Fate is the creation and intellectual property of Nasu Kinoko and Type-Moon.
All other franchises and characters mentioned within this story are the intellectual properties of their respective copyright and trademark holders.
FATE: Realta Nua of 2814.
Based on the original by Shadow Crystal Mage.
The following day…
"Should we really be doing this?" Illya sighed as they walked down the sidewalk. It was, she reflected, a fairly pedestrian, boring way to head into a den of danger housing a villainess. She'd have kind of preferred climbing the stairs leading up to a mountain temple, or something like that. "Isn't this the scene where we walk in like suckers, and then a cage falls down on us, and in the next scene we're suspended over a tank full of shrieking eels while the big villain laughs at us for being fools?"
"That'd better be a damn big cage, considering who we are and the kind of power we pack," Rin commented.
"Princess Bride? Really?" Luvia said, gritting her teeth as she walked in a fanciful blue dress that was too fanciful for the casual visit they were supposed to be making.
"Trace, on!" Kuro cried as she skipped along, full of energy, having drained Miyu earlier that morning. Between one step and the next, she was wearing black. "I am the Dread Pirate Roberts! No woman can resist my charms!"
"Don't do that in the open, someone could see you, even this early in the morning!" Illya cried. "Also, um, yeah, think of Miyu-chan's feelings."
Miyu took a skipping step and punched Kuro in the face. "Yes," she said. "Think of them."
There was a small round of applause from Rin, Luvia and Illya. Saber valiantly kept herself from joining in.
Whoa! Lancer said, hovering around in spirit form. One punch!
"Eh? Into BDSM, are you Miyu-chan?" Kuro leered as her clothes went back to normal.
Miyu gave her a flat, if deeply blushing look and latched onto Illya's side, clutching her arm.
And once more, nothing stops the girl, Archer's spiritual form commented. She will make for a very disturbing serial rapist when she grows up.
I'm not sure she'll wait that long, Lancer's countered.
Good point.
GRWLF, Berserker's opined, knowing a thing or two on the subject.
"I wish Mom and Dad could have come with us," Shirou said, walking with his hands in his pockets. "I'd have liked to have their advice."
"They said they were getting our fallback position ready," Illya said. "Though why would we need a fallback position? I mean, it's not like we're actually fighting. The four of us don't want to kill each other, except for Rin and Luvia, and they both want to do that anyway, Negi-sensei won't fight us either, and this Master, I mean this Servant, whatever, says they want to parlay. Okay, so we can gang up on this other Rider, and then what? It's kinda hard to have a War when no one really wants to fight!"
Rin snorted. "Do you really want to bet that Kirei–"
"CREEPY PERVERT PRIEST!" Illya cried in horror
"– will let things go at that? He's going to say that it can't be done that way, and then will pull out a detailed graphic explaining the reasons, and even though you'll disagree, you won't have any way to argue against it!" Rin finished. "I should know! Those have been the last ten years of my life!"
"Then we sic his tentacle monster on him!" Kuro declared.
Everyone blinked.
"Tentacle... monster?" Saber said, as if dreading to recognize the concept itself.
"Sure! If he's really a creepy pervert priest, then he MUST have a tentacle monster!" Kuro declared. "It's practically contractual!"
How the hell did this girl get so dirty? Archer mused.
What's a tentacle monster? Lancer asked, unsure what the phrase meant.
"I see..." Saber asked, eyes growing dull as her head pulled down. "Yes, that makes a twisted sense of sorts..."
Kuro smiled widely. "Yes, just like back during the Fourth War, when you... and Caster... ah," she realized it all. "Ah, you don't like to be reminded of that, do you?"
"NO, I DON'T LIKE IT AT ALL!" Saber exploded suddenly, startling Shirou.
"Well," Kuro shrugged, "at the very least, you should be thankful that it wasn't the kind of tentacle monster that feels under your skirt, rips all of your clothes off, and then shoves an oozing, thick, pulsing tendril up your-"
Saber twitched, wide-eyed, drool dripping from one side of her mouth. "What kind of devil-spawn child are you!?" she declared, wiping the liquid away.
Shirou's nose gushed blood as he went cross-eyed.
Illya's nose gushed as she went cross-eyed.
Miyu's nose gushed as she thought what Illya would look like meeting one.
Rin and Luvia turned interesting shades of red.
"…!" went Lancer.
Berserker only made a gruff scoffing sound, clearly unimpressed.
Archer screamed Lady Gaga songs as loudly as he could, spiritual hands over spiritual ears.
They'd finally reached a nice, cozy, quiet, pretty suburban home that left Illya even more disappointed. "This is Caster's lair?!" she protested. "It doesn't even have gargoyles on the lawn!"
"You should meet some of the teachers I've had at Clock Tower," Rin said. "Then you'd really know that pure evil can live in nice, cozy, quiet, pretty houses just fine."
For once, Luvia had to nod in agreement with her.
Shirou frowned. "I think I know this house. I've made deliveries to a teacher who lives here..."
A beautiful woman in a plain blouse and long skirt was sweeping the porch. She would have looked completely normal, although gorgeous, if not for her long blue hair, a braid behind one of her pointed ears. She stopped sweeping, and then stared in awe at them. Her mouth hung open, and drool began mixing in with the blood dripping from her nose.
It took them a moment to realize she was looking specifically at Saber.
Saber's head hung in defeat already. "Why is it always me?"
Finally, Luvia pushed her ahead. "You first," she instructed. "The Knight is always supposed to lead the march, and it's obvious you'll have better luck negotiating with her."
"Fine..." the blonde grumbled.
Saber stepped forward, staring at the woman. "I take it you are the Master who has taken up residence here?" she said. "The one commanding the Assassin stationed at the World Tree?"
The woman recomposed quickly, assuming haughty airs of great dignity, despite having a humble broom in her hand. "Yes and no," she said. "And I take it you are the Masters of the Servants who defeated him?"
"And one of the Servants," Rin said, pointing at Saber.
The woman frowned. "Why did you feel the need to publicly bring one of your Servants?"
"I will not leave my Master's side," Saber said staunchly.
Kuro was less kind. "She's clingy," she said in an aside. "We think it might be because she hasn't gotten laid in a long time."
"Kuro!" Luvia cried, swatting at the girl with a harisen. "Don't say such lewd things to respectable women!"
"That is child abuse," the blue-haired woman pointed out, rather calmly. "As the wife of an educator of prestige, that is a topic that is close to my heart, I will let you know."
"She doesn't count!" Rin said.
The blue-haired woman ''hmm…'-ed in consideration. "I see. If you like, I could teach you some positions that might be helpful with that. Having more than one partner helps as well. I could give you a number you could call…"
"Please stop talking in front of my sisters!" Shirou pleaded as he futilely tried to block Illya, Miyu's, and his own ears, all at the same time. From the bug-eyed looks on the two girls' faces, it wasn't working. Saber's ahoge was twitching like crazy as all the blood seemed to rush into the blonde's face.
A slow, evil smile began to spread along Kuro's face. "I think this alliance is going to go just fine…"
Iri suddenly looked up from their vantage point overlooking the neighborhood.
"Dear?" Kiritsugu said, looking up from the gun he was putting together. "Is something wrong?"
"Suddenly…" Iri said slowly. "I feel like a kindred spirit has just awakened… Honey, would you like a blowjob?"
"Now?! Irisviel, we're on someone else's rooftop!"
"You killed a man already!?" everyone exclaimed.
They sat or stood in the room the woman, Caster, had brought them to. She sat primly, poised, a cup of tea next to her. There was one next to everyone else as well. They didn't drink. What were they, really stupid?
The woman nodded. "Yes. You must understand! My first Master, a most objectionable man named... Atomic Gatorade or something like that, I've tried my best to forget... treated me with cruelty and abuse, and tried to force me to do unspeakably evil things–"
Shirou winced as Caster went into great detail over the misdeeds of that man, his mouth constantly twitching into new, interesting forms he'd never before suspected it could take. Lancer whistled at the narration, while Rin and Luvia gained matching tones of green and Miyu just put on a walkman and began listening to music. She had learned her lessons from Irisviel's movie. Illya just stuck her fingers into her ears and yapped nonstop to herself, but it wasn't helping much.
"– so as you can see, I had no choice but to kill him," Caster finished telling her story.
"That's horrible!" Rin said.
"You poor thing!" Luvia cried.
"You've been through so much!" Illya wailed.
"I am sad for you," Miyu said, turning the walkman off. Illya looked sympathetic, so she would be as well.
"Truly, for a Caster, your soul is noble and pure," Saber said.
"Oh, so that's why all those girls were vanishing around the city lately," Shirou said faintly. "But... wait, killing him was wrong regardless! If you kill a murderer, the number of murderers remains the same!"
"That's why you have to kill several murderers and not just one, duh," Archer said blandly.
"I'll agree it was wrong, but not for that reason," Lancer said. "The Master is always the Master, whether they're right or wrong! A Servant obeys no matter what, it's a matter of honor and duty! Let's say someone like that creepy perverted priest killed Luviagelita and took her Command Seals for himself, I'd have to follow his orders even if I happened to hate them. Nobody said a hero's life was easy!"
"That just means you've failed to protect your actual Master!" Archer shouted at him.
"Ah, but that's not everything!" Caster said. "I... I didn't want to say this, it's too embarrassing, but, those weren't even the worst of his depravities..."
"Now go on, paint this glitter on me, and call me Edward!"
"DIE, FOUL INHUMAN MONSTROSITY!"
Everyone shuddered.
"Oh... Okay. You did the right thing then," Shirou agreed.
"I stand corrected," Lancer nodded.
"Edward is hawt!" cried Kuro.
They all stared at her in horror.
She laughed. "KIDDING! But really, you should have seen the looks on your faces…!"
They all sighed in relief.
"Then what happened?" Illya asked, leaning forward to listen to Caster.
"Then…" Caster sighed, putting a hand to her cheek. "He came, just as I was dying under the rain, alone and forgotten… it was so romantic…!"
"Stable boy, become my new Master so that I won't just dissolve away!"
"Excuse me?"
"Squee!" Caster exclaimed, putting her hands to her cheek. There should have been hearts in the air. "Anyway, he brought me here and took care of me and tended me until I was all better. I fell in love with him and his kindness, and so decided to do all I could to see that we could be together. When I was well enough, to repay him, I…" she blushed demurely.
"You what? You what?" Illya pressed eagerly.
"I invited him to my bed and had wild, hot sex with him!" Caster declared.
"Ooh, details, please!" Kuro requested, leaning forward.
"PLEASE NO!" Shirou cried, once more trying to block Illya's, Miyu's, and his own ears, all at the same time. It still wasn't working.
"Anyway, now we're preparing to get married!" Caster said.
Everyone but Kuro blinked. "Um, how long have you known him?" Rin asked hesitantly.
"Two weeks!" Caster said. "Best sex I've ever had!"
"Details, please!" Kuro said.
"PLEASE NO!" Shirou cried.
The door to the room suddenly slid open. They all turned as a handsome man with short black hair and glasses entered.
"HONEY!" Caster cried, leaping to her feet and throwing herself at the man.
KISS! EVEN DIRTIER THAN KURO'S! SERIOUSLY, IT WAS ALREADY XXX, AND THEY STILL HAD THEIR CLOTHES ON!
"Ah!" Rin said. "Akashi-sensei!"
"Who?" Archer asked.
"He's Sakura's homeroom teacher!" his Master said. "He's one of the magic users in the faculty's staff, as well..."
Kuro frantically took notes, looking at Miyu, Illya and Shirou with an evil gleam in her eyes.
Eventually the kiss broke, and Caster laid her head on the man's chest, looking absolutely content.
Akashi Wataru looked beyond Caster, raising an eyebrow at the unexpected guests. "Ah, how do you do, Tohsaka-kun. Emiya-kun, too. And... Edelfelt-kun, correct? You skipped classes again today. Kuzuki-sensei told me to tell you he'll kill you all, if I happened to run into you before he could."
Rin twitched. "Someone up there hates us."
Someone rang at the front door.
"Oh, that must be Negi-sensei's party," Shirou said. "I called him earlier telling him to meet us here."
Akashi-sensei blinked. "Negi-sensei? What does he have to do with- Never mind, I'll find out myself!" the man threw his hands up and then went back for the door before anyone could stop him. He opened it and found his daughter standing there, in shorts and a tee shirt, accompanied by Negi-sensei and her classmates Hasegawa and Kagurazaka. "Yuuna-chan?"
"Oh, hey, Papa!" the dark haired girl waved, smiling awkwardly. "See, Negi-kun, Asuna, I told you they gave us the wrong address! As you can see, this is just our house, and-"
Saber seethed, jolting up on her seat and clutching tightly onto the table. "Knight of Treachery!'' she growled. "Show yourself, for I don't trust you unless I am keeping a firm eye on you!"
Akashi-sensei gasped, pulling back in shock as Negi's Saber materialized right behind him, in full impressive armor, making the boy sigh. "At least I can assume an astral form, Father!" the second Saber growled defiantly. "What a farce, for the King of Knights to be an incomplete Heroic Spirit! Truly, this only proves that I-!"
"Saber!" Negi interrupted her, wagging a finger. "I thought we had discussed this already!"
Akashi-sensei blinked again. "Saber? Then, this... Oh dear, Caster, you have let them in?!"
"That is okay, Darling, I already made it clear to these people that I have planted safes all around the house," Caster explained. "If either of us is harmed, they will be automatically activated and release enough raw magical energy to vaporize them all, even if we have to follow them to Hades. Ah!" she cooed romantically. "Better to die together than to be separated by force, don't you agree, my love?"
Her beau looked back at her. "... you've triggered our house to explode?"
Yuuna paled starkly. "... Papa?" she said, assaulted by sudden, icy dread. "Why... Why has this strange woman just called you 'Darling'!?"
Caster smiled at her. "Nice to meet you at last, Yuuna-chan! My, my, you are even prettier than in the pictures! I am Caster, your father's girlfriend..."
Yuuna's eyes flashed red, and then she pulled a pair of guns out and began shooting the place.
It took a while, and Negi, Asuna and Akashi-sensei working together, to restrain Yuuna down. Even now, after all the explanations, she kept on shooting murderous glares at Caster. Saber and Saber were throwing each other the same kind of looks over the table, sitting opposite each other in every sense of the term. Finally, though, the conversation got back on track.
"Alright, let me see if I understood everything this time," Asuna said. "You're Servant Caster, and these two hunks are Servants Archer and Lancer. Also, this girl's somehow Saber's father, also named Saber."
"Uhhhh... yes, basically, you've understood the basics of it," Shirou told his kouhai. "Although I still don't understand how Saber could be anyone's father. Saber, if you could please expl-"
"NO!" both Sabers yelled. "TOO LONG A STORY!"
Shirou sighed. "Fine, have it your way then...!"
Rider chuckled. "Ah, how much I'd missed dealing with royalty!" she said feistily before downing another glass of Akashi-sensei's best liquor.
"Okay, now, the most important question to ask before moving onto anything else is-" Negi began to say.
"Are Archer-san and Lancer-san single?" Asuna asked eagerly.
Lancer beamed a pearly white smile, with a roguish wink. "I never could lie to a lovely lass! I am single!"
Asuna swooned.
"Asuna-san, no!" her teacher frowned. "I'm just curious about how Caster-san could summon a Servant, being a Legendary Spirit herself..."
Caster sniffed. "Oh, please. I come from an age when the magic of humans was equal to that of the gods themselves! I needed protection for my source of power, so it was a relatively simple matter to use the system of this 'Holy Grail' to call my own Servant. The process wasn't as perfect as I could wish, but I was strained for time, since Wataru would be coming home in an hour and I needed to be ready to make his dinner, so I just accessed the local bloodlines and linked my summon to the one with a distant legendary background."
"Which local family could possibly be related to the famous Sasaki Kojiro?" Emiya's Saber asked with interest.
Caster shrugged for all answer. "As long as it worked, I wasn't going to look a gift centaur in the mouth!"
A shared thought balloon appeared over the heads of Asuna, Chisame and Negi, displaying a bubbly, smiling innocent face topped with pink hair and winking an eye very cutely.
"..." the three of them said. Yuuna was still too pissed off to care.
"Why are you telling us this, Caster?" Shirou's Saber added. "You are revealing valuable tactical data!"
Caster folded her hands, head bowed, looking serious. "I do not wish to be a part of this war. I only wish to be with Wataru. So... I want to ask for terms for peace. I will not move against you, and you will not move against me. That is all I want."
"Don't call him 'Wataru', you barely know each other!" Yuuna screeched.
There was silence. Then…
"Told you so. Pay up," Shirou said, holding out his hand.
Everyone in his party groaned, but handed him their money.
And so ended another day in the Holy Grail Not-So-War.
Tohsaka Sakura put her schoolbag aside, took her shoes off, and sighed as she walked into the old house.
"Well," she said to herself as she took her overcoat off as well, neatly hanging it by the lamp. "Time to get dinner ready for when Oneesama and Archer-san get back..."
She rolled her sleeves up, drew a deep breath in, marched into the kitchen...
... then opened a kitchen drawer, pulled a set of paper dolls of herself, quickly wrote on them, and clapped for them. "Okay, girls, wake up, time to work! Tonight's menu is grilled catfish with a Ceasar salad, and pudding for the dessert! It'lll be handled by Passionlip and Meltlilith! Violet and Kingprotea will wash the clothes! As for you, Kazuradrop, you're cleaning the floors today! You're all okay with these arrangements, right?!"
The five Chibi Sakuras (one with cartoonishly huge breasts, one who was a loli, one who was much bigger than the rest, one who was flat as a plank, and one with glasses) rose from the table, floated before their Master, and saluted her, "Yes, Sakura-sama, yes, Ma'am!" before diligently flying away to fulfill their duties.
Sakuta exhaled pleasantly, nodded to herself in satisfaction at a well done job, walked back into the living room, dropped on the couch, turned the TV on, and began watching the soap opera.
"Today, in 'Sakura, Episode 257'...When we last left our heroine, she had come to terms with having a sexual relationship with her sister. However, a mysterious blonde foreigner with a dark past enters!"
She sighed, relieved, to herself. Good, she had made it back in time! As much as she hated leaving Ayako and the others behind like that, well, there had been no way she would miss it, not even for them!
She was a Tohsaka, after all. She couldn't program the darn Blu-ray recorder any better than Rin could...
In the darkness under the old Matou manor, the lead worm rose from the rotten, long dead pit.
Sakura…
Join me…
Listen to me, Sakura…
You are still mine…
Show me your true power!
And somewhere across the ocean, in long forgotten tunnels built under a major metropolitan city, an old bearded man lifted his head and paid attention.
Should he call upon his champion? No, not yet, he pondered. The boy was still impulsive, still inexperienced. His great power might actually just turn a bad situation even worse.
The mages of the modern era had caused this. For better or worse, they would have to solve it as well.
"King Arthur?!" Chisame all but cried, back in her apartment with Drake, Negi, Satomi and Chamo. "That girl is King Arthur?!"
"It should have been obvious since she's Mordred, shouldn't it?" Rider asked, taking another potato chip from the bag and biting on it.
"That, that's different, I didn't think her father, I mean, his father would be a woman too, I mean, a woman!" Chisame said, correcting herself every time Mordred's quietly threatening glare fell on her. "Then why do you call her 'father'?!"
"Because that's what he is, fool!" Mordred snarled. "Even the pirate gets that! She was a man when she conceived me... well, she had a penis, at least... I told you it was a complicated story..."
"No wonder you have so many issues!" Drake laughed.
"Quiet, you! You don't have any room to talk, history recorded you as a man as well!" Mordred snapped.
"And you don't see me fretting me over that, do you?" Drake dipped another chip on sauce and tasted it, delighted. "Yum! My gender and sexuality don't matter, what matters is that I'm awesome!"
"You should ease up on her already, Saber," Negi gently told his Servant. "Any son owes his parent a certain amount of respect and love, even if they failed. That, too, is a man's duty..."
"I guess..." Mordred allowed grumpily, folding her arms. "I mean, technically we should be even after killing each other, but I can't help it! And his attitude! It just pisses me off again, you can tell Father doesn't want peace! I hope he resorts to his coping mechanism soon again, he was much more personable when he did that..."
"Coping mechanism?" Chamo repeated.
"Yeah. When his role of a perfect King demanded for him to stand behind the red tape of technicalities, he wouldn't stay quiet and would dispense justice regardless. We all looked the other way since we knew he needed to vent out through this mysterious nocturnal avenger..."
"C'mon, Neechan," one of the two punks surrounding the terrified girl in the alley chuckled, flashing his knife out. "I swear, you're gonna have fun too..."
"N-N-No, don't touch me, please...!"
"Awww, get offa the high horse!" the other delinquent told her. "Bitch, your mouth says no but your eyes say-"
"Step back, vile evildoers!" a voice shouted from above.
They looked up, and saw a figure standing grandiously on a nearby tall fence. She wore a fully zipped up black jacket, black tight shorts, and a blue baseball cap, a golden ahoge somehow poking out through it.
"Nani kore...?!" the punks screamed, letting go of the girls and aiming their blades at this newcomer.
"Punishing vice and corruption, the highway vigilante from yore has returned!" she proclaimed as the girl ran away. "A forgotten name from the past, justice for those the arm of Law cannot protect! Even if others would forgive you, I shall not!"
"What the hell is this slut saying?!"
She pulled out a sword, an actual Western sharp sword, and descended mightily upon the now screaming criminals.
"Mysterious Heroine X!"
To be Continued.