(A/N) AAAAAAAAAAH I UPDATED THIS FINALLY. Sorry for the long author's note, but there's quite a bit to cover here.

I'd like to start with an apology. Due to unforeseen circumstances, this story got hit with not one, but two hiatuses (that's a word, right? I think that's a word). I had (and still have) a poll open on my profile open for readers to tell me which stories they want me to update the most, and here we are. Voilà. We're back, baby. (BTW if you wanna cast your vote now, be my guest)

To address the most common concern amongst reviewers: yes, I am aware that much of what happened in Fuyuki felt anticlimactic. Truly, I felt the same way, and it left a bad taste in my mouth to make it like that. Unfortunately, my need for the story to be impactful in the long run outweighed my need to make Fuyuki memorable in any way besides serving as my introductory piece. As a result, some interactions (notably with Emiya and Saber) were mostly one-liners and were resolved fairly easily. The only consolation that I can offer you is that it will result in better resolutions further down the line.

I'm not trying to make an excuse for my execution; I acknowledge that it could have been done better, but I'm laying out the thought process behind why I did what I did.

Second, I'd like to apologize in advance for this chapter. I'm not saying "It's bad, but plz read anyway lulz", but I will say that FGO is an incredibly difficult property to write fanfiction for, and stepping away from it for a few months makes it more difficult for me to stay in tune with what I've written so far. The effect is that it's taken me more words to write about less. Thankfully, things should flow better for me as I move onto Orleans.

On that note, please don't be afraid that the whole "gacha" thing will slow down the updates in future. It really isn't all that difficult to write around, and so far I don't think the first randomized servant will cause any problems. It really is just FGO itself that makes things hard to write lol.

...But on that note, seriously? ONE OFF FROM ALTERA-SAN? Ain't no way y'all already got me feeling the salt on the first gacha run smh my head our luck is bad civilization.

BTW I broke down the first gacha on my profile so go check it out.

I don't have much else to say, I don't think. I'm pretty sure most of the concerns in the previous chapter were about that one thing particularly, but if you had a matter that you don't think I've answered adequately, please HMU through PMs. I answer all PMs, and if you don't get a reply from me within a day or two it's because the site is wonky and hasn't sent me notifications. (Just send the message again at that point lol).

Edit: fixed million/billion typo lmao

X

"You're awake. How are you feeling, Master?"

The first sound that came from my mouth was a groan.

Slowly, I sat upright and wiped my blurry eyes. It was easy enough to tell that I was on a bed, but it was only one my eyesight had returned to me that I noticed that the room wasn't familiar to me at all.

Leaning against one of the room's white walls was Lancer.

She was still dressed in her combat attire, but it was worm much more loosely. Her veil was thrown around her shoulders as a shawl rather than as a hood, revealing her long, purple hair and serpentine eyes to me.

"Where–"

"We have returned to Chaldea. I had taken it upon myself to look after you until you regained consciousness."

I chose to ignore the concerning thought that she had been watching me while I slept in favour of focusing on more pressing matters.

"How long was I out? Did everyone make it out all right?"

Lancer hummed. "Seventeen hours; you were the last to awaken. The Director is waiting for you in the command room."

I let out a breath that I didn't know I was holding.

That was good. At least we got through this much in one piece.

"And Mash?"

The girl was still a teenager. I would have liked to make sure that she was holding up all right emotionally. Even if her body made it out okay, this was all a lot for someone her age to deal with.

"I'm not sure," the servant answered. "She is currently working on a project given to her by Doctor Romani Archaman, but I wasn't given any details."

The timid man from the hologram. I see... I could always check in on her later, then.

"Let's–"

Lancer drew closer to me, and her suddenly invading my personal space made me clamp up before I could get a second word in.

She grabbed me by the face, and all that I could let out was a muffled protest. My head was forcefully tilted from side to side.

Her expression was distinctly melancholic, although I couldn't begin to imagine why.

"You are Emiya Shirou."

Another one who put my family name before my given name. It was honestly strange, considering that I rarely –if ever– introduced myself that way nowadays.

"…Yes, that's right."

I didn't forget to introduce myself, did I? That would have been rude of me.

"I see," was her only response.

How strange.

Her touch absented itself from my cheeks. Lancer pulled away and stood near the end of the bed.

"The director will be debriefing you on our future courses of action," she told me. "Your involvement will be critical."

…My involvement will be…?

It was only then that my brain began to revive my memories of recent events. It all came to me in an instant.

All that I allowed to show on my face was the furrowing of my brows.

I wanted to scream. Instead, I pushed myself onto my feet with the intention of searching for my phone.

Lancer moved to grab my shoulder, but I brushed her hand aside.

"Master," she called out evenly. "We should go."

I found it. Dialling a number that I knew like the back of my hand, I placed my cellphone to my ear.

"…"

"Try as you might, there won't be anyone on the other end of that line."

At the servant's words, my trembling hands reluctantly ended the outgoing call.

"Sorry," I apologized. "I had to try."

The rest of the world was… really gone. Seven and a half billion people erased from existence.

The top piece of Lancer's high-heeled shoes resonated loudly against the room's tile flooring as she passed me by. The woman didn't even give me a second glance to make sure that I was following before she closed the door behind her.

With a sharp intake of breath, I forced myself to join her.

I needed to snap out of it. Lancer wasn't going to stop and feel sorry for me; we were all in the same boat here.

All that I could do from here –all that we could do from here– was to take everything one step at a time.

X

She brought me to a room that I didn't recognize.

Much like the rest of Chaldea, the space was monochromatic and fairly empty. All there was to set it apart was the large conference table placed dead-center.

Besides Lancer and myself, there were only three people present: the director, Doctor Roman, and the woman who I saw in the holographic projection.

The latter two greeted me with waves and friendly smiles, yet the director herself didn't even bother to look up from the document held in her hand.

"Spellcaster," she called.

I was quick to pick up on the seriousness in her inflection. My back straightened out of habit.

"Ma'am," I acknowledged.

She took a moment to glance away from the papers occupying her in order to quirk a brow at me. The director was quick to shift her eyes back down, however.

"In the year two thousand and four, you were a registered participant in the Fifth Heaven's Feel ritual. You didn't win, but being able to get away with your life is an accomplishment unto itself, I suppose. In two thousand and six, you were registered at the Clock Tower as an apprentice under the victor of the Grail War, Rin Tohsaka. For a time, there were rumours that you two were actively trying to find reasons to shut the ritual down permanently with the help of the Lord of the Norwich Faculty, but no one bothered to look into it until the bill had already been passed."

I was definitely caught off guard by her sudden narration of events from my teenage years, and her last point, in particular, was worrisome. That wasn't the sort of thing that could be found in public archives, was it? I hoped that it wasn't, at least. Taking away a potential path to Akasha from right under the Clock Tower's nose wasn't necessarily an advisable course of action, so it was a little worrying that the director was able to dig that up so easily.

"In the year two thousand and eight, the Carillon Observatory offered you the position of the twenty-fifth enforcer following the retirement of senior member Eadda Stroude," she recited. "At twenty years of age, accepting the role would have made you the youngest in history to have earned such honours."

I calmed myself; this part was on my official record, at least. She wasn't finished, by the looks of it, so I chose not to interrupt unless called upon.

As subtly as possible, I eyes the other two seated at the table. They weren't phased in the least; either they had masterful poker faces, or these were all things that they had heard before. The director could be revisiting their findings now that I was here and able to either confirm or deny the retelling of events.

Not that I'd been asked to do so.

"For some contrived reason that I don't care to piece together, you declined… until two thousand and thirteen, when one of Lorelei Barthomeloi's expeditions led three full-time contractors to their deaths at the hands of dead apostles. You were all but forced to take the spot at that point."

That wasn't quite right. No one forced me to do anything.

I couldn't hide my grimace; it was a moment that I still looked back on from time to time. Unfortunately, there was nothing that I could do to change the past. I had chosen my path, and it resulted in the deaths of individuals who –for a time– I had considered comrades. Despite Rin's urgings, it was then that I wasn't able to look the other way any longer.

The stack slipped from her fingers and landed on the table with a dull thud.

Olga Marie Animusphere pulled at her hair and let out a frustrated growl.

"How infuriating! You're actually sort of competent, aren't you!?"

Uh… what?

"Yes?" I asked more than I answered. I hadn't the slightest clue what it was that she was getting angry about.

I was ignored.

"Da Vinci!" she spoke firmly. The director was quick to regain her "Fill him in."

The brown-haired woman to her left cleared her throat.

"Of course. First off, it's nice to meet you properly, Emiya Shirou. As you've probably heard by now, I'm Leonardo Da Vinci: one of the first servants summoned by Chaldea."

I heard her name being thrown around a few times, but I had to this point withheld any assumptions that she was the Leonardo Da Vinci. Not because she was a woman –it wasn't like that sort of mix-up had never happened before, after all– but rather because I didn't think that Chaldea had any servants other than Lancer.

Obviously, I was wrong.

"A pleasure," I replied along with a quick nod.

"To recap the series of events that have landed us here, starting with Lev's betrayal…" she started, then immediately paused to gauge the director's reaction.

Animusphere's expression was unreadable. The fact that she was making such an effort to not seem affected made it clear to me that Lev Lainur's actions hurt her deeply. I didn't understand the depth of her relationship with the man –and, most likely, I never would– but it was obvious that he meant a great deal to her.

Brave face or not, she looked crushed.

"Continue," urged the white-haired woman impatiently.

"Of course," the servant acceded easily. "As I was saying, our enemy calls himself 'Lev Lainur Flauros'. If his claims of being a demon are to be believed, then his title likely alludes to the Duke of the Ars Goetia. We shall err on the side of caution and work under the assumption that 'Lev Lainur Flauros' and 'Duke Flauros of the Ars Goetia' are one and the same. Regardless, his true identity doesn't change the fact that his actions have had very real consequences for the human order.

"Humanity has been completely purged from our timeline. It's only thanks to our protective wards that we haven't followed suit."

I wanted to curl up into a ball and lay on the floor where I stood. Even though I already knew that, it was another thing entirely to have it said outright.

But I didn't.

For the sake of those that we could still save, no matter how small that number may be, I would stand tall.

"Of course, this unfortunate reality of ours can still be reversed."

For a moment, I dared to hope.

"How?" I asked at the servant, perhaps a little more fervently than I would have liked.

Doctor Roman cleared his throat.

"I can take it from here, I think."

A hologram, similar to the one that was used to talk to us during the singularity, appeared in the middle of the table. It seemed to relay a scene of Chaldea's control room.

It was utterly destroyed. At the very limits of the hologram's contained view, Chaldea's technicians could be seen clearing debris and installing temporary structural supports.

The only thing that remained seemingly untouched was CHALDEAS itself.

"Please bring your attention to these seven points," asked Romani. The hologram zoomed in on the globe-like structure, on which several coordinates started to blink in an angry red. "Immediately following the conclusion of the First Order, a bunch of new singularities started to pop up one after the other. We're all but certain that this was Lev Lainur Flauros' doing, and that their existence is at the heart of humanity's destruction."

"Spellcaster!" spoke Animusphere with authority. "You understand what we need to do now, don't you?"

My hands trembled uneasily.

This was a lot.

It was a lot to ask of me, just as it was a lot to ask of anybody. Going by my admittedly poor understanding of how singularities worked, the demon Flauros created enough disruptions in our history that humankind ceased to exist in the present day.

Chaldea had the infrastructure to correct those disruptions. What we just did in Fuyuki is proof of that.

We needed to do that seven more times.

"I do," I answered with as much conviction as I could muster. "Are there any surviving masters?"

Romani looked away and answered in the director's stead. "None that are in any way combat-ready. Most are in critical condition; we can't hope for that to change any time soon."

I was alone then.

It was up to me to save the world. No one else would do it. No one else could do it. I was the only hope for humanity.

"Bold of you to smile at a time like this," noted Da Vinci. "Feeling confident, are we?"

Time felt like it stopped for a split second, and my throat felt like it was made of sandpaper. Without a second thought, my hand shot up to cover the elation tugging at my cheeks.

How unsightly.

"No. Forgive me," I responded evenly.

I needed to get a hold of myself.

"Listen well, Shirou Emiya."

From what I could recall, that was the first time that the director had addressed me by name. Steadily, she rose from her seat and planted her hands on the table. I couldn't see any of the usual disdain on her face when she spoke; her expression didn't have a single crack in it.

"This isn't fair… I understand that perfectly, yet our only option is to place Mankind's future on your shoulders alone. Normally I'd ask if you'd be willing to accept these responsibilities, but unfortunately, current circumstances force my hand; I must insist that you help Chaldea correct all seven of these singularities."

I straightened my back.

"Of course. I'm nothing special, but I'll do what I can."

"Good!" she snapped. The chair behind her was pushed out of the way and she circled the table to stand in front of me. She held out her hand.

"With my power as the current head of Finis Chaldea, the organization in charge of the preservation of the human order, I decree this effort to be a Grand Order. May luck be on our side."

In a daze, my hand came up to grab hers in a handshake.

"Now onto more pressing matters. You can project Noble Phantasms, and I want to know how."

Before any other thought came to mind, I instinctively clamped my mouth shut as tightly as possible.

It was a knee-jerk reaction that Rin had beaten into me after a decade of living at the Clock Tower's doorstep. Talking about my Reality Marble was bad, after all. If a single magus caught word of it, that would be the end of the line for me.

"Eliminate all risks of your mouth moving before your head; you don't want to be making half-assed excuses because of a needless effort to keep the flow of the conversation on pace. Gather your thoughts and think carefully about how you want to answer."

"We're not going to use or hold anything you say against you. We're trying to save the world here, Emiya. Even if you tell me right now that you're a five-hundred-year-old dead apostle, I would not care as long as it means that our chances look even a little better."

She looked furious.

…At least, that's what I thought at first.

The look she was giving me was an intense one, without a doubt, though it was only so because of how she didn't allow her eyes to stray from my own for even an instant. She didn't so much as blink.

As if searching –begging– for an answer.

She was asking this of me not as a magus, but as a leader with the weight of her responsibilities threatening to crush her.

"It's a talent unique to me. My brand of gradation air reproduces everything from an object's method of production to its accumulated history. Ignoring that they're magical constructs, my copies are near reflections of the original. As someone who's been a master in a holy grail war, I've had plenty of opportunities to see Noble Phantasms before now."

She didn't look satisfied with my explanation in the least. "I asked how not what."

I allowed a silent breath to escape from my nose.

"Both my Origin and Element are 'Sword'."

Slowly, her eyes began to widen. Sill at the table behind her, Da Vinci and the doctor had similar reactions.

I didn't give any of them a chance to think about what that could imply before I hit them with the next part.

"Because of this, I'm naturally attuned to weapons; my reality marble, Unlimited Blade Works, developed accordingly. It allows me to perfectly understand any war tool, and provides me with the means to replicate them with magecraft."

Animusphere looked like she wanted to say something, but she froze and entered a daze. She tried again but was met with the same result.

Doctor Roman looked like a fish on land, mouth flapping uselessly.

In contrast, Da Vinci seemed to get over whatever shock she felt fairly quickly.

"Hm. A reality marble would certainly explain it."

"…"

An awkward silence followed the woman's cheerful remark.

The director sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Fine. I can work with this," was all she said.

Before I could register her sudden flippant attitude towards the unveiling of my most closely guarded secret, the woman walked around me and headed for the door.

"We're done here," she told the room over her shoulder. "I'll send word on any future developments. For now, Da Vinci can do with our master candidate as she pleases."

As abruptly as her orders came, she was gone. She seemed to be in a rush.

Wait, what was that about Da Vinci doing something to me?

Doctor Roman schooled his expression and let out a heavy sigh.

"Please forgive her. It probably doesn't need to be said, but the director is barely holding herself together right now. She's doing her best to be strong for us, but she still has her limits."

…I could see that. Compared to how she acted back in the singularity, there was a noticeable difference.

Da Vinci patted me on the shoulder. "With that out of the way, why don't'cha come with me? I've got something for you."

How unsettling.

"What might that be?" I asked, trying to be as subtle about my reticence as possible. Just because she didn't react outwardly to me having a taboo and inhuman magecraft didn't mean that her curiosity was nonexistent. I wasn't familiar enough with Leonardo Da Vinci to be certain of the lengths to which she'd go to satiate that curiosity.

"That's a secret!" she chirped, much to my reluctance. "Both of you, follow me."

Both of us?

I looked over my shoulder and saw Lancer giving the other servant a chaste nod.

…I almost forgot that she was with us, honestly. Had she been standing behind me since we got here? It was kind of frightening how easily she could hide her presence.

Moreover, I couldn't help but find it strange how she had been staying silent this whole time. I couldn't claim to know her that well yet, but for her to have not said a single thing during the whole exchange just seemed… off.

Doctor Roman gave us a cheerful and wave as we left. Honestly, it didn't do much for my nerves.

X

The room that we entered was much smaller than the one we were just occupying, but it was noticeably furnished in comparison.

It was cluttered. Not because it was disorganized, but simply because there was too much stuff for a tidy appearance to be an option. Bookcases lined every millimetre of available wall space. Easels and wooden tables ran the length of the floor, atop which were placed miscellaneous objects ranging from scrolls to trinkets and contraptions… some of which were somewhat recognizable, come to think of it.

"I won't pretend that you being stuck leading the charge on your own is in any way a preferable outcome," prefaced Da Vinci, "but it does have its up-sides. Notably…"

A folded bundle of cloth was taken from one of the tables and placed in my arms.

"…This."

Clothes?

Rather than ask her for the details, I used Structural Analysis on the garment.

"It's a mystic code," I concluded. It was similar enough to the one that I was currently wearing, but…

"Correct," affirmed the servant with a quick nod. "Up 'till now, they needed to be mass-produced to effectively serve as many different masters as possible. Now that it's just you, all of our resources –and my time– went towards supporting you alone. I present to you: the Chaldea Combat Uniform, Mark One!"

A quick flick of her eyes down to the package in my hands encouraged me to unfold it.

Thematically, it was quite similar to the one that I currently wore. Rather than a military-style suit, however, it was both structurally reinforced and fairly skin-tight.

It kind of reminded me of Cu Chulainn's attire when he was summoned as a lancer class servant.

Da Vinci ran her finger down the item's outer seam.

"I'm quite proud of it, I must say. It was designed to your specifications, so it should suit you swimmingly."

My tongue stalled, and my question was stuck at the tip of it. Did they ever ask me for something like that?

She must have noticed my confusion. Correcting herself, she quickly added, "Or rather, our specifications based on data that we've collected during your first outing as a master. Basic stuff, really: patterns, habits, tendencies, strengths, weaknesses… that sort of thing."

They were able to get that much from such a small sample size?

"What were you able to find?"

I was genuinely curious. This sort of information was priceless to someone like me. More so considering what I was expected to do in the near future. If I wanted to improve myself, this was a great place to start.

Her lips were pressed together in a small yet excited smile. "I'll break it down for you as I go over all the cool stuff that I packed into it."

It sounded like she was eager to brag about her work.

"Of course."

Da Vinci cleared her throat.

"I should probably start by mentioning that I've omitted healing spells altogether. It wouldn't do much else other than take up space on the schematic."

I furrowed my brows, not understanding the logic behind that decision. "Being able to provide medical attention in emergency situations is useful, isn't it?"

The woman hummed.

"Yes… is what I'd say were we in any other situation. Our line of thinking when we added it to the standard mystic code was that it would allow our masters to recover from stray attacks; debris, environmental dangers and the like. Unfortunately, we had wholly underestimated what servant combat would entail in practice."

"In what sense?"

She poked my chest. "You didn't use the spell once, and for good reason."

I blinked. "I didn't?"

I couldn't really remember…

"Nope!" was Da Vinci's cheerful reply. "There wasn't much of an opportunity for you to use it in the first place. Unlike most magi, your approach to servant combat involves throwing yourself into the thick of things. I'd tell you not to do that, but the strategy has worked out pretty well. With that show you've put on for us, I'm not even that surprised that you managed to land yourself a spot on the throne of heroes."

"That Archer servant wasn't me," I corrected on impulse.

"Sure, whatever," she waved me off to my secret displeasure before reembarking her train of thought. "Your greatest weakness as a combatant is that you're only human, at the end of the day. If you're grazed or knocked around a little, then your injuries aren't significant enough to warrant the use of your spell. Anything beyond that –coming from a servant, at least– would just kill you outright. I could argue that you should have used it after your fight with Saber, but at that point, you would have been dead regardless had the cards not fallen as they did. See where I'm going with this? If we want to make full use of you –and your reality marble– then the standard, flimsy first aid spell can't save you."

I frowned. Though I understood her reasoning to an extent, I couldn't pretend that having such a thing available to me wouldn't have been a good safety net, if only a psychological one.

"Oh! Don't worry though," she added, noticing my hesitation. "I'm working on a new spell that might be able to slip around most of those issues; you can expect new and improved mystic codes in the future. Let's move on to the juicy parts for now, though.

"Spell number one: Party-Wide Reinforcement!"

"Wait, seriously?" I blurted out. "Is something like that even possible?"

I seemed to have sufficiently stroked her ego. Da Vinci puffed out her chest proudly. "Of course it's possible… for me. Don't underestimate the know-how of a genius."

For the first time in a while, I heard Lancer's voice.

"This will be a great boon, Master. If we had something like this against that Saber, I'd wager that our margin of victory would have been much larger. The potential of a spell like this is leagues beyond that of the one you used when fighting Caster and me."

Da Vinci hummed approvingly. "Listen to Lancer! She's got the right idea. For anyone else, Momentary Reinforcement would be fine; cast it on the servant and call it a day. For a master like you whose craft is combat-oriented, however, the choice between your servant and yourself isn't as obvious. On one hand, a servant with enhanced parameters is always great, but you'd like to keep up with the enemy too, wouldn't you?"

I touched my chin to my fist and closed my eyes.

"I see what you mean. On one hand, Lancer would have been able to handle Saber in longer spurts had her strength parameter been just a little higher. On the other hand, there would have been a lot more that I could have done if could trust my body to keep up with her…"

That version of Arturia was powerful, but not incredibly agile. I didn't need to be strong enough to be able to block one of her swings, but having the muscle to redirect it would be enough for me to have been useful in melee combat as long as I didn't let myself get hit.

"That's right! You're a suicidal moron."

The words were both cheerful and sudden. It took a moment for my brain to catch up. "I'm sorry, come again?"

Not losing her smile, Da Vinci caressed the mystic code once more.

"Don't worry though. If you're ever in a pinch, you have these bad boys right here!

"Spell number two: Order Change! It lets you teleport a servant to any location at will! If you're about to get bifurcated by an enemy, just use this instead of a command spell!"

Da Vinci was acting happy, but she also seemed annoyed, somehow.

"Finally, spell number three: Gandr! It's not usually that powerful of a spell, but the mystic code's magical output should be enough to–"

I couldn't help myself. I laughed.

Both servants looked at me strangely, though Da Vinci's confusion was more evident than Lancer's.

"Hm? Did I say something funny?"

I shook my head. "No, you didn't. I'm sorry, please continue."

It really wasn't funny. For Da Vinci to think of using that spell in that particular way was too ironic for me to not notice.

It was an unexpected reminder of what I had just lost, and it hurt.

She coughed. "Yes… well, the point is that Gandr is normally a curse that inflicts weakness, but I've amped it up enough that even a servant would be stunned by its effects– if only for a moment. If a split second ever becomes the difference between victory and defeat, please feel free to use it."

I was only partly paying attention. I knew how Gandr worked, after all.

I gripped the mystic code tightly. Tighter than whatever it was that I felt squeezing my heart.

"I'll need to test these out," I told the craftsman. "In fact, I need to know everything about my duty as a master of Chaldea –all the procedures, formations, regulations– that I wasn't able to learn before the emergency Rayshift."

Structure was good. Structure was what would keep us alive going forward.

I had lived my life up to this point "doing what I could". If ever I failed, I would accept my mistake and do my best not to repeat it; to fulfil my promise to Rin –to never become that man– I couldn't allow myself to wallow in my own regret.

That wasn't an option anymore. Failure wasn't an option anymore.

I will save humanity, and I will save Rin.

Da Vinci's mouth made an "o" shape. The woman blinked, then switched to a smile. "Smart. Go find Romani. He should be able to give you the rundown on our combat training facilities, and any technician should be able to answer most of your questions."

I nodded.

"Thank you, Da Vinci. I appreciate what you've done for me," I told her honestly.

Her only answer was a small wave as I left her workshop with Lancer in tow.

I froze at the entrance.

I was forgetting something…

Ah.

"Sorry, one last thing," I spoke over my shoulder. "Do you know where I could find Mash Kyrielight? There's something that I want to ask her."