It was a morning much like any other as Sakura walked up to the Emiya household, arriving as she usually did to make her sempai breakfast. It was such a regular occurrence that the girl thought nothing of walking up to the front door and letting herself in. Her usual ritual of announcing her presence as she stepped across the threshold was interrupted however, as the moment she grasped the door knob there was a loud siren followed by several mechanical appendages popping out of the wall from behind panels surrounding the door frame.

The one on the top of the door ended in a roughly spherical object with what looked like a multilayered shutter pointing towards her, reminding her nothing so much as a mechanical eye. The rest were tipped with various weaponry; rudimentary guns, saws, and what Sakura could only assume was a flamethrower. "ANOMALOUS READINGS DETECTED." A synthetic voice echoed from the door. "REMAIN STILL FOR IDENTIFICATION."

While a normal personal might have started to scream in surprise and terror or at least be a little perturbed, being friends with Agatha for several years had made Sakura used to things like this. "Sakura Matou." She said calmly, waiting for this new contraption to recognize her.

There was a brief pause before the voice spoke again. "IDENTITY CONFIRMED. HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY." The waldos folded back into the doorway, and Sakura sighed as she stepped into the house, a small hint of concern furrowing her brow. This wasn't even the first time that she had been surprised by something potential dangerous that her friend have crafted without warning, but this was the first time it seemed deliberate. That was unmistakably some kind of security system, she thought to her herself. But what could have spurred-

Her thoughts came to a sudden halt as she stepped into the dining and saw a woman staring at her. She was short and blond, definitely of European decent. The woman wore a simple blue skirt and blouse, and her green eyes were giving Sakura a hard look. "Who are you and what business do you have here?" Although she looked little older that Sakura herself, her tone and bearing made her seem much older.

Sakura took a step back in alarm. "W-who am I?!" She said indignantly. "Who are you?! Why are you in sempai's house?!"

"I… am an old friend of the family." The woman replied evenly. "I will be staying with Agatha for the next week or two. Now I must ask again, who are you and what are you doing here?"

Sakura was still as she tried to think of what to do. Part of her wanted to just leave and call the police, but something about this intruder kept her still. This woman was dangerous, and Sakura didn't want to leave her alone in Agatha's house. For that matter… "Where is Agatha? What have you done with her?"

A frown creased the blonde's face. "She is resting at the moment, but-"

"I want to see her." Sakura said, and she made to move past the woman. However, she was stopped as blonde stepped in her path before she got too far.

"You still have not explained who you are." The woman said firmly.

"I don't have to tell you anything-" Sakura started before a new voice cut her off.

"Gah, it's too early for people to be arguing." Agatha voice echoed from the hallway, and in short order Sakura's sempai followed after it, shuffling along with her shoulders sagging from exhaustion. "It's too early for anything for that matter."

"Sempai…" Sakura said hesitantly. "Are you alright?"

"Fine, fine," she said with a wave of her hand. "I was just having another one of my all night engineering projects."

"So I saw…" The purple haired girl said evenly. "Why did you build a security system with guns? And for another thing who is she?" She pointed at the other blonde woman.

"I told you, I am an old friend of the family." Said woman replied insistently before turning to Agatha. "This is the case, is it not?"

Agatha looked back at her blankly for several seconds. Sakura was starting to wonder if she had spaced out from exhaustion before Agatha let out a sigh. "Yes, yes you are." She said before she turned to Sakura. "Sakura, this is… Joan, from France. She's going to be staying with me for a while. Joan, this is Sakura, one of my friends and classmates."

Sakura frowned at this, feeling that there was something that her friend wasn't telling her. Oddly enough, Joan also frowned, but at Agatha rather than Sakura herself for whatever reason. There was a long pause before Sakura finally said "I see… In any case I am sure you are hungry sempai."

"You are my angel Sakura." Agatha said firmly before she slumped down at the kitchen table, and her blonde companion sat down next to her.

Sakura turned and made her way to the kitchen, the knot of worry in her stomach not easing itself. This whole situation felt wrong to her, like there was something important that she was missing. Maybe she could ask Agatha about it when they had the chance to be alone.

As she stepped out of sight though, she just barely caught what her sempai said in a hushed tone to Joan. "Don't look at me like that. I needed a real name to call you by. No on these days is named Saber."

Sakura froze in her tracks, and her eyes widened. To a normal person, that sentence would not have made much sense at all. But then, very few people knew that Sakura was not a normal girl. "Oh no…" she whispered to herself in horror, fear gripping her heart as she realized what her friend had gotten into.

This wasn't going to be such a regular breakfast after all.

"Emiya-kun?" The voice reached Agatha, but she did her best to convince herself that she was imagining it. Pulling all-nighters and heading into school the next day may have been familiar territory for her, but she had never done so felling so stressed. Breakfast had been a much more awkward affair than usual as Sakura seemed to find Saber's presence uncomfortable (Agatha was glad that Taiga was apparently too busy to show up that morning. She was not in the mood for dealing with explaining Saber to her). Agatha wanted to tell her friend everything that had happened last night, but the spearman had made it very clear just how far some would go to keep the whole war a secret. In the end, she simply excused herself from the table and walked out the front door.

It also didn't help that her improvised security net wasn't quite working either. She had done her best to make a device that could detect an invisible source of energy she had only just heard about, but the fact that it went off in Sakura's presence meant that it was even worse than she thought. Agatha was so worked up over everything that when she got to school she had more or less collapsed on her desk, face buried in her arms and hair mused everywhere. She didn't have any classes she cared about that morning, so she was hoping that she could get some sleep if the nervous tension in her stomach would die down.

Unfortunately, her teacher was not making that task any easier. "Emiya-kun, wake up!" Agatha grumbled and with a herculean effort raised her head to look at the older man at the head of the class room. "What?" She asked, a little more sharply and rudely than she rightfully should have to a teacher.

The man frowned at her. "Young lady, I know that you have… peculiar habits, but I will not tolerate you slacking off in my class. Furthermore, I will have to ask your companion to leave."

Agatha stared at him blankly for a few seconds before she managed to process what he said and blinked. "Wait, companion?" She turned back in her seat and found Saber standing primly behind her, her eyes narrowing slightly at the teacher. Oh, I completely failed to notice this… Agatha thought. She had assumed that Saber would stay home while she went to school, but apparently she was so caught up in her own thoughts that she hadn't even noticed her Servant following her. She briefly considered asking Saber to do as the teacher asked, but the image of a blood red spear speeding towards her heart stilled her tongue and sent a shiver down her spine. She turned back around and said "Uh, this is a friend of mine from Europe. She's visiting for a few days and she wanted to see what the school system was like here. So, if you could just let her stay…"

The teacher scowled. "It is against school policy to allow non-students to be in the room while class in in session. Your friend will have to-"

"That will not be necessary." Saber suddenly declared, and all eyes moved to her. "I assure you that I will not be a disturbance while you give instruction. However, I will remain here for so long as Agatha is here and that is final."

The older man leaned back a bit at this statement. "I am sorry, but-"

"I said I shall remain here." Saber said forcefully, her posture straight and her eyes as hard as steel. "There will be no more discussion on this matter."

"B-b-but…" the teacher trailed off, not sure how to respond. His control of the situation was inexplicably slipping away, and for some reason he couldn't bring himself to contradict the foreign girl. The blonde radiated a sense of certainty and command that he couldn't help but defer to.

"Now is no time to dawdle," Saber continued. "Begin your lesson so that these young minds may be properly prepared for their lives ahead of them."

"Ah y-yes! Of course!" The teacher said nervously before he spun and began writing quickly on the blackboard. Saber nodded in satisfaction before her gaze settled on the rest of the class room. The students had also been watching this exchange with curiosity, but when the Servant's gaze settled on them they as one flinched and started rapidly copying down what the teach was writing.

Agatha blinked as she looked at this. Huh. I guess she's used to ordering people around, she thought to herself. With that incident settled, class began and the teacher started his lesson in earnest, though Agatha's head merely slumped back down to her desk. Try as she might though, she couldn't just nod off. Her brain worked and processed everything that Saber had told her about the War last night, trying to put things together in a way she could analyze and reason. Servants, coming in seven classes: Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Beserker, Caster, Assassin, each one specializing in their namesake. Each was a hero from myth, legend or history, stored outside of time in a place called the Throne of Heroes. Apparently the World (which turns out is a quasi-sentient entity in its own right), likes to keep a collection of them for some reason or another.

The fact that this was proof of an afterlife of some sort (assuming this was all true) was not lost on Agatha, though she was a little miffed by the fact that only heroes were allowed to go there. Saber had assured her that normal souls go to their own place of rest, but where that was she didn't know. Regardless of all of that, Saber had mostly focused on how combat between Servants was usually conducted and the most general rules of the War, the biggest ones of course being no fighting during the daytime and keep up the Masquerade. Of course, while all this was useful, Saber couldn't tell her overmuch about what she really wanted, which was quite simply 'how did magic work'. She was also vague on exactly how superhuman these Servants were. Saber assured her that they were 'greater than any mortal man with any mortal weapon could hope to match', but it would have been a lot more helpful if she could quantify it in numbers.

Still, Saber had insisted that modern firearms would be ineffective against her kind, and that was useful in a way. If she had a choice, Agatha would have started creating mass driver weaponry rather than more Death Rays when she had the materials as it would be a lot simpler and faster. However, if Saber was accurate and Servants were too fast and/or tough for that, then energy weapons were her best option. They had a much greater destructive potential and their beams moved at least at a sizable fraction of c, which was to say nothing of how her prototype had already proven somewhat effective. Now she just needed to build one that didn't break in a few shots.

Agatha grumbled as she slipped into a sort of half sleep, the teacher's words on the edge of her perception as her minds spun off in its own strange directions. Normally she would welcome the extra bit of creativity, but as she had learned in the past she can get a little… loopy when it happens.

All this fretting is pointless as it's obvious what you must do. Agatha's inner Scientist said, and in her mind's eye she could see the miniaturized version of herself wearing a lab coat and goggles settle on her shoulder. "You need to learn everything you can about 'magic' and Rin's the only one that can help you in that regard. Knowledge must come first above all else."

"Yeah, so that you can build awesome stuff with it!" Appearing on her other shoulder in a poof of logic was her inner Engineer, clad in overalls and numerous tools on her belt. She continued as she gestured with her wrench. "I mean, you just got handed an entirely new way to tell the laws of nature to take a hike! Now, I know you're thinking about biotech and augments given what you've seen so far, but I say we go full Final Fantasy and build us an airship. It's the only logical thing to do."

The Scientist gave an exasperated sigh. "You are getting ahead of yourself. Like you always do. She doesn't even know if this 'magic' allows for levitation or anything of the sort. Besides which, application comes second to unraveling the mysteries of the universe."

The Engineer snorted. "The 'mysteries of the universe' are for people who don't have a floating Aeropolis fortress! With a weather control machine! And flying magitech drones to do your bidding! And a massive Death Ray on the top so that you can carve your name into the moon!"

The Scientist rolled her eyes. "Must you focus so much on meaningless toys? There is understanding to be had from the smallest corners to the human mind to the vast reaches of the cosmos and yet you continue on about things like giant robots because they are 'cool'."

"Yeah, well here's a bit of the cosmos that we might actually have some fun with: Mars." The one with the tool belt said with a scowl. "Think about it, teleportation has to be a thing now. Get to the red planet first, claim it as your own, and start building your empire of metal and magic there. Within a decade of unfettered resource collection and industrialization, you could be leading your legion of Martian dragon warbots back to Earth to declare yourself Empress of Science."

The one in the goggles planted her fists on her hips. "There are so many things wrong with that, first and foremost being how you expect to accomplish this without the various space agencies noticing? It would be unacceptable for others to learn of our methods before we are ready to publish!"

"That's easy." The Engineer said with a shrug. "We know for a fact that mind control's a thing, so let's just brainwash some guys to keep things quiet. For that matter, we are also definitely lacking in the minion department at the moment. I mean. We can always build some, but it'd be nice to have a few humans around too."

The Scientist stroked her chin at this. "Hmm… you do have a point. Minions are a boon to anyone who strives for greatness. Besides which, mastery of mental magic will make it all the easier to get scientific knowledge from other, lesser scientists."

It was at this point that Agatha, having become annoyed and somewhat concerned with the voices in her head, raised her head slightly and muttered "Isn't all that incredibly unethical?"

Both of her fragments turned to look at her and said "Ethics are a meaningless construct."

"Annnnd that's why I'm the ego." Agatha said flatly before slumping back down again. The two little firmaments of her current deranged imagination continued to bicker back and forth, and Agatha found herself increasingly annoyed. When it got to the point that when the two started arguing whether if a magical computer was possible and if so could they get Doom to run on it that Agatha was willing to do just about anything to shut them up.

"Emiya?" Agatha's head snapped to the side at the sound of the voice. It was Rin.

With speed born of tension the blonde sprung to her feet and grabbed Rin by the collar. "GIVE ME ALL OF YOUR SECRETS SO I CAN BUILD THINGS WITH THEM!"

Rin became stock still in Agatha's grip, her face a mixture of confusion and shock. There was a long paused of silence as the entire room turned to look at the scene. Agatha blinked as her mind slowly came back into a working state, turning her head to look around the room. Sheepishly, she let go of Rin. "Sorry, sorry." She said while trying to straighten out Rin's cloths. "I'm… a little on edge."

"I'll bet…" Rin said flatly, brushing Agatha's hands away to fix her uniform herself. When she was done her expression cooled and she glanced around the room at all the students who were watching the pair. In a strange motion they as one turned back to what they were doing, pretending that nothing had happened at all. Before Agatha could mull on that oddity, Rin turned back to her and said "So Emiya-san, as it is our last year, perhaps it would be best if we put our silly, perceived rivalry between us aside. Join me on the roof for lunch. Your friend can join us as well." And with that she promptly turned around and left the classroom.

Agatha felt a brief moment of confusion. "Lunch? It can't be time for lunch yet-" she cut herself off as she took a look at the clock, and found that it was indeed reaching noon. "Or maybe it is." She turned to Saber, who was still standing where she left her. "I slept the entire morning?"

"You were exhausted." The other woman said simple. "I determined that rest was the best course of action for you."

Agatha sighed. "Well, whatever. Maybe after this I'll be able to make sense of this." She said as she started to move out of the room. She normally would take her lunch with Issei or Gai, but she needed deal with some slightly higher priorities that day first.

It was a short while later that Agatha found herself on the roof. While the spot was used by a number of students for lunch when the weather was nice, today she only found Rin there, looking down into the school courtyard. Agatha suspected that Rin was responsible for that, but she didn't give it much thought. At the very least it would allow them to talk unimpeded. Rin turned as she heard the door opened and a small frown settled on her face. "Really Emiya-san, I know that you're new to all this, but I would have thought you'd at least see the sense in keeping you servant in her astral state."

Agatha looked at her blankly. "Her what?"

Rin arched an eyebrow. "All Servants can become incorporeal at will. They can't interact with the physical world, but it is far less strain on the Master's prana reserves." She glanced at Saber, who followed Agatha through the door. "You didn't tell her you could do that?"

Agatha turned to look at Saber in surprise. "You can do that?" Considering how Saber had remarked that her energy supply was a concern, anything that reduced her consumption would useful.

For her part, Saber looked off to the side and an embarrassed flush crossed her face. "I… cannot assume astral form. It is a personal matter I do not wish to discuss."

Agatha's brow furrowed at this, but she dismissed it with a shake of her head. While she did want to know the reason, at the very least Saber wouldn't talk about it in front of Rin. "So, can I assume that your Servant is somewhere up here?" She said, looking around to see if she could find any trace of an 'astral' Servant.

"You can." Rin said vaguely as she walked over to the pair. "Can I assume that you've decided to start taking this War seriously?"

"…You can." Agatha said firmly. "I've thought about it, and I've decided I want in." She sighed as she readied what she had to say. "And I'm going to need your help. I know that we didn't exactly get off to the best start, but the odds of either one of us winning are a lot better if we work together for now. There's a lot I need to know." She knew it would be a difficult task to convince the other girl to work together, but even with her inexperience she should be able to bring something to the table that would make it worth it, most of all her Servant.

"I thought you might say that, and as a matter of fact I was thinking the same thing myself." Agatha blinked in surprise. It was really that easy? Rin noticed the girl's expression and gave smug smile. "Oh, don't look so surprised. Alliances are a time honored tradition of the Grail War. Sit, we have a lot to talk about." Agatha was hesitant, but the pair moved to a bench and sat. "So, the first order of business is to compare our Servants capabilities and tactically-"

"Wait-" Agatha interrupted. "Before we get to that, could you make a small ball of fire in your hand?"

Rin looked at her blankly for a second before she said "Uh, why?"

"Just… humor me for a second. Oh, and could you hold it for 15 seconds? And pull back your sleeve?"

The dark haired girl made a face, but she rolled up sleeve and held her hand out, palm in the air. She muttered something that Agatha couldn't quite make out, but she recognized as German. In a moment a sphere of fire about the size of a baseball appeared out of nothingness, floating an inch above her hand. "Are you happy now?"

Agatha was silent and focused intently on the burning orb. It literally looked like a sphere with burning edges rather than behaving like a normal flame would. She tried to think of a way she might be doing this with technology, some kind of device hidden on her person. However, even if she did think of a way or two it could happen, it was incredibly unlikely the Rin had the technical knowhow to build it, let alone have it on her person for just this request. When the ball disappeared, Agatha let her shoulders slump and let out a small sigh, her need to see something impossible by science fulfilled. It was still possible that this was all some kind of elaborate ruse to make her believe in the fantastic (and part of her wished it was), but the possibility was growing smaller by the moment. For the time being, she'd just have to accept it. "So, just how do you do that? I assume there's more to violating thermodynamics than just muttering some German and wiggling you fingers."

"Is that really important right now?" Rin asked, her voice laced with irritation. "The Holy Grail War is a far more pressing matter than the basics of fire magecraft."

"Look, I know next to nothing about how magic works." Agatha replied. "Saber helped me a little, but she doesn't know overly much either. I… need to understand something in order to work with it; it's just how I am. This entire War is based on magic, and I can't afford to not know something basic that could get me killed. So please tell me how magic works?"

"…you do realize that magi spend their entire lives on the subject of 'how magic works', don't you? I don't think I can cover it all in a lunch break."

"Just give me the overview for now. For starters, how can a person use magic? Saber mentioned something about prana…"

Rin rolled her eyes. "Oh very well. A short lesson." She sat up straight and settled into a pose with one arm pointing upward, the elbow supported by the other arm. "In short, yes, prana is the form of energy magi use to cast spells. Technical speaking, prana is the refined form of magic, and it's raw for comes from two sources: mana, which is produced by the World and in the ambient environment, and od, which is produced inside the body and channeled through Magic Circuits. It is through the use of od that magi first press their will on the World-"

"Wait-" Agatha paused her, fishing a notebook out of her bag and starting to rapidly jot down notes. "Back up. Magic Circuits?"

Rin frowned at being interrupted, but continued. "Magic Circuits are what separates a magus from a normal human being. While everyone can produce a tiny amount of od on their own, one requires Magic Circuits to produce any noticeable amount and to channel it properly."

Ah, now we're getting somewhere, Agatha thought. "Ok, but what are they physically? I mean, we are talking about something physical, not some metaphor or state of mind, right?"

"They are physical, but they are also more than that. Physically speaking, Magic Circuits are specialized nerve structures, typically distributed throughout the brain and spinal column. However, that is only half of what they are, as these Circuits also correspondingly exist in the soul itself. It's through this connection to the spiritual world that od is collected and transferred to the body."

"How is it that biologists have never seen these… never structures?"

"I imagine that that biologists have never gotten their hands on the body of a true magi." Rin said dryly. "We are very good at looking after the bodies of dead magi, after all."

"Hmm…" Agatha hummed as she wrote that down, the implications mulling in her head. "So, let me guess: since these Circuits have a biological basis, might I assume that there's some kind of genetic foundation for them?"

"Very good." Rin said with a nod. "Magi bloodlines are very important, as quality and quantity of Circuits behave like any genetic trait, and can be strengthened or weakened with succeeding generations depending who marries into the family."

Genetically based inherent gift magic. That would explain some things… Agatha thought to herself. If the ability to use magic was a rare genetic trait, then it made sense that it wasn't be seen in the population at large. Of course, that would make it more difficult to study. "Alright, while we're on the subject of magi, could you tell me how many of them are there? How are they organized? I mean, I can only imagine that they secretly rule the world behind the scenes because they have reality bending powers and all that."

The question caught Rin off balance for some reason. "Uh, well, no. Not really." She said. "Magi don't consider the affairs of mundane people to be worth their time, and mostly just stay within their own organizations. The Mage's Association is one of the largest in this hemisphere, and several magi families, my own included, were responsible for the creation of the Grail War itself."

"Oh." Agatha said, not expecting that response. "Well, if you aren't integrated with normal society, then…" she paused as a thought occurred to her. ""Oh God, please tell me you're not like Harry Potter and you're all part of some secret and horribly ignorant civilization that stupidly looks down on the rest of the world and only emerges to wipe people's memories of them."

"… I don't know who this Harry Potter is, but no. I think." Rin said as her brow furrowed in confusion. "While erasing memories is necessary at times, magi interact plenty with the mundane world. We just keep our supernatural aspect to ourselves. We also strive to keep the supernatural world a secret from the mundane one in general."

"So, anytime someone has seen a wizard battle or stumbled across a dragon…"

"We would intervene and erase all knowledge of the event, though I highly doubt either of those two things would occur in this day and age."

Agatha scowled at this. She was never one who ascribed to the philosophy that 'information wants to be free', but she did have a healthy disapproval of censorship and conspiracies. Focus, she thought to herself. "Well, have mages ever thought of becoming involved with the rest of the world? If legends and myth are true then they certainly were at one point, so why not anymore? I know the witch hunts probably weren't great for you, but the world has moved on since then."

"That's… complicated." Rin settled on before she waved her hand dismissively. "The force of magecraft in humans has dwindled as time has gone forward, so the grand spells of legend are lost to us now. At the very least, we would have nothing to gain by revealing our existence."

Agatha was curious about Rin's comment about waning magic, but the other thing she said caught her attention first. "Nothing to gain?" Agatha said incredulously. "What about money? Piles and piles of money for offering a service that by nature can only be done by a select few! I can only guess at the sheer possibilities of physical enchantment and improvement, which is to say nothing mind reading or the like. And even putting that aside, what about her!" She gestured to Saber. "Not only proof that there's an afterlife, but that the souls of the dead can be brought back! Even if it's temporary, can you honestly say that there is no one who would give everything they had to talk to some of the greatest minds and heroes of history?"

"You're making this everything sound a lot simpler and easier than it actually is." Rin snapped. "For one thing magi have no desired to be bothered by the petty needs of mundanes asking for magic solutions to their problems. For another, many magi families are already wealthy and have no need for extra wealth. Thirdly and most importantly, money is not the primary goal of magi. We pursue the much high calling of the search for knowledge."

Agatha wasn't entirely buying that, so she said "Alright, if you lot are more scholarly than materialistic, why don't you share that knowledge with the rest of the world? Making it freely available means you wouldn't be 'bothered' as much and the benefits to human civilization would most likely be astronomical."

"Y-you can't just tell everyone how mysteries work!" Rin said, seemingly horrified by the very concept. "That would defeat the entire point!"

"… I'm not following. I thought that the whole point of the search for knowledge was to discover the mysteries of the universe." The blonde replied, not sure what the other girl was getting at.

"Yes, but if you explain it it's not a mystery anymore!" Rin explained in exasperation. "One of the core tenants of magic is that the more people who know how to cast a spell, the less powerful it is. If everyone knew a spell, then it wouldn't work at all!"

"…What."

Rin continued by saying "The mysteries of man are opposed by the Word itself, and it naturally tries to suppress and nullify any spell cast. The more a certain mystery is used at a given time, the harder the World will try to stamp it out. One of the most important things a magus must do is insure that their magecraft is kept only within the family. That allows his work to be continued by future generations while keeping too many people from learning about it and rendering his work effectively useless. "

Agatha was speechless. Up until that point she had been working under the assumption magic, while hard to detect, was still some kind of fundamental force. It might have its own rules, but it had to make some kind of sense (or at least as much sense as quantum mechanics did). But this… she had no idea how to respond to this. The idea that knowledge had to be kept hidden was the antithesis of science! The idea of science vs magic might have had its place in popular culture, but this was just stupid! "… That's… you…" she shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Well, at the very least this answers one of my biggest questions."

"I should certainly hope so," Rin said with a nod, before she paused and asked "Which question was that?"

"The good news is that I've concluded that mages aren't idiots…" Agatha said with grit teeth. "However, the bad news is that I've also concluded that magic is useless! No wonder you haven't bothered revealing magic to the world, you can't actually use it for anything practical!"

"Magic isn't useless!" Rin shouted indignantly. "Magi can achieve feats that normal humans can only dream about! We can bend the laws of the reality to our will! How dare you say that we're useless?!"

Agatha was about to launch into a tirade when she caught herself and stopped. No, this isn't the time to be antagonizing her… she thought to herself. She needed Rin's help to get through this thing, and it probably wasn't the best to insult her way of life five minutes after she agreed to help. She let out a breath and said "Alright, I didn't mean that you were useless, I just… let's say that being a mage is not for me and move on."

"No, I'd very much rather like to hear why you have suddenly developed disdain for my family's profession." Rin said with narrowed eyes.

A tight lipped frown set itself on Agatha face, but she didn't see a way of talking around the subject. "Alright, look, I consider myself equal parts scientist, engineer, and futurist. My whole reason for embracing those things is because I want to change the world for the better. With knowledge we can destroy ignorance, and with technology we can improve the quality of life for everyone. And you just told me that magic doesn't work if everyone knows it." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, but if it can't be mass produced or replicated, it's not very useful for what I want."

Rin looked at her with a mixture of bewilderment and suspicion before her expression settled into something more neutral. "Well, I suppose that I have to grant you that magi aren't very focused on 'changing the world for the better'. Of course, most would also probably point out that it's a fruitless endeavor."

"How do you figure?" Agatha asked. "The average person's quality of life has been getting better and better for the past few centuries, and even while there still are problems we as a species have been getting better tools for handling them all the time."

Rin sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Look, can we just get back to the subject of how we're going to win the War? While this subject is certainly… interesting, I think I've had enough of it today."

Agatha shrugged. "Alright, my curiosity has been satisfied for the moment. So, with our Servants respective classes, I guess mine will be on the front line while yours will take shots from afar."

"Not necessarily. A Servant's abilities aren't always as straight forward as that. Here, let me give you a book that you should find most helpful…"

"So, what do you think?" Rin said to Archer as Agatha left the roof with her Servant. Their strategy session had been relatively short, but they had agreed to meet again that night.

"She's an optimist." Archer said with a scowl, using the same tone he would use as if he said 'plague bearer'. "And she flat out acknowledged that there were things she wasn't willing to do to win the War. Combine that with her lack of experience and I wonder if this is really worth our time."

Rin turned to look at him with an arched eyebrow. "I should know better by now than to expect anything positive from you. However, regardless of her… views, she can still be of moderate use." She paused and her eyes narrowed slightly. "Unless you are saying that you won't work with them." Her tone made it clear that there would be problems if that was the case.

"… I will do as you say, Master." He said after a pause of his own.

"Good. Because Saber is the edge we need to win this War, and I expect you to work with both her and her master."

Archer grunted in confirmation, not really having it in him to snark at Rin. In truth, he didn't even dislike Agatha as much as he made it seem. True, he found her bright eyed idealism annoying and naïve, but when it came to the discussion of tactics she was… fairly practical. She had displayed hesitation when the topic of killing other Masters came up, and she flat out stated that she wouldn't harm anyone not involved in the War, but otherwise she made it clear that she was willing to use any amount of deception and sneak attacks to win. Several of her suggestions even involved simply luring a Servant to a location and then using vast quantities of homemade explosives. It was highly unlikely such a thing would work, but it wasn't a bad thought. Saber didn't seem to particularly like that line of reasoning for whatever reason, but that was Agatha's problem to sort out.

Still, for whatever reason Archer felt resentment towards Agatha and he wasn't sure why. It was like he knew he wasn't angry at the right thing, but didn't know what the right thing was. Bits and pieces of his memory had started to return to him, and something about this whole situation was filling him with a sense of Déjà Vu. He could only guess that she was reminding him of someone else he had hated in his past.

Archer shook his head to clear his thoughts. Well, it doesn't matter, he thought to himself. She's a little odd, but simple enough to deal with if I have too. Besides, with her I won't have to deal with any of the nonsense baggage that another magus would bring along with her.

Somewhere in the Ryuudouji temple, a certain woman sneezed.

A/N: Sorry this one took longer than usual, Pax East set me back a few days. In any case, not much happening in this chapter other than moving a few things along and Agatha realizing just why magic is never used for the good of mankind. She'll also have a few choice things to say about Servants later, but for now this was mostly where she gets the basic knowledge she needed in order to move forward.

Till next time.