flightworks | [Fate/ninth heaven] Vagrant Grail Cadenza; Silent Room [route III, NORMAL END]

Masterlist and readme are here.

notes;
The conditions of this ending are:
-No contract is made with Meria on day 15
-Gulcasa fights Caster, and then dies in battle with Hector

Normal End
Silent Room

I wave to the receptionist.
It’s already been many times since I first came to visit this place, and so she simply smiles and waves me down the hall.

The bouquet in my arms is extremely light, but it is also very heavy.
I cut the roses from my own garden, and treated them with water and food coloring repeatedly to get them to be the correct shade.
…Even now, I think that blue roses certainly suit him the best.

The hospital for magi in the town bordering Fuyuki is a quiet place.
It is clean and sterile, and does not smell like disease and medicine, most likely because the people who work here use their magical energy to cleanse the area.

I pick up the pace.
I want to put these flowers in a vase, because it would be a shame to let them wither so early.
The people in this hospital can keep the flowers alive for much longer than usual, and so I want to hurry up and deliver them.
That room is only very rarely visited by anyone not hospital staff, so I worry that it gets too dreary when there isn’t any decoration.

Finally.
I reach the room, and push the door open gently.

“…”
I put on my best smile and bow to the patient in the bed.
I take the empty vase to the sink, fill it with water, and busy myself arranging the flowers.

There is no response to my intrusion.
…Well, I didn’t expect that to begin with.

The doctors say that there isn’t anything that can be done for this patient.
There is nothing ailing the body.
But it is inexorably shutting down by the day.
From the time that the body was salvaged, consciousness was never regained.
The doctors tried everything that they could think of, but there was nothing to be done.
…All the same.
It couldn’t be done to simply dispose of the husk of the body, and so an empty room was arranged to ensure comfort until the inevitable death.
Only a peaceful sleep.
Only a quiet wasting away.

…I run my fingers under the water, and sprinkle droplets on the petals of the blue roses.
They look fresh and vivid, and bring life to the quiet room.

I carry the vase carefully and set it on the bedside table, next to the lace curtains.

“…Look, your covers are all rumpled.”
I know there’s no point in talking to him, but I can’t help myself.
“That’s no good. You’re being treated to such hospitality, so you can’t make such a mess.”

I smooth out the faint wrinkles caused by breathing and the doctors and nurses moving his body around.
It’s not carelessness on anyone’s part.
On the contrary, everyone is very gentle with the unresponsive patient, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more.
…Apparently.
The doctors remember his having delivered a patient in bad condition, and I’ve heard it said that they feel grateful for his saving that girl’s life.
So, in order to fulfill the debt, they maintain his care.

Nessiah sleeps in the room.
He was already so small, but he’s lost weight.
Rather than seeming emaciated, though, his skin has gone so pale that it looks translucent, and he looks more like a little porcelain doll than ever.
Arched bones underneath soft skin.
His knuckles stand out a little in his hands, but it doesn’t ruin the effect.

Nessiah sleeps in the room and doesn’t wake up.
…I don’t understand it.
I was depressed as well, when Yggdra disappeared at the very end.
But even I was able to overcome my sadness and try to live up to her example.
…But the truth is that I understand it perfectly.
Nessiah had no one in the entire world.
His Servant, Berserker—Gulcasa was his only attachment.
So.
Because Gulcasa is not here at his side.
Because Gulcasa perished in that battle—I think I know what Nessiah must have wished for.

They were in love.
…They loved each other deeply and madly, and were each other’s sole support.
But that is a kind of love called codependence, and it is a deeply unhealthy kind of relationship.
As proof.
Without Gulcasa—knowing that all his efforts and his long years would not be compensated, Nessiah used the Holy Grail for suicide.

His ending is gentle and calm.
The lace curtains sway.
Nessiah lies in the hospital bed with his eyes half open and unseeing, a thin oxygen tube hooked along his face underneath his nose.
His dull blond hair is getting a little long, and now reaches his shoulders.
…He’s lost something like fifteen pounds because his only nutritional intake is intravenous, and he’s lost a great deal of muscle mass because his only exercise is when nurses come in to fold his limbs and move his body to prevent bedsores.
The shackles that bound his soul to a cycle of reincarnation have been destroyed.
The chains and bones that made up his original form were obliterated with the power of the Holy Grail, and when he dies he will no longer transmigrate to a new body.
His soul is deteriorating and is in a comatose state, and once it has collapsed and died he will no doubt die.
His internal organs will fail one by one, and his body will shut down peacefully.
This is the ending he wished for.

The heart monitor is ticking as always in the corner of the room.
It counts out the number and distance of his pulses, and it still seems to be within the normal range.
When it finally displays abnormalities and stops, the doctors have already agreed not to do anything drastic.
They already know the circumstances.

But Nessiah has no one.
The only person who can oversee his ending is me.

I touch his hand lightly.
There’s no response, like always.
I finish fixing the covers and smile for him.

“—Well, I’m off to give Tohsaka Rin my best regards.”

Until the day comes that his life ends.
I will keep returning to this room, for the sake of the days we ran through together—