Mash Kyrielight was not sure what to make of her Master.

The young man was rather inscrutable. It was hard to hold any definitive impression of his character. Most of the time, he was silent and wasn't much for words. He was anxious, quick to grumble and more than a little bit irate. At the same time, he did seem to be trying his best, taking charge of the situation as best he could to resolve their problems, and he was at least making an effort to help her get some peace of mind.

She was about to ask him for a word, but thought better than to bother him with her insecurities. He was holding himself…'remarkably well' didn't seem like an apt descriptor, but she believed he was doing better than her, all things considered.

That illusion was shattered shortly after he left. A broken, sad laugh. A fist hitting against wood. Barely audible mutterings. Though she didn't intend to eavesdrop, she managed to pick up on all of those sounds. She decided she was right at that moment; it wouldn't help him to burden him with any more things.

"Are you alright?"

The girl was snapped out of her thoughts by the sudden voice of the only other conscious person in the room.

Saint Martha. Sister to Mary and Lazarus, who bore witness to Christ's miracles and performed some of her own, chief among them the taming of the Tarasque. If she were to be honest, she felt awfully inadequate compared to the purple haired woman currently worrying about her.

She was a full Servant, one who lived a full life and performed deeds which all but made her earn her place in the Throne of Heroes. Meanwhile, she had nothing to speak about, noteworthy or not. Her power had been given, rather than earned.

She wasn't sure if Martha could help her, but...

"Actually..."

If she wanted to be of more use, she'd have to stow her uncertainty somehow.

Martha of Bethany felt rather conflicted about her Master.

He was not evil. Of that much she could be certain.

Over the course of only a scant few hours, one would not be blamed for forming a rather unpleasant image of the man. Spiteful towards his superior. Completely unable to look at anyone straight in the eye. A hoarder who took things he did not truly require. Of poor constitution and poorer heart.

Yet, Martha chose to believe in him. He was not evil, just someone ordinary at the end of his rope.

She had seen the desperation in his eyes many times before. She had heard the strain on his voice as he quipped and deadpanned many times before. She understood that she was looking at a man looking at the lowest point in his life, and wishing that he did not sink even further down. She was willing to entertain this as more than wishful thinking on her part because for all his faults, he had some good qualities, even though they were eclipsed by his worse side.

Though he was shivering in his boots, he worked up the courage to do what he had. A bit reckless, but decisive. Truthfully, she wanted to give him more of a chance before thinking anything of him.

As they all rode the Tarasque to the mountaintop, she saw a new trait that she had no choice but to mull upon. When the beast began to pick up speed, the man wrapped his arms around her waist in a death grip. She felt a bit embarrassed about the sudden contact, but decided not to give him grief for it. However, when the dragon finally reached its maximum speed, the man began screaming.

Yet, it wasn't out of terror, as one would expect. His howling voice was full of excitement and rapturous joy, She couldn't look at his face, but it was plainly clear to her that he was enjoying the experience with unrestrained glee.

It was immensely jarring to her, hearing the quiet, despondent man be filled with such life it reminded her of children in her hometown playing some new and exciting game.

She didn't understand her Master. She could only hope that she could get to know him in a less dire situation and be able to take his measure when the world wasn't coming down upon him.

Olga Marie Animusphere thought that she was absolutely done with the Master working under her.

At first, she thought the day would have been a bit of a disaster. Nothing she couldn't manage, but quite the annoyance. With so many of the Magi sent to Chaldea being displeased with their position and her authority, she was sure she would earn their eternal enmity, but she was prepared for that. She was the daughter of Animusphere; politically, the ones she knew to be detractors just didn't have enough clout to do more than mildly inconvenience her, and if any tried something as indecorous as to try to assault her…

She wouldn't relish the chance to let out her frustrations by inflicting great violence upon others. She would do no such thing. That'd be beneath someone of her station, she knew.

When the time for the orientation came, her expectations were not betrayed, but she would not care for their scorn. What she very much did care for was the presence of an uninformed, untrained civilian who made an utter fool of herself. The magi wouldn't care about the girl, but the fact that she was there would reflect poorly on her.

For a second, she wished that man was the one in there instead. At least he knew how to keep a low profile and look for answers in his own time, if his database browsing history and Romani's word were anything to go by.

Then, everything went wrong in every conceivable way. Decades worth of time, blood, sweat and tears shed by many, many people very nearly went up in flames in the span of a few seconds. As she saw her father's work, his dream begin to crumble, she was on the verge of collapsing herself. She and the doctor did everything in their hands, and as all the survivors were rounded up, as everyone began to tally up the damages, as she was told more about the situation, the tension that threatened to rip her apart began to lessen. It was still unpleasant, but as far as she was concerned? Knowing that CHALDEAS, TRISMEGISTUS and SHEBA had all survived the assault meant that they could eventually recover from this massive blow...provided she herself could survive whatever fallout came from this whole incident.

When the staff confirmed that there had been a successful Rayshift, she began to feel hopeful. The logs were corrupted and they couldn't confirm who it was, but if it was someone from the A Team, then odds were, the entire situation might be salvageable.

"Doc Roman, Director." a pause and a small bow. "Thank goodness you're alive."

When communications were established, she was instead faced with a familiar shoddy, unkempt man in a dusty janitor's outfit.

"You!" She screeched. "Why are you there!?"

It made no sense for the man to be in the Singularity. Last she knew, he had gone towards the infirmary only a few moments before everything went up in blazes. Since they couldn't find him and the general area had collapsed entirely, he had been written off as another casualty.

"Bad luck, poor choices, coincidence, poorer life choices…" the man spoke dryly and lifted his fingers as he listed off those things. "It's a long story, can we save this for later?

His lackluster response angered her to no end, but she did not rise to his inciting commentary. She was not at all happy with the arrangements, but she would bear with it, she told herself.

Had anyone told her that she was lying to herself on that point, she would have scoffed.

The man's casual and overly familiar way of addressing her was rankling, but she could deal with it. His incessant complaints, brash attitude and general abrasiveness she could have done without; he had a natural talent to poke and prod at her in just the right way to draw a response out of her.

As the man went on, she internally cursed the United Nations for deciding that she should have civilians acting as Masters. From a practical standpoint, it was a great idea: should the worst come to pass, as it just did, then having someone in reserve would be an enormous boon. There was just one fatal flaw to that idea which would have had her outright refuse to follow through with it if doing so wouldn't have resulted in them pulling their support.

Random civilians couldn't handle circumstances like these.

Certain individuals could indeed be put through high stress situations, but they were the exception, not the rule. The average person would snap like a twig or do something foolhardy.

In this aspect, magi were the opposite from normal humans; the norm was for them to be subject to all manner of things that would see the wills of those who lived normal lives shattered upon the floor. Many were petty and saw themselves first and foremost, but when it came to having to achieve a goal, they could kill the person that they were for the sole purpose of reaching it. The only obstacle for them to fully commit to such thing was pride, and for as prideful as they usually were, when the alternative was the annihilation of the light of civilization?

They would bend. If they did not, then they had more Masters who could prove themselves their betters and they could live with the fact that they were objectively inferior to others as they walked their way out of Antarctica.

That was the idea, at the very least. Unfortunately, there was only one Master left and he proved to her that the UN was foolish in the extreme by being not only exactly the sort of ordinary person who can't handle a bit of pressure like she thought he was, but also an overall unpleasant and acrimonious individual.

She was truly at the end of her rope with him. His unusual circumstances be damned, she hoped they could stabilize someone else so he could just drop dead and stop being a bother.

She came to regret entertaining those thoughts when she saw her mentor, her most trusted confidant stab into the man's shoulder, drawing a blood curdling cry of pain from him. As his screams pierced through the comms, her thoughts became unfocused.

The Servants attacked in retaliation, but Lev simply danced around them with mirth. Everyone was ejected from the Singularity by force. She ran along with everyone carrying the man in a collapsible stretcher.

The shape of the stars. The shape of the cosmos. The shape of the gods. The shape of myself.
Stars. Cosmos. Gods. Animus.

The wound was simply disgusting. Rotten flesh that boiled and bubbled as tissue turned purple. Sores appearing over muscle and skin alike. Amongst the horrifying mass of flesh, a black, thorny bramble had dug itself into his body; it shifted and wound itself tightly on the afflicted parts, buds sprouting and bursting into more vines that repeated the process, and began to drill further into him. They nipped and cut down the shoots wherever they appeared, but it was no good, mundane means were not fast enough. Magical means were barely effective and simply stalled for more time at best.

The heavenly bodies become as a hollow.
Antrum.

For something of this sort to be prepared in such short notice seemed nearly impossible, yet it was so. Olga grew even more desperate when the man's howls of agony became weaker by the second. Before she could notice, the Servant he'd summoned manifested herself and insisted that they keep trying their hardest. She pitched in herself, keeping pace with the rest of the group and deftly cutting down parts of the dark shrub as they carried him. Even with her help, it wasn't enough to fully mend him, but it kept him alive long enough for them to reach Da Vinci's workshop.

The hollow becomes as the void.
Unbirth.

The Saint kept him alive, preventing the spread of the tainted flesh and blackened flora. Da Vinci operated on the man, meticulously removing chunks of dark, dead meat and vegetation, applying salves and chemicals only she could possibly know the exact composition of. Olga could do nothing but hold the man's head in place and ease his pain with mental suggestion so he didn't die of shock. For several hours on end, they all worked tirelessly. Each movement had to be perfect, and with even one of the three failing, there was no telling what would befall him. She couldn't let this unapologetically rude man die. She couldn't allow herself to be the weak link here. She couldn't let her father's work-! She couldn't be-!

In the void, there is God.
Anima. Animusphere.

She stared at the man's sleeping form. His chest rising and falling steadily, almost peacefully. Even as she heard the door open and someone walk into the room, she didn't take her eyes off of him.

The barely acknowledged person grabbed a chair from close by and quietly set it down next to her. He sat, the hard plastic and metal of the legs groaning for a second.

"Da Vinci's already analyzed the samples she took during the operation." Romani Archaman's soft voice reached her ears. "She says that whatever it was that caused his wound to worsen like that is gone for good. He shouldn't have any more complications from now on."

"Good." She answered curtly. The silence that followed was a harsh, cutting one, if the small, indistinct sounds the Doctor let out after were anything to go by, so she continued the conversation. "What about the treatment?"

"She's already growing a cultive." The man answered with a sigh. "She estimates it'll take about two days at the current rate to be ready for grafting. She's convinced that it'll all be fine, but I'm personally a little worried about the possibility of rejection, even if it's grown from his own flesh."

"I see." She replied. "But provided it all goes well, he'll recover motor functions in his arm, yes?"

"He should, and with magecraft there shouldn't be a need for extensive rehab." Roman affirmed. "I'd still like to give him regular checkups and tell him not to strain himself, if you'd allow it."

"That's good to know. And accepted." Olga nodded.

Roman took a deep breath. She recognized the gesture, as he'd always done that to steel himself before having to say something to her displeasure.

"Director Olga, I'm sorry to say this, but at this point, the person who needs the most urgent care in Chaldea has changed." The man looked at her with a frown. "Please, rest up. We can take it from here."

"Do not tell me what to do Romani." She snapped back, ready to say more, but she stopped herself upon fully processing what she'd just said. She bit down and instead looked away.

The man breathed in once more and pointed a finger slightly below one of his eyes.

"Olga, how long ago?"

She didn't understand the man's meaning, but she reflexively mimicked the man's gesture, and once she did, she grasped it. She let out an annoyed sound. She didn't have a mirror, but with how dispersed her attention was, it wouldn't have surprised her if the glamour she'd cast fell apart at some point, revealing the bags under her eyes.

The man waited for an answer. Reluctantly, the Animusphere gave him the answer.

"Five days ago." She replied, realizing the man's rather obvious reasoning.

The man stared at her with an almost uncharacteristic melancholy she'd only seen a few times before.

"Magecraft can be a very useful tool, but it can very well destroy you. Not even because of anything direct, but just because it can make you forget about the way things should be normally." The man mused. "You can still stand and act, but you can only keep supplanting your body's needs for so long with it. Please, Olga, you need to rest. Go to your room and sleep. Doctor's orders."

Olga closed her eyes ready to give a rebuttal, but she knew it'd be too weak to hold ground. Instead, she took a breath and looked back at the man.

"I don't think you'd happen to have some medicine for insomnia on your person, would you?"

Curiously enough, he did. She didn't question why and took the offered, half-empty blister pack with her. On her way to her room, she focused on nothing more than the steps she took to get there, the way her bones ached with each one and the clicking of her heels as she approached.

As soon as she arrived, she locked the door and began to undress, she stopped midway through upon realizing that maybe it'd be better to save water, considering the state of Chaldea, then continued only so that she could put on her nightwear.

She downed two of the pills, just as Roman instructed, then laid on her bed. The sheets were cold to the touch, making her shiver as she covered herself up.

The piled up exhaustion and sleeping drug lulled her to sleep quickly, just as she wanted. She knew that with just one of the two, her mind would wander to places she did not want it to. Not today. Not now. She couldn't face anything today.

Mercifully, that night, Olga Marie Animusphere dreamed a dreamless sleep. One without the face and cruel words of Lev Lainur Bathin plaguing her thoughts.

One where she wouldn't be forced to look upon Kirschtaria Wodime and her father's backs.