Divergence of Compassion and Comfort

 Divergence of Compassion and Comfort (FGO X Rise)

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Commissioned by Chaosbrain

Wordcount: 3000

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Fujimaru Ritsuka awakened with a gasp, nearly shooting straight up as his heart pounded from fear, only to be held down upon which he lay.

BB’s lap.

“Nuh-uh, you’re not getting up that fast, Senpai!” BB’s lilting taunts, at the beginning of his journey in SE.RA.PH. had been difficult to bear, but the AI-turned-servant’s presence calmed him now. When everything had been revealed, and the true threat unveiled itself, the AI had betrayed her master in order to help them. And, with just a glance, he could tell he was in the familiar studio from where the AI had continuously contacted him throughout his journey. “Let nurse BB-chan take care of you for now! You humans really need to know better than to overstress your worthless, decrepit bodies, you know?”

“W-where’s everyone?” Fujimaru struggled to speak, but he forced himself to do so, even as BB’s smile instantly faded away into a pout. He managed to give the suddenly-scarlet-gazed, purple-haired, and leotard-clad “Ultimate Kouhai” an apologetic smile. “Sorry. Everything just happened so quickly that I need make sure everyone’s alright.”

“Hmph! I see, so you don’t have any trust in your loveable kouhai, Senpai! Did you think that this ultimate AI couldn’t save a few Servants from being consumed by a Beast?” BB scoffed and chastised him, but she also let go of his head, so that he could look beyond the familiar stage. Melt was seated in the corner, resting, but he noticed her eyes open to look at him for a moment. Passionlip was next to her sister, fretting over approaching, until Robin waved at him and she followed suit. Tamomo Cat and Suzuka were discussing something in the corner. However, there was someone conspicuously missing. “O-oh… I suppose even a broken clock can be right twice a day.”

“Coda stayed back to hold Mabe--Kiara off, so we could leave.”

“W-well, it couldn’t be helped! Even with my super Kouhai AI powers, those two were ready to destroy each other the moment they spoke!” BB justifications were weak and she squirmed beneath Ritsuka. The young man could easily tell that the AI was more distraught about her failing than she let on. Little miscalculations and errors were something the AI despised, after all. “I couldn’t have—wait… what?”

Fujimaru barely had a moment to reminisce about his lost Servant, one that has been with him and Mash since the very beginning since Fuyuki, when the shadows in the room began to lengthen, the air grew cold, and the world itself seemed to take a final breath. He’d felt the power many times before, because it was Coda’s, but he’d seen her fall to the fists of the Demonic Boddhisattva, as she placed herself between her and him.

“W-what the heck? Is this some sort of joke? A really, big practical joke that makes all my Kiara Punishers worthless, after all the work I spent making them!?” BB cried out and held onto her face with her gloved hands in despair, but Fujimaru took the opportunity to get up, and look about the room. All his other Servants were standing and alert, even as they’d become accustomed to the power as well. Robin and Tristan both looked at his right hand, and then to his gaze, and he instinctively searched for a new connection with an old friend, yet there was none. “Jeez, jeez, jeez! This is really super unfair for a perfect Kouhai making her big debut!”

In one moment, there was nothing in the middle of the room, then the next Coda reformed.

But Fujimaru immediately knew that he didn’t look upon the Servant he knew. Their looks, appearance, and demeanor were the same, but the one that came forth didn’t carry the former’s somber silence and quiet grit.

No, instead, the Coda he looked upon now was something, something more real.

The true “Coda” and not just a broken, unknown fragment that found its way to a young man desperately pleading for help in a burning city.

“Hello, Fujimaru Ritsuka, it is nice to meet you.” Coda gave him a slow, simple nod, but like with the most charismatic and well-spoken of his servants, he felt the need to stand straight and meet her gaze without hesitation. “My offshoot remembered you very well.”

Fujimaru’s throat tightened at her words, though. It was a painful reminder that the girl who’d fought with him was gone. The quiet, reserved individual who never gave up, who pushed forward in every battle, and supported him and Mash was gone. He didn’t even know how he was going to tell Mash when he got back home, but he took a breath and gave the girl who looked similar to the one he knew a nod.

“No, no, no! Hold on! This isn’t just going to be that easy for you… whatever you are! I thought that broken thing Senpai was bringing around was just that: a mistake by the Throne that was cutely helping out my Senpai!” BB stalked forward and poked Coda in chest with her pointer. Fujimaru had to remind himself that the girl he looked at wasn’t’ the same as the one as he knew, when Coda decided to simply blink and not react at the aggressiveness of the AI. “I watched that little thing go away, so you better explain how you’re here, when I—

‘There is nothing for you to apologize for, nor for me to forgive you for, BB-san. My previous self here chose to not be saved. She exists with me, returned to me in her destruction, so you did not fail in saving her.” And, just like always, BB’s bluster and demeanor faded instantly as Coda addressed the core of the AI’s concerns and qualms with a smile and a secret breath. “Do not worry. I also remember you. My little self chose to work with you, because she knew you were helping us from the very start.”

“Bwuah. I… no… guh…”

BB’s face was as beet red as always whenever Coda spoke to her, and Fujimaru smiled at the sight.

However, he knew that there was other things to address.

“Coda-san, will you help us defeat Kiara?”

“Of course.” The answer was instant, simple, and familiar to the point that it made Fujimaru’s heart ache. The small smile that formed on Coda’s face, as she walked toward him. Their gazes met, and he could only swallow his sorrow at her familiar, yet different face. He knew he looked upon the true Coda, a person who knew herself and felt love for herself, yet he missed the one who’d walked with him through all the Singularities with Mash. “I’ll attack now, and buy you time. The finishing blow will have to be yours.”

“Wait a minute! No! I don’t care if you’re stronger than the Coda-chan I knew! You’re not facing a Beast by yourself, even one that’s only half-born. You’re… still… human…” BB’s words stalled, as she rallied from her shock, only to be struck silent. “No. Wait. That can’t be right. What are you? How is this possible?” BB took a step back, her sisters staring at her and then Coda in turn, as the AI seemed utterly, completely surprised. “The two of you are the same!?”

“No. Just alike in power, ability, and beliefs.” Coda gestured and the room’s shadows deepened and lengthened once again. A disk of darkness formed at the end of her pointed finger, which crackled with ebony lightening at the edges, and swirled with sparks of darkness. “I am an Aspect. A being that can choose who and what they desire to be.” Her head tilted in way that was both alien and familiar for Fujimaru. “And, I have chosen to be different from Kiara-san to the point where I shall fight her to prove her wrong.”

“In what, little lady? Because, if you’re as strong as a Beast, I’d like to know why you’re helping us.” Robin spoke and Fujimaru started, especially as the Archer placed a tight grip on his shoulder. The fictional Heroic Spirit had a lackadaisical smile on his face, but the Last Master of Chaldea could tell that the cloaked crossbowman was nervous about everything he’d witnessed. “Pardon my language, but I’d rather not deal with another monster hiding behind a pretty face.”

Coda blinked at the words, before answering with barely a moment’s hesitation.

“I believe that engulfing earth in eternal pleasure without consent is wrong. But, if people wish to be free from the world’s agony, they should be able to choose to do so.”

“And, what if people are suffering, and choose to stay alive?”

“It is Li’s duty to guide those who wish to fight against fate and destiny, and I trust him to do it well.”

“Li?” Robin blinked for a second, before asking the question that suddenly arrived to everyone minds. From BB to Tamamo Cat, the question reigned in everyone’s minds not only due to the sudden declaration of a new name, but also the light blush on a normally expressionless face that followed it. “Who’s that—

“I must go now. Kiara must be stopped.”

And, with those words lingering in everyone’s minds, Fujimaru looked at Coda run away for the first time.

Still, despite being flabbergasted, a singular thought nearly eclipsed everything else.

Who the heck was making his little sister blush so cutely!?

…​

Coda recalled many things, once her wayward fragment returned to her, in regards to the parallel reality that she found herself in. Singularities, where immense fragments of power were sent to burn time itself away, had burned itself into her mind, as well a hard-fought battle against a Demon who wished to destroy humanity by erasing history itself.

There were many moments that needed more time to be reflected upon, as well as to be perfectly preserved and placed in an Endkin made in her image to be left in this place, but for now she faced her.

A creature so focused on kindness and love that she would bury the world in depravity and pleasure.

“Kiara Sessyoin.” Coda greater her by her name alone, and the horned, voluptuous woman with a demon’s eye for a heart looked upon her. Clad in flowing folds of gold and white, with everything she wore meant to merely accentuate her existence as a goddess of debauchery and lust, the woman looked upon Coda with a scowl. “If I remember correctly, before you destroyed my other self, you told me that I am “a little girl who doesn’t understand anything.” Would you mind listening to what I think about you?”

Two realities collided with one another continuously. The first was the ocean’s abyss, strengthened, deepened, and rushing toward the second; a massive oil-platform converted into the body of a woman composed entirely of energy. In the corners of Coda’s vision, darkness fought against a gaudy, encroaching gold that sought to suffuse everything with light, lust, and pleasure, while she faced the creature that was its source.

“Yes. I would, because I shall never understand you, and you shall never understand me.” Sessyoin’s voice lacked the typical lust and rapturous lilt it contained when she spoke to others. For Coda, her voice was cold and nearly dispassionate. Coda understood why. It was because they understood one another the moment they looked upon one another. Their similarities in beliefs only made them detest the methods they both pursued towards their goal. “You can do so much, yet you choose not to. You choose to not save others from the world.”

“I choose to not trample on people’s lives and ability to choose, while you do. Using yourself, your love, your power, and your body, you have them destroy themselves, so that they free themselves from the world” Coda corrected Kiara with a single breath, making the woman scowl and narrow her gaze, as the immense seed of corruption hurtled close and closer to the Earth’s core, so that it could become one with the planet, and engulf all into a world of pleasure with Kiara. “Hm. Yes. I’m sorry for being too insistent. You were right. We can’t understand one another.”

“You—

Coda struck first, without hesitation, and engulfed Nirvana in darkness by raising her hand.

Kiara let loose a cry, her form that of a creature wreathed in tendrils of power and spirit, and rushed forward to meet her foe. A baleful, violent light emitted from her form and body, as she crashed against the darkness, and it buckled beneath her power. Then, she began to drive it away, as she struck at it not only with the mass of undulating creation at her feet, but also her hands and fists.

However, as soon as Kiara reached where her foe had launched her attack, Coda was already behind her with one hand wreathed in lightning, and the other covered in hoarfrost. A blizzard and thunderstorm, each compressed into orbs no larger than a tennis ball, surged forward into Kiara’s form held within seemingly frail fists, which nonetheless broke sculpted, unmarred flesh and delivered both orbs into the depths of the Demonic Bodhisattva’s form.

There was a moment, as Coda withdrew her hands, when Kiara’s form attempted to grab at her arms and hold her still, as even her insides were that of Demon’s flesh.

But in answer to the attempt to hold her, Coda simply unmade herself, and made herself again elsewhere on the battlefield.

Both orbs of power, capable of shattering continents, ruptured within the Beast which sought to consume an entire planet within herself. The power of entire storms ravaged the Beast’s form, while frost consumed all in its path as a freezing tidal wave. Kiara’s form, composed of a nigh-endless Demon Pillar compressed into the shape of a woman, broke apart as the only hope of reforming came from allowing the power to be unleashed outside of the body.

The Eldritch mass of undulating scarlet eyes, scales, and rings of metal that surged forth would have broken the midns of many, merely made Coda give a nod of appreciation, as her target unveiled its true form.

Now, she could attack it directly.

Bereft of fear at the encroaching mass of grasping tendrils that sought to drag all into Nirvana, Coda once again raised her hand. This time, darkness did not answer her, but instead the same attack she had embedded within Kiara as to unmake her tremendous durability. However, more than two came forth this time.

In fact, there were enough that Kiara faltered in her charge for a single second.

Enough time for Coda to address the sudden fear that the Demonic Bodhisattva felt.

“This isn’t a Noble Phantasm. This is just my regular attack.” Answering a question said only by a furious glare, Coda aimed towards the center of the undulating mass, from which Kiara sprouted her horned form. The Beast abandoned beauty in favor for more limbs, more defenses, and more means to kill Coda. Despite the intention to attack, though, it did something else entirely as it neared Coda. The tidal wave of Demonic Flesh contracted in itself, folding, molding, and winding around Kiara, as all its shadows was robbed of it, because the foe it had sought to crush… seemed as though it would crush it instead. “Don’t be so scared. This isn’t enough to hurt Li, so I’m sure it can’t kill you.”

With that simple phrase, and the downward tilt of an index finger, a filed of stars fell forth from around Coda. Each spinning composition frosts and lightning spun, surged, and roared as it sought Kiara out. The combined din of hundreds of projectiles combined into a continuous, incessant roar that shook the very foundation of their battlefield, threatening SE RA.PH. through their incessant launch.

Yet, the furious assault did not bring Kiara low.

Instead, once again, she employed every ounce of herself towards destroying her foe. From beams of pure power, to tendrils coursing with energy, and even hollow versions of herself which delivered blows which could shatter buildings, the Third Beast of Humanity fought against the Aspect of the End without slowing, despite the immense power leveraged upon her. She was being harmed, the strength of her foe was reaching her, but it was not enough to bring her to her knees… let alone force her to acknowledge her defeat.

No, even if she could not utterly defeat her foe, Kiara stood defiant, utterly devoted to finding victory from whatever way possible, and so the two fought as equals.

So that Fujimaru Ritsuka could act.

…​

BB was the first to react, while the rest were recovering from two personified Apocalypses colliding against one another in battle.e

“No way. No way! NO WAY! At this rate, they’ll accidentally blow the planet up, instead of doing what either of them want!” The AI frantically looked over several screens, taking in the sinking, converted oil rig’s status, as it became the battleground between two beings that could destroy planets. “Senpai, we can’t keep standing around and watching! At this rate, no matter who wins in this fight, you humans will lose!”

“Oi, is this some sort of joke? Isn’t this place supposed to be literally hours behind the present, so we can do something about Kiara before fighting her again?” Robin had a sort of manic smile on his face, as he watched the duel, even as his grip on the wall for support started digging and creating cracks on the surface. “If that’s the case, why the hell are we feeling shockwaves from their attacks!?”

“It appears their battle is so mighty that its sending tremors through time, though it is likely only possible due to this place’s connection to the battleground… I am ashamed to admit that my heart quakes at the sight!” Tristian was the next to answer, his grip on Failnaught making the harp-bow quiver within his hand. “Even as a Servant, I can only wonder as to what we can possibly do in this battle!”