Griswald blinked up at her, his brain refusing to process the sentence in any order that made sense.
"You're... what?"
"Sex. You and me. Right now." Ritsuka planted her palms on either side of his head and leaned down until her side ponytail spilled over her shoulder and brushed his cheek. "Keep up, Grissy. I said it pretty clearly."
"You said you're not taking no for an answer."
"Correct."
"That's not how any of this works." He pushed himself up onto his elbows, which only shifted her weight lower onto his stomach, which did nothing to help his concentration. Her thighs bracketed his ribs. She'd stripped down to a thin sleep shirt that hung loose off one shoulder, and the moonlight through the farmhouse window turned the fabric translucent enough that he could see she wore nothing beneath it. He fixed his eyes on the ceiling beam above her head. "Ritsuka, it's the middle of the night. Mash and Jeanne are on the roof."
"Mash and Jeanne are on the roof," she agreed cheerfully. "Which means the ground floor is empty except for one Master and one dead girl with a proposition."
"Don't call yourself that."
"Dead girl? It's accurate." Her grin stayed fixed but something flickered behind it, fast, like a fish turning under ice. "Anyway, its fine. Servants doesn't sleep. Mash volunteered for the full watch. We've got hours."
"That's not the problem and you know it." He reached up to adjust glasses that had gone crooked when she landed on him. "Where is this even coming from? Yesterday you wouldn't talk to me at all about what happened to you, and now you're..."
"Sitting on you at midnight demanding intercourse?" She tilted her head.
"Ritsuka."
"Griswald." She mimicked his tone, dropping her voice an octave, and the impression was unfairly good. Then she straightened up, still perched on him, and drummed her fingers against her own knee. "Look, do you want the flirty version or the honest version?"
"There are versions?"
"There are always versions. The flirty version is that a girl has needs and your the man to give it to her." She wiggled her eyebrows.
He stared at her. "And the honest version?"
The drumming fingers stopped.
"The honest version," she said, and her voice came out lighter than her expression, "is that I'm a Servant now. Officially. Confirmed by Da Vinci, Roman, and about four hundred hours of spiritron analysis." She spread her hands. "A Servant with no class, no skills, no Noble Phantasm, no combat parameters, and no idea what she actually is. I'm a car with no engine. A sword with no edge. Pick your metaphor, I've been collecting them."
"Ritsuka..."
"I'm not done." She pressed a finger against his lips, and her hand trembled just slightly against his mouth before she steadied it. "Here's the thing. Servants exist on mana. Whatever's keeping me stable, it's not enough to really do anything." She pulled her finger back. "But you? You're a mana transfer machine. I watched you supercharge Mash so hard she unlocked a Noble Phantasm that blocked Excalibur."
Heat crawled up his neck. "I remember."
"So my theory is this." She leaned forward again, and this time the teasing curve of her mouth couldn't quite hold its shape. "Maybe I'm not broken. Maybe I'm just empty. Maybe whatever I am needs a real charge to actually turn on. A proper transfer. The full-efficiency kind, not the..." she waved a hand vaguely, "...appetizer versions."
"That's a big maybe."
"It's the only maybe I've got." And there it was, finally, the ice cracking all the way through. Her voice stayed level but her eyes shone too bright in the dark. "I'm dead, Gris. My body burned up in that control room and what's left of me is a pattern that shouldn't exist. I can't fight. I stood behind Mash's shield in Fuyuki and I'll have to stand behind it here, and if my only value is being a third person who can technically enter Singularities, then I'm dead weight you're spending resources to protect." She swallowed. "But if there's a Servant in here somewhere, a real one, with real power, then maybe I can actually matter. Maybe I can protect you back for once. So yes, I climbed on top of you in the middle of the night, and we are going to bang until something happens."
Griswald looked up at her, at the athletic lines of her body silhouetted against the window, at the vibrant orange hair in the moonlight, at the girl who'd talked him through his first mana transfer with a grin and a filthy joke.
"Okay," he said.
Ritsuka blinked. "Okay?"
"Okay," he said again, and heard the tremor in it, and pushed through it anyway. "You're right. That's what I'm here for. I'm the transfer machine." He let out a breath that shook more than he wanted. "And if this helps figure out what you are, if it makes you stronger, then we should try."
Ritsuka stared down at him a moment longer. Then her whole face cracked open into something, before she buried both under her usual grin.
"Wow," she breathed. "No fight? No stammering? Who are you and what did you do with my anxious little medic?"
"He's still here. He's just decided being useful matters more than being nervous." He reached up and adjusted his glasses again, buying himself a second. "Mostly."
"Mostly." She snorted, and rocked back on her heels so she straddled his thighs instead of his stomach, giving them both room to breathe. "Good. I like mostly."
For a moment neither of them moved. The farmhouse settled around them, old timber creaking, the wind pushing at the shutters. Somewhere above their heads, muffled through the ceiling, Mash and Jeanne kept their vigil. And here he was, flat on his back on a straw mattress in fifteenth-century France with a dead girl in a translucent sleep shirt sitting on his lap.
The absurdity of it hit him all at once, and he almost laughed.
"What?" Ritsuka narrowed her eyes.
"Nothing," he said. "Just... this is not how I pictured tonight going."
"Bold of you to have pictured tonight at all." She reached down and grabbed the hem of her sleep shirt, and pulled it up over her head in one motion that left her hair mussed and her whole body bared to the moonlight streaming through the shutters.
Griswald's mouth went dry. Her breasts sat small and firm on her chest. Her nipples had already gone tight in the cool night air, dusky pink and pebbled hard.
"You're staring," she said, not bothering to hide the satisfaction in it.
"You told me to keep up."
"Good boy." She tugged at the hem of his own shirt, impatient fingers working it up over his ribs, and he lifted his arms to help her pull it off. Then her hands found the waistband of his trousers, and she fumbled with the ties for a second too long, swearing under her breath at the knot.
The knot gave way with a curse and a yank, and Ritsuka dragged his trousers down past his hips, freeing his cock to spring up against his stomach, already hard, already leaking a bead at the tip that caught the moonlight.
"There he is." She wrapped her fingers around the base, and the sudden contact made him buck up into her grip. "Missed you."
"You're talking to my dick."
"I talk to everyone, Gris. Manners cost nothing." She lowered herself down his body, dragging her bare breasts along his thighs, and settled between his knees with her face level with his groin. Her orange hair fell forward, brushing against his hipbone, and she looked up at him through her lashes with that same amber-eyed intensity she brought to everything, whether it was a battle plan or this. "You remember Fuyuki?"
"I remember."
"Really than do you remember this?"
He didn't get to answer. She dragged her tongue up the underside of his shaft in one slow stroke, from the base to the head, and his hips jerked off the mattress before he could stop them. She pinned him down with a forearm across his stomach, casual as anything, strong enough that he couldn't buck again even when he wanted to.
"Ya," he managed. "Ya I do."
"Thought so." She circled the tip with her tongue, lapping at the bead of precum gathering there, humming low in her throat at the taste. Then she opened her mouth and swallowed him down in one smooth motion, all the way to the back of her throat, and Griswald's whole spine arched off the bed.
"Fuck," he gasped, and clamped a hand over his own mouth because Mash and Jeanne were right above them, right through thin farmhouse timber, and the sound that wanted to come out of him was not quiet.
Ritsuka pulled back with an obscene wet pop, saliva stringing between her lips and his cock. She grinned up at him.
"Careful," she said, voice already rough. "Don't wake the neighbors."
"You're doing this on purpose."
"Everything I do is on purpose." She wrapped her hand around the base again, twisting as she stroked, she lowered her mouth back over the head, tongue swirling under the ridge where she'd clearly noticed him twitch hardest. She took him deep again, throat working around him in slow pulses, cheeks hollowing with the suction, and every time he thought he'd adjusted to the sensation she changed rhythm, quickening, slowing, dragging her teeth just barely along the underside until he groaned into his palm.
Her free hand slid lower, cupping his balls, rolling them gently, and he felt his whole lower body pull tight, that familiar coiling heat building fast, faster than it should, but weeks of Da Vinci's lessons and Mash's patient mouth had taught his body what was coming and how to ride it out longer than any ordinary man could manage.
"Ritsuka." His voice cracked around her name. "I'm going to."
She didn't stop. If anything she sped up, hand and mouth moving together in filthy tandem, spit slick and shining down his shaft, her head bobbing with a wet, rhythmic sound that filled the dark room louder than either of them wanted. He tried to warn her again but the words dissolved into a strangled noise as he came, spilling into her mouth in three long pulses, hips jerking helplessly against the pressure of her arm still pinning him down.
Ritsuka swallowed around him, throat working, and pulled back only when he'd finished, licking her lips clean with a satisfied hum.
"There we go." She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth.
Griswald lay there panting, staring at the ceiling beams, his whole body loose and buzzing. "Any sudden urge to summon a Noble Phantasm?" He panted.
"Hum, I don't... feel any different." She crawled back up his body, straddling his hips again, and this time she pressed her palm flat against her own chest, right over her heart, closing her eyes like she was listening for something. Her brow furrowed. A long moment passed. Then she opened her eyes and shrugged. "Nothing. Not yet, anyway. Guess we need more data."
"More data." He huffed a laugh despite himself, still catching his breath. "Is that what we're calling it."
"Science demands rigor." She rocked her hips against him, and he felt himself already stirring again beneath her, his healing magic doing exactly what Da Vinci had trained it to do, refilling faster than any ordinary man's body ever could. Ritsuka's grin widened when she felt it. "Oh, that's convenient."
"Convenient's one word for it." Griswald pushed himself up on his elbows, and the movement shifted her weight forward, her bare heat sliding against the base of his shaft. He felt how slick she'd gotten just from sucking him off, the wet drag of her against his skin. "You're soaked."
"Blowing you does that to a girl." She said it flippantly, but her hips gave a small involuntary roll that betrayed her. Then she paused, tilting her head. "Actually, hold on. If we're doing this properly, if I'm the empty vessel that needs a real charge, I shouldn't just be taking. I should be, you know, primed. Warmed up. Whatever the technical term is."
"You want me to get you ready."
"Look at you, keeping up." She grinned, but there was something genuine underneath it, a flicker of that same brightness in her eyes. "And I'm going back for another shot of that mana juice of yours while you do it."
Before he could answer she swung her leg over him and spun herself around, until she'd reversed her position entirely. Her knees settled on either side of his head, her orange hair spilling down over his stomach, and her face dropped back down to his groin where his half-hard cock twitched against his belly. And above him, right above his mouth, she lowered her hips until her pussy hovered inches from his face.
Griswald's breath caught. The moonlight through the shutters lit her from behind, and every part of her was on display. Her lips were flushed dark pink and swollen, already parted, glistening wet with arousal that had smeared down the inside of her thighs. The scent of her hit him, sharp and musky and impossibly her, and his cock jumped hard against her fingers where she'd wrapped them back around the base.
"You gonna stare all night?" she asked, and then she took him back into her mouth before he could respond, humming around him.
The vibration shot straight up his spine. He grabbed her hips to steady himself, fingers digging into the soft flesh of her ass, and pulled her down onto his face.
He remembered everything Da Vinci had drilled into him. Start slow. Watch the reaction. Than build.
He dragged his tongue up through her folds in one long, flat stroke, from the tight clench of her entrance all the way up to the swollen bud of her clit at the top, and the muscles in her thighs jerked tight against his ears. She moaned around his cock, the sound muffled and desperate, her rhythm stuttering. Salt and slick flooded his mouth, tangy and warm, and he groaned into her, the sound lost against her flesh.
"There," she gasped, pulling off him with a wet slap of her lips against the head. "God, yeah, right there, do that again."
He did it again. Then he pressed the flat of his tongue against her clit and worked it in slow, tight circles the way he'd learned, and Ritsuka's hips ground down against his mouth, chasing the pressure, smothering him in her wetness. Her thighs trembled on either side of his head. He felt her whole body wind tighter, and he pulled her hips down harder, burying his face in her, tongue lapping and swirling and flicking until her breath came in ragged bursts against his cock.
She hadn't taken him back in her mouth. She was too far gone, one hand still gripping his shaft, stroking it in loose, distracted pulls while she rocked against his face and swore into the dark.
"Fuck, Gris, your, when did you get good at, ah." Her words dissolved into a whine.
He answered by sliding two fingers up alongside his tongue, pressing them into her slick heat, curling them forward the way Da Vinci had shown him, searching for that spot along her front wall. He found it, and Ritsuka's whole body seized. Her thighs clamped hard around his head. Her hand tightened around his cock until it almost hurt.
"There, there, oh, don't stop, don't you dare, don't stop, gris." Her voice pitched higher, breaking, and she'd completely forgotten to keep quiet, forgotten Mash and Jeanne on the roof above them, forgotten everything except his mouth and his fingers working her toward the edge.
He kept the rhythm steady. Tongue circling her clit, fingers pumping and curling inside her, his other hand pinning her hips so she couldn't squirm away from the relentless pressure. Her wetness ran down his chin, dripped onto his throat, and he drank her in, groaning against her, the vibration making her buck.
"I'm gonna, oh fuck, I'm gonna come, don't stop, Griswald, don't."
He didn't stop. He pressed harder, sucked her clit between his lips and worked his fingers faster, and Ritsuka came apart above him with a strangled cry she barely managed to muffle against his hip, her whole body convulsing, thighs shaking, pussy clenching tight around his fingers in rhythmic waves. She ground down against his face, riding it out, chasing every last aftershock while he lapped at her gently, coaxing her through it until she finally sagged forward, boneless.
For a moment she just lay there draped over him, her hair fanned across his stomach, her breath coming in ragged gulps, her forehead resting against his hip. Griswald slid his fingers free, slick and shining, and pressed a soft kiss to the inside of her thigh.
"Ready enough?" he asked, voice hoarse.
Ritsuka let out a shaky, breathless laugh. "You," she panted, "have been holding out on me."
Then she gathered herself, wrapped her lips back around his aching cock, and took him deep again, ready to pull one more load of mana out of him before they moved on to the real experiment.
Ritsuka's mouth closed around him again, hot, wet and greedy. Griswald's hips twitched up before he could stop them. She took him deep in one smooth plunge, lips sealing tight around his shaft, her tongue flattening against the underside as she dragged him back and forth across it.
He grabbed her hips again. She was still slick from her orgasm, folds swollen and glistening in the moonlight, with the sight of her spread open above his face short-circuited whatever restraint he had left. He pulled her down onto his mouth and buried his tongue back inside her.
She tasted stronger now, tangy and thick, her wetness smeared across his lips and chin from the last time. He lapped at her entrance, tongue pushing in as deep as it would go, and Ritsuka's whole body shuddered around him. She moaned around his cock, the vibration rolling up his shaft and pulling a strangled grunt out of him that he muffled against her flesh.
"Mmph." She pulled off him just long enough to gasp. "God, your still hungry."
Then she swallowed him back down, and the wet heat of her throat made his toes curl against the mattress.
He worked her the way he'd learned. Two fingers pressing back inside her tight, clenching heat, curling forward, pumping in slow steady strokes while his tongue climbed up to her clit. He found the swollen little bud already pulsing from before, oversensitive, and when he flicked it she jerked so hard her teeth grazed him.
"Careful," he warned against her, breathless.
She hummed an apology around his cock and doubled down, bobbing her head faster, one hand fisting the base of his shaft and twisting in time with her mouth, the other cupping and rolling his balls. Every technique she'd shown him in Fuyuki, she turned back on him now, and the combined assault made the coiling heat build low in his gut far faster than he wanted.
So he pushed back. He wrapped his lips around her clit and sucked, hard, working the flat of his tongue against it while his fingers curled and pumped, and Ritsuka's rhythm shattered. She pulled off him with a wet gasp, forehead dropping to his hip, hand still stroking him in loose, distracted pulls while she ground down against his mouth.
"Oh fuck, oh fuck, right there." Her thighs clamped tight around his ears. Her wetness ran down his chin, dripping onto his throat, soaking the straw beneath his head. "You keep, ah, you keep doing that and I'm gonna, I can't, I can't concentrate."
He didn't stop. He held her hips pinned and buried his face in her pussy, tongue lapping and swirling, fingers stroking that spot along her front wall until her whole body wound tight above him. He felt her clench around his fingers, the flutter and squeeze of her getting close again, and the taste of her flooded his mouth thicker, hotter.
"Griswald." His name came out cracked and desperate. She'd forgotten to be quiet entirely now, hips rolling against his face, chasing his tongue. "Griswald, wait, wait, I wanna, together, I wanna do this together, come here."
She dragged herself off his mouth with a whine of protest at her own decision, spun around, and before he could get his bearings she'd straddled his chest, her slick heat smearing against his sternum. Her face hovered inches from his, flushed and wild-eyed, hair a mess, her lips swollen and shining wet.
"You made me lose the composer," she panted. "That's cheating."
"You told me to warm you up."
"I said warm up, not, not that." She laughed, breathless and unsteady, and reached back to wrap her fingers around his aching cock, standing hard and slick with her spit between them. She stroked him slow, thumb circling the leaking head, and watched his face the whole time. "You held out this whole time. All those times in Fuyuki, all patient and shy. And now you're eating me out like your starving."
"Da Vinci trained me." He reached up and pushed a strand of orange hair off her damp forehead, and the tenderness of the gesture caught them both off guard. "And I wanted to."
Something flickered behind her grin. She leaned down and kissed him, hard and messy, tasting herself on his mouth without hesitation, her tongue sliding against his while her hand kept working his shaft between their bodies. When she pulled back her eyes were bright, too bright, that fish-under-ice flicker surfacing again.
"Okay," she breathed against his lips. "Enough foreplay. Enough data collection." She sat up, and reached down to line him up against her entrance, the head of his cock pressing against her wet, swollen heat. "Real experiment. You ready to find out what I am, Master?"
The word sent a jolt through him. He gripped her hips to steady them both, feeling the slick warmth of her pressed against him, the faint tremble in her thighs that had nothing to do with arousal.
"Ritsuka." He met her eyes. "If it hurts, if it doesn't feel right, we stop. Mana transfer or not. I mean it."
For a second the grin dropped entirely, and what was left underneath was raw and grateful and terrified all at once.
Then the mask slid back into place, and she smirked as she sank down onto him in one slow, deliberate motion, and whatever answer she might have given dissolved into a sharp gasp instead.
Her body swallowed him whole, tight and slick and hot enough that his breath hitched hard in his chest. She sank all the way down until her hips met his, until every inch of him was buried inside her, and for a moment neither of them moved. Ritsuka's head tipped back, her orange hair spilling down her spine, and her mouth fell open around a sound she caught behind her teeth just in time.
"Ho..." she breathed. "Okay. Okay, that's, yeah."
Griswald's hands found her hips on instinct, thumbs pressing into the sharp jut of bone, feeling the athletic muscle beneath the freckled skin flex as she shifted her weight. She was all lean lines and quiet strength, her body, wiry and taut where Mash was soft. Her stomach tightened in visible ridges when she rolled her hips experimentally, testing the fit, and the sight of her poised over him in the moonlight, breasts small and firm and rising with every ragged breath, nipples still stiff and dark, drove every rational thought clean out of his skull.
"You feel..." He didn't have the words. He'd only ever done this with Mash, and the two women could not have been more different. Where Mash gripped him in soft yielding warmth, Ritsuka clenched around him in fluttering pulses, her inner walls squeezing tight enough that he had to grit his teeth. "God, Ritsuka."
"I know." She braced her palms flat against his chest and lifted herself, dragging up until only the head of him stayed inside her, then dropped back down with a wet slap of skin that they both froze at, eyes darting to the ceiling.
Silence from above. Just the wind, the timber, Fou stirring somewhere in the dark.
"Quiet," he mouthed.
"You be quiet," she mouthed back, and then she started moving in earnest.
She rode him in slow, grinding rolls at first, learning what made his breath catch, cataloguing his reactions the same way she read a battlefield. When she rocked forward her clit dragged against his pelvis and her whole body shuddered, a full-body tremor that ran from her shoulders down her spine and clenched hard around his cock. She bit down on her own knuckle to smother the whimper. He watched sweat bead at her hairline, watched it slide down between her small breasts, watched the flush spread across her collarbones in the pale light.
"Faster," she panted against her fist. "I need, its not enough, I need more."
He answered by planting his heels and driving up into her, meeting her downward grind with a thrust that punched the air out of her lungs. Ritsuka's eyes went wide. She'd been the one in control, riding him, setting the pace, and the moment he took it from her the composure cracked wide open. Her arms buckled and she collapsed forward onto his chest, hips still working, and he wrapped both arms around her narrow back to hold her there while he fucked up into her from below.
"Oh, oh, fuck," she chanted into his neck, her lips wet against his skin, her breath scalding. "Right there, right, don't stop, don't you dare, Gris."
He didn't stop. Weeks of Da Vinci's training had rebuilt him into something he barely recognized, taught his body endurance, rhythm and control, and he set a relentless pace, each thrust burying himself to the hilt in her tight fluttering heat. The slick sound of it filled the room, obscene and rhythmic, as he clamped a hand over the back of her head to muffle the noises she was leaking against his throat. Her thighs shook where they bracketed his. Her nails dug crescents into his shoulders.
"Someone's gonna hear," he hissed, more to himself than her.
"Then keep me quiet." She lifted her head and crushed her mouth against his, swallowing her own moans into the kiss, her tongue tangling desperate with his. He tasted himself on her and it should have embarrassed him and instead it just wound the coil tighter. She rocked back to meet every thrust, chasing something, and he could feel it building in her, the way she seized around him in sharper and sharper spasms, the way her rhythm turned frantic and sloppy.
He slid one hand down between their bodies and found her clit with his thumb, circling it the way Da Vinci had drilled into him, and Ritsuka broke the kiss with a strangled gasp.
"Oh you learned that, you absolute, oh, oh God."
"Come on," he breathed against her ear. "Come on, Ritsuka."
Ritsuka's whole body wound tight against him, teetering right at the edge, and then she pulled back with a frustrated groan that had nothing to do with pleasure.
"No, no, wait." She braced her hands against his chest and lifted herself off him entirely, his cock slipping free of her with a wet, obscene sound that made them both wince toward the ceiling. She hovered over him, panting, sweat sliding down her stomach, her thighs still trembling. "It's right there, I'm right there, but it keeps, it slips away, I can't."
"What do you need?" His hands found her hips, steadying her.
"Different angle. I need." She scrubbed a hand across her flushed face, that analytical mind grinding even now, even soaked and shaking apart on top of him. "Turn around. Let me try, let me drive."
She didn't wait for permission. She swung one leg over and spun herself around on his lap, presenting her back to him, her orange ponytail tumbling down her spine, and Griswald's breath caught hard in his throat at the sight of her ass framed in the moonlight. She was all lean muscle, the athletic curve of her cheeks flexing as she settled her weight, the tight pucker of her and the swollen, dripping mess of her pussy laid bare. Glistening right above his straining cock. She reached back between her thighs, wrapped her fingers around his shaft, and lined the head up against her entrance.
"There," she breathed, and sank back down onto him.
The new angle punched a groan out of both of them. She swallowed him even deeper this way, her walls dragging tight along every inch, and Griswald grabbed two fistfuls of her ass to anchor himself against the sensation. Her skin was hot and slick with sweat under his palms, firm and taut, and he kneaded the flesh, spreading her open, watching himself disappear into her over and over.
"Fuck, yes." Ritsuka planted her hands on his thighs and started bouncing, driving herself down onto his cock in sharp, greedy slaps. "That's, oh, that's the one, that's it."
The sight of it wrecked him. Her ass rippled every time she dropped down, cheeks bouncing against his hips with a wet clap of skin that filled the dark room. He gripped harder, digging his fingers into the muscle, pulling her cheeks apart so he could watch his shaft, slick and shining with her arousal, spearing up into her tight, clenching heat. Her hole clenched around him with every plunge, dragging up his length before she slammed back down, the obscene squelch of it obscenely loud.
"Ritsuka." He drove his hips up to meet her, burying himself to the root, and she cried out, forgetting the ceiling entirely.
But Ritsuka was in her own little world of pleasure. She threw her moans over her shoulder, wild-eyed, hair stuck to her damp cheek, and bounced faster.
He hauled her back against his chest, arm wrapping across her front, and clamped his other hand over her mouth to muffle the string of desperate moans pouring out of her. She kept riding him, hips snapping, and he massaged her ass in slow rough circles with the hand still gripping it, spreading her, squeezing the flesh, feeling the muscle work under his palm every time she drove down. The moonlight lit the sweat on her back, on the flex and roll of her spine, on the tight clench of her body swallowing him whole.
Her tongue pressed hot against his palm as she moaned into it, and he felt the exact moment it changed, the moment her frantic rhythm turned ragged and out of control. Her whole body seized. Her walls clamped down around his cock in fluttering, vice-tight pulses, and she reached back to claw at his thigh, her nails biting deep.
He slid his hand from her ass around her hip and down between her spread thighs, found her clit swollen and slick, than he pressed hard, working tight circles the way he'd learned while he fucked up into her from below.
Ritsuka detonated.
Her scream tore against his palm, muffled and ragged, her whole body clamping down around him as she came. Her pussy squeezed him in rhythmic, punishing pulses, and the feel of her shattering apart on top of him dragged him straight over the edge with her. Griswald buried himself to the hilt and held her there, hips flush against her bouncing ass, and spilled inside her in long, shuddering bursts. His healing magic had loaded him full, and he emptied every drop of it into her clenching heat, feeling her milk him with each aftershock, his cock twitching hard as he flooded her.
Ritsuka went boneless against his chest, her spine arched, her tongue still pressed hot against his hand as she whimpered through the last of it. He kept her clit trapped under his fingers, working slow gentle circles now, coaxing her through the trembling waves until she flinched away from the oversensitivity and swatted weakly at his wrist.
He let her go. She slumped forward off him, his softening cock slipping free with a wet slide, and collapsed onto the straw mattress beside him in a heap of tangled orange hair and glistening sweat. Her chest heaved. A thread of his release leaked down the inside of her thigh, catching the moonlight, and she didn't seem to care.
For a long moment neither of them said anything. Just the wind pushing at the shutters and their two ragged sets of breathing, slowly evening out.
Griswald turned his head against the mattress. "Did you," he started, then had to swallow to get his voice back. "Did you feel anything? From the transfer, I mean. Did it, did it do anything?"
Ritsuka lay there with one arm flung over her eyes, still catching her breath. "Mmn." She dragged the sound out, considering. "I dunno. Maybe? Everything's kind of..." She waved her free hand in a loose, dismissive circle. "Buzzy. Static. Could be mana. Could be I just got fucked stupid."
"Ritsuka."
"Humm, its the truth." She peeled her arm off her face and cracked one eye open at him, and there was no disappointment in it, no crushing letdown he'd braced himself to comfort. Just exhaustion, warm and heavy and satisfied. "I honestly can't tell yet. Ask me in the morning when my brain reboots. Right now I couldn't summon a Noble Phantasm if you showed me"
He huffed a tired laugh. "That's not a no, at least."
"That's not a no." She stretched, every lean muscle in her body pulling taut, and let out a groan that had nothing to do with mana at all. "God. Okay. That was worth climbing on top of you at midnight for even if it did nothing."
She sat up with a wince, pushing damp hair off her forehead, and Griswald watched her gather herself back into some semblance of composure. The wild edge had gone out of her.
She found her sleep shirt where she'd flung it and tugged it back over her head, then paused halfway to standing, one knee still on the mattress. She glanced back at him.
"Hey. Grissy." Her voice shifted, that teasing lilt threading back through it. "About Jeanne."
Griswald blinked up at her. "What about her?"
"You heard her. The whole faith-and-legend thing." Ritsuka pulled her hair loose from where it had matted against her neck. "So we're walking into the biggest Singularity yet with a Ruler who's running on fumes. She'll burn through her reserves in one real fight and then she's dead weight."
He rubbed a hand down his face. He'd already made his peace with it, or thought he had. "She was pretty clear about it. Da Vinci confirmed the theory. If she breaks her chastity, her Spirit Origin weakens. I'm not going to push someone into that. It's her body, her legend."
"Uh-huh." Ritsuka stood, stretching her arms over her head with a satisfied groan. "See, that's very noble of you. Very you. And also we can't afford it."
"Ritsuka."
"I'm just saying." She grinned down at him, and there was that stubborn brightness again, the same one that had thrown her into a burning control room and out the other side as something that shouldn't exist. "Mash is a Demi-Servant. Galahad's legend is all about purity too, and it made her stronger. There's a loophole in there somewhere. There's always a loophole." She tapped her temple. "So my professional opinion is, we don't take no as forever. We take it as for now."
"I really don't think she's going to change her mind."
"Nobody thinks I should be able to walk around either, and yet." She spread her arms, gesturing at her whole living, breathing, dead-girl self. Then she pointed a finger down at him, mock-stern. "Together. You and me. We're gonna change her mind. Not by pushing. By figuring out the loophole. Deal?"
He looked up at her, at the certainty she wore like armor, and he was too wrung out to argue any of it. His limbs had gone leaden. His eyes kept trying to close on their own.
"Sure," he mumbled. "Loophole. Whatever you say."
"That's the spirit." She leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to his forehead, soft and almost fond, at odds with everything that had come before it. "Get some sleep, Master. You earned it."
Then she padded across the creaking floorboards toward the stairs, hips still moving a little unsteadily, and vanished up into the dark.
Griswald lay alone in the moonlight, sticky and spent and aching in a good way. He should get dressed. He should clean up. He should think about tomorrow, about the ring in the sky, about the false Jeanne burning France.
He didn't think about any of it. His eyes slid shut, the wind hummed against the shutters, and sleep took him down before he'd finished pulling the blanket up.