[Assassin, stop this]
Thanks for
@Armoury for the beta!
—
Was this right?
No, no of course it wasn't. You couldn't even pretend it was. Stepping forward, you push Assassin's hands away from Fujimaru's face. It was a clumsy effort, you less extricated and more battered aside, causing Fujimaru's head to fall to where her chin bounces off her of chest, and causing Mata Hari to stumble slightly… from surprise and likely nothing else. "If she wanted to attack me, she could have, easily. Everyone else in this Grail War besides Sakura and Taiga has so far." You square yourself up, standing between Fujimaru and Assassin as the servant takes a step back. "She was surprised to see me, if that was an ambush she did a very very poor job of it."
"I was merely retrieving information Shirou," Assassin responds, her expression flat, perfectly flat in fact. Her tone was without emotion or inflection, a far cry from her normal rather bubbly self. You were seeing all sorts of new sides to Assassin today, but then, you hardly knew the woman, you doubt Taiga did either. That wasn't a slight against Taiga, but things had simply moved too quickly, and Taiga was rarely one to get to know people in general. Despite her… general attitude, the woman tended to not interact with people outside of class, friendly, but not with friends. Social, but not with a social life.
"I understand, and I'm thankful you were there in case something went wrong, but you were hurting her." You respond.
"I'm… fine." A tired voice says from behind you.
You look back towards the girl in the chair, and find tired, slightly glazed eyes looking up at you. They are focused for just the briefest of moments before her head falls again. You stare at her for a moment, before turning your focus back onto the Assassin. "What's wrong with her?"
Assassin meets your gaze. "Nothing, she'll be fine momentarily. I have… ways of making people tell the truth Shirou, without harming them in any capacity."
"Your touch, or your scent?" you ask.
Assassin smiles. "Yes. Both. The scent lowers the guard, the touch frees the mind."
So Taiga's servant brainwashes people. Fantastic, yes, that's something else you needed to deal with. Who knows what she has been up to and… you let out a breath, forcing yourself to calm down as you rub your forehead. "Fine, fine. Assassin… I don't rightly know what's going on anymore, but please restrain yourself from that. If you can't take orders from me then I'll happily ask Taiga about it."
"My task is information gathering Shirou." Assassin replies.
"No, your task, like every other servant, is to give me a headache." You snap.
Assassin blinks in apparent surprise at your tone, and Sakura turns her head to look at you with some shock.
You continue, uncaring. "I've got Mordred stabbing people while we sleep and causing chaos over the city. I've got Med… Caster asking me to abandon people, I've somehow managed to drag Taiga into this and Ayako nearly died." You raise your hands. "I don't care if I get hurt, I didn't want to get involved in this Grail War and didn't want anyone close to me to be involved either, so if me getting hurt means they get out of this okay? That's fine. But a good dozen of Raiga's men burned to death for reasons I never got. Now I have the second person appearing from my dreams in as many days, and while I would like information, I'd rather not have a servant brainwash them to get it."
"I'm on your side Shirou." Assassin says, smiling.
"And?" you ask. "So's Caster, I disapprove of some of her ideas too. I trust her, I trust you because of Taiga. But I don't know you, Assassin. She didn't attack me," you then look back towards Fujimaru, lowering yourself to a crouch as you do so that you are eye level with the girl. "But that doesn't mean I don't want answers either. We're not brainwashing her, but we're not letting her go without some answers either. I don't trust anyone with command seals at the moment that I don't know personally."
Fujimaru's eyes have lost their glazed quality, it seems like Assassin said, there was no real damage there, and your gazes meet, amber eyes meeting amber eyes. "What did you mean by there being something wrong with the grail?"
Her eyes were tired, far more tired than they were in the dream, and that's not even accounting for the numerous scars that lined her face. But her voice carried weight to it as she spoke. "I'm from the future. I've been sent back to fix an error in the timeline, things that are happening here… weren't supposed to happen. I've been looking for the source of the issue and I think it's the grail, but I've been unable to locate it. In addition, I was separated from my servant, this is… the second time I've had to come to Fuyuki to do this."
Her eyes flit to the side, and she lets out a long and slow breath. "It's a lot to take in, isn't it."
"I believe you." You reply.
Her gaze snaps back, wider than before. "I… didn't expect you to."
"You say something has gone wrong in Fuyuki? I believe you, there is no way anything going on here was planned by anybody. It has to be messed up, I refuse to believe anything organized by the Church and the Mage's Association can function this poorly." You stand back up. "And my dreams have been real lately. Disturbingly so." Your hand moves to idly rub at your neck, you had felt it at the time, the decapitation. You didn't expect it to hurt, frankly, you didn't expect it was something that caused any feeling at all.
But the pain had admittedly been quickly replaced by sheer terror and panic, as that blade plunged down. "What happened then, before, was that another timeline? And will it happen here?"
Fujimaru shakes her head from side to side. "That… was a different timeline. It was this war going worse. I can't promise… you'll live, but you won't die like that. Or… I haven't seen any sign of that servant."
"She's around, just about half the size and she doesn't carry a scythe." You reply, causing Assassin to give you a very pointed look. You ignore it.
Fujimaru's mouth curls, and she looks you up and down. "Slightly taller than you, wears a purple blindfold?"
You nod your head.
Fujimaru smiles, something that causes the scars on her face to fade somewhat. "She's fine then, we've met… in the future."
You say nothing, but raise a hand and point at the Assassin in the room.
"I've worked with her before, I'm… sorry for almost revealing your identity."
Assassin stares at Fujimaru for several seconds, then walks across the room to lower herself to Fujimaru's eye level. Then, to your surprise, she smiles. "You've been through a lot, haven't you?"
Fujimaru looks away, saying nothing. So you take the opportunity to speak once more. "Where are you staying?"
"I found an unused place in the school I've been staying at. I'm fine, right now I just want to find my servant, I haven't seen her in days."
"What happened that you lost her?"
Fujimaru frowns. "When we came here… shifted. We were separated, when I arrived she wasn't anywhere I could see. I was… near a park I think."
There were dozens of parks in Fuyuki, so that did little to narrow things down, but it was a start at least. "Where have you looked so far?"
"Only in the immediate area," Fujimaru says quietly. "I didn't want to wander around town in the middle of the Grail War."
You open your mouth again to speak, only for a hand to pull you back. You turn your head to look, only to find Sakura there, and you don't struggle as she takes you across the room so that you and her are standing near the door. Then she puts her head right next to your ear. "Shirou, what are you doing? Why are you trusting her so quickly?"
… You look back to Fujimaru, the girl was looking at the floor again. "I saved her life." You say simply. "She was in danger and I helped her… In another time, I guess. I don't trust her. But I believe what she is saying, and I'll do what I can to help her."
"But… why are you helping her? Shirou, she's another master."
"Because it's a bad decision," you reply, looking Sakura in the eyes as you speak. "And so far those have gotten me this far." You must have raised your voice, because Sakura flinches back. "Sorry, Sakura." You say quietly. "But she has information, and if she wanted me hurt, I would be, you saw how surprised she was to see me."
Sakura looks back towards Fujimaru, "are you sure, Shirou?"
"I'm not, but I need to get to the bottom of all of this, I'll be asking you for help if you will…" you raise your hands, smiling. "I can't even eat lunch by myself today."
Sakura looks down at the bandages, and smiles herself. It's a stricken smile, to the point where it almost looks like she would rather be doing anything else than smile at the moment. But you'll take it regardless.
Stepping back away from Sakura, you walk over to Fujimaru. This wasn't a great plan, but it was a plan, and you needed to start making those instead of just letting things happen to the people you cared about. "We'll look for your servant tonight."
Fujimaru blinks, looking up at you in abject confusion.
"We are?" Sakura asks.
You nod. "Raiga told me to get this sorted, and it's a mess at the moment. If she says this war is corrupted I believe her." You look back towards Sakura. "I would be willing to bet the source of this mess is whatever that corruption is." You then refocus on Fujimaru. "I'm taking you back to the house tonight."
"You are?" Fujimaru asks. Mimicking Sakura.
Then you turn your gaze to Assassin. "You're good at information gathering, could you ask Taiga if you could help out finding this servant of hers?"
Mata Hari stares at you, saying nothing for several moments. Then she smiles. "I could ask, what do you have in mind?"
—
[] [Search the parks]
Starting with the one you found Caster in, it was as good as any, if exposed.
[] [Search downtown]
It was adjacent to the parks but far larger, but you had eyes you could count on, assuming you convinced Caster and Circe anyway. Of course, bringing Mordred around would be a bad idea likely, she just destroyed a building there.
[] [Head to the Castle]
It was a longshot, but maybe Illya knew something.
[] [Ask Kirei]
He was almost certainly the source of that attack, if he wasn't, then he was doing a very poor job of 'jurisdiction'. But he also was seemingly keeping tabs on things.
