A/N:

Regale Rhythm: thanks for the kind words. To answer your inquiries, I can put Japanese-to-English translations as they're written, but know that actual Japanese is only used sporadically and won't be used too often for this to be an issue, hopefully, as I myself only know very little Japanese.

As far as CE's go, after I wrote the first several chapters, I took some time to think about how exactly I could make CE's relevant to the story that I'm writing, and initially I did intend for them to have some sort of influence in the story. But eventually after contemplating it, I came to the conclusion that CE's ultimately won't make sense in a story like this, as it's meant to be more on the "realistic" side with less of an emphasis on gameplay mechanics and more so on just creating what hopefully can turn into a unique fanfic for FGO. Or, in other words, I wasn't able to figure out a realistic, reasonable way to incorporate the Craft Essence mechanic into this story in a way that makes sense and doesn't suddenly make the story start feeling like a budget Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic. Hopefully you can understand my decision with this.

Edit: Saber Wars is sapping me of life, send help. Writing this to get my mind off farming from eight to sixteen hours a day, through work and sleep. Well, not the sleep part. I think.

-Akyuu no Joshu

"Checkmate."

I slip my queen to replace Lily's black pawn on square F-7.

"Eeeehhh...!?" Lily squeals lightly in shock before groaning in despair. "O-Oh...it really is, oh dear..."

Lily and I are playing chess; after coming back home, Lily, having spotted the old chessboard standing in the corner in the living room at the foot of a tall bookcase, asked to play chess, which took me by surprise because if I remember correctly, Arthurian legend originates before the commonly accepted birth of chess, which was around the 7th century, and even then it was believed to have originated in India. Then I reminded myself that not only does FATE acclimate Servants to the modern day with general knowledge and information about contemporary culture, but there's also a very good chance that they could've simply learned it in the past, in their previous incarnations in past Holy Grail Wars. The chessboard itself isn't really a chess-board; rather, it's a sturdy wooden box that contains the materials for a small variety of board games, not just chess; the board just happens to be painted on the top of the box. And so after depositing the Japanese groceries that we bought from Marukai back at Nelson Plaza and storing them away in the fridge accordingly, Artoria, Lily, and I all started playing a few rounds of chess while Saber Alter, sitting close by on the couch while we play on the floor, watches some more Food Network - coincidentally, there's a program currently airing that's about a guy who travels across the country to try out all kinds of burgers, from franchises to small mom-'n-pop cafes and whatnot.

So far, we've played three games - the first one was me against Lily, which I won. Then Artoria stepped up and beat me, but it took forty minutes and came down to both of us having two or three pieces each. The third game just ended.

"The scholar's mate, I believe it is called?" Artoria, who's observing us respectfully and silently, nods in approval at my swift victory. "Very good, Master."

"I saw the opportunity and I took a risk," I shrug very slightly, reorganizing the pieces for the two of us on the board. "A small risk, but still..."

"I-It even has a name..." Lily sighs dejectedly, correctly sensing that this is a very commonly known strategy in chess.

"It's better than getting beat in two moves, though," I tell Lily with a smile, a smile that I know won't cheer Lily up very much.

"There's a way to checkmate someone in t-two moves?!" she gasps in horror. Even Artoria seems a little flabbergasted by this, but she holds her peace for now.

"Yeah, but you have to be black to pull it off," I murmur, carefully turning the chessbox around so that I'm now on the black side. "That, and you'll pretty much never see this happen in a real match because you'd have to have no frickin' idea what you're doing to be put in this situation in the first place. It's why it's called the 'Fool's Mate' or...something like that."

As I talk, I move exactly four pieces - two white pawns to F-3 and E-5, and two black pieces, a pawn and the queen, to G-5 and H-4, respectively.

"...this really is a checkmate..." Artoria blinks in sheer wonder, staring at the chessboard like she can't believe what she's seeing, but it's only for a moment. "But indeed, there is absolutely no reason for white to arrange their first two pawns in this manner."

"My question is, how do you even know about this Master?!" Lily balks.

I can't help but let a smirk creep up on my face as I remember this one time when I managed to trick one of my high school friends into doing this.

"Well, I read up on it back in high school - I forget the reason why, I just know that I read about it," I explain quickly with a casual wave of my hand. "Afterwards, when one of my friends wanted to play chess because he was part of the chess club back then, I agreed to help him practice, but he was just a novice back then. I kinda...convinced him to place those pawns like this - " I gesture to the chessboard - "and I checkmated him."

"Such...deviousness," Artoria remarks with a sympathetic smile.

"Yeah, I couldn't help it. I thought I'd try it at least once in my life."

The crunching of Saber Alter snacking on Calbee Barbecue potato chips interrupts us lightly. Wait, when'd she sneak a bag of chips out from the bags of groceries?

"Hey, when'd you take that?" I lean around Lily to question Salter, whose eyes are fixated on the images of juicy burgers on the TV screen behind me. Not surprisingly, Artoria Alter doesn't answer me, because right now the TV is a hell of a lot more interesting than her Master is. For someone like her who seems like she could literally eat all day, I suppose I can't fault her too much...but I will anyway.

"Alter, Master has asked you a question. Perhaps you can find it within yourself to at least answer him?" Artoria frowns over at her Alter self with scathing disapproval.

"Well, it's just a snack, that's not something I'm exactly demanding an answer over..." I grin awkwardly, not wanting to be all confrontational about this, but Salter does say something, though what her motivation is for answering is beyond me.

"I took it when I brought in my share of groceries. I have been saving it until this moment," she responds, shoveling a handful of chips into her mouth and crunching down on all of them at the same time. Truly the destroyer of potato chips.

"But Tamamo's making us dinner," I remind her, gesturing to the kitchen behind me by pointing in that direction over my shoulder with my thumb. Indeed, the sounds of Tamamo cooking us up a true Japanese-style dinner are clanging, sizzling, and cutting through the air in our direction. Given the fact that the distance between the kitchen and the living room is both very short and very linear, what Tamamo's doing in the kitchen is very easily heard even over the flatscreen TV.

"What difference does that make?" Salter replies quite frankly.

I open my mouth to respond immediately, but then I hold my tongue, because if I think about it, Saber Alter's already clearly demonstrated that she's more than capable of consuming large quantities of food - which, perhaps, I shouldn't be surprised by given the fact that she's a Heroic Spirit; I shouldn't necessarily expect them to adhere to normal human standards, standards that I myself uphold because humans like myself simply assume that these arbitrary standards will be honored by their fellow humans, whether or not they're human themselves...if that makes any sense. So her eating potato chips literally makes no difference. Which means she's right.

...something about that annoys me, but whatever.

So all I can do is to just throw out an awkward shrug, both palms up.

"Senpai, if it's alright for me to ask, do you go out to that warehouse often for your business?" Matthew asks as she rubs Fou's ears on the couch across from us. "Because the path you took to the place seemed like something only someone who knew the lay of the land, so to speak, would know..."

"Sometimes. I would prefer not havin' to go there since it is a little far, but I do know where to go, yes," I nod, letting myself get distracted by what's on TV, which is currently showing a particularly juicy shot of what appears to be a Texas smokehouse-style barbecue burger, dripping with thick barbecue sauce, overflowing with Texan cole slaw, and sandwiched together with two buns that look lightly seared to golden perfection to give the burger an additional layer of satisfying crispness.

"What is your line of business, Master?" Lily asks innocently.

I glance at Lily oddly, but then I realize that the only one to whom I've explained my livelihood is Matthew; none of the girls present here now with me in the house know. And once I do realize this, my expression softens immediately before Lily gets the wrong idea.

"Ah. My business's what's called a freight-forwarding business; it's a job where I handle the transportation of goods and commodities from one place to another," I say concisely. "I specialize in handling shipments that come in from countries in East Asia, like China, Korea, and Japan, and arrive here along the West Coast of America, though I can manage other routes too."

"Wow..." Lily seems genuinely amazed by this, which I don't blame her for. "That sounds really...modern."

"It is," I nod simply in agreement. "Freight forwarding is often an international business, but there can be plenty of domestic ones, too. Lots of freight-forwarding businesses out there besides mine who specialize in different things."

"An international business, one could say?" Artoria asks.

"Oh yeah; the shipments I handle all have to cross the Pacific Ocean to reach us here in California. Or most of them, anyway. Just asking, but do you know how far East Asia is from here?" I ask the Artoria's, the two who'll listen to me, anyway, and both of them slowly shake their heads. So in response, I pull out my phone, unlock it, pull up Google Maps, and activate voice detection before speaking clearly into the phone, "Google, how far is Tokyo from Los Angeles?"

My phone immediately expands the map of my local area to cover Japan and West Coast United States, and I show the two.

"Oh wow..." Lily gasps lightly, starting to get a sense of the sheer distance between the two countries. "Um...I'm...I'm not so good with maps, but...but that's...that's really far away, isn't it...?"

"Most of the shipments I handle actually come from China. Places like Shenzhen, Shanghai, Ningbo, Yantian..." I explain a little bit further, scrolling the map across with my finger to show China. "But occasionally I'll get orders handling shipments coming in from Tokyo, or Busan, or whatever."

Artoria nods, perhaps in approval, perhaps in understanding. "This must be a difficult career for you, Master," she remarks. "For you to be able to maintain a business like this to support yourself, and to maintain your position as an experienced mage..."

"It's actually not that difficult," I shake my head quickly. "If everything goes right and you know what you're doing, this job actually is a really easy job. But the problem with it's that when things go wrong, things can go wrong really badly. And that's what happened earlier today - we had a problem with one of our shipments, specifically the contents of that shipment arrived in a damaged state, and like I told you guys earlier when we were heading over there, I was going over to see if I could determine the exact cause of the damages so that I could figure out who to charge for damages. So every so often I'll run into problems where I have to go out of my way to resolve them, and depending on how bad the problems are, they can be real headaches to deal with. But eventually I do manage to take care of them all. I have to, the reputation of my business kinda rides on that."

A brief silence follows my words as we all kind of let our attentions focus on the TV together, watching the show host start grubbing out on this Texas smokehouse burger.

"Master, I do have one thing of my own to ask, if you will so permit," Artoria speaks. It's almost jarring hearing Lily and Artoria speak one after the other while knowing that they're supposed to be the exact same person.

"Yeah, what's up?" I glance over at her, over my left shoulder.

"The previous evening, when we received Caster as a new Servant; you contacted this Lady Animusphere to discuss some terms of a contract, and you mentioned that you wished to terminate it, which would have resulted in our return to the Throne of Heroes," Artoria says. "If this is not too much to ask, I would like you to elaborate more on this."

Sensing the gravity of Artoria's question, I turn myself around on the floor so that I'm sitting facing her.

"Sure, I can do that, but first, I just wanna ask you quickly why you feel the need to ask that," I return swiftly.

"Of course. I ask you this because I wish to know if you only intend on maintaining our contracts as Servants for a short period of time, before this Holy Grail War can be resolved. Because it is clear that this Holy Grail War is much different than the others that I and perhaps those around me may have participated in in the past, I believe that it may be necessary for me to remain here even if our contract between us is terminated early."

I nod. "Right, I'll keep that in mind. I did mention why I wanted to end our contract early, but for you to understand, I have to tell you first about the contract that I have with Chaldea. You guys except for Matthew aren't familiar with Chaldea or what they are or the people who work there, right?"

Artoria and Lily both shake their heads.

"Right, so...the Chaldea Security Organization, or just Chaldea for short, is a magical organization that's dedicated to the preservation of humanity; their goal is to protect humanity and ensure that humanity as a whole isn't being threatened by large-scale magical disasters; their main headquarters is located in the Alps somewhere; their exact location's classified information, so I can't tell you that unless we actually head over there at some point.

"From what I've been told and what I know, starting about a year ago, Chaldea began to run low-key international advertisement campaigns to spread word that they were looking for talented mages across the world to employ as subcontractors. 'Subcontractors'..." I repeat with noticeable sarcasm, emphasizing it further with air quotes. "We're pretty much Chaldea's mercenaries, all but in name. Our job is to monitor our respective areas so that whenever Chaldea detects that there's a Singularity that'll show up in any of our areas, Chaldea can alert us and prepare us to deal with the threat. These terms of contract pretty much went hand-in-hand with everything that I did already, so naturally when I found out about this, I contacted Chaldea to let them know that I was interested, since for me it's more or less free money.

"So they flew me out to their headquarters in Switzerland, in the Alps somewhere. Their PIC, or Person in Charge, is Olga Marie Animusphere, the daughter of the guy who founded Chaldea originally, apparently. She's the person with whom I negotiated my terms - and in it, the contract clearly states that I as the subcontractor can choose whether I wish to operate outside of my own residential region, and I chose to simply operate within my own home region. So when Olga told me yesterday that she reserved the right to change any of the terms in my contract, I got pissed off because that's not what I remember negotiating with her."

"So you wish only to operate within regions with which you are familiar?" Artoria asks.

I cross my arms slowly. "It's not necessarily that; I don't have a problem going out to places that I don't know if I have to," I shake my head too for good measure. "It's more because of my job. Even though I did say that it's not a difficult job to have, it is a kind of job that needs my attention every day. I don't really have, like, vacations or breaks or paid leave or anything like that because I'm self-employed; I'm my own boss. And not only that, but my customers always have shipments coming in year-round, so even during holidays, I have to be on top of my work because if I'm not, then no one is."

"I see; this is out of concern for your livelihood."

Sighing a little, I nod quickly again. "Yeah. It is what I do for a living, after all, and I think that's pretty important, obviously. And remember that I'm only a Mage on the side; being a Mage has never earned me any type of living, outside of being a subcontractor for Chaldea or odd jobs before I became a subcontractor for them. And even then, they haven't even paid me shit, so..." I throw up my hands suddenly in clear indignance. "But anyways, because of the nature of my job, I don't wanna have to go too far from my own home region. If it's something actually related to my business, sure, that's understandable. But if it's for something related to magic, which normally involves me having to fight somebody or something, that means that I can't bring work-related stuff with me because I can't afford to be distracted, not even by my own job, and that obviously means that I'm away from my job for days, potentially weeks on end, and for a job that constantly needs my attention, that's not good. So if the next Singularity appears somewhere halfway across the world..."

I intentionally leave my thought hanging because I figure that the kind of point that I'm trying to make by now is obvious.

"Mmm...that really is a tough position to be in..." Lily murmurs, trying her best to sympathize with me.

"If that is the case, why not give up your current livelihood to pursue one that allows you to become as strong of a Mage as you can be?"

Suddenly, Artoria Alter is talking over to us, and amazingly enough, she's looking over in our direction, rather than watching what's on TV. She's also done completely emptying out that bag of Calbee chips, by the way, but I think it was safe to assume that she finished eating them even if I didn't tell you. When everyone in the living room suddenly glances over at her, Saber Alter continues:

"That Animusphere girl, she seemed to take quite an interest in you, as far as your capabilities as a mage are concerned," she points out in her hard and cold voice. "And you yourself have just stated now that she is the head of this 'Chaldea' under which you now serve as a contractual mage. If the head of a magical security organization that is apparently in charge of the protection of humanity believes that you are the most competent to the point where you believe she has tampered with the terms of your contract to force you to stay a Master, why not pursue that? What holds you back?"

"She's vastly overestimating what I can do. And versatility isn't always a favorable trait to ask of from a mage. In most cases what you want are specialists, mages who can fulfill a specific role or niche very well, as opposed to someone like me who can do a lot of things but never one with any real mastery. And if you're talking about strength, then I find it really hard to believe that Olga couldn't'a found someone better somewhere around the world. The world's a big place, man, and there's always someone stronger."

"Or is it simply because you cling too much to a lifestyle like this?" Saber Alter smirks at me dangerously. "Do you enjoy peace and nonconfrontation, Master? Perhaps a little too much?"

"Yeah, says the one sittin' on my couch watchin' the Food Network on my TV and eatin' barbecue chips that I paid for!" I exclaim right back at her, complete with a Phoenix Wright-esque dramatic finger point, causing everyone in the living room to laugh, which single-handedly shatters the tenseness in the atmosphere that Salter was building up as a result of her inclusion into the conversation. But what surprises me even more is the fact that Saber Alter even purses her lips at me in clear indignance of her own as she immediately fusses back at me to defend herself.

"F-Food is essential! Without food, we cannot fight!" she blurts back.

"But, Lady Alter, Servants don't require food as a form of sustenance..." Matthew points out. "And even then, potato chips aren't a very good source of sustenance..."

"Silence, you!" Saber Alter demands from Matthew vehemently.

"Speaking of food, dinner's ready!" we can all hear Tamamo yell from the kitchen, and just like Pavlov's dogs, Salter immediately jumps out of her seat on the couch and quickly walks past us over to the dining table to patiently await being served dinner. The rest of us, however, take our time and still hang out in the living room for a few moments longer.

"As much as I may not get along with her, Master, Alter does bring up a good point in this case," Artoria mentions to me quietly as we all prepare to leave to join Salter at the dining table once again. "Are you choosing not to become a fully-fledged Master or Mage because you prefer this kind of a lifestyle? One that is focused more on the modern world, rather than the magical?"

I twist my lips a little. "I'd say that I want to be in this position where I am now not necessarily because I myself want to, but because if I'm not here, then the people that I know and work with as a result of my job are suddenly left hanging. You all know that I inherited my business from my late father, and out of respect for him, I chose to carry on his line of work so that the people he knew and worked with in life can continue. If I had no such connections with them in the first place, maybe where I'd be would be a lot different, probably."

We head over to the dining table, while I stride over to the kitchen, with Matthew and Fou in tow, but as I join Tamamo in the kitchen who we find starting to walk out of the kitchen herself holding two big plates filled with nothing but finely cooked homemade takoyaki, I do think to myself silently how much different my life would've been if I'd decided to go all-out on my Mage position.

In a way, I guess it wouldn't have turned out much different.