Darkness. Again. It seems like this guy enjoys sleeping until a familiar fur creature decides to lick him.
"Fou…Fou…" he could feel the wetness making brief contacts on his face as he's trying to get over and not bother him.
"Enough already, rascal…" he mutters, "Can you give me like five minutes now…"
"Senpai." a new voice appears along the blackness, "Please wake up, Senpai." But stops herself realizing that was a mistake and rephrases her words more seriously.
"Master please wake up. If you don't, I will kill you." from hearing the words he instantly pops his eyes open letting his instincts to move out the source of the voice and gets into a stance who happens to be Mash. Although her appearance were now different. She wasn't wearing the hoodie anymore. Instead she was wearing a skin tight black suit and leggings that includes a garter belt on her right thigh with lavender trims around it carrying an oversized cross-shaped shield with an ancient inscription on it.
He could tell that Mash wasn't the same as he could see magical energy around her and no traces of injury at all. Besides on Mash's new appearance. He looked at the environment at their location. Everywhere he sees are burning buildings. No trace of life, no trace of activity, nothing but flames.
"Well, guess I must living in hell again, huh?" was the first words that comes to his mind witnessing the world that most people would freak out if it was their first time upon witnessing a burning city or other disasters. Cause he has seen more than enough of those returning back to Mash.
"So this is what you call a Servant, huh? No, more like a person who's borrowing the power of a Servant." he muttered under his as she was shocked to see her Senpai reacted that way but was glad that Nexus was awake.
"Didn't you say that you were going to kill me?" he narrowed his eyes at the young girl cautiously. Even though she wouldn't be the kind of person that would willingly kill someone but looks can be deceiving for his experience. Even if it's a misunderstanding…
"Oh, that came out wrong." Mash corrects herself, "What I meant to say is "you're going to be killed."" before Nexus could process that he suddenly sensed several hostiles within his area revealing to be several skeletons wielding swords. As Mash analyzed the enemies' status to be hostile and looks to who he would be as her contracted Master.
"Master, your orders, please. You and I will overcome this together!" she said with her determined eyes that he knows that with her new strength they will pull through.
'Not expected that I would have a Servant so soon…' was what Nexus thought over the circumstances, "Well, no matter. I'll make sure we will survive!" he focuses on his enemies to deal the hostiles.
Once they were all defeated, the shield wielding girl decides to take a breather. "Phew, I had my doubts, but we made it somehow. Are you alright, Senpai?"
"No worries here, Mash. But I gotta say…does the Servant you took after really take that far in appearance?" he lifted his eyebrows questionably on the girl that it does show too much skin exposing the navel, armpits, and legs.
"Eh? I-I'm not sure if this outfit is the only way to. Wait, how did you know…" as she could finish her sentence, communications begin to respond and connected through a familiar voice.
"Thank god it connected! Hello? This is Chaldea Command Room? Do you read me?" he calls out to anyone if there are any other survivors and Mash responds giving him the status quo that the both of them completed the shift to Singularity F and that Nexus is registered as an official researcher. Roman was overwhelmed by witnessing Mash's new outfit through the monitor that it's shameless and that she transformed into this.
After getting the confirmation upon witnessing Mash's condition, her conditions have a drastic change and even has magical energy. She explained that she survived by fusing a Servant that was provided in Chaldea giving her the contract and use it as a vessel becoming a Demi-Servant as their sixth experiment to create something like that. However, once it fused, the original Servant vanished with no True Name nor what kind of Noble Phantasm it had leaving her unaware.
"I know that you're full of questions and I'm sorry for forcing you into this, Nexus. But you're the only candidate who has Rayshifted successfully." Roman apologized to him giving Nexus the wave of dismissal, "I'm still analyzing the data but it indicates that Mash has become your Servant. Meaning that she's your master and the first Heroic Spirit you've contracted with."
"Became my Servant, huh?" Nexus muttered looking at the trace of magical energy that is linked to his right hand revealing his own Command Seal. An ability for mages to keep Servants inhibited to their commands obediently but are limited to three. Every seal comes from unique symbols such as his that represents an eight-pointed star. Four points are pointed inwards towards the middle of the four pointed star with a circle and the other four pointed outwards.
"For now the current mission has two new goals." Roman stated as the connection starts to go static.
"Doctor, you're breaking up. 10 seconds until connection is lost."
"Guess Shiva's output couldn't hold out switching backup generators…well I'll brief on you later. For now, you should head to the leyline about 2 km from here to stabilize our connection at least. I'll bring the power up as soon as-" before Roman could finish the connection cuts off instantly.
"Alright, let's get going." Unfazed from this he decides to walk, "It's at 2 km, right? Let's get to it."
"Eh? You know what direction you're going?"
"Of course. I can see the strong magical reading coming from over there. Won't be much of a problem handling a bunch of skeletons." Nexus pointed to the direction at the source of leyline seeing an abundant of mana. "Once we reach there, let's have a secure point and set up camp." Mash agreed and Fou barks up climbing at his shoulder.
'Guess, he decided to come along, huh? Oh well, it's not like he'd get in the way.' He peered beside him as he is certain that Fou wouldn't be a bother to everyone and probably the creature who has a sense of danger starting their walk through the smoldering debris.
"…So far, all I could see are flames…It's nothing like the Fuyuki in our data." Mash viewed the former city with solemn eyes as they were almost to the waypoint.
"According to our data, it's an average city. There's no record of such a disaster occurring in 2004…the mana density is also abnormal here looking a lot like ancient Earth."
"Well I guess humanity has been deformed to create this mess. These mages must have spilled their works to make it look like this." Nexus said flatly walking through focusing to their destination.
"Is that so…" suddenly there was a scream coming ahead of their direction causing Mash react towards the source of the voice while Nexus shifted his eyes unalarmed by the sudden scream.
"Well, well, well. Looks like there are survivors, after all." Nexus said nonchalantly not worried how dire the situation it is.
"It's a woman's scream! Let's go check it out, Senpai!" she dashes towards the source of the voice.
"Yeah, yeah…" he said boringly taking a walk and then dashing towards Mash where there are several skeletons surrounding a white haired woman cornered and screaming who happens to be the Director Olga Marie. Once they arrived at the scene, she noticed the two of them. Giving no time to explain, they need to act fast. Nexus gave Mash the order to protect and suppress the surrounding skeletons.
"The battle is over. Are you hurt, Director?" Mash checks on Olga after the skeletons were defeated that made her paranoid of what happened that could only utter in three words.
"….What's going on?" was all she could say.
'Well, I guess it's no surprise she'd be shocked to see Mash becoming a Demi-Servant to be successful at a convenient time. Have a couple of bones chasing you running around the gloomy, hellish, burning city that nobody else would want to go through. Oh and a guy who was late at an orientation as her Master out of all people. Crazy world isn't it? Well at least not that crazy to me.' Nexus admit what she's feeling right now unfolding the events in front of his eyes for Olga telling him how he'd made a contract on a Servant that only first-class Mages are capable of.
After Mash explained the situation to Olga of understanding the situation hoping that there are other master candidates alive out here. To which for Mash's hope that there aren't any candidates but them. The reason they were Rayshifted was due to the people that weren't inside the Coffins and were never Rayshifted at all. As for now, Olga accepts the contracts of Mash and Nexus and decides to take charge to which they don't mind.
"For now, we should find the leyline to contact Chaldea to set up camp to which is…"
"At your feet." Nexus pointed out blankly.
"O-Oh! Right, I knew that, I knew that, of course!" she said surprised that the leyline was near them the whole time.
'She didn't notice, did she?' he talked into his mind that it's best to keep it himself to avoid any unnecessary arguments. Olga instructs Mash to place her shield to set up a summoning circle as a catalyst. Once it's done, the summoning chamber appears and Roman regain connection from the source.
Roman was surprised that Olga was alive demanding where's Lev at. Roman explains to her that he's the only surviving staff of 20 people and the only one with a higher rank.
"Wait, less than 20 survivors? What about the Master candidates?" Olga muttered shockingly her face paled from hearing the worse news.
"47, all in critical condition and we're short on medical supplies. We might save a few, but I'm afraid that the rest…" Roman holds his breath solemnly feeling doubtful that there's no way to save them with the limited resources.
"Don't be ridiculous!" Olga cuts Roman refusing to believe that, "Cryopreserve them immediately! We'll think about that later but your top priority is to not let them die!"
"Oh I forgot they had those sort of functions!" Roman runs off to the Coffins to put them in cryostasis.
"I'm surprised. Cryopreservation without consent would be considered as a crime yet you made the decision right away. You put human lives rather than reputation as a director." Mash complimented believing that her actions were genuine.
"Don't be ridiculous! As long as they're not dead, I can explain later." Olga said as she panicked about her reputation and the risk of the incident from Chaldea. "47 lives…there's no way I can carry that burden!" as she begs for them not to die.
Nexus snorts, '47 lives? Barely a handful than a war commander. Truly the words of a spoiled child. Why bother being the Director in the first place?'
After Roman cryopreserve them, he explained the situation on Chaldea and that they're trying whatever resources they could muster to restore its former state maintaining Chaldeas and Shiva. Olga decides to put Roman in charge until she returns investigating Singularity F and discover the cause of the anomaly.
"Wait, there's something I need to say to you." Olga speaks to Nexus as they were walking across the border of Fuyuki where the bridge remains surprisingly intact. And for surprisingly, it retained its structure out of everything else broken down by the flames.
"Before we start exploring the city, isn't there something you want to say to me?" she gave him an expectant look to make sure that he doesn't forget something important.
"It's about the Orientation, right?" he turned towards her unfazed by her, "No worries, I got the basis of what the overall situation from it." He thought he would just let it slide seeing her grit her teeth in irritated from his disobedience.
'Ah, she's mad.' was the only thing that popped into his mind.
"You were the one that slept through my speech and you have the gal to say that you understood everything!?" Olga let an outburst from hearing someone that is so ridiculous to be arrogant enough understanding everything when he was sleeping the entire time. "Sit yourself down! I'm going to have to explain it to you how important this facility is through that thick skull of yours."
He clicked his tongue looking aside, "What a pain."
"Now, now don't be like that, Nexus." Roman tries to assure him, "Director's ramblings can be useful of the reason you were summoned as Master candidates." As Olga begins her lecture backtracking to the orientation.
Based on her lecture, Chaldea intends to achieve an effort that will be marked on history to surpass the "Pioneer of the Stars." Their sole purpose is to ensure the development of humanity for 100 years. As such they achieved many results by creating the observation cyber deamon, Laplace; the global environment model, Chaldeas; Near-Future Observation Lens, Shiva; the Heroic Spirit Summoning System, Fate; and Spiritron Calculation Engine, Trismegistus that have observed humanity's progress through a century into the future.
As the current state, Chaldeas has shown the globe to be gray and disheveled to the point that it becomes difficult to observe the future. The cause of it was coming from an irregularity within the past to be called a "Singularity" that wasn't supposed to exist. Therefore, they proposed a Rayshift experiment to investigate and sever the cause. Although, people with exceptional magical circuits are allowed to Rayshift makes it kind of vague to Nexus while he was sleeping since there's no test whether or not it's actually safe there. They decide to put Team A to the field that scored the top 8 and have been active for a month. While Team B monitor and prepare for the next experiment.
Everyone was murmuring concerned the sort of dilemma they ended up at being as cannon fodders. Well, Nexus believes to be a natural reaction anyway since its human nature that they would have caution of going into an unknown territory for who knows what might be in there causing huge risks and casualties that nobody knows to adapt that sort of environment. Even if the Team A enters Fuyuki, it still wouldn't ease the atmosphere since they lack the experience of how to handle this. Being active for a month makes no difference for a simulation to time travel.
"What are you doing? I told you what you have to do." Olga told them annoyed that they're still uncooperative. "You were brought here as potential Masters. You're practically soldiers now and your duty is to obey orders and ready to fight. Or perhaps you have more questions?" she looks at the black haired magus minding at his own business.
"You, the one who's late!" she pointed at him to get his attention, "You seemed confused so I'll give you a chance to ask one question."
"Would it cause any temporal disruptions travelling back to the past?" although he admits that it is a dumb question to her perspective but he wants to be sure that even if they're walking towards the unknown, it should be noticed that time travel will go smoothly as possible without any butterfly effects.
"Does the word "Singularity" mean nothing to you?" she narrowed her eyebrows deeply annoyed.
'You made me ask a question. Why the sour face?' he muttered under his breath getting slightly annoyed by her lack of anger management.
"It doesn't exist in any of our records. It's like a hole that just appeared out of nowhere cut off from the proper axis. Events from these so called "Butterfly Effects" cannot interfere since it has no connection to the past nor the present." Olga explained in a professional manner and mutters under her breath, "Geez, what is the Association thinking sending someone with no knowledge of basic space-time theory? Well, it doesn't matter. What team are you? Show me your ID." Nexus pulls out his ID card handing over to her shocking with disbelief looking on the contents.
"What? You're in the wrong spot! A civilian with no combat training experience? Is this some kind of joke?" she threw the ID at Nexus catching it with no problem looking at it.
"No combat training, huh?" Nexus muttered in thought unsurprised by it. 'Guess they decided that I got no combat experience since I said there's nothing worth mentioning.' he puts back into his vest nonchalantly for someone that has ended up in the wrong room.
"Chaldea is much too important to be wasting people like you! Lev!" Olga called to her assistance coming over.
"Yes Director. Is there a problem?"
"There's problems everywhere! Get this amateur out of my sight!"
"Oh, is that it? Isn't he a chosen Master candidate?" Leve protested. Nexus' eyebrow twitched in annoyance for someone like him defending him that he never asks. "Sure they lack experience, but there's no need to be that rude…"
"Having an inexperienced amateur is a problem! What if something happens to my Chaldeas?"
Nexus snorts 'Wouldn't everyone be amateurs if they were heading to an unknown Singularity?' he remarked, 'Clearly they weren't prepared for this type of shit.'
"Let Romani handle this! At least get some of the basics!" Olga parted her words walking away leaving the others to deal with him.
"Hmm, I don't think she likes you." Leve stated the obvious no shit Sherlock to Nexus.
"Yeah, no shit?" him stating the obvious as he gets up and stretches, "Well, I'm not into getting into the field anyway. Just point me to my room?"
"Oh of course. Mash, show Nexus his room."
"Understood."
"For now, I'll be focusing on the Rayshift. It'll be over in 2 hours so I'll drop by till then."
"I'm sure that the other staff members would think it's a waste of time to visit an inferior's room. Much less an amateur." Nexus says the only thing that are justified to the public's point of view narrowing his eyes in a calm state. "I'm sure you'll be busy."
"That's unusually kind of you, Dr. Lev. Do you two know each other?" Mash asked the two for Nexus with his deadpan face unamused and Lev laughing it off.
"Not at all. I was just thinking eternal rivals and fated encounters are very important." Leve answered.
Nexus clicked his tongue in annoyance. "I don't believe in fated encounters." he walks towards the exit, "And I also don't want him in my business…" he growled under his breath not to let anybody hear that.
"Wait, I haven't shown you to your room yet." Mash catches up to him exiting out of the Command Room as it cuts the flashback.
Now it's been brought back to the present as Olga finished her lecture.
"That's how you were removed from the Command Room. Remember?" Mash reminded.
"Yeah, like I said. I got the basis of it." He answered nonchalantly making Olga ticked off to someone who hasn't reflected from their mistakes.
"You little… you look quiet, but you've got some nerve, don't you? Do you have any idea how much of a mess you made at that critical moment?"
"One person that just ended up in the wrong room as a fatal flaw? Yeah, I'm sure that's collateral." Nexus said sarcastically.
"Don't you get smart on me! Thanks to you, I didn't have the time to change for that wasted question!"
"You should've kept it brief rather than dragging on with that metaphor being a stain on a dress for god's sake." Nexus scratched his head in annoyance, "Also, is there ever a time when you aren't angry. At this rate, you're gonna have wrinkles and grow old at a fast rate."
"What!?" she shouted angrily blushing furiously, "I'll let you know, I don't always get mad when if there wasn't stressful as you and I'm still in my early twenties!" she stopped to take a breather from her outburst. "Jeez, and I had a special Mystic Code that I didn't get to wear once… Anyway. You understand your responsibilities and duties, right? In that case, I'm ordering you to be my bodyguard. Work hard."
"Yeah, yeah."
"I'm not going to let your disobedience slip up. Once we're back at Chaldea, you're in for it."
"Is that so?" he looked back at her for a moment and then back to his direction, "Go ahead and try. Not like you'll ever make a difference." walking forward.
"This is exactly why I can't stand you!" Olga growled, "You just never take things seriously, don't you?"
"It's good to see you two getting along. For now let's move before more enemies show up." Mash said continuing on their investigation.
"By the way, the type of being we call Servants, you know what they are, don't you?" Olga asked Nexus walking through the fiery debris.
"Contracted entities, heroes from the past that possesses unnatural abilities, right?" Nexus answered to the Director.
"Good, guess I don't need to explain on Heroic Spirits, do I?" she explains the basis of Servants such as the seven classes that varies on their legends and abilities. Blah, blah. Blah with the manifestation of Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Assassin, Caster, and Berserker that usually keep their True Names hidden to keep their weaknesses off and Noble Phantasm until they were interrupted by enemies. Once they were suppressed, Olga was feeling even grumpier letting out the tension to everyone even through Roman through their monitors.
Nexus sighs exasperatedly, "What an eyesore." he said commenting on the Director to the distance that she wouldn't hear, "It almost makes me convince that looking angry is the only thing she can do."
"Well I do have some sympathy for the Director's ill temper." Mash said making Nexus lift his eyebrow questionably. "There's just too much on Chaldea you don't know."
"True…I only came here just to get some sort of labor on the job." He admitted blatantly since he was seeking out for a job looking at the poster on his way towards the train station at the time.
"I don't know what to do with you. It's like you're a lost little kitty."
"Cats can fend for themselves even when they're lost." He interjects her, "They can get around variety of environments no matter how vast or small it is in the dumps."
"Is that so? I guess I'm not much different to a stray cat don't I? I've been here about 2 years and I still don't get it. I kind of sneaked in like an alligator."
"No, alligators aren't much worth to be sneaking animals." Nexus sweat dropped hearing that bizarre comparison.
"I've learned as much as I can from the database so I'll share it with you." Mash explained to the reason she was mad is that her father was the founder of Chaldea getting financial support from the Mages' Association. It has strict regulations and consequences being it as a research facility.
"The Director isn't a villain, but she is evil. She'll get rid of any staff member she doesn't like."
'Villain or evil, which is it?' Nexus thought weirdly to hear another irrelevant comparison. Aren't they pretty the same thing in a general view.
"I'm not sure if you could call someone with a bad attitude evil. Sorry, I wanted to give you some encouragement but I'm not used to cheery words."
"It's fine, Mash." Nexus assures her, "If you want to give me encouragement, you can handle the enemies behind if you want." he thumbs back nonchalantly at the skeletons behind them alerting everyone.
"You can do that, right Mash?" he gives an expectant look showing no fear of danger even when the enemy is behind him.
"Y-Yes!" thinking quickly she jumps clearing the skeletons behind him readying her shield up preparing for battle.
"Phew, that almost scared me…" Olga sighed of relief after Mash cleared the enemy out. "Even if Romani is monitoring, there's no telling what might happen. Although, I have to ask you…" she gazes at Nexus sitting at the same spot unflinching.
"You haven't even moved out of your spot ever since the enemy showed up. Also, that you knew they were coming before we even noticed. You haven't showed any fear since then. Just what are you?" Olga asks interrogating him opening his dead-fish eyes not even scared by her intimidation.
"Even if I told you, you wouldn't believe me."
"That's obvious!" Olga bursted out, "No normal human would ever get scared when a group of enemies were about to kill you! You have no sense of concern for your life at all! What if your Servant didn't make it in time end you would end up getting killed!? You're the Master! They don't let themselves get killed!"
"It's not that I'm concerned that Mash wouldn't make it. I know she would make it. Besides, even if I die, you can simply get a replacement, right? I'm sure you have no use to someone who is inferior to your operation." that much is true to Olga thinking as a viable explanation but for someone who has no concern of his life so easily just makes her infuriating.
"You don't have any concern for your life!? This is something that you can't risk your life easily! People will easily die if they're not careful enough! Even someone who is useless like you would have some uses being a Master!"
"E-even if that's true, I-I would be really sad if Senpai were to die…" she mutters solemnly giving Nexus a brief pause and sighs exasperatedly.
"Calm down. I won't die that easily. Besides, it's not the first that I've ever been ambushed before." This made the three of them confused that what he was saying like it was a experience to him.
"What are you…" as Olga was about to ask Nexus gets himself up.
"Well, for now we should keep moving. Staying here would only get more ambushes at us so we need to watch ourselves and walk discreetly." saying his statements walking away ahead of them.
"H-Hey, I'm the Director. I'm the one who gives out the orders." Olga declared but followed him regardless and Mash catching up.
While they were walking, Olga noticed Mash's injuries so she offered to cast her healing magic and Nexus walking behind to make sure that wasn't anybody following them. And besides, she intended to walk in front.
"Jeez, when the director is calm, she can be really dependable." Roman pops out to Nexus through the comm.
"And I figure that'd be a rare occurrence, huh?" he remarked knowingly from the experience he was seeing at Olga's face the entire time.
"Unfortunately, yes. She's in a complicated position." Roman grumbled, "Initially, Marie was also a Master candidate like you. Three years ago, her father, the previous director passed and she had to take the mantle being a student. Around the time, the anomaly was found in Chaldeas and she was ordered to get it back to normal. What's worse is that she has no aptitude as a Master. You could imagine the gossip of one of the Twelve Lords' daughter would be inferior to the Mages' Association. I'm sure that Marie is aware of that." Roman explained the dark history of Marie to Nexus in his stoic face.
"She still works her absolute best as Director. But for the last half-year, she's barely hanging on. I'd like her to come for counseling, but with how things are…" he solemnly mutters of how fatal the situation if he would ever get the chance to counsel her or even she give her consent to it.
"She's just stretched beyond her emotional limit. She doesn't hate you or anything like that." He assures him that Olga isn't a bad person.
"I don't care." He responds blatantly, "Whether she gets mad, pissed, or rarely calm is none of my concern. As long as she does her job properly as a Director. That's more than enough."
"Well, at least you understand. She's just a rather serious person. For now, you're the only three I can trust right now. I want you to continue investigating without fighting."
"Not sure if we could any combat with the hostiles, though." Nexus doubted.
"I meant not to fight each other."
"Oh, I see."
"At least be concerned." Roman sweatdropped from his unorthodox character that he could just put off like that so easily. Nexus narrows his eyes stopping his tracks for a moment.
'We're being watched.' he shifts his eyes sideways feeling the presence not close but at a far distance. It didn't seem to initially attack so he could say that it's possibly a Servant and that with the magical energy Nexus was sensing. He looks to the bloody flames of the building seeing no sense of life as his eyes flashes back at him standing there. He pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation.
"Why does it have to show me out of everything else." he mutters annoyed by that vision he saw.
"Is there something wrong, Senpai?" Mash looked back to her Master.
"Nothing, let's go." He parted his words wandering across the burning debris like taking a casual stroll. That's right, the same as always….casual strolls….
