The sea breeze sweeping across Odaiba carried the faint, crisp scent of salt over the embankment.
Clear sunlight fractured against the glass curtain walls of Tokyo’s coastal skyline, scattering shards of light across the pavement.
Out in the distance, a steady stream of traffic crawled across the sea-crossing bridge, while the tide gently lapped against the stone dike, spraying fine mists of white foam into the air.
Jalter stood waiting, dressed in a pristine black school uniform.
The structured fabric hugged her slender frame, making her posture appear even more upright than usual, though it completely masked the flamboyant, jagged sharpness she normally carried as an Avenger.
She paced a slow, tight line along the seaside promenade.
The sharp click of her black leather loafers against the smooth concrete kept a restless, rhythmic tempo.
Her brow pinched together, then smoothed out, only to furrow once more as her fingertips mindlessly worried the edge of her uniform sleeve.
A flicker of anxiety danced in her golden eyes before she forced her gaze down, attempting to feign absolute composure.
A second later, she was looking right back at the promenade’s entrance.
She stared down the walkway with an irrepressible anticipation, entirely oblivious to the coastal wind lifting the hem of her pleated skirt and tossing the pale bangs across her forehead.
The moment a familiar figure jogged into view, her pacing stopped dead.
The rigid tension locking her shoulders evaporated.
Her brow finally relaxed, and her hands, which had been hovering aimlessly, dropped to her sides and subconsciously bunched up the fabric of her skirt.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Orita-san.” Fujimaru Ritsuka raised a hand, lightly combing his fingers through hair tousled by the wind.
His chest rose and fell with slightly shallow breaths, betraying the fact that he had sprinted part of the way here.
A gentle, apologetic warmth touched his eyes as he settled his gaze on her.
Jalter offered a low, nonchalant hum, the sound so soft the sea breeze nearly stole it away.
“Mm…” But the moment the sound left her throat, the facade cracked.
Her posture shifted, leaning forward just a fraction, and the lingering anxiety in her eyes melted into an obvious, quiet joy.
Suppressing the urge to smile too widely, she softened her voice.
“Ah, Master.
You’re here.
I just arrived as well.” Ritsuka’s smile deepened for a fleeting second before the warmth gave way to a quiet gravity.
He raised two fingers to press lightly against his temple, his tone shifting into one of clear, lingering concern.
“About Salieri and Kagekiyo—” The atmosphere on the Odaiba promenade seemed to instantly weigh down.
The distant sea continued to shimmer under the vast sky, and small groups of tourists strolled past, their faint, carefree laughter only making the sudden silence between the two feel heavier.
The shadows cast by the towering coastal buildings stretched long and dark across the concrete, swallowing their silhouettes.
The joy vanished from Jalter’s face, replaced by a rigid solemnity.
She gave a stiff, shallow nod.
Her eyelashes fluttered as she deliberately turned her head, refusing to meet his eyes.
She stared out at the churning waves slapping the seawall, her evasive posture failing to hide a deeply uncomfortable awkwardness.
“Ah, yes.
Kagekiyo sent me a message.” She paused, her voice dropping to a near-whisper.
“She didn’t say much…
just told me to say hello to you.” Closing her eyes, Jalter let her shoulders slump.
A very soft, helpless sigh slipped past her lips.
“I told her to tell you herself.
Sigh.” The gentle expression on Ritsuka’s face completely dissolved.
A knot formed between his brows as genuine confusion surfaced in his eyes.
He took a half-step forward, searching her profile.
“…Why did both of them suddenly…
Have they returned to Chaldea?” He let the sentence trail off, the words dying in his throat as a heavy silence rushed in to fill the gap.
At her side, Jalter’s knuckles turned white as she squeezed her uniform skirt.
She stared fixedly at the tips of her leather shoes.
Her lips parted, trembling slightly, but no sound came out.
A faint, uncomfortable flush began to creep up the tips of her ears.
“Alter?” Recognizing her distress, Ritsuka softened his voice, stepping into her line of sight with open worry.
Jalter went completely rigid.
She blinked rapidly, her golden eyes darting everywhere—first to the massive bridge spanning the bay, then back to the pavement, anywhere but his face.
“How should I put it?
I don’t know the exact details either.” Ritsuka’s frown deepened.
He leaned in just a fraction, trying to catch her gaze, pressing the issue with quiet desperation.
“In Salieri’s letter…
he mentioned there was a reason…” “I see.
If there’s a reason, then there must be a reason,” Jalter blurted out automatically, her voice hollow and dazed.
The moment the nonsensical words hung in the air, she winced.
Realizing how incredibly stupid that sounded, she raised a hand and lightly slapped her own cheek.
The red flush on her ears darkened.
“Ah—I said something stupid,” she muttered, thoroughly annoyed with herself.
She took a slow, deep breath, her chest rising and falling as she forced her racing mind to settle.
When she opened her eyes a few seconds later, the frantic evasion was gone, replaced by a hardened seriousness.
She still couldn’t quite bring herself to look him dead in the eye, but she straightened her spine, squaring her shoulders.
“I don’t want to disappoint you, but I’m telling you right now, I probably won’t be able to give you a satisfactory answer.
So, it’s not that you can’t ask…
but whether I can actually answer depends entirely on the question.” Ritsuka studied her guarded expression.
His brow smoothed out slightly, though the bewilderment remained.
He held his ground, his voice steady and earnest.
“You know what’s going on with this situation too, don’t you, Alter?” Jalter lowered her gaze, her long, pale lashes casting delicate shadows over her cheeks.
When she spoke, her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried an absolute, obvious weight.
“Well, of course.
Because this is our business.” Ritsuka’s eyes widened slightly.
He leaned forward, the urgency bleeding back into his tone.
“Then that means—” “Okay, that’s enough.
Stop.” Jalter cut him off, her tone leaving zero room for argument.
She snapped her eyes up and planted a hand firmly against his chest, physically halting his advance.
A flash of pure panic sparked in her eyes, instantly smothered by sheer stubbornness.
She forced her features into a harsh scowl, though the nervous twitch of her brow ruined the intimidation.
Slowly, she pulled her hand back from his chest, hiding it behind her back where her fingers immediately went to work twisting the hem of her jacket.
She tried to sound commanding, but her voice wavered near the end.
“You…
if it’s just you asking questions, that’s hardly fair, right?
Let me ask a question too.” The moment she declared it, a furious blush detonated across her face, spreading from her cheekbones all the way to her neck.
Her carefully constructed composure shattered.
Her eyes darted wildly around the promenade again, her words stumbling over each other.
“Ah—well, that is…” She swallowed hard, visibly scraping together every ounce of her courage.
She forced the subject change, the awkwardness practically suffocating her.
“That, you know.
Isn’t this the place I’ve been to before?” She dropped her gaze to the concrete between them.
Her voice shrank into a nervous, defensive mumble while her fingers rubbed the fabric behind her back raw.
“Specifically, it’s the place where you went on a date with Marie.
Well, although I was just monitoring from a distance back then.” Her shoulders curled inward, and a helpless crease formed between her brows.
“It wasn’t clear if Marie was an enemy yet, so I was on high alert.
My nerves were completely shot…” She threw a fleeting, melancholic glance toward the glittering bay.
“…I never really got to enjoy the view.” Then, she snapped her head up to look at him, only to instantly look away.
Her face was burning.
She kept her breathing shallow, her voice laced with a terrifying vulnerability.
“What about you?
As a date, did you enjoy it?” Before Ritsuka could even open his mouth, she kept talking, her tone dipping into a quiet, self-deprecating bitterness.
“If the partner was the real Marie, it must have been a very pleasant date.” Her grip on her uniform tightened until the fabric groaned.
The blush reached its absolute peak, and she squeezed her eyes shut for a fraction of a second.
“What if the partner was a fake Alter like me?
It would just feel tense, wouldn’t it?” She let the silence stretch for a painful second before adding a tiny, trembling confirmation.
“…Right?” Ritsuka watched her practically vibrate out of her skin.
His expression remained perfectly calm, his posture relaxed.
“I don’t really remember,” he answered softly.
Jalter’s hidden hands froze.
Her eyelashes drooped, failing to conceal the sharp, sudden flash of disappointment.
Her shoulders sagged, and she let out a breath that sounded entirely too heavy for the bright afternoon.
“…Mm, so that’s how it feels after all.” She stood there in silence, letting the rejection wash over her.
But then, she bit her lip.
A sudden, fierce determination ignited in her golden eyes.
She looked up at him, her expression stiffening as she forced the words out of her throat.
“Then, a proposal.
Since we’ve come all the way to your…
since we’ve come to a place like your hometown.” She couldn’t even finish the sentence before her face turned the color of a ripe tomato.
She ducked her head, her voice dropping to the volume of a buzzing mosquito, thick with desperate expectation.
“How about we have one, like the young people of your era, just a fun date or something…
wouldn’t that be okay?” Panic immediately set in.
She threw her hands up, waving them frantically in front of her chest as if to physically bat the words away.
“Well, for me personally…
it’s, it’s nothing…
either way…
is fine!” She grabbed onto the nearest excuse her panicked brain could find.
“This, thinking about this child…
Orita, the vessel…
it might not be good for her, right?
That’s what I think…” She picked at her palms, her eyes swimming with internal conflict.
“…Even though I think that, well, you know.” Taking a massive, shuddering breath, she threw her pride into the ocean.
She tried to sound generous, but her eyes were wide with sheer terror.
“If Master really insists, it’s not like I won’t accompany you…” The sea breeze howled past them.
The tension radiating off her was thick enough to cut with a knife.
Then, shattering the last of her own reservations, she threw her head back and practically shouted, her face burning like a furnace.
“…If it’s okay, I can accompany you!” The echo of her shout faded over the water.
Instantly, the bravado vanished.
She shrank in on herself, tucking her chin to her chest.
She carefully lifted her eyelashes, stealing a terrified, trembling glance at him.
“S-so, how…
about it…?” High above them, invisible to the tourists but clear as day to the audience beyond the world, the light screen flickered.
Lines of text slowly materialized across the broadcast, documenting every agonizing, beautiful second of the dragon witch’s confession.
The heavy, unspoken truth of the Avengers was buried beneath her clumsy words.
Ritsuka still didn’t have the full picture, couldn’t completely grasp the tragic weight behind her sudden desperate need for normalcy.
But as he looked at her, one absolute certainty settled in his chest.
This was it.
The final trial he had been waiting for was happening right now.
Two of his companions had already walked away into the dark, and now, standing before him, was the last one—hiding her farewell behind a stubborn, passionate plea for a date.
Ritsuka stood perfectly still.
He brought a hand up, his fingertips resting lightly against his chin as he carefully sorted through the chaotic swirl of emotions in his chest.
The ambient noise of Tokyo Bay seemed to fade into absolute silence.
Once his resolve hardened, he lowered his hand and looked directly at the trembling girl in front of him.
“Alter,” he called out softly.
Jalter flinched.
The red flush had fully conquered her neck and ears.
She kept her head bowed, her fingers twisting together so hard her joints ached.
“…Mm,” she squeaked, the sound lighter than a feather.
“I’m not very used to it, but if you think it’s okay—” Ritsuka smiled.
It wasn’t the polite, apologetic smile from before, but something entirely genuine and deeply fond.
He leaned forward, closing the distance between them, his gaze holding her with the absolute care of someone looking at a treasure.
“I would love to.”