"Come on, come on, where is that motherfucker?"

Mordred cast his eye around the city, vision impeded by his armor, looking for a familiar face and shadow as he walked beside his master in tense silence. Sisigou was more stoic than usual, more tense, expecting the same ambush Mordred was. Except the ambush wasn't coming, not for an hour of walking around the city alone at night.

It reminded him of battle, of some of the longer drawn out battles, where they'd wait and they'd wait and they'd wait and the enemy wouldn't be coming until dawn. Mordred would stand there in armor ready to eat his own legs off and there would be Arthur, father, standing perfectly still without any expression at all on his face.

Or, perhaps it reminded him of his childhood in his mother's tender claws. Her dark caverns filled with dead and dying things, dark magicks almost forgotten in the wake of budding Christianity. Waiting and waiting for the day that he could leave and join Arthur's court. Promising his mother it was for revenge and kingship but mostly for sunlight, glory, and father.

Father, the only part of his terrible, sacrilegious, birth that contained any light or glory at all.

"Master," Mordred asked as he scanned another alleyway, looking for a single dark shadow out of place, "You sure this guy's coming?"

His master, wearing sunglasses as always even though it was goddamn night out, said nothing for a very long while. Finally, he said in his typical gruff and almost aloof manner, "All we know is that he's been draining the magical energy from mages left and right for a few weeks. Servants take significant amounts of mana to maintain form on this plane. If his master is missing in action or lacking in the mana department, then he's going to need every drop of mana he can get from any mage he can find. He's run out of mages in this town, and he can't afford to be picky."

Mordred's master had assumed, earlier, that the guy was a rogue servant of black given that red was accounted for. Mordred wouldn't say he disagreed, and if he was rogue, then like Sisigou said he'd need mana by the barrelful. Except, then where was he?

He could wait until they were truly off their guard, except they wouldn't be and he was clever enough to know it, and if he waited too long then they'd just haul ass back to Trifas and he'd be without mana once again and without a home field advantage. No, master was right, he had to strike now and strike hard.

"But where is he?!" Mordred cried, gripping his sword tighter and finally stopping in his tracks to look at their surroundings, "Come out you coward! Are you so afraid of my sword that you'd rather shrivel than face death in battle?! Come out and face me like a man!"

"Saber," his master chided but Mordred wasn't having it, gritting his teeth and staring out into the night, trying to feel the guy's pulsing mana wherever he was laying in wait. But there was nothing, or at least, nothing he could really pick up out here.

He really hated this guy.

It wasn't just because he kept getting away either, that he knew Mordred's father, or that Mordred had been itching for a fight for days now, it was…

Mordred thought that was his noble phantasm, that charming charisma that was so damned distracting Mordred couldn't hit him, except Mordred and his father as a rule were impervious to glamors and the like. If that was the case Mordred would have been taken out by his mother or Merlin long before Arthur's sword could touch him.

Which meant either he was cutting through the protections Mordred had or he was somehow just that distracting in his own right. Which…

A holy grail war, a previous holy grail war in which Arthur Pendragon had participated for reasons Mordred couldn't possibly understand. A holy grail war and a woman in a photograph, little more than a girl, who looked barely human at all.

The man was too much of a mystery, cut too close to home in too short of a time, as if simply by staring Mordred in the eye he had seen to the heart of him. Had known that Arthur Pendragon was the name of his own Achilles heel in a way that Mordred didn't even think Sisigou understood. And that was his power, that was his gift, not enthrallment but something far more dangerous.

The ability to know people around him in an instant.

But that wouldn't help him here, Mordred hadn't registered him as a threat then, hadn't needed to. This time though they would clash swords and there was no question that Mordred would be the victor.

They entered an open and predictably empty plaza, it was a very clear night, the moon making everything rather bright and not of any use to an assassin. Mordred paused for a moment in the center along with his master, looking for a new path to follow, any new leads.

It was standing there, of course, like a jackass that the golden arrow came. Mordred threw himself and his master out of the way barely in time, coughing as Mordred brushed off the rubble and moved them forward and hopefully out of the archer's range, "Damn it all, he's an Archer!"

Not too surprising, he'd always taken the high ground whenever he'd had the opportunity and hadn't seemed one for direct combat. Still, Mordred had figured that or Assassin or Caster, he had that general air of dark nastiness that usually came with those classes versus the other four. He hadn't necessarily reminded Mordred of his mother, of Merlin, but he definitely hadn't seemed like a swordsman either.

Mordred supposed it was moot point as he threw off his helmet (being able to see clearly was more important at this point than avoiding stray shots to his head) and started sprinting in the direction of the arrows while his master sought cover, "I'll hunt him down! You sit tight!"

Sisigou groaned, moved against a wall and rummaged for his creepy mage shit and yelled back, "Got it!"

Mordred barely heard it as he moved off through the streets and up the walls towards the source of the arrows. Which was rather bold of the bastard as Mordred would have thought he'd change position after the first failed shot, perhaps he wasn't a coward after all, perhaps he did intend to die a warrior's death.

Only, on scaling the wall and bringing his sword down on his enemy's head, the man awaiting her was taller, broader, with longer hair and darker olive skin. This, Mordred realized with a cry of rage, was not the man he'd been looking for.

Which meant Mordred had just left his master to deal not only with Archer's master but Mr. Pretty as well.

Still, Mordred couldn't believe he was thinking this, but his master could handle it. He'd probably need some backup later, but he could handle it. Mordred well and truly believed that. This guy's master though, well, a mage was a mage, and Mordred had the sense that the man in black would be eating well tonight.

"You shouldn't be out here."

Fiore whirled, mechanical arms and legs moving with her as she turned to look at… At an unusually good-looking man standing just behind her in the watchtower that Chiron had selected in order to take out Saber and Assassin. They'd failed that, or at least, failed taking out Saber when Assassin hadn't made an appearance, and Chiron had gone to confront the servant while Fiore intended to take out the master. At least, that was the plan until now.

This man didn't look at all like Chiron. He was slight where the Centaur was broader and more muscular, pale where Chiron was olive skinned, dark and mysterious looking where Chiron was warmth and openness.

Yet, he didn't look like Uncle Darnic either, who Fiore had always seen as that tall, dark, and handsome type.

The man's eyes were a bright, pale blue that glowed even in the night (like her own eyes except somehow brighter) and he repeated with genuine concern, "It's dangerous out here, the news says there's a serial killer on the loose."

She flushed, realizing then where she was and who she was talking to (that this was the man in real danger from Jack the Ripper rather than her) and said, "Yes, it is, however I'm fully qualified to deal with it. You, however, should return home immediately."

This assignment had been given to her, after all, when Uncle Darnic had revealed that Jack the Ripper's master had been missing since the war even began. That mages both from Yggdemillennia and the mage's association had been dying in every town Assassin passed through since then.

Jack the Ripper had gone rogue, his master was missing in action, and he was now a liability rather than anything of use. More, Fiore was a mage, the mage next in line to follow after Uncle Darnic in the family, and as such she was more than prepared for such an undertaking.

Even if the servant had yet to appear.

The man gave her a rather dry look, eyebrows moving upwards, taking her in piece by piece including her metal limbs and finding her something amusing rather than competent or threatening, "Really?"

"Yes, really!" she glowered not caring for the way he overlooked her, no, the way he seemed to see right through her and judge that she wasn't quite the mage she thought she was. Mages were like Uncle Darnic, mages did whatever it took at whatever the cost. As a mage, Fiore was now preparing herself to engage in combat with red Saber's master as Chiron cornered the servant.

Her eyes widened, she'd gotten distracted from that. She turned to look over her shoulder, to jump off the tower…

Except then her mind was suddenly empty, she slowly looked back over her shoulder and registered a glowing stick of wood, a wand, pointed at her and the man's eyes not containing a hint of compassion or pity within them.

"Oh," Fiore said slowly, the words sounding distant even to herself, "It was you."

She watched with disinterest, even though it felt like her soul was trapped away from her mind screaming at her to move, to call Chiron back, to fight, as he moved towards her with that wand, towards the hand bearing her command seals.

"You're Jack the Ripper."

She said it even as the mana released from his wand reached the edge of her skin and began to cut through her flesh. She cried out then, watching in a dull distant sort of horror as her hand dropped below her feet, still bearing each unused command seal.

Her ability to call Chiron back instantaneously was now gone.

Her options for survival, in just a second, had gotten significantly slimmer.

"Jack the Ripper," the man noted as he picked up her pale hand in his, ignoring the blood dripping down his fingers as he stared at her command seals in disdain, "Is that who you think you summoned? I had wondered."

He looked across at her then, at her blank expression, and said, "It's nothing personal, Fiore Yggdemillenia. I simply had neither the time nor the inclination to play at being servant, except that I couldn't leave until I found what I needed to either. Consider it a consequence of entering a grail war and of being so arrogant as to think you could send off your servant at a moment like this."

"Then Saber would have escaped," Fiore said dully, still feeling so distant and helpless, but he just smiled, giving her a look that was almost pitying as, with a wave of his wand, he dismantled her mechanical limbs and left her to sprawl on the ground.

Move, Fiore, something in her screamed, move or you will never move again. She didn't move though, it seemed so difficult, and her hand was hurting so badly.

"Saber will likely escape regardless. Unless your servant manages to annihilate her before I end you then it's… Oh, how would Lily put it? Game over, man," he lowered his wand to her head, the light shining in her eyes and blinding her as he said, "The other master, I'm afraid, is a little bit smarter than you are. You had the misfortune and stupidity to make yourself the easiest target."

So, Kairi Sisigou was going to live and Fiore Yggdemillennia was going to die.

These were, she realized dimly, the last words she was ever going to hear in this world.

A few seconds later, she knew, Chiron would turn and reach for her as he realized she was gone from this world. He'd used what precious mana remained to fight against Saber, or perhaps to search for her body, but it would be over for both of them.

Her legs and his immortality, nothing more than the average mortal wishes that everyone in this world possessed. She wondered for a moment, if he'd call it a tragedy almost Greek in nature.

All she could think though was that it wasn't supposed to go like this.

It was never supposed to go like this.

"Fiore!"

Caules ran through the city, panting as he cried her name, not very smart he knew but dammit he hadn't found her yet and he didn't exactly have Lily to go search her out either. Explosions had sounded earlier in the small city, servants undoubtedly fighting one another, which meant that his sister was probably fighting some other master as well.

His sister who really didn't have what it took to kill someone in cold blood, who might not have what it took to kill anyone or anything at all, facing against a mage who would have no such hesitations.

"Fiore!" he cried out again as he sprinted through the streets like a madman, keeping in the same direction he'd been in for the last few miles even though he had no idea if he wa seven going the right way anymore.

The more he shouted the more likely it was he'd draw someone attentions, friend or foe, and that wasn't good either, but all his tracking spells and spirits had failed him. Which meant either she was being blocked from him or that she was already…

"Fiore!"

It was quiet now, quiet for a long time now, which meant that the others, that Fiore, had likely retreated. Except no one had called Caules yet back to the van waiting outside the town, his sister hadn't called back, which meant she was probably still out here or that something had happened to the van instead.

"Fiore—"

He was cut off, stopped as a pale man turned casually around a corner. He was dressed in a dark suit, one that was composed of dark grays and black. He was tall, dark haired, with pale blue eyes that looked like Caules' and his sisters, he could have been a relative the way he looked except…

Except that Caules had certainly never seen him before.

Caules stiffened, waited for the man to make a move, but he kept walking by him as if he didn't care at all. Caules almost shook his head, started running again, except he realized that he hadn't seen anyone else out, that a curfew had been instilled by the city and so it had been just Caules out here.

Caules and…

He turned, glaring, and saw that the man was looking back at him with a wand pointed at his head and a polite smile, "Really, two in one night, it really is my lucky day."

"You!" Caules said, snarling, but the man just gave him an almost disappointed look. His eyes, Caules noticed, drifted briefly to Caules' hand and the command seals inscribed there.

"You've left your behind and you think you can growl at me like that. Really, what do you think you're doing?"

Caules stepped forward regardless, raising his hand to summon a spirit or else send out energy towards the man, "Where's my sister?!"

He did not move, did not even flinch, instead his wand was still leveled at Caules head. Wands… they were not always the tools of mages, some used them, but often the tools of their cousins the wizards and witches. A wand in a trained hand could be beyond deadly, and the ease with which this man wielded it…

"Oh, you do look familiar, don't you?" the man asked, and then he offered Caules a cheery grin and said, "You just missed her, I'm afraid."

"What do you mean?!"

The smile was gone, only indifferent emptiness remained, and the man asked coldly, "What do you think I mean?"

Caules moved forward, surging forward with mana but the man stepped aside and deflected his attack easily and silently with his wand, leaving Caules to stumble forward unprotected into a wall.

His hand unprotected. If he lost that hand, if he lost the seals, then he couldn't call Lily, Frankenstein, whatever she really was back. And with his back turned now, this was likely the last second, he had.

Squeezing his eyes shut and shoving his hand beneath his body he used his second command seal, disobeying the direct orders of his superiors, "Lily, I command you to come here now!"

His hand glowed, there was a great flash of light as Lily reappeared per his command, and he turned just in time to see her bare a great knight's sword and then stop. She blinked, straightened out of her fighting stance, and looked at the man across from her, "Lenin?"

The man had stopped as well, his wand briefly lowering, and in stunned amazement, then fondness, he breathed out a name, "Lily, so I've finally found you."

They looked… They looked at each other like old friends, Caules realized in growing horror. She looked at him much the way she had looked at Gilgamesh.

"Where the hell have you been?!" She said, poking him in the chest like a scolding housewife while he just raised his eyes at her impertinence.

"Attempting to remain on the mortal plane without selling my soul to the black faction," he said, sounding almost annoyed, "Do you have any idea how much magic that takes?"

"You can do that?" Lily asked, eyes bugging out of her skull, and Caules was left with the uncomfortable feeling that he himself would not have been long for this world had Lily realized it was possible. And that, perhaps after he had put her in a dungeon to be tortured, she would have that much less reason not to.

"If you're willing to put in the required effort," he said which…

Which meant the murder of mages, the murder of his sister, and himself as well.

"It was probably worth it," Lily said, and her eye moved to Caules, and there was nothing in them, no hint of compassion, friendship, or even pity as if he had dug his own grave long ago, "Team black sucks."

"Lily!" Caules cried, hands shaking as both turned to look at him, "Lily, please, please remember…"

She needed him, them, if she wanted the grail then she needed their help and wouldn't last long at all without her own source of mana. Especially not with her level of power, if she did anything of significance, then her mana stores would run out sooner rather than later. She needed a master, and Assassin couldn't be it either, only a human mage or else Caster could wield a servant. She needed him, even if she didn't trust him at all.

If she didn't kill him now, let him kill Caules then…

Caules squeezed his eyes shut, screamed at her and raised his hand once again, "Lily I command you to—"

A flash of green light and then a dull thud as his body hit the ground, while his servant, for the moment, remained.

And as Jeanne and Gilgamesh entered the church of Shirou Kotomine they found it empty, removed of everything but traps for a human mage and the lingering presence of a priest who was not a priest at all, while miles ahead of them the Hanging Gardens of Babylon ascended into the sky towards Yggdemillennia castle and the great siege that would begin the holy grail war.

Author's Note: A short chapter, but the important bit is that I killed all the people. Oh consequences. Once again brought to you by the lovely AlleyKat2014.

Thanks for reading and reviewing, reviews are much appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Fate