AN: It has been way too long since I last uploaded. Sorry about that. On the other hand, take this as my Christmas present to all of you.
Editor/Beta-reader: Korzark
Claire Conrad paced restlessly around her magic shop, constantly adjusting then re-adjusting the items on the shelves. The sun had set hours ago, and she usually wouldn't be here this late, but Ophelia was meant to be meeting her here after all the business with the Church was finished.
She picked up a glass bead with alternating blue and white circles. The item was called an evil eye, an ironic name considering it was meant to ward off bad luck. The ones out here were just mundane chunks of glass, but she did have a few in her back room that offered a level of protection against low level curses. Claire, as she had already done with a dozen other protective items, stared at it and stressed over whether she should have given Ophelia one before she left.
She could worry about it all she wanted in hindsight, but there wasn't much she could do for her sister now that she was already out there. As she reached out to put the evil eye back, the bell above the door rang. Claire's head whipped around to face the door, the evil eye dropping from her hand and shattering on the ground as she took in the form of her younger sister, unconscious and limp in Rider's arms.
"W-what happened?" Claire asked as she ran over to them.
"I don't know," Rider said with obvious distress. "I was fighting Berserker and she suddenly collapsed."
"Fighting? You weren't meant to be fighting anyone!" Claire chastised as she checked on her sister. Ophelia's pulse was weak, her breathing shallow and her skin deathly cold.
"We were ambushed by Berserker and his Master outside the Church," Rider explained, following Claire as she moved further into the store and to a shelf behind the counter.
"What about El-Melloi?" asked as she activated the enchantments that made the shelf disappear. In its place the opening to her storeroom appeared.
Before Rider could respond, the doorbell rang again, and as though summoned by the use of his name, Lord El-Melloi stood in the entryway with a female figure wrapped in white cloth lying limp in his arms.
"She's hurt. Badly. I don't have the items needed to heal her," The Lord said, leaving the 'but you do' unspoken, as he closed the gap between them, allowing Claire to notice the red seeping through the white material where it covered the back of the girl's head.
Claire looked to her sister, cradled in the arms of Rider who had already moved inside the storeroom, then back to the Lord. On his face face she saw a reflection of her own feelings of pain and panic. There was a final moment of hesitation before her conscience won out and she ordered "Get in," with a wave of her hand.
Once everyone was inside the store room, she closed the doors, waited a few seconds, then opened them again, revealing the wood-panelled interior of the Conrad family home.
The room they had stepped into was the dining room, with the entrance to the storeroom replacing the fireplace in the room. Claire marched forward and started clearing off the dining table of candle-sticks, cutlery, a vase of flowers and the other niceties that cluttered its surface.
As soon as there was space, both Ophelia and the girl El-Melloi had brought were laid down. "I need something for a head injury." El-Melloi demanded.
"You need to shut up. My sister is dying!" She snapped, her concern for her sister overriding her fear of the Clock Tower Lord.
Tearing herself away from her, now unnaturally pale, sister, Claire ran back into the store room and started to rifle through the items on the shelves with no real idea of what was happening or what she would need to stop it.
She suddenly became aware that El-Melloi was next to her. Unlike her frantic actions made with shaking hands, he moved with a calm but determined purpose.
"What are you-"
"She's suffering from severe mana depletion. Rider's Noble Phantasm appears to be a reality marble, an incredibly draining type of magic," he explained as he grabbed a handful of geodes that had been formed along a ley line. It was an item usually used to power spells or enchantments when the caster themselves wouldn't be around, or didn't have enough magic circuits, to provide the mana.
He marched back into the dining room with an armful of the geodes, barking out "Rider! Disappear! You're only hurting her by staying materialised."
The Servant vanished and the Lord began placing the geodes on the table around Ophelia. "What can I do to help?" Claire asked, calming down a little, and feeling a strange sense of hope at the Lord's precise and confident actions.
El-Melloi, having finished placing the geodes, pulled out a piece of chalk and started writing down a complex series of symbols in the spaces between the geodes. "I need a spiritual conductor to link the geodes together."
Rushing into the storeroom, Claire went to a chest of drawers, threw open the top one and removed a small bag. Running back into the dining room, Claire set about linking the geodes with the silvery powder inside the bag she had grabbed.
Finishing up her task, and seeing El-Melloi close to finishing his preparations, she looked anxiously to her sister, lying still on the table. As she kept looking, something felt off to her. Her mind floundered for a moment before it clicked; Ophelia wasn't moving at all.
Claire's hand went to Ophelia's throat, checking for a pulse. Feeling nothing, she adjusted her positioning, hoping against hope she'd just made a mistake. Nothing.
"No. No no no no no," Claire muttered as she checked and rechecked for a pulse. "Her heart's not beating!"
"Almost… there!" El-Melloi proclaimed, finishing the last stroke with a flourish, as the geodes flashed before settling to a low glow, and the ring of powder transformed into a solid silver band that linked them.
Nothing in the room moved as Claire and El-Melloi held their breath. A second passed. Five passed. Ten. Ophelia's back arched as she inhaled suddenly, before slumping back down, and her breathing, while initially ragged, began to even out.
Claire fell to her knees in relief. "Oh thank you. Thank you thank you thank you."
"That should keep her stable for now. Once there's time to run a full diagnosis we can fine-tune the circle to better suit her, but right now we have more pressing matters," El-Melloi explained.
"Pressing matters?" Claire asked from her position on the ground.
"We've saved your sister, now I need your help to save mine."
Travel via Assassin's teleportation had a tendency to be a very disorientating experience, and the trip back to the manor was no exception. Yet when Immanuel arrived in Sakura's room, a bit of dizziness was the least of his concerns. There, curled up in the foetal position and sobbing by the door, was Sakura.
He was by her side before he even knew he was moving. The pain and fatigue racking his own body forgotten as he checked Sakura for any injuries, one hand tentatively reaching out towards her. "Sakura, what happened? Are you okay?" The question felt dumb even as he said it. Of course, she wasn't okay, that much was obvious.
Sakura looked up at the sound of his voice, and with surprising speed she threw herself towards him, grabbing fistfuls of his bloodstained shirt in each hand and pulling him close until the faces were mere centimetres apart, and all he could see was tears running down her already tear-stained face. "Tell me you didn't know about it! Please! Tell me you didn't know! Tell me you're different! Tell me you're not like them! Like Grandfather and Shinji!"
Immanuel could have sworn his heart stopped for a moment as a flood of panic swept through him at the thought that Sakura had discovered Shirou's involvement in the war. Hoping against hope that wasn't the case, he began to speak, his arms hovering awkwardly around Sakura. "I don't know what you saw, but I promise I am nothing like your family, and I would never do anything to hurt you."
Sakura eyes, red from crying, peered into his own naturally red ones, seemingly searching for any signs of deceit. While he had undoubtedly lied to her in the past, seeing her like this, looking so broken. So vulnerable. It had him swearing to himself in his head that from this moment, he would do everything he could to protect her, so that she never had to feel like she did right now ever again.
He didn't know if Sakura saw that in the way he looked back at her, but she must have seen something that convinced her, as she released her hold of his shirt, and wrapped her arms around him, pulling herself into his chest where she cried openly.
Immanuel returned the embrace, his arms gently coming to rest around her back. The gesture was extremely foreign to him. He'd seen a few people doing this when he and Sakura had been out in the city, but actually doing it himself was a very different experience. And while he found the sight of Sakura crying to be something that brought both physical pain without a wound, and an anger beyond what he thought he was capable of, he also found he didn't dislike the feeling of holding someone like this.
"In the cellar. Gordes is keeping people in tanks down in the cellar," Sakura explained into his blood-stained shirt. Immanuel's gut twisted as Sakura's description reminded him of how he had entered this world.
"I'll take care of it. Of them. You just rest for now," Immanuel said, as he struggled to keep his tone measured. The anger that had been building inside of him now had a target to focus on.
"I can't. I can't get the images out of my head," Sakura cried as her grip on him tightened.
"It's ok, just rest now, and in the morning everything will be better."
Sakura pulled her head away from his chest to look up at him, and just as she opened her mouth to say something, Caster, on Immanuel's telepathic instruction, materialised and used his magic to put her to sleep. Catching and lifting her unconscious form, Immanuel carried Sakura over to her bed, where he gently laid her down on the sheets.
"Stay with her Caster," Immanuel commanded, "and make sure she doesn't have any nightmares."
"Understood Master, but are you sure you don't want me with you when you confront Berserker's Master?" Caster asked.
"No. I'll be dealing with that bastard myself," declared as he turned away from Sakura's sleeping form and towards the door.
Immanuel threw open the door to the cellar and true to Sakura's words, the room was filled with glass tanks that gave off a pale green glow, each holding the suspended form of a person within. The sight was almost identical to the lab he had been made in, and seeing it froze him in place, the very air seeming to go still in his lungs.
Memories of his own 'birth' sprung to the forefront of his mind, and with it came a sense of claustrophobia, and the disorientating and choking feeling of one's brain trying to rationalise, upon immediately awakening, why it was able to breathe while fully submerged in a liquid.
Shaking his head to clear it of the unwanted memories, Immanuel roared out with renewed anger. "What the hell is this Musik?"
Gordes, who had been standing in front of one of the tanks, inspecting with a clipboard in one hand, turned at the sound of Immanuel's voice. "Oh this? I've set up this system to take the burden of supplying Berserker with magical energy off my shoulders. Quite ingenious isn't it?" he explained, looking a little confused by Immanuel's dramatic entrance, but otherwise unconcerned.
"You're using these people as mana batteries! What the hell are you thinking?!"
"Ah, I see. Don't worry, I was just about to inform you of this. I'm not so petty as to keep something like this to myself, and I'm willing to use this system to support both yourself and the lady Sakura.
"I imagine Caster's healing uses a great amount of magical energy, and boosting Assassin with the power here could help him stand up to that pesky Archer," Gordes continued confidently.
"That's not what I meant Musik. Not even close," Immanuel seethed.
"It's not? Then I don't see what you're so worked up about. After all, they're just homunc-" Gordes words died on his tongue as he recalled who exactly he was talking to. After clearing his throat, he started again.
"As I was saying, these are homunculus, but not like you of course. They are not nearly as complex and I made them specifically for this purpose. There honestly closer to cattle-"
A resounding CRACK shook the room, dust falling from the ceiling, as Immanuel's fist slammed into the wall next to the doorway, covering the brickwork in a massive spider web of cracks. Gordes went silent as Immanuel glared at him, fist still planted against the wall and chest heaving. "Shut. It. Down."
Gordes looks nervously between the cracked wall and Immanuel for a brief moment, before mostly regaining his composure. "S-surely you can't seriously be asking me take this all down!"
"Your right," Immanuel started, and Gordes' shoulders dropped in relief "I'm not asking."
Gordes face constricted in an ugly mix of shock and indignation. "D-do you have any idea the time and effort I put into making this? Not to mention the resources spent."
"I don't care. Take it down." Immanuel said, before turning and leaving Gordes alone in the basement workshop.
With Immanuel gone, Gordes fell back into the chair he had watched the earlier fight from. A hand came up to rub his temple as he breathed deeply to calm himself.
"Berserker!" he called out and not a moment later the towering form of Ajax the Greater shimmered into existence in front of him, with the ever-present sword protruding from his chest.
"Do you have need of me my Master?" the hero asked.
"Do I have need of you?" Gordes asked mockingly. "That damn homunculus was ready to kill me, and where the hell were you?"
"I sincerely doubt that Lord Immanuel would have attacked you, my Master. I've seen him fight, and I believe him to be an honourable man."
"I don't give a damn about what you think!" Gordes shouted, jumping to his feet. "We were meant to win this war in a landslide. Three Servants working together to hunt down the others was meant to make the fighting a fucking formality! Now look at us. Outnumbered four to three, with Assassin and Caster being all but useless in a straight fight. Yet he wants me to dismantle the mana network! What is that trash thinking?!"
"I'm sure Lord Immanuel has his reasons for his orders," Berserker said calmly amongst his Master's ranting.
"Oh sure he has his reasons for why he would go against common sense. That reason being he hasn't been around long enough to know what common sense is! Mark my words Berserker; this is why you never put a construct in a position of power!" Gordes continued to rave as he paced back and forth across the room.
"Of course, Master."
"That fool may not realise it, but we need this power."
"Of course, Master."
Gordes suddenly stopped his pacing and stood ramrod straight "Come to think of it, there is more than one way for a Servant to draw power from others."
Something in the way Gordes said that put Berserker on edge "…Master?"
Gordes raised his right hand, on which the jagged symbols that made up his Command Seals resided "By my first Command Seal; Berserker, I forbid you from taking any action that would bring harm to me."
Red light flashed from Gordes' hand as one of the three symbols faded out, and Berserker felt the effect of the spell settle in his mind like a physical block. "Master! Why would you waste a Command Seal like that?!"
"Don't take me for a fool Berserker," Gordes scowled. "You have a history of trying to kill your superiors when they make a decision you don't like. As I don't have a God watching out for me like they did, I'm forced to take other measures."
Berserker winced at the words, but his expression quickly changed from embarrassment to horror as he put the pieces together as he realised what Gordes was planning. "Master, please! I beg you to reconsider!"
"By my second Command Seal," Gordes started and Berserker lunged forward, reaching out to grab the fat mage, only for his hand to stop mere millimetres from Gordes' face, as though it had hit an invisible force field. "I order you-"
"Master, stop this madness now!"
"To consume the hearts," Berserker summoned his hammer to his hand and roared as he swung with all his might at Gordes, only for the blow to once again stop short, "of every homunculus in this room."
Red light flashed across the room as another symbol faded from Gordes' hand, and Berserker's hammer fell from his hand, hitting the floor with a dull thud. The Heroic Spirit of Berserk Rage turned slowly, with a glazed look to his eyes, towards the rows of homunculi suspended in their tanks.
He walked over to the nearest tank, every footstep booming out across the basement. His hand drew back, then in a sudden, violent motion, it was thrust forward, through the glass and into the chest of homunculi.
Claire collapsed across a couch with a heavy sigh, the physical and emotional exhaustion of the night threatening to make her pass out. In comparison to Ophelia's condition, Reines, the girl El-Melloi had brought with him, was a lot simpler to deal with. Though simpler didn't mean easier.
El-Melloi said she'd been kicked into a wall, but between the severe concussion, broken ribs and damage to both her spine and internal organs, it looked more like she got caught between a wrecking ball and a wall.
Fortunately, after what had to be the most stressful few hours of Claire's life, the girl was stable and recovering. At which point it was back to caring for her sister.
She held up her right hand high above her, and looked at the back of her hand, giving the three curved lines that made a spiral shape there a glare.
The transfer had been done in order to reduce the burden on Ophelia. As Lord El-Melloi had explained to her, Servants were constantly drawing mana from their Masters in order to stay in the here and now.
"I thought you said only the Overseer could transfer control of Servants," Claire remarked bitterly.
"I said the Oversee would be able to transfer control. I never said anything about them being the only one that could do so," Lord El-Melloi replied from his position on a nearby chair. He was leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees, his jacket and scarf long since abandoned and his sleeves rolled up.
"But you let us assume."
The Lord let out a frustrated sigh "If you're looking for an apology, you're not going to get one. We're at war."
"If we're at war, then why didn't you take Rider for yourself?"
"I'm not a powerful mage. If Rider used his Noble Phantasm with me supporting him, I'd end up just like your sister."
"Oh please! Not a powerful mage my ass. You're a lord of the god damn Clock Tower," Claire exclaimed, the fatigue weighing down her mind making her forget her fear of the man.
"I wasn't born an El-Melloi. I was 'adopted' into the family. Of my actual family, I'm the first to pursue Magecraft."
The revelation had Claire sitting up in an instant and staring at El-Melloi in shock. "Woah, that's… actually even more terrifying."
El-Melloi looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "How so?"
"I mean if I tried stealing from one of my professors, let alone tried to kill one of them, I'd be dead in an instant. To pull that off as a first generation, you must be like, the greatest genius in the history of the Clock Tower!"
"So the rumours would have you believe."
Just as Claire was going to ask what he meant by that, El-Melloi's phone started ringing loudly. Moving at a lethargic pace that showed just how exhausted the Tower Lord was, he withdrew the device and brought it up to his ear.
"What is it?" he asked the caller.
Whatever the answer was, it obviously wasn't good as the man was on his feet in an instant, with an expression that she imagined was likely exactly like what she had looked like when Rider arrived with her sister last night.
"Understood. I'll be returning soon with Reines. Contact me if anything changes," El-Melloi spoke into the phone, all traces of his exhaustion gone. Ending the call, he shoved the phone back into his pocket at called out, "Saber!"
The Amazonian Servant appeared before them in an instant, causing Claire to jump in her seat. "I heard. I'll prepare my Master to be moved immediately."
"Was she here the whole time?!" Claire asked, pointing at Saber in shock.
Saber glanced at Claire before looking back to El-Melloi "Should I kill her before we leave?"
Claire recoiled, and Rider materialised behind her, lance at the ready.
"Not unless you've come up with a way to separate Berserker and Assassin from Caster's healing," El-Melloi answered.
Claire looked to Saber anxiously, then breathed a sigh of relief when the woman gave an annoyed grunt and dematerialised. Silence descended on the two for several seconds before Claire broke it "Thanks, I guess. For you know, not letting her kill me. I know it was just because you want Rider to fight Berserker again, but still."
"I also still need you to operate the gate between here and the shop," El-Melloi added matter-of-factly.
"Oh, right," Claire said, standing up and moving over to the storeroom that linked the house and the shop.
"How does that work by the way? I have my theories, but I figure I should just try asking," El-Melloi asked as he followed.
Something in his tone gave Claire the feeling that he didn't actually care or had already figured it out, likely given how much of a genius he apparently was. More likely he was trying to use a conversation to distract him from whatever the call was about.
"You know Schrödinger's cat?" Claire asked.
"Of course."
"Same concept. When the doors to the storeroom are closed, it simultaneously exists and doesn't exist at both locations. The moment you open the door and see the room, it is wherever you opened it, and someone on the other side would be unable to access it," Claire explained.
"And by putting yourself in the room and closing the door, you're able to determine where the room exists when you reopen them," El-Melloi added.
"Yep," Claire said as they arrived at what appeared to be a blank area of wall between two bookshelves. Reaching over to one of the nearby bookshelves, Claire withdrew a book halfway, pushed some of her mana into it, then pushed the book back into place. As the book pressed against the back of the shelf, a set of ornate doors appeared in place of the blank wall and swung open.
The two stood there in silence as they waited for Saber to return.
"About your sister," El-Melloi started before trailing off.
"Oh yeah, last night is kind of a blur. Did I thank you for that?"
"You did, but that's what not what I was trying to say," El-Melloi with an expression Claire couldn't place.
"Hm?"
"Your sister is stable for now, and she should wake in the next few days, but…" It was at that moment Claire felt a chill run down her spine as she recognised his expression. It was that of Doctor delivering a prognosis that no-one wanted to hear. "The damage Rider's Noble Phantasm did to her magic circuits was catastrophic, and caused a chain-reaction throughout her body."
"What are you saying?"
"This isn't my field of expertise, and I didn't have the ideal tools nor time to conduct a proper analysis-"
"What happened to my sister!?"
El-Melloi was silent for a moment before he answered "Her life span was devastated. By my estimates, she won't live past thirty."
Claire staggered back as step as though the words had physically struck her. "W-well what can I do to cure her?"
"Nothing. To the best of my knowledge, there is no way for modern Magecraft to repair such severe damage to someone's magical circuits. I'm sorry."
The words echoed around Claire's head as she stood their shell-shocked by the news. "Don't be," she muttered out numbly "it's not your fault."
And it really wasn't his fault. If there was someone or something to blame for all this it was the magic itself and the society of maniacs that chased its secrets. A chase that had claimed the lives of her parents, driven people to create this bloodbath of a ritual that they called the Holy Grail War, and now destroyed the life of her little sister.
From there it felt like her mind was filled with fog, no thoughts seemed to be able to connect, and her head felt strangely heavy as she found her eyes fixed on the ground in front of her. She was aware that Saber had arrived, and she had taken the two mages and Servant back to her shop, but the details were fuzzy. Returning home via the storeroom, she made her way towards the staircase that would take her to the second floor, where her sister was resting.
Before she could climb the stairs, a knock on the front door caught her attention. She was about to ignore it, but the knock came again, loud and insistent. With an exasperated sigh, she made her way towards the door.
Pulling open the door just enough for her face to be seen, she started talking before the person on the other side had a chance to. "Look, I don't know what you're after but I'm not in the mood."
As soon as she'd said her piece, she went to close the door again, only to find whoever had been knocking had stuck their foot inside and was stopping it. "What if I told you I could save your sister?" the stranger asked.
In a flash the fog cleared from Claire's mind and she looked up to see who this stranger was. She didn't recognise him at all, a Japanese man, with wavy blue hair, one arm in a cast, and a confident smile on his face.
"Do you mind if I come in?" the blue haired man asked.
AN: The El-Melloi group have taken some serious hits, Rider's has a change of Master, and their's trouble brewing in the Einzbern faction. What could possibly go wrong?
As always, constructive criticism is appreciated.