FATE/CATBOX FICTION
Chapter 10: Colors of Conspiracy
Once Earp was established as Ritsuka's newest Servant, he rubbed the back of his neck and beamed, "Boy, it's been ferever since I last served a proper Master. I 'ad fergotten what it's like t'follow another's commands, so ya'll 'ave t'pardon me if I'm a lil' rusty at the edges."
Mash asked him, "You said that you were active in some Holy Grail War 50 years ago?"
"Yes, ma'am, that'd be the Akakor Grail War. That punk who attacked ya'll was the grandson o'my previous Master, Joaquin Uruburu. 'Course after the war ended, I cut my ties with them and went my own way."
"So you were Archer of Akakor. Judging by the way you reacted to Connla, her counterpart was the Lancer for that conflict?"
"Mm," the cowboy nodded. "Sorry to ask this so suddenly, but what was Lancer's True Name s'pposed t'be?"
"Huh? You never found that out?"
"Nope. Mum was the word with 'er. Lancer's identity was the only one I was never able t'find out."
Connla said, "I'm not surprised. Any Servant summoned with my Spirit Origin is forbidden from saying her True Name. It's because of a geas, or a strict vow from Celtic lore that one must follow even as a Servant or else they'll suffer dire consequences."
"Y'dun say."
"In that case, we can tell you all about her history later. Nothing's preventing the rest of us from explaining it to you," Ritsuka said. "More importantly though, I think we need to continue looking for Akakor. Our priority is to find this world's version of Connla and determine why she's behaving so erratically."
"Yer right," Earp agreed. "Trouble is, yer not gonna get anywhere if yer just gonna comb the rainforest like a buncha ants huntin' fer food."
"Then what do you think we should do?"
"Well, I'd say we dun have t'do much in the way of explorin', thanks to our friend Uruburu 'ere," the lawman remarked as he walked past Alejandro's body and approached the fake tree. He pressed his hand on the trunk, then exclaimed, "Open sesame!"
He pushed his palm to the side, allowing the false trunk to rotate and reveal the passageway leading deep underground. Ritsuka, Mash and Connla yelped in awe and ran up to inspect it closely. Cuchulainn asked Earp, "I take it you were watching him as he came out from here?"
"Sorta. Call it a lucky break, if ya want. I was actually tailin' y'all when I 'appened t'spot 'im. Much as I wanted to 'elp y'all fight Yacumama, I figured it'd be better if I kept my eye on this entrance. Y'see, I've been lookin' fer a way back to Akakor fer the last few years, but the Mages constantly keep changin' the entrances. Top-level security, an' all that."
"What would you have done if Uruburu had not shown up?" Kiritsugu wondered.
"Dunno. At least me joinin' y'all wouldn't 'ave changed. But 'ey, no point in mullin' o'er what shoulda, woulda, coulda been, am I right?"
"I suppose so. Do you have any idea what to expect once we go inside?"
"Just the fact that it's an ancient underground lab'rinth. My understandin' is that in yer world, Akakor is s'pposed t'be a totally fictional city dreamed up by some con man. 'Ere though, it's as real as you an' I. Unfortunately, most o'the Grail War was fought in the deepest layer – the actual city where the Family Tree's Mages live. That means I ain't familiar with the lab'rinth that acts as one o'the barriers keepin' unsav'ry characters out."
"Well that's going to be a problem…"
"Not necessar'ly," Earp interjected. "Y'gotta remember that Uruburu emerged from 'ere. Since he was a Mage, that'd mean he'd have his workshop relatively close t'this tree fer convenience's sake. Judgin' by what he was goin' on an' on 'bout, he didn't seem t'be in good terms with the rest o'the Family Tree. In that case, it'd make logical sense fer 'im t'situate 'is atelier somewhere in the lab'rinth where the other Mages couldn't find 'im easily, so then he could plot 'is plots in peace."
"I get it," Cuchulainn said. "So the plan is to look for this workshop and glean any information we can find, such as the current state of Akakor, or the layout of this labyrinth. That sounds much better than going in blind."
"Ain't it? Gotta warn y'all though – Uruburu was from a long line o'snake charmers, so 'is workshop's gonna 'ave plenty o'creepy crawlies all o'er the place. Not exactly the smartest thing to expose our Master to unnecessary danger if we can avoid it."
Mash heard this and assured, "Don't worry. I'll have Senpai stay behind me. Even if she does wind up getting bitten by some stray snake, my connection with her grants her a high level of poison resistance. Perhaps I could also look for some antidotes inside that laboratory to bring with us."
"Good call, missy. Then let's get to it, people."
"I'll go first," Kiritsugu said, then began descending the steps. Connla activated a small Dagaz Rune to light up the way, then followed Cuchulainn and Earp. Ritsuka and Mash took up the rear.
About ten minutes later, they reached the bottom. The sight that greeted them was akin to a mausoleum that stretched for as far as the eye could see. The walls were comprised of gloomy grey stone, musty moss that was probably from around 1000 years ago, and stray weeds poking through cracks in the uneven masonry floor. The odd thing about the walls was that the stones appeared to be divided into roughly neat slabs, with each one having a bronze hook fastened to the front of each one. One could compare them to an array of drawers that were never meant to be opened by anyone unless it was absolutely necessary.
"I must say, this is feeling less like a labyrinth and more like a gigantic catacomb," Kiritsugu remarked.
"Sure it is," Earp said. "Akakor was an underground city thousands o'years ago, even b'fore the days o'Mesopotamia. When y'got a huge city like that, yer gonna 'ave plenty o'dead folks that need t'be buried. The longer the city existed, the bigger the mausoleums 'ad t'be. This makes the Paris Catacombs look like a kiddy park in compar'son."
"That makes sense."
Connla shuddered and worriedly asked, "Are we going to be okay? I remember watching some footage in Chaldea's library late one night of someone who got lost in the Paris Catacombs. I can't help but think we're going to wind up meeting the same ambiguous fate as that man."
Cuchulainn grumbled, "You shouldn't be watching crap like that at nighttime. A sensitive kid like you winds up getting too many ideas in her head."
"I can't help it if I gravitate towards unsolved mysteries like that. Maybe it's due to the nature of my Noble Phantasm, but I don't like stories that lack a sense of true closure."
"You worry too much. Quit fretting over pointless shit and concentrate on keeping the place lit for us."
"Y-Yeah…"
Ritsuka was speaking to Da Vinci over the transmitter to get her caught up on everything that happened so far. The inventor heard what Connla said and beamed, "Well, you don't need to worry about getting lost, now that I'm on the case! I suspected that we may have to deal with a Singularity or two that involves labyrinths, so I whipped this up during my free time."
The monitor switched from Da Vinci's face to a display that depicted the tiny portion of the maze they had explored thus far, with a red dot indicating the entrance they came in from. Although the image was pixelated and blocky, at least the path was accurate. Da Vinci explained, "For now, I'm having it plot wherever Ritsuka goes. So long as all of you stay together for now, this should be a piece of cake."
"It can't track the rest of us?" Mash asked.
"I'm afraid I hadn't gotten that far with the program before I was swamped with other work. Don't you worry though – perfecting it will be my top priority for this mission. If my genius intuition is anything to go by, then I'm willing to bet that you guys will need to split up eventually."
Sigurd's face popped up on a separate monitor, and he said, "I see. If that's the case, then allow me to assist. If the Servants do have to investigate separately from Master, then it would be imperative to have multiple people in the Command Center guiding them. I will explain the situation to Director Roman in the meantime."
"Please do. We may need his eyes as well."
Cuchulainn patted Connla's shoulder and said, "See? Nothing to worry about. Unlike that idiot who decided to explore the Paris Catacombs on his own, we have Chaldea's resources to back us up."
"Mm," she mumbled, though still looked unsure. He was a little annoyed by her inability to cheer up, but opted not to lecture her. He knew she always had something weighing her mind down, so it was a waste of time to chastise her for it.
"All right, people. Less talking, more walking," Da Vinci commanded. "The sooner we find this Mage's workshop, the sooner we can use it to establish our base."
For the next three hours, the group combed through the caverns without any success. They found plenty of winding paths leading to dead ends, and the ghastly sight of skulls and bones littering the place soon started to become commonplace for them.
"How are you feeling, Senpai? Are you getting tired?" Mash asked Ritsuka.
"No, I'm okay. I'll consider taking a break if we don't find anything within the next hour or so."
"Okay. Now that's we're underground, we no longer have the sun to help us tell the time. We should keep a strict watch on the clock so we know when to stop looking."
As the girls were discussing this, Connla inexplicably ceased walking and gazed over at a new hallway they had not explored yet. The others noticed that their valuable light source was straying from the group. Kiritsugu noticed the blank look on her face and asked, "What's the matter?"
"I don't know why, but something feels like it's pulling me in this direction."
"Huh?" Cuchulainn muttered. "What are you going on about? There's nothing to see here but stone walls and littered bones for miles."
"None of you feel it either? Is it just me?"
"We dun feel anythin' weird, missy," Earp said, then suggested to the others, "Still, I dun see the 'arm in followin' the lil' lady's instincts fer now. Not like we're gonna get lost with all this fancy tech-mology 'elpin' us out anyway."
"Sure thing," Ritsuka agreed. "Connla, why don't you take the lead? If you feel anything unusual, let us know immediately, got it?"
"Mm," the child Lancer nodded and continued wandering through the cavernous halls, with everyone else trailing behind her. They came upon several splitting paths that would have led them down a confusing series of corridors, some of which they needed to backtrack whenever Connla picked the wrong one.
Earp grew increasingly perplexed as he muttered, "That's odd. We're quite a good distance from the entrance by now. I dun see 'ow Uruburu would wanna situate 'is atelier so far 'way from 'is only access t'the outside world."
"I'm not surprised," Kiritsugu said. "Mages do tend to protect their workshops beneath layers of barriers and protections. We're probably dealing with the same thing here, like a hidden entrance or a secret path that only he knew."
Cuchulainn kicked an ancient tibia bone aside and grunted, "What a pain in the ass. You're not saying we should go back the way we came and search all around for such pedantic shit, are you? We'd be here for days if we did that, and Master's food supply is running rather low."
Connla shifted her eyes around everywhere, then uttered, "I don't think so. Whatever this reaction is, I'm feeling it the strongest right here."
"I don't see anything unusual, so maybe Kiritsugu's intuition is correct," Mash said. "Let's split up and examine the walls for any hidden mechanisms."
Connla hung back and concentrated on keeping the area lit up with her Runecraft while everyone else examined the dilapidating masonry. By now, Ritsuka's suggested time to rest had long passed, and the teenager was showing signs of both sheer boredom and fatigue. No one was as frustrated with the search as Cuchulainn was however. Even though he was an Alter, his notorious impatience was still prevalent, and he groaned so many times that it was getting on everyone else's nerves.
"Hey," he said to Connla, "are you sure this is where we're supposed to be looking?"
The little girl became pensive as she said, "I'm sorry. I don't really understand it either. I still feel this pulling sensation, but if none of you do as well, then maybe this was a huge waste of time."
"I'm not saying I don't trust you. It's just that this whole 'pulling sensation' nonsense is confusing the hell out of me. What exactly do you mean by that anyway? Is it something you experienced before?"
"Maybe…? Sort of…? I can't quite put my finger on it, but it feels so familiar."
"Try to remember, will you? That's the best lead we've got right now."
As Connla gazed off to try and recall, Cuchulainn approached a section of the wall and leaned his back against it while muttering, "I'm pissed as all hell, so I think I'll get some sl- GWAH!?"
Before either of them knew it, the Berserker lost his balance. His spiked heel slipped to the side and he went tumbling back-first through the wall! His ankle twisted so badly that he spewed colorful profanity in response to the pain.
"Father!" the girl yelped and ran to his side. "Are you okay!?"
"Of all the fucking-! What the hell was that!?"
"What happened!?" they heard Mash cry out, followed by a series of footsteps as the others rejoined them.
"Well, um…" Connla murmured, then raised the orb of light before her. "I think we found it."
What Cuchulainn accidentally discovered was a rotating door cleverly disguised as a nondescript stone wall. The space inside was, well… spacious. It was a huge single room that was divided into sections such as a basic kitchen, sleeping quarters and desk. The majority of the room was devoted to housing shelves upon shelves of numerous magical artifacts and Magecraft literature. Off to the side was a computer with a massive monitor displaying various types of information. Several urns, baskets, and even old pungi instruments were littered on a stone table, most likely where Alejandro perfected his snake charming abilities.
However, the scariest thing wasn't what was in the room, but rather beneath it. The floor they stood on was made out of transparent toughened glass. This floor offered a most 'spectacular' view of hundreds upon hundreds of snakes living in captivity, all wriggling and writhing around like newborn tadpoles in a pond.
"Damn, Sam," Earp coolly commented, unable to peel his eyes away from the ground. "I've 'eard o'skeletons in the closet, but this is just ridiculous."
"Uwaaah…" Connla shuddered fearfully. She had no idea what to say about such a grotesque sight.
"Well, well, well," Cuchulainn smirked and stood up. His ankle was sore, but he endured pain far worse than this before. He put his hand on his hip and casually remarked, "At least we don't have to worry about Master going hungry."
"If you're joking, then I'm not laughing."
"What're you panicking for? You've cooked snakes before, haven't you?"
"Catching one in the wild is not the same as seeing dozens of them feeding off of each other! Especially beneath the very floor that we're standing on! Good heavens, what in the world was that Uruburu fellow thinking, designing his workshop like this!?"
"Perhaps he utilized some form of kodoku practices for his brand of Magecraft," Kiritsugu said.
"Kodoku?" Connla wondered.
"It's the Japanese derivative of the Chinese Gu magic. A Mage would mix a bunch of insects into a jar, then let them kill one another until only one survived. Depending on the Mage, the last insect could be used to either curse others, or to bring a sort of 'fortune' to the one who performed the ritual. I say 'fortune' loosely because the insect needed to be fed at all times, or else it would be enraged and kill the owner unless all of the wealth plus interest was paid back. Of course, it's not just limited to insects – other animals can be used, such as snakes in this case. This is just a theory, but perhaps the Yacumama we dealt with earlier was a product of such a ritual that was subsequently banished to the Reverse Side of the World as a Phantasmal. Of course I have no proof of this, so take it as you will."
"Ugh…"
"Calm down, missy. If Uruburu could traipse 'round the place like no one's business, then we can too," Earp assured her, then pulled out his revolver and said, "Just t'be safe though, I'll scout the place fer any loose buggers an' off 'em real quick."
Mash said to Ritsuka, "Let's stay back and wait for Earp to finish his inspection."
"Then I'll get some sleep in the meantime," the Mage said. They headed down the corridor a bit so that Ritsuka could lie down safely without worrying about disrupting the others. Mash offered her lap as a pillow, so it didn't take long for Ritsuka to doze off.
The remaining four Servants remained inside the workshop to see if they could find anything of interest. As Earp scoured for any snakes, Kiritsugu went over to the computer and did what he could to access any sensitive data that was relevant for their mission. Cuchulainn wasn't particularly interested in searching for anything, but he was still concerned about Connla's peculiar behavior, so opted to stay near her. The girl seemed unusually fixated on a locked metal door, and she stood before it with a distant yet fascinated gaze in her eyes.
"What's wrong? You think something's behind here?" he asked.
"Mm. That pulling sensation is getting much stronger."
Kiritsugu heard them and said, "Let me see if I can unlock it."
After fiddling with the controls for a few minutes, he successfully managed to crack the digital lock. The door slid open sideways, allowing the Celts a full view of what was inside. Their eyes were unexpectedly treated to a surreal light show of shifting colors emanating from what looked to be a ring-shaped device generating some sort of portal. The phenomenon was so bright that the lights painted their bodies with nonsensical hues even though the doors, causing the ever-stoic Kiritsugu to yelp in surprise.
"Ah…" Connla mumbled in shock. Her eyes slowly widened. All of her senses were solely focused on this phantasmagoria. She hadn't been sure where she felt the pulling sensation before, but now it finally made sense. All she could whisper was, "This is…"
"What the hell is this?" Cuchulainn gasped.
"This is… This is… what I see…"
"What's wrong?"
"This is what I see… when I… fall into… one of my… dreams…"
Upon saying those startling words, Connla fell onto her knees and slumped over with a gasp. Cuchulainn kneeled next to her and made her look into his eyes. She was astonishingly pale and lethargic, as if she was hit with a sudden bout of nausea. She certainly looked like she was going to be ill at any moment. Kiritsugu briefly observed the bizarre device, but quickly returned his attention to Cuchulainn as he urged, "I don't know what's happening, but let's get her away from there."
"Yeah," the concerned Berserker agreed and helped his daughter stumble back outside. She sat against the opposite wall and gasped in relief. After waiting a minute for her to recover, he asked, "You feeling better?"
"Yes, I am," she replied weakly.
"Damn it, just what the hell is going on here? What was that freakish portal supposed to be, and why did you react to it when none of us did?"
"I don't know. I really don't know. But I'm sure that pulling sensation I've been feeling is the same one I experience whenever I have an Imbas Forosnai episode."
"As in when you make a connection to a Connla from a parallel world through your dreams?"
"Right. I don't know how or why, but that portal is like a physical version of that phenomenon. I think that if any of us went through it, we'd actually wind up in a completely different dimension… Not just mentally or spiritually, but physically as well."
Cuchulainn glared back at the spectral gap in space, then cursed in a guttural tone, "Son of a fucking bitch…!"
Kiritsugu had the transceiver for Chaldea on him, so he asked Da Vinci, "Did you catch all of that?"
"Sure did," the inventor replied. "Looks like we'll need all the top minds we can get to analyze that workshop. Sorry, but could you get Mash to set up a summoning circle as soon as she can? Akakor appears to be situated upon a particularly powerful Leyline, so we shouldn't have any problems with sending other Servants over to check things out."
"Roger."
"Cuchulainn," Da Vinci said to the stunned Celt, "whatever you do, I need you to keep Connla away from that device until we figure out what's going on. I've got a bad feeling that she might want to look at it herself, and given how much of a reaction she had to it, it might wind up unintentionally swallowing her Spirit Origin."
"You don't need to tell me twice. The last thing we need is the kid getting lost inside one of millions of alternate worlds, and that we wouldn't be able to retrieve her."
"Precisely. How is she doing?"
"It looks like she's about to fall asleep. Seeing that thing must have totally knocked the wind out of her sails."
"That's fine. Just make sure she doesn't do anything reckless until we figure out our next plan of action."
"Got it."
As Cuchulainn said this, Connla's heavy eyelids were no longer able to stay open, and she drifted off into a comfortable sleep.
"Geal… Geal… Wake up, Geal…"
"Hm?"
The sound of her own voice calling out to her stirred Connla awake. She rubbed her eyes, then opened them to see where she was. She wasn't in Akakor's labyrinth, but rather back in the familiar apple orchard situated deep inside the dream-like Kaleidoscope. Connla Cliste was sitting next to her, shaking her shoulder several times to get her to wake up.
"Thank goodness you're okay," Cliste said.
"Eh? What am I doing here?" Connla Geal wondered.
"I think you slipped in here by mistake. Since you're in such close proximity to my physical body, it was easy for me to catch you."
"Oh, right… I think I passed out after seeing that weird colorful portal."
Cliste sat down next to Geal, then sighed forlornly. "I see. So you finally got to see one of the Gates. I was really hoping you wouldn't."
"Mr. Earp said that the Mages have figured out how to travel to other dimensions. Are you saying they do it through those devices?"
"That's right."
"But… But that's the same thing as the Imbas Forosnai ability that all of us counterparts share. How could the Mages have discovered this? Did they somehow copy the Runes that Mother planted into our brains?"
"Well, I'm not sure if you can call it 'copying'… Anyway, in this world, the Thule Society that is part of the Wandering Sea has strict control over ancient Runecraft like what you and I know. Once the Family Tree Mages discovered my cranial Runes during the Akakor Grail War, they sent me to the Wandering Sea so that the Thule Society could examine my brain. I believe they figured something out, but they vehemently refused to give those secrets to the Family Tree. Afterwards, they decided to try something else."
"Something else?"
Cliste stared at Geal straight in the eye with a firm expression. "Tell me. How much do you know about the Grail War from 50 years ago?"
"Almost nothing, except for what Mr. Earp briefly told us. Something about how you were executed at the end of it all, and that he wasn't satisfied with that conclusion."
"Did he tell you how I was executed?"
"Through beheading, I believe…"
As Geal spoke those words, her chest felt like it was being tied into tighter and tighter knots until she could hardly stand it anymore. Cliste nodded, then murmured, "I think you're starting to see where this is going."
"I… I don't believe this… I don't want to believe it…"
"However bitter it may be, it's the truth. Fifty years ago, I was executed for a serious crime. While my body vanished, the Family Tree preserved my head and placed it inside the Holy Grail Terminal."
"…"
"If they couldn't rely on the Thule Society to replicate the Runes inside my brain, then they would make do with preserving the original Runes by turning the Terminal into my new physical vessel."
"… Please stop. Just… no more…"
Geal grabbed her hair and shivered uncontrollably. She could only sit there, shake helplessly, and struggle to take deep breaths. Cliste gently rubbed her distraught counterpart's back to help her calm down. Geal couldn't fathom how the Mages could be so unbelievably cruel to Cliste. She was not used to how typical Mages behaved, considering that the only Mage at Chaldea was Ritsuka – an ordinary teenager who had no lofty ambitions beyond keeping humanity safe from various perils. It was due to such an ordinary nature however that Ritsuka could keep an open mind and make connections with all the Servants she met during her time in Chaldea.
In truth however, Ritsuka was perhaps an extremely rare exception to the rule. The average Mage, especially those who obsessively sought the Swirl of the Root, would become so detached from reality that one couldn't really call them 'human' anymore. Geal wasn't familiar with such a sickening ideology, which explained her sudden panic attack. In stark contrast, Cliste was used to being surrounded by Mages who thought nothing of disposing their familiars. Even though Heroic Spirits were considered to be the highest caliber of summonings, they were still looked upon as temporary manservants regardless.
Several minutes passed in silence. Cliste didn't want to say anything that could potentially upset Geal any further. However, she opted to turn the conversation around by murmuring, "Thank you for worrying about me so much. The fact that you're so upset must mean you're surrounded by such wonderful people at Chaldea."
"Y-Yeah," Geal gasped for air. "I remember Ms. Da Vinci telling me about how the organization was founded by a prominent Mage, but he apparently committed suicide. If he really did behave like the Mages in your world, then I shudder to think of what Chaldea could have been like under his leadership…"
"That's not something for me to judge on."
"Mm."
Cliste shuffled next to Geal and covered her shoulders with a portion of her large poncho, then said, "Now that you know this, you must have so many questions you want to ask me."
"Well… it's just… I have so many thoughts swirling in my head, but I can't concentrate on any one thing."
"Then perhaps we should focus on what you need to do next. As you move forward, the Akakor Grail War's history will become apparent to you. At least you have the conclusion to work with as the basis for discovering what happened."
Geal nodded weakly. "Okay. So what do you think we should do?"
"Take it slow, for one. Now that you found Alejandro Uruburu's workshop, your friends will be able to find out about the Tradition Protection surrounding the Preservatorium where I'm being kept. No doubt they will want to center their next mission around breaking through the second layer of protection keeping the Mage's Association from taking me away."
"Tradition Protection? Preservatorium?"
"Oh, sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. I must have been mired in conspiracies for so long that I keep forgetting you're brand new to all of this."
"…"
"Well, the Preservatorium is obviously the deepest layer of Akakor – the absolute center of this underground metropolis, where the Grail Terminal is being stored. It's beneath the central city, where the Family Tree's Mages live. Not even the upper echelons are allowed inside the Preservatorium; only the select few Servants who have been ordered to manage my upkeep are permitted to see me in person. Mages have tried to visit me before, but I would suffer from panic attacks like you just did, which consequently made the Terminal go haywire."
"Now that you mention it, the last time we met, you went completely out of control."
"I think I was suffering from a glitch in the system. The Grail Terminal is still a computer at heart, so keeping it maintained is part of the Servants' duties."
Geal felt a chill creep up her spine as she thought, So Ms. Da Vinci's comparison between computers and brains was far more apt than I could have imagined.
Cliste continued, "Due to my unstable nature, it's been decided that Mages are forever banned from seeing the Terminal in order to 'preserve' my sanity, hence the 'Preservatorium'. After all, if I go on the fritz, then the Gates that they rely on will stop functioning."
"So it's going to be hard for my Master to see you, since she's a Mage."
"Precisely. The best way to get around this is to become acquainted with the Servants who take care of me, and convince them that your Master has no intention of harming me."
"Who are these Servants, and where can we find them?"
Cliste unexpectedly chuckled a little. "I think you'll be very surprised when you find out who the Three Caretakers are."
Geal tilted her head. "Three Caretakers?"
"Remember the allies we had during the Nevada Singularity? You know, the incident that got us inscribed on the Throne of Heroes?"
Now the Chaldean Lancer was astonished. "No way! You mean they're here!?"
"Yeah, they are! Amazing, isn't it? Eh he he he! They were summoned due to my close attachment to them, and the Mages believed they would be the best Servants for keeping me at ease."
"Unbelievable…"
"If you want to make any progress with your mission, go to the Three Shrines and talk to them. Although…" Cliste jovial manner vanished as she became forlorn. "I think due to my condition, their Spirit Origins have undergone some… 'changes', if you would."
"What do you mean?"
"Not only are their classes different, but their personalities and emotions are vastly different to what you remember. I always feel so terrible for them, and I sometimes wish I could relieve them of their duties. They always keep telling me that they're happy to help me in any way they can, but I can tell that they're hurting deeply inside. I wouldn't be surprised if you wound up having to fight them – they're so devoted to my safety that not even you would be able to sway them with anything but combat."
"I see," Geal murmured. "So I should expect resistance from them."
"Yes… Oh…" Cliste moaned and rubbed her eyes.
"What's wrong?"
"I think I'm slipping into another dream. The musician's song is so soothing that I can't help but fall into a deeper sleep."
Geal couldn't hear anything resembling music. She probably figured it was something that only Cliste could hear since this music was happening in close proximity to her physical body, whereas Geal was somewhere completely different. She wished she could ask her counterpart for more details, yet fully understood what it was like to experience the euphoria of falling into a different Connla's mind. Furthermore, Cliste's form was shimmering in and out of existence like a blinking ghost.
"Okay," Geal assured. "Go ahead and get some rest. I'll relay your message to everyone, and we'll figure out what to do from here."
"Thank you. But I just… need to warn you of something…"
"What is it?"
"The other five Servants… from the Akakor Grail War… are also here."
"Besides Mr. Earp and yourself?"
"Yes. Berserker is out of commission… so you don't have to worry… about them. But for the other four… please… be very, very careful. Especially around… Rider…"
"Rider? All right, I'll keep that in mind. I'll ask Mr. Earp for more details."
"I'm so glad… that Archer is with you…"
"He was rather shocked to find out you were still alive. He still cares about you, even after all this time."
"Mm. Tell him… I'm sorry… for making him… so upset…"
Cliste could no longer remain awake. Her form vanished in a burst of lavender glitter that twinkled and danced before Geal's eyes before disappearing. The Chaldean Lancer was finally left alone in the orchard. She remained sitting against the tree, staring at the spot where Cliste had been. Although she agonized over Cliste's death earlier, a new resolve now welled within her.
This is no time to be crying over what happened to her. I have to do something to end Cliste's suffering.
Geal stood up, then closed her eyes and concentrated on returning to her body. Similar to how Cliste disappeared, Geal's form shimmered a bright mint green color and burst into glitter that sparkled into nothing.
