Guest1: "What do you think Archer would do if he stayed after the 5th grail war? I'm curious about your thoughts."
I don't know, maybe a butler for Rin. Archer pretends to dislike manual work... but in fact, he loves it, particularly cooking.
Shirou Emiya is a childish character. In fact, it is typical of the "hero" as seen by teenagers, the guy they seek to imitate. And in the real world, these kind of "heroes" are young greenhorns idiots who rush towards the enemy with their heads full of heroic dreams and falls under the first rounds of machine guns.
I prefer Archer, the mature (and cynical) version of Shirou... and above all, I prefer Nameless (Fate/Extra Archer) because he is warmer, more smiling... and especially because he is less fatalistic.
Magi are human after all...
A good guess for Caster.
Bayhon282004: Thank You. For Achilles and Pyrrha, this Extra Story was just my way of responding to a reader who wanted me to put Achilles as a Rider. Pyrrha is the female version of Achilles... hence the little story in F/GO. But I don't intend to follow up on this story because of it lack of interest and because it has nothing to do with the "Invincible Girl Return". Everyone gives me "commands" of history and characters. My Extra Stories allow me to respond without rewriting the synopsis of my story every week.
TeotakuFantasia: Thank you. As an unpaid author, my only reward is your joy.
truthful one: Thank you, doo day and take care.
Author's Note: "Grund" is a German word that can be translated as "Reason", "Ground" or "Cause". This is one of the terms of the philosophy of Paracelsus which is the most difficult to understand. It is a founding force, invisible to the eye, but present everywhere. It is nature in an epiphany, an incessant cycle of birth and maturation. To have the intelligence of nature, according to Paracelsus, is to study in order to deduce what links things between them, it is to observe life in its manifestations. Everything else is pseudo-philosophy.
Grund
"What is philosophy but the discovery of the invisible nature?"
Paracelsus
Pyrrha Nikos opened her eyes to fix the familiar ceiling of her bedroom. The only window was at the head of the bed. The shutters closed badly and a ray of light fell on her face. She heard the birds singing in the garden.
A beautiful day is ahead.
Yet... she felt awful.
Pyrrha had a taste of iron in her mouth and a sudden urge to vomit made her straighten a hand on her lips. The Spartan Girl marveled at the dizziness that gripped her as she sat in bed.
Was she sick or something?
Pyrrha shook her head, reviving a strong migraine. Her brain seemed to be dipped in cotton and she felt like she was forgetting something important.
Awkwardly, she stood up. Her bare feet touched the icy floor and she shivered, rubbing her shoulders. Her green pajamas were rather light and it was no wonder she was cold. However, she felt that her chest was compressed and that something was bothering her. Undoing the buttons of her pajama shirt, she turned to the mirror that adorned the wardrobe.
Surprisingly, Pyrrha discovered that her chest was bandaged with gauze rolls.
Feeling no pain, she unmakes the bands...
A large band-aid covered half the chest. But when she took off the medical adhesives, she found dried blood on the inside... except she didn't have a scratch.
Again Pyrrha felt a strange discomfort, as if... as if she forgot something very important. But her mind was unusually slow this morning.
What happened yesterday? She couldn't remember.
Pyrrha had gone into the bathroom to wash off the dried blood she had on her chest and belly and then brushed her teeth to chase away the horrible taste she still had in her mouth. As she spat in the sink, Pyrrha discovered blood mixed with toothpaste...
The young redhead watched the liquid disappear with a startled look, an insistent thought turning in her still numb brain:
"So I was hurt... but when?"
She kept forgetting what happened the day before.
After showering and changing, the Amazon Girl headed to the kitchen. From the hallway connecting to the garden, she heard television broadcasting local news, while a smell of food made her pleasantly salivate. As an empty stomach roared as she entered the dining room, a handsome young blond man turned to Pyrrha.
He held a wooden spatula and detached pancakes from a pan on the fire. He wore the pink apron that Sakura usually used.
"Ah Master, hello. Breakfast is ready, sit down!"
As the young redhead was about to ask him who he was, a tidal wave of remembrance poured in:
She and Lancer fighting in the yard...
The church on the hill...
Berserker facing this young blond man then dressed in magnificent armor and armed with an invisible sword...
The meeting with Illya...
The occurrence of the Knight of the Silver Sky while Lancer was going to kill her...
Saber!
Then Pyrrha remembered the dream she had just before waking up:
"Arthur?"
He had a slight smile:
"Keep calling me Saber, Pyrrha. Don't get into the habit of giving me my real name... you could use it at the wrong time."
The Invincible Girl nodded. Of course, the Grail War...
Before she could add anything about this, Arthur... Saber pointed to the table:
"Breakfast is ready, sit down!"
Pyrrha had eaten with appetite but alone. Saber had told her that the Servants didn't need food and that he preferred to cook than eat anyway.
While she was eating, Saber washed the plates... which had made Pyrrha uncomfortable. He was the guest in her house, it would have been up to her to cook and... everything else. However, there was strong pressure from Saber. There was something raging about his movements. In fact, since she came in, he had only spoken to her to give her orders, what to say, where to sit.
Pyrrha was a good fighter because she pushed her opponents to do what she wanted. And to maneuver other people like that, you needed a good knowledge of psychology.
For the Invincible Girl, it was obvious, Saber was very angry with her... The only reason he stood aside was so he wouldn't spoil her meal...
This meant he was going to explode as soon as she finished eating.
As all her memories had not returned, Pyrrha did not really know what to think.
She drank a sip of tea and rested the cup on its saucer before cutting a piece of pancake. A hand on the cheek, she smiles while savoring the melting texture:
"That's so good, Saber. If you ever get tired of running a kingdom, you can always be a cook."
Busy washing the cooktop, King Arthur turned around... surprised. Since their first encounter... the day before... Pyrrha had seen different expressions on his face, calm determination, anger, a tad bit of arrogance. But she struggled not to smile... for the first time, Saber was embarrassed. He made a gesture with his hand as if he were chasing an unwelcome fly and turned away to avoid looking in her direction:
"Don't think about it, Pyrrha, it's just a simple breakfast. I wouldn't be able to make an elaborate meal."
Amused, Pyrrha realized that her compliment had gone right to the mark... and that Saber was struggling to stay angry. It was so cute... and at that moment he looked strangely like Jaune in an identical situation.
Picking up one of the mandarins that were in the large bowl in the middle of the table, Pyrrha began to peel it... It was a gift from Taiga... a big bag of ten kilos... that she could never finish alone!
"Well, I'm done with my breakfast... you can start yelling at me."
Saber turned around, again surprised... which was beginning to become a habit!
Repressing a smile, he sat down facing Pyrrha.
"First of all, do you remember what happened yesterday?"
The Invincible Girl agrees:
"Until we left Kotomine Church and then... I woke up in my room. Was I hurt?"
Saber struck the table in the living room with both hands. All the dishes from the breakfast made a small jump before falling back into a rattle!
"You stepped in a fight! You took a hit for me!"
Pyrrha grimaced with pain... Saber shouted loudly when he wanted, and she was right in front of him. Her first reaction was to smile, touched by the anxiety that this anger reflected. Then... she remembered... The Homunculi, the Tectonic Entity... and the arrow that hit her!
Her eyes widened. How could she still be alive? As she asked the question out loud, Arthur shrugged his shoulders before shaking his head:
"I ask myself the same question. The arrow, a Noble Phantasm, did not succeed in killing you. As I brought you home, the wound began to close. I'm glad that my Master has such regenerative power."
Pyrrha opened her mouth to answer that she didn't know she had that kind of power but closed her mouth without saying anything. It certainly wasn't the time to say something like that... unless she wanted to make Saber even angrier.
In fact, the Spartan Girl had already been wounded during her fight with Lancer. And the wounds had closed in a few moments. What was going on? Before that night, she had no ability to self-heal. Finally, it is true that she healed faster than a human of this world... but not that fast.
Not really listening to Arthur who continued to lecture her on the role of the Servant and that of the Master, the difference between a knight and a lady, Pyrrha suddenly blushed. She had just realized something. She had woken up in her pajamas, and her wounds had been surrounded by bandages...
"Saber?"
Surprised by the little girl voice of his Master, Arthur paused to look at her:
"Yes?"
"You... you... you undressed me?"
Arthur had a tense smile... It was obvious that he would have preferred to face Berserker in a pankration's tournament rather than answer this question.
He coughed in his fist to give himself self-control. Some backbone Arthur, give no details, you are a knight and you only gave first aid to your overlord. Speaks as if it were a simple technical statement:
"You were covered in blood... I couldn't leave you like this."
With her face covered by her hands, her shoulders sagging, Pyrrha took a few long seconds to respond...
"I... I see."
Taking even on herself with difficulty, she stood up and pretended to be indifferent to the issue. But her face as red as brick and her gaze escaping that of Arthur proved that it was not true.
An awkward silence spread over the living room, hardly disturbed by the television which continued to disgorge the morning news... and the strange destruction that occurred all over the city. The journalists were talking about "gas leaks" caused by the mediocrity of Fuyuki's installations, which were quickly rebuilt after the fire that had ravaged the city ten years earlier.
Merlin's mental voice suddenly resounded in the mind of the Master and the Servant:
[I have a question, Pyrrha... How did you know about Archer's attack? ]
The Invincible Girl jolted before she dashed her eyebrows.
That was a good question. How did she do that?
[I don't know... my Magic Circuits reacted in a single blow... producing a large amount of energy and I felt that something was happening at the top of one of the big buildings on the right bank. An attack was imminent. I knew that for sure.]
[Mmm?] Merlin seemed to think about [It looks like an instinctive reaction. What is your Element? ]
[Element? ] said Pyrrha, the voice marked by uncertainty.
[I speak of your Elemental Affinity!]
But Pyrrha remained uncertain, unable to answer. In the mental connection, she heard a long sigh.
[The Five Great Elements are the basic substances that shape the world. The combination of them changes depending on the teachings of Magecraft schools: Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, and Void (Ether) or Water, Fire, Earth, Wood, and Metal. A Magus normally is good at manipulating at least one of them.]
[I didn't know.] Pyrrha Nikos replied.
[And your Origin?]
She had the same awkward little smile that Arthur had seen during the dream where she faced a giant scorpion. She massaged the back of her head without answering.
[Kiritsuguuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu! May you rot in the depths of the underworld until the close of time! ]
Arthur and Pyrrha exchanged a somewhat embarrassed look, and then the young redhead interrupted an endless tirade of insults in which Merlin explained that Kiritsugu was a big pile of a very special material that was not talked about between well-mannered people.
[Merlin? How do Origin and Elemental Affinity matter?]
[Origin is the driving force that comes from within the root. The Origin appears as different for every Magus. It's like an inherent compulsion that could be called a person's instinct rather than a conscious decision. Under the system of Magecraft, Origin is used to describe precise details about a Magus, while Elemental Affinity indicates one's general alignment.]
[How does a Magus determine them?]
[For Elemental Affinity, you can use tarot cards and personality tests. For the Origin, it's more difficult to determine. But if a person becomes awakened to his Origin, it becomes nearly impossible for him to stray from his Origin. Damn Kiritsugu! He did not teach you the very basics of Magecraft. It is therefore impossible for you to use your Magic Circuits correctly! In fact, Kiritsugu taught you just enough Magecraft to get the attention of the Clock Tower, disturb you, and prevent you from having a normal life, but not enough for any real help!]
Awakened? Like a Semblance?
Merlin let the Spartan Girl think for a moment and then asked her another question:
[How did you create the Aria that serves you for the Strengthening Magecraft?]
[It seemed obvious to me... The idea was to become stronger, hard, and powerful as if I were made of iron. ]
[Your Element Affinity is probably metal... or iron. You have to listen to yourself. Deep down, you know what your Element and your Origin are.]
Rin Tohsaka opened her eyes to the canopy of her colonnade bed and struggled not to cry.
She had gone to bed late, got up again later... but absolutely not rested.
The Dream Cycle showed her Archer's past. Enough memories for Rin to get an idea of who her Servant was, but not enough to know his name...
But what a fool, thought Rin. She sought to get angry, concentrating on the incurable stupidity of her Servant... but the young Magus continued to feel only sadness, pity... and horror.
All his life, he had sought to help others without asking for anything. And what did he get in return? Fear, mistrust, misunderstanding... Lonely and tragic, Archer had wandered all his life from a disaster site to a refugee camp, from a nation at war to a country serving as a base for terrorists.
He had sought to save... everyone, the "good guys" as well as the "bad guys" in an infantile demonstration of idealism.
Even if her eyes burned, she held back her tears. It would have been unworthy of the Tohsaka heiress to shed tears on a simple Servant... Archer was just a tool to win the Grail War and restore her family's reputation. Nothing more!
Ten o'clock sounded at the large clock that tick and tick away in the living room of the Tohsaka residence.
A coffee table was in the center of the living room surrounded by a cream-colored sofa and several chairs of similar design. The room was in the corner of the house and in two walls were opening narrow and high windows. The thin gauze curtains let in the sunlight, while heavy red curtains draped over them. The furniture was completed by a black wooden chest of drawers supporting three sculptures under an oil portrait in a golden rococo frame.
Rin entered with difficulty.
Dressed in a yellow nightgown with a lace collar, her hair was uncombed. In fact, her eyes were turned off, her movements were mechanical... To tell the truth, she looked like a zombie... a lovely zombie... but brought back to life by a very amateurish necromancer.
"Hello, Master, it took you long enough to wake up."
Rin slowly turned to Archer and took several seconds to identify him and find an answer:
"...'day"
Overcome by effort, she sat on the floor, placing her head against a chair and closing her eyes.
Archer raised his arms to the sky before bending over to grab his Master:
"No, you can't go back to sleep here, you'll catch a cold!"
Forcing Rin to rise, he took her to the small table and served her a cup of tea. He had also prepared homemade biscuits, toasts, jam. Usually, his Master did not eat in the morning. But, since his arrival, Archer seemed determined to change Rin's (bad) habits and give her a better lifestyle.
The young Magus had begun to resent it, but Archer was tenacious. Although pretending to hate to work on the interior, the Servant had turned the kitchen into his personal lair and took advantage of his Master's sleep to clean, maintain the plumbing, repair the electricity, or even the furniture.
At times, Rin Tohsaka felt like she had a new butler.
Drinking a delicately perfumed and perfectly infused sip of tea, the Magus turned to Archer who always held the teapot with that arrogant little smile of a perfectly confident person who always made her boil with anger.
"Your tea is at the ideal temperature, Archer."
"Of course, Rin, I'm the best."
The left eyebrow of the Tohsaka heiress trembled rhythmically as her smile tightened.
—if a butler could be so dismissive, cynical, and unbearable. Let's look on the bright side, she didn't have to pay for it... for someone as stingy as Rin, it was a quality that caught up with many of the Servant's defaults.
"Rin, since it's Sunday and we have a little free time, I suggest you go shopping. There's a lot of missing ingredients in the kitchen."
About to reply that he could go alone, the teen girl sighed. He had no change and anyway, Archer would refuse to leave her unprotected.
"All right, I'll shower, get dressed, and we'll go."
Pyrrha sighed as he looked at the state of her armor. A large hole still surrounded by dried blood adorned both the pectoral plate and the dorsal plate. How could she have survived this?
Akoúo had even been completely destroyed.
Of course, she had other copies of her signature armor and her Hoplon shield, but Pyrrha had chosen the best copies to fight Lancer.
[Your knowledge of Mystic Codes is as lacking and incomplete as that of any other form of Magecraft. ]
The mental voice of Merlin made the Invincible Girl flinch, she wanted to answer bluntly but shook her head... certainly, Pyrrha was proud to have made by hands replicas of the weapons she used on Remnant and turned them into Mystic Codes. What was she compared to Merlin? The Magician had knowledge of the Magecraft infinitely superior to her own. After all, Merlin was a legend, a true magician, able to overcome the laws of nature and physics to bend the world to her whims.
[Can you help me change my weapons and armor, so that they are more effective?] Asked the Spartan Girl.
[Of course, who do you think I am?]
Pyrrha smiled at this answer... it was easy to push the proud people to help you. After all, they were always eager to display their superiority and the breadth of their knowledge.
[ I need you to buy some items]
Pyrrha acquiesced:
[Okay, anyway, I have to go shopping... I lost my shopping bag yesterday.]
And that's how Rin Tohsaka and Pyrrha Nikos both left her home to go to Mount Miyama, the shopping district of Miyama Town.
Some encounters were the result of coincidence, but for Masters, it could only be the result of fate.
Rin Tohsaka made a wide detour to avoid Koushuuensaikan Taizan. It was the only Chinese restaurant in Mount Miyama. Famous for serving particularly spicy dishes... especially Mapo Tofu...
The only thing that can move Kirei Kotomine's cold heart.
At this hour, on a Sunday, there is little chance of meeting the false priest... he could not miss Mass, after all... since it was him who officiated. But for Rin this detour had become a kind of reflex.
As the Red Devil approached an antique shop, she stopped shivering... She did not believe in ghosts... well, now of course... with Archer in astral form at her side, to say otherwise would have been absurd, but... the person who arrived on the other side of the street could not be there!
Pyrrha Emiya!
Dressed in an amber Duffle-coat with Brandenburg, the pretty redhead walked peacefully down the street. Rin looked at her with amazement, so mesmerized by the Amazon that she did not pay attention to the handsome young blond man who was carrying her shopping bag. It was not possible! Pyrrha Emiya was dead yesterday!
As Pyrrha and Saber continued to chat, Rin began to run. She caught up with Pyrrha and grabbed her wrist to drag her into a nearby alley.
"Tohsaka-san?"
Without paying attention to the astonished exclamation of the Invincible Girl, Rin pressed her between an air-conditioning outlet and a garbage container to untie her Duffle-coat and lift up the big sweater as well as the shirt she wore underneath.
The skin showed no wounds, nothing... not a scratch. It was impossible! She was certain that the events of last night were not a dream. Archer had also seen Pyrrha dying pierced by his arrow.
"What do you think you are doing? Let her go!" And after a small pause: "Pyrrha, are you okay?"
Rin stopped her inspection, turned around, and saw that the handsome blond man had followed them. He seemed worried about Emiya-san and looked at her with... uh... why was he looking at her as if she had just committed some sort of... disgusting crime?
Archer seemed to have understood what she was thinking since he spoke with a biting irony:
[Congratulations, Master... you just got caught in broad daylight molesting a teen girl of your age in a back alley, a comment regarding your accession to the dignity of "sexual predator of Fuyuki"?]
Rin's eyes widened with horror realizing that this was indeed what the redhead and the blond... her Servant?... must have thought! She looked at Pyrrha's face... the Invincible Girl was hiding behind her raised hands, but between her fingers, one could see that she was red with embarrassment. As she looked down, Rin saw Pyrrha's bra. It was a pretty piece of green lingerie, not really sexy underwear, but with enough lace to be feminine.
Realizing what she was looking at... Rin released the redhead. One hand on the chest, shaking the other in vain, the Magus felt her face covered with sweat:
"Wait, that's not what you think! I... "
But Saber took Pyrrha by the arm and pulled her to the main street without listening. And Rin stood there with her arm outstretched as if to catch them and with her mouth open...
[I hope you have a good lawyer. I want to remind you that sexual harassment is a crime in Japan. At least you have good taste. You could long look for a cuter girl to take in a dark alley for making "ecchi" things.]
Not hearing his Master protest, Archer looked down.
Rin squatted her nose against the wall, and shook the head while scratching her hair furiously:
"Oh crap! I screw it again!"
As normal, Rin was nicknamed "Miss Perfect" because she was the prettiest girl in Homurahara Academy and the best student, always smiling, always cool, always polite... A true Idol! However, the heiress of the Tohsaka possessed the gift (not really blessed by the gods) of acting completely opposite to her usual behavior at the worst possible time.
We could see the result!
[Oops, I teased my Master too much, and I broke her.]
Archer's sarcasm finally made the Magus reacts, she rose with a single blow, fist brandished in the direction of the empty space where her astralized Servant stood:
"Moron! This is no fun!"
Rin's face was red with anger and she had tears in the corners of her eyes. As she laid two fingers on her Command's Mark, Archer quickly apologized before the Tohsaka heiress made a foolish mistake:
[Okay, okay, you're right, it's not fun, forgive me. ] As this was not enough to drive away the anger of the red Magus, he moved on to the first idea that going through his mind [Let's look on the bright side, Pyrrha Emiya is alive, no Master died yesterday. Is that what you wanted, Rin? Isn't it? ]
The Red Devil calmed down instantly, forgetting to punish her Servant with a Command Spell. Yes, Pyrrha Emiya was alive... She suddenly felt like a heavy weight had been removed from her shoulders.
And then...
As Rin Tohsaka thought of the incident the image of the delicate green bra and especially the troubled face of Pyrrha made her heart leap in his chest. The red came back on her cheeks, but anger or embarrassment had nothing to do with it this time.
When she thought Pyrrha had no boyfriend because the boys at Homurahara Academy thought she was too tall and athletic. Her perfect, white skin, the muscle of her abdomen... and that shyness...These idiots were seriously lacking in taste! Pyrrha Emiya was simply beautiful...
Rin Tohsaka was bisexual... and she was attracted to the beautiful women in armor as by the odd teenagers with red hair... We had just served her two favorite dishes on the same plate.
Arthur carefully examined Pyrrha, the young woman was still red with confusion. But she soon recovered.
The Knight of the Silver Sky was furious:
"When I think things like this happen in broad daylight! There's really a problem with the police in this town!"
Merlin began to laugh:
[Do you mean they take Servants' fights for gas explosions? Yes, they must have a problem...]
Arthur lifted up his eyes to heaven, angry:
[You know what I mean, Merlin! ]
[Although I find the misunderstanding particularly hilarious, I will have to end it. Pyrrha, this girl is called Tohsaka? Right? ]
Arthur gasped by recognizing this name... and what it implied. The Invincible Girl replied with a nod:
[Yes, Rin Tohsaka... she's a girl of my age, she's at my school but in another class.]
[The Grail War was created by three families who are also the main participants of the confrontation: the Makiri, the Einzbern, and the... Tohsaka. Rin is the last member of this family and she is the Second Owner, the agent of the Clock Tower in Fuyuki. Given the Command Marks on her left hand, she is also a Master. Probably Archer's Master... Rin Tohsaka was as surprised as Saber and I to see that Pyrrha had survived. The "aggression" was not that you thought it was. Tohsaka only wanted to see Pyrrha's wounds.] After a pause to reflect, Merlin added: [ She may be a bit of an airhead.]