FATE/PARALLEL COLORS
Chapter 13: Out-of-Place Artifact
The beam continued its course, decimating the opposite wall to leave behind a huge gap. It shot further into the fortress, tearing through anything in its path, until it eventually exploded in the lower quadrant where the engine rooms were. This caused the St. Metropolita to lurch to one side, and everyone collapsed to the floor.
"Ngh…" Hakuno winced in pain after landing on his side in an awkward position. He then gazed into the throne room, where he saw the furious Charlemagne and Altera already charging towards Auctoritas with theirs swords in hands. Nero had thrown herself over Hakuno to protect him, Tamamo stood in front of them erecting a magical barrier, and Robin merely kneeled there in stunned silence.
"HRAAA~AAAGH!" Charlemagne screamed.
"HAAA~AAAH!" Altera likewise let out her best battle cry.
Both of them descended upon Auctoritas' head from opposite sides. Without ceremony, they slashed into its neck together, severing the main core from the body. The robot swayed back and forth on its hind legs, now headless as it tried to engage in battle again, but was unable to. It collapsed to the ground, then exploded in a fantastic burst of fire, metal parts, and loose gears.
Satisfied that Rex Magnus' most powerful weapon was destroyed, Hakuno looked over at where Connla was when she was attacked. He spotted not just her, but also Cuchulainn and Lancelot. The black knight had thrown himself over the girl's entire body to act as a shield before the beam could impact her. Likewise, the Celtic warrior kneeled in front of both of them and spread his arms out, taking the brunt of the blast for them. Although the floor had sagged in from the raw force, two distinct spots remained normal where the three Servants were. Smoke curled around the two men's bodies, and blood pooled everywhere. Just then, Hakuno spotted a small figure squirming beneath Lancelot.
"Hey! Are you all right!?" he shouted and ran up to them.
"Ah, Praetor! Don't run off on me like that!" Nero cried out and followed him.
Hakuno ignored her and tried to roll Lancelot to the side. Connla emerged, appearing to have suffered just a few scrapes. He helped her get out, and she crawled on her hands and knees, gazing around with a blank stare.
"Are you… my father's… Master?" she whimpered.
"Yes, I am."
"What… happened?"
"You're okay now. Cuchulainn and Lancelot protected you."
"Sir… Lancelot?"
She looked at the fallen knight, but was so shell-shocked that she couldn't understand anything. When Lancelot's body started glowing gold though, she tensed up, realizing that he had died to protect her.
"Ah… S-Sir Lancelot!" Connla held his upper body up in her arms. "Oh no, this can't be happening! Please stay with us!"
"Ga… re… th…" the Berserker moaned. "L… Li… Live… ha… ppy…"
He slumped dead, and his Spirit Core collapsed until he fully disappeared. The whole thing was so shocking that she didn't have the energy to cry for him. Connla trembled as a panic attack set in, and Hakuno threw his arms around her shoulders to keep her calm. Several moments later, they heard another man ask, "Hey… Is the kid okay?"
Hakuno looked over at Cuchulainn. He was still on his hands and knees, now having returned to his normal size. Although he had lost a great deal of blood and struggled to breathe, he was still strong enough to crawl over and inspect Connla. Despite being traumatized to the point of not thinking straight, she could at least recognize his face, and she blurted, "Father…"
"You hurt anywhere?"
"I… don't think so…"
"Good."
Cuchulainn's riastrad subsided, undoing the grotesque mutation his body went through. Although the sounds of popping bones and twisting flesh were so disgusting that everyone else visibly cringed, he eventually returned to his normal persona. He pulled back his shoulder, and a satisfying snapping sound echoed. He exhaled with a relieved sigh, "Oooh, that's better!"
"Mr. Cuchulainn," Tamamo sternly told him, "if you're going to morph into that vile monstrosity again, at least have the courtesy to warn us next time so I can escort my Husband away from the premises! Do you have any idea how close you were to killing your own teammates back there?"
"Sorry, but my mind's a total blank when I'm like that. The moment that assimilating asshole called my kid a tool for his own purposes, well… Let's just say I wanted to make him experience the same regret that Aife did."
"I can see that. Seriously, if you're so stupidly strong, why are you here as a Lancer and not as a Top Berserker? Put a collar on you, and I bet you could solve 99% of our problems with that brute strength of yours."
"Trust me, lady. Not even the Moon Cell would be stupid enough to summon me in that form."
As the pair bickered with each other, Nero stepped in front of Hakuno and brandished Aestus Estus while snarling, "I'd hate to interrupt your charming little squabble, but we've got company."
Charlemagne, Robin and Altera also stood side-by-side with her as everyone glanced over at Auctoritas' mangled remains. There was a silhouette of a large man with a crown on his head stumbling toward them, pressing his hand against a ghastly wound that poured blood all over his chest and legs. Despite the obvious fact that he was thoroughly defeated, Karl kept staggering, his expression full of pain and defeat. No one wanted to say anything to him. By this point, they knew their words would never reach him. Even though they used all of their power to stop him, he still refused to accept that he lost. After all the atrocities he committed, they no longer had the will to lecture him.
The silence was overbearing. It felt like a contest to see who would blink first, with the fate of the world at stake. A hollow ambient sound surrounded them, as the wind blew through the gigantic chamber that was once Rex Magnus' throne room.
However, a single footstep stunned everyone out of their reverie.
Then another. And another. And another.
They belonged to Connla, who had gotten to her feet and slowly walked toward the mortally wounded Karl. Her expression remained blank, as if she was fully detached from reality. Robin tried to protest, but Altera threw her arm out in front of him, silently commanding him to stand down. Surprisingly, Cuchulainn didn't make any objections. Step by step, Connla came closer and closer to the emperor until she eventually stopped about 20 feet from him. The pair just gazed into each other's eyes for what felt like an eternity.
Soon, she asked him a simple question:
"Do you love me?"
His eyes narrowed in curiosity. What sort of point could she possibly make with such an obvious question?
"I… love you… as much as I love all of my subjects," he replied.
"Maybe as a king. But as a human being, your words have no sincerity."
"Absurd. How can this passion of mine be seen as mere hollow boasting?"
"It's true that you're passionate about something. You wouldn't have come this far if you didn't have that drive. But you're misunderstanding the most fundamental point of your crusade."
"Me… misunderstanding my own crusade? How?"
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply to steady her nerves. Then, she spoke:
"The truth is… you're in love with the concept of love, aren't you?"
Karl was so taken aback by Connla's question that he could only choke in surprise. Even Hakuno and the others weren't expecting her to say something so profound.
She continued, "You love spreading your love to everyone around you. That much is very clear. Yet, you're not interested in the actual people you're extending your love to. All you enjoy is the act of loving others, with no care or concern about who it is you're actually loving in the first place. Your subjects are naught more than mindless pets who can be fed and taught basic tricks, as if you're the superior animal in the food chain. Or maybe you see yourself as the only 'human', while all others are commonplace bugs who require your all-knowing guidance, with no respect for others' intellect or opinions. How is loving for the sake of love any different than your run-of-the-mill superiority complex? I certainly don't see the difference."
Behind the group, Robin winced to himself and thought, Ouch. She sure knows how to hit below the belt.
Karl lowered his head and clenched his teeth. "No… This is not a superiority complex… People genuinely don't know how to love each other. They don't understand what it is. Someone needs to show them… to teach them… to make them learn what it is… I know I can give it to them. If only they were willing to accept it…"
"It's true that I have a lot to learn about love," Connla admitted. "It's such a vague concept that it might take my entire life before I can even comprehend the basics. But I know one thing for sure…"
She calmly pointed at him.
"I'm not going to learn what love is from you."
Another terrifying silence engulfed the entire throne room. The mortified look in Karl's eyes suggested that those harsh words thoroughly crushed his morale.
That was when a strange memory flickered in his mind. It wasn't a memory from when he was alive, nor did it ever occur during his summoning into SE. RA. PH. Was it a remnant of his past life? Or perhaps leftovers from a previous summoning? He didn't know, but his mind was awash with terrifying images. It had happened in a foreign place, far away from this dimension entirely. He remembered… snow. A lot of snow. There were also signs of an intense battle. He stood against a small opponent clad in white armor and a combat dress. He wasn't there as Karl der Große, but as Charlemagne. He had used his Noble Phantasm on her, and she fell upon the ground, bleeding so heavily that all of the snow around her was dyed red. As if that wasn't difficult enough for him to comprehend, the small Lancer raised her hand next to her cranium and conjured an Ansuz Rune to blow her own head off, on her Master's command.
Her tiny voice tore through him like a blazing hot sword:
"Saber…"
Karl hunched forth a bit. He wanted to forget that awful scene… but he couldn't! That face belonged to the very same Servant standing before him! He boasted about being the savior of humanity, yet he couldn't save even a single Servant! And now that same Servant was rejecting his concept of love!
How… HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE!?
Out of sheer despair, he dug his fingers into his hair and howled.
"AaaaAAaaAaAAAGGggGGGgHHhhHhhhhHH!"
As he let forth his dying scream, his body disintegrated into golden particles that scattered all around the stoic Connla like glittering dust. She barely noticed them, only focusing on the spot where Karl was. She was as still and silent as a statue. She wasn't proud of what she did just now. She hated talking to people like that. If she could have it her way, she would've wanted to sit down and rationalize with him until they came to an agreement, rather than be so blunt and cold-hearted.
A peculiar shining light caught her attention, and she looked back to see Altera glowing white. Her mature form regressed in age until she was back in her child-like larva form. She tried to stumble towards the Lancer, but she no longer had the strength to even hold Photon Ray in her hands, and it clattered to the floor. Both girls' eyes felt heavy and droopy as they stared at each other vapidly.
"Connla…"
"Altera…"
Then, they passed out simultaneously. Charlemagne caught Altera before she could hit the floor on her side, while Cuchulainn snatched Connla over his arm as she slumped forward.
"Shit… causing me so trouble," the Celt cursed. He then chuckled and muttered, "Then again, I'm not much better, am I?"
With Karl der Große officially declared dead, it didn't take much for any remaining loyalists to be defeated by Nero and Tamamo's armies. Since it was essentially clean-up work that the Moon Cell's Defense Programs could take care of, this allowed Hakuno and the Servants to return to Rome in triumph. Since Carolus Patricus was no longer needed as a base for the allies, Charlemagne made it disappear so he could conserve what little mana he had left in his Spirit Core. Nero was more than eager to host a party at her palace, with all Servants who helped in the war invited to join the festivities. What followed for two straight days was unbridled joy, merriment, and feasting for everyone.
That was, except for Altera and Connla.
Charlemagne and Cuchulainn brought the unconscious girls to a spare bedroom that Nero allowed them to use, and tucked them in the single king-sized bed available. They snored quietly, but were so exhausted that neither of them so much as budged in their sleep.
"Well, that's that," Charlemagne whispered. "It's a good thing neither of them got into too much trouble while breaking into the St. Metropolita."
Cuchulainn faced him and asked, "So is there some kind of story between you and Altera? I heard you call her your sister or something."
"Sort of. It happened during my adventuring days. Basically, I found the tomb where Altera was sleeping in, and I could relate to how lonely and scared she was when her enemy was the entire world. I think that's when the original Charles the Great's Spirit Core was divided between 'Charlemagne' and 'Karl', since we had different opinions on what we should do after finding her like that. We weren't able to save her from her torment – that privilege was taken from us by Master. Regardless, both of us wanted her to live. We just couldn't agree on what kind of world we wanted her to live in."
"Hm. Well, it looks like that debate's settled."
"Yeah, it is."
"So what's going to happen to you? You're Karl's shadow, aren't you? Just as much as he was your light."
Charlemagne nodded, then frowned. "I know. I should be able to stick around for another day, but not any longer than that. Sadly, I don't think Altera is going to wake up before that happens. I wanted to be able to say good-bye to her, but I guess I can't ask for everything."
Cuchulainn patted the knight's back. "Don't worry. Altera's not going to be sad."
"What makes you say that?"
"I'll make sure Connla's good friends with her. I plan on training the kid once she recovers, but they'll have plenty of play dates during our downtime. Besides, it'd be nice for both of them to have someone around their age to talk to. Neither of them really had that opportunity in their original lifetimes."
"… Yeah. You're right. Antecessor Nero is also a child at heart, so at least life won't be dull for Altera. Even if I'm not around, life will go on. That's the most awesome outcome I could ever hope for."
"Right. Leave the kids to me. You go have your heartfelt partings with Master and the others."
Charlemagne and Cuchulainn bumped fists with each other, then the Frenchman glanced at Altera and Connla one last time with a hearty smile before leaving the room for good.
Chaldea
Connla felt herself being sucked out of her Moon Cell counterpart's mind, and she returned to her own body before reawakening. As she expected, her vision was washed out with splotches of random colors – the by-product of her more intense Imbas Forosnai episodes. She immediately put on the glasses that Sigurd made for her, significantly reducing the color noise so she could see properly.
"Yo," she heard Cuchulainn Alter mumble from across the room. Although it was fairly dark, she could see him slouched in an uncomfortable position on the chair at the table. Several empty cans of beer and playing cards were strewn in a mess all over the table. The acrid smell of tobacco wafted in the air, emanating from some used cigarettes crushed upon a glass tray. Smoke curled out of his mouth as he exhaled deeply and grumbled, "You're finally up."
"Um…" Connla stammered, trying to think of something to say.
"What's wrong? You forget where you are?"
"No, I remember. I'm in Chaldea's medical bay recovering from my surgery."
"Good."
"How long have I been out?"
"The operation was three days ago."
She sighed in relief. She was glad to know this particular vision didn't take as long as the previous ones. She then looked around before asking, "Where's Lord Lucius?"
"Why do you want to know about him?" Cuchulainn wondered.
"I woke up about halfway through my vision, and he was slouched over me fast asleep."
"I see. So that's why I heard you talking to someone in the middle of the night. Well, Lucius has recovered and is in the middle of a job with Master. He wanted me to tell you that he's okay and he understands your situation. You don't have to worry about any bad blood with him."
"That's good. I was so worried I had paralyzed him or something."
"Don't be ridiculous. That guy may only have a talent for causing headaches with his idiotic laughter, but at least he's tougher than a Demon Boar. So if Lucius was asleep, who were you actually talking to?"
"Lord Gilgamesh."
His widened his eyes in surprise. "Huh? Why the hell would you want to have a chat with that pontificating ass, of all people?"
"Well… I wouldn't say I was casually talking with him. It was more like he had some questions for me."
"An interrogation, then?"
"Mm. He was asking me such strange things."
"Like what?"
Connla recounted what Gilgamesh asked her before. Cuchulainn raised an eyebrow and wondered, "He wanted to know about some counterpart nicknamed Aibi?"
"Apparently. I've never heard of anyone like that though."
"Did you have a dream of that counterpart just now?"
She shook her head. "I don't think so. I didn't get to hear any sort of nickname for her. It only happens when we happen to cross paths with each other anyway, like with Cliste and Aisling. We'd have no reason to give ourselves alternate names otherwise."
"I guess so."
Connla anxiously bit her finger and moaned, "Why would he want to know about a counterpart I've never heard of before? Is there something going on with him that I'm not aware of?"
"Don't get excited. You're only going to wear yourself out like that," Cuchulainn said as he approached the bed and inspected Connla closely. "You should be more worried about what's going to happen now that that alien fragment is out of your body."
"Oh… right…" she gasped as she recalled why she was even here in the first place. "What's going on with it right now?"
After Gilgamesh concluded his one-sided conversation with Connla, he left the recovery room behind and headed toward the most popular destination in all of Chaldea. Indeed, his destination was none other than Da Vinci's workshop. Already, he could tell there was a bustle of activity just at the entrance alone, as several members of Chaldea's staff peered in to see what the excitement was about. Despite the pell-mell, Da Vinci had explicitly forbidden anyone except those in a specific research team to enter, so no one really had the courage to go inside.
"Oh ho," the Sumerian king muttered. "What is the meaning of this ruckus, mongrels?"
"Good morning, sire," one of the female technicians greeted him. "We don't really know for sure. Da Vinci suddenly barged into the command center and demanded for all of the smartest and most skilled Caster-class Servants to accompany her to her workshop. She also said that none of us are allowed to see what their research is, and even cloaked the interior in some kind of spell. We know they're inside, but we can't see a thing."
"Sounds like it's the most top-secret information, even among our most top-secret intel," another woman murmured.
"Wasn't Dr. Roman operating on one of the Servants late into the night?" a man asked. "Maybe this has something to do with it."
"It could be. But Nightingale won't let anyone see who that Servant is. Even the medical records for last night's operation are all hidden behind the tightest encryption."
"I see," Gilgamesh muttered. "Then why are you all wasting your time chasing after such a classified matter? If you are not allowed to bear witness to such delicate research, then it's common sense to just give up and return to your assigned posts. That is the position any such employee that is lower on the totem pole should just accept. Besides, I will not accept witnessing such a laissez-faire attitude to your own work, which is equally as important to keeping these facilities running at all times. Come; the king demands that you all return to your duties at once."
"Well, um… I guess so, if that's what you insist."
With that, the staff gradually broke away from the workshop and returned to their own jobs. Eventually, the hallway was devoid of any unnecessary crowds and bedlam, which he preferred. It wouldn't do him any good if his personal investigation was marred by the prying eyes of inexperienced bystanders who weren't trained on how to handle Chaldea's most sensitive secrets. Once he was alone, he could finally enter the workshop. Although it looked abandoned, he knew better. He could detect a gap in the Servants' cloaking spell, and he broke through it with startling ease. It had probably been left there intentionally so that other Servants who could contribute to the research were able to enter.
Inside the barrier, Gilgamesh found Da Vinci at the head of one of her crafting stations. Surrounding her were indeed similar Casters like Zhuge Liang, Charles Babbage, Medea, Gilles de Rais, Paracelsus, and Helena Blavatsky. All of them had their eyes trained on the bizarre clump of gears that had been extracted out of Connla. Numerous pieces of papers with mathematical scribbles and sketched diagrams laid strewn all over the floor, and multiple chalkboards were covered in complex formulas.
Da Vinci noticed her new guest and said, "Welcome, Gil. I had a feeling you would show up sooner or later. You're not the type to miss anything interesting that happens around here. Well, have I got a real treat for you! This here's a real live-"
"Fragment of an Outer God, correct?"
"Oh? You knew already? Ah ha ha, what am I saying? Your Clairvoyance is impeccable. Of course you would've known about it before any of us."
"Hmph. Spare me your hollow pleasantries, woman. Have you made any progress in analyzing it?"
Helena frowned and replied, "Even with my fascination of Lemurian technology, this thing really doesn't fit with anything I'm familiar with. It's like an optical illusion given material form. Its existence should be impossible, yet it's functioning just as much as any machine made with human hands can."
Da Vinci added, "We've decided to classify this as an OOPart, or out-of-place artifact."
Gilgamesh raised an eyebrow. "As in an archaeological artifact with such an unusual context that it challenges human history's known historical chronology? But this is obviously a fragment of an alien god, not a lost invention made by humans."
"You're right, but there really isn't any other term we can ascribe to this. We're going to call this particular OOPart 'Daoloth's Gear', since according to Van Gogh, Daoloth really does look like a mass of random shapes and machinery."
Babbage then said, "According to my calculations, the Gear is strikingly similar to the Antikythera mechanism. That is what prompted Ms. Da Vinci to classify this as an OOPart in the first place. It may suggest that Daoloth himself is a highly sophisticated and sentient computer, rather than an organic alien being like what the majority of Lovecraftian entities are depicted as."
"There are also some faint inscriptions on the gears' faces and some dials, though their language is unknown to us," Paracelsus admitted. "If those could be deciphered, we could earn some insight into Daoloth's properties, or even its relationship with the young Lancer."
"Even so, it's remarkable that all of these differently shaped pegs and dials can interact with each other perfectly fine, despite not fitting with each other whatsoever," Helena murmured. "I bet I could fine-tune my Noble Phantasm if I could just understand how this phenomenon worked."
Zhuge scoffed and uttered, "Before we get carried away with how we can use this thing to our own benefit, let's not forget the most important question – why was this inside Connla in the first place? Why did we not notice until now? Most worrying of all, when and how did she make contact with an Outer God? There is absolutely nothing in her history indicating this could have happened."
"Connla said that Aisling was a Foreigner-class Servant, like Van Gogh is," Da Vinci explained. "Could the Gear actually warp her Spirit Origin from a Lancer to a Foreigner? That's the only plausible explanation I can think of for why Daoloth would inject something like this into her."
"But he had to have known that Connla would be summoned as a Servant 2000 years in the future for it to be useful. After all, according to her testimony, it hadn't been until the Nevada Singularity that she was ever inscribed into the Throne of Heroes to begin with. Even I can't imagine any sort of living alien computer, or whatever the hell it is, possessing such incredible foresight."
As the others continued discussing theories and ideas amongst each other, Gilgamesh remained silent and eyed the bizarre gear as it kept ticking its tiny gears and dials. He kept thinking about everything that Aibi told him, and the implications of this thing's existence kept sending chills down his spine. Never before had he ever laid eyes on an alien artifact – the best proof of this was that he didn't possess such an object in his unfathomably huge treasury. Even if he had thoughtlessly added some kind of OOPart to his collection sometime in the past, at least he was reasonably sure that it was crafted with human intellect.
This… was something else entirely.
It reinforced his lack of wisdom into all things alien in nature. To be indirectly treated like a fool who didn't know anything about the cosmos that surrounded him was an affront to his pride. Yet, somehow, he couldn't contain his excitement. It presented an enormous opportunity for him, the likes which he never experienced even when diving into the depths of the underworld to find the elixir of immortality. It also gained him a newfound respect for Connla being the host to such an extraordinary object, on top of all the other tribulations she had endured until now.
Perhaps when all of this was said and done… he could add Daoloth's Gear to his treasury as a memento.
The medical bay
"I see…" Connla whispered. "So Ms. Da Vinci and the other scientists are analyzing it."
Cuchulainn said, "Yeah. She told me the whole thing's so top secret that they won't let even the higher-ranked staff know what's going on. That means we have to be careful about discussing it while anyone's in earshot."
"I had a feeling she would say that. Everyone must be on edge waiting for SHEBA to find the Seventh Singularity. I bet she doesn't want us to cause a ruckus with this additional problem, especially since we're dealing with a genuine alien god."
Cuchulainn grunted in consternation. "Makes me wonder if Roman and Da Vinci can get their shit together before it hits the fan. Do we really have the resources to handle so much at once?"
"I don't know. All I can do is put my faith in them and hope everything works out in the end. Besides, when I was assisting Ms. Da Vinci with her work before, she told me how Chaldea got its name."
"Its name?"
"Apparently, it belonged to a small country that existed around the 6th century BC, but was assimilated into Babylonia. Their astrological and numerological studies were said to be quite impressive for the time, with knowledge of the celestial bodies extending all the way out to Saturn, and that they used the number 7 to represent the forces keeping the cosmos in balance. I didn't really pay attention to everything Ms. Da Vinci was saying, but I guess that's where the former director got the inspiration for Chaldea's name – as an organization that examines celestial bodies and maintains the order first established by the ancient Chaldeans."
"Celestial bodies, huh? So in other words…"
"Stars, planets, comets, meteorites… and potentially alien life."
Both of them became quiet. They couldn't help but ponder the implications behind this. Could resolving the Singularities and protecting humanity from certain extinction not actually be Chaldea's main objectives? Was all of this technology supposed to be used to look for other alien gods like the ones affecting Connla and Van Gogh? After all, Medea was able to use the telescope to find Daoloth lurking in the Andromeda Galaxy without much difficulty. Roscosmos, JAXA, and even NASA could only dream of possessing such incredible technology. The organization just seemed so suspiciously… prepared for everything that happened with Connla. Was it possible that the incidents surrounding her actually lined up with what Marisbury Animusphere's original intentions were for creating Chaldea?
Cuchulainn winced a bit, then said, "Let's not think about it too hard. We just gather any information we can and let the pencil-pushers do the science-y stuff."
"I guess you're right," Connla murmured.
"Okay, switching topics. There's something else I want to ask you."
"What is it?"
He leaned in close to her with a sharp look in his eye. She immediately knew what that meant – he was about to get serious with her. His expression became darker than usual as he glowered, "You told Gilgamesh that you saw a vision of Aisling, didn't you?"
"…"
"Let me be frank with you. No matter how much we try to discuss it with each other, we keep getting stonewalled when it comes to Aisling and Daoloth. You're the one who told us she's another version of you, and that she's way more involved with Daoloth than you are. You're the only one who knows what the hell is going on here, and we cannot tolerate being left in the dark like this anymore. We need to learn everything we can from you – Aisling's history, Daoloth himself, and especially how you came into contact with the Outer God back when you were alive."
Connla stared away from her stern father, clearly growing anxious with his forceful approach. He immediately recognized this and placed his hand on her shoulder, imploring, "Please. I know it must be difficult for you, but we have to know. After what happened with the Akakor incident, everyone in Chaldea is entitled to hear the full story. If you're having any deluded ideas of dealing with Aisling on your own, then stuff it. We've been dragged into this mess, so we might as well go all the way, right?"
"… Mm. I know what you mean," she nodded forlornly. "I've never actually had any problem with telling you. I guess I just haven't had much of a chance to say anything yet."
"Fair enough. It's been rather crazy ever since we came back from that world. So are you willing to talk?"
"I am. But there is one request.. or maybe two… that I want to make."
"What are they?"
"For one, I don't think I can handle being surrounded by so many people like what happened back at Alejandro Uruburu's base. If Dr. Roman and Ms. Da Vinci can make do with a recording, that'd make things a lot easier for me."
"I'm sure they won't mind. The doctor's been concerned about your stress levels lately, so he'd do anything to accommodate. So what's the other request?"
"Well… that is…" she stammered while fidgeting with her fingers. "I would like to just tell you and the other Cuchulainns personally. No one else."
Cuchulainn visibly blinked when he heard this. "Just us four? You don't want Master around either?"
"No. This is incredibly personal for me. The only other person who will understand is you… or rather, the Heroic Spirit Cuchulainn. Since there are multiple versions of him here, I figured it would be best to involve all of them."
He narrowed his eyes and thinned his lips. That annoying feeling of a deep pit sinking his chest and stomach into some endless abyss returned. It always happened whenever he suspected he was going to hear something so dark and disturbing that it rattled his very soul. He lit up another cigarette, inhaled deep to calm his nerves, then exhaled for a long moment before giving his answer:
"I'll see what I can do."