"The ability to grant wishes… something, something… Path to the root opens… death of all seven... Death of all seven; must be the servants being talked about. …Or maybe… the masters? But why would…"

The more I stared at the pages, the more I seemed to lose myself. The Einzberns had indeed used a cipher of some kind, multiple, in fact, and trying to crack them was proving to be a far more complex task than I'd originally imagined. So far, I had only managed to solve the most minor of pieces, and it didn't help that none of those pieces managed to explain anything on their own.

"Oh for- fucking damnit! Where's Johnathan when I need him, lazy bastard…" I growled at the pages scattered across my desk.

It felt as though they were mocking me; taunting me. That I could never recover their secrets. Granted, I highly doubted Johnathan would be able to make heads or tails of this either, but at least if he was here, I wouldn't be suffering through this alone!

"So help me God, if he's playing his stupid game…" I muttered, standing up from the desk and exiting my room.

I didn't even need to reach his room before my anger boiled over. His shouting in frustration could be heard down the hall the moment I opened the door to my room to leave. Trying my best to maintain what little composure I still had left, I opened the door to his room and entered.

There he was, sitting in front of that stupid computer, playing his fucking game! Of all the things he could have been doing, trying to get ready for tomorrow, this was what he chose to do?!

…Why am I even in this alliance?!

"Hey, ass hat" I shouted at him, pushing the button on his computer to turn it off.

"Wha-" Johnathan looked stunned as the monitor went black, before turning around to face me. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"What the hell is wrong with you" I shouted back at him. "Of course, sitting here playing your fucking game! What else should I have expected?! You to actually do something useful?! Heaven forbid you actually do something around here for once!"

"What do you want from me" he whined. "We just went through a strategy meeting this evening! We know our target. We know where we're going. We're up to date on the weather forecast. The police. What else do you want me to do?!"

"Oh, gee" I pretended to be mystified for a brief moment. "What else could possibly need doing around here? Oh, I know! How about. You help me. CRACK THE FUCKING CIPHERS!"

I could feel the magical energy begin to gather around me.

"Oh for- Forget the damn ciphers" he shouted back, caging me in with his talismans. "I told you that already! It's pointless; neither of us know anything about cracking ciphers! And even if we do, by a fucking miracle, crack the ciphers: so what?! What does that change about what we're going to do?! Either for tomorrow, or the rest of the damn war?!"

"It could change everything! We don't know everything about this war! Our parents didn't know everything about this war! The secrets hidden in these ciphers could clear up everything!"

"For what purpose?! What does it change about our plans?! Our wishes?! This is just knowledge for knowledge's sake! What you're doing now is no different than what the magi of the Association do!"

"You dare-" I flared, but Johnathan rose from his seat and got right in my face before I could continue any further.

"I do! You know what I think? I think you're just jealous that nothing is going according to how you planned! That we're using Nathan's plan! That he's been basically one-upping you from the fucking beginning despite being an outsi-"

Johnathan's talismans may be good for stopping spells. But they couldn't stop a punch.

"You know what?! Fuck this" I hissed at him. "You want to laze around and do nothing to prepare yourself for anything?! Be my guest! Follow Nathan all the way to the fucking end then! I'll just stand by and watch as he leads you right off a fucking cliff the moment its convenient for him!"

"Come now, you two" Lancer spoke up as he materialized between the two of us, before Johnathan could try and retaliate for the punch I'd just thrown. "Fighting like this helps nobody but the enemy masters."

"He's right" Saber nodded as he materialized off to the side of the room. "This alliance is the greatest chance of any of us winning. As it crumbles, so too does our chance at victory."

"Great, both of you are taking his side" I shouted, mostly at Lancer.

"Master, please, it's not about-"

"Taking sides?! Of course it's not, because when is it ever about taking sides whenever I'm the one being ganged up on?!"

"You and your victim complex" Johnathan shouted back. "Just stop with it already; the world isn't out to get you! Get over yourself already!"

"Mas-"

"Get over myself" I roared over Saber. "GET OVER MYSELF?! Get over yourself, you third rate shit stain of a magus! All you can do is cower and hide behind the fucking slips of paper your mother made! You act all superior, nullifying everyone else's work and effort at will, but none of that actually comes from you! Even in the one thing you give a shit about, your fucking game, you can't do anything! You haven't improved your ranking in years; hard stuck gold coming on four seasons running! Face it already: you're just another part of the trash at the bottom of the pile! You just stand by and get carried by the skills of everyone around you! By the random weirdos online! By Nathan! By me!"

At this point I noticed my vision was getting blurry. …Shit, I was crying. Why was I crying…?

"You're nothing like your stupid idol! You're no god! You don't control shit! You're not! Fucking! Yaldabaoth!"

Gathering all the magical energy I had, I formed a blade of wind in my right hand and thrust forward. Sparks of magical energy went flying and the room lit up in a bright green glow. Then, after a couple of seconds-

*shatter*

The sound of glass breaking filled my ears as the talismans dropped to the ground, overwhelmed and rendered useless. Judging from the shocked expressions around the room, no one had been expecting this outcome. No one but myself. …Typical…

"You're so lucky… It's not Zach… You had caged…" I huffed, exhausted and feeling overwhelmed myself, though why I wasn't certain. "Or you… Would be… A dead man…"

In the stunned silence I turned around and marched over to the door.

"But whatever" I stopped at the doorway but refused to turn around and face him. "Go back to playing your... fucking game! I'm done s-stressing myself out… w-worrying… o-over you!"


…What just happened? One moment, Sortiara had been caged in by the talismans. Then the next thing I knew… they fell, and the sound of shattering glass filled the air. It shouldn't have been possible... She shouldn't have been able to break through them. Proper magi couldn't break through them; I'd seen mother use them on both her and Zach's fathers. Neither of them had ever broken through once encircled! So what-

"…That's the stairs" I barely caught Lancer say aloud, breaking our silence. "She isn't… Shit!"

Immediately, Lancer disappeared. I could only assume he was going after his master. After Sortiara…

I fell back into my chair, staring at the open doorway. My face still stung from where she'd punched me, but even that was hard to register in the moment. She had broken through. She had… actually broken right through… the greatest magecraft I could perform…

…Third rate shit stain of a magus…

"Master."

Still in a daze, I turned my head to face Saber. He was still standing off to the side of the room.

"You took it too far."

"…Heh… So much for everyone being against her…" I snorted.

"That's what you're taking away from this?"

Saber's gaze looked deadly serious. More so than I think I'd ever seen before.

"What would you like me to say, Saber" I sighed, finally beginning to feel a return to normal.

"Anything to acknowledge your wrongdoing in this situation."

"And what would that have been? She's the one who marched on in here and just went off shouting at me" I defensively dismissed.

"And that makes it suddenly ok to talk down to and belittle your ally? To cage her up like she's an animal?"

"She was going to attack me first!"

"Both of us were here to intervene before that happened. I told you as much."

"She wronged me first!"

"Because she messed with your computer? Fair enough. But then what do you do? Go out of your way to target what you know is her insecurity? Make her feel like she's the worthless one in this alliance?"

"I'm sorry, but what has she done besides stress herself out and walk us into a trap?"

"She has been working hard to try and make progress in this war, for the both of you. She was the one making plans before Nathan even entered the picture. She is the one sticking to her training regiment and improving her magecraft."

"None of her plans ever amounted to anything."

"But the effort was put in. What have you done through all of this though, master? Where have you put your efforts?"

"Hey, I'm the one who had to drag her ass down to even listen to Nathan! I'm the one constantly trying to make sure the two of them don't tear each other apart!"

"You think if Nathan actually cared he wouldn't be able to bridge that gap himself?"

…What?

"What do you mean by that, Saber?"

"If Nathan really cared about this alliance, he wouldn't constantly be trying to pick a fight with Sortiara every other conversation. He wouldn't be going out of his way to isolate you and her for different conversations. I've seen how easily he flips how he acts; how he speaks. He can very easily bring Sortiara to any discussion he wishes, and keep her there. Did he not just do so tonight, despite Sortiara's earlier blatant aggression and disgust at even being in the same room as him? His way with words is something to both admire, and fear. It is easily one of his greatest weapons, and unlike Sortiara, you let him use it against you constantly."

"What are you talking about? What Nathan says makes sense; simple as that. Of course I'm going to listen to what he has to say."

"I'm not saying ignore him. I'm saying don't trust his every word, and certainly don't take everything he says at face value. If you think for a moment that he'll actually bow out at the final three, you're mistaken. It does not matter what he says: the grail does not pick a master without a wish. Perhaps he doesn't realize his wish yet, but given enough time, he will. Sortiara understands this. She's working hard so she can stand in this war on her own two feet. Regardless of if the efforts bear fruit or not, she has at least mentally prepared herself for the future of the war. You, on the other hand, have not. Nathan was not wrong when he said taking breaks to relax is important; words Sortiara should take to heart herself. But there's taking breaks, and then there's shirking your work and responsibilities. You are doing the latter, master."

In the face of such a rebuke from Saber, I had no words.

"You have been fortunate that she has, thus far, been willing to stand for the both of you. For both our sakes, I pray that, tonight, you did not throw that good will of hers away."

And with that, Saber was gone. Disappeared back into spirit form. Leaving me all alone with my thoughts. My thoughts… and a crushing silence…

…Third rate shit stain of a magus…

"…Damnit…" I half laughed, half sniffed as I felt the tears begin to form in my eyes. "She's right… Of course, she's right… What have I even been doing in this war, besides follow along with whatever I've been told…?"

I walked over to the open doorway. I couldn't hear Sortiara or Lancer. She hadn't left the house, had she? Surely not this late at night? But… even if she had, there was no way I could ever catch up to her. Nor did I suspect she actually wanted to see me. If anything, that'd just make things worse, knowing her…

…But the ciphers… I wasn't under any illusion I would make progress in decrypting them, but… Well, this was an Einzbern ritual. If they went through the effort of encrypting their work, then it couldn't be worthless, general information. …Right? Nathan would probably be better at doing it than myself, and it wasn't like I couldn't ask him to take a look. He was just downstairs, in his 'office'…

"…There's no way he doesn't have a digital copy of all of this stuff…" a thought hit me. "He gave us the paper copies of his translations, and the original pages, but there's just no way he would give that shit away so easily if he didn't have copies of it all for himself still. If he hasn't figured it out himself yet, he's probably working on it during the day, when he's not around here. That, or he has some people he knows online looking into it…"

Saber was right too. I had been too caught up in how he did everything, how he thought through everything, just like Yaldabaoth seemed to do. Granted, he was supposedly of a high enough rank to have played alongside pros and people like Yaldabaoth, so that should be somewhat of a given… But that was also besides the point.

"…This… This we should probably keep to ourselves…" I muttered as I started walking down the hall towards Sortiara's room. "Maybe I call in sick tomorrow from school; get some actual preparation done for tomorrow night…"


A/N

Ah, it's good to be back! Not so good to only be posting a Fragment (or really two fragments within a fragment; yay, fragging my fragments now o.O) but I don't want to go another couple of days without posting anything for you guys now that I'm back home.

Also, HOLY HELL, I don't post for, like, 4-5 days, and there's suddenly a massive spike in views on a no post day. From Romania of all places?! I mean, great! I'm not going to turn away viewers! But of all places, Romania?! And 84 (roughly) views?! For this month, this tops even America's viewer count for the moment. I haven't even mentioned anything from Romania in this story! Like, now I'm sitting here wondering if this is some VPN shit going on, or did I just suddenly get "big" in Romania O.O Either way, welcome to all you readers. Hope you enjoy the story thus far xD

Anyways, on to the second instalment of 'interesting fact' of the postings:

Did y'all know that, for the original V/N, Nasu has personally confirmed each route is cannon. Of course, this is where you all go 'well, no shit, of course he has to make F S/N, UBW and HF all cannon'. So, let me rephrase this a bit. Nasu has personally confirmed each ENDING is cannon. This includes the 'bad' endings. So yeah... Shirou actually dies (or worse) in the vast majority of the timelines. He actually loses far more often than he 'wins' in the Fifth Grail War. Sorta makes me despise him a bit less, knowing that he actually gets punished canonically for his repeated displays of stupidity. But only a BIT less... still think he's an absolute moron who deserves to get merced xD

As a add-on to this, I also found out that UBW is basically, like, THE NUTS run of the Fifth Grail War. Like, according to Nasu, the UBW ending basically requires all the stars and planets to align and for Shirou to have the biggest luck sacs of any man ever to even happen. If you were to simulate the Fifth Grail War a million times or so, you'd get Shirou dying a fuck ton, a few times either the S/N or HF ending, and only maybe, MAYBE ONCE, the UBW ending. It is apparently that hard for Shirou to canonically get.

Which... begs the question... Knowing now that UBW is THE NUTS run of the original V/N, canonically speaking... Does that make Rin the worse waifu of the three main girls, considering her ending is, like, nigh impossible to achieve? Or does that make her the best waifu due to her extreme rarity?

…Y'know what? I'ma just drop that bomb off here, and... *turns and runs in the complete opposite direction* xD