Chapter 96 - Apologies & Admissions
"... are you okay, Shiro?" Rin quietly asked as she watched her younger sister impatiently fidgeting, instead of focusing on the lecture.
"Huh?" Shiro looked up to see Rin looking at her with concern visible in her eyes, before looking down to see that she'd been absent-mindedly doodling on her notebook.
"... listen, I know you must be worried..." Rin began in a whisper, leaning as close to her little sister as she could without being noticed by the lecturer (or other students).
"Worried?" Shiro repeated incredulously, before her eyes hardened. Venom entered her tone as she sarcastically asked: "Why would I be worried? It's not like my friend, who I just found out was apparently being a hero every night, just went missing in the middle of a Holy Grail War. Or that we found his broken sword in the middle of a crater in a burning forest. Or that none of the hospitals in the area reported seeing a blonde foreigner last night. Or..."
Rin winced as Shiro continued her hissed rant. Honestly, even now, she still didn't fully grasp the nature of Arc's relationship with her younger sister... and that was ignoring the fact that he was apparently a Knight of the Round Table from 1500 years ago that Shiro just picked up one night, with ties to both of their Servants, and a penchant for playing vigilante.
Well, at least she seemed to be taking it better than her Servant, though; Rider had still been unresponsive, when they'd left for school that morning.
And speaking of Servants...
"Your younger sister's rants remind me of Agravain." Saber noted with a hint of nostalgia, communicating through their telepathic link as she floated in the room in her spirit form. "My brother did often go off on tangents regarding Sir Jaune's tendency to disappear without informing anyone."
"Really?" Rin couldn't help but ask back. "He was also playing vigilante back then?"
"He was not "playing vigilante", Master." Saber insisted firmly. "He was out helping villages, escorting caravans, or dealing with threats, as a Knight of the Round Table should."
Rin fought down the urge to argue, seeing little point in antagonizing her Servant. Instead, she inquired: "You said he was your mentor, right? Level with me here; do you think he's still alive? Or do you think my sister's wasting her time?"
"..." Saber was silent for a moment. Then, she hesitantly answered: "He was known to triumph over many tough foes, from the Black Knight of Gwlad yr Haf to the White Dragon of Londinium... but he'd be the first to admit that he was far from invincible. I suppose... it would depend on two factors - what he was facing, and why. He used to tell me that our duty was to help the people, so... if he was facing someone like Berserker, and there was someone at risk... well, it wouldn't be the first time he died doing his duty..."
"... I'm sorry, did you just say "died"?" Rin echoed in disbelief, wondering if she'd misheard her Servant.
"... it is a long and complicated story, Master." Saber quickly backtracked, when she realized what she'd let slip out. "Forgive me, but I believe King Arthur would be better suited to tell than story than I."
"Wait, didn't you rebel against King Arthur because of the Knight of Compassion?" Rin asked, recalling her history lesson the other day.
"... it was complicated." Saber finally answered, before repeating: "Once again, you should ask the King about it; I was made aware of how little I truly knew, when we last met..."
Rin may not have been the most sociable of people (a necessity as a Magus), but she was more than perceptive enough to know when someone really didn't want to talk about something.
For a moment, though, she was tempted to pry anyway, just in case the information could compromise their partnership with her sister and Rider.
The moment passed, and she quickly convinced herself that the risks involved in needlessly antagonizing Saber would outweigh the benefits.
Instead, she simply noted: "I don't think Rider's in any mood to talk, though."
"She was like this when Sir Jaune disappeared the first time, too." Saber agreed, before conceding: "I was hardly any better back then, for that matter..."
"You're certainly taking it better than she was, though." Rin pointed out.
"... I suppose it is because, unlike the King, I had already accepted his loss." Saber grudgingly explained. "The King, on the other hand, has always been fixated with bringing about his return..."
"..." Rin could put two and two together, and infer that Arc's "return" was probably related to the disagreement that led to Saber's rebellion.
Before she could continue the conversation, however, the lecturer suddenly shouted: "Shiro Emiya!"
"Yes, sir?" Shiro asked innocently, looking up from her rant (as did Rin).
Instead of a strict or angry tone, however, the lecturer sounded more confused than anything, as she read the message she'd been sent by her colleague: "Your guardian just called; please proceed to the staff office at once."
Shiro exchanged a worried look with Rin, and apprehensively left the classroom and toward the office, where a worried-looking teacher handed her the phone.
"... Fuji-nee?" Shiro finally asked.
"Hey, Shiro, this is regarding what you asked me about earlier." Taiga's voice didn't sound too worried or concerned, which immediately made Shiro feel less tense.
"You've found him?" Shiro tried to keep her voice low, mindful of the other people in the office.
"Yes, someone just spotted him heading into his apartment." Taiga reported, before asking: "Apparently he looks... perfectly fine."
"That's good to hear..." Shiro breathed a sigh of relief.
"He's lucky to have a friend like you, Shiro." Taiga couldn't help but smile, remembering the cover story Shiro had given her, before wondering out loud: "Though... what was he even doing at the Ryuudou Temple with his sword, anyway?"
"I'll ask him about it when I see him later, along with whether he's feeling any better." Shiro promised, thankful that she wasn't talking to her guardian in person.
"Hold on... he just left his apartment..." Taiga reported, as her grandfather's "associate" sent her an update. "... and he's heading to... the house?"
"Got it, thanks Fuji-nee." Shiro replied, before cutting the call before Taiga could lecture her about skipping school.
Turning to the very confused teacher who'd passed her the phone, she quickly bowed and excused herself, before making her way to the school's exit.
Just as she reached the gate, however, Rin intercepted her, and explained: "Saber spotted you leaving. Is something wrong?"
"Arc was just sighted." Shiro informed the older girl, as the two began to briskly make their way towards the Emiya residence. "Looks like he got my note, because someone just saw him leaving his apartment and heading towards my house."
"Truly?" Velvet asked, materializing next to the two girls. "And does Sir Jaune bear any injuries?"
"Nope, Fuji-nee said he looked perfectly fine." Shiro shook her head.
"... I suppose I shouldn't be surprised..." Velvet murmured in response. "With his Aura, he can perfectly heal from almost any injury..."
"Wait, weren't you the one who was just saying how it was more than possible that he'd died?" Rin pointed out, raising an eyebrow.
"I merely gave a plausible scenario that would lead to his death." Velvet insisted immediately, as Shiro's gaze turned to her as well. "Plausible is not the same as probable."
"She said that, if Arc was facing down Berserker to protect someone else, then he might have remained behind even if it was hopeless." Rin clarified. "Apparently, he's done it more than once."
"... well, he is a 1500 year old Knight of the Round Table who became Fuyuki City's own superhero..." Shiro weakly defended, even as she was torn between concern for her friend and admiration for his actions.
"You should ask him about some of the other foes he's faced." Velvet suggested, smiling gently as she recalled the few weeks she'd spent with him. "Sir Jaune's tales were very popular during dinnertime in Camelot... though I doubt any knew they were more than just stories..."
Shiro frowned, recalling just how difficult it had been to get straight and honest answers from him.
Then again, since he'd apparently gone from Camelot to Japan 1500 years in the future...
Looking at it from that perspective, she supposed he'd honestly adapted far better than could be expected, and his reluctance to be fully open could easily be explained as knowing just how insane his story was.
She'd still be interrogating him as soon as she saw him, though.
"Really?" Rin, however, was more skeptical.
"Well, he never made himself out to be the hero of his stories." Velvet elaborated. "They always featured other people like the Doom Slayer, the Courier Champion, or my personal favorite, Ruby of Ironwood. And you have to realize, the contents of his tales were also far from easy to believe, even for the Knights of Camelot..."
"Ruby of Ironwood..." Rin murmured. "I saw that name, in the Wasteland Survival Guide..."
"Yes, she and Moira Brown wrote the book, using experience picked up from her adventures with Sir Jaune." Velvet nodded.
"So Ruby of Ironwood was adventuring with him before he met up with King Artoria?" Shiro interjected, raising an eyebrow. "Since they say the book was used to help build up Camelot, right?"
"It was, yes, and their adventures preceded Sir Jaune's time in Camelot." Velvet confirmed.
"Then why aren't there any records of Ruby of Ironwood? And how old were Arc and Ruby of Ironwood exactly, when they first started their adventures?" Shiro couldn't help but inquire.
"... it's... complicated..." Velvet had to look away, unsure of how to explain things. "You should ask the King or Sir Jaune instead..."
"... well, good thing that's where we're heading." Rin finally said, more to fill the silence than anything else, as the three reached the last hill before the Emiya Residence.
And then Velvet suddenly froze.
Shiro and Rin noticed the change in her demeanor, and tensed up in response as she reported: "I'm sensing the presence of another Servant in front of the house, in close proximity to the King. It's strong. Really strong."
"Is it Berserker?" Shiro immediately asked.
"Doesn't feel like Berserker's..." Velvet reported, after a moment's pause.
"If it was Berserker, we'd probably be hearing the sounds of a fight already." Rin pointed out, eliciting a sigh of relief from Shiro. "Whoever it is, though... we should probably get back to your house as soon as we can, in case she needs back up."
"It's not Artoria I'm worried about..." Shiro begrudgingly admitted, remembering how she'd held off Berserker by herself. "Arc's still on the way to the house, remember? Without his sword and his shield?"
"... we should quicken our pace." Velvet declared, after a lengthy pause, as the three finally crested the hill, and spotted the Emiya Residence...
Just in time to see a confused looking Jaune studying the house, wondering whether he'd actually gotten the wrong address.
The sound of footsteps made him turn, and he cocked an awkward grin as he waved: "Hey, Shiro, I got your message..."
Then his voice slowly trailed away, as he realized that Shiro hadn't been alone.
Tohsaka Rin's presence... would have been more than enough to make him raise an eyebrow by itself.
But it was the third woman, with chocolate eyes and a head of sandy-colored hair, that truly made him pause.
He knew that face.
Before he could say anything, however, the door he'd quietly closed flew open.
Then, to his surprise, the green-eyed blonde that he'd mistaken for Arthur stepped out, hesitantly taking unsure steps towards him even as she stared at him with watery eyes, golden lock of hair twitching agitatedly all the while.
"... Jaune?" Artoria finally found her voice. "Is... are you...?"
That finally did it; while Artoria's body had undergone many significant changes... her voice hadn't.
His eyes widened, and he asked: "Wait... Arthur?!"
Upon hearing her long-lost familiar say her name (well, close enough), Artoria let out a cry of jubilation, before leaping right at him, laughing hysterically all the while.
Jaune squawked in shock and confusion as he suddenly found himself being crushed by an attractive and crying young woman... who was also supposed to have been the boy who'd summoned him 1500 years ago (and died, 1500 years ago), in full view of two surprised schoolmates, and another woman who may have been-
"Sir Jaune!"
Nope, that was definitely Velvet's voice too.
As the situation around him devolved into chaos, Jaune simply gave up on trying to figure out what was going on.
-FIVE MINUTES LATER-
Shiro gently set a few cups of tea on the table in front of her, before slowly sitting down at the less-occupied end, trying her best to not react to the sheer positivity and awkward confusion radiating from the other end.
Jaune silently thanked her with tired eyes as he reached for the cup with his one free hand, and took a sip.
As the bitter warmth spread across his tongue, he sighed, and decided to finally address the dragon in the room.
"So..." Jaune awkwardly began, as he turned to his left, and looked down at the woman who was still clinging on to him (and pinning his left arm between his side and two very soft mounds he was very firmly not thinking about). "You're Arthur, right? King of the Britons, pulled that talking magic sword out of that stone, summoned me aa an advisor, that Arthur?"
"Wait, what?" Rin couldn't help but interject, turning to Shiro, who merely shrugged even as she vague recalled Artoria having mentioned that little fact last night.
"I am, yes." Artoria confirmed, blonde hair lock twitching eagerly even as she finally eased her grip on him, and lifted her left arm to show him the familiar symbol on the back of her left hand.
"... that's good to hear..." Jaune murmured, before turning to the sandy-haired woman, whose side-bangs perked up at his attention. "And you're Velvet, my former squire, right?"
"Yes, Sir Jaune." Velvet pressed her hand to her breast as she bowed, before declaring: "And I will always be your squire, Sir Jaune."
"... okay..." Jaune nodded, as his mind tried to process the information and figure out just what in Oum's name was going on.
A thousand questions raced through his head, each more pressing and important than the last.
In the end, though, Arthur was his friend, and from one male friend to another...
"... Arthur... why are you a woman now?" Jaune finally blurted out, as a thought finally broke through the daze to reach his mouth.
"... that's..." Artoria winced, unsure of just how to explain things. The one time she'd considered it... well, back then, it had been a relatively-straightforward situation, unburdened by the baggage of his disappearance and her death.
"... is it complicated?" Jaune prompted gently, still knowing Arthur well enough to be able to begin reading the woman's facial expressions.
"... not exactly..." Artoria said slowly, still trying to figure out how to best explain it.
"... did Merlin turn you into a woman?" Jaune asked with an exasperated sigh, jumping to the most obvious conclusion.
Artoria choked, and hastily accepted Jaune's cup of tea when he offered it, before shaking her head as she clarified: "No, that pansy bastard had nothing to do with this!"
"... was it Morgan, then?" Jaune pressed worriedly.
"As much as it would amuse her... no, she didn't do this to me. She couldn't, remember?" Artoria unintentionally reminded Jaune of what he'd made Morgan agree to, and by extension what he'd agreed to. She saw the pain in her familiar's blue eyes as he looked away, and gently took his hand as she explained: "Jaune... there's something I've been meaning to tell you..."
As he turned back to her, she began: "Jaune... the truth is... I am a woman. I've always been a woman, since the day I was born. I just hid my true sex, and was raised as a male..."
"..."
Instead of the scathing condemnation she'd expected, she found herself met with silence. And Jaune didn't seem to have passed out, so she chose to take it as a good sign.
As her gaze lowered slightly, in a mixture of shame and embarrassment, she found the reason for his silence.
His mouth was hanging open.
That was a first.
Even when he'd found out he'd been summoned from the afterlife to serve as her advisor, or when he'd seen Vortigern's true form, he hadn't been this silent.
An odd and misplaced sense of amused pride welled up from within her, but she forced it down, and her voice was full of concern as she asked: "Jaune?"
"... always?" Jaune hollowly echoed, finally finding his voice.
"Yes, since the day I was born." Artoria repeated.
"... even when we were practicing wrestling?" Jaune couldn't help but ask, as he was forced to review his previous interactions with Arthur in a new light.
"Yes." Artoria refused to blush even as she remembered the time she'd attempted to get past his guard by tossing her sword away and pinning him with her hands, and he'd responded in kind.
"And when I was trying to get you and Guinevere together?" Jaune's face began to burn with a mixture of shock, mortification, and shame.
"Yes." Artoria's clipped response came through a forced smile and gritted teeth this time.
"And when I offered to wash your back-"
"Jaune." Artoria quickly interjected, before he could embarrass himself any further. "Once again, I was born a woman, and have been one the entire time."
"... why?" Jaune finally asked, as he finished processing Artoria's words. "Why pretend to be a man, then?"
"Sir Ector raised me as a man, as a knight, because he felt that it would be the best way for me to understand the heart of my knights as well." Artoria explained.
"... I guess that makes sense..." Jaune conceded. He didn't really understand it, of course (Velvet was hovering two feet right behind him, after all), but he simply figured England probably had a different culture or something (it was far from the weirdest thing he'd seen, especially when compared to the insanity that had been Nords, Antlerites, the Bright Brotherhood, and the Enclave).
Most importantly, all he saw in Arthur's eyes was a desperate plea to be understood, rather than any signs of deceit.
"You're taking this better than I'd expected." Artoria murmured, breathing a sigh of relief as she did so.
"Were you expecting me to throw around accusations or something?" Jaune raised an eyebrow. "Arthur... in the end, you're still my friend. You've earned my trust. I'm not going to jump to conclusions without hearing you out."
"Jaune..." Artoria's eyes began to water, and she squeezed his hand even harder.
"And it probably helps that you've always seemed very feminine to me, Arthur." Jaune continued on.
"Artoria." Artoria stated firmly, correcting him. "My real name is Artoria Pendragon."
"... Artoria." Jaune tried it out. That'd take a bit of getting used to, but he was sure he could manage.
As the pair descended into a companionable silence in their own little world, Jaune then casually inquired: "So... why did you keep it a secret, anyway?"
"..." Artoria looked away for a moment, before reluctantly admitting: "I... when I drew Caliburn from the stone, I was resolved to throw away everything, for the Kingdom. My life, my humanity... and my femininity. I didn't tell you because I was resolved to not let it matter."
"..." Jaune stared at her blankly for a moment. Then, in a quiet voice, he asked: "Arthu-Artoria... why are you such an Oum-damned idiot?"
"Jaune!" Artoria protested.
"Massive idiot." Jaune corrected himself, before demanding: "Didn't we just have this conversation?! Didn't I point out just how much of a selfless imbecile you were?!"
"I know!" Artoria defended herself, leaning forward as Jaune paused for breath. Then, in a quiet voice, she told him: "I've never allowed myself to forget our final conversation, Jaune. Even after all this time, even after everything..."
The reminder of his last night in Camelot extinguished Jaune's anger immediately, and he looked away as he remembered what his actions had led to.
After a pause, he spoke up again: "Four months. That conversation was only four months ago, for me."
""...""
"Arthur-ia... Velvet... what happened?" Jaune's voice was full of confusion and desperation, as he pressed the two Britons for answers. "How are you and Velvet even here? What happened at Camlann? And... and what happened after I left?"
"..." Velvet found herself unable to meet her mentor's eyes.
"... it wasn't your fault, Jaune..." Artoria began, placing her hand comfortingly on his shoulder.
Jaune shrugged it off, and asked again: "What. Happened?"
"... it was Morgan." Artoria answered reluctantly, reaching out for him once again. "She hit you with a suggestion spell... drew out your darkest thoughts and insecurities, tricked you into signing a contract with her, and used it to banish you from Camelot."
Jaune winced, and his temples throbbed as he recalled that day.
He had remembered wondering about why he was still here, when Velvet had brought it up the day before.
But where he'd been originally considering settling down, and starting a new life in Camelot...
For some reason, that night, his mind had gone to weirder places.
And then...
"... I remember that." Jaune spat out venomously, his fist clenching.
But even so...
"But that was just me, right?" Jaune pointed out. "How did that lead to... well... the Battle of Camlann? Camelot falling? You two..."
"What do you mean, it was just you, Jaune?" Artoria asked, hand tightening around his shoulder.
"How did me disappearing lead to everything?" Jaune insisted. "You should still have had Kay and Merlin..."
"Silence."
The word was spoken with all the command and authority the King of Knights possessed, and even though Jaune's Aura wasn't telling him anything was wrong, he still had enough sense to know he'd probably crossed a line (the fact that he could feel her hand trying to crush his shoulder probably helped).
Slowly, he turned to Artoria, whose eyes now were now reminding him of plasma bolts as she snarled: "Allow me to throw your words back at you - why are you such an idiot?!"
"Artoria?!" Jaune yelped in protest.
"You were the Steward and Chancellor of Camelot!" Artoria roared, cutting him off. "The First of the Round Table! My advisor and my friend! What on earth made you believe that things would be fine if you suddenly disappeared one day?!"
"I know, I messed up!" Jaune hastily defended himself, unable to draw back thanks to Artoria's steel grip.
The part that shocked him the most, however, was seeing the pain and fury in her watery eyes.
Saying that he'd "messed up" was the understatement of the millennia.
"..." Artoria took a deep breath, before letting it out. Then, after a lengthy pause, she quietly but firmly said: "No, Jaune. It wasn't your fault. It was Morgan's... and mine."
"None of it was your fault-" Jaune protested immediately.
"The suggestion spell Morgan used... it could have only worked if there was something you were already dissatisfied with." Artoria held up her spare hand to stall his words, remembering Merlin's explanation and Velvet's outburst. "If... if there was something you were unhappy with... I should have noticed."
"Damn it, Artoria, listen to me!" Jaune hissed, refusing to let Artoria take the blame for his screw up. "I wasn't unhappy with anything! I was just... starting to wonder what was next. After all, the Kingdom was at peace, you were already a good King, and the people was prospering. I was just starting to get a bit bored and restless, okay? I definitely wouldn't have ever agreed to Morgan's contract if not for that... spell, and Merlin being held hostage! So it is not your fault! Now tell me, what happened after I left."
""..."" Even Artoria had never seen Jaune so stern, to say nothing of Velvet or the two modern magi still in the room.
Eventually, Artoria answered: "We tried to figure out how to break her curse and return you back, of course. It took years to gather the materials and recreate the spell, but eventually we did it...
"And then I sabotaged the summoning spell." Velvet took over, wincing as Jaune's incredulous gaze fell upon her instead.
"Velvet?" Jaune's voice was full of disbelief. "... why?"
"I... I thought the King was simply planning on using you..." Velvet reluctantly admitted. "That she was a necromancer who treated you like a tool..."
"What could have possibly made you think that?!" Jaune couldn't help but yell, causing Velvet to flinch back. "If this is about her being stiff and cold..."
"Jaune... she knows she made a mistake." Artoria interrupted, coming to her niece's defense. As much as she disapproved of what Velvet had done... "She is truly remorseful. And... and I did plan on... asking you, for something."
"..." Jaune took a deep breath, and allowed his shock to be defused. His voice was far softer, when he later asked: "What were you going to ask me for? And what happened after she sabotaged the spell?"
"We'll explain the former later, Jaune; it is related to our presence in this current age." Artoria promised. "And as for what happened... she fled. I confronted her at Camlann. And then Agravain, Horsa, and an army ambushed us."
"The Battle of Camlann..." Jaune murmured, remembering his history class.
"Indeed." Artoria nodded. "She realized she was wrong, as we dueled amidst the chaos, and she tried to stand her brother's army down. The Geat Mercenary-King Beowulf struck her down, and did the same to me as I avenged her..."
"So you're both dead?" Jaune asked, grabbing Artoria's hand and feeling the warmth of it. She didn't feel like a ghost... though he'd only really handled Skyrim ghosts. No, wait, there'd been those "Hollow" things as well, though he didn't know if they had body heat. "How are you two here then?"
"... perhaps if our Masters would like to explain?" Artoria and Velvet turned to the other end of the table, and Jaune followed their gazes to see Shiro and Rin, one watching them awkwardly and the other feigning disinterest.
"Masters?" Jaune echoed, raising an eyebrow suspiciously.
"Long story short, they're Heroic Spirits, summoned from after their deaths to assist us with a certain task." Rin explained coolly.
"Oh, like you and I, then?" Jaune asked Artoria, snapping his fingers in understanding. As she nodded, he then asked: "So, what's the task? And how did they summon you?"
"Tohsaka-senpai and I are both magi, Arc." Shiro volunteered the information this time. "Apparently, we were both chosen to serve as Masters in the Fifth Holy Grail War..."
"Wait, the Holy Grail?" Jaune blinked, remembering Listenoise.
"Look, Arc, I know you must be very confused, but if you could save your questions for after I finish explaining?" Rin politely demanded.
Jaune simply raised his hands up in mock surrender even as Velvet and Artoria both glared at her.
Nodding with satisfaction, she raised a finger, and seized the chance to show off in front of her little sister as she began: "To start from the beginning... every few decades, a ritualistic event called a Holy Grail War occurs in this area.
"And before you ask again... no, it isn't the actual Holy Grail. It's just a copy made by magecraft in order to grant wishes, just like the original Holy Grail was supposed to.
"Anyway, during the Holy Grail War, seven magi are selected to serve as Masters, and seven spirits are summoned into different classes to act as Servants for them, with the classes usually being Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Caster, Assassin, and Berserker.
"Over the course of the war, the Servants are supposed to kill one another, until only one remains. The last remaining Servant, and their Master, are then considered worthy by the Holy Grail, and they thus get the Grail, and one wish."
"..." Jaune blinked, as he attempted to digest this information.
Then he blinked again.
Then he blinked a third time, before he finally found his voice.
"Kill?" Jaune repeated hollowly, looking between the four of them. "Artoria and Velvet are supposed to kill each other?! You and Shiro are supposed to kill each other?!"
"I'm not going to kill my sister, Arc." Rin sniffed haughtily, rolling her eyes.
"..." Jaune blinked for a fourth time. "... since when were the two of you sisters?!"
"Since we were born." Rin replied simply.
"I only found out yesterday, Arc." Shiro explained quickly. "I... lost all of my memories in a fire twelve years ago, and I was adopted by Kiritsugu Emiya, so I really didn't know I even had any living family left until yesterday..."
"... I was gone for just two days..." Jaune grumbled under his breath, even as he found himself happy for his friend (and his other black-haired acquaintance too), before the implications hit him.
Concern colored his tone as he asked: "So, the two of you will be fighting to the death with five other Master-Servant pairs, right?"
"That's correct, Arc." Rin nodded.
"Just how strong is your typical Master and Servant?" Jaune tried to imagine the girls fighting five Seranas and Artorias, and had to suppress a shudder.
Then again, perhaps these two were a lot stronger than he knew? They had, after all, kept them being "magi" a secret...
"Well, the other Master we fought almost destroyed Shiro's heart with a single shot." Rin tried for indifference, but cold venom still seeped through her tone.
"Wait, what?!" Jaune quickly looked over Shiro's chest.
"It's okay, Arc!" Shiro quickly reassured him. "Tohsaka-senpai healed it good as new!"
Jaune allowed himself to relax even as Rin preened at the praise, before she coughed and continued: "As for how strong Servants are... well, it seems that you'd know better than us, Arc. You know, since you apparently knew two of them from back when they were alive."
"Also, you probably fought a few of them." Shiro pointed out, pulling out his broken sword and battered shield.
As Jaune's eyes widened, both at the sight of his equipment, and the sorry state it was in, Shiro added: "By the way... I believe these belong to you, Huntsman."
"... shit..." Jaune winced as he remembered just what he'd been worrying about on his way to the Emiya Residence. "Uh... I can explain?"
"Save it, Arc." Shiro held up a hand to stop him. "I kept my knowledge of magecraft a secret too, and you saved my life at the school, remember?"
"I did?" Jaune blinked.
"A Servant, Lancer, was chasing me after I saw him fighting Velvet and Rin." Shiro explained. "And then, just before he caught me... a certain shield-wielding hero intercepted him, and saved my life."
"The other Servant at the school..." Velvet's eyes widened in realization.
"A shield-wielding hero?" Artoria raised an eyebrow, before glaring at Jaune in a mixture of exasperation and amusement. "Jaune..."
Jaune rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, and quickly defended himself: "Hey, I wasn't looking for any "Servants", and I didn't know anything about any Servants... but if you're talking about that blue spearman with a red spear... yeah, I remember tackling him out of a window after seeing him chasing someone..."
"And you defeated him, Sir Jaune?" Velvet asked eagerly.
"Not exactly..." Jaune shook his head. "He chased me around for a few hours, stabbed me through my Aura, and then suddenly retreated."
"He got you through your Aura?!" Artoria couldn't hide her shock, remembering both of his stories and how she'd seen it withstand the the might of Vortigern's wrath. "Is that even possible?"
"Well, it's rare, but I've seen it happen a few times..." Jaune shrugged, knowing better than to resist as Artoria began to check him for any injuries. "Demons from Hell could easily cut me while ignoring my Aura, though I could just heal the wounds right back up... same thing happened that night, though that spear was weird..."
"Gae Bolg was said to be a cursed spear..." Velvet explained. "It might work in the same way as a demon's..."
"I'm sorry, what do you mean, demons from Hell?" Rin cut in impatiently.
"And what's "Aura"?" Shiro asked as well.
"... you didn't tell them?" Jaune looked between Velvet and Artoria.
"We didn't even know you were here until last night..." Velvet explained. "And... I myself only know what stories you told me..."
"..." Artoria simply looked away.
"... well, I was going to come clean anyway..." Jaune murmured, as the looks from the two magi intensified. Taking a deep breath, he summarized: "Long story short, I'm a human from another world. We have something called Aura, which protects us and heals almost any injury. And I've been to a few different worlds, fighting everything from dragons to deathclaws to demons."
""...""
"Yeah, that's the normal reaction." Jaune muttered to himself, torn between amusement and exasperation even as he reached for his shattered dragonbone sword, ignoring the two girls' dropped jaws.
"Jaune... how did your sword break?" Artoria asked gently, remembering how they'd found it the other day.
"... honestly, I don't really remember..." Jaune answered truthfully, staring at the broken blade. "I... I remember seeing an explosion on the mountain, and then when I went there... there was some golden-armored archer with red eyes..."
Artoria felt her heart freeze at the description of Jaune's foe.
"... right, he called himself the King of Heroes or something," Jaune recalled with a frown, too preoccupied to notice Artoria's face. "... and... I might be crazy... but he was... throwing exploding weapons at me... from glowing portals in the air?"
"..."
"That sounds like an exceptionally strong Servant..." Velvet murmured, her eyes widening. "And you overcame him?"
"I... don't remember..." Jaune rubbed the back of his right hand subconsciously, frowning as he tried to recall just what had happened. "He pulled out a sword-cane-wand-thing, pointed it at me, and then there was an explosion... and then..."
The World being destroyed around him, before being rebuilt.
Collapsing from Aura exhaustion.
Whispers, sweet and sulfuric and skittering.
And then, a familiar voice reassuring him...
For some reason, memories of warm green eyes came to mind, before it transformed into a pair in a forest, one of them in hopelessly way over his head.
And then energy had suddenly surged from within him, healing his wounds.
And then...
"... I disarmed him... and... killed him..." Jaune murmured hesitantly, shaking his head to separate the different memories.
There was no way he'd used a Shout, after all, right?
Before he knew it, his hand was being firmly held by a tearful Artoria, who simply looked up at him as she explained: "Our bond, Jaune. You called upon our link last night, and drew magical energy from my body."
"I can do that?!" Jaune asked incredulously.
"You've always been able to." Artoria smiled gently at him, holding up his right hand with her left, showing the faint symbols on the back of their intertwined hands. "It's part of our bond, as Master and Familiar. You've just never used it, because you've never needed to, before your recent battle. If it is who I think it is... even you are lucky to be alive, Jaune."
"Wait, you've fought this guy before?" Jaune asked worriedly.
"I cannot be sure, but your description matches the Servant who was the Archer of the last war, where I was the Lancer." Artoria elaborated grimly, before shaking her head. Stroking his cheek affectionately, she changed the subject: "In any case, it matters not. I am just... glad, to see you are okay. That I was not too late, this time. When I saw your sword..."
"I'm sorry." Jaune reflexively apologized.
"You used to do this all the time, back in Camelot." Artoria sighed, knowing he was apologizing for worrying her, and not getting into trouble in the first place. "I can't even be surprised, that you would do the same thing as soon as you woke up somewhere else..."
"It wasn't "as soon as", you know." Jaune corrected her. "When I realized what had happened... what I'd done... what I'd lost... I meant it when I said I'd have never agreed to Morgan's terms."
Behind the pair, Velvet watched on silently, humbly reaffirming once again that she'd been wrong... that Sir Jaune was not, and never had been, a mere tool of the King. She'd known from her duel with the King, of course, but hearing it from Sir Jaune's mouth...
She found herself almost wishing that her aunt had allowed her mentor to lecture her; it would have made her feel much better than the current situation.
Well, that was what she was fighting for, right now - a chance to undo that mistake.
"So... you mentioned you'd planned on asking me about something, Artoria?" Jaune decided to change the subject again as the silence grew increasingly awkward (he still didn't know where to look, with the woman he'd always thought of as a little boy). "What was it? And you two are fighting over a Holy Grail, right? Why didn't you just get it from King Pellinore at Listenoise?"
"King Pellinore was charged with guarding it, Jaune; his was not the right to choose who could use it." Artoria shook her head, remembering how that conversation had went (and how King Orkney and Gaheris had paid for their attempts to obtain it for her by force. Goddamn Morgan...) "As for my... request for you, it has to do with my wish for the Grail.
"Jaune, my greatest wish has been to turn back time, to prevent Morgan from ever even meeting you. To prevent your disappearance."
"..." Jaune closed his eyes, as he tried to imagine it.
Him returning to Camelot... when, exactly?
How would that work?
What would happen to the them of right now?"
He remembered the Spider-Brain tempting him with power, with the promise of returning to Remnant, and his suspicions flared.
Between demons and daedra, he found that the price of a wish tended to err on the side of "too much".
"Then what happens to us?" Jaune finally asked.
"I'm sorry?" Artoria blinked, not having expected his question.
"Us. Here. Right now." Jaune elaborated, trying to remember all the comics and movies he'd seen about time travel. "Say you succeed, and get the wish. Then what happens? Will we all be transported back in time to when Morgan was trying to banish me?"
"I..." Artoria hesitated, before shaking her head. "I don't know, but it will be worth it. It has to be."
"Artoria..." Jaune couldn't accept her answer. "What about everything we've done since then? What about the people I helped, before I ended up back here? What about all the years you've ruled without me? Why would you gamble all of it away?!"
"... why?" Artoria echoed quietly, incredulously. Then she gripped his t-shirt, and pulled his face right in front of hers as she roared: "For you, you idiot!"
"Me?!" Jaune found himself completely taken aback by the angry woman in front of him.
"YES! YOU!" Artoria thundered. "Do you know how much I mourned your disappearance, you fool?! Have I not yet made it clear to you how much you mean to me, Jaune?! Can you not imagine my worry, my sorrow, my pain, living each day with the knowledge that my closest friend, confidant, and advisor had been thrown across time and space by my bitch of a sister just to spite me, and I had no way of knowing whether he was fine?!"
"..." Jaune gently grabbed her hand, and quietly said: "Artoria... I told you, it wasn't your fault... and believe me, I can imagine what you were feeling..."
"Then why ask such a question?" Artoria growled even as she pressed her head against his chest. "What would you have done, if our situations had been reversed?"
"..." Jaune couldn't answer; he couldn't lie to her, and he knew he'd have done whatever it took for his friends. But at the same time... "But I'm fine now, see? I'm right here in front of you, Artoria. You don't need to waste a wish on me, right?"
"It wouldn't be a waste, Jaune." Artoria shook her head. "It's the best solution for the Kingdom as well..."
"The Kingdom?" Jaune's eyebrows rose. "What do you mean?"
"Do you remember our last conversation, Jaune?" Artoria led.
"You mean about how you shouldn't throw away your humanity?" Jaune recalled the conversation, but didn't see what she was getting at.
"I was specifically referring to the part where you suggested I take a break." Artoria clarified with a sigh. "Jaune... you were right. Someone else should have been King. And that someone has always been you."
"..." Jaune's jaw would have hit the floor if not for the table being in the way.
Of course, he recovered soon enough (impossible and unthinkable situations were familiar territory), and he choked out: "I'm sorry, what?"
"You heard me, Jaune." Artoria repeated herself, frowning at his response. "I wanted you to replace me as King."
"... me?" Jaune pointed a finger to himself.
"Yes." Artoria nodded.
"... are you mad?!" Jaune finally asked, once he'd confirmed he hadn't gone temporarily crazy and misheard his friend. "Me?! A King?!"
"Do you have any objections, Jaune?" Artoria's frown grew deeper.
"Plenty!" Jaune protested, before demanding: "Artoria... what on earth makes you think I can even be a King?!"
"Jaune... do I need to remind you that you were the Chancellor and Steward of Camelot?" Artoria's tone was clipped. "You were running Camelot without issue for a year."
"I was helping you run it, Artoria!" Jaune pointed out. "And even if that's proof that I could be a King, that doesn't mean I'd be a better King than you!"
"Jaune." Artoria curtly interrupted him as she grabbed his hand once again. Her eyes were warm and gentle, however, as she spoke: "You are, and have always been, the person I have looked up to, when I was the King."
"... I shouldn't be." Jaune shook his head bitterly, pulling away from her touch as he remembered the history class. "You ran Camelot without any issue in my absence for eight years, Artoria! Even now, fifteen hundred years later, your reign is still known as a Golden Age for the English! You are still remembered as one of their greatest rulers, Artoria! I won't let you throw that away... not for me..."
"Why?" Artoria's voice was full of hurt and heartbreak.
"Because it is my fault." Jaune forced himself to look into Artoria's eyes. "You summoned me to help you be a good King... and instead, I caused your downfall. I let Morgan banish me, I left you alone for eight years, I didn't clear things up with Velvet... I failed you, Artoria."
"..." Artoria's fists clenched.
"I'm sorry." Jaune finally apologized, unable to meet her gaze any longer.
"... why?" Artoria's voice was deadly quiet, even as she got to her feet, glaring down at her familiar. "Why... why do you keep doing this...?"
"Because you're my friend." Jaune shook his head. "And I won't let you blame yourself for my mistakes."
"And you want me to let you blame yourself for mine?" Artoria spat.
"I want you to be happy, Artoria." Jaune smiled sadly. "And me replacing you won't make you happy."
"... and you think I could be happy without you?" Artoria furiously murmured in disbelief.
"Wait, what does that-" Jaune began, but it was too late.
Artoria was already storming off.
"Artoria, wait!" Jaune tried to go after her, wondering what he'd done wrong.
"Saber!" Artoria snapped her fingers.
Jaune's eyes widened, as a very familiar lion suddenly appeared out of thin air, and slammed into him.
"Wait... Saber?!" Jaune shouted in surprise, as the cat stated at him with dawning recognition, before purring in delight, a sound that reminded Jaune more of the rumbling of an engine than a feline.
Then he remembered what had just happened, and struggled against the horse-sized cat as he shouted: "Saber, get off of me!"
The lion merely huffed apologetically, knowing Artoria would not approve if he did that, and chose to risk incurring Jaune's wrath instead as it pressed its weight against its long-lost caretaker.
-ROAD TO KOTOMINE CHURCH, ONE HOUR LATER-
"I just don't get it." Jaune groaned, burying his head in his hands as the bus jolted. "What did I say wrong...?"
"Don't worry, Arc..." Shiro awkwardly tried to comfort the older man,
"Seriously, why can't she just use the wish for her own happiness for once?" Jaune continued grumbling, heedless of the tentative hand Shiro placed on his shoulder. "Why does she always have to be so noble and selfless all the time?!"
"..." Shiro simply stared at her friend, and wondered why she'd decided to take him to the Kotomine Church to learn more about the Holy Grail War instead of letting Rin do it, while she handled Artoria.
Then she sighed, and tiredly suggested: "Maybe because she cares about you, Arc?"
Seriously, even if Artoria hadn't mentioned that Morgan had banished the man she'd cared for, even if she hadn't seen her reaction to finding out her familiar, the Knight of Compassion, was in trouble (not to mention when they'd thought he was dead), a blind person could have probably seen it when they'd begun arguing.
God, that had been so awkward to watch towards the end...
"Of course she cares about me." Jaune laughed hollowly, surprising her with his callous attitude. Noticing her expression, he quickly clarified: "I mean, I know she cares about me; we were best friends for eighteen months, after all! And that's exactly why I won't let her make this mistake..."
"... best friends?" Shiro echoed incredulously, staring at Jaune. Had he really not noticed? "... was that... all, that there was to it?"
"Hmmm..." Jaune took a moment to chew it over, before conceding: "Well, I guess I was also her advisor and familiar during that time. All the more reason for her to listen to my advice, don't you think?"
"..." Shiro fought to keep her eye from twitching. Then she remembered how surprised Jaune had been to see Artoria, as well as the earlier part of their conversation, and muttered: "Right... you only just found out Artoria was a girl, didn't you?"
"Yeah... that was a surprise..." Jaune answered as he fought to keep his face straight. Shaking his head, he then hastily added: "Not that I have a problem with that; more than half the women I knew from my adventures were badass fighters and good friends! It's just... when I left, she was a fifteen year old boy named Arthur, and suddenly... well... well, look at her!"
"You find her attractive." Shiro fought to keep the smirk from appearing on her face.
"Of course she is." Jaune declared bluntly, seeing no shame in admitting the fact. Even in Beacon, which he'd once joked had been a school for supermodels, Jaune could confidently say Artoria would have turned a lot of heads.
And wasn't that weird, that he always seemed to be surrounded by women who could.
Pyrrha had.
Yang Xiao-Long had.
Blake Belladonna had.
Weiss Schnee had (he spoke from personal experience on that one).
The only reason Ruby Rose hadn't was because no one dared (if anyone's head turned, a certain blonde brawler would've snapped the neck attached to it).
And that was just the students in his year of Beacon!
Another dull ache reminded him of where he wasn't, and he shook his head and pointed out: "Wait, her being an attractive woman has absolutely nothing to do with her being selfless!"
Shiro sighed, but she decided to try again, and reminded him: "Well... for her, you were gone for over eight years, right? And she's been feeling guilty about it the whole time..."
Jaune groaning, but he understood where Shiro was coming from (and by extension, possibly Artoria too).
But still...
"And as I'll tell her a thousand more times if I have to, it wasn't her fault." Jaune growled. "If anything, if she's not blaming Morgan, she should be blaming me! And besides, it's not like it was the first time I was kicked out of a dimension..."
Shiro blinked.
Right...
Artoria, Velvet, and Jaune mentioned that before.
Jaune had been summoned to serve as Artoria's familiar.
He wasn't native to this dimension.
Shiro mentally apologized to Artoria, as she decided to take a break from the subject, and instead indulged her curiosity as she tried to idly note: "Right... you mentioned you've been to other worlds, right? What were they like?"
"Well, I figured this was coming..." Jaune grumbled good-naturedly, but smiled as Shiro's brows furrowed in concentration. He'd been planning on spilling the beans anyway, but an attentive listener who wasn't throwing around judgements and accusations was always welcome. Taking a deep breath, he began: "My first world, my home, was called Remnant. Don't ask me why; I don't know.
"Anyway, what characterized my home was that we had a single broken moon, and our world was infested by creatures of nightmare and shadows called "Grimm". Again, don't ask me why; it's been like that since as far back as anyone can remember. And where there are monsters, there will be heroes. In my world, people train to fight the Grimm. They're called Huntsmen and Huntresses, and between their weapons and their Aura... well, they're kind of badasses."
"Wait... is that why you call yourself the Huntsman?" Shiro made sure to keep her volume low, but she couldn't stop the excitement from entering her voice as she interrupted him.
"Yeah... it was always my dream to be a Huntsman, to be a hero." Jaune smiled softly, remembering simpler days. "My father, his father, and his father's father... they were all heroes, so I wanted to continue the family legacy, you know?"
"... somehow, I do." Shiro smiled back, remembering Kiritsugu and how he'd passed on his dream of being a Hero of Justice to her. "So, do they all have weapons like yours? And you mentioned Aura before... what exactly is it?"
"Woah, slow down there." Jaune chuckled, seeing the unbridled enthusiasm brimming in Shiro's eyes. "First off, Aura is... honestly, I've got no idea myself. My first partner, the person who unlocked it for me... she told me it was the manifestation of our souls. I don't know how true that is, but what I do know is that it acts like a forcefield, protecting us from harm, and healing us from any wounds or injuries, and that it can be shared with other people. I'd show you, but we're in public now, and it's a bit conspicuous when I use it..."
"Conspicuous?" Shiro cocked her head. "How so?"
"I glow like a lightbulb when I use it." Jaune explained with a shrug. "And as for weapons... nope, this one's something I picked up from another world. My first weapon, and the one I trained with, was my great-great-grandfather's. And I was... kind of special, in that I stuck to the classics; just about everybody else in Beacon used mecha-shift weapons. They're... basically transforming weapons, with different modes."
"You mean, like how your sheath turns into a shield?" Shiro clarified, pointing to Jaune's scabbard where it lay wrapped in his lap.
"Something like that..." Jaune nodded, patting it fondly. "Though their weapons were a lot crazier than my great-great-grandfather's shield-sheath. I'm talking a scythe-sniper rifle, shotgun-gauntlets, minigun-handbags..."
Shiro almost choked on the air, and even as she cleared her throat she spared a glance up at Jaune, studying his face, knowing full well that he sucked at lying to her.
There was absolutely no sign of him pulling her leg.
"You're serious..." Shiro breathed in amazement.
"Yep." Jaune drawled. "And that's just the tip of the iceberg! My teammates used a pair of automatic pistols with sickle blades, a grenade launcher-warhammer, and a javelin-spear-rifle! And meanwhile, all I had was the family sword! Oum, that was embarrassing..."
"Why didn't you use any mecha-shift weapons?" Shiro pressed curiously.
"Well, most people learn how to make their own weapons in Primary Combat Schools, you see..." Jaune rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "And, well... my parents never wanted me to become a Huntsman, so they didn't actually let me go to a Combat School... so I stole the family sword, ran away from home, and submitted fake transcripts to enter a Huntsman Academy..."
If Shiro had been drinking something, she would have spat it out all over his face.
"Yeah, I know, it was crazy and stupid..." Jaune laughed sheepishly, holding out his hands placatingly as he anticipated her response. "The Initiation exam was us getting tossed into a Grimm-infested forest and told to find "relics"... and the first person we made eye contact with would be our partners. In hindsight, it's honestly amazing I survived, even with the best partner a man could ask for. I mean, I didn't even have Aura back then!"
Shiro silently stared at her friend, and wondered if she'd ever stopped being surprised.
She'd thought she'd hit that point when the homeless supermodel sleeping under the tree had turned out to be armed, armored, and fluent in Japanese.
Then she'd thought she'd hit that point when he'd cleaned up nicely and revealed himself to be passionate about history and biology.
Then she'd thought she'd hit that point when she'd found out he was actually one of the original Knights of the Round Table, from fifteen centuries ago.
Then she'd thought she'd hit that point when she'd found out he was also secretly the city's newest vigilante, and a man from another world.
Now?
She wondered if there was anything else that could possibly surprise her about him... and decided there probably was, but for the sake of her sanity, she'd have to probably stop trying to rationalize it.
"So... you were a Huntsman, then?" Shiro tried to confirm, even as she struggled to wrap her head around the concept (and wondered why it all sounded so familiar to her).
"In training." Jaune emphasized. "I was only in my first year before I died."
"... you what?" Shiro blinked, quietly grateful for the fact she'd given up trying to overthink things five seconds ago.
Jaune's smile became a bit sad. "It was during an international festival... there was an attack... a bunch of terrorists landed aircraft full of Grimm into the city and a floating colosseum full of packed civilians... and all that negativity woke up a massive Grimm dragon. And there was a fire witch that killed the Headmaster..."
"... and then what?" Shiro's voice was small and apprehensive.
"There were aircraft still evacuating civilians and wounded... and the only two people who could stop the dragon and the fire witch were me and my partner..." Jaune closed his eyes as he recalled that moment, and his hands balled into fists unconsciously. "But... I couldn't let her throw her life away fighting them, and someone needed to go get help, so I... sent her away and told her to get reinforcements, while I delayed them."
"... and then you died." Shiro murmured, remembering his argument with Artoria. More and more, she found herself agreeing with her Servant.
"Pretty much." Jaune shrugged. "Next thing I knew, I was being pulled out of some tower in some place called Skyrim after a dragon attack."
"Skyrim?" Shiro asked.
"It was a... province, in the world of Nirn." Jaune explained, trying to faintly recall the details. "That world had two moons, vampires and dragons, and magic. Anyway, the girl who saved me? Turned out to be some prophesized hero called the Dragonborn, destined to be the ultimate dragonslayer because she could eat the souls of other dragons.
"Skyrim was... a chaotic place, to put it lightly, and I spent my two months there pretty much running all over the place with the Dragonborn. First, we had to stop a dragon and save a city, and then we accidentally stumbled into an ancient vampire conspiracy to blot out the sun and take over the world... no, I don't know how or why either; Skyrim made absolutely no sense to me. We rescued another girl from a tomb, who turned out to be a vampire and the key to the conspiracy, and with her help we stopped the vampires, a blacksmith made this sword for me from the bones of the dragon we killed, and Serana, the vampire girl, enchanted it with some magic that let it become flaming, frozen, and electrified at the same time..."
"A flaming, frozen, and electrified blade made out of dragonbone?" Shiro's eyebrow all but disappeared beneath her fringe as she finally remembered why the story sounded so familiar. Huntsmen, dragons, and that sword... "Wait a second, isn't this basically the plot of that new manga? What was it..."
"Knight of Love, right?" Jaune nodded his head sagely. "Yeah, that was my reaction too, when I first read that comic. Even fought demons, too. Think I should sue for copyright infringement?"
"... did you actually copyright it?" Shiro would not have been surprised if he had, simply because nothing Jaune did would have surprised her anymore.
"Of course not." Jaune chuckled. "What would I say? Hey, I'm the guy whose life story is almost the same as this person's comic book story, and I want royalties?"
Shiro struggled to suppress her laughter, and Jaune just shook his head as he continued: "Anyway, for some reason, the blade's magic is gone... probably in the fight that broke it. Kind of a shame... it was a really good sword..."
"Will you be okay without it?" Shiro inquired.
"Why wouldn't I be?" Jaune raised an eyebrow. Was she expecting trouble in this relatively-peaceful world (barring recent events, of course)?
"I mean... you know... since the Holy Grail War is still going on..." Shiro pressed, guessing from his personality and everything she heard about him that he wouldn't stop being the Huntsman.
"You know, I've been wondering, but why is it called the "Holy Grail War", anyway?" Jaune couldn't help but ask. "I mean, this Grail's fake, and the War's just seven pairs of people."
"Hey, I only found out about it two days ago myself." Shiro shrugged as she defended herself. "Anyway, answer the question."
"Eh, the sword was just a sword." Jaune recalled comforting Artoria about Caliburn. "It may have been an awesome sword, but I can always get a new one... hell, I can just channel my Aura into a stick if I need to, and I was taught some basic hand-to-hand..."
"I... don't think you want to go hand-to-hand with Berserker, Arc..." Shiro retorted, even as she quietly wondered how that match would go.
Sure, Berserker had been a giant with twelve lives who'd been able to go toe-to-toe with both Velvet and Artoria at the same time... but apparently Arc was something else.
"I'll take your word for it." Jaune shrugged, and decided to continue his story: "Anyway, my last battle in Skyrim was against a dragon known as the "World-Eater". We fought him off, but he survived and attempted to escape to their afterlife-"
"That doesn't sound so bad..." Shiro noted.
"To eat the souls of the dead and regain his strength." Jaune added grimly. "Well, I couldn't let him, so I asked Serana and the Dragonborn to use their magic powers to throw me after him, while I tried to use a spell she made for me to teleport him back, for us to finish off.
"For some reason, however... something went wrong with the spell, but to be fair the spell was experimental anyway, so I guess it's my fault for relying on an untested spell in battlefield conditions. Anyway, I missed, and accidentally teleported the World-Eater outside of a city. They wouldn't have stood a chance, so... I fought him by myself. I remember him tearing me in half just as I managed to use the last spell scroll I had to send him back..."
"And then you woke up in Hell and fought demons?" Shiro inquired.
"No, not yet." Jaune shook his head. "When I woke up, I was basically in the middle of a ruined city. The next world... well, I wasn't there for that long... okay, I was, but... well, it was complicated. I'll explain later.
"Anyway, as far as I can tell, this was a world that had been devastated by a global nuclear war, and all that was left was the Wasteland - the radioactive ruins where the remnants of humanity continued to survive. I woke up in the outskirts of what had once been a city called "DC", but was now known as the "Capital Wasteland". Here, I encountered a girl named Ruby Ironwood-"
"Wait, the Ruby Ironwood?" Shiro interrupted. "As in, the author of the Wasteland Survival Guide?"
"Yep..." Jaune rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Fun fact: the Wasteland in the "Wasteland Survival Guide" is really a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland from another dimension... anyway, when I first encountered her, she'd just been chased out of her home and her long-term goal was finding her father.
"Her short-term goal was to not be killed by raiders.
"Well, I helped her take care of the raiders, introduced myself... and she threw up on my boots." There was a twinkle in Jaune's eyes and a fond smile on his face, as he recalled that day (and saw the look of horrified amusement on Shiro's face). "I never let her live it down.
"After I got cleaned up, and we both made proper introductions, we went to a nearby settlement, and met a storekeeper named Moira Brown... yes, that Moira Brown. She was looking for... assistants, to help her do some research for a book she wanted to write - a guide on how to survive and thrive in the broken world they lived in. Naturally, I agreed to help out wherever I could while bringing Ruby to find her father.
"After a week or so of adventuring, and meeting with other local groups, we finally tracked down her father, and learned why he'd initially left their initial home - he was working on a water purifier, one so massive and potent it could essentially cleanse the entire river. If he succeeded... not just drinking water, but agriculture would have also been possible, and with a stable food source... I think you can see why we agreed to help him, as well.
"Things were going well, after that, until... another faction attacked. They called themselves the Enclave, and some of our allies had apparently encountered them on the other side of the continent a few decades ago. Apparently, their plans back then had been to release a virus into the atmosphere, to wipe out all mutated life on the planet. Of course, after a few centuries of living in a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland, just about everything was mutated to one degree or another. Even now, I still don't know what their plans were when they came into the Capital Wasteland, but our introduction involved dozens of aircraft landing around the purifier and hundreds of power-armored soldiers seizing the facility, taking prisoners and turning any who resisted to melted goo with their plasma weapons
"I... I was too late to save Ruby's father, but I got her and the rest of the survivors out of there. We got them to one of the other groups in the Capital Wasteland - the Brotherhood of Steel.
"Well, long story short, we ended up joining the Brotherhood of Steel, and fought in a brief but vicious war against the Enclave. A strike against their mountain bunker to rescue the leader of an elite special forces group, following a giant robot named Liberty Prime to retake the purifier... it ended with us sneaking into one of their last strongholds, a Pre-War airbase, and calling in an orbital strike against it. We'd successfully targeted the base, and were just getting pulled out by a disguised aircraft, when the remaining Enclave intercepted us.
"Someone had to stay behind, to stop them from destroying the evacuation vehicle... so I volunteered, and held off the remaining Enclave forces while Ruby and the Lyons Pride got out of the blast zone."
"... and then you died?" Shiro whispered nervously.
"... surprisingly, no, though I thought I did." Jaune grinned. "Aliens abducted me just as the thirty six nukes hit."
"..." Shiro's jaw dropped again. "... aliens."
"Yep."
"You were abducted by aliens." Shiro repeated.
"Yep."
"You just happened to be abducted by aliens, right before you were hit by thirty six nukes." Shiro clarified. "Nukes that, by the way, you called down on yourself, from orbit, in order to take out the Enclave base."
"Yeeep."
"..." Shiro took a deep breath and counted to ten, before reminding herself that, no matter what else she heard, she would have to simply remember that it was Arc. Recomposing herself, she then asked: "So, what happened next?"
"Well, I woke up about... over four years later, if I remember correctly." Jaune's brow furrowed, as he concentrated for a moment. "The people the aliens abducted broke out, and tried overthrow their captors. I just happened to be thawed out in the chaos... so I joined in.
"It took us a few days, but we eventually took over the ship... and then we found out there was a second mothership in orbit over the planet. So we destroyed that too."
"..." Shiro choked, but quickly recovered, reminding herself that it was Arc.
"And with the alien threat dealt with... I decided to go down to the planet, do a little scouting, that kind of stuff, you know? Imagine my surprise when I came across a shallow grave holding a woman with two bullet holes in her head! Thank Oum Aura is bullshit!"
"You healed two bullet holes in the head?!" Shiro couldn't let that one slide.
"Like I said, Aura is bullshit." Jaune grinned, before his face became a bit more serious. "Based on what I can tell... I can't bring a person back from the dead. But as long as there's still a spark of life, I can channel Aura into them, heal them if possible, or if its too serious stabilize them and get them to a medical professional. Fortunately, the woman wasn't fully dead yet, and so I managed to get her to a doctor in a nearby town.
"Well, when she recovered, she introduced herself as a courier, who'd been robbed of a package, and she needed to hunt the man who shot her down and get it back."
"Wait, she wanted to go after the man who shot her in the head twice?" While "it's Arc" was enough to cover his unique brand of insanity, the courier's actions...
"Trust me, that's just the kind of person Courier Six was." Jaune's grin came back. "Cursed like a sailor, and had the skills to back it up. Anyway, we travelled across the Moajve Wasteland looking for leads, and occasionally helping out a town that needed it, before we ended up in New Vegas, got the package back, and delivered it to her client.
"Turns out, the client was some two hundred year old guy with an army of robots, and the package contained an upgrade that gave his robots missile launchers and grenade launchers!"
"..." Shiro's eye twitched, but she forced herself to remain composed.
"And then we got dragged into a three-way struggle for control of the Mojave, with the two main contenders being Caesar's Legion, a nation of brutal slavers, and the NCR... who honestly weren't that bad, all things considered, but they tended to neglect the smaller communities that far East from themselves. And her client, a man named House... well, he was working to secretly flip the board and seize control of the Mojave for himself. The man could be cold and ruthless at times, especially to his enemies, but at least he did take the time to listen to his employees, and explain his reasonings if need be.
"The final battle for the region, the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, began just as the Courier and I returned from dealing with a threat in another region. It started as a complete and utter disaster for the NCR, with Legion saboteurs hitting their main bases, and an all-out assault across the entire region.
"And then help arrived from somewhere none of us expected.
"As it turned out, the Brotherhood of Steel was in this region too! I asked them to send a message to Ruby once I found out, but... well... I wasn't expecting the response I got.
"The Lyons' Pride and Ruby Ironwood helped relieve a few key assaults, and they brought an army from the Capital Wasteland... including Liberty Prime.
"Of course, the Courier and I didn't know it at the time; she went to power up one of House's secret vaults of killer robots, and I went straight to the Dam to hold off the Legion."
"... and you died there?" Shiro was beginning to see a pattern.
"Actually, no." Jaune shook his head.
"Was it the aliens, again?" Shiro teased.
"No, I made it out of the battle without any problems..." Jaune's voice trailed off, and he sheepishly added: "Well... okay, it was a little bit tense towards the end. I was surprised to meet Ruby Ironwood and Sarah Lyons after the battle, and the courier got a bit paranoid and went to interrupt, and the NCR's top general was not happy about us snatching victory from him... well, it was a hectic period after that, trying to stop it from escalating into a third battle.
"But I survived, and was helping House build up Vegas... we found out a satellite crashed into the desert.
"Since I had Aura, House asked me to check it out carefully, in case there were any failsafes.
"Even now, I still don't know how, but I must have triggered one, because, when I touched it... well, one moment, I was in the Wasteland, and the next, I was on Mars." Jaune finished awkwardly, shaking his head.
"... Mars?" Shiro blinked.
"Yep."
"Is that, like, the name of the next dimension or something?" Shiro tried. "Or do you mean the planet, Mars."
"The planet." Jaune nodded, before clarifying: "It was a different dimension, but the solar system there was similar to the Wasteland's and here. By the looks of things, they built the facility on Mars to safely process energy to transport to Earth. The catch, of course, being that the energy they were processing came from Hell."
"... so this is where you ended up fighting demons?" Shiro pressed eagerly.
"I arrived there just as a demonic incursion was occurring." Jaune admitted grimly. "It was... it was the worst thing I'd ever seen. So much blood and gore everywhere... I didn't really have a choice but to fight, because of the demons. If not for the Doom Slayer, I'd have probably died again,"
"The... Doom Slayer?" Shiro raised an eyebrow.
"The biggest badass in all the dimensions, apparently." Jaune shook his head. "I don't know much about her, since she never talked, but I saw a few files the Mars facility had on her. Apparently, she was in Hell fighting demons for thousands of years or so, and they only stopped her rampage by collapsing a building on her and sealing her in a tomb while she was briefly unconscious. What I can tell you for sure, however, is that she could probably tear off a zombie's head with just her pinky, and she could literally pull guns out of nowhere.
"Anyway, we fought through the demons, got accidentally transported to Hell, fought our way back... look, long story short, we did a lot of dimension-jumping and demon-slaying that day, until we finally came across the boss of the demons... a giant spider-like brain with telekinetic powers and an automatic plasma cannon.
"We killed it, of course... but when the time came to return, the cyborg running the Mars operation betrayed us." Jaune closed his eyes, remembering the betrayal. "He wanted to resume his operation, and decided we were too much of a threat to keep around."
"Wait, what?" Shiro felt indignant second-hand rage on Arc's behalf. "Was he mad?!"
"Yep, but unfortunately he had control over our armor." Jaune sighed. "Bloody ungrateful backstabbing cyborgs... well, anyway, he tried to send us back to Hell. Fortunately, since I'm from Remnant and not his world, he didn't really know I could channel Aura into the sword by my hip and activate the lightning spell to power up my suit. I tried to stop him, but I guess I must've overloaded the teleporter or something, because the next thing I knew..."
"You were in another world?" Shiro asked.
"Yep." Jaune sighed again. "Another afterlife, this time. Some place called Hueco Mundo, filled with... I don't know, hungry ghosts? Wasn't there for long, though; it was maybe an hour until I got summoned by Artoria and Merlin- hold on, is that it?."
Shiro squinted as she looked out of the window.
Indeed, the Kotomine Church was coming up.
She felt like cursing even as she hit the bell, and the pair got up in silence as they alighted the bus, ignoring the stares the other passengers were giving them (and especially at the wrapped sheath in Jaune's possession).
As they looked up at the church, Jaune shrugged and finished: "Well, I don't think I need to say too much about my time with Artoria... most of them are in a history book, and Artoria probably knows the rest..."
Well, most of the rest, at least.
He was pretty sure she didn't know about the time he'd been ambushed on the road by some bandits without his sword and sheath (having left it behind to trick people into believing he was still in the castle), and had to fight them off with just an Aura-infused stick...
"That's true." Shiro accepted his words at face value, as the pair began to walk up to the church. Then, she took a deep breath, before asking something that had been on her mind since she'd heard his tales: "So... uh... do you take students?"
"Do I...?" Jaune halted for a moment, staring slack-jawed down at the white-haired girl as he processed his words. Then his brows furrowed, as he considered it properly: "Hmmm... students, huh... Artoria doesn't really count, since I was just her friend and advisor, so I guess my first real student was Velvet? And the second..."
"The second?" Shiro prompted.
"Well, I guess she counts..." Jaune murmured, before explaining: "After I got banished from Camelot, I went to another world before I came here. There... in a place called France, I ran into a seventeen year old girl who'd stolen her family sword and ran away from her home, in order to be a Hero."
"... that..." Shiro hesitantly tried, but Jaune held up his hand.
"Yes, it was... really similar to my story." Jaune groaned. "The difference, though, is that where I wanted to fight Grimm... for her, apparently, the "Lord" told her to go to Orleans, and lift the siege, during a war between the French and the Burgundians and the Normans."
"Wait a second..." Shiro's eyes widened. "Isn't that-"
"Similar to Jeanne d'Arc's tale, right?" Jaune chuckled as he pre-empted her question. As he resumed walking, he elaborated: "That's what I thought too, but no, I'm pretty sure it was a different world. For one thing, the girl I helped was named "Blake d'Arc", and secondly... where the Jeanne of this world was supposedly accused of witchcraft... Blake wasn't. Because I'm the one who got accused of witchcraft, not her. As far as I can tell, Jeanne d'Arc was probably this world's version of me. Or I'm Remnant's version of her."
"She's a... version, of you?" Shiro blinked.
"It's... well, it's not as common as you'd think..." Jaune shrugged. "But I've definitely seen it a few times."
Shiro shook her head, and bit back her instinctive curiosity. As tempting as it was, she had to focus on her goal. Bringing the topic back, she asked: "So... got any tips, for wannabe heroes?'
"You mean, besides "don't run away from home with the family sword"?" Jaune asked rhetorically, as he opened the door to the church.
Any response that he could have given suddenly died on tongue, as his Aura suddenly began warning him that something was very, very, very wrong.
"Arc?" Shiro cocked her head, as she saw him tense up and go quiet.
"... this is supposed to be a church, right?" Jaune asked, as he forced himself towards the places his instincts were guiding him away from.
"... yes? Why?" Shiro found herself very confused.
"... do you have any magics that can, I don't know, detect evil or something?" Jaune asked as he pressed on towards the courtyard.
"Hold on, we shouldn't go that far without Kotomine, Arc!" Shiro ran in after him as he moved forward, surprised by his sudden actions.
Then she felt it too.
A chill ran down her spine.
Sweat began to run down her brow, even though the weather could be considered bracing.
Every instinct she had, every sense, screamed at her to turn around and head back.
Before she could even consider it, however, Arc's words cut through: "Something feels very wrong about this place, Shiro... can you feel it too?"
"... I do." Shiro admitted, looking up at him.
"..." Jaune looked down at her, seeing her expression. Then he knelt down, and asked her: "Hey, are you okay?"
"... of course I am." Shiro forced a smile at him. "What kind of hero turns back when she feels that something's wrong, right?"
"... don't worry, we'll figure out what's going on." Jaune reassured her, before repeating himself: "So... do you know any magic that could help?"
"Not really..." Shiro shook her head. "I'm not that good of a Magus. What about you?"
"Remnant didn't really have magic." Jaune shook his head too, as he studied a locked door. "And while Skyrim did have magic that could detect life or undead... I couldn't use them, whether it was Serana's spells or the Dragonborn's Shouts."
"Shouts?" Shiro echoed, more to keep herself centered and calm than anything else even as she joined him by his side.
"Yep." Jaune nodded, deciding that the door wasn't the source of the bad feeling he was having. As he began to press against the wall, he explained: "Dragons in Skyrim used Word-based magic, and the Dragonborn, with her dragon soul, could do the same. For example, if she wanted to shoot forward, she'd just say WULD-!"
The next thing Jaune and Shiro knew, Jaune was suddenly propelled forward, causing his Aura to glow around him sympathetically as he smashed through a wall.
"Arc!" Shiro peered through the hole in the wall. "Are you okay?"
"What in Oum's name was that?!" Jaune swore, as he picked himself up.
Had he really just...?
No, that should have been impossible, right?
Before he could think about it anymore, his instincts began screaming at him, and he quickly observed his surroundings.
He appeared to be on a staircase of some sort, leading down.
With his Aura illuminating his surroundings, he could see that it appeared to lead to an underground temple of some sort.
"Woah, you weren't kidding." Shiro complained, as she stuck her head through the hole. "You're glowing like a goddamn sun!"
"That's new, as was the Shout." Jaune noted even as he helped her down and flicked his sheath into its shield configuration. "Stay sharp... we don't know what could be down here."
"Have you felt anything like it before?" Shiro asked, as she noted his uncharacteristically serious tone, and the matching expression on his face.
"Not that I can recall..." Jaune murmured back, before shaking his head. "Stay sharp. Whatever it is, it probably can't be good."
Then he stepped into the underground temple.
His glowing Aura illuminated the room.
And suddenly Jaune and Shiro found themselves feeling extremely nauseous, even as Shiro faintly recalled Fuji-nee mentioning that her grandfather, the yakuza boss, had been looking into something concerning about abductions and traffickings.
-EMIYA RESIDENCE-
"Why does he always have to be so noble and selfless all the time?!" Artoria ranted, pounding a fist against the table as she did so. "Why can't he understand that I want him to be happy?"
Velvet and Saber shared a look even as they placed their hand (or paw) on Artoria's shoulders, and awkwardly tried to comfort the furious monarch.
Tohsaka Rin, for her part, simply folded her arms and observed the scene unfolding in front of her, and once again cursed her younger sister for asking her to handle the situation while she took Arc to see Kotomine Kirei.
Seriously, why didn't she deal with her own Servant, or make Arc clean up his own mess?! Rider had been going on without losing steam for well over an hour!
Rin shifted, and groaned, before sighing for the millionth time.
Damn useless baby sisters...
But still, she'd told her she'd do it, so...
"Uh, listen..." Rin began as she stepped forward, and immediately three pairs of eyes were turned to her. "... look, I don't really know you or Arc that well, but... have the two of you tried... I don't know... talking it out or something?"
"... what do you think we were just doing, Tohsaka?" Artoria asked, trying her hardest not to sound too harsh on her Master's sister, knowing venting her anger on the girl would be unfair.
"No, I mean..." Rin groaned, and fought the urge to tear her hair out. She knew how to manipulate people her age, or even those much younger or older than her.
A legendary King from fifteen hundred years ago dealing with the reappearance of her long-lost... lover? Crush? Friend?
That was a whole different story.
Sighing, she tried again: "Look, it's obvious you care for him, and it's obvious he cares for you..."
"It's Jaune." Artoria sighed.
"Sir Jaune was the Knight of Compassion for a reason..." Velvet agreed with an awkward laugh.
"But... well... for you, he was gone for over eight years, right?" Rin forced herself to ignore the byplay.
"That is true, yes." Artoria wondered why the Tohsaka girl was speaking the obvious.
"Well, we only found him here six weeks ago." Rin pointed out. "For him, it's a lot more recent than it was for you... he probably just needs time to process it..."
"He did say it was four months from his perspective..." Artoria murmured thoughtfully, before she realized what Rin had just said. "Wait, you said you only found him six weeks ago?"
"... uh, yeah, my sister found him in the woods six weeks ago." Rin nodded.
"..." Artoria frowned thoughtfully.
"It is Sir Jaune." Velvet reminded her, glad that she seemed far less furious. "It is possible this wasn't his first destination after my mother's spell..."
Next to her, Saber chuffed in agreement.
"Exactly!" Rin nodded, thankful for her Servant. "The two of you are just... out of sync. Take a break, try to catch up on everything both of you have missed out-"
The phone rang below, interrupting their conversation.
Rin groaned.
Of course it would be just as she'd finally made some progress!
Why not?
Then the phone stopped ringing, and Kotomine Kirei's voice came out of the answering machine.
"Shiro Emiya. Meet me behind the Ryuudou Temple. I need to discuss matters with you regarding Kiritsugu Emiya."
The message ended.
"... Kiritsugu Emiya?" Rin echoed in confusion. "Wasn't that the guy that adopted Shiro? What does that fake priest have to do with him?"
"..." Artoria's fist clenched, as her instincts began to warn her that something was wrong.
"My King..." Velvet noticed her tenseness. "Do you know something?"
"... they were both Masters in the previous war." Artoria finally answered. "Kiritsugu was my Master... and Kotomine was the King of Hero's Master, at the end of the War."
Before Rin could process that information, the phone rang again.
This time, Rin picked it up.
"Kirei, what's going on-" Rin began to demand.
"Tohsaka-senpai?" Shiro's voice cut her off, and she immediately shut up as she realized who the other person on the line was. "Do you know where Kotomine is?"
"Wait, Shiro?" Rin found herself confused. "I thought you went to the Kotomine Church with Arc? Isn't that fake priest there?"
"We did." Shiro's tone was clipped. "Kotomine wasn't here. Instead..."
"Shiro, what happened?" Rin began to get worried. "What did you find?"
"There's dozens of bodies under the church, Tohsaka-senpai." Shiro's voice was shaky now, and Rin was distinctly aware that Velvet and Artoria had both gotten up and were paying attention to their conversation. "God, dozens of people were stuck down here, having their life force... I don't know, leeched away or something. Most of them look like they've been here for years..."
Rin's eyes widened, and she quickly asked: "Where are you now?"
"I'm calling from a payphone nearby, Tohsaka-senpai." Shiro reassured her. "Arc's dealing with the victims... thank god for his bullshit Aura... we've already called the cops and the hospitals. But we need to know, where's Kotomine Kirei?"
"... why are you asking, Shiro?" Rin's eyes narrowed.
"We need to stop him, Tohsaka-senpai!" Shiro all but shouted, as she recalled the state most of the bodies had been in. "And you just said his name when you picked up the phone; don't try and pretend you don't know where he is."
"Shiro, that fake priest specifically wants you." Rin snarled. "If you go to him, you'll be playing right into his hands."
"I don't care, Tohsaka-senpai!" Shiro did shout this time. "Tell me where he-"
Rin grumbled about younger sisters as she hung up on Shiro, then turned to address the two Servants: "That was Shiro, by the way."
"We noticed." Artoria said drily.
"What's going on, Master?" Velvet asked tentatively.
"It's Kirei." Rin snarled, feeling an odd sensation of betrayal as she did so. "Shiro and Arc found dozens of bodies under the church... by the sounds of it, he's been draining their life force for magical energy."
"..." Artoria's fists could've turned coals into diamonds.
"... so, when will we move out, Master?" Velvet asked.
"... as soon as possible." Rin smiled. It was a vicious and feral thing.
"I just wish to remind you that it is definitely a trap." Artoria warned, even as she pulled herself up. "And Kotomine Kirei is not a foe to be taken lightly."
"Oh, it's definitely a trap." Rin's grin grew. "But he's expecting you and Shiro... not you, Saber, and I. And most of all, he made one fatal mistake - he threatened my baby sister."
"Shouldn't we wait for Sir Jaune?" Velvet frowned.
"Uh, isn't Arc's sword broken?" Rin pointed out.
"Trust me, that won't stop Jaune from getting involved anyway." Artoria growled, remembering his usual exploits, from the Addanc of Llyn Barfog to the Black Knight of Gwlad yr Haf.
And those were just the ones she'd actually managed to get him to admit!
That fool probably still thought she hadn't found out about how he'd held off a small army of assassins with just an elm branch, just because he'd left behind the Nameless Blade and his family scabbard to try and convince people he was still in Camelot...
"We'll leave them a note." Rin suggested, before adding: "Though hopefully we'll be done before the two can get involved..."
"Very well..." Velvet grudgingly relented, sharing her Master's thoughts, knowing of her mentor's luck when it came to these things.
Artoria simply sighed, but decided to go along with it. Kotomine Kirei was just that dangerous, and her familiar was unarmed (though she knew full well that he was far from harmless even then), and her Master was inexperienced.
Thirty minutes later, the group reached the cordoned-off and empty Ryuudou Temple, and slowly made their way behind, even as Saber growled warily while sniffing the red-tinged air.
Of them, only Artoria had seen the back of the temple before, with Issei Ryuudou having never let Tohsaka Rin past.
With that said, even Rin knew that, behind the temple, there should have been a large clear lake.
Of course, even Saber could figure out that the lake shouldn't have been a sea of black mud, bathed in a blood red light.
But it was.
And floating above the lake, in what she could only describe as a void in world, was Illyasviel von Einzbern.
However, unlike the tiny murder machine that had ordered Berserker around like a toy and almost killed her sister...
The albino homunculus was naked, unconscious, and crucified to a floating cross.
And below her, standing ankle-deep in the mud...
"How odd... I was expecting Shiro Emiya... not you, Rin."
"Kirei..." Rin snarled, fighting to keep the hurt and betrayal from her voice. "What's going on?! What did you want with my sister?! And what are you doing to the Einzbern?!"
"Oh, since when did you care about the Einzbern Master, Rin?" Kirei idly inquired, ignoring the weapons being levelled at him.
"Answer the question, you damn fake priest!" Rin growled at her guardian.
"She's the vessel for the Holy Grail, Rin." Kirei smiled coldly, as he spread his hands in welcome. "With so many souls in the Grail... the path is almost open. One more death should do it, and the Grail will manifest, and fulfil my wish."
"... that black mud is your wish?" Rin never lowered her finger.
"Why does everybody make that mistake..." Kirei sighed, before wagging his finger, like a parent correcting a child. "This mud is not of my making. This is the power leaking out of the Holy Grail, the 'colorless power' that should have been omnipotent. No human power is able to stain it black. This Holy Grail has been like this from the beginning. Once opened, it will flow out without end and cause a disaster."
"Impossible..." Artoria whispered, looking at the unholy mud oozing forth. She'd wanted to use that to make Jaune King?!
"On the contrary; the Holy Grail makes anything possible." Kirei's smile came back. "Rejoice, women, for you are about to witness-"
Rin didn't waste any time, and immediately fired off a Gandr at him.
There was a flash of movement from within the mud, and the spell was suddenly struck away by a red spear.
"How rude." Kirei frowned.
The group ignored him, as they stared at the Servant who'd suddenly intercepted the attack.
The red spear was familiar, but beyond that...
Where Lancer had once worn blue, this one wore black.
Where Lancer had once been tanned, this one was a sickly pale color, like a creature that had been in the dark for too long.
And where he'd once worn a bestial and feral grin, and had wild eyes...
The Lancer before them was emotionless, and his eyes were empty, as he impassively studied his foes.
"I was going to offer you the Grail, should any of you turn against each other..." Kirei began, before shaking his head. "But I feel like it would be futile. Nonetheless, as a priest, it is my job to offer any and all a last chance at redemption. So-"
"Jaune would never approve." Artoria declared, even as Saber huffed in agreement next to her.
"There is no way I can disappoint my mentor again." Velvet agreed, taking up her stance behind her sword and shield.
Rin simply fired off another Gandr at the fake priest, which the corrupted Lancer easily deflected.
"Very well then." Kirei smirked knowingly. "Lancer."
Lancer's eyes quickly studied his foes.
Kill.
Group.
Kill.
He'd faced the Saber Servant before.
Kill.
The Rider Servant was strong in defense.
KILL.
Using Gae Bolg on a single target three times would be inefficient,
KILL.
Therefore...
The corrupted Lancer suddenly leapt back into the air, already cocking his spear-arm back even as he accumulated all the energy the Grail was pouring into him into the cursed spear.
"GAE..."
"Scatter!" Artoria shouted, jumping onto Saber even as Velvet and Rin leapt away.
"BOLG!"
The Soaring Spear that Strikes with Death sailed forth from his hand.
Before it landed, however, a faint sonic booms could be heard behind them, like the sound of a cannon firing.
"My flag, defend our brethren! Luminosité Eternelle!"
Just before it struck, a golden-glowing pillar of ice suddenly rose up between them and the spear, blocking it for them.
The spear exploded in a torrent of energy, one that shattered the sudden ice wall.
But the three women and one lion were unharmed.
Velvet's and Artoria's eyes were particularly wide.
After all, they'd seen ice walls like that before.
Only one person could have conjured them...
But his sword had been broken, right?
Quietly, they turned around, towards the source of the sound they'd heard earlier.
Instead of a blonde man with a sword and a shield, however...
Two women stood there.
One was a sandy blonde woman with aqua green eyes and olive skin, clad in some white bony armor, casually resting her hand on the hilt of a sheathed sword as she studied the scene in front of her coldly, like a shark.
The other had long golden-blonde hair, done up into a braided ponytail, who stared at them with much warmer glowing golden eyes, which faded into a deeper amethyst shade, with medieval steel armor and a sheathed sword by her hip as she held a white banner on a spear, decorated with golden threads and fleurs-de-lys.
That wasn't what struck them the most about her, however.
It was her face.
She could have easily passed for Artoria's sister...
Or Jaune's sister.
As the red spear returned back to Lancer's hand, the figure lifted her flag, and declared: "Courage, my friends! Do not fall back! The Lord is with us, and he will act with us!"
Author's Note: Something something hate dialogue something something two weeks something something why are these chapters so long now something something why do I do this to myself...
Regarding Jeanne's return... I'm sure that everyone could have guessed that was going to happen. What nobody did guess correctly is how long she's already been here, or how she actually got here. Sure, those questions will be answered next chapter... but if you're bored, I did leave a few hints all the way back in Chapter 93 (and if you want a big clue, check the newspaper headlines Jaune reads out loud), though they were probably more subtle than me hinting how Jaune got to the hotel (which was me literally spelling it out (italicized) with the first letter of each paragraph of last chapter's Author's Notes)...
And regarding the souls in the Grail... they're Caster, Assassin, Berserker, Archer, Angra Mainyu (who has apparently been chilling there since the Third Grail War), and the shattered remnants of Jaune's original Aura (soul stuff is weird).
And no, Cu Chulainn isn't Cu Chulainn Alter (Cu-zilla), who is a Berserker-class Servant created by Queen Medb using a Holy Grail to wish for "a wicked monarch similar to both myself and Cú Chulainn"... or so the wiki tells me. I have been informed quite a lot that the wiki isn't all too reliable, unfortunately... but all I can really do right now is work with what I've got. And I have... absolutely nothing on a Grail-corrupted Cu Chulainn...
Also, holy fucking shit, this confrontation was a fucking long one. So much things to catch Jaune up on, from his entire disappearance to just what a Grail War is...
And this is just one confrontation, with one set of characters (and the most recent ones at that!), and me already doing everything I could to minimize the dialogue (keeping the Tohsakas speechless, Velvet being too guilty about Camlann to really take an active role in the conversation, and Artoria choosing not to tell him what she really feels because... well... she doesn't want to completely overwhelm him)...
Man, what's coming soon is going to be wild.
Help.
And of course this confrontation isn't going to be pure diabetes-inducing fluff. There is no way Jaune is going to let Artoria throw away over eight years of her life for him, in the same way that Artoria can't simply be convinced to throw away eight years of work in a matter of minutes, not even by Jaune. They're both selfishly selfless, and while that makes their interactions lovely when they're in sync, when they're not... well...
It of course doesn't help that Jaune isn't the same as when he left, just like how Artoria isn't the same Arthur Jaune left behind.
And if anyone thinks this confrontation was too dramatic and heavy... fear not! I actually wrote an alternate version of Chapter 84 with a similar confrontation between Artoria and Jaune... which still exists... somewhere. As for why I didn't use that take... that and this are two fundamentally different confrontations. This confrontation has 1500 years of baggage, and that confrontation is basically a "What If Artoria Won The Fourth Holy Grail War, And Managed To Use It Before Kiritsugu Ordered Her To Destroy It, And The Grail Sent Her Memories Back". But that tooth-rotting scenario will be released as an omake if I hit 100 trillion Zimbabwe bucks on my ko-fi!
... that's a joke, by the way. Do not donate to my ko-fi just for that chapter.
... releasing the omake is the joke. The existence of the omake itself was not. I do not, and will never, hold a chapter ransom. That chapter will be released as an omake for the 100th chapter.
...
Eh, what the hell.
Have a sneak peak, something to cleanse the palate.
SCENARIO: AVALON, THE EVER-DISTANT UTOPIA
POINT OF DEVIATION: BETWEEN CHAPTERS 83 & 84
Author's Notes: [REDACTED]
There was a knock on the door.
"Come in."
"Heya, Artoria." Kay said as he pushed the door open. "You... wanted to see me?"
"I did." Artoria nodded, finishing up the last of her biscuits (and determinedly ignoring Saber's sulking pout, as she held it firmly out of his reach). "I... have been giving some thought into our earlier discussions."
"What, at the feast just now?" Kay raised an eyebrow.
"... that, and before." Artoria's cheeks reddened slightly. "I... you were right, brother."
"I am?" Kay asked slowly. No, had he actually managed to get through to her? Did he dare to hope? Just in case, he tried confirming: "About sharing your secret with Jaune?"
"That, and courting him." Artoria nodded, ignoring how her cheeks were burning.
"Truly?" Kay pressed, unable to believe his ears.
Artoria nodded once more, unable to meet her brother's eyes as she explained: "I... was talking to him earlier, discussing the events of the past few weeks, and I have come to a realization. I... am unfit to be the King any more. I drew the Sword of Selection to save the people. And, in that respect, I have succeeded; the people have been saved. But I cannot make them happy, not when I have been failing to look after my own happiness."
Kay was torn between elation and pride, that his baby sister had finally figured it out, and irritation, that she'd ignored it when he'd tried to tell her that for months, but when her familiar spoke to her just once...
"I... I want to abdicate, Kay." Artoria admitted, continuing on. "To give up the throne, in favor of him, the man who was summoned to teach me how to be the Ideal King. I believe he can succeed, where I am failing. But I also want to continue to be by his side, to have him be a part of my life, and me a part of his. To help him during his reign, as much as he helped me."
Kay just shook his head in fond exasperation. Of course that would be part of Artoria's thoughts.
Well, as long as she was finally being honest with herself.
"So... what do you want to do now?" Kay asked, determined to help her succeed no matter what the cost.
"I..."
"I WISH I COULD PREVENT MORGAN FROM BANISHING JAUNE!"
Memories suddenly flowed into her, punching through her Magic Resistance thanks to the power of a Holy Grail.
Heartbreak.
Regret.
Grief.
Sorrow.
Hope.
Betrayal.
Rebellion.
War.
Death.
An offer.
Eternity, an eternity of pain consuming her physical form as her body warred with the power of the Crocea Mors, unable to do little more than wait and stare at the field of corpses at Camlann, her only reprieve when she was summoned to fight for the Holy Grail, to fight for a way to bring him back.
She saw an older King Arthur looking at a golden chalice in a church, with a bust that she found herself quietly envious of.
As Alaya took Lancer Artoria, their pact sealed, she smiled sadly, her task complete, and merely said: "Don't lose him this time.
"Don't ever let him go again, Artoria..."
"Artoria!" Kay's voice rang in her ears, bringing her back to reality, as she found herself on the floor. "Are you okay? What happened? Should I call for a healer? Where is that damned wizard when I need him?"
Merlin...
Artoria's eyes widened, and she immediately jumped to her feet, activating Mana Burst to speed up her movements.
"There's no time!" Artoria cried out, even as she grabbed Excalibur. "Morgan is here! Merlin and Jaune are in trouble!"
"Wait, what do you mean?" Kay asked, trying to keep up with her even as she sprinted across the hall, uncaring of how her servants and knights saw her in that moment. "How are they in danger?! What's your sister doing?!"
Artoria's jaw hardened, and her grip around her sword tightened further, as she slowly processed the memories.
The Knights of the Round Table accepting her.
Merlin's interruption and warning.
Rushing into Jaune's room, to find it empty, with a note in a book.
"She's hit Merlin with a sleeping spell." Artoria explained, never slowing her pace the whole time. "She's used that to sneak into the castle, past his defenses."
"But how did she even get him?!" Kay panted, refusing to fall behind.
"She seduced him." Artoria clarified, rounding a corner.
"... that damn wizard..." Kay groaned. "And your familiar?"
"Suggestion spell." Damn it, why was Camelot so big?! "She convinces him that Merlin's in trouble, and he allows her to banish him in exchange for Merlin's safety, as well as ours."
"... he would, too, wouldn't he..." Kay grumbled, as the pair finally reached Jaune's room.
She immediately reached for the door, and tried it, but found it locked.
"Jaune!" Artoria cried out, slamming her fist against it.
Kay pushed her aside, and smashed his body against the door, but found it as unyielding as a steel wall, which all but confirmed that something was definitely wrong.
Please, Lord, not him.
Not now!
Not now that I've finally realized how much he means to me...
"Stand aside." Artoria ordered, drawing Excalibur.
Kay's eyes widened, and he immediately backed off, as she channeled her prana into her blade, before slicing through the door.
"We have terms." They heard Jaune saying, his tone emotionless, and barged in to find his usually-vibrant eyes hollow and vacant, even as Merlin lay slumbering on his bed, and a veiled figure watched them with alarm.
"Artoria?!" Morgan was panicking, not having expected to be detected.
"MORGAN!" Artoria roared with the heat of a fire dragon's breath, as memories of the sheer pain her single action would cause burned through her, and she brandished her sword at her estranged sister. "GET. OUT. NOW!"
"How-?!"
"EX!" The Sword of Promised Victory began glowing golden. "CALI-"
Morgan wasted no time, and immediately used her teleportation spell to escape from the room, knowing she had no chance of dealing with an enraged Artoria head-on.
There was a moment of silence, as Artoria continued to scan the room, wary of any additional traps, before she finally lowered her sword, and cut off her prana to it.
Then, she rushed to her familiar's side, as he began groaning and stumbling, disoriented, while Kay moved to check on the stirring Magus of Flowers.
"Wha... what happened?" Jaune groaned, clutching his head, as he slumped against the wall. "Last I remember was Merlin on my bed, and then- oof!"
Artoria, swept away by relief, immediately embraced him tightly, unwilling to ever let him go.
"Arthur?!" Jaune yelped in a panic, utterly lost.
Postscript: Why am I not releasing the full version now? Simply put, a) I need something to celebrate 100 chapters (a milestone I never even dreamed of hitting in a hundred years), and b) the word count of the full version of this one omake is already well over 9000.
See you guys in a few weeks.
