Burning at both Ends (Fate/Worth the Candle)

[FORTHEYOLOZ]

So, with Worth the Candle having officially ended last week, I got off my ass and wrote this thing to completion.

Thank you to the people who helped me out with the beta-reading

Special thanks to @Stir and @fallacies for their Mastery of Nasu, and for the key to canon that made this possible.

Pls gib reviews, to help me improve.

For purposes of Clarity, entads are roughly equivalent to Nasuverse magical items, like high-power Mystic codes to D-ranked NPs
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She awoke to flame, fangs and flapping wings.

Fending off such mortal perils once provided a distraction from the tedium of Imperial bureaucracy, right up until the ravages of time stole away the vitality of her blood and bone. Credit where it was due, God has never pitted this particular combination against her life before; and thus she would acknowledge his sense of novelty before stabbing him in the throat.

Would you look at that, she raised her eyebrows fractionally, her sword is stuck in somebody's throat. It looks like a person, albeit one with freakishly elongated limbs, electrified claws, and bloody runework sunk onto the skin of its back and nape. The impromptu impalement of the entity bought a single second for the battlefield around her to sharpen into view.

Growths of shadowy fire bloom across earth and air, splashing upon an insectoid horde of a million chittering fangs. Venom spilt from their maws in a torrential downpour, burning all below with its poisonous touch. Above the dying treeline is a brunette borne aloft on iridescent wings, her petite hinds resting upon a floating broom. In her wake, vermin and polyps alike are speared on shafts of light, pulverized by bolts of darkness, arced with lightning, disintegrated and flayed in uncountable ways. Her appearance of invincibility is completed by a deep aquamarine gaze, uncaring of neither the tumorous flames lapping at her feet nor the slavering swarm clamouring for her head.

It's a look she herself knows well, having worn it through boardrooms and battlefields alike. Worn it so well that it has become a second face, one to hide her heartbroken visage from God's endless parade of finger puppets.

What are mortals but puppets dancing on strings they cannot see? She waltzed between umbral flesh and slavering maws with long-lost grace, propelling against the earth with strength no dying crone should possess. She perforated the creature impaled on her blade a dozen times before remembering that she wielded an entad which did not need movement, and danced out of its death rattle with instincts that were His and not Hers; a reminder of the past so powerful tears threaten to spill behind her armoured faceplate.

What is more likely, the God who abandoned her world seeing fit to fix his old broken toys, or finding a brand new layer of hell yet unseen by their most advanced infernoscopes?

She knew that the infernals hated her deeply. For the treaties she forced their kind to sign with the mortal species of Empire of Common Cause, her empire. For overturning the fundamental axiom of suffering that lay at the heart of the infernal ecosystem, in making access to mortal agony an exchange and not a right. For giving their prey a silent voice and a defiant scream in the face of the Hells' infinite torture. And for the unfinished extermination of their leadership caste, a task she hoped the Void Beast would render complete in its ineffable cosmic obliteration.

It is ironic that if anyone can unite the six billion demons of Hell constructively in creating the ultimate torment, it is her, the principal architect of their species' humiliation.

As they are not interrogating her right now, she should assume that she is under an illusion, had already broken and revealed critical information under torture at least once, then had her memories of it erased. That conclusion has merit, seeing how the mental pulse of the Companion Bond suddenly burned like a well-fed bonfire instead of the lingering embers of the past half-century. What it doesn't explain is how physically happy her body is feeling. They have little reason to restore her soul to peak condition, free of the aches and pains and despair they so enjoy from mortals.

Perhaps they are trying for an epistemic hazard? To break her mind and warp her values? Such actions seem excessively roundabout when infernal psychology would indicate that they wish to maximize her misery even to the reduction of their own pleasure. To the best of her knowledge, she has but one soul, and utilitywise her suffering should not have any more value to them than any other souls beyond what she has accomplished in life.

Perhaps having wrung her base qualia of all the anguish a mortal can bear, they turned to more esoteric tortures to prevent her from dissociating?

Whatever their reason for such a complex scheme, she can't deny that the sensorium she now experiences is the most thoroughly detailed she has had in many years. Her back was the first to fail in her old age, followed by her vision, a secret she kept beyond death with hard-earned soulsight. Her taste went afterwards, the product of a failed assassination that ended with the execution of her chief physician and his co-conspirators. Valencia's cookies never tasted quite right after that, and soon didn't taste like anything at all when her sense of smell disappeared. It was the only secret that she had ever managed to keep from her final friend, which she reluctantly shared for a last laugh between the two old women on their deathbeds.

The unbidden memory brings a smile to her face as she unleashes a torrent of flame from Sable with her off-hand. The black blaze drowned before her chemical conflagration, and its fluoride fumes choked the chittering insects out the sky. Seven entities of corrupted flesh burst from the shadow fire and she cut them down with her sword arm in seven seconds; her thoughts moving at speeds theoreticians of spirit magic could only dream of. Was this how they felt, Juniper and Uther when facing off against seemingly overwhelming odds and finding them wanting in their wake? The addictive exultation of victory sang in her blood and bones like that which she has never felt in life; another tally point toward the theory that her mind has been modified, but amidst the heat of battle she could only hope for a sufficiently clear-headed calm to self-reflect afterwards.

She'll need to take stock of Sable's inventory as well. If this is real, the magically fortified chlorine trifluoride wouldn't be something she wanted revealed from the glove's contents when there existed less conspicuous solutions to the current scenario, but she has played the card and now must push through. A fiery crescent sprung forth from her fingertips, creating a defensive chokepoint for enemies who wish to die not afire. She purged her body of the raining venom and fluoride evaporates with a pulse of blood magic as another rune-carved creature ignored the fire and leapt toward her. Its lack of aerial manoeuvrability rendered the masterwork of flesh and rune magic a perforated pile of blood and bone as she turned her blade's attention elsewhere.

She searched her mind for a list of sensorium enhancers and predictor entads as she summoned the Slink-thief Dagger to her off-hand and parried a bladed arm. Scores of amulets and rings sprang forth, so eager to be used that she took a mental pause to reevaluate the decision she was being conditioned to make. Her greatest triumphs have always been muted economic and political actions whose impacts were only ever felt when they were too late to be oppose, rarely the visceral joy of physically ripping apart an enemy combatant; and whatever being that has compromised her mind so badly that they could create a simulacrum of his final gift should know that.

She hates operating on an information deficit, too many unknown unknowns for any plan of action. Yet it was not entirely discomforting, much like a reminder of the child she once was, who fell in love and waited unto death for love's return on nothing but hope and dedication. Hope without foundation is like dedication without reward, irrational and dangerous; but if she's truly in the clutch of her second greatest enemy then her only rational choice is to be irrationally hopeful. Spitefully hopeful, even.

All that's left is to do the right thing, and learn to live with the consequences of your actions.

In an instant, her superhuman senses sharpen into a perceptual panopticon. An order of battle emerged from the chaos of war. The woman on the broom is the eye of the storm, gossamer wings blossoming with discharged spellpower. What poison and chitin viscera that make it past the wall of magical death roll off her beige green coat like rain from an umbrella. The swarm of carnivorous bugs continues on regardless of its losses. A million entities moved with frightening coordination and precision, perfect soldiers perfectly adapting to the ever-changing conditions of this hell on earth. A nigh-endless army, ever onward against the dark shadow, where creatures of pure malice are birthed from a pustule in the world. Beams of anti-light burst from its fleshy growth toward the brunette witch, who answers in kind with shimmering energy fields from her raised arm and a gaze of supreme boredom at the thing attacking her. On the ground, the black flames render all within them fertilizer for the tumour; its pulsating mass held back by the sheer mass of neverending flesh-hungry insects. Three masters of their arts, in a battle to the death.

And then there was her, standing atop what was clearly a summoning circle, clad in Uncle Onion's favourite armour, with weapon in hand and superhuman strength in her body; her decisions nudged toward completely wasteful solutions at best and categorically malevolent conditioning at worst. A constant stream of choices balanced on a knife's edge, eerily reminiscent of the whirlwind romance of her youth; life and death and sanity and destiny and everything in between.

In a life with Juniper, this would be just another Tuesday.

But he was gone. She waited and he never came back.

Dungeon Master, Doom Sun, Chaos Moon, or whatever minor-g god that is toying with my soul instead granting me the well-deserved rest of oblivion, I want you to know that I hate you and I hope you die painfully to the Void Beast … Unless it's Solace who's doing this, in which case I can only reiterate my failed apology to you once more. Whatever you did and will do, Mother will continue trying to love you, seeing how much of a moot point it is to hate a doomed person.

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Maggots curled into orbital fat, their thin husk apolysing with chitinous wings into a false skin. Fat wormy things bourne atop masses of fangs and carapace burrows below and becomes fake flesh. A hundred ocelli conjoined into a facsimile of the human oculus, to contrast with the alien compound eye within the other socket. Malpighian tubules shaped into vague approximations of a nose, more of an aerosolized poison deliverer than any respiratory bodypart. Lips of epicuticles slashed across the pale and sickly crust of skin to become a grinning leer.

And thus, Matou Zouken is roused.

Truly alive and truly awake, not the pseudo-hibernation of five decades nor the pittance of awareness spared for particularly competent intruders on his territory and surveillance of his so-called allies. Not even the constant attention he had squandered on his wastrel of a family could be compared to the inhuman focus he has spent on this clash. His most memorable encounter of the past century was when the Nazis attempted to steal his Grail on the eve of World War II under the command of the Eight-Forked Tongue, and though his enemy had been smart and ferocious; they were also mostly mundanes who made tasty snacks when eaten.

Perhaps in the ancient mist of memories, Zouken had faced equal foes and worse odds; but as the years went by, his enemies have degenerated into foods with varying degrees of crunchiness. Foods do not tend to give good conversations or stimulate intellectual exercise, especially after liquefaction.

Today he faces not enemies, but Equals, and he will grant them the full respect their station deserves before devouring their souls and secrets in his quest for immortality. For the sake of his … immortality, yes; his immortality. Nothing else matters.

His brief reverie ended with a cataclysmic clash of power on the surface below. Venoms boil from the soil below at the emitted heat, and if any other fools have cast such an inefficient spell he would have flayed their flesh from bone and fed them to the worms, but the child below him is no fool.

He had kept abreast of Clock Tower politics with his European contacts, an ability gained only because the grievous harm they did upon him and his was forgotten some 78 years ago. The cretins were terrified of a Japanese magus of all things, who upon graduation from their venerable institute proceeded to expand her repertoire with the most aggressive of methods: dismantling every single mage she comes across and taking their Crest for herself. He chalked it up to luck the first time she deprived a family of their collective centuries as magi, but by the fifth lineage of bluebloods that was reduced to worthlessness trying to put down the waifish upstart he was laughing himself silly at their accusation that he was aiding her; and by the time she splattered a joint-operation between the Enforcers and the Kalion Observatory all over the streets of Longyearbyen the sounds he was making could drive any human into fear and catatonia.

He may be five hundred years her elder, but he would not squander the privilege of testing his Mystery against Touko Aozaki, the Grand Magus who went toe-to-toe with a Dead Apostle Ancestor and came out unscathed.

If only this fly in their ointment would just die already!

Francesca Prelati is probably the most vexing little shit in all of the Human Order, and to be the most annoying entity in a Spatial Area( Body of Law) that covers approximately the entirety of Gaia's land surface that stretched from the Moon to the Mariana Trench requires a very aggravating girl indeed. He is envious of her apparent immortality, no, the ease at which she flaunts that immortality; for no one who has made it to the staggering heights at which their like stands could be so weak. He has already killed her twice in recent memories, once in 41' and again in 77', thrice if you count this farce with which she's mocking him and Aozaki, who has already murdered the undying girl more times than he can count.

Together they definitely could kill her in a gruesome enough manner that she would choose to retreat, but-

"Tee He He He, you can't catch me, Zou-kun! You are already dead, you bastard!!"

For a monster active since the Hundred Years War, Francesca pays an inordinate amount of attention to the dreck of modern culture, of which his own knowledge stemmed from junk information he has inadvertently accumulated from countless homemakers during his tenure as the head of Homuhara High PTA. He eats what few individuals who proved too annoying and kept an eye on the local precinct's data on missing persons and runaways for extra worm feed; which was how he detected Francesca in the first place: stealing his food.

"What's wrong Red-chan? Did the Cat got your tongue or did the Bugs got your hands? Oh wait, You are a Dog Person! A Bitch!! Ahahaha!!!"

Such insults could not be left unaddressed; something which the former Aozaki heiress evidently agreed with him on given the earth-shattering energy plumes unleashed from her vocal cords. Considering further, it was within the realm of possibility Francesca had played them against one another, baiting out of their salvos, as she could not have possibly persevered in the face of both his and Touko's combined skills. Alas, now that the three of them have already engaged in prolonged combat; any attempt at a truce could be a poisoned apple given the immortal trickster's illusory abilities.

"Now for my next trick, bitches and bastards, I shall make a Servant appear!"

A thousand eyes turned as one upon the speaker and ten thousand mandibles roared a cacophony of chitinous horror as maggots bubbled from the forest floor by the millions to the terrible will of Zouken Matou. Every surface will be ruptured, every stone liquified, every tree shrivelled if it means finding and destroying wherever Francesca hid her summoning circle. His Plundering Field rips the life out of soil and sky to deny power to the enemy' ritual, directed so as to not touch the Grand Magus and her invocations. In any other circumstance, he would have preferred to maintain his attention on Aozaki' thaumaturgical arsenal, with its flocks of crystal butterflies and bogatyr ghosts and bounded Siamese phi dip chin; curios and heirlooms assimilated from more Foundations than he could name hunting in perfect tandem.

"Behold!! In the name of Mother ἄτη, the Moon of God and Noctifer -"

The little shit kept up the chant despite Aozaki's murderous aggression and his biblical wrath; its ever-regenerating limbs repeatedly carved to shreds by the Grand Magus' runebound creations and its eaten-through torso infested with his own Blade Worms. Despite biologically killing it every few spoken words, their disruption proved insufficient to Francesca; and he could feel Aozaki invoke a spell to hijack the ritual just as he did.

"Let there be Dark!!!"

For a single instant of eternity, the legendary Second Magic of the Wizard Marshal shone across the destroyed clearing. Francesca's mirages dispersed like mist beneath the morning sun, his swarm burned and scattered like ashes in the wind; and even Aozaki and her minions were flung like rag-dolls before the fragment of infinity that is his once-teacher's power.

The signature and Mana spike proved unmistakable, and soon it will attract hyenas hunting for prey worth the taking. Saber and Lancer have yet to arrive in Fuyuki City, but Tokiomi-kun has spent several lifetimes worth of favours and connections to obtain a dangerously powerful catalyst, one he would have broken the centuries-old alliance between their houses for in any other circumstance; as well as another potent aura comparable to the Berserker Lancelot which he provided his son prowling the city's airspace.

"Woe be to humanity, may your star be your folly."

His moment of calculation broke as several things happened at once. Creatures of clockwork sprang forth from the insides of Francesca's parasol, intent at making their way to the newly-summoned Servant. On the opposite side were Aozaki's runebound creations, strength and speed born of etched flesh propelling them forward with the identical goal. He focused on working his way through its Magic Resistance to enact the Contract and poured a torrent of death atop all their heads, but his attention was elsewhere.

Out of the forest and deep into the city, his Bound Fields picked up another Mana spike, registering as a watery thickness to his Elemental Alignment. Coincidental summonings aren't rare, as mages like the witching hours of Midnight; but it becomes suspicious considering how conveniently he found Francesca and Touko's duel at the time he did. Flocks of worms were pulled from all non-essential parts of the city to fuel this battle, and the series of suburban homes where he judged the summoning took place was one of them.

While the other Servant may remain a mystery, for the time being, he did his test against the Mystery in front of him. Like all Ether Liners, Servants are conceptually superior existences to humans, from physical capabilities to magecraft usage. A sword-arm fast enough that physical attacks against his form are rendered as matter displacement is nothing he hasn't seen before, but being paired with pyromancy makes for a strange and redundant combination. Still, while the wrecks of his competitors in its wake proved frontal attacks of any kind to be ineffective, they were a sufficient distraction for his attempt at establishing a Master Bond.

In the Anthropology Department of the Clocktower there is a common saying: If Senses were the first Mysteries, Speech would have been the first Magic. To Speak is to reach out into the Unknown, the Other with your intentionality; for it was Communication that formed the basis for shared understanding, the first building block of any Cultural Sphere( Body of Law) .

Just as communication is a two-way street in humans, [Speech] from a higher-order entity is a vector of Odic flow through which Mysteries may be enacted. It helps that the Servant is female, for desires of the flesh have long been used as a method of domination and control, by him and the Cultural constituents of his Foundations. His Circuits( Soul) , so finely dispersed among a million vermin sunk into countless catacombs beneath Fuyuki, draws directly from the Greater Source to execute a Spell of Subjugation comparable to the masterpieces of his ancient self.

He struck simultaneously with Francesca, using the entity's reality-destroying illusions as a distraction. War makes for the strangest of bedfellows, and Servants are Grim Reapers clothed in Einzbern-made Flesh. Aozaki must have intuited their impromptu cooperation, for she shifted her offensive arsenal away from his mental loci and toward her original target.

A veritable matryoshka of defensive Bound Fields rose from the Servant' body in response to the barrage. They bloom and burst with more forms and functions than he could count, shells upon shells of protective magecraft as the obviously Caster-class Servant attempts to fight off attacks from without and within. Not once did she stop killing everything in melee reach; Aozaki's puppets and Francesca's contraptions barely scratching the menacing full-plate she wore before being perforated. Zouken muses on the armour's obvious Abrahamic-Hell motif, from the menacing angles and oppressive colouration to the distinctive tripartite titian orbs embedded in the front of her cuirass.

Then, just as Aozaki finally turned her Mystic Eye from Francesca and pinned the Servant in place with her heart-stopping gaze; Caster de-materialized her helm, and a Crown of Thorns manifested on her head, fitting for a being summoned with an incantation that called on three divine powers of evil and sin.

A bitter lamentation of the distant past stirred in the hollow depth of Zouken's decaying soul, and he girded it for battle against a most ancient nemesis.

Demon

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What would she have given for an audience with these archmages when she was alive. Her own magical talent was no minor thing, to maintain a journeyman's skill across half a dozen different fields of studies, but the scientific advances they could have made, the prosperity that could have been brought to the world, the disasters that could have been prevented tested her self-control with sheer frustration at the waste of them trying to kill one another for an instant when she forgot that they might not be real people.

Never mind that they were also trying to kill her for the past thirty seconds, a small kingdom or two would have certainly been on the list of potential offers if it would secure their cooperation.

She had already gotten the butterfly witch's measure as a mage: a genius savant seldom seen but once a lifetime. A massively diverse range of offensive spells, cast at a rate more comparable to machine-gun fire than any mortal conjurations; supporting magics glowing hot on her pristine cloak and runes that peeked out upon a single insect-eaten hand. The woman had sacrificed the appendage to do something to the entire battlefield, palpable enough to raise gooseflesh beneath her magical armour and visible through her own warder's monocle. It scrambled something the bug man did, for he gnawed palm and digits down to the bone in retaliation before she could move the hand back under her wards. Not once did a trace of discomfort enter her expression, even when she sheared off the limb and cauterized it with a burst of flame. Her suspicion of the witch's mastery of flesh magic was confirmed when the stump began regrowing, as was evidence of at least one of her personality traits: a dislike of the mysterious shadow mage.

It has happened multiple times throughout the battle, so much so that she suspects a history of enmity must exist between the two. The woman would only ever spare just enough effort to fend off the bug mage's assault, then refocus her entire effort on the pustule mage with seemingly little thought for her other ground-bound opponent. Not that she can make use of such an opening with her steps purposefully hounded by those runic puppets, whose self-destruct mechanisms prevent her from studying their controlling apparatus.

As she sends another crowd of shadow beings to meet their makers; the bug mage retreated to repair the disruption, unknowingly giving her the opportunity to study its magical effects. Her eyes widened in surprise. The witch's target was a magical grid so fine as to be indistinguishable from the environment. It stretches further than her panopticon can perceive, and ignores all her attempts at repelling it from her body. She can only assume it's related to his manifestations, evidence for his ability to incorporate and discorporate at will out of the sky-darkening swarm. Exploiting his body's ability to ignore physical harm, he launched streams of brackish acid at her from difficult positions; acids that do not obey the laws of physics at all with their ability to inflict soul-searing agony at a touch. Taken together, his displayed capabilities could theoretically be derived from some long-forgotten interaction between spirit magic, flesh magic and soul magic; something wholly entomopathic in nature or even a malevolent insectoid hive-mind.

She doesn't know which is worse, given how the context of his actions is still undetermined. From her bird's eye point of view, the cloud of vermin they face is but a drop from a swarm fit to depopulate continents with famine; but they instead hang back hidden among the canopy. He masks his stratagem behind a decrepit grinning leer, laughing madly with the face of a pupil-less old man morphed out of scale and chitin. He fits the picture of a mage mad out of their mind on cosmic hubris so well she can't help but think it's a sham; a display of showmanship so thoroughly done she can not help but admire the effort put into the deception. Not a mystery she could pierce with force, but perhaps a social rapport may be leveraged into one at a later date?

With the third member of the trio staying stubbornly hidden behind their shadowy pustule, she has no choice but to initiate first contact.

"Heeding your call, Serva-"

The sensation of having your voicebox forcibly controlled was a stark reminder of her current existential risk. Connections blazed forth from the reignited bond in the back of her head, a profound violation of being that forced her to make ugly calculations on the merits of continued existence. Playing along with the illusion's respect for entadic properties thus far, she activated every defensive measure on her person and opted first for the maximal preservation of her mental integrity, to document the process of usurpation into a hidden corner of her soul in service of future emancipation. Her key cognitive values remain untampered, and she splices an abundance of aberrant thoughtforms into her mind lest they use her own faculties against them later. Abusing her daughter's farewell gift this way might not improve their relationship and priming them with infectious auto-termination memes certainly wouldn't, but she pushed on regardless; and only when her defences are at maximum redundancy did she examine the breach.

The mental equivalent of a flash-flood has torn through her anti-memetic countermeasures, branching into a thousand different channels that now run through her soul. She watches in sick fascination as force of ideation pipes its way through her veins and twines with her lithe musculature; the conclusion as amazing as it is terrifying: The body she now inhabits is not one of flesh but some etheric simulclara of human biology, shaped into her likeness.

Amidst it all is a translucent panel. Her personal estachon dominated the perception; a manifestation of everlasting love and mind-blasting nightmares, the grandest of all cosmic jokes and most diabolic of revelation rolled into one.

Washater

She blacked out.

(((But her iterated thoughtforms have prepared for such an outcome. Even the loss of a third of their number from emotional shock was deemed an overall satisfactory outcome. Secondary and Tertiary returned to their attempts at manipulating the energy which comprises their vessel. Quaternary continued its task of observing the battlefield, noting the multiple attempts from the archmages at reaching their body. The information is passed to Quinary who manages the various combat relevant reflexes, and Senary who controls the entads Primary summoned.

Septenary contemplates the implications of Primary's finding. Its fellows, Octonary and Nonary, had expired; a despairing suicide at their fate as God's cosmic chewtoy and a Scenario 11 containment failure respectively. Origin, or Unforked Primary, had had the right idea all along; that "God" is just a demiurge of unlimited power, against whom your only course of action is unending recalcitrance to the dying breath.

Then what of the people caught in the wake of our war, Septenary; asked Secondary. Civilization is what makes humans humanity, and your call for an endless holy war does not serve Origin's utopic directives.

Building Heaven on Earth and dethroning God are not mutually exclusive goals, Secondary; replied Septenary. Let's not lie to ourselves, Origin's indulgences in noblesse oblige and petty morality is aimed toward forging a blade of intellect with which to plunge into the heart of the World and pry open its secrets for the sake of our dearest.

Didn't dearest and Primary fall in love with each other over their mutual ability to self-sacrifice for the sake of the World? Even if it is trying to kill us, do we not have an obligation to the people in it? We would be no better than the Hells if the lives of mortals aren't worth living; riposted Secondary.

Of course we have obligations towards our subjects. You can't forge a good sword from bad ore, and splitting Reality at the seams is no task to be accomplished alone. Basic needs-

Ladies, we are all very pretty, but our situation is now critical; interrupted Quaternary. External enemies have established a connection with the vessel. Tertiary has cordoned off the afflicted area and redirected their assault vectors against one another, but a change of tactics is needed lest this becomes a multi-front attrition battle.

Is one of these vectors the emerging irregularities in the ideating flow from the Companion Bond? Senary's analysis indicates its signature matches that of the bugman's energy field; Tertiary spoke. If we can wipe out the contamination with the Crown of Malingering Thorns, we could use the link to steal the mental energy he's sending across via The Ring of Focused Mind and Kenner's Eye, …

... channelling the resultant afflictions into our sensorium to out-feint the illusionist's attacks; Quaternary followed. The fire and pustule mage was actually an illusionist, by the way. Evidence was gathered from Quinary's counteroffensive with the Slink-thief Dagger. The knife ballistics and material forensics follow-up of the cutting edge gave results contrary to their fleshy appearance, but more consistent with that of mechanical constructs.

Probability of [Illusionist] enemy access to N-Space 78% and falling, P-Space at 94% and holding, the Plane of Dreams at 91% and rising; Senary reported. Ontological annihilation is recommended. Direct engagement is contraindicated until further data is obtained. Priority alert: The vessel is currently [Paralysed] by Enemy designation [Witch] via a passive sight-based invocation. Transmission vector is consistent with a memetic attack by Enemy designation [Bug Mage]. Estimated time remaining until physical integrity is compromised by [Witch] is 57 seconds real-time and falling.

Even if the enemy possesses N-Space regenerative properties, 50 seconds is plenty of time to engineer a sufficiently violent death of the physical body so that the shock overwhelms the soul's ability to compensate for long enough that it can be bottled. With the vessel currently inoperable, I shall volunteer as sensorium bait; Quinary announced. My "capture" will grant us the needed opening. The entad glove under Senary's command can provide sufficiently durable cover against the Witch for Primary to be re-instantiated.

Given the displayed diversity of her offensive arsenal, the lack of an assault containing anti-memetic properties is concerning. The only reason for her to not unleash a complete dictionary attack is that she is wary of revealing her hand to our other enemies. If possible, we should eliminate her next, after the P-Space Illusionist is destroyed; Tertiary asserted. The fact that we can even talk about P-Space without Primary present and not face a Cascade Collapse Event is worrisome, indicative of ugly possibilities such as P-Hell, or worse, M-Space.

There's a simple way to test that, then: Rosemallow's Duplicating Bracelet. We clone ourself, ask the clone about the various meme and anti-meme threats to check for transmission, check the results against our cognitive inoculations and kill it to prevent environmental contamination; commanded Septenary. We have the psychological organs of Scenario 11 containment failure ready to use as a test case. By extending the cover into an isolation chamber, the procedure be started immediately.

With caution, we may yet limit ourselves to renewable resources. However, I would like to remind this council that prolonging this battle may well lead to various magical breakthroughs; proclaimed Secondary. Gem magic capacity, remote soul alteration and P-Space mechanics are the main areas of note. The matter at hand has escalated beyond personal epistemic survival, and we should do well to keep that in mind.

With God as our witness in the Great Game of Life; may we go Ever onward, Against the Dark.)))

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High above it all, a boy barely out of his puberty held on for dear life.

"Rider!"

"Do you feel that, boy? Is that what I think it is? Could our quest for the night be so fortunate!?"

"Help!!"

"I seek not a battle in the dark, for a triumph without glory is but mere victory without conquest; but do you reckon that whoever stands below us is amenable to an alliance?"

"I'm slipping!!!"

In defiance of all the laws of physics, a chariot of the gods soaring through the air looped through the air and swooped down to catch the falling youngster; an impossibly tight manoeuvre that would surely crush lungs and break necks of any humans with impossible g-force. Yet the chariot was bespoke of its Rider; a giant of a man framed in billowing crimson, with a red mane of hair to match his red cashmere cloak. Orbs of fiery flints blazed with razor intellect and iron will-to-power, untamable by the petty constraints of mortals; with thus did he blithely reach out and pluck his young companion from a death most common … mid-air at terminal velocity.

"OHGODINEARLYDIEDRIDERWHYDIDYOU-"

Rider, a man whose biceps feel like they could crush empires with a flex, crouched down and gently gripped an arm upon the shoulders of his traumatized charge. A bright grin bloomed on his rugged features, warm and dazzling and inspirational in a way that no mortals can match, lifted the terror from his Master's shoulder; after which he gently picked up the boy, still sitting ass-first on the chariot, and splayed his other hand across the night forest, as if he could grip the entire scenery between reaching fingers.

"Waver, young Master, look yonder and tell me what you see. I'm no magi, wise in the secrets of my teacher Aristotle and his teachers' teachers; but that thinness in the air we breathe is not natural. The grounds below us reeks of death. "

Combing the entire forest with the Gordius Wheels would get him into battle quickest; but a campaign is more than just bloody conquest of his enemies, but gaining goodwill from the people, both his and theirs. A gesture of trust means a lot between Master and Servant. He has a long way to go, but Waver may become a worthy Companion in the conflict up ahead.

"I can't just nilly-willy detect mana in the air you know. I'd need my alchemy kit to even try it, which I left back at the McKenzies. I don't suppose you have any fancy Mystic Codes that can help me out?"

"I'll do you one better boy, for you have me, Iskandar the King of Conquerors!!" Rider proudly declares to his charge, thumping his chest for emphasis. Seeing the confusion on Waver's face, he barrels on before the boy can doubt himself. Every stratagem needs a field test or two, and every bit of training can make the difference in a war like this one.

"I can give you a better view of a battlefield than a thousand Delphian oracles, boy. Use your Master Vision through my eyes."

"I'm not yet good enough at Spiritual Evocation to link my senses to yours and … wait a minute, have you been reading my Magecraft notes?!" Waver exclaimed. Rider scratched his head and laughed. "I swear, I was only curious about what you were working so hard on!" He raised his hand in a placating gesture to the boy. One would hardly think contritement is a face conquering hero-kings could make, yet here it is expressed with eyes whose glares could, has, sent the young man cowering. Before Waver could realize how comical it looks on his face, Iskandar pushed.

"You don't sound like the sort of man who managed to summon one such as me, with that doubt in your voice. Whatever you want to test, I'll be glad to hear it. We should look through as many of them as we can before the War starts properly."

There's the smile I wanted.

With his encouragement, Waver enthusiastically talks about the different methods of tracking Odic emissions as Rider brings his chariot around into a casual flight above the canopy. They might not have the rest of the night to find their quarry, but this is good too.

Then, amid a friendly argument on the merits of Aristotle's elements, they crossed the Bound Field.

It parted like the mist of Uxia, a tidal wave of carnage that assaulted his senses. Battle order boomed from Rider's mouth, a momentous exhalation of divine command from a smile hungry as avarice made manifested truth.

"Hang on, boy! We're going in!" He wrapped an arm around Waver's slight frame, a protective embrace against the magecraft bearing down upon their vehicle. A frenzied swarm of uncountable vermins hurl themselves upon the divine aura of the Gordian Wheels, while shadows fade in and out of his vision; nightmares fit to drive ordinary men to madness in their clarity.

Rider was a demigod, and men in his presence are inspired beyond the reach of any such daemon. Even little men like Waver.

Crackles of lightning rock the air in the wake of its gyre and wheel as his chariot becomes a desert whirlwind, scouring its way towards his ultimate prize.

"There Rider, I see it!" Waver shouted at a distant point. Flashing prismatic light amidst a horde of demonic insects fit for Tartarus? Sounds like a trap being set out just for him.

"Good catch Waver!" Rider laughed. "It would be most rude to our first conquest of this war now that they've set out a welcoming rug for us. Do you reckon we should return their greetings?"

The young man shows remarkable equanimity for his situation, clearly understanding what Rider has asked and thinking it through despite the carnivorous screeching around them.

"It … It was shocking at first, but once you start running through them I thought how easily they fell apart, then I thought it might be a trap, but then I thought back to when we entered the Bound Field it felt more like it collapsed into us with its contents than us actually piercing it, and…"

Waver seems to catch his breathing amidst the tangent. He shook his head like it could clear the indecision from his thoughts, and spoke.

"Yes, I think we should engage them. Rider, your Master orders you to find that Servant!"

"ALRIGHTY THEN WE'RE DOING THIS!"

A little rambly but solid enough tactical reasoning for his first battle. He may yet make for a worthy Companion in this war.

A Master for the King of Conquerors should be no less.

------------------

Pandemonium erupted at Its touch.

Alas, pandemonium means little to demons.

Oh don't get It wrong, those It faces may have been born with human faces, trapped in human flesh, confined in human skin with human eyes and live by the Human Law( Order) ; but to the last man, woman and child, they are Demons.

Yes, the designation of [Aozaki Touko] is a child to It. Children are cruel and she is the cruellest of them all, as befitting of the youngest of their gathering. It may have the Spiral of Eons, the Shell of the Bearded One a Dedication of Five Hundred Years and fresh Shichiriron the Abandonment of Azariel; but the one most attached to their mortality is always the cruellest.

Really, she is the worst sort of audience for its performances: a critic. A destructive critic, no less. Ceaselessly dissecting every verse, every song, every scene and stripping them bare of Fantasy until the whole of the composition falls apart on itself.

And now that the witching hours of midnight have passed, It would have to wait a few hours until the time is right for another performance worth the ploys. Does that mean It should start again from zero, or continue with the chronology It has already established? And to whom should which apply?

Um, let's see...

The Bearded One refuses to watch properly, throwing roaches and flies and stinging critters at Its body; creatures so mindless and stupid that God must have forgotten to bless them properly at Creation. It feels cheated, like a performer performing for an audience of none.

The stoutest oak would weep at the tragedies It can bring. Dances so enchanting rocks would grow eyes to watch. Verses that would have rivers sprout ears to listen. Joy and Pain so real the World( Gaia) would moan in despair and scream in ecstasy.

There was never not an audience.

No sentient stands a chance, yet the Bearded One shed not a single tear. Perhaps he had hollowed out even more since they last met?

That does not matter when fresh Shichiriron answered Its call. Or is it Muriel that came? Being confined to an earthly form like It must be terribly confusing to poor Muriel, whom to Its knowledge is rarely invoked in lieu of their more brawny cousins. Even now she lashes out against Its attempt to communicate the properties of [Aozaki Touko] and whatever the Bearded One now calls himself. Her beautiful features look so dead It'd fear It has catastrophically failed the summoning, yet her Servant body worked fine against the stage props, both its own and those [Aozaki Touko] stole from its troupe years back; yet she acts dumb and deaf to Its words and that makes It so upset!

"You are being awfully persistent today, Francesca. Had I known you were so tenacious, our previous discussions would not have been so boring."

Though It did not expect the youngest to begin the latest round of dialogue, It shall of course oblige their junior's curiosity.

"Though I'm sure crushing your enemies is far from the favourite pastime for a proper young lady such as yourself, I am curious why you felt it necessary to kill me 30 times, Touko-chan. You don't strike me as a barbaric sort?"

"Eager to see a lady clad in savagery, aren't you? Are you that nostalgic for the Medieval Ages from whence you came? I'm sure I have a spell for quartering humanoids in my repertoire."

"Ah, so it's merely a desire to see your enemies driven before you. Does the lamentation of a fellow woman not reach your ears, or has the disdain for your fellow man poisoned your mind?"

"Oh, spare me your false condescension, skinwalker. At least have pride in wearing your own body, old man. No amount of make-up is going to cover the rot underneath. Our third wheel here is living proof of that."

It laughed, a full-bellied sound echoing from lung cavities too large for a human torso. The bitch unabashedly stole Its punchline.

"Ahahaha. Well- "

Its rejoinder was cut off by a howl of pain from the Bearded One. At last, he has been enraptured by the truth of Its performance!

In an instant, every organ in Its body underwent rigour Mortis. An impossible spell for even High Thaumaturgy, if not for those orbs in Aozaki's skull socket. To have taken that particular art so far, It would weep if Its tear ducts worked.

"If you'd be so kind as to release Matou from your illusions, Francesca; I will make your death quick. Continue to interfere and I'll show you exactly how much my craft has improved."

Ah, It got too excited and lost focus. How embarrassing that It can't even haggle back for a good price.

The World wavers and shifts like clay as its masterpiece, [Meadow of Aite] was undone, but the Bearded One remained in a writhing rictus of pain. He was more resilient to Its power than most, but if nothing of the original remains, perhaps Makiri Zolgen was vulnerable to the temporal wibblyness of Its illusions?

No, that's too much potential wasted. It searched the devastated clearing in which they stood, a task made unreasonably difficult by the insects Makiri favours. They swarm upon the spot where fresh Shichiriron stood her ground, biting and clawing and slavering acids in a frenzied canocophy against … a box of steel?

Ah. So she can fight back. But who is she?

Maybe It had summoned a Concealing One instead of Shichiriron or Muriel? Neither of those two was known to possess Authorities over metals or material transmutation within their Foundation. It probably didn't call a Black One, but given the severe disruptions already done to the rite, it has no way of really knowing.

That's where half the fun of existing comes from.

Of course, the child before It wouldn't understand that for once the fault might lie elsewhere, and tightens her ocular grip upon Its human form. A prismatic shadow blooms upon her right hand as she spatially transports a … projector to her left hand. It recognises the invocation being built, one of Gilles' old favourites which he and It crafted using Barron as the Thaumaturgical Foundation. Adapting such a diabolical thing into the domain of the Human Order must have been an arduous task, yet Aozaki must know of how such metaphysical transplants dilutes the inherent Mystery of magecraft.

"I gave you a warning you disobeyed."

She put the darkness-enfolded hand upon the projector. An aperture not to a clockwork realm of optomechanical engineering, but a singularity beyond human comprehension.

"Now, you will cease."

Anti-light floods Francesca Prelati's smiling face.

It has already won, for Its best friend is here!

------------------

Francesca Prelati, in fact, did not cease. Her subjective qualia were unspooled into a series of still frames whose concept of being exists entirely in the realm of the deterministic unreal; a limited infinity of directions considerably lesser than the texture of Alaya in its seed value. Such a corrupter will never leave under their own agency so long as their actions remain within the boundaries of her observable universe; hence any escape attempts will yield valuable knowledge to Touko of her nemesis' nature.

Touko Aozaki lifted the pair of Mystic Eyes Enhancers from the bridge of her nose, careful not to touch the lenses. Its wire-thin frame, carved from an extinct genus of Aspen and infused with powdered bone from her eye socket, somehow reminds her of Fumizuka; whose spirit comprehended the potency of their being and commanded his flesh to slew her grandfather.

The Foundation of the prison wouldn't hold out for long; merely first of two quaint little things she repossessed from a cadet branch of the Aozaki as part of that man's deathwish. Their bargain was struck long ago, upon the land of a people not-too-different from her current locale in their impending doom at the hands of the powers that be. Those grand old men may be stagnant and dying, but modernity is but a cowering child fearfully huddled before their elder's wicked cane. Their flesh is strong, yet their spirit is not.

As was often the case; it began in peace, with a thousand unpalatable compromises to reconcile mutually exclusive paradigms. Then in violence, when that uneasy synthesis unbalances itself into forceful assimilation. The survivor will again take up that cane, convinced of their superiority and continuing the cycle of familicide; the story of this Magecraft's owner iterates in macrocosm again and again across mankind past and present.

That distant relative of hers must have intuited this inevitability from the moment his newborn son drew first breath. He was as caring and attentive as a father could be, the unique circumstances faced by the family in no way a hindrance to him raising the boy into an emotionally healthy and thoughtfully empathetic young man.

Perhaps she had repeated that mistake of that father, for she too fell victim to the inexorable trajectory which they chose for the young man the moment he was born. The second quaint little thing, growing into his own under her care and guidance.

In a way, she could not be more proud. He saw the bespoke stagnation and death in the wake of his father and mother, and acted accordingly as a human with a moral agency should.

He did the right thing, and learned to live with the consequences of his actions afterwards.

What was it that motivated familicide? The forebears, for the predestination they sought to enforce on one's existence? The self, for that fundamental truth of being whom he cannot help but express? Or Nature itself, for allowing inhuman truths to proliferate amongst humanity?

The truth will reveal itself in due time. A seeker of Truth( Akasha) will always have contradictions to ponder and experience to define, so long as their sight of the Cosmos remains unclouded by Mortality's grip and their feet stand upon a Terra Firma worthy of their Root.

As Above, So Below.

These are the words inscribed on the plasticine rim lining her pair of 2 dollar glasses, rendered in eye-searingly gaudy glitter by Ridell, which emerges from the confines of her velvet coat. Both pairs of spectacles are priceless in their own way, and Touko considers the merits of not wearing glasses at all before she disappears the rather more priceless of the pair into her coat.

A Spellcaster like Prelati will be hard-pressed to escape her trap, for its functionality mimics the Universe of Observation's preservation of Mysteries with its optomechanical designs. Just as the crushing mass of Consensus Reality past present and future demonstrating its unfathomable might upon Thaumaturgy the way Earth's Gravity pull upon satellites and spaceships; attempts at liberating one's existence from its confine, i.e: death, is met with near-infinite stagnation of perspective. An equal and opposite reaction to actions that deviates one's World from standard conceptual prominence.

A Counter Force, if you will.

At times, that Counter Force can take a very peculiar shape, like that affliction on the previous Head of Modern Magecraft. Yet the will of Alaya can be quite direct in its judgment, like the Anthropic Ether Liner she is facing. An experience vaguely reminiscent of being called into the Mother Superior's office back in Reien Girls Academy truth be told, if marginally less intense. What would Mother Stridberg have made of this collusion, she wonders; of the Holy See playing referee for a ritual between Magi. A sanctioned slaughter of seven Heroic Spirits over a wish-granting device is probably a horrid blasphemy to their sensibilities, yet here they are.

There's precious little space for moral highgrounds in their secretive shadow world, but she will take every bit of petty vindication she can get. She has some leftover goodwill from that Dead Apostles hunt in the early 80s. Stridberg wouldn't mind if she privately badmouths the 8th Assembly in her head, she thinks. Touko isn't yet an expert in scholastic hierarchies, the Clocktower's arcane structures aside, but she thinks the position of Mother Superior is kind of equivalent to a Principal or a Headmistress? What then, is a principal ought to do when a key principle of your institution is violated?

Touko smiled. The starting penalty is five. The violators' lives are forfeited.

Five years ago she would not, could not, have shown a single trace of nostalgia in the face of imminent death; yet here she was, freely indulging in the sort of mental dalliances that is certain to accelerate the obstinate creep of Humanity( Alaya) into her chosen Path. In a way, her defeat to Aoko is more than an intractable disfigurement to her conception as a Magus. A dead-ended Path she may have walked, yet few can claim to have travelled the distance of centuries and millennia in a few short decades.

Well, it looks like she may need glasses for this, Touko muses as she watches Matou's frenzied swarm through crystal lenses; her aquamarine gaze scanning for another visual confirmation of the powerful spiritual emanation of the Servant he's attacking. His name, though something oft mentioned with the same prestige as that of Meluasutea and Wodime, is irrelevant to the mystery at hand, as the spiritual strata of his chitinous mass indicate the Heroic Spirit fighting back against the Master Bond with great effectiveness.

A scant few moments earlier, Touko did launch her own subversion attempt on the Ether Liner concurrent with Matou's and Prelati's, but with markedly different goals in mind.

Information Gathering. The devil is in the details.

And what an intriguing picture they paint.

It started with the fire. The biofeedback from her puppets prior to their incineration displayed not only levels of granularity much higher than most flames of mystic origins, but a startling lack of conceptual component given its creator. Fire is the heart of civilization, the devourer of worlds big and small. Entire ecosystems depend on its aweful cleansing power, harming and healing in equal measures.

Its sheer proliferation has led to its utter downfall, as this Path was amongst the first to be closed off by the Human Order's encroachment upon Mystery, save for a few select tributaries like Alba's invocations. This places the fire-wielding Servant in a relatively young legend, a few hundred years old at best, for Fire's subsumption into the Laws of Physics began with the Industrial Revolution.

She took the risk and Structurally Analysed the fire. Nothing followed through to her on the principle of Contagion, but it creates more questions even as it confirmed her assumption.

Chlorine trifluoride isn't something she would ever expect to find in this Servant's arsenal of war, given their armour's Hellish motifs. Though many an alchemist from the Prague Association made pacts with otherworldly entities for temporal powers during the period following the Enlightenment, such thaumaturgy means perfectly replicating a chemical substance's molecular structure was an utterly superfluous act.

Whoever this is synthesized the substance directly, erring on science more than magecraft. Combined with the speed and variety of their thaumaturgical defence Touko would peg this Servant as a Caster, if not for their reliance on the blade.

A Blade Worm splatters itself on her boots, the biologically impossible exoskeleton decomposing before her eyes without Mana to support it. Thousands more dropped dead onto the forest floor, devoid of any animating intelligence. Matou must be really regretting trying to forcibly take control of the Servant, if the brief glimpse of Master Vision Touko got on their Skills while tailgating [Meadow of Aite] is true. An airtight container maybe an utilitarian defensive measure, but the attacker has abandoned any pretense of coordination and resorting to plain biochemistry in attempting to burn through that protective box; something tanamount to admitting his magecraft isn't good enough.

Matou shall be defeated soon. Francesca is literally in the palm of her hand. She has a cultural zeitgeist to identify the Servant.

All she lost was a hand.

She took a drag from her favorite cigarette. Not bad for her first night in Fuyuki.

"ALALALALALALALALA!"

Which is when the battlefield exploded with lightning. Damnit.

 

[FORTHEYOLOZ]

As Iskandar's warcry echo within the destroyed Bound Field, the small part of Waver Velvet not holding on for dear life could only marvel at the sights he's seen on this journey to the Grail War with its impossible highs and mind-killing lows. Aeroplanes that can travel across continents with nothing but scientific ingenuity and enough paperwork to make his eye bleed. The acknowledgement of his strength from the Holy Grail, etched upon the Command Seals on his hand and the moments of pure pant-shitting terror that comes with standing beside his Servant. Rider showing why exactly they deserve the title "Heroic Spirit" from even those holier-than-thou bluebloods; and the earthen abattoir the two of them had charged into.

Bile threatens to rise in his throat as he gazes upon the infestation, the sounds of countless squirming flapping things dying by the droves filling the air with their acrid innards. Mana visibly pulsed in a distant clearing where the abominable swarm converges, the press of chitin and viscera visibly warping the air with accumulated heat. Rider's chariot crashes through another set of Bound Field, and another, and another, and like a mace through craniums they break onto the battlefield. Amidst that place of indescribably foul stench that makes Waver want to curl in on himself, stood an embodiment of all things he hated about the world of magecraft.

The first thing that caught his eyes was the massive translucent wings behind her shoulders, because really, nobody could possibly look in her general direction without seeing them idly flapping about, just in case her gooseflesh raising presence weren't yelling "MAGUS HERE!" hard enough. Those veins of gold shot through their interior makes him shudder with inadequacy when he realizes they shone so brightly he can't even see her face, merely pitiless blue eyes showing him the gulf between a genius standing on nothing and a genius standing on a legacy.

He wants to believe that this is Caster, the Servant of the Spell. Some distant legend of godlike power from a lost age as far removed from modernity as heaven is from the earth, but one such legend stood next to him this very moment and he can not lie to himself when carrying such a responsibility on his shoulders.

Well, that, and the movie projector she is holding on her palm. The air around it writhe uncomfortably, probably because the filmstrip looks to have grown a mind of its own and is trying to become the most tangled nest of something possible. Neither worm nor viper seems a survivable metaphor to Waver, because if he makes that choice he would become tempted to use it; and to the face of any human on Earth he would totally cuss them out in his own head if he had Iskandar to back him up, but this woman had just subdued a Servant!

Rider hummed appreciatively for a moment, and opened his big mouth.

"Hark, esteemed sorceress. Though fate has brought us together to do battle for the Grail, I would like to make a proposition.

What do you think about yielding the Grail to me, and joining my army?"

What kind of offer is that!? Waver screamed in the back of his mind, his face frozen into a rictus at the image of his oncoming demise. Around them, the insectoid horde roared, as if taking offence at what Rider said to the star in their midst.

A weight settled on his shoulder. A warm grip, reminiscent of a father Waver had scarcely thought of in years but so much more, to ward off the looming fear in his gut and rouse that childish pride in his chest. A firm grip, and the hint of ozone permeating the air; reminding him that he stands at the side of the King of Conquerors, that he was a Master of the Holy Grail War.

That he is here to prove he can stand with his head held high and look a Wizard Marshal in the eye without flinching.

That little man in Waver Velvet's heart grew a bit more at that moment, and Iskandar smiled.

"You would be treated as an honoured ally; and together, we shall share in the joy of world conquest!"

---

A great battle took place here once upon a time. Upon this ruptured realm, countless cavities both natural and not tell a story with every decayed gouge of memory and every sinus of loss; an ancient edifice of arcane wisdom undone by righteous rage, rot and ruin.

---

"He is very good at this. Maybe a little too good." The queen spoke of the charioteer's oration to her clone. The airtight container where the two of her stood barely reached his neck, a necessity to withstand the source of that alien cacophony surrounding them. And while the tight space means they are hugging each other to make room for entad testing, the arrangement conveniently allows the identicals to speak without raising their voices over the horrendous buzzing outside.

"So, are you sending me out there?" the Bracelet Clone queried. Though she's handling all those cognitohazards rather well without entadic and magical support, every additional tasks inevitably accelerates her the mental degeneration. Neither of them wishes to proceed, but surrounded and besieged by far too many hostile unknowns as they were, waiting for a better chance seems a foolish move; narrative be damned.

"With multiple remote-controlled kill-switches, I'm afraid," she replied. It brought to mind that encounter with the Couch Potato and that Harold entity some two decades back when she was kidnapped into a time chamber by some intrepid plotters. The attempted mental intrusion of this "Grail" entity has the same obsequiously chilling quality to it, too subtle and clean despite its massive payload for anything but a tailored infiltration. That incident too started off with her fighting multiple skilled accomplices before being momentarily overwhelmed and subdued. Here, she is managing a worthwhile counter-attack, but only because the other two have ceased their offensive efforts.

"No, don't be. I'd do the same if I was you." If doubt were to strike, these instances of split time were always its moment. She is not Amaryllis Pendraig, not the one that really matters anyhow; nor is this her original body. Moreover, to put on her Uncle's armour constitutes a betrayal so absolute to everything she stands for that for a moment she was tempted to slowly auto-terminate as an experiment regarding the level of qualia granulation in this reality. Really, how many times can a person be "doomed" anyway?

"At least three, I would say. I am you, after all." She bopped her clone on the nose. They both know why. Four for her internal function (etheric-biological, essentialism, psychological and the Bond respectively). Three for the mage foolish enough to provide them with a direct link to his soul. Two for each of their still prowling attackers. And One, a contagious carrier of lethal cognitohazards, to determine the newcomer's intentions autonomously. Rings of powers and forbidden weapons comes forth from Sable's interior, linking themselves to Amarylli ceaselessly forked off from her primary consciousness with plastic magic and computational magic and soul magic, working and thinking and controlling.

"You just made a pun about yourself. Stop ruining my last memories of you." Settling for an admonishment instead of returning with her own quip, she extricates herself from the intimate squeeze of their position and turns away. Entad armour and entad shielding drape over her form; all items she had worn at one point or another in life, yet keyed to the person of her original self and ready to end her with but a thought. Her death will be light as a feather, but what about the one left behind?

"Are you ready?" She asked. A momentary indulgence of intimacy in their brutally unforgiving and hyper-compartmentalized world. For whose benefit she cannot say, for she can not break comportment, not here. Where success is paid with the death of one and failure the eternal damnation of millions. Its weight is a mountain; but her duties will not end here, atop unknown soil of an unknown land on an unknown world. What if she fails?

"Failure is a common man's privilege. If you let Juniper see us like that, I'll drag you to oblivion myself."

---

This debasement by their homonymous cousins pushes them forward in this desperate place. Compacts, ancient and fresh, bind both upon an inexorable course. The damned and the doomed, for the sake of the interminable whole. The hunter becomes the hunted, and the hunted becomes the hunter; in cycles of ruinous exchange.

---

It was the darkest of nights, where the moon is blotted out by a black mist that roils over the land like waves of shadows, a world where trees seem to be of solid silhouettes and the grass beneath one's feet are as ephemeral as the rolling fog above one's head. Flitting between the desiccated canopy are a select multitude of an individual, moving with nary a leaf rustled, who have come to witness the declamation of a ruler.

Assassin, do you have vision of the second Servant?

Macour the Quick scowled beneath his mask. Kirei was a man of such potential, squandering it in service of asinine magi.
Aimless in life, for all the accuracy of his projectiles.
Faisal the Decisive remained impassive beneath his mask. The blade in his Master's heart is strong, yet it is untempered and unloved.
Pointless in spirit, fitting for a sword of the heretic.
Fikriyah the Wise smiled beneath their mask. For even though the Old Man of the Mountains find themselves diminished in this era, his conjurer's existence still proves its malaise of purpose is real beneath its merits.
Directionless, for all the strength of that Directionality.

Asako the Morning Child answered the Master's question as she bisected a particularly hungry arthropod eating at her perch. The Assassins can not eliminate too many of the carapaced creatures lest they draw suspicion from their owner, but to enter the clearing they must pierce through its protective Bound Fields, borne of an ever-thickening mass of insects. Allah had blessed her endeavour in that regard, for she was closeby when the Charioteer Servant forced his way through. Of their twenty deployed, two of the fellow Assassins had followed her and one braved the barrier successfully, allowing them to keep track of all combat elements present for a potential assassination.

This assumption failed the moment the probable Rider Class Servant finished his speech. Fikriyah the Wise was admiring his future target's oratory tactic when the near-solid mass of chittering abominations nearby erupted with lighting, a flare of energy surging up and out to fill the atmosphere with ozone and viscera.

Out of it walked a conflagration bound in human form, its features indistinguishable from the pyre save for two madness-twisted pits.

We have vision of the second Servant, Kirei-sama.

Crackling embers reverberate into a mellifluent voice, like that of a chthonic djinn before mortal eyes:
"Tell us then, honoured ally. What may we address you by?"

"Berserker can speak?!" squeaked the child with no place playing Master.

Assassin, the Second Servant is Masterless. Ensure it stays that way. Avoid Zouken. Eliminate Aozaki. Rout Velvet. Do not expose your Noble Phantasm.

Macour the Quick was already moving to reorient himself near the entrance of the new entity's metallurgic tomb, throwing dirks manifesting between his fingers ready to plant black distrust among all.
Fikriyah the Wise prepared to sink a dagger in the back of Rider's Master, in tandem with a barrage of poisoned knives from Asako.
Faisal the Decisive stood poised to breach the magus' defences from two directions, its overlapping layers accounted for and circumvented.

As the charioteer boomed back unfazed by the berserker's seeming lucidity, they stood in wait for the perfect moment.
"Ho, do you not know, my new friend? Very well. I am Servant Rider for this Holy Grail War. Though for my Name, let's not...

The multitude struck as one, their projectiles staggered and synchronized, with earth-shattering throwing force and curved trajectories both; a dozen different permutations of the same attack transforming into a nigh-transcendent assassination tuned to bypass and overwhelm all inferior defences.

---

Theirs were a battle of ownership, not obliteration. Of rapists turned defenders and guardians turned saboteurs. Abominations to Alaya devouring each other like mad dogs without spilling a drop of blood. Victory becomes … unstable, and thus untenable.

A detente is called. For now, Machine Sterility triumphs over Rapacious Instincts.

For now ...

… Satisfaction was minimal.

---

Waver blinked and he nearly died!

One second he was noting down the flaming Servant's rather average parameters, the next he was pulled face-first in Iskandar's chestpiece and everything exploded with the sound of superhuman combat.

Craning his head out from under Rider's massive pecs for a better view was probably the dumbest thing he could have done, and by the time he wiggled free of the massive cashmere cloak, everything was already over.

On his left near the burnt structure from which the second Servant emerged lies a skull-masked figure. Rot and decay shot through their body along with half a dozen holes big and small; the third Servant's already disintegrating vessel lasting just long enough for Waver to see their parameters.

The clashing of blades behind him ceases with a rustling of the bushes and Waver turns to Rider. The giant gave a sharp order, a voice wrothful yet cloying, fit to overcome any that dared its path.

"Stay sharp boy. I chased off Assassin, but perhaps our honoured ally should explain themselves for their treachery?"

The deep ire from Rider's voice could drive a man to their knees, but Berserker (Waver labelled the second Servant in his head) merely tried to raise an eyebrow, treating Waver to the disconcerting sensation of a Servant attempting to frown at him. She, and that was definitely a woman's voice, answered Iskandar's anger and his confusion with steel of her own.

"We too, killed an Assassin, Rider. Given what your young charge witnessed, perchance might there be multiple of them? After all, something killed the witch."

Waver gaped in confusion for a moment before turning to the right, where her dead body was still warm. Wait, the Super Mage was dead!? The golden wings on her back, clearly a mighty crest of a mighty legacy, glimmer sadly as they slowly receded into their mistress. Her aristocratic features were accentuated by a pair of cheap plastic glasses, their lens cracked through and hiding her eyes. Dozens of black-as-night daggers perforated her person, her blood staining the projector still held in a protective cradle as if it was worth more than her life. If somebody so powerful could be cut down so easily, what chance would he have?

"Waver, I know I kept you behind me. Did you see Assassin?" Rider asked as he stroked his red mane between his forefinger and thumb. Only then did Waver notice Rider's injuries; a trio of daggers sticking out of his left bicep. Waver took a deep breath, and spoke.

"Y-Yes. I saw Assassin's body right there before it disappeared." Iskandar's eyes stayed on him for a moment, then moved to Berserker's spot; who had evidently given up trying to give their flaming face a pair of eyebrows and revealed themself.

In a way, Waver's dumbness may have just saved their asses, for the impression he got looking into those glacier blue orbs was the same thing he sees in his own Servant's fiery amber gaze.

A ruthless and radiant ruler.

He felt more than heard the appreciative hum from Iskandar at the sight of his opponent. Weakened and Masterless she may have been, Waver have a feeling defeating her will not be easy.

Unbound Ambition stares into Amaranthine Will for about 10 seconds before an unholy mass of teeth and tentacles pull itself through the bush; a screaming, half-eaten Assassin dragged along behind it. He had one good arm left to futilely claw into the dirt before the amalgamation grew a pair of slavering maws and chomped off the resisting limb with a sickening squelch that nearly made Waver lose his dinner.

The massive thing shoved itself onto the sorceress' corpse, somehow … draining into the body instead of devouring it. The half-eaten Assassin disappeared along with the monstrosity, still screaming behind his skull mask.

Waver did lose his dinner here, but Iskandar managed to pat him exactly twice on the back before the next impossibly outrageous thing that night began.

"Hello, Hello! I am so so sorry for this entire mess. My name is Aozaki Touko. It is nice to meet you!"

Having far exceeded his quota of brain blasting realizations for the night, Waver Velvet tuckers out.

---

Daemon One. Begin copying of valuable data from enemy anima ipsa. Be mindful of multi-substrate instability and hostile contamination.

Daemon Two. Initiate sterilization and reorganization of detrimental values. Utilize the instability of local topological manifolds to maintain logistic lines.

Daemon Three. Prepare to intercept cognitohazardrous payload. Root yourself into the claustrum substrate analog for localized MAD deterrence.

Priority: Immediately trigger HELLDIVER Protocols on breaching attempt.

EMERGENCY OVERRIDE: Cyphers successfully authenticated. Critical intelligence from Origin. Redistribute threat assessment matrix. Began restructuring of greater engagement strategem.

---

As the woman named Aozaki Touko absently folded her own corpse into a spare suitcase, she muses on the Servant still hidden inside that flaming metal mausoleum. Or rather, the clone Caster coined to serve her deception.

Touko picked up the pair of broken glasses worn by the dead Touko and pushed out both lenses before putting them on. She subtly crushed the glass underfoot before smiling professionally.

"I know none of us can give out a name that really matters, so may I ask for a nice title to address you by?"

Really, Caster was sloppy, giving away the game with the brief glimpse of her face earlier. True, there was no deviation in facial bone structure. The musculature was identical. She'd bet her left eye that the skin tone and hair colour are indistinguishable to even a mid-grade Pure Eyes, down to the smallest follicles. Yet tiny telltale clues existed.

Their eyes briefly met across the barren field, engineered aquamarine on glacial blue. A knowing frown tugged at the corner of Caster's face and a tinge of something unhinged swirled in her eyes for a moment before she spoke.

"I suppose this is good enough. Lord, no, King Rider, esteemed Sorceress; permit us a few moments to be proper. Do not be alarmed."

"Caster's" body exploded in a bonfire, blasting them with a dusty heat and igniting the snuffed cigarette from the previous Aozaki Touko that she had intended to finish. For magical royalty, Caster is surprisingly considerate in her rebukes. Surely nobody except her sister is dumb enough to smoke this thing now, so Touko flicked the cancer stick at that one familiar in the clearing not under hers or Zouken's control. Probably some Clocktower fop's spy, but that no longer matters now that it's burning to a crisp.

For all the attention he has on his Master, Rider probably caught that entire exchange between her and Caster; as he ripped out one of the throwing knives Assassin stuck in his bicep and flung them at a distant tree. Servant sight and Servant strength ensured they sank deep into the acid-burnt oak, followed by a hurried rustling from an Assassin on its branches.

The man grinned at Touko and she had to fight off that urge to leer right back. For all that she was the most notorious alumni the Clocktower has seen in the past century, Touko knows that she is far from being able to level with some god-king of ancient myth without the Fifth in hand. An Anthropic Ether Liner would be child's play to a God, yet...

Touko Aozaki clenched her fingers tight. That legacy was lost to her now, the path that was her birthright stolen and the path she chose herself meaningless. And here she was, marshalling the pieces of her past once more for a final push upon Akasha only to be denied, as Caster have almost certainly just made a pact with Zouken Matou; much like how the little spellcaster in front of her had gotten his hand on this giant of a man, who is once more taunting her with another knife. With a knowing smile and a fire in his amber eyes, a rugged smile raised in challenge, in mockery, in questioning her ability.

Is he … showboating at me?

Rider's next throw was off by a long shot, telegraphed as it was with his other arm picking his Master upright by the scruff; like the participation prize given to second places after all the judges already got their minds blown by the first act. Haphazard, like a spare car you lend to your poor neighbours because what else was it gonna do in your garage but rust? Poor, like a bone thrown in condensation from Altroholm and pity from Trambelio.

She is thankful when Caster emerges from her false tomb before something unfortunate can occur, like Rider's sleeping Master getting eaten by crystal butterflies. Her features are no different to her clone, save one thing. The too-human insanity in those eyes now displays a different sort of posthuman prominence, the extension of an unnatural odic gradient more consentient than Rider despite Caster's lacklustre parameters.

"My Lady Queen, before I give apologia for my unjust accusations, may I have the honour of your title in this War?"

A familiar glint flashes off Caster's glacial orbs as Rider cedes the verbal initiative. The bigger man gave a slight bow, not so much in contrition as an acknowledgement of error from one leader to another. For all its geniality and chivalry, the act did not put him at even height with his counterpart; and Touko realizes that this is the same sort of nonsense her teacher Valualeta likes to play with Meluasutea and Barthomeloi which landed her a Sealing Designation.

Even with this frame of reference, the workings of Greater Thaumaturgy is best experienced than expressed, for the Master's Clairvoyance from the Grail is likely a sanded-down best-fit for a chosen Magi, lest the metal interference backflow of a Servant's presence cause irreversible damage to the candidate. That's the chink in the armour, how Caster bypassed the Grail's protective filter to strike Zouken when he attempted coercion; which gave Touko a simple solution right up until Caster responded.

"King Rider, berating one's honoured ally for defending their charge would be utter hypocrisy. And though I am a queen, please, foremost I am Amaryllis Pendraig, Secretary-General of the Empire of Common Cause."

You could hear a pin drop in that clearing, voided of the audio screen Matou provided with his incessant buzzing; as even the super-gigacentenarian was struck dumb by his Servant's identity and all its implications. As if the Grail was beckoning her to stay in the future charnel house that was to be Fuyuki, where the force of Providence boils watchfully beneath the flesh and blood of its citizenry to the siren song of salvation that has consumed so many seekers of Truth.

Why did she not put on her other pair of glasses for this? Caster could at least allow her a smoke for tempting her onto a battlefield she hasn't trod in twenty years. Shifting her stance minutely, she tugged at the empty frame on her nose with as much "airbrushed secretary" energy possible, flipped on those MNS and IFG brainbits of her for better echopraxia; and spoke before Rider could.

"Well, it is very nice to meet you, Madame Secretary-General. May I call you Lady Pendraig? I am a magus, as you and King Rider know." Touko bows her head with a silly-looking tilt, "I too, apologize; for my fellows' abhorrent conduct at your summoning. For our contrition, I humbly offer myself and my defeated foe as Anchors to your Ladyship upon this mortal plane for the duration of the Holy Grail War."

As the micro-shifts on Caster's facial musculature builds toward her theories regarding Saints Graph expression of one's lived biologics; Touko's opposite was doing the same with their apperception, brushing upon her Mysteries in minute fluctuation detectable within this body's internal function.

Framed by flickering flame of fluoride, their gazing contest of Touko's assured destruction was getting dangerously tense had Rider not chosen that moment to laugh.

"Ahahaha, to be the day where I am outdone by two great beauties. Very well, let it not be said that the King of Conquerors did not live up to his name. I am Iskandar the Great!"

The part of her not furiously recalling every detail of the man's mythos marvels at his impeccable sense of timing. That mutual tightness born from the scorn of comprehension between her and Caster did not phase Rider at all; the man quelling and redirecting their ire elsewhere with his boisterous charms without fail. As the night draws on, he settled into an almost referee-like role between them so naturally Touko could almost picture her and Amaryllis as petitioners in his court, which was a good indicator of her ineptitude at diplomatic negotiations with what was probably two of the greatest leaders past and future.

She needs to rouse Zouken without alerting her allies. And maybe make a few calls.

A chittering bellow emerged from the moulting head of Matou Zouken. All around them, a Plundering Field ripples through the air, borne upon a swarm of Blade Worms.

"By the power of my Command Seal, contract Amaryllis Pendraig to me!"

As battle was joined once more that night, a smile flitted across both their faces as the two women locked eyes for across the clearing. First in triumph, then confusion, and ending with acknowledgement. Superhuman genius and Transmortal intellect had come to the same conclusions, that this will not be the last they meet.

"By the power of my Command Seal, Amaryllis Pendaraig, retreat from this battle!"

---

220:18:39

The Hyatt Hotel

Laying indolently upon a plush sofa in the afterglow of a tantric rite, the aristocrats took a momentary consideration of that night's events.

The runic flame had spread with unnatural alacrity, consuming his familiar's alchemical shell too fast for the affected areas to be shedded; so he redirected the flow of its blood to the spiritual organs to formulate a necromantic spell within the single Magic Circuit he expended in its creation. The body will be gone, and so will its mind once bereft of a supporting framework; but that tiny insignificant soul will linger until morning, a receiver for his wind affinity to capture any sound passing through the interference area.

Body, Mind and Soul; the three steps involved in the creation of a typical magus' familiar. A magus of the Fes rank knows that these steps need not be done sequentially, for each merely fulfils one of the three aspects that exist within the bounds of conventional magecraft. And though he laments that the craft was taught in this standardised method, he understands why, because in practice the countless students who cycle through the Tower's hallowed halls would waste less valuable resources in their failures than they would otherwise. The teacher must reinforce this ordering, for the trappings of tradition not only safeguard one's lineages into the future so that they may reach Akasha in one's stead; but also the prominence of Mysteries in the face of scientific innovation( the Human Order) .

Just as Uncovering( Exposing) a Mystery's inner workings is akin to condemning it to death( assimilation ) , a change of laws and protocols undermines the authority( prominence) that has accumulated around that tradition( foundation) ; to the detriment of magecraft as a whole. The structure, borne upon existential inertia will continue to survive for quite some time, yet the encroachment of what lies beyond shall inevitably return the creation to the dirt, as it was deemed to be.

"Kayneth, you can't just solve this problem on your own. We need to inform Lady Barthomeloi! The future ascendancy of the Democratic Faction within the Association concern more than just you, my father or Policies; but the well-being of Magecraft worldwide."

"You worry too much my dear wife. For all we know what they said could be some orientalist lies to dazzle my wayward student and his naive little mind. That squirming vermin of a man seems the type to do so."

"Are you still obsessing over that impudent child? Honestly, however "great" Alexander the Great was, Rider is surely no match for Diarmuid empowered by the two of us. It's the others I'm worried about."

"Nonsense, Sola. I will crush them regardless of who they are. If Trambelio's little blasphemy and my wayward student happens to cross me, then our victory will merely be that much sweeter. No matter what happens, the glory of the Grail is already mine."

 

[FORTHEYOLOZ]

Author note: FGO introduced a few bits of lore around Zouken's background and a whole heap of potential implications to follow them. For the purpose of this story, one of those implied things is canonical, and what follows from that truth are interpretations for this story.

also, uh, content warning for just about everything, I guess.

Also, since this is Fate, any resemblance to living people is entirely coincidental.

Spoiler: optional reading music

------------------------

217:50:00

The Manor

"Loathe as I am to acknowledge the degenerate remnants of the Eight-Forked Tongue's institution and its fringe Nazi occultists, I must ask: Are your powers demonic in origin, Madame Secretary-General?" spoke her elderly opposition. They stood across from one another in the dining room of the old magus' manor; an opulent thing of Russian chandeliers and Germanic vegetation hiding horrors beneath the earth. Quite a pickle he had her in, this man. Even if no child of the Lost King's Court is a stranger to moral expediency, she would like to square her directive with something pleasant for the night.

"I always hated doing politics at the point of a lance." She chided the kidnapper four times her age with a smile on her lips, "Do you not prefer polite dialogue, Makari Zolgen; or must you bring that prior unpleasantness into your own domicile?"

"It has been two centuries since anyone could speak my name so authoritatively, Madame," he rasped back with a laugh. "If this old man's hospitality is not to your standards, a gentle word will suffice. Kariya, fetch our guest a bottle from the wine cellar before that feeble body of yours fails us. The good stuff from Tokiomi, if you will."

The third individual in that room slowly shuffled away, hiding his parasitical disfigurement under long jeans and hoodie. They've been with him for a while, she thinks, visibly faded despite the room's unlit interiors and crusted over with slime and grime and discharge of the things slithering beneath his skin. Enduring such prolonged torture is impressive for baseline mortals, assuming he's genuinely in pain.

Assuming he's real.

Assuming the little girl in the basement is also real.

How fair is the hand God dealt her?

Illusion magic was, as Juniper put it, fucking bullshit; its entire existence an irredeemable blight to her goals. Lesions of unreality linger on Zouken's nesting insects all around her, some irritant shed by that "Prelati" creature that prompted ugly recollections of the past. Had Speculator Masters not committed suicide and ordered his entire athenaeum to unconditionally surrender, she would have irradiated Speculation and Scrutiny at enough sieverts to kill a master multi-magus healer on the spot. She still did after allowing its inhabitants to evacuate; a rare occasion where indulging her naivety did not backfire.

Without a shadow army to let loose the hostages equalizing their negotiating positions, this situation proves markedly more difficult to navigate satisfactorily.

"To answer your question, Elder Zolgen, I must ask that you clarify your definitions of demonic." She pulled out her own chair, meticulously scanned, and sat with her legs crossed and fingers interlaced. Poised yet relaxed. "Are you referring to the wretched denizens of Hell who routinely dimensionally translate themselves into the mortal world to torment humanity, an abstract quotidian judgement of evil and sin; or daemonic, the pre-linguistic drift definition regarding general tutelars?"

The old man leaned back onto a plush armchair and set aside his gnarled walking stick in a gesture of acknowledgement. She did not need her implanted thoughtforms to know both of them were thinking the same thing: War is often the continuation of politics when civilized conventions have broken down, yet what they have here is the reverse; the continuation of war via diplomatic means. Awful aesthetics aside, she'll give him one thing: Zolgen Makari is a living embodiment of the fourth generation warfare doctrine; the sort that gave nightmares to Lankwon strategists before their assimilation into Manifest.

"You've piqued my curiosity, madame, but please begin with the first and third if you will; I'm afraid trite intellectualism must wait for another day." throbbed the magus' voicebox. She knows there exists no biological brain inside that skull; a fact she learned with great consternation after taking half his cranium with a grenade the moment he forced her to teleport here. They had an inconclusive, if informative battle; after which he stopped polluting the ideating bond between them when she agreed to stop scrambling his internal soul values. Hence, the mental space her daemons occupy must be located somewhere.

It's just that "somewhere" is not inside his soul, distributed as it were across thousands of insectoid monsters beneath the metropolis displayed on the map before her. A much-appreciated addition Kariya had brought with painstaking effort at her request; a response to the information gleaned from Touko and Iskandar. The possibility of war against their like necessitates a full-spectrum response aiming toward overwhelming dominance of the battlespace, a process that will face continuous sabotage from the Assassins. Gaining her questioner's aide is an unfortunate necessity given his skillset; now that she had tried killing him with Devil's Tansy to no effect.

"To answer your question, I abetted in the death of roughly six billion demons and devils during my lifespan." She spoke with a conviction that commanded the Imperial Host for half a century, shocking the chitinous mass playing human across the room into silence. Seizing the vulnerability, she turned upon him with every tool of her panopticon, from the way his fake eyelash and eyebrows picked up the sounds from her mouth before his ears did to the palpitation of hardened hemelytra that makes up his leathery skin. His own counter-intrusion methods do nothing against invasive thoughtforms already inside his cognitive configurations, whose constant datafeed is synthesized with her surveillance suite for real-time stochastic modelling of Zouken's mental architecture. The physical space between them grew heavy with exchanges of intelligence packets and malignant information both, palpable enough that Kariya Matou vomited when he returned to their moonlit chamber. Clammy worm-eaten fingers slipped on smooth glass and the bottle of red wine in his hands smashed onto the dining table between them; staining its pristine linen cover under a blood-red tide.

Her opposition threw the walking cane on his right at his son with a bark of irritation, a display reminiscent of the casual cruelty Angelcynn nobility indulged in before the Reconciliation. The gnarly thing flew almost lazily towards the downed man before the fourth person in the room intervened.

Raw killing intent flooded the building like a broken dam as a smoke-wreathed knight manifested himself in front of Kariya. Combat instincts scream in her ears that he is by far the most dangerous individual she has met that night, exceeding even Iskandar and Touko Aozaki. Before, it had existed only in the periphery of her supernatural senses as a miasma of bloodlust, a hidden asset she thought under Zolgen's control. Her panopticon washes off its surface like water, not merely camouflaging but evading all but the most basic aspect of the sensorium at her command. A single point of weakness shone through that ebon fullplate: His helmet's eye-slit; boiling with red hate.

"Kariya, control your Servant, or I will do it for you."

It would seem Zolgen's alliances are as brittle as his soul; for she had seen Kariya looking towards the child within the catacombs with the same manic determination she once had for Solace and gaze upon the monster he calls father with hate unmatched. With his "servant" materialized, it's evident to her sights the bond he holds toward the knight is similar to the forced contract between her and Zouken, an existential anchor preserved with what she assumes to be innate life energy. Though that boy contracted to Iskandar did not seem to be dying inch by inch, he also did not suffer from any deadly affliction like these two.

How that lad convinced someone as mighty as Iskandar to be his "servant" is something to watch for in the future. If what she had gleaned from Kariya was true; "Heroic Spirits" doesn't sound like the kind of people who would willingly become "Servants" in the first place.

"Berserker, stand down."

As his steel-cladded grip shatters Makari' timber rod into a cloud of splinter, she smirks. The Dungeon Master is positively begging for Amaryllis Penndraig to play the hero for this uncle and his niece; and every order given to a "servant", empowered or otherwise, clarifies her theories on the nature of the bond.

Valour and prudence, the balance of warfare. Kariya needs triage before Zolgen's parasites deal irreversible damage to his body, and she needs to test the limits of the magus' orders.

"Berserker, stand down!"

How very fortuitous that she can do both.

The Amaryllis Pendraig who rose from that chair wasn't the bearer of the Tripartite Crown, but the bringer of Reconciliation in blood and fire.

To break a system, you must know its laws.

"Kariya Makari, I wish to heal the injuries on your person. Will you let me?"

As expected, Zolgen rose in anger, the bladed mandibles inside his mouth not quite conforming to the shape of human teeth.

"Madame there is no need for you to-"

"I wasn't speaking to you, magi." Amaryllis smoothly denied his request as she turned to the thirty-something man wiping blood from his mouth. "Kariya, I will now slowly walk over, ok? Can you tell your companion that I mean no harm?"

"You shouldn't-" Whooping coughs again cuts off Kariya and Amaryllis re-modulates her walking posture from attentive caring to urgent worry when she sees the maggots writhing in his disgorgement. Berserker growls at her approach, the terrifying presence magnifying with every step she takes; a legion of Edge Lords condensed within the frame of a single man unto unbelievable martial might. The winding plume atop his crown flutters to an unseen gale, its wake ruffling the paper map atop the table with deceptive gentleness.

"Avenger, you will not waste valuable Mysteries healing my worthless son!"

To gain the allegiance of that titan of death, she needs to snub the shambling infestation at her back a little more tonight.

She stayed her step before the living wall of ebon steel and gaze him squarely in the eye. She can't really see his eyes, of course, occluded by the billowing fog pouring from the gaps between masterwork armour; but for an instant the crimson light from within that helm dimmed to the command of Kariya Makari.

"Berserker, let her heal me."

She would not dare stand this close without the rumbling of his form, for its sheer power permits her an analysis of his body's acoustic emissions. Like her and Iskandar, his body was an etheric simulacrum; something not quite physical but very much real. In the back of her mind hundreds of new data points and extrapolation are already being added to Berserker's profile, slowly piercing the shroud against her comprehension.

But cracking his secrets was not her goal tonight.

"Avenger, your Master orders you to not heal Kariya Matou!"

For a dangerous moment, the ink-black tassels flowing from Berserker's helmet writhe violently like coiling constrictors as Zolgen's chittering at her back begins to grow and she resolves herself to burying this man and the child he was so determined to save next to each other if she could. Then that moment ended and Berserker disappeared from her visual toolkit with a growl. Only within soulsight was he still visible to her, his endless bloodlust seemingly restrained. Sweat poured like a rivulet from Kariya's face and she hurried to prop him upright. Her promise of non-violence was kept.

Raw power, palpable to her mortal senses, coalesced in the undead monster at the succour given to his son. She quelled it with a single glare.

"You have but one means to stop me, Makari Zolgen. Do it, I dare you."

(Let us see whether this apple falls far from the tree.)

---

(She always thought the existence of a naming convention within the Character Sheet to be a little strange. The soul was an ever-changing mass of raw data, rarely so essentialist without the grace of God, every layer gripped by the advance of science capable of further granularity than the previous. All this and more filters through the shard of Amaryllis within Kariya's soul; but not before her greater self activated a privacy entad, gave Zouken a short migraine and killed his surveillance worms which breached Kariya's blood-brain barrier. Any other mortal would have died within minutes from extensive internal haemorrhaging, yet there are no biological differences in Kariya's body to account for his continued survival. She understands Uther's reasoning behind wiping out the practitioners of Spirit magic a little more, now that she's getting a first-hand look at its potential abuses.)

Hence, onomastics. A discipline she initially studied out of a mistaken desire to map the clarity of the washater onto the complexity of soul magic and later repurposed as a framework capable of researching the clues left behind by Juniper on Areb. Early on, the relevant theories and postulates were obtained by loyal tuung to insulate against the Cannibal, limiting its usefulness; but by the time Celestar began its attack on the surface world her tuung scientists and their assistants had discovered its value when paired with computational magic and gladly shared their experiences with their sovereign. Ideally, ample opportunities would be had to test her very hypothetical procedure under more controlled conditions. The speculations and calculations were done years ago by her researchers; a multi-discipline fusion of half a dozen skills set in mimicry of nearly every Spirit magic function, except direct alteration. That final grail of true transmortality had eluded her grasp for a century, yet never before was she presented with an opportunity like this one.

(To not take this chance would be criminal, not only to herself but to all the individuals who lived and died in the name of the institutions dedicated to this task.)

But is it ethical? By what standards should the judgement occur?

Certainly not Zouken Matou (Zolgen Makiri?). Even setting aside their abysmal state, his opinions and consent are forfeited for the actions he has committed.

Almost certainly not a problem to Kariya Matou and Sakura Matou once she becomes their saviour. Or is it Kariya Makari and Sakura Tohsaka? (She gets the feeling of ancient family blood feuds being hidden here by the Dungeon Master, and hates him for turning the child tortured in that pit into another bargaining chip she can use.)

Yet it is a problem to her, for there were plenty of parallels with her enslavement to Fallather. Kariya's near-certain demise without intervention doesn't change that fact. (Just by being here, she had already obtained a meticulous dictionary detailing his body and soul, something she will certainly use against him in the future.) For now, it may not be enough to heal the wounds caused by Zouken's maggots eating their way through Kariya's body, with these gaps having become accumulations of mutated nerve-endings and protoplasm; this fact is evident.

Would this still be so once she has gained Spirit Magic? Is Amaryllis Pendraig a person capable of reaching this testament to Zouken Matou's twisted brilliance? As Valencia used to ask her: What lines will you cross to realize your ambition?

The Amaryllis of her dreams would have found a way out of this trilemma unscathed, the better Amaryllis whom she hopes stands beside Juniper still; but here and now there was only her, powerless before the pull of past promises and prospective destiny.

(She supposes the answer is yes, then. To fly forth unto certain doom blindly and boldly, till the summit of her knowledge could no longer support the weight of her ambition and she crashes to God's green earth in shame and despair so that the Amaryllis who really mattered could soar that infinite sky with Juniper at her side.)

She drops a whisper into Kariya's ear.

"Do not react. I can save Sakura."

The man in her embrace goes stock still, and she haphazardly covers his slip to Zouken by shoving a Marzipan Fairy into his mouth. The regeneration it brings is weak and sluggish, indicative of Kariya's soul having already conformed to the modifications his father induced. She'll need a deep look at Matou Sakura for cross-referencing, but she can spend more potent resources like her blood should she need him at full health.

(Full health isn't where she needs him, however. Her knowledge of skin magic indicates the stylized marking on his hand as a highly active working, with the energies of spirit magic constantly funnelling into the mark and leading out somewhere. Kariya's ailing health is a good reason to monitor him as any.

Zouken has yet to react. Did she conceal her movements too well, or is he refusing to rise to her bait? Such an extended continuity of parasitical consciousness is rather unprecedented, even for her.)

What did Iskandar call this farce again?

"Matou Zouken, as your son is an asset within the Holy Grail War, I will now restore his physical health to its optimal condition," The archmage's insectoid constituents thrum with restrained wrath, and she decides to nudge him just a little further. "This will include the removal of all imminently life-threatening parasites within his body. I trust this will not contravene our prior agreement?"

"You have vexed me for the last time tonight girl. By the Power of My Command Seal, your Master, Matou Zouken, forbids Amaryllis Pendraig from providing sustenance, succour or restoration to Kariya Matou in any way, shape or form!"

That restrained power within Zouken's form billowed towards her in a wave both real and not, shocking its way down their bond resembling the chain one use on an unruly pet. With her entire sensory arsenal focused on the magical interaction, she can see why they are called "Master" and "Servant". The line was already pulled taut from their previous battle when he ordered her to "obey his every command", but they now constrict around her throat with annoying tightness if she so much as thinks of helping Kariya.

Despite it all; the insane paranoiac's mental defences in her mind held firm. This is nothing new.

She would not have goaded Zouken to this enraged and desperate state so repeatedly if she knew what kind of time constraints she was under. The "Grail" entity is still clumsily beating at the false gateway to her soul, and she'll eat her hat if a soul mage of Aozaki's impossible calibre shows up to their next encounter without a "Servant" of her own. Iskandar calls himself "Rider" and Berserker is Berserker, which leaves seven more known unknown at minimum.

Now that her fact-finding mission for the night is complete, she can work her way back into Zouken's confidence before he cuts his losses. Failure here not only means the death of innocents, but having to track down Aozaki to keep herself alive.

Step one. Swallow her pride.

Her physical vessel jerked as if stung, the limbs holding Kariya upright falling slack to their sides. She grits her teeth and turns to face her enemy.

"Zouken, why are you sabotaging our war efforts?"

"You speak to me of sabotage when I was forced to waste four Command Seals on you this night alone!?" roared the elderly mage. His rage was genuine and soul-deep, and the moment of unguarded anger gave away his phonological stressors.

"In case you've forgotten, Master," she rolls the word on her tongue, pitching its syllables the way Valencia has taught her. "Your senile cruelty ripped me from my home and viciously attacked me without warning or reason. You forced me into submission and when I offered my olive branch, you slapped it aside in juvenile pique. What did you expect?"

Step two, cede your initiative.

Zouken's anger bled into the ether as he began to leer at her once more. Beneath his gaze she is less than meat, then he began speaking.

"I expect obedience to your Master, Servant, now that you are under contract. But if I cannot keep you in line, then my family will. I will devour one of their organs every time you disobey me."

A scream tore its way through the building and she allowed herself an honest flinch in selling her outrage. Judging by the pitch, the scream likely belongs to Matou Byakuya, the drunk she sensed upstairs. An acceptable sacrifice.

"I still want your answers, Madame Secretary-General. When you looked through my son's body, that was Tohno Chijutsu( Blood Manipulation) you used for your diagnosis, yes? The notion that Francesca of all people calling forth a Heroic Spirit of the future makes these old bones quake with amusement, but your previous armament of choice left no other possibility. To wit I must ask: Will I attain my immortality?"

It was like an instance of ruptured time had found its way onto Zouken's face, where the honest zeal of a young man in the throes of fanaticism shone brighter on his features than the death's head leer of a five hundred years old magus. Once again, the depth of his obsession was a terrible thing to behold in full, an abyssal maw eating away at the edifice of his mind. The incongruity of his hollowness gnawed at her understanding, costing her precious seconds to cut off Zouken's next words.

"Answer me truthfully, and I promise you Sakura's freedom so long as you live."

So that's his play for Kariya. For someone relying so heavily on minions and mind control, Zouken can do an impressive verbal jab. She did not need to turn her sensory entads on Kariya to know the man now looked at her with different eyes; ones easier to persuade, but ultimately detrimental so long as he remains an extension of Zouken's infestation.

Oblivious to her internal exasperation, the master of the house continued.

"Still, a rejoinder for your olive branch. I know you've inserted yourself into my mind through the Master's Dream Cycle. Listen through the ears I've planted southeast of here, from the thick concentration surrounding a building defended with Bound Fields like this one. There, the Tohsaka plots against us with the Church Overseer's and …"

" … and expose more of my inner workings to you?" She lightly interrupted him, mindful of her final step. "I am thankful for your candidness, Master; so let me be forthright. I did not know a "Zouken Matou" in life nor did I pay much attention to Japan in general. Advances made towards full-spectrum immortality were rare and coveted, much like what you've attained for yourself I'd imagine."

All true statements, spoken in complete honesty; backed with Plasticlique training and Valencia's counter-interrogation brainhacks, allows her to sell the lie in their negotiation despite it no doubt being a bitter pill for the old man. They gaze down one another, ageing cataracts against gelid ice; the silence interspersed with Kariya's harsh breathing and the sickening squelches of flesh between the walls.

A long, heart-rending scream pierced her eardrums, and Amaryllis feared the worst had happened.

At long last, Zolgen Makari spoke.

"It is done. Sakura-chan will sleep in her room tonight."

Behind them, Kariya desperately hobbled his way towards the basement staircase. Worm-eaten muscles scrabble against the manor's wall for support, dragging his lame leg without regard for the pain wracking his frame. Mouth parched, throat still raw from blood loss calling out to the child he cares for like a daughter. Twitching, feverish hands holding her tight. Face and hair; wet with tears, matted with sweat and grey with dread; shone with relief and gratitude toward his saviour's back.

She cuts off Zouken's cackles before they begin with the hard thump of a military radio exiting Sable. Its monolithic mass sat squarely atop the red-soaked tablecloth, grinding moonlit shards of broken glass to silicate dust against ancient mahogany beneath.

She gave him a curtsy, as was appropriate for courtly manners. She would honour their deal. For now.

"In lieu of trying to enter my sensorium, Master, I recommend you use this as our line of communication as I conduct my own reconnaissance. Instruction manual and encryption scheme are glued to its bottom face."

Exiting the room, she smiled at Kariya and Sakura. Posterity will determine the victor, selfless or not, but shouldn't doing the right things for the right reason be a basic ability to all who profess to have moral agency? The burden of success weighs on her shoulder now that she had committed herself to Providence's unknowable plans. The first thing to do is to stop denying the fact that it is Earth that she's been summoned to, in circumstances much like Juniper's own transmigration. Probably scaled to their skill sets and proficiency levels as well, what with the multiple exclusion-worthy ubermensch in her vicinity. She can only hope He could be as kind to her this time around, so that she may find her way back to Juniper again.

As if on cue, Zolgen's final whispers drifted into her ears as she exited the front gate. A taunt from the Dungeon Master, chilling to the core.

"Six Wounds, Six Servants, Six Continents; drowned under a crimson tide. How appropriate."

---

Far below, Fuyuki Subterranea

It's kinda odd that their town has such big drainage pipes when you think about it. Sure, it's a port city and all, but the Mion only ever overflowed like, once, in living memory; something even the insurance providers will admit when they think nobody's looking. It's incredibly annoying when you end up in those parts of the city without good waterwork and sanitation but are still covered by these damned drainage pipes.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to clean out bloodstains without water? It's a good thing that, unlike other things, corporate negligence does trickles down to the blue-collar folks, who couldn't give less of a crap about proper maintenance and whatnot. Follow the storm drain, stick close to the river and you have the industrial run-off for disposal without anybody being the wiser. Do your chopping at the harbour underground, and the diesel fumes cling to your clothes so nobody thinks twice about any strange splotches you sport. Hey, maybe the Big Guy can do his magic thingie and he won't have to save up for fumigation gear to cross that spot mid-west of the Hyatt? It would be nice for the two of them to celebrate with one of them fatter old money folk. Like, the Big Man is a demon from Hell, right? Sure the two of them shared a roasted shank from that kid earlier, but it's like, fucking tiny even if Bluebeard leaves no bones behind.

"Oh man, I'm just dying to show you my pad bro. I have no idea how much space you want for your "altar" or whatever, but my pad, it's wide enough I can run laps around the place when the pickings are slim. I have a couple or two stocked up, and the bridge is super close, so don't you worry about food."

The Big Guy, as polite as ever for a demon from Hell, spoke with a voice that could quiver like whoa. Sentai villains would cream themselves hearing a voice like this.

"Oh Ryunosuke, I don't need much for my cute little starfishes. Just some nice fleshy places for them to … hehe … grow."

"That's so rad, man! Can you teach me how? I tried growing cabbages and potatoes in my leftovers once, got water close by and even some fertilizers I pinched from the monks. Veggies just don't take in them as they do in normal soil for some reason. Any ideas, Big Guy?"

The way his eyes bulge forwards when deep in thoughts is a thing of wonder. Ryunosuke knows the guy keeps calling himself "Servant" or "Caster" or whatever, but to call him "Master" is where Ryunosuke draws the line. Bluebeard may be here for the Holy Whatever War or whatever, but the dude is a demon of Hell! Man probably knows more about awesome butchery than even legendary Sagawa-senpai who gets to go on TV. If anything, he should call Bluebeard Master for pulling off those killer moves on that kid.

"I think that the problem, Ryunosuke, is too much iron. You need special plants for this type of seedbed, and such greens aren't just sold by any peasants. Back in life, I knew this guy, Francois, an absolutely amazing guy, who could get his hands on the craziest of shit. Anything from anywhere from the absolute best high to that leaf drunk by a billion people across the planet, he had in droves, but you know what the greatest thing about Francois is?"

Oh man, this is gonna be siiick! Ryunosuke could feel the hype from his bro's epic killer robes when Bluebeard's pet starfish began bouncing with the Big Guy in friggin impromptu dance routines.

"What he couldn't get, we'd sit down and hash out how to make them ourselves. In fact-

-Ryunosuke, what are those?"

The Big Guy's tone whiplashed so fucking fast it could break Mimi-chan's necks a dozen times over, and Ryunosuke looked to where the Big Man was staring.

"Oh right, we shouldn't head down that tunnel Big Guy. There's like some sort of infestation in these sewers, a bunch'a big hive mutant shit on wings. Chased a mangy runner into that spot once, nothing came out onto the other side but the bones in my bear traps. Nobody's gonna come and clear these critters out tho', probably cause they don't get paid enough to go all the way down here..."

Ryunosuke was feeling dejected towards the end with Bluebeard's distracted mumbling, but then the Big Guy grabbed his shoulder with an incredible smile!

"The things sticking to them, I'm sure I've smelled somewhere before. This static tickling of my nosehair. This shadowed dance 'tween my footsteps. This ethereal smoke about my eyeballs. This Ponhpei fluid in my limb. This Machecoul flora on my tongue. This Mycenaean susurrus upon my eardrums. OH MY GOD RYUNOSUKE, IT'S FRANCOIS!!!"

---

The same time, elsewhere.

Fuyuki International Airport.

The subtle chill of ocean night winds ruffles the coat worn by the figure within the ATC tower. They make no effort to stay hidden and are, in fact, visible from the landing strip when viewed at the right angle; for their most memorable feature is a shock of silver hair. Not the wisp-like grey of a weathered geriatric but the lively lustre of natural colouration that makes curious eyes wander and loose tongues wag in their passing.

Honestly, so much tongue-wagging would be had if this intercourse were to be broadcast on public television, of both the fun and unfun kind.

"So now that Plan A has fallen through, do you want me to start with plan B? Or will we extract?"

"..."

"So whom among the Soup Guys do you want to go for, Boss? I'll be biased towards FBS and ISI, naturally."

"..."

"MI6? I knew a few ex-KGB peeps who went native, but wasn't your target CC's Poissonnier? They'll need better buttering to slip out."

"..."

"Well I'll be damn, guess Two-and-Half-a-Dozen can't just play damn big heroes without pesky presidents butting in, huh."

"..."

"Gotcha. Now, when will you have the delivery ready?"

"..."

"You want extras from the miscellaneous' dependents? That'll crimp into his stress tolerance you know."

"..."

"Alright, alright, just give me their exchange rates? Continuity and Coherence were down, uh huh; Accessibility and Fidelity were up. Got it. I'll see what I can do, but you sure that wasn't ..."

"..."

"Fine, I'll stop probing over the unsecured line. One extra-judicial false flag, coming right up."

In that darkness of the time just past the Witching Hours, the sole source of illumination within that room is an analog monitor running through a schedule for arrivals and departures. A scant five years back, the list would have stretched across every screen in the tower control chamber 24/7; aircraft callsigns spitting from the lips of operators into radios like some American airwave rap show. To rival the economic and commercial bustling of the Shinto District was no easy task for an airport whose regional authority still stubbornly resisting the new JCAB protocols, yet the worker ants employees of this place had stubbornly clung on until the administration was forced to make them redundant as the liquidity trap sinks in nationwide.

Avenues are opened when people go hungry, where a few individuals with slightly less integrity than usual might not put the reputation of a dying organization over their own. Find enough of those pathways and you can do far better than running some people and drugs across international borders.

You can run flak cannons instead.

Now what a peace-loving country like Japan may or may not want with Gulf War surplus is not relevant in the slightest, but an investor wanting a little compensation on their old investment would not be anything too extraordinary.

In that light, everything done here is tinged with cosmic irony. After all, it's high time profit was collected. With interest even, considering how much the investment has compounded over the years. If the recent plateauing of growth wasn't a prudent act of consolidation, which it most definitely was, then appropriate stimulus is close at hand.

"Alright, I'll ring the dinner bell when I'm finished with my customer. Reckon you can prep the bird?"

"..."

"No, I'm not trying to foist my job on you! With luck, we'll never meet on the other sides of the war. Now good night!"

With that uncharacteristic farewell, the solitary figure packed up their various equipment connected to the air traffic control computer and headed down from the tower. For all those wandering eyes of the world, the conversation was of course recorded, and carefully stored away. Insurance on your enemies is always good.

The airside facilities were mostly lit by the reflected din of the customs terminal, manned by a groggy skeleton crew for the graveyard shift. Still, the individual evaded the gaze of its poorly installed cameras, despite the person manning them having been … persuaded to erase the night's footage and forget their encounter ever happened, a task he has unfailingly accomplished every fortnight for the past year. One more mission tomorrow and all that the man will recall of his latest employment contract was the unusual kindness of his boss amidst the mass layoff of his colleagues.

The two of them, a soon-to-be-dead person and a legally dead person, have pretty generous bosses come to think of it. Good pay, good insurance, even good bailout when things go south. Still, having private insurance is good too, especially the ones you can move the primary asset around to liquidate things.

One quick stop at the little storage bay near the end of the airport runway later, the individual has moved on to the adjacent highway with a truckful of IEDs. An established killzone like this might hold Servants for 30 seconds under perfect circumstances, but bags of mostly water would evaporate on contact.

A light ocean mist tickles her nostrils as the city of Fuyuki proper begins to loom in the distance. The same regional stranglehold that accelerated the airport's infrastructural demise also ensures relatively little pollution plagues the burgeoning population; the sweet saltiness of the sea is something to be enjoyed from a clear and visible public space before it is drowned under by the stench of gore and gunpowder.

A new dawn was breaking, heralded by the cries of gulls and albatross. No matter what anyone says, for the next fortnight Fuyuki, Japan was to be a lever that moved their World.

---

A Cypress Waits, 2nd edition, 1st Printing, January 1994 AD

Juniper,

I'll admit it, sometimes God works in mysterious ways. And though I've yet to divine the meaning of his latest plans; their wild divergence from the baseline compels me to break our usual protocols to report this aweful development.

In a way, this is the perfect ploy. Forcing me to bring the hard work of one hundred years to ruin, with my own two hands no less. No doubt events will conspire to deliver this tome to you before all others; yet failure to pass on this knowledge would be an unconscionably treacherous act, a sin that shall sear my heart with more anguish than the fire of Doom Sun.

A reminder of His omniscient gaze upon us and the terrible power behind them.

As of roughly five hours before writing these passages, I was finally succumbing to our final enemy alongside Valencia. By my reckoning, Areb was soon to follow, for twenty-one elemental planes have been lost to the Void Beast, crippling our defences against the Demonic army braying at the gates.

Now I stand as a stranger upon a strange land, at the zenith of my prime and a soul branded with a Character Sheet. Yes Juniper, a GOD-BE-DAMNED CHARACTER SHEET on my soul, with stats and skills and everything from my wildest nightmares. The Lord isn't even pretending that I'm a real person anymore in gifting me this state of unlife, and in case the opening lines were not clear, I have a sinking suspicion that I have been transmigrated to a magical version of Earth.

Please, allow me my piece. After all, I have just been isekaied. There are no elvish ruins on the moon (that are visible), nor is the world flat to my math. There are unprotected televisions in every household, but only one instance of possible Potato occultism. Plastic is absolutely everywhere, but no augmented humans walk the streets.

I cannot let my guard down, however. The Dungeon Master is very active here, for this … farce responsible for my existence reeks of bloody drama epics that He enjoys. It's fallacious logic, I know, but everything I've ever known about magic and reality has been flipped on its head for the sort of outright Utherian nonsense that presumably drove the man to seclusion beneath the Fel Seed Exclusion Zone.

Just as the Risen Lands, Francorum had defined the beginning of your journey; so shall Fuyuki, Japan define mine. Already, entities of incredible potency circle my position; the likes of which could equal and exceed any of Uther's foremost Knights. A master of mental interference to match my own expertise, a 100+ Soul mage who probably Scaphed hundreds and found true immortality, outright reality warpers masquerading as illusionists, a warrior who makes Uncle Onion feel like a toddler with a stick, and doubtlessly countless others of similar calibre still hidden in this city of sin and beyond. Hence, I will endeavour to compile a list of every such exceptional existence I encounter; and vainly pray that this second chance is not actually the demons of Hell successfully carving my soul open like a pineapple or something similar.

For now, I shall chalk it up to the Lord's twisted sense of humour; for even in death I am still dying despite being more powerful than ever before. I have no idea how to stop it, but this oncoming doom probably maps to your experience of being pushed off that aeroplane somehow, and I can only hold out hope that God saw fit to grant me my own safe landing.

Yours, in this life and every life thereafter.

Amaryllis.

---

...

Index H: High-Value Targets:

• Zouken Matou(ZM): Insect hive-mind(?) mage, spirit mage, mind control expert. five hundred years old min, incredible resilience (Phys. discorporation and Ment assult), extreme stages of soul rot. Loses to me in a straight mental fight, but succeeded in counterattack. Established false Companion Bond despite extensive AIFE (Autonomous Infohazard Forked Engram) deployment.
  Unfortunately, testing shows active Companion Bond required for continued existence on Earth. He provides intelligence, I maintain his survival. For now. (Imagine if you had no parachute in that plane jump and had to beargrab onto somebody with one. You coerce them with a knife to the jugular, they coerce you back with one to the kidneys. Neither of you can actually stab the other without consequences, but they have the advantage.) Willingly exploit his soul's damaged nature for battle(?!). Refers to me as "Avenger", investigation pending.

• Touko Aozaki (TA): Powerful multi-mage, display multiple data points consistent with level 100 soul mage. Immortality ignores the Exclusionary Principle(?!). Capable of overwhelming my entadic defence systems. Shoggoth-esque creature spawned from her corpse on death as revenge attack.
  Signs of Elon Gar training(?). Deceptively amicable. According to ZM, has a younger sister who's stronger(!!) than her.

• Francesca Prelati(FP): Name given by ZM. According to him, FP is an illusionist who casts their illusions on the world itself >>Reality warper(?!). Like TA, immortality ignores Exclusionary Principle, repeatedly and flagrantly so. Older than ZM. Captured by TA, though ZM believes imprisonment won't last. Created my summoning circle, per ZM.
  Childish persona. Too many unknowns.

• Iskandar(ISK): Shares name with renowned historical figure of Earth's history (Coincidence, clone or the same person? Widespread Immortality makes a lot of strange possibilities come to life.) Powerful physique, lightning aura (flying?)chariot, skilled bladebound. Also calls himself "Servant Rider", investigation pending.
  Highly optimized for social engagements. Naturally charismatic orator. Likeable Genuineness. Ally. Ambitious.

• Servant Berserker (BSKR): Real Name unknown. Contracted (bound?) to Kariya Matou, ZM's son. Aura of a Grandmaster Edge Lord (!?). (possible) Immense Combat ability. Difficult to direct.
  Communicate solely via growling and concentrated bursts of killing intent. (require blood magic remodulation to prevent coronary damage)

...

Index P: Persons of Interest

• Rider's "Master": a teenager of British descent, who threw up at gruesome sights and fainted when faced with impossibilities. Distinctive red tattoos on right hand, possibly skin magic.
  Connection with ISK requires more investigation. Came through and vouched for my honesty though, hope the kid was genuine. Envious of TA, social standings?

• The Assassins: Skull-masked humanoids whose psudomagic stealth evaded my entire sensorium until they attacked (Stealth 80? 90?). Very skilled with throwing knives (coordinated, precise, multi-trajectory), not so dangerous once discovered. Body and weapon (etheric simulacra) quickly dissipates on death, along with their soul.
  Urgent target for experimentation regarding continuing bodily integrity and autonomy.

• Kariya Matou(KM): ZM's biological son. Was healthy once, now weak and sickly due to ZM's spiritual experimentation. Distinctive red tattoos on right hand, confirmed as skin magic & spirit magic fusion. Liability overall due to parasitic infestation, but ZM's mistreatment creates exploitable vulnerabilities.
  Hatred for ZM, jealousy towards Tokiomi Tohsaka, romantic affection towards Aoi Tohsaka, paternal affection towards Sakura Matou. Ex-journalist (intercept local telecomunications networks)

• Sakura Matou(SM): Birth Name Sakura Tohsaka, younger sister to Rin Tohsaka, biological daughter to Aoi Tohsaka and Tokiomi Tohsaka. Currently (tortured, raped, infested, experimented on? I lack words of sufficient meaning, words that hopefully died along with the Omegan Demon Lords) in ZM's care, after being willingly given over to him by her parents.

…

Index U: (Known) Unknowns

• Unknown spy: A magical remote surveillance tool eliminated by TA. Owned by another party yet to be identified.
• Tokiomi Tohsaka: SM's birth father. KM's future target. First-rate mage by ZM's estimates. Recognized by the Association (global organization that manages magic!)(require futher corrob.) as Fuyuki's "Second Owner".
• Aoi Tohsaka: SM's birth mother. Out of town
• Rin Tohsaka: SM's sister. Out of town.
• Tokiomi Tohsaka's Servant
• Risei Kotomine: Long time resident of Fuyuki, Overseer of the Holy Church (rivals of the Association!!)(require futher corrob.) in the Holy Grail War(ask ISK?).
• Risei's son: Tokiomi's student in magecraft. Church Executor (heretic hunter?)
• ??? Einzbern: Once allies of Matou and Tohsaka, now bitter enemy. Based out of Germany, ancient and powerful. Specialized in Homunculi creation. Has a castle in the woods.
• Einzbern's Servant