I am a Peerless Hero without equal! (WC/Currently in FGO Part 1)

Kukulkan had to blink several times in dumbfoundedness. It took her several seconds to register what Ritsuka just said. She replied, "I'm sorry, what?"

Ritsuka slapped his forehead harshly as if to punish himself for a misdeed. "No, no I should be the one to apologize. That was wrong of me. I meant: how much of your original strength do you still retain? Mash here lost all of her Demi-Servant abilities until a moment of crisis but I see you still retain everything?"

Kuku paused in her healing of Willas. The man appeared stable, his breathing rhythmic and without pause, a smooth melody that told of his continued life. He was safe, yet the wounds he got from those police were not fully healed if the faded purple around his eye was any indication.

A second later, the pause ended as Kuku continued healing the man. Ritsuka figured that pause was probably there for her to think of a response.

"This Singularity is the strangest one I've ever seen. Undoubtedly the strangest we'll ever encounter." She then mumbled quietly to herself, words that weren't meant for other ears, "They're reacting to my presence…"

Kuku's eyes stared into Ritsuka's own. Green touched blue as each reflected in the iris of the other, "You know what the electromagnetic spectrum is, right?"

"Um… is it the X-ray stuff? Radio?"

"Senpai, didn't Dr. Romani go over this? The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of possible energy levels for light." Mash hurriedly explained before Kuku could do the same.

"Mash is right. The human eye can see only the visual spectrum. It's a tiny sliver of the greater spectrum, encompassing the range of 700 nanometer wavelength." Kuku then pointed a finger to her eyes, the tip of which almost touched the whites, "My eyes can see the entire spectrum, ranging from highly energetic gamma rays to low-powered radio waves. They appear to me as colors that are impossible to describe because experience limits human language, and there is no one alive who has seen what I have. Truthfully, 'color' is at best an analogy."

"And at worst?" Ritsuka couldn't help but ask. What Kuku said triggered flare-ups of curiosity.

Colors that no words could describe?

"A mistake."

Ritsuka suddenly felt a coldness run down his spine, barely cushioned by Kuku's clinical tone.

"As fun as this lesson is, what's the point?" Mash asked impatiently. Ritsuka gave her a sideways glance for this unusual lack of patience.

"There is only the visible spectrum."

"..."

"..."

One could hear a marble drop with the silence in this room. Ritsuka opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to comprehend the ramifications of this revelation.

There is only the visible spectrum? Does that mean light itself is changed or is all light at other energy levels simply erased as they're made?

"Wha— what do you—"

"All other wavelengths aside from the visible spectrum are gone, Ritsuka. There are no radio waves, no microwaves, no infrared, no anything aside from visual light. While it may be no issue for you since humans can only see visible light, for me, it's extremely disorienting. Imagine if you will, one day you wake up and suddenly find yourself only able to see the world in shades of yellow. That is what I'm going through. All the other wonderful colors I could normally see are gone."

Ritsuka took it as Kuku essentially going color blind. Out of all his senses, Ritsuka knew he valued his sight the most, and having that impaired would be one of his worst nightmares.

And such a thing happened to Kuku.

Seeing Kuku struggling, Ritsuka approached her and hugged the Goddess. It was his best attempt at comforting her, even if she seized up as though frozen. "We'll get through this. We always do."

Ritsuka parted as he stared into Kuku's eyes. He noticed the slight redness around her cheeks. Briefly, the teen turned around to look at Mash as he could swear he caught her staring daggers in the periphery of his vision.

"You still have your strength, right? Queen Victoria most likely has the Holy Grail in this Singularity. All we need to do is take it from her. Lay siege to Buckingham Palace as we have done to the Hagia Sophia—"

The redness disappeared as Kuku snapped her fingers. She pointed at the ceiling above and shook her arm as if to add complications to Ritsuka's proposed solution.

"It's not just the cessation of all light aside from visible ones, the local reality is weird as well. Let me just show you." Kuku got up and light and heat blossomed within the room. Then that light wilted, revealing how it came from one spot. A tiny speck of blinking plasma bound within Kuku's palm. It was like looking at a star in the night sky. Distant and weak. Steadily, the blinking plasma grew weaker, withering until it was only about as bright as a candlelight.

It wasn't as hot as Ritsuka remembered, given how scorched Constantinople was during the Roman Singularity. The light disappeared from Kuku's hands.

"Right now, I just conjured up enough plasma that everything within several kilometers would be set alight. The only reason why you continue to see this speck of plasma in front of you is because I'm making the plasma faster than whatever is erasing it. More than just that…"

As she spoke, the Goddess walked over to a notice board nearby and ripped off a piece of paper. Holding it like someone would hang a punching bag on a hook, Kuku readied her other fist and let out a punch so quickly it was invisible to the naked eye.

"—!?"

There wasn't a sonic boom even when Kuku's fist moved fast enough for the phenomenon to manifest.

Another strange thing was rather than being disintegrated by the force of Kuku's punch or the shockwaves that inevitably come as a side effect, the paper remained whole, albeit with a hole that Kuku's fist went through. It was as though Kuku's punch was a casual one she'd use with Ritsuka rather than something that looked like it'd collapse a skyscraper.

Even more bizarre was how the paper didn't flutter like it should if Ritsuka had punched it. It remained stiff as cardboard. The edge of the punch wound was sharp rather than jagged, as though a scissor was used to cut it.

"There's… less force? No, there is force, but is its effect concentrated?" Mash observed.

"I am immune to reality warping. Attempts to change my reality will always fail. So the source behind this Singularity decided to do it in a roundabout manner; instead of affecting the cause as they have with Mash, they decided to alter the effect of my punch. They altered my impact on the world. They made me into a knife. I could rip through a city but I'd only carve a human-shaped hole through its buildings."

"... that's insane." What other words could be used to describe what Kuku has just said?

"Ritsuka, you summon the spirit of legendary heroes from across human history and travel through time: how is this more insane than that?" Kuku dryly asked.

In retrospect, Kuku was right. He already lived a pretty insane life, far more than anyone in all of Japan, if not the world. But…

Ritsuka gripped the side of his face. His eyes unfocused before zooming in on Kuku's face.

"This… this is another level. You're talking about how they engineered reality itself. Whoever the source of this Singularity is, they're powerful enough to alter the very ratio of causality to suit their needs. Who… I know that gods are real, that people like Amaterasu are real, so just who are we fighting against? Who can do this? Are we fighting against a Creation God?"

The enormity of their true enemy sunk in, and Ritsuka was terrified. He felt like he was going up against a God with a capital 'G'. He felt the world around him spinning as if collapsing into an abyss. Lev… Lev had a King. King. Their King was powerful and skilled enough to engineer reality around Kuku to weaken her.

The teen stood very still at that thought, hands gripping his face hard enough to leave a lasting mark.

"That's why you have a Goddess on your side."

Kuku projected supreme confidence. Her hands were at her waist and a smirk on her lips, "That's why I'm here. I've already dealt with a world-ending threat before, this is no different."

That's… that's right. Kuku is here, everything will be better now. She always wins, no threat is too great. Ritsuka relaxed.

"Did you find anyone else?"

"Fortunately, Zvezdnyy was with me when I was inserted into this Singularity. She's out playing right now."

Ritsuka was concerned, "Are you sure that's safe?"

"Her ability to change reality is still there, just a bit suppressed. As she told me 'It takes more concentration now'. I didn't find anyone aside from Zvezdnyy." Kuku said sadly.

That wasn't good.

"Are you weakened in any other way?"

Kuku crossed her arms as she explained, "I can't exactly fly. The fabric of spacetime purposefully bends to drag me down. Bullets bounce off me like rain and the effect of my Divine Authorities are heavily limited. It's why I need to touch someone to heal them."

"Couldn't you storm Buckingham Palace still?"

Kuku gave Ritsuka a long, hard look. Her eyes were a void as if she was thinking about some distant memories she'd once buried.

"I'd… like to wait out and see. I'm wary of making big moves. I've encountered such entities who could warp reality before and I'd much rather wait and see rather than stumble unknowingly upon a trap."

There was a wariness behind Kuku's words. And that wariness frightened Ritsuka. It seems this level of control over reality is enough to even put Kuku on edge.

"Why didn't you try to find me?"

Kuku looked guilty, "As bad as the first day in this Singularity for you might Ritsuka, it's far worse for me. More than there are no longer other forms of light, other forms of sound no longer exist either. Stuff ultrasound simply doesn't exist in this Singularity. I couldn't fly either, so I'm limited to just running really fast."

Oh. He voiced his thoughts, "It'll be like trying to find a needle in a haystack."

Kuku nodded. Her expression softened as she asked, "I figured given how I was inserted next to Zvezdnyy, you must also have a Servant next to you. Thus, rather than finding you on my own, I decided to heal people and spread a legend by word of mouth. And it seems to have worked."

The Goddess' hands gestured at their surroundings, him being here. She was correct. Whispers of there being an Angel in the church at the edge of the slums were progressing to such a point everyone at the factory was talking about it. All it took was a week before the whispers became omnipresent.

"But enough about me, was I correct? Were you summoned with Mash?"

Ritsuka nodded in affirmation, "Fortunately, yes I was. And it's only thanks to her that I survived getting William away from the clutches of the Rat King."

Kuku's expression hardened. It felt like she was preparing to fight once more.

"I've heard vague telling of the Rat King from those I healed. I was going to investigate it eventually, but more and more people kept asking to be healed of their injuries and I just didn't have the time. I couldn't leave them be."

A certain Archer would be laughing right now.

"It is very real." Ritsuka had a haunted look on his face. His eyes were distant, his body a statue of stillness as the teen began to recall what happened down there in the sewers, "I can never forget it. That monster down there below our feet, a mass comprising of unwanted children."

Ritsuka struggled to speak those words. His hands reached his hair, and his vision blurred as more memories of that night came spilling out of his mouth.

Oh god, why can't he stop?

"It… it is something that shouldn't exist— Why does it exist?"

Ritsuka had to sit down on the bench, so many questions were coming out of his mouth that they became incoherent, "So many childrens… how did so many children go missing? How are there so many shitty parents?" The teen remembers Mary's words concerning how the Vermin Tide lures away those unwanted, "How are there so many unwanted children?! How? Just how? Aren't children something to be cherished? Aren't they supposed to be loved and cared for? How does someone just… abandon their children as if they never existed? How?!"

The Rat King was a creature that grew from amalgamating… the unwanted young. Down in the sewers, it was the size of a whole living room. It wouldn't exist if there were no unwanted childrens.

As someone who grew up with great parents who supported him throughout his entire life, the idea of shitty parents was something Ritsuka was very unfamiliar with. It was a foreign concept that parents could be so shitty as to abandon their child without a second thought.

Why is human history so bloody? Why are people so disappointing?

Why?

In moments like these, where he's at his weakest, Ritsuka wondered if human history was worthy to be saved. Or perhaps it's better to let such a dirty, corrupted, unworthy little thing die. Immediately afterward, the teen would clean such dirty thoughts by concluding of course history deserves to be saved.

Yet there lingered the ever-present question of 'But why?' Such things poisoned his resolve.

Why is he still doing this?

Because of people like William. The innocents. Don't let their sacrifices be in vain.

"..."

Yes, the innocents. Those like William.

Kuku placed a hand on his shoulder, breaching into Ritsuka's own little world, "Alright Ritsuka, just for you I'll deal with this Rat King so you won't need to worry anymore. It's in the sewers?"

"Yes, it's in the sewers, inside this central chamber. You can't miss it. All the sewer tunnels lead to that chamber."

Kuku's hand left. She tried to crack her knuckles, but only for none of those proper sounds one would expect, so it simply looked like she was massaging them. "Noted. Just leave it to me."

*Bang*

The atmosphere was broken when the door to the church swung open as though hit by a siege ram. Zvezdnyy burst through the door like a meteor of cheerfulness.

"My Polkovodets! I found myself—"

She suddenly froze, her face twisted in befuddlement as she gazed upon Ritsuka and Mash. Zvezdnyy's face lit up like a fireworks show when she realized they were actually there rather than being a fragment of her dream.

"Ritsuka!"

The tiny blonde missile slammed into him, encasing the teen in a hug, "I've missed you!"

"Oof, I've missed you too, Zvezdnyy." The girl was strong for someone of her size.

Zvezdnyy let up and looked Ritsuka up and down. Her smile slowly died like it was being choked out, "Why does sorrow shadow your heart? Has some cruel twist of fate befallen you? Speak, and I, the harbinger of hope, shall unleash my power to rewrite destiny and make things right!"

As Zvezdnyy spoke, her hands made elaborate gestures as if she were casting a spell. A cup of warm hot chocolate appeared in her right hand, "Here, take this. Behold! The most sacred elixir—the divine hot chocolate, brewed with the essence of solace itself! Let its celestial warmth banish the darkness from your soul, just as it has kindled hope in my Polkovodets countless times before!"

"It was only one time."

"Countless times before!" Zvezdnyy insisted with her stubborn pride.

Ritsuka took it, long used to Zvezdnyy's antics. With her, there's never a dull day, at least until Kuku sits her down to have her do her homeworks. He took a sip and almost shuddered as the warmth ran down to his stomach. Warm and sweet.

That did feel much better.

"Zvezdnyy, have you forgotten someone?"

Hearing Kuku's words, the girl suddenly shot up, "Ah yes! I've met someone interesting. A new friend. She's an orphan daughter of an aristocrat. What was her name…?"

Zvezdnyy vanished and reappeared next to the girl who stood by the doorway.

For a brief second, Ritsuka thought he was looking at a human-sized doll. That notion disappeared when the girl recoiled as Zvezdnyy teleported next to her. The girl had long, pure white hair divided into wavy pigtails near the end, each tied with a ribbon. On her head was a black hat, which flowed down into a frilly black dress with trimmed lace and ended with a pair of black Mary Jane shoes.

Her eyes were of the darkest purples.

"What's your name?"

Hesitant, yet nudged along by Zvezdnyy, the girl spoke, "M— mine name is Nursery Rhyme."