I don't own Type-moon nor do I profit off of this work, enough said.
The sensation of butterflies fluttering within my stomach wouldn't abate as I walked through the pristine halls of the Einzbern castle. Most would think that my thorough familiarity with the family manor or the lack of resistance I've encountered so far would serve to calm my nerves, but no they only had the opposite effect sadly.
The only reason my heart wasn't hammering in my chest was the encouraging presence of Heracles right beside me, giving me a strange sort of confidence I had never felt before.
Yes, I could do this, Berserker was the strongest after all!
Perhaps it was a childish sort of assurance, but I took solace in it regardless. It was a comfort I sorely needed as I begrudgingly moved step by step like a criminal towards their execution. I was moving to meet the perpetrator of most of my suffering here, the thing that had turned what I once considered a home into a place I despised, needless to say this wasn't something I was looking forwards to.
It had to be done though, I needed to know if these memories were true or not.
The dead red eyes of other homunculi watched me as I slowly stalked my way towards Acht's office. They were probably just wondering what I was doing back so early, but that didn't make all the eyes I felt on my back any less creepy. Fortunately none of them dared approach me as they were either scared off by Berserker or completely apathetic regarding anything that didn't involve their assigned duties.
Finally after what felt like hours, I had arrived in front of the luxurious wooden door that led to Jubstacheit's office. A part of me wanted to storm into Old man Acht's room and angrily scream obscenities at the piece of trash for all the shit he's put me through, but my more rational side thought that was stupid and suggested using diplomacy instead.
It was best to approach this carefully, I would get my revenge soon… Just, not now.
I paused taking a deep breathe to calm my frayed nerves before I quickly rapped my knuckles on the door in short succession. The knocking was mostly for show, since Acht probably knew I was here before I had even entered the manor, if my new memories could be trusted.
Let's hope I don't screw this up.
Slowly the door swung open to reveal the stoic visage of Jubstacheit, his frigid blue gaze swiftly boring into my red eyes without blinking.
Why was this worth noting?
Well it's because Einzbern homunculi only possessed red eyes as we were all albinos, Jubstacheit meanwhile was the only one within the Einzbern residence that lacked these signature red eyes, it was a small detail that brought attention to the strange nature of Acht.
Most Magi would quickly assume that Acht was just another human magus like themselves, just as Kiritsugu had believed once upon a time, however they couldn't have been more wrong as the Einzbern patriarch was no human but a humanoid golem instead, which in turn was only a terminal that allowed the centuries old Artificial intelligence that was part of the castle itself to interact with the world.
The silence was broken as my so-called grandfather finally deigned to respond "You're back early…" I didn't know what to think of that statement as his face hadn't moved from the usual cast of disapproval that was its default expression.
"Yet, I see you already have Berserker under control. You have surpassed my expectations Illyasviel, I'm proud of you." A small smile crossed his face as he complimented me sending a shock of joy down my spine, I was praised!
Don't be fooled Illya, he's an absolute asshole! He quite literally threw you to the wolves for a test!
...Damn, I must be starved for attention if such a small thing makes me so happy that there's practically a tail wagging behind me, but I wasn't going to be led astray by such feelings like Pavlov's dumb dog.
I knew Jubstacheit's smile only contained the same pride a weapons manufacturer might have once they've made a better product, that's all I was to him a tool to be used and discarded when spent. Well I refuse, I wouldn't let him manipulate me any longer!
You're getting distracted you came here for a reason.
I didn't let the storm of emotions roaring within my mind show on my face as I nodded "Yes, but I feel that I could do more to prepare for the war grandfather."
"Hmmm, more you say? What do you have in mind Illyasviel?" Acht questioned, his brow raised.
I tried to suppress the victorious smirk that threatened to appear on my face, but was met only with mild success, the golem had reacted just as I hoped. "First, I want to know the capabilities of the previous Servants we've summoned so I have a better idea of what to expect from my opponents. Next I'll need to know what to expect from the Matou and Tohsaka family magecraft and how to best counter them."
As long as I mention how it will help me win the Holy Grail War the old fool will buy it wholesale.
"Yes I had given you an overview, but a more detailed account would certainly help…" Jubstacheit stroked his immaculate white beard in thought, a surprisingly human mannerism for such an inhuman thing, but I suppose that came with centuries of practice "Come in then, this will be a long conversation."
I sent a quick glance back at Berserker who was still dutifully trailing behind me, which presented a problem since he was too big to follow me through the door while materialized.
Heracles immediately grasped the situation despite his supposed madness as his form faded from view, astralizing into mist. Suddenly sweet relief descended upon me as my screaming nerves were now blissfully silent, the absolute agony I'd been enduring now lessened to a more tolerable dull ache.
I should've realized it earlier, Berserker's incorporeal state was far less taxing on my magic circuits, the same circuits that caused tremendous pain when used.
That wasn't even mentioning the sheer agony they caused when they were strained to their limit, just like what was happening up until now.
With Berserker in more energy efficient form I followed the old golem into his office until he motioned towards a cushy seat, opposite to the one he took for himself. As I sat down on the aforementioned chair Acht slid a cup of Darjeeling tea across the mahogany table towards me. I quickly wrapped my cold hands across the pleasantly warm cup, waiting for old man Acht to begin.
"I shall start with our previous Servant Saber, the King of Knights Arthur." Jubstacheit's face shifted into a wistful expression at the mention of the once and future king, "All her parameters were A ranked with only strength lagging behind at a solid B rank while her Noble Phantasms were even better."
Jubstacheit spared a glance at the currently incorporeal Berserker before he continued "Honestly if we still had Saber's catalyst I would have seriously considered summoning Arthur again as she was the card that won the Fourth War, the real reason we lost that War wasn't because of Saber, but the fact that a certain someone abandoned his duties."
...
That, was a low blow.
I gave Acht a frosty glare for the blatant insinuation but didn't interrupt as I still needed what I came here for.
Don't scream at him, don't hit him, don't sic Berserker on him, don't fall to his bait you're better than him.
"Still Heracles is just as good if not better than Saber with his higher parameters there's no doubt as to who would win between the two. The only thing Berserker lacks compared to Saber is an offensive Noble Phantasm, but that isn't an issue since with God Hand he'll outlast any opponent. It's why I chose him after all, you can't expect any less from the greatest Greek hero." Jubstacheit remarked.
Patience Illya, patience.
Justacheit paused to take a sip from his own cup of Darjeeling before continuing his lecture, "The Servant before Saber though…"
The Einzbern patriarch shook his head, a grimace of disgust marring his typically stoic face "A complete disaster, horrible parameters, a weak noble phantasm, in fact he had absolutely no redeeming qualities."
Here was my chance!
"Who did we summon that was so weak and why him over powerful heroes like Heracles and Arthur who we also had catalysts for?" I asked trying my best to sound sincere.
Jubstacheit didn't seem to notice anything odd about my pointed question, probably due to his inability to truly understand human emotions "It was a mistake, we had tried to summon a Divine Spirit, something that was sure to win the war by using a newly discovered ninth class container, Avenger. It all went wrong as instead of obtaining Angra Mainyu the Persian god of darkness we wound up with a failure lacking the smallest spark of divinity, a wretch that was even weaker than the competing Magi at the time."
Well there's the confirmation I did and didn't want to hear.
I've never been more conflicted upon hearing something before in my life. On one side hurray I probably wasn't completely crazy! Yet on the flip side there was the resigned dread of knowing I had to deal with the incarnation of darkness infesting the Holy Grail in the near future…
"You seem to be lost in thought Illyasviel." An emotionless voice interrupts my train of thought bringing me back to the real world where one Jubstacheit Von Einzbern is glaring at me, it seemed he didn't appreciate my wandering attention.
Quick make an excuse!
"There are extra classes? This is the first time I've heard of them." I blurted the first thing that came to mind, which in hindsight wasn't the best question considering I already knew the answer, although the original Illya certainly didn't.
"Hmph, don't bother thinking about them Illyasviel they're not worth considering." Jubstacheit harrumphed, immediately shooting down my question, "Instead let's continue onto the next servant since talking about Avenger is a waste of time. The Servant before Avenger was another Saber with solid parameters, naturally he lasted all the way until the end however Siegfried had a major flaw that became more apparent as the Second Grail War progressed, one that ultimately amounted to his loss at our enemies hands…"
Ugh Parameter this, Parameter that! It's almost as if all Acht can see are pure numbers like some sort of glorified calculator. Then again he was an A.I.
I tuned out the golem that called itself my grandfather keeping my face blank so as not to reveal that my thoughts were beginning to drift a mile away again.
My knowledge of the future as a piece of fiction seemed more reliable now with the confirmation of several things that I couldn't have known about beforehand and while it was dangerous to make assumptions on shaky information it was still better than diving face first while blind.
So if my memories were to be trusted the biggest obstacles to my survival could be lumped into three camps Gold Priest, Evil Matou and my crappy lifespan.
The first issue was the biggest problem which wasn't surprising considering that it was Gilgamesh, the same guy that could solo every other Servant in the War including Heracles. The pompous goldy wanted to rip my heart out my chest to purposefully create an incompatible grail so he could cull humanity and rule over its dead corpse.
There was also Kirei and Lancer, but Berserker could take them.
I couldn't think of a single good way to beat the King of Heroes without uniting every other Servant against him and even if I did manage to accomplish that unlikely feat it wasn't sure to work. I mean I could try to better my chances by taking out his mana supply but with the Archer's Independent Action skill that would only serve to stall the proud Demigod at best.
There were the three ways he went down in canon, but the two good ones seemed unreliable at best. The Fate route had Saber reflect EA back at Gilgamesh with Avalon which sounded great until you realized that the King of heroes possessed multiple shields that could block such a blast and even more Noble Phantasms that allowed him to heal any damage he did receive at a moment's notice.
In other words it wasn't a method that I could rely on, especially considering that bad ends were a thing in the original Fate novel and considering Type-Moon was known for its multiple timelines, I wasn't guaranteed to be in one of the good routes. Unfortunately it was far more likely that I was in stuck in one of the more numerous failed timelines where everything goes to shit.
Try not to think about that...
Next was the Unlimited blade works route… It was a meme choice to say the least, so much had to go right for it to work as it basically revolved around Gilgamesh underestimating Shirou which didn't really inspire confidence. However the real problem was that a very specific sequence of events had to occur for Shirou to actually become a threat to the arrogant king which included the small detail of hmmm what was it again? Oh wait! I had to die before Shirou could defeat Gilgamesh in that route!
No thank you.
That didn't mean the route was entirely useless since I knew how to turn Shirou from a helpless weakling into someone who could potentially defeat my greatest enemy. All I had to do was get an arm from Archer and graft it onto the younger version of my brother using the Shroud of Martin. The tough part was getting one of Archer's arms without making an enemy of him and Rin.
How the hell was I supposed to justify that? Oh sorry, I took your arm Archer, but I totally need it. No, Don't be mad Rin, here I'll trade you it for Shirou's since I cut his arm off too!
Yeah, that was a quick way to make a few enemies.
The only surefire way to get rid of Gilgamesh that I could think of was to use Dark Sakura, but that was a horrible idea that would only serve to create a much bigger problem than it would solve.
Speaking of Sakura she was also another doomsday scenario waiting to happen, as if Gilgamesh wanting to purge humanity wasn't enough now we had to deal with the cup incarnating itself into an evil god that will also wipe out humanity.
Oh, goody I sure do love these impending apocalypses hanging above my head like swords of Damocles, don't I?
No, no I don't. It wasn't only my life that was on the line here, but quite literally everyone on this planet might depend on whether or not I pulled through.
It feels heavy, I don't like this type of responsibility!
I had to stop Sakura from going off the deep end or I'd die along with everyone else which left me with four options, the best option was to keep Shirou away from Sakura so Zouken never found the crack in the girl's armor that led to Heaven's Feel. It was doable, but I would essentially have to babysit Shirou to make sure he didn't accidentally start the route.
Of course if that failed I could take the fight to Zouken and drive him away from Sakura. This was also doable, but would cause major problems down the road as Zouken was akin to an annoying cockroach that I would never be rid of.
Unless I could negotiate with the worm by dangling what he wanted in front of his nose however methods for immortality and healing the soul weren't easy to come by so that wasn't in the cards yet. Still considering these topics were high on my priority list should I find a method I could share then it was certainly a possibility.
However in the worst case scenario and all of these methods failed and Heaven's Feel does start then the only solution was to either rely on the only route I didn't have full knowledge of as I had never finished it, or kill Sakura and alienate Shirou, Rin, Archer and probably even Saber.
Would that even work though? Once Sakura gets to that point she's nearly unkillable...
Either option was unacceptable, it was imperative I avoided the situation and pulled out all the stops as I needed the main cast's help for the best chance at beating Gilgamesh, I simply couldn't afford for Heaven's Feel to happen.
Better make that double, triple, quadruple sure Heaven's Feel never starts then.
Finally there was the fact that I only had a year or two to live even if I somehow avoided all the dead ends within the Grail War. Thankfully I actually had some ideas for that!
Sort of...
Medea the Caster of the Fifth War was noted to be able to create potions of immortality, if I could get one of those that might solve my problem, there was also the bonus that the potions could double as a great bargaining chip against Zouken if needed. Of course getting the real thing from a hostile witch known for her tendency of betrayal wasn't going to be easy.
Impossible might be a more apt word, but if I could get her before Kuzuki and make sure I never called her a witch to her face, then perhaps...
The more reliable option was to simply take both Avalon and Saber from Shirou and see if the legendary sheathe could fix my problem.
Maybe Shirou will just give them to me if I ask nicely? Saving the life of his little sister is what a good Hero of Justice would do after all~
"…The Matou Magecraft is problematic however I believe you can handle it by using your sorcery trait to create a mystery with a wide area of effect as their familiars are frail and weak, the only advantage they have is quantity." The droning voice of Jubstacheit pauses for a moment before returning, "Do you have any other questions Illyasviel?"
Huh, what?
I blink in momentary incomprehension before my current situation comes rushing back to me. Right I was in the same room as a piece of shit I wanted to kill but couldn't.
"No grandfather, that was all, thank you for the advice." I carefully worded my response as I shook my head and briskly made to leave the room, my mind already traveling elsewhere.
I officially possessed dubious knowledge of the future now, but how?
My memories of the future weren't placed by any run of the mill magus was something I was sure of, in fact there were only a few things on earth that were capable of this which amounted to the small list of the Wizard Marshal Zelretch, ALAYA and finally GAIA, but I didn't think any of them made sense.
GAIA wouldn't ever consider doing whatever created me, while ALAYA would simply empower people to do its bidding or use its contracted counter guardians instead of relying on whatever created me. Of the three Zelretch was the most likely, but everything about my current situation went against his peculiar style of interference.
In the end thinking about how I came to be was a fruitless endeavor, especially when I had more pressing concerns. It was akin to contemplating the nature of the Root while being repeatedly stabbed to death by a random thug off the street.
Putting aside useless existential questions I focused on my main goal, survival.
Now was the time to plan and prepare for the Fifth Holy Grail War and the first step was to list the few advantages I possessed as Illyasviel Von Einzbern since the first step towards victory is knowing oneself.
The most notable assets in my possession were the numerous command seals grafted within my body that doubled as powerful magic circuits. While most competitors in the Grail war only had a measly three seals, I easily had over a thousand, the fact I could use them to bolster my already ludicrous magic potential was only icing on the cake.
Following at a close second was my sorcery trait, Wish-Granting. It was a powerful ability that allowed me to cast almost any spell without having any knowledge about the spell in question and all I had to do was dump prana on whatever I desired to happen.
If I wanted to create a field of time distortion like Kiritsugu? I could do that! How about flying in the skies or hell even teleportation? I could do both! In fact there was very little I couldn't do so long as I had enough internal magical energy, or Od as it was called in the moonlit world, to fuel my sorcery trait.
Fortunately that was an area I excelled at as Wish-Granting synergized heavily with my previously mentioned trump card, there was a reason I was called the 'perfect master' by the Einzberns. I was a monster of a mage capable of actualizing any mystery that wasn't True Magic and even those I could ape pretty closely, it was to the point where most Magi and perhaps even the esteemed Barthomeloi family would turn green with envy upon learning of my magical aptitude.
Sadly while it sounded amazing on paper it wasn't that great in practice, as actualizing mysteries using Wish-Granting wasn't very mana efficient which became a problem when you factor in the giant magical drain that was Berserker into the mix. Still that problem paled in comparison to the true issue, I was entering a Grail war, an event where ridiculously strong beings whose weakest members could give even the strongest Magi a run for their money were my opponents. I would never win in a one on one against a Servant nor could I hurt them, at least not as I was right now.
Outside of direct battle with Servants though Wish-Granting's potential was near limitless, something that made my inner munchkin squeal with joy. I would have to wait for the Grail's support to kick in until I could truly utilize it though, as I was already pushing my magical limit by sustaining Heracles.
It was mana well spent though as Heracles was a Servant that I was confident wouldn't lose to anyone save Gilgamesh and no Salter didn't count, she was a cheating cheater who cheats, infinite mana? More like hacks, anyone could win with that!
Okay maybe not everyone, but I certainly could.
"Illya…"
Moving on all that remained were minor things such as my deep well of knowledge on magecraft especially regarding Northern Alchemy, my personal magecraft Engel Note, the enormous amounts of money available to me, my dubious knowledge of the future and last but not least…
"Illyasviel!" A loud yell broke my concentration.
Who dares interrupt my super important brainstorming session!?
Wildly I looked around for the vile fiend ready to give them a piece of my mind only to spot a certain maid. "Are you ignoring me lady Illyasviel?" The homunculus mumbled with a downcast expression.
Oh, it was just Sella…
"No!" I hastily excuse my blunder to prevent my maid's mood from worsening, "I was just lost in thought Sella!"
Yup, in case anyone was wondering I had two personal maids who were loyal, caring and dutiful women who tried their best to take care of me, the fact that they were both flawless beauties to boot certainly didn't hurt either!
Wait, I had hot maids who would practically do anything for me...
Ehe~
Get your mind out of the gutter you fool, they're only two years old, they're practically toddlers!
That sobering thought immediately smothered my burgeoning fantasy in its cradle.
Oh well, it wasn't like I could do anything with my body the way it currently was anyways.
...Actually come to think of it, didn't having people who were less than a tenth of my age take care of me, make me some sort of big baby?
Unaware of my self-disparaging thoughts Sella gave a cheerful smile, her previous frown nowhere to be seen as she responded back "Oh good, let's get you back to your room Lady Illyasviel. I'll have breakfast ready for you soon."
Wasting no time the maid took my hand dragging me away while simultaneously snapping me out of my negative fugue, but that was only due to to the spike of alarm I felt at this sudden situation. I jerked my head to where an astralized Berserker stood only to give a sigh of relief as Heracles seemed to realize Sella seizing my hand and forcefully dragging me away wasn't an attack.
That could've ended badly if Berserker took Sella's actions the wrong way, I couldn't help but wince at the thought of Sella smeared on the wall. Thankfully it seemed Heracles could tell whether someone approached me with hostile intent or not.
Of course, Berserker was the best after all!
With that happy thought I skipped after Sella allowing her lead the way to a scrumptious meal, letting the stressful thoughts about the impending Grail War slip away in favor of happy fantasies filled with delicious food.
Hey, cut me some slack its been several weeks since I had a good meal.
A/N 2: The chapter has now been edited. Also what do you think about the italicized thoughts between sentences, do they inject character or are they just an annoyance?
