Two words. Simple. Direct.
The silence that followed stretched taut as a bowstring.
Griswald felt heat crawl up his neck. His collar suddenly felt too tight, the ruined store's stale air thick enough to choke on.
Mana transfer.
He knew exactly what that meant. Every mage did. The most efficient method of transferring magical energy between practitioners involved the exchange of bodily fluids. Blood. Saliva. And—
His mind slammed a door on that thought.
Ritsuka's amber eyes sparkled with barely contained mischief. A blush spread across her cheeks even as laughter bubbled up from her chest. "What? It's practical! The textbooks all say—"
"I know what the textbooks say!" Olga's voice cracked. Her pale cheeks had turned a violent shade of crimson, spreading down to her neck and disappearing beneath her collar. She looked like she'd swallowed something scalding. "That's not—we can't possibly—this is completely inappropriate!"
On the dusty floor, Mash made a sound. A tiny, strangled noise somewhere between a squeak and a whimper. "Eep." Her violet eyes went wide beneath her disheveled lavender hair, and despite her weakened state, she managed to curl slightly inward. The faint glow of her armor flickered like a dying candle.
The communicator crackled. Romani's face filled the small screen, and Griswald watched in real-time as the doctor's complexion shifted through several shades of red before settling on something approaching burgundy. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
Nothing came out.
"Doctor Roman?" Ritsuka leaned toward the device, grinning. "You still there? You look like you're having a stroke."
"I—that is—the methodology is—" Romani's voice came out strangled. He coughed, looked away from the camera, then looked back. His hand rose to rub the back of his neck in a gesture Griswald recognized as pure nervous deflection. "Technically speaking, the transfer of mana through bodily fluids is a well-documented practice with historical precedent dating back to—"
"Roman!" Olga's shriek cut through his babbling. "Stop talking!"
Griswald's own face burned. He could feel the heat radiating from his skin, probably visible even in the dim light filtering through the shop's broken windows. His glasses had fogged slightly. He removed them, cleaned them on his shirt, and immediately regretted it when the gesture drew everyone's attention to him.
Because of course it did.
Because he would be the one doing the transferring.
"Look," Ritsuka said, still fighting down giggles that made her shoulders shake, "I'm just saying what everyone's thinking. Griswald's her Master now. She needs mana. He has mana. There's a very straightforward solution here that doesn't involve anyone dying."
"There are other methods," Olga insisted. Her arms crossed tight over her chest, fingers digging into her sleeves. "Ritual circles. Formal transference protocols. We could—"
"With what materials?" Ritsuka's eyebrow arched. "You got chalk in your pocket? Silver dust? A properly consecrated space?" She gestured at the destroyed storefront around them. Shattered glass. Overturned shelves. A skeleton's remains still smoldering in the corner. "Because I'm fresh out of all those things. Plus, those rituals require staying put for hours at a time. If she needs more later, we'd have to return to the same spot every time. Not exactly practical when we're on the run."
Olga's jaw worked. No sound emerged.
On the floor, Mash shifted weakly. "Master..." Her voice was barely a whisper. "I don't... you don't have to..."
Griswald knelt beside her. His hands trembled slightly as he checked her pulse. Weak. Threading. The connection between them—that strange new awareness sitting in his chest—felt fragile as spun glass. She was fading. Every minute they wasted arguing, she slipped further away.
"The Director's right about one thing," he said quietly. "My circuits are weak. Even if I... even with a transfer, I might not be able to give her enough."
"Some is better than none." Ritsuka's teasing tone softened. She crouched beside him, orange hair falling across her face. "You're her Master, Griswald. Right now, you're the only thing keeping her here. That counts for something."
The communicator crackled again. Romani had apparently recovered enough to speak, though his face remained an impressive shade of scarlet. "She's not wrong. Even a partial transfer could stabilize Mash long enough for us to find an alternative solution. The important thing right now is keeping her manifested."
"This is absurd," Olga muttered. But her voice lacked conviction. Her golden eyes kept flicking to Mash's prone form, and Griswald caught something there—concern, perhaps, buried beneath layers of aristocratic disdain. "A third-rate mage attempting a mana transfer in a combat zone. If this doesn't kill her, it'll certainly kill him."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Griswald said dryly.
Olga's flush deepened. "I didn't mean—" She stopped. Took a breath. "I simply meant that we should explore all options before resorting to..."
She couldn't finish the sentence.
None of them could, apparently.
Griswald looked down at Mash. Her eyes had closed, her breathing shallow. The armor that covered her had dimmed to a faint purple gleam, barely visible. Through their nascent bond, he felt her presence flickering like a candle in a storm.
She was dying.
And he was the only one who could save her.
His hand found hers. Cold. Too cold.
"Mash." His voice came out steadier than he felt. "Can you hear me?"
Her eyes fluttered open. Violet meeting grey. Even now, even fading, she tried to smile. "Master... I'm sorry. I'm not... strong enough..."
"Stop." He squeezed her hand. "Just stop. You saved my life back there. Multiple times. So now it's my turn."
Griswald's throat went dry. The words he needed to say lodged somewhere between his brain and his mouth, refusing to cooperate. He was acutely aware of everyone watching him—Ritsuka with her barely suppressed grin, Olga with her arms crossed and face averted, Romani's pixelated expression of secondhand embarrassment on the communicator screen.
"For now," he managed, voice cracking on the second word. He cleared his throat. Tried again. "For now, we could just... saliva should work. Kissing. Just kissing."
The blush that had been creeping up his neck exploded across his entire face. He could feel the heat radiating from his cheeks, probably visible even in the dim light. His glasses fogged again. He left them that way.
Mash made that sound again. That tiny, strangled noise that was somewhere between a squeak and complete system failure. Her violet eyes went impossibly wide, darting everywhere—the cracked ceiling, the shattered display case, the skeleton in the corner, the dust motes floating in the stale air—everywhere except him.
"I..." Her voice came out as barely a whisper. The faint glow of her armor flickered rapidly, like a heartbeat gone erratic. "I've never..."
She stopped. Swallowed. Her pale cheeks had turned a shade of pink that rivaled the setting sun bleeding through Fuyuki's broken skyline.
"Never kissed anyone," she finished. The words tumbled out in a rush, almost unintelligible. "Before. Ever. I've never kissed anyone before."
Something in Griswald's chest clenched. Of course she hadn't. Raised in Chaldea's sterile halls, treated more as an experiment than a person, monitored and measured and kept at arm's length from anything resembling normal human connection. When would she have had the chance?
"That makes two of us," he said quietly.
Mash's eyes finally met his. Surprise flickered through the embarrassment. "You haven't...?"
"Failing to live up to expectations doesn't exactly leave much time for a social life." The self-deprecating words came easier than the sincere ones. A familiar shield. "Between the tutors writing me off and my siblings outshining me at every turn, romance wasn't really on the curriculum. Hard to attract anyone when you're the family disappointment."
Her expression softened. That quiet understanding passed between them again—the recognition of kindred spirits, both deemed lesser versions of what they should have been. "Master..."
"Griswald," he corrected automatically. "Just Griswald. Please."
"Oh my god." Ritsuka's voice cut through the moment like a knife through warm butter. "This is adorable and tragic and I can't decide if I want to cry or throw something at both of you."
"Ritsuka—" Olga's sharp tone held warning.
"No, seriously!" The orange-haired girl threw her hands up, though her teasing had taken on a gentler edge. "Two awkward virgins about to have their first kiss in a skeleton-infested convenience store during the apocalypse. This is either the worst romance novel ever written or the best. I genuinely can't tell."
Mash made a sound like a deflating balloon. Her blush had spread down her neck now, disappearing beneath the collar of her flickering armor.
"That's quite enough." Romani's voice crackled through the communicator, and Griswald caught the doctor actively avoiding eye contact with the camera. His own face remained stubbornly red. "This is a private medical procedure. We should give them some space."
"Medical procedure," Ritsuka repeated flatly. "Is that what we're calling it?"
"Fujimaru." Olga's voice could have frozen magma. "Shut. Up."
There was a moment of fumbling, some muttered words Griswald couldn't quite catch, and then Romani's face vanished from the his communicator screen. A soft chime indicated the call transferring to Olga's personal device. The Director pointedly turned her back, silver-white hair swishing as she moved toward what remained of the shop's front window.
"We'll keep watch," she said stiffly. "Take whatever time you need. Within reason."
Ritsuka followed, though not before shooting Griswald a thumbs up and a wink that made him want to sink through the floor. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"
"That's not reassuring," he muttered.
Her laughter echoed off the broken walls as she joined Olga at the window.
And then it was just them.
Griswald and Mash.
Alone.
Well. As alone as they could be with two people actively not-watching from ten feet away and a doctor probably stress-eating on the other end of a communicator line.
Mash's hand still rested in his. He hadn't let go. Neither had she.
"We don't have to," she whispered. Her voice trembled slightly. "If you don't want to. I can try to hold on until we find another way—"
"You're dying." The words came out harsher than he intended. He softened his grip on her fingers. "I can feel it. Through the bond. You're fading, Mash. And I'm not going to let that happen because I'm too embarrassed to—"
He stopped. Took a breath.
"I want to help you," he said simply. "That's all that matters right now."
Her violet eyes searched his face. Looking for something. Whatever she found there made her expression shift—still embarrassed, still nervous, but something else too. Something warmer.
"Okay," she breathed. "Okay."
Griswald's heart hammered against his ribs. His palms had gone clammy. Every romance novel he'd ever stress-read during late nights in Chaldea's medical wing suddenly seemed woefully inadequate preparation for this moment.
He leaned closer.
So did she.
Their noses bumped.
"Sorry—"
"No, I'm sorry—"
They both froze. Griswald could feel her breath against his lips, warm and quick. Her eyes had fluttered half-closed. This close, he could see the individual lashes, the faint dusting of color across her cheekbones, the way her lower lip trembled almost imperceptibly.
Just do it, he told himself. Stop thinking. Stop analyzing. Just—
He closed the distance.
Their lips met.
And it was—
Terrible.
Griswald's nose pressed awkwardly against her cheek. His glasses dug into both their faces. The angle was wrong, somehow, despite the countless descriptions he'd read in books that made this seem effortless. Mash had gone rigid beneath him, her lips pressed into a thin line, and for one horrifying moment he thought he'd made a catastrophic mistake.
Then she softened.
Just slightly. A minute relaxation of tension that changed everything.
He adjusted. Tilted his head. Their noses found better positions, and suddenly the pressure wasn't uncomfortable anymore. It was just... contact. Warm. Soft. Her lips were chapped from the dust and chaos, but so were his. It didn't matter.
Mash made a small sound against his mouth. Not the panicked squeak from before. Something different. Questioning.
He pulled back a fraction of an inch.
"Is this—"
"Don't stop." Her whisper ghosted across his lips. "Please."
So he didn't.
The second attempt went better. Griswald found a rhythm, tentative and uncertain, but real. A gentle press. A slight movement. Mash followed his lead, her inexperience matching his own in a way that felt less like failure and more like exploration. They were learning together. Figuring it out in real time.
Her hand came up to rest against his chest. Not pushing away. Anchoring.
Through their bond, Griswald felt something shift. A tiny spark. The faintest flicker of warmth passing between them. Not enough. Nowhere near enough. But something.
By the window, movement caught the edge of his peripheral vision.
A flash of orange hair. Ritsuka's face appearing around the broken display shelf, eyes wide with poorly concealed curiosity. Her expression held the look of someone watching their favorite drama reach a crucial turning point.
A pale hand seized her collar.
Olga yanked her back with silent, furious efficiency. Griswald caught a glimpse of the Director's face—crimson to her hairline, jaw clenched so tight it had to hurt—before Ritsuka disappeared behind the shelf with a muffled yelp.
"Stay," Olga hissed, barely audible.
"But—"
"Stay."
Some shuffling. A pointed silence.
Griswald turned his attention back to Mash.
She hadn't noticed the interruption. Her eyes remained closed, dark lashes fanned against pink cheeks. A furrow of concentration creased her brow, like she was trying very hard to do this correctly. To not disappoint.
His heart ached at the sight.
This isn't enough.
The thought cut through the haze of embarrassment and newness. He could feel it—the trickle of mana barely flowing between them. A leaky faucet when she needed a river. Simple contact wasn't sufficient. The books were clear on this point, clinical and explicit in their descriptions of what true mana transfer required.
Exchange of fluids.
Proper exchange.
Griswald's face burned hotter. His stomach churned with nervousness. But beneath both, determination hardened into something solid. She was dying. Every second he hesitated, she slipped further away. He could feel the bond between them stretching thin, threatening to snap.
Do it.
He deepened the kiss.
His tongue pressed against her lips. Gentle. Questioning.
Mash's eyes flew open.
"Mmph—!"
Her whole body jerked with surprise. For one terrible instant Griswald thought she would pull away, would push him off, would look at him with betrayal and disgust. His heart seized.
But she didn't pull away.
Her fingers curled into his shirt. Not pushing. Gripping. Holding on.
And then—tentatively, shyly—she parted her lips.
Oh.
The sensation hit him like a physical blow. Heat bloomed from the point of contact, spreading through his chest and down his spine. His magical circuits—those weak, disappointing pathways his tutors had dismissed as barely functional—flared to life. For the first time, he felt them truly work. Energy surged through him, answering a call he hadn't consciously made.
Mash gasped against his mouth.
He could feel it now. Really feel it. The mana flowing from him to her, no longer a trickle but a steady stream. His tongue slid against hers, clumsy and uncertain, and each contact sent another pulse of power through their bond. She tasted like copper and dust and something sweeter underneath, something uniquely her.
Her own tongue moved. Experimentally at first. Then with growing confidence.
She's a quick learner, some distant part of his brain noted. The rest of him had stopped thinking entirely.
The bond between them strengthened. Griswald felt it solidify, threads of connection weaving tighter with each passing second. Through that link, he sensed Mash's emotions bleeding through. Surprise. Embarrassment. And beneath both, a warmth that had nothing to do with mana transfer.
Relief.
She was relieved. That he was here. That he hadn't abandoned her. That someone—anyone—thought she was worth saving.
His chest constricted painfully.
He cupped her face with his free hand. Tilted her head to a better angle. The kiss deepened further, and the mana flow increased proportionally. His circuits burned with the effort, straining to produce what she needed, but the pain barely registered.
Mash's armor brightened.
The dull purple glow that had been fading strengthened, spreading across the black plates in waves. Color returned to her cheeks—healthy color, not just the flush of embarrassment. Her grip on his shirt loosened as her strength began to return.
It was working.
It was actually working.
Behind the shelf, Griswald heard Ritsuka make a strangled noise. Olga shushed her with violent intensity.
He ignored them both.
All that mattered was this. Mash. The taste of her. The feel of her lips moving against his. The warmth of the bond singing between them like a live wire.
For the first time since the explosion, since waking up in this nightmare version of Fuyuki, Griswald felt something other than fear and inadequacy.
He felt capable.
The world narrowed to sensation.
Griswald's awareness contracted until nothing existed beyond the warmth of Mash's lips, the soft sounds she made against his mouth, the steady pulse of mana flowing between them. His circuits hummed with effort, but the strain felt distant now—background noise compared to the immediate reality of her.
She shifted closer. He adjusted to accommodate. Somewhere in the blur of movement and heat, his hands found her waist. Pulled.
Mash ended up in his lap.
Neither of them had consciously decided this. It simply happened—gravity and instinct conspiring together. One moment she was lying beside him, weak and fading. The next, she was straddling his thighs, her armored knees pressing into the dusty floor on either side of his hips.
Oh god.
The thought flickered through his mind and vanished just as quickly.
Because Mash had made a sound. A small, desperate noise that vibrated against his tongue and sent electricity sparking down his spine. Her arms wound around his neck. Pulled him closer. Closer still. Like she was trying to eliminate every possible inch of distance between them.
Griswald's arms tightened around her waist in response.
He couldn't help it. Couldn't stop himself. The contact felt necessary in a way he'd never experienced before. Every point where their bodies touched blazed with warmth—her chest pressed against his, her thighs bracketing his hips, her fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck.
When was the last time someone held me like this?
The question surfaced from somewhere deep and painful. He couldn't remember. Couldn't recall a single instance of physical affection that wasn't perfunctory or clinical. His family had never been demonstrative. The Chaldea staff had kept professional distance. Even Roman, for all his mentorship, expressed care through words and actions rather than touch.
This was...
Everything.
Mash seemed to feel it too. Through their bond, her emotions bled into his consciousness—wonder and hunger and a desperate, aching need that mirrored his own. She'd been alone longer than he had. Raised in sterile halls. Monitored by machines. Touched only by doctors checking vitals, scientists recording data.
Never held.
Never wanted.
Until now.
Her tongue found his. Not hesitant anymore. Not uncertain. She sucked, drawing him deeper, and Griswald's brain short-circuited entirely. A groan escaped him—embarrassingly loud in the quiet ruins—but he couldn't bring himself to care.
The mana transfer had become secondary. Still happening, yes—he could feel the power flowing from him to her in steady waves—but it was no longer the point. The point was her weight in his lap. The point was her fingers threading through his hair. The point was the way she rolled her hips against him, an unconscious motion that sent sparks cascading through his nervous system.
Oh.
Oh god.
She did it again. Grinding down. Seeking something she probably couldn't name, driven by instinct rather than experience. The armor covering her lower body had thinned—whether by design or unconscious desire, he didn't know—and through the reduced barrier he could feel her. The heat. The pressure.
Griswald's hands dropped to her hips. Not to stop her. To guide her. To pull her closer.
"—like two homeschoolers finding love, I swear to god—"
Ritsuka's voice cut through the haze. Loud. Deliberately loud. The kind of stage whisper designed to be overheard.
A sharp thwack followed immediately.
"Ow! What the—"
"Shut up." Olga's hiss could have stripped paint. "Just—stop—talking—"
"But they're—"
Another thwack.
"I saw that! You can't just keep hitting me!"
"Watch me. I am your boss"
Mash broke the kiss.
Her eyes were glazed, pupils blown wide. A thin strand of saliva connected their lips before breaking. She blinked. Once. Twice. Reality seemed to filter back in stages, her expression shifting from dazed to confused to mortified in the span of seconds.
"I—" Her voice came out rough. Wrecked. "I didn't mean to—"
"Don't." Griswald's own voice wasn't much better. "Don't apologize."
She was still in his lap. Still straddling him. Her cheeks had gone scarlet, visible even in the dim light, but she hadn't moved away. Hadn't climbed off. Her fingers remained tangled in his hair like she'd forgotten they were there.
The bond between them thrummed with energy. Solid. Strong. Whatever weakness had been threatening to extinguish her had retreated, held at bay by the mana he'd poured into their connection.
"Your armor," he managed. "It's brighter."
Mash looked down at herself. The purple glow had intensified significantly, casting shadows across the ruined store. Where before it had flickered like a dying candle, now it pulsed with steady radiance.
"Oh." She touched the plates covering her chest, wonder bleeding through her embarrassment. "It worked."
"Yeah." His hands were still on her hips. He should probably move them. He didn't. "It worked."
Their eyes met.
Something passed between them. Not words. Not even fully formed thoughts. Just... understanding. Recognition. Two people who had spent their lives starving for connection, suddenly drowning in it.
Mash's lower lip trembled.
"I've never..." She swallowed. Tried again. "No one's ever held me like that before."
The admission hit him like a physical blow. His arms tightened around her without conscious input, pulling her against his chest. She went willingly. Buried her face in his shoulder. Her whole body trembled—not from cold or weakness, but from something far more raw.
"I know," he whispered into her hair. "Me neither."
They stayed like that. Wrapped around each other in the ruins of a convenience store, surrounded by skeletons and shattered glass and the distant sounds of a dying city. Two people who had never learned what it meant to be held, refusing to let go.
By the window, Ritsuka had gone uncharacteristically quiet.
The moment stretched. Fragile and precious and entirely inappropriate for their circumstances. Griswald knew they should move. Should stand. Should focus on the mission, on survival, on literally anything other than clinging to each other like the world might end if they separated.
The world was ending. That was the whole point.
But right now, in this stolen breath of peace, it didn't seem to matter.
Mash's lips parted. "Senpai, I wanted to say—"
The words died in her throat.
Her eyes went wide. Not with embarrassment this time. With terror.
"GET DOWN!"
She moved before he could process the warning. One moment she was in his lap, warm and close and trembling. The next she had thrown herself sideways, her massive cross-shaped shield materializing in her grip with a flash of purple light.
Metal screamed against metal.
Griswald's ears rang from the impact. He caught a glimpse of something curved and wickedly sharp—a scythe, blade gleaming purple-black in the dim light—sliding along Mash's shield barely six inches from his face. Sparks flew. The force of the blow drove Mash back, her boots scraping furrows in the dusty floor.
That would have taken my head off.
The thought arrived with strange calm. Delayed shock. His brain hadn't caught up to the reality that he'd nearly died.
"CONTACT!" Ritsuka's shout came from the window. "We've got—shit, we've got a Servant!"