- Location
- United States
Yea, Sakura is doing great bruh, she's getting her daily protein injections via Shinji since she hit puberty while your off to the wizard tower, not to mention her scheduled tentacle hentai scene with dear gramps
Fate/Recursive Wisdom (Fate/Stay Night)
- Thread starter James D. Fawkes
- Start date
Yea, Sakura is doing great bruh, she's getting her daily protein injections via Shinji since she hit puberty while your off to the wizard tower, not to mention her scheduled tentacle hentai scene with dear gramps
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
"Okay" is relative. She's not on the verge of a total psychological meltdown. For Sakura, that's "okay."
Chapter 7: Trust Misplaced
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
Chapter 7: Trust Misplaced
If the ten days I'd spent waiting for anything at all to happen had passed in a swift blur of mundanity, then the next two days were somehow an eternity.
My routine continued mostly unabated. I showed up at the door every morning to walk Rin to school, using the opportunity to check up on Sakura in the Archery Club whenever the urge got too pressing to ignore, spent my day making other, less important preparations (and waiting impatiently for the hours to pass), and stopped back by the school to escort Rin back home.
She protested every time, of course. The words "idiot" and "jerk" must have left her lips more times in the two weeks since I'd come home than it had in the last year and a half, but in spite of what she said, she never seriously tried to stop me from following her to school or picking her up on the way from it. The trouble was, she just couldn't be honest with herself and say she enjoyed having me there.
It was one of the things I loved about her. She wasn't loud and proud about her affections, but if you knew her well enough, then they were incredibly obvious and easy to see. I was one of the rare few people who never had to look at that polite, saccharine falsity of a mask she wore for the rest of the world.
After school, I made my daily pilgrimage to the temple on the mountain, and I always carried an umbrella, even though it had yet to rain. There still wasn't any sign of Medea, and I was starting to get tempted to scour the hotel registries for that fop, Atrum. I had to constantly remind myself that he could easily order Medea to kill me if I actually tried to cut out the middleman, as it were.
January the twentieth began the same as all of those other days, except I was waking up in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar mansion in a room that lacked all but the barest of my own furnishings. For a scant few seconds, in the haze of that fuzzy line between dream and reality, I thought I was back in London, negotiating the inheritance Dad left for me.
But everything settled shortly, and I pulled myself out of bed with a groan, shutting off my alarm with an impatient smack.
Like I had every morning since my return to Fuyuki, I trudged down the stairs, still feeling half asleep, and made my way to the kitchen to make myself a quick, easy breakfast. Raspberry jam on toast wasn't exactly the healthiest of meals, and it wasn't particularly Japanese a meal either, but sue me, I liked my sweets.
Somehow, I managed to pull myself together enough to make myself presentable and walk down the street in time to meet up with a Rin who was just barely leaving our ancestral home herself. She let out a long-suffering sigh when she saw me, but other than that token protest, she didn't try to stop me accompanying her.
Mitsuzuri wasn't always there to greet us, but when she was, it wasn't uncommon for me to get dragged into their playfighting, or worse, for the two of them to double team me with teasing, often over my supposed "harem" of supple maidens (ugh) who would reportedly drop their panties and bend over if I just said the word (really? Wasn't that going a bit too far?). Somehow, I thought that was probably Rin's revenge for my insistence on escorting her to and from school, but if I let a little discomfort derail my plans, well, I wouldn't have gotten very far at all.
This morning, she wasn't waiting for us at the front gate, so Rin said her goodbyes and went on to do her own thing while I popped in for a quick moment to check on Sakura. It wasn't like I had expected anything to change in the last week or even the last two days, but I checked on her anyway. To make sure she was still…okay wasn't the right word, not with what she had to put up with, but surviving. Pushing through.
As long as she suffered no more so than usual, I could convince myself to wait and prepare. Matou Zouken's days were numbered. I just wasn't good enough to put him in his well-deserved grave yet.
Somedays, that was the only thing that stopped me from trying.
I couldn't spend all day worrying about my sisters, though. It was all fine to keep an eye on them where and when I could, but there were other things that needed my attention, even if all I could do was impatiently wait for them to become relevant and present instead of concerns for the future.
Like Bazett, who was kind of important to some of my contingency plans for if or when things went off the rails. Keeping track of her was something of a big deal.
When I got back to my temporary home and checked on the cameras in the other mansion, I didn't bother to stop myself from grinning like an absolute loon when I realized the cameras were on because Bazett Fraga McRemitz was in residence and going about her own morning ablutions. And then I actually looked at the feed and made a discovery that I hadn't expected.
"WHOA!"
I slammed my laptop shut and squeezed my eyes closed, my face burning up and my ears on fire. Some part of me waited for the stinging blow of an open hand on my cheek, like the one time I'd walked in on Rin as she was coming out of the shower.
Bazett Fraga McRemitz did not, thankfully for my sanity, sleep in the nude. But "pajamas" for her consisted of "a pair of panties and a t-shirt," something I probably should have considered, since she was Irish as they came. Maybe I'd just gotten too used to Rin and her cotton shirt and pants and her full length nightgown.
On the plus side, at least I had confirmation that Bazett was settling in, perhaps a little too comfortably. Raiga had phoned me to say she was in town yesterday evening, so she must have arrived at the mansion fairly late last night, after I'd gone to sleep.
A sigh gusted out of my mouth and I pinched the bridge of my nose as the heat slowly faded from my cheeks. I sent my laptop a wary, considering glance, but I didn't need to know Bazett's every move, so I left it alone. I'd check in again later on, I decided, after dinner. The next thing I needed to know was when she did her summoning, so I could be there in the aftermath to set up one of my contingencies.
If I was a betting man, I'd have said she was going to spend the rest of the day prepping for the ritual and save doing it for tonight. I knew Rin intended to wait for her 2 AM "peak" before she started, just so that she could be at her absolute best when she tried for her Servant. I didn't know Bazett's, nor even if she was meticulous enough to be that thorough.
Accidental voyeurism aside… This was it. Today was the day. I'd spent ten years preparing myself for what I knew was coming, and now, now, it was finally happening for real. This wasn't a nightmare, this wasn't one of my dreams, this was real life, and the Fifth Holy Grail War had finally arrived at my metaphorical doorstep.
It wouldn't be accurate to say I spent the rest of the day on cloud nine, floating through the remaining hours. That would imply I was feeling something more like happiness when a better word might have been eagerness. Impatience. Even excitement had maybe too much of a positive connotation for it, although anxiety probably went too far in the opposite direction.
I didn't have better words for it, whatever it was. I just knew that something I had been waiting for a very long time for had come at last, and I couldn't wait to meet it.
My strange mood didn't go unnoticed. In hindsight, I was sure it must have earned me a few unusual looks both on my way through town and at the school when I went to pick up Rin, but no one commented on it and I didn't notice any strange looks shot my way at the time. Naturally, instead, it was Rin herself who actually spoke her mind and said something about it during dinner.
"You're in an unusually good mood," she said between bites.
I blinked at her from across the table, fork stuck between my lips and the burst of citrus still on my tongue from where I'd bitten into my food. It was my turn to cook tonight, and I'd chosen one of my favorite dishes, a lemon-basted chicken recipe, a kind of Chicken Romano derivative that I'd adapted from an old favorite I had absolutely loved a lifetime ago.
Quite literally, in this case. My, but reincarnation gave that sort of thing a whole new meaning, didn't it?
Chewing gave me a few seconds to think up a response. I could have been honest and told her a half-truth, and by the end of it, I probably would have. My relationship with Rin, however, just wasn't that simple, was it?
"Am I not usually in a good mood?" I asked with a mild smile.
She leaned her head on one hand and jabbed the tines of her fork in my direction.
"You were humming while you cooked," she told me flatly. "The last time you did that was when the school let you graduate early."
I hummed.
"Was I? I hadn't noticed."
Rin stared at me, unblinking, and without looking, she speared another piece of her chicken, wound some noodles around it, and shoved the whole bunch into her mouth, chewing slowly and deliberately. After she had swallowed, she closed her eyes briefly, let out a long sigh, and asked, "Alright, who was she?"
Unbidden, my mind supplied an image of the scantily clad Bazett I'd glimpsed earlier. I schooled my face to keep any hint of my thoughts locked away.
"She?"
"The floozy you were with," Rin said, unamused. "Who was it this time?"
I recoiled incredulously. "Floozy?"
"Don't think I don't know," said Rin, pointing at me with her fork again. "Every so often, you'll go off for the day and come back looking like that. I've seen that sort of look enough times on the guys in my class when they get lucky to know what you spend those days doing. So who was she? Please tell me it's just some side dish you're having a fling with and not a professional."
…Oh man, she was walking right into this one, wasn't she?
A long, exaggerated sigh came out of my mouth. "Okay, you've found me out," I said. "I confess, there is a special girl I'm seeing."
Rin snorted, pinning me with narrowed eyes and a venomous scowl. "I knew it."
"I can't help myself," I went on, shaking my head. "She's just so beautiful. And feisty, yes, that's the best part. I can't help falling in love with a woman who can kick my ass."
Rin's face twisted into a complicated expression and she pinched the bridge of her nose. "Oh god, please don't tell me you and Ayako have actually been going behind my back and keeping it a secret. She'll never let me live it down."
"Of course not," I said, and Rin let out a sigh of relief. "No, no, this girl is incredibly special. I can't help having to see her as often as I can, and having to be away for six months was absolute torture."
Rin's brow furrowed. "She's a local?"
"Born and raised in Fuyuki," I confirmed, desperately smothering my grin. "The fairest in the city, in fact. She has the most wonderful long, dark hair with just a bit of curl at the ends, not a blemish anywhere on her body, and my absolute favorite feature is her bright, brilliant blue eyes."
The understanding that slowly dawned on her face was almost as delicious as the vibrant red blush that crept across her cheeks, and at last, I broke down and laughed. Rin hid behind her hands, pressing her face into her palms.
"Yukio, you jerk!"
Once I'd managed to get my laughter under control, I asked her, "Is it really that strange for me to be in a good mood?"
She peeked out at me from between her fingers. "Maybe not, but you're definitely in a better mood than usual."
"I got some really good news today," I admitted, shrugging.
"And all the other times?" she probed, slowly coming out from behind her hands.
"Do you think our investments magically flourish?" I retorted wryly. "Maybe that getting myself emancipated at nine years old was as easy as telling a judge to make it so? Those other times, I was talking to either my financial advisor or my lawyer. You don't think I was making the beast with two backs with them as a twelve-year-old, do you?"
The tips of her ears were so bright a red they almost glowed.
"W-well, I guess maybe that's a little unreasonable," she muttered. "B-but there are some very strange women out there…"
My mouth twitched. "My, but that's a lovely glass house you have. Are you sure you should be throwing stones inside it?"
This time, Rin's brow twitched. "Just what exactly are you insinuating there, Yukio?" she asked with a plastic smile.
"Are you trying to tell me magi are in any way normal?"
She let out a sharp breath through her nostrils.
"No, I guess not," she admitted. "You don't have to be so vulgar about it, though."
I rolled my eyes. "This from the girl who thought I was sleeping around with prostitutes."
Her cheeks burned red again, and rather than spit back whatever retort might have been on her tongue, she retreated and turned back to her dinner, pointedly refusing to look at me. So did I a moment later.
When we were done eating, I stayed only long enough to help clean up (and pack up some leftovers for myself, because even if she enjoyed it for what it was, this was my favorite meal, not hers, and she refused to hold onto more than a single extra serving), and once that was handled, I made my way back up the street to the mansion I was housesitting at for the duration of the War. There still wasn't any sign of rain in the sky, and I'd made my daily pilgrimage up to the Temple earlier than usual.
Once I had my leftovers safely tucked away, I sat down in the parlor and pulled out my laptop to check on Bazett. I fully expected to find her in the dining room by herself, finishing off her own meal alone.
I most certainly didn't expect to find her chatting amiably with Kotomine Kirei.
I almost jolted right out of my seat, I panicked so hard, but on a second look, they hadn't made their way down to the basement yet, so I still had time to get there before things went down. Instead, they were…catching up?
It felt incongruous with everything I knew about Kirei. The man was a monster. No matter what, there was no way I could forget the look on my father's face as Kirei murdered him in cold blood, and I'd had my own fair share of nightmares about the orphans wasting away in the basement of his church. He was oily and slimy and even Rin, who had no idea of what he'd done to our family, let alone a bunch of innocent kids, knew better than to turn her back to him. Ever.
And yet, before my eyes, a smiling Bazett was sharing a cup of…either tea or coffee, I couldn't tell which, with the man who was, for me, the Devil in the flesh. She was talking with him like he was an old friend, and Kirei was actually smiling, as well. Smiling and talking with her so casually.
How could she not see the insidiousness behind that smile? How could she not tell that he had something nefarious planned, that he was eyeing her so callously as he plotted his moment of betrayal?
If only she knew better… But even if I'd tried to warn her, what reason did she have to believe a random kid — one connected quite dearly to the Second Owner, who was guaranteed a slot in the Grail War — over the comrade who had fought beside her against some of the worst the Moonlit World had to offer?
None. Worse, it would only make her more suspicious of me, and it might even clue Kirei in, because there was no way she wouldn't bring an accusation like that right to him the instant I made it. There was no point in even making the effort.
I stood up suddenly and shut my laptop, then set about getting ready to leave. My laptop was stuffed into its shoulder bag, and a minute or two later, I was out the door and headed for Shinto. There was no telling how much time I had before they moved to do the summoning for Lancer, and it was going to take me something like two hours to get all the way there.
There was a 24-7 internet cafe two blocks from the edge of the city. In lieu of a better place closer to the ghost house, it would have to do.
I was in such a rush that I almost forgot that I could even call a taxi service, which would have been unfortunate because it wound up shaving at least an hour off of my travel time. He got me far enough to put the internet cafe in walking distance, and I only barely remembered to offer the clerk a quick, polite greeting as I nearly ran to find a seat.
The only reason this place even existed was probably because Shinto was trying to modernize itself as much as possible.
By the time I got settled in and had my laptop opened back up, it was approaching nine o'clock, and the sun had long since set. Kirei and Bazett had apparently spent the entire time still talking, because I'd gotten everything booted back up just in time to watch them set their mugs down and stand up to leave the living room. Bazett went upstairs to grab something, but Kirei made his way directly down to the basement to wait for her.
For just an instant, as he walked in, he looked around and his eyes seemed to find the camera. My heart stopped, waiting for a smirk, a raised eyebrow, any sign at all that he knew I was watching — but his gaze passed over it and he continued his casual inspection, completely oblivious to my surveillance.
Bazett joined him a few minutes later and offered a carefree grin to her friend and comrade. He stepped back out of the way, and she stepped forward, making a few last second adjustments, and showing her back to him without the slightest worry. When everything was to her liking, she took off the pair of earrings she was wearing and set them in pride of place in the formulcraft array.
Her catalyst. They must have had some sort of connection to Cúchulainn if she was that confident they would do the job.
With everything else ready, she threw out her hands and started chanting the incantation. I wished the cameras had audio just then so that I could have an even better idea of what was going on — although having to listen to her be all chummy with Kirei earlier might have turned my stomach — but they didn't, so I was stuck watching impotently.
The circle started to glow as she kept chanting. She must have been, at least, because the angle of the camera only showed me her back, so I had to assume. Light flooded the room, casting everything in an eerie glow. An unseen wind picked up, tugging at her clothes and hair.
And through it all, Kirei stood behind her, watching stoically, with his hands clasped together at the small of his back.
The light grew brighter and brighter. The wind grew faster. Bazett's stance remained the same as she held out one arm towards the circle, and the light spilled out over her splayed fingers.
I almost missed the moment a stark, red pattern etched itself over the back of her hand.
The light flared, so bright it nearly blinded the camera, and the wind burst, sending everything aflutter. At the center of the storm, a figure in blue with a long, red spear took shape like a shadow cast against the wall.
And at that moment, while everything was in flux and nothing had settled, Kirei struck. With a blow like lightning, one of Black Keys cut through the air — and then through the flesh of Bazett's arm, just above the elbow joint.
I was glad, just then, that I didn't have audio, because her startled scream would have jolted me into action, and I would have rushed to her aid too soon, with Kirei and Lancer still there. I would have died.
Instead, having to sit and watch it silently as she fell to the floor and slowly lost consciousness gave me enough of a grip to weather it and wait. I'd known from the beginning that this was going to happen, and I'd known from the beginning that nothing I did would be able to change it. Of all the things my scattered memories of the events to come had covered, this was one of the ones that was set in stone. Predetermined.
Fated.
It only gave me an even deeper appreciation for just how much of a monster Kirei was as he callously picked up Bazett's severed arm and ripped the Command Spells out of her hand without even blinking. I saw Lancer's mouth move as he started to get an inkling of what had happened, saw his face twist with fury, but before he could do anything, Kirei tossed aside Bazett's arm and lifted his own, glowing red with his own Command Spells and hers.
The leftovers from the previous Wars. One of the cheats he had access to that would make him a challenge, no matter what. Teaching myself and honing my body to compete with that had always been a part of the goal, and apparently it had always been a fool's dream, because I couldn't even beat Fujimura-sensei.
Kirei's first Command Spell hit Lancer like a physical blow, and grudgingly, he submitted, furious the whole time. Another order must have been given, because a moment later, Lancer vanished into spirit form and disappeared from view. I had to assume he'd been ordered back to the church, because where else would Kirei send him?
And once Lancer was gone, Kirei spared Bazett a single, contemptuous glance, and then left her to bleed out on the basement floor.
Waiting was torture. But no matter how much I hated it, Kirei was an opponent I absolutely had to take seriously, because I absolutely couldn't face him, right now. Instead, I had to sit and wait for him to stroll up the stairs, through the living room, and out the front door. I had to wait for the camera hidden by the doorbell to turn on, watch him walk away, and then turn back off.
But the instant I was sure he was gone, I slammed my laptop shut, shoved it unceremoniously into my bag, and tore out of the internet cafe like the Devil himself was on my heels. I ran for all I was worth, sprinting through the streets and out into the outskirts at the edge of the city, and I didn't stop, not even to catch my breath, until the ghost house came into view.
There was no way of knowing how much time I had. Bazett would die without my intervention, that much was obvious, but magi had ways of surviving some incredibly deadly stuff. A magus with an old and powerful enough Magic Crest could hover on death's door for hours before finally succumbing.
The front door almost flew open as my hand landed on the knob. Kirei cared so little that he hadn't even bothered to lock it on his way out. I paid it no mind except for how convenient it was as I raced through the house and towards the basement as quickly as my legs would carry me.
I found her exactly where she'd been left.
Knowing it was going to happen hadn't prepared me for seeing it happen. Seeing it happen through the lens of a camera hadn't prepared me for seeing it with my own eyes. My stomach churned at the sight.
God, there was so much blood.
My bag was all but thrown to the side as I rushed over to her and dropped to my knees next to her. I turned her over as gently as I could, pressing my fingers against her carotid to check for a pulse — it was there, but thready and weak. When I held my palm over her mouth, her breath was hot against my skin. I wasn't too late, then. I could still save her.
I pulled off her tie and looped it just above the stump of her arm, then yanked it tight enough to stem the flow of blood. Then, carefully, I hooked one arm under her knees and one arm under her shoulders, lifted her up, and carried her over to the clearest, cleanest spot I could find. Almost against my will, my eyes found her face, pale and white and splattered with red blood, and I had the stray thought that she really was very pretty, mole beneath her eye and all.
I tried not to think about the legs those fitted pants of hers were hiding and how sexy they were, especially since my fingers were currently curled around one steely thigh. I had much more important things to focus on, like reattaching her goddamn arm.
Her skin was cold and clammy as I set her down. She was going into shock.
There wasn't any time to feel gross about it as I went over to grab her severed arm and rolled the sleeve down to show the wound. A sense of surreality permeated the entire situation as I rolled up the sleeve on the part of her arm still attached to her body and went about lining up the wounds so that the muscles, bone, and tendons all matched.
It was almost like I was hovering over my own body, watching myself reconnect the severed tissues with magecraft I had only ever practiced on cadavers, because real, live people — even magi — weren't exactly keen on having their limbs severed "for learning purposes." The closest I'd ever gotten with living tissue was closing a few deep cuts by stitching the edges back together.
I wasn't sure how long I spent patching her back up. Even with her arm back in its proper place, and that was already a not insignificant challenge to get right, there were still other issues I needed to deal with. For one, she lost a lot of blood, and stimulating the production of more blood cells and blood plasma was always a tricky business, because it introduced the risk of clotting. Without knowing her blood type, transfusions would be tricky.
The safer thing would be keeping her in a medical coma for the time being, so that was what I did.
Once she was at least stabilized enough that she wasn't going to give up the ghost at any moment, I got her out of the basement and up the stairs, and only as I was reaching for my phone with one blood-stained hand did I realize another problem I had to deal with. Namely, both she and I were absolutely soaked, and anyone who saw us would have a very good reason to think I was carting around the body of my murder victim.
That was just what I needed: the police slapping me in cuffs and taking me off for interrogation while they rushed her to the hospital. There was no way Kirei wouldn't find out about the whole thing in a matter of hours.
Fortunately, I was well used to the manipulation of blood and other fluids, because of my dual wind and water alignments. Unfortunately, even if I used magecraft to pull the blood out of our clothes, that didn't do anything about the conspicuously missing sleeve on her left arm. Equally as unfortunate, it didn't leave me with much in the way of options.
There was nothing else for it, so I carried her up another set of stairs — let me tell you, a hundred-thirty pounds of dead weight in the shape of a woman wasn't the easiest thing to lift — and into the closest bathroom I could find. I set her down in the tub, and then went about the painstaking process of pulling the blood out of our clothing.
It was actually easier than it sounded, but that didn't make it less of a pain in the ass.
I left her there only long enough to go to her room and find her another set of clothes, and apparently, she came prepared, because there were another three suits identical to her current one packed away in her luggage. Maybe she just really liked fitted suits. Who was I to judge?
Getting her undressed was a bit of a struggle, and in just about any other circumstance, having an attractive, half-naked woman in my arms would have been a thrill. It was undercut by her cool skin, her white pallor, and the inflamed ring that circled the bicep of her left arm. No matter what I did, that would inevitably scar.
"Sorry about this," I muttered to her as I stripped off her old suit.
It was a bit of a shame it was ruined, because it was actually a really nice suit. Not so nice that I would've been afraid to wear it anywhere for fear of the slightest tear or stain, but nice enough that she could have easily been mistaken for the CEO of a major corporation.
Her underwear felt like a step too far, so I left it on and just got her into her new suit, which was twice as hard as getting her out of the old one had been.
Once she was dressed again, I wrapped her up in a blanket from the bedroom and packed away whatever of her necessities I found. Fortunately, she hadn't really settled in yet, so most of her stuff was still in her suitcases and the few things that weren't were either easily put back in or left be (because I wasn't touching her unwashed underwear unless and until it became an unavoidable hazard).
A quick call summoned another taxi, and that was when I discovered it was just past midnight.
As I waited, I took a seat in the armchair opposite the couch I'd laid Bazett on and just let myself unwind a little.
"What a long day," I told the air.
I was ready for it to be over.
Twenty minutes later, the taxi arrived, and my moment of relaxation ended, so I leveraged myself out of my chair.
The taxi driver gave me a strange look when I walked out the front door carrying a woman in a suit, so when I got her situated in the back seat, I offered him a smile and quietly told him, "Jetlagged pretty badly, the poor dear."
A finger held up to my lips in the universal bid for silence sold the whole thing, and he accepted it without comment.
It might not even have been necessary. The Japanese people were very much of the "mind your own business" mindset, so he probably wouldn't have commented on it anyway.
Once I packed her luggage into the back seat with her, I climbed in and gave my new address to the driver. In the dark, so late at night, the traffic was thin, so an extra fifteen minutes or so were cut off our transit time, and he pulled up outside my mansion shortly after one in the morning. I wasn't sure I hadn't dozed off during the trip.
Somehow, Bazett wound up bundled up in a bed in one of the spare bedrooms. She was still pale when I left her, but she wasn't as cold and her lips weren't blue, and most importantly of all, her heart rate had settled into something much less alarming and much healthier. Her luggage wound up dropped on the floor unceremoniously, because I was just done.
Half-asleep, I stumbled into my new room and collapsed face first onto my bed, too tired to even bother undressing. It felt like seconds before I was drifting off to a well-deserved rest.
The next morning, dark clouds hung overhead, rumbling with distant thunder, and a biblical torrent of rain poured down the entire day.
If the ten days I'd spent waiting for anything at all to happen had passed in a swift blur of mundanity, then the next two days were somehow an eternity.
My routine continued mostly unabated. I showed up at the door every morning to walk Rin to school, using the opportunity to check up on Sakura in the Archery Club whenever the urge got too pressing to ignore, spent my day making other, less important preparations (and waiting impatiently for the hours to pass), and stopped back by the school to escort Rin back home.
She protested every time, of course. The words "idiot" and "jerk" must have left her lips more times in the two weeks since I'd come home than it had in the last year and a half, but in spite of what she said, she never seriously tried to stop me from following her to school or picking her up on the way from it. The trouble was, she just couldn't be honest with herself and say she enjoyed having me there.
It was one of the things I loved about her. She wasn't loud and proud about her affections, but if you knew her well enough, then they were incredibly obvious and easy to see. I was one of the rare few people who never had to look at that polite, saccharine falsity of a mask she wore for the rest of the world.
After school, I made my daily pilgrimage to the temple on the mountain, and I always carried an umbrella, even though it had yet to rain. There still wasn't any sign of Medea, and I was starting to get tempted to scour the hotel registries for that fop, Atrum. I had to constantly remind myself that he could easily order Medea to kill me if I actually tried to cut out the middleman, as it were.
January the twentieth began the same as all of those other days, except I was waking up in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar mansion in a room that lacked all but the barest of my own furnishings. For a scant few seconds, in the haze of that fuzzy line between dream and reality, I thought I was back in London, negotiating the inheritance Dad left for me.
But everything settled shortly, and I pulled myself out of bed with a groan, shutting off my alarm with an impatient smack.
Like I had every morning since my return to Fuyuki, I trudged down the stairs, still feeling half asleep, and made my way to the kitchen to make myself a quick, easy breakfast. Raspberry jam on toast wasn't exactly the healthiest of meals, and it wasn't particularly Japanese a meal either, but sue me, I liked my sweets.
Somehow, I managed to pull myself together enough to make myself presentable and walk down the street in time to meet up with a Rin who was just barely leaving our ancestral home herself. She let out a long-suffering sigh when she saw me, but other than that token protest, she didn't try to stop me accompanying her.
Mitsuzuri wasn't always there to greet us, but when she was, it wasn't uncommon for me to get dragged into their playfighting, or worse, for the two of them to double team me with teasing, often over my supposed "harem" of supple maidens (ugh) who would reportedly drop their panties and bend over if I just said the word (really? Wasn't that going a bit too far?). Somehow, I thought that was probably Rin's revenge for my insistence on escorting her to and from school, but if I let a little discomfort derail my plans, well, I wouldn't have gotten very far at all.
This morning, she wasn't waiting for us at the front gate, so Rin said her goodbyes and went on to do her own thing while I popped in for a quick moment to check on Sakura. It wasn't like I had expected anything to change in the last week or even the last two days, but I checked on her anyway. To make sure she was still…okay wasn't the right word, not with what she had to put up with, but surviving. Pushing through.
As long as she suffered no more so than usual, I could convince myself to wait and prepare. Matou Zouken's days were numbered. I just wasn't good enough to put him in his well-deserved grave yet.
Somedays, that was the only thing that stopped me from trying.
I couldn't spend all day worrying about my sisters, though. It was all fine to keep an eye on them where and when I could, but there were other things that needed my attention, even if all I could do was impatiently wait for them to become relevant and present instead of concerns for the future.
Like Bazett, who was kind of important to some of my contingency plans for if or when things went off the rails. Keeping track of her was something of a big deal.
When I got back to my temporary home and checked on the cameras in the other mansion, I didn't bother to stop myself from grinning like an absolute loon when I realized the cameras were on because Bazett Fraga McRemitz was in residence and going about her own morning ablutions. And then I actually looked at the feed and made a discovery that I hadn't expected.
"WHOA!"
I slammed my laptop shut and squeezed my eyes closed, my face burning up and my ears on fire. Some part of me waited for the stinging blow of an open hand on my cheek, like the one time I'd walked in on Rin as she was coming out of the shower.
Bazett Fraga McRemitz did not, thankfully for my sanity, sleep in the nude. But "pajamas" for her consisted of "a pair of panties and a t-shirt," something I probably should have considered, since she was Irish as they came. Maybe I'd just gotten too used to Rin and her cotton shirt and pants and her full length nightgown.
On the plus side, at least I had confirmation that Bazett was settling in, perhaps a little too comfortably. Raiga had phoned me to say she was in town yesterday evening, so she must have arrived at the mansion fairly late last night, after I'd gone to sleep.
A sigh gusted out of my mouth and I pinched the bridge of my nose as the heat slowly faded from my cheeks. I sent my laptop a wary, considering glance, but I didn't need to know Bazett's every move, so I left it alone. I'd check in again later on, I decided, after dinner. The next thing I needed to know was when she did her summoning, so I could be there in the aftermath to set up one of my contingencies.
If I was a betting man, I'd have said she was going to spend the rest of the day prepping for the ritual and save doing it for tonight. I knew Rin intended to wait for her 2 AM "peak" before she started, just so that she could be at her absolute best when she tried for her Servant. I didn't know Bazett's, nor even if she was meticulous enough to be that thorough.
Accidental voyeurism aside… This was it. Today was the day. I'd spent ten years preparing myself for what I knew was coming, and now, now, it was finally happening for real. This wasn't a nightmare, this wasn't one of my dreams, this was real life, and the Fifth Holy Grail War had finally arrived at my metaphorical doorstep.
It wouldn't be accurate to say I spent the rest of the day on cloud nine, floating through the remaining hours. That would imply I was feeling something more like happiness when a better word might have been eagerness. Impatience. Even excitement had maybe too much of a positive connotation for it, although anxiety probably went too far in the opposite direction.
I didn't have better words for it, whatever it was. I just knew that something I had been waiting for a very long time for had come at last, and I couldn't wait to meet it.
My strange mood didn't go unnoticed. In hindsight, I was sure it must have earned me a few unusual looks both on my way through town and at the school when I went to pick up Rin, but no one commented on it and I didn't notice any strange looks shot my way at the time. Naturally, instead, it was Rin herself who actually spoke her mind and said something about it during dinner.
"You're in an unusually good mood," she said between bites.
I blinked at her from across the table, fork stuck between my lips and the burst of citrus still on my tongue from where I'd bitten into my food. It was my turn to cook tonight, and I'd chosen one of my favorite dishes, a lemon-basted chicken recipe, a kind of Chicken Romano derivative that I'd adapted from an old favorite I had absolutely loved a lifetime ago.
Quite literally, in this case. My, but reincarnation gave that sort of thing a whole new meaning, didn't it?
Chewing gave me a few seconds to think up a response. I could have been honest and told her a half-truth, and by the end of it, I probably would have. My relationship with Rin, however, just wasn't that simple, was it?
"Am I not usually in a good mood?" I asked with a mild smile.
She leaned her head on one hand and jabbed the tines of her fork in my direction.
"You were humming while you cooked," she told me flatly. "The last time you did that was when the school let you graduate early."
I hummed.
"Was I? I hadn't noticed."
Rin stared at me, unblinking, and without looking, she speared another piece of her chicken, wound some noodles around it, and shoved the whole bunch into her mouth, chewing slowly and deliberately. After she had swallowed, she closed her eyes briefly, let out a long sigh, and asked, "Alright, who was she?"
Unbidden, my mind supplied an image of the scantily clad Bazett I'd glimpsed earlier. I schooled my face to keep any hint of my thoughts locked away.
"She?"
"The floozy you were with," Rin said, unamused. "Who was it this time?"
I recoiled incredulously. "Floozy?"
"Don't think I don't know," said Rin, pointing at me with her fork again. "Every so often, you'll go off for the day and come back looking like that. I've seen that sort of look enough times on the guys in my class when they get lucky to know what you spend those days doing. So who was she? Please tell me it's just some side dish you're having a fling with and not a professional."
…Oh man, she was walking right into this one, wasn't she?
A long, exaggerated sigh came out of my mouth. "Okay, you've found me out," I said. "I confess, there is a special girl I'm seeing."
Rin snorted, pinning me with narrowed eyes and a venomous scowl. "I knew it."
"I can't help myself," I went on, shaking my head. "She's just so beautiful. And feisty, yes, that's the best part. I can't help falling in love with a woman who can kick my ass."
Rin's face twisted into a complicated expression and she pinched the bridge of her nose. "Oh god, please don't tell me you and Ayako have actually been going behind my back and keeping it a secret. She'll never let me live it down."
"Of course not," I said, and Rin let out a sigh of relief. "No, no, this girl is incredibly special. I can't help having to see her as often as I can, and having to be away for six months was absolute torture."
Rin's brow furrowed. "She's a local?"
"Born and raised in Fuyuki," I confirmed, desperately smothering my grin. "The fairest in the city, in fact. She has the most wonderful long, dark hair with just a bit of curl at the ends, not a blemish anywhere on her body, and my absolute favorite feature is her bright, brilliant blue eyes."
The understanding that slowly dawned on her face was almost as delicious as the vibrant red blush that crept across her cheeks, and at last, I broke down and laughed. Rin hid behind her hands, pressing her face into her palms.
"Yukio, you jerk!"
Once I'd managed to get my laughter under control, I asked her, "Is it really that strange for me to be in a good mood?"
She peeked out at me from between her fingers. "Maybe not, but you're definitely in a better mood than usual."
"I got some really good news today," I admitted, shrugging.
"And all the other times?" she probed, slowly coming out from behind her hands.
"Do you think our investments magically flourish?" I retorted wryly. "Maybe that getting myself emancipated at nine years old was as easy as telling a judge to make it so? Those other times, I was talking to either my financial advisor or my lawyer. You don't think I was making the beast with two backs with them as a twelve-year-old, do you?"
The tips of her ears were so bright a red they almost glowed.
"W-well, I guess maybe that's a little unreasonable," she muttered. "B-but there are some very strange women out there…"
My mouth twitched. "My, but that's a lovely glass house you have. Are you sure you should be throwing stones inside it?"
This time, Rin's brow twitched. "Just what exactly are you insinuating there, Yukio?" she asked with a plastic smile.
"Are you trying to tell me magi are in any way normal?"
She let out a sharp breath through her nostrils.
"No, I guess not," she admitted. "You don't have to be so vulgar about it, though."
I rolled my eyes. "This from the girl who thought I was sleeping around with prostitutes."
Her cheeks burned red again, and rather than spit back whatever retort might have been on her tongue, she retreated and turned back to her dinner, pointedly refusing to look at me. So did I a moment later.
When we were done eating, I stayed only long enough to help clean up (and pack up some leftovers for myself, because even if she enjoyed it for what it was, this was my favorite meal, not hers, and she refused to hold onto more than a single extra serving), and once that was handled, I made my way back up the street to the mansion I was housesitting at for the duration of the War. There still wasn't any sign of rain in the sky, and I'd made my daily pilgrimage up to the Temple earlier than usual.
Once I had my leftovers safely tucked away, I sat down in the parlor and pulled out my laptop to check on Bazett. I fully expected to find her in the dining room by herself, finishing off her own meal alone.
I most certainly didn't expect to find her chatting amiably with Kotomine Kirei.
I almost jolted right out of my seat, I panicked so hard, but on a second look, they hadn't made their way down to the basement yet, so I still had time to get there before things went down. Instead, they were…catching up?
It felt incongruous with everything I knew about Kirei. The man was a monster. No matter what, there was no way I could forget the look on my father's face as Kirei murdered him in cold blood, and I'd had my own fair share of nightmares about the orphans wasting away in the basement of his church. He was oily and slimy and even Rin, who had no idea of what he'd done to our family, let alone a bunch of innocent kids, knew better than to turn her back to him. Ever.
And yet, before my eyes, a smiling Bazett was sharing a cup of…either tea or coffee, I couldn't tell which, with the man who was, for me, the Devil in the flesh. She was talking with him like he was an old friend, and Kirei was actually smiling, as well. Smiling and talking with her so casually.
How could she not see the insidiousness behind that smile? How could she not tell that he had something nefarious planned, that he was eyeing her so callously as he plotted his moment of betrayal?
If only she knew better… But even if I'd tried to warn her, what reason did she have to believe a random kid — one connected quite dearly to the Second Owner, who was guaranteed a slot in the Grail War — over the comrade who had fought beside her against some of the worst the Moonlit World had to offer?
None. Worse, it would only make her more suspicious of me, and it might even clue Kirei in, because there was no way she wouldn't bring an accusation like that right to him the instant I made it. There was no point in even making the effort.
I stood up suddenly and shut my laptop, then set about getting ready to leave. My laptop was stuffed into its shoulder bag, and a minute or two later, I was out the door and headed for Shinto. There was no telling how much time I had before they moved to do the summoning for Lancer, and it was going to take me something like two hours to get all the way there.
There was a 24-7 internet cafe two blocks from the edge of the city. In lieu of a better place closer to the ghost house, it would have to do.
I was in such a rush that I almost forgot that I could even call a taxi service, which would have been unfortunate because it wound up shaving at least an hour off of my travel time. He got me far enough to put the internet cafe in walking distance, and I only barely remembered to offer the clerk a quick, polite greeting as I nearly ran to find a seat.
The only reason this place even existed was probably because Shinto was trying to modernize itself as much as possible.
By the time I got settled in and had my laptop opened back up, it was approaching nine o'clock, and the sun had long since set. Kirei and Bazett had apparently spent the entire time still talking, because I'd gotten everything booted back up just in time to watch them set their mugs down and stand up to leave the living room. Bazett went upstairs to grab something, but Kirei made his way directly down to the basement to wait for her.
For just an instant, as he walked in, he looked around and his eyes seemed to find the camera. My heart stopped, waiting for a smirk, a raised eyebrow, any sign at all that he knew I was watching — but his gaze passed over it and he continued his casual inspection, completely oblivious to my surveillance.
Bazett joined him a few minutes later and offered a carefree grin to her friend and comrade. He stepped back out of the way, and she stepped forward, making a few last second adjustments, and showing her back to him without the slightest worry. When everything was to her liking, she took off the pair of earrings she was wearing and set them in pride of place in the formulcraft array.
Her catalyst. They must have had some sort of connection to Cúchulainn if she was that confident they would do the job.
With everything else ready, she threw out her hands and started chanting the incantation. I wished the cameras had audio just then so that I could have an even better idea of what was going on — although having to listen to her be all chummy with Kirei earlier might have turned my stomach — but they didn't, so I was stuck watching impotently.
The circle started to glow as she kept chanting. She must have been, at least, because the angle of the camera only showed me her back, so I had to assume. Light flooded the room, casting everything in an eerie glow. An unseen wind picked up, tugging at her clothes and hair.
And through it all, Kirei stood behind her, watching stoically, with his hands clasped together at the small of his back.
The light grew brighter and brighter. The wind grew faster. Bazett's stance remained the same as she held out one arm towards the circle, and the light spilled out over her splayed fingers.
I almost missed the moment a stark, red pattern etched itself over the back of her hand.
The light flared, so bright it nearly blinded the camera, and the wind burst, sending everything aflutter. At the center of the storm, a figure in blue with a long, red spear took shape like a shadow cast against the wall.
And at that moment, while everything was in flux and nothing had settled, Kirei struck. With a blow like lightning, one of Black Keys cut through the air — and then through the flesh of Bazett's arm, just above the elbow joint.
I was glad, just then, that I didn't have audio, because her startled scream would have jolted me into action, and I would have rushed to her aid too soon, with Kirei and Lancer still there. I would have died.
Instead, having to sit and watch it silently as she fell to the floor and slowly lost consciousness gave me enough of a grip to weather it and wait. I'd known from the beginning that this was going to happen, and I'd known from the beginning that nothing I did would be able to change it. Of all the things my scattered memories of the events to come had covered, this was one of the ones that was set in stone. Predetermined.
Fated.
It only gave me an even deeper appreciation for just how much of a monster Kirei was as he callously picked up Bazett's severed arm and ripped the Command Spells out of her hand without even blinking. I saw Lancer's mouth move as he started to get an inkling of what had happened, saw his face twist with fury, but before he could do anything, Kirei tossed aside Bazett's arm and lifted his own, glowing red with his own Command Spells and hers.
The leftovers from the previous Wars. One of the cheats he had access to that would make him a challenge, no matter what. Teaching myself and honing my body to compete with that had always been a part of the goal, and apparently it had always been a fool's dream, because I couldn't even beat Fujimura-sensei.
Kirei's first Command Spell hit Lancer like a physical blow, and grudgingly, he submitted, furious the whole time. Another order must have been given, because a moment later, Lancer vanished into spirit form and disappeared from view. I had to assume he'd been ordered back to the church, because where else would Kirei send him?
And once Lancer was gone, Kirei spared Bazett a single, contemptuous glance, and then left her to bleed out on the basement floor.
Waiting was torture. But no matter how much I hated it, Kirei was an opponent I absolutely had to take seriously, because I absolutely couldn't face him, right now. Instead, I had to sit and wait for him to stroll up the stairs, through the living room, and out the front door. I had to wait for the camera hidden by the doorbell to turn on, watch him walk away, and then turn back off.
But the instant I was sure he was gone, I slammed my laptop shut, shoved it unceremoniously into my bag, and tore out of the internet cafe like the Devil himself was on my heels. I ran for all I was worth, sprinting through the streets and out into the outskirts at the edge of the city, and I didn't stop, not even to catch my breath, until the ghost house came into view.
There was no way of knowing how much time I had. Bazett would die without my intervention, that much was obvious, but magi had ways of surviving some incredibly deadly stuff. A magus with an old and powerful enough Magic Crest could hover on death's door for hours before finally succumbing.
The front door almost flew open as my hand landed on the knob. Kirei cared so little that he hadn't even bothered to lock it on his way out. I paid it no mind except for how convenient it was as I raced through the house and towards the basement as quickly as my legs would carry me.
I found her exactly where she'd been left.
Knowing it was going to happen hadn't prepared me for seeing it happen. Seeing it happen through the lens of a camera hadn't prepared me for seeing it with my own eyes. My stomach churned at the sight.
God, there was so much blood.
My bag was all but thrown to the side as I rushed over to her and dropped to my knees next to her. I turned her over as gently as I could, pressing my fingers against her carotid to check for a pulse — it was there, but thready and weak. When I held my palm over her mouth, her breath was hot against my skin. I wasn't too late, then. I could still save her.
I pulled off her tie and looped it just above the stump of her arm, then yanked it tight enough to stem the flow of blood. Then, carefully, I hooked one arm under her knees and one arm under her shoulders, lifted her up, and carried her over to the clearest, cleanest spot I could find. Almost against my will, my eyes found her face, pale and white and splattered with red blood, and I had the stray thought that she really was very pretty, mole beneath her eye and all.
I tried not to think about the legs those fitted pants of hers were hiding and how sexy they were, especially since my fingers were currently curled around one steely thigh. I had much more important things to focus on, like reattaching her goddamn arm.
Her skin was cold and clammy as I set her down. She was going into shock.
There wasn't any time to feel gross about it as I went over to grab her severed arm and rolled the sleeve down to show the wound. A sense of surreality permeated the entire situation as I rolled up the sleeve on the part of her arm still attached to her body and went about lining up the wounds so that the muscles, bone, and tendons all matched.
It was almost like I was hovering over my own body, watching myself reconnect the severed tissues with magecraft I had only ever practiced on cadavers, because real, live people — even magi — weren't exactly keen on having their limbs severed "for learning purposes." The closest I'd ever gotten with living tissue was closing a few deep cuts by stitching the edges back together.
I wasn't sure how long I spent patching her back up. Even with her arm back in its proper place, and that was already a not insignificant challenge to get right, there were still other issues I needed to deal with. For one, she lost a lot of blood, and stimulating the production of more blood cells and blood plasma was always a tricky business, because it introduced the risk of clotting. Without knowing her blood type, transfusions would be tricky.
The safer thing would be keeping her in a medical coma for the time being, so that was what I did.
Once she was at least stabilized enough that she wasn't going to give up the ghost at any moment, I got her out of the basement and up the stairs, and only as I was reaching for my phone with one blood-stained hand did I realize another problem I had to deal with. Namely, both she and I were absolutely soaked, and anyone who saw us would have a very good reason to think I was carting around the body of my murder victim.
That was just what I needed: the police slapping me in cuffs and taking me off for interrogation while they rushed her to the hospital. There was no way Kirei wouldn't find out about the whole thing in a matter of hours.
Fortunately, I was well used to the manipulation of blood and other fluids, because of my dual wind and water alignments. Unfortunately, even if I used magecraft to pull the blood out of our clothes, that didn't do anything about the conspicuously missing sleeve on her left arm. Equally as unfortunate, it didn't leave me with much in the way of options.
There was nothing else for it, so I carried her up another set of stairs — let me tell you, a hundred-thirty pounds of dead weight in the shape of a woman wasn't the easiest thing to lift — and into the closest bathroom I could find. I set her down in the tub, and then went about the painstaking process of pulling the blood out of our clothing.
It was actually easier than it sounded, but that didn't make it less of a pain in the ass.
I left her there only long enough to go to her room and find her another set of clothes, and apparently, she came prepared, because there were another three suits identical to her current one packed away in her luggage. Maybe she just really liked fitted suits. Who was I to judge?
Getting her undressed was a bit of a struggle, and in just about any other circumstance, having an attractive, half-naked woman in my arms would have been a thrill. It was undercut by her cool skin, her white pallor, and the inflamed ring that circled the bicep of her left arm. No matter what I did, that would inevitably scar.
"Sorry about this," I muttered to her as I stripped off her old suit.
It was a bit of a shame it was ruined, because it was actually a really nice suit. Not so nice that I would've been afraid to wear it anywhere for fear of the slightest tear or stain, but nice enough that she could have easily been mistaken for the CEO of a major corporation.
Her underwear felt like a step too far, so I left it on and just got her into her new suit, which was twice as hard as getting her out of the old one had been.
Once she was dressed again, I wrapped her up in a blanket from the bedroom and packed away whatever of her necessities I found. Fortunately, she hadn't really settled in yet, so most of her stuff was still in her suitcases and the few things that weren't were either easily put back in or left be (because I wasn't touching her unwashed underwear unless and until it became an unavoidable hazard).
A quick call summoned another taxi, and that was when I discovered it was just past midnight.
As I waited, I took a seat in the armchair opposite the couch I'd laid Bazett on and just let myself unwind a little.
"What a long day," I told the air.
I was ready for it to be over.
Twenty minutes later, the taxi arrived, and my moment of relaxation ended, so I leveraged myself out of my chair.
The taxi driver gave me a strange look when I walked out the front door carrying a woman in a suit, so when I got her situated in the back seat, I offered him a smile and quietly told him, "Jetlagged pretty badly, the poor dear."
A finger held up to my lips in the universal bid for silence sold the whole thing, and he accepted it without comment.
It might not even have been necessary. The Japanese people were very much of the "mind your own business" mindset, so he probably wouldn't have commented on it anyway.
Once I packed her luggage into the back seat with her, I climbed in and gave my new address to the driver. In the dark, so late at night, the traffic was thin, so an extra fifteen minutes or so were cut off our transit time, and he pulled up outside my mansion shortly after one in the morning. I wasn't sure I hadn't dozed off during the trip.
Somehow, Bazett wound up bundled up in a bed in one of the spare bedrooms. She was still pale when I left her, but she wasn't as cold and her lips weren't blue, and most importantly of all, her heart rate had settled into something much less alarming and much healthier. Her luggage wound up dropped on the floor unceremoniously, because I was just done.
Half-asleep, I stumbled into my new room and collapsed face first onto my bed, too tired to even bother undressing. It felt like seconds before I was drifting off to a well-deserved rest.
The next morning, dark clouds hung overhead, rumbling with distant thunder, and a biblical torrent of rain poured down the entire day.
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
So much happened in the latter half of this thing that I actively had to slim it down and reduce a lot of it to basically summary, or else we would have been here for another chapter just talking about those few things.
Also, the logical consequences of installing spy cameras in someone's house ensue. Yukio is kinda bad at thinking about that sort of thing, isn't he? He just gets too caught up in doing what he thinks he has to and rushes on ahead.
Special thanks to all my Patrons who have stayed with me this far, through all the rocky moments and dry stretches. You guys are the best, and your continued support is invaluable.
If you like what you're reading and want to support me as a writer so I can pay the bills, I have a Patreon. If Patreon is too long term, I have a Ko-fi page, too. If you want to commission something from me, check out either my Deviantart post or my artist registry page for my rates. Links in my sig. Every little bit helps keep me afloat, even if you can only afford a couple dollars.
Also, the logical consequences of installing spy cameras in someone's house ensue. Yukio is kinda bad at thinking about that sort of thing, isn't he? He just gets too caught up in doing what he thinks he has to and rushes on ahead.
Special thanks to all my Patrons who have stayed with me this far, through all the rocky moments and dry stretches. You guys are the best, and your continued support is invaluable.
If you like what you're reading and want to support me as a writer so I can pay the bills, I have a Patreon. If Patreon is too long term, I have a Ko-fi page, too. If you want to commission something from me, check out either my Deviantart post or my artist registry page for my rates. Links in my sig. Every little bit helps keep me afloat, even if you can only afford a couple dollars.
- Location
- Elsewhere
Five minutes later he realizes he could've just put a new jacket on her.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Stubborn is the head that wears the tsundere-crown.
Yeah, that's the problem. Making sure that he stays in that grave.
But you can hear tiny voice that sounds like Rin yelling at you, shouting: "Pervert!"
Ah, I see.
And may everybody, aside from few bastards, live through it.
Hah! Oh you, Rin.
WAIT!!!
*Grabs a bag of popcorn.*
Continue.
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA!!!
Kirei is a great actor when he wants to.
Don't jinx it, Yukio, just don't jinx it.
Time to see finally if all that time spent prepping bares fruit.
But she will live.
What did I just say about jinxing!!!?
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
I always enjoy your takes. You seem to have so much fun with the story.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Glad that you like them. And I am, Rin is such a delight to tease. And the rest of the story is going well as well and future SaberxShirou is always a big plus.
jwolfe_beta
Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord
- Location
- Canada
Along with the potshots/teasing Yukio does at the two.
Saber: "...It's the second coming of Merlin."
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
It is the icing on the cake.
Interlude I: Spiraling Repetition
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
Surprise!
Interlude I: Spiraling Repetition
It was a cruel irony, that she would make it so far, only to fail at the very end.
Her goal was in sight. The temple stood above her, looming, so close and yet impossibly far. If she reached her arm out, if she just extended her fingers far enough, she should be able to… But no. A stairway stood in her way, stretching up and into the distance, an insurmountable obstacle — one she could have easily conquered, had she but the energy.
She did not. It was taking everything she had, every scrap of will and every ounce of focus, just to keep herself from fading away. Already, non-vital functions in her body were beginning to shut down, so that the spiritual core that formed her shell upon this earth, that gave her the foothold to stand in this reality, could preserve its existence for just a few seconds longer.
Her body was already halfway numb, although that may in part have been because of the cold rain. Her heart beat a weak, rapid pulse. Each breath was shallow and sluggish, like trying to suck in air through a straw. Even the muscles in her arms and legs, normally orders of magnitude stronger than a human's, had trouble supporting her weight.
She was going to fade away, before accomplishing anything, before she even had a chance to try and win the prize promised at the end of this war. She was going to be defeated, not by an enemy Servant or by the strategic ploys of an enemy Master, but by a simple lack of the magical energy necessary to maintain her body. All without having even had the chance to fight.
It seemed, in spite of everything, her wretched Master had had the last revenge, after all.
It wasn't funny, but she wanted to laugh, and she almost startled herself as she realized that she already was.
A cruel, cruel irony, indeed.
"In the end, this is how I die again, is it?" she wheezed.
She wasn't sure if the streaks of water running from her eyes and down the sides of her face were tears or just the rain.
"Bandied about for others' use, exploited, then cast aside and reviled as a traitor…"
She lifted her hands towards the bleak sky, as though to ask the uncaring gods to come to her aid.
But they would not have, even if they still existed in this era. Of course not. It was their fault she had been besotted with that wretch in the first place, after all. She had never had their favor.
"Was it too much to ask… just once, for me to…"
To have her own wish granted, instead of being a tool for others' wishes?
"Ara…"
She blinked, turned weakly to try and focus her bleary gaze upon the figure who stood on the path next to her. He — and it was a man, she realized belatedly — stepped towards her and crouched down beside her.
"Well, there you are. I was beginning to wonder if that fool had managed not to screw himself over."
Through the haze of exhaustion, she caught the impression of a smile, and then, she was being lifted up and into his arms. She caught sight of the temple, again, as he turned away from it — away from the very place she'd been trying so hard to reach.
"No…" she mumbled, but he seemed not to hear.
"Let's get you out of this rain, shall we? And hope that Lancer's not still chasing you…"
Then, he carried her off and back into town. The temple faded away into the distance, and at last, disappeared behind the trees as he turned and started down a different path.
She slipped in and out of awareness during the journey. She didn't know the city well enough to say where he was taking her, and she was barely cognizant enough to see and recognize shapes amongst the rainy gloom as it was, but at some point, he stopped, mumbled something, and then something hot and wet was trickling past her lips and down her throat. She wasn't sure she didn't imagine it to begin with.
She came to again some time later — she wasn't sure exactly how long — to find herself sat in a plush armchair, positioned a little awkwardly. She rearranged herself almost reflexively, surprised a moment later to realize that she'd regained some strength, and belatedly noticed the aftertaste of something salty and metallic upon her tongue.
Licking her lips, she tasted it again at the corner of her mouth.
Blood…?
"Feeling better?"
Her head jerked up, and there, sitting across from her in another armchair was a boy, maybe seventeen, with brown hair and bright blue eyes. Not entirely unattractive, with a slight, careless smile at the corners of his lips. Almost immediately, she noted the traces of red on one finger as he sipped at a cup of what smelled like tea.
"Yes," she muttered, and was not quite shocked that it was actually true.
She did feel better. More solid, more real. Less like she was going to run out of energy in moments and fade away.
It was still a pittance, compared to her normally vast reserves, but she had enough, now, to keep herself stable.
He'd given her magical energy, it was easy to realize. Through his blood. A terribly inefficient method, compared to some of the other ways, but undoubtedly the quickest and easiest, and also the least invasive.
"You saved me."
It came out almost like an accusation. No, it was. Because even though she'd been out of it, barely hanging on, she remembered what he'd said when he'd found her. That he'd been expecting to find her. That he'd hoped Lancer wasn't still chasing her down.
This was not some random bystander who had found her and rescued her, this was someone who had been looking for her and saved her for a purpose.
"I suppose I did."
"Why?"
Why her? What did he want her for, that he'd come to find her?
He smiled wryly. "Well, for a lot of reasons, I suppose. Part of it was that I found your story just too sad."
The answer threw her for a loop.
"What?"
"Who wouldn't?" he asked. "The fair and beautiful Princess of Colchis, forced by the uncaring gods to love a man she'd never met, then spirited about amongst the company of strangers, forced to commit horrible deeds, used, exploited, and finally, cast away like a used up tissue. It's a tragic story, really."
"You must be reading the wrong legends," she said bitterly. "I'm the villain of that story. The woman who killed her own brother, chopped up his body, deceived King Pelias, and jealously slaughtered the king of Corinth and his entire family. A witch."
The smile left his face, twisting into a frown, and he set aside his tea to lean forward and look straight at her.
"Take off your hood."
Medea blinked.
"What?"
"I'm going to prove a point," he said bluntly. "Take off your hood."
She hesitated, but after a moment, lifted her hands and pushed back the cowl of her cloak until it rested about her shoulders. She felt strangely exposed without it on.
The boy stood from his chair and crossed the distance, stepping close to her, and unconsciously, as he brought his hand towards her, she tried to lean back and away, but she was weak and the only place for her to go was deeper into her chair. He took hold of her chin, and she flinched.
But his touch, though firm, was surprisingly gentle. He guided her head from side to side, turning her as though to inspect every part of her face, until he turned her back to the front. His gaze was intense and unblinking, and as his lips pursed and his brow furrowed, she realized suddenly what he was going to do and began to gather the meagre magical energy at her disposal.
If he tried to force himself on her, then even if it meant disappearing, she would —
"This is not the face of a witch."
— flush and stare, uncomprehending.
"What?"
"This is the face of a woman," he went on, "beautiful, but tired. Quietly defiant, but defeated and downtrodden. This is the face of a woman who has been told what and who she is so many times and so vehemently that she believes it herself, now. The world has called her so many vile names and blamed her for so many evil deeds that she grew too tired of trying to fight it and decided that there was no point in being anything but what they said she was. Even if, underneath it all, she hates it with everything she is."
Medea tried to look away, a complicated mess of feelings swirling in her gut. Anger, at the boy in front of her for stepping so carelessly into her heart. Indignation, that he would claim to know her thoughts and her feelings. A strange melancholy, because she was absolutely certain that she wasn't the person he was talking about. And threading through it all was a kind of longing, that she wished she could believe she was anything like that.
She wasn't. She hated the term, but she was a witch, and she'd long since decided that that was all she'd ever be.
This naïve boy wasn't going to change that.
But he wouldn't let her turn away, and his grip shifted as he set his fingers under her chin and lifted her face.
"Look at me." Almost against her will, her eyes turned towards his. "The world doesn't get to decide who you are. Only you can do that. You don't have to be anyone or do anything you don't want to. All you have to do is choose to be true to yourself."
"Your naïveté will get you killed," she said coldly. She hoped he didn't notice the faint tremor in her voice.
He smiled and stepped away to sit back in his chair.
"Well, something will probably get me killed before this Holy Grail War is over, but I don't think it'll be showing you kindness."
She laughed, suddenly, high and cruel. He'd almost had her fooled.
But in the end, he was just like everyone else. Another person trying to use her.
"Is that what you call this?" She gestured with one hand down at her own body. "You take me away from the place where I would be strongest, profess to believe in my own goodness, despite my legend, but only supply me a pittance of magical energy? Just enough so that I almost have to accept you as my Master? This is your kindness?"
He frowned, leaning back in his chair.
"That has nothing to do with your identity. The reason I gave you so little magical energy is because you are a Servant with a wish for the Holy Grail. I can list on one hand the number of Heroic Spirits I would trust enough to supply them with more substantial amounts of mana, were they in the same situation, and even King Arthur doesn't make it."
His statement was as shocking as it was ludicrous. It was true that there were Servants a Master absolutely should not trust — many would likely agree that Medea herself belonged on that list — and one might argue that any Caster who was a better magus than its Master was among them. Any Servant whose legend included betrayal or treachery, doubly so.
But King Arthur? The beacon of justice, righteousness, and steadfastness during the Dark Ages of Britain's bleakest hours? Untrustworthy?
"What?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he let out a sigh and folded his hands in front of his face.
"Alright," he said. "We were going to run into this eventually, so I suppose now's as good a time as any to talk about it. Medea of Colchis, Servant of the Caster class for the Fifth Holy Grail War: from here, there are two options available to you, each with their own benefits and disadvantages."
He held out one hand.
"Firstly, you and I forge a contract here and become partners in this War. As part of such a pact, you must forsake the Holy Grail, and in exchange, I will present to you the opportunity to do as I said you can: to make yourself more than your legend. To cast off the shackles that bind you to the role of villain and become a hero. To put it simply, self-actualization."
He was a fool if he believed she'd actually take that offer. Such a paltry reward it was, she thought. Good feelings and happy thoughts. The kind of things a naïve, unabashed idealist might want. It was nothing tangible, nothing that she could really enjoy for more than a few minutes. It was nothing she could touch or hold onto, nothing solid or corporeal or truly valuable. A fool's reward.
When she'd been younger, maybe… But that ship had sailed long ago, with Jason at its helm. The woman she'd become had no want or need for something so useless.
"And if I refuse?" she asked.
"Then option two: I will provide you with enough magical energy to sustain yourself for another few hours and personally escort you to the temple, as you'd planned."
She laughed. A fool, indeed. "There's no comparison! Only one of those will afford me the path to achieving my wish; surely you must understand —"
"But if you take option two," he cut in, "you will certainly fail and die before the War ends."
Her voice caught in her throat.
"What?"
She must have heard him wrong. There was no way that he'd actually said…
"If you go to the temple, you'll be killed," he repeated. "One way or another."
"…How?"
How could he possibly know that, that he would say it with such certainty? How could he be so sure of it, that there didn't seem to be any trace of deception in his words, in his tone, in his body language?
He smiled a mischievous little smile.
Of course, she thought, suddenly angry. There was the trap. He wouldn't tell her. The only way to find out would be to take the first option, to ally with him, or else take her chances that he was wrong.
Could she afford to? He looked unassuming and ordinary, but if he had some sort of clairvoyance ability, then she was already trapped. And he'd done it in such a way… Only enough energy to sustain herself. If she tried to hypnotize him, get his secrets out of him that way, she'd drain herself dry in the efforts, and then it would be a moot point.
Damn him…!
He frowned, tilting his head to the side, and then sighed again.
"Okay, I guess I can give you this much. A freebie, no strings attached."
He crossed his legs, reached for his cup, then took another sip of his tea.
"Herakles, Gilgamesh, and one of the original founders of the Fuyuki Grail will take part in this War," he said. "Any scenario where you go to the temple will inevitably pit you against one of those three. In that case, Herakles is the only encounter you would have any real chance of surviving."
Her mouth flapped open.
"Wh-what?" she asked weakly.
To hear that the greatest hero of Greece would be the only of those three opponents she might survive…
What kind of enemy made Herakles the least likely to kill her?
"And if by some miracle you make it to the end, braving the overwhelming, impossible odds to stand before the Grail and make your wish…" He closed his eyes a moment, let out a long breath, and when he opened them again, he pinned her with a cold, dead stare, blue eyes like chips of ice. "Then no matter how much it hurts me, in order to save the world, I'd kill you myself."
She blanched.
"Y-you… After you came and saved me, you'd still —"
"Yes. No matter how much I like you, Medea, no matter how much I sympathize with you… Any Servant who would covet the Grail at the expense of all else is my enemy. Even if that Servant is King Arthur. Even if that Servant is you."
He set his cup down. By now, all traces of steam had gone.
"I'm sure you've realized it by now, but there are secrets I have about this War and its circumstances. Competitors. The Servants and Masters at play. The stakes. Indeed, the nature of the Grail itself, even. But I'm sure you've also realized that I won't tell you these things if you're going to be my enemy. So, you must choose."
He held out one hand. "Forsake the Grail, become my ally, and help me save the world. All the relevant information will become yours, as well. To the best I am able, I can promise you will see the end of this War, or at least not die as miserably as you otherwise would."
He held out the other hand. "Or, go to the temple, become my enemy, and face all of these challenges alone. Hope that you will overcome all that is thrown at you, and I will be your last opponent."
"That's no choice at all!" she said. "Either way, you're telling me that I won't get my wish!"
He smiled sadly. "I suppose it does boil down to that, doesn't it? With one, at least, you will understand why."
As if that was any comfort. Forsake her wish, and understand why it was she had to give it up, or try and chase it, only to face an almost certainty that she would never reach it. Both options had the same, inevitable outcome, no matter what.
…No. No, that wasn't quite true, was it? She'd been thinking of this too much in his terms, that she would absolutely follow the paths he provided. There was nothing to say so, no binding oath that would demand she keep to her word, either way. There was nothing to ensure her sincerity, were she to agree.
"Forsake the Grail," he said. Except she didn't really have to, did she? There was nothing stopping her — nothing at all — from following him to the end and snatching the prize at the last second. There was no reason at all she couldn't just pretend to go along with him, say she'd given up on it, and then take the Grail when everyone else was defeated and she and him were the last ones standing.
Even if he used a Command Spell, she had Rule Breaker, so as a very last resort —
"You don't have to make up your mind right this moment," he said suddenly, cutting off her train of thought.
She blinked. "What?"
"You don't have to make a choice about what you're going to do right this very moment," he went on. "After all, you're not the only Servant I planned on recruiting."
What?
"What?" she echoed.
That was absurd. Even a competent Master could only handle sustaining a single Servant at a time, and yet he was talking about supporting more? No, it was utterly ridiculous. The amount of magical energy required would be at least five times that of a magus of this era, and even then, it would still be a debilitating strain.
But he didn't seem worried. Instead, he reached down beside his chair and produced a vacuum sealed bag, inside of which was a long, sharp shard of wood that looked like it had come from the spoke of a chariot wheel.
"To the best of my knowledge, so far, Caster, Lancer, and Berserker have already been summoned. There's almost two weeks, yet, before Archer and Saber are called, and maybe a week at the very best before Rider. Assassin… I'm not actually sure if or when that particular Servant will show up."
He wagged the piece of wood a little. "That means, until I contract with you, I still have a free slot I can use to co-opt one of the others. Considering who I hope to get with this, probably Rider."
"You intend…to summon another Servant and contract two at once?" she asked slowly.
He was mad, she decided. No, it couldn't be clairvoyance, or if it was, it had obviously driven him insane, like the oracles of old. Not only did he plan on trying to support two Servants at a time, he was also going to give her the perfect means to acquire another Servant to command at the end, when she would abandon him for the Grail.
Knowing her legend, he was going to trust her that far? A fool. A mad, naive fool.
"I said I wanted you to help me save the world," he replied, grinning. "I never said I wanted you to be the one doing all the fighting. Come now, Medea, most of the other Servants will have either high level Magic Resistance or some other method of resisting your spells. Why would I send you against enemies you can't even hurt?"
Interlude I: Spiraling Repetition
It was a cruel irony, that she would make it so far, only to fail at the very end.
Her goal was in sight. The temple stood above her, looming, so close and yet impossibly far. If she reached her arm out, if she just extended her fingers far enough, she should be able to… But no. A stairway stood in her way, stretching up and into the distance, an insurmountable obstacle — one she could have easily conquered, had she but the energy.
She did not. It was taking everything she had, every scrap of will and every ounce of focus, just to keep herself from fading away. Already, non-vital functions in her body were beginning to shut down, so that the spiritual core that formed her shell upon this earth, that gave her the foothold to stand in this reality, could preserve its existence for just a few seconds longer.
Her body was already halfway numb, although that may in part have been because of the cold rain. Her heart beat a weak, rapid pulse. Each breath was shallow and sluggish, like trying to suck in air through a straw. Even the muscles in her arms and legs, normally orders of magnitude stronger than a human's, had trouble supporting her weight.
She was going to fade away, before accomplishing anything, before she even had a chance to try and win the prize promised at the end of this war. She was going to be defeated, not by an enemy Servant or by the strategic ploys of an enemy Master, but by a simple lack of the magical energy necessary to maintain her body. All without having even had the chance to fight.
It seemed, in spite of everything, her wretched Master had had the last revenge, after all.
It wasn't funny, but she wanted to laugh, and she almost startled herself as she realized that she already was.
A cruel, cruel irony, indeed.
"In the end, this is how I die again, is it?" she wheezed.
She wasn't sure if the streaks of water running from her eyes and down the sides of her face were tears or just the rain.
"Bandied about for others' use, exploited, then cast aside and reviled as a traitor…"
She lifted her hands towards the bleak sky, as though to ask the uncaring gods to come to her aid.
But they would not have, even if they still existed in this era. Of course not. It was their fault she had been besotted with that wretch in the first place, after all. She had never had their favor.
"Was it too much to ask… just once, for me to…"
To have her own wish granted, instead of being a tool for others' wishes?
"Ara…"
She blinked, turned weakly to try and focus her bleary gaze upon the figure who stood on the path next to her. He — and it was a man, she realized belatedly — stepped towards her and crouched down beside her.
"Well, there you are. I was beginning to wonder if that fool had managed not to screw himself over."
Through the haze of exhaustion, she caught the impression of a smile, and then, she was being lifted up and into his arms. She caught sight of the temple, again, as he turned away from it — away from the very place she'd been trying so hard to reach.
"No…" she mumbled, but he seemed not to hear.
"Let's get you out of this rain, shall we? And hope that Lancer's not still chasing you…"
Then, he carried her off and back into town. The temple faded away into the distance, and at last, disappeared behind the trees as he turned and started down a different path.
She slipped in and out of awareness during the journey. She didn't know the city well enough to say where he was taking her, and she was barely cognizant enough to see and recognize shapes amongst the rainy gloom as it was, but at some point, he stopped, mumbled something, and then something hot and wet was trickling past her lips and down her throat. She wasn't sure she didn't imagine it to begin with.
She came to again some time later — she wasn't sure exactly how long — to find herself sat in a plush armchair, positioned a little awkwardly. She rearranged herself almost reflexively, surprised a moment later to realize that she'd regained some strength, and belatedly noticed the aftertaste of something salty and metallic upon her tongue.
Licking her lips, she tasted it again at the corner of her mouth.
Blood…?
"Feeling better?"
Her head jerked up, and there, sitting across from her in another armchair was a boy, maybe seventeen, with brown hair and bright blue eyes. Not entirely unattractive, with a slight, careless smile at the corners of his lips. Almost immediately, she noted the traces of red on one finger as he sipped at a cup of what smelled like tea.
"Yes," she muttered, and was not quite shocked that it was actually true.
She did feel better. More solid, more real. Less like she was going to run out of energy in moments and fade away.
It was still a pittance, compared to her normally vast reserves, but she had enough, now, to keep herself stable.
He'd given her magical energy, it was easy to realize. Through his blood. A terribly inefficient method, compared to some of the other ways, but undoubtedly the quickest and easiest, and also the least invasive.
"You saved me."
It came out almost like an accusation. No, it was. Because even though she'd been out of it, barely hanging on, she remembered what he'd said when he'd found her. That he'd been expecting to find her. That he'd hoped Lancer wasn't still chasing her down.
This was not some random bystander who had found her and rescued her, this was someone who had been looking for her and saved her for a purpose.
"I suppose I did."
"Why?"
Why her? What did he want her for, that he'd come to find her?
He smiled wryly. "Well, for a lot of reasons, I suppose. Part of it was that I found your story just too sad."
The answer threw her for a loop.
"What?"
"Who wouldn't?" he asked. "The fair and beautiful Princess of Colchis, forced by the uncaring gods to love a man she'd never met, then spirited about amongst the company of strangers, forced to commit horrible deeds, used, exploited, and finally, cast away like a used up tissue. It's a tragic story, really."
"You must be reading the wrong legends," she said bitterly. "I'm the villain of that story. The woman who killed her own brother, chopped up his body, deceived King Pelias, and jealously slaughtered the king of Corinth and his entire family. A witch."
The smile left his face, twisting into a frown, and he set aside his tea to lean forward and look straight at her.
"Take off your hood."
Medea blinked.
"What?"
"I'm going to prove a point," he said bluntly. "Take off your hood."
She hesitated, but after a moment, lifted her hands and pushed back the cowl of her cloak until it rested about her shoulders. She felt strangely exposed without it on.
The boy stood from his chair and crossed the distance, stepping close to her, and unconsciously, as he brought his hand towards her, she tried to lean back and away, but she was weak and the only place for her to go was deeper into her chair. He took hold of her chin, and she flinched.
But his touch, though firm, was surprisingly gentle. He guided her head from side to side, turning her as though to inspect every part of her face, until he turned her back to the front. His gaze was intense and unblinking, and as his lips pursed and his brow furrowed, she realized suddenly what he was going to do and began to gather the meagre magical energy at her disposal.
If he tried to force himself on her, then even if it meant disappearing, she would —
"This is not the face of a witch."
— flush and stare, uncomprehending.
"What?"
"This is the face of a woman," he went on, "beautiful, but tired. Quietly defiant, but defeated and downtrodden. This is the face of a woman who has been told what and who she is so many times and so vehemently that she believes it herself, now. The world has called her so many vile names and blamed her for so many evil deeds that she grew too tired of trying to fight it and decided that there was no point in being anything but what they said she was. Even if, underneath it all, she hates it with everything she is."
Medea tried to look away, a complicated mess of feelings swirling in her gut. Anger, at the boy in front of her for stepping so carelessly into her heart. Indignation, that he would claim to know her thoughts and her feelings. A strange melancholy, because she was absolutely certain that she wasn't the person he was talking about. And threading through it all was a kind of longing, that she wished she could believe she was anything like that.
She wasn't. She hated the term, but she was a witch, and she'd long since decided that that was all she'd ever be.
This naïve boy wasn't going to change that.
But he wouldn't let her turn away, and his grip shifted as he set his fingers under her chin and lifted her face.
"Look at me." Almost against her will, her eyes turned towards his. "The world doesn't get to decide who you are. Only you can do that. You don't have to be anyone or do anything you don't want to. All you have to do is choose to be true to yourself."
"Your naïveté will get you killed," she said coldly. She hoped he didn't notice the faint tremor in her voice.
He smiled and stepped away to sit back in his chair.
"Well, something will probably get me killed before this Holy Grail War is over, but I don't think it'll be showing you kindness."
She laughed, suddenly, high and cruel. He'd almost had her fooled.
But in the end, he was just like everyone else. Another person trying to use her.
"Is that what you call this?" She gestured with one hand down at her own body. "You take me away from the place where I would be strongest, profess to believe in my own goodness, despite my legend, but only supply me a pittance of magical energy? Just enough so that I almost have to accept you as my Master? This is your kindness?"
He frowned, leaning back in his chair.
"That has nothing to do with your identity. The reason I gave you so little magical energy is because you are a Servant with a wish for the Holy Grail. I can list on one hand the number of Heroic Spirits I would trust enough to supply them with more substantial amounts of mana, were they in the same situation, and even King Arthur doesn't make it."
His statement was as shocking as it was ludicrous. It was true that there were Servants a Master absolutely should not trust — many would likely agree that Medea herself belonged on that list — and one might argue that any Caster who was a better magus than its Master was among them. Any Servant whose legend included betrayal or treachery, doubly so.
But King Arthur? The beacon of justice, righteousness, and steadfastness during the Dark Ages of Britain's bleakest hours? Untrustworthy?
"What?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he let out a sigh and folded his hands in front of his face.
"Alright," he said. "We were going to run into this eventually, so I suppose now's as good a time as any to talk about it. Medea of Colchis, Servant of the Caster class for the Fifth Holy Grail War: from here, there are two options available to you, each with their own benefits and disadvantages."
He held out one hand.
"Firstly, you and I forge a contract here and become partners in this War. As part of such a pact, you must forsake the Holy Grail, and in exchange, I will present to you the opportunity to do as I said you can: to make yourself more than your legend. To cast off the shackles that bind you to the role of villain and become a hero. To put it simply, self-actualization."
He was a fool if he believed she'd actually take that offer. Such a paltry reward it was, she thought. Good feelings and happy thoughts. The kind of things a naïve, unabashed idealist might want. It was nothing tangible, nothing that she could really enjoy for more than a few minutes. It was nothing she could touch or hold onto, nothing solid or corporeal or truly valuable. A fool's reward.
When she'd been younger, maybe… But that ship had sailed long ago, with Jason at its helm. The woman she'd become had no want or need for something so useless.
"And if I refuse?" she asked.
"Then option two: I will provide you with enough magical energy to sustain yourself for another few hours and personally escort you to the temple, as you'd planned."
She laughed. A fool, indeed. "There's no comparison! Only one of those will afford me the path to achieving my wish; surely you must understand —"
"But if you take option two," he cut in, "you will certainly fail and die before the War ends."
Her voice caught in her throat.
"What?"
She must have heard him wrong. There was no way that he'd actually said…
"If you go to the temple, you'll be killed," he repeated. "One way or another."
"…How?"
How could he possibly know that, that he would say it with such certainty? How could he be so sure of it, that there didn't seem to be any trace of deception in his words, in his tone, in his body language?
He smiled a mischievous little smile.
Of course, she thought, suddenly angry. There was the trap. He wouldn't tell her. The only way to find out would be to take the first option, to ally with him, or else take her chances that he was wrong.
Could she afford to? He looked unassuming and ordinary, but if he had some sort of clairvoyance ability, then she was already trapped. And he'd done it in such a way… Only enough energy to sustain herself. If she tried to hypnotize him, get his secrets out of him that way, she'd drain herself dry in the efforts, and then it would be a moot point.
Damn him…!
He frowned, tilting his head to the side, and then sighed again.
"Okay, I guess I can give you this much. A freebie, no strings attached."
He crossed his legs, reached for his cup, then took another sip of his tea.
"Herakles, Gilgamesh, and one of the original founders of the Fuyuki Grail will take part in this War," he said. "Any scenario where you go to the temple will inevitably pit you against one of those three. In that case, Herakles is the only encounter you would have any real chance of surviving."
Her mouth flapped open.
"Wh-what?" she asked weakly.
To hear that the greatest hero of Greece would be the only of those three opponents she might survive…
What kind of enemy made Herakles the least likely to kill her?
"And if by some miracle you make it to the end, braving the overwhelming, impossible odds to stand before the Grail and make your wish…" He closed his eyes a moment, let out a long breath, and when he opened them again, he pinned her with a cold, dead stare, blue eyes like chips of ice. "Then no matter how much it hurts me, in order to save the world, I'd kill you myself."
She blanched.
"Y-you… After you came and saved me, you'd still —"
"Yes. No matter how much I like you, Medea, no matter how much I sympathize with you… Any Servant who would covet the Grail at the expense of all else is my enemy. Even if that Servant is King Arthur. Even if that Servant is you."
He set his cup down. By now, all traces of steam had gone.
"I'm sure you've realized it by now, but there are secrets I have about this War and its circumstances. Competitors. The Servants and Masters at play. The stakes. Indeed, the nature of the Grail itself, even. But I'm sure you've also realized that I won't tell you these things if you're going to be my enemy. So, you must choose."
He held out one hand. "Forsake the Grail, become my ally, and help me save the world. All the relevant information will become yours, as well. To the best I am able, I can promise you will see the end of this War, or at least not die as miserably as you otherwise would."
He held out the other hand. "Or, go to the temple, become my enemy, and face all of these challenges alone. Hope that you will overcome all that is thrown at you, and I will be your last opponent."
"That's no choice at all!" she said. "Either way, you're telling me that I won't get my wish!"
He smiled sadly. "I suppose it does boil down to that, doesn't it? With one, at least, you will understand why."
As if that was any comfort. Forsake her wish, and understand why it was she had to give it up, or try and chase it, only to face an almost certainty that she would never reach it. Both options had the same, inevitable outcome, no matter what.
…No. No, that wasn't quite true, was it? She'd been thinking of this too much in his terms, that she would absolutely follow the paths he provided. There was nothing to say so, no binding oath that would demand she keep to her word, either way. There was nothing to ensure her sincerity, were she to agree.
"Forsake the Grail," he said. Except she didn't really have to, did she? There was nothing stopping her — nothing at all — from following him to the end and snatching the prize at the last second. There was no reason at all she couldn't just pretend to go along with him, say she'd given up on it, and then take the Grail when everyone else was defeated and she and him were the last ones standing.
Even if he used a Command Spell, she had Rule Breaker, so as a very last resort —
"You don't have to make up your mind right this moment," he said suddenly, cutting off her train of thought.
She blinked. "What?"
"You don't have to make a choice about what you're going to do right this very moment," he went on. "After all, you're not the only Servant I planned on recruiting."
What?
"What?" she echoed.
That was absurd. Even a competent Master could only handle sustaining a single Servant at a time, and yet he was talking about supporting more? No, it was utterly ridiculous. The amount of magical energy required would be at least five times that of a magus of this era, and even then, it would still be a debilitating strain.
But he didn't seem worried. Instead, he reached down beside his chair and produced a vacuum sealed bag, inside of which was a long, sharp shard of wood that looked like it had come from the spoke of a chariot wheel.
"To the best of my knowledge, so far, Caster, Lancer, and Berserker have already been summoned. There's almost two weeks, yet, before Archer and Saber are called, and maybe a week at the very best before Rider. Assassin… I'm not actually sure if or when that particular Servant will show up."
He wagged the piece of wood a little. "That means, until I contract with you, I still have a free slot I can use to co-opt one of the others. Considering who I hope to get with this, probably Rider."
"You intend…to summon another Servant and contract two at once?" she asked slowly.
He was mad, she decided. No, it couldn't be clairvoyance, or if it was, it had obviously driven him insane, like the oracles of old. Not only did he plan on trying to support two Servants at a time, he was also going to give her the perfect means to acquire another Servant to command at the end, when she would abandon him for the Grail.
Knowing her legend, he was going to trust her that far? A fool. A mad, naive fool.
"I said I wanted you to help me save the world," he replied, grinning. "I never said I wanted you to be the one doing all the fighting. Come now, Medea, most of the other Servants will have either high level Magic Resistance or some other method of resisting your spells. Why would I send you against enemies you can't even hurt?"
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
This story fell by the wayside so much in favor of Hereafter. Part of that is, I think, the fact that the next three chapters wound up so dialogue heavy that I needed to interrupt chapter 10 to get Yukio and Medea and [spoilers] to stop talking about plans for the HGW just so that we could move on.
Finally, though, we get to Medea's debut. I hope I captured her well enough at least this chapter, because I'm less certain about the next few. But that's owing to the fact that the next few were just so much exposition for Medea's sake that it was a hassle to get through, so I'm not sure she reacted quite as realistically as she should have.
Meant to post this yesterday, but things conspired and I forgot.
Special thanks to all my Patrons who have stayed with me this far, through all the rocky moments and dry stretches. You guys are the best, and your continued support is invaluable.
If you like what you're reading and want to support me as a writer so I can pay the bills, I have a Patreon. If Patreon is too long term, I have a Ko-fi page, too. If you want to commission something from me, check out either my Deviantart post or my artist registry page for my rates. Links in my sig. Every little bit helps keep me afloat, even if you can only afford a couple dollars.
Finally, though, we get to Medea's debut. I hope I captured her well enough at least this chapter, because I'm less certain about the next few. But that's owing to the fact that the next few were just so much exposition for Medea's sake that it was a hassle to get through, so I'm not sure she reacted quite as realistically as she should have.
Meant to post this yesterday, but things conspired and I forgot.
Special thanks to all my Patrons who have stayed with me this far, through all the rocky moments and dry stretches. You guys are the best, and your continued support is invaluable.
If you like what you're reading and want to support me as a writer so I can pay the bills, I have a Patreon. If Patreon is too long term, I have a Ko-fi page, too. If you want to commission something from me, check out either my Deviantart post or my artist registry page for my rates. Links in my sig. Every little bit helps keep me afloat, even if you can only afford a couple dollars.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
A wild Medea appeared!
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Don't lose hope just yet.
Hmm, I hope saying this next to a conscious woman with trust issues is actually part of your plan.
Hey, at least not until the third date.
Medea is a smart woman.
Surprise what context does to a story.
Smooth.
Fufufu.
Puts things into perspective, doesn't it.
What?
Ballsy, I agree.
Medea was caught!
Not yet I would say. The Pokeball is currently shaking...
Lord_Anthrax
Daemon Prince of Nurgle
I would very much like to see that list
Hold down the "B" button for the love of god
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
It's almost like ancient Greek culture was just as fantastically sexist as most other cultures of that era. Fancy that.
- Location
- Southern California
Especially when you consider some legends that have actual r*pe and its the victims who get punished
Like Bruh what the fuck
Thank you for the chapter, long have I awaited it, to the point where I thought it perished, but no! Out of nowhere comes daddy J with an exellent chapter to rekindle my hope for the future of this fic!
- Location
- Italy
Medea was a cruel witch because how else could you explain a woman being part of a men's expedition at that time? Even if you needed thinking people, men were still more educated and, in the end, it always ended up with having to punch stuff. (Disclaimer: it's what it was, people, not what I think it should be today. Okay? Okay.)
Societies not based on physical might are a very recent development, and "might makes right" was the state of things in ancient times.
If you start from that, the road to doing what you want to people weaker than you is straight and short.
I always believed that the rise of philosophy was due to people recognizing how much they were still close to animalistic behavior, and trying to rationalize the differences that surely were there between man and beast. It... went well, but it's a work in progress still.
Societies not based on physical might are a very recent development, and "might makes right" was the state of things in ancient times.
If you start from that, the road to doing what you want to people weaker than you is straight and short.
I always believed that the rise of philosophy was due to people recognizing how much they were still close to animalistic behavior, and trying to rationalize the differences that surely were there between man and beast. It... went well, but it's a work in progress still.
Last edited:
- Location
- Oregon, USA
Funny then, isn't it, that basically every definition of that difference we've come up with has been disproven. Like, even the far out ones like religion are arguable at this point.
"Behold, a man!" indeed.
Chapter 8: Behind the Curtain
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
Chapter 8: Behind the Curtain
Getting Medea on my side was going to be a long term project.
To be entirely fair, I'd known that going in. Servants answered the call in a Holy Grail War for the purpose of fulfilling a wish, desires ingrained so deeply into their beings and held so dear to their hearts that they lingered through time, space, and even beyond death itself. No matter what she said, it was never going to be as easy as using words and appeals to her innate goodness to sway her and make her give up on that wish.
Of course, then a generalization like that ran into Cúchulainn and stopped meaning anything, but by and large, it should still hold that every Servant summoned would have something they yearned to fulfill.
I had hopes, as she and I moved to the room where I had prepared my own summoning circle, that she might be swayed once she found out what hid inside the Great Grail. If anything could convince her that it wasn't worth it and nothing good would come of clinging to her wish, it would surely be the presence of such a malevolent force waiting for the ritual to complete so it could enter this world and slaughter people indiscriminately, wouldn't it? Something like that could never fulfill a wish for happiness.
Hopes… But I was under no illusions that it would be so easy to sway her, even then. It wasn't so simple to ignore the allures of your mostly deeply cherished dreams.
I wasn't lying when I told her I wanted to give her the chance to be a better person. To be who she was always meant to be, rather than the twisted wretch the gods' cruelty had made her into. But even with those pretty words, the fact I had ulterior motives for yanking Medea away from Kuzuki's path should have been obvious to everyone, even if the exact nature of those motives wasn't clear.
The value of a Caster who was considered one of the most powerful and talented spellcasters in history shouldn't need to be explained. The fact that she held that status despite not being eligible for the station of a Grand — when all of those anywhere near her level were — said something about her raw talent and ability. For someone like me, a third rate hack who was really good in one field and barely competent in the rest, having that sort of skill and firepower backing me up was invaluable.
I had also just recruited a healer who made me look like a fumbling child. I was trying not to think too hard about that one.
Of course, having her on my side also conveniently removed an enemy player from the field. One less Servant for me to worry about taking out, which meant that I could put more focus on the enemies that could and would very easily and mercilessly stomp me into the ground.
To my utter surprise and delight, there had already been a largely intact magic circle set up in the basement. At a guess, whichever of the Edelfelt twins (probably my grandmother) had called this place home had made use of it sixty some odd years ago to summon her own Servant for the Third Grail War, but I had no way of proving it at all.
"You already had the ritual prepared?" Medea asked as we entered the room.
"The previous owner was a participant in the Third Grail War," I answered. "This was her base of operations for the duration, so it's likely that she summoned her Servant here, just as a matter of convenience."
Of course, that hit a bit of a snag, didn't it? My understanding was that the sisters both summoned distinct aspects of the same Servant, a Saber, so it stood to reason they had actually performed their summoning at the same time in the same place. My head hurt just imagining how twisted the logistics had to be to work out any other way.
"She?" Medea echoed curiously. "You know the identity of the previous owner?"
"My grandmother," I confirmed, and then backtracked, "or, well, I'm pretty sure it was her. Back in the Third Grail War, the Edelfelt sisters came to participate — don't ask me why, because with that family it could have been a number of different reasons — and their lineage has a nifty little Sorcery Trait that lets them split their Thaumaturgical Crest between two heirs. They competed together, with two Sabers split between them. Fitting, if you think about it."
Medea made an incredulous noise. "And they lost, with two Sabers?"
A grin cracked my face as the vacuum sealed bag opened with a hiss.
"Surrendered, more like," I said with relish. "One of the sisters was 'captured' by my grandfather and fell in love. The second gave up and fled back home, swearing vengeance upon my family for their treachery. Luviagelita, the current Edelfelt heir, wants to get her family's revenge by 'stealing' me from my own family."
Medea snorted. "Well, doesn't she sound like a lovely girl?"
I laughed. "Well, I haven't decided whether I'll 'surrender' yet or not."
"You have a reason to debase yourself like that?"
I opened my mouth to answer her, and then I realized what a piece of ammunition I was about to give her and settled for a shrug. She was going to find out about Rin and how much I cared for my sisters eventually, but best to leave it for a time when she wasn't nakedly plotting to betray me.
"There are things that being her consort would let me do that I'd have much more trouble with otherwise. Plus, I don't know her well enough to say if her personality is as beautiful as she is."
When I glanced over at Medea, it was to find her frowning. Whether she was just dissatisfied with my evasion, disgusted with my appreciation for Luvia's looks, or upset that she'd missed her chance for some leverage, I didn't know for sure, but I was willing to bet on the latter.
Baby steps, Yukio. Rome wasn't built in a day. Medea wouldn't be convinced that quickly, either.
With the shard of wood extracted, I handled it carefully and put it in place to act as my catalyst. Medea stepped back. If she weren't so close to utterly empty of magical energy, I might have feared she was going to stab me in the back and take my Servant's contract. Since she was barely stable, however, that sort of move would result in an instant loss for her, and I'd been very careful to ensure that state of things when I helped her.
Whatever she thought of me, I wasn't a fool. I wouldn't treat her like that fop Atrum had, but I wasn't going to just trust her without reason, either. I could give her olive branches, but it would be up to her to take them and make something of them.
Taking a deep breath, I thrust my hand out, and the image of a mirror shattering resounded in my head. Instantly, my circuits churned and circulated.
This was it.
"Thy essence is of silver and steel," I began. "Thy foundation is built of gems and the archduke of contracts. Thy ancestor is my great master, Schweinorg."
The circle began to glow, thrumming with power as the ritual took shape. I had to tamp down my excitement and force myself to keep the words slow and deliberate so that I didn't screw them up.
"Let the alighted wind be as a wall. Let the four cardinal gates be shut. Let thyself appear forth from the Crown. Let the three-forked road reaching the kingdom revolve."
The glowing circle grew brighter. A low wind, accompanying the sound of grinding steel, picked up and washed through the room.
"Let it be filled. Again. Again. Again. Again. Let there be fivefold perfections upon each repetition, simply breaking asunder upon each fulfillment. I hereby declare: let thy body rest under my dominion, and my fate shall rest in thy blade."
The glow grew brighter and brighter and brighter still. The whine of the circle and the howl of the wind grew so loud that I had to shout to even hear myself speak.
"In accordance with the call of the Holy Grail, if thou accede to this will and reason, then answer! Let this be my oath! I shall attain all the virtues of Heaven! I shall deny all the evils of Hell! Thou the Seven Heavens, clad in the Three Great Words, arrive from the Ring of Deterrence, O Keeper of Balance!"
The glow and the grinding reached a fevered pitch, and like a shadow cast upon the light, a figure grew in the center, and then at last, as the final words left my mouth, the glow and the wind surged out, washing over me, and died. Left behind was a woman, maybe an inch taller than Medea, dressed in thick, sturdy wool clothing and armored with leather and a single steel pauldron.
Her strawberry blonde hair was pulled into a tight tail at the nape of her neck, but the most striking things about her were her sharp, amethyst eyes, like shards of crystal, and the long, wicked red spear she carried in one hand.
That spear. My stomach jolted. I recognized it, even though it looked not quite the same as the version I was more familiar with.
"I am the Servant Rider," she said in a voice that oozed regality. Soft, refined, but strong and firm. This was a woman used to giving orders and having them followed. "You. You are my Master, correct?"
A look at the back of my hand revealed the stark red Command Spells etched into it, and I couldn't stop the triumphant grin from stretching across my face.
"I am," I told her. "You are who I think you are, right?"
Aífe in Sochraid? I projected at her as coherently as I could.
She arched an eyebrow, and her voice responded in my head, Your Old Irish needs work, Master. I'll forgive your butchering of my mother tongue on account only that it isn't spoken anymore.
Aloud, she added, "My spear shall be with you from henceforth. Our contract is set."
Now, something like motherly impatience colored her tone, and her gaze moved to Medea, maybe you would like to explain why you have another Servant here?
Ah, right.
I turned back to Medea and offered her my hand. "Caster. This shall be our oath. Thy body shall rest under my dominion…"
She stared at me for a long moment, silent, her brow knit and her eyes narrowed, her mouth pulled into a thin line. I could only imagine what must have been going through her head, and I doubted any of it was particularly flattering to me.
"You're a fool," she finally spat.
"Maybe," I replied, "but I'm a fool willing to believe in your innate goodness. If all I believed was that you were an obstacle and an irredeemable wretch, I would have slit your throat while you were helpless and watched you die."
At last, she sighed and reached out to grasp my hand. Quietly, she said, "And your fate shall rest with me."
The contract settled with a flare of pain in my Command Spells, and suddenly, a bottomless abyss was attempting to drink of my magical energy. I let her have as much of it as I could spare, and I watched her take in a deep breath as her own power started to return to her.
Behind me, Aífe remained tense. Waiting.
At length, Medea said, "I believe you promised to explain things, after you summoned your Servant."
"I did."
I retrieved the shard of wood that had served as my catalyst, and Aífe's eyes followed it as I put it back into the bag it had come in. Well, strictly speaking, it had come in a box meant to preserve it, but the bag was easier to carry around, so I'd put it there until I was done with it. No sense getting the Department of Archaeology on my back for damaging a priceless relic.
"Let's adjourn to the sitting room," I said, "and I'll explain everything I can to both of you."
Up the stairs we went, my two Servants following behind, with Aífe in the very rear. It seemed she didn't trust Medea at all, and while that was convenient in some ways, I was going to need them to work together in the days ahead, and distrust was going to make that difficult.
I led them to the sitting room and bade them to take a seat while I went and conjured up a pot of tea, and about ten minutes later, I returned to find them silent, staring at each other without blinking. Medea was still sipping deep of the well of my reserves, trying to restore her own depleted energy.
A mug was poured for each of us, with sugar and cream left out to be used as they pleased. For a change, I'd made a pot of Irish tea, in deference to the Irishwomen who were calling this place home, for now. Aífe didn't comment on it, but I probably should have expected that, because tea didn't become a commonly consumed beverage in the British Isles until well after her own era.
After taking a few sips and letting the warmth settle in my gut, I reclined in my chair, folded my legs, and regarded the both of them.
"So," I said, "let's start off with a bit of a history lesson."
"A history lesson?" Medea asked. "What does that have to do with anything?"
I nodded. "Yes. The current problems with the Holy Grail War as it exists today stem back to the previous ritual some sixty or so years ago."
"Problems?" Aífe demanded sharply.
My finger tapped against the rim of my cup.
"The Grail is a monkey's paw," I told her bluntly. "Any wish made on it will be twisted to cause as much destruction as possible. More to the point, if the Grail itself is allowed to reach completion, that thing hiding inside of it will come out and destroy mankind."
The two of them reacted the only way they really could have to that proclamation: stunned silence.
"As I said," I went on. "History lesson. I don't know all the details, but during the Third Grail War, the Einzberns, one of the three families who helped build this whole thing, got impatient with the ritual failing over and over again, so they tried to cheat and game the system. They attempted to use a backdoor hack to call an ancient god of darkness and evil, something so powerful that it could crush the competition. They got a scrawny young man so weak that Assassin could kill him in a straight fight."
Aífe leaned forward, interested. "And this scrawny young man, there's a reason that the Einzberns' attempt to call a god of darkness summoned him instead?"
"I don't know all the details," I demurred, repeating myself. "What I do know is that this young man was a ritual sacrifice from an ancient culture, a scapegoat meant to bear the sins of mankind in order to purge his tribe of evil. When an existence imagined for the sole purpose of granting his people's wish for an ultimate evil was killed and entered the Grail…"
Medea snorted and broke out into cackles. "They broke their own system!"
"The Grail is an omnipotent wish-granting device," I agreed. "When a wish entered the system itself, the Grail attempted to grant it. Something, however, has always prevented it from reaching fruition. In the Third, the vessel for containing the power of the defeated Servants was broken halfway through. In the Fourth, ten years ago, the winner realized the tragedy that would occur if he made a wish and destroyed the Lesser Grail right as the ritual was on the cusp of completion. That's why it only took ten years for the Fifth to be ready."
"And what will stop it in the Fifth?" Medea asked. "You do know, don't you, Master? You've already told me how I might die, so surely you can answer that much, as well."
I slanted a look her way, grimacing, and took another long sip of me tea.
"Alright," I said. "It's not the neatest segue, but I might as well take it. So let's get to another history lesson and fast forward to ten years ago, in the middle of the Fourth Grail War. The Caster of that War was a man named Gilles de Rais using the alias Bluebeard, summoned by a serial killer using the blood of his victims. Bluebeard and his Master had no real interest in the War itself or the Grail, so they used the opportunity to indulge in their darker proclivities. They focused mainly on kidnapping children, taking them back to Caster's workshop in the sewers, and using them as ritual sacrifices to summon monstrosities from outside our reality."
Medea's lip curled with disgust and Aífe's expression hardened.
"A pair like that was allowed to participate in the Grail War?"
I shrugged. "The Grail is relatively indiscriminate, these days. Bluebeard's Master was the only remaining candidate with the capacity to become a Master, one would assume, so he got the position by default. He had a vague wish and access to the ritual, whether or not he knew exactly what he was doing or what he got himself into, so he was as good as any other random candidate."
"A tragedy, to be sure, what happened to those children," said Medea, "but how exactly is this relevant to your impossible knowledge?"
A sigh hissed out of my nostrils, and I set my tea down long enough to look at them both.
"One of those children," I revealed gravely, "was me."
Both of them jerked and regarded me with wide eyes.
"You escaped, obviously," said Aífe. "Or else you wouldn't be here now."
"I was rescued," I corrected her with a shake of my head. A brief flash of memory flitted through my head, of a white-haired man with a drawn face and one blind eye hovering over me. Uncle Kariya. "But the trinket Bluebeard made for his Master to use to ensnare his victims wasn't intended for use on magi, and the trauma of the event forced my Magic Circuits open. I was in a coma for at least a week."
A deep breath filled my lungs, and behind my eyelids, I saw an expanse of white, filled only with a small bookshelf and a pair of plush armchairs. The sad smile of a young man, trapped in that place.
"While I was out, I dreamed visions of possible futures. A fractal kaleidoscope of what the Fifth Holy Grail War would have been, had I died that day."
"Dreams?" Medea asked incredulously. "You're basing the entirety of this all on dreams you had as a child."
"You're not voicing any doubts I haven't questioned myself," I told her. "But I've since come across proof. The fact you're sitting here instead of up at the temple should tell you that much."
She recoiled, flinching as though I'd slapped her.
I reached for my bag and pulled out a folder, then flipped the folder open and started placing the pictures inside on the coffee table sat in front of us. Each of them was labeled with their name.
"Prior to those dreams, I had never met the majority of these people. But over the course of the last ten years, not only have I met most of them, I can confirm that they all exist and at least one of them is a Master in the Fifth Grail War."
Emiya Shirou. Kotomine Kirei. Bazett Fraga McRemitz. My sister, Rin. Matou Shinji. I hadn't been able to get a picture of Illya, but a vague sketch depicted her silvery hair and red eyes clearly. Zouken, as well, merely because I hadn't dared to try and get a picture of him. The only reason I had one of Kirei was because Kirei was enough of a public figure that I'd been able to snag one without arousing suspicion.
"Most of these are just kids," Aífe muttered, taking the picture of Shirou.
"Illyasviel is the Master of Berserker, Herakles, and older than she looks. If she hasn't shown up yet, she's on her way here now," I said. "Matou Shinji is a conditional Master, but I've changed enough that I have reason to believe his grandfather, Zouken," and here, I pointed to Zouken's sketch, "will decide to get involved personally. He's the founder I mentioned earlier, Caster."
She blinked and tentatively picked up Zouken's sketch.
"You called him a founder," she murmured. "If the normal amount of time between Grail Wars is sixty years, then he would have to be…at least three hundred years old."
"At least," I agreed.
Her lips puckered thoughtfully. "Time has not treated him kindly."
"In more ways than one."
I took another sip on that thought and continued.
"Bazett Fraga McRemitz is currently resting upstairs in one of the guest bedrooms in a medically induced coma. She was Lancer's original Master."
Both of them turned suddenly to look at me again.
"Original?" Medea asked.
"She trusted the wrong man." I tapped Kirei's picture. "Kotomine Kirei, a participant in the previous War, lopped off her arm and stole her Command Spells right as Lancer manifested. Incidentally, Caster can also confirm that her previous Master, Atrum Galliasta, is dead. That's why I didn't bother getting a picture of him."
Medea startled. Ah, still doubting me, was she?
"Yes," she confirmed bitterly. "Yes, he is."
Aífe eyed her for a moment, and then nodded. "You killed him yourself."
Medea didn't say anything to that at all. I decided to respect her privacy and not talk about what little I knew of the circumstances that had led to that fiasco. Even my picture of them was fragmented and incomplete, but I still had enough to know he was an utter piece of excrement not fit to be wiped off my boot. All the arrogance, narcissism, and exaggerated self-importance of the worst of the Clocktower with none of the skill, talent, or lineage to back any of it up.
"Lancer's true name is Cúchulainn." Aífe startled at that one, looking utterly gobsmacked. "He's accepted Kirei as his Master for lack of another choice, but he has enough lines that Kirei is all too willing to tapdance over that their compatibility is absolutely horrid. If he isn't taken out until the end, Cúchulainn will eventually rebel when he's given an order he refuses to follow. The real threat Kirei poses comes down to two issues in particular: firstly, the excess Command Spells leftover from previous rituals, collected from the Masters after it was over. I shouldn't need to explain why those are an issue. Secondly, he's kept in his employ — for lack of a better word — the Archer class Servant with whom he conspired to kill my father ten years ago."
"Ten years — you mean he's a holdover from the previous Grail War?" asked Aífe.
"He's the Servant originally summoned by my father, using the shed skin of the first snake as a catalyst." I looked pointedly at Medea. "King Gilgamesh of Uruk. The first and original hero. He who collected all the treasures of the world, and who therefore possesses every Noble Phantasm ever recorded."
"What?!"
But it was not Medea that burst out of her seat, an incredulous shout on her tongue, it was Aífe.
"That's ludicrous!" she spat. "A single Heroic Spirit cannot possess limitless Noble Phantasms!"
Calmly, I retrieved another sheet of paper and handed it to her. She took it as though it was a venomous snake that might bite her at any moment and carefully read the fragmented dossier I'd constructed of Gilgamesh and his skills and Noble Phantasms.
"He owns every Noble Phantasm to ever exist," I reiterated, "but strictly speaking, there are really only two or three that belong solely to him. The Gate of Babylon, his treasure room where he keeps them all. Sha Naqba Imuru, his unique form of Clairvoyance. But the one which none of us could hope to combat is the third, a nameless weapon that can't even really be called a sword. He calls it Ea, the Sword of Rupture."
Aífe's eyes went wide as she came to that entry and read exactly what that weapon was. I couldn't blame her. My previous self had thought it a uniquely "cool" weapon, but for me, it had been nothing except a source of some of my worst nightmares.
"You said," Medea muttered quietly, "that of the three, Herakles was the one I might survive."
"He is," I answered her solemnly. "You can't beat him, but you might at least convince his Master to retreat. His Noble Phantasm gives him immunity to any attack or Noble Phantasm below the rank of A along with a stock of twelve resurrections from death. Even if you kill him once or twice, he'll eventually develop an immunity, and while your magic is strong, I have serious doubts that you have twelve different kinds of magic all strong enough to kill him."
And then I delivered the fatal blow.
"In one version of events, Gilgamesh toyed with Herakles and killed him twelve times without breaking a sweat or using Ea."
It was a scene that would stick with me, no matter what. One of the handful that stood out, even after ten years. Herakles, hanging limply from the Chains of Heaven, skewered with numerous Noble Phantasms, defeated — and suddenly surging to life in defiance of his limits in order to protect his Master.
"He killed Herakles?" Medea asked, her voice an octave higher than usual.
"Without much effort at all," I confirmed.
She slumped back, mouth flapping silently. I could understand the trouble she was having. Especially for someone who had been around him and known him, someone who had borne witness to his deeds, the idea of Herakles being tossed around like a child was a frightening idea.
I turned to Aífe.
"I guess now's as good a time as any to ask: what is it you would have wished for?"
She regarded me coolly, one side of her mouth pulling up in a smirk.
"If you're asking me whether I covet the Grail and its powers of wish-granting, you can rest easy, Master," she said. "I've no need of that trinket to grant my wish. In fact, it would make things far too easy, and there's no challenge in being handed what I want, corrupted Grail or not." She frowned. "It seems my odds of having a wish granted are fairly low, even if I had. I would love to match fists with Herakles, but an enemy who can trivialize even a legend as strong as him…"
"Fortunately, Gilgamesh won't get involved without reason," I told her. "Unless something happens to get him to stop fence-sitting, he'll spectate until at least the latter half of the War."
She snorted and smirked again. "There's no way to be sure of that now, is there? After all, you said that the events you envisioned took place in a world where you hadn't survived that night ten years ago, and that means a world where you weren't there to summon me. Correct?"
I reclined back in my chair and took another sip of my tea. "The Rider Servant of that version of events was Medusa, under Matou Shinji," I said by way of confirmation. "Without the Rider class, the odds are decently strong that Zouken himself will just butt into the War and summon Hassan of the Cursed Arm. It's one of the few things completely up in the air before Saber's summoning in about a week and a half."
"Saber?" Medea jumped back in.
I leaned over long enough to tap Shirou's picture. "If all goes according to schedule — and according to plan — he'll summon King Arthur."
"Lancer, Berserker, Saber, Assassin," Aífe mused aloud, "and you have Rider and Caster right here. So if Berserker is Herakles, Saber is King Arthur, Assassin might be Hassan of the Cursed Arm, and Lancer is Cúchulainn, who does that leave in the Archer class? Or has Gilgamesh retained that spot?"
I tapped Rin's picture this time. "The three founding families are guaranteed a slot in each Grail War. The Tohsaka representative this time will accidentally summon an Archer. Who she gets is a bit hard to explain, but the basic gist is that he's a nameless Guardian with the ability to replicate any bladed weapon he lays eyes on. That includes Noble Phantasms."
But this was evidently the final straw, at least for one of them.
"Oh, this is ridiculous!" Medea burst out, throwing up her hands. "Two Servants with functionally limitless Noble Phantasms at their beck and call? The greatest hero of Greece? The oldest recorded hero ever put to clay and stone? And we're to take all of this at your word that it comes from a bunch of prophetic dreams you had as a child ten years ago?"
I stared at her for a long moment, because when I thought about it, it really was kind of hard to believe, wasn't it? Even for what and who she was. And then I sighed and leveraged myself out of my seat, draining the last of my tea and setting the cup on the table. "Alright. It looks like a field trip is in order."
"What?" Medea asked incredulously.
"A field trip?" Aífe asked with one raised brow.
"We're going to Shinto, just across the bridge," I said. A grimace stretched tight over my lips. "I'm going to show you where the contents of the Grail spilled out into Fuyuki at the end of the last War."
Getting Medea on my side was going to be a long term project.
To be entirely fair, I'd known that going in. Servants answered the call in a Holy Grail War for the purpose of fulfilling a wish, desires ingrained so deeply into their beings and held so dear to their hearts that they lingered through time, space, and even beyond death itself. No matter what she said, it was never going to be as easy as using words and appeals to her innate goodness to sway her and make her give up on that wish.
Of course, then a generalization like that ran into Cúchulainn and stopped meaning anything, but by and large, it should still hold that every Servant summoned would have something they yearned to fulfill.
I had hopes, as she and I moved to the room where I had prepared my own summoning circle, that she might be swayed once she found out what hid inside the Great Grail. If anything could convince her that it wasn't worth it and nothing good would come of clinging to her wish, it would surely be the presence of such a malevolent force waiting for the ritual to complete so it could enter this world and slaughter people indiscriminately, wouldn't it? Something like that could never fulfill a wish for happiness.
Hopes… But I was under no illusions that it would be so easy to sway her, even then. It wasn't so simple to ignore the allures of your mostly deeply cherished dreams.
I wasn't lying when I told her I wanted to give her the chance to be a better person. To be who she was always meant to be, rather than the twisted wretch the gods' cruelty had made her into. But even with those pretty words, the fact I had ulterior motives for yanking Medea away from Kuzuki's path should have been obvious to everyone, even if the exact nature of those motives wasn't clear.
The value of a Caster who was considered one of the most powerful and talented spellcasters in history shouldn't need to be explained. The fact that she held that status despite not being eligible for the station of a Grand — when all of those anywhere near her level were — said something about her raw talent and ability. For someone like me, a third rate hack who was really good in one field and barely competent in the rest, having that sort of skill and firepower backing me up was invaluable.
I had also just recruited a healer who made me look like a fumbling child. I was trying not to think too hard about that one.
Of course, having her on my side also conveniently removed an enemy player from the field. One less Servant for me to worry about taking out, which meant that I could put more focus on the enemies that could and would very easily and mercilessly stomp me into the ground.
To my utter surprise and delight, there had already been a largely intact magic circle set up in the basement. At a guess, whichever of the Edelfelt twins (probably my grandmother) had called this place home had made use of it sixty some odd years ago to summon her own Servant for the Third Grail War, but I had no way of proving it at all.
"You already had the ritual prepared?" Medea asked as we entered the room.
"The previous owner was a participant in the Third Grail War," I answered. "This was her base of operations for the duration, so it's likely that she summoned her Servant here, just as a matter of convenience."
Of course, that hit a bit of a snag, didn't it? My understanding was that the sisters both summoned distinct aspects of the same Servant, a Saber, so it stood to reason they had actually performed their summoning at the same time in the same place. My head hurt just imagining how twisted the logistics had to be to work out any other way.
"She?" Medea echoed curiously. "You know the identity of the previous owner?"
"My grandmother," I confirmed, and then backtracked, "or, well, I'm pretty sure it was her. Back in the Third Grail War, the Edelfelt sisters came to participate — don't ask me why, because with that family it could have been a number of different reasons — and their lineage has a nifty little Sorcery Trait that lets them split their Thaumaturgical Crest between two heirs. They competed together, with two Sabers split between them. Fitting, if you think about it."
Medea made an incredulous noise. "And they lost, with two Sabers?"
A grin cracked my face as the vacuum sealed bag opened with a hiss.
"Surrendered, more like," I said with relish. "One of the sisters was 'captured' by my grandfather and fell in love. The second gave up and fled back home, swearing vengeance upon my family for their treachery. Luviagelita, the current Edelfelt heir, wants to get her family's revenge by 'stealing' me from my own family."
Medea snorted. "Well, doesn't she sound like a lovely girl?"
I laughed. "Well, I haven't decided whether I'll 'surrender' yet or not."
"You have a reason to debase yourself like that?"
I opened my mouth to answer her, and then I realized what a piece of ammunition I was about to give her and settled for a shrug. She was going to find out about Rin and how much I cared for my sisters eventually, but best to leave it for a time when she wasn't nakedly plotting to betray me.
"There are things that being her consort would let me do that I'd have much more trouble with otherwise. Plus, I don't know her well enough to say if her personality is as beautiful as she is."
When I glanced over at Medea, it was to find her frowning. Whether she was just dissatisfied with my evasion, disgusted with my appreciation for Luvia's looks, or upset that she'd missed her chance for some leverage, I didn't know for sure, but I was willing to bet on the latter.
Baby steps, Yukio. Rome wasn't built in a day. Medea wouldn't be convinced that quickly, either.
With the shard of wood extracted, I handled it carefully and put it in place to act as my catalyst. Medea stepped back. If she weren't so close to utterly empty of magical energy, I might have feared she was going to stab me in the back and take my Servant's contract. Since she was barely stable, however, that sort of move would result in an instant loss for her, and I'd been very careful to ensure that state of things when I helped her.
Whatever she thought of me, I wasn't a fool. I wouldn't treat her like that fop Atrum had, but I wasn't going to just trust her without reason, either. I could give her olive branches, but it would be up to her to take them and make something of them.
Taking a deep breath, I thrust my hand out, and the image of a mirror shattering resounded in my head. Instantly, my circuits churned and circulated.
This was it.
"Thy essence is of silver and steel," I began. "Thy foundation is built of gems and the archduke of contracts. Thy ancestor is my great master, Schweinorg."
The circle began to glow, thrumming with power as the ritual took shape. I had to tamp down my excitement and force myself to keep the words slow and deliberate so that I didn't screw them up.
"Let the alighted wind be as a wall. Let the four cardinal gates be shut. Let thyself appear forth from the Crown. Let the three-forked road reaching the kingdom revolve."
The glowing circle grew brighter. A low wind, accompanying the sound of grinding steel, picked up and washed through the room.
"Let it be filled. Again. Again. Again. Again. Let there be fivefold perfections upon each repetition, simply breaking asunder upon each fulfillment. I hereby declare: let thy body rest under my dominion, and my fate shall rest in thy blade."
The glow grew brighter and brighter and brighter still. The whine of the circle and the howl of the wind grew so loud that I had to shout to even hear myself speak.
"In accordance with the call of the Holy Grail, if thou accede to this will and reason, then answer! Let this be my oath! I shall attain all the virtues of Heaven! I shall deny all the evils of Hell! Thou the Seven Heavens, clad in the Three Great Words, arrive from the Ring of Deterrence, O Keeper of Balance!"
The glow and the grinding reached a fevered pitch, and like a shadow cast upon the light, a figure grew in the center, and then at last, as the final words left my mouth, the glow and the wind surged out, washing over me, and died. Left behind was a woman, maybe an inch taller than Medea, dressed in thick, sturdy wool clothing and armored with leather and a single steel pauldron.
Her strawberry blonde hair was pulled into a tight tail at the nape of her neck, but the most striking things about her were her sharp, amethyst eyes, like shards of crystal, and the long, wicked red spear she carried in one hand.
That spear. My stomach jolted. I recognized it, even though it looked not quite the same as the version I was more familiar with.
"I am the Servant Rider," she said in a voice that oozed regality. Soft, refined, but strong and firm. This was a woman used to giving orders and having them followed. "You. You are my Master, correct?"
A look at the back of my hand revealed the stark red Command Spells etched into it, and I couldn't stop the triumphant grin from stretching across my face.
"I am," I told her. "You are who I think you are, right?"
Aífe in Sochraid? I projected at her as coherently as I could.
She arched an eyebrow, and her voice responded in my head, Your Old Irish needs work, Master. I'll forgive your butchering of my mother tongue on account only that it isn't spoken anymore.
Aloud, she added, "My spear shall be with you from henceforth. Our contract is set."
Now, something like motherly impatience colored her tone, and her gaze moved to Medea, maybe you would like to explain why you have another Servant here?
Ah, right.
I turned back to Medea and offered her my hand. "Caster. This shall be our oath. Thy body shall rest under my dominion…"
She stared at me for a long moment, silent, her brow knit and her eyes narrowed, her mouth pulled into a thin line. I could only imagine what must have been going through her head, and I doubted any of it was particularly flattering to me.
"You're a fool," she finally spat.
"Maybe," I replied, "but I'm a fool willing to believe in your innate goodness. If all I believed was that you were an obstacle and an irredeemable wretch, I would have slit your throat while you were helpless and watched you die."
At last, she sighed and reached out to grasp my hand. Quietly, she said, "And your fate shall rest with me."
The contract settled with a flare of pain in my Command Spells, and suddenly, a bottomless abyss was attempting to drink of my magical energy. I let her have as much of it as I could spare, and I watched her take in a deep breath as her own power started to return to her.
Behind me, Aífe remained tense. Waiting.
At length, Medea said, "I believe you promised to explain things, after you summoned your Servant."
"I did."
I retrieved the shard of wood that had served as my catalyst, and Aífe's eyes followed it as I put it back into the bag it had come in. Well, strictly speaking, it had come in a box meant to preserve it, but the bag was easier to carry around, so I'd put it there until I was done with it. No sense getting the Department of Archaeology on my back for damaging a priceless relic.
"Let's adjourn to the sitting room," I said, "and I'll explain everything I can to both of you."
Up the stairs we went, my two Servants following behind, with Aífe in the very rear. It seemed she didn't trust Medea at all, and while that was convenient in some ways, I was going to need them to work together in the days ahead, and distrust was going to make that difficult.
I led them to the sitting room and bade them to take a seat while I went and conjured up a pot of tea, and about ten minutes later, I returned to find them silent, staring at each other without blinking. Medea was still sipping deep of the well of my reserves, trying to restore her own depleted energy.
A mug was poured for each of us, with sugar and cream left out to be used as they pleased. For a change, I'd made a pot of Irish tea, in deference to the Irishwomen who were calling this place home, for now. Aífe didn't comment on it, but I probably should have expected that, because tea didn't become a commonly consumed beverage in the British Isles until well after her own era.
After taking a few sips and letting the warmth settle in my gut, I reclined in my chair, folded my legs, and regarded the both of them.
"So," I said, "let's start off with a bit of a history lesson."
"A history lesson?" Medea asked. "What does that have to do with anything?"
I nodded. "Yes. The current problems with the Holy Grail War as it exists today stem back to the previous ritual some sixty or so years ago."
"Problems?" Aífe demanded sharply.
My finger tapped against the rim of my cup.
"The Grail is a monkey's paw," I told her bluntly. "Any wish made on it will be twisted to cause as much destruction as possible. More to the point, if the Grail itself is allowed to reach completion, that thing hiding inside of it will come out and destroy mankind."
The two of them reacted the only way they really could have to that proclamation: stunned silence.
"As I said," I went on. "History lesson. I don't know all the details, but during the Third Grail War, the Einzberns, one of the three families who helped build this whole thing, got impatient with the ritual failing over and over again, so they tried to cheat and game the system. They attempted to use a backdoor hack to call an ancient god of darkness and evil, something so powerful that it could crush the competition. They got a scrawny young man so weak that Assassin could kill him in a straight fight."
Aífe leaned forward, interested. "And this scrawny young man, there's a reason that the Einzberns' attempt to call a god of darkness summoned him instead?"
"I don't know all the details," I demurred, repeating myself. "What I do know is that this young man was a ritual sacrifice from an ancient culture, a scapegoat meant to bear the sins of mankind in order to purge his tribe of evil. When an existence imagined for the sole purpose of granting his people's wish for an ultimate evil was killed and entered the Grail…"
Medea snorted and broke out into cackles. "They broke their own system!"
"The Grail is an omnipotent wish-granting device," I agreed. "When a wish entered the system itself, the Grail attempted to grant it. Something, however, has always prevented it from reaching fruition. In the Third, the vessel for containing the power of the defeated Servants was broken halfway through. In the Fourth, ten years ago, the winner realized the tragedy that would occur if he made a wish and destroyed the Lesser Grail right as the ritual was on the cusp of completion. That's why it only took ten years for the Fifth to be ready."
"And what will stop it in the Fifth?" Medea asked. "You do know, don't you, Master? You've already told me how I might die, so surely you can answer that much, as well."
I slanted a look her way, grimacing, and took another long sip of me tea.
"Alright," I said. "It's not the neatest segue, but I might as well take it. So let's get to another history lesson and fast forward to ten years ago, in the middle of the Fourth Grail War. The Caster of that War was a man named Gilles de Rais using the alias Bluebeard, summoned by a serial killer using the blood of his victims. Bluebeard and his Master had no real interest in the War itself or the Grail, so they used the opportunity to indulge in their darker proclivities. They focused mainly on kidnapping children, taking them back to Caster's workshop in the sewers, and using them as ritual sacrifices to summon monstrosities from outside our reality."
Medea's lip curled with disgust and Aífe's expression hardened.
"A pair like that was allowed to participate in the Grail War?"
I shrugged. "The Grail is relatively indiscriminate, these days. Bluebeard's Master was the only remaining candidate with the capacity to become a Master, one would assume, so he got the position by default. He had a vague wish and access to the ritual, whether or not he knew exactly what he was doing or what he got himself into, so he was as good as any other random candidate."
"A tragedy, to be sure, what happened to those children," said Medea, "but how exactly is this relevant to your impossible knowledge?"
A sigh hissed out of my nostrils, and I set my tea down long enough to look at them both.
"One of those children," I revealed gravely, "was me."
Both of them jerked and regarded me with wide eyes.
"You escaped, obviously," said Aífe. "Or else you wouldn't be here now."
"I was rescued," I corrected her with a shake of my head. A brief flash of memory flitted through my head, of a white-haired man with a drawn face and one blind eye hovering over me. Uncle Kariya. "But the trinket Bluebeard made for his Master to use to ensnare his victims wasn't intended for use on magi, and the trauma of the event forced my Magic Circuits open. I was in a coma for at least a week."
A deep breath filled my lungs, and behind my eyelids, I saw an expanse of white, filled only with a small bookshelf and a pair of plush armchairs. The sad smile of a young man, trapped in that place.
"While I was out, I dreamed visions of possible futures. A fractal kaleidoscope of what the Fifth Holy Grail War would have been, had I died that day."
"Dreams?" Medea asked incredulously. "You're basing the entirety of this all on dreams you had as a child."
"You're not voicing any doubts I haven't questioned myself," I told her. "But I've since come across proof. The fact you're sitting here instead of up at the temple should tell you that much."
She recoiled, flinching as though I'd slapped her.
I reached for my bag and pulled out a folder, then flipped the folder open and started placing the pictures inside on the coffee table sat in front of us. Each of them was labeled with their name.
"Prior to those dreams, I had never met the majority of these people. But over the course of the last ten years, not only have I met most of them, I can confirm that they all exist and at least one of them is a Master in the Fifth Grail War."
Emiya Shirou. Kotomine Kirei. Bazett Fraga McRemitz. My sister, Rin. Matou Shinji. I hadn't been able to get a picture of Illya, but a vague sketch depicted her silvery hair and red eyes clearly. Zouken, as well, merely because I hadn't dared to try and get a picture of him. The only reason I had one of Kirei was because Kirei was enough of a public figure that I'd been able to snag one without arousing suspicion.
"Most of these are just kids," Aífe muttered, taking the picture of Shirou.
"Illyasviel is the Master of Berserker, Herakles, and older than she looks. If she hasn't shown up yet, she's on her way here now," I said. "Matou Shinji is a conditional Master, but I've changed enough that I have reason to believe his grandfather, Zouken," and here, I pointed to Zouken's sketch, "will decide to get involved personally. He's the founder I mentioned earlier, Caster."
She blinked and tentatively picked up Zouken's sketch.
"You called him a founder," she murmured. "If the normal amount of time between Grail Wars is sixty years, then he would have to be…at least three hundred years old."
"At least," I agreed.
Her lips puckered thoughtfully. "Time has not treated him kindly."
"In more ways than one."
I took another sip on that thought and continued.
"Bazett Fraga McRemitz is currently resting upstairs in one of the guest bedrooms in a medically induced coma. She was Lancer's original Master."
Both of them turned suddenly to look at me again.
"Original?" Medea asked.
"She trusted the wrong man." I tapped Kirei's picture. "Kotomine Kirei, a participant in the previous War, lopped off her arm and stole her Command Spells right as Lancer manifested. Incidentally, Caster can also confirm that her previous Master, Atrum Galliasta, is dead. That's why I didn't bother getting a picture of him."
Medea startled. Ah, still doubting me, was she?
"Yes," she confirmed bitterly. "Yes, he is."
Aífe eyed her for a moment, and then nodded. "You killed him yourself."
Medea didn't say anything to that at all. I decided to respect her privacy and not talk about what little I knew of the circumstances that had led to that fiasco. Even my picture of them was fragmented and incomplete, but I still had enough to know he was an utter piece of excrement not fit to be wiped off my boot. All the arrogance, narcissism, and exaggerated self-importance of the worst of the Clocktower with none of the skill, talent, or lineage to back any of it up.
"Lancer's true name is Cúchulainn." Aífe startled at that one, looking utterly gobsmacked. "He's accepted Kirei as his Master for lack of another choice, but he has enough lines that Kirei is all too willing to tapdance over that their compatibility is absolutely horrid. If he isn't taken out until the end, Cúchulainn will eventually rebel when he's given an order he refuses to follow. The real threat Kirei poses comes down to two issues in particular: firstly, the excess Command Spells leftover from previous rituals, collected from the Masters after it was over. I shouldn't need to explain why those are an issue. Secondly, he's kept in his employ — for lack of a better word — the Archer class Servant with whom he conspired to kill my father ten years ago."
"Ten years — you mean he's a holdover from the previous Grail War?" asked Aífe.
"He's the Servant originally summoned by my father, using the shed skin of the first snake as a catalyst." I looked pointedly at Medea. "King Gilgamesh of Uruk. The first and original hero. He who collected all the treasures of the world, and who therefore possesses every Noble Phantasm ever recorded."
"What?!"
But it was not Medea that burst out of her seat, an incredulous shout on her tongue, it was Aífe.
"That's ludicrous!" she spat. "A single Heroic Spirit cannot possess limitless Noble Phantasms!"
Calmly, I retrieved another sheet of paper and handed it to her. She took it as though it was a venomous snake that might bite her at any moment and carefully read the fragmented dossier I'd constructed of Gilgamesh and his skills and Noble Phantasms.
"He owns every Noble Phantasm to ever exist," I reiterated, "but strictly speaking, there are really only two or three that belong solely to him. The Gate of Babylon, his treasure room where he keeps them all. Sha Naqba Imuru, his unique form of Clairvoyance. But the one which none of us could hope to combat is the third, a nameless weapon that can't even really be called a sword. He calls it Ea, the Sword of Rupture."
Aífe's eyes went wide as she came to that entry and read exactly what that weapon was. I couldn't blame her. My previous self had thought it a uniquely "cool" weapon, but for me, it had been nothing except a source of some of my worst nightmares.
"You said," Medea muttered quietly, "that of the three, Herakles was the one I might survive."
"He is," I answered her solemnly. "You can't beat him, but you might at least convince his Master to retreat. His Noble Phantasm gives him immunity to any attack or Noble Phantasm below the rank of A along with a stock of twelve resurrections from death. Even if you kill him once or twice, he'll eventually develop an immunity, and while your magic is strong, I have serious doubts that you have twelve different kinds of magic all strong enough to kill him."
And then I delivered the fatal blow.
"In one version of events, Gilgamesh toyed with Herakles and killed him twelve times without breaking a sweat or using Ea."
It was a scene that would stick with me, no matter what. One of the handful that stood out, even after ten years. Herakles, hanging limply from the Chains of Heaven, skewered with numerous Noble Phantasms, defeated — and suddenly surging to life in defiance of his limits in order to protect his Master.
"He killed Herakles?" Medea asked, her voice an octave higher than usual.
"Without much effort at all," I confirmed.
She slumped back, mouth flapping silently. I could understand the trouble she was having. Especially for someone who had been around him and known him, someone who had borne witness to his deeds, the idea of Herakles being tossed around like a child was a frightening idea.
I turned to Aífe.
"I guess now's as good a time as any to ask: what is it you would have wished for?"
She regarded me coolly, one side of her mouth pulling up in a smirk.
"If you're asking me whether I covet the Grail and its powers of wish-granting, you can rest easy, Master," she said. "I've no need of that trinket to grant my wish. In fact, it would make things far too easy, and there's no challenge in being handed what I want, corrupted Grail or not." She frowned. "It seems my odds of having a wish granted are fairly low, even if I had. I would love to match fists with Herakles, but an enemy who can trivialize even a legend as strong as him…"
"Fortunately, Gilgamesh won't get involved without reason," I told her. "Unless something happens to get him to stop fence-sitting, he'll spectate until at least the latter half of the War."
She snorted and smirked again. "There's no way to be sure of that now, is there? After all, you said that the events you envisioned took place in a world where you hadn't survived that night ten years ago, and that means a world where you weren't there to summon me. Correct?"
I reclined back in my chair and took another sip of my tea. "The Rider Servant of that version of events was Medusa, under Matou Shinji," I said by way of confirmation. "Without the Rider class, the odds are decently strong that Zouken himself will just butt into the War and summon Hassan of the Cursed Arm. It's one of the few things completely up in the air before Saber's summoning in about a week and a half."
"Saber?" Medea jumped back in.
I leaned over long enough to tap Shirou's picture. "If all goes according to schedule — and according to plan — he'll summon King Arthur."
"Lancer, Berserker, Saber, Assassin," Aífe mused aloud, "and you have Rider and Caster right here. So if Berserker is Herakles, Saber is King Arthur, Assassin might be Hassan of the Cursed Arm, and Lancer is Cúchulainn, who does that leave in the Archer class? Or has Gilgamesh retained that spot?"
I tapped Rin's picture this time. "The three founding families are guaranteed a slot in each Grail War. The Tohsaka representative this time will accidentally summon an Archer. Who she gets is a bit hard to explain, but the basic gist is that he's a nameless Guardian with the ability to replicate any bladed weapon he lays eyes on. That includes Noble Phantasms."
But this was evidently the final straw, at least for one of them.
"Oh, this is ridiculous!" Medea burst out, throwing up her hands. "Two Servants with functionally limitless Noble Phantasms at their beck and call? The greatest hero of Greece? The oldest recorded hero ever put to clay and stone? And we're to take all of this at your word that it comes from a bunch of prophetic dreams you had as a child ten years ago?"
I stared at her for a long moment, because when I thought about it, it really was kind of hard to believe, wasn't it? Even for what and who she was. And then I sighed and leveraged myself out of my seat, draining the last of my tea and setting the cup on the table. "Alright. It looks like a field trip is in order."
"What?" Medea asked incredulously.
"A field trip?" Aífe asked with one raised brow.
"We're going to Shinto, just across the bridge," I said. A grimace stretched tight over my lips. "I'm going to show you where the contents of the Grail spilled out into Fuyuki at the end of the last War."
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
The last OC is an OC Servant.
Yeah, I think it's obvious that I didn't have a solid grasp on what I wanted Aífe to be like when I was writing the first couple chapters with her in them, but having her in Hereafter has helped me get a better hold on her personality.
Why not Scathach? Well, obviously, Scathach can't be summoned, for one, and for two, the Lancer class has already been taken, and so has the Caster class. The last class Sca's suited for is Assassin, which, if she even could be summoned, would undoubtedly be more focused on her godslaying attributes than it would her tutelary aspects.
Different from Hereafter, in FRW, Aífe's manifestation is focused more on those tutelary aspects, or rather is more balanced, so she's closer to what I originally envisioned in Essence. What that means... Well. That's for later.
I think I'm going to have to figure something different out for this story's release schedule. The usual place has had this, Chapter 9, and Chapter 10 for several months, and that doesn't feel super fair to everyone else.
Yeah, I think it's obvious that I didn't have a solid grasp on what I wanted Aífe to be like when I was writing the first couple chapters with her in them, but having her in Hereafter has helped me get a better hold on her personality.
Why not Scathach? Well, obviously, Scathach can't be summoned, for one, and for two, the Lancer class has already been taken, and so has the Caster class. The last class Sca's suited for is Assassin, which, if she even could be summoned, would undoubtedly be more focused on her godslaying attributes than it would her tutelary aspects.
Different from Hereafter, in FRW, Aífe's manifestation is focused more on those tutelary aspects, or rather is more balanced, so she's closer to what I originally envisioned in Essence. What that means... Well. That's for later.
I think I'm going to have to figure something different out for this story's release schedule. The usual place has had this, Chapter 9, and Chapter 10 for several months, and that doesn't feel super fair to everyone else.
Glad that this is back.
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
Originally, this was going to be the story where I actually explored her as a character instead of just using her as a plot device, but then I got to Septem in Hereafter and decided, you know, wouldn't it be a cool way to shake things up? Things moved from there in a different direction than I expected.