Xingyue, is Xiaokai also considered Kai?

No, no, no, Xiang, isn't your focus a bit off...? When a normal daughter hears this kind of declaration, shouldn't her reaction be something like, "You're the one who turned my dad into a tool!"

"Really? It's so romantic, isn't it?"

Zabiko seemed to have found a kindred spirit, and gave Hibiki an extremely subtle expression, but in Ritsuka's eyes, it was already at the level of "smugness".

She even straightened up slightly from her prone position and nodded to Xiang with a hint of pride as a teacher.

Then, Zabiko's gaze fell back on Ritsuka.

"Speaking of which, Ritsuka, you're not bad either."

"Huh? What's wrong with me?" Ritsuka's heart skipped a beat, and she had a bad feeling.

"After all, we are rivals, friends, and sisters."

“Indeed! Indeed!” Hibiki immediately chimed in enthusiastically, completely unaware of the complex relationship contained in those few words. “I remember before the new Primate Succession War, I actually became a Servant along with Chika. Later, I was summoned by you, Ritsuka-senpai. I was really shocked at the time! Senpai, you are my most respected Master!”

"Alright, alright, that's all in the past."

Ritsuka was both amused and exasperated by the two people's back-and-forth praise, and decided to move on from the topic.

However, this was clearly futile.

Shirano poured himself a cup of barley tea with a matter-of-fact air, then looked at Ritsuka with a subtle gaze.

“Ritsuka,” she spoke, her voice calm, but it instantly made Ritsuka’s sarcastic nerves tense up. “As a senior, it’s only natural for me to occasionally care about a junior’s love life, right? After all, Novia and I have already reached the end with honor and obtained the ending CG. As for your storyline, although it has ended, it’s still very long.”

The "senior" that Kishinami Hakuno refers to has nothing to do with age, strength, or even the order in which they were summoned.

It was a kind of coded language unique to her and Ritsuka, with only one core meaning—

"I, Kishinami Hakuno, got that man first and completely."

"Shirano, could you tone down your 'I've already cleared the game while you're still struggling' senior comment a bit?!" Ritsuka couldn't help but deliver a precise retort. "Our situation is much more complicated! It's not your kind of 'two-person world' Holy Grail War!"

"Oh?" Bai Ye tilted his head, looking like he was all ears.

Even Hibiki noticed the subtle tension in the atmosphere. Her big eyes darted back and forth between Ritsuka and Hakuno, but she ultimately chose to follow her curiosity.

"Senior! I want to hear too!" She moved closer to Ritsuka and gently tugged at the hem of her apron. "Father... even though he left a long time ago, he must have left you with a lot of things, right? Like Zabi-senpai's 'victory'!"

Caught between Hibiki's earnest gaze and Hakuno's amused look, Fujimaru Ritsuka knew she was doomed.

"Oh...really..."

She sighed helplessly, but her eyes unconsciously softened and became distant.

"...It's not exactly a 'victory' that belongs to me alone. That person, from the very beginning, never intended to be mine alone. What he left me with were more like...signposts."

Ritsuka's gaze seemed to be looking into the distant past.

"After the doctor and he left, I and the rest of the group embarked on a journey to repair the subspecies singularity. In that demonic Shinjuku, I encountered a very... very troublesome enemy."

Ritsuka recalled the math professor who always wore an elegant smile.

"James Moriarty, looking at me at the end, smiled and said this—"

Ritsuka mimicked the other person's tone, bowing slightly, her voice carrying Moriarty's characteristic flamboyance:

"—'As expected of the old man's chosen one, he truly is a Master I admire.'"

She straightened up, a bitter smile on her face:

“I was stunned for a long time. ‘Old man’… He was someone who left so young, yet he was always referred to with such an old-fashioned term by older heroic spirits. Even my enemies could see that person’s shadow in me. That feeling was really strange. I felt proud, but also… a little unwilling.”

It's as if no matter how far I go, I'm still just someone following behind him, being protected by him.

"Humph."

Shirono let out a meaningful nasal sound.

"Praised by the enemy? It seems the 'legacy' he left you is quite useful." Zabi's sharp tongue began to show. "However, that was ultimately his light, not yours. What did you do when there was no 'legacy' to rely on? For example... in that deep-sea computer paradise that even I find troublesome?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka did not respond with her usual sarcastic remarks or wry smile.

There was only a few seconds of silence.

Then, he slowly began to speak, word by word.

"Speaking of which, Shirano, you are the one who should be."

Instead of answering, they asked a question in return.

This is a signal that the control of the conversation has shifted at this moment.

Shirano's hand, which was about to pick up the teacup, paused in mid-air for 0.1 seconds.

It was an extremely subtle flaw, almost undetectable, but Ritsuka noticed it.

"Why did you respond when I summoned you after you became the new primate? Your story was already 'completed'." Ritsuka's blue eyes, which were always full of energy and gentleness, became incredibly serious. She leaned forward, closing the distance between them. "And why did you return to the battlefield?"

This problem is like a depth charge dropped into a still lake.

It bypassed all the superficial debates about "whose love was deeper" and "whose victory was more complete," and went straight to the most fundamental "why" behind the Kishinami Hakuno operation.

yeah why?

Why would you, the victor who claims to have "obtained the game's ending cinematic," return from that perfect finish line to this battlefield filled with mud, sweat, and tears, a battlefield where we, the people "still struggling to fight monsters," are still fighting?

Hibiki also sensed the unusual atmosphere. She subconsciously held her breath, looked at Ritsuka, and then at the always composed senior, Zabi.

Bai Ye's face still wore that blank, expressionless look.

She continued the action she had just begun, bringing the teacup to her lips and taking a small sip, as if Ritsuka had only asked, "How does today's black tea taste?"

ha?

In the unheard depths of one's heart, a voice tinged with a hint of joy arose.

Ritsuka has learned to bite people, huh? That's interesting.

She put down her teacup, making a soft "tap" sound.

“The logic is simple,” Shirono said, his voice still as steady as a synthesized speech. “As a senior, isn’t it perfectly normal for me to help a junior? And as the victor of SE.RA.PH, handling anomalies is one of my basic duties. So I answered the summons simply to fulfill my job. That’s all.”

Xiang was completely bewildered, but still exclaimed in amazement, "I don't understand!"

"Wow... Senior Zabi has administrator functions? That's amazing! Like... like the world's GM!"

"So, don't easily believe what she says, Hibiki."

Ritsuka looked at Shirano and smiled helplessly.

She wasn't fooled by that "excuses" at all.

Because Ritsuka saw it.

Beneath that calm, expressionless mask, deep within those seemingly empty, light brown pupils, a fleeting, complex emotion flickered.

That's not the GM's sense of responsibility for bugs.

That's more like...

A hardcore gamer who has already completed a certain out-of-print game hears that a brand new and unique DLC related to his favorite character has appeared on another server. The feeling is a mixture of "How is this possible?", "Let me see", "What did that guy go through in a place I don't know about?", "Damn it, why didn't you tell me first?"... and deepest, a little bit that he doesn't even want to admit - "jealousy".

Ritsuka didn't say anything.

Some things are a matter of tacit understanding between two people.

She simply smiled and looked at Shirayuki with an "I understand" look in her eyes.

As expected, Kishinami Hakuno fell silent.

A few seconds later, she abruptly changed the subject, seemingly in an attempt to regain control.

"...Whatever happens to me is fine." Her voice was a little colder than before. "Instead of that, junior, you should worry more about your own affairs."

Shirono reverted to his "senior" demeanor, his eyes turning playful.

"I've heard that you not only attract the attention of 'game-beaten players' like me, but also some more troublesome things. Like, in that place called Salem? I heard you almost gained a 'sister,' a witch of an Outer God who would cry and beg you to share your 'brother' with her?"

These words contained a wealth of information and accurately pinpointed Ritsuka's dark past.

"Hakuno!" Ritsuka's face flushed red instantly. "How could you know so much about this?!"

Wasn't the matter of the subspecies singularity specifically entrusted to Leonardo da Vinci to handle?!

"My intelligence network is cosmic in scale, junior."

Kishinami Hakuno gracefully tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear.

Hmph, Moon Cell is an all-rounder when it comes to intelligence gathering.

Seeing Shirano's composed demeanor, as if "everything is under control," Ritsuka's indomitable spirit, a characteristic of a "protagonist," was instantly ignited.

She took a deep breath, and the blush on her face quickly faded, replaced by a warrior's expression that was a mixture of determination and sharpness.

“At least Abigail is cute as a younger sister!” Ritsuka puffed out her chest and retorted defiantly, “She’s much easier to talk to than some of the Lostbelt kings! Speaking of which, Hakuno-senpai, have you ever heard of the Lostbelt stories?”

Zabizi did not speak.

As the "Moon Queen" who knows everything, she naturally knows about Lostbelts.

However, they only know about it, but do not understand the process.

However, before Ritsuka could speak, Shirano preemptively changed the subject to maintain his last shred of dignity, "Alright, junior. There's no need to repeat what came before. Let's start with that world of reincarnation where divine logic has completely collapsed—the Indian Lostbelt."

Shirano's speech made Ritsuka's prepared recollections about the past in Northern Europe and Russia catch in her throat.

Sure enough, even at a time like this, this guy still wants to maintain control.

“…Alright. Let’s start with India then.” Ritsuka coughed twice. “It’s a world that’s…too ‘perfect.’ So perfect it’s despair-inducing.”

"The sky there is always a pure blue, and the earth is always bountiful. People have no worries, no pain, no sorrow, and not even... any decent 'emotions'."

"Because everything is under the control of that 'god,' constantly repeating the cycle of 'creation' and 'destruction.' In each cycle, 'god' will eliminate what he considers 'imperfect.' Disease, aging, pain, confusion... until finally, even the greatest 'uncertainty factor,' the 'human heart,' is wiped out as well."

"People who have been reborn countless times will peacefully welcome the end of each world under the blessing of 'God.' For them, it is not death, but a return to a 'happy world' that is absolutely correct and without any errors."

Xiang was somewhat confused; she couldn't understand why such a world could exist.

"But we are 'wrong.' Our very existence is a negation of that 'perfect world,'" Ritsuka continued. "There, we met many companions. There were heroes as dazzling as the sun, berserkers burdened with curses, and... the last remnants of that world's 'gods' before they became gods."

"I don't want to dwell on the details of the battle. Because what was most despairing wasn't the fight against that omniscient and omnipotent black god. It was what happened after we finally defeated that 'god' after countless sacrifices and countless hardships..."

Ritsuka's voice trailed off.

"The hero who gave us so much help, Rama, had something slumbering within him that we could not comprehend at all. It was the ultimate truth of the Indian universe, known as 'Brahman.' It awoke at the moment the god fell."

"No malice, no thought, not even will. Just 'existence.' But existence itself is the most thorough 'formatting' of the entire Lostbelt, and even of us outsiders. The black god we just defeated was helpless against him, neither Arjuna's remaining humanity nor Karna, who opposed him."

“That feeling…” Ritsuka looked at her hands, as if the feeling of helplessness from that time still lingered on them, “It’s like you’ve given it your all and finally defeated the final boss of the game, only to find that the game itself is a program that points to ‘Game Over.’ No matter how hard you struggle, you can’t escape it.”

"Finally, it was a miracle. It was a series of impossible coincidences, the Triads, Durga, Moses, and Kama... It was the convergence of all the forces we can and cannot imagine that barely managed to completely destroy that 'concept' again."

Before Shirano and Hibiki could recover from that world where divine logic had collapsed, Ritsuka's voice rang out again.

This time, it was tinged with a clearer pain called "loss".

"Then, there's Atlantis. If India is a spiritual hell, then the Atlantic Ocean is a physical hell."

For the first time, Shiro's expression became extremely solemn.

Because of the records in her intelligence database regarding this period, the red alert for casualty reports almost covered the entire screen.

"That ocean was so vast. Our companions, one by one... fell along the way."

Ritsuka's voice was very steady.

Charlotte Corday used up all her treasures to open the path.

Orion, who burned his life out to defeat the moon goddess.

"Mandecardo, smiling as he turned into dust, protected us."

"And... Achilles and my teacher, who single-handedly faced the entire army to create even the slightest chance of victory for me..."

Ritsuka subconsciously used the word "teacher," then gently shook her head.

“There, I almost lost everything. Every step forward required the sacrifice of a servant. In the end, I even felt that perhaps giving up from the beginning would have been the best way to honor them.”

“But we still made it to the end. We stood before that ‘captain’—Kirshtalia Wodim.”

"He is very strong, the most powerful Master I have ever seen, and the most dazzling person. He should have been the victor."

"But in the end, he said these words to me when I had nothing—"

Ritsuka's eyes revealed a complex emotion that even she herself was unaware of, an emotion acknowledged by her nemesis.