"I just can't."
"Ritsuka, what do you mean?" I asked. I looked at his form on the ground. He looked so weak as he curled up into a fetal position, like he was afraid of the entire world. "Ritsuka, what happened?"
"AAAArgh…" He was weeping, sobbing out loud. He cried as if in intense agony. As if being tortured. He began smashing his head against the cobblestone road once more. Hurriedly, I held onto his shoulder, halting him. With this contact, I looked him over once more, he's physically fine. Anything wrong with his body— like the fact that his spine was broken— was quickly repaired with a single touch. Any severed nerves were reconnected.
Through the Divine Authority of Water, I gained insight into the placement of thousands of miles of blood vessels and trillions of cells that constitute Ritsuka's form. It would've been incredibly overwhelming to suddenly know the state of those trillions upon trillions of cells and bacteria, but I'm already familiar with vast numbers with my form of 'echolocation'.
With this insight, I saw how his brain chemistry is all over the place. He was incredibly stressed, more resembling the patterns that made up someone who had just experienced the apocalypse. Despair so severe that it's easy to push one into suicide.
"Damn it Ritsuka, calm down." I hissed. If needed, I will start having his brain produce gamma-aminobutyric acid, a chemical that's responsible for reducing anxiety. But again, I didn't want to do that unless it was necessary.
Ritsuka was fighting me. Clawing at me like a tortured animal. So I picked him up and enveloped the teen in a hug. Slowly, I could feel his erratic breathing slowing down, becoming more rhythmic. He didn't fight me anymore. He was finally calming down.
"What happened?" I asked after a while.
I let go. His eyes were still red raw from crying, and occasional fits of hiccups would seize his frame. Nonetheless, he seemed to have calmed down somewhat at least.
"I can't save human history from this incineration anymore, Kuku."
My first thought was how I didn't mishear what he said before. The second was, how? How did this happen? What could have possibly caused Ritsuka to think this way? The only time I recall him having doubts was during the aftermath of the Septem Singularity. Yet how did this doubt fully blossom into a crisis? I wondered.
"This world isn't worth saving. It's just so ugly that I can't… bear looking at it." Ritsuka couldn't meet my gaze, his words erratic, disjointed, as if his mouth couldn't keep up with his thoughts. "I can't save this world anymore. You have access to other worlds, right, Kuku? I know how you said you save worlds from their extinction, but this world isn't worth saving. There's just so m— much darkness! Go, go save worthier worlds that deserve your heroism. This world certainly doesn't."
My hands fell to my sides. I shook my head, "You know I can't do that. I'm a hero. I save worlds—"
"Even! E— even if you prolong the suffering of those who dwell within it? Isn't a mercy kill better?"
My hands twitched. The mention of mercy killing brought up memories of my first 'human' kill. I thought that by granting that young man's wish of a painless death, I was granting them mercy. But in truth, it was nothing more than me damning them to that Island. Sometimes, having perfect memory really sucks. Sometimes, I wonder, is he cursing me right now? Of course, he would be.
"I don't… I don't want such an ugly thing to persist."
I looked at Ritsuka as I would a stranger. He grimaced upon noticing the foreignness in my eyes. He looked away, preferring to stare at the depthless fog rather than meeting my gaze. What… happened? How could this come to pass??
I felt an awful feeling in my heart seeing how broken down Ritsuka was.
"Why don't you sit down and tell me what led you to this decision?" I said, gesturing at pieces of broken masonry nearby. Using my hand, dust flowed out of my palm as I smoothed the stone as if it were clay.
Ritsuka sat. His eyes were distant, his mind elsewhere. Silence stretched out like a piece of gum.
"Why don't you start from the beginning?" I asked as I took a seat on the masonry beside him. We were now almost seeing eye-to-eye. "What was the first thing that nudged you to this path?"
There was only silence between the two of us as the Last Master of Mankind collected his thoughts. I waited patiently, even knowing of the Rat King's presence. For some reason, I felt as though this was more important.
Throughout this silence, stints of hiccups would still seize Ritsuka's frame. The way he looked so vulnerable, his fingers entwined with the other, fidgeting about like a toddler dreading their punishment. Eventually, he met my gaze as blue stared into green.
"I saw a girl get raped in Constantinpole." He finally said, his tone was dead as if there was no soul behind the mouth, "She was younger than me. Much younger. She was barely developed, yet the soldiers were merciless. She used their swords to kill herself out of shame."
There was a long silence after that. Ritsuka's thumb wiped away the gathering tears around his eyes. He wet his dry lips and then said, "I saw a man fall to his death on Drake's ship. It was instant. Just one moment he's still alive, and then the next—"
He snapped his finger, "—he just falls to his death. Again, so sudden. I wondered why I am here? Inside a Singularity, risking my life when you're just gonna solve everything. Then I realized, it's because I don't want to be useless. I don't want to be a dead weight. The other Chaldean staff contribute at least something to saving history, whether in the form of them being able to aid in Rayshifting or Mash being a superhuman all by herself. Me? I am just… a simple human. I wanted to be useful. I wanted to do a fraction of what you did. Just a tiny fraction was enough."
Ritsuka's right hand came up. His index and thumb were extremely close together, yet never touching. "Just the tiniest amount would be enough."
He paused. A new font of emotions erupted out of him as his hands gripped. I didn't say anything and let the water continue out of the dam.
"I even trained for it. To be useful. I trained with Artoria and Iskander to improve my physical abilities. I trained with Director Olga to improve my magical ability. Funken," In his right hand, a series of sparks ignite, briefly lighting up Ritsuka's face like a flashlight. "My greatest spell. A simple lightshow."
He closed his hand, joy mixed with bitterness audible in his voice, "And I did do just that. Saving a single person. I managed to replicate a fraction of what you did by saving an innocent boy from the Rat King down in the sewers. I even did it using the spell I learned!"
His hands shook, "But it all blew up in my face. The boy whom I saved went and tried to throw me into the sinkhole, where I'd experience death so thoroughly that nothing would remain. An unimaginable fate. And then I was saved by a fucking aristocrat."
My first thought was that it was a mercy. Compared to the stagnant eternity offered by that Island of the Afterlife, absolute annihilation was a mercy. Then, my thoughts following that were about how I'm in a different world now, where the contexts are different.
"I don't see a point in fighting for human history." Ritsuka said, staring into my eyes, "I saw Nero's empire built on the backs of millions of enslaved people. Even almost 2000 years later, I saw the same despair present in the underclass of London. The way they would end the day with hands full of calluses, walk on streets covered in grime and filth caking the homes they return to in a second skin. They breathe in air mixed with industrial waste and the scent of sewage. I don't think you can honestly call the place they return to a 'home'. Home is where one's supposed to be safe, yet it'll be a miracle if every child of a family makes it to adulthood."
Ritsuka's hands intersected with each other, creating a net to catch his head as he leaned forward, "I… then tonight I saw how the elites lived. In such lavishness that it'll be comical if it weren't real. I think I ignored how the lower class lived back in Rome. It was easy, having been isolated in Nero's palace or sleeping in tents next to hers during marches. But now, having walked among those 'lessers' and 'greaters', I realized, truly realized… just how little humanity has changed. There is no progress. There is no… advancement."
Ritsuka looked at his hands, then around himself. He gazed up at the horizon hidden behind the fog. Was he trying to find something? Those industrial smokestacks? He then turned to the townhouses that flanked this street like the walls of a tunnel.
"Technology is a lie. Dressed in a different skin, humanity remains the same as it was thousands of years prior; human nature is a churning pot of cruelty grinding flesh and kindness to dust. Humans are beasts with 'clothing'. I know everything that I saw on my journey must be less than a billionth of the totality of suffering across all of human history. If this is the case, if it's so much worse than what I have seen, tell me, Kukulkan. Please, as a Goddess, tell me why should you or I let humanity persist? When you know there's only going to be more suffering if it lives."
His question was something I… shamefully engaged in as a thought experiment. If all humans are destined to end up in that Eternity, then why not sterilize all the remaining humans so no more would end up in that place? A monstrous idea. Yet such a solution… had its appeals. Should humanity propagate into the stars, countless trillions might be born and die, which means countless trillions placed within that Island. The utilitarian in me would agree with such a solution. But that's why we have a heart to counter the brain.
"Why not just… let it die?" Ritsuka finally let out. "Is that not a mercy?"
Ah… the two of us are really similar. Both of us are people with huge destinies ahead of us. Both of us are burdened with responsibilities that no single individual should be given. Though I wouldn't know, I think both of us recall the moment we signed on with our own Company (Chaldea), sometimes with regret. Sometimes not. Compared to having your flesh melted by the sun, the transformation of billions into those waxy, flesh blobs, the cruelty that human history offers is almost benign. But for Ritsuka, who hasn't witnessed When Day Breaks, all of this must've been too much.
I stood up, "Ritsuka… when you fought for Nero, did you or did you not fight for the slavery that built her empire?"
"Whu—?"
My hands placed down at my hips, "Ritsuka. When you joined Drake's crew, did you or did you not fight for the atrocities she'll eventually commit? The British Empire did contribute to the spreading of smallpox."
"What?! What are you—"
I ignored his question and barked out, "Ritsuka, when you fought for human history, did you or did you not fight for all the ugliness present within mankind?"
"NO!" He firmly rejected, looking almost betrayed at my insinuation. "No, I didn't fight for those things!"
"No, of course not. You didn't fight to save mankind so slavery can continue. You didn't fight for mankind so genocide can come again. You didn't fight for any of these ugly, ugly things that humanity tends to do. No, you fight against the incineration so you can see your parents again. You fight so you can see your friends. You fight so you can play with your old mecha figurines. You fight… for all that is beautiful in the world."
(AN: Play Moon Halo - Honkai Impact 3rd Valkyrie Theme)
I let it sink in. Allow him to digest what I said. I raised a hand and gestured towards him. "Thus, do you not see the meaning in your struggle? You focus solely on all the negativity of mankind, yet aren't humanity also capable of incredible things? Stuff like the Moon landing, stuff like kindness that other people have shown you. There is beauty alongside the ugliness. Do you deny that?"
"..."
I saw Ritsuka glance at pieces of shredded cloth a bit away. He stared at it as if it were more than simple cloth belonging to a dead human. Did it belong to that 'aristocrat' who saved Ritsuka? Given Ritsuka's state when I found him, the aristocrat probably tried to lure away those beasts and was killed.
"There is ugliness in the world, yes. I do not deny that. But I will deny that humanity hasn't advanced over the past 2000 years. Technology is not a lie. Bring a Roman peasant a thousand years into the future, and he'd wonder why everyone speaks a different language. Bring another thousand years and he'd be shocked by modernity. The average Japanese person lives in greater luxury than the Kings of the Middle Ages. How can you say there is no progress?"
Ritsuka waited for a moment to process my words, and then said, "Human nature remains the same. We are beasts cloaked in fragile civility."
"Yes, the core of humanity hasn't changed, and it's that unchanging core that's made everything better. The desire for beauty. The drive to attain greater prosperity. The dream of all parents that their children would live better lives than they did— all of that stems from human nature, from selfishness. Growing up, surely you've experienced your fair share of both sorrow and joy. Would you deny those yet born the potential to feel the joys you've experienced?"
I loomed over him almost like rain clouds. I placed a hand upon his shoulder, "Don't fight for something grand. That's the duty of a Goddess. Instead, fight for something human. Something selfish. It's okay to be greedy."
Ritsuka looked down at the ground. While his body sat in front of me, his mind was elsewhere, far, far away, pondering my words.
"But… I feel so useless. I feel like I should just stay put while you save the Singularities."
I replied, "I think it's wrong for you to try and measure up to me. It'll be like comparing apples to oranges, we are categorically different. I may look human, but I'm fundamentally not. Or at least, no longer. What's extremely difficult for you might be very easy for me. As such, while I could easily surpass what you did, it doesn't diminish your heroism. In fact, I would say it only amplifies it."
"How?" Ritsuka asked, looking befuddled, "That doesn't make any sense. How does me saving a single person measure up to you saving a world?"
"Who would you say donated more? A wealthy businessman donating a hundred dollars or a homeless veteran giving ten? Saving a single human for me is easy, because I'm not putting my life at risk. My abilities make it so I have a responsibility to save them if possible." I said, hues of emotions coloring my tone, "But for you, just being in a Singularity risks you dying. Even though you could've stayed put, you still tried to help. You managed to save someone. That alone takes incredible courage and heroism."
I stepped away, my back facing him as I stared up at the cloudy night sky above, "You can step away if you want. Leave everything to me. But like me, I have a feeling it's in your nature to help others. You won't stay back, won't turn away from your duty for the easy path."
A hand reached out, my right hand, towards Ritsuka. The teen stared warily at it as if it were an exotic animal. A maelstrom of emotions stirred inside his blue eyes. The hands on his knees twitched and shook as Ritsuka was torn between two decisions.
He opened his mouth to speak, yet no words came out. Too many words wanted to come out all at once, but all are stuck at the door called the mouth. So he simply gapped and closed it, trying to talk yet remaining speechless.
He finally spoke, "To live is to suffer, Kukulkan."
Ah. My arms slackened. So he's still rejected it. I understand. Not everyone can stand up to the darkness within humanity. To have stared into that abyss as long as he has, as young as he is, is something applause-worthy.
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"—?"
I felt a weight on my outstretched hands, something was touching them. Looking down at my arms, I saw Ritsuka holding onto my hands like someone thrown overboard would with a lifeline.
"...And yet to live is to also enjoy."
He took my hands, and I pulled him up to a standing position. The storm of emotions in his eyes was gone, and stillness befell his body. All the shaking of uncertainty was gone, replaced by the serenity of determination—sheer determination, the kind that's only found in those who have had an almost religious experience.
"Welcome back, Ritsuka Fujimaru, the Last Master of Mankind."
He opened his mouth, nothingness spouted out. The teen looked at me and closed his mouth. He was trying to think of what to say.
"I will… I will fight for all that is beautiful in the world. May all the beauty be blessed."
_____
AN: *Picks up chair and sits on it back first ala Captain America in Spiderman*
So. This chapter has probably been the hardest one to write in this fic. Wasn't helped by the end of the term with rapid fire exam over the course of two weeks. I had this chapter out ready, but I wasn't satisfied with how it concluded Ritsuka's Arc. Instead I rewrote the damn thing and I'm a bit more satisfied. I think it speaks to my limits as a writer when even when I tried my best I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapter. Wasn't exactly what I had in mind.