Fate Unlimited Destinies Chapter 12- Connections and Convictions, a fate/stay night fanfic

Next chapter is up! This is a fluffy chapter in ways as well as another story telling chapter! Enjoy!

ALSO: I'll have the prologue of Fate Threads of Destiny up either by tonight or tomorrow morning so check it out!

NOTE: I know I don't usually do this in the beginning but... NEXT CHAPTER: UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS

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ANNOUNCEMENT: I just published the Prequel story Fate Thread of Destiny, so it should appear in the next few hours or so. It's about how Cleo and Ariene met and what happens there will link back to this story. The Setting is also set four years before Fate Unlimited Destinies.

NOTE: SINCE SPRING BREAK IS COMING, I'M GOING TO BE STARTING MY FOURTH PIECE FOR THIS SERIES: FATE SHARDS OF DESTINY IT WILL BE A ONE-SHOT FIC BASED OFF THE FATE/GRAND DESTINY SERIES I'VE CREATED. IT WILL BE BASED ON EVERY DAY LIFE IN CHALDEA BETWEEN SINGULARITIES AND WHAT THEY DO ON THEIR DOWN TIME. SINCE IT IS A ONE-SHOT SERIES, I WILL BE TAKING REQUEST SO PLEASE PM ME OR LEAVE ME A REVIEW IF YOU HAVE A SERVANT YOU WANT ME TO WRITE ON, JUST LEAVE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION:

1. SERVANT

2. SUMMARY/ THEME OF STORY

3. SERVANTS MAIN STORY-SERVANT INTERACTS WITH

4. GOAL

5. WHEN IT TAKES PLACE

6. EXTRA INFORMATION YOU WANT TO HAPPEN IN STORY (YOUR CHOICE)

Chapter 12- Connections and Convictions

The stars were beautiful, gleaming white and brilliant on that night, not a cloud in the sky. There was even a beautiful full moon that decided to grace the skies that night. It was tranquil in the Heavens... but down on Earth, there was nothing but carnage and despair.

Under the brilliant stars, a series of fields and rolling hills stretched out as far as the eye could see, it should have been as serene as the night sky... but instead, the formerly pristine grass was covered in ashes, blood and piles of bodies. That was all that could be seen. Bodies that covered the once beautiful land, bodies as far as they human eye could see.

Everyone in the area was dead, but for two people; though they would soon be dead themselves. The clang of their swords was the only sound that sung through the night air and in the very distance, pass all the bodies, was a burning city, but it was only a speck in the eyes of the two combatants. Both Queens in their own rights and both fighting furiously for what they believed.

One was dressed in all gold while the other in silver, nothing but the blood staining their once pristine Armour was the same. The two of them hated each other. Each blaming the other for the pain that they had to endure.

"Look at what your actions have led us to!" The Golden Queen screamed, cold fury in her voice,

"Me? After all that you say I've taken from you! You're the one who killed my Husband! No one but you!" The Silver Queen snapped back, her voice a tad calmer. "You sacrificed the man you loved to prove a point Emerys!"

"At least I loved him! You never did Maryse! You never loved anyone but yourself!" Emerys screamed back. "And I didn't sacrifice him! I made him into a God! I made him eternal!"

"I'll kill you. I swear, I will kill you." The Silver Queen snapped, her eyes burning with fury at the accusation.

The Golden Queen laughed, "And I thought you couldn't do prophecies. One just came out of your mouth Maryse."

"Truer words have never left your mouth Emerys." They lunged at each other at the same time, causing blood to gush through the air as their battle finally ended.

Rin and Issie were on their way out of their rooms when they heard shouting coming from the dining room.

"-just leave me alone! I don't need constant protection!" The voice sounded like Ayaka and she sounded extremely frustrated.

"Of course you do." Now that was Arthur. "We don't know when Manaka will strike next and she can just send a Servant to attack the school on a whim."

Issie and Rin exchanged looks as walked over to Jeanne and Cleo who were silently observing the argument; they wore matching looks of concern.

"What's happening?" Rin asked softly, not wanting to earn the wrath of either Servant or Master. While neither of them were the types to full on explode at her, it was strange to see them have an active argument.

"Ayaka wants to go to school and Arthur is saying that she shouldn't because Manaka may attack." Jeanne explained.

Issie looked confused, "But then Arthur has a solid point. Can you resume a normal life during the Grail War? Especially with a psycho running around?"

Rin shot her an annoyed look. "Of course you can! In my world, I still went to school and did my extracurricular activities. Sometimes normal is what keeps you sane."

"If you say so, Rin. I'm just concerned with Ayaka's safety like Arthur is. The argument is more like, Ayaka wants to school and wants Arthur to stay here."

"That makes more sense." Rin said.

"Enough." Ariene suddenly materialized between Arthur and Ayaka, pushing Arthur away slightly. She was not in a good mood today, actually, it was the opposite. She was in a really bad mood. "If you Idiots are done arguing like children, can I offer up a solution?"

Ayaka looked away, her face reddening. She couldn't believe that she been arguing with Arthur so publicly. "What is it?"

"Ayaka can go to school," Ariene began, shooting Arthur a glare when he looked like he was going to protest. "But, I'll be going with her to make sure nothing happens."

"Huh?" Both of them asked, surprised by the offer.

Ariene looked at them, annoyance dancing in her eyes, "What's wrong with that? You both get what you want that way. Is something wrong with your heads that you can't understand simple English? Ayaka can go to school like she wants, and she'll be protected, like you want Arthur."

Jeanne stepped forward, Ariene seemed hostile this morning and she didn't want to agitate the Servant more. "I think that's a perfect idea. Do you agree Ayaka?"

It took a moment, but Ayaka nodded, she looked over at Ariene without looking at Arthur, "Do you think you can leave in a few minutes?"

"I'm ready when you're ready." Ariene promised, watching Ayaka disappear up the stairs to finish getting ready. When she was completely out of sight, she shot a glance at Arthur; he looked completely rejected. "I thought I told you to give her space." The words came out more gently than she had planned since he looked like a kicked puppy. Even she wasn't immune to that look even in her current mood.

"I did! I left her alone the day after the cave and the two days after that!" Arthur explained.

Ariene rolled her eyes. "When she's ready to talk, she'll come to you without prompting." She then de-materialized to avoid further speaking with the blonde.

Arthur stared at the place where Ariene had been, speechless for a long period. "Is... she okay?"

Cleo sighed, so it was going to be one of those days was it? "Even Servants can have a bad day once in a while. I just suggest you thread carefully around her today, if not..."

"You'll end up with a spike in your foot." Issie finished and Cleo nodded in agreement. An irate Ariene was a dangerous Ariene. Though they both wondered what exactly set her off.

Rin POV

"Master." Rin looked up from a book about medicinal herbs that she found in Ayaka's library to see Gawain standing in front of her. "Do you have a moment?"

"Of course, what do you need Gawain?" Rin asked, looking at her Servant, he was so much different from Archer that she was surprised.

"It's just, with all that's happened in this past week, I feel like I have been neglecting you. We haven't had much time to talk have we? I'm your Servant and I feel like I barely know you."

Rin blinked, "No. I guess your right." She smiled at him, "Sit down and we'll talk. But... what brought this on?"

"I just saw how close the other Servants are with their Masters. Boudica and Atalanta are always giving advice to Issie and will tease her on occasion, and although Siegfried spends most of his free time with Jeanne, he does whatever his Masters tell him to and he checks up on them every other hour or so. Then there's Ariene and Cleo, they seem more like Sisters than Master and Servant." Gawain explained as he settled in a chair next to her.

Rin nodded, she had noticed that too. The two of them were so in sync, much better than the other three Servants and the other Master. "I noticed that too... nothing on Ayaka and Arthur?"

Gawain looked down at his lap, "I believe that they had a good relationship, I even saw my King tease Ayaka at times so... for Ayaka to have felt so betrayed by him, they must have been on good terms."

"I suppose so..." Rin trailed off, flashing Gawain a smile, "You can ask me anything, we're supposed to be learning about each other so..."

Gawain smiled back, "You are a Lady, Rin and even more, my Master, so please, ask me first." He waited patiently for Rin to ask her question.

"Why did you want to become a Knight? Wasn't there anything else you wanted to do?"

"I never considered doing anything else. My one goal was to be King Arthur's Knight and to serve him until my end. In my eyes, no one can defeat him. He is what all of us should aspire to be." Gawain said, a smile on his face and it was clear to Rin that he completely adored Arthur.

"Though I admit, though I wanted to see him flourish is the one true King of Britain, in my blind devotion I was unable to see him as a mere human. And it is my devotion as well as my lack of ability to forgive that led to his downfall." Gawain added softly.

Rin looked at him, he was the ideal Knight, how could he have led to Arthur's downfall? Every story that she had read said that Gawain was King Arthur's right hand. "What do you mean?"

"In my mind, Lancelot between our King when he took our King's Wife... he also killed my Brothers. That is something I can never forgive." Gawain said, "I turned Lancelot away at the Battle of Camlann and caused our King's death... if I had allowed Lancelot to fight, it may have ended differently."

Rin shook her head, "You don't know that, Gawain. When it comes to family, we all do rash things. I also know that you can't live on what-ifs, they'll drive you crazy eventually. Trust me, I used to wonder if things would have been different if I still had my Sister, Mother and Father with me."

Gawain looked at his Master, curious, "I didn't know you had a Sister. I thought most mage families in this era only had one child. Is it different in your world?"

Rin shook her head. "It's the same. My Sister was given to another family because the magic in their blood was running out. We never spoke to each other after that. Even if we did live in the same city and went to the same school."

"May I ask why?" Gawain couldn't fathom such a thing, to have a sibling but never speak to them. Not when his family was one of the things he had cherished the most in life, only under the King.

Rin looked down, "We were still young when Sakura was taken into the other family. I was probably around seven and she was probably five. It was easier and better to pretend that we didn't exist to each other."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up a sore subject." Gawain said, feeling guilty. "How are you holding up? This Grail War and our situation must be a shock to you." He said, desperately trying to change the situation into a happier one.

"I was participating in the Fifth Holy Grail War in my own world." Rin said calmly, "So this isn't so bad. I have to say, despite everything, that one of the big shockers... still is that King Arthur is male." She laughed when Gawain gave her a completely bewildered look. "One of my allies had King Arthur as a Servant as well... but he was female."

Gawain couldn't fathom such a thing... to thing of his King as... a female was hard to think, but he laughed all the same. It was an amusing thought, "I remember Cleo and Ariene mentioning something similar and my King wouldn't explain to me."

Rin laughed as well, "He seemed completely shocked when I asked him why he was male! I feel like I traumatized him a bit."

"So what's she like? This female King Arthur?" Gawain asked eagerly, maybe there were stories that were different in her world.

"She's much more... quiet than this Arthur and a bit, well emotionless." Rin said uncertain on how to explain the Saber she knew. "She hides her feelings pretty well, but is understanding and has a chivalric code that she won't break no matter the situation."

She and Gawain then started to talk about their worlds and times. He would tell her the true tales about the Knights of the Round Table and she would tell him about Saber, Shirou and Archer. They stayed away from the heavier topics and laughed together as they remembered fond memories with their friends.

Rin laughed as Gawain started to tell her a tale about Bors and how while he was Knight of the Round, he was always a messy eater and liked to mess around the most. Honestly, it felt nice to laugh. She still missed the others from her world but... Gawain and the rest here were filling in part of the gap that had appeared and when she saw Shirou and Saber, maybe even Archer again, she knew she'd be alright.

Ayaka POV

Ayaka sighed as she went up to the roof during her lunch break. Even though Ariene wasn't exactly near her, she could feel her presence. Maybe it was more noticeable because she wasn't Saber?

"You don't have to stay you know." Ayaka said softly to the air. "You must be bored out of your mind listening to lectures."

"I told Arthur I'd stay." Ariene's disembodied voice said back. "Besides, I don't mind staying in class, it's a new experience for me."

Ayaka looked up as Ariene materialized, wearing a black leather jacket, dark skinny jeans and a purple blouse. "Why is it a new experience? Did you not go to school with Cleo?"

Ariene shrugged, looking through the bars of the roof and out towards the woods, "Cleo was home-schooled in Chaldea. She always got expensive tutors so she didn't go to a school like this."

Ayaka nodded, "I'm serious though, you don't need to stay."

"I know that." Ariene sighed, a light tone of annoyance entering her voice. "But I have nothing better to do than sulk anyways."

"Why were you so irritated this morning?" Ayaka asked. She was curious and was hoping to keep the conversation away from her issues. Too bad it didn't work.

"Why are you so upset with Arthur? When the time comes, are you going to stop him from participating in another battle against your Sister?" Ariene asked back, her eyes flashing.

Ayaka immediately lowered her head, she could feel Ariene's annoyance like it was her own. She was really not in a good mood. "Of course not. Logically, I do understand that my Sister has to be stopped... but she's my Sister. She was the person I wanted to be like when I got older." She then added bitterly, "Now, she's crazy and wants to kill me because she thinks I'm in love with Saber."

Ariene sighed before laughing, causing Ayaka to look at her as if she were crazy. What was so funny about that? Her Sister hadn't seemed so bad, well to her at least.

"I'm not laughing at you." Ariene said, calming herself down, "It's just... you're in a similar position to how I was in life."

"You mean because your Sister was also in love with the the man you married, and she went crazy and killed you?" Ayaka asked, if she did think about it, they did seem to be in the same situation; the only difference was that Ayaka wasn't a Queen and Ariene's Sister had succeeded in killing her. And Ayaka wasn't married to Saber, she didn't even have feelings for him. She hoped.

Ariene nodded, settling on the ground beside her. "But I do see why it's hard for you to think of Manaka as the enemy. Since I was taken away from Chronis as a newborn, I never met my birth family until I was older. So while the betrayal of my blood still stung, it didn't hurt as much as it could have. To me, my birth family didn't have a huge impact on me as a child."

"Did you see Emerys as a Sister though? Or at all? Since you didn't meet her for so long?" Ayaka asked curious, she really hoped that Ariene didn't snap at her again, but from the looks of it, she had calmed down.

"I did. We actually got along really well, at least before my marriage to Cassian was finalized." Ariene explained. "After that, she didn't change right away... it took years for her to fully reach her low point and crave power. It's too bad she looked at all the wrong places, she gained her power through wickedness let dark magic rule her... we fought for six years."

"Six?" Ayaka asked, she had thought that they had just started a full on War.

"Well, Kaisa or Emerys needed to learn the magic that she was seeking and she didn't have allies in the beginning so at first, the attacks were smaller and less devastating. By the fourth year, she had gained a lot of followers and allies and her magic was strong. She was a natural after all, runs in the blood." Ariene sighed, her dark violet blue eyes staying as the clouds, her brows furrowed in contemplation. "But Kaisa wasn't evil or wicked. She was just a heart-broken girl who thought everything had been taken away from her. I like to think she regretted her actions in the end."

Ayaka was barely following what Ariene was saying and for a moment, wondered if Ariene knew that it was Ayaka she was speaking to. "Who's Kaisa? And isn't waging War over a broken-heart a bit too extreme?!"

Again Ariene chuckled as she looked at Ayaka, "I guess I never explained it to Arthur or Gawain so they couldn't tell you. I wasn't born with the name Ariene Direcrest. The name I was born with was Maryse Faoláin."

"How'd it become Ariene?" Ayaka asked.

"Well, you have to remember that for Vasillía, the next Queen is not the current Queen's child, rather the Heir to the Throne is chosen by the Divine forces and that next Heir could have come from Vasillía itself or from a different Kingdom altogether, like what happened with me. Now, while the Heir is in training, they will go by their birth name, but when they ascend to the Throne of Vasillía, after the previous Queen's death, their name changes. That's how Maryse Faoláin became Ariene Direcrest."

Ariene answered Ayaka's next question before she could even ask, it was the most natural question after all. "Emerys didn't originally hate Vasillía. She thought that their customs were strange but that's all. But when Cassian and I wed, slowly, she started to hate Vasillía, but she became obsessed with it at the same time. She started to think that she should have been chosen as the next Vasillían Queen instead of me, so once she finished her training in the art of dark magic, she crowned herself a Queen, she even adopted the Vasillían custom of changing the Queen's name. So Emerys Faóláin became Kaisa Bleddyn, the Red Queen of Néachtan, which is what we call the Underworld. Understand?"

"I think so..." Ayaka said. "So, why do you call her Emerys then?"

"Because she calls me Maryse." Ariene said, "She doesn't see me as a Queen and I don't see her as one in turn."

Ayaka nodded, maybe having Ariene accompany her hadn't been such a bad thing, she learned something new. "Thank you for telling me Ariene. I have to get back to class now."

"I'll be up here a bit longer." Ariene said, "If anything happens, I'll be there right away. And one more thing, Ayaka?" She asked, a full smile finally forming on her face.

"Yes?" Ayaka asked curious.

"I love watching guys squirm, but give Arthur a break. He's about ready to smash his head into the wall."

Ayaka giggled but nodded, maybe it was time to talk to Arthur, it had been a few days. She made her way back down the stairs to her class, leaving Ariene to stare out at the city.

She kept her head down in class, unable to get what Ariene told her out of her head. A person who would start a War over a broken-heart... she couldn't help but wonder if Manaka was the same somehow.

Manaka POV

Manaka looked on excitedly as wind and a burning red light started to pulsate from the summoning circle. She had just cast the summoning and whoever the Servant was had answered her call!

The circle exploded violently with more light before fading altogether and what stood there in its place made her let out manic giggles of joy.

The Servant had on rather thick, but revealing gold and red Armour, spiked shoulder guards and a sash that was blood red in color wrapped around her waist. Her skin was almost too pale and flawless and her face had such delicate doll-like features. Her white-blonde hair had streaks of blood red in it and it gently flowed pass her shoulders and to her waist in thick waves.

"Who are you?" The Servant asked, her voice silky rich and smooth, but as cold as ice.

Manaka smiled, maybe the Man with the Funny Hat had delivered after all. This Servant would do. "All you need to know is that I'm your Master and that there is someone we need to kill."

Please leave a review for feedback! Next chapter things should heat up again! But in an unexpected way!