AN: I had this idea after I started playing GBF under advice of a friend, helped said friend write a quest about GBF and read a fanfic with a similar premise. This story is dedicated to the members of my Crew, who have proven very supportive and helpful in regard to its development.
Disclaimer: I don't own neither Fate/Extra nor Granblue Fantasy. I just write fandom based on those games.
Prologue: Ocean
"For me this is certainly the end. I'm leaving the real 'me' in capable hands, so I have no regrets. But what about you?"
"Must I repeat what I told you already? I have since long ago made peace with my ideals. I am satisfied with my current existence."
"Is this your final answer?"
"Should you really worry so much about someone like me? Your time is almost to an end."
"That's why I'm doing this: neither of us has anything left to lose. So why don't you humor me in my final moments?"
"...What a cruel Master I have. Are you okay with any answer? What if I told you I wouldn't mind a second chance at life?"
The white-haired man chuckled at his own joke, only to stop as he stared back into eyes full of strength and determination. Even as his own body was undone by the sea of information they were floating in the brown-haired boy in a school uniform grinned.
As if he had just won a bet.
"Even like this I have full access to the records of the whole Moon Cell. Here, in the seat of the Holy Grail, it takes but an instant for someone to find whatever they may need."
"Just wait a second Master! What are-"
"Goodbye Archer. Whenever you end up in, make sure to find happiness, alright? That's my last order as your Master. No, this is my last request to my best friend."
"Hakuno-!"
Under the harsh glare of the sun a man with a handkerchief over the lower half of his face tossed the torch into the barrel and ran back to the boat waiting in front of the beach, dense black smoke already coming out behind his shoulders. "That's the last of it Boss!"
"Good job everyone. Let's back off now, I don't want to inhale whatever that stuff is." Eugen commanded. As his men steered the gondola-like boat away the bearded, brown-haired man stared at the dozen or so barrels arrayed on the shore for a few seconds before turning around to do the same with the vast expanse of pure blue water.
"But for how much longer?" he muttered under his breath. Despite his and many others' best efforts they had yet to locate the source of the pollution. Auguste's best scouts has been unable to find anything resembling a facility of the Empire so far and none of the prisoners knew anything relevant. Where exactly was the Erste doing its damn experiments?
"Uh?" Just then Eugen's lone eye caught something in the distance. Squinting he could barely make out a patch of red amidst the blue of the sky. Did they perhaps miss a patch of the toxic smudge? A few times it was of a different color than black. "Oy, turn left. There's something I want to check."
The man at the helm promptly obeyed and steered the boat in the direction pointed out by Eugen. As they moved closer he could make out more and more details, until his eye widened in surprise. "But that's... A person!" And it was not moving: a bad sign if there ever was one. Without wasting time he stepped up to the boat's rim and leapt into the water. "Hey! You alright?!" He called out without receiving an answer. Reaching the body and turning it around he came face to face with a man: his face looked no older than twenty-five, yet hair was white and skin tanned like someone who spent a lot of time out to sea. Locking his arm around the stranger's shoulders Eugen began the tiring task of swimming back to the boat.
Once there his men helped him and his passenger onboard. "Boss, who is this? He doesn't look like he's from the Empire. A tourist?" One of them asked while the other laid down the white-haired man over the boat's bottom.
"It would be great if they came back, but something is telling me it's not the case." Passing a hand through his wet hair Eugen took the chance to check out the one he rescued in greater detail; he was tall, taller than him even, and clad in form-fitting black armor with a peculiar red coat over it. He definitely had the look of someone who knew how to fight, so maybe he was an Agent like him? Or a Skyfarer that got separated by his crew during an accident?
Eugen purposely avoided thinking of the worst possibility, namely that he just rescued the sole survivor of a shipwreck. With everything else that was going on he needed to think positive. "Let's go back home: this fellow needs to see a doctor."
A slow opening of the eyelids signaled the awakening of Archer, his mind not fully grasping the situation before his last memories sent it into overdrive: he sat upright like a bolt, grasping his forehead in pain before it subsided. "Master?"
Receiving no answer he looked around, years of experience making him analyze his surroundings down to the smallest detail. The first thing he noticed was the absence of the boy he, dare he says it, came to truly care for in the last seven weeks.
A bad feeling formed in his stomach, and only worsened as he took on more details.
He was inside a plainly decorated room, the only pieces of furniture the bed he was lying on, a few chairs around a small table, a chandelier with half-melted candles and a bookshelf with random objects. The floor, walls and ceiling were made of white marble, with the only source of illumination an open window: from where he was he couldn't see outside, but from the light it was late afternoon and his nose picked up the smell of salt typical of seas and oceans.
And that was the problem: everything was obviously aged and thus realistic. Back in the Moon Cell everything, from the fake school where the Masters resided to the Arenas, was a digital creation of the most powerful computer in existence. So even if at first glance it was no different from the real world, someone with senses as sharp as his own could see how avatars and objects always looked brand new. For example, those things supposed to have been around for a long time like the buildings and thus showing signs of wear looked as if they were created that way instead of being slowly changed by the flow of time.
Archer didn't need to perform Structural Analysis on himself to find confirmation to the most likely explanation: he truly was back in the Real World. His Master, Hakuno Kishinami, really did the impossible and managed to incarnate him, a Servant that was supposed to exist only within the virtual environment of the Moon Cell, in a real body.
"Moron." He scoffed. "If you cannot even recognize a joke, then you truly are a hopeless Master."
It was a needless gesture. Even if Archer survived though some irregular method Hakuno Kishinami, the winner of the Holy Grail War, has been surely...
Archer's sour musings were cut off by the sole door opening. Walking inside was a muscular man around his fifties, with swept back brown hair that reached his shoulder, a short beard and a mustache. He had an eyepatch over his left eye and wore a form-fitting black top that exposed his shoulders, white gloves, white pants with a red line to the side and brown boots.
"Ooh? Finally awake, are ya?" The man grinned when he noticed Archer was up. "The doctor said you were perfectly fine, that you just swallowed some water and only needed rest."
"Water?" Archer passed his tongue over the inside of his mouth: it felt a little salty. It meant saltwater: added to his early observations it was easy to guess the rest. "Was I found in the sea?"
How ironic: from a sea of electrons to one of real life. If there existed a hidden meaning in that, it totally escaped him.
"Yeah. You were damn lucky that we had business in the area and I happened to see you." The man took a chair and put it next to the bed before sitting down. "The pollution and war with the Empire chased away visitors, you might not have been found for weeks if we hadn't noticed you."
The mention of a war and 'Empire' made Archer raised an eyebrow almost imperceptibly. As far as he knew there were no more empires in the modern world: except maybe the Harway Plutocracy, but no one on either side would call it an empire except in jest. It made the reincarnated Servant wonder where Hakuno sent him.
Wait. Didn't he say 'Whenever you end up'? Did it mean the boy had no idea what the destination was? He truly was the most hopeless Master.
"So, mind telling me how you ended up here?" The brown haired man asked while crossing his arms over his chest.
"Sadly I have no idea myself." Archer shrugged. "I don't even know where 'here' is."
"Really? Then let me welcome you to Mizarea, the capital of the Auguste Isles." The man laughed. "Name's Eugen. Yours?"
The materialized Servant mentally filed away the two unfamiliar names, planning to investigate them later, before looking at Eugen with indifferent grey eyes. "Name? Names are for people that really matter. Me, I'm just... a simple Archer."