Day 5 Chapter 5
- Location
- Around here
[X] Plan Lecture From Tohsaka-sensei
"Morning," Tohsaka-san says to you as you open the door for her. "What did I miss?"
"It's one in the afternoon, Rin," you hear Archer call to her. You lead her into the kitchen where Archer is waiting with a pot of coffee. "Want some?" he asks, offering her a cup. Tohsaka-san takes the coffee from Archer, downing the entire thing before she sits down and passes the cup back to Archer. "You look like shit. When did you get in?"
"Well, just the flight from London to Fuyuki took about... Eighteen hours," Tohsaka-san says. "So there's the rest of my Friday and about half of my Saturday gone, right there. Then, as soon as I touch down in Fuyuki I have to hustle to get to the mansion, grab some books for Shizuki, and make it back to the airport in time to catch the next flight to Yokohama. Unfortunately, nobody thought to inform me that the flight to Yokohama wasn't arriving for another six hours!" Tohsaka-san just about tears her hair out as she says that, only stopping when Archer hands her another cup of coffee. "The plane for the Yokohama flight was held up coming in from its previous trip because of some bad weather, and I only found out the flight was delayed when I got to the airport. Stupid frigging airports. Somebody should just invent a branch of magecraft that'll pick you up from one place and drop you off in another, I swear. It'd save so much on travel expenses."
"But once the plane arrived, it was all smooth sailing?"
"No, actually, not. I worked out that it would actually be faster to take the next flight into Tokyo, then catch the Shinkansen from Tokyo into Mitakihara. Cost me a few hundred-thousand more Yen than I'd have liked, but..."You can see the blood vessel that Tohsaka-san just barely didn't pop, were it not for Archer's coffee. "Well, turns out I was wrong there, too. I ended up getting in at ten-thirty at night, so about an hour later than if I had just waited for my original flight to Yokohama. I'm just glad Minako was awake to let me into the upstairs place, otherwise I probably would have just broke a window and gone to sleep on your couch, or something." You're pretty sure Tohsaka-san has gone through the entire pot of coffee by the time she's finished with her story. "How's that treating you, by the way? It's still really weird to think that you've got yourself a wife and two kids now after, well... Everything we went through."
"Girlfriend, actually," Archer says, showing the lack of a wedding band on his finger. "We didn't feel right about marrying until the girls were able to get married first."
Tohsaka-san nods, sighing as she finally sets aside her cup, with no more coffee in the pot to refill it. "All right, let's get down to business. I know you two didn't call me in just to chitchat about how crappy my flight in was, so what do you have for me? Something about a Grief Seed that isn't a Grief Seed, right?"
"That's correct." You set one of the fake Grief Seeds down on the table for Tohsaka-san to examine. "Recently, we've been encountering witches that, well, aren't witches. They're... Well, I'm not sure what you'd call them in your world, but they look like grotesque mixtures of random animal parts all jammed together into a vaguely functioning animal shape."
"I'd have to see for myself, but what you're describing sounds like a chimera."
"A chimera, then," you say. "Anyway, these drop from defeated chimeras, similar to how Grief Seeds drop from defeated witches; but as I'm sure you can see, they... Aren't." Tohsaka-san reaches a hand across the table, grabbing for the fake Grief Seed. "They don't function like Grief Seeds, either. They don't absorb Grief, and even after sitting around for weeks none of them have ever shown an indication that they're going to hatch into a new witch. All Archer was able to figure out is that they're like Grief Seeds, but put together by someone who didn't know what they were doing."
Tohsaka-san ponders the fake Grief Seed for a moment, before asking "So, what else can you tell me about these? It'll take me a few hours of prying before I've got this nut cracked, so what else can you tell me about these in the mean time?"
"On top of us, the neighboring city of Asunaro reportedly also has an infestation problem," you say. "We have reason to believe that the Mitakihara and Asunaro infestations are originating form the same source; the Grief Seed of the witch Walpurgisnacht, which we believe is leeching corruption somewhere underneath the city's southern edge."
Tohsaka-san gives you a look. "You didn't try to take the thing back with you after you defeated it?"
"It was larger than this entire building," you say. "We didn't have the means to bring it back with us, nor did we have a place to store it. We didn't really have a choice but to leave it where it fell, and once it got paved over during the reconstruction there wasn't really anything we could do."
Tohsaka-san rolls her eyes. "Well that was stupid on, like, a cosmic level," she says. "How are they getting from here to... Wherever the heck Asunaro is, anyway?"
"Asunaro is about an hour to the west of us," you say. "We've been pretty good about stopping them whenever they show up, to the point where we're not actually sure how they've been getting into Asunaro undetected. The Incubator is our best guess at the moment, but we don't really have any conclusive proof that it's responsible." Tohsaka-san gives you another look, as though she's saying to you "Well, is there anything else?" "Sorry, that's really all we know about the situation so far."
"Well, I guess I can work with that," Tohsaka-san says. "What about Asunaro? You said they've got an infestation as well; has that come back to bite you girls in the ass, or is that entirely a 'them' problem?"
"No, it's come back to bite us in the ass," Archer says. "Asunaro has a group of rival puella magi who are... Less than pleased at us over the whole 'infestation' thing. They're blaming us for it, and unfortunately, they've got their own team of servants to back their complaints up."
That gets Tohsaka-san's attention. "Really?" she asks. "So, what, is this like some kind of Great Holy Grail War, or something?"
"Actually, I was hoping you'd be able to tell us how it's possible for those girls to have their own set of servants," you say. "I know for a fact-" courtesy of the dream cycle shared by you and Archer, "-that it shouldn't be possible for those girls to have summoned another set of servants. Furthermore, all of our servants were defeated in the battle against Walpurgisnacht, but we were able to resummon them again afterwards. I'm really confused by this whole thing, and I was hoping you'd be able to tell us how any of this is even possible, when as far as I can tell the Grail was destroyed."
Tohsaka-san shrugs. "The best I can give you is that this city has some crazy strong leylines," she says. "Particularly that one big cluster by the park." She turns to Archer, adding "You know the one. It practically glows in the dark. That would be my best guess for where you're all getting the juice to keep summoning servants. So, got any idea who your enemy servants are this time around?"
"So far we know of Sigurd as their Saber, and Ramesses II as their Rider," Archer says. "They also had Atalanta as their Archer, but I took care of her last night. We know their Assassin is a skilled doctor, but we haven't met her yet. We don't know the rest."
Tohsaka-san whistles. "Tough crowd," she says; "And that's just two of them. Now, refresh my memory, who do you have on your side?"
"Well, we've got me-" Archer points to himself. "-as myself; Brynhildr as our Lancer; Achilles as our Rider; Gilgamesh as our Caster; and Lancelot as our Berserker. We've also got a pair of new additions, Diarmuid ua Duibhne as our Saber and Aífe as our Assassin."
"Aífe?" Tohsaka-san asks, racking her brain for a few moments before asking "Do you mean Scáthach's twin sister? Shouldn't she only qualify for the Rider and Caster classes? What's she doing as an Assassin?"
"Her master had a catalyst to summon her, specifically, and modified the summoning ritual in order to summon her when our Rider and Caster classes were already filled."
"Huh," Tohsaka-san says. "I didn't know you girls knew about catalysts, let alone how you'd get hold of one for a specific servant. Who's Assassin's master, anyway?"
"Caren Ortensia."
"Oh," Tohsaka-san says, before the realisation hits her like the Shinkansen. "Oh! Oh, crap, I bet she did that just to get back at McRemitz for stealing Lancer away from her. Oh, man, you guys cannot let her know that someone else has him as their servant. She would freak if she found out."
"Why is that?"
"Because Cú-" Tohsaka-san stops herself. "No, that's none of my business to tell you. You want to know, you should ask Assassin. That is, assumign you're fine with having your ear chewed off by her. She'll do it, I'm sure she would."
"I'm sure she would, too," you say. "The few times I've interacted with Assassin so far, she's been unpleasant, to put it politely."
Tohsaka-san nods her head, and asks "Is there any other business you need me for? Or can I be directed to Shizuki so I can drop her books off and check on her progress? I am on a ticking clock, you know. I've got to get that done, then I've got to get back here and start fiddling around with this lumpy Grief Seed you've given me, and I've got to get all this done within four days, counting today. Getting Shizuki her books and checking on her progress is the easy part, but I don't know how much time I'll need to look at that Seed, so I'd like to get started sooner rather than later, and-"
Tohsaka-san is speaking in kilometers per minute, so you have to stop her before you've completely lost the opportunity. "There is one other thing I'd like your opinion on," you say. "We've recently come into protective custody of a homunculus, by the name of Hijiri Kanna." The word 'homunculus' is enough to grab Tohsaka-san's attention. "She was created by the enemy faction, but she ran away to warn us about them. She was made to be a replacement for her creator, but they didn't do a very good job fabricating her memories, and she's suffering as a result of not knowing who she really is or which memories are real-"
"So I'll just use some basic hypnosis and set her straight."
"She doesn't want that. She's had enough of people messing with her memories, she says. I was hoping you might have an alternative method of helping her that didn't involve modifying her memories."
"For that kind of help, you'd want the expertise of the Einzbern family," Tohsaka-san says. "Unfortunately, there's only the one Einzbern left since the rest of the family died off; but fortunately-" She looks at Archer, and adds "-This guy over here should be your in with her." Tohsaka-san stands, saying "Well, if that's everything, let's get this show on the road."
Do you
[ ] Take Tohsaka-san to meet with
-[ ] Hitomi
-[ ] Hijiri Kanna
-[ ] the rest of the team
[ ] Go inspect the base construction
[ ] Get the team together for a meeting
[ ] Other (write-in)
"Morning," Tohsaka-san says to you as you open the door for her. "What did I miss?"
"It's one in the afternoon, Rin," you hear Archer call to her. You lead her into the kitchen where Archer is waiting with a pot of coffee. "Want some?" he asks, offering her a cup. Tohsaka-san takes the coffee from Archer, downing the entire thing before she sits down and passes the cup back to Archer. "You look like shit. When did you get in?"
"Well, just the flight from London to Fuyuki took about... Eighteen hours," Tohsaka-san says. "So there's the rest of my Friday and about half of my Saturday gone, right there. Then, as soon as I touch down in Fuyuki I have to hustle to get to the mansion, grab some books for Shizuki, and make it back to the airport in time to catch the next flight to Yokohama. Unfortunately, nobody thought to inform me that the flight to Yokohama wasn't arriving for another six hours!" Tohsaka-san just about tears her hair out as she says that, only stopping when Archer hands her another cup of coffee. "The plane for the Yokohama flight was held up coming in from its previous trip because of some bad weather, and I only found out the flight was delayed when I got to the airport. Stupid frigging airports. Somebody should just invent a branch of magecraft that'll pick you up from one place and drop you off in another, I swear. It'd save so much on travel expenses."
"But once the plane arrived, it was all smooth sailing?"
"No, actually, not. I worked out that it would actually be faster to take the next flight into Tokyo, then catch the Shinkansen from Tokyo into Mitakihara. Cost me a few hundred-thousand more Yen than I'd have liked, but..."You can see the blood vessel that Tohsaka-san just barely didn't pop, were it not for Archer's coffee. "Well, turns out I was wrong there, too. I ended up getting in at ten-thirty at night, so about an hour later than if I had just waited for my original flight to Yokohama. I'm just glad Minako was awake to let me into the upstairs place, otherwise I probably would have just broke a window and gone to sleep on your couch, or something." You're pretty sure Tohsaka-san has gone through the entire pot of coffee by the time she's finished with her story. "How's that treating you, by the way? It's still really weird to think that you've got yourself a wife and two kids now after, well... Everything we went through."
"Girlfriend, actually," Archer says, showing the lack of a wedding band on his finger. "We didn't feel right about marrying until the girls were able to get married first."
Tohsaka-san nods, sighing as she finally sets aside her cup, with no more coffee in the pot to refill it. "All right, let's get down to business. I know you two didn't call me in just to chitchat about how crappy my flight in was, so what do you have for me? Something about a Grief Seed that isn't a Grief Seed, right?"
"That's correct." You set one of the fake Grief Seeds down on the table for Tohsaka-san to examine. "Recently, we've been encountering witches that, well, aren't witches. They're... Well, I'm not sure what you'd call them in your world, but they look like grotesque mixtures of random animal parts all jammed together into a vaguely functioning animal shape."
"I'd have to see for myself, but what you're describing sounds like a chimera."
"A chimera, then," you say. "Anyway, these drop from defeated chimeras, similar to how Grief Seeds drop from defeated witches; but as I'm sure you can see, they... Aren't." Tohsaka-san reaches a hand across the table, grabbing for the fake Grief Seed. "They don't function like Grief Seeds, either. They don't absorb Grief, and even after sitting around for weeks none of them have ever shown an indication that they're going to hatch into a new witch. All Archer was able to figure out is that they're like Grief Seeds, but put together by someone who didn't know what they were doing."
Tohsaka-san ponders the fake Grief Seed for a moment, before asking "So, what else can you tell me about these? It'll take me a few hours of prying before I've got this nut cracked, so what else can you tell me about these in the mean time?"
"On top of us, the neighboring city of Asunaro reportedly also has an infestation problem," you say. "We have reason to believe that the Mitakihara and Asunaro infestations are originating form the same source; the Grief Seed of the witch Walpurgisnacht, which we believe is leeching corruption somewhere underneath the city's southern edge."
Tohsaka-san gives you a look. "You didn't try to take the thing back with you after you defeated it?"
"It was larger than this entire building," you say. "We didn't have the means to bring it back with us, nor did we have a place to store it. We didn't really have a choice but to leave it where it fell, and once it got paved over during the reconstruction there wasn't really anything we could do."
Tohsaka-san rolls her eyes. "Well that was stupid on, like, a cosmic level," she says. "How are they getting from here to... Wherever the heck Asunaro is, anyway?"
"Asunaro is about an hour to the west of us," you say. "We've been pretty good about stopping them whenever they show up, to the point where we're not actually sure how they've been getting into Asunaro undetected. The Incubator is our best guess at the moment, but we don't really have any conclusive proof that it's responsible." Tohsaka-san gives you another look, as though she's saying to you "Well, is there anything else?" "Sorry, that's really all we know about the situation so far."
"Well, I guess I can work with that," Tohsaka-san says. "What about Asunaro? You said they've got an infestation as well; has that come back to bite you girls in the ass, or is that entirely a 'them' problem?"
"No, it's come back to bite us in the ass," Archer says. "Asunaro has a group of rival puella magi who are... Less than pleased at us over the whole 'infestation' thing. They're blaming us for it, and unfortunately, they've got their own team of servants to back their complaints up."
That gets Tohsaka-san's attention. "Really?" she asks. "So, what, is this like some kind of Great Holy Grail War, or something?"
"Actually, I was hoping you'd be able to tell us how it's possible for those girls to have their own set of servants," you say. "I know for a fact-" courtesy of the dream cycle shared by you and Archer, "-that it shouldn't be possible for those girls to have summoned another set of servants. Furthermore, all of our servants were defeated in the battle against Walpurgisnacht, but we were able to resummon them again afterwards. I'm really confused by this whole thing, and I was hoping you'd be able to tell us how any of this is even possible, when as far as I can tell the Grail was destroyed."
Tohsaka-san shrugs. "The best I can give you is that this city has some crazy strong leylines," she says. "Particularly that one big cluster by the park." She turns to Archer, adding "You know the one. It practically glows in the dark. That would be my best guess for where you're all getting the juice to keep summoning servants. So, got any idea who your enemy servants are this time around?"
"So far we know of Sigurd as their Saber, and Ramesses II as their Rider," Archer says. "They also had Atalanta as their Archer, but I took care of her last night. We know their Assassin is a skilled doctor, but we haven't met her yet. We don't know the rest."
Tohsaka-san whistles. "Tough crowd," she says; "And that's just two of them. Now, refresh my memory, who do you have on your side?"
"Well, we've got me-" Archer points to himself. "-as myself; Brynhildr as our Lancer; Achilles as our Rider; Gilgamesh as our Caster; and Lancelot as our Berserker. We've also got a pair of new additions, Diarmuid ua Duibhne as our Saber and Aífe as our Assassin."
"Aífe?" Tohsaka-san asks, racking her brain for a few moments before asking "Do you mean Scáthach's twin sister? Shouldn't she only qualify for the Rider and Caster classes? What's she doing as an Assassin?"
"Her master had a catalyst to summon her, specifically, and modified the summoning ritual in order to summon her when our Rider and Caster classes were already filled."
"Huh," Tohsaka-san says. "I didn't know you girls knew about catalysts, let alone how you'd get hold of one for a specific servant. Who's Assassin's master, anyway?"
"Caren Ortensia."
"Oh," Tohsaka-san says, before the realisation hits her like the Shinkansen. "Oh! Oh, crap, I bet she did that just to get back at McRemitz for stealing Lancer away from her. Oh, man, you guys cannot let her know that someone else has him as their servant. She would freak if she found out."
"Why is that?"
"Because Cú-" Tohsaka-san stops herself. "No, that's none of my business to tell you. You want to know, you should ask Assassin. That is, assumign you're fine with having your ear chewed off by her. She'll do it, I'm sure she would."
"I'm sure she would, too," you say. "The few times I've interacted with Assassin so far, she's been unpleasant, to put it politely."
Tohsaka-san nods her head, and asks "Is there any other business you need me for? Or can I be directed to Shizuki so I can drop her books off and check on her progress? I am on a ticking clock, you know. I've got to get that done, then I've got to get back here and start fiddling around with this lumpy Grief Seed you've given me, and I've got to get all this done within four days, counting today. Getting Shizuki her books and checking on her progress is the easy part, but I don't know how much time I'll need to look at that Seed, so I'd like to get started sooner rather than later, and-"
Tohsaka-san is speaking in kilometers per minute, so you have to stop her before you've completely lost the opportunity. "There is one other thing I'd like your opinion on," you say. "We've recently come into protective custody of a homunculus, by the name of Hijiri Kanna." The word 'homunculus' is enough to grab Tohsaka-san's attention. "She was created by the enemy faction, but she ran away to warn us about them. She was made to be a replacement for her creator, but they didn't do a very good job fabricating her memories, and she's suffering as a result of not knowing who she really is or which memories are real-"
"So I'll just use some basic hypnosis and set her straight."
"She doesn't want that. She's had enough of people messing with her memories, she says. I was hoping you might have an alternative method of helping her that didn't involve modifying her memories."
"For that kind of help, you'd want the expertise of the Einzbern family," Tohsaka-san says. "Unfortunately, there's only the one Einzbern left since the rest of the family died off; but fortunately-" She looks at Archer, and adds "-This guy over here should be your in with her." Tohsaka-san stands, saying "Well, if that's everything, let's get this show on the road."
Do you
[ ] Take Tohsaka-san to meet with
-[ ] Hitomi
-[ ] Hijiri Kanna
-[ ] the rest of the team
[ ] Go inspect the base construction
[ ] Get the team together for a meeting
[ ] Other (write-in)
