Ritsuka raised his face, his shadow stretching long across the blinding white ground.
The Phoenix....flames incarnate, destroyer of civilizations...still had her face buried in her hands, her frame shaking as though the heat of her own fire now burned her.
"Hey."
The single word cut through the suffocating silence.
"Eek—! Hk!" Phoenix flinched violently, as if that voice had been a blade pressed to her throat.
"…You're too scared, must be first time." Ritsuka observed plainly.
His tone carried no triumph, no mockery—just quiet recognition.
That almost made it worse.
He scratched his cheek with a single finger, the gesture casual… but to her, it felt like the calm of an executioner before the sentence is carried out.
Ritsuka had suffered mentally more than any being she had ever touched. He knew the things inside his memories were unordinary, unnatural—things no human soul was meant to survive. But instead of breaking, he had endured it, one wound at a time, clenching his teeth until they cracked.
And worse… he had chosen to bear it.
Not for glory, not for pity, but because he saw his suffering as his own punishment. A debt he decided to pay with interest.
The Phoenix—who had seen entire civilizations burn—was sobbing like a child before him. Her divine pride had been ripped away, leaving only raw fear.
He stared down at his feet, his voice steady.
It wasn't that he was wounded by being called a monster. He agreed. Wholeheartedly.
"That I'm crazy? That it's impossible to withstand?" His lips curved faintly—not a smile, but an acknowledgment. "You're right. Even Daybit told me I started thinking more like him sometimes, like an alien than a man."
His gaze rose, sharp and unwavering, locking onto her quivering form.
"Phoenix… this isn't how I wanted things to go. I actually came here to make a deal with you. But you—" his voice hardened, "—never even considered making one with me."
Her hands tightened against her head.
"People like you… never think twice about killing. You speak of being the light and life of the universe, but you trample over life without hesitation. That makes you no better than the void you claim to fight against in stories."
He stepped forward, slow and deliberate. The sound of his footsteps echoed unnaturally loud in the White Hot Room.
"You should have known the value of life. You've been reborn countless times, witnessed the fragile beauty of worlds. But you didn't cherish it. You burned it. Without thought. Without regret."
She said nothing, her breathing ragged.
Ritsuka stopped just before her, the air between them heavy with unspoken judgment.
"And for that," he said, voice dropping to something cold enough to make even her cosmic flames flicker, "I don't forgive you."
The Phoenix shuddered.
Not from anger—
But from the realization that in this moment, stripped of her divinity's illusions, she wasn't the predator.
She was prey.
Phoenix's eyes widened, the molten gold within them quivering. For an instant, her breath caught—frozen by the blunt, unshakable certainty of the man before her.
It was as if someone had slammed a verdict into her very soul.
Fear—raw and unrefined—spilled into her gaze, flowing like molten lava over pristine white porcelain. Yet opposite her, Ritsuka Fujimaru's heart remained steady. Calm. Like a sea that refused to stir even under a storm's shadow.
"Eek… eek… eek…"
The sound slipped from Phoenix's lips—small, trembling, and utterly unlike the all-consuming force of nature she was moments ago.
She curled in on herself, her flame-like hair spilling across the floor like burning silk, wrapping her in a cocoon. Ritsuka's words clung to her like shackles, forcing her to shiver as though she had tasted agony itself.
He knew that feeling. That kind of fear.
He had lived it—an alien suffering, one that devoured you from the inside out. The kind that made even the rustle of dry leaves in a breeze feel like the herald of death. He had walked that path, felt his soul iced over, and still endured.
Ritsuka closed his eyes. When they opened again, they held no hesitation. Remembering Romani and Da Vinci.
"Phoenix," his voice was quiet but resolute, "I finally have the people I love with me. And I will go to any lengths to protect them. Because for the first time, I've found my purpose in this world."
Her only reply was a long, breathless silence.
"Before coming here," he continued, "I fought because I wanted to live, because I had a wish. But now… now my reason is different. I want to live happily with the people I love."
Whether they were friends, allies, Servants, or those dearest to his heart—it didn't matter. He wanted to be with them.
"I know it's selfish," he admitted with a faint smile, "but a Senpai told me I could afford to be selfish. Just once. So… please, stop this. Leave Jean. Leave this Earth."
Her answer was not what he expected.
"…Do that, then what?"
The words came soft but sharp, a tiny ember of challenge beneath her fear.
Ritsuka blinked, caught off guard by her retort. Then, relief flickered in him. Better this than silence. Better that she was talking than lost entirely to fear.
He steadied himself. "I want you to be an ally to humanity. You've always been a part of the world's cycle, not its enemy. But now… things have changed. So, I hope you'll stand with us instead."
Her head lifted, eyes narrowing. "Off the hook, you say? If I do that… you'll let me alive?"
Ritsuka didn't flinch.
Phoenix's lips curled back, revealing sharp, predatory fangs that glistened in the dim light. She let out a short, derisive laugh—cold and mirthless.
"Hah."
Her voice split the stillness. "That can't be, isn't it! That isn't possible!"
Her head snapped upward, flame-colored hair scattering like a solar flare. In her eyes, the fire burned bright—but beneath it, fear writhed like a shadow that refused to die.
She glared at him with fear, the molten gold in her gaze darkened to an almost bottomless shade.
"It isn't! It really isn't! It isn't after all!" she cried, rocking back and forth with a frenzied energy, her voice trembling as if she could shake reality itself into bending to her will. "I'm telling you—it isn't! I know it isn't! That's why—!"
Her voice cracked, but the words kept coming, relentless.
"You will not let me live! Absolutely, certainly!" she screamed, pointing at him with a trembling hand. "After all…"
Her words hung in the air for a heartbeat—then, she roared.
"You destroy your enemies! Absolutely crush them until the very end of the end! Without any exception! Completely! Thoroughly! You close it with a perfect game! You will do that! Then there's no way you wouldn't do that to me! There's no point in you not doing that to me!"
It was the kind of declaration made not in reason, but in desperation—like a cornered animal lashing out to keep the predator at bay.
Ritsuka simply stood there, watching her as if from a great distance. The space between them felt impossibly vast.
Phoenix's words, her rage, her defiance—none of them were born from conviction. They were all drawn from the same poisoned well.
Fear.
Every emotion she possessed—joy, anger, grief—they were all tributaries leading to the same ocean of terror. Even her divinity, her self-proclaimed godhood, did not shield her from it. In the end, every path led back to that same suffocating darkness.
Ritsuka understood it all too well.
He had known that same crushing suspicion, that same gnawing mistrust of the world, that prison where you were afraid to even breathe for fear of inviting disaster.
He had lived in that hell.
But he had not stayed there.
His will—tempered in the fires of trial—and the friends who stood by him had given him the strength to keep walking forward.
That was why he stood here now, unshaken, looking at Phoenix not with hatred, but with the clarity of someone who had already escaped the cage she could not see past.
That foundation of strong heart...
The unyielding pillar that allowed one to keep walking forward in the face of despair
...
Phoenix did not possess it.
She was not Ritsuka Fujimaru.
She isn't built for this.
She had not endured the slow drowning in fear that he had survived.
That was why she could not conquer it.
For her, suffering was not a trial to overcome—it was a nightmarish curse, an endless spiral dragging her into an inescapable hell.
Humans—no, even gods—cannot truly live alone.
And for someone trapped in fear's cage, the only salvation would come from the hand of another reaching in to pull them out.
But Phoenix's eyes… they were wide, distended, blazing with both arrogance and terror.
And in this place—ironically—only Ritsuka could fully understand that fear.
Yet the very reason for her fear…
was him.
Her throat trembled.
Her lungs trembled.
Her heart trembled.
Her very soul trembled.
"I want to live, I want to live, I want to live, I want to live, I want to live, I want to live, I want to live, I want to live, I want to live, I want to live—!"
The words tumbled from her lips, over and over, faster, harsher, each repetition twisting into something frenzied and inhuman.
Her voice was no longer a plea. It was a scream.
She was breaking.
Ritsuka's eyes narrowed. For the first time in this encounter, his composure wavered.
"…Did I… overdo it?" he muttered under his breath.
That was when it happened.
His savior's skills—screamed a warning to him.
And in the next instant, the truth struck him like ice.
She's turned.
The Phoenix before him was no longer just a frightened godlike being.
She had crossed the threshold.
An Enemy of Humanity.
"How—?" Ritsuka's voice was a breathless mix of shock and disbelief.
But there was no time for answers.
The air around Phoenix warped, the temperature plummeting and rising all at once. Fear twisted into power, and power into corruption. Her flames deepened, shifting from vibrant gold to a void-like black, swallowing light rather than giving it.
It wasn't rage fueling her transformation—it was terror, sharpened into a weapon by instinct.
She was awakening her full destructive potential not out of hatred… but out of the desperate will to live against the one she feared most.
Then—
The world screamed.
A pulse of annihilation burst outward from her, black fire tearing reality like paper.
Ritsuka didn't hesitate. His hand moved on reflex.
"Shield—!"
A shimmering barrier of pure magical light enveloped him just as the wave crashed forward.
The impact roared like a collapsing star, the pressure hammering against his defense in an unrelenting tide.
The ground beneath him shattered. The air burned.
But he stood firm.
Far away from the shattered dimension, the moon hung silent and pale.
And upon its barren surface, a lone figure had been watching.
The Watcher's gaze—ancient, vast, and unblinking—fixed upon the chaos below. For millennia he had seen the rise and fall of worlds, but the scene unfolding before him… was something entirely different.
The Phoenix, a being feared across the cosmos, had been brought to her knees.
Not by brute force.
Not by some ancient artifact.
But by memories.
By the will of one human.
In a blink, the air behind Ritsuka shifted. The pressure was not hostile, but vast—so vast it felt as if the universe itself had turned its attention upon him.
A deep, calm voice spoke.
"…An unknown man… who defeated the Phoenix with nothing but his memories."
Ritsuka turned sharply.
There, towering in his strange, regal form, was a being unlike anything he had ever seen—cloaked in the stillness of the void, eyes carrying the weight of eternity.
"You," the Watcher continued, "are the first person to do that, Fujimaru Ritsuka."
Ritsuka blinked, tense, hands instinctively ready to fight.
"…And you are?"
"I am not here to harm you," the Watcher replied with a faint, almost amused smile. "And for the first time… the arrogance of the Phoenix is gone, thanks to you."
He chuckled softly.
"You do not need to know who I am."
Then, his expression hardened. The air seemed to still with the weight of his next words.
"But you are a fool, Ritsuka."
"…I agree."
"Ohh! You gave the Phoenix something she has never truly felt. You made her… human. And whenever the Phoenix—" his gaze grew grave, "—whenever it embraces human emotion, it becomes the Goddess of Destruction."
The Watcher's voice dropped lower.
"And you, Fujimaru Ritsuka… gave her the strongest emotion of all. Fear."
The words struck like a blade of ice.
"She is reborn now," the Watcher said, each syllable resonating with finality. "The Dark Phoenix. Stronger than before. She will destroy everything in her path—not only your world, but countless others."
Ritsuka's eyes narrowed. He could feel the weight of those words, the inevitability of them.
"…So I can't stop her by talking anymore."
The Watcher gave a slow, silent nod.
Ritsuka's voice was steady, his face hardening like steel.
"…I see. Then I will kill her. Thank you for informing me."
The Watcher's eyes widened slightly—surprised by the sheer certainty in that tone.
"…Very well," he murmured at last. "I will watch what you do, then."
And without another word, the colossal figure dissolved into the air—leaving only the still echo of his voice behind.
---
Note: I will be quick. The deal Ritsuka planned was to give a best protection to the M'Kraan Crystal which phoenix protects with her very existence. But things didn't go as he planned at all. Instead he turned her into dark phoenix, now he forced to fight her because of his mistakes. Watcher already explained her Transformation. This arc and fight is important for Ritsuka growth. Unlike in og script. This arc change Ritsuka.