During their first day on Fuyuki, Ritsuka, Salter and Medusa wander around the town looking for places where the Masters could be.
An encounter with another Master however takes their mission a whole different path.
Medusa woke up earlier than the other two, looking at them sleeping in the bed while hugging.
"Master, Alter, are you awake?" - she asked as both of them opened their eyes after hearing her.
"Oh, good morning Medusa" - Ritsuka said as he slowly got out of bed, sleepy.
"Morning" - Salter said as she dressed herself in her Shinjuku attiere - "Where are we going today Master?" -
"We're going to walk around the city searching for the Masters, shouldn't take us long to find some source of magical energy" - Ritsuka explained as he dressed.
"Is this just an excuse to have a day off with Alter?" - Medusa asked, alredy knowing the Master's intentions.
"Partially, yes. Now let's go" -
After they left the hotel and started their walk, the first thing they did was go to isolated areas as Masters could use them to hide from the public eye, especially if one of those Masters had an Assassin Servant.
Ritsuka remembered what Da Vinci said to him about two of the Servants in this war, Caster and Assassin. The Caster was none other than Medea, who used an irregular summoning to become the Master of Assassin, Sasaki Kojiro.
"Master, if we find a Servant, should we engage?" - Alter asked Ritsuka.
"Only if we need to, remember that our primary objective is to find the cause of the Singularity and take it out for good" -
"Then why are we searching for other Masters?" - Medusa asked.
"If we know where other Masters are, then we can maybe forge a deal with them. More help is always requiered" - Ritsuka answered while the three stumbled across a set of stairs leading to an old temple.
"This place is filled with magical energy" - Da Vinci said from Chaldea - "No doubt, this is where Medea is" -
"Fine. Da Vinci, can you mark it?" -
"Copy that Ritsuka Kun" -
After marking the location of Medea's lair, the trio then went to the center of Fuyuki to take a short break (not that they needed to, it was Salter's idea) to refresh and find some other place to search in.
They settled on the same park where Salter and Medusa battled the night before, noting that every trace of their fight was now gone, including the blood from Shinji's missed arm. He was also missing, which gave the all a bad feeling.
"Hey Medusa, do you remember who was your original Master?" - Ritsuka asked the Rider, even if thanks to Da Vinci he alredy knew.
"Yes, she's a girl called Sakura Matou, sister to Shinji" - she answered while eating a sandwich that Ritsuka bought for her.
"Sister huh? I would've alredy ran away from home if I had to live with someone like him" - Alter said, also eating a sandwich and chips.
"Do you know where we could find her? Not only would we return you to your original Master, but that could also mean we could get more help" - Ritsuka asked Medusa.
"She probably is with her friend Shirou, she spends nearly all day there" - Medusa answered, knowing Sakura's movements.
"Shirou, the Master of Artoria in this Grail War" - Ritsuka said, thinking for a moment about him.
If what Artoria had said about him was true, he could be a valuable ally, but he also knew that Salter wasn't going to get along with him. Worse thing, how this worlds Artoria would react to meeting with Salter was an even greater fear of him because he remembered when those two met back in Chaldea... They nearly destroyed the Command Room. If that happened when they were allies, he didn't want to imagine what would happen if they were enemies.
"So he's the Master of the King if Knights in this world? I hope she can give me a fair challenge" - Salter said while finishing her chips.
"He's a Master? I... Didn't knew that" -
"Don't worry about that part Medusa, is whos is his Servant the worrying part for us" - Ritsuka said.
Someone listened to their conversation, a woman with black hair and blue eyes, looking at them weridly before continuing to walk forward, with the 3 not knowing of her presence. Da Vinco however did, and she also saw 3 Command Seals on her hand.
"Hey Ritsuka Kun, that girl with the black hair in twintails" - Da Vinci said to Ritsuka as he started to turn his head until he found her - "Rin Tohsaka, remember her?" -
Of couse he did, she was the one serving as the Master of EMIYA during this war and also the girl that Ishtar and Eresh borrowed the body of.
"Follow her" -
"What, what?" -
"You heard me, follow here, you might find something interesting" -
Despite wanting to stay in the park with Medusa and Salter, Ritsuka decided to obey Da Vinci and follow Rin to wherever she might go, hiding thanks to the Ninjutsu techniques taught by Kotaro. His Servants went with a simple apporach, just turning into spirit form.
After following her for a while, Rin simply stopped dead in her tracks, like if she knew that someone was following her.
"Archer, come here" - Rin said as her Servant appeared in an empty street - "Is there someone following me?" -
"Yes Master, there is" - EMIYA answered simply - "Whoever you are, come out" -
Ritsuka knew that they were busted, and he alone had no way to fight against EMIYA, so he came out from his hiding and both Alter and Medusa appeared again.
"Two Servants? Who are you" - Rin asked, confused about Alter and Medusa.
"My name is Ritsuka Fujimaru, a pleasure to meet you" - Ritsuka said, extending his hand to Rin.
"Why were you following me? You want to kill me?" - Rin asked with EMIYA standing by her side, ready to attack.
"None of that matter. Instead, I want for the two of us to make an allience" - Ritsuka said, but he knew that Rin wasn't going to trust him straight away.
"An alliance? You're an interesting one Fujimaru... What kind of allience exactly?" -
"I can explain it to you, but first we'd need our Servants to give us some alone time" -
While still giving EMIYA the order to keep an eye on Ritsuka, the Servant turned into spirit form the same way Alter and Medusa did.
"Alright Rituska Fujmaru. Talk" -
About the voting that I did, for the moment I've yet to decide, but just to clarify before ending the chapter:
No, it's not going to be NTR because none of the girls are yet dating Shirou.
In case one does end up with Ritsuka, the other two would still end up with Shirou, or all 3 in case none is chosen.
I hope that aliviates some concerns you might have dear readers.
That's all for today, see you next chapter.