Miracle of Zero: Kingdom of the Forsaken
By: James D. Fawkes
Chapter IX: Final Overture
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
It took their group, now escorting nearly two dozen maids and house staff, more than four hours to get back to the Academy.
After nearly two whole hours of organizing those still alive and setting up transportation, they left the demolished mansion, reduced to a crater, scatterings of bricks and planks of wood, and dust, and made the trek back to the Academy. With the additional people, however, what should have been an hour long trip wound up taking nearly two and a half hours.
By the time they finally crossed through the Academy gates, all of them tired and spent, the sun was already sinking below the horizon, casting the sky in a rainbow of oranges and purples as the first of the night's stars twinkled into view. In the dying light, the normally gray bricks and stone that made up the castle and spires glowed like gold, like a slab of hot steel just pulled from the fire, blazing and radiant.
"Finally," Kirche murmured behind them. "That took forever."
"We'll need to get the others settled in," Shirou said to Louise quietly. "We should probably get some medical assistance —"
"That can wait," she interjected. She had a look of concentration on her face. "The worst of it is some cuts and bruises; what everyone needs now is some food and rest."
Neither of them mentioned the maid who had been subjected to Mott's tender mercies; she was still catatonic, wrapped up in some spare clothing for warmth and to cover her nudity and carried in the makeshift wagon they'd managed to pull together to transport the wounded. And since most of the damage she'd sustained was either superficial, psychological, or needed a specialist (what Shirou wouldn't have given for a gynecologist), there was nothing else they could do for her until she snapped out of her stupor.
A water mage might be able to heal the physical damage, but the mental wounds would be much harder to deal with.
"As you say, Louise," Shirou agreed with her. "We'll have to contact the Headmaster to get some rooms set up, then."
"And one of the servant staff to have some food prepared," Louise continued for him. He nodded. "Maybe we should have — Annabelle!"
And standing in the pathway leading up to the school was Annabelle, fidgeting nervously and wringing her hands in her uniform, and standing next to her was —
"Headmaster!" Guiche gasped from behind Shirou.
"What's that old coot doing out here?" Kirche hissed a little too loudly.
"Show some respect!" Guiche hissed back.
"Sir Shirou, Miss de La Vallière," Osmond greeted, looking every bit his age and leaning on a staff for support, "and Mister Gramont, Miss Tabitha, and Miss Zerbst, as well." He looked at them sadly. "I apologize, but it was out of my hands. I had no other choice."
A feeling of unease coiled up in Shirou's belly.
"No other choice?" Louise parroted. "What do you —"
"I'm sorry, Miss de La Vallière!" Annabelle burst out. She refused to look Louise in the eye. "I — I had to…I mean, I couldn't…!"
"What —"
Magical energy blazed to life suddenly and violently all around them, and every instinct in Shirou's body screamed to fight as an oily smell like burning plastic or melted rubber assaulted his nostrils. His hand leapt to Derflinger instantly.
"An attack? Here?" Shirou muttered. In the Academy courtyard?
But it was not Drake or Perseus or Not-Lancelot who appeared suddenly in formation around their group, wand-swords raised and charged with Prana. No, it was a squad or maybe a full platoon of knightly figures, all dressed in richly adorned but functional clothing, blue cloaks wrapped around their shoulders, and bearing a familiar crest.
"The Palace Guard!" came Louise's stunned whisper.
"Chameleon spell," Tabitha murmured from behind them.
"Put your wands on the ground and your hands in the air!" one of the guards shouted.
For a long, tense moment, no one did anything and everyone seemed frozen in place, but it wasn't hard to tell that the guards were getting more anxious with every passing second. Shirou's grip on Derflinger's hilt tightened — there were only a handful of ways things could pan out from here, and none of them were very appealing.
It really boiled down to two major choices: first, they could surrender and be arrested, whereby they would be taken into custody and probably taken to the capital city to face…whatever counted for a justice system in Tristain. Depending on how everything went from there, they could still escape if they really needed to, and if things went really well, then they would just walk out as free men, cleared of whatever charges were being brought against them. That was the option Shirou would like to take, if he were honest, because it would be easier for Louise if she wasn't a wanted fugitive, always on the run and always looking over her shoulder and wondering if the nice old lady selling her food was going to turn around and report her to the nearest guard.
Of course, it was entirely possible that they would wind up convicted anyway, because the only thing this could possibly be about was Mott, and if it was about Mott, then the timing was incredibly suspect — too fast and too convenient for there to not be any sort of politics behind it all.
On the other hand, they could just disarm the guards, defeat them, and leave, skipping the whole problem of the courts or whatever awaited them and get a head start on their pursuers, but that guaranteed that Louise would spend the rest of her life as a wanted fugitive, never able to rest, never able to settle down, and waiting for the authorities to swoop down on her.
Neither option was ideal. Both carried a certain amount of risks and uncertainty, and Shirou already knew which one he'd take if it was up to him.
But it wasn't up to him. In the end, Shirou did not belong as part of this world; he was an outsider, an intruder, and he would inevitably return to his home, he hoped, because there were still things he needed to do there, but until then, he was Louise's Servant, her sword and shield. His only purpose was to protect her, to save her. He could not make a decision like this for her.
Because, in the end, it was her decision. It was her future on the line. He didn't have the right to choose for her.
"Well, ain't this a fine kettle of fish yeh've gotten yerself into, partner," Derf muttered in his ear.
Shirou didn't reply. "Louise," he mumbled instead from the corner of his mouth, "whatever decision you make, I will always support you."
Louise didn't respond, but from the ever-deepening frown on her lips and the way her eyes flitted back and forth, she was considering what to do, what her options were.
"Put your wands on the ground and your hands in the air!" the guard repeated.
"What's the Palace Guard doing here?"
"I won't say it a third time!"
"Are you daft, Kirche?! They're arresting us!"
"This is your final warning!"
"Arresting us? For what! It's not like we committed a crime or something!"
"Does it matter why? They're arresting us! Isn't that enough?"
"It's not if we haven't done anything! I refuse to be —"
"Do what he says!" Louise barked suddenly.
Shirou didn't let go of Derf for a moment.
"Are you daft, Vallière?" Kirche demanded. "This is one of the most transparent political moves I've ever heard of!"
"That doesn't matter!" Louise snapped back. "If you fight back, it'll just make you look guilty!"
Kirche didn't say anything, but as Shirou's fingers unfurled from Derflinger, he imagined the sour look that must have been on her face. With a clatter, three wands and a staff fell to the cobblestone pathway — Kirche, Tabitha, Louise, and Guiche had surrendered.
Louise had decided to take her chances on the justice system.
With Louise's decision made, there was only one thing to do: Shirou lifted his hands up and into the air.
"Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Vallière," the guard said as his comrades descended upon them, "you're under arrest for the murder of Count Augustus Mott."
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
From the space between the bars on the window, moonlight shone down and glittered off the surface of the red gemstone.
Shirou turned it over in his hand, watching the way the light reflected and refracted, bouncing through and off of the crystalline structure that lay inside it and glinted crimson. The silver chain connected to it gave a soft clinking sound.
It was a garnet, not a ruby, Shirou knew. He'd spent enough time around Rin to distinguish between the two just by looking. Not surprising, really, since the Tousaka family magic was Jewelcraft and Shirou had known Rin, had been her best friend, for the better part of half a century.
He turned the gem over in his hand again.
This was the gem that had saved his life, once upon a time.
Back when he'd been ignorant, back when he hadn't known a thing about the Grail War, that first night, Cúchulainn's spear had pierced his heart, and with this very same gem, Rin had saved his life. He'd tried to return it, of course, much later on, but Rin had refused to accept it back.
"I already used it up saving you, so it's useless to me, now," she'd told him when she'd handed it back. "You keep it. I think you'll find more use for it than I would."
So he'd kept it. For nearly fifty years, he'd kept it, as a momento of that time and a reminder that he wasn't alone, that he had a friend who knew his dreams and supported him.
And now, it was all he had left of Rin, and the thought brought him an odd mixture of comfort and dismay, a strange halfway feeling that twisted around in his belly and brought a…something to his face. It wasn't a smile, but it wasn't a frown.
"Geez!" he could imagine her saying. "Quit moping already, Shirou!"
And he found himself wishing that he really, truly was hearing her voice again. But it was only his imagination, a mental image constructed of his memories of her and his knowledge of her character. The real Rin, and the facsimile that had been with him the past few weeks, would never speak to him again.
In the end, he hadn't been able to save Saber, and he hadn't been able to save Rin.
His fingers curled around the gemstone, gently, so as not to crush it, and for a single moment, he regretted it and wondered — if he had not chosen this path, would Rin have died for him the way she had? If he had not selfishly chased his dream of selflessness, if he had not run after that beautiful image, would Rin have sacrificed her own life for him like that?
Unable to save Saber, unable to save Rin — if he had not so zealously pursued his ideals, would things have been different?
But then he remembered Saber's smile as she vanished from the hill, and he remembered Rin's smile as the life bled from her in rivers of red. Even knowing what was to happen to them, even knowing that they were going to die, that they were dying, they had looked at him and smiled. They had left him happy, in their own way, content, so that even if he hadn't saved their lives, he had saved them all the same.
And that…that washed away the regret. That washed away the doubt.
Emiya Shirou had never wished for a world without conflict and war, without death, he just didn't want anyone within his view to cry.
He let out a breath through his nose. Something…It was indescribable. He couldn't name it, couldn't really describe it, only to say that it was bittersweet and it filled his belly with an empty weight, not unlike the thrill of adrenaline, but not nearly so sharp. It brought that something back to his lips — not a smile, but not a frown, either.
To die with a smile… Yes, he decided, that was its own form of saving. He would still pursue that dream, still strive to save everyone in sight, but if they had to die, if it weren't possible for him to save them, then he could live with it all so long as they smiled at the end.
So long as they smiled the way Saber and Rin had.
"Shirou?"
A familiar voice pulled him out of his thoughts, and he looked up and away from the large garnet in his hand to Louise, who sat opposite him and was staring blankly at the wall.
"Yes, Louise?"
"You could get us out of here, right?" she asked. "Punch down the wall or bend the bars out or something?"
"Of course, Master."
He didn't move. She didn't move. For a long moment, there was only silence between them.
"…But you shouldn't."
"No. No, I shouldn't."
Louise sighed. "Yeah, I'd hate to live my life as a fugitive from the law. Mother would hunt me down and kill me." She grumbled. "Stupid maid."
"You can't blame the maid for doing her job, Louise."
Louise sighed again. "No, I can't," she admitted. "But I really, really want to."
It would have been all too easy for Shirou to take out that platoon — knocking them all out or trapping them behind a cage of swords wouldn't have taken much effort, and killing them, if necessary, would have been just as effortless — and make an escape with Louise. If Colbert or Osmond, the only two mages in the Academy who were even close to a threat to him, had tried to stop him, then he could have defeated them, too, with marginally more difficulty, though he was more inclined to believe that they would have let him and Louise flee.
But running would've made the problem all the worse. Resisting arrest and assaulting the palace guards, on top of whatever else they charged her with? It would have made her look guilty, and she would have been a fugitive for the rest of her life. She would have lived out the rest of her days fleeing from the law, trying to settle down here and there but always on the lookout for her pursuers. It would have been a hard, dangerous life of constant paranoia, of always looking over her shoulder and wondering if the fruit vendor smiling at her was going to turn around and report her to the guards.
The only real option had been to surrender. Sure, it meant handing over their weapons and equipment, and sure, Louise could wind up convicted of whatever they were going to charge her with, but in that case, it would also be too easy to escape — there wasn't a mage he had yet met in this world who could bind him if he didn't permit it.
"Forget about the maid," a familiar voice said, "you're the reason we're in here, Vallière."
Of course, the thing Shirou hadn't been counting on in the process was Guiche, Tabitha, and Kirche getting arrested, too.
"I don't understand why we're here," Kirche huffed from the cell next to theirs. "We weren't even involved."
"Personally, I blame you, Zerbst," Guiche said sourly from the cell across from Kirche's. "You were the one who insisted on following them."
"Oh?" Shirou allowed himself a small, sardonic smile. "Do you mean to say that it meant nothing to you, Guiche? Saving all those maids?"
Shirou could imagine the expression that would be twisting Guiche's face. "That's not…" he began, then gave up and sighed. "Monmon is going to kill me."
"No one forced you guys to follow us," Louise told them flatly.
"Well, I couldn't very well let you go off with Darling all by yourself, could I?" Kirche asked rhetorically. "Who knows what you might have done while you were all alone!"
"Help," Tabitha added. It was the first she'd spoken since Mott's mansion.
"I don't even know how I got dragged into this," Guiche said. He sighed again. "What will my father say when he hears I've been arrested?"
"He'll praise you for trying to do the right thing," Shirou answered. Probably, anyway. He didn't know Guiche's father, but considering Guiche's personality, it was a good bet.
"Maybe," Guiche hedged.
"Stop encouraging him!" Louise hissed.
"Sorry, Master."
"Oh, I bet daddy will be so proud!" Kirche teased. "Little Guiche has gone off and done a few manly things! He's so grown up, now!"
"Hey!"
"But you're still not as manly as Darling," Kirche crowed. "Oh, Darling! If only we weren't separated by these walls!"
"Denied," Shirou declared flatly. He could imagine Kirche slumping into a pout in her cell. "I —"
A burst of magical energy stole the words from his mouth — it came from nearby, from the door leading out of the holding area they were in, and Shirou was instantly on his feet as a barrier of wind suddenly wrapped around his and Louise's cell. Louise was on her feet a moment later.
"What the —?"
"Shirou, what's —"
Another burst of magical energy came from the same place, and Shirou's hand immediately went to Derf's hilt as a dense fog suddenly rushed down the corridor — but Derf wasn't there, that was right, they'd taken his weapons when they'd arrested him and Louise, so neither Derf nor Gavilain were nearby. He had nothing to defend himself with.
But Shirou was never without something to defend himself with.
The others gave out startled cries, then, one by one, fell in their cells with meaty thumps.
"Shirou," Louise asked from her spot hiding behind him, "what's going on?"
"I don't know," he muttered.
For a moment, there was only silence, a long, uncomfortable few seconds that stretched for eternity where the slightest sound seemed like a crack of thunder, and Shirou could hear his heart thumping rapidly in his chest, pulse pounding in his ears, as adrenaline flooded his body. The trigger in the back of his head, the hammer of a pistol, pulled back and fired, turning on his Magic Circuits, preparing to fight. Every fiber of his being was vibrating and readying for combat.
Then, a third burst of magical energy came, and a gust of wind raced down the corridor and swept away the mist that had knocked Guiche, Kirche, and Tabitha unconscious. Immediately afterwards, the barrier that had protected Shirou and Louise sputtered out and died.
It had been done on purpose, he concluded, specifically to remove Guiche, Tabitha, and Kirche from the equation. That meant…
"An assassin?" he muttered to himself. "But…then why…?"
Why not knock Shirou and Louise out, too?
It didn't make sense. If this was an assassination, then why would the assassin not knock out Louise and Shirou as well, especially since they were probably the targets?
Clothing rustled quietly in the silence, and Shirou held out his hand as though he were grasping a sword as he prepared the blueprint for a weapon. He was rushing and he wasn't using an incantation, so it might be a bit shoddy, but a shoddy Noble Phantasm was still leagues beyond an ordinary weapon.
"Stay behind me, Louise," he muttered.
Black cloth fluttered in the moonlight, and suddenly, appearing as if from thin air, a figure stood outside their cell door, pulling down the hood of a cloak and staring at them with blue, blue eyes and smiling a small smile.
Louise gasped. "P-Princess!"
"Hello, Louise Francoise," Princess Henrietta greeted kindly.
The pieces began to fit together. If the Princess was the one who was visiting them, that meant…
"Then…" Shirou began, "that was your mist?"
"Oh yes," Henrietta answered readily. "There are certain secrets that I'm afraid I'm not quite prepared for Sir Guiche or Miss Kirche to hear, just yet, so I asked Wales to set up a barrier for you while I put the others to sleep. I'm afraid I needed to speak with you most urgently, so it couldn't wait until morning."
"That explains the mist," Shirou said.
"Yes," Henrietta nodded. She gestured to the black cloak she was wearing. "But I couldn't be seen having come to visit Louise Francoise, so I had to come when the guards were most lax and under the cover of this invisibility cloak. It really is quite useful." She fingered the black cloth. "To be quite honest, I was surprised when I found it among the royal heirlooms. Most likely, one of my ancestors used it to sneak out and visit his mistress."
Shirou imagined a middle-aged king with Henrietta's blue eyes sneaking out of his own castle with the same invisibility cloak and felt a grin tug at his lips. "Indeed."
"Why are you here?" Louise burst out suddenly. Both Shirou and Henrietta turned to look at her and blinked. Louise flushed. "I-I mean," she corrected herself, "Princess, why have you come to see me?"
Henrietta's head tilted to the side.
"Louise Francoise?"
"I'm a criminal," Louise said a little bitterly. "Charged with murder. Surely Your Highness shouldn't be visiting someone like that."
Henrietta's expression smoothed over and a slight frown tugged at her lips. "If you think I would suddenly renounce you for your hand in Count Mott's untimely demise, intentional or otherwise, you'd be wrong," she said. "Moreover, I might actually thank you for it."
It was Louise's turn to blink bewilderedly.
"Louise," Henrietta began, "were you aware that Count Mott was suspected of having been involved with Reconquista?"
Louise, eyes wide, shook her head slowly. Shirou was rather surprised, too.
"It's nothing we could prove, of course," Henrietta allowed, "and only five people, including Wales and now you yourself, know of my suspicions. But we did suspect Mott of at least being a sympathizer, if not a member of the movement."
"B-but," Louise stuttered, "that would mean…!"
"That Mott was a traitor to the Crown, yes," Henrietta answered calmly. "Without evidence, however, and with my position being as it is, there was nothing we could legally do to him — especially since he was good friends with Duke Stanton and Duke Richmond, who are powerful members of the Conservatives."
"Which would mean that any unlawful expenses could be covered up and any issues brought to court would be dismissed," Louise concluded, frowning.
"Exactly," Henrietta nodded. "With both the Lord Chief Justice and the Minister of Finances counted among his friends, there was no way of legally charging Mott with anything and no evidence to make anything stick. Even now, we can't be sure whether Mott was actually involved with Reconquista, or if he simply found their campaign palatable."
That was all fine and dandy, Shirou thought, but it hadn't meant a thing to him. They might as well have been speaking in a different language.
"Once more," he raised his hand slightly, "for those of us who weren't born and raised in Tristain?"
Both the Princess and Louise glanced over at him and frowned, then looked back at each other and seemed to carry out a silent conversation using only hand gestures and facial expressions before the Princess backed away and Louise turned to regard him.
"When it comes to the nobility, there are two main political parties in Tristain," she began. "The first is the Royalist party, more informally referred to as the Tories. They support the Crown and the rule of the Crown as it has traditionally been since the time of the founding of Tristain. In regards to policy, the Royalists usually follow the Queen's lead. My family has been Tories since…well, since as long as I can remember."
"The de La Vallière family has always been close to the Crown," Henrietta added. "More so since my mother's coronation almost twenty years ago."
"The other party is the Conservative party, called the Whigs," Louise continued. "They would prefer if the ruling power was turned over to the nobility and the Crown was more a figurehead. They've enjoyed a lot more power in recent years than they used to, and because some of their views align with Reconquista's policies, at least of few of them are probably sympathizers."
"And they've been gaining members," Henrietta said. "I'm afraid some of my proposals and reforms aren't too popular with the staunch traditionalists."
"I see," Shirou replied neutrally. Some of this sounded kind of familiar. "And this gave Mott an advantage?"
Henrietta shook her head. "Mott was a Whig," she explained. "And so are Duke Stanton, who is the Lord Chief Justice, and Duke Richmond, who is the Minister of Finances, both of whom are also friends with each other and with Mott."
Ah. Now it made sense. "So any money Mott and his friends might have used to support Reconquista's efforts in Albion would be covered up by his friend, the Minister of Finances, and if any charges were brought against Mott legally, they would be dropped by his other friend, the Lord Chief Justice."
"Precisely," Henrietta nodded. "That is why we aren't sure whether or not Mott was actually involved with Reconquista, or whether he just agreed with some of their views."
"And how does that help us?"
"It doesn't," Louise answered, sounding somewhat frustrated. "Either way, we're still charged with Murder and Destruction of a Noble Lineage."
"Ah, but that is where you are wrong, Louise Francoise," Henrietta said with a smile. "Did you not think it odd that you were being charged and tried by the Lord Chief Justice?"
"No," Louise said a little petulantly. "I'm being charged with a capital crime, and I'm the daughter of a Duke. Shouldn't I be tried by the highest court in the Realm?"
"Perhaps," Henrietta said, "but Duke Stanton was also a friend of Mott's, was he not? That makes this a conflict of interest, which Duke Stanton well knows, and so he should recuse himself and allow this case to be tried by another judge if he were at all concerned with seeing justice done. However…"
"He's not," Louise concluded. There was something in her voice. Not hope, precisely, but something more than simple understanding. "Which means…Which means…"
"This is political," Henrietta nodded. "The Lord Chief Justice wants this case to go his way. He wants to find you guilty, because finding you guilty will turn some of the Nobles who are on the fence his way. The trial will likely be nothing more than a show for him to put on and the jury will undoubtedly be composed of people willing to follow his lead. He will do whatever it takes, even if it's not strictly legal, in order to find you guilty of killing Mott, because it would give him exactly what he wants. Can you imagine the scandal? A daughter of the de La Vallière house, convicted of murdering a Peer and ending a Noble line? It would be a heavy blow to your family's power, Louise."
Louise winced. "Mother's going to kill me," she muttered.
"And that is where I come in," Henrietta smiled. "Congratulations, Louise Francoise. You are now officially an agent of the Crown."
Louise gasped. "Wh-what?"
"I filled out the papers when I heard you'd been arrested," Henrietta explained, "and I had them post-dated a week ago — the day you started out for Albion, in fact."
Shirou shifted a little nervously. "You can do that?"
Because that sounded really illegal.
"Not technically, no," Henrietta admitted. "But this way, I can say that Louise Francoise was investigating a rumor for me — the maid, Annabelle, I believe her name was, will have to be sworn to secrecy, of course — on the issue of Mott laundering money for Reconquista. When Mott discovered her purpose, there was naturally a confrontation, and, well, one thing led to another…"
A chill swept down Shirou's spine.
This was Princess Henrietta? This was the same girl who'd barged into Louise's room in the Academy, all cloaked and disguised, and had proceeded to almost beg her best friend to retrieve a letter from Albion? This was the same girl who had turned to her best friend because she had felt there was no one else she could trust?
This plan she was contriving, now, that she was presenting to them, sounded like something that Shirou might have expected out of Rin's mouth. It was cold, it was calculated, it was magus-like.
"Lord Stanton won't be able to convict you," Henrietta went on. "If he does, he'll drive away a lot of the fence-sitters, who will feel that he's attempting a power grab. They'll feel that it could happen to anyone if it could happen to a child of the most powerful Duke in Tristain. That would drive them straight into our arms.
"Furthermore," she continued, "being an agent of the Crown gives you a lot of leeway. With the papers I filed, you act with the authority of the Crown, which means Duke Stanton will be making a statement against the Crown's authority if he convicts you. That, too, will alienate a lot of those who might have chosen to ally themselves with him, and it would win the Royalists a lot of support from the neutral factions. Essentially, no matter what, if Duke Stanton convicts you, he'll be shooting himself in the foot politically. And Duke Stanton will know this, so he won't convict you."
The scope of her plan was beginning to unfold before Shirou's eyes. Though it was risky and illegal, Henrietta's course of action had ensured that Duke Stanton would lose no matter what he chose to do, and she'd made it so that the least devastating choice for him to make was to cut his losses and let Louise go.
Essentially, Duke Stanton could make one of two choices, as long as it was to drop the charges against Louise.
With this, she had just declared Check.
But it wasn't that easy, Shirou knew. There were still flaws, problems with this plan. There were a number of people who would see through it, who would know that Henrietta had engineered the whole thing to get her friend out of a murder charge. They would see it, they would know, and it would be viewed for what it was: favoritism.
And that would drive some of those fence-sitters over to these Whigs, over to the Reconquista sympathizers.
But Henrietta, who would surely know that, had gone through with it anyway.
"And you would do all of this," Shirou began, "for…what? A friend?"
"For my friend, Louise Francoise, who was the closest thing I had to a sister when I was a child, yes," Henrietta answered. "Of course, that my friend is also a Void Mage and has a familiar who I believe could singlehandedly destroy this country if he put his mind to it only offer me ready excuses."
Somehow, Shirou wasn't surprised that she knew about Louise being a Void Mage. "Even so," he said, "there's no way you don't realize the trouble this will bring."
Henrietta only smiled, a small, indulgent little smile that mothers gave their children when they were trying to explain something complex. "Sir Shirou, I know that my actions in this instance will undoubtedly set some of the more conservative Nobles against me, but I was never under any illusions that I could reform this country without stepping on a few toes. I will drag Tristain into the future, kicking and screaming if need be."
She took a few steps back and lifted her hands to her hood, but didn't quite pull it back up, yet.
"Louise Francoise," she said, looking to Louise, "the hearing will be tomorrow. Duke Stanton is doubtlessly hoping to rush the proceedings to prevent anyone from mounting a defense for you. I will be there to speak for you, and you will be able to return to the Academy in time for dinner. The Crown will repay you for your friendship and your bravery. It is the least I can do to show my appreciation for bringing Wales back to me."
"But," Louise began, throwing herself against the bars, "what about Tabitha and Guiche and…Zerbst?"
"They arrived only in time for the aftermath, yes? Simply say so, and I will vouch for your word. Duke Stanton will not be able to convict them if they weren't there in time for the crime he intends to charge them with."
Louise sagged in relief. "Thank you, Your Highness."
Henrietta offered her a small smile. "It's Henrietta, Louise, or else Ann, as you used to call me when we were children. For you, it always will be."
She lifted the hood over her head and suddenly vanished. A minute later, the door to the holding area opened and closed with a quiet creak.
For a long moment, there was only silence in her wake.
"I don't deserve her friendship," Louise said at length.
"It seems the Princess would disagree," Shirou remarked.
"But I bring her nothing but trouble!" Louise hissed. "She's been nothing but kind to me, and all I do is cause more problems for her! First, with Wardes! He went off to join Reconquista!"
"That wasn't your fault," Shirou tried to cut in.
"Now, with Mott!" she went on as though he hadn't spoken. "And Duke Stanton! And Duke Richmond! And —"
"And that's my fault," Shirou interrupted. "Even if I wasn't exactly in my right mind, I'm still the one who dealt the fatal blow to Mott."
"But it's my responsibility!" she turned to him. "You're my familiar, Shirou! Sure, people might not realize when they look at you, but once I introduce you as my familiar, everything you do reflects upon me! Mott's just as much my responsibility as it is yours —"
"And there was nothing you could have done about it," Shirou said sternly. "Louise, I was reliving a repressed memory. I've seen what happens to people who relive them in bits and pieces over a period of weeks or months, how they thrash in their sleep and wake up disoriented, believing they're still living that moment. I relived the entire thing all at once. I was in no shape to be pulling my punches. Getting everyone out of my way was the best possible decision you could have made in that situation."
"Still!" Louise said. "You're my familiar, Shirou! My responsibility!"
"And it takes binding magic nearly on the level of True Magic to force a regular Servant, a mere fraction of a full Heroic Spirit, to obey your will," he stopped her. "When you summon a human as your familiar, whether it's an ordinary man or a Pseudo God, you can't consider them the same as a regular familiar. Humans have sapience, Louise, free will. They are not mindless, obedient slaves."
He shifted.
"The point I'm making, Master," he went on, "is that you can't blame yourself for these things. You are responsible for your own choices, not anyone else's. You did not make Wardes choose to betray his country. You did not make me kill Mott. And you did not make the Princess choose to be your friend. Whether or not you are worthy of being her friend is her choice, not yours. Even if you feel like you don't deserve it, don't punish yourself. Instead, work towards becoming worthy of her regard. If you don't feel like the you of today is worthy of her friendship, then work hard and become a better person so that the you of tomorrow is."
Louise opened her mouth as if to respond, paused for a moment, then closed it, sighed, and offered him a small, sincere smile.
"Thank you," she said. "You always seem to know exactly what I need to hear."
Shirou gave her a sardonic grin. "Isn't that my job? Protecting you, even from yourself?"
"…Done now?"
A soft voice echoed through the holding area, and both Louise and Shirou suddenly froze and spun around. In the cell across from theirs, Tabitha was watching them unblinkingly with her blue eyes.
"What?"
"How long," Shirou asked shrewdly, "have you been listening in?"
"…Since beginning," Tabitha admitted. She twirled her finger the way one would twirl a wand. "Wind mage…remember?"
"Th-then you heard…the Princess!" Louise squeaked. The expression on her face was somewhere between rage and horror and realization.
"…Yes," Tabitha admitted frankly. "Different barrier. Smaller, less noticeable."
"Wha — but, how did you cast magic without your staff?!"
"Practice," was the only answer Tabitha gave.
Louise gaped and looked like she was having trouble deciding what to do or how to react to the news that Tabitha had eavesdropped on the Princess's plan. Shirou took the moment to ask another question.
"Will tell anyone what you heard?"
Tabitha shook her head. Beside him, Louise went from furious and incoherent to surprised. "Why not?"
"…Wanted to thank you," Tabitha said simply. "For worrying…about us."
Louise flushed. "Well," she said with a little bluster, "it's only natural, isn't it? You guys weren't involved, so there's no reason you should be blamed for everything."
"Still…" Tabitha insisted. "Wanted to thank you. So…thanks, Louise."
"You're welcome…Tabitha."
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
The next morning at what Shirou guessed to be about two hours before noon, a troop of guards marched into the holding area and escorted their group, all five of them, up to a large, empty room, where they were provided breakfast and drink and given half an hour to eat. Afterwards, another troop of guards came to help the first, and Shirou followed Louise as they were shackled and led out into the city.
It seemed that Lord Stanton wanted this display to be public.
Shirou was tempted to comment nonchalantly about how easily he could break free of the chains and manacles that were supposed to be binding his wrists and ankles, but the comment died on his tongue before he could seriously consider voicing it when he realized that the road they were being led down was entirely devoid of people.
The vendors peddling their goods on the sidewalks, shouting and yelling their prices and what they were selling, the people walking to and from whatever jobs they might have, and the casual walkers wandering about aimlessly — they were all absent. The road was completely empty; there wasn't anyone walking it but for Shirou's group and the two troops of soldiers leading them.
That was odd, Shirou thought. It was only an hour or so before noon, so why weren't there any people bustling about and going on with their daily business?
Perhaps the streets had been cleared so that the onlookers and bystanders couldn't interfere or unintentionally cause enough chaos for one of Shirou's group to escape. Since they obviously didn't have motorcades in this world, clearing the streets beforehand so that prisoners or criminals could be transferred without fuss would certainly make sense.
Or perhaps, a more morbid side of Shirou mused, it was simply so that there wouldn't be any witnesses.
The soldiers led them further down the road and eventually to a large building made entirely from shining white marble — the courthouse.
They were marched up the steps, slowly, one stair at a time, and when they reached the gigantic double doors, two of the soldiers split off from the group and pushed them open. The doors were so big and so heavy that it took them nearly five minutes to push them all the way in, grunting and straining all the while.
From there, they were led through the empty entrance hall, their shoes clicking and echoing on the polished marble floor with every footstep and the manacles that bound their hands and feet clinking loudly.
Strangely, at least in Shirou's opinion, no one else in the group spoke the entire way. He had expected perhaps some grumbling from Louise, something about how uncouth and disrespectful it was to bind a duke's daughter, or else whining from Kirche or Guiche, but they were silent, too.
And the strangest part of all, of course, was Tabitha, who didn't have her nose shoved in a book. It was probably rather hard to read with her hands bound in heavy iron, though.
From the entrance hall, they were taken through another set of double doors, made of heavy, solid oak, this time, and led into a large, spacious courtroom with golden wood floors and rows of benches arrayed across the room. At the back, there was an imposing raised structure — the judge's bench — with a somewhat smaller structure attached to it — the witness stand.
On the side walls, there were a collection of raised benches, which were currently occupied by about a dozen people in very fancy looking clothing and robes, and on the other end from the judge's bench, there were yet more benches, the gallery, only these were empty except for the maids that had been rescued from Mott's manor, all of whom seemed rather shabby when compared to the Nobles sitting in the jury benches.
Shirou and the others were led to one of the two tables in front of the gallery, where the guards chained their shackles to a trio of metal rings bolted into the wood. Two of their guards took a place at either end of the group while the rest marched off and positioned themselves around the room.
There was no sign of a prosecutor or defense attorney in sight.
"All rise!" someone bellowed out.
Immediately, everyone jumped to their feet with a great, low rumble like thunder, including Kirche and Guiche, who had both sat down in the chairs that had been provided. From an area behind the judge's bench, a thin man in long, plum colored judicial robes strode out and climbed up into the chair that sat out of view. He was scrawny looking with short brown hair and a pencil-thin mustache that sat primly on his upper lip. His beady eyes were blue and narrowed, and his mouth seemed as though it were set in an eternal frown.
"The Right Honorable the Lord Chief Justice, His Grace, Duke Stanton of Anjou, presiding."
"Be seated," Duke Stanton barked in a loud, booming voice that seemed ill-suited to his frame, and with another rumble, the entire room sank back into their seats. Louise and Shirou sat down, too, and Shirou noticed that she was fidgeting and shaking a little, so he reached under the table and laid his hand over her much smaller one. She glanced at his direction, but didn't offer him a smile or any sign that it had helped at all. She did, however, stop shaking.
The judge, Duke Stanton, cleared his throat. "Beginning now on this day, Mannsday the twenty-eighth of Ansuz, this disciplinary hearing into the events of the preceding day regarding the death of one Augustus Mott, Count of Blois. The accused, one Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Valliere, third daughter of the Duke de La Vallière, Duke of Aquitaine, and her compatriots, Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt-Zerbst of Germania, Guiche de Gramont, fourth son of General de Gramont, the Count of Nevers, Tabitha, no surname provided, and one Shy-row Eh-my-ah —"
"Shirou Emiya," Shirou corrected automatically.
But it was evidently the wrong thing to do, because scandalized whispers broke out among the Nobility seated in the jury boxes. Duke Stanton stopped and gave Shirou what he probably thought was a severe look, but without the raw, murderous intent that filled your lungs and choked the breath from your throat, it wasn't even the slightest bit intimidating.
"Young man," Duke Stanton boomed in that loud voice of his, "the next time you interrupt me, I'll have you held in contempt of court! Now!" He gave a flick of his wrist and snapped the paper he'd been reading from. "The accused, Louise de La Vallière, Kirche von Zerbst, Guiche de Gramont, Tabitha, and Shirou Emiya, Louise de La Vallière's…"
Duke Stanton trailed off.
"There must have been some sort of clerical error," he determined in his thunderous voice. "These records state that this young man is de La Vallière's familiar, of all things!"
Whispers broke out among the attending Nobles. Louise sunk down in her chair miserably.
"No, that sounds about right," Kirche spoke up. "Louise cast the summoning spell, and, well, Darling here is what came through."
More whispers.
"You have a relationship with a familiar?" Stanton asked in a tone that seemed to mirror the thoughts of the other Nobles.
Words of disgust echoed from the jury box. "Harlot," someone said, and "whore," and a whole bunch of other derogatory terms and slurs.
"Well, no," Kirche admitted and gave a slightly subdued smile, "but not for lack of trying. Darling is quite manly, after all."
"What nonsense!" Duke Stanton said. "Do you truly expect this court to believe this tripe? What sort of mage summons a person? It's unheard of!"
The Nobles in the jury box started whispering again, pointing every now and then in Shirou's direction. Next to him, Louise's frustration and anger and every other emotion swirling inside of her was palpable, and he could feel it radiating off of her that she desperately wanted to snap off a witty and condescending retort.
Shirou was suddenly overcome by a sort of mischievous feeling, and before he could stop himself, he adjusted his posture a little and very snidely said, "If you want, I could explain it for you."
But it would probably go over your head, went unsaid.
And it felt like something so completely out of character for him and something just so Rin that he thought for a moment that maybe he hadn't even said it aloud, like maybe it had just been a fantasy he'd concocted from his memories of her. Except the minute he saw Stanton's face, how it colored a bright shade of red for a moment, and the jury box started to murmur, and the incredulous looks Guiche and Kirche were sending him as well as the laughter that Louise was very obviously trying to hide, he knew that he'd actually said those words, and had done so in a fairly Rin-like manner.
Duke Stanton's face cycled through a number of expressions that he managed to hide well enough that Shirou couldn't quite make out all of them; in the jury box, the whispers rose to a murmur, a hum that buzzed like a hive of angry bees.
Stanton lifted his gavel and slammed it down one, two, three times, and by the third thunderous crack, his expression had settled back into the look of severity he'd worn upon stepping up to the bench.
"Order!" he cried with each whack of his gavel. "Order!"
After another four whacks, the jury finally calmed down, and the judge, in his too-big robes, leveled his severe look Shirou's way again.
"Very well, then!" Stanton thundered. "Since you are determined to pass this pile of nonsense off as fact, you must accept the consequences thereof! All charges leveled against one Shirou Emiya are hereby dropped and leveled instead against his master, Louise Francois Le Blanc de La Vallière, who is henceforth to be considered responsible for every single one of his actions!" A glimmer of cruelty entered Stanton's eyes. "And as it would be inhumane to separate a familiar from its master, he shall also share her fate, whatever it may be."
Shirou said nothing, and beside him, all humor had been sapped out of Louise.
"Now," Stanton continued, settling back into his chair as his face returned to the stern, impassive look he'd worn when he walked in, "if we might finally begin this hearing, the accused stands charged with Murder in the First Degree, Murder in the Second Degree, Unlawful Termination of a Noble Line of Tristain, and Destruction of Property of the Crown of Tristain. They stand here before a jury of the Peers to account for their actions on the preceding day, Eolhsday the twenty-seventh of Ansuz."
Shirou nudged Louise a little and whispered: "Eolhsday? Ansuz?"
"Eight day weeks," she muttered back, "four week months, twelve month years; three-hundred-eighty-four days total."
"Ah." So either the calendar was just set up differently because they wanted to, or, more likely, the presence of a second moon had resulted in a shift of this world's orbit around the sun.
Stanton shuffled some of his papers. "The above charges are levied in the following capacity: that the accused did knowingly and intentionally, in full awareness of the illegality of doing so, confront Count Augustus Mott in his home on the twenty-seventh of Ansuz with the intent of committing homicide; that the accused did commit such a homicide and unlawfully terminate a Noble lineage of Tristain; that the accused did commit several more incidental homicides following the first when Count Mott's personal security attempted to apprehend them; that the accused did, following these events, also destroy the Lord Mott's mansion and grounds, which were remanded into the Crown's custody following the Lord Mott's death."
In other words, Stanton was going to charge them all with everything he could get away with. It seemed that Henrietta was right; if Stanton could get just one of those charges to stick, then it would definitely be a heavy blow to Louise and her family.
"In the interests of expediency," Stanton boomed, "I, the Lord Chief Justice, Duke William Stanton, shall be performing the interrogation personally. As such, and since Miss de La Vallière has neglected to contact legal counsel herself, these proceedings shall be carried out without a prosecutor or a defense attorney."
Shirou blinked, and then realized the play Stanton had made as Louise seethed with surprise and anger next to him.
Not once since being arrested had they been given either a chance or the option of contacting legal counsel. They'd been taken from the Academy directly to the capital, and from there, they'd been locked up without talking to anyone else until morning, and then they'd been dragged to the courthouse.
Nowhere in there had they been given either the option or the opportunity to obtain a defense attorney of any kind.
Without a prosecutor, that put the rights of questioning and interrogation directly in the judge's hands, and without a defense attorney, there was nothing and no one to present an argument in Louise's favor. She could try to defend herself, of course, but something told Shirou that she would just get slapped with contempt of court if she tried.
That meant she couldn't object to a line of questioning, she couldn't ask any witnesses questions (cross-examination, he thought it was called), and she probably couldn't even call on a witness of her own to testify. In other words, she had no way of telling her side of the story.
And since the judge was the one who would be questioning Louise and the others and any witnesses, he could ask whatever questions he liked and lead the trial in whatever direction he wanted. And Louise, without a defense attorney to call foul, couldn't do anything about it.
To put it simply, the entire thing had been arranged so that "guilty" was the only possible verdict.
"But we weren't given a chance to contact legal counsel!" Louise cried indignantly.
"That is not the fault of this court," Duke Stanton said coldly.
Kirche was on her feet in an instant. "Now wait just a minute!" she said furiously. "What sort of nonsensical legal system is this? No defense attorney? No prosecutor? This sounds more like a circus than the court system touted throughout the continent as the most enlightened and fair of the modern era!"
"You can't do this!" Guiche agreed. "This is a violation of our civil rights! You don't have the authority —"
"This is my courtroom!" Stanton thundered. The loud, overwhelming voice instantly cowed Kirche and Guiche, who flinched back, and seemed to shake the floorboards beneath Shirou's feet. "I am Tristain's Lord Chief Justice, the highest legal authority in the Realm! In this room, there is no higher authority! You would do well to remember that, else you find contempt of court added to the list of charges leveled against you!"
Kirche sank back into her chair.
Shirou's lips pulled into a frown. Henrietta had been right, then.
"Now then!" Stanton went on. "We will firstly establish the order of events. Louise de La Vallière," Stanton turned to regard her, "at approximately noon yesterday, you and your familiar left Tristain's Academy of Magic, correct?"
"Yes," Louise answered after a moment.
"And after borrowing two horses from the Academy's stables, you traveled to Lord Mott's estate, Chateau de Blois?"
"Yes."
"With the intent of confronting him?"
"Yes," Louise began, "but —"
"And upon reaching Chateau de Blois," Stanton steamrolled on, "you requested a private audience with Lord Mott?"
"Yes, but —"
"And during this private meeting, you confronted Lord Mott and proceeded to have a heated argument?"
"Well, yes, but that's not —"
"And when this argument escalated," Stanton pressed intently, "you ordered your familiar to kill the Lord Mott, did you not?"
"No!" Louise denied vehemently. "That's not what happened!"
"Then you're saying that your familiar didn't kill Lord Mott, or the security forces who attempted to apprehend you afterwards?"
Louise flinched. "No, but —"
"Then you admit that this familiar of yours, this Shirou Emiya, killed Lord Mott and his personal security?"
"Well…yes, but it wasn't his fault —"
"But he is your familiar, is he not?" Stanton asked pointedly. "Or are you going to admit to perjury and fraud by saying he isn't?"
"No, he's my familiar!" Louise said a little indignantly. "But that's not —"
"Then it isn't his fault, no," Stanton said. "Rather, as your familiar, the blame would then fall on you. A mage is responsible for his familiar. As your familiar, every deed he commits is your responsibility. That you did not order him to kill Lord Mott does not make you any less culpable —"
"Isn't that a little heavy-handed?" Shirou interrupted. He couldn't sit idly while Stanton railroaded Louise. "I'm her familiar, sure, but I'm also a human being. You can't consider it the same as you might a traditional familiar, not when free will enters the equation."
Stanton turned to regard Shirou coolly. "Then it's a good thing," he began, "that this court does not consider the testimonies of familiars as bearing any weight, nor do I intend to set such a precedent."
Murmurs of agreement rose in the jury box, though some of them didn't look quite so sure.
"Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt-Zerbst," Stanton boomed suddenly. "Can you corroborate Louise de La Vallière's testimony?"
Kirche grimaced. "No."
"And why not?"
"Tabitha, Guiche, and I left after Louise and Shirou did," Kirche admitted, somewhat grudgingly. "We were about half an hour behind them."
"Which means that you did not arrive in time to witness Lord Mott's death?"
"No, we didn't."
"So Louise de La Vallière could have ordered her familiar to kill Lord Mott, could she not?"
"No," Kirche denied immediately, "Louise wouldn't —"
"But you just admitted that you were not there to witness Lord Mott's death," Stanton pressed, "isn't that right?"
"Well, yes, but —"
"So you cannot say for sure that Louise de La Vallière didn't order her familiar to kill Lord Mott, can you?"
"Well, no, but Louise isn't —"
"But you were in time to witness the aftermath, correct?" Stanton asked.
For a moment, Kirche didn't answer, and Shirou glanced over at her to see the look of frustration on her face; it must have galled her, having Stanton railroad all over her testimony and twist it in his own favor.
"You were in time to witness the aftermath, weren't you?" Stanton repeated.
"Yes," Kirche answered sourly.
"Could you describe it for the court?"
Again, Kirche remained silent, and when Shirou glanced over at her again, the frown had turned into a scowl.
"Could you?" Stanton asked again.
Kirche sighed through her nostrils.
"…Like a Fire Stone," she said finally. "Like someone had set off a Fire Stone in the basement. The entire mansion was just destroyed."
Gasps and murmurs broke out among the jury box, and not a small number of them was looking at Shirou and Louise with fear, like they were inhuman monsters.
"Something that Louise de La Vallière, as a member of the Vallière house, no doubt had the resources to purchase," Stanton concluded.
But there was no way Louise was going to let Stanton get away with that implication — the implication that she had gone and purchased a bomb, of all things, and taken it to Mott's mansion with the intention of using it. She started to rise out of her chair, mouth halfway open and taking in a deep breath to begin her tirade.
Before she could stand, however, Shirou's hand clamped down on her thigh and pressed her back into her chair.
"Remember what the Princess said," Shirou murmured out of the corner of his mouth.
Louise's eyes flashed and she shot him a quick glare, but she settled back down into her chair, simmering.
"You can't prove that!" Kirche protested on Louise's behalf.
"No one can," Stanton replied stonily. "After all, Fire Stones don't leave any traces behind, do they? That's a very convenient way of removing the evidence, isn't it?"
Kirche looked like she wanted to say something else, but with her scowl growing ever deeper, she clamped her mouth shut and glared at Stanton for all she was worth.
"However," Stanton moved on, "did you not arrive prior to the destruction of the manor?"
"We did," Kirche answered.
"And yet, upon arriving on the scene of Lord Mott's death, you did not attempt to apprehend Louise de La Vallière and her familiar?"
"Apprehend?" Kirche repeated incredulously. "What?"
"Nor, for that matter," Stanton continued, "did you attempt at any point to contact proper authorities to report the crime?"
"Contact the — ?"
"Instead," Stanton pressed, "you aided and abetted Louise de La Vallière in escaping from the scene of the crime."
"Aided…?" Kirche parroted. "You mean helping get the maids back to the Academy?"
"So you admit to aiding and abetting Louise de La Vallière?"
"Aiding and…? We helped a bunch of injured people get someplace safe!" Kirche protested indignantly.
"And yet," there was a barely-there undercurrent of triumph in Stanton's voice, "your first thought was to go to the Academy an hour's ride away rather than the nearby city of Blois? A journey, I might add, which would undoubtedly take longer while escorting the injured?"
Kirche flinched. "We didn't," she started. "I mean, we just followed Darling's lead…"
"And as Shirou Emiya is Louise de La Vallière's familiar, following him was tantamount to following Louise de La Vallière, who, having been involved and responsible for the Lord Mott's death, was a criminal on the run from the law!"
Stanton banged his gavel three more times as the Nobles in the jury box whispered amongst themselves.
"I have heard enough!" Stanton declared. "Having examined the testimonies given henceforth, and having deliberated upon the evidence given therein, I have no doubt that I speak for the members of the jury when I declare the accused to be —"
The doors at the back of the courtroom banged open loudly, cutting Stanton off, and Shirou turned with Louise and the others to see the familiar blond-haired Agnés, dressed in a far more formal uniform than he had ever seen her in before and bearing the same badge that the men who had arrested them had worn.
Stanton rose from the judge's bench, his expression thunderous. "This is a closed hearing! What is the meaning of —"
"Presenting," Agnés talked over Stanton, "Her Royal Highness, Crown Princess Henrietta!"
She stepped to the side and bowed stiffly from the waist, and from behind her, Princess Henrietta, with her back straight, her shoulders squared, her face set in an impassive mask, and oozing power and authority from every pore, strode into the courtroom. Unlike the somewhat naïve and mild mannered young girl who had visited Louise that night that seemed like a lifetime ago, the young woman who walked through the heavy oak double doors looked every inch a princess, that unshakable, untouchable figure she had been when Shirou had first laid eyes on her during her visit to the Academy, only much colder and much firmer.
In the short time Shirou had known her, she had never bore a greater resemblance to Saber than she did at that moment, if in presence only.
The relief that flooded Louise right then was so intense that it was nearly palpable.
Up on the judge's bench, Duke Stanton gave only the slightest of flinches, so subtle and so quick that even Shirou just barely noticed it.
"Lord Stanton," Henrietta acknowledged formally.
"What's the Princess doing here?" Kirche hissed.
"She's come to rescue us," Guiche replied faintly. "The Princess…the Princess has come to rescue us!"
"Your Highness," Duke Stanton returned with forced politeness. "I'm afraid I must ask you to leave, Your Highness. These are closed proceedings, a responsibility of the court, not the Crown."
Henrietta raised one eyebrow. "It is always the interest of the Crown when Her Lord Chief Justice acts with political expediency rather than in pursuit of justice."
Duke Stanton flinched just the slightest again, but now that he knew what to look for, Shirou saw it easily. "I'm afraid I have no idea what you mean, Your Highness," he said.
"You do not?" Henrietta tilted her head back a little, and in her casual voice was a rigidity like steel. "Then it would seem it might be time for you to step down, Lord Stanton, if you think it the norm to try a suspect before the investigation has concluded, and even more so if you believe it only natural to forgo a prosecutor and defense attorney."
This time, Stanton did not flinch, and it looked to Shirou as though he had prepared a response specifically for that accusation.
"The de La Vallière's are a very powerful, very wealthy, and very influential family," Stanton said reasonably. "It was only prudent to conduct the trial in all haste, before testimonies changed, witnesses were bribed, or evidence vanished. I was interested only in seeing justice done before that wealth, influence, and power allowed Mott's killer to cheat the system."
"I'm sure," Henrietta acknowledged coolly. "And yet, in your haste to see justice done, you ignored the rights of the accused —"
"Murderers and traitors have no rights!" Stanton objected thunderously.
"— and presided over a trial wherein you yourself have a conflict of interest," Henrietta continued as though he hadn't spoken.
Once again, Stanton gave a small, almost nonexistent flinch. "My acquaintance with Lord Mott is no reason to recuse myself —"
"In accordance with Tristain's laws," Henrietta interrupted, "your acquaintance with Lord Mott was every reason why you should recuse yourself. As our law states, justice must be blind and impartial, and so must a judge be as such in order to try a case. Because Lord Mott was your friend, you cannot —"
"I am not some freshly graduated Academy student bound by my emotions!" Stanton spat. "I am the Lord Chief Justice! The highest judicial authority in the Realm! I should think I am experienced enough to put aside my own feelings in order to try a simple murder case!"
"But it is not a simple murder case."
Henrietta waved her arm at Louise.
"You are trying a minor from a House whose political leanings oppose yours for the crime of murdering someone with whom you were friends. Whether or not you have the capability to remain impartial is moot; law dictates that you should recuse yourself all the same, merely on the possibility that you cannot."
Stanton looked like he wanted to say something, but Henrietta cut across him.
"Furthermore," she continued, "you have no right to bring charges against Louise de La Vallière."
"What?!" Stanton boomed.
"You have no right to bring charges against Louise de La Vallière," Henrietta repeated.
"Your authority does not stretch that far!" Stanton told her savagely. "You overstep your bounds, Princess! As Lord Chief Justice, it is perfectly within my rights —"
"Unless I am mistaken, you do not have the right to charge and try an agent of the Crown without first seeking the Crown's approval."
The long moment of silence that followed that declaration so intense that you could have heard a pin drop. By the look on his face, Stanton didn't quite know what to make of it, and by the look of surprise on Guiche and Kirche's faces, they didn't, either.
"What?"
It came out barely above a whisper, and it was so different from his ordinary voice that Shirou almost didn't recognize it as Stanton's.
"Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Vallière is an agent of the Crown," Henrietta said. "While the Lord Mott's death was a tragic accident and I cannot dispute that Louise de La Vallière and her familiar may have been responsible, you cannot charge her with a crime that was committed in the course of pursuing special interests of the Crown."
Stanton's eyebrows furrowed, and when he spoke again, his voice had mostly returned to normal.
"Special interests?"
"In regards to Reconquista," Henrietta clarified. "The recent events in Albion have made the Crown concerned for Her own internal security. We received information that the Lord Mott might be a conspirator, and so We requested that Louise Francoise, as an agent of the Crown, investigate it."
"I heard of no such investigation!" Stanton thundered.
But Henrietta merely looked at him stonily.
"Of course not. You were well-acquainted with Lord Mott. We did not think it wise to test to whom your loyalty was stronger, so you simply weren't informed."
Stanton looked almost as though he'd been slapped, and something vindictive in Shirou was immensely satisfied.
"Are you questioning my loyalty to the Crown?" Stanton demanded.
"Of course not," Henrietta replied simply without giving anything away. "However, with the Reconquista movement in Albion gaining ever more power as its leaders solidify their hold, it was deemed necessary to move without alerting any spies or sympathizers, and so the Crown has taken the precaution of investigating its suspicions without informing anyone who has any substantial relationship with those whose loyalty is in question."
Splotches of red grew on Stanton's cheeks, and he looked as though there was something he wanted to say, but knew better than to say it.
"That does not absolve her of guilt!" he said instead, pointing to Louise. "As she has admitted, she was responsible for Lord Mott's murder! Even if your suspicions panned out, Lord Mott was still a Peer and a citizen of Tristain! Even a traitor has rights to a fair trial to determine his guilt —"
"The Crown is the absolute authority in Tristain," Henrietta interrupted coldly. "The ancestral grounds that you own are yours only because the Crown granted them to your ancestors. The rights you enjoy as a Noble are yours only because the Crown deemed it fair to grant them to you for your service to our country. It is well within the Crown's power to strip a traitor of his rights and execute him summarily."
The furrowing of Henrietta's brow sent a shiver down Shirou's spine, because the look on her face and the frigidity of her voice was wrong, was too incongruent with the girl who had asked Louise to go to Albion.
"The moment Lord Mott conspired with rebels and mutineers to overthrow the Crown," she said in a tone that seemed to freeze the very air around her, "was the moment he forfeited his rights and properties as a Peer and a citizen of Tristain."
"The laws — !" Stanton thundered.
"The laws exist to serve the Crown," Henrietta's calm, quiet voice echoed through the courtroom. "They exist to protect the Crown's loyal subjects. If a subject is not loyal, then the laws do not protect him."
She said it so simply, as if that really was all there was to it. But to Shirou, it felt wrong, like an excuse rather than a legitimate reason, like a bold lie that went unchecked only because of the supreme confidence Henrietta was exuding.
"But Lord Mott is not the one you have put on trial today, Lord Stanton," Henrietta said. "Rather, you have put on trial an agent of the Crown, who acts with the backing and authority of the Crown, and therefore cannot be tried for the crime for which you are trying her. As such, the Crown requests that you release her and drop the charges."
From her expression and the way she said it, it wasn't a request at all, and with each word, Stanton's face darkened and his scowl deepened, emphasizing the age lines around his mouth and eyes until he seemed to have aged ten years in the span of a few moments.
"If your loyalty is truly beyond question," Henrietta added dangerously, "then there should be no reason why you wouldn't obey, Lord Stanton."
Stanton's hand shook, and for a moment, Shirou thought that he might refuse, despite the implication of damnation, but at last, he banged his gavel one, two, three times.
"Court is adjourned," he said solemnly. His mouth twisted, like the words left a bad taste in his mouth, and his narrowed blue eyes glared out as though he wished Henrietta would burst into flames. "Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, you and your companions are free to go."
Stanton stood suddenly from the judge's bench, his entire body vibrating with suppressed rage, and he turned jerkily towards the door from whence he'd come.
"Release them," he added to the guards, and then he strode back the way he came and slammed the door behind him.
"By the Founder," Guiche breathed shakily. "By the Founder."
"Well," Kirche said, "I guess your Princess is a lot better than I thought she was."
"Was that," Louise whispered, "really Henrietta?"
As the guards came up and unlocked their shackles, Shirou glanced back at the Princess, whose face was still set in that calm, cold expression she'd worn since she'd first stepped into the courtroom, and found there was really only one answer he could give.
"I don't know."
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
Henrietta was waiting for them when Agnés led them to a small meeting room down the hall from the main courtroom.
"Partner!" a familiar voice cried as they walked into the room. "You're back!'
Arrayed across the small conference table were their personal affects, the stuff that had been confiscated when they'd been arrested, including Shirou's swords and the others' wands.
"There goes my peace and quiet," Louise mumbled.
"Do me a favor, Partner?" Derf said.
"What's that?" Shirou asked as he picked up the broad leather belt that held Derf's sheath.
"Never get arrested again. I'm startin' to rust again just thinkin' about that room they stuck me in last night! Weren't even another sword to chat it up with!"
Shirou chuckled. "I'll try."
The door clicked shut behind them, then clicked again as it locked.
"The coast is clear, Your Highness," Agnés reported.
Immediately, Henrietta's cold expression melted away and she sagged limply into the closest chair with a long sigh.
"Princess!" Louise cried.
Henrietta waved away her concerns with a hand — it was shaking, Shirou noticed.
"I'm fine, Louise Francoise," Henrietta promised faintly.
"Princess, you're ill!" Louise said. She rushed to Henrietta's side and felt up the Princess's forehead, then grasped one of Henrietta's shaking hands and let out a hiss. "Freezing!"
"No, I'm fine, really," Henrietta protested weakly.
Louise didn't listen; she stood up and spun for the door. "Wait here! I'll get a doctor!"
But Agnés stepped in front of her and blocked her way out.
"What are you doing?" Louise demanded. "I need to get a doctor for the Princess!"
"Stay," Agnés ordered coldly. "It's because of you she's like this, so you don't have the right to leave, yet."
"Agnés," Henrietta warned, trying to sound scolding, but the faintness of her voice ruined it.
"It's true," Agnés said unrepentantly. "You overexerted yourself for her sake."
Henrietta sighed.
"No," she said, "it's my fault. I didn't take enough. It was all I could do to last as long as I did."
"Take enough?" Shirou asked.
"I don't understand," Louise said slowly.
Henrietta glanced at them, then pulled a bottle filled with some kind of amber liquid from what Shirou could only imagine was a secret pocket hidden in the folds of her dress.
Louise gasped.
"Liquid Courage!"
Guiche and Kirche gasped, too.
"Princess, you didn't!"
Henrietta shook her head regretfully. "I'm afraid I'm not quite strong enough or brave enough to do what I did today on my own, so I had to resort to something like this."
She thumbed the bottle, and the substance inside sloshed around, glittering like gold.
Shirou cleared his throat. "Liquid Courage?" he asked.
"It's a potion," Louise explained somewhat distractedly. "It's supposed to remove the drinker's fears and inhibitions, and it used to be really common for generals to use it so that they could lead battles more easily and make the tough decisions without worrying about indecision, but it's been illegal ever since the Massacre at Orleans."
Shirou made a mental note to check that out the next time he was at the library.
"Princess," Louise said, "please tell me you didn't actually use this!"
Henrietta shook her head again.
"I needed to," she said by way of explanation. "I couldn't have confronted Duke Stanton like that on my own — and it was only half a dose!" she added hastily.
The look on Louise's face was a mixture of despair and disappointment.
"I don't understand," Shirou spoke up. "What's so wrong about this potion?"
Derf snorted. "What isn't wrong about it?"
It was Guiche who answered.
"It suppresses your fears and inhibitions," he said quietly. "That'd be fine if it was just something to keep you from being afraid, but it suppresses all of your inhibitions. Things that would normally hold you back, like morality or logic or concern for the wellbeing of others, those are suppressed, too. You can make the monstrously inhumane decisions that no decent person could make, like killing the enemy even after they surrender because it would negatively affect the morale of the enemy's army or supporters."
Henrietta winced with each word.
"And afterwards," Guiche added, "everything that was suppressed comes back all at once. The Massacre at Orleans was just the last straw; before that, it wasn't uncommon for the generals who used it to resign or commit suicide once the effects wore off."
Shirou looked to Henrietta, who grimaced.
"It's true," she admitted. She sighed again. "But it was necessary."
He glanced again at her shaking hands and remembered what she'd said the night before and what he'd done to try to save Rin.
"I'm not that much of a hypocrite," he decided on, "that I would chastise someone for the lengths they'd go in order to save someone else."
Henrietta offered him a wan smile, and Shirou forced himself to return it.
Because a part of him did want to chastise her.
"At any rate," he went on, "it seems that your plan went off without a hitch, Your Highness."
"Plan?" Kirche asked.
Louise stirred. "Shirou," she began indignantly, "you can't tell me you approve of this!"
"I don't," he replied. "But I have no right to criticize her, and in the first place, scolding the Princess won't change the fact that it's already happened."
Louise scowled, but her mouth snapped shut. She didn't like it, Shirou knew, but she knew he was right.
Henrietta sighed again.
"Well," she said, "things did go mostly according to plan, but I'm afraid I made an enemy of Duke Stanton today."
"You shouldn't worry, Princess," Louise said sourly. "After all, he's a Reconquista sympathizer, isn't he? Which means he's a traitor either way."
"Wait, what?" Kirche asked. "The judge is allied with those rebels from Albion?"
"The Princess said as much during the trial," Guiche answered. "Mott was under suspicion, yes? Then being Mott's friend would mean Duke Stanton should be equally involved."
Henrietta shook her head again. "There is a large difference between being a sympathizer and joining the movement outright. I fear my actions today have only pushed him into their arms. And as he is Lord Chief Justice…"
It went unsaid just how much damage someone with that kind of influence could do.
"Fire him," Shirou suggested simply.
Guiche gaped at him. "It's not that simple!" he squeaked.
Louise shook her head. "Wouldn't work."
Henrietta nodded.
"As Louise says," she agreed. "I cannot simply fire the Lord Chief Justice. I can have him suspended pending an investigation into today's events and Mott's finances, but I cannot remove him outright."
"But you said —" Kirche began.
Shirou grunted. "I thought so," he said shrewdly. "So then, all of that bravado during the trial…you were bluffing."
Henrietta's cheeks flushed. "Ah…Well," she smiled sheepishly, "it was much easier to do when I wasn't afraid of being caught."
"You mean all of that was a bluff?" Kirche demanded incredulously.
"Bluff," Tabitha added.
Louise frowned. "Not all of it," she said. "Actually, most of it was true, but if she'd tried to do any of those things she implied, she'd catch a lot of trouble from the Nobility. The Crown is the absolute power, but with the political climate the way it is, exercising that power so decisively would be suicide."
"It would cause a civil war, at least," Guiche agreed.
"Which still makes it a bluff," Shirou corrected Louise. "Stanton probably knew it, too, but if he tried to call it, things could easily have turned even farther in the Princess's favor."
Kirche let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan. "I hate politics," she whined. "So much deception and subterfuge."
"Like things are any different in Germania!" Louise said.
Guiche sighed. "Here we go again."
"They are!" Kirche shot back. "If the Emperor tells you to do something, you do it! None of this backstabbing and roleplaying! When we say the Emperor is the highest authority, we mean he's the highest authority! Unlike here, where the Princess can't even control her own Chief Justice!"
"Why you —!"
"Enough."
Both girls glanced at Shirou, then at each other, then they scowled and turned away so that they didn't have to look at one another.
Teenage girls at their very best. It seemed like that didn't change no matter where you were.
Agnés chuckled. "They like this all the time?"
"Like cats and dogs," Shirou answered. Agnés grinned. He turned to Henrietta. "Anyway. Princess?"
Henrietta blinked. "Oh. Right." She smiled. "Well, I only brought you back here to retrieve your personal affects and tell you that there's a pair of carriages arranged to take you all back to the Academy. Incidentally, those maids you brought back from Mott's mansion will remain here at the Palace, and those in need of medical care will be attended to by my personal physician."
Louise and Guiche gasped.
"Miss Kirche, Miss Tabitha, Sir Guiche," she continued, "your familiars have all been well taken care of and will be waiting for you with your carriages. I understand that Miss Tabitha often rides her dragon to and from the places she needs to go, so if you decide to forgo the carriages, please inform the drivers of the change in arrangements."
Henrietta turned to Agnés. "Agnés, could you escort them out? I need to speak with Louise Francoise and Sir Shirou alone."
Agnés stepped forward. "Alright, you three," she said roughly, "this is official Crown business, which means it's time for you to leave."
She unlocked the door and pulled it open, then gestured out into the hall. Without a word, Guiche and Tabitha walked out.
"But, Darling," Kirche began to protest.
"Go, Kirche," Shirou ordered firmly.
Kirche frowned and quirked her mouth to one side, then gave a frustrated huff and left the room after Guiche and Tabitha. With one final "Your Highness," Agnés followed them out and shut the door again, which locked itself with a click.
For a moment, there was silence.
"What is it you needed, Your High — Henrietta," Louise corrected herself when the Princess started to frown at her.
For another long moment, Henrietta didn't answer. Then, without preamble, she said, "Within the month, we will be at war with Albion."
"A month?" Louise asked numbly.
"If that," Henrietta answered.
"That's —"
"A generous estimate," Shirou said. Louise looked at him incredulously. "With Wales here, the last legitimate member of the Albion royal family, it was less a matter of if and more a matter of when. As long as he's still alive, Reconquista lacks any true legitimacy."
"Exactly so," Henrietta nodded. "The Pope has not yet declared one way or another, but Reconquista cannot claim even the illusion of legitimacy as long as Wales is still alive."
"And they'll want to kill him as quickly as possible," Shirou added. "The solidity of their government and political power depends on it."
"Hmph," Louise huffed. "What legitimacy? They're a bunch of traitorous rebels!"
"Louise," Henrietta said, "I'm telling you this because I may call on you."
Shirou's lips thinned into a line, even as Louise flinched. "What?"
"Louise —"
"It's because of me."
Henrietta grimaced, but didn't deny it.
"You, Shirou?" Louise asked.
"He is right," Henrietta admitted, "but also wrong."
Louise turned to Henrietta. "Princess?"
"Since the moment I heard about his abilities," Henrietta explained. She shook her head. "No, that's not right. Since the moment I was informed that he was Gandalfr, I've known that he might be needed in this upcoming war."
Surprise flickered across Louise's face, followed by something like betrayal. "Henrietta —"
"Please do not think less of me, Louise Francoise." Henrietta looked down at her hands and fidgeted with her fingers. "It was not that I meant to take advantage of your friendship, nor, indeed, that I intended to use you from the beginning. If it was at all possible, I would like to —"
She stopped and fell silent for a moment.
"With the alliance with Germania," she started again, "and the assistance of their vast armies, there would have been no need to ask you and your familiar to go into battle for our country. To ensure that it would not be necessary, I decided to sacrifice my happiness and secure an alliance with Germania, and to ensure that the alliance would succeed, I asked you, my oldest and best friend, to retrieve the letter that might have prevented it."
Her hands curled into fists in her lap.
"But that may no longer be an option," she said sadly. "Even with Wales brought back alive, it shouldn't have been a problem; Germania might have hesitated somewhat, but their interest in securing territory in Albion, or failing that, securing the favor of Albion's rightful king, would have made them eager to ally with us. The problem is not Wales. The problem is the allies you said Albion has at its call."
She lifted her head and looked Shirou in the eye. "Tell me, Sir Shirou," she demanded strongly, "if we did not have your assistance and our only enemies were these Heroic Spirits, how well would we do with an army thirty-thousand strong?"
Shirou grimaced, closed his eyes, and let out a breath through his nose.
He didn't even have to think about it. To compare a mage, even an army of mages, to a squad of Heroic Spirits, two of whom had Noble Phantasms that specialized in killing armies, was ludicrous. There really wasn't any contest at all.
"Utter defeat," he admitted.
Henrietta nodded; she had likely suspected as much.
Louise's mouth closed and her lips thinned into a determined line; she squared her shoulders and planted her feet, and as strongly as she could manage, she said, "If Your Highness requests it of me, then I can only obey."
"Louise —"
"You're my best friend," Louise continued, undaunted. "It's the least I could do."
Henrietta heaved another sigh. "I was afraid you might say that."
She pulled out something else out from her hidden pocket and set it down on the table.
"A book?" Louise asked curiously.
"Yes," Henrietta answered. She splayed her fingers across the old, faded leather cover. "Even with the odds as they are, I refuse to send you into battle without the ability to defend yourself."
"I'm…supposed to defend myself," Louise began slowly, "with a book?"
"This is not just any book, Louise," Henrietta said. She flipped it open — the pages were blank.
"It's a…blank book?"
"No," Henrietta leaned over the table and looked Louise in the eyes. "This is the Founder's Prayer Book. I meant to give it to you last time, but with everything that happened, I forgot."
Louise gaped. "This old thing?!"
Henrietta nodded. "It is said that the Founder Brimir offered up a prayer unto God, and then wrote the spells down upon these pages in magical lettering, enchanted so that only he could read it."
"Ho?" Derf spoke up. "So that old thing is still around, is it?"
Shirou turned his head — he couldn't quite see Derf's 'mouth,' but he could see the hilt. "You recognize it?"
"Oh yeah," Derf answered. "I don't know about that prayin' ta God bit, but old Brimir wrote just about every spell he knew in that book. I was sure it would'a been in Romalia's vault."
Louise looked from the book back to Derf. "But it's blank!"
"No, no," if Derf had a head to shake, Shirou imagined he would be shaking it, "see, that magical lettering stuff was true, too. Ya need a special artifact ta read those pages. Them rings ya got — when they're close ta the pages, spells should start showin' up. Give it a try."
Derf wiggled one quillon suggestively.
Louise looked unsurely back to Henrietta, who gave her a reassuring smile and a nod, then back to Derf, who wiggled again and said, "Go on!"
She brought up her hand, the Wind and Water Rubies glistening on her fingers, and laid it over the blank pages, then gasped as words started appearing underneath her fingertips, filling up the blank pages.
Shirou's lips curled upwards. "Well, now, Master. It seems we've found you a book on Void magic."
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
CONTINUE?
[YES/NO]
Tousaka-sensei's Lecture Corner #7
"Go, Henrietta!" Ilya screamed. "Royals for the win!"
Waver Velvet, Lord El Melloi II, puffed on his cigar. "Are you always this…spirited, Lady Einzbern?"
Ilya's face puffed up. "No, no, no!" she cried. "Rin always calls me Ilya! I'm supposed to be your student!"
Waver puffed on his cigar again. "But how can you be my student? You already know all this material, don't you?"
"Yes! But I pretend not to for the sake of the audience! It's acting, it's acting!"
Puff.
"Then why am I here? I'm a teacher, not an actor."
"And I'm dead!" Ilya pointed out. "Listen, Mister, you're just supposed to lecture like you would at the Clock Tower. You read all of the primer material, right?"
Puff. "Yeah."
"Then you just lecture about the material that was highlighted for you, okay?"
Puff.
"Fine," Waver said. "I'm just supposed to explain that stuff, right? Look into the camera and talk like I would in the lecture hall?"
"Yes, Waver-sensei!"
One slim eyebrow rose. Puff. "Seriously? I'm an Englishman, you know. I'm speaking in English. What the hell is with that sensei crap?"
"Rin doesn't mind," Ilya murmured.
"Tousaka?" The other eyebrow rose. "She's the one who normally does this gig?"
"She is," Ilya said. "She's feeling a little under the weather, right now. She's pouting because she got killed off."
"But she's —" Waver's mouth suddenly disappeared, and he had to juggle around to catch his lit cigar before it fell to the floor.
"We're not supposed to talk about that," Ilya chided. "We're not supposed to spoil parts of the story, especially when the author is still considering whether or not things will work out that way. Just let Rin die, okay?"
Waver's mouth came back and he stuck his cigar between his teeth again. "Fine. Let's just get this over with."
"Alright, then!" Ilya said cheerfully. "Today's topic is…!"
She spun around and pointed to the board, where the words Halkeginia Grail were written in bold.
"…the Halkeginia Holy Grail!"
"Guess that's why you're here," Waver puffed on his cigar. "Being an Einzbern and all."
"I wish," Ilya said. "The Halkeginia Grail is so far beyond the Fuyuki Grail System that we only even call it a Grail for convenience's sake. And anyway, aren't you supposed to start?"
"Right, right," Waver said. "Alright, then. Today's topic is the Holy Grail system used in Halkeginia. Sit down, shut up, and pay attention." Puff. "So you guys know about this Brimir bloke, right?"
"We've mentioned him, but we're not really supposed to go into too much detail about him," Ilya told him.
"Right, right." Puff. "So this Brimir bloke built the Grail system used in Halkeginia. He picked the best ley line on the continent, then used some trickery and dickery and attached his Grail system directly to the Magical Foundation of Halkeginia, so that he could revolutionize the familiar process and Summon Ritual as well as the inheritance of Void magic after he died. That way, he systemized the summoning of familiars and removed the necessity of carving the Familiar Runes by hand. Saved a whole lot of people some pain — can you imagine having to manually carve the Familiar Runes into a wild animal that would probably rather eat you?"
"Makes you wonder how anyone had any familiars back then," Ilya commented. "And how many mages got eaten before they could inscribe the Runes."
"Quite." Puff. "Anyway, his new system did the heavy lifting and summoned the familiars, and then applied the Runes automatically once the contract was completed. Naturally, since the ritual is supposed to limit one familiar per mage, the Grail usually won't answer a summoning attempt if a mage already has a familiar, so as long as the contract exists, the Halkeginia mages can't summon another familiar without killing the one they already have."
"Part of the reason why it's considered sacred, right?" Ilya asked.
"Naturally," Waver answered. Puff. "Of course, a mage with the proper skill and know-how could probably find a way around the safeguards and summon whatever they want from wherever they want and as many familiars as they want, but the pieces of knowledge required for something like that are scattered throughout the continent, so they'd have to either collect all of that knowledge, which in itself would be the work of a lifetime, or else they'd have to be at a level far beyond modern mages. A sufficiently skilled Mjodvitnir would do the trick."
"It's a good thing we don't have one of those in Miracle of Zero," Ilya remarked. "They'd be really scary."
"I wouldn't know," Waver said. "I'm just here for the lecture, so I haven't been paying attention to the storyline. At any rate, to put it simply, the kind of mage with the know-how and power to study, connect to, and manipulate the Halkeginia Grail doesn't exist in the modern era."
"So exactly how much more powerful than the Fuyuki Grail is the Halkeginia Grail?" Ilya asked.
"There's a huge difference," Waver explained. Puff. "The Fuyuki Grail only spanned a city and only drew power from that city, so it took sixty years to build up enough power to summon seven Servants. The Halkeginia Grail, though, is connected through the entire continent and draws power from all across the continent. Furthermore, it's not summoning Heroic Spirit-class entities all the time, so it's got tons of power sitting around, even after the yearly familiar summoning. To boil it all down, comparing the Fuyuki Grail and the Halkeginia Grail is like comparing a AA battery and a nuclear power plant."
Ilya giggled. "Don't tell Old Man Acht. He'll feel pretty inadequate." She hummed. "So, we've covered how it's built and how it works. What does it do?"
"Good question." Waver puffed on his cigar. "The Grail was conceived to handle every possible situation, though I'm not sure Brimir could really handle making something like that. Anyway, it's designed to find the familiar most appropriate to the mage doing the summoning, accounting for dozens of factors, but focusing primarily on what a mage's needs and Affinity are, and in the case where the appropriate familiar doesn't or didn't ever exist in that universe, it'll use the Second Magic reach into parallel worlds until it finds one."
"That sounds pretty amazing," Ilya said. "So the Halkeginia Grail has enough power that it can brute force a True Magic?"
"Hey, that's part of the reason we call it a Grail," Waver answered. "It might not be part of a ritual to achieve Akasha or a True Magic, but it's still an omnipotent wish-granting device. If the Fuyuki Grail can use brute force to perform a True Magic, then the Halkeginia Grail definitely can."
"So what if the most appropriate familiar for a mage is something non-living," Ilya asked, "like a Wraith or a Heroic Spirit? For that matter, how does it summon Heroic Spirits in the first place?"
"That's another good question," Waver said. "As long as it's non-living, the process is generally the same across the board — it just makes a body — but for Heroic Spirits, the Grail obviously doesn't have the power or authority to summon something like the real deal. For Heroic Spirits, the Grail just makes a perfect copy of the Spirit on the Throne and makes a flesh and blood body for it. In that case, they'll have an un-listed skill called Incarnation, which gives them a human body that is incredibly robust, virtually ageless, and immune to things like disease. The higher the level of the Incarnation skill, the more faithfully reproduced physical traits are, like inhuman ancestry."
"But wait," Ilya interrupted, "if Heroic Spirits are given flesh and blood bodies through this skill, Incarnation, doesn't that mean that you wouldn't need to attack with Mystery in order to damage them, then? Anyone could kill them like that!"
"Yup." Puff. "Anyway, aren't we out of time?"
"Oh crap!" Ilya cried. "Ah, but we still have some stuff to cover! Crap! Um!"
She turned to face the camera. "Next time, okay? We'll finish up the Grail lecture and answer some more questions from the fans if we have the time! See you then! Tousaka-sensei might even be back!"
"You do realize you're talking about Rin, right? She'll probably be pouting for another three chapters."
"Point taken."
Tousaka-sensei's Lecture Corner #7: End
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
To be continued
Still here? I wonder how many quit after last chapter. Base Breaking, I believe the term is?
Oh well.
I do apologize for my tardiness, but things happened and got hectic and it just seemed to drain all of my motivation to write for this.
On top of that, I had some trouble with the arrest scene and the court scene. I had to expand on it and rewrite sections of it several times to make it flow the way it needed to, and I think it still didn't come out quite how I wanted it to come out. I wanted Stanton to have the entire deck stacked in his favor and start pressing his advantage, only to have Henrietta swoop in and pull the rug out from under him.
And I'm still not happy with it.
Anyway, I wanted to get this out as soon as I finished with it, so it hasn't been fully revised, yet. There might be a few kinks I still need to iron out.
So, in case it wasn't obvious, there will be consequences to Henrietta's actions this chapter. She may be the princess, but even she can't get away with the sort of things she did. There are a bunch of toes she just stepped on that will be very happy to pay her back for it.
Anyway, I'm sure you've all also noticed the appearance of a new section at the bottom of this chapter. I've also added it to the bottom of all the other chapters, because I've gotten tired of people saying stuff like, "I'm guessing Perseus is a Rider!" after I've gone out of my way to explain that the Servant System from the Fuyuki Grail doesn't apply. That, and I'm hoping they'll head off any more reviews that say, "But this doesn't make any sense!"
I'd hoped it would be obvious that this isn't a light, airy, simple-to-read fanfiction, but, well, I guess I didn't drive that point home enough.
On a side note, how many people noticed that the initials for Tousaka-sensei's Lecture Corner are TLC, which is also an abbreviation for "Tender Loving Care?"
As always, read, review, enjoy.
