29/ Winter's Detritus
Kayla was unusually flushed and quiet when I brought the tamales to the table. Most families had finished eating, so we could move if the lamps were too hot. She kept shaking her head and thanking me for the food. I took out a wasabi packet, tore it and squirted a pea-sized dollop onto the masa. She rolled her eyes. After four months, a practiced reflex.
"Why wasabi?" She almost always asks me that too.
"There are people who like bacon soda."
"Chris, no one thinks bacon is cool anymore."
"What about putting melted cheese on everything?"
"Doood, melted cheese on anything is so good."
"It's like that but wasabi."
"But ummmm, can you really taste anything?"
I take another bite out of my chicken tamale and count off the ingredients in my head. "The wasabi just makes it better. An extra kick."
"I don't know. Aren't tamales like pretty good on their own."
Sure, you can taste every ingredient and spice used to make this cuisine, but when you add something that doesn't belong, i.e. wasabi, you can glimpse true flavor within the oxymoron before the impurity blocks everything out.
We continue eating and chatting. By we, I mean, she gossips about what's going on at school, what song she wants to learn on the ukulele next, and the progress she's made in the new game she's playing. I ask questions so she'll keep ummming and liking. When our Farmer's date is over, I, as always, take her to a small parking lot down the road where her dad always parks.
He's a single parent. Something happened to her mom when she was really young. They don't talk about it. She says he's a decent dad, but sometimes too helicopter-y and super obvious. On our first 'date' he followed us and I ended up waving at him. Their faces. You could tell they were related from that alone. I was just happy to have a chance to apply my Executor training.
I thought her dad and I would get along because he's in middle management and I've been told a kid my age shouldn't be such a good cog in the local governmental machine. As our pretend relationship progressed, he liked that I was dating his daughter too much. Everyone likes me, but it's a general level of like where they'll smile politely, ask me how I've been, and what I'm doing. Then, I give them one personalized compliment, one general answer, one specific answer, and an almost self-deprecating joke. Then — well it's a thing; I could go on forever. With Kayla's dad, it's always so great to see you, she talks about you so much, we should go hiking/fishing/camping together exclamation mark. He's not interested in me; just that I'm treating his daughter the way he thinks she deserves to be treated by someone romantically interested in her.
"Come on Dad, let's go. Chris has to get home before nine."
The only time Kayla manages a stage-worthy sentence deserving of the standing ovation she so desires is when she's admonishing her dad.
"Okay, okay already, let me start the car first." He winks at me, "Stay gold, zoomer."
Kayla buries her face in her hands.
These bounded fields around the Mission must be why Cherry asked me to meet her. I'm no expert but they were most likely activated just after sundown because she didn't want to deal with the gap between day and night. As I walk up the stairs from the plaza, the air feels slightly colder and my face is getting tingly. If I blink, I'll find myself walking in the other direction, believing I've finished whatever I came here to do. The first layer must be for general foot traffic.
"I'm home," I call out.
Cherry's on her phone sitting by the foundation — reading a horror e-book, no doubt.
"Did you have a good time?" She looks up and tilts her head. "What did you get her?"
"Tamales."
"This might be a little out of order, but you could have done better." She touches her phone to her chest.
I shrug. Kayla said she wanted tamales. "Thank you for waiting."
"Chris, I don't want you falling into imaginary number space."
Not a joke.
She gets up, pockets her phone, and starts to lead the way through the second layer of the bounded field.
— Click, click.
Soles on stone.
We both immediately turn since the only people who can get through the first cognitive barrier are severely mentally ill, meditation gurus, absolute contrarians who blindly walk through life, or part of our world.
A silver-haired woman with a man behind her.
"Illy—" A somewhat familiar name I heard a little more than an hour ago chokes itself out from Cherry's throat.
The illusory sonic boom accompanying the storm of divine Lesser Source annihilates that last syllable. Lancer gave me less than a second to react. Archer floors the pedal, instantly accelerating into godspeed. Sever Cherry's head? Stab Cherry's heart? Cleave Cherry in twain? His killing intent says he can do all three at once no matter what defense we paltry, pathetic humans can offer.
— Clang.
Sparks light up the Mission steps as they do every year. Tonight, they're not from the local fire-dancers, but crystallized mystery refusing to yield to bronze.
Saber materialized just in time to save us. The inferno of released magical energy still blows us back. Push yourself back up and get away as fast as possible because Saber's struggling. The lag time from materializing meant she could barely defend against the tempest raging up the Mission's steps. She doesn't need us to worry about.
The rest of the world fades away as the edges of their swords lock.
Archer with only one arm.
Saber with the high ground but a disadvantageous stance.
Archer's the first to attempt breaking the stalemate; his forearm and bicep strain and then tighten as additional brute strength is brought to bear.
Saber's only reply can be fiery magical energy immolating her golden sword red. Even the ambient magical energy threatens to break through whatever defenses Cherry managed to muster. No, parts of the bounded field have already been broken, and like steam escaping through an exhaust, the pressurized magical energy evaporates into downtown Tolosa.
The magical energy output of a quartet; no, order; no, battalion — Not just the quantity pouring out, but the very sanctity of the magical energy sunders every sense. Two demigods flagellate their mortal shells with divine flame until they're purified of mortal sin, then, finally, released from this earthly coil.
"MATOU! SAKURA —!"
Unable to restrain what seems to be his entire purpose, Archer shouts at the figure behind Saber.
He shouldn't know that name. I turn.
She's looking down, hair hiding her eyes, one arm across her chest gripping her other elbow.
It's not the name but how he bellowed it. Archer knows Cherry. That's impossible, Servants don't retain their memories from one summoning to the next. Imagine the paradoxes that would occur if they did. Then after he was summoned?
"AAAAHHHHHHHHHCCCCCAAAAAAAAAA —!"
In reply to Archer's roar, Saber's slack expression contorts itself until her face is nothing but lines as she screams in either anguish or hate. Passionate flames flow from her sword, swimming upstream to envelop Archer's sole arm, licking at sparks of magical energy. The seconds the flames rush to immolate him seem like minutes to us watching.
Archer burns on Saber's pyre without batting an eye at the corroding flame that bathes his body. The instant gratification of catharsis burned off; his expression is as it was yesterday evening on top of that hill. The gold eyes set in that slate gray face focus solely on what's in front of him, Saber's flickering warm orange flames only lighting up the stalwart heroism glowing within.
Seeing this, Saber hisses not in frustration, but with pure hatred at that immortality. There's no life, no romance in that. A stone statue. An ice statue. If it can't burn it's just as useless to her. So then, a stronger flame, a hotter flame. If it's Saber, she can definitely produce one.
Because humans don't set things alight because they want to see things burn or to feel the warmth. That's nothing more than a mechanical natural disaster; my thoughts and prayers to those caught in its conflagration.
We're different, she told me during lunch. She's right. The statue aflame, shedding its mortality may be divine, but the doll striking flint against passion again and again, as it attempts to light the pyre to curse reality is — well it makes me feel warm inside. To be filled to the brim, yet to continue protecting the box she's constructed for herself, she weighs her past and her dignity and has no choice but to burn off the excess.
Saber's sword, now an incandescent light-bulb yellow, begins to melt through Archer's bronze sword. It's clear who holds the greater mystery. But mystery alone does not determine the victor. The resolution alone in the Archer's stance won't let anyone watching forget that. It's hopeless though, even if Archer won't burn, the bronze sword finally catches aflame, and begins to smelt. I think I catch the faint sound of a pop or a squawk from the gasses being driven off.
Missing an arm and his weapon almost completely worthless, the giant, clothed in flames, retreats, hopping down the stone stairs, landing in front of his homunculus Master and her Tuner. Deprived of their source of magical energy, the glow of the yellow-orange flames softens, and then the embers wink out, leaving only his almost slate-skin unmarred.
No doubt everyone other than the combatants is thankful for the reprieve, but this is still bad. If Archer and Saber continue fighting, they're going to destroy the entire Mission. Cherry knows that; that's why she, "Einzbern! W-What are you doing here?"
The homunculus curtseys, her eyes are the same as when I first saw her in that high-school stadium. The grey snow that clouds the crimson hasn't melted. "Fillia von Einzbern. Pleased to meet you, heiress of the Makiri." With a gloved hand, she gestures to her companion, another familiar face. "My Tuner. You may call him Rich."
Rich bows. The shimmer from those blonde locks seemingly bounces into the street lamp as he offers a half-smile.
"Counterfeit as this Holy Grail War may be, our millennia-old undertaking requires the Einzbern to participate. We see the Makiri too have been drawn like moths to this Grail's flame." The homunculus says. Cherry's downturned expression doesn't change. Even if it did, she wouldn't have stopped. "In accordance with the protocols agreed upon prior to the Second Holy Grail War, our only recourse is combat."
Fillia. . . von Einzbern. She definitely said that was her name. I know that name. It's in Father Cervantes's report from the Snowfield Grail War. Possessed by some mystery from the Age of Gods, the homunculus called a storm to destroy the entire township and twisted a forest into an otherworld. An alliance of Servants and Masters defeated the storm and she was eventually slain, so how can that be Fillia von Einzbern unless it's a completely different homunculus using her name.
"The Einzberns. . . the Einzberns are gone!" Cherry shouts, "Illya. . . "
"Hoy, witch." A low-pressure system of murderous intent clings to the plaza like the mountain fog that rolls in from the Sisters on crisp winter mornings. The moisture seeps through your clothes, brushing your skin so the fine hairs stand on end, reminding you, there's nothing you can do about the discomfort. The source, Archer, opens and closes his right hand a few times before materializing an exotic hide. "You have no right to say that name."
Everyone in the plaza knows how dangerous that hide is from the suffocating amount of magical energy leaking from it. I almost double over because I can't breathe. My mouth is stuffed with a damp my meager [ruby=circuits]flame[/ruby] can't dry.
Something warm squeezing my shoulder breaks the illusion. It's Cherry, eyes tightened but trying her best to reassure me with that rare straight smile.
"Chris, go inside. I can take care of this."
I really should because this doesn't have anything to do with me. To be frank, I don't think I would feel bad about leaving you here, Cherry, because I know how strong you and Saber are. But, God, stop speaking like you're a dependable adult when your voice is clearly shaking. That means you're scared, right. And that boy. . . would never leave the person who raised him when she's scared. So I have to stay.
The bubbles ignite, sending plumes of magical energy through an array of interlocking [ruby=circuits]shafts[/ruby] to transform me into a machine that produces mystery. There's no need to connect to a system tonight, just the flue gas is enough to announce my presence to everyone because while I don't know anything about Fillia, the other two, Rich and Archer — are nice guys. Rich is a heretic so he doesn't count. Archer, on the other hand, is a hero. Probably the greatest hero in the world.
"Good evening, sir. Hope you're doing well." I wave at Archer, trying to get his attention.
He looks up and blinks once or twice, the suffocating aura around him deflating. "The boy-child from the trees. Easy to miss your minute figure amidst such radiant divinity and a witch. Well met, well met. How goes the Lamyros hunt?"
Rich's flat look drives daggers into me. Our conversation in front of Kayla at Farmers might have been a charade, but there was some level of mutual respect — the same type the regulars at Ahnenerbe all afford each other just because we've chosen to hang out in the same cafe. That's gone.
"Great hero," Cherry slowly steadies her voice and bows, "I- Before we continue this duel, thank you for helping my ward, yesterday, even at the cost of your arm."
"Your flattery is nothing but wind, witch." There's no way even this great hero will keep such a peaceful, casual, composure under his Master and Master's Tuner's contemptuous glowering. "Though I must admit your gratitude is sincere. I will not deny it."
Haven't I learned to stop underestimating him?
As long as he's interacting with us, he isn't trying to kill us. The problem is Saber. Although her sword is at her side, it's still yellow and trembling. She still wants to set him alight — right, Mad Enhancement. Cherry must be talking her down telepathically, so negotiations are up to me.
"Sir, yesterday you asked me to find you if I was ever hunting Lamyr— Dead Apostles. I-I have a new lead." What a lie.
"Why not ask your guardian and her Servant for help, kid?" So this is Rich as a magus. "Why not ask the overseer? Dead Apostles are a matter for your Church."
'Your Church,' he said. Don't let it faze you.
"That's the problem, Rich. Father Phahn is busy trying to neutralize Cherry and Saber, here." Maintain the neutrality each day spent learning to oversee a Grail War drilled into you. "They're busy responding to attacks from him and other Masters such as yourselves." Now throw your hands up in the air in mock exasperation, "There's no one left to do good, honest Church work."
"Milady, please have Archer attack."
"The boy-child speaks of too common an occurrence. Many times innocent citizens have beseeched me to save them from foul monsters. I naively asked, what of your sovereign; doth he not stand with his people? They often reply that their kings had conscripted their men-folk to fight wars against neighboring city-states for their own selfish purposes, leaving none to protect the women and children. Despicable! This Lamyros is a threat to innocents. It harassed our broth— comrades-in-arms. What more reason do we need to hunt?"
"Archer, you would sully your contract to the Einzbern family for a Church picnic?"
"Tuner. . ." Archer slowly looks back at a stone-faced Rich.
The contract can only function because the trine redirects the tension, circulating any contentious energy between Archer and Rich into their Master, the homunculus Fillia. What they feel for h— that artificial nature spirit, I don't know, but Cherry might.
"How about we come to an agreement, Fillia? Archer helps Chris with the vampire and in return. . . a duel with Saber to the death."
"Preposterous. We can finish this right n—"
"That opportunity still exists, we are ensuring an honorable exch—"
Fillia's misty red eyes favor neither appellate. They peer above the Mission into the skyline where the light pollution meets the sky. We all do because for an instant there was a flash of magical energy. Wispy, insubstantial even for magical energy, it was nothing like the solemn pressure emanating from Saber or Archer's divinity that either dries or electrifies the air, respectively. A meaningless amount of magical energy, but it made us, even Rich, stop for an instant. Too pathetic, struggling to announce its presence to our world, it burned itself up in less than an instant. Yet, as everyone stopped to look, all the tension that bubbled up in this plaza didn't boil over; it wafted away with that paltry breeze.
Archer, of course, is the first to recover.
"I've decided. A Lamyros will be the perfect warm-up for challenging this burning warrior queen." The cloth in his hands dematerializes. "Milady, Tuner, let us return to camp."
"Archer. . ." Fillia starts.
Rich's face doesn't change. He already accepted the decision even if he doesn't like it. A heretic's determination bound to a higher purpose.
"How can you trust the witch, Archer?" I was wrong. "After all she's done, do you think she'll keep this promise?"
"I'm more than happy to make a binding contract." Cherry walks down the stairs so she's standing right beside Saber and level with the Einzberns.
Archer turns back, glancing at Cherry, his eyes can't help but linger just a moment longer. He's trying his best to rectify an image of her in his mind to the puny human in front of him. Eye contact breaks as the sound of crumbling concrete resound in the distance accompanied by police sirens and the hum of fire engines. Something happened in the parking garage two streets away from the Mission.
Archer begins to dematerialize as he walks down the plaza steps towards the snow-white homunculus and Tuner. Dismissively, "A witch's [ruby=contract]rule[/ruby] is easily broken. I do not require any words from you —"
"I-I swear on the name, Illyasviel von Einzbern," Knuckles white, fist clenched, Cherry speaks.
His upper body quickly becoming insubstantial, Archer flicks his head back in our direction. Only for a second. I can't read the expression in his distant eyes.
Fillia nods to both Cherry and me before following Archer's nonexistent footsteps.
Rich looks at us, shaking his head, "See you nice and early tomorrow, Chris. I'll text you our address." Dead Apostles come out at night, though.
The heretical drains itself from Rich's face leaving a quick, toothpaste commercial smile before he follows his mistress.
I take a deep breath while Cherry is making sure Saber is okay.
"But my pyre," she almost hisses.
Cherry pats her on the back. "Don't worry Saber, your pyre will be built."
We pass the statue of the Mission's founder holding a gigantic wood cross to reach the front entrance. The imaginary number space boundary layer has been thoroughly torn apart. It'll take Cherry at least a full day to repair it.
"What about the parking garage?"
Holding the front door open, Cherry answers, "From the sound of it, Father Phahn and the clean-up crew have that taken care of. Anyway. . . after everything that's just happened, you probably have some questions, right?"
Yes, because now cooperating with the Einzberns is instrumental in finding and killing the Dead Apostle.
The kitchen light is on the dimmest setting. Don't want to wake Father Kelsey. Saber's dematerialized, so it's only the two of us and Chinese tea in a teacup that Cherry's holding with both hands as if it didn't have a handle.
"Who's Illy—"
"There's a lot —"
We slightly recoil from the kitchen table as our voices overlap. She looks down at her tea, so my gaze is level with her bangs.
"Illyasviel von Einzbern. . . Illya was Sen— Shirou's sister. She was a Master in the Fifth Fuyuki Grail War. She, Fillia, looked like her, grown-up."
Shirou. . . he's Cherry's lawyer boyfriend. He visits whenever he gets the chance, even helped repair my bike a few times. He also knew Dilo. I always thought it was strange he was Japanese and also a ginger. His sister being an Einzbern homunculus kind of explains that but opens up a whole can of worms that isn't my business.
"How did she. . ." Officially, there were only two Masters who survived the Grail War: Cherry and her sister.
"Saving Shirou." That explains why the Kotomine HGW-726-F5 report listed him as a casualty. "She was the strongest Master. . . and possibly the most advanced homunculus the Einzberns ever created. I think that's why they shut down after her defeat." Except for the remnants that fought in Snowfield.
There's something that doesn't make sense.
"If Illya died saving her brother, why do Rich and Fillia resent you? And Archer — what was that about?"
She sips her tea while trying to force a smile.
"I. . . took Illya's Servant and opened the gate she was coined to open."
All these years and I had forgotten. No, I didn't forget, we were just talking about it at lunch today. I didn't want to remember that Cherry is a Holy Grail. And because she was a Holy Grail, innocent people died in Fuyuki. Every time her boyfriend's taken her out for a date, she's had to reckon with whether their server or cashier lost someone because of her. Waking up every day knowing that you irreparably ruined lives and you'll never be able to make up for that — she faces it all with that crooked half-smile printed on her face to feign nostalgia like whenever she tells me an anecdote about her life in Fuyuki.
She's said the damage could have been a lot worse if it wasn't for the help of the Burial Agency's No.7 and their assistance was a large reason why she agreed to move to Tolosa and consult for the Church. I think that's why she worked so hard, training every employee, editing every protocol, attending meetings about setting up meetings along with her day job. If you were so haunted, Cherry, why did you become a Master again?
"Her Servant, Berserker, was Herakles. Archer looks less monstrous, but they're very much the same Heroic Spirit. The Einzbern must have inserted his Berserker form's memories into him."
The Einzbern specializes in the flow and transfer of power. They can even shift consciousnesses into objects. Disregarding how conscious a Berserker really is, "The Einzbern family is gone. No one's seen them after Snowfield. That homunculus, Fillia, she must be the very Einzbern from Snowfield."
"Chris," her violet eyes look straight into me. "The Einzberns are for me to worry about."
She's right. Archer will help me track the Dead Apostle. That's all I need to know.
"Have you read the letter Dilo sent you?"
Ummmm.
"Cherry, do you think I suck too much dick?"
"What? Oh, Chris. . . Who said that to you?" She pushes her chair back, her brows slanted down, nose flared. "It wasn't K—"
"No, no," I shake my head. "Just some drunk guy at Ahnenerbe when I was waiting for her."
"Not to be rude, but the clientele there is. . ."
"What do you mean? We're the clientele."
"Look, Chris. . . You've made taking care of you these years so easy. No. . . that's not what I meant to say. More. . . when I was your age, I mostly kept to myself, wishing for other people to fail. I was a bad girl. You don't have the same eyes I did. You have kind eyes." She walks over to the sink and turns on the faucet.
I can't imagine a gloomy, hateful Cherry. She's always so kind, supportive, and upbeat in a dignified sort of manner. Eh, she's probably exaggerating how bad she used to be.
"I should go to bed. Big day, tomorrow." I yawn to show that I'm tired. Considering the day she's had, Cherry should turn in too. "You aren't patrolling tonight, are you?"
"Oh, no." She doesn't look back. "Saber's strong. But she can't win against both Lancer and Rider."
Then tonight Lancer will be planting trees, unchecked.
As I'm ready to leave something pops into mind, "Cherry. Was it correct to reveal yourself to Father Phahn?"
She turns to face me while still drying her teacup with a dishcloth.
"Correct does not necessarily mean Right," her normally crooked smile straightens out.
And here, I thought she only smiled like that when he was around.