Reminder: This is a Fate route Shirou. He doesn't know a lot of things that an Unlimited Blade Works Shirou would know.
Checklist Item 10: If a Task is Beyond Your Ability, Consult with Someone Who Can
Antarctica, Chaldea, 2017
Inside the elevator, Shirou got to his feet.
He recognized Lyra Hooke. The English blonde was a researcher and one of the dozen magi, including both Shirou and Caster, that was still alive in Chaldea. She spent most of her time doing research and didn't interact with anyone of a lower status but from what he heard, she was a good worker and rather clever.
However, more immediately important, she was definitely hostile.
But for what reason?
Shirou didn't know but he figured it could be one of a hundred options.
It could have been because people were suspecting him of planting the bombs.
Shirou could have offended her in the past.
Or it could have been because of something Dad did.
Or maybe it was just the superiority of a magus of older bloodlines looking down on younger bloodlines, it was rather common in the Clock Tower.
It could have been from the dislike towards a Japanese magus.
It could be that Shirou was a spell caster instead of a proper magus.
She could have a grudge against Rin and extended it towards all of her allies.
He wished the last one didn't happen every once in a while. He had enough troubles without Rin adding onto them. Luvia still got angry and red in the face when she saw him every once in a while.
Heck, he even had someone dislike him because he was using a certain shampoo.
That guy's dislike actually made a lot of sense when you realized that company who made the shampoo that Shirou used had put that guy's company out of business and drove him into poverty and his family had left him.
And then there were all the people who glared at him in public places. He wondered why that hatred increased only appeared whenever he talked with a woman. It had a flavor of jealousy but that couldn't be.
Otherwise they would have spoken with the woman in question.
And what was there to be jealous over?
Did they hate the woman or something?
But returning to the situation, Lyra Hooke was hostile and Shirou did not want to be on the ground when faced with a potential enemy.
Shirou quickly got control of his breathing, turning from the rapid breathing of recovery to a controlled breathing that would allow him to fight if needed.
She could be the bomber or in collaboration with either the demon or the bomber. She could even possibly be hypnotized or possessed by the demon. There was magecraft to interfere with the mind or take away a person's will.
And if a magus could do it, then why couldn't a demon? And while a magus had defenses against mental interference magecraft, the defenses were no guarantee of victory. They could be overwhelmed, especially if the magus was surprised.
Or she could be an innocent who would act on a grudge when all of Chaldea is recovering from the recent attack. It was depressingly common.
"I would thank you for keeping the doors open, but I doubt that you were waiting for me to arrive," Shirou said cautiously, keeping an eye on the small twitches of the magus.
She sneered in response.
"I did not want for an uppity Oriental to taint the air here," the accented Englishwoman drawled. "We are doing work for the benefit of humanity. We do not need for a backwater savage to interfere."
So it was something petty after all. Didn't mean that something more dangerous could be hidden underneath. Like that one time that he had turned a mugger over to the police only to discover that the mugger was being used as a front for a greedy magus to acquire money.
Honestly, it was more of a pain to have little good deeds like that come back as a monster of a mess.
Like when he helped Shinji out with cleaning the archery dojo only to end up in the Holy Grail War.
That had been a mess.
One where he met Saber, and was glad for, but still a mess.
A mess just as big as this one, come to think of it. The Grail being primed to destroy everyone was about the same type of problem as SHEBA, TRIMEGISTUS, and LAPLACE reporting that humanity will soon be extinct.
"I'm sorry," Shirou calmly but warily apologized. He didn't know what he was apologizing for, only that it was more likely to keep the peace. He had too much experience in apologizing for things he had no idea about how he had offended. "I'm just here to help the engineers, well I was at least, and to help out however I can."
Hold your sarcasm, hold your sarcasm! She does not need a comment on him already having fixed the ventilation!
There, a peace offering of help. Most likely it would be refused as the magus would hold her work as secret as—
"Ridiculous," she sniffed with an air of disdain. "I have no need of commoner ruffians to fumble around in my research room. Goodness knows what dirt you would track onto my delicate experiments."
Yeah, that too.
Shirou didn't mind so much. He had managed to accidentally activate a summoning circle that he didn't know about in his own workshop after all.
He might cause a disaster if he did something similar in another magus' workshop.
"I would be more worried about the snow as the nearest dirt is buried meters underneath," Shirou replied as he stepped towards the floor buttons. He held his comm before the scanner and waited as it acknowledged his access. He pressed the button for the Command Center's floor.
Hooke scowled, it wasn't very pretty unlike when Rin or Saber was angry.
Less worrisome though.
"Snow or water drops are worse, moron!" she snarled. "The residue left behind from the unevaporated impurities require molecular scale cleaning and purification to get rid of without damaging the reflective apparatus! And while the drop is still condensed, the refraction of the dihydrogen oxide misaligns the photons and weakens the concentration! There is no tolerance at that scale!"
Shirou blinked. Apparently, the magus had some complaints about water.
And that was the half that he understood.
Okay, more like a quarter.
Alright, he got lost somewhere around impurities.
"I'm sorry?" he said uncertainly.
She sniffed before turning away, crossing her arms in an indignant huff.
"You are not worth my time, commoner."
The disdain dripped from her words like water from a roof.
Shirou winced and let the conversation, as much as you could call the barrage, die.
She was plainly unhappy and he wanted to save people, not plunge unnecessarily into the rough seas of a conversation with an angry woman. Much less an angry magus.
He missed Taiga. At least she let you know that she was angry rather than imply it through minor clues that no one but another woman could sense.
She still was likely to bite your head off, but that had more to do with her being hungry than being angry.
As the elevator rose to the central floor, Shirou kept an eye on the magus who was, without much obvious effort on her part, ignoring him.
Her clothing was rather fine, and if he remembered correctly, was one of the dresses that were in style among the researchers in the Clock Tower. Evidently, she had been at the Clock Tower recently or still had connections to them.
But more importantly, could she be allied with the saboteur?
Shirou had no way of knowing. She wasn't using magecraft and none of her mystic codes, if she was wearing any, was leaking prana or doing anything to the environment. He couldn't get a grasp on her scent.
Not that he had been able to distinguish the demon's scent. The power that had shaped the hole in the wall where the bomb had been, was dispersed by the time he looked at it.
And Caster's scent from using her magecraft to clean up the room covered over any possibly lingering scent.
But right now, the best thing he could do to find the murderer and saboteur was figure out who had let it into the heart of Chaldea past all the defenses that should have detected it.
It didn't help that most of the list of likely candidates were dead.
Shirou's thoughts were shaken by the ding of the elevator.
They had arrived at floor of the command Center.
"Goodbye," Shirou said before tearing off as soon as the door opened.
He did not hear a reply.
Shirou waited, chest heaving for breath, as the security panel scanned his communicator and himself.
He had sprinted through the hallways to here, which hadn't taken very long as the elevators weren't that far from the command center, in less than two minutes.
The panel's light flickered green and the door opened.
Shirou stepped through to see the screen in front of Roman's central workstation showing the image of a blackened, burned Lancer Servant emerge from a massive fireball.
Musashibou Benkei's naginata, along with the half-a-dozen weapons on his back registered themselves to Shirou's Reality Marble.
Well, now he had a Noble Phantasm rake, mallet, sickle, and saw if he ever needed one.
He probably wouldn't ever need one as it would be cheaper to project one of the more ordinary tools than to use a part of Benkei's Noble Phantasm, the Seven Implements. Although the Noble Phantasm of the Eighth Implement which temporarily steals an enemy Noble Phantasm, did present an interesting tactic he hadn't considered before…
But Shirou did have to wonder why Hitachibou Kaison was summoned under the identity of Benkei rather than the actual Benkei himself.
Shirou actually had seen one of Benkei's Thousand Weapons in a museum, even if it had been attributed to a samurai whose ancestor had picked it up during the looting after Benkei's final battle at Koromo River, so he knew that Benkei was an actual person.
He would have shrugged except Benkei or Kaison or Lancer, whichever name he preferred, was now vanishing in the manner of a dying Servant, while uttering his dying curse against Caster.
Although, he remembered dying Servants from the Fifth War having more sparkles.
Why was the imposter Servant not dying one of the cleanest ways that Shirou had ever seen?
It was just that, after a Servant dies, there aren't any internal organs to clean up, no blood to mop up, not even a corpse to bury! Just poof and all the mess is done away.
Feels a bit like cheating. Like it was cheapening the loss.
There should be something left behind for others to help remember the people who died. Even Arthur's grave helped to serve that purpose, despite her body never being laid to rest there.
But more importantly, Lancer, Shirou decided to just call Benkei Lancer for now, had been fighting against Kyrielight and the other Chaldeans.
But who was that blue haired Caster who just did the fastest bit of runecraft Shirou had ever seen to save the three people from Chaldea? He seemed familiar…
The screen shifted and the wooden staff that the Caster was using came into perspective.
Shirou focused on the staff that Caster Cu Chulainn -he hadn't known that Lancer of the Fifth war could be summoned as a Caster. The lack of blue spandex and Gae Bolg had confused him- used. Apparently, Caster had used it a few times to whack idiots on the head as well as a staff weapon, giving it a closer affinity to a weapon than most tools to carve runes achieved.
Very good workmanship though. He liked the grain of the Blackthorn wood and how the staff had been carved without metal. Although most people would never seen a druid staff made from a tree that the Irish goddess Morrigan had grown personally and given to a person who had earned her favor.
Even if the staff had been used before the start of the Singularity to fight his younger self in order to give a young, unarmed Shirou a sporting chance. Which, when you compared a Servant against a normal human, was about as sporting as a shrimp against a whale, even if it wasn't as painful as getting stabbed in the heart by Gae Bolg. Twice.
No, he didn't have hard feelings over it. If Kirei had been his Master and Shirou had been his Servant, he would have wanted to stab and kill in as a painless manner as possible.
Returning to the staff, he could understand Chulainn's thought process behind it. Younger Shirou had been an idiot without any weapons. If you were looking for a good fight like Cu Chulainn was, it made sense to use a staff primarily used for making runes and whacking hotheaded idiots against a young fool.
Hey, he was more experienced and wiser now, he could critique his younger self!
And he freely acknowledged that he was naïve and an idiot back then, even if his heart hasn't wavered since he fell in love with Saber.
He would save everyone he can and he will find a way to meet Saber.
Even if it took forever.
But the team-up of Caster and Kyrielight against Assassin was more urgent so Shirou turned his attention back to Mash Kyrielight getting up from the pile of magi on the ground.
"Good work little lady," the Caster said from the screen showing the situation inside the Singulariy. "Couldn't have caught him in that without you."
"Oh, um," The new demi-Servant stuttered "thank you very much-"
Shirou saw Hassan of the Cursed Arm's dirk be curved into a collision course with Caster only for Caster to whirl his staff and knock the thrown dagger out of the sky.
"Save it for later," Caster said.
Lancer -no, Caster now- had always enjoyed focusing on a good fight. Looks like that tendency hadn't changed.
Caster gestured at the Assassin that Shirou could see hanging from the pillar of the bridge. Was that the Fuyuki Bridge they were fighting on? "We still have that overgrown chimp to take care of."
"Oh right."
Shirou could almost hear the embarrassment of a young child being corrected for a basic mistake in her voice.
Refocused onto the opponent before her, the young girl positioned herself to get closer to her ally while still covering the director and the last of the Masters.
Shirou figured that he wouldn't be of much use watching the fight. He couldn't help save anyone from here and Cu Chulainn would give up his spear before he would lose to an Assassin Servant.
Oh wait, he didn't have Gae Bolg right now.
Maybe Shirou really should be concerned.
Pushing it aside until he could find something that he could do to help, Shirou stopped to survey the room. Now where was Roman- ah there he is.
Shirou, now walking at a steady pace, approached the visibly worried Roman, who held one hand up near his mouth like he was about to start chewing on his nail or something.
Shirou tapped the anxious acting director of Chaldea on the shoulder.
"GAAHHH!" the man screamed as he jumped up in his seat, turning to face Shirou.
Shirou held back a laugh at the over-reaction.
"Is there something I can do to help?" he asked, a slight smirk on his lips.
As it turned out, Aileen Darkwood was needed to help diagnose a part of the Revocation-Invocation System but he had been watching the vital statistics of the Masters and Director. A job that anyone could be trained to do, but that Chaldea no longer had the trained manpower for.
So Shirou got the job of watching the vital statistics while Darkwood worked on making sure that the device to bring back the people stranded in the Singularity would work as intended.
And since Shirou, like most of the survivors in Chaldea, didn't know how to read the holographic monitor, he had half of the screen open to the manual, written by Leonardo Da Vinci, and the other half being the vital statistics.
The most important part of the statistics was a line graph with three separately colored jagged lines nestled between two solid orange straight lines. It represented the measurement of Gaia's rejection of the Spiritron familiars acting as the bodies for the soul of the time traveled travelers. The orange lines represented the warning of severe rejection. If any of the dull grey, white, and purple lines crossed them, he was supposed to report it immediately. If it crossed the red lines, which were currently out of scale on the graph, then he was to initiate emergency protocols, which would include recalling the three back before Gaia removed them from existence.
Or so the manual said. Shirou hoped that the manual would explain what the other graphs and numbers were for in later sections.
All it had said so far was some combinations of factors from the other graphs would also need to be reported but he hadn't read far into the manual yet to know what things he should be worried about. He just figured that if Ritsuka, Olga, or Mash's lines crossed any red, orange, or yellow boundaries, he should report it.
And hope that he managed to read more of the manual before the other factors hit critical level.
Shirou saw light flash from the projection that Roman was displaying onto the glass above him as Caster used Mash as a springboard to launch another fireball at Assassin, who dodged both the fire and Mash's strike before running towards the defenseless brand-new Master -what was his name again? Oh, yeah, Ritsuka Fujimaru- and the Director.
And then Assassin stepped on a rune which quickly flashed and released what looked like to be a paralysis trap judging by Assassin ceasing all movement.
Shirou glanced back down to the graphs, making sure that nothing deviated severely. Nothing had; Ritsuka and Mash's readings were both good and Olga's, which was high but still firmly within acceptable limits.
Shirou glanced over to the other half of the screen. Darkwood, before he had left the command center, had made sure that Shirou understood how to open and close additional screens.
Rin would have both idolized and hated him, Shirou mused. Darkwood did everything with the grace and elegance a nobleman was supposed to have and that Rin's mask was meant to display. He also believed in Noblesse oblige, which was a rather surprising attitude to find in a member of magus nobility.
Made more sense for a magus working at Chaldea though.
That being said, he was still a magus and from a noble family at that. Probably would vivisect Shirou with the same ease as deciding on and ordering tea.
Nice chap though. And some teas were worth lengthy deliberation.
In the hypothetical situation of impending cuts, Shirou hoped that he would be worth a good deal of deliberation before beginning the vivisection. It would give him more time to escape before he lost something important, like a lung or a heart again.
As for Darkwood, Dr. Roman supposedly was leading a pool on what would crack that mask. If Shirou thought that Berserker would ever appear, then he probably would have bet that Berserker charging at him would crack Darkwood's public persona.
Hard to restrain fear with Berserker Heracles charging at you, screaming with a voice fit to shake the earth.
Shirou paused after reading another paragraph from the manual.
The small group of Chaldeans were relaxing after Mash dispatched the Assassin Hassan.
They were with Caster Cu Chulainn and were settling down from combat ready stance.
Well, at least Mash and Olga were. Ritsuka still looked as clueless and scared as ever.
Poor guy. Shirou could recall being like that during the Grail War.
Facing heroes out of legend, all of whom were determined to stab you, crush you, eat the souls of your classmates, crush your friend into a pulp with his bare hand, kill the innocent people around you, shoot you, kidnap or rape the girl you were in love with was not what people wanted for a job experience.
Shirou hoped that the guy had a somewhat easier time than the last War.
Only this was the first time, wasn't it? The monitor declared the Rayshift displaced travelers to be in January 31, 2004 at 11:30 pm.
Shirou found time travel confusing. Why didn't either Japanese or English have grammar forms for it?
Might have something to do with it being so rare. Like it was unheard of or something.
But as for them trusting Cu Chullain, the Lancer -Caster!- wasn't a bad guy if he was on your side. He had helped him and Saber escape when Cu Chulainn chose to fight Gilgamesh and turned on Kirei.
The audio for Roman's hologram was playing in the command center, letting Shirou and the other workers hear what was being said.
"Um, excuse me," The girl, Mash, hesitantly spoke to the Caster Servant. "Thank you for saving us from danger."
Interesting that it was the Servant who was stepping forward. Most Servants let their Master do the negotiating and speaking for them.
"Hey, good work." Caster grinned as he leaned on his staff. "You don't owe me for this fight. You held your own and it was a fun fight."
His grin widened as he added "You should be more worried about your body. That Assassin kept targeting your butt like a pest!"
Shirou didn't recall that. Assassin had been rather meticulous in aiming for weak points and the bottom didn't offer too much of an advantage if it got cut off or stabbed.
"Oh!" Mash blushed and fidgeted.
Caster took a few steps forward, getting into Mash's personal space, much to her obvious discomfort and unease.
"Hey, you look fragile but you have a pretty nice body! Icing on the cake!" he complimented as he looked her over.
Then he grabbed her injured arm and examined it close up. "Don't know what class you are, but you're pretty sturdy… Maybe Saber?"
"No," he narrowed his eyes as he looked her over again. "You don't have a sword. Not that it means anything in a war like this. Nobody uses the weapon they are supposed to." He grumbled. "Lancer uses too many weapons, Saber hides her sword, and who ever heard of an Archer that likes to use swords instead? At least Berserker and Assassin use appropriate weapons. And why couldn't I have gotten Lancer instead of this stupid staff?"
While Lancer grumbled about how liberal the Servant Classes were, the director had started a whispered conversation with Fujimaru.
"For now, let's get some information. He seems to be a decent Heroic Spirit," Roman interjected into their hushed conversation. "Hey, Shirou. Do you know who Caster is?"
Shirou turned around in his chair as he turned to face the person addressing him. "He is Cu Chullain-"
"Hold on a moment Shirou, they can't hear you right now," Roman interrupted Shirou while his fingers flew over the virtual keyboard. He tapped a final key before nodding. "Okay, now please continue."
"Caster is Cu-" Shirou started again.
"Oh, what is this? Some means to communicate through magecraft." Caster stepped away from the young lady to take a closer look at the projected hologram. "And why you are still around Archer? Last I saw, Saber had defeated you and you were Saber's faithful little pup."
Shirou blinked.
What? Archer wasn't here, was he? Shirou wondered as he turned around to examine the room for that annoying Servant.
"Sorry?" Shirou asked, confused when he couldn't find Archer.
"Oh, you aren't Archer," Caster frowned before he smiled. "Must be a coincidence then. You just look a bit like him…"
Caster trailed off as he stared at the hologram being projected into the Singularity.
"No way!" he shouted. "You don't mean that—Hah hah hah hah hah hah!"
Caster threw back his head and laughed, slapping his leg.
Shirou blinked. Lancer, now Caster, was acting weird. Admittedly the Servant was in a different form and from what he had read about Servants, a Servant's personality changed depending on what portion of their legend got copied.
"What?" Director Animusphere demanded. "What is so funny?"
"That kid- he he he- He became—heh heh heh- I was – Ha ha ha ha!" Caster managed to get some words out past his billows of laughter before he dropped to a knee, laughing as he clutched his staff like it was the only thing keeping him from rolling on the floor.
Shirou waited Caster out. He didn't get what was so funny.
Did something happen in the past for this singularity?
"I demand that you tell me why you are laughing!" Olga Marie furiously stamped her foot as Mash and Ritsuka stared on in befuddlement.
Much to everyone's annoyance and confusion, once Caster caught his breath he refused to explain what he found so funny. Said if Saber's Master didn't know by now, then there was no point in saying. He was a druid and a guide, not a narrator.
Olga was incensed by the refusal but since Caster refused to explain and Shirou didn't know, she docked Shirou's pay.
She wasn't the best boss, Shirou again concluded. At least his salary was still pretty good, even after the amount she took off.
After the Director's anger settled down, Roman was able to explain matters to the Servant. About Chaldea, its purpose, and its current state.
"…Another worrisome part is that we discovered CHALDEAS, our tool for observing the future of humanity, is now glowing red," Roman explained to the silent Caster, who was listening intensely. "We are still trying to determine what that means—"
"Glowing red? Glowing Red?!" Olga exploded. "Why didn't anyone tell me about this, Romani? This is the sort of thing that you should have informed me of at the first opportunity!"
"Sorry!" Roman squealed. "But you were concerned about the personnel losses last time so we just forgot to—"
"No excuses Romani!" Olga shouted as she glared at the doctor. "Your failure to inform me of this matter is worth your employment!"
"I'm sorry," he yelled again, sweat beading on his forehead. "We haven't had the personnel to track down the error yet so…"
"U-Um," Mash spoke up, drawing the director's glare to herself. She seemed to shrink a bit before recollecting herself. "When senpai and I Rayshifted to here, there was an announcement through the speakers. I don't really remember it but—"
Mash glanced aside to Ritsuka who blinked before pounding his fist into his palm in remembrance.
"Oh, I remember. It was something about something having changed and being unable to detect human survival?" he trailed, brow furrowed as he dug at the memory. "Also, CHALDEA turned red right before that."
"And rewriting SHEBA's near future prediction date," Mash added in. "I recall that much but after that, things were getting pretty faint…"
Olga tsked. "Well, that was somewhat helpful at least."
No need to be rude but the director was a magus so she probably did it automatically.
"Alright, I'll take a look at SHEBA and CHALDEA when I get back," Olga sighed before she started to mutter to herself. "I can't trust Romani to do it right anyways. But what changed? Was it the loss of Chaldean staff? Was Chaldea depending on our intervention in its calculations?"
Roman winced but didn't argue back.
"And that is the current situation in Chaldea," he said instead. "Currently, Ritsuka there is the acting Mater and in the middle of conducting field research."
Roman leaned forward. "Let me confirm something. You're a Servant from the Holy Grail War that broke out in this city and the sole survivor?"
Caster nodded, annoyed and frustrated. "If by that, you mean I haven't lost. Saber had just been accidentally summoned by your boy over there and my Master told me to retreat. Then everything … changed."
Shirou frowned and asked, "What do you mean everything changed?"
Caster shrugged. "The Grail War changed. I don't know how it happened, but the city was engulfed in flames, and every human vanished, including my Master and Saber's. Only the Servants remained."
"Did the other Servants go through a class change or were new Servants summoned as well?" Shirou asked, frowning. "I don't remember Lancer or Assassin being those Servants. Actually, I recall you being Lancer."
"Look, kid," Caster's face flashed annoyance. "I would be the first to happily go through a class change into Lancer but even when we fought, I was still a Caster. I know I rapped you on the head a bit before you summoned Saber but if you are from the future, you should at least remember me using a staff, not a spear."
Shirou frowned. "That's impossible. You ran me through with Gae Bolg twice during the war. You never had a staff."
Caster raised his eyebrows at that. "I must have hit ya too hard on the head with my staff when you tried to fight back with that reinforced newspaper. After you stopped running, I figured that you deserved an honorable fight before I killed ya. Even told you so myself."
Shirou glanced aside to Roman. "This can't be the past. I faced Lancer three times and each time, he used his spear and only his spear."
"And I only faced you twice, once before I knew you were a magus and the second was before you summoned Saber," Caster shot back.
"Are you saying that the distortion value of the Singularity is such that it no longer corresponds to history?" Olga broke in.
Shirou and Caster turned to look at her before looking back to each other.
"That might be the case," Caster agreed with a shrug.
"It is either that or you suffered brain damage," Shirou shot back.
"I didn't get hit on the head like an idiot," Caster grinned at his own riposte.
Shirou's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to rejoinder-
"Enough!" Olga stalked forward, shoving Caster. Caster grinned at the attempt to budge him before he stepped back on his own, causing Olga to stumble in her heels before she caught herself and placed her hands on her hips. "I am not interested in your primitive caveman fight on who beat who! Just tell me what happened so that I can find the source of the Singularity!"
"Yes ma'am," Shirou and Caster muttered as one.
Ritsuka bit his tongue to hold back a laugh.
The two were acting tough but folded under the catty director.
"Well, after the fire and everyone vanishing, we stopped fighting. Then Saber went on a rampage and immediately went after Archer who had retreated to his Master's house," Caster recalled.
"She beat the jerk who blew up the place," he threw a smile at Shirou for some reason. "And then immediately went after Lancer, Rider, and Berserker. Beat them all, one by one, and even beat Assassin when he ambushed her after she defeated Berserker."
"And any Servant she defeated became like these two," Caster waved his staff towards where Lancer and Assassin had once stood. "Corrupted by the black mud."
"I guess that since she is not going after you that Berserker wore her out?" Shirou asked.
"Yeah," Caster winced. "I have seen a lot of things but those two fighting in the forest… I hope you didn't have any property in there because she had to use her Noble Phantasm a lot."
The group turned towards the western forest that was on fire. Roman pulled up the bird's eye view and winced at the series of lines crisscrossing the forest, scoured clean of everything.
"I'm surprised she beat him on her own," Shirou muttered. "Berserker had 12 lives and each time you kill him, he gains an immunity to it. You have to hit him so hard that his Spirit Core is nearly obliterated and can't repair itself without wearing itself out."
Or so Illya had explained to Rin after the Grail War was over. Turned out that Berserker's Spirit Core had tried to reject Caliburn when it was rammed through the heart. Only for Berserker to be deemed unworthy so Caliburn had refused to be cast out by Heracles. So Caliburn rejected Godhand's regeneration trying to cast it out and inflicted another round of damage on Hercacles only for the same cycle to repeat until his final death.
Only the luck that both he and Saber had been so out of it that they hadn't withdrawn the Golden Sword of Compelled Victory right away had won them that fight.
Ironic really. Any combat experienced swordsman knew better than to leave their weapon in an opponent's body.
Except for Shirou. He could leave dozens of swords around the place as he was never truly disarmed until he ran out of Od.
Caster whistled. "12 lives? Wish I could have been there. That guy was seriously tough to fight even without dying once. Took my Master's Noble Phantasm to the chest without flinching."
"Aren't Berserkers expensive to maintain?" Mash asked. "Usually their madness is to compensate for their lack of power…"
She trailed off as Shirou shook his head.
"Berserker was Heracles," he solemnly informed them. "And he was summoned as Berserker to improve his already high power."
Silence reigned in both Chaldea and in Fuyuki.
"Heracles!" Olga shrieked.
Roman's cup of coffee dropped to the ground, spilling its contents as he gaped at the reveal.
Mash's eye widened and her mouth dropped.
Ritsuka looked around at all the reactions. He recognized that name but why was everyone acting like it was the end of the world?
Caster winced as he muttered, "Yeesh, no wonder he was so tough. That little lady must be a stupendous Master if she was able to support that beast of a Servant."
"You met Illya?" burst out of Shirou's mouth before he could apply a filter.
"Oh," Caster's eyes narrowed on hologram. "Ya familiar with the little miss? Did ya take her captive?"
"How are we supposed to defeat HERACLES of all Servants?" Olga demanded. "And as Berserker none the less!? Why would anyone even do that? How could any Master even support him without dying!?"
"I didn't," Shirou said as he held back the urge to squirm. "I only took her home after we killed Berserker."
"So your tastes run towards that type of girl huh?" Caster mused, ignoring Shirou's addendum.
"What?" Shirou sputtered at the accusation. "No, no way! She's my sister! That's disgusting!"
He couldn't deny that Illya had a hint at being a beauty when she grew up if she hadn't died so young… But she was still his sister!
"And why didn't anyone mention this earlier?" Olga screamed.
"Don't worry, the girl looked like she would grow up to be a beauty," Caster either teased or reassured Shirou. The situation was chaotic enough, no one could tell which. "Adopting her into your family wasn't necessary before bedding her in my day but I suppose that the times have changed."
"No, my dad was her father before he adopted me," Shirou protested, blushing red at the accusation. "I am in love with Saber anyways!"
"And the only other Servant left alive is Saber, who somehow beat that monster!" Olga yelled before stopping for breath.
"Heracles," Mash faintly muttered. "The greatest hero of Greek mythology. He who overcame the Twelve Labors."
"Oh, so a lady's man, eh?" Caster grinned. "Tough, interesting to fight, got a bit of a mouth on ya, I knew that I liked ya, laddy."
Shirou looked repulsed at the statement.
Caster's face turned sour. "Not like that! I'm straight. Why does your culture even…"
Caster broke off, shaking his head.
"Try to say that you would have extended an invitation to the Ulster Knights if he had been alive back then and nowadays you get—Ugh," Caster muttered.
"Wait a second here," Roman broke in after retrieving his cup from the floor. "Are you saying that all the Servants we have faced so far were already defeated by Saber?"
"The survival of the Seven Servants," Olga realized. "That rule of the Holy Grail War was broken here."
"Yes," Caster agreed. "The dead Servants and the monsters that sprung up like maggots after Saber started her rampage have been seeking something together. The troublesome part is that I'm one of the things they're looking for."
"The Holy Grail War won't end until either you or Saber are killed," Shirou quietly said.
"So if you defeat Saber while Saber is still recovering—" Roman said, excited.
"Yeah, that should end the Holy Grail War here," Caster agreed. "I don't know if things would return to normal though."
"I see," the director of Chaldea nodded, pretending that her break-down over Berserker had never happened. "I see. You helped us, but in the end, it was for your own sake, huh? You want to defeat Saber, but don't stand a chance doing it alone. That's why you zeroed in on us…Right?"
Olga cast an accusing glance at Caster, who looked a little sheepish for his ulterior motive being revealed.
"That's right," he agreed. "It's not a bad deal, is it?"
"Except for the part about, I don't know, HERACLES AS BERSERKER UNDER HER CONTROL!" She screamed. "Who even is Saber anyways?"
"Yeesh, you got a pair of lungs on ya," Caster poked a finger into his ears and wiggled it around. "Ya might want to stop yelling. It draws attention."
"GUOOOH!"
"Like from that pack of skeletons there," Caster pointed out the incoming bunch of skeletons that had managed to approach close while Chaldea had been distracted over the discovery of Heracles as Berserker.
"Yikes!" Olga scampered behind Mash.
"Yikes!" Roman yelped as he returned to paying attention to his monitors.
Their yells managed to break the trance that was consuming the attention of the staff of Chaldea.
Except for Shirou who was too busy watching both his graphs and the images of the Rayshift to notice the end of the sudden freeze of the magus members of Chaldea's staff.
"There's no end to these guys," Caster sighed in annoyance before brightening up. "Man, I'm tellin' ya, there's nothin' better than having allies!"
Singularity F, Fuyuki, 2004
The fight was brief.
Even with her wounds, Mash would've been able to handle the pack of skeletons alone. With Caster's ranged spells, the fight was even easier as Caster incinerated the Skeletons that weren't charging her.
Mash blocked the last arrow fired by the last skeleton archer who had just been turned into bonfire before she lowered her shield.
She scanned over the battlefield, her habits developed in Chaldea's training simulators with A-Team taking over. There was no movement other than the smoke floating higher into the sky or the buildings that were on fire.
Also, she didn't feel any hints of magical pressure upon her skin, indicating that there wasn't any spell or hostile animated by magic nearby.
Well, she could feel Caster's power behind and to the left of her and she could feel her Master's magical energy flowing into her from behind her and Olga's much more subtle magical force from between the two, but they weren't hostiles.
They were her allies, and in the case of Ritsuka and Olga, maybe even her friends?
Mash didn't know. She had had friends among the Masters and the members of Chaldea but they were magi or had the same air of being willing to sacrifice anything to achieve their goals, no matter the cost.
It was for that reason that Ritsuka was so wonderful. He didn't have the air that if you got in his way, he would cut you down without regret.
Well, some of the magi would regret cutting her down if she got in their way, but they would still do it. Depending on the individual, they might even bury her under the open sky instead of tossing her corpse into the incinerator or onto the dissection table.
But Ritsuka wasn't like that. He felt like a human and in a world buried beneath the Antarctic snow and ice, full of ruthless researchers and idealists that would let nothing stop them, he was someone to be treasured.
Why, Mash could never have even imagined that new game, charades. It would have made her life much more interesting all those years before.
But finishing her surveillance using all of her senses, Mash relaxed. Nothing was in range.
"Hostiles defeated," Mash reported before sighing and letting herself lean on her shield, adjusting the stance to support her weight without even thinking about it.
She sighed, feeling the adrenaline rush die down. She was tired. She could still go on, the simulation training was more rigorous than this, but it didn't change the fact that her arm hurt and her thigh was throbbing in time with her heartbeat. Not to mention the light exhaustion covering her from head to foot.
She was glad that she had Servant level abilities and endurance. If she didn't she would probably be already passed out from exhaustion, even if it would be rude. Especially in front of their ally, Caster.
"Things have settled down at last," she commented.
"Too bad," Caster frowned, annoyance written over his face. "If I'd been summoned as a Lancer, I could've finished off Saber with just one strike already. Man, Caster is just not for me."
"Um," Mash's senpai spoke up, hesitance and confusion in his voice. "What do you mean, 'if you were a Lancer'?"
"Kyrielight, come over here," Director Animusphere said, an edge of concern in her voice. "You're hurt, aren't you? I can heal small wounds like that."
Mash nodded before pushing herself off from the shield and taking it with her as she stepped over to Olga.
It would be nice to be all healed up, especially the dagger in her thigh. It hurt.
But her Master had asked a question and she didn't want to let him down.
"It's been known for a Heroic Spirit to have the attributes of multiple classes," Mash lectured with increasing energy, as she walked over to Olga Marie and let the director direct healing magecraft at her wounds. "Cu Chullain is a high-level Heroic Spirit with the qualifications to not only be a Caster but a Lancer as well. The magazine Vivian said that he could also be summoned as a Berserker, but experts disagree over the possibility of him being summoned as an Archer or a Saber. Due to the length of his legend, Setanta could be summoned at various points in his life, allowing his mentality to be more flexible and better able to match the personality of his Master. He is regarded as the supreme Heroic Spirit when in Ireland."
Mash stopped as she realized that she was excitedly babbling and that everyone was staring at her. She repressed the urge to take a step behind Olga to hide from everyone's gazes as Olga got her onto the ground to begin the treatment on the dagger in her thigh.
"Thanks for the compliment, little lady," Caster smirked a roguish smile at her. "Man, I am good."
He flexed his arm muscles as he posed in front of everyone. Mash bowed her head to hide her mortified expression, only letting out a yelp of pain when the director pulled the dagger out of her thigh.
Why did she do that?! Now Senpai was going to think she was weird! And the Japanese people didn't like it when people stood out according to the background information from FATE. What was she supposed to do if her Master and Senpai in being human didn't want anything to do with her anymore?
"Ahem," Olga coughed to clear her throat before speaking even as her hands glowed a light violet as her injuries rapidly stitched themselves up. "Regardless of a mere Servant's unimpressive ego-"
Caster smirked at her put-down but didn't stop showing off. Interestingly enough, Olga's eyes were now completely focusing on Mash but she had a slight reddish blush on her face after a quick glance at the man.
Not that Mash noticed Olga's actions. Mash was busy noting in the sanctity of her own mind that Caster did have well-defined arms and his six-pack was really nice.
"What was it that you wanted from us?" Olga asked. "You desire the end of the Holy Grail War but lack the ability to defeat either Berserker or Saber. You also lack a Master so it is difficult to maintain your existence."
"Yeah, if the magical power in the atmosphere hadn't risen, we all would have disappeared long before now," Caster agreed, as he twirled his staff around a little. "And as you are Masters of an organization, I should mention that we Servants tend not to get involved outside of our time period. Even then, we ultimately only cooperate as weapons."
Caster smiled a fierce grin as he said 'weapons'.
"But your goal is to investigate this anomaly. Mine is to put an end to the Holy Grail War. Our interests coincide, so how about we join forces?" Caster proposed, looking interested in their answer.
Mash kept quiet. She was a Servant and this was a choice for the director or the Master.
Personally, she wanted to ally with Caster. She was doing a horrible job as a Servant. She didn't even know the name of the Heroic Spirit she was merged with, she had no idea what skills or even what Noble Phantasm she had.
All she knew was that her Heroic Spirit was a lawfully good aligned Servant of the Extra Class Shielder.
And that she had a big shield that she knew how to use in combat despite never having held a shield before.
She was plainly inadequate so allying with a strong Servant like Cu Chulainn would mean that they could probably win.
But with Heracles as Berserker…
Mash was scared.
"That is a rational proposition," Olga Marie agreed, the light dying from her hands once the holes in Mash were gone. The director stood up as she turned to face the independent Servant. "But if we do that, who will be your Master?"
Caster blinked. "Well that kid there, of course."
He waved at Ritsuka who looked startled at becoming involved in the conversation, before Caster returned his focus to the director.
"But it doesn't seem like you have the aptitude to be a Master," he said as he leaned in closer to Olga, examining her more closely, much to her embarrassment. "I mean, you possess high quality magical circuits, yet you don't have the aptitude to be a Master. Is it a curse?"
Olga flushed red as she snapped out "Oh shut up! What do you care?"
She took a deep breath before imposing a mask of calm over her face as she turned to Ritsuka. "Ritsuka, he's in your hands. Use him wisely."
Ritsuka looked back and forth between the two, confusion again settling into his face.
As she got up, Mash thought that her senpai was wearing that expression way too much. He really needed to know more than he did.
Caster sped over to Ritsuka in a burst of Servant level speed before slinging an arm around his shoulders, grin stretching across his face. "Then it's settled. The contract is only temporary, but I'm counting on ya."
He opened his eyes, grin fading into a smile. "That leaves one last thing, your goal. What you're looking for is probably the Greater Grail."
"Greater Grail?" The hologram of Roman, with a smaller image of the survivor of the Fifth Grail War down in a corner who had just sat down after standing up after hearing of Saber's Noble Phantasm and was currently muted, spoke up. "I'm not familiar with that. What is it?"
Roman's eyes flickered from the screen to somewhere off-screen. Probably directly at Mr. Emiya.
Mr. Emiya's blue image made of blue pixels floating mid-air took on a tinge of embarrassment as one hand brushed the back of his head.
Caster answered the question. "This land's true 'heart'. If there is indeed a, what-ya-ma-call-it, 'Singularity', it has to be involved in that. The problem is Saber is lingering around the Greater Grail. The remaining Servant she contaminated, too."
"Wait," Olga asked, face turning a shade pale. "You mean Berserker is there?"
She looked ready to call off the alliance. Mash almost hoped she would.
She stood no chance against The Hero of Greece. If this was Ireland, then maybe Cu Chulainn could beat him but it wasn't. This was Japan.
"Well, Berserker won't attack unless you get close to him and he tend to linger around the forest to the east. If we don't get close to him, then we could avoid fighting him altogether," Caster said brightly.
Mash figured that he was excited to actually have a chance to end this abnormal Grail War. But she was too busy feeling relieved at not having to face Heracles of all Servants.
"Archer will be a problem though," Caster frowned. "But now that I know his True Name, I am pretty sure I can deal with him. It might be tricky though, especially if he fights alongside Saber."
He grimaced. "If I was a Lancer, I would be all for it, but I'm Caster. If we end up fighting them both together, it might turn out harder than I hope."
He smiled again. "But it should be an awesome fight!"
"Shirou," Roman asked, the hologram splitting in half to allow Mr. Emiya's image to expand into the space. "What do you think?"
"Well, I don't know Archer's strength very well-"
Caster snorted. The image of Mr. Emiya glared at him for a moment before continuing on. "But if Caster is confident that you can win, I would say it is worth a try."
He paused, thinking a bit. "Kick that jerk's butt for me, will you?"
Caster guffawed at that.
"Well then," Olga said, clapping her hands together. "Let's get moving, shall we? Time is a limited resource and we don't know how long it will take to analyze and remove the threat."
"So, where is it?" Ritsuka asked, head turning around to view the surrounding sides of the city. The bridge allowed them to choose whether to go back among the skyscrapers on one side or the spread-out residential homes on the other side.
"It is somewhere on Mt. Ryuudou," Shirou imparted from his chair in Chaldea. "I don't know much more than that. The day that we were to meet up and start dismantling the Greater Grail, a friend got a little feverish so I put her up in a guest bedroom. But it must have been really contagious as I caught it right away and I collapsed in my house's entryway. By the time I recovered consciousness a few days, the Second Owner was sitting next me to and told me to rest up. She said that my friend was healthier than ever but her grandfather had died trying to take the grail for his own. By the time Rin thought I was recovered enough to use magecraft again, the Grail was already dismantled."
Mash's eyes widened while Olga's twitched.
One of the background information that A-team had been told of was that Zouken Matou had been determined to protect the Holy Grail. He had fought the entire team of magus who had come to disassemble the Grail by himself until a magus from the Clock Tower had invoked a Mystery that directly targeted and destroyed his soul.
Matou was a threat that the entire A-Team had trained to oppose. They even had a few Mystic Codes which been prepared to fight his familiars and a Mystic Code had been built for the sole purpose of directly attacking the soul so that they could put Matou down if he tried to interfere.
None of which they now had as it had all been with the other members of A-Team but they didn't need them if Zouken Matou wasn't around anymore.
But if Shirou Emiya had survived Matou's assault, in particular an early assault meant to drain the most troublesome opponents of power so that Matou could use their strength against the others, it meant that Shirou must have been really lucky to survive a surprise attack from the most experienced magus in Fuyuki, or he was just really tough to take down.
And judging by Shirou's and Caster's banter from earlier, Shirou had survived a direct fight against a Servant. Which was enough of an indication that he was tough.
Or he just had a long run of very, very, good luck.
"Dismantled, huh?" Caster mused. He obviously didn't know enough about Matou to read between the lines of Shirou's story. "Welp, this might be the best opportunity I've got to see the thing myself. Follow me, and don't make too much noise."
He glanced over to Olga Marie with a smirk on his face. "Wouldn't want to attract Berserker, now would ya?"
Olga flushed at the mention of her screaming attracting the earlier pack of skeletons.
"Thank you, Mr. Caster," Roman bowed to the hologram.
"Skip the 'Mister'," Caster shot back. "I said I'll take you there but the kid here-"
He slapped Ritsuka on the back, the strength behind it forcing the boy to buckle over.
"-will decide when to make our move."
"Much obliged," Roman bowed again before his hologram stared Ritsuka in the eyes. "Then shall we resume the search? I'm counting on you, Ritsuka."
"Right," Ritsuka nodded back, one hand rubbing where Caster had slapped him.
"But first," Caster interrupted. "Let's formally finish the contract. I could use another source of energy, ya know."
After the ritual, where Mash and Caster walked Ritsuka through the words and actions to bind a Servant to his Command Seals, the group of four set out across the bridge, heading towards the mountain.
Leaving Ritsuka to wonder about what his life had become.
He had been forcibly recruited to a top-secret magic organization based in Antarctica of all places. He had gotten caught up in some form of time travel. And now he was in a war between mythological figures, each of whom could kill him without blinking.
He stumbled on some rubble, wincing as the impact of his toe on the stone reverberated in his foot.
But worse of all, it hurt.
And if it hurt, then he could not be in a dream.
So much for his hope that he would soon be waking up in his bed thinking, Man, what an awesome dream!
This was not a dream.
This was real.
His eyes flickered between the pink-haired girl walking in front of him and the blue robed mage.
Both of whom were his only defense against beings like Lancer or Assassin.
But Mash was-
Well, she was a girl, but having a female twin that had been better at karate when they were kids meant that Ritsuka wasn't laboring under any delusion that girls were weaker than boys.
But he had seen Mash, dying, under a ton of rock just earlier today. He remembered smelling the smoke from the fires and seeing the blood pooling around Mash.
How could she just be okay?
He hoped it was magic.
Otherwise they were all doomed.
He shook his head.
He couldn't afford to think like that.
He was Mash's and Caster's Master now. He was some form of magical object thing/person that kept the two alive while acting like their cheerleader and analyst.
Except he didn't know how to analyze so all he really could do was keep morale up.
He couldn't fight. He didn't know magic beyond how to open his magic circuits which the recruiter had done on their flight over.
But all that meant is that he now had magical energy-
-and no spells to use it on.
And since this wasn't a story or movie, he couldn't count on suddenly learning a spell at the last second that instantly blasted an enemy into defeat. He wasn't some protagonist or prophesied one.
He was just Ritsuka, a high school graduate and college applicant that was almost drafted into Chaldea.
But with Olga as high strung as she was and Mash being too serious-
Maybe he could work on keeping everyone's spirits high?
Ritsuka nodded.
Right, he could do that.
He hoped.
But at least it would be better than doing nothing.
Right?
Antarctica, Chaldea, 2017
Shirou wondered what his life had become.
He was looking at a replay of the Holy Grail War. Only this time, it included the fires that he recalled from his youth.
But it wasn't quite the same.
Lancer was now Caster and there was a brand-new Assassin and Lancer in town.
And instead of saving people or fighting alongside Saber, all he could do now was look at graphs and read a manual.
Meanwhile, his Saber was running around and being framed as a villain.
Shirou did not, could not believe Lancer to be right.
Saber was-
She was not the type of person who could do that!
Sure, she didn't let anyone see her emotions and only let her feelings show in private but she would never do anything evil!
Shirou didn't sigh but he did think to himself that this was not what he wanted.
He wanted to help people, he wanted to save people, and he wanted to see Saber again.
But if wishes were granted, Shirou nor his father would never have seen the things that they had seen, the atrocities committed, and their family members die.
Life was unfair like that.
But that was what made ideals like Saber's and Dad's so valuable, so precious.
Shirou shifted in his seat as he read another line in the manual.
He hadn't gone to the bathroom since very early this morning and it was now past lunchtime.
And his bladder was letting him know that.
Hunger was the enemy as Saber liked to say, but sometimes the bladder was too.
Shirou contemplated doing his duty of watching the charts versus removing the distraction.
His stomach growled at him and influenced his decision.
He turned around and addressed Roman.
"Hey, would it be okay if I took a short break?"
As the door closed behind Shirou, Roman turned to Tom.
"Tom, can you pay extra attention to the graph lines? I'll pull them up too but I also have to keep an eye on everything else."
If a Rayshift goes wrong, people's spirits could get erased or corrupted. If close attention wasn't paid to a person's information, then subtle things could be distorted. Or worse, a person could get lost in the past and their spirit never return to their body in the present.
For that and other reasons, Chaldea's policy was to always have two people looking over any part of a team's vital statistics.
Tom nodded curtly, anger settled into his jaw but accepting of the order.
Roman wished he knew what had happened to Tom's friend who died in the Fifth Grail War but he didn't. He had just started working as a doctor in Chaldea when the Fifth Grail War happened so he wasn't privy to any of the leadership meetings or after-reports on the Fifth Grail War.
He also wished that he didn't have a screen open and watching Shirou as he headed towards the restroom but he had to.
The First Order and the entire survival of humanity was important enough that he couldn't act on a suspicion of a possible opponent.
Even if he didn't think that Shirou was the saboteur. Which was why he had half a dozen screens open on everyone who was not in the Command Center with him right now.
But Roman had his charge to protect the human race and if watching everyone that might possibly be the demon that bombed Chaldea, or that might be under its influence, was the cost-
-then he would do it.
He would make sure that no traitor in Chaldea could kill Mash, Ritsuka, and Marisbury's daughter.
Even if it meant betraying the confidence of his workers, spying on them, and even killing the traitor by his own bare hands if necessary.
Humanity was hanging in the balance.
Failure was not acceptable.
Well, I originally intended for this chapter to cover more material, but this was getting long. And the next segment will probably better serve as a bit of a breather and humor episode before we dive back into the thick of things.
But first, a bit of backstory that won't be discussed again.
What happened in the dismantling of the Greater Grail was that Rin managed to eventually get enough of the Clocktower agree to take down the Greater Grail. The Animusphere family was supporting her endeavor from behind the scene. Zouken Matou, however opposed but eventually his only choice left was to fight and beat the Association off.
So Zouken preemptively attacked Shirou by means of Sakura while he set up his preparations of defending the Greater Grail. Zouken knew he couldn't win against a larger force if he also has to defend against Noble Phantasms. Especially as he knows Shirou has a small variety from Gate of Babylon and Zouken doesn't know which ones or what they can do. Very possible that the wrong Noble Phantasm could kill him if he confronted Shirou directly. And Zouken doesn't like to take risks like that unless the payoff is worth it.
So Zouken offered Sakura a Mystic Code that would force Shirou into a temporary coma and mentioned that if she didn't use it against Shirou, then he would just have to kill the boy himself. Sakura agreed but Zouken didn't provide the Mystic Code for free. He forced her into an agreement that she would fight against the other magi if he loaned her the Mystic Code. As the Mystic Code and devil's bargain was the only way to keep Shirou safe from Zouken, Sakura agreed. So when she arrived at Shirou's place, she used the Mystic Code against Shirou and then extensively drained his Od so that he couldn't wake up early and rush to the side of the other magi to fight against Zouken.
But, unfortunately for Sakura, Rin dropped by to pick up Shirou and ran into Sakura leaving Shirou's home. The two then fought and Rin won. She then raced over to help the team which was struggling to hold off Zouken's spells and familiars. After a pitched battle on the mountain and in the cave, Rin's allies won and Zouken died from another magus's attack directly on his soul.
When Rin came back to check on Shirou, she found Sakura nearly dead from the backlash of Zouken's death but fortunately Rin had been storing a large amount of her od in a new gem and used it all to restore Sakura back to life. Sakura recovered before Shirou and begged Rin to keep what happened secret from Shirou as she didn't want him to hate her. Rin eventually caved in and agreed. Which is why she lied to Shirou and everyone else about what happened, keeping the truth to just between Sakura and herself.
Just telling you as Chaldea has no interest in finding out the truth of this matter so it would never be brought up in this story. They and Shirou think they already know the truth, so why look it up?
