Boyzilla: I didn't want any more cute moments in the previous chapter than Archer's arrival. I didn't want to dilute the impact of that moment.
Akasha Bloodriver: I tried to put myself in Hakuno's shoes. If I were her, the Servant I would most want to see is the one I had during the Grail War. So, to me, it was obvious that Archer would be the first to be summoned.
Xirons20: Thank.
Nearchus of Leto
Hakuno was sitting still, surrounded by virtual screens that she wasn't looking at. For several minutes his mind was divided between the management of the Surcouf and a conversation with the Supreme Flagship Yamato. In the digital space that served as a meeting place for the A.I. of the Fog, negotiations were underway. Their stake? Nothing less than the future of this version of Earth...
However, Hakuno Kishinami's Servants sometimes seemed to require as much attention as kittens and leaving them without guidance was not necessarily a good idea...
In the armchair of the artillery officer, a tall and well-built man, dark skin, white hair and silver eyes, watched the helmsman operating. Archer's sardonic smile spoke volumes about his feelings for the pirate woman.
Drake feigned to concentrate on the maneuvers of the submarine cruiser; nevertheless she briefly glanced over her shoulder. Finally, she doesn't want it anymore:
- Go ahead, since you have something to say, let us hear the fruit of your wisdom.
Archer laughed a little, just condescending enough to shout a little more at Drake's bad mood.
- Me, Rider? No, I have nothing to say.
- Then why are you staring at me like that?
- Is that prohibited?
Drake looked up to the sky. There was nothing to do, since the first meeting, Archer made her want to scream and bite!
- They never told you it wasn't polite, Archer?
The Servant of the bow closed an eye and spread his arms, displaying an air of false humility:
- Oh? Dogs look at sausages well...
On account, Francis Drake turned scarlet with a swollen vein beating at his temple. She had to make heroic efforts to avoid exploding with rage, right before the eyes of their Master. After a minute of breathing exercises, Rider turned to Archer pointing at him with a finger stretched out and the voice deafened by the effort to control her anger:
- You, I don't love you! I don't understand what Hakuno finds in you. Inside, there is nothing but gears trains and calculations. You're some kind of war machine that rejected feelings and emotions. And in the certainty of your superiority, you look at others with a smug smile. You don't suffer from loneliness, sir "I'm-an-army-all-by-myself"?
Drake's scathing repartee was greeted by the same condescending grin she denounced:
- Sure you can afford to lecture others. You are a saint, after all.
Rider did not appear disturbed by the indirect recall of her crimes:
- Yes, I am a pirate, a slave trader, a villain, an anti-hero. But at least I lived my life to the fullest and could laugh in the face of death. You, I am certain, have perished crushed by your failures in some impossible quest.
The two heroes were now looking at each other with anger, even if it just meant to Archer that his smile had faded in favor of a cold expression. They had forgotten Hakuno, while their arguments had been exchanged more and more violently. However, even if it is shared between several tasks, it comes into play:
- You couldn't get along?
They turned around to face their Master. The teen girl tilt her head and looked at them with big brown eyes.
"How cute she is," Archer thought.
"Ah! She's adorable" is what crossed Rider's mind.
The reaction of the two Servants would have deserved to be filmed. At one moment, they seemed on the verge of throwing themselves on each other like two drooling and growling fighting dogs... and the next moment each one showed his own expression of contrition... well as long as they were able (they had a lot of progress to make in this area).
Archer leaned against his chair, folding his arms in a deliberate gesture to show that he was giving up. A smile that was both amusing and fatalistic replaced his usual sarcastic smirk:
- Master, will I ever be able to cure you of your absurd idealism? Servants exist to fight, not to crony...
As for Francis Drake, she suddenly blushed. Conscious of having been put in order as a not wise child who attacked another in the school yard... Although mortified by the spectacle she had just given, Rider glanced at Archer incendiary, well aware that he had manipulated her to make her look ridiculous. Drake was reluctant to say, "He started it," because that was not the most mature answer.
- You're right Master, we have enemies around us. I... I should concentrate on driving.
Turning around, she put her hands on the bar, feigning interest in the control panels. Rider, however, took one last look at Hakuno. The skinny girl continued to look at her Servants, her head turning to one, and then to the other, as if she were wondering if she had really avoided confrontation.
Drake didn't understand Hakuno Kishinami. On the one hand, it was - without question - the most brilliant of the Masters of the Holy Grail of the Moon Cell War. On the other hand, she seemed so... innocent?
It is hard to imagine that the best tactician among the Masters, who owes her many victories to an innate talent to find the weaknesses of her opponents, exploit them and bring them down is also... as naive!
Even the passing of the game of death created by the Seraph had not succeeded in making him lose this sensitivity and this loving heart so unusual among the Spiritrons Hackers. This was beyond comprehension. Throughout his life, Drake had always seen humans acting out of selfishness.
Few had hesitated to cynically abandon their principles and friends to save themselves. Only, it would never have come to Hakuno's idea.
Certainly, of the unrecoverable cases of this kind, Rider had encountered more than one. But in the long run, they ended up choking on their great ideals... along with their birth certificate. Why did Kishinami survive when she was carrying all that ridiculous sentimentalism?
Even as Drake shook her head, irritated by this contradiction, she frowned, struck by a sudden doubt. Was it really a weakness... or the very reason for his victory?
Did she win despite her too much humanity or because of it?
The virtual space used as a meeting place for the A.I. of the Fog did not shine by its originality or its extent. It was an empty white space with no horizon. The only structure was a kiosk like the ones found in the gardens and where musicians came to play on the weekend. The place housed a simple garden table made of forged metal and painted in white, surrounded by fitted armchairs.
For Hakuno Kishinami, accustomed to the landscapes of the Seraph and the labyrinths of the chimerical Lunar Seas, it was like comparing the scribbles of a four-year-old to a painting by a great artist. Everything seemed flat, pixilated, with shrill colors, and a strong impression of unreality.
Sitting on the other side of the table, Yamato noted Hakuno's absence. Sipping her tea, she looked at her for a moment, waiting for her to show signs of attention again:
- What is going on?
Kishinami blinked quickly and tilt her head.
- Excuse me, madam?
Without knowing why, Yamato looked away. The head of the Fog felt blush and shook her head. What happened to him? The supreme flagship endeavored to repel this inexplicable weakness and faced the strange invader from the Moon Cell:
- I asked you what might have bothered you.
- My Servants were fighting.
The answer didn't explain much for the A.I. It was the Mental Model of a Battleship built by extraterrestrials to resemble a Pacific War ship. As such, she knew nothing of the Grail War, its rules and the Seraph.
- What is a Servant?
- A heroic spirit invoked by the Moon Cell, replied Hakuno.
Under the beautiful black hair, Yamato's eyebrows are bent.
- King Darius III and the man who was driving a war cart pulled by oxen... those who faced this Altera are Servants?
Hakuno agreed to that.
- Altera is also a Servant?
-... I don't know?
As the Inheritor of the Moon gave her answer, she made virtual screens appear around her by attaching the ring to her finger. Texts and images were parading.
- What are you doing, asked Yamato.
- I ask the Moon Cell.
- And?
Removing the translucent panels from an eye movement, Hakuno took a determined expression and acquiesced:
- Altera is a Heroic Spirit.
Again, Yamato was annoyed with the literal way Hakuno Kishinami understood his questions. With one hand, she caressed the flower of fabric in her ear, and then swallowed a sip of tea before calmly clarifying her question:
- I meant how it is that Velber also uses Heroic Spirits.
Yamato raised his hand, warning the Sovereign of the Moon Cell:
- You don't have to say "I don't know!". Give me the answer directly from the Moon cell, Kishinami.
Hakuno Kishinami hesitated then stretched her will within the Regalia. The ring was like a highly compressed data maze, from millions of command code lines providing access to as many functions within the Moon Cell. Far too many lines of code for the last Master of the Moon Cell to find what she was looking for.
Pressing the ring on her chest, Hakuno reflected. There must have been some kind of instructions... In spirit, she returned to the root menu, and scrolled through the main functions. Still, it was necessary to understand them. What did "Quantum time lock" mean, for example... the Moon Cell could really send her back to the past, as a video game player reloaded his previous backup? Kishinami shivered. The power she commanded was beyond imagination. No wonder Velber wanted to take it. Many gods would dream of the power it could unleash with a thought... at least if the young Master figured out how to do it... because the complexity of the Regalia didn't make it as simple as it seemed. To say that she was just looking for a way to transmit data... "Communication"? It seemed promising. The Master crosses several interfaces seeking its way into a maze of sub-programs.
- Ah!
She had just found it. Hakuno held out his hand as the Regalia lit up. Yamato rested his cup of tea when a thousand code tendrils passed through her firewalls with the delicacy of a herd of elephants in full panic.
In a very human gesture, she took her head with both hands, panting under the effect of the invasion of a real Data Niagara:
A titanic photonic crystal vessel drifting through the cosmos. Velber, the Umbral Star...
She saw the monstrous cosmic object release a sort of crystal splinter: an Anti-cells, a formidable weapon charged with destroying the civilizations encountered by Velber during his eternal wandering.
The Anti-cells, or Ark of Stars, was home to Sefar, the White Titan. He fell on the Moon... not the one orbiting the Earth that Yamato knew, but an almost similar moon, in a parallel universe. This Moon differed by the presence, in a crater, of a gigantic crystal cube that formed the heart of the prodigious computer known as Moon Cell. Everywhere photonic crystals veins ran in all the layers of the lunar soil.
Yamato saw Sefar plunder the Moon Cell, seize 80% of its resources and use them to create a double on this Earth of a distant past. There, the animals became mad, mutated and transformed into giant monsters while Sefar's double grew in size, becoming so high that his head was lost in the clouds. The civilizations would die. The gods perished, kings fell at the head of their armies, the heroes were powerless and the survivors of ancient cities fled into caves to carve into the rock a tragic warning for future generations.
But in a final effort, with its declining resources, the Moon Cell called the Once and Future King holding in its hands a divine construct: the true breath of the Star, the shinning torrent of life, forged by the planet as the crystallization of the wishes of the mankind: a Last Phantasm!
Struck by the torrent of golden light, Yamato saw Sefar collapse. Taking advantage of the feedback felt by the real Sesar, the Moon Cell forced him to fall asleep and sealed him in a forbidden area: The Zero Dark.
The world had just undergone the Universal Flood, many gods had died and with their death, their age had just collapsed. The Earth had shifted to its axis, Atlantis, Mu and the Lemuria had sunk into the oceans. When the waves retreated, there were only a few scattered tribes of humanity clothed in animal skins.
Millennia passed by.
Yamato saw riders dressed in leather and fur. Little men with yellow skin, riding ponies and armed with composite bows. Their shamans surrounded the debris of what had been Sefar. Their magic collected sparks of power that still slept in the gigantic corpse. This light condensed between them in the form of a baby with brown skin marked with white tattoos. Her hair was silver and her eyes were red.
The vision became confused.
Now the child was a beautiful young woman wielding a sword formed by a rainbow. She rode at the head of the Hun armies, guiding them ever further into the Roman Empire... plundering cities, defeating armies, rushing a world to its downfall.
Everywhere the fire ravaged the cultivated fields and the cities turned into heaps of ruins: Attila, the Scourge of God!
Wanting to have a conquering leader capable of bringing them to glory, the Hun shamans had managed to create a hero that Velber could send to fight on Earth... in order to awaken the real Sefar who was still sleeping in the Zero Dark.
As the influx of data finally dried up, Yamato choked sought to regain his calm. Even an A.I. of the first order, like her, found her mind in disarray, terrified by what she had just learned.
If Altera released Sefar, nothing could stop the White Titan. The gods had been unable to do so... the notion of God incarnate and fighting among men seemed ridiculous but... the fight between Altera and Iskandar and Darius III was far too real.
Yamato took a terrified look at Hakuno Kishinami.
It was all on the shoulders of that teenage girl!
Only she could stop Sefar from waking up!
Near Roma (Italia)
Altera was watching the Fog's fleet stretching along the sea. There were many ships including the battleships Littorio, Vittorio Veneto and Roma, the three most powerful battleships deployed in the Mediterranean by the Fog's Regina Marina (the Italian royal navy). Obviously, they were trying to prevent their passage...
The king of the Huns turned to Iskandar, always accompanied by Waver Velvet.
- I have to go to England.
The king of Macedonia rubbed his head with one hand and had a big smile:
- Remember that you destroyed Gordeus's Wheel; it will reappear in a few days but...
Iskandar turned to Darius III, who dominated them all.
- ... finally, not all of us will be able to make it on board.
Altera's expression became darker:
- I must join Hakuno Kishinami, the Sovereign of the Moon Cell.
- Oh... i See... You want a ship or a plane... mmm...
Iskandar rubbed his chin:
- So I have no choice but to catch you one.
Waver startled while he was lighting a cigar. He glanced at his king who gave little doubt as to what he thought of his mental health. Far from being offended, the conqueror left with a vast burst of laughter, and flanked "a friendly pat" in the back of the Magus... lacking to make him fall to the ground.
- You continue to doubt me, Waver. And yet, I have the strength of all those who have sworn loyalty to me. Come to me, Nearchus of Leto!
Waver's eyes opened as a mist appeared along the sea. Of course... Iskandar's army did not consist only of phalanxes. He had a navy... led by a Cretan... the navarch (admiral) Nearchus.
Thirty ships emerged from the mist, ancient Greek trireme with the sails struck by the golden sun of Macedonia. A bronze ram was at the bow and multiple oars plunged into the water in cadence. While an officer was at the stern to operate the rudder oars, a dozen Hoplites and four archers were standing on the battle galleries.
Iskandar called Bucephalus and rode, before reaching out to Altera:
- Accompany me, King of the Huns, so that you can choose a ship at your convenience.
- So the flagship of this fleet!
The King of the Conquerors burst out laughing while hoisting the tiny young woman behind him. The horse left the ground, running among the clouds to take the lead of the galleys that were stinging towards the Fog fleet.
Waver Velvet - also known as lord el-Melloi II- took a breath of his cigar before giving a look at Darius III. The colossus returned him with a fierce face, and the Magus swallowed...
Since his participation in the Fuyuki's Grail War, he hasn't been bored for one day... Maybe that's what he missed the most, his classroom, his students and a lot of boredom. What would he not give to have homework to correct rather than to be there?
Next episode: Second World War ships against Greek galleys, the ultimate battle... somewhere between Midway and Salamis. Impossible everywhere else, possible only on Chimerical Lunar Seas of Steel.
