The flames ate at Jeanne, lashing out past the pyre itself, grabbing onto her burlap dress and pressing on, higher, higher, each flame burning and searing and—

'—hurting, oh God, it hurts, please God grant me mercy—'

Jeanne lunged against the rope. Smoke stifled her screams and seared the inside of her throat. She twisted and pulled, slamming against the stake, trying to break free or break it, anything to get away from the flames.

'I don't want this! God, no, please, save me! Anyone!' Her desperation hit its fever pitch as she pleaded and begged for salvation.

She screwed her eyes shut and for a brief moment could feel the wooden cross in her hands, sending her back to barely a minute ago. She was still the perfect messenger then, Jeanne d'Arc, asking for a crucifix from the crowd even as panic and fear racked her every thought.

Gilles' reassuring voice before every battle, echoing over and over again. 'You are the Holy Maiden, Jeanne d'Arc. A messenger from God Himself. You're a light for all—'

The cross she held pierced the inside of her palm and she snapped back into the flames.

'—it burns it burns it burns it burns it burns it burns it hurts it hurts, Lord please, make it stop!'

Agony consumed her as her skin peeled and boiled and charred. The fire now clawed at every inch of her;she jerked and flailed to get out of its jaws, but...

She collapsed under the crushing weight of her exhaustion and pain, her kicks slowing to a stop. Every time she fought she needed to breathe, and every time she breathed she lost more air to the blaze. Her body refused to move.

The fire burned so hotly around her; everything had turned frigid cold.

No pain anymore. No need to struggle anymore. Jeanne let torpor settle in her limbs.

'Thank you, God,' Jeanne thought as relief hit her. The roar of the pyre, the jeers of the crowd all faded away. Even as the orange light burned so brightly, she felt at peace.

As the world turned white, Jeanne thought two things, one immediately after the other, so close that they might as well have been overlapping.

'Please God, forgive them for their sins.'

'Why did you let me burn, God?'

But the world was white and peace had settled. She no longer burned, no longer hurt. She no longer felt anything, as calm and comfortable as she was lying in bed on a cool spring morning. The realization that she had died didn't sway her mood, for death meant she would reach heaven and—

—her soul flashfroze with the touch of the void—.

'THEHOLYGRAILISANOMNIPOTENTWISHGRANTINGDEVICE—'

Jeanne gasped as she awoke, not burning nor burned, distinctly alive. Her nostrils, so recently filled with dark smoke and burning flesh, were assaulted by the smell of fresh grass and clean air. A chill breeze passed through the cracks in her armor and cloak (cloak and armor? Since when?).

Jeanne opened her eyes.

Olga's spirit floated a foot or so behind Ereshkigal, matching the goddess's leisurely pace down the Chaldea's great outer hall. The snow blew by as it always did, but the eternal blizzard was a bit lighter than usual today. There were no cracks of true sunlight, but the clouds were thin enough to allow something akin to sunlight through. This was the sunlight Chaldea's resident goddess was now chasing.

"Stop moving!" she hissed. The goddess held out a tiny succulent gifted to her by Da Vinci, trying desperately to keep it in the uncaring lines of pseudo-sunlight. Olga let a laugh build in her chest, but the week she had been tethered to the goddess taught her that laughing directly at Ereshkigal was a terrible idea.

'You know, Eresh, Chaldea has sunlamps specifically designed to keep plants alive.'

Ereshkigal ignored her, cursing and pouncing forward as the wind changed.

Olga had a rush of very distinct memories of a childhood cat and a laser pointer that she, wisely, kept to herself. If Ereshkigal knew how much Olga's image of her had changed since they first met...

'There are also many simple spells you could put on the pot that will maintain its resident's health.'

"No magic! I am raising this plant. I will not leave its growth to your magecraft," Ereshkigal stated firmly. The fact that she was shuffling forwards on her knees to keep up with the movement of the clouds severely undermined her authority. Olga Marie gazed up and down the hall; while she found poking at the goddess amusing, Ereshkigal had asked her to keep watch so no one else saw the Mistress of the Underworld in such a… compromising position.

Olga Marie considered telling her that there were cameras over all non-resident areas of Chaldea, but… well, if Olga regained the ability to physically interact with the world, pulling up those tapes would be a fun movie night for her and the goddess.

Olga's leisurely floating slowed to a stop as her mood dropped. She still followed behind the goddess, but only because her link to her cage pulled her along. Olga Marie found immense warmth and comfort during her week with the goddess, but…

The voice of Chaldea's sole Master broke through the white silence. "Oh, Ereshkigal!"

Ereshkigal, the Goddess of the Underworld, a deity and queen of her own making, responded as any respectable person would when caught off-guard. "Eep!"

'I THOUGHT YOU WERE KEEPING WATCH!'

'I GOT DISTRACTED!'

Ereshkigal's eyes screamed louder than her thoughts. Olga's scream was loud enough for both of them.

But this goddess's persona had millenia of practice, and her divine smile formed purely from muscle memory. "Ah, Fujimaru. How do you do?"

No one acknowledged the fact that she had to push herself off the floor, nor did they mention the small plant she unceremoniously moved behind her back. The Chaldean residents found that ignoring the blatant contradictions between the goddess's desired persona and her actions to be the best method of avoiding conflict.

Well, that's what Olga would like to believe. She wasn't sure if Ritsuka was actually thinking that hard about it, but wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt for once.

"I'm well, Ereshkigal," he replied, smiling through each somewhat strained step. He was significantly healthier, only 'a bit stiff' by his own claims. Olga knew he must still be in pain, but the fact that he was out of the medical ward and moving showed that he was well down the path to a full recovery. "How about yourself? Sorry we don't have much to explore here, but when—"

"Please, Fujimaru," Ereshkigal smiled and held up her hand. "Chaldea is wonderful. You have no more to offer; what kind of greedy, spoiled goddess would ask for even more?"

'Ishtar?' Olga posed.

'You catch on quick, Champion.' Ereshkigal's haughty approval pulled at the corners of Olga's lips. The goddess's ego seemed to soar whenever Olga proved to have listened to her, and Olga had indeed been listening.

"I'm not friendly with any goddesses of that description, I'm afraid," Ritsuka responded, his voice warm and professional.

"Oh how I wish I could say the same," Ereshkigal huffed, shifting her plant to under one arm. "You've been blessed with ignorance, Fujimaru."

"So I've gathered. I'll have to ask you more about your pantheon another time," he smiled and clasped his hands before him. "Da Vinci and Dr. Roman actually sent me to humbly request your presence in the command room. The next singularity has been found."

"Hmm…" Ereshkigal hummed, eyes trailing down to her succulent. She angled herself ever-so-slightly so she wasn't between it and the window. "Will you be accompanying us?"

"Us—?" Ritsuka's brow furrowed for just a moment, and for just a moment Olga a rush of nausea as certain things felt real again. But then he blinked and smiled and said, "Right, I'd love to go with you and the director, but I actually have to grab Mash, too. You go on ahead, I'll be right behind you!"

So it was fine. He might not be able to see her, but he knew she was there. He just needed to be reminded.

"Well, it can't be helped," Ereshkigal shrugged, glancing away from him and twirling the end of one of her twintails as she spoke. "That's fine, I guess. Off with you, then." She shooed him away. He gave her a quick bow, smile, and went off on his way again.

Olga drifted lazily before the goddess. 'Hmm.'

"Hmm?"

'He's perfectly polite, isn't he?'

"Quite so!" Ereshkigal stated, starting in the direction of the command room. "It's to be expected when one is working with a goddess like myself. Why do you hum?"

Olga put her hands behind her bed and leaned back in the open air, allowing her connection to Ereshkigal to pull her along. 'Fujimaru, he… he proved to be reliable, I'll admit, but whenever I see a magus act like him, it puts a bad taste in my mouth.'

"Respectful?" Ereshkigal smirked. "That makes perfect sense. You're his polar opposite."

'That's not what I—!' Olga snapped, but bit her tongue. After a second, she chuckled and flew up to Ereshkigal's side. 'Well, I can't really argue with that, can I? I'd just rather a magus be a snake to my face instead of hiding it under practiced, bullshit kindness.'

Olga practically spat the last few words. Images of Lev flashed through her mind, and the wave of complicated, intertwined emotions that came with it threatened her already-fragile good mood. Ereshkigal's hand on her shoulder calmed her down.

"Be calm, Olga Marie," she soothed.

The feeling of actual touch anchored the director's spirit before she could spiral. It was cool, soothing… physical. Just enough to give her something to hold onto.

"Lev's spirit will be erased from this existence, that much I can promise to you. He crossed both of us; you, my willing champion, and myself, the Mistress of the Underworld. That is something that will not be without vengeance." Ereshkigal's harsh 'a goddess scorned' expression softened, and she paused to look at Olga. "But I do believe there are genuinely good people in the world, if few and far between. Fujimaru… I believe he is one of them," she said, and then let a sly smile cross her features. "And you, however prickly, might just be another."

'Prickly?!'

"Come, let us be off!" Ereshkigal (after checking to make sure the coast was clear) merrily skipped off down the hallway, dragging a fuming Olga Marie in her wake.

Ereshkigal took in the natural beauty of France's rolling hills with delight. She relished the warm sun against her skin, the sweet aroma of grass and blooming trees…

"Oh, this is wonderful!" Ereshkigal skipped down the hill and around a cluster of red and yellow flowers, spinning around and basking in the sunlight. She skid to a stop and leaned down to take a deep sniff. "How fragrant! How… oh, goodness, these would do wonders to brighten up Kur! I should pick—no, I couldn't! That would kill them! Oh, well, maybe just one…"

The reliable goddess, as enraptured as she was with the natural surface world, reacted just a tad late to the falling Mash-Master meteorite. In fact, she didn't react at all until their second skip, having to take a full second to process the complete erasure of the beautiful flowers just a foot away from her face. She stared at the crater of upturned dirt, going through the five stages of grief with practiced efficiency.

Having happiness dangled in front of her only to be ripped away was something she was too familiar with.

Mash dug her heels in at the third skip, plowing through the earth a few yards further before finally coming to a complete stop. She set Ritsuka, who found his footing quickly in the upturned dirt.

"Well," he said, dusting himself off, "that was eventful. How's everyone doing?"

"A-Are…" Ereshkigal blinked, reaching the 'oh, Mash and Fujimaru just fell from the sky' line of thought, "Are you okay?"

Ritsuka smiled. "I'll admit, I was coming into this mission a bit groggy, so the adrenaline is well-appreciated! I'd go as far to say that I'm better than just five minutes ago." He stretched his hands to the sky and leaned to one side, then the other. "Thanks for the save, Mash. That could've been… fatal."

Mash nodded, materializing her shield and taking stock of the area, finding just as Ereshkigal had that they were safe."You're welcome, Senpai. I'm your shield. I won't let you get hurt again."

The two shared a somber look. It only lasted a moment, but Ereshkigal saw the masks of professionalism and optimism drop. Mash's eyes widened just a little bit, the same look of fear and panic she had when she spoke to Ereshkigal that first time in a burned out basement. Something else crossed Ritsuka's expression. She couldn't read Ritsuka, something told her she never really could, even back by the fire, but something in his eyes felt… sad.

But the moment had passed, and Ereshkigal would not stoop as low as to express curiosity openly.

Mash spoke into a device on her wrist. "Da Vinci, Dr. Roman, we've arrived. And, um, in the future, please don't rayshift us into the sky."

Da Vinci's voice rang out. "Yes, yes! That was my mistake, even a genius like myself can add an extra zero sometimes, teehee!"

"Seriously, though," Romani chimed in, "that shouldn't have happened. There is some kind of magical barrier around different pockets of the singularity, but we accounted for that. It may have been a mistake in the equipment repairs."

"Now, Roman," Da Vinci hummed, a threatening edge to her voice, "I would like to remind you that only I can criticize my work. My repairs were flawless, as one would expect. Besides, Lancer rayshifted where she was supposed to!"

"Um, actually," Ereshkigal interjected, "that's probably because I'm a goddess of the earth. If I'm not holding Meslamtaea, I can't be in the heavens."

The two doctors' voices fell to hushed whispers, but the communications channel remained open for all to hear.

"Wait, did you account for that, Roman?"

"No, did you?"

"How was I supposed to know that I had to? The divine or pseudo-divine spirit origins already registered in the system have no such properties!"

They bantered a while longer, excited about what was apparently a new discovery about how divine domains work, but Ereshkigal turned her attention to picking some of the uprooted flowers. There was no reason to listen to mortals discuss how interesting she was, that was a given. Plus, since all of those flowers were already uprooted, it wouldn't be killing them if she picked up a few and laced them into her cages, right?

"Hey, Da Vinci, Roman, would you mind telling us where we should go from here?" Ritsuka said in an attempt to bring the science types back on track.

"Right, right, yes!" Da Vinci chimed. "We're getting a servant signal to your north- there's a lot of magical interference, so pinpointing the exact location of the Grail is going to take some time. For now, that's our best lead."

"Thank you," Ritsuka nodded, cutting communications and looking north. "Let's go, team!"

Whatever this Hundred Years' War was, it meant nothing to her. But, inevitably, it found a way to annoy Ereshkigal. Their travel had been peaceful, the vibrant French countryside alight with blooming wildflowers and rolling hills; so peaceful, in fact, that she had dropped her mask enough to enjoy herself. The warm sun and cool breeze brought a smile to her face, and the smell of flowers on the wind brought her a sense of joy and relaxation she rarely felt. She could see some French villages far off on the horizon, and it took all of her discipline to not run off to admire the absolutely adorable architecture.

Unfortunately, they wouldn't be passing through any of them. Ereshkigal grumbled a bit at the news, but wouldn't risk sacrificing her image by doing something so unseemly as whining.

Instead, their path took them directly through the bloody remnants of a battle concluded not two days ago. No new towns, no more flowers, no vineyards or wheat fields… just death. Again.

Ereshkigal knew battlefields. She was death herself, how could she not? The souls that came to her brought memories, visions of the moments of their peril. She knew what a battlefield should be. She knew what they should feel like.

She hadn't noticed earlier, in Singularity F. There was nothing to notice, really- by the time she had been summoned, the singularity's inhabitants were long dead. But this… As Ereshkigal stepped over the bloated, blue-tinged body of one of many slain French soldiers, her stomach churned.

There were no souls here. Around every battlefield, souls lingered for days. They should linger. She cast her red eyes over the valley, taking in the endless expanse of dead still leaking blood into the soil, Ereshkigal saw nothing. It was as if the moment these people died, they ceased to exist, or their souls were spirited away somewhere else.

"This is horrible…" Mash murmured. Even though the sunset cast a fiery orange over the landscape, her ashen expression was more than apparent.

Ritsuka's mouth set in a thin line as he navigated the corpses around him. His foot sank into the blood-soaked mud and he lurched forward, grabbing onto Mash to stop his fall.

"Da Vinci," he spoke, his voice quivering, "is the servant signal getting any closer?"

"You're nearly there, Fujimaru," she replied.

Something squirmed beneath a body steps away from Ereshkigal. She reacted instantly, imbedding a spear of gold through the corpse and whatever it covered. Mash's shield materialized as the goddess stepped back, creating a spinning ring of red lances orbiting their party and watching the disturbance carefully.

Ritsuka's eyes hardened, the discomfort from earlier forgotten as the magical circuits in his limbs flared blue. "Lancer, Mash, status?"

Mash's eyes flickered from side to side, scanning the area. "Unknown. Possible undetected enemies, be on alert."

Ereshkigal summoned a handful of dark spirits beasts and had them fan out and establish a perimeter. One of her cages cracked through the earth, flipping the suspicious body over and analyzing the mutilated… creature underneath.

"Some kind of magical summon. Starfish-like, feeding on the corpse. I don't recognize it. Roman, Da Vinci?"

'Olga?'

The soul in her necklace didn't respond immediately, but Ereshkigal could feel her stir. 'Hmm?'

'This creature,' she nodded towards the limp, purple and black monster, 'do you know it?'

Olga manifested kneeled over the creature, a shimmering shade tinted blue. 'I'm not familiar with the design, but it follows basic mass-producible summon blueprints. It uses other living creatures as a food source.' She bit her bottom lip in thought. 'No self-respecting Clock Tower magus would ever admit creating something this foul. They'd keep locked away deep in some disgusting basement with enough plausible deniability to save face.'

Ereshkigal nodded and kept her eyes out as she spoke to the group. "Olga says—"

"Analysis complete!" Da Vinci chimed. "This is a real nasty piece of work, an ugly abomination of epic proportions. All those little tentacles are like straws they use to suck up blood, and there are barbs everywhere to cut open their prey." Even as she spoke, the starfish thing started melting into a dark ooze. "Definitely isn't supposed to be here during the Hundred Years' War, so there might be a Caster-class servant around somewhere. This has been another creature analysis courtesy of your resident genius, Da Vinci-chan!"

Olga stood, frowning, and let her form disappear back into the necklace. 'Hm. Ask her if there are any more nearby.'

Ereshkigal opened her mouth to speak, but the conversation had already moved on.

"Did we just walk into a minefield of these things?" Ritsuka asked, stepping further behind Mash and readying some offensive spell she didn't recognize.

Roman's voice came over the comms this time. "That's a bit hard to say. Scanning for magical signatures in a recent battlefield is extremely difficult with all of the spirits and ghosts 'fogging up' our sensors."

Dozens of burning spears burst into existence around the group, joining those already in orbit. Meslamtaea manifested in Ereshkigal's hands, blazing like the sun. Somewhere a few yards away, her hunting spirits pounced on a discovered threat. She chose her next words carefully, checking over her shoulder that Mash and Ritsuka were ready for battle. "There are no ghosts here, Roman."

The comms went silent for a moment. When Roman's voice returned, it lacked any of his usual casualness. "You're surrounded. The closest area of relative safety is directly north, towards the servant-like signal."

"Which might be the source of danger," Ereshkigal stated.

"If they created these creatures, we need to stop them before something else like this happens," Ritsuka said through gritted teeth.

Something slithered in her peripheral vision. Three spears shot towards it and dug into dirt and flesh. Starfish monsters scattered like cockroaches, and more lances flew after them as they retreated under darkness and morbid cover.

The movement of one started a chain reaction. Three, five, eleven, dozens, hundreds… The valley shed the ominous stillness of a forgotten battle and stirred like a hornet's nest disturbed. Everywhere she looked, creatures slid out from drained bodies, shook off blood and mud, crawled around to observe the idiot Chaldeans who walked into their nest without even realizing they were in danger.

"We can't hold this position," Mash reported, scanning the swarm of monsters. "... Lancer, can you clear a path?"

"Of course. I'm a goddess, after all." With a flick of her wrist, a wall of cages cut through a cluster that got too close. "Grab Fujimaru and prepare to run north. Ready…"

Ereshkigal rang the cage at her side, letting the chime of the dead call forth her spirits.

"GO!"

"H-HELP! ANYBODY!"

A leviathan of shadow burst through the earth, a narwhal's horn cutting through some of the creatures and it's mass sending dozens of others flying out of the Chaldeans' way. Ereshkigal crested the hill first, her ring of spears firing and replenishing automatically.

'Help?'

She snapped her gaze towards the sound of the call.

Her encounters with Archer and Saber in the previous singularity got her accustomed to what servants in general felt like. Something about Grail Wars and the summoning process gave her an instinctual understanding of how to sense servants or identify them.

Even without her experience, she would know that this servant, if she could even call them that, was wrong. The signal was weak, far too weak; it was more of buzzing nearby, like a mosquito flying near her ears, then the direct 'ping' of another servant's presence. If the signal itself didn't tell her that much, seeing her in action would have been enough.

The blonde girl couldn't have been much older than Ereshkigal's vessel. She stabbed forward with a flag standard, skewering a starfish monster as it tried to pounce on her, but the movement was far slower and clunkier than a normal servant. Another one of the creatures jumped onto the girl's shoulder and bit into her, blood soaking into her navy cloak as she desperately tried to pull it off of herself.

"G-Get off!"

The creature went flying, leaving two barbed tentacles hooked in the girl's flesh- Ereshkigal noticed similar wounds around her body, indicating a durability and strength greater than a normal human's, at least. But her face… the girl was terrified. Her eyes were wide and frantic, and although she fought like someone who had seen combat, she still flinched away from the monstrosities as they lashed out at her.

'This girl isn't the source of these things…'

"Mash, change of plans! I think they're on the same side as us! I'm grabbing her, keep going!"

"Right!" Mash slammed her shield into one of the monsters and slung Ritsuka over her shoulder. He looked a little green, Ereshkigal noted, but that wasn't high on her priorities right now. The Shielder glanced north. "Rendezvous in the field up ahead?"

Ereshkigal followed her gaze to a green clearing a bit beyond the edge of the battlefield. "Sounds good. Do you need me to take some of them out?"

"No, I think I can jump it."

Ritsuka's eyes widened. "Wait, wha-"

Ereshkigal smiled at him as Mash launched herself far into the air. The angle looked good, and she trusted Mash to handle the landing, so Ereshkigal jumped into action herself.

She shot towards the girl, Meslamtaea catching fire as she flew. The Sun's Authority blazed to life, and she slammed into the earth like a shooting star. Divine fire erupted outward, spearing the starfish creatures and incinerating them.

The blonde girl looked up at the descended goddess in shock.

Ereshkigal held out her hand. "This benevolent goddess has heard your pleas. I extend to you my aid. Be grateful."

The girl's jaw hung slack for a moment, but she seemed to compose herself and shakily took her hand.

Ereshkigal smiled. 'Ah, yes! This is what reverence should feel like!'

The three Chaldeans stood across from the newcomer. As soon as Ereshkigal set her down, she had backed away from them, warily gripping her standard and glancing at each of them in turn.

"Who are you people? What were those things? And you," she focused on Ereshkigal. "You called yourself a goddess. What kind of blasphemous witchcr—"

Her eyes widened as she choked on the word. Her standard dropped into the soft grass with a thud as she covered her mouth with her hands.

"This is wrong. This is so, so wrong… Am I in hell? Oh, Lord... After all of that, everything I did, did I..?"

Ereshkigal shared a look with Mash. This wasn't quite what she expected. There was definitely something Servant-like about the girl, but she just sounded like a scared civilian. And did she just call Ereshkigal 'blasphemous?' After the goddess went out of her way to help her?

Absurd! Ereshkigal crossed her arms and furrowed her brow, turning her 'intimidating divinity' persona up to full power. "Excuse me! I save your life and you point a spear at us? Show some gratit—"

"Umm, Lancer?" Ritsuka put a hand on her shoulder and smiled at her. "With all due respect, I don't think berating her will help the situation."

Ereshkigal bit her tongue and huffed. "Fine. You handle it, then."

Ritsuka held his hands up and approached the frantic girl. As he stepped forward, her hand snapped to the sword at her side. His servants tensed, ready to intervene.

"I'm Ritsuka Fujimaru," he started, hands still up. He turned one hand to reveal his command seals. "I'm a Master of Chaldea, a far-off organization that helps deal with magical threats like the creatures that attacked you. We aren't going to hurt you."

"As long as you don't—"

He cut Ereshkigal off forcefully. "We aren't going to hurt you. Period. May I ask your name?"

She eyed them with suspicion for a moment longer, then relaxed her grip on her blade. "Jeanne d'Arc. And… thank you for your help."

Ritsuka smiled. "Of course. We wouldn't leave anyone in that situation." He looked back to Ereshkigal and Mash. "She's injured. We should set up a temporary camp here, let her recover a bit."

Mash glanced back to where they were just fighting for their lives. "We're a bit close to danger, Senpai."

"Right. Lancer, can you set up a perimeter?"

Ereshkigal furrowed her brow. "Of course. I am a reliable goddess, after all."

"Thank you. I appreciate it."

Jeanne raised an eyebrow at the other blonde, a look Ereshkigal did not miss. "A goddess? That—" She gasped mid-sentence, grasping her head and falling to her knees. Words spilled from her, without cause or inflection.

"The Goddess of the Netherworld in Sumerian myth Lancer-class Pseudo-Servant presides over crops snakes pestilence—"

She gasped again, collapsing into a fetal position and taking a few shaking breaths. As Jeanne trembled, the torn portion of cloth around her shoulder and back fell aside. Ereshkigal absently noted that her wounds had closed up for the most part, similar to how servants usually heal. There were still some fading scars—

'Those aren't scars.' Olga's voice was quiet.

Ereshkigal knew what burned command seals looked like. Ritsuka's seals had only just recovered. But as Jeanne's breathing started to calm, she and Mash could only stare at her back. That, and the over two dozen faded seals that covered it.

"Da Vinci," Mash mumbled, "are you seeing this?"

A/N: It's been a little while. Here's the long and short of it: I actively took a break from the story to get the next arc completely figured out (considering I started working on the initial idea of Afterlife nearly a year before posting the first chapter, this isn't too odd), and then the pandemic happened.

With that in mind, I'd like you to think of each arc as a sequel. The time between separate arcs will be longer than the time between chapters in the arcs, because that's just… how I tackle them. Good news, though, this arc actually goes into Septem!

Lastly, some of the changes I've made to Orleans should be noticeable here. Jeanne has a throwaway line about being an 'incomplete summon', which really only amounted to her not having all the Ruler class abilities, and that just seemed… really interesting. To expand upon, anyways. And yes, I know Orleans wasn't one of the singularities that Mash and Ritsuka were rayshifted into the sky originally.

In other news, I wrote a guest chapter for Pallan Minerva's story, A Saga of Shirou's Summons! See the Circe chapter if you're interested! Also, big shout-out to Minerva and TungstenCat for helping edit this chapter!

Best,

Endy