Fate/Lunasa Fomhar

Chapter 5: Bad Luck Streak

FATE/LÚNASA FÓMHAR

"August Harvest"

Chapter 5: Bad Luck Streak

Can I really do this...?

A Japanese woman in her mid-20s sat on the side of her bed and clutched her nightgown. She was in the throes of yet another one of her severe panic attacks. Her breathing was chaotic, her chest felt heavy from some kind of immense weight pressing down on it, and her stomach rumbled in desperation for food after having gone two days without any sustenance beyond water and crackers. Blankets and sheets were strewn about on the bed – a distinct sign that the woman had barely gotten any sleep after tossing and turning for hours on end.

I can't take this anymore.

She reached for a bottle of antidepressants on the bedside table, but it was already empty. The sedatives she asked Roman to prescribe for her had run out as well. No matter how much medication she took, her rampant thoughts refused to subside.

Being one of the last people in the world... out of billions...

She clenched her forehead and gasped in despair.

Why me? Why did I have to take on this absurd job? If I had known this was going to happen, I would have turned it down and allowed myself to be swallowed by the Incineration. To be expected to save all of humanity along with less than a hundred people and a bunch of familiars...

She stumbled off the bed and went to the small kitchen in the corner of her room.

Screw it. I'm tired of this bullshit.

She procured a sharp knife before heading for the washroom in silence.

****

That afternoon, Connla was running around delivering papers and books to fulfill a backlog of requests for the researchers and Servants who were otherwise too busy to leave their respective laboratories. It was just an ordinary day for the diligent child Servant. She always felt a small sense of pride whenever she could cross off an item on her long list of duties, knowing that she was just one step away from being allowed to take a break without being too hard on herself. As always, Mini-Cu remained perched on his favorite spot over her shoulder, but he didn't say anything to disrupt Connla's work.

At the moment, she headed for another scientist's personal quarters. The nameplate read Tachibana Hinata, and she knocked on the door several times while calling out, "Ms. Tachibana? It's Little Lancer. Ms. Da Vinci wanted me to have a word with you about some research you were doing."

No one responded right away, which piqued her curiosity since the young scientist was always aggressively lecturing her coworkers about punctuality. She knocked again and exclaimed, "Are you there, Ms. Tachibana?"

Silence greeted her again, and she tilted her head in confusion. She knew the researcher had to be in her room, so it was strange that she wasn't responding. Connla keyed in the code to open the door from the outside, then announced, "Pardon the intrusion."

At first, nothing looked unusual. As she stepped onto the rug though, her socks immediately became damp due to a large amount of water saturating the fibers. She gasped and looked down to discover that the water was coming through the crack on the bottom of the door leading to the bathroom. The whole thing was so unusual that she was genuinely perplexed as to what was going on. She swallowed hard and held Mini-Cu closer to her chest, gathering the courage to go in the washroom and investigate.

She pressed her hand against the door, then gently nudged it open...

****

In the doctor's office, Ritsuka was in the middle of her routine medical check-up with Roman. He instructed to her, "All right, open wide."