IBHJ 1217

"Finally found you, Manaka!" Ritsuka said with a smile.

Manaka stared at her, completely confused. "Why are you looking for me? Shouldn't you be trying to find your brother and sister?"

Ritsuka lifted her skirt slightly to navigate the rocky ground as she approached Manaka.

"Stay back!" Manaka shouted, her face tightening into a frown.

Ritsuka stopped in her tracks, giving her a puzzled look. "Whoa, why are you yelling? Didn't anyone ever tell you not to shout in caves?"

"Why are you coming after me?" Manaka demanded.

"Master Xuanzang mentioned she has some kind of alchemical bottle that can teleport us. Your sister was totally against it, but I came to see if you'd join us anyway."

"That's not what I meant," Manaka said sharply. "Why would you even want to be near me? You must be able to sense that I'm your natural enemy—I'm the enemy of the Beast! You shouldn't be approaching me at all. You should be running in the opposite direction!"

Ritsuka's expression turned to genuine confusion. "But... aren't we companions?"

"No," Manaka replied coldly. "We're not companions."

Ritsuka let out a defeated sigh. "There you go being all tsundere again. This is exactly why you blonde types are such a pain to deal with."

"This isn't me being tsundere," Manaka insisted. "I'm stating a simple fact."

"Just because you had a fight with your sister doesn't mean you can suddenly stop being my companion—"

Before Ritsuka could finish her sentence, there was a sharp whistling sound as a blade made of mud sliced through the air, missing her ear by millimeters.

A sudden stinging sensation bloomed across her left cheek. When Ritsuka touched the spot, her fingers came away wet and warm. She stared at her hand.

Blood.

Fresh blood.

Ritsuka looked up at Manaka, her expression hardening. "Are you actually serious right now?"

"I must have given you the wrong impression by being so patient with you all this time," Manaka said, her eyes cold as ice. "Listen carefully, Ritsuka. I'm nothing like those Heroic Spirits you've managed to win over with your charm or kindness! I am humanity's mortal enemy—and your greatest enemy too! I am the vessel of evil!" Her voice echoed through the cave as she glared at her.

"I know exactly who you are. I don't have any illusions about that," Ritsuka replied, shaking her head with a serious expression. "The reason I still consider us companions is because I recognize the same loneliness in you that I feel in myself. We're cut from the same cloth. And from everything I've seen, you're not actually interested in destroying humanity. Most importantly, you care about connections. You haven't been putting up with me because you can't beat me—it's because I saved you once, and you feel like you owe me. That's why you've tolerated me all this time, isn't it?"

Something flickered in Manaka's eyes.

"I don't know what happened between you and your sister, or why she keeps calling you a villain and a monster. But I can accept you for who you are. Whatever you might have done before doesn't matter—right now, in this moment, we can be companions."

"You're way too naive." Manaka sighed, thinking to herself that while Ritsuka might be a Beast with a good heart, she was still hopelessly innocent about how the world really worked.

Since Manaka was about to disappear anyway, she figured she might as well use this opportunity to teach her a harsh lesson about the price of such naivety.

After a long pause, she looked directly at Ritsuka. "Do you remember what you told me about what happened in 2003? The event that took you away from your brother and sister? The one that forced you to join Chaldea and completely changed your life?"

"You mean Fuyuki invasion?" Ritsuka asked.

"Yes." Manaka nodded, her eyes cold as ice. "Let me tell you something. The one who made that monster attack Fuyuki, the one who turned your entire life upside down and made you what you are today—that was me."

"You... what did you just say?" Ritsuka's eyes widened in shock.

"I was the one who destroyed Fuyuki City. I'm the reason your life went from normal to chaos. That Beast, that monster everyone feared—it was me all along!"

"You... you're..." Ritsuka's finger trembled as she pointed at Manaka, unable to form complete sentences.

Manaka closed her eyes, thinking that surely now this naive person would finally understand what kind of monster she truly was. Of course, this meant she'd have to fight Ritsuka now.

The thought was surprisingly difficult to bear.

Despite how annoying Ritsuka could be sometimes, she was genuinely warm-hearted. Whether that warmth was real or fake didn't even matter anymore—the fact that someone had cared about her at all made the thought of hurting Ritsuka surprisingly painful.

Manaka hoped she could still maintain some control over herself. Or maybe letting Ritsuka destroy her would actually be the better option—it would prevent the real Manaka Sajyou from taking over. Either way seemed acceptable.

But then—

"I've known who you are this whole time," Ritsuka said quietly.

Manaka's eyes flew open in shock. "What? What did you just say?"

"From the moment I first found you, I could tell your magical signature was incredibly similar to that Beast's. Krista actually wanted me to destroy you right then and there, but I refused." Ritsuka's voice remained calm. "I thought you might be like sister Pandora—just another victim of the Fuyuki incident. I couldn't bring myself to hurt someone who might be innocent. And just now, your sister filled in all the blanks about you and my brother."

Ritsuka gestured behind her with a small smile. "To be completely honest, my first reaction after hearing everything was to come down here and destroy you—just to get some payback. But Xuanzang said something that stop my anger."

"What did she say?" Manaka asked.

"She told me, 'Without pain, we can't break free from rebirth. Without suffering, we stay trapped in samsara. Everything that happens is cause and effect,'" Ritsuka explained seriously. "And I realized something—you're not the same Manaka Sajyou from back then. If I destroyed you, I'd be killing someone innocent, which would make me no better than her. And if I'm being totally honest, if I destroy you, who's going to help me and my sister get rid of our Beast problem? So let's just work together as companions."

Manaka's expression darkened. "So even at a time like this, you still just want to use me as a tool to get rid of your Beast?"

"We're companions!" Ritsuka insisted. "And companions help each other out. Isn't that how it works?"

She extended her hand toward Manaka.

Manaka looked up at her, noticing how the strange light reflecting off the stalactites behind Ritsuka made her appear to be glowing. Then she lowered her gaze to the outstretched hand reaching toward her from within that light.

There had been so few people who'd ever cared about her this much. Almost none, really.

Tiamat had been the only one before and Manaka had repaid her with complete trust, only to have Tiamat stab her in the back.

But this Ritsuka standing before her was different. She didn't use sweet, honeyed words like Tiamat had. She even openly admitted she needed Manaka's help with the Beast problem. But somehow, that concern in her eyes wasn't fake.

"Why?" she couldn't stop herself from asking again. "Why would you still want to help me?"

"Because we're companions," Ritsuka replied with a smile as bright as sunshine.

"Is that so..." Manaka gave a bitter, self-mocking smile before looking back at Ritsuka. "Well, if we're companions, and if companions are supposed to help each other like you said... then I need you to do something for me."

"What is it?"

"Help me—argh—ARGH!" Manaka suddenly clutched her head, her face contorted in agony as terrifying black mist began pouring from her body.

"Manaka! What's happening?" Ritsuka panicked and rushed toward her, but Manaka shoved her away.

Despite her pain, Manaka looked at her with fierce determination in her eyes. "Help me—please help me get Ayaka out of here!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, she used her power to seal the cave entrance with a wall of mud, then turned and ran deeper into the darkness.

BOOM!

The entire ground shook violently beneath their feet, as if some ancient monster cursed by the modern world was about to break through from the dark side of reality. The space around them began to warp and distort.

A series of sharp cracking sounds filled the air as stalactites began to shatter, crashing down one after another.