After recovering himself, and with Lev having to take an important "call", the two continued their journey toward the Meeting Room, Mash looked at Yūto in concern, even suggesting for him to rest first on the clinic. But Yūto affirmed that he`s fine.
Reluctantly, Mash led Yūto through the final corridor, her steps quickening as if eager to make a good impression. The orientation room`s doors loomed ahead — tall, metallic, authoritative.
Yūto's fingers twitched at his sides. His heartbeat hadn't slowed since Lev left his sight.
Burning… suffocating… smoldering… The sensations looped in his mind in an endless cycle. Not memories — echoes of emotions that weren't his. The agonizing pain. Endless terror.
He sucked in a quiet breath, trying to box the feeling away, but Lev's presence clung stubbornly to his nerves like soot.
Mash tapped the panel, and the doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss.
Inside was already crowded with people, some are chattering incessantly, most idly sit on their seats as they wait for the speaker to arrive.
His arrival didn`t took much of attention but he felt embarrassed being looked at the moment, Mash excused herself from him and hurriedly came forward to sit to the front, while he took his seat in the farther end of the room, silent and still.
It didn`t took last long before the orientation started, because it is already starting before he came inside.
In front of all 48 Masters, now including him, and other important individuals of the Organization, stood the Director, Olga Marie Animusphere.
Her posture was stiff, her expression sharp, and her yellow eyes glinted dangerously with each irritated movement. Arms crossed, foot tapping — she was absolutely, unmistakably annoyed.
Yūto felt that it was because of him.
He saw Mash stood up and had a conversation with the Director, he instinctively strained his neck to hear what they were talking about.
"Director! I've brought the final Master Candidate." Mash said with nervousness looking frail in front of the intimidating and angry director.
Olga glared at her before snapping towards his direction.
Yūto felt her attention like a needle to the throat.
"As a Master candidate, do you have no shame for NOT only being disrespectful, but also NOT being punctual and ridiculously late?," she snapped immediately. "Everyone else managed to arrive on time. Even that Roman fool showed up before you, before scampering off somewhere else!"
All heads turned toward him, causing him to stand up in panic, face red in embarrassment.
Yūto opened his mouth — he wasn't even late, technically — but nothing came out.
His voice choked, as if blocked by his "burned" throat.
Olga's eyebrow twitched at his silence.
Yūto heard Mash jumping in his defense. "It`s my fault, Director. I wanted to bring Yūto-san first to the infirmary—"
"Enough excuses, Mash Kyrielight!" Olga barked.
"And you—" she jabbed a finger toward Yūto, "—wipe that look off your face. You're a Master Candidate, not a lost toddler!"
Yūto flinched.
He wasn't making a face, and he was conflicted what to do. He was trying not to relive being burned alive by someone else's emotions, and also to not feel apprehended by the gazes of everyone.
But explaining that would only make things worse.
So he bowed instead, stiffly.
"S–Sorry", he spoke in haste, feeling guilty.
"Tch. At least you know how to apologize," the director muttered, and changed her focus on the other masters, barking at them loudly to stop speaking like they are in a flea market.
He cautiously sat back.
He kept his head down, gaze fixed on the table.
As the time passed, the chairs around him filled with murmuring candidates, but he couldn't hear their words.
Only the echo:
Burning. Burning. Burning—
He dug his nails into his palms, trying to listen at the speech of the director. Focus. Focus. He needed to listen to the orientation, needed to clear the static from his mind—
But every time he blinked, Lev's smile flickered at the edges of his vision, ember-like and wrong.
Like it wants to devour him, to eat him, to burn him.
His breathing wavered.
He couldn't stop remembering something he neverexperienced.
A loop of terror. Echoes of despair. Suffocation.
Why does it feel like I'm dying?
"Hey. You." A sharp voice snapped the thread of his spiraling thoughts.
Yūto jerked up.
Olga Marie stood right before him, arms crossed, foot tapping in irritation. Her face contorted to rage, and her glare bore a hole through his skull.
"Are you even listening?" Her voice was sharp enough to cut steel.
Yūto's lips parted, but nothing coherent formed. He had been so stuck inside the burning nightmare that he hadn't heard a single word of her speech.
Olga's eye twitched.
"You—YOU—" she sputtered, pointing at him with escalating outrage, "are you asleep with your eyes open!? Or are you just ignoring me outright!?"
Mash leaned forward nervously. "D-Director, I don't think Mr. Norwich—"
Olga raised her voice. "Oh no, he is ignoring me. That glazed stare is proof enough! First we have a self-important brat whose late during the orientation, and now a boy who drifts off into space!?"
Looking back at Yūto, Olga continued.
"And LOOK!!! It`s the same person!!!"
Yūto tried to explain. "I—sorry—I wasn't—"
"Out." The Director's voice cracked like a whip.
He blinked. "…Huh?"
"OUT! Leave the room! I refuse to waste my breath on someone who can't even look alive during an orientation!" shrieked the director, it pummeled Yūto`s head and ears.
He wasn't asleep. He wasn't ignoring her. He was drowning in borrowed horror.
But he couldn't say that. He couldn't say anything.
Mash made a small, distressed sound.
Yūto bowed automatically, gaze lowered to hide the trembling.
"…I'm sorry."
Olga huffed, turning away as if the sight of him soured her mood further.
"Go. Pack your things and go to your room. And until you're called, notify your family that you`ll go back home. While maybe Roman can fix whatever's wrong with your brain, I doubt it. So to not waste anymore time, you can leave Chaldea, NOW."
The hall went silent after the proclamation of the director, and Lev, whom Yūto noticed, looked coldly at him with cold murder, causing him to shiver and scramble away his seat.
Yūto walked out quietly, closing the door behind him.
The hallway felt colder. Quieter. Safer.
Still, his chest ached with humiliation.
So this is how it begins, he thought bitterly. Master Candidate No. 48 — the one who can't even sit in a meeting properly.
But the burning sensation lingered, of shame, and of terror. Lev's emotional pressure still coiled in his lungs like smoke.
And somewhere, deep inside, Yūto couldn't shake the feeling:
Lev Lainur was nothuman. Not the way others were.
------
Yūto walked the halls of Chaldea as though drifting through a dream.
Getting kicked out of the briefing room had already been humiliating, but the lingering horror of Lev's emotional presence still pulsed faintly beneath his skin, crawling up his spine in cold waves.
He was stupid and wrong and... worthless.
He`s scared, weak, those are probably the reasons why everyone doesn`t like him.
Most who "did" only wanted to humiliate him more.
Like...
NO.
He rubbed his arms, steadying his breath. Focus… I need to find my room. At least then he could sit down and stop being a walking embarrassment, it`s not the time yet to feel depressed in life.
And so, his little adventure of navigating through the halls of Chaldea started.
He checked the digital signs. Turned in the wrong direction twice. Nearly bumped into a passing technical staff member. Everything felt numbly distant, like he was moving underwater.
Eventually he found it.
Room 48.
…Fitting, I guess.
He exhaled softly and opened the door —
Only to freeze.
Someone was already inside.
A man, sprawled lazily on the bed, half-lying, half-slouching like a cat melting in sunlight. He had a tablet propped on his knees, and a tower of crème puffs sitting on the table beside him. The cheerful voice of a girl, called Magi☆Mari, played on screen, playing a video of a girl dancing like a modern media idol and acting cute.
The man jumped when he noticed Yūto standing in the doorway.
"W-Waaah!? H-Hey—! If you're going to enter someone's room, you knock first! Seriously, kids these days—!"
Yūto blinked, startled by the sudden outburst.
"…This is my room." and offered his master identification card for him to check.
The man froze mid-rant.
Slowly, he looked at the plaque next to the door. Then at Yūto`s outstretched hand hold his card. Then at the crème puff in his hand.
"Oh. …Oh."
A beat of awkward silence.
"…So you're the one assigned here," he laughed weakly. "Okay, uh. My bad. Really bad. Awful, in fact. I was just… taking a break. Don`t tell the director, please?"
Yūto stared at him. The doctor Mash told me about, probably. A staff member who wasn't supposed to be here but clearly was, slacking off.
And when the director said "scampering off somewhere", it`s this moment?
"…Doctor Romani Archaman," the man said, introducing himself before Yūto could ask. "part-time Head of the Medical Department. And full-time professional fan of Magi☆Mari."
He offered a sheepish and proud smile.
Yūto bowed slightly, more out of reflex than necessity.
"…Norwich Yūto. Master Candidate No. 48."
"Ooh, last number on the list, huh? Don't worry about that. Numbers don't mean much around here. And Norwich? So they adopted another one, didn`t guessed they are interest with Chaldea too..."
Romani scooted over and patted the seat across from him.
"Sit, sit. You look like you've been through hell."
"…Not far from it," Yūto murmured, taking the offered seat.
Romani eagerly returned to his tablet.
"You ever watch Magi☆Mari? Great stuff. Educational. Inspirational. Cute. The perfect show for unwinding during a crisis you're pretending doesn't exist."
Yūto watched the screen quietly.
It wasn't the kind of show he'd ever seek out.
Still… Romani's enthusiasm was strangely soothing.
"You like it?" Romani asked, hopeful.
"It's… energetic," Yūto said, carefully. "And… bright."
"Exactly! That brightness is vital for the soul."
Romani stuffed another crème puff into his mouth and sighed like a man who had achieved nirvana.
Yūto couldn't help but study him. This man was nothing like Lev. No burning hatred. No emotional suffocation. Just warmth — a sort of soft, tired kindness radiating from him like a gentle fire.
Comforting, Yūto thought absently.
After a quiet minute, Yūto spoke.
"…Doctor Romani?"
"Hm?"
"Do you think… I qualify as a Master?"
Romani blinked, caught off guard by the seriousness in Yūto's tone.
"Huh? What brought that on?"
Yūto hesitated.
"…Director Olga Marie kicked me out of the orientation, it`s because I didn`t heard her speech because I was deep in thought about something... She was upset with me. And… I don't have the same experience as the others. Only three months since I learned magic even existed. I'm… behind, in all aspects."
Romani hummed thoughtfully and slid his tablet aside.
"Well, first of all," he said gently, "don't take the Director's words personally. That girl has the social grace of a cornered cat, and a rough childhood. If she didn't yell at someone once a day, she'd explode. Well, unless Lev was there."
Yūto gave a faint, reluctant nod. He instinctively tensed hearing the name of Lev, Romani probably noticed, but didn`t stopped his explanation.
"And second," Romani continued, leaning forward, "whether you qualify or not isn't something I decide. Or the Director. Or your anyone else. It's something you decide."
Yūto looked down at his hands.
"You're here," Romani said softly. "That already means something."
"…But I'm still new to everything."
"So? Everyone starts at zero." Romani grinned. "You can build from zero, but! You can't build from nothing."
Yūto blinked, quietly absorbing the words.
"And hey," Romani added cheerfully, "if being a Master doesn't suit you, you can always intern in the Medical Department with me. You have a strong empathic sensitivity, don't you?"
Yūto stiffened slightly. "…You can tell?"
"It's part of my job to notice these things." He smiled knowingly. "With training, that sensitivity could be a powerful tool. For counseling, for diagnostics… even for communication with Servants, potentially."
Yūto didn't know what expression he was making, but Romani's smile softened.
"Think about it, okay? You're not alone here."
Yūto opened his mouth to reply—
—when the entire room suddenly trembled.
A shrill mechanical alarm blasted through the halls, sharp and jarring.
BEEP—BEEP—BEEP—
Emergency lights flashed red.
Romani shot upright so fast he nearly dropped the crème puff in his hand.
"That's—!? Did something happened in the Control Room!?"
Yūto stood immediately, heart pounding as adrenaline drowned out every emotion but dread.
BOOOMM!!!!!!
A loud explosion rang from afar, but the shaking of the ground and the wall are a tell-tale sign of how strong that explosion was.
Something was wrong.
Very, very wrong.
Romani grabbed his tablet, face paling. They heard another explosion.
"This… this isn't a drill."
The alarm intensified.
And for one dreadful moment, Yūto felt a whisper of that same oppressive sensation he felt from Lev —
Like something bad was quickly approaching.