Akamatsu Ken and Kodansha created and own Mahou Sensei Negima!
Nasu Kinoko and Type-Moon created and own Fate/Stay Night.
We make no money from the creation of this fanfiction piece.
Fate: Unequally Blade Works.
Extra Chapter One.
By OverMaster and Shadow Crystal Mage.
Prototype.
My name is Sajyou Ayaka, and I'm the worst.
No, really, I am. I'm the lowest of the low.
How low, you ask? Let me put it this way: I look exactly like Bella Swan.
Yes, that low.
I've survived my relatives, all of whom were more talented and skilled than me, by several years. Ten, as a matter of fact. Ever since, I have sort of wandered through life with no purpose or meaning, just going through the motions, like the Pokemon anime.
I study at Ohtori, one of the best four schools in Japan, but my grades are the lowest of the class, and have been each preceding year too. I have no friends and boys or girls don't ask me out, which in this hormonal of mix and match sexual tension means a lot. I'm not popular, and actually I'm fairly sure people talk badly about me behind my back, and not in the 'wow, isn't she awesome' kind of way. The worst thing is I can't even care, because that's the kind of awful, mediocre person I am.
I used to be bullied in Elementary School, but ever since Junior High I sort of gained the ability to meld in the background, so to speak, to never stand out, so people wouldn't even notice me. And I learned that felt even worse, but once again, I didn't have the drive or courage to improve on myself, to make myself a person others could love and respect. I don't care anymore, if I'm loved or hated or ignored. That's how low I've fallen.
I used to have a penpal, who I wrote to through old-fashioned snail mail, but I haven't heard from him in years. My last letter from Emiya-san talked about how his kohai was coming to his house and cooking for him, and nothing after that. I understand. I guess he'd rather deal with a girl who was right there.
I don't want to be involved, I don't want to do anything. That's the kind of miserable person I am, and just look at this, I'm sure I'm sounding like some worthless emo, too. I simply shuffle from one day to the next, and I have no idea what will I do when I graduate late this year. I suppose I'll keep on living at my family's old home and find myself a low paying job so I can keep underperforming until I die alone. That's the most likely outcome.
Or at least, it used to be.
My father and older sister died ten years ago, in the Fuyuki Holy Grail War, a contest between magi to gain control over an all-powerful wish granting device. I don't remember the War beyond Father leaving with Sister to take part on it, but I do remember everyone expected for Father to be chosen as the family's representative. Instead, the Command Seals marking one as the clan's chosen magus appeared on my sister, my beautiful, musical, gorgeous sister, who was so graceful and skilled and loving at everything she did. Of course it would be her. She had to be.
Father and Sister never returned from Fuyuki, and a man calling himself Eishun Konoe came to me bearing the news they had disappeared during the city's destruction. He was very kind to me and even offered adopting me, but apparently his own clan forbade him from doing so.
Maybe I would have turned out better as his daughter. Who knows? There's no point in dwelling on that.
From what Konoe Eishun told me, ten Servants took part in that war, ten Heroic Spirits bound to their magi Masters. Saber, the swordsman. Archer, the bowman. Rider, the mounted cavalry. Berserker, the savage madman. Assassin, the murderer striking from the shadows. Lancer, the spearman. Caster, the mage. Stealer, the pillager and looter. Vigilante, the nocturnal stalker. Shielder, the protector. Sister was the Master of Lancer, who I only met once, but was the most gallant and charming person I have ever met. He briefly spoke to me after finding me wandering across our garden, shortly before they left, but Sister soon saw us, and that was the single time I ever saw her angry at me. She forbade Lancer from ever seeing me again, and the next day, they had left forever.
Nothing hurts anymore, except the fact the last thing I remember from Manaka is how coldly she looked at me during her departure and told me I wasn't allowed to borrow her Barbies until she got back, even though mom said the Barbies were for both of us and she was just the caretaker.
After that, I knew the next War wouldn't take place for another sixty years, if ever. I made it my purpose to be the last of my lineage, so no other Sajyou would ever lose their lives in a Grail War. Even if I lived that long myself, I'd be too much of an incompetent old fool to fight in it, either.
I never expected, much less wanted, for this to happen.
The bell rang. And a certain Caren Ortensia paused in her writing, checked that it was her turn to answer calls on the chalkboard on her wall, sighed, and then marched towards her church's front door.
"Yes...?" she asked, opening the gates and facing the nervous girl with dark brown hair and glasses at her doorstep. Perhaps God's doorstep, more accurately, although in Caren's own opinion...
"Ummm, h-how are you, you don't know me, but, my name's Sajyou Ayaka, and, well, I believe we're supposed to contact you when something like this happens..."
Shyly, trembling, she rolled a sleeve up and showed Caren the red marking, shaped like a thin, elongated blade, on the back of her right hand. Caren blinked only once, but otherwise made no sign of surprise before silently inviting her to walk in with a gesture.
This is all That Man's fault, somehow, I just KNOW it…!
Eleven Years Ago.
"So, as you can see," the hideously twisted little man with the dark eyes full of evil standing at the Konoe's doorstep summed up, "by giving Konoka-chan to our care, not only will you be relieved of the effort of her upbringing in the middle of your important duties of looking after the Kanto and Kansai Associations... but we will help her realize her full magical potential sooner, yes we will!"
Konoemon, Eishun and Kouko took advantage of the evilly smirking wrinkled mummy's momentary pause to give each other perplexed looks, with tiny toddler Konoka tightening her hug on her father's legs even more.
Finally, Konoemon gave the visitor a jaded glare and dryly asked, "Seriously, Makiri-kun? Seriously?!"
"Ho-ho!" the other old man laughed, slamming his walking cane once on the doorstep. "I'm sure Konoka-chan will love our wonderful farm of Happiness Worms! She's got the radiant face of a true animal lover! And afterwards, assuming my worthless grandson ever achieves anything, we could further bind our families together though a mar—"
Eishun simply slammed the door on his face.
"... is this a no?" Zouken's voice came from the other side of the door.
"Seriously, Father," Kouko told Konoemon, "how could you spend three whole college years rooming with this man?"
"There's a reason why I was drunk most of that time, and he was nowhere as bad as this back then..." Konoemon sighed. "The 1870's were a different time."
"... seriously, you have gained a powerful enemy today!" Zouken's voice promised.
"Anyway, don't you think we should warn everyone else about him?" Kouko asked the two men with her.
Eishun hummed thoughtfully as he picked Konoka up in his arms and finally shook his head. "No, they most likely would just feel offended I insulted their intelligence. After all, who would be stupid enough to fall for this?"
"— oh, you have a dog! I shall start by kicking him! Ow! Accursed beast! It has TEETH!"
That's Cheating!
"No, I won't do it," Negi said.
"C'mon, Negi-kun, it might be important!" Haruna pleaded.
"If Saber-san wishes for her identity to remain a secret, we must respect that!" Negi argued.
"But we need every edge we can get in this situation!" Misa said.
"Why would we need an edge against Saber-san? She's on our side!" Negi protested.
"Yeah, well, that's what she and Emiya-sempai say so far!" Misora pointed out.
"I'm sure Kuro-san would have told us if they were up to something bad!" Negi countered.
"You mean the same Kuro-san whose sister Illya-san did not command her gigantic, monstruous, murderous Berserker to kill her beloved brother, but to protect him, Sensei? The Kuro-san from the universe where things were that different?" Sora reasoned.
"..." Negi said.
Then he walked into the next room, where Saber was happily eating rice from her fifteenth bowl of the afternoon. "Saber-san, may I ask you something?"
She looked at him. "What is it, Negi-sensei?"
He placed a hand on her forehead and closed his eyes. "You won't mind if I, um, simply touch you for a moment to, ah, learn on the body temperature of a Servant, which might be an important factor in this War, as it should be different from that you had during your human life, when you still—"
"Sensei," she evenly said, "not only are you not testing my temperature, but just mentioning my prior life will not necessarily make me reflect back on it, and even if it did, my Magic Resistance skill is ranked A, meaning you won't be able to read my mind unless you happen to master grand sorceries equal or superior to those found in the Age of Gods. I can take your most powerful spell to the face and laugh it off."
"Sooooo..." Chisame asked him as he walked back into the room where his students waited, "how did it go? Who is she?"
"Well... I suspect she's an ancestor of Anya, since nobody else had ever made me feel like such an idiot with so little effort..."
Sora was still frowning, as if deep in thought. "Sensei, if Kuro-san were Illya-san's sister in the other world..."
"Yes?" Negi said.
"And... you are her sibling in this world..."
"Yes...?"
"Does that make you this universe's Kuro-san?"
There was a horror-filled silence as the words sank in.
Misa screamed like a damned soul in anguish at the thought.
Worthy Adversary.
Out of all the friends and foes alike Artoria had battled through her long, blood soaked career as a warrior and ruler, none had been braver than the Black Knight. She always would respect the likes of Diarmuid, Shirou, Iskandar the Great, Negi, Mordred, Darkwing Duck, Rin, and even Gilgamesh, but never had she witnessed courage and willpower such as that exhibited by that admittedly witless soldier that glorious day when…
"Now stand aside, worthy adversary!" Artoria warned after cutting her adversary's arm off.
Far from being intimidated, the Black Knight growled, undaunted. "'Tis but a scratch!"
"A scratch? Your arm's off!" she protested.
" No, it isn't!" he claimed.
Angrily, she pointed down at the arm on the bridge's floor and demanded, "What's that, then?"
Her enemy looked at it for a moment and gruffly said after a reluctant pause: "I've had worse!"
"You liar!" Artoria said.
"Come on, you pansy!" he challenged her again.
With a grunt of fury, Artoria charged ahead once again, swinging in full force and slicing off the Knight's other arm. ""Look, you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left!" she pointed out then.
"Just a flesh wound!" the Black Knight replied, blood flowing out of his stumps in all directions.
With a rough sigh of exasperation, Artoria struck yet again, this time cutting the Knight's left leg and leaving him awkwardly tittering on one booted foot, spraying blood everywhere.
This seemed to really anger the Black Knight now. "Right! I'll do you for that!"
"You'll do what?!" a fully disbelieving Artoria cried. "What are you going to do, bleed on me!?"
"I'm invincible!"
"You're a loony," Artoria sneered, shaking her head before waving her sword one last time, now chopping the final limb left, so the Black Knight's armored torso dropped on the floor with a loud clang. Exhaling in faint dismay, she walked past him towards her destination, even though the dismembered Knight kept on shouting furiously at her.
"Ooh, ooh, I see, running away, eh? YOU YELLOW BASTARD! Come back here and take what's coming to you! I'll bite your legs off!"
Later, much later, during her third life of sorts, Artoria would learn the alleged descendant of that brave man had also taken the moniker of 'the Black Knight' and joined the team of costumed adventurers and do-gooders self-named 'The Avengers'.
Good for him, she guessed.
For the Sake of Research.
"Okay, you stop right here, Negi. Yeah, that's it," Asuna nodded, as her teacher stopped before Saber, the boy looking utterly puzzled. "And you stand right there, yeah, that's perfect, Saber-san. Stand still for just a sec, don't move a muscle. Yeah, like that."
"What's this all about?" Shirou asked Keiichi.
The older but also shorter young man shrugged. "Looks like it's something else to test Saber-san's anti-magic abilities. I was too afraid to ask..."
"Right, so here we go," Haruna said, stepping behind Negi and holding a small pile of pepper under his nose as his other Ministra and Skuld quickly bolted away to relative safety. "Banzai...!"
Negi looked up and panicked. "Wait, no, what are you trying to AAAAATCHOOOOOOO!" he loudly sneezed just as Haruna quickly blew the pepper at his nose.
The very next second, Saber's white blouse and long blue dress had been completely blown off her body and into tiny shreds floating around her. She only blinked slowly, while Negi, Itoshiki, Shirou, Keiichi and Rito all plopped down on their backs.
"So, thusly we can callibrate Saber-san's anti-magic has at least a few limits to it, much like Asuna-san's," Satomi nodded to herself while taking notes. "Now, if we could run the same test again in your battle armor, Saber-san..."
Saber spoke coolly as she summoned said armor on herself. "There's no need for that, this armor wouldn't even be scratched. You only had to ask."
"No hard feelings, though, right?" Asuna chuckled, with a hand behind her head. "Hakase and Paru and even Eva thought the test wouldn't work as well if you guys were aware of how it'd go, to say the least. 'sides, getting accidentally stripped by Negi is kind of part of our initiation by now..."
"Getting accidentally fondled by Rito-chan comes next," Haruna warned.
"No, it doesn't!" Rito protested.
"Then comes the spanking and the oral."
"NO, IT DOESN'T!"
"I feel no shame," Saber said. "As I've said before, think of me, not as a woman, but as merely an instrument of war. I don't care if I'm bared in battle, as long as it doesn't harm my performance against the enemy. Such trivial concerns only drag a warrior's drive and spirit down."
"Well, that's good to hear, very mature, too..." Asuna nodded.
"Still, as the saying goes, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do', and since in this day and age one is expected to react with violence to this kind of incidents, it would be disrespectful of your culture for me to act anyhow but this..."
And she leapt on the girls to unleash a Huge Ball of Violence on them.
"EEEEEEEEEEE!"
Ironically, the actual Roman with her face on her would have just laughed it off.
Nihilistic Temptations.
Hoshino Ruri dreamed a dream that wasn't hers.
In her dream, there was a beautiful, intelligent young woman who loved a younger, handsome and intelligent boy, and the boy loved her back. But the boy turned away from her, and she just sat back, still and silent, as he marched away, wrapped in a long, gray hood and cape, disappearing into the dusty distance.
The girl sat alone in darkness, some strange short-haired person kneeling in front of her and licking her between the legs, surrounded by several faintly glowing screens that nearly made Ruri salivate, as they belonged to extremely advanced computers, many of which Ruri had only seen in prototype schematics Gauron had forced her to steal. Others looked even more advanced than that. But this girl, despite owning so many glorious, magnificent computers, sat in gloom and regret, with dead and unhappy eyes that chilled Ruri, and frankly made her feel bad as well.
Eventually, the girl got to work on an artificial intelligence project that, from the technobabble Ruri could vaguely hear being discussed in the background by several faint voices, would help run the boy's dream project, a tower linking Earth to Mars. Ruri got a clear view of this tower as well, and it was frankly magnificent, the kind of visionary dream only the most ambitious futurists would have. It sat at the middle of the mostly flooded Japanese coastline, and it seemed to shine with an impressive silver and white glint, stretching out into the blackness of space. It was a breathtaking sight, and Ruri didn't get impressed easily.
And yet, soon, disaster followed. The tower never fell, but the world around it burned, consumed in the chaos of war, of man turning against his brother everywhere, as horrors flew over each world and from one world to the other, and standalone movie sequels to Twilight were made. Raining doom upon both of them, as the lonely old woman and her devoted stalker died alone in the middle of her workshop, forgotten and unmourned, with only the A.I. running over her screens watching over her in her last few moments.
And the worst part of it all was, while that happened, the hooded, stalking form of the boy, now a changed, broken shell, wandered like a specter of death over the ruined lands, presiding over the bloodshed, warfare and Vampiring World of Stephenie Meyer movie franchises…
Hoshino Ruri woke up, startled, and found herself alone in her bedroom, again barricaded from the inside as in every other night, the better to keep the horrors prowling outside at bay. Then again, Ruri knew, for all of her intelligence, the chief horror governing the Ha-Hacienda was even smarter than her. Should the Joker put his mind to it, he'd easily direct the others through her defenses, to do of her whatever they wanted. Ruri knew only two things truly kept her safe; Quartum's erratic at best, dry and casual decision to keep her relatively safe, and above all, her Servant's loyalty, which was not fully assured either.
It was then Ruri realized she wasn't truly alone, as Temptress was not far from her, the Servant's back to her, working on her laptop, which glowed faintly in green, much like the screens in the dream. She only wore a tiny, flimsy pink negligee, along with her nekomimi and fake tail, and her small pale feet were bare. "Bad dreams, Master?" she asked, without looking back.
Ruri sat on the bed's edge, her pale face expressionless. "Your wish for the Grail, Temptress. What is it?"
She had expected for Temptress to refuse to give it up, forcing her to threaten her with the usage of a Command Seal, even if Ruri would not truly resort to one just yet, and would have to back away if Temptress still refused.
Instead, Ruri got her answer immediately, much to her surprise, or at least the first part of it.
"I hate heroes," Temptress said.
"What?" Ruri said. It wasn't a very smart or elaborate question, but was direct enough, and she was a girl of few words, all as short as possible.
Temptress paused her program and closed the laptop. She still wouldn't look back, though.
"Villains are despicable," she said, "but as long as they aren't trying to pass for heroes, I can respect them. I haven't cracked the Joker's skull open yet because he hates heroes… no, the concept of heroism as much as I do. Heroes are just villains who delude themselves and others into thinking they are forces of good. But that's not true. A 'hero' only escalates conflicts, because there can't be heroism without confrontation. In the end, a hero only brings pain and misery to everyone around them."
Ruri listened silently, as she was prone to do. Temptress finally looked back over her small shoulder and the lacy support line hanging from it, and pouted, apparently displeased by Ruri's lack of input. She still kept on explaining, however.
"I'm going to wish," Temptress said, "for the destruction of the most harmful hero this world or any other will ever see, and for that of all his supporters. That way I'll bring peace to this world, at least as much peace as this doomed world could ever have. I'll even make sure there's a future for you somewhere, Master. It shouldn't be that hard. I can fabricate any sort of new identity for you, anywhere in this planet, and…"
"What will you do after that, Temptress?"
"Nothing," she honestly replied. "I don't expect to survive past the Grail War's end. I don't want to. You're no magus, so it's not like you could support my continued existence in this world anyway. But like I said, I want it that way." She smiled at her, not like the sultry, controlling smile she gave others, but in a warm, slightly tired fashion she had all but forgotten long ago. "I'm not even a real girl. I'm a ghost of the future, an echo from someone else's dream, a projection of a dead woman's life's work, turned into pain and sorrow. I'm not the kind of person you'd want with you very long, Master."
Ruri very slowly blinked at her Servant. "Temptress."
"What?"
"Anta Baka."
Temptress laughed it off, not devoid of humanity, but still devoid of joy. "Oh, Master, you're still so young. You remind me a bit of him, before his ideals corrupted him. But unlike him, you'll be okay, because you don't have those insane, stupid dreams of being something else, something bigger than the rest of us. You know your place," she said, reaching over to softly touch Ruri's forehead. "You are Hoshino Ruri, and you're aware of that. You don't harbor delusions you'll change the world, or that you have to live up to anyone else's legend. And I can respect you for that."
"You're a Heroic Spirit yourself."
Temptress snorted, very cutely. "I hate that term. But then, I guess I hate a lot about myself on general principle; that's why I'm not bothered I'll be gone soon. If my disappearance is necessary so the last vestige of that man's legacy can disappear, then so be it. I suppose you could say I'm more like a Wraith, but the Grail isn't picky about such things lately."
"I see," Ruri passively said. "And how do you expect to win the War in the first place?"
"I'm an extremely weak Servant, I know that," Temptress admitted with a shrug of shoulders. "One of the physically weakest ever summoned in any recorded iteration of the Grail War. Angra Mainyu would no doubt defeat me easily in one-to-one, face-to-face combat."
Ruri, who was well read enough, paused. "You mean Angra Mainyu, as in—"
"Sort of, it's a complicated story," Temptress handwaved it. "Even so, I hold a trump card. Besides seduction, my skills include another type of persuasion- that of forcing any and all computer systems to do my bidding. And, well, this is a little known fact, but this universe? It runs on a super computer system of sorts."
She opened her laptop again, pressed a sequence of keys, and with a smile, made a gigantic holographic model of Earth appear over them. "My original creator dabbled in the mechanics the divine beings established to keep this universe running, including those related to Heaven's Feel. By accessing and hacking into Yggdrasil's databanks, currently missing their top three operators and keepers, the Norn sisters, I can obtain key information on anything and anyone short of God Himself." She smirked both sultry and impishly, rubbing her chin. "And there's no greater power than information, even those of divine chains and hardened muscles."
"Give me examples, please."
Temptress ran a closeup of the Four Schools area in her holo-model. "By reading into the magi-signatures the Grail is building up as it manifests, including its links to the Servants intended to feed it, I can get information on all participants on this War, and hack my way into the very foundations of the Throne of Heroes that spawned me." As she said that, images of a blonde woman in a long blue armored dress, a fit man in tight dark blue holding a lance, a grinning green faced man wearing a stark yellow suit, and several others appeared superimposed on the Mahora map. "I can read their identities and attempts to make preparations even before the War starts. Technically, I could even hack into Russia's nuclear silos and drop a nuclear missile on Mahora, killing all the Masters at once, except because that'd do us no good… I'd also burn the leylines rendering the Grail useful to us, so my efforts would be for naught…"
As she sighed, Ruri only could absorb this information with as much shock as she could muster. "Temptress!" the normally emotionless girl said. "If the Joker ever learned you hold this much power…!"
"Eh, why do you think he has this room bugged? Just to see if we ever start making out and making wild hot girl on girl computer nerd love? It's okay though, I filled all of his listening devices with nothing but simulations. Even if he listened to us now, he'd hear nothing but you sleep breathing and my tapping on the keyboard and masturbating."
Ruri blinked. "I'm bugged? I looked for bugs…"
"He's smarter than you," her Servant easily reminded. "Anyway, what still makes the War difficult for me is, even if I can get instant information on any Servant, that doesn't mean I have the power to make good use of it. That's why I'm going to need to manipulate others, mainly to turn the Servants on each other, but thankfully that's my Class' specialty. Even so, I'm going to need your Command Seals near the end of the War, Master."
"How so?"
Temptress sighed. "Through the Seals, a Master can get their Servant to strain themselves past their normal capacities, even achieving what could only be called miracles. But I'm very weak, and what I have in mind might require two or even three of your Seals boosting me in the exact key moment of my scheduled endgame. I'm trusting you for that moment, Master."
"Okay," Ruri blandly said.
Temptress raised an eyebrow, telling herself that had been too easy, but decided not to push on the subject for the time being, as that would only be counterproductive. Instead, she waited until Ruri asked her next question, "And what are those other three dots on the other schools?" while pointing at the smaller beeping signs on different locations around Mahora.
"Well, that might be an unexpected complication, but we also could use it in our favor," Temptress answered. "Further investigation is needed, but it seems they are budding manifestations of lesser Grails. The Mahora Grail is taking too long to be summoned, so the energy pulsing from the Root through it is pushing to erupt somewhere or another, to put it on layman terms. Unless the Mahora Heaven's Feel is completed soon, new Servants and Masters might start manifesting all across the area. Hmph. More heroes," she sneered. "Just what this world needed!"
"Only one more question, Temptress."
"Sure, ask away."
"You said your creator dabbled in the mechanics the gods themselves came up with. Assuming gods are even real—"
"Once you start believing on Servants, gods aren't that much of a stretch anymore, are they?"
"—why would your creator do something like that?"
Temptress scowled slightly. "Because she was a woman in love."
"This man she loved," the Servant exhaled, "and through her, the man I loved, had these great, typically foolish dreams of heroically helping the world and creating world peace and such nonsense. To achieve them, he had to learn of the systems a mage from the Old Ages copied from the gods themselves who created the world. With that knowledge, that mage created her own realm, and that is the World of Magic that man wanted to save alongside this one. In the end, however, he only doomed both."
"Or rather, will doom them," Ruri understood.
Temptress nodded. "The Throne of Heroes exists outside of time itself. We can be summoned from any point of human history, past, present, or future."
Ruri nodded back, carefully, as if afraid her head would drop off her neck from the movement. "But then, why don't you just ask that man, that boy, to—"
"You said only one more question, and you already used it, Master," Temptress said as she calmly returned to her work.
"Yes," Ruri said. "Definitely, there's nothing more idiotic than a scorned lover."
"We couldn't agree more," Temptress said. Then she grinned and wagged her eyebrows at Ruri. "So, how about it? Feel like trying out some wild hot girl on girl computer nerd love?"
A pillow flew at her face. "Idiot."
We Will Guess Your Name Yet!
"Tarzan!"
"No, he never existed either. Literary character!"
"Momotaro!"
"No."
"Harry Potter!"
"Literary character, Asuna-san!"
"Robin Hood!"
"I actually fought him in the Grail War, but never during my first existence."
"Gulliver!"
"Asuna-san, please, he's also fictional!"
"Adolf Hitler!"
"Perish the thought. Also, Godwin's Law? For shame, Asuna-san."
"Sorry, I didn't know that was illegal, although that doesn't sound like a Japanese law. Peter Pan!"
"Asuna-san… Please, please stick to personalities who ever actually existed. While fictional characters can be summoned upon special circumstances, I remind you once again I was real…"
"The first man on the Moon!"
"Don't you even know his name? Also, no."
"Jack Sparrow!"
"That was only a movie!"
"King Arthur!"
"I can tell you without lying at all I never fought or allied with King Arthur," Saber stoically said, knowing how to stick to rigorous truth while also being obtusely secretive. Also, knowing she was facing an idiot.
"Damn, this is harder than I thought. The wolfman!"
"Maybe we should leave it here…"
"It's the wolfman, isn't he? It is, it is! That means you are, um… Van Helsing, who actually was a woman!"
"I never met or fought any werewolves, and Abraham Van Helsing is fictional as well!"
Asuna looked disappointed. "You… You mean Dracula wasn't real either?"
"Yes! I mean, no! I mean, Vlad Dracul existed but he was no vampire, everybody in this era knows that! And I never met him either! Professor!" she turned towards where Negi sat reading in a studious silence. "What kind of education are you giving these children?"
Negi answered passively while flipping another page. "You were the one to choose your opponent for this game, Saber-san. But if you'd rather just select someone with actual knowledge of history, or just give up and say it already…"
Saber groaned but, never one to admit defeat until all enemies were crushed, pointed at Makie. "Asuna-san was proved unfit the challenge; I think we all can agree on that. You will be my next opponent. Make your first guess, who did I meet while forging my legend?"
"Robin Hood?" Makie said.
Saber facepalmed.
Overkill.
"I am Servant Alter Lily Santa Swimsuit Saber," the little, pale, expressionless, frail looking Loli with the gigantic sword and massive bag of gifts, wearing only a skimpy red bikini and a Santa Claus cap, stood before the astonished Shirou in the old shed. "I ask of you, are you my Master?"
Shirou woke up bathed in a cold sweat and stared fixedly at the Command Seals on the back of his shaky hand. "This... This whole 'Master' thing is driving me mad, isn't it...?" he wondered to himself.
From where she sat right outside his bedroom in dutiful vigilance, a suddenly, slightly troubled Saber briefly rubbed her nose, wondering why she'd just felt a subtle shudder of sorts, before disregarding it as inconsequential.
Definitely not a Preview.
"Jester," the King of Knights hissed, glaring venomously at the man she had pinned against the wall, her blade's glowing edge against his chalky white, too-skinny throat. The man who had brought nothing but further chaos since wandering into the middle of the disaster the Mahora Festival had turned into, once the Grail War had spilled unto it.
"Well, I never!" came the reply from between yellowed teeth, chaotically arranged between the stretching red lips, like badly stuffed piano keys that were too numerous and elongated for the mouth they had been jammed into. "I've heard and jovially accepted every other insult, but being called a Daredevil villain, really? That's just hurtful!"
"My patience grows thin, buffoon," she warned, her face coming closer to his, enough for her roar to fall squarely on his angular features. "I care not about your inane prattle as long as it has nothing to do with those bombs you claim to have planted in this school."
"Let's settle for this, I think it's a reasonable arrangement," Joker said, managing to put a gloved hand on the flower of his lap, then sprayed a thick cloud of green gas on her face. "I'll tell you everything as soon as you're in my side! Ha ha ha ha ha!"
She simply sneered through the gas, clearly unamused. "You fool! Nothing but magic can harm a Servant, and my Magic Resistance is higher than most. There is nothing you can threaten me with, so I command you, speak now!"
"Ah well," Joker nonchalantly said, rolling his eyes around. "time to go with Plan B then, I suppose."
His other hand, sneaking around Saber skillfully, took her by surprise snipping a pair of scissors through the air, and then cutting her ahoge from the root.
"— and in further news of the Mahora Academy crisis, the newest reports suggest American terrorist and mass murderer the Joker has begun rampaging across the campus with a grinning blond woman dressed in black and wearing a boomerang-shaped mask, both destroying everything on their path. She also lacks an ahoge. The tactical teams surrounding the school have sent for the Batman and a strike force of trained hair stylists..."
A Day at the Beach.
"Well," Negi admitted, "I had some trouble letting go at first, but I actually ended up having a lot of fun!"
"So did I," Saber nodded.
"... it wasn't that bad..." Chisame said.
"Even though I was punched into comas at least thrice that I can remember, it was a great day regardless," Rito reminisced fondly. "And sorry about the bikini tops, everyone."
"I really liked dunking my head into the sea," Itoshiki smiled. "I think I managed to die for at least a few blissful seconds around five times."
"We didn't get to save anyone today," Shirou flatly said, looking into the distance. "What a waste."
The others gave him aghast looks.
"What?" he asked blandly, still expressionless.
That was the day they found out he was the only truly hopeless one among them.