Fate/Spring Tonelico (Fate/Grand Order Redux)

"Mother, why do you regulate the humans so?"

It was a question that Baobahn Sith( Daughter) had asked in the 'youth' of her current incarnation. It was a question that broke my heart in its asking. Her reddy/grey hair had yet to truly gain its luster. I would have to do something about that.

I cannot save you.

"Why do you ask?" It was a summer day. The air was hot on my skin. My throne room overlooked the great pit where the Beast God Cernunnos( Calamity of Curse) slept. The chamber was made of crystal and marble and precious ores that my magic had shaped to my liking. It was obstentatious, yet I was a remnant of a little desire( dream) I'd possessed while I was still Aesc. Before my will had shattered and my bones had rotted in despair.

Baobahn Sith( Daughter) lifted her hand to her lips girlishly. I saw yet another accessory adorning her wrist. No doubt Beryl had been in her ear again. I should limit their interactions, or she will follow a crueler path then one that will simply see her safe.

Why didn't I act?

I could have saved you!

"No reason. Just… interested why you treat them as anything but livestock."

"Oh? You think they aren't?"

Humans were not livestock. They were never livestock. If I had my way, I would end every human beings life and put them out of their misery. But faeries fed on the dreams and hopes of humans. In a twisted way, I had to sin in order to keep Britain breathing.

The Faerie of Paradise is free of sin.

But maybe I shouldn't be.

"Mother. Don't lie to me." Her accusation stung. Baobahn Sith( Daughter) had seen through my statement for what it was. A deflection. "Human's feed us. They don't feed you. You never once imbibed of them. Why? What-"

I glanced at her. She fell silent. Even if she called me mother, I was still Morgan le Fae. All faeries instinctively feared me.

"Humans have a defence mechanism." I answered. Baobahn Sith( Daughter) listened with rapt attention. Maybe she'd heard such from Beryl already. "In their current state, they have no overriding will. However, to be human is to persevere. To prosper as the underdog. If humans had been the dominant species of Britain, the Great Calamities would already be conquered."

"Are they really that powerful?"

"Unfortunately. It is both a blessing and a curse to be human." I answered. Yet Baobahn Sith( Daughter) just regarded me curiously, as if I was describing a new toy. "You are not to instill despair in the humans. Keep your playing to other faeries."

My instruction was direct.

She disobeyed it. I remember that.

"But they scurry like ants. Their wriggling as you pull them apart is just so-"

"In their despair, they will call forth their heroism. One of those heroes will be Gawain. Another will be Lancelot."

Why hadn't I pointed out Tristan would arrive too? Did I just think he wouldn't answer?

Or…

Did I hope he would come and save Baobahn Sith( Daughter) from herself? She was using his name after all.

"You can defeat them easily, Mother."

"That is not the point. Britain has not stood two thousand years by taking chances. Do not provoke the humans with misery, Baobahn Sith( Daughter) ."

I had used her name then.

I should have kept a closer eye on her.

I regret everything about those days. I had just been so tired. So broken, if I was truthful. My soul was rotting away from shear apathy as I struggled to maintain the Great Summoning Ritual at Britain's heart.

The Throne was a nexus of magical energy, filled with the energy I had taxed from the faeries. That day, I remember, it was about one third full. It never reached my dreams, the point which it might have defeated Beast God Cernunnos( Calamity of Curse) . The day which I could finally rest.

Maintaining the throne was destroying me in those days. It took unbelievable amounts of effort and concentration. I did not repose. I barely ate. As the Faerie of Paradise, I technically didn't need to eat, but doing so was healthy for me.

The issue was my sanity. I was losing it rapidly.

And…

If I had intervened when I saw the signs, I could have saved you from Beryl.

...

Maybe I don't deserve forgiveness.( Please forgive me my sins.)

We spoke of Jack the Ripper well into the morning. Of his form, his strengths, his weaknesses. Now that I could remember his name, now that he had been revealed to me, I could recall the fight in detail. Of his power over mist and his many bodies.

I hadn't truly noticed until I thought about it with the power of hindsight, but Jack the Ripper had been the center of a web of magical energy. It was a nexus of power that went from his core into the fog itself.

"Jack the Ripper is the supposed culprit behind a series of murders that were committed in London in roughly 1888." Romani explained, his shadowy blue form projected onto a table by a little disc Ritsuka had placed upon it. "Details of who or what he was differ depending on who you ask. If you access the Association's records, he was actually killed by a magus by the name of Zolgen and exorcised."

"So the killer would be apprehended sometime around now?" Henry's voice was almost surprised, a mad light dancing behind his eyes. "Wouldn't that mean that he isn't a Servant, but instead lives in this time period?"

"He might." Ritsuka noted. "But our eyes don't lie. You have seen him, right?"

"Yes. My vision tells me he is Assassin." My lips pursed at their words. I kept my thought to myself, but a glance at Mordred told me that she had also had the same thought. It might not have occurred to Ritsuka, and Mash, bless her, was trying to keep up with the inconsistencies of her own script.

There was nothing stopping Jack the Ripper from being active at the same time as Assassin was. Indeed, if a mage got involved in Jack's death, then on some level he probably possessed a mystic, which meant…

Jack the Ripper and Assassin may well be working together as Master and Servant. In fact, I would consider it less a possibility, and more likely then not.

"We know that Jack the Ripper possesses anecdotes of being a wraith. Chaldea's records indicate a variation of him was summoned in simulation. Well, her, actually." Romani continued. "Which would suggest-"

"That the rat doesn't have a defined form." Mordred spoke up. "But we agree he's a he, right?"

"It might be dependent on his Master." I noted. It was merely an explanation. Mordred glanced at me, not out of suspicion or malice, but weighing my words on their merit. Then she chugged her whole can of cider.

"It's not impossible." She noted. "There are certain servants whose class is predisposed towards who the Master is. I've never heard of one whose gender changes, though."

"Probably because he doesn't have a predefined form." Mash muttered. "Demons, other phantasmals based on human thought, even some faeries. They take shapes depending on how humanity perceives them at the time. Maybe this is how Jack the Ripper is perceived right now."

"It's only been one hundred years." Ritsuka muttered. "Can human perception really change that fast?"

"Sometimes it isn't how humans perceive someone, but how they perceive themselves." I spoke up. "Jack the Ripper may have changed his own perception. There is a third option, though-"

"There is no change of perception yet." Mordred finished for me. She truly was Morgan le Fae's daughter. I could see the distaste bubbling on her skin for the discussion of the mystic. However, she not only followed the entire discussion, she gave as much input as I did. "Jack the Ripper looks like that because it is what the actual Jack the Ripper looked like."

"In that case, finding him will suck." Henry noted. "After all, if Jack the Ripper and Assassin look identical and we proceed on the hypothesis of compatibility summon…"

"Master and Servant look identical." I muttered. "Doctor, can you pinpoint where Assassin is?"

"Even if our systems could see in the fog, they aren't so sensitive as to detect a Servant down to the class unless that Servant is inside a kilometre of Ritsuka." Romani answered. "Too much processing power goes towards observing what is happening around Ritsuka, sorry."

"We have no easy way of tracking Jack, then." Henry muttered under his breath. "Unless…" He paused. "I don't understand, though. If he is a demon, how can he be summoned? The Holy Grail should only manifest heroes of human history."

"There are exceptions." Ritsuka muttered. "Anti-villains spoken of in the same breath as heroes can also be summoned. They are fringe cases, but the Grail only actually asks for someone who will fight for the sake of humans. The reason isn't important."

I did not say anything. Ritsuka had omitted important information, but maybe for the moment it was better that Henry didn't know it.

The Human Salvation Ritual had been the fundamental spell I had based the Tam Lin spell on. She was right in that it needed a willing target, and only humans who would save humanity could be targeted. But the spell was filtered through the Holy Grail. As an artefact that actually existed, it could certainly be corrupted.

Nothing stopped a corrupted grail from changing the target from someone who will save humans to someone who would kill humans.

Villains, if you would.

True villains. Not someone like Barghest whom would one day commit great villainy but ultimately sought to do good. Unrepentant villains like Beryl who sought to destroy human lives. But the Grail didn't think this was an issue, because it sought those who would end human lives.

Most heroes, incidentally, fell into such a category, so there was no contradiction. Heroes and villains would be summoned in tandem.

"There's also Maria the Ripper( Bastard Son Slaughter Re-Enactment) ." Mash spoke up. "It's not quite the right name from our records, but…"

"But?" I raised an eyebrow. Mash just fidgeted.

"Well… there are five of us here. Four of us are women." She noted. Mordred's eye snapped to Mash. Her gaze hardened and her face turned stony.

"Say that again. I dare you-"

"I'm sorry! Maria the Ripper is the legend of Jack the Ripper murdering five women!" Mash's voice came very fast. Henry's lips just pursed.

"Then…" His eyes widened. "Oh. Does it work on men at all?"

"There's probably no reason why it wouldn't have at least some effect on men." Romani noted. "Aesc, if you would?"

"It's really a curse." I noted. "Being a man isn't going to save you. At its core, its still a spell that guts a human being like a fish. It just targets a lot of parts men don't have, so those parts of the spell fizzle, so to speak." I wave my hand, lighting a small fire and letting it smoulder to prove my point. "The flame itself can still hurt you, even if the rest of it misses."

"There were three conditions on it. It is night time, it is foggy and…"

"The target is a woman." Mordred muttered. "What a twisted spell." She glanced at me, her lips thinning more and more. "It's a curse though, right?"

"It is."

"... How many times can he use it?" And Mordred immediately struck to the heart of the idea forming in my head. It made me want to smile. She really was incredible. It baffled me that Morgan le Fae hadn't considered her existence worth remembering.

"Given the damage it did to me…" I ran some calculations in my head. Unlike me, Jack the Ripper probably had no way of repairing his spiritual self. I could do it with magical energy. I was a faerie, after all, and my body in the physical world was just a simulacrum of my faerie self projected with magical energy. "At a guess, I think he's used it about nine times. His soul has already begun to rot away under the strain of the curse."

"... The canonical five. Plus the rest in Whitechapel." Ritsuka spoke up. I blinked.

"Sorry?"

"Jack the Ripper has a canonical five victims." Mash explained. "Five victims he claimed, I should say. There were another six victims associated with him but never proven to be him in Whitechapel. Then there's the various other murders that have been linked to him, but-"

"No. That would make sense. If Jack the Ripper uses a curse for his Noble Phantasm, then he probably has a limit on the number of times he can use it before his 'exorcism'." Romani spoke up. "Mind, the age of Jack the Ripper makes it improbable that he could have performed the murders."

"... Why would his age matter?" Mordred asked. "Demons respond to the wishes of humans. Little things like knowledge are nothing. So long as he can be ascribed human shape, he's still a human according to the grail." She glanced at me. "That doesn't explain the fog, though."

"A mystery." I confirmed. Even presuming the fog was some ability of Jack's, that he could cover the whole city with it was… incredible. Even if I wanted to, I'm not sure I could extend my curse over the entire city without assistance. At least, not in my current shape.

"... Jack the Ripper is our greatest threat." Henry muttered. "Maybe the only threat." I got the feeling he was trying to keep information from us, but it was a poor attempt. Maybe he thought we were opposition in his quest for the Grail. Or maybe it was just paranoia.

…

"Have you met the other Servants?" I asked. Mordred glanced at me. She bit her lip for one long moment.

"N-" Whatever Henry was going to say was cut off.

"Berserker. Lancer and Berserker." Mordred corrected herself almost immediately. "At least… I think he was Lancer. He had blue hair and fought with a staff. Henry didn't catch his class. Had one hell of a fluffy dog with him."

I blinked.

Grimr? That sounded like Grimr.

"And Berserker?" Ritsuka spoke up. I glanced at Mash. She shook her head. Lancer's description didn't ring a bell for her. I kept my thoughts on Lancer's identity to myself.

"A man. Looks a bit like a mountain. Shouted GOLDEN from the building tops." Mordred answered. "Drove me nuts, if I'm honest. You can hear him fighting from blocks away."

Mash bit her lip. She recognised that one.

I filed that away for later.

As the Faerie of Paradise, I do not dream. So I watched over the forms of Ritsuka and Mash while they slept. It was all I could do. Henry might have had guest bedrooms, but Mash and Ritsuka preferred to be in the same room.

I watched over them. Like a guardian from paradise. I did not have to be in the room with them to do so.

"Ash Tree, huh?"

I glanced at Mordred. She chugged another cider in a single go. She certainly didn't seem bothered by the amount of alcohol she was putting away.

"Does that offend you?"

"Everything about you offends me on some level." Mordred's voice came out like a snarl. "You wear my mother's face poorly."

"I would have thought I resembled your father more. We share purposes, after all." I retorted gently. Mordred paused. She stared at my face, studying it for a long moment.

Then she grunted.

"That's why I hate your stupid face. You're right. You do look more like father." She answered. "… Why not say everything, then?"

Did she think I'd lied, or-

"About what?"

"I don't lie to my master." Mordred repeated. "But I don't tell him everything either." I frowned at her words. Mordred didn't elaborate for a long moment. "I get it. Knight of Treachery. The disgusting traitor of the round table. But I am on humanities side here. I'll burn it all again if I have to!"

"... Then tell me what you think the problem is?"

"You don't trust me. Still! After everything was said and done! I burned down Britain for you!"

"... Do not misunderstand, Mordred." My voice cut her off before she descended into a torrent of emotion. "I do not know you. I do not remember you. I might remember things Morgan experienced, but she did not consider you important."

Yet she was so very incredible. If Morgan had someone like Mordred, then how could Britain… fall…

"You… you-"

"Wait. Britain burned?" I regarded her fully for perhaps the first time. In doing so, I saw the shadow I'd been refusing to look at.

She reminded me of the insect( Vortigern) . Seething with rage and hate under the surface for something primordial. The only difference was Mordred had already expended that rage and hate.

"You don't know? Some pretender you are."

"... I don't exist in your version of the world. I should have ceased to be some fourteen millennia ago." I answered glibly. Mordred just blinked.

Then she laughed. It was a sad, morose sound that shared in my years of accumulated misery. In that moment, we were two of a kind.

"... I guess the fae are twisted." She muttered. I couldn't agree more. After everything I'd seen, I couldn't call fae anything but. "Father… didn't see me as an heir. Everything about his role was killing him. So I…" She paused. It was a twisted act for a twisted desire. "Fuck it, I don't have to justify myself to you."

I refrained from voicing the thought on my mind.

Avalon le Fae was our twisted dream's version of King Arthur. I'd experienced some of her memories when I rang the Bells of Pilgrimage( Bones of Salvation) . I probably had more in common with Mordred's 'father' then her mother.

But… that seemed pointless to point out.

"What were they like?" The question was idle curiosity. Mordred's hands clasped together.

"They?" She glanced at me. I didn't respond for a long moment.

"... Faeries don't usually have children. Apparently, Morgan had five." I answered. "I'd like to know about them."

"... Not important enough to remember?"

"... If I told you the only one I can name is Gawain, would that answer your question?"

"... Mother was a bitch." Mordred said the words, but I couldn't help but agree with them.

"We have no leads." Breakfast was a quiet affair. That both Mordred and I partook went unremarked on. We didn't actually need food, but it was appreciated nonetheless. Ritsuka was slow to eat. A glance revealed that she was at least a little stressed and couldn't bring herself to fill her stomach.

Watching her force herself to eat was almost painful.

"We have one lead." I corrected. Ritsuka's fork absently picked at her plate.

"Whitechapel." She finished the thought before I'd even laid it out. "Jack the Ripper would be compelled to return there."

"Yes." I answered. "Presuming Maria the Ripper is the curse that anchors him to the world, then he'll always be compelled to return to where it was first laid."

"Would that mean he'd literally return to the scene of the crime?" Mash asked. I nodded.

"It's a compulsion." I mused. "Something he'll have to do at some point. His dreams will be haunted by the crimes until he does so, and it will build and build and build until-"

"But there are nearly a dozen crime scenes." Henry noted. "That's what you said last night." He placed a goblet of juice on the table as he sat down, letting out an exhausted sigh. "I asked Frankenstein if he knew anything about murders in Whitechapel. He couldn't tell me much. If the Mage's Association knows of them, then they are keeping it quiet." He paused. "Apparently a foreign mage entered the city right before the fog rose, though. One that matches your tale."

"Makiri Zolgen." Romani spoke up. "Right?"

"One and the same. He seemed nervous about him. I'd guess Zolgen is some sort of loose cannon?" Henry tucked into his food with elegance, I realised. He was a scholar. A neat scholar.

"That's one way of putting it. Zolgen invented the modern Human Salvation Ritual that you used to summon Mordred. If anyone can game the Grail War, its Zolgen."

"... I see. Then removing Jack from the board is more vital." Yet Henry's eyes were calculating. Calculating, and…

…

He wasn't considering an alliance with Jack, was he?

… Surely not. Mordred was his Servant, after all. They seemed to get along quite well.

"Whitechapel would be a good place to start." Mash muttered. "It would confirm our theory if nothing else. Given the fog, Jack's master would have to have some sort of safe house to not be killed by his own Servant."

"That is true." I mused. "Assassin does not seem like the type to discriminate for his master. If anything, he'd probably do worse to his master if he thought it'd benefit him."

"Maybe…"

Henry worried me. Something was wrong here.

What am I missing? Mash and Ritsuka shared a knowing look. I'm out of the loop here…

[ ] Go to Buck's Row. (Shielder: Mash, Ritsuka)
[ ] Go to Hanbury Street. (Rider: ????)
[ ] Go to Dutfield's Yard. (Master: ????, ????: ????)
[ ] Go to Mitre Square. (Fatal Battle: Jack the Ripper)

You may engage Jack the Ripper if you believe you are ready.

The Faerie of Paradise may not have happy memories.

The Faerie of Paradise should never experience spring.

The misery of the Faerie of Paradise reflects your sins.

So forgive us of our sins and grant us salvation.

The system behind the Faerie of Paradise is a cruel, inhumane one. I realise the irony of me, a fae, saying that, but it is the truth. As a system devised by the Mother of Us All, it lacked empathy or compassion. After all, she did not experience emotions and thus was prone to unwanton and unrestrained cruelty in the extreme.

I had to wonder if we just asked, would she grant us mercy and succor? She was want to commit random acts of kindness, such as a faerie in what we would call China in the modern day being granted a chance to live life with her chosen lover. Technically, we weren't meant to understand love or hate or anything like that. In truth, such things should be outside the dominion of the fae.

On a fundamental level, we strayed from our Great Mother's purpose for us, but rather then punish us for doing so, she found beauty in it.

The Faerie of Paradise is one of the planet's emergency systems. A form of 'break glass in emergency', we technically should not be necessary. If the Bells of Pilgrimage( Bones of Salvation) had simply done their job in the first place, we would never have been created. There was no real reason for me to exist in and of myself. I don't have a purpose beyond forging the Sacred Armament to save the world.

Of course, our Great Mother thought that the Sacred Armament would be best served as a weapon that yearned for Spring. Thus, the Sacred Armament must not have memories of Spring. It was that yearning for happiness that drew in the wishes of the Prime Species to live and thus allowed us to destroy their enemies.

…

Yes, this is why I hate Merlin. Merlin's job as the Crown Caster is, in part, to ensure that we never seek Spring. By the time I understood the hole in my heart, I'd already been executed four times.

All according to Merlin's machinations.

I do not hate Merlin. That is not to say that I am fond of Merlin or I like him or anything. I do bear a grudge against him for the misery he inflicted upon me, but I understand why he did it. In the end, Merlin is as much a servant of the world as I am. His service to the Great Mother meant that he did not consider the person, only the end result.

If anything, I would declare he lacks empathy.

The thought occurred to me only as we were leaving Mr Henry Jekyll's house to seek answers to the curse of Maria the Ripper. That Henry was actually not dissimilar to Merlin, except on a much lower scale. His reaction to the idea of Jack the Ripper having access to a limited number of uses of his Noble Phantasm was not to ensure it was not used against his Servant, who it might instantly kill, but instead to…

I can only believe that Henry believes he can turn Jack to his own purposes.

It was very-

"Aesc, are you okay?" Mash's words dragged me out of my reverie. It was only then that I really realised my mind had been wandering. The fog this morning was fairly thin, letting my eyes see about seven hundred meters at most when the streets allowed. On occasion, we passed a man or woman rapidly dashing to some location or another, but for the most part, we were alone.

"Sorry. I was lost in thought." I admitted it. That Mordred was not here did not make me nervous. She could handle herself, after all.

"Something we should know?" Ritsuka asked. I shook my head.

"I was going to ask that. What did Henry say?" The two girl's glanced at each other, then back at me.

"Henry Jekyll is the main character of a novel that would be written in… Uh… eighty-five?" Ritsuka glanced at Mash. She just smiled.

"Eighty-six, senpai. As of current time it should have been out for two years or so." Mash answered. "Maybe Henry was the model for the novel, or maybe it is just coincidence that became true in the decades after the fact."

"... He matches the character, then?"

"Somewhat. There are discrepancies." Ritsuka muttered. "But the core of him is the same. I'm guessing you saw it too, when we mentioned the curse."

"That he was seriously considering an alliance with Jack?" Both Ritsuka and Mash glanced at each other. Mash shook her head.

"I'm afraid it might be deeper." She admitted. "The crux of the novel was Henry's obsession with the nature of good and evil. His life's work culminates in an attempt to alchemically separate humans into the base components of good and evil. In the process, he created an alter ego that… um…"

"Reveled in hedonism." I finished for her. "Wait-"

"I'm afraid the Spirit Origin of Jekyll is that of an Assassin." I blinked as Romani slipped back into existence. "Da Vinci has run some tests, but we fear that he may actually be a pseudo-servant, rather then a Still Living Hero."

"Then he possesses his alter ego?" It was the thing he was famous for, after all. Romani nodded, just once.

"The Spirit Origin is missing a giant chunk of it. I think its not only likely that Jekyll and Hyde existed at some point, but that the transformation has already begun." Yet that seemed like too easy an answer. If Henry was really Hyde, and would turn on us, it would make our decisions far too easy, for there was a clear moral decision to make.

My experience told me that life refused to be so kind to me.

"That's not how it went, did it?" I asked. Mash shook her head.

"No. I want to believe Henry is our friend, but…" She fell silent. I had to wonder how bad her script had broken, for her to be so afraid to even attempt to use the gift of foreknowledge. "Not after Okeanos."

"Okeanos?"

"The last Singularity." Ritsuka explained, as we stopped in the middle of the road. "Well, this is it."

Buck's Row. It was a long thoroughfare that made its way down and down and down. It felt in some ways that it would go on forever.

Forever and ever.

Until the end of the road. It was like I was staring towards my death knell.

It reminded me of the streets of Salisbury. That day, Some five millennia, nine centuries and give or take three decades ago.

My first death. They hung me initially. Then they quartered me. It took a long time for me to put myself back together after that one. I actually missed the next two calamities while I did so. I'd almost given up on the faeries then and there.

The Faerie of Paradise may not know happiness.

"This place is cursed." I muttered. "I can smell it."

"You can? What does it smell like?" A lesser person may have interpreted Ritsuka's response as sarcasm, yet her eyes were earnest as she turned her attention to me. I bit my lip.

"Misery. Misery and sex." I answered. "… What were Jack the Ripper's victims like?"

"Women. Exclusively." Mash answered. "They were almost all prostitutes who had fallen on desperate times. Given Jack's Noble Phantasm, I think we can presume that he has a grudge against them." She paused, pursing her lips for a moment. "Mother."

"Mother?" Ritsuka and I both spoke as one. Mash shuffled uncomfortably, as she started walking forward again, no doubt to the crime scene.

"Jack wanted her mother. I remember that." She answered. "I hope you remember that. I wonder if the boy is the same?"

No trump cards. That was what Jack had said. Stop looking at me. That was the other thing he'd said.

I'll use it.

"... What if Maria the Ripper is not what he said he'd use…" I muttered. "But… something else…"

"Aesc?"

"Just a thought. I need to see more before I can work it out." Yet all the pieces were very quickly moving into place. Jack the Ripper, stripped of his protections from being remembered, would not last long. Now that I had found out his identity, I could not forget him.

That was the benefit of my eyes, and because I anchored him in the world, his ability to be forgotten would not work. The key had always been to learn of him from a source that isn't Mash. Cause and effect.

…

It was so inconvenient, though.

As we marched down the road, though, we found the crime scene. It was still surrounded in chalk. Prepared for investigation, even. The outline of where the body should have been was stained with blood as well.

"... What day is it, Romani?"

"The sixteenth of September." Romani's response was enough for Ritsuka, who just stared at the scene. Mash bit her lip.

"This is wrong." She whispered.

"What is wrong?"

"This happened two and a half weeks ago if history lines up." Mash answered. "Yet… the scene is…"

"Fresh." I finished for her. "All that's missing is a body." I stepped into the cursed space. The air smelled of soot and tar. London was a modern city, but even with the advent of better methods, it still was drowning in oil lamps and otherwise. I leaned down, my finger tracing the blood on the ground. It was still wet.

I put it to my mouth. Still fresh, even.

"Aesc! What the hell!?" Ritsuka's exclamation brought me back to reality. The girl looked like she was about to retch on the streets. "That was a person!"

"And?" I stood up from the blood-splatter. Really, all that was missing was a curse. Which meant…

Oh.

Oh. That was interesting. And incredible.

"Mash! How many victims did Jack have?"

"Uh… generally its accepted he killed eleven, but-"

"No, victims! Jack didn't kill all of his victims!" Suddenly, that I was merely gutted made sense. It probably would have ended up lethal, to be sure, but my end should have been messy enough to call me discernibly dead. Jack had botched at least one of his kills. When Maria the Ripper replicated the kill through it's curse, it had failed to do the job properly.

Just like Jack had when he'd committed the actual murder.

"I… Father, can you tell us?"

"The Association has limited references to Jack the Ripper. Human history does not recall any failed murders from the time. That doesn't mean they didn't happen, but at the time London was a mess." Romani answered. "Medical records are iffy and the media controlled the flow of information on Jack. While we can discern things after the fact, that misses the nature of the moment."

My mind raced.

Jack's curse had one other issue. One…

"I'm an idiot." I snarled. "It's in the name! Assassin's a copy-cat!"

Bastard Son Slaughter Re-Enactment( Maria the Ripper) .

The Noble Phantasm wasn't the original. It was a re-enactment. Damn it, it was things like this that…


"I gotta admit. I thought you'd figure it out sooner." I slowly turned on my heel. The fog behind us slowly receded. A dramatic entrance for an over-dramatic person. They were a little short, probably approaching my height, with bl-

I pointedly ignored him, turning back to the crime scene.

"Senpai, get behind me!"

"Woah, woah, woah! I'm not the enemy! Geez, gimme a little… WAIT A MINUTE! STOP IGNORING ME TONELICO!"

Grimr immediately lost his shit. I didn't want to even look at him. Of course he could cross over from the other side. He'd originated on this side to begin with, so the act must have been trivial for someone like him. My lips were forming a firm line and I could feel my cheeks puffing out at the mere idea the insufferable rat had descended to-

"Wait… You know Aesc?" Ritsuka's voice was nothing but suspicion. "Don't take another step, or-"

"Pretty lady, I invented Gae Bolg. There's no point summoning it to skewer me. You really need to work on your choice of shadows." Grimr retorted dryly. "… Sorry. I crossed a line, didn't I? Stop ignoring me, please?"

I did not want to talk to Grimr.

Crossed a line, yeah, that was one way of putting it. If he hadn't I-

"Aesc?" Mash was between us. Like a protective shield. My Tam Lin. The first Tam Lin. Well, mostly, she was the first person I used the ritual on.

I'd developed the ritual with Grimr, though. And-

"... I'm sorry. If I'd let you go through with it, you'd never forgive me." I spun at his words. The insufferable rat, how dare he!

"What makes you think I forgive you now!?" I snarled. Grimr's face was boyish. Soft. Exactly as I remembered, not as he was that day at Camelot.

"Because I came in this form." Grimr answered. "I want to help."

"Then disappear!" My grudge against Grimr the Sage was not common knowledge. After all, he had accompanied me at the beginning of my journey, and I sincerely wished to just stab him for just…

Ugh!

"... Wow. I didn't think you'd hold that much of a grudge."

"Two thousand years, Grimr! I searched high and low for two thousand years! And to find out you'd offed yourself on a damn tree!" It was difficult to contain my rage. The emotion was bubbling over, red hot rage that I wasn't sure I'd ever actually experienced before in such intensity, yet the young man just leaned on his wooden staff. It was then I finally got a good look at his eyes.

One was red. The other looked like a rainbow reflected back at me. His right eye.

"I'm sorry, okay. It had to be done."

"To save humanity."

"To save humanity." He agreed. His staff tightened in his grip. "He might not know of me, but I knew of him. In the end, I had to do what let us win."

And won he must have, I guess. I have no knowledge of what happened after I fell. I didn't want to know, either.

"Why are you here?" I growled. Grimr stared for a long moment, then he closed his eyes.

"The Great Mother called. I agreed to check a few things for her. That's all." Grimr answered. "My job for her is done, so… I'm free to play hookie now."

Hookie. Is that what he called this? Hookie!?

"Forgive me, but our instruments are detecting Cu Chulainn near you." Romani's voice cut in. "The spirit origin is Lancer. You might-"

"We see him, Doctor." Ritsuka hissed. Lancer. That was Grimr's class. I figured it'd be Saber. He used a sword the last I saw him. "He's right in front of us."

"Odd. He should be two or three streets away, not-"

"... You bastard. You didn't even come in person!" I snarled. "How far away are you cowering, Grimr!?"

"Well… I'll admit I expected to get stabbed…" My eyes narrowed. The little- "You look better then last time, though!"

"Stop trying to butter me up! I will feed you a frog's entrails!" I wanted to stab him with Rhongomyniad. Grimr just sighed.

"Yeah, that's why." He muttered. "Fine, I get it. I'm not welcome. So let me part with some advice and bid thee adieu." He took two steps back. Two steps towards nowhere and no when, and- "You're right. Assassin is a copy-cat. Finding his identity is a dead end, for he isn't real. If you want the truth, look to the dragon's corpse."

Dragon's corpse? I don't understand. Why would I want to go to Albion's corpse? That wasn't even near here!

Another step back, and-

[ ] Grimr disappeared, his job done.
-[ ] Continue examining the crime scenes. (Master: ????, ????: ????)
-[ ] Head to Mitre Square. (Fatal Battle: Jack the Ripper?)
-[ ] … Dragon's corpse? "The Association." (Caster: P, ????: ????)
[ ] "Wait!" … Grudge or not. Mad or not. Grimr was still a dear friend. (Lancer: Grimr the Wise)