Chapter 3: First Contact.

02/03.

"Yeah, sorry about that," Ryoga said, tugging on his bandanna and looking as apologetic as he could manage as he made a quick exit from the all-night convenience store he'd found himself in the back freezer of only a moment before.

The clerk gave him a wary eye until he got out of sight, but didn't make any other moves. At least this had gone better than the strip club incident. Clenching his teeth, he looked up to see that he was still in Fuyuki city. In fact, he was right in the middle of its central 'Shinto' district, and the sky to the east was lightening.

He quickly checked the link with his master. The younger martial artist seemed to still be asleep, and he was thankful for his habit of sleeping in whenever his father didn't force him to rise early, but he was also doubtful that would last much longer, especially given the look in Ranma's eye when they'd failed to find any leads in the crater the night before.

The younger martial artist was getting frustrated, and in a way Ryoga couldn't blame him. Unfortunately, Ranma tended to do very stupid things when frustrated, and in a holy grail war, that could get him killed. For a moment, the treacherous thought that letting that happen would at least fix his problem flitted across the back of his mind, but he shoved it away, closing his eyes and walking forward. That wasn't a solution he would accept.

When he heard a woman's gasp, he almost didn't want to open his eyes. He did, however, and then blinked at a tall woman who stood before him in a long, white dress with black accents, a few strands of pale hair poking out from a tightly fitted cap. She blinked back a couple of times, before he broke eye-contact and quickly looked around. He and the woman were standing in a large, stone-walled room lined with wooden bookshelves, a large oak dining table sitting in its center. When the woman cleared her throat gently, he looked back at her. "You must be a guest," She said, firmly, as though telling herself. She then bowed formally. "I am sorry that I didn't get to greet you when you arrived. My name is Leysritt, a servant of miss Einzbern. If you'll wait a moment I can get you some breakfast."

"Um, I…" Ryoga stammered as the woman turned away from him, mumbling something about not being told and leaving the room hurriedly. He considered trying to leave, but decided that if she caught him wandering around her reaction might be much less pleasant. Concentrating, he tried to fade into mana, and was immediately jolted by an almost electric shock. Wards. He was inside a set of wards. He squared his shoulders and was about to make a break for it when another woman, only discernable from Leysritt due to being slightly shorter, entered carrying a tray of food.

She seemed to look over him for a moment, before stepping in and laying the food on the table. "If you would sit down, the mistress will be out in a few minutes," she said formally, pulling a chair out for him. He did so, briefly wondering who 'the mistress' was. She was certainly a mage, or at least someone here was. The name the first woman had spoken, 'Einzbern,' tickled at the back of his brain, but he couldn't quite recall why. Absently, he picked at the food before him, noting the western style eating utensils he'd been given. At least he might have finally gotten out of Fuyuki. That thought was driven out of his mind when he heard a very familiar voice.

"Oh, so what do we have here?" He turned back to the doorway, and his stomach dropped as he saw the young girl who commanded Berserker standing there and looking him over. The massive servant wasn't at her side, and a quick glance around the room didn't spot him, but despite not being able to feel his presence, he was certain that he could be there in half a second.

"S… so, you're Miss Einzbern," he said, trying to keep his voice steady.

"And you would be Mister Assassin," She said in return. When there was a loud crash behind her, she turned, revealing Leysritt, a dropped tray at her feet and a heavy halberd in her hand.

"Mistress, please move," the maid said, flatly.

"Leysritt, I said he was Assassin, as in the servant class, not AN Assassin," the girl said, slightly irritated. "With Berserker here, I will be fine."

"But-" Leysritt objected, before her mistress raised a hand.

"Please go and get me another helping of breakfast."

"Yes, Mistress," the maid replied, her halberd somehow vanishing before she left.

Ryoga simply watched this for a moment, before he couldn't help but ask. "How does everyone guess that?"

The pale haired girl looked at him oddly for a moment before taking her seat. "You've managed to enter my dining room without setting off any wards, to the point my servants assumed you must have been a guest they didn't know about," she explained. "Besides, I've already met Saber and Archer, and you hardly seem the type to be a Lancer."

That was… more than he'd been expecting. Then again, she was on her home ground, she had every reason to be confident and accommodating, if she wanted to. The only question was, why did she want to? "Well, I didn't really intend to be here," he decided to return with some honesty of his own. "I kinda got lost."

"You got lost?" The incredulity was obvious in her face, and he blushed a bit. Even after so long, it was still a sensitive subject. "I suppose if you'd been intending to sneak in here, you would have come out in my bedroom and tried to kill me while I was sleeping," she admitted after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence. "I think I've demonstrated that my Berserker outmatches you in a straight up fight."

Ryoga nodded, and resisted the urge to shiver. Not at the mention of Berserker, but at how matter-of-factly she had just speculated on the best way for him to kill her. A child her age speculating on something like that just felt wrong on a basic level. Then again, it was the kind of thing expected of mages.

"So, what do you think of this war?" He blinked, jolted out of his thoughts by the sudden question, as Leysritt entered the room with a fresh tray of food. The Einzbern girl accepted, casually nibbling at some toast as she waited for his response.

"I… don't understand," he finally said, after a few more moments of silence.

She shrugged. "Your master, the other Servants, anything, really. Unless you would like to talk about something else? We should make conversation over breakfast, right?" She looked at him expectantly.

"Well, um, I…" he floundered. What was he supposed to say? "Well, you're right," he started, hoping to play to her ego. "You and your Berserker are the most threatening so far," at the girl's happy smile, he continued. "We've also run into Caster, and Lancer." She leaned forward, and he took that as encouragement. "I'm not sure what Caster's doing, but she's got a temple on a hill on the outskirts of town heavily fortified. As for Lancer, he pretty much attacked us immediately after I was summoned, but was apparently just testing us."

"Hmm, so someone else who wasn't listening to the rules," She shook her head. "I wonder what that priest's doing?"

"Priest?" Ryoga asked. "Rules?"

"Rules instituted by the Mages Association and the church," she explained, taking a sip of tea before continuing. "I suspected your master didn't know about them, since he attacked Berserker and I the night before the war was technically supposed to begin."

"Oh," Ryoga said, dumbly. If anything, he was kind of glad that whatever group was supposed to enforce them wasn't doing anything. With the church, that usually ended in being stabbed, which was a bit counterproductive to his plans. Of course, getting out of here was a little more important than that, and he wasn't sure he was going to be able to do that.

"Um, look," he started, tentatively. "I should… probably be getting back to my master." Who knew? She was being so accommodating that this might actually work. To his shock, she nodded, and then stood.

"I understand," she said, gesturing with one hand. Abruptly, he felt a weight lift off of his shoulders, and then the sensation of Berserker's presence blasted into his senses. He could suddenly almost see the massive Servant standing behind his master. "Two things before you go, please," she said, as though speaking about the weather. "First, I have to insist that you not go after Saber's master. He is mine to play with."

Ryoga did shiver this time. The expression she wore while saying that was... not normal for anyone, let alone a girl her age. "I... suppose we can do that, as long as he doesn't attack us," he said, slowly.

She nodded. "Oh, he won't, I'm sure of it. As for my second request, what is your name?"

He sighed. He knew what that meant to most Servants, and why she was probably asking. It wouldn't actually tell her anything useful about him, but at the same time, he'd heard stories about what some mages could do with your true name. "Sorry, but I can't tell you that."

She shrugged, and then pointed a finger at him. "That's too bad." His danger sense screamed as he dove out of the way of a massive stone weapon that split his former chair in half, Berserker abruptly appearing and knocking the table aside. The lost one immediately rolled to his feet and dove for the door, only to be met by the maid with the halberd, which she swung at his chest. His umbrella immediately parried the blow, though he was surprised how heavy the impact was, and he stretched out one hand towards the wall near the door.

"Bakusai Tenketsu!" He yelled, a finger driving into the stone, spider-webs of blue light racing out from it before the wall exploded and he dove through the rubble. Berserker bellowed behind him, but abruptly he lost track of him. She must've put the wards back up, which meant that he couldn't just fade into mana and vanish. Racing down a hallway, he saw a likely looking door and reached for it, closing his eyes before he yanked on the handle and dashed through.

"The hell happened to you?" His eyes shot open and he looked around to see that he was standing in the middle of Ranma's campsite, more specifically, right next to the fire pit, where the pigtailed martial artist was looking up at him dubiously.

He let out a breath of relief before coughing from the brick dust that came off of his body at the motion. "It's nothing, don't worry about it."

"Riiight," Ranma said slowly.

HR.

"Yes, definately something stupid," Ryoga mumbled to himself as he stood on the roof of an office building several blocks away from his master, only knowing where Ranma was through their connection. In truth, Ranma's current plan had started with something more complicated than Ryoga had thought him capable of. After a couple of hours of fruitless searching in the morning, he'd stopped by a local newsstand and picked up the newspapers for the last week or so.

Looking through them had revealed an unsettling number of mysterious deaths, gas line problems, and outright murders, worse still due to the fact that the pattern seemed to suggest two people doing it independently. Still, it had been easy enough to figure out where the single target attacks had been centering.

What Ranma had done with that information, however... ("Do I even want to know why you had a full Furinkan girls uniform in your pack?") Ryoga asked.

("It's a long story,") Ranma's responding mental voice, something the lost one had insisted his master figure out before he would even think of allowing this plan, tinged with exasperation.

He supposed it was. Most stories in Nerima tended to be long, complex, and extremely stupid... and they usually ended up with Ranma in a dress at some point.

("Should you be talking to me so much? Won't they pick it up?") She asked, trying to change the subject.

("As long as I stay out of range, they won't pick anything up,") Ryoga returned. ("Now about that uniform...")

("Quiet, I think I hear something,") Ranma interrupted. Ryoga tensed, carefully orienting himself on his master's signal in preparation to start running. It was possible that she'd just wanted to change the subject, but he doubted it as this was the plan. Ranma had planned her route to go straight through the center of disappearances, in cursed form because it was unlikely that anyone had seen her around any Servants. She'd even set Ryoga up on the building top, far enough away that he couldn't be sensed but hopefully with a straight enough line that he could get to her quickly.

It wasn't a terrible idea, so long as Ranma could keep herself alive long enough for the Servant to get there. ("Definitely got something,") she projected, and he immediately leapt off of the building.

HR.

Ranma suppressed a smirk as she landed lightly on the roof in front of her quarry. "Why so fast to run off?" She asked casually, taking the other in, and then blinking.

She had expected many things to come from her current plan, but the person before her wasn't one of them. A dark haired girl of about her own age, wearing a red sweater, black skirt and long black stockings, her hair held up in a set of twin ponytails. She supposed there was no rule against serial murderers, or their masters, being highschool girls, but it still threw her a bit off.

The girl in question lept back, her body tensing slightly, though she didn't fall into a stance. "So, you have some skill," she said haughtily. "Could've fooled me with your mana leaking all over the place."

There was that word again, 'mana.' She'd never really heard it before, but since she'd summoned him Ryoga had mentioned it several times, which probably meant that this girl had something to do with the grail war.

"I don't really care what you think of me," Ranma returned, leaning back slightly on the balls of her feet and clasping her arms behind her back. "I just wanna know if you're the master who's been killing people."

"And if I said no?" the black haired girl raised an eyebrow. "I've been trying to track them down, myself. I don't really like indiscriminate killing on my land. But you'd be a fool to just take my word."

Ranma nodded as the other girl glanced to her side as though listening to something. She had a point. Just walking up and demanding to know wouldn't really work that well, so how- She was interrupted as the girl spoke again.

"It doesn't matter, though. You're a master, and your Servant is coming this way." Next to her, the air shimmered and a tall, white haired man in a bright red overcoat stepped from nothingness. "At least when we've beaten you, you should take comfort in knowing that we plan on hunting down that other master and stopping them."

As if on cue, Ryoga plummeted from the sky, having leapt from the next building over, and landed next to Ranma. The two Servants exchanged unreadable looks and leapt off without a word, leaving the masters once more staring at eachother. "Well, if it's gunna be like that," Ranma said, falling easily into her loose combat stance but otherwise making no moves. After another silent second, her opponent obliged her, pointing an extended index finger at her which sparked with energy, a dark air distortion flying from it.

Ranma casually stepped out of the way before moving forward. As she did, her opponent fell into a more martial stance, something chinese, arms held close to her body, elbows slightly out. A few attacks were thrown and blocked, the martial artist's quick eye cataloguing her opponent's fighting style.

"So," Ranma said as she leapt back out of range. "You have some skill. Could've fooled me with those openings you're leaving all over the place."

The black haired girl's eyes narrowed, and this time she extended her whole hand, the energy gathering in her palm and being released with a low growl. Ranma stepped slightly sideways, gathering a chi projectile in her left hand and throwing it. It impacted her opponent's ball of... whatever it was, the two cancelling out in a flash of light. She nodded slightly, leaping up to a nearby roof and beckoning for her opponent to follow.

"Get back here!" The other girl yelled angrily, lines of blue green energy seeming to outline her legs before she leapt, and more surrounding her arms as she came down with an elbow aimed at Ranma's nose. The martial artist danced back, cleanly dodging the attack and returning with a highly telegraphed kick which her opponent blocked with a forearm. She was surprisingly good. When the pigtailed martial artist had heard of mages, the first assumption was naturally of thin, bookish types in a tower, but this one had at least some grasp of combat. How much of a grasp, she was eager to find out.

HR.

On a nearby roof, two figures stood watching the exchange of blows below, neither making any moves towards each other. "Well, her interest in Saber's master would be useful," the white haired Servant said, his eyes tracking the fight, "But unfortunately she might be the least of our worries right now. Your master came looking for the one who's attacking people, so you know about that, but there's something going on at the high school, too."

Ryoga took his eyes off of the fight and looked over at him sharply. "One of those wide-range attacks?:

"Not… exactly," The other Servant disagreed. "Those have actually been getting less severe, from deaths down to comas, but this one… if my master is right about the composition of the field it has a good chance of killing everyone there."

"...And then there's whatever Lancer's doing…" Ryoga winced as the dark haired mage below them tried to land a flying kick on Ranma, blowing a small crater in a nearby wall. "I doubt the individual attacks are Caster or Berserker, so…"

The white haired man smirked. "Who knows, given the holes, maybe someone's summoned Vlad the Impaler."

Ryoga frowned. "Don't start. My master keeps insisting on calling it a vampire already, he doesn't need your help."

"...he?" the other Servant asked, gesturing down to the battle. "I was meaning to ask you about that. Your master looked like a man when I spoke to you at your camp, but…"

"That's his business," Ryoga said shortly.

"...right," the magus killer replied.

"You know, your master needs some work," Ryoga changed the subject as Ranma danced out of the way of her opponent, obviously taunting the mage as she slowly picked up the pace.

"She's a very talented magus, but she didn't exactly focus as much on physical combat," the white haired man nodded. "Personally I'm just hoping this encounter might stop her from dismissing anything non-magical as a threat." As he said this, the black haired mage stretched out her hand, firing a barrage of small bolts from her fingertips at Ranma, who was seemingly caught in mid-jump.

"Still better than most mages I've seen," Ryoga replied conversationally as the other martial artist pushed off nothing in mid-air to twist around the bolts. The other Servant's eyebrows rose.

"I suspected your master would be like you," he offered. "I heard you were a real pain for the Mages Association… even when you weren't getting lost places it was impossible to get into."

Ryoga scowled darkly.

"I still can't believe you just wandered into a mage's atelier without being noticed." He chuckled. "I guess all those rumors the Mage's Association had about you were right."

"I didn't steal anyone's family secrets," the lost one grumbled.

HR.

"Stand still and die!" The mage bellowed as Ranma moved sideways past a shoulder-check, kicking her in the back.

"Y'know, that reminds me of someone," she said, conversationally. "Careful not to punch any walls up here, doubt they'll give."

"I don't care who it reminds you of," the black haired girl replied, obviously short of breath as the markings around her legs sputtered into being once more, shoving her back at the martial artist with as much force as they could manage.

Ranma shrugged. "Well I do, it's kinda nostalgic." In truth, aside from the short temper, this mage didn't fight much like Akane, especially since she actually had projectile attacks, and while obviously furious, wasn't letting it affect her tactics too much. On the other hand, she was having about as much fun as she had in that first spar, and was about finished analyzing her fighting style.

("How's it going over there, P-chan?") She asked mentally, taking a quick look around to try and spot her Servant.

("Concentrate on your own fight,") Ryoga snapped back, and Ranma turned her head back to see her opponent stretching a hand out once again, a bolt of magic forming there. She immediately responded by stretching out her own hand, but then... Her eyes widened as she saw a flash of blue-green, and the bolt of chi she'd been willing into existence failed to form.

She tried to push herself out of the way, but everything seemed to react in slow motion, the bolt of magical energy slamming into her chest and tearing up the Furinkan uniform. Akane was going to kill her for that, she thought distantly as she fell back, the world rushing back in around her. She rolled out of the way before any more projectiles could be fired, pushing off the ground hard enough to leave a crater. She brushed her opponent's guard aside easily, landing several hard strikes into her chest and stomach before a final one in the back of her neck.

Staggering slightly as she supported the mage's body, she gently lay her on the ground and stepped back as Ryoga and the other Servant materialized in front of her. Neither of them looked all that banged up, and the white haired guy actually nodded to her before picking up his master, turning, and leaping off. "Hey, wait!" She yelled, stepping forward, but Ryoga put a hand on her shoulder.

"He's not the one," the lost one said, certainly.

"How do you know that?" Ranma asked, blinking as the world blurred slightly before her and her head began to ache.

"Why didn't you stop that last shot?" he countered. At her widened eyes, he continued. "I saw you cupping your hand for a chi blast, but..."

"It's nothing," the pigtailed martial artist dismissed. "I wanted to see what that thing'd do."

Ryoga snorted. "Bullshit."

Ranma twitched. That was not the kind of language she'd expect out of Ryoga. "Look, it's nothing, all right? I won."

"And you could've won without taking that hit," Ryoga crossed his arms.

Ranma glared. "Look, just drop it, or you want me to start asking questions?" As Ryoga's eyes widened, she stepped up to him, cursing her female form for being even shorter than she normally was. "Want me to start askin' exactly what you're hiding about what happens to us in the future? I'm not that stupid, I know somethin's going on. It's my problem, and I'll deal with it."

Ryoga gulped, hard. "Yeah... I see your point," he admitted reluctantly.

"Good," Ranma said. "Now let's get back to camp. I'm real tired, for some reason..."

HR.

02/04.

She had only been working with him for a few days, but Rin Tohsaka was really starting to hate it when Archer smirked at her like that. He hadn't said anything when she'd staggered out of bed and down the stairs to see him sitting at her dining table, drinking tea, but the look in his eyes was all she needed.

Instead of instantly calling him on it, she'd settled down to enjoy the drink first. If nothing else, his tea was incredible, and she would enjoy it fully before he drove her insane. Savouring the last drop, she gently placed the cup down on the saucer, and exploded. "What the hell was that?!"

He merely raised an eyebrow.

"That... that girl I fought yesterday!" she clarified angrily. "Was she just playing me, making it look like she was such a novice?" Her Servant just kept on smirking. "You knew about it, too, didn't you?"

Archer shook his head. "Actually, you were correct," he disagreed. "My master's magical senses couldn't possibly be fooled easily. Her other senses, on the other hand..."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" She demanded, standing, hands going to hips.

He merely answered with a well-known fact. "There are two types of energy that make up the mana a mage uses for spells. There's the mana of the world itself, and the internal, odic, energy of the mage, correct?" He'd moved his plate out of the way, and had moved his arms so that the elbow of his right lay in the palm of his left, his right fist raised to his chin. For some reason that she couldn't explain, this irritated her.

"Yes, I know this," she ground out, tapping her foot.

"Right," her Servant nodded. "Many mages meditate on their odic energy so that they can use it for small spells without drawing on the world's mana, or use it as a catalyst to begin casting." Before she could interrupt him again, he asked, "what would happen if you cultivated that energy without magic circuits?"

"Without..." She remembered the blast of strange, unfocused and searingly bright power that had intercepted her Gandr spell the night before. "...Without magic circuits, you couldn't use it to cast spells, you'd just... have to project it in raw form, but that's so inefficient, that..."

"People devote entire lifetimes to learning to master it," Archer explained. "Proficient users as young as that girl are extremely rare, but for those without magic, you have to make do. It's also very useful in several ways that magic can't match." At Rin's incredulous look, he continued. "It's the natural energy of the human body, so the world doesn't reject it the way it does processed mana. It isn't corrosive to the body, either. Though you can't do a spell even as simple as projection with it, it can reinforce a human body far beyond the levels magic can manage in safety."

"But she was emitting mana," Rin argued. "Why would someone who could use magic properly do this odic energy stuff?"

Archer shrugged. "No idea."

Rin groaned, slumping back down into her chair. "So... what happened last night after I..."

"After you got knocked out," Archer filled in. "I spoke with her Servant while we fought. Both of us were convinced that the other wasn't responsible for the recent attacks, and when his master incapacitated you I felt it was best to retreat."

"...great..." Rin growled, a fist clenching under the table. She understood why Archer had felt it best to disengage, but now she had yet another thing to worry about, on top of that idiot Emiya, Einzbern's Berserker, and whoever was casting mass mana drain spells on office buildings. Oh, and on top of that, she had... A sinking feeling grew in her stomach, and she slowly looked over at the clock hanging over the fireplace in the dining room. School was starting in ten minutes.

"crap."

END.

Your regularly scheduled comic relief ending notes shall be preempted today, in exchange for a note from the author. And that is, When you feel the urge to write a story in a very heavily interconnected timeline where you need everything to stay mostly as-is until a very specific time and yet also need to introduce your change at the start of the series of events, so that a timeskip is impossible... DON'T!

I'm sorry for how long this took, I really am, and it wasn't ALL due to that, but the Fate timeline is a rabid bear to wrestle with. Fortunately, the time when I have to be so careful is drawing to a close. Does that mean the chapters will come faster?

Hahahahahahaha! Do you know me at all?

Still, I hope you liked this one. Please drop a review and tell me what you thought. Thanks, and happy reading!