Content Warning: Brief first-person description of suicide

Stop The Sky From Falling

Kur, Underworld of Babylonia, some day

Deep in the bowels of the Underworld of Kur, in the central chamber of the dark Temple of Ereshkigal, Ushiwakamaru dropped to her knees and genuflected before its queen's looming throne, saying, "You called for me, Goddess, and I have come." Her unflinching voice was a sharp counterpoint to the soft, ceaseless wailing of the and chain-rattling of the caged spirits that dangled in the darkness.

Ereshkigal gazed down at her from her perch on the throne. The huge black slab of a seat should have looked too large for the prim little goddess, but she sat in it with such unconcern that instead it served as a reminder that she was far grander than she appeared. "Good, you're here," she said. "I have determined that you are due additional punishment."

If Ushiwakamaru were still a newcomer to Kur, that statement would have worried her more.

When she'd found herself drawn into the Babylonian Underworld after her defeat at Uruk instead of simply being returned to the Throne of Heroes, Ushiwakamaru had felt… well, not afraid as such. Definitely not! But she had been… concerned. Dreary darkness aside, the spiked iron cages hanging everywhere in the cavernous expanse implied a certain degree of vindictiveness on the part of its queen. What was worse, Ushiwakamaru had to admit that her brief but memorable bout of omnicidal mania had probably earned her quite the punishment.

Not that it had been her idea in the first place! Mostly.

Deserved or not, Ushiwakamaru had not been looking forward to an eternity of darkness and torment. However, she quickly learned that Ereshkigal's idea of perdition was not so terrible as all that. She couldn't have said whether she'd been in Kur for days or decades, but the worst that had happened so far was that she'd been the subject of repeated mild beratement by Ereshkigal, alongside the occasional order to help hang a cage in a hard-to-reach place, or patrol the shore of the Abyss for spirits about to wander over the edge before they could be safely caged.

Sometimes she had to fight off the uncomfortable feeling that she ought to be treated worse in her afterlife.

Either way, her fate was entirely in Ereshkigal's hands, and Ushiwakamaru resolved to bear whatever punishment was given to her with grace. With a sharp bow of the head, she said, "If that is your judgement, Goddess, then of course I accept it!"

"Is that so?" Ereshkigal shifted in her seat, trying not to look surprised. "Well… good. It's nice to see you know your place."

"May I ask what my punishment is to be?"

"You may." Despite Ereshkigal's quick reply, she didn't seem to be quite so ready to answer. She drummed her fingers on the arm of her throne before going on. "Under ordinary circumstances, the aid I already rendered to the travelers from Chaldea would be all that I could do for them. After all, they operate out of a time long past the age where we gods can affect the world directly." Her voice firmed. "But Solomon, the one who caused all this trouble, operates from a location outside of time. When Chaldea confronts him, I will be able to assist them without straining causality… too much."

By the time she was done explaining, Ushiwakamaru's eyes had gone wide. "You are going to Chaldea's aid?"

"I am!" Ereshkigal pouted - adorably, in Ushiwakamaru's opinion. "Well, you are."

"Goddess…" Ushiwakamaru tried to think of a good response. Preferably a good response that would not require her to encounter the people she'd tried to betray and murder. "I am not sure I am worthy to give them aid."

"Of course you're unworthy! You tried to kill him!" Ereshkigal snapped, then leaned back and composed herself. "Admittedly, you humans always treat death as much more terrible than it really is, but it's the principle of the thing! So, you must be punished. I think this is more fitting than the old meathooks-and-flaying penalty... Though I might be convinced to revive it if Sister continues crowing about how she's going to go kill all his enemies herself in person - really, she just likes rubbing it in! Such a b…" The Queen of Kur cleared her throat daintily. "Such a bother."

"At any rate, you and your friend the monk shall represent me. I will merely deliver you to the battlefield and then return here." The goddess looked distressed at that, but she quickly mastered herself. "You will remain to assist Chaldea to the best of your ability. Once you have accomplished that… your punishment will be complete, and you need only return here if you wish."

Changing the subject away from Ereshkigal's sister seemed like a good idea. "Why wouldn't you go to help them, Goddess? Don't you want to see him again?" The goddess's crush on the Master of Chaldea was blatant enough that Ushiwakamaru suspected even the spectral gallu handmaidens knew about it, and from what she could tell they were barely sapient.

"Of course I do." Ereshkigal blushed even as she straightened in her stony seat. She tried for a stoic tone and came very close to pulling it off. "But I'd have thought that would be the sort of problem you'd understand. My mandate is to maintain the sanctity of the Underworld, not to use it as a trap for the Mother Goddess, no matter the reasons. I let my desires interfere with my duty, and not even I am beyond punishment." She raised her chin. "Punishment takes many forms. Yours is to go and assist those whom you harmed. Mine is to hold myself back from those I want to help."

With only the briefest pause, Ushiwakamaru nodded. "It shall be as you say, Goddess." What other reply could she make?

The Temple of Time, December 31, 2018

Ushiwakamaru wasn't sure whether she'd been fighting for hours or days. There was no sun here, no moon; the space outside of time was lit only by the circling ring of Solomon's light bands, dimming the stars above them and casting the landscape below into a harsh twilight like a noonday eclipse. Occasionally, the bleak landscape was brightened by the brief meteor-light of another Heroic Spirit arriving from above, but new arrivals were coming fewer and farther between.

Sinking her blade yet again into an enormous demonic tentacle, Ushiwakamaru reflected that her mission seemed very much in keeping with the Queen of Kur's idiosyncratic idea of punishment: a chore, rather than a torment. All she'd done since landing on this eldritch island out of time was fight the same dozen or so magic-spewing, curse-bellowing tentacles, and it was beginning to be a bore. Still, a duty was a duty, and her atonement was not complete until she'd done everything she could. She had been found wanting last time, and she would not allow that to happen more than once.

Slaying the horrors over and over served two distinct purposes: keeping them away from the Master of Chaldea so they didn't kill him, and keeping her away from the Master of Chaldea so she didn't need to figure out how to apologize to him. It was a shame that Ereshkigal had removed herself from the battle - unlike her sister, who could occasionally be heard cackling as she continued her strafing runs - but at least that meant there was no one there to reprimand her. There was just her, her sword, and a war that needed to be won, and she had never found those conditions to be troublesome.

And at least there weren't any Lahmu there. On second thought, she decided that was sort of a shame. It would have been cathartic to cut her way through them, and if anything in history needed slaying, it was Lahmu. No, on third thought, if she never had to see another Lahmu again, it would be too soon.

The Pillar she was engaged with roared something in a basso-profundo voice. Usumidori whirled in her hands, deflecting another volley of whatever awful magic this thing was spitting at her. She couldn't be bothered to analyze it; if she didn't let it hit her, it didn't matter, did it? Compared to the likes of, say, Gorgon-Tiamat, she found the Demon God Pillars lacking. They were dangerous in their overwhelming strength, but dull and predictable in their self-assurance and the complacency that came from knowing they'd return to life shortly after being slain. They definitely didn't enjoy dying, given how they moaned when it happened. Too bad for them. Still, most of them seemed to regard fending off an army of Heroic Spirits as something like pest control, rather than a real danger.

Her musing amid the violence was interrupted by a voice as familiar as her own - exactly as familiar as her own - shouting, "Oi! You! I would have words with you!"

Eyes widening at the sound, Ushiwakamaru cursed internally. Ereshkigal spoke true; punishment did indeed take many forms. Her mouth worked for a second before she managed to reply. "I am somewhat occupied at the moment!" she called back, steadfastly not looking away from her battle.

Another blade blurred beside hers, cleaving deep into the monstrosity, and the tentacle thrashed one last time before it sizzled away into thick, foul-smelling smoke. As the cloud dissipated, it revealed her own face glaring at her, above black-lacquered armor that her current Spirit Origin lacked. "Don't pretend that you can't talk and fight at the same time!"

Ushiwakamaru quickly glanced around, but the other girl's Master was nowhere to be seen. "What are you doing here?"

The Chaldean version of her folded her arms. "It was you, wasn't it." She didn't phrase it as a question.

Ushiwakamaru let out an exasperated breath. This was not a conversation she desired to have with herself. "Don't you have a duty to your Master to be about?" It was a weak play, doomed to failure, and Ushiwakamaru knew it as well as her accuser did.

Her double gave her a scornful look. "Mash and the others are perfectly capable of protecting my lord for a few minutes while we have a discussion about your failings, as long as we do our part to keep these monstrosities occupied. Unless you intend to slack off?"

"Of course not!" The gall of herself! Then and there she decided that she was Ushiwakamaru, scion of the Genji, and she was only going to think of this Chaldean version of her as Shana-O. If she was going to be an irritant, she could be known by the name she'd used at Kurama when she'd spent half her time deliberately driving the monks to distraction. Of course, it wasn't a real distinction - she was still Shana-O as surely as she was Ushiwakamaru - but she was irked enough not to care in the moment.

Her decision did not change the way the Chaldean girl glared at her. "Well then? What do you have to say for yourself?"

Ugh. Just because she'd spent a few days trying to kill everyone and everything didn't mean her other self had to come and chastise her about it. Had Ereshkigal set this up somehow just to make sure her punishment was real? Hopefully the loathsome demonic tentacle grew back quickly so it could distract them.

"...Very well, yes. It was me. The Queen of Kur took me in instead of releasing me to the Throne." Ushiwakamaru wasn't actually sure how that had happened, and Ereshkigal was not forthcoming about it, but like most mysticism the how of it was beyond her concerns. It was enough that it had happened, and she would rather be useful to someone than return to the Throne with nothing to show for it save shame.

Shana-O nodded once, mouth pursing like she'd bitten a yuzu. "Given your record, why should we trust you to help at all?"

From well behind her, Kaison - the same one who'd accompanied her from Kur - ventured, "Lord Yoshitsune… er, my lords… surely we should all work together. After all, we are here for the same -"

Still glaring daggers at each other, their voices snapped in unison. "Quiet, fool!"

The big man froze like a rabbit, then selected a huge tentacle monster that was significantly farther away - nearly out of sight, in fact - and charged off towards it, his war cry suspiciously quiet and unobtrusive.

Her counterpart cut her eyes sideways to watch him go. "So he didn't return to the Throne either." She snorted. "He, at least, might deserve to have gone back unpunished."

"I asked him to remain," Ushiwakamaru admitted reluctantly. "I could hardly not, given the circumstances. I was worried that I might… need his assistance again." Tiamat's taint might have been stripped from her, but corruption or no corruption, the reasons for her fury remained the same. In the moment, deciding to act on them had felt less like liberation and more like ceasing to lie to herself.

Shana-O regarded her with a mixture of wariness and reluctant empathy, and Ushiwakamaru was suddenly struck by how odd it felt to have someone understand her so deeply. If it had been someone else, she might have appreciated it, but of course, it had to come at the most frustrating possible time, and from the most infuriating possible source - herself. "I suppose 'Benkei' might finally have found a way to make his presence worthwhile, if he could stop you from disgracing yourself even more than you already had," the other girl declared.

Ushiwakamaru gaped at her, but before she could decide on a retort, the stony floor between them erupted in flesh. Once again, the enormous pillar of armored hide, eyes, and muscle streamed out of the stony path and lurched skyward. As it reached for the starry void above, it grew to tower over them like a prophecy of death. Its magic made the air shudder; its dreadful, reverberating voice spoke threats of agony and doom.

Frankly, Ushiwakamaru couldn't be bothered to pay attention to the obnoxious thing's ranting the first time, let alone now. Instead, she danced away from it, drawing her sword, and snapped back to her interfering other self, "I know he did! I am aware that my behavior was shameful! I keep telling you, I came here to make what amends I could!" She vented her frustration by darting up to the reborn Demon God Pillar before it had even begun to attack, unleashing a flurry of vicious cuts that made the tentacle roar in surprise and pain and sent ichor flying. "Oh, shut up, you!" she snarled at it, laying into it again.

"Oh, you are aware of the issue, are you?" The Chaldean launched her own attacks on the Pillar as well. If anything, her cuts were more furious than Ushiwakamaru's own, and the vile monstrosity reeled back, shuddering as it tried to regrow what she assumed were necessary bits. Shana-O shot Ushiwakamaru a look of disgust. "Are you aware that I had to apologize to my lord for your behavior?"

Despite herself, Ushiwakamaru paused, wincing. "How bad was it?"

Unexpectedly, the Chaldean girl flushed. "That… That doesn't matter! If it turned out to be less than dreadful, it was only due to my lord's forgiving nature!"

Ahhh, there it was. A snort of amusement escaped her. "And also due to his infatuation with you?"

The Chaldean's cheeks reddened, and she fumed silently without looking up for a second or two, then let out a piercing shout and carved her way through the tentacle again, just as it lurched back upright. This time, everything above the cut fell like an enormous tree, dissipating into brimstone and red sparks as it toppled. As the stump flailed around in fury and pain, she regarded it instead of looking Ushiwakamaru in the eyes. "Any feelings he has for me had nothing to do with the outcome of our discussion," the other girl said, still blushing. "How would you know anyway?"

There was no way to keep a smirk off of her face. "I was watching you two quite closely in Uruk. If even I can tell he was preoccupied with you, it must be quite something."

"It doesn't matter. He has been entirely proper about it!"

Ushiwakamaru frowned. "Entirely?"

"Yes!"

"...You have my sympathy," she said sincerely.

Her counterpart glowered. "I do not wish to speak of it. Certainly not with you."

Now it was Ushiwakamaru's turn to snort. "Who else are you going to speak to about it? Kaison?" Both of them made identical 'oh hell no' faces.

"Just because you lack confidants doesn't mean that I am without them," the Chaldean snapped. "Besides, I have no intention of letting that situation stay as it is." That was a bold enough declaration that Ushiwakamaru almost approved.

Before she could respond, the stump of their foe rallied again, regrowing part of its mass into a spread of smaller tentacles. It roared and thrashed and barraged them with magic. Wordlessly, they separated, turning and twisting between its strikes, cutting at it in tandem every time it left an opening, one blade cutting when another had to parry. It was easy, almost natural. Ushiwakamaru did not enjoy working together with herself, but she had to admit it was effective.

And then, because it was funny, and because it was true, and because it was the end of the world, and also because, justified or not, Ushiwakamaru did not at all appreciate this other version of herself taking time out of saving the world to chide her, she waited until Shana-O was in the middle of a complicated aerial dodge before she said, smirking, "I still don't understand what's so special about him, but after seeing him in that skintight outfit, I will admit that your Master has a nice ass."

Her counterpart nearly botched her landing, her head turning to face her so fast that her long tail of hair actually cracked like a whip. Cheeks blazing red, she yelled, "How dare you try to assassinate my lord and then admit to ogling -" A swinging tentacle blindsided her in her distraction and sent her bouncing across the temple stones.

Ushiwakamaru laughed, possibly a bit harder than was warranted. It had been a little mean-spirited of her, she supposed, but she had a hard time caring. She just couldn't seem to get along with herself very well. As the Pillar reared over Shana-O, Ushiwakamaru stepped forward and cut decisively - once, twice, thrice. For what had to have been the hundredth time, the Pillar froze, toppled, and once more burst into noxious vapor.

As Ushiwakamaru sheathed her sword in satisfaction, Shana-O leapt to her feet. She wiped blood from her lip and fixed Ushiwakamaru with the sort of empty look she reserved for an enemy she was about to kill. "I see you have not finished turning on your allies."

Unworried, Ushiwakamaru let out another laugh, this one short and sharp. "Who do you think Kiichi would have scolded? Me for taunting you, or you for falling for it?"

Shaken from her anger, the Chaldean tried to pretend not to be taken aback. Rallying, she snapped, "You of all people have no right to taunt me about my lord, betrayer."

Ushiwakamaru recoiled. Never, never in her life had that word been justified, though it had cut deep every time her brother used it. Now, though... Ushiwakamaru found herself staring sullenly at the cracked marble at her feet, trying with all her heart not to believe the epithet was accurate, and failing. "Perhaps you're right. But…" She cut her eyes toward her counterpart without raising her head. "How do you think your story with him will end? Isn't trying to stay close to him a betrayal, too?"

Without hesitation, the other girl replied, "I would never harm him!"

Turning further, she gave Shana-O a long, serious look. "You don't have to want to harm him for him to be harmed."

"Never!" The word came out more like a desperate oath than a statement of fact.

She clenched her teeth in irritation. Why would this besotted idiot not listen to what they both knew was true? "Did you live a life that wasn't mine? Of those we cared for, how many came to a good end?"

The Chaldean refused to look back at her. "Kiichi turned out fine," she started.

Ah, so that's what it was like to be the one listening to herself make feeble excuses. Ushiwakamaru cut her off before she could continue. "The fate of the King of the Tengu is hardly fit to measure others against! What of the rest? Mother was left behind with Kiyomori. Yoritomo turned the nation against us. Noriyori was executed, like our brothers, like Father!" With each name, she took a step toward her counterpart, feeling the resentment seethe in her. Shana-O didn't back away, but each name made her flinch. "At least Hidehira-sama died in bed, before he had to watch his sons kill each other to betray us! Kaison fled to save his worthless skin, and left Suzuki and Kamei and the other loyal ones to die at the walls. Benkei died standing at the bridge. And Shizuka -"

"Don't!" Shana-O's voice cracked with anguish.

Her mouth snapped shut. Fair enough, she didn't want to speak of Shizuka's fate either. If there was one person she could have spared… Instead, she tried again. "I am trying to help you both! Apart from Kiichi, how many of those we loved survived without turning on us? Who was spared from the fate we brought them? Come, count them with me! Name them!"

Silence was her counterpart's only reply, which was appropriate. After all, there were no names to be counted.

Of all the parts of this unwanted conversation, she didn't want to have this part the most. But how else was she supposed to help? How else was she supposed to stop her other self from repeating their tragedy? Yoshitsune's last memory flickered before her mind's eye, kneeling alone in a room as her friends died fighting for her outside. Her hands clenched on air, feeling her own hands holding the knife in her gut, covered in her own blood. She remembered the last thought they'd had before the darkness overtook her.

'I must have deserved it, somehow.'

"I… " The other girl swallowed, but with an obvious effort forced her fears down and took on a resolute look. Ushiwakamaru couldn't decide whether that was admirable or regrettable. "No. I will do whatever I must to keep misfortune from my lord, I swear it, but I will not abandon him. He promised he would let me fight alongside him until the end. So I shall."

Stung in a way she couldn't quite articulate, Ushiwakamaru gestured at the panorama around them. All there was to see was a bizarre hellscape of warring monsters, lit only by the apocalypse waiting in the sky. A few remaining hero-stars blazed as they fell, as if struggling to outshine Solomon's sky-spanning halo, but it was clear that more help was unlikely to arrive. "Then you had best leave me alone and hurry to him, for this seems very much like the end!"

Shana-O tilted her head back and looked up at the doom circling over their heads. Ushiwakamaru couldn't be sure, but the ring of light seemed to be spinning faster, as if gathering speed for some final, ominous purpose. Despite that, as the Chaldean girl stared at the sky the worry slowly faded from her face, replaced with a strange, smiling confidence which Ushiwakamaru didn't understand. "...No. It is not the end. My lord will stop the sky from falling," the other girl said, more to herself than anyone else. Then, still smiling, she dropped her head to look Ushiwakamaru in the eye. "And he shall need me at his side when he does."

Without another word, or even a glance to spare for her, the Chaldean dashed off down the twisting Temple paths, presumably after her Master. Ushiwakamaru watched her go, struggling not to feel resentment. To have such faith in her lord, even knowing it would all end in tears… "Lucky," she muttered.

A rumbling from beneath heralded the Pillar's regrowth, shoving aside the ruin of the previous one as it crashed through the floor. She closed her eyes against the shower of rubble as she turned to face it. When she opened them again, she gave the towering thing a smile in which humor and bitterness warred.

In the end, the humor won, if barely. "You again!? Hah! At least some fortune is still with me as well! I have much to atone for, and envy in my heart, so it would be ill luck indeed to run short of foes to vent my frustration on!" Blade in hand, she cast all her troubles and uncertainty out of her mind, and let her world narrow back down to the foe in front of her, as she had so many times before. On the battlefield, at least, there was no need for regret. "So, monster, stretch out what passes for your neck once more!"

Mash leaned on her shield and tried to catch her breath. Despite Galahad's Spirit Core bolstering her, hours of nonstop fighting had left her feeling drained. She was glad Ritsuka's team had the opportunity to take even a brief break, because they were going to need everything they had once they got moving again.

The Pillars were still fighting behind them, but she, Ritsuka, and the team of Chaldean Servants had finally broken past all of Solomon's demonic defenses, all of the horrible ranting tentacular monstrosities. The Heroic Spirits who'd come to their aid had done enough damage that Da Vinci was showing the bounded fields that had protected Solomon's Throne to be cracked enough to slip through.

She could see it now. Ahead of them, somehow both above and below the tangled geometries of the Temple, was an alabaster dais, and on it a throne that stretched toward the sky. Even from this distance, she could see the red-robed figure seated there. It was too far to read the expression on Solomon's face, but she was sure he was watching them with eyes full of empty intensity. She'd seen that face in her dreams, expressionless, yet somehow hiding some deep well of emotion she didn't understand then even as it asked her why she didn't fear death.

The vision she'd seen while Rayshifting in had helped her understand it. Century upon century of human misery, seen by a perfect Clairivoyance that couldn't turn away from it. would have been enough to drive anyone mad. To experience every human death, every moment of loss and pain for more than two thousand years… If Solomon had ever had a human perspective, he couldn't possibly have held onto it through that. He was a repository for all the misery of the human race, and she pitied him as much as she feared his intentions.

Trying to turn her mind from those morose thoughts, she watched Ritsuka as he straightened up from a quiet consultation with Blavatsky. Once again, he glanced back down the Temple path towards the still-raging war against the Pillars. He hadn't spent a minute without looking since Ushi had left.

"You know we can't wait much longer, Master," Blavatsky said, gesturing toward the circling bands of light. "They're moving much faster now."

"She's never let me down," Ritsuka replied. "She won't do it now. She'll be back in time."

Blavatsky just gave him a knowing look.

Ritsuka checked in with the rest of his team one after another. d'Eon and Kiritsugu both gave the expected quiet, stoic responses, and he moved on to talk to Heracles, muttering something to the titanic hero as if he was expecting an intelligible response. The sight of him patting the Berserker on the hip because it was as high as he could comfortably reach should have been comical. Heracles' glower didn't change, but she would have sworn she saw him straighten a little.

Then he was clapping her on the shoulder, looking weary but still determined. "How are you holding up, Mash?" From anyone else she would've taken that as a question about whether her rapidly declining condition was catching up to her. From him, it just seemed like he wanted to make sure she was feeling all right.

It was enough to fluster her. She'd seen it before, but it always amazed her how he could just… connect with people, Servants or not. He let them see that he cared, and they couldn't help but respond. Whoever had designed the Master candidate screening must have been a genius, because she couldn't imagine the Animuspheres selecting someone like him on purpose, and she couldn't imagine anyone else doing what he did. He really was an admirable senpai.

And maybe a bit more than that. She couldn't deny that she felt something for him that wasn't quite within the expected bounds of a Master-Servant bond, or for that matter a junior-senior relationship. He was an easy boy to… well, to like. Maybe if things had been different, they'd be closer. As it was, it seemed unlikely she was going to have time to find out. The thought left her feeling lonely, despite being surrounded by friends.

"I'm fine, Master. But Blavatsky is right. We need to get -"

A shout came from back down the path. "My lord! I have returned!"

There was something in the way Ritsuka turned to look instantly that made Mash the tiniest bit jealous. Just a little.

As Ushiwakamaru came to a halt before him, he said, "I'm glad you're back. Did you finish your business? Everything… settled?" Ushi hadn't mentioned specifics, and no one had asked, but everyone there had seen her other self fighting in the distance, just like everyone there knew where she had gone.

"Yes, my lord! It began quite poorly, but it ended up being a very satisfying conversation. " Ushi did seem even more vibrantly confident than usual, which was really saying something. "We may be the same person, but I am your Servant and she is not. And I much prefer being me."

Ritsuka waved at the winding path up to the alabaster throne at the Temple's pinnacle, and the distant figure sitting in it. "Even when we're about to walk into that?"

Ushi simply smiled. "You know how much I like a challenge."

Ritsuka laughed aloud, seeming more heartened by the simple response than was reasonable. The two of them smiled at each other for just a moment too long.

Almost to her surprise, Mash found herself smiling too.

Moments like those were why she was fighting. Because no matter how desperate things were, no matter how certain their deaths were - and they were certain, tomorrow or the next day or a hundred years from now - there was always, every second, the chance for a moment like this one to happen. It might happen to her. It might happen to her friend. It might happen to the boy she admired. It might happen to one of a billion people she'd never meet.

That was the Human Order. The legends she'd learned by heart were the jewels and embroidery, and the grand events that changed the world forever were the seams, but the fabric of the Foundation of Humanity was woven of ten thousand years of the small moments of meaning humans built between each other. Moments did not have to be momentous to be worthwhile. They all meant something.

Of course, she was going to die soon, win or lose. If not today, then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, then before the week was out. The only sign so far was a faint reluctance in her muscles, and a desire to lie down and rest that was more than balanced out by her desire to make the most of every last second.

Ritsuka looked around at his Servants, one after another. "Okay then! Anyone else got any last-minute business to take care of? Because we're getting pretty close to a literal last minute here."

Speaking of making the most of every second… If she really did feel jealous, then maybe… Maybe she could just hint at it? It really might be a last minute, especially for her. Gathering her courage, Mash started, "Senpai…"

Ritsuka turned to her with that unguarded look he gave everyone he trusted. "Yeah, Mash?"

She stopped and looked, really looked at him. She saw how his body was still turned, just a little, towards Ushi, how unconsciously aware of her he was. Saw how his smile had firmed up since Ushi had come back, how it was just a little more real now that she'd said she preferred being his Servant. Remembered how he'd finally gotten to sleep the night before with her help.

Ritsuka was her best friend, always supportive, always doing everything he could for her and everyone around him. He was her senpai, the person she looked to to learn what it meant to be human, to be a person who lived in the world and cared about the people in it. She knew he cared about her, too. But he already had a partner.

So she smiled back at him, and let go of the jealousy, let go of that dream. It hurt as it left, and she felt a little empty and sad, but a quiet pride rose up to fill in the space it left. She was Mash Kyrielight, Shielder of Chaldea, and she'd been battered worse than this. If she couldn't deal with a bit of pain to do right by her friends and comrades, she wouldn't be the kind of person she wanted to be in whatever time she had left.

Besides, she thought, lips quirking, I really don't want to be more like Dad, do I? She thought she felt a pulse of irritable agreement from the Heroic Spirit within her.

Instead of saying what she'd intended to say, she put on her most serious face. "I think we're all ready, Master." It was true. Despite the weariness and the ever-present aches, she'd never felt more ready. Never felt more herself.

His smile grew a little. "C'mon, you know I prefer Senpai."

Mash couldn't help but match that smile. She might not be his favorite, but she was still her friend's first Servant, and she would do him proud to the very end. She slammed her shield into the ground, making it ring like a bell. "Then let's do it, Senpai."

"Yes!" Ushi gave a fierce grin and nodded to her. Kiritsugu's expression didn't change, but he flicked his Contender's breech shut with a sound that signaled readiness to fight more than any words could. d'Eon raised their blade in a graceful salute. Blavatsky left her book floating in front of her, laced her fingers together, and cracked her knuckles. Heracles threw back his head to look up the broken road to Solomon's throne, and let out a defiant roar that shook the temple's stones all the way down to the twisting flesh beneath.

"I think the big guy speaks for all of us," Blavatsky said.

"That's good enough for me, then." Ritsuka said. He drew a breath, let it out, and started walking up the path toward the white throne. "Let's go make sure there's a tomorrow."

Author's Notes:
IT LIVES!

It's been literally two years since I last posted, holy shit. To anyone who was waiting, sorry for the wait. I'm only now feeling like my life has returned to something I can call normalcy, and self-indulgent stuff like this that takes up an unreasonable amount of my time just had to fall by the wayside until I could pick it back up again, but this is still a story I want to tell. Maybe even more now that the world seems to be headed swiftly down the tubes.

I want to thank everyone who commented on the fic. Every time I read and reread them, they reminded me that I like this story, and that other people also like it, and that it probably deserves to be completed if I can. I appreciate it. No idea what the posting schedule will be like going forward; I hope for 1/month or so, but that's very life-dependent.

Actual chapter notes:

Ereshkigal is one of my favorite Servants. I think the Christmas event with her is an excellent example of FGO successfully mixing serious emotional content into a goofy event. Perhaps one day I will get around to finishing my 'Ereshkigal sails alone across the Abyss to incarnate as a Chaldean Servant' fic, which currently exists as a bunch of individual paragraphs with nothing connecting them.

Yoshitsune's lover Shizuka-Gozen is not to be confused with Suzuka-Gozen of JK fame. (That story would have ended differently, wow.)

Glad I managed to slip a bit of Mash's perspective in here, even if it's kinda late in the game.

I'm not going to rehash the fight with Goetia, so this is the end for the Observer on Timeless Temple arc. The whole story's a bit more than half done, but the rest of it is going to be more original content and less 'stations of the canon', and also less anthology-esque. Some scenes will even (gasp) extend more than one chapter!

Unless plans change, the story will be over around Chapter 27-28, just before (or possibly just after) Agartha. Of course, I've been sitting on it for literally years now, so who knows how much will change?

The theme for this chapter is 'Battle Cry', by The Family Crest.

Rage against the waking dawn
Take the seconds of this life, and pull them through your palms
And watch the day break through the night
And watch it die
As we bend and break through time
Lover, you and I
And for this day, for all our lives
Oh, I will fight for you
I will die for you