Gudao sighs as the light from the summoning circle fades, leaving behind a familiar set of blades.
"Rejoice, senpai," Mashu murmurs from beside him.
"Huh?" he says, turning to her.
"Ah, I'm sorry. For some reason I just felt compelled to say it."
"Well, in any case," says Gudao as he bends down to retrieve the Black Keys, "there's not much to rejoice for here. What is this, our fifth set?"
"Fifteenth, senpai."
"Oh." Gudao clicks his tongue. "Seriously?"
Mashu nods.
Gudao sighs again, rubbing the back of his head. "Well, I've got enough quartz for one more summoning. Shall we?"
"Should we wait until da Vinci comes back from her workshop?"
"Ah, I think we'll be fine. It's not like any of those botched summonings that she's warned us about have ever happened."
"W-well, I suppose..."
Removing the Black Keys, Gudao arranges his last three quartz within the summoning circle and stands back while Mashu mans the console.
"Ready, senpai?"
"Just a sec."
Gudao closes his eyes. With it only being a matter of time until the second Singularity was located, he had been spending all the saint quartz Chaldea had in store in the hopes of summoning more Servants. Before, he had been so enamored with the power of these heroes that he had vastly underestimated their enemies and summoned barely enough Servants to form a full team for Orleans. Gudao shuddered upon remembering the sights of his fatigued and injured Servants, having to face yet more opponents with little time to recover from the last battle, and their victory by a thread over Jeanne Alter.
He had been fortunate to lose no one, but he wouldn't test his luck a second time.
So despite all the failures he's had, he hopes that this time will be different. He reaches out in his mind to whatever forces that guide this process and murmurs a simple plea:
"May I be fortunate enough to meet those who will save the world."
Certainly nothing special, just like the Master who says it. And yet a boy who is nothing special, with no magic gifts or ancestry to speak of, has found himself leading the battle to save all.
Gudao opens his eyes. He turns and nods to Mashu. Without hesitation, she throws the switch.
And so, as the quartz fade into motes of light, spinning faster and faster around the summoning circle, this boy who has nothing else offers all he has.
*
She hears with ears she doesn't have. Then she listens to make sure she heard right.
Pausing for a second, she breaks into a short laugh, feeling a wide, toothy grin where her mouth should be.
"Another dumbass like me, huh?" she says approvingly. "Okay, I'll bite. Someone like that'll need all the help he can get."
In response, she sees a light appear with eyes that aren't there. She reaches out to it confidently with a hand that she can't see, and makes a pleased hum as a gauntlet of silver and crimson begins to form.
*
Gudao didn't know whether to shout in joy or terror.
On the one hand, the rainbow glow that had enveloped the quartz was something he had never seen before, and when it was accompanied by surging levels of energy even higher than any of his other Servants' summonings, he was almost certain that his plea had been answered.
On the other hand, this same energy was shaking the Summoning Chamber violently, and Gudao wouldn't be surprised if it brought the roof down on him.
"Senpai!" Mashu has to yell over the deafening roar. "I'm going to shut it down!"
"No! We can do this!" he shouts in reply, shielding his eyes but never tearing his gaze from the blinding light that has enveloped the summoning circle.
The light shoots upward to form a pillar, the calling card of a Servant. Sure enough, Gudao begins to discern a silhouette within.
Unfortunately, this means he does not notice as above, the violent shaking dislodges a support pillar from the roof, sending it down straight on top of him.
"Senpai! Look out!"
Finally tearing his eyes from the spectacle of the summoning circle, Gudao turns to see his shielder, shifted into her battle attire, lunging to protect him with her class's namesake in hand. Her eyes are not fixed on him, however, but a point above his head. Following her gaze, he notices at last the danger quite literally bearing down on him. Unfortunately, it's too late for him to dodge. Even Mashu, with her demi-servant abilities, won't be able to intercept in time.
As humanity's last Master comes face to face with his impending demise, his reaction is one that would surprise many when considering his occupation of such a station.
That is to say, he falls flat on his ass, shields his head, squeezes his eyes shut, and screams like a girl.
A flash of red light overpowers the blinding white, and a sound like lightning crackling fills the room. A rush of air blows past Gudao, and a powerful boom resounds directly overhead. He flinches, thinking it to be the sound of his death.
When he realizes that his senses still work, he notices that the blinding light attempting to pry past his eyelids has faded, as has the sound of rushing air. The chamber is as silent as it had been before the summoning, and for a moment, Gudao wonders if he had only imagined the ordeal of the previous minute.
Hesitantly, he opens his eyes, and soon discards any disbelief he might have had towards the chaos of the summoning, instead directing it towards what that summoning has wrought.
Gudao looks up to see a knight clad in heavy armor gleaming silver and crimson, a sword of similar color scheme held in one hand. His expression is impossible to read, for it is concealed behind a horned helmet. The only hints of anything human are twin sparkles of green peering out from the eye slots of the otherwise immovable faceplate.
The knight exudes an aura of royalty so overpowering that, if Gudao had been standing, he no doubt would have knelt or even prostrated himself before him, his role as Master notwithstanding. Such latent charisma could have only meant that the Servant before him was a great prince, if not a king. And yet, the imposing nature of his armor and weapon reminded him that this knight was a warrior of legend; perhaps one who had earned much glory, but certainly one who had done so through great bloodshed. His captivation with the knight's appearance ends abruptly, however, for a voice rumbles to life within the helmet.
"I see," says the knight.
Suddenly, with a click, the knight's helmet separates into pieces. Driven by some unknown mechanism, the fragments slide off the knight's head and into a compact configuration along his lower back.
But Gudao is not concerned with the workings of the knight's helmet, focusing instead on his newly revealed appearance.
And the first thing he notices is that "he" is actually a "she".
Once shrouded in the darkness of her helmet, the knight's eyes are like emeralds brought to sparkle in the light of day. They are framed by messy locks of blonde hair, kept loosely in check by a high ponytail and two braids running along the side of her head. Her fair skin glowed softly in the light of the Summoning Chamber, and as the regally stern expression of that surprisingly young, feminine face centered itself on him, Gudao was dumbstruck by the sheer beauty of this hero. Her perfection made her seem more like a painting come to life than an actual human being. This was truly a Servant, a living legend who was every bit as unreachable standing before him as she was in whatever medium her tale had been recorded in.
But before he can even think of something to say, she dashes his expectations yet again, for the knight could only maintain her stoic countenance for so long. With a twinkle in her eye, her expression transforms from one so picturesque into another that is no less beautiful, but far more human, and certainly quite cute: her trademark toothy grin.
"Yo!" she says at last, her voice ringing loudly. "Name's Mordred. Mordred Pendragon." Carelessly, she swings her large sword up effortlessly to rest it on her shoulder, placing her free hand on her armored hip. "You my Master?" she asks casually.
But he does not respond to her. As a matter of fact, he does not respond to anything for a while, whether it be her expression slowly twisting with confusion, or Mashu glancing nervously between the two, or the support column that would have killed him raining rubble from its newfound place embedded into the wall, a bootprint clearly visible on its center.
For seeing Mordred's smile, beaming with confidence and almost juvenile excitement, brings forth feelings that he has felt for only one person before. His mind flashes back to the hot summer days of his childhood, and in particular to the dirt-stained face of a certain fiery-haired, fiery-tempered girl, flashing a smile all too similar to the one Mordred is presenting him with now.
And once he realizes that the sudden heat rising to his face comes from the same source that made his first friend his first crush, his heart sinks even as it begins to beat wildly out of control.
For now Ritsuka "Gudao" Fujimaru understands why the legendary "son" of King Arthur is responsible for his sudden surge of puppy love:
I forgot I had a thing for tomboys.
--
A/N: Hey y'all, first fanfic here. Sorry to drop such a lengthy intro chapter into what's supposed to be a series of "short snippets". I'll try to keep it more in line with what the description promises from now on, but we'll see. For any of you readers with a degree in Nasuology, I apologize if I broke any laws of the Fateverse and continue to do so in the future.
Feel free to leave feedback, I'm kinda just doing my own thing right now and I'd love any advice you could give!