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Chapter Text

Premise: The process of Arjuna Alter reclaiming his humanity forces Arjuna to examine certain things about himself.

Or

Arjuna doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel watching another version of him cling to the master like some overgrown shoulder cat.  

Ship: Arjuna x Ritsuka Fujimaru (F) x Arjuna Alter

The Problem with Lilies 

Arjuna has heard about him of course. The Final Dark God who reigns over the fourth Lostbelt, Yugakshetra. A warped mirror version of him ruling over a warped mirror version of his once homeland. The idea boggles the mind. But in this place called Chaldea where they fight the end of the world, apparently, it’s just another, albeit hard day. 

Regrettably, he wasn’t actually there to witness the entire thing firsthand. By sheer practicality, it was decided that the Master would zero sail into the Lostbelt with only a handful of companions and then contract the stray servants summoned by the world in that same Lostbelt to make up her fighting force. It is an expedient tactic because any servants summoned by the world itself are surely the best fit for defending Human History against their divergent alternatives, for all that it denies Arjuna his rightful place in defense, and in witness, of that other version of him. But as always, ever the ideal hero, Arjuna keeps his peace, stays at home base, and awaits the Master’s triumphal return. 

And she does, in tatters and with yet more scars to add to the constellation on her skin, as she always has done. And following in her wake is him. 

“My existence is to destroy evil. All evil shall be judged,” declares his dark Alter as he trails behind a frazzled-looking Ritsuka, floating inches off the ground and bending to hold her hand. 

It’s not every day that Arjuna gets a look of himself inside a funhouse mirror. It is his face… and his body. But it’s also a face and body that has been scrubbed clean of any traces of life. Immaculate and perfect, without a single scar or mark that time has left on Arjuna. Inhuman. Godly. Him in the best and worst way possible. 

Arjuna stands there in the foyer of Novum Chaldea, his mouth parted open as he observes his Alter, momentarily at a loss for words.  

“Hi, Arjuna! Bye, Arjuna!” croaks Ritsuka as she trudges past, looking decidedly dead on her feet. “I sleep. Now. Talk later, bye!” 

Incredibly, his alter follows her down the corridor, around the turn, heading to, what Arjuna assumes, the Master’s bedroom. The thought sends jolts of alarm through Arjuna’s mind. Beyond the fact that it’s highly improper - the Master is the Master, but the Master is also a young woman and if a version of Arjuna can be accused of improper conduct with her, it would be as if Arjuna himself is to take that fault too - is also the fact that this version of him is… was… the enemy just a short time ago. He grips his bow in hand and makes to follow them, but an equally frazzled-looking Mash stops him halfway. 

“It’s fine, Arjuna,” she says timidly. “Senpai can handle it, I’m sure.” 

“You all nearly died fighting him,” counters Arjuna. He has watched some of the records of the fourth Lostbelt, the small bits that they managed to capture through wave interference. Even with mere glimpses, it is clear the kind of firepower at the disposal of his Alter. It is not the kind he wants anywhere close to the Master, let alone within arm’s reach in her private space itself. 

“And he died fighting us,” replies Mash in that same deceptively mild tone. “This one. He’s not… quite like how he was in the Lostbelt. He materialized right after the fourth Lostbelt collapsed. Da Vinci says he has less of the gods in him. Perhaps he wants to…” she pauses for a short moment, still barring his way through the corridor and to the Master’s bedroom, where his Alter could be doing gods know what to the Master. Arjuna frowns at the Demi Servant. 

“Senpai says perhaps he wants to reclaim his humanity,” says Mash, her statement finally giving Arjuna pause. “And so long as she is his master, she will honor his wish.” 

Arjuna purses his lips, contemplating the new information. His Alter, he does appear very… inhuman, doesn’t he? Mechanical, one can say. But then, the way he trails behind the Master speaks of a decision fueled by things other than pure rationality. Arjuna would know. It’s him, and it’s not him. But the part of the Master wanting to honor Alter’s wish, no matter how useless or frivolous, that part rings true to the woman Arjuna knows. 

“Won’t you at least accept Senpai’s decision on the matter?” says Mash as she eyes his fisted hand on the stem of Gandiva. Arjuna looks past her, thinking of things the worst part of him would do in the presence of the Master, and the best part of him. 

“Very well,” he says finally as Gandiva dematerializes from his grip. “But I will be keeping an eye on things.” 

“I’m sure Senpai will be glad to have you looking after her,” says Mash as she gives him a small, tentative smile, her enormous shield dissipating along with Gandiva. 

So he does, watch, and think that is. This other version of him, ponders Arjuna, has to have come from that time when he bore the name Kiriti and wielded the mantle of heaven in the place of his father. It has to have been from that time. Because from no other chance could he have usurped the authority of heaven so completely.  

The next day Ritsuka emerges from her room, Arjuna’s dark Alter following behind her, and she sets about acclimatizing him to Chaldea, as she does for every new servant that joins. That means training and ember farming. And Arjuna, as it happens, is on the team. 

“I think it will be good for him,” says Arjuna’s beloved Master to him before they enter the Chaldea Gate. “to have you there. It might remind him he was once human.” 

You are too kind, thinks Arjuna, to even consider the comfort of spirits long dead. But the logic is there, and it allows him to be near should issues come to the fore. Besides which, it is… fascinating… to watch this other version of him, another him that could have been had things turned out differently. 

The first thing Arjuna realizes is that there is very little that is human in his Alter. 

“Gandiva. Target sighted. Fire” 

“Collapse.” 

“Break.” 

Then once he has finished carpet-bombing the poor Divine Arms and absorbing the Embers that materialize out of their atomic remains… 

“Physical performance improvement verified. Correcting excess…” 

It is as if a machine is puppetting a body molded after Arjuna. A war machine at that. There is no hesitation nor consideration, only perfectly mechanical execution of the Master’s orders. And the sheer power! If there is one adjective that can be used to describe Arjuna Alter’s sheer damage output, then it would be disgusting. It doesn’t matter what sits on the other side of the battle line, should the Master order it, Alter would crush it wholly and completely. 

This is the him that gave up his humanity and memory for absolute power, thinks Arjuna. It is both fascinating and sad, and not just a little alarming. Alter is how far Arjuna could fall… can fall. He cannot say he is not tempted. But on the other hand, what is the price for that power? What else has he given up besides his humanity and his memories? Because clearly, there are other things missing here. There is so little of Arjuna left in Alter, so little human. No wonder he was so easily manipulated by evil.   

“You must utilize me like a weapon without a will”

Yes, no wonder he was so easily manipulated. There’s nothing left in there but power and Arjuna’s mad drive for a perfect world. His best and his worst, brought to the fore with the contrast dialed up to maximum. All of this wrapped up in a divine shell. Arjuna cannot say he is entirely unaffected to see another him reduced to such a state. Perhaps the Master is right to intervene, if only out of kindness.  

“Makes ya think, don’t it?” The blue Irish lancer stops by one day to gander. 

“I beg your pardon,” says Arjuna, peering at him over his half-bitten apple in the half-time between the Ember Gate and the Berserker Class Training Ground.

“Your Alter,” clarifies lancer with a languid shrug and jerk of his head, gesturing at the other Arjuna, who is floating behind Master like an oversized pet. 

Right. This one too has other versions of him running about. Another younger lancer version of himself, a caster, and finally a Berserker. One that was created from a Holy Grail no less.

“It’s either seeing the worst part of yourself, the best part of yourself, or the parts that are embarrassing and ya don’t want to think too much about… all of that made manifest in a way that you can’t deny. Makes ya think. What other parts of myself that I didn’t care to look too closely at? And will it show up one day wearing my face? You and I are hardly the only ones with alters running around,” says Lancer. 

“Your Berserker version was created from a grail answering the wish of a licentious queen. You had no part in his creation.” He is even somewhat similar to Arjuna’s Alter, an awkward marriage of pure power and the worst personal flaw of the original version with very little else of the man left. And just like Arjuna’s Alter, he too schemed to harm the Master. 

“That he was,” Lancer agrees amicably. “But I also can’t deny that he was made based on me. Medb made him from what she liked about me best. What does that say about how others saw me? I can look at him and think. Man, if I ever have the worst day and decide I have lost my mind, then that would be the thing to come out.” 

Arjuna frowns, thinking of the implications of Lancer’s words. It is a known fact that alters and their original versions rarely get along even inside the halls of Chaldea. Some have even been known to try to murder the originals. The Dragon Witch comes to mind. So do the dark female king and her numerous blackened counterparts.  

“Well, ya don’t have to think too hard about it. How you take it is really up to you. As it is, he’s helping the Master and staying out of trouble. It might be weird to look at him now and then, but it don’t have to be worse than that.” Lancer makes to get up then, seemingly having said whatever he wants to say, and starts to turn and walk away. 

“Least he’s not a Lilly,” he throws in like an afterthought, just before he clears the threshold. “Alters might be tough to deal with, but Lillies would just be downright embarrassing.” 

Lilies? Ponders Arjuna as he gets up from his seat and prepares to enter the Class Training Ground. Images of a much younger him float around his head. A younger Arjuna with all the awkward boastfulness of a mortal child yet to come to terms with his divine parentage, eager to please and equally eager to make troubles, well before he honed himself into the perfect hero he is. Arjuna finds himself agreeing with the Irish lancer. Yes, that version of him would be mortifying to have around. Whatever one can say about the Dark God, none can say he is an embarrassing sight to behold… even when he trails behind the Master like a particularly murderous lost child.  

.

.

.

The Master keeps at it for weeks, patiently and meticulously overseeing training battles with Arjuna’s Alter, then feeding him materials to further along his Ascension in the hope that it might galvanize humanizing growth in him. 

“Physical performance regression verified. What does this mean?” 

It’s doing… something. That much is clear as Alter’s more inhuman traits slowly recede. Whether the change is positive is something entirely though. 

“He is weakening,” comments Arjuna one day to his infuriatingly resolute Master. “The more human he becomes, the weaker he gets.” 

She nods without really looking at him, her eyes resting on Alter’s form as he slowly absorbs the floating Embers.   

“His strength comes from his divinity,” she says almost absentmindedly. The lightness of her comment puts a frown on Arjuna’s face. 

“And you are alright with this?” He presses. 

“Hmm… why wouldn’t I be?” she blinks, turning away from Alter and looking at him at last. Arjuna takes a second to enjoy her undivided attention before explaining. 

“A weak servant is of little use to you,” he states matter-of-factly. “A servant that grows weaker as he ascends is… perhaps not a servant you would care to devote time and investment into. It makes no sense for you to continue on this course if all it does is render him of less and less use, even as he is… as you put it… reclaiming the man he once was.” Especially when the perfected form of that man is already standing right here beside her. 

“Arjuna!” Ritsuka gasps, as if Arjuna has just said the most ridiculous thing. This close, he finds his eyes sliding between the soft curves of her face and the slender column of her neck with a fondness he is not about to disclose to just anyone. She purses her lips, her brows furrowing in thought. 

“Am I wrong?” 

“You are not,” concurs his Master. “But… even so, this is what Alter wants.” 

“This is what he wants?” he says, unable to keep the incredulousness from his voice. 

“I know it,” says Ritsuka with the certainty of a woman declaring the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. 

“Even at the possible expense of your mission?” presses Arjuna. He is not blind to the enormity of his Master’s task. It is already so much more than what he achieved in life. She seeks to upend gods and fight for the whole of humanity. It is a task that even Arjuna would recoil from. And she is so much… less… than he was… is. Incredibly, the Master trudges on, stubborn and resolute to the point of insolent. She has already laid low the gods of Scandinavia and India. He quietly wonders what other sets of gods will Ritsuka deny when next she takes to the field… and what price she will have to pay for such weighty triumph? 

She appears to be thinking his words over. “Yes, even so,” she looks at him and then at his Alter, whose skin is growing into a vaguely human shade, whose hair is darkening from white to gray, and whose horns are shrinking minutely. “If it’s just a matter of power,” she says, light and wistful. “Then it wouldn’t be me who is standing here. That I have made it this far is thanks to more than the strength of arms of those who stand by me. There’s more to you, all of you, than just parameters and powers.”

Arjuna’s master inexplicably has a way of looking at them… at him… that makes him feel like more than the shadow of a man long dead. He is both told and knows by the instincts of a Servant, that this is not the case for other Masters. It doesn’t make the weight of her gaze any lighter, nor the unseemly heady elation filling his chest any easier to rein in. One of these days, he thinks, one of these days he will hold her gaze and not feel like wanting to be more than the imprint of the venerated dead, like he can transgress the line between Servants and Masters. 

“If I cannot go above and beyond for my servants, then I have no right to expect them to do the same for me. Well, that’s what I think anyway. I know it’s not exactly a popular viewpoint among magi,” concludes Ritsuka with an easy, self-deprecating grin.

“You will commit to this course then. There is no changing your mind.” 

“Nope,” says she, the ‘P’ popping from her lips.     

In the face of such determination, there is nothing else Arjuna can say. 

“Very well,” he declares mildly. “It will be as you wish.” 

“No change. Continuing system corrections” announces his Dark Alter like the punch line of some cosmic joke. 

.

.

.

It’s by the third Ascension that the glimpses of an alternative Arjuna finally peaks past the overwhelming divinity in Alter. His form has changed considerably now, to the point that there is minimal divergence between the body of Alter and the body of Arjuna himself. The same form, the same shade of skin, the shape of his face, the color of his eyes, even the hair which has grown short and darkened, although Alter’s is just the tiniest bit messier, as if his hair is permanently tousled by some invisible wind. The only differences left are the horns, which now more resemble sharp feline ears, and the dragon tail sprouting from his back. He has also put on more clothes, which Arjuna deems of acceptable quality for another version of him, gold regalia and greaves.  

He is less powerful - his annihilation beam only reducing enemies to charred clumps instead of atomic dust - in exchange for seemingly more finesse in executing orders. 

And finally, Alter is actually seeing Arjuna, as if he has, at last, noted their shared name, origin, and appearance. His eyes, no longer vacant, would linger now and then as they cross paths or fight in the same training team. 

He cannot deny it is engrossing to watch something finally coming to life within that once empty divine shell. Arjuna is curious to see which aspect of him will take the helm once Alter reclaims more of his lost humanity. 

The bulk of Alter’s attention still rests on Master, however, and he hasn’t yet stopped trailing after her, although he speaks less of exterminating all the evils of the world. And then one day…

“What do you… desire?” 

They are standing in the command center, discussing the particulars of an upcoming ranking mission with the little Da Vinci and the Demi-Servant Shielder when Alter floats before the Master, looks her in the eyes, and delivers this question. 

“Eh?” 

“What do you… desire… Master?” repeats Alter. There is something different in the way he looks at Arjuna’s Master now. There is a presence in those eyes that was not there before. An intention. Curiosity, wonder… 

“You seek no compensation for your goodness…” 

Now he has the attention of not just Master and Arjuna, but also the little Da Vinci and Mash. This is new. He hasn’t ever talked of other things aside from evil, annihilation, remaking the world, or urging Master to make use of him as her personal Sword of Destruction.  

“The steps you take have no hesitation” 

He floats close to Arjuna’s Master, bends so that they are at eye level. The proximity sends jolts of wariness through Arjuna. But his Master seems to share none of his concern. She appears transfixed by Alter’s sudden bout of eloquence. Eager even. She leans into Alter, until there is only the span of a hand between them. 

“You embrace both suffering and sadness… you simply look straight ahead…” 

Alter cups both hands around Master’s face, his grip uncharacteristically tender. It occurs to Arjuna then that for all that he hovers behind Ritsuka all the time, this would be the first time  Alter initiates physical contact with the Master. The thought is startling even to him. 

Alter goes quiet for a second, seemingly lost in thought, unbothered by the palpable anticipation from Master and Da Vinci, and the concern from Arjuna and Shielder. Reflexively, Arjuna grips his bow, thinking of possibilities. But before he can put much more thought to his nervousness, Alter breaks his momentary silence. 

“That is… beautiful…” 

The intensity of his gaze on Master leaves little room for doubt on who he is referring to. Almost immediately, a fluorescent flush spreads its way across Master’s features. She chuckles abashedly, her small frame shaking.  

“Awww… thank you! I think you are very handsome too, Arjuna.” 

Arjuna is dimly aware of the little Da Vinci’s amused titters and Mash’s relieved sigh next to him. The entirety of his attention is riveted on Alter’s face, which is suffused with what he can only describe as pure, untainted adoration.

Oh, he thinks with a sinking, complicated feeling. So even another him, the mangled leftover piece of another him inside a divine vessel, is also now held captivated by Master.  

He seeks to speak with the Master in private on that same day, anxiety jumping about like live frogs in the pit of his stomach. 

“Why do you let him touch your person with such liberty?” 

“Whatever do you mean?” hedges his sometimes infuriating Master. 

“It is not…” proper, he thinks in the privacy of his mind. Arjuna has never allowed himself to touch the Master in such a way. “... safe.” It’s not even a lie. Arjuna’s Alter is a Berserker of overwhelming power, for all that he has diminished since the day he stepped foot into Chaldea. Should he wish to, even the slightest touch from his littlest finger is enough to render Ritsuka’s soft mortal body into atoms. And Berserkers… there is no reasoning with them. Madness is built into the class container itself. 

Master’s face softens with gratefulness. 

“Thanks, Arjuna, for thinking about me,” she says earnestly. “But I will be fine. I trust Alter. It’s another you, after all. And I definitely trust you.” 

Infuriating, stubborn woman, screams Arjuna in his head. But outwardly, he maintains the image of the perfect hero. 

“Besides which, I think it’s good for him.” 

“Allowing him…” to touch you when I won’t… “...liberty with your person is good for him?” 

Master chuckles abashedly.

“Haha! When you put it like that, it does sound silly, doesn’t it?” And then with utmost sincerity. “But I really do think so. Arjuna, you should have seen him back in Yugakshetra. Before Pepe came, he was alone. The only existence of his kind. And even after, I don’t think he held anyone the same as him.” 

Why would he? Thinks Arjuna, when he is already made from the mold of perfection. If Alter is anything like him, and if the events of the fourth Lostbelt are anything to go by, then yes, he is him, then he would be beholden to the same impossible ideal. 

“How long has it been, since he touches another human? So yes, I think it’s a good thing. It probably reminds him of a time before he became… well… that… So what if he gets a little touchy-feely? I don’t mind, especially if it helps him reclaim himself. I deal with Kiyohime all the time, after all. It’s hardly any difference.”

The difference, thinks Arjuna, is that he is another him. The difference is that he wears Arjuna’s face. And the sight of himself so unrestrained in her presence, with perhaps nothing held back, is putting thoughts and emotions into Arjuna that he is not sure he is equipped to deal with.  

“And… don’t you think that there’s something… different about him?” 

“Different… how?” 

“Doesn’t he seem… young?” 

Arjuna blinks, caught flatfooted at the sudden revelation. He has been so focused on the divine nature of Alter and the world-breaking power at his fingertips that he has failed to realize something so blatant. 

“Right? You see it too, right? It’s not just me!” Master exclaims excitedly, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Alter is younger than you, Arjuna! He’s not just your Alter. He’s your Lily!!”

Arjuna dazedly watches that last word drop from Master’s lips and reverberates down the empty corridor where they stand, sending echoes every which way. 

Lily.

Arjuna has a Lily. 

Chapter Text

Premise: The process of Arjuna Alter reclaiming his humanity forces Arjuna to examine certain things about himself.

Or

Arjuna doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel watching another version of him cling to the master like some overgrown shoulder cat.  

Ship: Arjuna x Ritsuka Fujimaru (F) x Arjuna Alter

The Problem with Lilies 

What is the problem with Lilies? 

Just as with Alters, Arjuna is hardly the only servant in Chaldea with younger versions of themselves running around, and in the basest sense, Lilies are just another rarer subtype of Alters. But there is also a fundamental difference between the rare Lilies and mere Alters. 

Without fail, the existence of Lilies is tied with either shame or nostalgia. 

A Lily is the younger form of the adult servant. In other words, Lilies represent a point their adult selves can never reclaim or a point where they never want to come back to. They are either foolish and boastful youngsters, i.e. an embarrassment for the adult servant, or the idealized dream of a happier, more innocent time which the adult servant can never again return. In summary, they are pains of differing stripes. Either paradise lost or walking source of mortification.  

The gorgon and her little self are good examples of the first. The conqueror king and his teenage self represent the second. In either case, they hold the same kind of dynamics. Awkward, difficult, painful. In one previous singularity, the gorgon was even killed by the hands of her younger self. 

As for Arjuna’s very own surprise Lily… 

“Oh… this is…”

Once more, he is undergoing metamorphosis. This is the third ascension, and whereas before only glimpses of his humanity can be seen, with this milestone, it can be said that he straddles the line between being the child of gods and the child of humans. And that human half… 

“Master…” Alter’s eyes find his Master among those who gather around him. No, it is more accurate to say that his attention almost never wavers from her. For all that he is slowly but surely reclaiming the man he was, people other than Arjuna’s Master… and sometimes Arjuna himself… might as well be set dressing to him. “It appears that my mental state is becoming more human. My physical performance may be regressing, but…” For one who has repeatedly proclaimed himself the Master’s personal sword of destruction, Alter doesn’t sound particularly bothered by his decreased usefulness. If anything, he sounds downright happy. “... for some reason I still feel like I am overflowing with power.” 

… That human half has fixated itself firmly on Arjuna’s Master. 

“I’m glad, Arjuna,” says she who must be oblivious to the naked adoration coming from Alter. At her words - and her smile - Alter… Arjuna has no other words for it… preens like a child glutting himself on the praises of his beloved. 

Arjuna was once like that, wasn’t he? 

The third of Five Bright Flames. Divinity encased in blessed mortal flesh.     

But for whatever reasons it is, standing now on the sideline, he feels only a complex draught of sorrow, envy, and disquiet. He is seized by a terrible premonition, watching another, younger, untainted version of himself be drawn into the inescapable orbit of her brightness. What is it that draws the both of them to this absolutely ordinary human? What alien alchemy catalyzes her inexorable pull on all those who are contracted to her? It is certainly not her look, nor her strength, nor the sharpness of her wit. Is it her willingness to embrace not just ugly humans but also flawed gods and avowed devils? If that is so… then does that mean that this version of Arjuna and that version of Arjuna both wish to be drawn into her embrace? Both the man and the god then desire to transgress the boundary between Servants and Master?   

Ah… but what a heretical thought that is for one who has passed into the Throne. Arjuna lives to serve now, as one of the venerated Dead. Serving faithfully should be his only pleasure. So then, why do such heretical thoughts light his heart on fire? And why is it that watching his other self drink up the Master’s attention with such naked joy angers him so?    

Which is it? Paradise lost? Or the Disowned Past of a once foolish youth? Which one is he? 

He watches his Alter’s eyes linger on Master’s face with a tenderness Arjuna doesn’t remember ever openly bestowing on anyone saved for… perhaps… his own mother once upon a long time ago, long before he encased himself in the golden cage called ‘hero’. He feels his guts clench with what can only be mortification and for a moment almost wants to yell out from behind the Master. 

Don’t… stare at my face like so. I cannot bear this shame. Don’t get too close. Or I might have to kill you. 

But it’s not just Arjuna’s Master. His other self is the one who is leaning in with an open face that seems to invite her to come close, that seems to invite her to commit every part of him to memory. It is obscene. It is wretchedly shameful. It is Arjuna’s naked face without the placid mask of heroism that he has glued on ever since he comprehended his fame as the Endowed Hero. And it is looking… staring… at her with brazen want. 

Arjuna is gripped with terrible, murderous lust. His hand trembles for the arrow which he will bury into his lovely Master’s bosom.   

“Master…” he hears himself say in a voice so much calmer than the tumult in his heart. “The day is late. Might I suggest finishing up Ember Rounds tomorrow?” 

He speaks no lies. The day is indeed late, and he sees the signs of fatigue in Master’s strained shoulders, the minute trembling of her knees. Her stomach chooses this time to announce its presence in a long, drawn-out growl. 

“Waa!!! Hahaha… Well! Ahem…, that was… totally not me! Yeah!” she flushes with embarrassment, takes a step back, shakes her hands, and thus the moment is broken. Alter glances at Arjuna as if he is only now realizing Arjuna is there… has been there this entire time. 

“You are right, Arjuna. My bad! I got carried away. There’s no rush. We can do this again tomorrow. We have all the time we need. Yep!” 

The Pseudo-Servant Support Caster of their farming team for the day chooses this moment to step between them. Shooting wary looks from Arjuna to Master to Arjuna’s Alter, he chews on his cigarette, blows out a puff of smoke, and declares in the most exhausted put-upon voice he has ever heard. 

“Yeah… I don’t want to be caught in… whatever this is…” 

With three long strides, he is out the Chaldea Gate and heading in the direction of the cafeteria. 

“See you tomorrow, Master. Try not to blow this place up with your nerf-bait cat boys.” 

Master stares after him in befuddlement. 

“Did I say something wrong?” 

“I do not read the minds of Eastern strategists, Master,” replies Arjuna with his head inclined and his hands gripped tight behind his back. “But if I might offer advice. Perhaps some food will help. No army marches on empty stomachs, after all.” 

“Good idea!” She says, just in time for her stomach to make its complaint known again. The flush on her face spreads down her neck and goes all the way to her decolletage, the bit that is visible through the open V-neck collar of her mystic code uniform. “Hah! That’s… um… still not me!” Snapping her fingers, she declares. “Last one to the cafeteria gives the first one their Emiya’s Wednesday Banana Triple Cream Deluxe Eclair!” Before racing out the Gate and down the lit corridor in the same direction Caster has fled to. Alter follows close behind her while Arjuna brings up the rear in a sedate manner. 

On Wednesday, Emiya serves Shrimp Scampi Linguine with a garlicky cream sauce and freshly sliced lemons. Servants have no need for food, but some of them partake anyway, for the joy of life it brings or just the communal experience among fellow venerated heroes. Arjuna usually doesn’t, or if he does he prefers to do so in the offtime when few other servants or Chaldea staff members can be found in the cafeteria. The isolation brings him comfort. Today, for all that they run later than dinner time, there’s a crowd anyway. Arjuna’s Master barrels right into the thick of it, chattering happily and calling out for Emiya. Alter… in a move that clearly divides him from the original, follows suit in her step. Servants part ways for him, wary, curious, and bemused at his presence. 

Arjuna chooses a seat in the corner not too far away, where he has a full view of Master amidst her satellite rings of servants. In the interplay between, he tries to bring calm to his clamorous thoughts. 

There is no need to be bothered by such trivialities like a Lily, he tells himself. Whatever he is, it does not take away the exemplary conduct of Arjuna himself. Alter is Alter. Arjuna is Arjuna. The one is not the other, for all that they once shared an origin. If Alter chooses to present himself like a clinging, greedy child grasping at a shiny bauble, then that’s his choice, and such a choice has absolutely no bearing on…

Two benches away, Alter, who seems to have retreated into his godly side in the face of so many other servants, gathers himself into the air beside Master, hovering not unlike a giant, reclining feline. His draconic tail, which peeks from under his royal blue half cape, hangs lazily, the tail end curling in possessive grip around Master’s waist. 

Oh…

All the screaming thoughts in Arjuna’s head go curiously silent. 

Master… doesn’t seem to have noticed. Or she has noticed but has been made jaded to such flagrant intrusions on her body by the likes of Kiyohime and Hassan of Serenity that she allows it anyway. But that doesn’t mean other servants have failed to take note. On the far side of the room, that other man grips the haft of his spear, casting a long look that drags between Alter, Master, and Arjuna. He is not the only one. Rama too watches the exchange from his seat next to lady Parvati, and though the smile on his face has yet to disappear, Arjuna would be blind to not notice the edge in his eyes as he glances Master’s way. In the doorway, Ashvatthaman stops and stares with his mouth agape. Ganesha crashes into his back not a moment later, almost dragging a wide-eyed Lashkmibai with her. 

Not that Alter cares. Because for all he is concerned, it’s as if only he and Master are in the room, so complete is his focus on Master. 

And Arjuna’s oblivious Master… what is she doing? She is eating and chattering away, like there isn’t an Ultimate Half-God of Destruction floating about her person. He is almost wrapped around her for all that the tail is the only part of him that is directly touching her. 

It is… 

… shamelessly profane… 

It steals Arjuna’s breath from his lungs… to watch one who wears his own face so close to her, so… so… undisguised in affection… in the face of all the attention he is getting. But it doesn’t stop there. 

Master is not usually a messy eater, for all that her flaws are many. But today, whether because of exhaustion or excitement, there is a smear of cream about the size of a pinkie at the edge of her mouth, and it is this smear that is receiving the totality of Alter’s focus. In a slow, languid move that will, from this moment forth, replay itself endlessly in Arjuna’s mind for the days to come, Alter leans in close from the side as if to kiss her. The tip of his tongue appears from between his parted lips, and he drags it across the cream smear in the same manner of a cat lapping up milk. In the ensuing total silence of the cafeteria, Arjuna can even hear the wet slick he makes as erases the smear from Master’s cheek with one big wipe.

No one says a word as Master blinks at Alter in rapid succession, her fork with strings of spaghetti wrapped around it hanging halfway between the plate and her face. 

“... Arjuna…” she says finally. The sound of his name coming from Master’s lips is like bullets crashing into Arjuna’s ribcage. But Alter doesn’t even care. He is eye-level with Master now, with a serene look about his face. 

“Are you…”   

Rama puts a hand on the pommel of Brahmastra. Parvati puts a hand on his shoulder, makes a motion that more or less translates to ‘wait’.

“... hungry?” 

Incredibly, Alter appears to be pondering her question. 

“Do you…” says Master once more, now with obvious excitement in her voice, the very same excitement when Alter first showed signs of a personality beyond his godliness. “Do you want to try eating?” 

She spears a glazed shrimp with her fork, holds it up to Alter, and without waiting for an answer from him…

“Say Ahhh” 

Alter looks at her, then at the cooked shrimp dripping with garlicky cream. He opens his mouth, and though he makes no sound that can be heard from Arjuna’s position, he would not be surprised if Master does indeed hear the tiniest, breathiest little ahh from the mouth of that other version of him. In any case, she doesn’t wait a moment longer. The shrimp, and the few strings of spaghetti, go in. Master watches Alter chew with ponderous slowness. She is almost bouncing on her chair.  

In the background, Arjuna, who is slowly turning to stone in his seat, is dimly aware of the current incarnation of Ganesha making a most undignified ‘squeee’ noise while gripping a gawking Laksmibai’s hand. 

“So? How do you like it?”

Alter swallows, tilts his head, then makes a tiny little nod while emitting a ‘hmm’ from his closed mouth. Apparently, that is more than enough for Master, because a happy smile blooms on her face. 

“Arjuna is a good boy!” 

What possesses her to say such ridiculous things, Arjuna does not know. What he does know, however, is that he is surely coming apart at the seams. There is something in her voice. There is something in the way she so sweetly and indulgently says his name. It is this thing that is making its way through his head, down his throat, and constricting itself around his thundering heart. Has she ever… ever… called Arjuna in such a way? And why… why is he thinking of such things now? Why does it matter? Why does it make him feel like… 

Stop, something in Arjuna’s head is screaming while desperately clamping down on everything else. Stop! But it’s failing.  

He is only vaguely aware of attention snapping his way a split second before the bench which he has been sitting on, the table before him, all the plates and cutleries on that same table, the floor, the light fixture and ceiling above, and everything else in a two-meter circuit of Arjuna… go up in a roaring explosion. 

There are yells and cries and the sounds of footsteps and weapons rattling free off scabbards. Arjuna calmly stands up from the charred remains of the bench. Bolts of lightning arc around him in a furious nimbus. He sees Master’s alarmed face in the crowd. 

“Excuse me,” he says with far more composure than he really feels, brandishing a piece of cracked, dirty, and smoking dishware in an incredulous Emiya’s way. “The food does not agree with me today.” He doesn’t wait for Emiya to answer, just pushes the piece of shattered porcelain into his hands, then walks past the now yelping archer to head for the door, every step he makes leaving blackened footprints in the steel tiles. 

.

.

.

What is there to say after such an embarrassing outburst? At least he hasn’t made too much of a scene himself? Or that people might forget the event preceding his rather explosive reaction? Of Alter’s obscene display on Master? One can hope. 

In any case, it is clear to Arjuna that he needs time away from Master… and from the other him, if only so he can gather himself and reconstruct the proper appearance in the company of others. It is a good thing that Chaldea sees fit to grant its servants their personal quarters. As frivolous as the idea may be upon first glance, granting space to what amount to walking, talking weapons of humanity, Arjuna finds himself quietly appreciating the solitude it offers. 

Master seems to understand too, because the next day there is no summon for Arjuna’s presence in the daily farming party. Instead, he is left to his lonesome, with only his thoughts for company. And think Arjuna does, long and hard about Master, about Alter who is his Lily, about his own unseemly conduct in the face of Alter’s misbehavior. 

Once upon a time, Arjuna would have scoffed at the idea that someone other than his own cursed kin could arouse such a reaction out of him. Once upon a time, he would not be so bothered by the sound of his name coming from the lips of mortals, would hardly care at all in fact, if some woman called out to him in terror or want. Once upon a time, might be he would have greeted Alter with appreciation, because there is in him what Arjuna has lost a long time ago. 

Innocence. 

The charm of all the Lilies everywhere. And isn’t that too a thing to be celebrated? To be envious of? Alter embodies the carefreeness Arjuna has long since surrendered. That him who once upon a time would reach brazenly for whatever his childish heart set upon, that him who had no care what others thought or asked of him, who had no need nor want of the mantle of heroes. To be so free… how good it must feel.  

Alter should have just been Arjuna’s Paradise Lost. 

But he isn’t. Because if he were, Arjuna’s heart would not have run high and dry at the sight of Alter wound up so wantonly into Master, his lips would not curl in anger nor jealousy, his skin would not flush in sorrow and dread. 

The him that he longs for but can never be again. The him that makes him want to cast his eyes away in embarrassment and never speak of. The bright, free child burning unapologetically with the spark of divinity thundering in his ribcage. The foolish, insolent little boy who imperiled his entire family for the empty toasts of strangers and the hand of a princess that he did not even want. That boy is Alter. The brightest, most unbothered, and probably happiest version of Arjuna, but also the one who poised to bring about tragedy by the sheer unthinking nature of his actions. 

And what tragedy can Alter bring about now? 

Arjuna thinks of Master then, of her mortal body and the constellation of scars and marks on her skin that grows every time she takes to a new aberrant universe. The beating heart that unites the legions of heroes of Chaldea is nothing more than mortal flesh and bones, fragile and fallible and more than anything else in this place, needs to be handled with care. But Alter would hardly do that, would he? He is a thing of infantile desire. For all that he speaks of Justice, he only speaks of it in terms of annihilation and the eradication of all evil. If one day, he is to speak of love for the woman who is their Master, Arjuna knows with absolute certainty, he would only speak of love in terms of absolute possession. He would have no care if she breaks like so much glass in his god-strength grip, or if she suffocates in his embrace. 

Arjuna knows this in his bones. 

After all, Arjuna walked this road before, in a time when the world was different, and he alive. That road too ended in heartache, did it not? If only of a different kind. 

.

.

. 

He doesn’t sleep, for fear of drawing Master into his nightmares. The whorls of his dark thoughts are the only friends he keeps. 

Sometimes, he thinks of his cursed kin. He stands amidst a field of mud and dead bodies, in the seventeenth day of war, pulling the string of Gandiva until the muscles in his arms scream. It is the last Pashupata he fires, because it is the first he fires in dishonor. The arrow takes the head of the man he thought he knew, but does not know at all. When dusk comes, he sees his mother stumbling about the corpses with her hair undone and tears from her eyes, frantically looking for something.

What are you looking for? he says to her. 

Karna, she says. 

The charioteer’s son? 

Your brother. My firstborn, she replies, and in so doing breaks his world and his pride. 

He carries the arrow with him until he dies on the back of the Himalayas, before he reaches the threshold of heaven. He carries it now, in the throne of heroes. His penance. 

But then in the gathering place of heroes and gazers of the stars comes a mortal, ordinary woman with a smile that disarms the gods. And for reasons he can’t comprehend, he feels he can entrust to her what he has borne until the day he dies and beyond. That trust is reciprocated in turns. She walks into his black nightmare, gazes into the shameful face of the man beneath the mantle of hero, and chooses to stand by his side. From that day on, Arjuna swears to wholly devote himself to being her servant. A weapon in her hand. A shield, a companion, a shoulder to lean on should she ever ask it of him. But he would not ask for more and he would not give her more than his gratitude and his allegiance, for he is a mockery of a man who can only love and hate in shades of obsession. Should he attempt to give her more of himself, he will surely break her. 

But Alter has no care of this. Krishna has yet to blossom in his heart and brings with him dark deeds and dark thoughts. Alter does not - yet - think of Master in twin thoughts of lust and murderous intent. 

Master… does not deserve that. He is unworthy of her. Mockery of a hero that he is. Either version of him. He thinks then of killing the other him, before he can reach for Master and shatter her in his overzealous grasp. He can do it too, probably. It would only take his own unlife in payment. 

 The third day comes and passes. Emiya drops by Arjuna’s room bearing a tupperware container after evening time. He thrusts it unceremoniously in Arjuna’s face when he comes to open the door. 

“I made no request”, he says evenly. 

“No, you didn’t. This is from the Master.” 

He frowns, and lets the container hang in the air between them. 

“She shouldn’t have wasted her time. Servants do not need to eat.” 

“You know how she is. Convinced she did something to upset you, so she insisted on sending her apology. This here is the apology. I only helped a little. Take it.” 

He hesitates, which prompts the Archer Spirit to smile sardonically. 

“Or would you rather I take it back to her and relay to you how the missus feels upon being rejected by her beloved servant?” 

… Well… when he puts it like that. Arjuna supposes it’s nothing more than a triviality. If he can make Ritsuka happy by eating when he does not need to…

He takes the tupperware into his own hand, pops the lid open. It’s laddu, golden and flecked with flakes of coconuts and pistachio. It’s still warm. The heat draws wet vapors in the inner walls of the container. He stares long and hard at it, his throat thick and swollen. He hears more than sees Emiya heave a great, big sigh. 

“Now you are going to have a staring contest with desserts. That’s where we are at, huh?” 

“You can always leave,” Arjuna bites back with more spite than he usually does. 

“Yeah, that,” Emiya shrugs, popping his neck. “Can’t do that til you at least eat one.” And when Arjuna spears him with a look, explains. “Nah, she didn’t put me up to that, but I feel I must, you know. You’ve been in there for three days, all holed up doing who even knows what. I understand why the missus might be worried even if I don’t think her worry is all that warranted.” 

“And that has to do with me how?” 

“Oh it has very little to do with you. I think you can take care of yourself. It’s Master that I worry about.” 

Arjuna supposes he can understand that. He is hardly the only servant who cares deeply for Master. Half of him bears that thought with pride, the other with gnashed teeth. 

“So that little bit that has to do with you. See. You just need to pick one of those cutesy little guys up…” Archer points at the Laddu balls. “... and pop it right into your mouth, then I can get out of your hair pronto and go report to the missus that her apology gift has been gratefully accepted. I’m sure that’s not hard for you, oh Hero of the Endowed.”

He holds up both hands in a placating gesture when Arjuna responds with an outright glare. 

“Okay okay… maybe I shouldn’t put it like that. Let me… rephrase it… I know it’s not easy watching a younger version of yourself makes a fool out of the both of you in front of people you care about. It’s worse when you can hardly stand the obnoxious little shit!” 

Arjuna cocks an eyebrow at the Archer Spirit. That sounds like he is speaking from firsthand experience, though Arjuna has yet to see an Emiya Lily running around anywhere.  

“You just want to punch the lil’ bastard in the face and make him disappear. The sight of him is enough to make you MAD!! Urghh! I know it. But you can’t, ok?” 

Emiya throws both hands up in a frustrated gesture. 

“You can’t. Because that doesn’t help anybody. And the missus needs all the help she can get now. You with me?” 

Arjuna nods slowly, feeling deja vu. 

“Yeah so… It’s hard. I know it. But you gotta trust the Master. You do trust her, right, Arjuna?”

He does. He trusts her with his life. 

“Yeah so, trust her judgment on this one, won’t you? Master has never led you wrong, hasn’t she?”

She hasn’t, for all that he doubted her at first, and doubts her still every time she extends her hand to the remnants of Beasts and Lostbelt Kings who once schemed to murder her. But they are at world’s end, so perhaps it takes an unlikely perspective to pull off unlikely results. 

“I know what they say about Lilies. ‘Specially ones like yours. But maybe… I don’t know. We are all our own worst critics. Take it as an opportunity? Maybe he’s not as bad as you think he is.” 

No, he is only as bad as to jump headfirst into insanity and drive a whole world into slow extinction over endlessly speeding Yuga cycles in the pursuit of an impossible perfection. But Arjuna gets the sentiment. 

Sighing in defeat, he takes a Laddu ball into his hand. It’s not as round and well-made as the ones he had as a prince of the realm, but it’s warm and crusty and it makes him think of the home of his childhood. When he pops it into his mouth, it breaks into a hot gush of fried dough and crunchy coconut flakes. It is sweet and rich and filling in a way he didn’t expect. 

Unbiddenly, he thinks of Master’s eager, smiling face as she watched Alter eat for the very first time. How her smile spread like honey across her tired features, in the process transforming an ordinary thing into something startlingly bewitching. 

Is this what Alter experienced? To be made to feel human and alive at the hands of this maddening, insolent human? To be brought to her level and freckled with lovely imperfections? 

A smile draws itself across Arjuna’s face like a bloody knife slash. Mad, unrestrained laughter bubbles from Arjuna’s lungs and makes its way up his throat and out his mouth. The force of its exit is so great it shakes his shoulders. Emiya gives him a long, considering look, and says once the laughter subsides somewhat.   

“You… uh… don’t happen to know this thing called Yandere… do you?”

“Whatever do you mean?” he says while shaking off the last of his sudden, delirious joy, hands clutching the tupperware container like Alter might suddenly appear from somewhere and steal it from him. 

“Yeah… uh… never mind. I did my part. So, see you around.” With that, he flees, leaving Arjuna once more to solitude. 

.

.

.

It is somewhere in the middle of the fourth day that he decides the Archer is right. He is his own worst critic, worrying about nothing at all. What is there to fuss about? He is Ritsuka’s servant. Hasn’t he already decided that long ago? If it is her decision, then he shall abide by it. Alter… is another of her servants. So Arjuna will abide him too, until the moment he should turn against Master. 

He floats out of his room this way, the lifted weight of indecision and confusion making him feel light and buoyant. He walks the halls of Chaldea with the now empty container in hand, meaning to return it to the cafeteria before heading to the library. It is halfway there that he is accosted, first by a furious Kiyohime. 

“YOU!!!” She points at him, eyes wide and teeth bared, every monstrous aspect surfacing on her face and body. Arjuna almost reaches for Gandiva before suddenly the dragon girl deflates into a blubbery sobbing mess. 

“I won’t forgive you! NEVER!!” she shouts through a curtain of tears and snot before running away in a different direction. 

What…? 

Then, as he turns from the cafeteria with empty hands, by a cold-faced Hassan of Serenity and her brethren assassins. In an uncharacteristic display very much at odds with what he knows of her personality and trade, Serenity stands in the middle of the lit corridor, barring Arjuna’s way to the library. 

“I acknowledge you,” she declares quietly but resolutely to a blinking Arjuna. “But if you ever hurt Master…”

… What?.. .

“I will walk to the end of the Earth to ensure you die as slow and painful a death as I can make.” 

Then she whips around and stalks off. 

“What she says,” comments the Hundred Faced Hassan before she turns to follow. 

“Walk carefully, Arjuna-Danna. We have no quarrel, you and I. But I will do my part should you not do yours,” cautions Cursed Arm before he too leaves to follow the other two. 

Then finally, impossibly, the First Hassan, the Grand Assassin who forsook his Grand title to impose the concept of Death on a deathless mother goddess, looms before him. His mere presence seems to dim the light and cool the air. This time, Arjuna does reach for Gandiva, before he freezes as the First Hassan’s contemptuous gaze pins him in place. 

What…?

Slowly, almost ponderously, the First Hassan brings up a hand, his middle and index fingers extending in a V shape. He points the V at himself, leveled with the glowing red eyes embedded in his black iron skull, then at Arjuna, and then back at himself again. All of that in one languid, deliberate motion. Then he too swivels on his feet and imperiously departs. 

… What… in the name of Indra?  

It is only when a singed-looking Count of Monte Cristo comes looking for him that Arjuna realizes the thing at foot with a sinking feeling. For all that he has been walking around all this time, he hasn’t seen hide nor hair of Master… nor of Alter. 

Oh…  

“You are needed,” says the Avenger curtly. Without waiting for Arjuna’s answer, he turns with a flick of smoking dark coat and stalks down the hall in the direction of Master’s bedroom. 

Oh…  

Arjuna follows him wordlessly, his body growing colder and his feet heavier the closer they get. Mash stands at the beginning of the hall turn, barring the way with her shield. When she sees him and the Count approaching, she purses her lips and angles to the side to let them through. The Count stops beside Mash, pressed close to the wall and leaving room for Arjuna to come through. He makes a jerking motion with his head. 

“Go in.” When he sees the hesitation that must be written plain in Arjuna’s face, he adds with a grimace. “Neither I nor Mash has been able to pry Master from your Alter’s hands. You are the only one who has a chance.” He spears Arjuna with a look that would have curdled milk. “Unless you want us to call on your other brother.” 

He is through the both of them and mere steps away from Master’s door before the Count can even finish that sentence. His body is ice, but his head is roaring thunder. The door slides open at his approach, and slides quietly close as he clears the threshold. 

Inside, the light is dim, but he sees bare figures entwined in a mess of torn sheets. They are not moving, either of them. 

Ahh… 

His heart is a screaming storm now, and its hammering beat inside his ribcage is drowning out every other noise. He doesn’t quite hear the soft breath that lifts her naked chest, nor the low, contented purr of his sleeping Alter. 

Enkidu and Shamhat. He has been told their story, of a weapon of the gods bestowed the gift of humanity in the arms of a sacred prostitute. For six days and seven nights, Shamhat clothed him, fed him, loved him, showed him the joy of being human. On the eighth day, Enkidu took her form and discarded the order of the gods behind him. 

But Alter is no god-forged weapon. Buried underneath that shell of divinity and shattered psyche is still a man. And Ritsuka is no Shamhat, shouldn’t have to be Shamhat out of some misguided extreme sense of responsibility to all those who serve her. 

He must have made noises, because she is stirring underneath Alter, who is wrapped tight around her even in sleep, her head turning slowly and eyes searching. 

“Dantes, it’s fine. He’s gonna let go eventually. You didn’t have to…” 

She sees him from the corner of her eyes, yeps in surprise. 

“Arjuna?”  

“Yes, my Master…” he hears himself reply, voice rough and trembling.  

“Can you… uh… not… point Gandiva at Arjuna?” Is Gandiva pointed at Alter? How curious. Arjuna doesn’t remember having materialized it. 

A shrill sound halfway between a laugh and an aborted scream comes tumbling out of his mouth before he can clamp down on it. Master is turning to look at him now, her face twisting in worry, one hand brushing tangled sunburned locks from glazed eyes. Now he sees her in full. There is nothing at all covering her gloriously ruined body, nothing but the equally unclothed form of his other-self. In the dusty light of this enclosed, previously hallowed space, she looks as though she has slipped free, gleaming and naked, from Arjuna’s most secret dreams. The sight of it is bringing forth some black part of his mind. 

“My master… wHaT…” someone must surely be speaking in the place of Arjuna, because he doesn’t recall ever having sounded like that before. Low and brutish and darkly furious. “... diD hE Do to yOu?”

He feels strangely detached from his own body. Like he is merely a spectator as some other force moves his hands, his mouth, his eyes. 

“Arjuna…” the sound of his name dripping from her mouth is like bell tolls. Maybe he is in a dream. 

“Won’t you please sit down?” 

No, he won’t. If this were a dream, and he was beholden to none but his most selfish, most unheroic and filthy hunger, then he should like to come by her side and put a hand on her finally. He should like to put his mouth on her lips and drink until he is full, and put his teeth to her honeyed flesh and eat until he is filled. 

“Arjuna… I’m not made of glass, no matter what the Count likes to think.” His gaze slides down the length of her body, settling on the marks of a bite here, a hand-shaped bruise there. “So maybe I should have stopped things before it… got a little too far. But to be honest, out of all the stuff that has happened to me in the last…” her eyes unfocus as she recalls memories of the past. “... four years and counting, another version of you getting physically curious is about the best thing to ever happen. He didn’t literally put his hand into my guts and rearrange things like Shuten Doji did. So I count this as a win. Honestly…” 

Somewhere along the line, Arjuna’s vision has gone blurry and his face gone hot and wet. He is closer to her now, although he doesn’t remember moving. He is close enough that should he lean down, they would touch. Close enough that the shadow cast off his frame engulfs her. His mouth is still moving, his hands still gripping the handle of Gandiva, his knees shaking. Words come spilling from his mouth in trembling, guttural snarls.

“wHaT… are yOu sAying… my mAsTer?” 

But she only sighs, laying her hand on the back of Alter’s head, which lies on top her bare chest. The command seals on the back of her hand shine a bloody red. 

“I’m saying, Arjuna… that you… and you…” her fingers twirl the messy strands of Alter’s hair. “... are hardly the first… complicated… servants… I have contracted with.”

Surprised laughter tears itself from Arjuna’s mouth like a dog’s bark. But she doesn’t seem at all surprised, only looks at him with eyes too tender for one so despicable. 

“What I’m saying is… you can hold my hands if you want to. Yes, even the you right now…” 

Now the mad laughter takes him in full. So do the hot tears that come gushing down his cheeks and drawing wet splotches on her rumpled bedsheets. Arjuna kneels and crouches low until his forehead is nearly touching hers. Their eyes are leveled this way. 

“Why are you like this?” he says now, with his own mouth. “How are you like this?” 

“I am the last Master of Humanity,” says she easily. 

“You are a mad woman,” he says as if it is some great secret he is not supposed to talk about. 

“Maybe,” she agrees. “But, don’t you love me this way, Arjuna?” 

Just like that, it is as if someone has pulled back the veil. Arjuna sits in stunned silence, pierced through the chest by her declaration. It is as she says isn’t it? This woman who stares down the gods and denies their authority, who walks with him down the endless spiral of his mindscape and stands beside as he lays to rest his shadowed self, who sees his true face and accepts him regardless.  

The living shadow cast on human history by the hero once called Arjuna loves her. 

Suddenly he feels light and faint, as if a mountain has been lifted from his shoulders and his bones made hollow. He lays down his head next to her on the bed, their noses touching. He threads his fingers through her hair, luxuriating in things he has denied himself for so long. She smells of sweat and wet skin. Her hair is soft and smells of peaches. Her body is warm under his fingers. He can tell all the scars on her by touch, for he has had years to catalog them in his mind. The corners of her eyes crinkle in a sweet smile.   

“I do,” says Arjuna finally. 

……………………………

End.

……………………………

And then Ritsuka, Arjuna, and Arjuna live happily ever after in perfect matrimony… or until the Count of Monte Cristo barges into the room with Scathach and all the anti-divine servants in tow to demand the Arjunas vamoose post-haste and allow Master to actually rest. 

So ends a character-study piece on FGO Arjuna. Now I shall start my next FGO oneshot featuring Ritsuka’s valiant attempts at making Karna put on some pants pretty please.

In about two weeks, I will post an illustrated piece of the scene in which Ritsuka feeds Alter her shrimp scampi. 

Chapter Text

Commissioned grayscale illustration done by https://www.facebook.com/hatrang.le.77715 

It’s 99 percent close to what I had in mind of the scene. The only thing that is slightly off is Ritsuka’s expression. In the story, she was nervous in a positive, anticipatory way at Junaoh’s first human experience after thousands of years of being a mechanical god. But I didn’t communicate that across to the artist so here she is looking nervous but in a negative way. Ah well, it’s 99 percent and I’m super happy with how it turns out! 

Initially, I was hoping to get the more risque scenes of the story illustrated but since this was my first time commissioning artworks for my non-professional writing, I didn't want to overdo it, so I settled for this scene which is much easier to do. Finding artists that will illustrate NSFW materials is a more delicate task after all. It will be something of a long-term thing.