was some kind of connection between them, then maybe something like that could be done, but aside from being over six hundred years apart, they wouldn't even have spoken the same language."
Da Vinci hummed. "In the broadest sense, they're both French, but the Director is right, that's a very tenuous connection. Are you sure it wasn't just a coincidence?"
Ritsuka shrugged helplessly. "Some of the stuff she said about anger and hatred," he said, "it reminded me of what she said to Jeanne Alter in Orléans. That's why I said she sounded a lot like Jeanne."
Or at least enough to convince him that she was, somehow. I had to admit, it sounded a little out there to me, too, but maybe I was too used to people using projections and puppets and human minions — considering I'd fought a number of such people over my career — to care all that much about the how and the why.
"There's a lot we don't know about how Château d'If works," I said, metaphorically waving it all off, "so I don't think the mechanics of it really matter. She said she still fought you, Ritsuka, or the person possessing her body did."
Ritsuka nodded. "Yeah. She was, um, a little clumsy, honestly. Like she wasn't used to the weight of her lance. Maybe she was expecting it to be longer and heavier?"
Rika snorted and slapped a hand over her mouth. "N-no," she mumbled from between her fingers, sounding like she was fighting down a laugh, "I won't. That one's too easy!"
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, even as Ritsuka's expression became pinched and pained.
"It made the fight easier," he went on, as much to move past that as anything else, it seemed. "She didn't even use her Noble Phantasm."
"Perhaps because she didn't know how," Da Vinci thought aloud. "Or maybe because she didn't have permission."
Romani sighed. "Alright. I guess we're just going to assume that it really was Jeanne d'Arc using Bradamante's Spirit Origin then."
Marie looked like she agreed and didn't like it one bit.
"A-anyway," said Ritsuka. "That made six Lords of Judgment, so we went back to take a rest before the last one…"
And along the way, since Jeanne-in-Bradamante's-body had already revealed so much of it, Dantès had laid his identity and his story bare. How he considered himself a separate person from the Dantès who lived, achieved his revenge, found love and peace again, and died. The Avenger Servant in that prison, that mockery of Château d'If, was not Edmond Dantès, but the wrathful Count of Monte Cristo, because he could never let go of his anger and hatred so long as he existed. It defined him — and so, he could not be Dantès, because Dantès had moved on long before his death.
I guess I understood his logic better than anyone else in the room. In his position, if I had made it to the Throne, been summoned as Skitter, in my worst moments, I didn't think I would have considered myself the same Taylor Hebert that I was right now. The person I'd become after everything was over.
If that made any sense.
When they arrived back in the cell, it was to find the woman, Mercédès, gone, and no trace of her left behind inside the room.
Marie sighed. "She was the last Lord of Judgment, wasn't she?"
Resignation made her voice heavy. Ritsuka nodded sheepishly.
"We never did find out her real name," he said, "but yeah, she was waiting for us in the last Hall of Judgment, and we had to fight her. She didn't use a Noble Phantasm, but, um, she did summon all of the restless wraiths in the prison to fight beside her, so I guess that was kind of like a Noble Phantasm in a way…"
"But you still beat her," said Mash. "Right, Senpai?"
"It was harder than I was expecting," Ritsuka admitted, "and she said a lot of similar things to Avenger as Jeanne did while she was possessing Bradamante, but yeah, we beat her. After that…"
He hesitated. I thought I knew why, because if it was just as simple as defeating the seventh Lord, then there was no reason for him not to just say 'and then I woke up.' The fact that he hadn't told me that my earlier hunch was right.
"You had to fight Dantès."
Ritsuka grimaced. "…Yeah. He was the last obstacle. Only one living human had ever escaped Château d'If, he said, so of the two of us, one had to win and escape, and the other had to stay behind and become the next Abbé Faria."
A shiver went down my spine, unnoticed by anyone else. Only one could escape. So if I had given into my frustration and forced my way into things, would that have meant that it really would have come down to one of us having to kill the other to make it out? Would I really have to have either killed Ritsuka, soak my hands in his blood, or let him kill me in order for just one of us to escape?
In going to rescue him, would I have doomed at least one of us to end up dead? The answer to that was a frighteningly possible 'maybe.'
Romani rubbed at his brow as though warding away a headache. "The next Abbé Faria?"
Ritsuka shrugged. "I didn't really understand it either," he said, "but I knew that it meant we had to fight, so… We fought. And it was hard, but together, Jeanne Alter and I managed to defeat him, although…"
Ritsuka looked away and trailed off, leaving the thought hanging.
"Although…?" Romani prompted.
Ritsuka shook his head. "It's nothing. After we defeated him, Dantès told us it was all a trap laid by the King of Mages, and I was just the one unfortunate enough to have been caught up in it. He reached through the Demon God at the end of Okeanos and… Honestly, I didn't get all of the details, but since I was the Master who summoned Jeanne Alter and she delivered the final blow, I guess I was the one who got affected."
And that lined up neatly with my own theory on the issue. It would even explain why Jeanne Alter wound up pulled along for the ride, since she was the one who actually did land that final blow on Forneus. Maybe, since she was already technically dead, she hadn't counted as someone who could 'live and escape,' and that was why she'd been able to leave at the end without consequence.
"And since the curse took on the structure of Château d'If, it was only natural that it acted as a catalyst to summon the Count of Monte Cristo," said Da Vinci. She nodded. "Yes, that makes sense, doesn't it?"
It did. That part also lined up with one of the theories I'd had running, back before I'd come to the conclusion it had to be Edmond Dantès who was tagging along with Ritsuka. Everything tied up together in a little bow — and with the Lords of Judgment vanquished and Dantès himself defeated, Ritsuka could wake up and return to us, none the worse for wear.
But only because I hadn't gone in after him. Only because I had listened to Marie's and Da Vinci's and Romani's judgment for long enough for him to save himself.
"And that was it?" asked Marie. "That was all the more there was to it? There weren't any other tasks you needed to complete before you were free?"
Ritsuka shook his head. "None. After Avenger was defeated and faded away, Jeanne Alter started to disappear, too, and I woke up."
"Took you long enough!" Rika said, still a little shaky. "If I'd been the one in that stupid prison, I'd have done it all in one night!"
Ritsuka laughed a little. "I'm sure."
"At least everything turned out okay." Mash sighed. "I knew you could do it, Senpai."
Ritsuka's cheeks burned red, and he ducked his head. "Thanks, Mash."
"Well, it answered most of our questions." Marie grunted. "But still! That we all got so careless we didn't even consider the idea the enemy would cast curses on us as they died!"
"To be fair, Director," said Da Vinci, "I'm not sure we could have done anything even if we had thought of it. After all, we couldn't detect this curse, could we? Not even after it had already sprung into action, so to speak, and taken Ritsuka hostage."
Marie didn't look happy to admit that she had a point. Her face had pulled into a sour, disgruntled expression.
"We still don't know if the enemy can do this more than once," I said, "let alone what it might have cost them to do it this time. At the very least, we can be on guard for something like this happening in the future."
It didn't mollify her, exactly, but some of the tension left Marie's body.
Romani, however, looked troubled.
"Ritsuka," he began, "you said that Dan…that Avenger referred to this all as a trap laid by the King of Mages, right?"
Ritsuka nodded. "That's right. I tried to ask more about that, but he told me that it was dangerous to use his True Name so casually, so he wouldn't really tell me much more than that."
Romani's lips drew into a tight line.
"And between that and the Demon Gods, I suppose that confirms the identity of our ultimate enemy, doesn't it?" said Da Vinci.
It did, come to think of it. Not that we'd had a plethora of candidates who fit the bill before, but that particular title kind of narrowed it down. The only one it could be was —
"King Solomon," Romani murmured, "but… Why on Earth would a Heroic Spirit like that do something like this? It just doesn't make any sense at all."
"Maybe he was summoned by a Master somewhere else who made him do all of this," Ritsuka suggested.
Romani's wasn't the only expression to twist. It was Marie who said, "If you knew anything at all about just how powerful a Heroic Spirit he was, the idea that he would obey a Master to do anything he didn't want to would sound just as ludicrous to you as it did to the rest of us."
"Yes, the why of it does present us with a mystery of its own, doesn't it?" Da Vinci mused. "Unfortunately, we could sit here for days, and I'm not sure we would have any better idea than we do right now. It might be prudent to put that off until we can try and look back into that era with SHEBA and determine just if and how these so-called Demon Gods are connected to him."
Several stomachs — including my own — chose that moment to rumble, as though to remind all of us that we had put off eating breakfast to hear Ritsuka's tale.
"And those of us still living have yet to eat breakfast," Da Vinci added. "I think we can put this discussion off for a little while, yes? Why don't all of you go and get something to eat? It won't do any of us any good if you all collapse from hunger — especially if our resident physician happens to be one of them!"
Marie grimaced. Faint splotches of pink still decorated her cheeks. "A-a good idea! For now, as Director, I'm officially adjourning this discussion!"
"Time for food!" Rika cheered. She leapt out of her chair.
"I wonder what Emiya made for breakfast this morning?" Mash thought aloud. Some of Rika's cheer evaporated immediately.
"Y-yeah! I bet it's really good!"
Mash turned to Ritsuka. "Do you think he would make something special to celebrate your safe return, Senpai? Maybe he might cook something Japanese again, like okonomiyaki or oyakodon."
Ritsuka hummed thoughtfully as he slipped his shirt back on and hopped down from the impromptu examination table. "I don't know. I think I'm in the mood for something different, right now. Maybe he could make me some French toast?"
My cheek twitched. I had to fight down a smile.
"I'm certain he'd be all too happy to, if you asked," said Da Vinci.
We started filing out of the room, the twins and Mash first, Marie and Da Vinci following behind, and me behind them. Romani, however, lingered, brow furrowed, staring intently at the wall as though it held the answers to the meaning of life. Breakfast looked like the last thing on his mind, just then.
I hesitated at the door. "Romani?"
He blinked, and like a drowning man surfacing for air, pulled himself out of whatever hole he'd dug or whatever spiral his thoughts had led him down. He plastered on a painfully fake smile.
"Coming!" he said with false cheer. "Yeah, I think some food would be great, right now!"
I didn't call him on it. Something about what we'd learned troubled him. Maybe, given how much he seemed to know about King David, he was a big fan of King Solomon. There were certainly worse people to hero worship, or at least I would have said so before all of this started, so finding out that the guy you looked up to was a genocidal maniac couldn't have been a good feeling.
"It can't actually be true," I heard him whisper to himself on our way out, "can it?"
Unfortunately, it seemed like Romani, just like I had, was having to learn the hard way that your heroes were rarely as heroic as you liked to believe they were.
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
Prison Tower - Part Five
Bradamante was…not the hardest fight Ritsuka and Jeanne Alter had yet had in the prison tower. In fact, she was actually kind of clumsy and uncoordinated, completely different from the normal Bradamante Ritsuka was used to. She couldn't even seem to swing her lance properly, always overextending or missing, like she was expecting it to be longer and heavier than it actually was, and she dodged plenty of times where he would have expected her to use her shield to block.
Maybe it really was Jeanne in there.
The idea that it even could be spurred Jeanne Alter into even greater action. She was faster, stronger, more eager to fight than she had been in any of the other fights against any of the other Lords so far. He barely had to give her any orders at all, and she moved so quickly that he barely had any time to either.
Bradamante — or Jeanne, or Bradamante who thought she was Jeanne, whatever was going on there — put up a valiant effort, as expected of her, but Ritsuka expected she would have had a difficult time against two Servants at once even at her best, and she definitely wasn't at her best. It was inevitable that she would take one too many hard hits, one too many powerful blows, and eventually lose her grip on her form.
"I should have known better," she said as she started to fade away. "This form…it just wasn't a good fit for me. I guess just having the connection of being servants of France wasn't enough to make us truly compatible."
"No shit," Jeanne Alter said with a leer.
Bradamante sighed regretfully. "I wish there was enough time and more chances…but this was the only shot I had. Jeanne Alter, forgive me for asking this of you, but I have to leave this in your hands. Ritsuka's safety will be up to you."
"Sure it is." Jeanne Alter rolled her eyes. "But like fuck am I doing it because you asked me to, bitch. This loser is just my only ticket out of here."
"We'll be fine," Ritsuka promised.
Bradamante gave him a gentle, tender smile, and then vanished.
Avenger laughed cruelly. "She's gone! That putrid saint, offering her paltry salvation — with so tiny a fragment of your own soul? What did you expect to accomplish with that? Pathetic!"
"Wasn't it just?" Jeanne Alter agreed. "Now come on. There's just one more of these fuckers, right?"
"Indeed!" said Avenger. He spun around with a twirl of his cloak. "Come, Master! Your moment of freedom is almost at hand! Prepare yourself for the final challenge, and you may yet leave this wretched hell behind!"
Ritsuka nodded. "Right!"
And he could finally get back to Chaldea. Rika and the others were probably worried sick.
When they got back to his cell, however, Mercédès was nowhere to be found. She was not lost wandering the hallways, calling out for help again, and she was not sitting at his bedside, waiting for him to return. There was no note, no letter, nothing at all left behind to say where she might have gone, or even that she had ever been there in the first place.
"She disappeared," said Ritsuka. He looked about, but she didn't suddenly jump up from behind his bed and shout 'surprise!' either.
"So, she's gone," said Avenger. "Hmph. And you have no idea where she might have vanished off to, do you? That is fine. It's all the same, in the end. There is nowhere else to go in Château d'If."
Did that mean…
"She went to the Hall of Judgment ahead of us?" Ritsuka suggested.
"Perhaps," said Avenger. "Or perhaps she simply gave into despair and joined the howling ghosts wandering this place. It makes no difference in the end, Master. Wherever she might have gone, you cannot follow, so you may as well forget about her entirely."
"Hey," said Jeanne Alter, annoyed. "She's not going to suddenly show up and attack us on the way to the next Hall, is she?"
"Don't be ridiculous," said Avenger. "If she is gone, then she is gone. We won't see her again. There's nothing you can do about it, so there's no need to concern yourself with her fate. What is the modern expression again? No use crying over spilt milk?"
Ritsuka grimaced. Using that phrase when talking about a human being who may or may not have died — or worse — wasn't exactly the kindest way of putting it…but Avenger did have a bit of a point. It wasn't that he had to be more pragmatic, it was that he had to be keenly aware of his limitations if he wanted to make it through all of this.
In that sense, Ritsuka thought he finally understood what Senpai had been trying to explain to him and Rika back in Orléans, after they escaped La Charité. He hadn't really wanted to hear it at the time, but everything that had happened since then had put it all into perspective. It wasn't bad to want to save people and rescue those in need, but the one person that always had to survive no matter what was Ritsuka himself.
He couldn't save anyone if he was dead.
"Let's just get going," said Ritsuka. "This is the last Lord of Judgment, right? So after this, I can finally go back to Chaldea."
"Indeed!" Avenger grinned. "Let's go, Master. Now is not the time for hesitation or uncertainty. Kill the seventh Lord. Escape this hell. That is the only path forward for you."
"You could at least pretend that I'm here, you know," said Jeanne Alter.
Avenger looked at her, scoffed, and then turned away. Jeanne Alter made a rude gesture at his back.
From there, it was off to the next Hall of Judgment. Ritsuka didn't bother to ask for a break or a chance to sleep again, because he didn't really feel like he needed it. The last two fights had been much easier than the two before them, so he still felt like he could keep going for a while. The faster he went through all of this, the faster he could get home, and if he had felt a little tired, that thought would have energized him for what awaited ahead.
"You are lucky," Avenger said as they walked. The path looked the same as it always had. "You have seen so very little of what lurks in these halls, Master. You have not had to hear the cries of the damned with every step, nor smelt the stench of death that pervades this entire prison. The tortures of this hell shy away from your sight." He glanced back over his shoulder at Ritsuka. "No human being can possibly be so innocent, so perhaps the weight of your signs is being shared with another. Or perhaps that senior of yours carries it on her own shoulders instead. How fortunate of you."
Ritsuka scrutinized the back of Avenger's head. "…Is that what you see when we walk these hallways?"
"Ha!" Avenger laughed. "Yes, you and I do indeed walk very different paths, Master! Perhaps I should… No, no, you have already heard it, have you not? That damned saint has already revealed it, hasn't she? Don't bother trying to hide it. I don't need to see your face to know that you've already heard enough to determine the shape of things, so. Let me tell you an old story, Master…"
And he explained. The story of Edmond Dantès, the Count of Monte Cristo, who had been betrayed, suffered for fourteen long years, and returned later to achieve his revenge.
By the time he finished, they had reached the next Hall.
"Some say he abandoned his wicked ways," Avenger said, "that, at the very end of it all, he regained the goodness he had lost… That he found love. Love, in the arms of that foreign princess. That they left all of it behind together and disappeared from the pages of history."
"Damn," drawled Jeanne Alter. "Way to ruin a perfectly good ending."
"I've heard that story before," Ritsuka said. The original Jeanne had told it to him in his sleep not that long ago.
"Of course you have," said Avenger. "That man's life was recorded by a certain novelist, who embellished certain details and released it as a book to much acclaim. It transcended its original roots and became an archetypal myth of revenge, and the man himself transcended humanity to become a Heroic Spirit."
The door's lock clicked with a heavy, weighty sound, but as the door swung open, Avenger turned back to Ritsuka instead.
"A Heroic Spirit of revenge, who existed in the popular consciousness of mankind solely in that form," he said. "Then, when the plan to incinerate all of human history was set into motion —"
"He became a rare Extra Class Servant," a voice from inside the room said. "An Avenger."
And there, waiting for them, poised against them like every other Lord so far…
Ritsuka's stomach dropped. "Mercédès?"
…was the same woman who had cared for him in between battles in the Halls since they had rescued her.
"Hello, Ritsuka," she replied.
"Fuck me," said Jeanne Alter, chuckling lowly. "She's number seven, isn't she?"
It was exactly the same conclusion Ritsuka had come to, and he hadn't wanted to hear it a second time.
"Are you…?"
"I'm sorry," said Mercédès. "I never did remember my name. I still don't know who I am. But, Avenger…I do know you."
"Move," said Avenger, humorless. "I prefer not to kill women."
Ritsuka goggled at him. Jeanne Alter cackled outright. "The hell, you say! What the fuck did we just get done with?"
"That was not a woman," Avenger said with a completely straight face. "The form she was wearing was unusual, but that was a Ruler. A human fortress. She was far too sturdy to be called a mere woman."
"And Aífe?" Ritsuka asked next.
Avenger gave him a queer look. "What reason would I have to flinch at putting down a rabid dog?"
Ouch. Jeanne Alter just laughed harder. Ritsuka made a mental note to never let Aífe hear that such a thing had been said.
"Perhaps I am the same," said Mercédès. "Maybe…the reason I can't remember who I am is because this body doesn't belong to me. Maybe…I am the lingering regrets of the woman who loved you, manifesting in the body of a Heroic Spirit willing to help me bring you peace. Maybe the name you gave me was more appropriate than you ever could have realized."
"Shut up!" Avenger snapped. "Don't you dare say something so ludicrous!"
"This tower is wicked, Edmond," Mercédès said with resigned purpose.
"Shut up!" Avenger snarled again. "That's not my name, stop calling me that!"
"And it has made you wicked, as well," she went on, ignoring him. "Not only for the sake of Ritsuka and the world itself, but also for your own sake, the only thing I can do is rescue you from your wickedness."
"Yet another," seethed Avenger. "Yet another! Another who claims she will save me from my fury and hatred! Have I not already said? I am not Edmond Dantès! I am the Count of Monte Cristo! I have no want nor any need of your salvation! And you, who cannot even remember your own name, have no place trying to offer it to me!"
"It's true. Without this Heroic Spirit's true name and Noble Phantasm, I wouldn't be able to do anything at all on my own," Mercédès agreed. "And that is why…my only other option is to call upon the others of this Hall who never received salvation to come to my aid and fight beside me."
She lifted her arms — and from all around the room, the shadows rose.
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
Prison Tower - Part Six
It was a hard fight. Not because Mercédès or any of the phantoms she summoned to her side were all that strong, but because there were just so many of them that Avenger and Jeanne Alter were vastly outnumbered. Ten, twenty, thirty…no, there must have been close to a hundred of them, and by sheer numbers, they posed a threat.
Avenger had to use his Noble Phantasm more than once. Jeanne Alter had originally started the fight with precise bladework that Ritsuka hadn't known she was capable of, but as the fight wore on, she switched to wide, sweeping swings that seared the incoming enemies with tongues of flame.
By the end of it, both Avenger and Jeanne Alter were tired and wounded, but alive, and both the phantoms and Mercédès had been defeated.
"Perhaps…I was never the real Mercédès, after all," she said mournfully. "Even so… Avenger…no, Edmond Dantès…I pray for your salvation."
And then, she vanished, just like any other Servant. Just…dissolved into golden dust.
"She's gone," Ritsuka announced unnecessarily. The feeling in his gut was a sour mix of sadness and victory.
"Heh," Avenger huffed tiredly. It soon morphed into full laughter. "Hehe…haha…hahahahaha!"
"Calm your tits," Jeanne Alter snapped at him. "It was one nameless Servant and a bunch of ghosts. Losing to that would've been fucking embarrassing."
"She wasted her last words on that nonsense?" Avenger grinned broadly. It wasn't a nice expression. He ignored Jeanne Alter entirely. "What hilarity! What a poor jest! Again and again, both with that noxious saint and now with her! I am not Edmond Dantès! I cannot be! It goes against my very nature as a Servant, a Heroic Spirit! The story of Edmond Dantès is over — the story of an innocent man who suffered, achieved his revenge, and was saved in the end! Salvation? What use have I for that!"
"They're right, though, aren't they?" Ritsuka asked. "Even if you don't have any use for it…Edmond Dantès is the name of the man who became the Heroic Spirit you are, isn't he?"
Avenger's grin vanished. "We're done talking. The end is upon us — as you must know, now that the seven judgments have been vanquished. This putrid hell will soon have served its purpose. All that is left is to leave this place and step out into the sunlight of freedom. However…"
Jeanne Alter sneered. "Yeah. Figured it was gonna come down to this."
Ritsuka had done his very best not to think about it…but deep down, he'd had his own suspicions, too.
"Yes," said Avenger. "No human has ever escaped Chateau d'If, with the exception of a single man. That this is merely a curse taking the form of that prison does not change that fact. Only one person may leave this hell. You or me, my temporary Master."
"What the fuck am I, chopped liver?" Jeanne Alter demanded.
"You are a mere shadow," Avenger told her dismissively. "An instrument of Master's will — a particularly mouthy familiar, if you'll mind the comparison. You have not lived, so you cannot die, and therefore you cannot be imprisoned in this place."
"Fuck you, too!" And then she blinked, face screwed up. "Wait. Are you saying I could have left this shithole anytime I wanted to?"
Avenger's grin seemed to be the only answer she needed.
"Why the fuck didn't you tell me that earlier?" she snarled at him.
"I'm glad you were here with me, Jeanne Alter," Ritsuka told her earnestly, and the honest gratitude in his voice seemed to throw her for a loop.
"Well…yeah. Of course you are," she blustered. "I'm a badass. There's no way you would've made it through this without me."
Ritsuka gave her a brief smile, then turned back to Avenger. "And what happens to whoever gets left behind? Do they just die?"
"The one who remains shall become the next Abbé Faria," said Avenger. "A pitiful soul whose life and death become a beacon of hope amidst the despair. A ray of light in this hell. A meaningful way to die, don't you think? There are certainly worse fates that may await you in the outside world."
Maybe there were, but Ritsuka had no intention of dying yet. Senpai, Rika, and Mash were still waiting for him back in Chaldea.
"Then I'll be sure to tell them all about how you helped me when I get back," said Ritsuka confidently.
Avenger grinned. "Indeed. Indeed! However, I have no intention of dying either, Master! Not now that I have this second chance, not now that I may at last do as I please! I shall make you the new Abbé Faria and leave this place, and you shall remain behind and die!"
Black flames erupted on his body, coating his limbs and wafting off of him in hazy waves.
"But if you truly intend to continue!" Avenger went on. "If you have not yet lost hope! Then slay me, Fujimaru Ritsuka! Slay me and continue on! To me belongeth Vengeance! I am the avatar of Pride, the Lord of the seventh Hall of Judgment! Fight me, and save the world! Hold nothing back! Fight me — and live!"
"With fucking pleasure!" Jeanne Alter howled.
And the fight began. Avenger versus Jeanne Alter, both of them wielding fire — one bright red and orange, one black and smoldering, both of them born of hatred and vengeance. Ritsuka stepped back and into the spot that seemed safest, watching and waiting, observing everything as he looked for an opening for Jeanne Alter to exploit.
It wasn't easy. The Hall of Judgment wasn't really small, but it wasn't large either. Ritsuka had been to a baseball game when he was younger, and saying the Hall was a quarter the size of that stadium would probably have been way too generous. It was still enough room that he didn't ever feel like he was in all that much danger of the fight spilling over into his little corner of safety.
The fight moved very fast, which made it all the harder to keep track of everything, but it was nowhere near as fast as Aífe and Scáthach had been and Ritsuka had watched Avenger fight six battles now. Not only had he gotten a solid grasp of how Avenger fought, he also knew him enough to tell that Avenger was slowing down.
And they could take advantage of that.
It didn't make things easy by any stretch of the imagination. Even with Ritsuka pointing out moments for Jeanne Alter to take advantage of, even with the two of them working together and putting everything they had into it, Avenger was still a powerful enemy and was still incredibly fast and hard-hitting. The battle wound up much closer than Ritsuka would have liked it to be.
But he had already overcome four Singularities. He had already faced down many enemies that felt insurmountable, up until the moment where they weren't. Even if Senpai had been leading the charge, Ritsuka had learned enough at her metaphorical hip to put it to good use and overcome Avenger, too.
It required having Jeanne Alter use her Noble Phantasm as a feint, but their time here together had smoothed out their rocky relationship, and she didn't even hesitate. Avenger escaped with his own Noble Phantasm, putting on a burst of speed — and running straight into Jeanne Alter's sword.
"Got you," Jeanne Alter breathed. Victory crowned the words.
"Heh." Avenger's head dipped, and he put a hand on the blade of her sword as the flames coating his body faded. "Amazing. Your time as my temporary Master served you well, Fujimaru Ritsuka. Haha! Yes, this is incredible! Truly, truly incredible! Just this once, even one as wretched as I…was capable of guiding someone to victory. Just this once, I could be a tiny ray of hope to an innocent person trapped in hell. Abbé Faria…was this how he felt that day?"
"Huh?" Jeanne Alter drawled. "What are you yapping about?"
"Nothing that concerns you."
Avenger stepped back, pulling himself free of her sword with a meaty squelch, and as it came out of his body, his form flickered with static. When he pressed his hand against the wound, it came away red and slick with blood.
Ritsuka took a bracing breath and cautiously went over to join them.
"Avenger."
Avenger grinned. "Yes! You understand, don't you, Master? That's right! I am Avenger! The Count of Monte Cristo!" Despite his wound, his grin only grew broader as his body started to flake away. "And I guided you to victory, just as you guided me to victory! I, who was born of Edmond Dantès, I, who never had the chance to know the victory he tasted or the peace he found! Together, you and I found victory in this place! This hell, crafted for you specifically by the King of Mages!"
King of Mages? Wait, wasn't that…
"King Solomon?"
Avenger hissed as though he had just said something terribly offensive. "Fool. Don't allow your victory to addle your senses. Speak of him if you like, but do not use his True Name so carelessly, lest you bring his attention down upon you. This one taste was more than enough, don't you think? The next time, perhaps you may not be so fortunate to have someone like me there to save you."
Speak of the Devil, and he shall appear. Although it seemed a lot more literal and a lot less funny now.
"He was the one behind this, then?" asked Ritsuka.
"Yes," said Avenger. His body flickered again. "When you killed that second Demon God, he peered through its eyes like a lens and cast his gaze upon you. You, who was responsible for its death. You, on whose orders the final blow was given. He decided on a whim to punish you for your insolence and cast you into this pit — heh! Hahahaha! Too bad, King of Mages, for this was the result! Your callous plot was foiled, because you chose poorly! You chose me to be your instrument! Fool!"
Avenger's grin showed all his teeth. "And now, you are free, Fujimaru Ritsuka! Free of this prison, free of this hell! Free to go forth and save the world!"
"Finally," said Jeanne Alter. "I'm ready to get out of this shithole."
So was Ritsuka. This whole thing had been rough, and it felt like he had barely finished with the last Singularity before being thrown into this place to fight for his life. He was ready to get back to Chaldea and have a chance to properly relax.
There was just one thing he needed answered before they went back.
"What about you?" Ritsuka asked Avenger. "Are you just going to disappear?"
"Do you mourn me?" Avenger asked. "Me, an Avenger? Me, a spirit of vengeance? Hehe…hahahaha! Then if you wish to see me again, Master, there is only one thing you must do. 'Attendre et espérer.' Wait and hope!"
And as Avenger himself faded away, so too did the walls and the torches and the prison around them. Chateau d'If vanished, and Ritsuka found himself staring up at the ceiling of his room in Chaldea, blinking against the sterile fluorescent lights.
"Senpai!" Mash cried suddenly, and the whole room — Fou, Rika, Da Vinci, and Doctor Roman — all whirled about to look.
Shakespeare grinned down at him from the foot of his bed. "Welcome back, Master!"
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
NOTES
This one wound up being...a lot of summary of what Ritsuka went through inside of Chateau d'If. I was surprised and a little frustrated that so much time was spent on that, but I tried to make it more engaging, and I think that was what made it balloon a little bit past my expectations.
Well, the big event is passed, so maybe now that things aren't falling apart, the team can finally get a chance to relax before London. They should be so lucky, right?
I do have a few things I want to get through before we hit the next big main plot section, so there're still a few chapters left before we get to preparing and deploying into the next Singularity.
There are, of course, still one or two more Prison Tower sidestories to go, so expect those on the SV and SB threads, as well as AO3, but the next two weekends are vacation time for Christmas and New Year's. The story will return at its regularly scheduled slot on January 6th.
This story and this chapter brought to you by my wonderful supporters, whose kindness and generosity have made it possible to devote so much of my time and attention to writing, especially Eric, s22132, AbyssalApsu, and Alias 2v10. You guys are absolute legends. To show my gratitude, they had the chance to read this and upcoming chapters before the public release. You can find out more:
James_D_Fawkes (P a treon)
As always, read, review, and enjoy.
Next — Chapter CXXII: Parole Party