The afternoon classes quickly started.
Ritsuka, bored out of his mind, dozed off and drifted off to dreamland.
He quickly found him self sinking into the blackness.
Right down memory lane.
...
I felt cold.
The biting blizzard slammed onto my skin.
A pale wasteland, unlike the bleached Earth I came from...
Yet equally hopeless.
The Permafrost Empire of the Russian Lostbelt.
Unlike the icy winds of Chaldea's homebase in Antarctica, this eternal winter was more unforgiving.
I trudged along this familiar yet hellish path. I looked ahead and saw a hulking behemoth standing tall over us.
It looked like a monster riding a Gigantic Elephant. A really, really large Elephant. It was the first time I understood the people of this lost belt. Like many times before, when I face beings greater than myself, I felt insignificant. We could be crushed underfoot like insects. However, we weren't filled with fear.
My unyielding spirit blazed as I glared at the beast.
Ivan the Terrible, they called him.
The First Lostbelt King I ever fought.
One of the most difficult choices he made since joining Chaldea was tied to the fate of this ruler.
He made me face the fears I have been ignoring since I understood the price of saving my world.
However, before anything...
The world was covered in snow, covering my vision.
Displacing me from where I stood.
After a blink, I saw it once more...
A bloodied werewolf stood in front of me.
They called themselves Yaga.
No, they prided themselves as such.
He called himself Patxi.
"I'll never forgive you..."
He said, his words colder than the blizzard around me.
He growled as he grabbed my collar.
"I'll never forgive you as long as I live. You want to know why?"
His words, filled with resentment, weren't loud, yet they rang inside my head like a booming echo.
"Thanks to you... I now know there's another, more happier world out there."
He said as his grip tightened around my collar.
"So stand up, Damnit! Stand up and fight for it!!"
He shouted as his frustrations grew.
"Go and brag about how you can smile in your world, and tell us why it should be the one that survives. Be Proud. Hold your head up high, and fight for your weak little world."
His grip loosened as his shoulders started to shake.
"Don't you dare lose to a cold world like this, whose only virtue and merit is strength!"
I couldn't respond properly to his resolve.
He demanded me to erase his world.
Even a damned world like this deserves a place in the universe.
No matter how cold this place is. At this moment, his hands felt warm.
All those lives... He's putting it all on my hands.
I... I... I don't think I...can't...
"Yeah, you'll have a lot of blood on your hands. You won't be able to pretend it never happened. But you still gotta do it. After all..."
He said as his eyes grew unfocused as he stared into the distance.
Your world sounds so much more beautiful.
So it should be the one that survives.
His silent, unspoken words rang loudly in my ears.
He chuckled with a tone laced with Irony, "Me... I don't know anything. Masters, Servants, Lostbelts, Proper Human History, I don't know a damn thing about any of those..."
"But... If our world IS wrong! And, if there's any meaning to be found in our lives... lives that are filled with endless suffering... I think that's why we're able to understand what a world filled with happiness is like. A world that's right."
He said as he stared straight into my eyes.
"Isn't that right? FUJIMARU RITSUKA! Answer ME!!! You gotta keep on fighting. For all that's beautiful in this world."
My eyes blurred as I nodded my head. I understood his resolve.
I'll show him mine.
Yet he smiled at me weakly and chuckled dryly.
"HAHAHA... Look at you... It turns out... making you cry... Isn't as much... fun as...I... thought..." He said as his grip loosened and he fell weakly down on the ground.
I faced the countless Yaga soldiers.
No one was right...
Yet no one wanted their world to end.
Everyone had the equal right to survive.
I clenched my fists as I remembered the King of this lostbelt.
Neither Blame nor Hatred filled my eyes. It wasn't anger either. Nor will it ever be understanding. Yet at this moment. I have resolved to cut this world off.
Sending all its inhabitants to a more damning end.
I stared at my former ally.
One of the Seven Crypters tasked in the Lostbelts.
Kadoc Zemplus and his Servant Anastasia.
And we begun our clash.
"Mash! Can you stand? We're ending this once and for all!"
"By my Command! Win this battle!"
---------------------------------------------
He said as they charged towards Anastasia.
Ringing resounded deep within his ears.
Pulling him backwards from where he stood.
.....
His eyes flickered, yet clearly still in dreamland.
Soon enough, the end of classes arrived, and the loud bell rang aloud, waking Ritsuka from his sweet slumber.
However, his shoulder was shaken by an unexpected person.
He slowly opened his blurry eyes and saw the silhouette of the woman he wanted to see the most.
"Mash?" He said softly.
Carefully wiping the tearstain from his eyes.
However, the setting sun cast its rays towards her hair. It wasn't pink...
That's right... After all... She's gone, too.
It was no one else but Hina Ebina, his classmate.
"Huh? Are you alright, Fujimura-kun? I came back to the classroom only to see you still dozing off. Seriously! Hikigaya, can't you just wake him up?" She said as she put her hands on her hips, staring at the only student left aside from them.
Hikigaya scratched his cheeks in guilt.
"You think I didn't try? He was sleeping like a baby. No matter how much I called, he just wouldn't wake up. Even the teacher gave up earlier, remember?" He said with a sigh.
"Truly the sleeping beauty of Sobu High." Ebina said with a chuckle.
"I saw Hiratsuka-sensei on the way back here. She was looking for you? She said you forgot to turn in your reflection paper." She said with a cheeky grin.
Ritsuka, now fully awake, scratched his hair.
"Oh, Whoops. Well, she won't scold me that much right?" He said in doubt.
However, he felt a hand rest on his shoulder.
It was Hikigaya, "Amitabha."
He said simply as he picked up his bag.
"See you tomorrow, both of you." He said as he went home.
Ebina, witnessing all this, was sketching with the speed of light in the notebook she had in her hand.
As for how she manifested it... Well, perhaps it's her noble phantasm.
"See you tomorrow, Ebina-san." He said as he waved her goodbye.
However, she was too immersed in her own world to care.
He quickly arrived at the infirmary door, and it felt like he was meeting the king of a lostbelt with how nervous he felt.
With shaky hands, he reached towards the door, only for it to slide open, and Shizauka popped out.
She was shocked to see Ritsuka in front of her, only to grin as she grabbed his hand and dragged him inside.