The lift waited at the end of the corridor. Griswald pressed the call button and watched the floor indicator tick downward. The doors opened with a soft chime, revealing an empty car lit by the same sterile white glow that permeated the entire facility.
He stepped inside. Pressed the button for the residential level. The doors slid shut, sealing him in with his own reflection in the polished metal walls.
Descending. The numbers counted down in silence as his mind whirled. It was finally happening. Griswald thought this day would never come but now that its here… he wishes that he could hide behind the calendar for just a bit longer.
The lift deposited him in another identical corridor—white walls, white ceiling, white floor stretching toward the residential wing. Griswald navigated by memory rather than sight, his feet carrying him along routes worn familiar through months of repetition.
Room 217. According to his reports it has not been assigned. The door looked exactly like every other door in the hallway—plain, unadorned, bearing only a small placard with the room number.
He didn't even tried the knocking he just went straight for the handle and turned.
The door swung open to reveal chaos contained within four walls.
Dr. Roman Archaman laid on the bed his head in one of his hands, his back to the entrance. Salmon-pink hair spilled loose from its usual ponytail, falling past his shoulders in disheveled waves. His white doctor's coat hung over the back of his chair, leaving him in a rumpled green uniform shirt that looked like it had been slept in—possibly more than once.
A tablet propped against a stack of medical journals displayed something bright and colorful. Music drifted from the speakers—high-pitched, energetic, unmistakably the sound of an idol performance. Animated figures danced across the screen while synthesized beats filled the small room.
Roman hadn't noticed the intrusion. His attention remained fixed on the tablet. A half-eaten slice of cake sat on a plate beside him—strawberry, from the look of it, with whipped cream that had begun to melt into pink-tinged puddles.
"Doctor."
No response. The music was too loud.
"Roman."
Still nothing. The man's shoulders swayed slightly in time with the beat.
Griswald crossed the room in three strides and tapped him on the shoulder.
Roman yelped. The fork clattered on the bed. The tablet wobbled dangerously before steadying against its improvised stand. Green eyes—warm and startled—spun to face Griswald with an expression of pure, unfiltered panic.
"Gris!" Roman clutched his chest dramatically. "You nearly gave me a heart attack! Don't you knock?"
"You would not have hear it." Griswald tried the first few times he looked for Roman. His first day if he remembered correctly but he always plays the music to loud. So he stopped trying after day five.
"Really?" Roman's brow furrowed. His gaze drifted to the tablet, where the idol performance continued at full volume. "Ah. That would explain it."
He reached over and paused the video. Silence rushed in to fill the void, broken only by the distant hum of climate control systems.
Up close, Griswald could see the signs of exhaustion carved into Roman's features. Dark circles shadowed his green eyes. His friendly smile still came easily, but it didn't quite reach his eyes—a detail Griswald had learned to notice over months of working under the man's supervision.
"Professor Lainur is looking for you," Griswald said. "The Director wants all department heads present for the rayshift."
Roman's smile flickered. Just for an instant.
"Is that so?" He reached for his cake, taking a deliberate bite. "Well. I'm sure they'll manage without me for a few more minutes."
Griswald wasn't surprised. Roman had a talent for avoiding responsibility that bordered on the supernatural—a sixth sense for detecting incoming obligations and vanishing before they could land. The man could slip out of meetings, dodge paperwork, and evade the Director's summons with an ease that defied explanation.
But Roman had also been good to him. From the first day Griswald arrived at Chaldea—nervous, uncertain, convinced his family had shipped him off to Antarctica just to get him out of sight—Roman had treated him like a colleague rather than a burden. No condescension about his modest magical abilities. No pointed comments about his repeated Clock Tower rejections. Just patient guidance, terrible jokes, and the occasional slice of contraband cake smuggled from the kitchen.
If Roman wanted to get yelled at by Director Animusphere, that was on him. Griswald had done his job. Message delivered. He is just lucky they have not had to sick Da Vinci on him yet.
"The rayshift," Roman said, setting down his fork. The half-eaten cake sat forgotten now, whipped cream continuing its slow melt into pink-tinged puddles. "You must be excited."
"Nervous, mostly." Griswald leaned against the doorframe. "Professor Lainur suggested I stay in the medical bay during the procedure. Be ready in case something goes wrong."
"Humm. He not wrong."
"He seemed concerned about potential complications. Circuit stress, mana depletion, feedback from unstable connections."
"All valid concerns." Roman nodded slowly. His fingers drummed against his knee—a nervous habit Griswald had noticed before, usually when the doctor was thinking through something he didn't want to voice. "The coffins are designed to minimize physical strain, but the metaphysical aspects are harder to predict. We've never actually sent someone's consciousness across time before. Simulations only tell us so much."
"That's reassuring."
"Isn't it?" Roman's smile returned, easier now. "Don't worry too much. The A-Team candidates are exceptional. Wodime alone could probably handle anything history throws at him."
Griswald thought about the all the magus's that he had seen since he started to work here. But Kirschtaria Wodime tall, composed, radiating that particular brand of quiet confidence that came from knowing exactly how superior you were to everyone around you was on a different league. The man's magical circuits had registered off the charts during baseline testing.
"What about the others?" Griswald asked. "The candidates who aren't Wodime?"
"Still impressive." Roman reached for his cake again, then seemed to think better of it. "Daybit Sem Void has circuits that make most mages weep with envy. Ophelia, Peperoncino, Beryl—all exceptional in their own ways. And then there's our backup roster."
"The B-Team."
"We don't actually call them that." Roman winced. "Officially. Though I suspect Director Animusphere thinks of them that way."
"And the new one? Fujimaru?"
Roman's expression shifted. Something soft entered his green eyes—a gentleness that seemed at odds with his usual casual deflection.
"Ritsuka Fujimaru," he said. "Interesting case. No magical lineage to speak of. Minimal training. Stumbled into the recruitment process almost by accident, from what I understand."
"But she qualified as a Master candidate?"
"Barely." Roman shrugged. "Her compatibility scores were just high enough to make the cutoff. The Director wasn't happy about including her, but we needed the numbers. Chaldea's charter requires a minimum roster of forty-eight potential Masters for the rayshift program."
Griswald remembered the orange-haired girl lying unconscious in the corridor. The strength of her punch when she'd woken. The way she'd immediately softened around Fou, cooing at the creature like it was a beloved pet rather than a mysterious magical entity.
"She seemed..." He searched for the right word. "Grounded."
"Did she?" Roman's smile widened slightly. "I haven't had a chance to meet her properly yet. Been busy with, ah, preparations."
Griswald glanced pointedly at the tablet, where the paused idol video still displayed a frozen frame of dancing figures.
"Very important preparations," Roman amended without a trace of shame.
The clock on Roman's desk caught Griswald's eye. His shift had started nearly thirty minutes ago. The medical bay would be chaos—final equipment checks, supply verification, last-minute adjustments to the emergency protocols they'd drilled a hundred times.
"I should go," he said. "The bay needs supervision."
"Right, right." Roman waved a hand dismissively, already reaching for his fork. "Go be responsible. Someone around here has to be."
"You could try it sometime."
"Where's the fun in that?" Roman speared a piece of cake, the strawberry sauce bleeding pink across the white frosting. "Besides, I need to finish this before it gets any soggier. Waste of perfectly good cake would be the real tragedy."
Griswald pushed off from the doorframe. "The Director's going to have your head."
"She's been threatening that for years." Roman popped the bite into his mouth, chewing with exaggerated satisfaction. "Still attached. I consider that a victory."
"One day your luck's going to run out."
"Probably." Another bite. "But not today. Today I have cake."
The logic was unassailable in its absurdity. Griswald shook his head, but something like fondness softened the gesture.
"I'll see you after the rayshift."
"Mmm." Roman's attention had already drifted back to his tablet, one finger hovering over the play button. "Stay safe, Gris. And don't let the Director catch you slacking either."
"I don't slack."
"Everyone slacks." Roman grinned around his fork. "Some of us are just more honest about it."
Griswald left before he could get drawn into another tangent. The door clicked shut behind him, and almost immediately the muffled sound of idol music resumed from within. Roman's priorities remained, as always, magnificently skewed.
The corridor swallowed him in white silence.
His boots beat a steady rhythm against the floor as he navigated toward the medical bay. Left at the junction. Down two levels via the service stairs. Through the connecting passage that linked the residential wing to the operational sectors. The route had become muscle memory over months of repetition.
The window-lined corridor stretched before him—one of the few passages in Chaldea that offered genuine views of the outside world. Reinforced glass panels ran along the entire left wall, floor to ceiling, providing an unobstructed panorama of the Antarctic landscape.
Snow fell in thick curtains beyond the glass. The flakes caught the facility's external lights, swirling in patterns that seemed almost deliberate before vanishing into the endless white below. Wind howled distantly, muffled by the reinforced panels but still audible—a constant reminder of the hostile environment that surrounded their fragile bubble of warmth and technology.
Griswald slowed his pace. The view always caught him, no matter how many times he passed this way. Something about the vastness of it. The indifferent beauty of a landscape that would kill him in minutes if he stepped outside without protection.
Movement ahead.
A figure stood in the middle of the corridor, perfectly still. Facing the windows. Watching the snow with an expression that betrayed absolutely nothing.
Daybit Sem Void.
Griswald's steps faltered. He knew the man by reputation more than personal interaction—most of Chaldea did.
Daybit's blonde hair caught the fluorescent light, creating a stark contrast against the dark attire he favored. The strands fell in neat layers around a face that seemed carved from marble—beautiful in the classical sense, but cold. Utterly, disconcertingly cold. Light purple eyes stared through the glass with an intensity that suggested he wasn't really seeing the snow at all.
He wore black cargo pants tucked into boots that looked designed for function over fashion. A leather longcoat hung from his shoulders, the material worn soft from use but meticulously maintained. Beneath it, a light striped vest added an unexpected touch of formality—the kind of detail that spoke to careful consideration rather than accident.
The overall effect was striking. Mysterious. The kind of presence that made people instinctively give him space without quite understanding why.
Griswald had treated Daybit exactly once, during a routine medical screening required of all Master candidates. The experience had been... unsettling. Not because Daybit had done anything overtly strange, but because of the quality of his attention. Those light purple eyes had tracked Griswald's movements with computer-like precision, cataloging every gesture, every hesitation, every minor flaw in technique. When he'd spoken—which was rarely—his words emerged with deliberate exactness, as if each syllable had been weighed and measured before release.
The man processed information on a wavelength others found impossible to comprehend. That much was obvious. What remained unclear was whether he processed human connection the same way, or at all.
Griswald considered his options. He could detour through the parallel corridor, avoid the interaction entirely. His shift was already late. No one would blame him for prioritizing efficiency over social obligation.
But Daybit hadn't moved. Hadn't acknowledged Griswald's presence despite the echoing footsteps that must have announced his approach. The blonde man simply stood there, watching snow fall with that blank expression that revealed nothing of his inner landscape.
Curiosity won out over caution.
Griswald approached slowly, giving Daybit plenty of warning. His footsteps seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet corridor, each impact against the white floor announcing his progress.
Five meters. Four. Three.
Daybit didn't turn. Didn't acknowledge. His light purple eyes remained fixed on the swirling snow beyond the glass, tracking patterns that existed only in his own perception.
Griswald waited three heartbeats. Four. The silence stretched between them like a physical barrier as he slowly walked past.
Nothing.
He exhaled slowly and resumed walking a bit faster. Some people didn't want conversation. Daybit Sem Void clearly ranked among them. No point forcing an interaction that would only result in awkwardness—or worse, that unsettling sensation of being dissected by those analytical eyes.
His boots carried him past Daybit's position. One step. Two. The blonde man remained motionless, a statue carved from ice and leather and whatever strange substance comprised his inner workings.
Three steps. Four. The corridor stretched ahead, white and empty and blessedly free of—
"Garmisch."
The name stopped him mid-stride. Not a question. Not a greeting. Just the word itself, delivered with precise neutrality that stripped away any emotional context.
Griswald turned. "Yes?"
Daybit still faced the windows. The snow continued its endless descent beyond the glass, white flakes spiraling through darkness. His reflection ghosted across the reinforced panels—a pale mirror image that seemed somehow more present than the man himself.
Silence.
Griswald waited. His pulse quickened despite his best efforts to remain calm. Something about Daybit's stillness felt predatory, like a serpent coiled in tall grass.
"Follow."
The word emerged without preamble or explanation. Daybit pushed away from his position by the windows and strode down the corridor, leather longcoat swaying with each measured step. He didn't look back. Didn't check whether Griswald complied.
The assumption of obedience was absolute.
Griswald hesitated for half a second. His shift. The medical bay. Dr. Roman's message about staying prepared. All valid reasons to refuse, to continue on his original path and let Daybit pursue whatever inscrutable purpose drove him.
But curiosity—that persistent weakness—won again.
He followed.
Daybit moved through the corridors with unsettling familiarity, taking turns that Griswald barely recognized. Left. Right. Down a narrow passage he'd never noticed before. The route seemed deliberately circuitous, designed to confuse or perhaps simply to accommodate whatever internal logic governed Daybit's navigation.
The silence pressed against Griswald's ears. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Their footsteps created an arrhythmic duet—Daybit's measured stride punctuated by Griswald's slightly faster pace as he worked to keep up.
"So," Griswald ventured. The word emerged too loud in the quiet corridor. "The rayshift. You must be looking forward to it."
Nothing.
"First time projecting consciousness across temporal barriers. Historic moment, really. The culmination of everything Chaldea's been working toward."
Daybit's shoulders didn't shift. His pace didn't alter. He might as well have been walking alone.
"I heard the calibration readings were good this morning. Within acceptable parameters, anyway. Though I suppose 'acceptable' is relative when you're talking about sending people's minds through time."
Still nothing. The corridor stretched endlessly ahead, white walls reflecting white light onto white floors. Griswald felt the familiar monotony pressing against him, heavier now without conversation to break its weight.
"The A-Team candidates are impressive," he continued, filling the void with words because silence felt worse. "Wodime especially. His circuits are—well, you'd know better than I would. Working alongside him. The man's practically a living legend already and he hasn't even completed his first mission."
Daybit stopped.
The sudden halt caught Griswald off guard. He stumbled slightly, adjusting his balance to avoid colliding with the blonde man's back.
"You have aptitude."
The words emerged flat. Declarative. Daybit still didn't turn, but his voice carried clearly in the empty corridor.
Griswald blinked. "What?"
"Master aptitude. You possess it." A pause. "Yet you are not a candidate."
The observation landed like a physical blow. Griswald felt his stomach tighten, old wounds opening beneath the clinical assessment.
"My aptitude scores were..." He searched for a diplomatic phrasing. "Insufficient."
Daybit's head turned slightly. Not enough to face him directly, but enough to bring one light purple eye into peripheral view. The gaze felt like being pinned beneath a microscope.
"Insufficient," Daybit repeated. The word hung between them, stripped of judgment but somehow more damning for its neutrality.
"Barely registering, actually." Griswald pushed his glasses up his nose—a nervous gesture he'd never managed to eliminate. "The minimum threshold for candidate consideration requires a compatibility index of point-three-seven. I tested at point-two-nine."
"Eight points below threshold."
"Close enough to be frustrating. Too far to matter." Griswald shrugged, aiming for casual and landing somewhere in the vicinity of brittle. "Even with Chaldea's desperate need for qualified Masters, my numbers didn't justify inclusion. The Director made that quite clear during my initial assessment."
Daybit resumed walking. Slower now, his stride almost contemplative.
"Circuits," he said. Not a question.
"Seventeen." Griswald fell into step beside him, no longer content to trail behind. "All rated low quality. Functional for basic healing magecraft, but anything requiring significant mana throughput..." He spread his hands in a gesture of helpless acknowledgment. "My family specialized in magical theory rather than practical application. The Von Garmisch bloodline was never known for producing powerful practitioners."
"Theory over execution."
"Something like that." Bitterness crept into his voice despite his best efforts. "My siblings inherited what little practical talent our lineage possessed. I got the analytical mind and the substandard circuits. Perfect combination for a career in academia—if the academic institution would actually accept me."
The corridor opened into a small junction. Daybit paused, those light purple eyes scanning the branching paths with that characteristic intensity.
"The Clock Tower," he said.
Griswald's jaw tightened. "Rejected. Four times. Different departments, different applications, same result." He laughed, though the sound carried no humor. "Apparently my theoretical contributions weren't compelling enough to offset my magical deficiencies. The Von Garmisch name doesn't carry the weight it once did."
Daybit selected the left passage without comment. Griswald followed, wondering where this strange conversation was leading—and whether he wanted to find out.
"The Director mentioned she might consider a recommendation," Griswald continued, filling the silence that Daybit seemed perfectly content to maintain. "Once I've accumulated sufficient tenure. Another year or so, she said. Though knowing Director Animusphere, 'might consider' probably means 'will forget entirely the moment something more pressing demands her attention.'"
He glanced at Daybit's profile. The blonde man's expression remained utterly neutral, those light purple eyes fixed on some point ahead that only he could perceive. Whether he was actually processing Griswald's words or simply tolerating the noise remained impossible to determine.
"Still," Griswald pressed on, "a recommendation from the Director of Chaldea would carry weight. Even the Clock Tower's admissions committee would have to acknowledge that. An organization with UN backing, international recognition, access to resources most mages can only dream of—surely that counts for something."
Daybit's stride didn't falter. His leather longcoat swayed with each measured step, the fabric creating soft sounds that punctuated Griswald's increasingly one-sided conversation.
"Of course, getting Director Animusphere to actually write the recommendation is another matter entirely. The woman has opinions about everything, and most of those opinions are negative. She thinks my healing abilities are 'adequate at best' and my magical theory background is 'marginally useful.' High praise, coming from her."
Nothing. Not even a shift in posture to indicate Daybit registered the words being directed at him.
Griswald sighed internally. Talking to Daybit Sem Void was like talking to a particularly well-dressed wall. The man absorbed information without offering anything in return—no feedback, no engagement, no indication that human connection held any value whatsoever.
They passed through another junction. The corridors here seemed older somehow, the white walls bearing faint discoloration that suggested years of use. The lighting grew dimmer as they progressed, fewer fluorescent panels illuminating their path. Shadows pooled in corners that hadn't been properly maintained.
"So that's the plan," Griswald concluded, more for his own benefit than Daybit's. "Survive another year. Accumulate enough goodwill to warrant a recommendation. Submit a fifth application to the Clock Tower and hope that persistence eventually outweighs inadequacy."
Daybit stopped.
The sudden halt came without warning. One moment they were walking, the next Daybit stood motionless in the middle of the corridor, his leather longcoat settling around him like a shroud.
Griswald nearly collided with him again. He caught himself, stumbling slightly as momentum carried him forward before his feet found purchase on the white tiles.
"What—"
Daybit turned.
The motion was deliberate. Controlled. Each degree of rotation seemed calculated, as if the blonde man had determined the exact amount of movement required and refused to expend a single fraction more. His light purple eyes locked onto Griswald's face with an intensity that made the surrounding shadows feel suddenly deeper.
Griswald's breath caught.
Those eyes. He'd seen them before, during the medical screening, but proximity dulled the impact. Now, with Daybit's full attention focused on him for the first time, the experience was... different. Unsettling in a way that bypassed rational thought and struck directly at something primal.
"Things change."
The words emerged flat. Precise. Each syllable measured and delivered with the same clinical detachment Daybit applied to everything.
Griswald swallowed. "What?"
"Things change." Daybit's gaze didn't waver. Didn't blink. "Many things have changed today."
The statement hung in the dim corridor, heavy with implications Griswald couldn't begin to parse. Today? What had changed today? The rayshift preparations were proceeding normally. The candidates were assembled. The systems were calibrated. Everything was exactly as it should be, as it had been planned for months—
Daybit's hand moved.
The gesture was economical, reaching into his leather longcoat with the same measured precision that characterized all his movements. His fingers emerged holding a small box—plain, unremarkable, the kind of generic packaging that could contain anything from medical supplies to mechanical components.
He extended it toward Griswald.
"We will meet again."
Before Griswald could respond—before he could ask what the box contained, what Daybit meant by "things changing," why this strange man had led him through unfamiliar corridors just to deliver cryptic statements and mysterious packages—Daybit turned and walked away.
His footsteps echoed in the dim hallway. Measured. Unhurried. The leather longcoat swayed with each stride until the shadows swallowed him entirely, leaving Griswald standing alone in a corridor he didn't recognize.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Distant and inadequate, they cast pools of pale illumination that failed to reach the corners. The white walls looked grey here, stained by time and neglect. Griswald had no idea where he was within Chaldea's labyrinthine structure.
He looked down at the box in his hands.
Small. Rectangular. Light enough to contain almost nothing. The packaging bore no labels, no identifying marks, nothing to indicate its contents or origin. Just a plain container that Daybit Sem Void had apparently deemed important enough to deliver personally.
Griswald's fingers found the seam. He lifted the lid.
His brain needed several seconds to process what he was seeing.
Condoms.
A box of condoms.
Individually wrapped. Standard issue. The kind Chaldea's medical supplies included for staff wellness purposes—not that anyone ever actually requisitioned them, given the facility's remote location and professional atmosphere. Most of the staff came from families that would do worst then disown them if they brought shame on them for being kicked out of Chaldea because of such weakness of the body.
Griswald stared at the contents. Then at the empty corridor where Daybit had vanished. Then back at the box. His thoughts refused to coalesce into anything resembling coherent understanding.
Daybit Sem Void—genius mage, A-Team candidate, man who spoke perhaps a dozen words per day—had led him through unfamiliar corridors, delivered ominous warnings about things changing, and handed him a box of condoms.
"What," Griswald said to the empty hallway, "the actual hell?"
The fluorescent lights hummed their inadequate response. The shadows offered no clarification. Somewhere in the distance, climate control systems whispered through ventilation ducts.
Griswald stood alone in a dark corridor he didn't recognize, holding contraceptives he hadn't requested, wondering if Daybit Sem Void had finally lost whatever tenuous grip on sanity he'd possessed—or if the man had never been sane to begin with. Huff, where was Pepe when you needed him.
The box felt absurd in his hands. Condoms. Daybit Sem Void had given him condoms and cryptic warnings about change.
Griswald's mind cycled through possible explanations. A joke? Daybit didn't seem capable of humor. A mistake? The man calculated everything with machine-like precision. Some elaborate psychological experiment? Possible, given what little anyone understood about how Daybit's mind operated.
He wanted to chase after the blonde enigma. Grab him by the shoulders. Shake answers out of that infuriatingly neutral expression until something resembling human communication emerged.
But time.
His shift had started—he checked his watch and winced—forty-three minutes ago. The medical bay would be chaos. Dr. Roman was still hiding in his quarters watching idol videos. The rayshift loomed mere hours away, and here he stood in an unfamiliar corridor holding contraceptives like some confused protagonist in a terrible comedy.
Priorities. He needed priorities.
Griswald shoved the box into his uniform pocket. The bulge was noticeable but he'd deal with explanations later. Right now he needed to find his way back to familiar territory and pray that whoever had been covering his shift possessed enough patience to forgive the delay.
He picked a direction. Left seemed as good as any. The corridor stretched ahead, dimmer than the main passages, the fluorescent panels spaced too far apart to provide adequate illumination. His footsteps echoed against white tiles that had faded to grey from years of neglect.
Left turn. Another junction. The facility's layout refused to resolve into anything recognizable. Daybit had led him through passages he'd never explored, deeper into Chaldea's labyrinthine structure than his two years of tenure had ever taken him.
Griswald quickened his pace. Then broke into a jog. Then ran.
The corridors blurred past. White walls. Grey shadows. Occasional doors marked with designations that meant nothing to him. His breath came faster from the exertion.
Things change. Daybit's words echoed in his memory. Many things have changed today.
A junction ahead. Finally, something familiar—the symbol for the medical sector, painted on the wall in standard Chaldea blue. Griswald's relief was immediate and visceral. He knew where he was. Three corridors to the left, down one level, and he'd reach the bay.
He pushed himself faster. His legs burned. His lungs protested. The box in his pocket bounced awkwardly against his thigh with each stride, a constant reminder of the absurdity that had delayed him.
Two corridors. One. The elevator bank came into view, its polished metal doors reflecting his approaching form—disheveled, breathless, glasses askew on his nose.
He slammed his palm against the call button. The indicator showed the car three floors above. Descending. Too slow. Far too slow.
The stairs. Faster.
Griswald spun toward the stairwell access. His hand found the handle—
The world exploded.
The sound hit first. A roar that bypassed his ears and registered directly in his bones, a concussive wave of pure force that lifted him off his feet and hurled him sideways. His shoulder slammed against the wall. His head cracked against something hard. Stars burst across his vision, white and red and screaming.
Then the shaking started.
The floor heaved beneath him like a living thing. Ceiling tiles rained down in a cascade of white debris, shattering against the ground in explosions of dust and fragments. The fluorescent lights flickered—on, off, on again—strobing the corridor in nightmare pulses that turned motion into frozen frames of chaos.
Alarms. The sound pierced through the ringing in his ears, a shrieking wail that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Red emergency lights flared to life, painting the white walls in bloody crimson, turning the familiar corridor into something from a fever dream.
Griswald tried to stand. His legs refused to cooperate. Another explosion—distant but powerful—sent fresh tremors through the floor. Dust cascaded from cracks spreading across the ceiling like lightning frozen in plaster.
Warning klaxons joined the alarms. Automated voices began speaking, calm and measured despite the apocalypse unfolding around them.
"Emergency. Emergency. Multiple structural breaches detected. All personnel proceed to designated shelter points."
Another explosion. Closer this time. The wall beside him buckled outward, hairline fractures spreading through the reinforced material like a web of black veins. Something behind that wall had detonated with enough force to compromise Chaldea's construction.
Griswald's medical training kicked in through the fog of shock. Assess injuries. His head throbbed where it had struck the wall—possible concussion. His shoulder screamed with each movement—bruised, maybe sprained, not dislocated. His vision swam but held steady when he focused. Functional. He was functional.
He forced himself upright. The corridor swayed around him, or perhaps he was swaying—impossible to tell with the floor still trembling beneath his feet. Red light pulsed in rhythm with the alarms, casting everything in shades of crimson and shadow.
"Emergency. Emergency. Fire suppression systems activated in sectors seven through twelve."
Sectors seven through twelve. Griswald's mind processed the information through the haze of shock and adrenaline. The central control room. Chaldea's power plant. The heart of everything that kept this frozen fortress functioning.
The coffins.
All forty-eight Master candidates were supposed to be in those coffins right now. Consciousness projected across temporal barriers while their bodies lay vulnerable in precisely calibrated pods designed to maintain life support during the rayshift. Wodime. Daybit. Ophelia. Peperoncino. Beryl. Hinako. Kadoc. The new girl—Ritsuka.
Everyone.
"Warning. Central division bulkhead closure in T-minus three minutes. All personnel clear designated zones immediately."
The bulkhead. Once those massive doors sealed, nothing would get through. Emergency protocol designed to contain catastrophic breaches and prevent total facility loss. Standard procedure. Sensible engineering.
It would trap everyone on the other side.
Griswald didn't think. His body moved before conscious decision could intervene, legs driving him forward through the debris-strewn corridor. Ceiling tiles crunched beneath his boots. Dust choked the air, turning each breath into a struggle. The red emergency lights strobed in sickening pulses that made distance impossible to judge.
He ran.
The staging area was three sectors away. Two junctions. One security checkpoint that should have been manned but stood empty, the guard station abandoned in the chaos. Smoke rolled through the corridors now, thick and acrid, stinging his eyes and coating his throat with each desperate gasp.
"Warning. Central division bulkhead closure in T-minus two minutes."
Faster. He had to move faster.
His lungs burned. His shoulder screamed with each pumping stride. The concussion—definitely a concussion now, the symptoms unmistakable—made the world tilt and blur at the edges of his vision. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered except reaching that staging area before the bulkhead sealed.
Junction. Left turn. His feet skidded on debris, nearly sending him sprawling, but momentum carried him through. Another corridor. Another stretch of devastation—collapsed panels, shattered equipment, emergency lighting flickering in dying gasps.
"Warning. Central division bulkhead closure in T-minus one minute."
The entrance appeared ahead. Massive doors, already beginning their slow descent. The gap narrowed with mechanical inevitability, centimeter by centimeter, sealing off the staging area from the rest of Chaldea.
Griswald threw himself forward.
He hit the ground and rolled, sliding beneath the closing barrier with centimeters to spare. Metal scraped against his back—his uniform tearing, skin burning—but then he was through, sprawling across the staging area floor as the bulkhead completed its descent with a final, thunderous boom.
Sealed. He was sealed inside.
Griswald pushed himself upright and immediately wished he hadn't.
The world was on fire.
Flames roared from ruptured conduits along the walls, fed by whatever volatile compounds had been stored in the engineering substations. Orange and red light replaced the emergency crimson, casting everything in hellish illumination that revealed the full scope of the destruction. The ceiling—reinforced concrete designed to withstand direct strikes—had partially collapsed. Massive chunks of debris lay scattered across the floor, crushing equipment and blocking passages with tons of rubble.
The coffins.
Griswald stumbled toward them. His feet found purchase on uneven ground, navigating around fallen support beams and shattered monitoring stations. The heat pressed against his face, his hands, every exposed surface of skin. Sweat evaporated almost instantly, leaving his uniform plastered to his body with damp residue that the fire was already working to eliminate.
The first coffin he reached was crushed. Completely crushed. A ceiling beam had fallen directly across its midsection, crumpling the precision-engineered pod like aluminum foil. Whatever lay inside—whoever lay inside—no longer resembled anything human.
Griswald moved to the next. Intact, but the monitoring displays showed flatlines across every vital sign. He wrenched open the pod's emergency release, revealing the body within.
Dead. Eyes open, staring at nothing. No obvious trauma. The consciousness transfer had been interrupted, probably, the spiritual connection severed so violently that the physical body simply stopped functioning.
The next coffin. The same. Flatlines. Death without visible cause.
The next. Crushed.
The next. Burned, the fire having reached the pod before emergency suppression could activate.
The next. The next. The next.
Bodies. All of them bodies. Griswald moved through the devastation on autopilot, medical training driving him to check each coffin despite the mounting evidence of futility. Pulse checks on cooling flesh. Pupil responses from eyes that would never see again. CPR compressions that accomplished nothing except prolonging his own denial.
Everyone was dead.
Mash.
The memory hit him like a physical blow. Lev's voice, smooth and melodious: The Director requires your presence in the control room. Mash nodding, that soft smile on her lips. I'll see you later, Senpai.
She was supposed to be here. Support operations. On standby in case the A-Team encountered difficulties.
"Mash!"
His voice cracked on the name. Smoke and heat had ravaged his throat, turning the shout into something ragged and desperate.
"MASH!"
He spun, searching the inferno for any sign of her. Lilac hair. Grey hoodie. That red tie with the Chaldea insignia. Something. Anything.
Debris. Fire. Bodies. More debris. The staging area stretched before him, transformed from a precision facility into a crematorium.
"MASH! WHERE ARE YOU?"
The flames roared their indifferent response. Somewhere in the distance, another explosion sent fresh tremors through the compromised structure. Ceiling fragments rained down, forcing Griswald to dodge sideways as a chunk of concrete shattered against the floor where he'd been standing.
He kept moving. Kept searching. Kept calling her name into the smoke and fire. He ignored all sound of alarms now. He didn't what they were saying.
"MASH!"
The sound cut through the chaos like a knife.
"Fou! Fou!"
High-pitched. Urgent. Unmistakable even through the roar of flames and the groan of collapsing infrastructure. Griswald's head snapped toward the source, his heart seizing in his chest.
There. Past the row of crushed coffins. Beyond the burning wreckage of what had once been a monitoring station. A flash of white fur against the hellish orange glow.
Fou darted back and forth across a mound of debris, violet eyes wild with something Griswald had never seen in the creature before. Panic. Raw, undisguised panic. The fluffy tail that usually curled with such elegant composure now bristled with visible agitation.
"Fou! Fou! FOU!"
Griswald ran.
His legs screamed in protest. His lungs burned with each smoke-laden breath. The concussion made the world tilt sideways, the flames blurring into streaks of orange and red that painted impossible patterns across his vision. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered except that sound. That desperate, keening cry that could only mean one thing.
He scrambled over a fallen support beam, his hands blistering against heated metal. Ducked beneath a cascade of sparks from a ruptured power conduit. Dodged around a coffin that had been thrown sideways by the initial explosion, its occupant mercifully hidden from view by the angle.
And then he saw her.
"Mash!"
She lay on her back, half-buried beneath a slab of concrete that had fallen from the ceiling. The debris pinned her from the waist down, a massive rectangular chunk easily weighing several hundred kilograms. Her grey hoodie had been torn open, revealing the black shirt beneath now stained dark with something that glistened wetly in the firelight.
Blood. So much blood.
Griswald dropped to his knees beside her. His hands hovered over her body, medical training warring with the overwhelming need to simply touch her, to confirm she was real and alive and not another corpse in this endless parade of death.
"Senpai..."
Her voice came out weak. Thready. The voice of someone whose body was rapidly running out of resources to sustain basic functions. But her lavender eyes—those beautiful, gentle eyes—found his face and held. Recognition flickered through the pain glazing her expression.
"You're alive." The words tumbled from his mouth, half-prayer and half-sob. "Thank god. Thank god, you're alive."
"Senpai... you need to go."
"I'm not leaving you."
"The bulkhead sealed." She coughed, and red flecked her lips. Internal bleeding. The realization hit him like a physical blow. "There's no way out. You need to find... need to find another route before—"
"I'm not leaving you!"
His hands found the edge of the concrete slab. The heat seared into his palms instantly, the stone having absorbed the ambient temperature of the surrounding inferno. He ignored the pain. Planted his feet. Pulled.
Nothing.
The slab didn't move. Didn't budge. Didn't so much as shift beneath his desperate efforts. Hundreds of kilograms of reinforced concrete, heated to temperatures that were already cooking the flesh of his hands, and he—
He was nothing. A third-rate mage with seventeen low-quality circuits and a body that had never been built for physical labor. His lanky frame strained against the weight, every muscle screaming, every tendon threatening to snap. The slab remained immovable. Implacable. A monument to his inadequacy.
"Senpai, please." Mash's hand found his ankle—a weak grip, barely there, but the contact sent electricity racing up his spine. "You're hurting yourself."
"I don't care."
He pulled again. His feet slipped on debris-strewn ground. His shoulders wrenched in their sockets. The blisters on his palms burst, raw flesh pressing against superheated stone, and the smell of burning skin joined the acrid smoke filling his nostrils.
The slab didn't move.
"God damn it!"
The curse exploded from him with all the frustration and rage and helpless terror that had been building since the first explosion. He released the stone and staggered backward, his ruined hands hanging useless at his sides.
Seventeen circuits. Point-two-nine compatibility index. Insufficient. Inadequate. The words that had defined his entire life, that had followed him from his family's disappointment to the Clock Tower's rejections to this frozen hell at the bottom of the world.
He'd never hated them more than he did in this moment.
If he had real power—true magical ability like Wodime or Daybit or any of the other candidates now lying dead in their crushed coffins—he could reinforce his muscles. Enhance his strength. Channel mana through his circuits to accomplish what his pitiful physical form could not. Even his healing magic, the one thing he was supposed to actually be able to do, won't do shit if he can't get this block off her. He needs his strength to get her out of here or it won't matter how much of her blood he restores.
But he couldn't. He was Griswald Von Garmisch, third-rate mage, and…
The woman who trusted him was going to die because he wasn't enough. Had never been enough. Would never be enough.
"Senpai."
Mash's voice pulled him back from the spiral. He looked down at her—really looked, cataloging her condition with the clinical detachment his training demanded even as his heart shattered.
Pale. Too pale. The blood loss was accelerating, her body's reserves depleting with each labored heartbeat. Her breathing had grown shallow, each rise and fall of her chest requiring visible effort. The lavender of her eyes had dimmed, the light behind them fading like a candle in a strong wind.
"You have to go." She smiled. That gentle, soft smile she reserved for their private moments. "The fire is spreading. If you stay..."
"Then I stay."
"Senpai—"
"I'm not leaving you, Mash." He dropped to his knees beside her again, his burned hands finding hers and holding tight despite the agony. "I can't. I won't. So please stop asking me to."
Fou had settled beside Mash's head, the creature's small body pressed against her cheek. The magical glow around its neck had intensified, violet eyes fixed on Griswald with an expression that seemed almost accusing.
Do something, those eyes said. Fix this.
"I'm trying," he whispered. The words weren't meant for Fou. Weren't really meant for anyone. "I'm trying, but I can't—I don't know how to—"
His circuits pulsed weakly in his chest. Seventeen pathetic channels of magical potential, barely capable of sustaining basic healing spells under normal circumstances. Completely inadequate for anything approaching the miraculous intervention this situation demanded.
But Mash was dying. Right here. Right now. Her blood pooling beneath the concrete slab, her life draining away with each passing second while he knelt beside her with his useless hands and his useless magic and his useless—
"Senpai." Her grip tightened on his fingers. Weak. So weak. "Thank you."
"Don't." His voice cracked. "Don't you dare thank me. Don't you dare say goodbye. We're going to get you out of here. I'm going to find a way. I just need—I need—"
He didn't know what he needed. A miracle. Divine intervention. Someone with actual power to appear and save the day like they did in stories.
But there was no one. Just him and Mash and Fou and the fire creeping ever closer, the heat intensifying with each passing moment.
The alarm changed.
Not another explosion warning. Not another structural breach alert. Something different. Something worse. The automated voice that had been droning emergency protocols shifted to a tone Griswald had never heard before—flat, clinical, utterly devoid of the artificial reassurance programmed into standard announcements.
"Alert. CHALDEAS status critical. Observation of human history compromised. Survival of the human species cannot be confirmed."
The words didn't register at first. His mind, already overwhelmed by smoke and fire and the woman dying beneath his hands, refused to process their meaning. Survival of the human species. Cannot be confirmed. The phrase echoed through the burning staging area like a death knell.
Mash's grip tightened on his fingers.
"Senpai... look."
Her voice was barely a whisper now. But something in it—wonder, perhaps, or horror—made him follow her gaze upward.
CHALDEAS hung above them.
The observation sphere dominated the upper reaches of the staging area, visible through the shattered remains of the ceiling that had once separated this chamber from the central monitoring hub. Griswald had seen it before, of course. Everyone at Chaldea had. The perfect miniature replica of Earth, suspended in its rings of magical circuits and technological components, slowly rotating as it tracked the flow of human history.
It had always glowed blue. Cool. Serene. The color of oceans and sky and hope.
Now it burned.
Orange and red and white consumed the sphere's surface, the familiar geography of continents and oceans obliterated beneath a roiling mass of fire that pulsed with rhythms no earthly flame could produce. The model that had once shown humanity's cradle now resembled nothing so much as the sun itself—a dying star collapsing inward, consuming everything it had once nurtured.
"No," Griswald breathed.
The word fell from his lips without conscious thought. Denial. Pure, desperate denial in the face of something his mind couldn't accept.
CHALDEAS didn't just monitor human history. It reflected it. The sphere's condition served as a real-time indicator of humanity's continued existence across all temporal axes. If CHALDEAS showed Earth, humanity survived. If CHALDEAS showed something else...
"Alert. Initiating decontamination protocol. All personnel in affected sectors will be terminated in T-minus five minutes."
The announcement barely registered. Griswald's eyes remained fixed on the burning sphere above them, watching humanity's death certificate inscribe itself in fire and light. Everything they'd worked for. Everything Chaldea had been built to protect. Gone. Burning. Consumed by whatever catastrophe had claimed the staging area and everyone in it.
His legs gave out.
He didn't decide to sit. His body simply stopped supporting him, dropping him to the debris-strewn floor beside Mash with a graceless thump that sent fresh pain shooting through his battered frame. The concrete was hot beneath him. The fire crept closer with each passing second. None of it mattered anymore.
"Senpai?"
Mash's voice drew his attention back to her face. She was watching him now, those dimming lavender eyes tracking his expression with concern that seemed absurd given her own condition. Pinned. Bleeding. Dying. And she was worried about him.
"I'm here." He shifted closer, his burned hand finding hers again. The pain was distant now, muffled by shock and exhaustion and the creeping numbness of acceptance. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Alert. Scanning for viable Master signatures. No candidates detected. Expanding search parameters."
The automated system continued its futile protocols. Searching for someone to save a world that no longer existed. Griswald ignored it.
"Mash." He squeezed her fingers gently. "Thank you."
"For what?" A ghost of confusion crossed her pale features.
"For being kind to me." The words came easier now, freed by the certainty that they would be his last. "From the first day I arrived here. When everyone else saw another failure, another disappointment, you just..." He laughed, the sound catching in his smoke-raw throat. "You treated me like I mattered. Like I was worth something."
"You are worth something." Her grip tightened with what little strength remained. "You always were, Senpai. I just... I wish I could have made you see it."
"Alert. Decontamination in T-minus three minutes."
Fou pressed closer to Mash's cheek, the creature's small body trembling. The violet glow around its neck had intensified, pulsing with rhythms that matched the dying sphere above.
"I never saw the sky."
Mash's voice was soft. Wistful. The voice of someone remembering dreams they'd never had the chance to pursue.
"What?"
"The sky." Her eyes drifted upward, past CHALDEAS, past the burning ceiling, toward something only she could see. "I've been at Chaldea my whole life. All my memories are here. And it's always... the blizzards never stop. The storms never clear. I've seen pictures. Videos. But I've never actually seen it. The real sky."
Griswald followed her gaze. Through the gaps in the shattered ceiling, he could see only darkness and fire and the impossible radiance of CHALDEAS consuming itself. But he understood what she meant. The endless Antarctic storms that shrouded this facility. The reinforced windows that filtered everything into pale approximations of natural light. A lifetime spent underground, surrounded by white walls and artificial illumination.
She'd never seen the sun. Never watched clouds drift across an open horizon. Never experienced the simple miracle of standing beneath an infinite expanse of blue.
"Give it a few moments," he said.
Mash blinked. "What?"
"The ceiling." He gestured upward with his free hand, the motion weak but deliberate. "It's still collapsing. We might get lucky. A piece might fall just right, and..." He managed something approaching a smile. "Clear skies at last."
A sound escaped her. Half-laugh, half-sob. Her eyes glistened with tears that the heat was already evaporating.
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then I'll take you." The words came without thought, a promise made to a dying woman in a burning room at the end of everything. "After this. When we get out. I'll take you somewhere with clear skies. Somewhere you can see the horizon stretching forever. Watch the sun set. Count the stars."
"Alert. Decontamination in T-minus one minute."
"Senpai..." Mash's voice cracked. "Can I... can I hold your hand? Until..."
He was already moving. His burned fingers intertwined with hers, palm against palm, the contact grounding them both against the approaching end. The fire had reached the edges of the coffin row now, flames licking at the debris surrounding them with hungry inevitability.
"I've got you," he whispered. "I'm right here."
"Alert. Master signature detected. Initiating emergency protocols."
The words didn't register. Background noise. Meaningless static from systems that had failed to save anyone.
"Alert. Beginning spiritron conversion."
Light exploded around them.
Not fire. Not the burning radiance of CHALDEAS. Something else entirely—blue and white and impossibly bright, flooding the staging area with brilliance that seared through Griswald's closed eyelids. He felt Mash's hand in his, felt her fingers tighten with sudden desperate strength.
Then the flames consumed them.
And everything went white.