The elevator doors slid open onto a different world.
It was still all marble and polish, but the air here was heavier—thick with tension and the kind of quiet that only existed in places where decisions ruined lives.
Rows of desks stretched out under hanging lights. Aurors and officials in sharp coats and robes clustered around a central cluster of floating documents, voices low but urgent. In the middle of it all, a large circular seal was carved into the floor: the emblem of MACUSA.
Ritsuka's bracelet hummed.
[Location: MACUSA – Major Investigation Department.]
[Security density: VERY HIGH.]
[Personal advice: Don't be weird.]
Right. Easy.
Tina marched out of the elevator like she was walking into a fight she planned to win through sheer stubbornness.
"Stay close," she snapped without looking back.
Ritsuka and Newt exchanged a look but followed.
As they approached the central area, the noise sharpened into actual words.
"Another incident?"
"No, same unknown force—ripped straight through the street—"
"Graves is already on it—"
That last name made Ritsuka's shoulders tense.
Percival Graves stood near a large, floating display of New York's streets rendered in glowing lines. A dark stain pulsed over one area of the city—the Obscurus's path. He was speaking quietly to a cluster of high‑ranking officials, his posture relaxed but his eyes razor sharp.
Ritsuka's bracelet flickered.
[Percival Graves – Present.]
[Status: Observing.]
[Action: DO NOT attract extra attention.]
"Director Picquery," Tina called out suddenly, voice slicing across the room.
The conversations stumbled to a halt.
Madam Seraphina Picquery turned, every inch of her radiating do not waste my time. Her robes were immaculate, hat at a precise angle, gaze cutting.
"Tina," she said, and somehow managed to fit disappointment, irritation, and why are you talking into two syllables.
Tina's spine straightened.
"I apprehended a foreign wizard and his associate," she said, shoving Newt forward a step with a hand between his shoulder blades. "He unleashed a creature in a No-Maj bank. I believe he's connected to the disturbances in the city."
Ritsuka felt every eye in the room land on them.
He resisted the urge to raise a hand and say, I'm just here on unrelated world‑saving business, actually.
Picquery's gaze slid over Newt, then to Ritsuka.
"And you are?" she asked.
"Fujimaru Ritsuka," he said. "Tourist. Bad at picking travel companions."
Her brow twitched the tiniest bit.
"Charming," she said flatly, then focused back on Tina. "You were told to stay away from this investigation."
There was history there—old reprimands, demotions, and warnings etched into the lines around Tina's mouth.
"With respect, Madam President," Tina said, voice tight, "he let a magical creature loose in front of a No-Maj in a crowded bank. I couldn't ignore that."
Graves stepped forward, curiosity sharpening his features as he regarded Newt.
"Is that so?" he said. "And what sort of creature are we talking about?"
Newt opened his mouth, then apparently thought better of being honest in front of half of MACUSA.
"A small one," he said weakly. "Mostly harmless."
Tina made a strangled noise.
"He hasn't even Obliviated the No-Maj," she added, like that detail physically pained her.
A murmur rippled through the room.
Picquery exhaled slowly, the sound edged with exasperation.
"Let's see it, then," Graves said, nodding at the suitcase in Newt's hand. "Open the case, Mr...?"
"Scamander," Newt supplied. "Newt Scamander."
Ritsuka felt the danger spike.
This was the part where the suitcase full of magical beasts exploded into the middle of MACUSA's high‑security hub, and Ritsuka had to explain to Olga why he'd accidentally helped collapse the American wizarding government.
The bracelet went from idle hum to a low, worried buzz.
[Warning: High‑risk exposure event imminent.]
[Recommend: Minimal interference. Observe outcome.]
No pressure.
Tina grabbed the case before Newt could, hauling it to a nearby clear desk.
"Everyone stand back," she said, with the air of someone about to unveil decisive proof.
Staff drifted closer instead.
Abernathy, a pale man with the permanent expression of someone who loved rules more than people, sidled up, eyes bright with petty interest.
"Tina," he said, voice pitched just loud enough for others to hear, "you're interrupting an active briefing. Again."
She ignored him.
"Open it," Graves ordered, eyes fixed on the case.
Newt looked like he wanted to protest. Or run. Or vomit.
"Right," he said faintly.
Ritsuka held his breath.
Abernathy flicked the locks.
The suitcase clicked open.
Ritsuka braced for fur, claws, chaos—
Pastries.
Neat rows of them. Donuts, little cakes, rolls dusted with sugar. The smell of yeast and childhood and definitely not illegal magical predators puffed up into the air.
There was a long, heavy silence.
Ritsuka stared.
His brain, helpfully, provided a memory of Jacob clutching his case in the bank, flour dreams in his eyes.
"Of course," Ritsuka thought numbly. "We really did swap them."
Abernathy's expression twisted into something viciously satisfied.
"Are we meant to be afraid of baked goods now, Goldstein?" he drawled.
A few people snickered. The sound hit like static.
Tina's face went stiff. Color rose to her cheeks, the mortifying kind.
"There was a creature," she insisted, voice cracking on the edge of frustration. "You have to believe me, it was—"
Picquery raised a hand.
"Enough," she said.
Tina's words died in her throat.
Graves's gaze slid from the pastries to Newt, then to Ritsuka.
Ritsuka forced his expression to stay somewhere between confused and mildly alarmed citizen, instead of an interdimensional problem solver who just watched his one piece of hard evidence vanish into cream filling.
Picquery pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Mr. Scamander," she said coolly, "why are you in possession of what appears to be a No-Maj's baked goods?"
Newt opened and closed his mouth.
"Well, you see, that is... a bit of a long story," he said.
"That we do not have time for," Picquery cut in. "You've interrupted a discussion about an unknown destructive force tearing apart our city. And you," she added, spearing Tina with a look, "have once again barged into Major Investigation without cause."
"There was cause," Tina tried. "He—"
"Pastries," Abernathy said helpfully.
Ritsuka's fingers tightened around the handle of his own Case. His bracelet vibrated.
[Mission impact: SUITCASE SWAP CONFIRMED.]
[Secondary threat: Jacob Kowalski + Beasts – UNSUPERVISED.]
Right now, MACUSA saw: one flustered British magizoologist, one foreign tagalong, one demoted ex-Auror with nothing to show for her dramatic entrance except cupcakes.
They did not see: the No-Maj running around with a suitcase full of magical creatures, or the way that mess could dovetail beautifully with the Obscurus tearing through the city.
"We're wasting time," Graves said quietly. "Whatever that force was, it's escalating."
The map behind him pulsed, another dark blot spreading over an intersection.
Picquery sighed.
"Abernathy," she said. "Process their information and then return Mr. Scamander's suitcase. We'll decide what to do with him later."
Her gaze flicked to Ritsuka again, measuring.
"And you, Mr. Fujimaru," she added, "will refrain from getting involved in matters that do not concern No-Majs. Clear?"
"Crystal," Ritsuka said.
Internally, he translated that to: Figure this out without letting your cover burn, or Mash and Olga will never let you live it down.
Picquery turned away, already done with them.
Tina stood frozen, shoulders tight, humiliation and anger bleeding off her in waves.
Newt stared at the pastries as they'd personally betrayed him.
Ritsuka let out a slow breath.
Jacob, he thought. Wherever you are, please don't open that case.
His bracelet buzzed once more, like it shared the sentiment.
[New priority confirmed: Locate Jacob Kowalski. Retrieve original case.]
The pastries did nothing to argue.
TRISMEGISTUS's glow washed the command room in pale blue, lines of data scrolling so fast they were almost unreadable. To most of the staff, it might as well have been magic.
To Mash, it was a window.
She leaned forward, fingers wrapped white‑knuckled around the edge of the console. Her shield rested against her back, heavier than it had ever been, power coiled inside it like a storm waiting for somewhere to break.
"Signal's stable," Meunière said from the next station over, crumbs on his shirt, eyes on his screens. "Master's vitals are within safe parameters. Elevated heart rate, but that's kind of his default."
Mash exhaled, but it didn't quite become relief.
On her monitor, stylized icons tracked Ritsuka's path: arrival at the docks, anomaly spikes near the Obscurus incident, a bright flare in a location now labeled MACUSA HQ.
"So he's inside their main government building," Olga said from behind them, arms folded, heel tapping rapidly against the floor. "Fantastic. First mission and he's already walked into the lion's den."
Her tone was dry; her eyes weren't.
Mash bit her lip.
"We didn't give him much choice, Director," she said quietly. "That bank incident... MACUSA intervened. If he'd resisted, they might have seen his true capabilities."
Olga clicked her tongue.
"I know that," she snapped, then sighed, some of the sharpness bleeding out. "It doesn't mean I have to like watching him waltz through foreign magical law enforcement with nothing but a suitcase and his 'I swear I didn't mean to break your timeline' face."
On the screen, a brief spike of emotional telemetry flickered—embarrassment, irritation, that familiar stubborn line to his pulse when he was pretending to be calmer than he was.
Mash's hand hovered over the comms switch.
"Should I... contact him?" she asked. "A direct line? I can advise him on MACUSA structure based on what we've extrapolated so far."
Olga hesitated.
TRISMEGISTUS hummed louder, cycling through projections of the anomaly—Obscurus path overlays, MACUSA response patterns, probability trees that all ended in big red blocks labeled BREACH if things went wrong.
"If their detection systems pick up our signal, they might trace it," Olga said. "The last thing we need is America deciding Chaldea is some kind of hostile observatory hovering over their heads."
Mash's shoulders slumped a millimeter.
"But..." she started, then stopped herself.
She could see him in her mind—standing in a strange room, wearing clothes that didn't quite feel like his yet, making that small, determined smile he always wore when the odds were stacked high enough to crush him.
Azrael's earlier words echoed in her ears: fixed point, Paladin of the Threshold. Too heavy to move, too dangerous to send.
She hated it.
"I should be there," she said before she could swallow it down.
The words came out small, but they hung in the air like a challenge.
Olga didn't answer immediately.
For a few seconds, the only sounds were TRISMEGISTUS and the soft clatter of keys as the staff pretended not to eavesdrop.
Finally, Olga stepped closer, folding her arms on the back of Mash's chair, looking at the same screen.
"You almost cracked the training room floor this morning by breathing too hard with that shield in your hands," Olga said. "If we dropped you into a densely warded magical government building, you'd either overload their wards or fuse with them. Neither outcome is on my list of acceptable disasters."
Mash's cheeks flushed.
"I know," she whispered. "It's just... Senpai always goes alone at the crucial moments. I thought After Time would be different."
Olga's gaze softened for a fraction of a second.
"This isn't him being alone," she said quietly. "This is him walking where we can't follow. There's a difference."
Mash blinked.
On the screen, a small icon representing Ritsuka flickered near a cluster tagged MAJOR INVESTIGATION. The readings spiked: elevated stress, then a brief, odd wave—as someone had just opened a suitcase of pastries in the middle of a crisis.
Meunière snorted.
"Huh," he said. "Emotional signature looks like... embarrassment? Confusion? And... is that... hunger?"
Mash tilted her head.
"Director?" she asked.
Olga pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Please tell me he didn't start a diplomatic incident over baked goods," she muttered.
Mash couldn't help it—she smiled, just a little.
"That sounds like something that would happen to Senpai," she admitted.
Her fingers brushed the edge of the shield at her back. Through it, faint but present, she could feel him—the same tenuous link they always shared on missions. A heartbeat at the edge of her senses.
She closed her eyes for a second.
Please be safe, she thought. Please keep trusting us to watch over you from here.
The shield pulsed once in response, or maybe that was just her imagination.
Olga straightened, all business again.
"Keep the channel open," she ordered. "If his vitals spike into 'I'm about to do something dangerously heroic,' I want to know before he finishes the sentence."
"Yes, Director," Mash said.
She focused on the screen, eyes tracking every tiny movement of his icon as if she could protect him by watching hard enough.
In 1926 New York, Ritsuka navigated wands and laws and hidden beasts.
In Chaldea, Mash and Olga navigated silence, waiting, and the fear of all the things they couldn't do.
Both of them, in their own places, held the same thought:
Don't let this world take him from us.
Jacob Kowalski's apartment had never been particularly sturdy, but it had, at the very least, stayed in one piece—that is, until the moment Newt Scamander's battered case sprang open.
Wood splintered. Brick shuddered. With a roar and a rush of displaced air, half the sitting room wall gave way as something enormous forced its way through. Jacob clung in terror to one of the creatures, trying to bolt for freedom, his heels skidding uselessly across the floorboards. The case, yawning wide, spilled chaos: glimmers of scales and fur, the rustle of wings, the echo of inhuman cries.
What had once been an ordinary No-Maj apartment in New York was now a ragged breach, opening onto the night and the city beyond.
"I can't believe you didn't Obliviate that man. If there's an inquiry, I'm finished." Tina Goldstein's voice was taut with fury and panic as she strode beside Newt.
Newt blinked at her, clutching his case as though it were something delicate and easily wounded. "So... why would you be finished? I'm the one that—"
"We're not supposed to go near the Second Salemers," Tina cut across him sharply, her jaw clenched.
They rounded a corner just in time to catch sight of one of the escapees: a vast, chitinous shape, like a monstrous flying cockroach. It swept through the air, catching the city lights along its wings. Newt's eyes brightened with recognition even as Tina recoiled.
"What is that?" she hissed.
"Just a big moth," Newt said lightly.
By the time they reached the scene of the crash, there was very little building left to speak of—just a ragged, smoking ruin reduced almost to smithereens. A crowd had already gathered, milling about and muttering.
"Fantastic..." Fujimaru Ritsuka murmured under his breath, the word edged with disbelief.
They pushed their way through the onlookers. Newt flicked his wand with a practiced ease, nudging the nearest man's words into something more... acceptable. The man's description of the creature blurred, its more dangerous details smoothed away, until the crowd was nodding in agreement with a version of events that would pass as merely odd rather than impossible.
Fujimaru watched, impressed despite himself, then followed Newt into the ruined building.
Inside, plaster dust hung in the air like a pale fog. Tina spotted the great moth again, flitting past a broken window, while Fujimaru surveyed the mess. Newt knelt beside Jacob, who lay amid the debris, sporting an ugly bite mark on his neck and groaning faintly.
Fujimaru watched as Newt began to restore the room. With each careful sweep of his wand, shattered glass reassembled; cracked beams knit themselves together; chairs and tables flew back to their rightful places as though time itself had flickered backwards. Fujimaru's eyes widened.
"Is this how the magi did it in the past...?" he whispered.
Tina's sharp intake of breath cut through the air. "It was open?" she demanded, eyeing Newt's case.
"Just a smidge," Newt admitted.
"That crazy Niffler thing's on the loose again?"
"Uh... might be," Newt said, not quite meeting her eyes.
"Look for it!" Tina snapped.
Her attention shifted to Jacob and to Fujimaru bent beside him.
"Ohhh, his neck is bleeding. He's hurt. Oh, wake up! Mr. No-Maj!" She shouldered Fujimaru aside in her concern.
"Tina, get back!" Fujimaru warned.
He was just in time. A creature burst from behind a toppled cabinet, scrabbling towards Jacob. Fujimaru yanked Tina away, and Newt lunged, catching the squirming beast in both hands.
"Ohhh! Mercy Lewis, what is that?" Tina cried.
"Nothing to worry about," Newt said, wrestling it firmly back into his case. "That is a Murtlap."
Tina's eyes narrowed. "What else have you got in there?"
"Y-you two!" Jacob suddenly gasped, staggering upright.
"Hello!" Newt replied cheerfully, as if they'd met at a polite afternoon tea and not in the ruins of his sitting room.
"Easy, Mr.—" Tina began.
"Kowalski. Jacob," he managed.
Newt raised his wand, the tip hovering toward Jacob's temple. "If you'll just hold still for a moment—"
Tina stepped swiftly between them, wand in hand. "You can't Obliviate him! We need him as a witness!"
"I'm sorry," Newt said, affronted, "you've just yelled at me the length of New York for not doing it in the first place."
"It's hurt! He looks ill."
"He'll be fine," Newt said dismissively. "Murtlap bites aren't serious."
Jacob gave a strangled groan. "Oh! Oh!"
Newt frowned, studying the swelling. "That is a slightly more severe reaction than I've seen. If it were really serious, you'd have—"
"What?" Tina demanded.
"Well, the first symptom would be flames coming out of his anus. He doesn't seem to—"
"This is balled up!" Tina snapped, gesturing at Jacob's contorted posture.
"It'll last forty-eight hours at the most," Newt said soothingly. "I can keep him if you—"
"Keep him? We don't keep them!" Tina all but sputtered. "Mr. Scamander, do you know anything about the Wizarding community in America?"
"I do know a few things, actually," Newt replied, bristling. "I know that you have rather backward laws about relations with non-magic people. That you're not meant to befriend them, that you can't marry them, which seems mildly absurd to me."
"Who's going to marry him?" Tina shot back.
"Can you married couples shut up for a few seconds?!" Fujimaru interjected sharply. "I'm going to heal him up and make him walk or stand properly, so let me concentrate."
The two turned to stare at him in unison.
Fujimaru drew in a slow breath and set his own battered briefcase on the floor. It opened with a soft, unnatural whisper, revealing not beasts but an array of strange, gleaming cards, each one marked with a portrait and an unfamiliar crest.
He selected one: a stern woman in a nurse's headdress, her gaze level and unyielding. As he pressed the card between his fingers, the air around him darkened. A translucent figure rose at his side—a shadow shaped like a woman in a war nurse's uniform, her presence cold and clinical.
Florence Nightingale's shade knelt beside Jacob with swift, efficient motions. Invisible hands mended torn flesh and steadied faltering breath. In the space of a heartbeat, Jacob's color improved; the swelling eased.
The "ghostly doctor" faded as quickly as she had appeared.
Both Newt and Tina stared, shaken. They had seen wandless magic before, but nothing like this: nothing that felt so precise, so ruthlessly medical.
"Now that it's done," Fujimaru said quietly, closing his case with a snap, "let's go where we're going next."
He left the room first, coat brushing the doorframe. The two wizards exchanged a look—half-bewildered, half-curious—before Apparating with Jacob to another part of the city.
Apparition twisted the world into a narrow tube of pressure and sound. When they reappeared, Jacob swayed, his face pale.
Tina steadied him. "All right," she said, snapping out of her daze. "Before we go in, I am not supposed to have men on the premises."
"In that case," Newt began mildly, "Mr. Kowalski and I can easily seek other accommodations."
"No, you don't," she said briskly, already climbing the stairs. "Watch your step."
They entered a narrow corridor that smelled faintly of cabbage and soap. As they passed a door with peeling paint, a sharp elderly voice rang out.
"Is that you, Tina?"
The men froze. Tina pasted on an expression of bored innocence.
"Yes, Mrs. Esposito," Tina called back.
"Are you alone?"
"Always alone, Mrs. Esposito," Tina answered smoothly.
Satisfied, Mrs. Esposito fell silent. Tina hurried them the rest of the way up to a modest door, which she unlocked with a flick of her wand.
Inside, the flat was small but surprisingly cosy. Everything was tidy and unmistakably feminine: soft colors, neatly folded linens, little decorative charms that straightened books or fluffed cushions of their own accord.
Jacob gaped openly as a kettle floated from the stove to the shelf, humming to itself. Newt and Fujimaru, having seen rather more extraordinary sights, only looked around with polite curiosity.
"Teenie. You brought men home."
The voice drifted from within the bedroom. A moment later, a young witch stepped into view in a pale nightgown, hurriedly pulling a robe around herself.
"Gentlemen," Tina said, a touch flustered, "this is my sister. Wanna put something on, Queenie?"
"Oh. Sure," the blonde witch said with an easy smile.
This was Queenie Goldstein. Her beauty was soft and warm, the sort that made a room feel instantly brighter, but her eyes were sharp, watchful. While Newt and Fujimaru glanced towards the window, Jacob could not look away from her.
"So," Queenie asked lightly, once she'd tied her robe, "who are they?"
"That's Mr. Scamander," Tina said, gesturing. "He's committed a serious infraction of the National Statute of Secrecy."
"He's a criminal?" Queenie's eyebrows rose, more intrigued than alarmed.
"Uh-huh. And that's Mr. Kowalski. He's a No-Maj."
"A No-Maj?" Queenie repeated, her tone shading quickly into concern. "Teenie, what are you up to?"
"It's a long story. He's recovering, but his recovery takes time," Tina said shortly.
Tina drew her aside, speaking in a low rush about the bank, the beasts, and the dangerously open case. Queenie's attention flicked to Jacob, who was sunk into a sofa, still looking rather overwhelmed and more than a little enchanted by her.
"You bake, honey?" Queenie said suddenly, her eyes lighting. "I love to cook."
"You're a Legilimens?" Newt asked, watching her carefully.
"Yeah," Queenie said with a shrug, "but I always have trouble with your kind. Brits—it's the accent." Her gaze turned, curious, to Fujimaru. "As for Mr. Fujimaru, I find it interesting... your kind of Japanese wizard."
"Oh, we're not that kind of interesting," Fujimaru replied, folding his arms.
Jacob swallowed. "You know how to read minds?"
"Don't worry, honey," Queenie said kindly. "Most guys think what you were thinking the first time they see me. Now you need food."
Outside the window, Newt and Fujimaru caught a glimpse of the enormous moth again as it slipped away into the night. Inside, the Goldstein sisters set about preparing dinner, wands flicking in a ballet of domestic magic. Pots stirred themselves, cutlery danced into place, and vegetables chopped and arranged in midair.
"Hey, Mr. Scamander," Queenie called over her shoulder. "You prefer pie or strudel?"
"Um," Newt said, looking faintly hunted by the question, "I really don't have preferences."
Queenie smiled and chose for him regardless. Soon, the table was set, dishes steaming invitingly.
"Well, sit down, Mr. Scamander, Mr. Fujimaru," Tina said, her tone softening. "We're not going to poison you."
They sat. Fujimaru, ever observant, was the only one to notice the faint bulge in Newt's coat pocket where a tiny, restless creature shifted, its beady eyes peering out.
Time slipped by as the food disappeared and the wine glasses refilled themselves. Queenie and Jacob leaned closer over the table, their flirtation feather-light but unmistakable; shared glances, half-stifled laughs. Tina and Newt, recalling Fujimaru's earlier jibe about them sounding like a married couple, avoided each other's eyes, each suddenly awkward.
Conversation turned, as it inevitably must, to what would happen to Jacob.
"He'll have to be Obliviated," Tina said quietly. "Sooner or later. Once the beast issue is under control."
Queenie's smile faltered, and she looked at the baker with open sorrow.
"What about you, Mr. Fujimaru?" she asked, turning to him. "Do you—"
Her voice cut off.
Queenie's Legilimency had always been gentle, almost instinctive—a nudge at the edges of another person's thoughts, the easy reading of feelings and impressions like pages in an open book. With most wizards, minds were melodies; with No-Majs, simple, straightforward sketches.
But when she brushed—idly, curiously—against Ritsuka Fujimaru's mind, her world froze.
There was no simple stream of consciousness waiting for her. Instead, she found a chasm.
A void.
It was like tuning in to a radio and being struck not by music but by catastrophe. She heard the distant roar of collapsing skyscrapers, saw—without seeing—a bleached, empty Earth, its cities ground down to dust. The Blackened Sky of the Incineration of Humanity loomed overhead.
Beneath it all were voices. Hundreds of them. Heroic Spirits, bound and layered atop one another, arguing, murmuring, warning, pleading. The minds of legends and monsters alike, all knotted together around a single, stubborn human soul.
Queenie's breath hitched. She prided herself on seeing the goodness in people, on never flinching from what others hid. But in Ritsuka, she saw something she had no words for: the Burden of the Observer.
He did not simply remember tragedies; he had watched worlds burn and then walked away because someone had to. Someone had to carry their ghosts.
She stumbled back from the table, one hand flying to her mouth.
"Honey..." she whispered, her voice trembling. "You're so quiet on the outside, but inside... It's like a graveyard. No, it's like... a million stars going out all at once. How are you even standing up?"
Fujimaru froze, his fork hovering halfway to his lips. He hadn't even felt the intrusion—not really. His defences, honed for different threats, had been resting. He realized, with a cold, crawling sensation, that he had let his mind lie unguarded, and she had walked straight into the worst of it.
After the first surge of horror, Queenie's empathy reasserted itself. The images she had glimpsed settled into shapes she could almost understand.
"You don't have anyone to talk to about the 'Ice,' do you?" she murmured, her eyes locked on his. "The girl in the shield... you're doing all this so she can wake up."
"I... I don't know what you're talking about," Fujimaru said at once, his voice too quick, too thin.
"Can you come here for a second, honey?" Queenie asked, barely above a whisper.
The others stared, baffled by the sudden shift in atmosphere. Fujimaru, feeling unmoored, obeyed. He rose, stepped around his chair, and came to stand beside her.
Queenie stood too. Then, without ceremony, she wrapped her arms gently around him.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then Tina saw it: a single tear slipping down from Fujimaru's eye, tracing a pale line over his cheek. His shoulders, which always held themselves a little too straight, sagged. Slowly, he returned the embrace, one arm uncertainly circling Queenie's back.
Queenie's own expression changed; her brows drew together as though she were sharing a weight. A tear slid down her cheek to match his.
Newt and Tina exchanged a look, startled and uneasy in the face of something they could neither see nor mend with magic.
For Ritsuka Fujimaru, this was the moment the 1920s stopped being merely another singularity to traverse. In Queenie Goldstein's arms, he understood that even in a foreign time, in a foreign branch of history, there were people who could see past the title of "Master of Chaldea."
They saw him for what he truly was: a tired boy trying—desperately—to save a future he might never live to see.