Disclaimer: The works of Type-Moon and Jō Taketsuki are their own despite my most fervent wishes. This is a fan work and if anyone does pay me for it the only thing it will accomplish is to get me into trouble. This is being done purely for fun, constructive criticism is welcome, and flames will be ignored. Please be gentle though, this is the first fanfic I've put on the net.

Well, here's my latest chapter. I hope it proves enjoyable to all who read it. I have to say that it was quite the struggle to get it written. Both the plot and the characters seemed to be fighting me every step of the way, enough so that this took considerably longer to get done that it should have done.

If anyone is unsure of what Dragon Bones and Angel Remains are here's a short explanation. When a Heretic Gods dies, and presumably angels and saints, their bodies normally crumble into golden dust which then fades from existence. However in the Light Novels it has been stated that every now and then parts of them remain and take a stable form. Such remnants normally possess enormous power for artefacts, power surpassing even Divine Beasts in some ways. Such sacred relics are often worshipped and can be used as massive power sources by magi. They also retain certain qualities of the gods that leave them. In my fic the altar that Shirou gained after Illya took over the Circle is an example of such, that's why it can affect both Campione and gods when normally such a thing would be impossible.

On another note I've had a couple of readers asking me if I'll be including angels in this fic. Well, the thought had occurred to me, but since there is still no 'official' line on it from the Light Novels it's not something I'll be using any time soon. As far as I can tell Angels are simply Gods that have been changed by the passage of time, much like Saturn being the true identity of Santa Claus or some gods, like Baal, being changed into demons by the doctrine of emerging Christianity. I imagine there's a bit more to it though, that's why I'm trying to steer clear of it for now.

SPOILERS.

I've taken a few liberties with Iceman's character here since the Light Novel was a bit on the sparse side about what he was like. The image of a competent subordinate who shows no sign of strain but is inwardly only just keeping himself from going for his employer's throat was just too amusing to pass up, so I decided to go with it.

Athena also makes an appearance, though mainly it's to show that she's slowly returning to her full power. Since at this point in the Light Novels she was dead, killed by Lancelot, I intend for her to cause more ripples as I move to further abandon canon.

This chapter also sees the return of my mad mage and his Thief creation. Let me tell you, the final part of this chapter was a pain and a half to write, but thanks to the patience and stubbornness of my Beta it's turned out a great deal better than the first write would have been. I originally planned for the Thief to become an Authority stealing 'last boss', but that ended up seeming more than a bit cliché, hence the new direction I'm taking it in. I hope that it will prove interesting in future chapters.


Chapter Twenty Nine: Complications of Travelling

Alexander Gascoigne had a plan, and it was the implementation of that plan that had brought him to Taipei, the well-known central city of Taiwan.

He had gone to the Ningxia Road Night Market. A night market filled with merchandise stalls and snack shops. Every night, the market was crowded with locals and tourists who came here for the distinctive roadside snacks. It was the kind of place where people could either eat while standing or sit at tables next to the stalls.

However, tonight the Black Prince Alec had picked an aged and worn down restaurant in which to conduct his business.

Having seated himself at a table outside the shop, he'd ordered a few dishes and settled down to wait for both the food and the one he was expecting. Since this type of night market did not offer much in terms of alcohol, he brought his own canned beer, it might not be as chilled as he would have liked, but it was better than what he'd have had to settle for otherwise.

Fortunately once the food arrived it managed to make up for him having to bring his own drink. Steamed dumplings, boiled dumplings, rice dumplings with meat fillings, spiced sausages, oyster omelettes; it all made for quite the tasty spread.

It was just as the dishes were placed on the table that the one he'd been waiting for arrived.

". . . It's been a while, Alec." Her voice was calm and without inflection, despite the one that she was addressing.

"Ah yes, approximately a year."

The other person who had greeted him spoke in a Min Nan dialect, so Alec replied in the same language. It was one of the minor advantages of being a Campione that he'd always found to be most convenient. Being able to address others in their own tongue went a good distance to setting them at ease for both negotiations and discourse.

Looking up from his recently arrived food he took in the sight of the glasses-wearing seventeen or eighteen-year-old girl that was standing next to his table. Her name was Cecilia Cheung. She was wearing a modest sweater over a white shirt with an unassuming skirt, with dark stockings and sensible shoes. As far as her appearance went her face was quite cute, but she was lacking in what could be called 'glamour'. She was not one to be too concerned with outward appearances he supposed, though in truth it didn't really matter to him.

Alexander had become acquainted with her a few years ago, during one of his trips to the Far East. In order to return the favour she'd ended up owing to him at the time she'd become a member of Royal Arsenal, the organization the Black Prince had founded and led.

"Then show up at St. Ives from time to time . . . Wait a minute, have you ever been to headquarters? If my memory serves me correctly, then you haven't been even once."

St. Ives was where Royal Arsenal had located its headquarters. Its location was situated in the region of Cornwall on the westernmost tip of England. It was a little seaside town, hardly where one would expect such a potent organization to station its headquarters in such a humble site, but for the time being it had served them well.

Not that Cecilia Cheung would know.

"Your memory is correct. I have never met any comrades apart from you."

She spoke with a monotonous and indifferent tone. One that only served to highlight that she was a girl who seldom showed emotion through her voice or facial expressions.

"Let's leave it at that . . . That said, lazy as you are, you still accepted this invitation so readily?"

"Maybe it was because I wanted to see you."

"Stop joking around. It's making the beer taste funny."

". . ."

Her joke instantly rejected, Cecilia fell silent.

Even though she was essentially a reticent and expressionless girl, she almost seemed to be showing a bit of resentment. Nevertheless, Alec paid it no mind, because there were more important matters.

"You were the one who communicated a wish to see the Island-Fishing Needle. That's what you came for, right?"

Despite her young age, Cecilia was an outstanding Daoist priestess.

Daoists. The term used for those who studied ancient Chinese wizardry, Daoist arts, that had been passed down for generations. At the same time, she was well-versed in oriental myths and legends.

"No, there is something else I also wish to speak to you about."

"Really? I would have thought that it would have been the sole reason."

She was casting that slanted gaze of subtle resentment again, but it was tinged with something else. Alex found himself slightly intrigued by what could cause the normally impassive young woman to show a crack in her façade.

"This is the Needle in question."

The fourth Campione decided to keep on course with his planned main topic for the time being, there'd be time for whatever else had interested her once that was out of the way.

He took a small rod out from his shirt pocket. It had roughly the same length and girth as a ball point pen, and appeared to be made of some sort of beige plastic. Despite its humble appearance this was one of the divine artefacts that he'd obtained from Japan during his recent visit, the Heavenly Reverse Halberd.

"I believe I've mentioned to you before that some Japanese myths probably originated from southern Chinese sea-faring tribes first crossed over to Taiwan, then spread to Southeast Asia, followed by Polynesia and Micronesia. In the process they also ended up spreading to Japan."

"Yes, I remember."

"In the creation myths of sea-faring tribes, the world began as an ocean. An endless ocean without any land. At that time, the primordial god of creation lowered a fishing line and fished dry land out of the ocean to create islands. That was the birth of land, the story of the country's founding."

Alec casually explained as he brought food to his mouth with chopsticks between gulps of beer.

"From 4000 BCE to 3000 BCE, the people of the sea travelled south on crude boats across the Pacific, migrating to various parts of the world. This resulted in the scattering of East Asian oceanic creation myths. Of course, this includes Japan."

"Izanagi and Izanami's founding of the country."

"Correct. Izanagi and Izanami were on the primordial sea where there was nothing but minuscule floating and suspended debris. Dipping in the Heavenly Reverse Halberd and stirring, dry land was made to appear, creating the islands of Japan. Well, using a needle as a hook, stirring with a rod, it doesn't really look the same on first glance . . ."

"That doesn't pose a significant problem."

Alec nodded at Cecilia's brief and casual response.

In ancient Japan, the halberd for fishing, there were records of it being a tool for catching fish. All of these little stories were identical in essence.

"This halberd is a divine artefact with the same name. Naturally one would think it is the country founding tool."

"And you intend to investigate this thing?"

"Yes. I want to find out exactly what powers this artefact holds, and how to use them flexibly."

Cecilia coldly remarked to Alec.

"There is no way. Born of mortal flesh, there's no way we could do that. Give it up?"

"Not necessarily. Actually I already came up with one or two ideas."

". . . Really?"

Cecilia looked impressed. Beneath her glasses, her pupils were wide open.

Alec shrugged at the rare expression of honest admiration.

"It's nothing mind blowing. By deducing from the myths, it would suggest that this thing should be a divine artefact related to the divine aspects of water or land. In that case, if a similar god is found somewhere, all I need to do is just use this rod and observe what changes may occur, then proceed with verification."

". . . In any case, don't do that in this country. It's too dangerous."

Alexander smiled knowingly at her declaration. It was fine with him; he'd never had any intention of doing something worthless like that.

"If that's the case, then only one option remains. Find divine dragon bones that are related to either the earth or the sea, and use them to make contact with this thing. To assist me, first investigate thoroughly all records of mother earth goddesses and snake or dragon deities that have manifested here in the past hundred years."

". . . Dragon bones. There is that option indeed. But Alec, trying to find that kind of thing is even harder than finding gods."

"Hard, but not impossible. It's worth considering."

Listening to his subordinate's opinion, Alec remained completely nonchalant. For the sake of solving all sorts of mysteries, he had often set foot into many sacred domains. Compared to that this level of exploration was merely on the level of warm-up exercises.

"Considering the fact that discovering them could mean avoiding meaningless battles, it will be far more efficient than searching for a god. Don't overlook that."

"I didn't. It's just that your ideas are very strange."

Cecilia was expressing simple and easily-read emotions for once. She sighed deeply.

"There is something else that you wish to show me, isn't there?"

Her voice was as flat as ever, but there was a hint of trepidation there as well. If the Black Prince noticed it he didn't pay it any heed. Instead he reached down beside him and pulled up a long wrapped bundle.

As soon as she saw it Cecilia's eyes widened fractionally in surprise. Even though it had been there all this time she had neither noticed nor sensed it. If she had to take a guess then she would have said that the wrapping had some sort of spell upon it, one that kept the package from being fully registered in the minds of others.

"Indeed. This item is not quite in your area of expertise; still I would like you to have a look at it."

Keeping his own voice nonchalant the Black Prince slid the cloth aside to reveal what it had been wrapped about.

On seeing it the Daoist's first thought was to wonder how many thieves would try to steal it in the next twenty seconds. This thought was quickly followed by the realization that the effects of the spelled cloth were still functioning because despite what had been revealed nobody else in the vicinity seemed to be taking any notice.

Well, that was probably a good thing; give what she was looking at.

It was a sword, or perhaps it would be accurate to say that it was sword-shaped. She highly doubted that this weapon had ever been meant to actually see combat. Not when you considered what it was.

"So the rumours are true. You really did take it."

Despite her best efforts to keep her voice as flat as ever, there was still a distinct note of worry in Cecilia's words. Her eyes remained locked on the huge sword-shaped gemstone that Alexander had laid out on the table between them. Right there, between dumplings and sausages, was one of the most valuable treasures in the world. Its purely material worth was in the billions range, and its mystical value was even harder to calculate.

And it was stolen.

"Of course. Something this interesting . . . I could hardly leave it in the hands of someone like the Eighth now, could I?"

Cecilia wasn't fooled by him for even a moment. The Black Prince might put on the air of civility and sophistication and look down upon his fellow god slayers as barbarians or tyrants, but the truth of the matter was that he was every bit as much a savage at heart as any of them were. He could claim that it was for one sensible reason or another that he'd done this deed; he might even believe that to be the case. But in his heart the truth was that he'd taken it for one single reason; because he'd wanted it.

Still, even if that was the case the Daoist felt a certain curiosity as to his rational for doing it.

"Why would Emiya-sama's hands be unsuitable to keep it?"

"After the Battle of the Three Kings and Five Gods? Do you really need to ask?"

To be sure the incident had become quite notorious. It was one thing for a god to battle a Campione, a momentous thing, but one that the world had seen before. A Devil King being enthralled and then made to fight two of his fellows on the other hand, that was an unprecedented event. For him to go on to break his chains, slay the goddess that controlled him was another monumental event, but again it was something that fitted into the world thanks to precedent.

For the mess to then go on to involve not one, not two, not three, nor even four gods, but FIVE?! That was something the world had never seen before. Venus, Athena, Tiamat, Jord, and Sir Lancelot, for such a concentration of deities to come together was astonishing in and of itself, and as for what happened afterwards . . . ? It only went on to further beggar belief.

Still, that didn't quite explain what he meant.

"Yes."

"Emiya Shirou was not only under the control of a goddess for a significant period of time, he also chose to invite a fallen goddess and Guinevere into his house and offer them his protection. Clearly I couldn't leave something as potentially dangerous as this in the hands of one with such . . . questionable loyalties. At least not until I've had a chance to study it, so that it will not be an unknown threat in the future."

Weak, she decided. Such a justification was terribly weak and pretty much transparent. He hadn't taken the giant gem because he wished to safeguard the world's peace. He'd simply wanted it and so he'd taken it. It was as simple as that.

"Is taking the most valuable possession of a fellow king the best way to defuse a future threat? It strikes me more as simply buying yourself more trouble for the future instead."

"Only if what I succeed in learning is not worth the price. Tell me what you can of this sword and then give me your opinion."

Had she been more expressive she would have rolled her eyes at his antics. At the end of the day Alexander Gascoigne was a man that lived only as he saw fit. It was said by others that he embodied the attitude of conquest and acquisition that had characterized the British Empire at its height, and in a way it was true. Still, knowing such didn't change things between them, she still owed him too much to not lend her aid in this matter.

Reaching out with the magic of her lifeforce she carefully probed at the artefact before her. She took some small measure of pride in her skill in this regard. While Alexander was a skilled researcher and an almighty Devil King his talents in the exercising of magic were only middling at best. Though he had the vast magic reserves of a Campione the Black Prince had only gained the ability to use magic after his ascension. Though he was a talented occultist he was somewhat ham-handed in the use of that magic outside of his Authorities, a reason why he came to people like her for aid in such tasks as these.

Dismissing such thoughts from her mind Cecilia felt a slight frown crease her forehead as she focused more of her attention upon the stolen artefact. Something wasn't quite right here, her probing was running along the surface of the weapon, but she was having some trouble reaching deeper into it. Already she could tell that the Gem Sword was created from a single huge jewel, but one that was utterly unique. Rather than being a single colour the enormous gemstone ran from one hue into another to give it the appearance of a crystallized rainbow. Yet despite the flaws that such a change should have introduced the jewel was pretty much perfect all the way down to the atomic level.

And yet despite that she couldn't quite make out any of the magic that she knew had to have been imprinted upon the sword. Putting in a bit more efforts she gently pushed with her power, trying to find a path that would let her in and-

Alexander Gascoigne raised an eyebrow as the normally stoic Daoist jerked back from the Gem Sword so violently that her chair overbalanced and sent her sprawling across the floor.

"So, what can y-"

"Do you know what this is?"

Cecilia's voice was level as ever, but now there was the distinct impression that the seemingly calm surface held a roiling maelstrom beneath. The fourth Campione couldn't help but be somewhat surprised by this, especially since she hadn't shown this much emotion when faced with mage terrorists in the past.

"It is a magical vessel containing a reserve of power for Emiya. It's suggested that it's something akin to a miniature Holy Grail, obviously something I'd be interested in."

"It's a vessel," she agreed, "And it isn't some remnant of a god like a Dragon Bone, it's something made by human hands."

"How disappointing, I had hoped that it was some sort of prototype Grail, or something of that nature. I suppose that Emiya Shirou used it as a battery to supplement his reserves when they were low. Useful, I imagine, but hardly the equal of the Holy Grail."

He'd been hoping for something more interesting than that. Though sensing power wasn't something he was exceptionally talented in he'd been sure that he'd detected a pressure within the sword, something that hinted that it contained something of significance. But if it was just a creation of mortal hands then-

"You're wrong." The dead certainty in her voice caught the Black Price somewhat off guard. There had been far more . . . inflection in her tone than he was used to hearing from her. It was enough to once more rekindle his interest.

"What do you mean?"

"I . . . I can feel the power it contains," she explained, her voice now uncharacteristically halting as her eyes remained fixed on the Gem Sword. "There's just so much, it's more than I believed possible."

"Oh?" Now that was an interesting declaration. Though Cecilia was not one of his most ardent supporters she had been able to aid him a time or two in the past. One of those occasions he'd allowed her to tap into his own reserves of magic in order for her to perform a spell that had been beyond her own abilities. It had been a one off occasion, and something that had only been possible due to his co-operation and the presence of a specific magical artefact. Even so the experience had allowed her to understand just how vast the reserves of a Campione's magic were, for her to say something like this . . .

"Just how much magic does it contain?"

"At least a hundred times more than you do."

That drew a raised eyebrow and another glance at the artefact. As a God Slayer his own reserves were at least a thousand times greater than those of even a talented mage. As the years had passed those reserves had grown with use and exercise until 'a thousand' had become 'several thousand' instead. For it to be a hundred times that . . .

"Then it can't be a creation of mortal hands, it is impossible for non-divine magic to be able to contain such a magnitude of power."

"Everything I can read from it is of mortal creation. I have no idea how it's functioning, but the only aspect of it that has any trace of divine power is the magical power it contains."

Her voice was almost daring him to contradict what she was saying; something Alexander had no intention of doing. For all her youth Cecilia Cheung was one of the best in her field, so much so that he already had decided that he had no need of a second opinion.

"So, a creation of mortal hands that can do what only a divine creation can do. Emiya Shirou certainly has a habit of breaking the rules that even Kings normally adhere to."

On hearing those words the Daoist's eyes widened fractionally at what they implied.

"So the rumours are true? King Emiya possesses a mortal magic that can surpass the power of divine Authorities?"

"Indeed, some strange working called a 'Reality Marble'. I read a report from my subordinates that had been taken from the History Compilation Committee, but I also received a letter from the freakishly strong girl from China. She wrote to tell me that the youngest kings in Japan had both been able to defeat her, one with cunning and the other with magic that surpassed divine power. She said that she's devoting herself to developing her own spell to surpass the gods, and if I wished to keep pace with my fellow juniors I should improve my own training."

Cecilia said nothing, but internally rolled her eyes at the suggestion. Every one of the Campione was famous for having their own approach to how they used their powers, Luo Hao, as a supremely trained marital artist, regarded her Authorities as godly techniques. John Pluto Smith, being the costumed hero that he was, used them as superpowers. Both of the Japanese Kings seemed to use their Authorities as weapons, while the eldest of the Campione, Marquis Voban, treated his divine powers as a wolf would his claws or fangs. Alexander was unique in that rather than regarding his powers as 'weapons with which to fight' he saw them as 'tools with which to achieve victory'.

Fundamentally the Black Prince Alec was an intellectual fighter, one that preferred strategy to tactics. He did hone his skills and Authorities, but for him it was like a master thief maintaining the tools of his trade rather than a warrior training with his weapons. The notion of Alexander pushing himself into a sweating mess to increase his strength . . . it just didn't compute.

"Regardless, you cannot expect the King of Steel not to retaliate for this."

There she'd said it straight and clear.

"I don't doubt that king Emiya will be unhappy with me. But this is a necessary part of my plans. In time I'll return his property to him, as soon as I am satisfied that the threat it poses has been diminished, and as soon as my own goals have been met."

And how do those ends tie this blade with the other artefact that you showed me?"

"My plans for that are already set, though I do have to complete some further experimentation as well as consult with certain others. I don't doubt that once all is complete I shall be far more knowledgeable about both of these artefacts."

"So you intend to track down a god that fits your needs and simply experiment with what that first one can do? That is a troublesome enough prospect, but just how do you intend to see what can be done with the sword? If you accidentally release all the power contained within it then whichever country you are in at the time may well cease to exist."

It was no exaggeration. By channelling all their strength through a powerful Authority certain Campione had been able to bring about such devastation that entire countries had been reduced to ruins. To be sure the stored power within the Gem Sword didn't have an Authority through which to be amplified and shaped, but it held so much magic that it didn't need it to be catastrophic. Quantity had a quality all of its own after all.

Truthfully Cecilia didn't know what would happen if the stored magical energy was released without control. It might erupt in an explosion that would put a nuclear bomb or a super volcano to shame. Even if the magical energies weren't unleashed explosively the simple act of them being freed would be devastating. The spirits of the land would run rampant, even the simplest and smallest of such beings would become drunk on the flood of released power and go wild. All manner of mortal beasts and plants would be saturated by the magic and mutate into monsters from legend and plants from nightmares. Even such simple things as bacteria and viruses would be affected, likewise transforming into monstrous and empowered versions of themselves.

Quite simply no matter how she looked at it the beautiful sword made from a single huge jewel was looking more and more like a portable apocalypse to her.

And it was currently in the hands of a king that was actually quite eager to experiment with it.

"I shall be careful. I have no intention of becoming the first king in several hundred years to leave a country desolate. I'm not like those other kings after all."

And there was the light of her salvation.

"Alexander, you are truly extraordinary. In matters of bringing chaos to the world, there are none who can surpass you. Compared to the other Campiones, you are most definitely ahead."

In a way it was true. Such militant Campione as Voban, Luo Hao or Doni might actively seek out gods to fight. The mysterious Lady Aisha might appear wherever and whenever she chose and John Pluto Smith might play the part of a costumed hero, but in the end none of them had the Black Prince's talent for stirring up trouble.

"I'm nowhere near as barbaric or reckless as those people. Don't even think of grouping me together with them."

Alec could not help but retort displeased.

It was funny in a way; the possible salvation of a country wouldn't be the Black Prince's sense of duty or caution. It would be the fact that he wanted to make it perfectly clear to the rest of the world that he was 'better' than the rest of his fellow kings. What prevented him from being reckless with the Gem Sword would be his ego.

Well, whatever worked. Just so long as it wasn't her country that became a magically irradiated monster land.

She liked living after all.


-()-


Illya was practically bouncing as she stepped off the airplane and entered the airport.

It wasn't the plane trip itself that had her in such high spirits, even though she had found the experience to be exhilarating. Rather she was thrilled to have finally arrived in London.

Back in their home world London was the home of the Clock Tower, one of the great centres of magecraft learning in the world. Though Illya was not a 'traditional' magus by any stretch of the imagination she had still received a 'complete' education from her family. To her London was one of the greatest cities in the world, a central point where all manner of culture and trade could be found. In some regards her expectations were a bit on the juvenile side, but even the knowledge of that did little to dampen her mood.

"Ah, London. It has been far too long since Guinevere was last here. On her last trip she was fortunate enough to see the departure of a most splendidly built mortal ship, sadly it struck an iceberg and sank before she had a chance to enjoy a trip on it."

The sound of the golden haired immortal wasn't quite enough to sour her happiness, but the Einzbern heir did feel her spirits dip slightly.

Oh yeah, she'd come along.

It was grating in a way. Illya was impatient for her body to mature so she could show her onii-chan that she wasn't the little girl she often came across as. It was her own fault really, since she'd known that she'd never really have the chance to grow up, due to both her shortened lifespan and the changes made to her so she could function as a vessel for the Grail, and because of the secluded lifestyle she'd led she'd grown accustomed to always acting like the child she appeared to be. To be sure her family had hammered ruthlessness into her, and the loss and apparent betrayal of her father had taught her cruelty, but at the end of it her inexperience with the world, the state of her body and her desire to recapture her times of happiness had all combined to make her act far younger than she was.

Ahhhhh, she didn't want to stay the little sister forever! Technically she was the elder sibling.

Not that she'd tell Shirou though. As eager as she was to grow she also enjoyed the way he tended to spoil her as his nee-chan, a fact that she had no problem exploiting ruthlessly. This was testified to by the rather obscene number of games consoles, DVD box sets, video games, manga and models that had begun to seriously clutter up her rather large room. But even so . . .

Damn it! She wanted her boobs!

"I must confess that I have only spent a short amount of time in this city myself. For the last few hundred years I have avoided the major centres of populous and lived in the smaller towns and villages when needs be and in isolated or unmapped refuges the rest of the time. Such locations were ideal for me to conduct my research and build my power. Now that my divinity has been restored perhaps it is time to see what mortal civilization has to offer."

Illya's mood took a further dip as she remembered that there were two of them. Two ancient beings that just happened to look like irritatingly lovely examples of femininity. It really wasn't fair, one of them could have been about to watch the Titanic set out on its famous voyage while the other one had been around to witness the fall of the Roman empire, and yet they were still utterly unmarked by the passage of time.

On a purely rational level she knew she was being foolish in that she simultaneously envied them their maturity, both physically and mentally, and their eternal youth. To be irritated at both was irrational and childish.

But she couldn't help it. Though the plane trip had been fun and the experience of cabin service and in flight entertainment had been novel the presence of the two immortals had been like a nagging itch at the back of her mind the whole way.

"Was the Witengamot a power when you were last here?"

"Indeed, Guinevere had to be most careful not to alert them to her presence. Though their power would have been insufficient to defeat Sir Knight they possessed great resources and would have been able to inconvenience me a great deal had they tried."

"Well, with any luck we won't have to worry about that this time. Alice-san said that there'd be a car waiting for us to drive us to the hotel Yusuke booked. With any luck we'll be able to get to the meeting and deliver our message without any trouble."

For his part Shirou sounded oddly calm, if you considered the veritable fury he'd been in when they saw what had happened to their home and what had been stolen.

Illya knew that most of his anger was derived from frustration. He'd told her of the portal that he'd found, of how he'd been able to send a message to Sakura, and it hadn't been hard to see the enthusiasm burning in his eyes. She could understand why, this was the first hint that they'd had of a real way to get back to their home reality. It was no surprise that Shirou was eager to pursue it at full force.

Unfortunately such plans had been derailed because some idiot had gone and stolen the magical equivalent of a nuclear reactor and most likely had no idea how to properly operate it.

Had it simply been a battery then she had no doubt that Shirou would have simply given it up as lost and moved on to continue his search for Odysseus so that he could attempt to recreate the portal back home. Unfortunately the Gem Sword wasn't a battery; it was a bomb waiting to go off. One with hugely devastating potential.

So, instead of being able to track down the best lead on a way home that existed to their knowledge they were stuck chasing after this 'Black Prince' so that he wouldn't end up turning a major city into one big crater.

Which was why they were in England.

Shortly after returning to the mainland they had been greeted by a representative from the History Compilation Committee and had been provided with a thick portfolio detailing all the general information that the organization had on hand about the Campione that had broken into their home. There had been lots of second hand accounts about his various misadventures and battles, but those had been of only secondary interest to Shirou. What he'd been more interested in had been just how to find the thief that had his property.

Unfortunately it seemed that Alexander Gascoigne wasn't someone that often stayed in place. Since his passion as an Occultist lead him all over the world the thieving Campione rarely stayed in one place for long, meaning that any attempt to chase him down would result in a drawn out mess that could go on for months. Instead, upon advice from a revived Yusuke, Shirou had instead travelled to Britain to address not the Campione, but the organization that he had created.

The mage association known as the Royal Arsenal had come into being due to the growing following that the Black Prince had been able to gather in the early days after his ascension. Having a very eclectic membership which consisted of magic users, occultists, conmen, unrepentant thieves and even some common street hooligans that served as muscle. It seemed that the only qualification that one needed to join the organization was to be aware of the existence of the magical world. Well, that and being at least somewhat opposed to the Witengamot.

Since he wasn't able to track down the Campione himself Shirou was going to threaten the organization he'd built up. He was going to do it politely, but it was still going to be a threat.

So they had boarded a plane that had been privately chartered for him by the Committee and set out for the capital of England. The original plan had been for just Shirou and Yusuke to go, but that had only lasted for the length of time it took for everyone else in the manor to find out.

Once the beans had been spilled practically everyone in the mansion had weighed in with their own opinions. Illya had immediately let her brother know that if he left her behind she would have her minions book her her own flight to Britain on an even swifter plane so that he'd find her there waiting for him when he arrived. She'd been able to tell that he'd been considering fighting her on it; fortunately he seemed to realize that he was destined to lose and had saved them a lengthy argument that would have ended in her getting her way regardless.

She'd been quickly followed by both of the resident immortals though. Guinevere had stated that the Black Prince was a long standing enemy of hers, one that coveted the Holy Grail. Given that he'd already been brazen enough to break into Shirou's home and make off with one of his most valuable treasures Guinevere claimed that she didn't feel safe being away from her host. As the Einzbern heir watched her admit to her fears with unshed tears gathering in her eyes and a slight tremble to her lip, she'd known that there was no chance that the golden haired witch queen would be left behind.

Of course, as soon as it became clear that the Divine Ancestor would be part of the trip there was no way that Tiamat would accept being excluded. The sea goddess had commented that after his battle Snappy was going to be spending the next few weeks asleep so that he could recover from the wounds the divine serpent had inflicted upon him. With her new 'pet' unavailable to train the Mother of Dragons had decided that a trip to London might well be just what she wanted to pass the time.

It had taken Illya some effort to wrench her mind away from worrying thoughts about Tiamat eventually wanting to install some sort of pond or lake to keep her massively fanged tentacled monstrosity in and bringing it back to the present. Passports were given to customs, though in the case of all of them they were fakes that the committee had generously provided after they learnt of Shirou's plans.

Her brother was stuck showing the immortals how to go about it, and it was all Illya could do to keep herself from frowning. Originally Yusuke, freshly resummoned and happy to be back in the world of the living, had been going to accompany them and would have been in charge of showing Guinevere and Tiamat how to handle modern day air flight security and customs. Unfortunately his small staff had informed him of some sort of financial crisis that had hit while he'd been away and had literally gone down on their knees to beg for his help. In the face of such a plea the reincarnated soul had reluctantly decided he needed to remain behind. He'd been unhappy, but arrangements had been made.

The Committee agents they'd spoken to had assured them they would provide suitable guides and assistance, and that the Witengamot would also be extending every courtesy. Since Yusuke had been going as more of a guide than anything else it was decided that the arrangements would be enough.

Kaida and Manaka had been eager to go as well, however they had been told by their superiors to remain at home. It seemed that while the Committee was prepared to offer every aid it could to the King of Steel while he was on their homeland they weren't so eager to take his side on the international stage, especially when he was apparently going to confront a powerful foreign organization backed by one of his fellow Kings.

It might seem like a craven stance to take, but once she'd calmed down Illya could see where they were coming from. This promised to have the potential to explode, both literally and metaphorically, in the worst possible way. As of yet the History Compilation Committee hadn't made any sort of formal alliance with her brother, they were business partners as per their agreement and distant allies in regards to Heretic Gods, that was all. They weren't his vassals to side with him in war.

The Hime-Miko and the witchcraft user had been less than happy with the instructions given them, but Shirou had seized on them as a means of ensuring the young women wouldn't accompany him. She knew why, he was thinking that if things went off the rails then not having them around would mean less of a worry for him. Of course, by that logic it would be best if she herself hadn't come with him, but she'd stubbornly refused to follow though on that particular thought. While she might not be the equal of either of the two immortals the Einzbern heir knew herself to be more than a match for any mortal mage. Once you added her fake Servant into the equation she was strong enough to handle her own protection.

So that had decided the composition of the small party, a King, his sister, a fallen goddess and a powerful Divine Ancestor.

And now, here they were at Heathrow airport.

It had taken about thirteen hours to travel from Japan to England, long enough that everyone had been happy to be able to stretch their legs once they were off the plane. It was funny though, even though they'd taken so long it was still the same day due to them crossing time zones. Their plane had left Tokyo at nine in the morning, now it was only one in the afternoon.

Well, that might be what this country thought the time was, but as far as her body was concerned it was more like eleven o'clock in the evening. It would probably be about another hour before they got to the hotel that had been booked for them, so by that point Illya knew that she'd be feeling pretty shattered.

Fortunately Shirou had arranged for the meeting with the Witengamot to go through tomorrow, that should give her the chance to get a good night's sleep in so that her wits would be sharp for what was to come. The snowy haired girl knew that diplomatic negotiations wasn't something that she'd received any sort of training in, but she'd watched both series of 'Code: Geass' through several times as well as a few other anime based on intrigue and politics. That should be enough, right?

She just had to be careful and watch her words. After all, she was pretty sure she knew the kind of face that Shirou wanted to put forwards, so she would be calm, and graceful and-

"So, just when do you intend to attack the main base of the Royal Arsenal? I'd recommend doing so in the late morning, that's the time when most of the agents will be there and a swift enough assault should lead to plenty of captured or slain enemies."

Illya was ashamed to admit it, but on those words she almost swallowed her tongue. The casual way that the fallen goddess spoke of pretty much all out war was so jarring in contrast with her own thoughts of cunning diplomacy that she could really have no other reaction.

"A most brutal approach," Guinevere commented, "The Royal Arsenal is no soft target to be taken with ease. Some four years ago Guinevere considered doing the same, but discarded the option as impractical."

"King Shirou has far more strength to bring to bear," the ancient goddess replied, her tone dismissive, "With my own strength and that of my children added to the cause, as well as whatever you and his sister can contribute, this paltry mortal group will be nothing more than chaff in the wind before us."

"And how will that aid Sir Shirou in retrieving his lost treasure? More likely the Black Prince will cast it into the mouth of a fire mountain out of spite rather than return it. He has always struck me as a vindictive type beneath all his normal airs."

"I'm hoping to avoid a battle, if at all possible." Shirou broke into their conversation. "If we can avoid any sort of a fight it would be for the best."

"You intend to avoid chastising this thief?" Tiamat sounded slightly outraged at the very idea.

Illya supposed she understood why. The Mother of Dragons had her origins in a time far more ancient and less civilized than the modern world. Though worshiped by one of the earliest cultures it had still been part of a brutal and savage world. If a ruler was insulted then the insult would be paid for in blood, battles and wars were far more often than not the chosen means to settle disputes between powers of note. If a thief stole from a king then the thief would be lucky if they only lost a hand and not a head.

To simply let him go . . .

"I don't intend to let him get away without reprisal, but getting the Gem Sword back is more important at the moment."

The Eighth Campione walked at the rear of their small group, apparently content to follow and keep an eye on them all. His tone wasn't angry, but there was a slight hint of annoyance as he spoke of his fellow King.

"Attacking his organization isn't something I really want to do, but if it gets my sword back before something goes wrong with it due to his tampering then I'm willing to do it."

"Just as a king should!"

Tiamat spoke with certainty, her head held up imperiously and her shawl flapping behind her like the banner of an army. Guinevere didn't say anything, but she did radiate a certain pleasure at the notion of Shirou doing battle with the organization of her long time foe.

Irritated though it made her Illya found that she had to agree with them. This act of theft was the single most blatant challenge to Shirou's authority that he had encountered since actually becoming a King. Clashing with Heretic Gods was to be expected given that they were his natural enemies, but it was another thing when it was a fellow King. If nothing was done in retaliation then it made Shirou look weak, and a weak Campione was just asking for trouble. She had no doubt that her onii-chan could crush anyone stupid enough to try to take advantage of the perceived weakness, but it would still prove to be both a distraction and an annoyance. To prevent such a loss this theft had to be addressed now!

The Einzbern heir held her peace as they made their way to baggage reclamation and were presented with the small suitcases that they'd brought with them. Illya's was bright purple and decorated with vividly coloured pictures of those talking ponies from the American anime that she'd become quite fond of lately. By contrast Shirou's simple dark red bag was almost drab by comparison.

Hmmmm, that was something to think about. Before the recent trip her big brother had been on edge, constantly dancing between tension and anger. He'd done his best not to snap at anyone, but it had always been there, a strain that anyone interacting with him could feel. The trip to the island had done him considerable good, but while the sense of sullen irritation was now gone it had been replaced with a new feeling of urgency about him.

Again it was understandable, he'd finally found a way home and rather than pursue it he was having to deal with this. That in itself was enough to make anyone frustrated, but given how much Shirou wanted to be reunited with Sakura . . .

There were times she worried that he was pushing himself too hard. He attended school and had something of a friendship with Kusanagi Godou, but at the same time it was as though he was more going through the motions than actually living it. At home all he seemed to do was study and train. Sometimes he broke that to play a game with her or watch a film, but even that was more for her than it was for him.

As they proceeded through another long corridor Illyasviel Von Einzbern nodded to herself as she came to a decision.

Once this mess was straightened out she was going to devote some time to getting him to calm down and get a hobby. Dedication was good, and she knew that Shirou's perspective wasn't that of a normal person, his Reality Marble was proof of that, but grinding himself away wasn't a sustainable option.

She needed to get him a hobby, something simple and harmless which would let him decompress a bit.

Not Kamen Rider though, she still had flashbacks to that blasted nightmare.

Brrrrrrr.

No! She would never wear spandex!


-()-


Shirou wasn't tired, not physically anyway.

Healing up from the mess at the island had been surprisingly easy. Much to his surprise all the wounds that he'd taken during his battle with the god that Illya told him was most likely Odysseus had healed up by the time he regained consciousness. To be sure his prana reserves had been drained to almost being bone dry, but that was something that a couple of nights sleep had been able to take care of. The days it had taken to get this trip planned and implemented had been more than enough to enable him to fully recover.

So physically he felt fine. Emotionally though . . . that was a different story.

Before the Holy Grail War Shirou really hadn't paid too much attention to himself. Sure he'd trained and cared for his health, but that had all been as part of his slow advance to the goal of becoming an ally of justice. Training had been for that and as a way to help others; the same had been true of him caring for his body.

Since the War, since Sakura, he'd become somewhat more aware of himself though, and right now he knew he was worn down.

Things had been hectic for the last month or so. The mess with Venus, his weeks of ill temper, Tiamat's revelation of just what had been done to him and then the debacle on the island followed by this new mess. Physically he could take it, but emotionally . . .

Illya had been right about him needing to take some time off. This vacation had done him good, as had learning the root of his earlier ill humour. Once he had a chance once more he'd have to do something like it again, but that was still off in the future. For now, he'd just have to deal with it. It would be hard, but in the end he could deal. Emiya Shirou, no matter how he might change, was one that persevered; it was just a part of him.

The limo was waiting for them just outside the airport's exit. Buses and other vehicles were constantly moving, but the slim black car remained a long dark island of stillness in a sea of motion.

"King Shirou."

The well dressed man standing next to the car inclined his head in respect as they approached and opened the car door to admit them. The red haired teen was a bit unsure of what to do with his case, until a second man took the luggage from the others and then asked for his. Unable to find any reason not to Shirou ducked into the luxurious vehicle and sat down next to a window.

As the others followed him in he became aware of two facts. Firstly, despite the slim external appearance the inside of the limo was set up to be quite roomy, enough so that he and all his companions could comfortably fit in without crowding each other.

The second was that there was already someone there waiting for them.

"Ah, King Emiya Shirou, it is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance."

The one to address him was a beautiful young woman of clearly European ancestry with long platinum blonde hair and green eyes. At a guess he would say that she was a few years older than he was, but the bright and cheerful smile on her face lent her a slightly childish air that made guessing her age harder than he had expected. There was also something . . . off about her, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on but which started to niggle at him as soon as he set eyes upon her.

"Princess Alice," Illya said, her face lighting up, "I wasn't expecting to see you so soon."

"A King, a goddess, a Divine Ancestor and the young lady that is being called the White Princess of the East? How could I possibly fail to greet such an illustrious group as soon as I could?"

"Hmph, it would seem that the mages of this small country at least have suitable civility to show the correct courtesies to the powerful." Tiamat declared as she leant back in her seat.

"And to be met by such a distinguished individual," the golden haired Divine Ancestor commented, "It has been some time since we last had the pleasure of meeting Sage Princess, Guinevere is happy to meet you once more. Especially since we are both in much better company than we were the last time fate drew us together."

"Indeed, Alex is a most troublesome fellow to have to deal with," the princess of the Witengamot agreed, "But even for him it's going a bit far to so brazenly steal the treasure of a fellow God Slayer."

Her face took on a comically exaggerated expression of concern.

"I do hope that you haven't come to London to reduce the entire city to a sea of flames in order to punish the Black Prince for his arrogance. If that is the case then I should warn you that if you were to wipe the Witengamot from the face of the Earth that troublesome fellow might actually be a bit pleased."

Shirou was doing his best to once more assume his 'fake king' persona, but was finding it a bit harder to slip into than he remembered. The last few days on the island had been pleasant, just being himself and not needing to present a false face to the world. Maybe that was why assuming the cobbled together persona he'd invented while under false impressions was being difficult.

"I hardly think that any of my previous actions have done anything to warrant you believing I would do such a thing." He calmly declared as he leant back into the plush upholstery of the limo's seats. "Should I be concerned that my reputation abroad is so severely maligned?"

In response to his question Princess Alice simply smiled charmingly.

"Oh, do not think that it is your own reputation that is held in such fear, it is simply a sad fact that in the past your fellow Campione have brought great ill to this land. Once upon a time, some three and a half centuries ago, an irate King set a large portion of the city afire after being rejected by a witch he desired. To be sure the fire destroyed only buildings and caused little loss of life, but even so I'm sure you can understand why my colleagues are less than eager to recreate the Great Fire of London."

"Guinevere is sure that you can rely upon the chivalrous Sir Shirou to refrain from such actions."

The queen of the Divine Ancestors smiled back at Princess Alice with an expression every bit as bight and innocent as her appearance could produce.

In the silence that followed the limo's engine rumbled to life and the vehicle pulled out onto the road.

"Ah, we're on our way. I'm pleased to let you know that there were no difficulties with the reservations that your servant made for you. Indeed I must say that I was surprised that you booked not one but four of the top suites at The Lanesborough. Given such decadence I suppose Sir Shirou's title as the 'All Wealthy' is well deserved."

As he heard those words Shirou felt a prickle of worry make its way down his spine. When he'd asked Yusuke to book them rooms in a hotel he'd asked for them to be at 'a hotel with a good reputation, somewhere that would be suitable for my companions'. At the time he'd been more concerned that the accommodations that they were staying in would prove dissatisfactory for either Tiamat or Guinevere, if either of the powerful immortals felt slighted with where they were staying he could only imagine the kind of chaos that could ensue. On the one hand they might just demolish the entire place for daring to offend them. True, he thought Tiamat more likely to go that way than the blonde Divine Ancestor, but even so he thought she might do it if sufficiently provoked.

On the other hand they might start using their magic to 'improve' their suites. It might well strain even the resources of an organization like the Witengamot to explain why one of the most expensive suites of a famous hotel was suddenly decorated by a positively obscene amount of mother of pearl nacre. That, and producing suits of armour out of nowhere to decorate the place with. Definitely a headache he didn't need.

Wait . . . hang on a moment. What did she mean by 'such decadence'?

A horrible thought struck him as he mentally went over Yusuke's past purchases. He asked for a home and got a mansion, Illya asked for a boat and he got her a super yacht, Shirou had asked him for a decent hotel so . . .

"Tell me, is it true that The Lanesborough hotel is all that it's said to be?" His question was asked with the relaxed ease of one utterly secure in his power, but inside he could feel a half dozen butterflies having a tango contest in his stomach.

"Oh, have no fear of that," Princess Alice answered, her smile bright as ever. "It's one of the most prestigious and luxurious hotels in the entire world. I understand that your good servant has booked you the four best suites in the entire building, truly an awe inspiring display of the wealth of the King of Steel."

"Oh? And just how much is a suite there? I confess I left the details to Yusuke, so I'm not too sure."

Calmly, calmly was the way to go.

"Well, I seem to recall that the Royal Suite was something like eight thousand pounds a night, and you'll be staying three nights I believe. So . . . at the current exchange rate I think that's about . . . four and a half million yen?"

He should not be surprised; in the past his resurrected accountant had always seemed to prefer displays of wealth that tended towards the extreme. However in the past they had always been for things that were more tangible. A manor could be lived in, as could a yacht. Both would last for years, if they were well kept of course. But this . . . so much for just a room in a hotel? No, it would actually be much more, the number she'd quoted was just for one room, and they were booking four.

. . . In total it was going to come to something like eighteen million yen. For rooms.

"The price does seem extravagant, I know," The head of the Witengamot continued, oblivious to the odd combination of disbelief and despair that her words were evoking in the eighth Campione, "But rest assured that it will be worth it. Both royalty and foreign dignitaries of all sorts of descriptions have enjoyed the hospitality of The Lanesborough before. You shall find that the comfort and service offered is equal to that of even the finest palace in the world."

Right, he knew just how he was going to deal with this. He was going to simply ignore it. What did it matter to him if Yusuke wasted such ungodly amounts of money on a bed for the night? At this point his dislike of it was more a matter of habit and preference than anything with a basis in reality. His purely legitimate wealth was already approaching the levels where money was more an intellectual concept than a tangible property.

So, he wouldn't think about it.

Though, he had to remember to make some major donations to some charity or other once he got back.

Resisting the urge to shake his head Shirou focused back on the White Hime-Miko.

"Well, my prepared accommodations aside, I trust that you've made the arrangements I asked for?"

"But of course. It would be most foolish of me to defy a King after all, and the fact that your commands were made so politely was a very pleasant change from having to deal with Marquis Voban or the Black Prince."

Princess Alice gestured to the countryside as the limo drove towards London, a gesture of general indication.

"I'm afraid that we weren't able to locate Alexander Gascoigne since he has been moving around so much. However we did send a message to the Royal Arsenal letting them know how much their commander in chief's actions had vexed you as well as the fact that you had come to Britain in order to have . . . words with him. Somehow, and I assure you I have no idea how it happened, they're under the impression that your wrath is so great that you are considering descending upon their headquarters with an army of undead warriors and curse monsters behind you, and that they must lend you all possible aid to forestall such an apocalypse. Isn't it strange how they can come up with such fanciful ideas?"

Shirou had heard the expression 'like butter wouldn't melt in their mouths' in regards to the apparent innocence of others, but this was the first time seeing someone that seemed able to really pull it off. The young woman sitting before him looked so utterly guiltless that for a moment he actually found himself believing her every word.

Then he reminded himself of just who he was dealing with.

For all her humble and innocent appearance Alice Louise was the chosen speaker of the most powerful magical association in the United Kingdoms for a reason. She was powerful and intelligent, enough so that she stood at the pinnacle of the heaven-oriented system of witchcraft despite her relatively young age. She was shrewd and clever enough to be well respected both in her own nation and abroad. If she was telling him this in such a transparent way then it was because she wanted him to know so that he'd act in a certain way.

And maybe she knew that he'd know that and had planned accordingly. But if she'd thought so far ahead then it was almost certain that she'd know that she'd know that he knew she knew . . . was that too many 'knows'?

On second thoughts, he was just going to take in on faith that she was most likely smarter than he was. If he got into that whole 'I know you know I know you know' business he was liable to drive himself out of his mind. Or at the very least give himself a splitting headache.

"If that's the case then they agreed to the meeting?"

"Yes. The personal attendant of the Black Prince will be there along with a couple of other high rankers. They'll be sure to pay your words all due attention if they wish to avoid some dire fate. The meeting is set up to take place near the Wellington Arch. Apparently they believe it's less likely that you'll strike them down with your Authorities if they meet you in a highly public location."

It was at times like this that Shirou was really concerned about the kind of reputation he was developing.


-()-


"HOW?! HOW CAN THEY DO THIS?!"

The shout of outrage was accompanied by the sound of wood breaking as one of the empty crates in the abandoned warehouse was smashed into splinters.

"Homura, please calm down."

"Calm? Calm?! You want me to be calm after this?!"

The sheer venom in the former field agent's voice was enough to make Masashi take a step away from him under pure reflex. Homura had never been a violent man, at least not in the past, but now there was something distinctly ugly in his eyes.

"This . . . this isn't the greatest insult that could have been dealt to King Emiya, but that's only because his home is still unburnt and his sister hasn't been despoiled!"

Masashi couldn't help but shudder at the thoughts that particular suggestion brought into being. It was a well known fact in the Committee that the Eighth Campione doted on his sister because he loved her dearly. It was also well known what he'd threatened to do to her kidnappers back when the Circle had captured her. Though Illyasviel had been able to implement her own escape, and dealt rather messily with the ringleader behind it, her adopted brother had still been more than ready to inflict a living hell on those responsible. If someone were to actually violate her . . .

The word 'apocalyptic' sprang to mind.

Regardless of his friend's thoughts Homura continued to rant.

"This was it! A perfect opportunity! All the Committee needed to do was to throw their support behind his majesty. It would have been perfectly acceptable, we've been stolen from as well, it would have been a simple matter of presenting a unified face to the one that had wronged us all.

"After Emiya-sama had succeeded in punishing the foolish King that stood against him it would have been the ideal time to announce the Committee's allegiance to him. Allowances could have been made for Kusanagi Godou-sama, such as leaving Yuri-chan and Ena with him, so that friendship could have been maintained. It would all have been perfect!"

He made a stabbing gesture with one hand and another old crate exploded into little more than wood dust.

"Instead what do they do? They grant his majesty some paltry information and then wave goodbye as he travels to Britain to demand redress for this insult! This was our chance and they just squander it?!"

Alright, Masashi wasn't much more than a glorified clerk in the structure of the Committee, but even with his lack of field experience he could see that there was something wrong here. Homura had been talented, but he'd never had any sort of aptitude for directed destruction. By the same token he'd never been a particularly aggressive individual. He had preferred avoiding confrontation whenever possible. His area of expertise had always been analysis and dismantlement of complex enchantments.

This sudden talent for pure destruction . . . there was something unnatural about it. There was always a chance that a skilled practioners could somehow branch out in regards to their talent, especially if they were able to acquire some sort of talisman or weapon through which they could channel their magic in some new way. But to just gain new power out of nowhere, that was normally only possible with the benediction of either a god or a King. Well, there were other ways, but such methods always had costs, costs that were entirely too great for any sane man to pay.

"They have to be made to understand, King Emiya is the only choice. The only one! Can't they be made to see that? Why can't they see it? Is it something about them, do they not want to see it? Are they afraid? If they do swear to him then they risk losing some of their power in the Committee, is that it?"

The problem was that the minor magic user was no longer sure that his old friend qualified as a sane man any more, not entirely.

"So, the Committee can't change, or maybe it won't change. If that's the case, then what can I do? How can I change it? Should I change it? There're other options. Start a new organization; offer my loyalty and service to his majesty. Yes, that could work. But then what could I offer? Would it be a true service to abandon the Committee and just bring a few followers? No resources, no artefacts, nothing, just us. Is that enough, is it acceptable?"

He should have seen something like this coming, they all should have. Ever since Homura had begun spinning the various loose elements in the Committee into some sort of cohesive structure he'd been under ever increasing pressure. That pressure had only taken on greater impetus over the last few days as events around the King of Steel had continued to gain momentum. Homura had been constantly pushing himself, trying to be the leader that he thought his faction needed in order to gain the ear of the Heads of the Four Families.

Over that past few days, ever since King Emiya had left for his vacation on some sort of rented island, Masashi had noticed that the former field agent was growing increasingly . . . tense? On edge? Whatever it was these sudden outbursts of violence were just another symptom.

"Yes, there's got to be a way, a way to make the Committee's main members see. Maybe the heads don't want to give up their power, but there's got to be a way to make the other see."

What really worried him was just how far those symptoms would progress.


-()-


Sir Denis Iceman was not a man that lost his cool easily.

In the end he supposed it had all started with his name. With a name like that having a reputation for a hot temper was out of the question, so from an early age he had cultivated his control and patience to the point where he was able to maintain his calm demeanour under even the most trying circumstances. As he had grown up it had served him well as he had risen quickly in rank amongst the independent practioners in Europe and then in the ranks of the newly formed Royal Arsenal.

A cool demeanour and casual competence had led to him being a leader, one that could be confidently followed. It had lead to him being a fighter, one that never lost his head. It had led to him being a trusted, if occasionally somewhat melancholic subordinate, one whom others could be confident in.

And it had also led him to not commit suicide by trying to choke his King to death.

In his opinion that last one was probably the most important.

The Black Prince was never the easiest sovereign to serve; he was a perplexing mix of wild whims and meticulous planning. In the past Iceman had seen his liege concoct devilishly cunning schemes that had drawn Heretic Gods in and then striped away their every advantage until they were left helpless before his killing blow. He'd seen him negotiate with foreign magical organizations and make their most gifted leaders dance to his plans. And despite that he'd also seen his King abandon schemes and plans to pursue something that had caught his eye. He'd seen the Black Prince steal some artefact or treasure with no apparent regard to the consequences that would issue from that theft.

All in all he regarded his ability to not tear his hair out in frustration at his King's actions to be the only reason that he wasn't yet as bald as a freshly laid egg.

But there were days when that control was tasted. Oh there were days . . .

And today was shaping up to be one such day, if he was any judge. When looked at from that perspective it was hardly a surprise that he often felt somewhat depressed in regards to his relationship to his King.

At the moment he sat at a simple wooden picnic table that had been set up on the lawn next to the famed Wellington Arch. Off to the side he could hear the quiet murmur of the passing pedestrians, but that was mere background noise. The vast majority of his attention was focused upon the small group approaching him.

He could honestly say that King Emiya Shirou was something of a surprise to him. He knew that he shouldn't be taken aback by the Eighth Campione's youth, not when his own King had been younger when he gained his first Authority, but for some reason he was. He supposed it had something to do with the potent reputation that the King of Steel had amassed over the months since his initial appearance. He had fought and defeated many gods in a short time, and among them had been Mordred, a war god with a most fearsome reputation.

Of course, his companions had reputations of their own to boast. His sister was regarded as a prodigy mage who had somehow managed to bind a divine beast to her will, and a very powerful one at that. The reports of the being fighting Sun Wukong's subordinate beasts proved that, as did the fact that the grey giant had managed to stand up to the King of Steel while he was under Venus's control and not be annihilated in short order. An achievement that could normally only be attributed to subordinate deities.

Tiamat might be reduced from her full power, but even so Iceman doubted that she would have viewed him as more than an insect in terms of him being a threat to her. Gods, no matter how weakened they might be, were an existence beyond a normal human like him, and her every tiny demeanour spoke of the fact. In truth it was somewhat strange to be in her presence like this, whilst serving with Alexander Gascoigne he'd been exposed to the overwhelming auras that gods emanated before. This, being in the presence of a deity that was peaceful, was almost entirely new to him.

As she approached he couldn't help but take in the sight of her. She was beautiful in a way that humans couldn't equal, yet at the same time there was enough humanity to her that he could appreciate that beauty without being terrified by it. Tall, young in appearance, but mature at the same time, a woman rather than a girl, her hair was blood red with tiny shots of blue running through it in a strange contrast that drew the eye to the volume of her wavy tresses. Her figure was luscious beneath the close fitting clothing she had chosen and her face was that of a beautiful queen.

For a moment Sir Iceman found himself forgetting the situation he was in and instead becoming lost in the sheer loveliness before him. It was only for a moment though, because then his discipline reasserted itself. With a shake of his head he dragged his eyes away from the goddess and tried to focus on something, on anything, else. It amazed him that Emiya Shirou could actually live in the same domicile as such a being and not be captivated by her, yet there he was walking at her side with a casualness that spoke of easy familiarity, something that only served to highlight the fact that he was a true King.

His eyes moved from the young King and settled on his fourth companion, the only one that the representative of the Royal Arsenal had ever encountered before.

Guinevere.

In appearance she hadn't changed at all, she remained the same beautiful child that she had been when he first saw her. Today she was clad in a white dress with a cream coloured lining that went nicely with her elaborately curled hair and a small pendent adorned her brow. In one hand she carried a closed white parasol which she swung in a childish manner as she walked along.

Looking at her made him remember the first time they'd met, though in truth he had simply been an accessory to the meeting between her and Alexander. It had been shortly after the Black Prince had slain the Bull god Minos and gained his third Authority, and the meeting had taken place in a nice quiet bar, but despite the humble location the memory was etched into the Dutchman's mind.

At the time he hadn't realized just whom he was speaking to, only that the girl had clearly been a talented witch. Even Alexander had been initially dismissive of her, though that had changed after she revealed her knowledge of the nature of gods and of the Holy Grail. That incident had been the start of the years long feud between her and his King.

Given how much more powerful a Campione was to a Divine Ancestor like her the enmity between them should not have lasted long and should have ended in her utter defeat. But guarded as she was by Lancelot, benefiting from the power of the Holy Grail and being as cunning and shrewd as she'd proven to be, Guinevere had turned out to be more of a handful than her appearance had suggested.

So, not only was he facing a powerful Devil King, he was also dealing with his three companions, all of whom were forces to be reckoned with in their own right.

Oh well, once more into the breach it would seem.

As King Emiya and his entourage drew near Sir Iceman and his companions stood up and bowed respectfully.

"King Emiya Shirou, it is a pleasure to meet you for the first time. I am Dennis Iceman, retainer to Alexander Gascoigne, and it will be my duty to speak on behalf of him and the Royal Arsenal today."

To his sides Iceman could hear his companions offering their own words, but he paid them little mind. The fact was, uncharitable though it might be to say so, the two of them were really little more than living props. Alfred Denningmark might be the vice Chairman of the Royal Arsenal and Malachi Pierce might be the head archivist for the same organization, but in the end they didn't really have anything to say. He was the one with experience dealing with the overwhelming presence of a King, and he spoke with all the authority vested in him as the companion of the Black Prince. Their only purpose in this was to serve as witnesses and to lend greater weight to his words by their simply being here. That aside they might as well have been a pair of carved logs for all the meaningful input they might have had.

No, he couldn't let his thoughts wander like this; he had to stay focused on the young King before him. He knew from the reports that he'd read that the King of Steel favoured a more formal and courtly method of address when meeting with new factions or noteworthy individuals. Once they became better known to him a certain level of familiarity and casualness would be allowed, but for the initial meeting strict formality was probably the best way to go.

For his part Emiya Shirou simply nodded back in acknowledgement and then took one of the seats on the opposite side of the wooden table.

"Guinevere, if you please."

At the short sentence the witch queen nodded and made a gesture with her free hand. As Iceman felt the magic settle about them it took all his control not to groan with irritation. This was a barrier spell of some sort, one that would keep them from being noticed by the citizenry as they went about their daily lives.

Well, there went one of the few minor advantages he'd had. It had been his hope that by arranging this meeting somewhere fairly public he'd be able to at least give the God Slayer some pause in the expression of his anger if things went too far south. With this barrier up that was no longer an issue, to be sure King Emiya would probably refrain from using any of his more destructive abilities, but that simply meant that he couldn't blast them into their component particles. If he wanted to slowly skin them all alive, that wouldn't be an issue. A cheerful thought, that.

"Now then, let's get down to business."

The King of Steel placed his palms on the surface of the table and directed a level stare at the representatives of the Royal Arsenal. There was no hostility in his eyes, no malice or even disdain. In a way Iceman had been hoping that there would be, arrogance and antagonism were things he knew how to deal with, this calm confidence . . . not quite so much.

"We both know the reason for this meeting, your King, the man to whom you and your organization are sworn, has broken into my home and stolen my property."

Oh, did he know it. Alexander had done some reckless things in the past, he'd even once started a short lived but intense war with the Witengamot, but this was an order of magnitude above his usual escapades. Stealing the treasure of a fellow King, just what had been going through his mind at the time?

"Your King is a . . . difficult man to track down. By the time I was informed that he was in Thailand he'd already been spotted in an airport in Turkey, and once his location there was found he was already heading somewhere else. I have no plan to be caught in an endless game of cat and mouse for my property, so I have come here. By rights I should be exacting retribution upon his organization for the insults done me, but I like to think I'm a reasonable person.

"Get in touch with your King and have him return what he's taken. If that is done then we can avoid any . . . unpleasantness."

Alright, it wasn't quite as bad as he'd feared it could be, but even so the situation was still pretty dire. If worst came to worst then Royal Arsenal could survive this. Plans and contingencies had existed and been ready for use ever since the Black Prince had first come into conflict with one of his fellow Kings. If they came under attack from a Campione then the organization would abandon their headquarters and scatter in every direction as fast as they could, while taking as much of their documentation and resources as they could. If that happened then without a doubt much research and personnel would be lost, but it was estimated that at least thirty five percent of the organization would survive. Enough to rebuild, at least in theory anyway.

Of course such a plan was a doomsday plot, a last resort that nobody wanted to actually put into effect, especially since it was really only a stopgap measure. If a King was enraged enough to seriously attempt to annihilate their organization then, barring interference from Alexander Gascoigne, there was nothing they could do but delay them since the end result was pretty much inevitable.

Even as such thoughts ran through his mind Sir Iceman reached into his coat and drew out a small envelope. Holding it out he addressed the red haired young man.

"Please accept this letter which our commander-in-chief has sent to us by magic. His orders were that it be delivered to you with all due haste and be for your eyes only."

The envelope was small, but made of high quality paper with a golden embroidered edging and a seal of old fashioned wax with the distinctive coat of arms that the Royal Arsenal used as a sort of flag. It was also their seal for these kinds of documents, something to lend them a bit of extra gravitas, as it were.

If Alexander was using it for this then it probably meant that he was going all out to be formal and impressive. With any luck the letter would be a well thought out explanation for his actions and just the thing to smooth the Eighth Campione's ruffled feathers. Though you wouldn't know it given how he acted most of the time the Black Price could be a charming and highly diplomatic negotiator. If he brought that talent to bear here then there might be a chance to avoid any unpleasantness.

King Shirou unfolded the note within the envelope and read the contents out loud.

To King Emiya Shirou of Japan;

This humble one cannot meet you in person because he recently decided to execute a little plan in your home country. With regard to this, I respectfully advise you to watch without interfering. Reckless action in this situation would be meaningless. I shall warn you once more, I hope you will stand back and watch as things unfold. Whether curiosity, nosiness, heroism, human impulse, or thrill-seeking, all interference stemming from such emotions will be most unwelcome. In regards to the toy that I borrowed from you; don't be concerned, I will return it once I've finished with it. On another note, your home was most inhospitable to newcomers; the implosive vacuum trap was especially irritating. Perhaps you should address this in the future.

P.S. If it pleases you, I recommend taking a little vacation with your companions at my hometown of Cornwall? It is only dutiful for me to order my subordinates to welcome your arrival. We have already confirmed arrangements, and hope you can enjoy our hospitality for a month or two.

As he listened to the calm monotone of the King of Steel's words Iceman found himself wondering if he'd somehow deeply offended Alex without noticing it. He could think of no other reason that his King would have him deliver such an . . . insultingly dismissive and unapologetic message to a fellow God Slayer personally if he didn't intend for the messenger to be annihilated in a fit of pique.

Really, what had he done to deserve such a cruel and troublesome King? Had he defiled a temple in a previous life? Maybe seduced a virginal priestess or twenty? Perhaps engaged in a few cannibalistic orgies? He couldn't really think of anything else that might account for this less than fortunate turn of events.

To either side of him his two companions had slumped in their chairs and were pretty much nothing more than trembling lumps of terror. He supposed he had to give them credit for not losing control of their bowls, at the very least they'd be able to meet their ends with some dignity.

For his part Emiya Shirou was not yet raging or displaying any sort of violent emotion, instead he was simply staring down at the letter that he still held as though it were nothing more than a menu at a restaurant. That could be good, Iceman supposed, on the other hand it might simply be a sign that the internal pressure was building and when it broke free it would be that much more violent.

Internally he soothed his fraying nerves by imagining what it would be like to bludgeon Alexander to death with blunt and heavy. It was an absurd and unrealistic little fantasy, but it did make him feel a bit better.


-()-


Quite honestly Shirou wasn't too sure what he should do now.

On the one hand he'd been hoping to be able to resolve this entire mess without having to resort to violence. Illya might still be a bit on the bloodthirsty side underneath her layers of cuteness and general adorability, but Shirou still had enough of his old self in him to prefer the path of least bloodshed. On the other hand it couldn't be denied that he'd been rather looking forward to the opportunity to avenge himself upon the fool that had broken into his house and stolen his property. It was a spiteful and petty part of him, one that he decided to credit to the Archer influence on him, that wanted such a fight, but it was there.

The problem was that in this situation neither choice was all that viable. This message was nothing more than a thinly veiled brush off, an insult really, so it would seem that his fellow Campione had no intention of offering either apology or redress. The problem was that battle wasn't really an option either given that his enemy was on the other side of the hemisphere.

That left only the members of the Royal Arsenal as potential targets. If he was to look at this from a purely cold blooded perspective then smashing the magical organization to bits was his next logical step. Their King had defied and insulted him and had made no effort to make the matter right, as such exacting retribution by decimating his underlings was a perfectly valid next step. It wouldn't be too difficult, if he was ruthless enough. All he had to do was kill these three here, resurrect them as slaves and then have them serve as guides to a couple of his more vicious Curse beasts. Without a Campione to defend them the rank and file of the Royal Arsenal would be slaughtered in short order.

Not that he planned to, of course.

No, any motions to actually attack the organization would simply be bluffs; he'd made the decision last night. He had no intention of attacking people simply because their leader was, to put not too fine a point on it, an asshole. He might have changed a lot in the past few months, but he hadn't changed that much.

Of course, that left him with the question of just what he was going to do now. He had to do something; it was a necessity for the reputation that he'd been carefully cultivating since becoming aware of the mages in this new world. To be sure he no longer needed that reputation for the reasons he'd originally thought he did, but even so he couldn't allow that reputation to simply fall apart. If nothing else, then allowing it go to pieces in such a way could be perceived as a weakness.

Oh well, when in doubt plunge recklessly forward. It wasn't quite the way he preferred to do things, but he had to admit it had worked for his dimensional counterparts.

"You realize that you King's response puts me in a . . . difficult position, correct?"

Okay, channelling Gilgamesh would be useless at this point, in this sort of situation the only response he'd give would probably be to rant something about 'mongrels', reduce London to a blasted ruin, find the headquarters of Royal Arsenal and destroy that too before setting off to hunt down Alexander Gascoigne. So, that left him with two other Kings to use as examples. Iskander would probably have burst out laughing and then somehow managed to charm the whole organization into switching their loyalty to him. Then there was Saber . . .

"Your majesty . . . I don't know what to say. Our King has made his position clear, but-"

"Your 'King' has hung you in the wind and left you to my mercy." Shirou declared, cutting off whatever the mage knight might have been about to say.

Saber, how would Saber handle this? Well, she definitely wouldn't have made the subjects pay for the king's foolishness, not when it wouldn't even be a real fight. Stern, that was it. She'd be stern, but not cruel, not if she wasn't forced to it. So a price did have to be paid, but it didn't have to be paid in blood. Not if these people were smart enough to realize an offered out when it was presented to them.

"Do you think you're deserving of mercy? Or do you think that I would be justified in demanding blood be paid for your King's actions?"

He asked the question in as level a tone as he could, one that betrayed no hint of anger or irritation.

In response this Sir Iceman kept his own cool most admirably, the only external signs of any sort of stress being the slight tensing of the muscles in his forearms. Even that was subtle, something that Shirou would have missed under other circumstances. The only reason he did spot it was that a small memory of Archer's had swum to the surface, something about watching a target's wrists to catch when they were going to make a move.

"The Royal Arsenal has no desire to be your enemy," he stated, absolute sincerity evident in his voice. "However at the same time we are loyal to his majesty, the Black Prince. However, if we can perform some service or provide something, anything, to placate you majesty's wrath without compromising that loyalty I can promise that we will do so."

Well, not the most subtle attempt to pay him off that there could have been, but it was something he could work with. The truth was that he did need some things, books, tomes scrolls, ancient information that wasn't exactly easy to come by. Normally getting it would be like pulling teeth from an unwilling subject, but if they thought that they were in danger of an all out attack, well, that would make them a bit less reluctant wouldn't it?

"There . . . may be something."

The smile that Shirou pushed onto his lips wasn't a characteristic one for him, indeed he imagined it would have been more at home on the face of a shark that had just scented blood, but in the circumstances it played to the role he was working with.

Now, which books had he needed again?


-()-


Alexander Gascoigne leaned back into the plush leather of the armchair he was relaxing in and took a sip from the glass in his hand.

He knew that under these circumstances it would have been something of a tradition to be sipping on a particularly fine vintage of red wine or some sort of champagne, but he really hadn't been in the mood. The weather was fairly hot and chilled alcohol really hadn't been what he'd been looking for.

That was why he was currently enjoying fresh squeezed orange juice with ice.

The room he was staying in was one of the better suites available in one of the better hotels in Tokyo's Chinatown. Nothing too extravagant, but enough to be comfortable while he waited.

The problem was that his plan had been slightly derailed when Guinevere left the country with Emiya Shirou when he went to England.

His plan had been going so well too. After his meeting with Cecilia Cheung he'd taken a trip to America to stop in at the University of Los Angeles to have a meeting with the famed Professor West. The meeting had gone well enough and Alex had left with another Angel Bone in his possession, one that was just what he needed in order to get the artefact he'd acquired from the History Compilation Committee to work. He'd also had a brief encounter with John Pluto Smith, but some fast talking on his part had been enough to prevent any confrontation.

The King of Los Angeles hadn't been too happy with his senior God Slayer though. In addition to his treatment of the good professor, the fifth Campione had also been displeased with the way the Black Prince had robbed the King of Steel. That had been something Alex hadn't planned on, he knew that there were some friendly ties between the American Campione and his Japanese counterparts, but he hadn't expected the fifth King to be quite so . . . vehement in his disapproval. Still, it hadn't come to battle, and John Pluto Smith had been willing to accept that he was moving against a Divine Ancestor, that had been enough to allow Alex to leave without trouble.

He imagined that when the King of Los Angeles learnt exactly which Divine Ancestor the Black Prince was moving against he was going to be less than happy.

Guinevere had been making herself a much more difficult target to deal with in the last few months. That had been one of the things that had concerned him of late. For years the Witch Queen of ancient Briton had always been solitary save for her godly protector. To be sure she had used servants and minions in the past, but for the most part she had been on her own. She certainly hadn't interacted with Campione, well, not apart from the time that she'd tried to recruit him by offering him the Holy Grail.

Alex had given that particular incident a lot of thought over the years since it had happened. He'd done his research and had confirmed that, at least as far as all the records he had access to were concerned, Guinevere had never made such an offer to any other Devil King before. To his mind that hinted that it had been an attempt at a new strategy. Alex knew that his desire to find the Holy Grail was no secret; his father had been obsessive in his pursuit of it to the point that it had cost him his wife and then later his life. His son wasn't as fervent a seeker as his father had been, but Alex still carried a great desire to find the legendary cup, both for his father's memory and for himself. To the queen of the Divine Ancestors that must have appeared to be an exploitable weakness.

The chance to gain the aid of a Campione through bribery must have been far too attractive to resist, but in the end it had backfired on her. Rather than gaining a bought and paid for servant Guinevere had instead made herself the personal target of the Fourth Campione.

Since then she had steered clear of God Slayers whenever she could, but that had changed when she encountered Emiya Shirou. Her attending his 'Feast of Kings' had come as a total surprise to Alex, such an open announcement of her presence, not to mention her actual attendance, had been utterly without precedent for her. That she had afterwards remained in Japan had only compounded the problem, but nothing had prepared him for what had come next.

He'd suspected for a time that Guinevere had been hoping to charm the newest of the God Slayers into serving as a bodyguard. Given her innocent appearance and childish personality it seemed likely that she could have persuaded an inexperienced Campione to be willing to aid her. Even so he'd been taken aback when he heard that she was actually a guest in the King of Steel's manor.

It had also put something of a crimp in his own plans since so long as she remained there she could enjoy the protection of the eighth King, a protection he'd been reluctant to test.

Still, that was something to be dealt with in the future, for now he was simply glad that he didn't have to deal with the King of the Underworld as an enemy.

What was nagging at him was the parting comment that John Pluto Smith had voiced just before leaving.

"On this occasion I will forgive your rudeness, but there is something you should consider. Our latest junior in Japan is quite apt at sowing chaos in the plans of those that embroil him in their schemes. Mordred, Venus, Tiamat and Jord all learnt that to their considerable cost. I should warn you that I feel that your goals might be best served by you returning the property you stole from young Shirou as soon as possible and apologizing profusely. I doubt you'll take my advice though, so this King will simply watch your actions from afar . . . and laugh at what the results might be."

Then, his ridiculous cloak billowing in the winds, the King of Los Angeles had departed.

Through the suites window.

Despite the fact that they were more than ten stories up.

Really, common sense and John Pluto Smith didn't even have a nodding relationship, their only interactions consisted of the King of the Underworld doing whatever he pleased whilst common sense huddled in a fetal position in the corner and sobbed.

From what he'd been able to find out Emiya Shirou was a King of a similar bent, though his own departures from the paths of convention and common sanity had less to do with costumes and more to do with the upending of all past paradigms. Still, such chaos wasn't all powerful, with some trickery and planning one could account for even as unpredictable a factor as a God Slayer.

He was a tad concerned about how the second Japanese Campione might react to his letter, but he was fairly sure that he had a decent bead upon the character of Emiya Shirou.

For all his apparent ruthlessness and power it seemed that at his core the eighth Campione was a protector before anything else. When he had arrived in Japan his rapid building of a firm powerbase and a centre of operations that could also serve as a veritable fortress had seemed to be a preparation for a campaign of conquest. However as time passed the feared surge of aggression never came. Instead Emiya Shirou began open trade and discussion with the History Compilation Committee and then had his servants begin to construct an international organization that quickly became very wealthy.

His rise in the supernatural world had been similarly spectacular, what with his slaying of Mordred, hosting the infamous Feast of Kings and then the whole mess with Venus and Jord. Time and again he'd managed to come out of it seemingly stronger than before, enough so that he knew certain organizations were keeping a close eye on him.

However out of all of it Alexander had noted a pattern that he wasn't sure others had spotted. Almost all of the actions that the eighth Campione undertook seemed to be oriented towards defending those close to him. When looked at from that perspective his actions all made sense as they slowly built to produce a veritable fortress of power, influence and allies. Emiya Shirou was himself unusual in that despite being a relatively new Campione he had amassed a large pool of Authorities quite fast. Likewise he had also been unusual in just how fast he'd been able to leverage those powers into wealth. Any new Campione could quickly gain riches by demanding tribute of the area they staked out as territory, if such was their inclination, but the wiser and more dangerous Kings took the longer road of securing their own sources of riches.

Power and money, those had been gained in a short time only to be followed months later by his sister taking control of the Circle of the Chosen and added their resources to their small but growing empire. Later that had been built upon and their web had spread further and further.

To be sure the collective assets owned by the King of Steel were still much smaller by far than the networks owned by the various magical societies, but it was the sheer speed with which it had sprung up. If maintained even a quarter of it's current rate of progress it would only be a couple of years before it surpassed the minor societies and became peer to the likes of the History Compilation Committee or the Wolf's Brotherhood.

The crowning touch had been the securing of an actual alliance with a Heretic Goddess. Tiamat might be reduced in power, but even so she was existence that towered over any mortal mage. Guinevere must have seen the way the wind was blowing and sought to take advantage of the good will she'd built up with the eight Campione. If she got in early enough then the growing fortress would only serve to protect her as well while she continued her search for her true liege.

Well, that might have been her plan, but his own actions should have neatly derailed at this point. With 'Avalon' raised the queen of the Divine Ancestors. If there was anything that could get her to abandon a plan already underway and come running then it was the chance to be reunited with the god that was the origin of the King Arthur legend. She'd come, and no doubt she'd have her own plans and trump cards ready. But that was alright, he'd made plans of his own and painstakingly analysed every resource that his target had available.

The Holy Grail would be his, and Guinevere would fall. And if the King of Steel decided to make himself an obstacle . . . well, he had a plan for that too.

As he thought that his eyes flicked over to the cupboard in which he was storing the Gem Sword, that and a couple of other surprises.


-()-


Athena laid her hand upon the stone before her and tasted the power within.

Yes! Her suspicions were confirmed. The rune inscribed tablet before her did contain the magical power of a fellow Mother Goddess of the earth. Reaching out with her own power the child like divinity dug into the spells that kept that force contained and began to slowly pull them apart.

It had been a few weeks since her departure from the lands of the Far East, time enough for her to have crossed many lands and return to the western shores of her home continent. For some time she had tarried in the country of her naming, seeing if she could locate other remnants of such goddesses as Hera or Demeter. Her search had proven fruitless though, so she had moved to other countries in hopes of finding what she sought.

North, that had been the direction she'd chosen, and so she had continued until she was in the lands held by the people that the Greeks that worshiped her had once called the Goths. She vaguely recalled that in modern times the meaning of that title had changed, but to her it was an unimportant detail. What concern had she of what the mortals called one group or another, and what meaning a name now took? To her these were the lands of the Goths, what they called themselves now held as much importance to her as the chittering of the ants in her path. None what-so-ever.

Still, it had been in this old country that she had found that which she had sought in the form of the huge tablet that now rose up before her.

She had sensed it from a long way off, but the 'taste' of its power upon the winds had been a diffuse thing, barely enough for even one of her prodigious skill to notice. It had been a long and tedious process, but she had eventually been able to close in upon the source of the emanations. And here she was, deep in a cavern about as far from mortal civilization as it was possible to get in these modern times where mankind had spread so profusely.

The tablet she had found was of enormous proportions, easily the size of a pair of castle gates, and every inch of it covered in ancient runes that had been carved into it with painstaking precision.

Athena had studied the runes for some time before she had reached out for the power within. Despite her reduced state the goddess of darkness and wisdom had lost none of her caution, so she had not interest in biting a poisoned apple. There was power to be had here, but she had to be careful that it was a power that she could take into herself and consume without fear of it trying to consume her in turn.

The power of other Mother goddesses was partly compatible with her own, but there were some aspects that could poison the union, incompatibilities that would leave her weaker rather than stronger.

Yes, the power within the tablet felt compatible with her. There were some points of disharmony; the goddess to whom the power had belonged had been a mother of monsters whilst Athena was a maiden goddess. The goddess had been a being of passions and violence where Athena was calm and calculating. Still these differences weren't enough to overturn the more primal similarities. Both goddesses were of the earth, both of them had ties to snakes, and both of them were 'degraded' from their original form.

Finding herself curious the fallen goddess drew upon her power to access the Memories of the Void. Who had this goddess been? And how had her power come to be sealed as it was?

The answers poured into her mind as her Authority provided her with the information she sought.

Old, this goddess had been very old, a deity that had come down from the far north, from ice and snow, in order to find the greener and fertile lands of the south. That was enough to cause Athena's brow to furrow slightly. An earth mother that had been born in the frozen wastes? That should be impossible. Reaching out once more she drew in more knowledge.

She had spent a long time with no name, though even then she had been worshipped as a force of nature rather than an individual. Ages had passed though, and in time men had given her a name. She had been called Gefion in those days, then Nerthus, for a time she had not been a single goddess, but had been incarnated as a whole group of warrior women, similar to the valkyries, known as the Disir. But as time passed she had slipped from the minds of mortal men and begun to live a simple life in a cave beside a great lake.

In time though mankind spread to that corner of the world too and once more they witnessed her power.

This time she was not worshiped as a deity though, instead she was feared as a monster. Just as the snake of the other earth mothers had degenerated into a dragon so did she devolve until rather than a goddess of the earth she became a monster. And it was as a monster that she gave birth to another monster.

Her son gained great renown in the old lands, and the tales of him slaying many heroes and saints spread far and wide. Kings offered bounties upon his head and holy men spoke of him and his mother in hushed tones calling them descendents of the first murderer, or demons escaped from hell. Though many tried her son was of divine blood, and as such no mortal could slay him.

Then came a King from the north, a God Slayer that has usurped the Authority of a deity from distant lands and had gained great power. He fought the goddess's son and dealt him a mortal blow. He had then sought her out after she slew his followers in retaliation and then they had fought. In the end he had slain her, but even in death her powers had proven troublesome to deal with, which was why they had eventually been sealed into this tablet.

Her son's name had been Grendel.

Her slayer's name had been Beowulf.

Interesting, she had thought this tablet to be some sealed divine beast, some remnant of power that had been left in the wake of a goddess's rampage. Instead it would seem to be something . . . more. A complete Authority that had acted independently of its mistress even after she had been defeated was unusual to say the least.

It could also be quite useful though, if she could absorb it. To be sure Athena wouldn't be able to use the Authority as her own; even if she was successful such an ability was beyond her. However if she could break the Authority to her will she would be able to cannibalize its power in order to fashion a new Authority of her own. It would not be an easy process, but if she was careful and strong then the goddess of darkness would be able to regain a great deal of her lost strength. To be sure it wouldn't place her back at the level she had been at when she faced Kusanagi Godou in combat, but she'd be closer to it than she had been for centuries.

The child-like goddess felt her cheeks flush slightly as the thought of her chosen prey once more crossed her mind. She couldn't help but wonder at how he was handling himself in her absence. The instructor provided to him by his fellow God Slayer had been a competent mortal, as far as such things went. He would see to the sharpening of her future foe's fangs during her time away, but even so Athena found herself thinking about how much he had improved thanks to her help.

Would the edge that she had carefully honed on his awareness be lost without her there to tend to it? It would not do for her chosen enemy to allow himself to get sloppy before their final battle. The mere thought of it was as distasteful as the thought of sharing a meal with Venus.

Dismissing the thought, and pointedly ignoring the way she'd begun to fiddle with her fingertips while thinking of Kusanagi Godou, the white haired goddess reached out and once more laid her palm upon the tablet. This was most likely going to take some time.

Best get started now.


-()-


Guinevere stared at the image in her mirror and found herself terribly conflicted.

(So then, it would seem that that inconvenient fellow has finally been of some use.)

The voice of her protector came not from the mirror before her, but from the reflection cast in her suite's windows instead.

"It . . . would seem so. Guinevere knew that our beloved King had come to rest at some point in the lands of the Far East. The isle that has sprung up in the bay of King Shirou's city might well be the holy island of Avalon where our king rests to regain his strength."

(Oh? This knight had thought that his dear charge would have been more excited to have found the target she has so long sought for. What might the cause of this unhappiness be?)

"Because the isle was raised by the Black Prince," Guinevere explained, "he is no ally of ours, so it follows that this is no kindly act. He seeks to lure us into a trap by laying out the bait that we cannot possibly refuse. Yet if we take it not only must I walk into the place he has prepared, Guinevere must also cut her ties with Sir Shirou and leave his household."

(Why?)

There was a note of genuine curiosity in her protector's voice that was somewhat unusual for 'him'. Most of the time 'he' had little to no concern in just what path 'his' charge chose to take, whatever it was the Knight of the Lake followed her in the certain knowledge that 'he' was doing 'his' duty. For 'him' to question like this, for 'him' to be this interested, it was a sign of just how much of 'his' vitality had been returned.

Despite all her concerns and worries Guinevere couldn't help but feel a smile tug at her lips to see her faithful protector so restored.

"The oath Guinevere has sworn to Sir Shirou was that she would act as an honourable guest in his home and undertake no actions that might bring harm upon him and those he protects. Should I be successful in reviving his majesty there is a chance that he might seek out the God Slayers of the land in order to exterminate them."

She paused for a moment as she gathered her thoughts.

"Perhaps it won't come to that; perhaps his highness will see no reason to battle Sir Shirou or King Kusanagi. Both of them are kings that do not exert themselves to rule as tyrants, they allow those in their lands to live their lives without interference or domination. His majesty might see no reason to take up his sword against them since they bring no ruin to the world. But even if that is the case Guinevere has no way of knowing for sure, so she must leave or else she'll be in violation of the oath she swore."

There was no need to say what the consequences of such a violation might be. The strange altar that King Shirou had brought out to enforce the swearing of the vows was old and powerful. What made it even more potent was that it didn't try to use its own power to enforce the oaths made upon it; instead it impressed that vow upon the one making the oath and then let their own power be the one to enforce it. As a result even a goddess such as Tiamat would feel obligated to remain true to such an oath, for a powerful Divine Ancestor like Guinevere the severity of breaking the vow would definitely leave her crippled if not outright dead.

No, if she wished to make her move to revive her King then she would have to break her ties with Sir Shirou.

And she didn't want to.

She liked living with Sir Shirou! She liked the food, she liked the atmosphere, she liked sniping with Illyasviel and Tiamat. She had even acquired some small and guilty interests such as the ice cream that Asuka made and even the anime she watched on the television when she was sure no one was watching. And of course she really enjoyed her opportunities to talk with Sir Shirou.

To be sure he hadn't been of the best humour for most of that time due to his turmoil over what had happened with the harlot goddess Venus, but even so he had always been kind and courteous to her. She had enjoyed the time on the island, playing in the sea, watching her knight and her host race, eating in the sun, listening to tales, even watching the childish fireworks that Sir Shirou's sister had set off.

At the time she'd told herself that it was an important activity; that tightening the bond between herself and her host by joining him on his holiday was a necessity. But though that had been her justification she had mainly gone just so she could spend some time with Sir Shirou.

Well, that and to make sure that Tiamat wasn't able to steal a march on her.

This was absurd, the revival of the King that Appears at the End of the World was the reason for her existence. Her divine former self, the White Mother Goddess, had sacrificed her life to create the Holy Grail and be reincarnated as the Divine Ancestor Guinevere. Once already the witch queen of Briton had lost her life in the pursuit of her goals and had returned from death to try again. After all that her resolve should have been as solid as the bedrock that supported a city, so why was she wavering now?

(This knight understands, beloved child. Though this humble warrior longs to once more charge across the field beside Artur this knight shall also feel despair that Sir Shirou will not be there as well.)

That was quite the surprise. Lancelot had always been utterly uncomplicated in 'his' thoughts and loyalties. As a deity of the earliest Steel 'he' was like a sword in many ways, loyal to the one that wielded him and uncaring of all others. There was no malice or cruelty in that uncaring though, it was simply that to 'him' those others were of a lower existence than 'his' liege.

"And yet there is no other option, not if Guinevere and Sir Knight are to complete the revival of our King."

(That is true, sad as this knight is to admit it.)

"It need not come to the worst; together you and Guinevere can speak for Sir Shirou. He is a good King that has never brought chaos and ruin to this world." She paused for a moment, remembering the shattered field where she'd first met him, the blasted wasteland that had once been a city park, the now missing top of the mountain on the island where they had taken their holiday.

"Well, maybe some ruin, but it is never his fault, the blame for those battles lies with others."

(True, though he is a kindly King he does leave ruin in the wake of his battles. Still, he does not seek those battles out, so I hardly think our King will condemn him for it.)

No, Guinevere didn't think that he would. That had been one of the things about the one who had then been called Artus that had won over her divine past self. The King of the End hadn't behaved like any other Heretic God; there had been a calmness to him, a rationality that had somehow transcended the normal wildness of a deity that walked the Earth. He had taken no pleasure in his duties and had inflicted no cruelties upon his foes, no matter how vile they might have been. To him it had been more of a duty than anything else.

That had been why the White Goddess had loved him so, why she had stayed at his side even when a being of Steel was her natural foe. Artus had radiated an aura of charisma and magnificence that had drawn others in and bound them to him. But those bonds hadn't been of servitude, rather they had been connections of camaraderie that were stronger than any chain or magic could have been. But even his greatness wouldn't have been enough to draw so many allies. Actually, that wasn't quite right, his greatness could have drawn entire armies of followers, indeed that was actually what happened when the grateful people of ancient Briton began to worship him, what had made so many gods stay had been . . . it was hard to put into words.

All gods that walked the world were Heretic Gods to one degree or another. Their existence upon this plane was a defiance of their legend and as such drove them to varying levels of wildness. Even the gentlest and most stable amongst them was still unsteady in some regards.

Artus had been different though. He had the wildness of other Heretic Gods, but at the same time there was a core part of him as solid and unmoving as a mountain. He had simply been more in some indefinable way that drew in his fellow deities as a candle would moths. To simply see his face, to hear his voice, just for that the white mother goddess had been willing to cast aside her power and immortality and live reincarnated as a Divine Ancestor.

That same longing still lived on within Guinevere. That desire to once more stand in the presence of the King that Manifests at the World's End had been the guiding light in her life for longer than any mortal had lived.

With a nod to herself, the doll-like immortal found her resolve.

"Sir Knight, come. It's time we gave our farewells to King Shirou."

King Shirou, not Sir Shirou. It was a small thing, but in her mind it was a clear difference, a way of separating the young man that had been her host and sort of friend from the King that she might some day have to face as an enemy.

King Shirou, not Sir Shirou.

Why did that thought leave a bitter taste in her mouth and cause her stomach to knot up?


-()-


"Yes, tell them that the grimoires offered are suitable payments, but with so few of them it is still insufficient."

As he spoke into his cell phone Shirou scrolled down the list of books that were displayed on the screen on the laptop before him.

This morning he hadn't even owned a laptop. Sure, there were a number of compact and powerful computers back at his manor, one of them had even been in his room and he'd used it do type out homework assignments and to browse the internet for various assignments. The Eighth Campione might not have been anywhere near as technologically incapable as many of the magi in his home universe, but even so he admitted to having a few blind spots when it came to electronics.

To him a computer had been something to work at, a tool to get a job done, somewhat like a desk. He'd known that laptops and mini-computers existed, but he hadn't really regarded them as relevant to him since he was fine with his current set up. So, when he'd had to access his email account, he'd been all ready to go to an internet café or a library. Instead the instant he'd mentioned his issue to one of the serving staff he'd been provided with a brand new laptop with all the latest software and programs. He hadn't even needed to pay any extra for it; the thing was a part of the service provided for his room.

Not for the first time the eighth Campione found himself wondering just how much Yusuke was paying for this suite.

The list on his screen was of the various tomes of magic that the Royal Arsenal was delivering as penance for their leader's insults and trespasses against him. Some were recently written; at least as far as such books went, having been written at the turn of the twentieth century. Others were so old that they were scrolls rather than books, scrolls written on papyrus or parchment. Regardless of their age or quality all of them contained information and knowledge about the nature of the netherworld as well as any speculations about travel into other worlds besides.

It had only been after some consideration that Shirou had decided to abandon his attempts to obscure the truth of what he wanted. When he'd first begun to amass knowledge on anything that could help him find a way back to his home reality he had carefully hidden what he'd really wanted amongst a surfeit of other acquisitions. His line of thinking had been that he didn't want to risk anyone knowing what he truly sought since, as far as he had determined, this world had no 'official' knowledge on the existence of parallel realities. The mages of this world knew of the different worlds that made up the 'layers' of existence, such as the legends of gods, the netherworld, certain afterlives and the like, but the idea of entirely separate mortal realms was as real to them as stories of urban wizards were to the ignorant masses. It was an idea, a fancy that was of interest and had a certain plausibility, but at the same time of which there was no concrete proof.

Back in his and Illya's home world the concept of alternate realities was a widely accepted and proven fact of life due to the incontestable existence of the Kaleidoscope. And since that power had been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt it meant that those that showed signs of being able to use it were in a precarious position. On the one hand they had the chance to learn one of the desperately sought True Magics, on the other hand such individuals were highly sought after by mages that would like little more than to vivisect them to learn the qualities that allowed them such a chance. Any chance to use the Second Magic and any attempt to try to learn it would set off alarm bells on the watchdogs that kept an eye out for such things.

Idly Shirou wondered how Rin was doing. During the final clash of the mess that had been the Holy Grail War the heir to the Tohsaka family had been able to use the blueprint that was her inheritance, along with his own abilities and Illya's memories, to create an imitation of a powerful Mystic Code. Even if it had only been a sliver of the Kaleidoscope's full power she had managed to use it. Had she been anyone else Shirou might have been concerned for her, but such an emotion was wasted on someone like Tohsaka Rin.

Concern? Why be concerned? Well, that wasn't strictly true, back during the last day of the Holy Grail War he'd been scared for her, but that had been because she was facing her sister who was possessed by the sum total of all human evil, backed by nigh limitless power and guarded by a corrupted version of Saber who was also backed by that vast reserve of prana. Under those circumstances some level of worry was a requirement of simple sanity. But when not dealing with apocalyptic forces and veritable demigod heroes . . . ?

The Emiya heir tried to imagine older mages, ruthless and without qualms, coming after Rin and trying to drag her away as their captive. For some reason the image wouldn't form in his mind in any believable way. Intellectually he was aware that she could be overcome by someone sufficiently more powerful or skilled than her, but he also couldn't help but be sure that the black haired genius would find a way to turn the tables on anyone foolish enough to try it on her.

Well, regardless, the reason for his initial caution had been the worry that this world would follow a similar approach when presented with a new and powerful magic. He'd been fairly sure that he'd be able to keep himself safe, given his huge store of Noble Phantasms as well as his newly expanded reserves, but he'd feared what might happen to Illya.

Now, months later, he knew that there was much less reason for him to be so careful. As a Campione his actions were virtually impossible for others to contest, something he'd only fully come to understand in the wake of the Feast of Kings. He didn't have to worry about keeping his goals or areas of interest secret since there were only seven others in the world with the power to question him, and as long as he didn't cross certain lines he was sure that most of them would be happy to leave him alone.

So he was abandoning his earlier deception and making his wishes clear.

The result had been the large number of valuable books being presented to him by the Black Prince's organization. Many of them hinted at knowledge that could be useful, especially after what he'd seen on the island. The trouble was that it wasn't quite enough, not if he wanted to make enough of an impression.

"I think that by now some of the information on how Rule of the Underworld works is fairly widely known, tell them that I want reagents, preferably to powerful magic users. If they can provide me with some suitable options then I won't have to raid their headquarters to find the books for myself."

"O-of course your highness. I shall convey your words to them by the swiftest means open to me."

The fellow on the other end of the call was the hapless shmuck that had drawn the short straw and been made the point of contact between the Royal Arsenal and the God Slayer with a perfectly justified reason to be irritated with them. If all truth were to be told Shirou felt a bit sorry for him, unfortunately that didn't mean that he could go easy on him, though he did try to at least be civil.

"Good, I look forwards to an agreeable response."

Hanging up the phone Shirou laid it down as he stood up. It looked oddly out of place on the antique wooden desk, its scuffed and scratched plastic casing contrasting sharply with the polished mahogany of the beautifully varnished wood. The wonder of it was that the device was even intact, let alone in such good condition.

The cell hone had sat in his pocket through both his battle with Mordred and the entire debacle with Venus and Jord. Somehow it had managed to avoid ever taking a direct hit from anything, despite the way it had been thrown around during those fights. It's resilience gave him an odd feeling of kinship with it, after all he'd also gone through circumstances that should have left him in pieces and yet he'd somehow come out of it intact.

Bah, he must be more tired than he thought. It was only two in the afternoon, but between jetlag and stress he felt as though it were closer to one o'clock in the morning. If he was mentally drawing similarities between himself and his phone then he must really be more tired than he thought he was.

Knock Knock.

The polite tap on his door pulled his thoughts away from the small device and to the velvet cushions that padded his side of the door to the outside corridor. Mentally he went over who it could be. Illya was currently out on a massive shopping spree. She apparently spoke English only slightly worse than her Japanese, so she'd ordered one of the Witengamot agents to accompany her and provide her with transport. Given that she had access to a credit card with a limit in the six digit range Shirou imagined that it would still be a few hours before he saw her again. Tiamat was off on her own business, something about contacting an old informant of hers, and Guinevere hadn't left her room since they had returned this morning.

That cleared the board of most of those that would be willing to interrupt him when he'd put a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door. Offhand the only individual that sprung to mind was Princess Alice, though he wasn't sure what could convince her to disturb him like this. Oh well, only one way to find out.

"Yes?" He pitched his voice so there was no hint of anger or irritation, since unnerving whoever it was would be overkill at this point.

"Sir Shirou? Guinevere needs to speak with you. Can I come in?"

He blinked in surprise even as he rose to open the door. The child-like immortal had been oddly quiet for most of the morning. Normally she was far livelier and tended to sort of just be around the place. He'd been caught by surprise when she'd simply retreated to her room after they'd returned. In the end he'd just assumed that something had come up for her that needed her attention. It was perhaps not the most insightful of assumptions, but he had a lot on his plate at the time.

Still, for all his normal lack of insight Shirou immediately knew that something was off as soon as he opened the door.

Guinevere carried herself with an oddly solemn poise as she stepped into his suite. That was the first thing he noticed, and it was enough to set off some warning bells in his head. The queen of the Divine Ancestors was many things, she often presented the world with a childish face and manner that was quite charming in its own way, but even so Shirou was well aware of how dangerously determined and ruthless his golden haired guest could be. The fate of Jord was as fine a testimony to such qualities as could be asked for.

But even so she normally covered such aspects of herself with a childishness that was in keeping with her appearance. Her current seriousness . . . it was jarringly out of character for her.

The second thing that caught his attention was the powerful presence that accompanied her into the room. It was a subtle thing, something that he probably wouldn't have noticed under other circumstances. The thing was that he was somewhat agitated by the conversation he'd been having just now, enough that he was slightly on edge at least.

That was enough for him to detect the additional presence, but only just. Sensing hidden power wasn't something Shirou had any real skill in, though he did have a talent for literally sniffing out hidden magic points, and he nearly missed this one despite his keyed up state. Still, there was nothing hostile about it, no sense of bloodlust or aggression. In fact it felt slightly familiar, as though he should somehow know who it was. But that didn't make sense, how could he . . . ? Realization hit him and a smile touched his lips.

"I see that your protector has joined us. I'm pleased to see that Sir Lancelot has recovered enough of his strength to resume his duties as your guardian."

"Oh? As is to be expected of Sir Shirou, only a great King such as yourself would have been able to sense Sir Knight when he is trying to stay hidden like this." The immortal child's solemn demeanour broke for a moment as an admiring smile touched her face.

The King of Steel nodded, and carefully tried to keep the smile on his face from slipping. While it wasn't on the level of a Servant Assassin's Presence Concealment ability the pseudo astral state that Sir Lancelot currently seemed to exist in was fairly potent, enough so that Shirou shouldn't have been able to detect him. No, it wasn't that he'd detected the god, which would imply that he'd somehow broken through the divine being's concealment. Instead it was more of a case of Shirou being aware of Lancelot's proximity. It was a fine distinction but an important one, detection was actively looking for him while awareness implied some sort of link.

But why was that the case? He'd only met the Knight of the Lake twice, once at the battle with Jord and then for the race at the island, and those occasions had hardly been enough to forge any sort of bond between them. To be sure it seemed that whatever connection he felt was a tiny and tenuous thing, but its very existence was inexplicable.

One more thing to think about once he had some spare time.

"So, what can I do for you?"

As Shirou asked the question he sat back down on the luxurious antique chair that had been set up by the desk and gestured for Guinevere to have a seat on one of the other opulent chairs that sat by the desk. Demurely she sat down, but as she did so her face turned to its earlier seriousness.

"Please forgive my forthrightness, but I must ask you what your intentions are now that you have heard of the Black Prince's response and have exacted compensation from his underlings."

Alright, that was another surprise. Guinevere normally affected a somewhat childish way of speech, one that was adorable in the way she referred to herself in the third person and complimented her appearance and mannerisms. Now though, she was addressing him with far more formality and earnestness than she'd ever done before.

"I'm returning to Japan," he said simply, "I don't care how capable Gascoigne, or anyone else, thinks he is, the Gem Sword isn't something I can leave in his hands."

There was simply too much risk there. Alexander Gascoigne had a reputation as being oddly brilliant when it came to handling recently discovered artefacts, but from what Shirou had read his ability to get results was in part due to his ability to handle them without fear due to his Magic resistance. The problem was that the Emiya heir seriously doubted that the Fourth Campione had ever handled anything on the sheer scale of the Gem Sword.

The other problem was that even though even though the sword was an immensely valuable artefact containing immense amounts of power that didn't change the fact that as Mystic Codes went it was actually pretty . . . well, not to put too fine a point on it, crappy. The magecraft that had made it up had been nothing more that a second rate imitation of the more advanced jewel craft magic, pretty much what one would've expected from a faker like him. What had made it work despite his shoddy skills had been the sheer amount of prana he'd been able to sink into its creation, that and the fact that the materials used in its construction had been literally the best that the earth had to offer. Even so it had proven to be flawed in enough ways that if Rin ever saw it she'd probably regard it as an insult to her family's traditional magecraft.

The real problem was that amongst those many failings was that it didn't really respond well to being used by anyone other than its creator. Illya had tried to use it once. Thinking that being able to tap into such a vast well of power would be a match made in heaven for her Wishcraft, she'd tried to draw on the stored prana within the sword only to find that it refused to respond to her and instead nearly ran out of control.

After Illya had gotten her hair back in order, and could no longer hear the incessant ringing in her ears, she'd spent a bit of time trying to find out what the problem was. In the end it had been something rather simple, well, two somethings really.

Firstly was that the Gem Sword was just so poorly made. When a true jewel craft user created such a Mystic Code a portion of the crafting process would be to ensure that the prana stored within could be easily added to, extracted or even detonated. With his incomplete knowledge and his general ineptitude with just about anything outside his specialization Shirou had messed that part of the crafting process almost beyond functionality. It was the reason why a large amount of the prana he poured into the sword was lost uselessly. It also meant that only he could safely access the power within. Illya had tried to explain it to him but if he was completely honest it went over his head a bit. He understood it had something to do with his prana signature and how it was imprinted on the sword, but that was about it.

That led to the second problem, the quality of the prana within the Gem Sword was itself potent to the point of being unmanageable, even by someone with as many advantages as his adopted sister. That hadn't come as too much of a surprise though. Both of them had been aware that since becoming a Campione the quality and quantity of Shirou's magic circuits had gone through the roof. Moreover his prana was now meant to support Authorities, abilities which could only be described as Mysteries of Divine origin. Purely mortal prana would not have been able to fuel such powers, as a result a part of becoming a Campione seemed to be one's prana becoming more potent, not the same as that of a god, but more so than a human's.

In the final analysis it simply wasn't practical for anyone other than Shirou to try to tap the power of the Gem Sword. Illya theorized that if needs be he could extract the prana and then pass it on to someone else, but that would require preparation since it wasn't something he thought he could do without using a Traced Noble Phantasm to help him.

All of this boiled down to the simple fact that in the hands of others the Gem Sword ranged from useless to dangerous. In the hands of one of his fellow Campione though . . . well, the phrase 'apocalyptic' sprang to mind. Since Gascoigne was one of the only seven people in the world with similar prana to his own it wasn't outside the realms of possibility that he could access the power within the sword. If that was the case then he could conceivably open it up entirely and release all the stored prana without restraint.

So, no. There was no way that Shirou was going to leave his Mystic Code in the Fourth King's hands for one second longer than absolutely necessary.

"The plane has already been arranged, we'll all be leaving tomorrow."

Guinevere's face was briefly marred by a fleeting look of . . . sadness? No, it looked more like pain. Was there something wrong? Did she want to say longer in London or her homeland?

If you don't want to leave so soon I can arrange some transport for you to use later."

As soon as he said it Shirou felt rather stupid for even making the suggestion. Guinevere was a Divine Ancestor capable of the sort of magic that humans could only dream of. Getting to Japan from England would be well within her abilities; indeed it was entirely possible that she'd beat him back to his home country if it were a race.

"No, it's nothing like that!" The blonde immortal paused for a moment, visibly collecting her thoughts.

"King Emiya Shirou, Guinevere is most grateful for the kindness and hospitality that you have shown her in the past months. Though I am a handmaiden of a deity of Steel, and as such a traditional foe to all the children of Pandora, you have treated me with all the courtesy and benevolence Guinevere could have possible dreamed of. I offer my most heartfelt thanks for this and wish that I could find some way to repay you."

"Were it not for the aid you and Sir Lancelot gave me then I and Tiamat would both have ended up as food for Jord. I think that more than evens out any debt there might be between us. In fact, I think I still might owe you some." Even as he spoke Shirou tried to work out what was going on, why Guinevere seemed to be fluctuating between her 'cute' mannerisms and this unusual seriousness. A notion was growing in the back of his mind, but . . .

"I thank you for your kind words, but to her great sorrow Guinevere must now leave you hospitality. When next we meet it may well not be as allies."

Alright, now he was starting to feel somewhat confused.

"Why leave now? Have I offered some form of insult or offence?"

At the back of his mind Shirou wondered in he should join the drama club once he had some spare time. By the looks of it he had some untapped talent for acting given how he was able to come up with 'fake king's dialogue' on the spare of the moment.

"No, nothing like that. As Guinevere said, Sir Shirou has been a most exemplary host. It is no ill will that has brought this on; rather it is Guinevere's duty."

His confusion at hat must have touched his face because she continued.

"I have finally found the way to awaken his Divine Majesty from the sleep in which he rests. The Black Prince Alec has raised Avalon from its hiding place near to the city in which you reign and now offers it to me as bait. He seeks to slay me and claim the Holy Grail for himself, but I shall not allow him to succeed.

"However, my King is the enemy of all God Slayers that cause havoc, and so he may be the foe of King Shirou. I cannot in good faith remain under your protection while seeking to wake my King who may be your foe in the future."

Ah, that explained it then.

Shirou had always known that Guinevere's first loyalty was to her King. She'd been willing to attend a gathering of God Slayers in order to defend his rule after all. Was it really a surprise that she would jump upon any chance to be reunited with him?

He couldn't deny that he felt slightly hurt at the fact that she was leaving. In the time since he'd met her Guinevere had come to be . . . what? He wasn't quite sure he could define it in his own head. She was an ally, of that he was sure, he'd saved her, she'd saved him, he'd honoured her and given her a gift worthy of a King, she had reciprocated by coming to his aid when all hope had seemed lost. She'd ended up taking residence in his manor and he'd ended up bringing her along on his vacation. He wasn't quite sure of they were friends, but he did feel some closeness to the immortal child. Enough that he felt . . . unhappy at the thought of her departure.

Irritated with himself he tried to evaluate the situation as cold bloodedly as he could manage.

Okay, by Guinevere's own words Gascoigne was doing his best to lure her into a trap. She was aware of this, but she was going in anyway. Guinevere was many things, but a fool was not one of them. She must have some plan of her own, something that would allow her to even the odds and have a chance at success.

Then there was also her King to consider. After the Feast of Kings Shirou had devoted a god chunk of his personal time to researching this world's version of King Arthur. After hearing what the Queen of the Divine Ancestors had said at his feast the Emiya heir had found himself curious as to the counterpart of his Servant. Unfortunately most of what he'd turned up had been about the young God of War Arthur that had arisen due to the spreading tales of the King of Camelot and his famous knights. The 'true' Arthur, or Artur to be more accurate, was a far more mysterious being. Despite having trolled through dozens of tomes and reports, supplied to him by the Committee through their own wide web of contacts, there had been little information to be had about the King Who Manifests at the World's End.

All that he knew for certain was that the King was old, older than the era in which Artur had appeared. That and that he was powerful. The King of the End was regarded by many to be one of the most powerful gods in existence. Again there was a frustrating lack of anything concrete to be found, but even what little he'd been able to find had painted a worrying picture.

As far as he could tell Artur was something of an Anti-Campione god, or at least as close to being such as could exist. Gods and God Slayers were natural enemies, Campione hunted gods and gods battled Campione, sometimes the Heretic God won and sometimes the Devil King won. It was an adversarial relationship as natural as that of the cobra and the mongoose.

The King of the End though, he was something different. In the metaphor of the mongoose and the cobra both animal were fast and dangerous, but the mongoose was the predator. Campione didn't have any true advantage over Heretic Gods, nothing that could be measured or labelled, certainly nothing that guaranteed a victory, but their nature as god slayers gave them a certain edge. They had their powers, their status, because they had already killed a god. Every Campione in history had died due to battle, be it with a Heretic God or a fellow Child of Pandora, but on average each of them had slain at least two or three deities before they died. By contrast gods that had killed more than one Campione were relatively rare, though this could be attributed more to the scarcity of Devil Kings than to any difference in power.

The King Who Appears at the End of the World reversed that paradigm. The predator became the prey and the hunter the hunted. More astonishingly was the sheer number of Campione that had fallen at his hands. Mordred remained the most powerful god that Shirou had ever faced, but according to all the research he'd conducted it seemed that he'd slain only two Campione. The King of the End, Artur, on the other hand was specifically empowered to fight foes like the God Slayers. During the age when he had become known as Artur the powerful god had faced and defeated no less than five separate Campione.

Such an enemy was daunting, to say the least.

Should he stop her? For a brief moment Shirou considered the possibility of capturing Guinevere, not letting her go and so ensuring that no attempt would be made to wake the King of the End. It wouldn't be easy, not by any stretch of the imagination. not only would he have to deal with the Divine Ancestor's potent magic, he'd also need t worry about a powerful and skilled warrior god like Lancelot, who'd no doubt move to free his charge. Then there was the Holy Grail to consider. The Eighth Campione wasn't aware of all the powers that the powerful divine artefact possessed, but given that it had essentially eaten a powerful goddess like Jord he was sure that it could make for a formidable trump card if needs be.

Arrgghh! It was all he could not to let his frustration show on his face. Why was he even thinking like this? This was all Archer's fault! He knew that he wouldn't move against Guinevere, not like that at least. He still owed her, and despite her assurances he didn't consider the debt between them paid. Cold rationality might suggest going against her was a smart option, but it wasn't something he felt like he could do. Not without a clear and imminent threat anyway. Moving against someone he regarded as an ally on just a 'maybe', that didn't sit well with him.

"I . . ." What could he say? He wasn't sure of his own feelings in this situation.

"There's no need for further words." As she spoke Guinevere curtsied formally to him. "I truly hope that there shall never be cause for strife between you and my King, but if King Shirou does become the foe of Artus then I shall strive to be a worthy enemy for such a fine opponent."

There was a . . . shiver in the air, the impression of something invisible and inaudible passing through it. As Guinevere nodded her head slightly realization of who it was came easily.

"Sir Knight would also like to say that should you battle in the future both he and Steadfast will consider it their greatest pleasure to meet you and your Snow upon the battlefield. Such a fight would live long in song and lore, he is sure."

So, it would seem that Lancelot was in on this too. Hardly a surprise, though Shirou was a bit surprised at the mixed emotions that the thought of fighting the steel clad war god brought up. On the one hand there was a certain thrill to the notion, an eagerness to match a strong foe that wasn't in character for the Emiya heir. On the other he felt a certain sense of reluctance to fight the Knight of the Lake. There was a minor sense of kinship there, though they'd only met twice both occasions had been . . . memorable.

Damn it! Why did it all have to happen now? Didn't he have enough to deal with? Gascoigne was out there with the magical equivalent of an armed nuclear weapon while he was stuck here until he could catch a ride back home. Now one of his allies was leaving as well to have her own confrontation with the Fourth Campione. Why couldn't things be simple for once?!

"Goodbye King Shirou."

And before he could say anything Guinevere was gone.

For a moment all Shirou could do was stare at the spot where she'd been, his mouth half open to say . . . what? Even now he didn't know what it was that he wanted to say. Did he want to ask her to stay? Did he want to assure her that he'd treat her gently even if they were enemies? Did he want to curse her for just abandoning his side like this? It was like his mind was supplying a dozen different paths down which he could travel, but was locking up in regards as to simply making a decision.

Wait, never mind! Forget it. It wasn't important right now. Guinevere was gone, and he knew where she was going, where everything was going on. He might not be quite sure of what he wanted to tell her, but he'd have some time to work on that on the way there.

Before he had intended to take the mundane route home. It was a bit slower, but it had the advantage of taking everyone with him and of preserving his own strength. Now though things had changed. Now he needed to get back to Japan as quickly as he could. Grabbing a sheet of paper from his desk he hastily wrote out a short message in large and clear characters. With one hand he placed in right in the middle of the desk, where it couldn't be missed, whilst reaching for the suite phone with the other. A couple of clicks got him the attention of the very well trained room service crew who answered before the second ring had ended.

"Yes Mister Emiya, how can I be of service?"

"An emergency has come up back home and I have to leave immediately. When my sister and my other companions return please let them know that I've left a message for them on the desk in my suite. When they leave to follow after me please make sure that my luggage goes with them."

"I see. We'll make sure that they are made aware of what's happened as well as of the message you've left them and your luggage will be sent after you. Would you like for us to arrange transport to the airport?"

"No need, I've got it covered."

Without further explanation Shirou hung up the phone and stood up. He paused just long enough to throw on a thick coat, then stepped out onto the large terrace that his suite's French windows opened onto. Outside the weather was bright and sunny, the terrace affording him quite a pleasant view of the London skyline. Under other circumstances the King of Steel might have enjoyed taking a few minutes to enjoy it, but right now he had more pressing concerns.

Rather than stopping to appreciate the vista he closed his eyes and focused on the powers within him.

"Hooves that thunder over the earth, wings that soar through the sky, sacred beast born from a monster yet pure as finest silver, hear my call and serve as the mount to a hero once more."

He didn't really need to close his eyes in order to invoke his Mount of the Hero Authority, but by cutting of distractions by doing so he was able to focus a bit more magical energy than he would have been able to otherwise. The difference was small to the point of insignificance, but since he wasn't under attack or in any other sort of peril he figured he might as well take the tiny extra step.

A swirling swarm of white lights sprang into being, then condensed into the magnificent form of his divine steed. Swinging himself up onto Snow's back Shirou manifested the golden bridle that allowed him to perfectly ride the white Pegasus.

"Alright Snow, we've got a long way to go and we have to be as fast as we can. Are you ready?"

The divine steed fared his wings open as he nickered and pawed at the terrace's gravel with a hoof. In his mind the Eighth Campione could feel a bright blossom of eagerness and excitement springing forth. Snow had flown before, both far and fast, but he'd never had the chance to go all out, to test his limits to their fullest extent. The thought of it wasn't daunting to the magical being; rather it was something to be relished.

"Good," Shirou said as he patted the winged horse's neck. "Let's go then."

Hooves tore up the gravel as they took off in a gallop and wings spread wide to catch the wind. In the next instant the terrace was empty save for the settling leafs that had been caught in the passage of the Devil King's departure.


-()-


Illya had never considered herself to be a particularly spoilt child, for the all too few years that she'd lived with her beloved mama and papa she'd had to be content with relatively little in the way of luxuries. No, that wasn't quite true, the Einzbern castle had been very luxurious in many ways such as opulent furnishing and a small army of literally custom made maids to serve almost any conceivable function. There had been food and drink aplenty, and for a magus there had been no shortage of resources for almost any avenue of research that they might choose to pursue.

On the other hand there had been very little in the way of play or entertainment. Papa had brought her and her mama books and toys and even films to watch, but their numbers had been limited, and after papa left there had never been more. The rest of the family had done all they could to purge the castle of any lasting sign that Emiya Kiritsugu had ever been there, and it hadn't mattered that Illya had wanted desperately to keep some memento of him.

Since then her life had become a strange mixture of austerity and lavishness. Even as her family had altered her body to make her the ideal Master for the upcoming war they had allowed her almost unlimited resources for her own magecraft research and training, as well as any homunculus maids she wanted and an endless stream of dolls to play with. On the other hand she had been denied any of the modern entertainments her papa had introduced her to, and affection of all but the most cursory kind had been denied her.

She had had everything and nothing at the same time, for ten long years that had been all she'd known.

Then she'd met Shirou.

She'd loved him, well she had after she'd gotten over her desire to kill him and reanimate his severed head so she could make him scream for the rest of the war. Not her brightest moment now that she looked back on it. Shirou had treated her kindly, had taken her for treats and showed her his home. Such small things, but they had been things she'd craved. It was hardly a surprise that she'd come to love him, that she'd rushed into the cavern of the Greater Grail ready to give her life to save him from his fate.

But in the end she hadn't needed to. Instead wild chance had led to them coming to this world, to Shirou gaining the power that gave her the chance to have a full life. And it also gave her the chance to live!

And now her onii-chan really did spoil her. Since Yusuke had established their wealth Shirou had been nothing but generous in supplying her with all the toys, games and anime she could have wanted. This had opened up a whole new world to her, so many fun things that she'd never even dreamed of before. Beyond that she even had friends at school now, after Shirou had seen to having her enrolled.

Really, Shirou-onii-chan was the best.

Especially when he spoilt her.

"Thank you for your custom ma'am. All your purchases shall be delivered in your name to The Lanesborough hotel. If you have any other requests please don't hesitate to ask."

The store attendant was perhaps a bit on the fawning side, but given just how much the white haired young magus had just spent in his store that was hardly a surprise.

"I really am most impressed. Even his beloved sister seems to share King Shirou's famed freedom with wealth."

Illya glanced to the side and saw her current companion on this shopping spree of hers. Princess Alice had offered to act as a guide for her and had brought her to several of the most expensive and highly regarded shops in London. Even though she hid it well Shirou's adopted sister had been able to see how impressed the English mage had been by the sheer amount of money that her young companion had elected to spend.

The Einzbern heir got the impression that despite her influence and power the Sage Princess didn't have much of a chance to take time off, not like this anyway. Her ectoplasmic body did allow her considerable freedom, especially considering the rumoured state of her real self, but even that was a limited resource, one that she had to use with care. Being able to just go around the city like this, this was something almost totally new to her.

"Well, onii-chan is really generous. Besides, I am the owner of the Circle you know. I mean, Shirou does own most of the capital running through it, and it is his servant that runs it, but the actual people and properties are sworn to me first and foremost."

"Ah yes, even he in Britain we've heard about that. Is it really true that you terrified the former Voice of the Circle so much that he soiled himself before you ripped his head off?"

Illya let a smile spread across her face whilst internally she rolled her eyes slightly. This was a not so subtle attempt to pump her for information. She supposed that looking as young as she did most people would see her as an easy target. Alice looked to be smarter than that, but this was more like an early probing of her defences rather than an all out attack. That was something that she knew how to deal with.

Huh, who knew that all those evenings of having to listen to her grandfather go on and on about the deviousness of the Clocktower would actually serve a useful purpose?

"No, that was one of the other members of the group that kidnapped me, and I only crushed the leader's head, ripping it off would have been unnecessarily messy."

The snow haired girl derived a certain pleasure from the way Alice's face froze for a moment before returning to her normal cheerful expression. It would seem that she'd been expecting Illya to deny the rumour, not correct it, interesting. She'd assumed that an organization like the Witengamot would be more familiar with the darker aspects of hidden societies, such as kidnapping, blackmail and murder, but by the looks of it capable and brilliant though she was the Princess of the Witengamot hadn't had to see much bloodshed.

Illya was an entirely different kind of animal though. The old saying went that to be a magus was to walk with death, that might be true of most practioners, but if it was then Illya had not merely walked with him; she'd held his hand as she did. She'd know that her lifespan was being cut down, that she wouldn't live to see the end of her second decade. She knew that she would kill, not merely her father or the adopted brother she thought had replaced her, but at least six strangers that were simply to be her enemies. Death was something she knew would be in her life for a long time, and she'd come to the Holy Grail War ready to kill.

"So, that rumour was true? I didn't think someone as cute as Illya could be so ruthless. Still, I did see how you dealt with the Monkey King's Divine Beast, so I shouldn't be too taken by surprise."

"Of course."

There was a brief silence between them as they made their way out of the shop and stepped into the car that had been provided for them.

"I understand that you're planning to return to Japan tomorrow. I suppose that means that I won't be able to take you on any more of these trips. Such a pity."

"Yes," Illya agreed, "I had fun, but we can't let Alexander Gascoigne keep the Gem Sword any longer than we absolutely have to. It's simply too powerful for us to take any chances."

Alice leaned against the inside of the cars door, the rich padding making the action a comfortable one.

"There have been many rumours about the strange sword that the King of Steel revealed after the Venus incident, but most of it is just speculation and guesswork. Can you tell me anything concrete about it?"

Now that was a loaded question. Any answer she gave could have whole bunch of different meanings. If she refused to speak of it then that conveyed distrust of the Witengamot and possibly hinted at some hidden weakness. Being too open would probably reveal too much could indicate an entirely different sort of weakness.

"The Gem Sword . . ." Illya began slowly as an idea came to her, "was a mistake. It's the creation of a being with far too much power and not enough of an idea as to what it was doing."

Technically true. When looked at from a certain perspective Shirou was a prime example of humanity wielding powers they were never meant to possess. Not that she subscribed to such a view, in her opinion the powers of a god were what her onii-chan deserved given all the crap he'd had to endure through the Holy Grail War.

"It's powerful, but horribly flawed. Onii-chan was able to get it to work, but even so its uses are limited. For the moment it can only serve as a vessel for raw magical power, but there could be other uses, ones that aren't so safe."

Again, not a single lie in there, just truths that were a little on the misleading side. The Gem Sword was a terribly flawed creation, one that would make any decent practioners of Jewel Craft magecraft weep with despair at the monstrous waste of resources that it represented. In terms of uses it was extremely limited but there were ways that it could be used in other manners. The problem was that all of those other ways were almost universally destructive on a level usually reserved for international weapons.

"Getting it back is important."

"Given how much you seem to want it back I'm surprised that King Shirou was so lenient with the Royal Arsenal." Alice commented as her artificial body leaned back into the plush leather of the seats.

"Oh? And just what were you expecting?" Illya enquired.

"Well," Alice's tone took on a conspiratorial note, "I'm pretty sure that there were some members of the Witengamot that were hoping that your brother would get rid of the problem the Royal Arsenal has been making of itself for the last few years by simply reducing their headquarters to smoking hole in the ground."

Well, that confirmed one suspicion that had been brewing in the Einzbern's head. She'd thought that Princess Alice had been oddly helpful in their introduction to the Royal Arsenal. She'd even hinted that she'd laid the groundwork to have the group thoroughly intimidated before the eighth Campione's company even set foot in Britain.

Mind you, if that was the case then it meant that Alice was working against those members of her organization that had been hoping for the destruction of the Royal Arsenal. Had been on their side of the fence then the White Sage would have instead bolstered the other groups belief that their King would protect them. Under such a misconception they would have been more defiant of the demands imposed upon them by Shirou, maybe to the point where he'd have to do something simply to maintain his reputation. Of course she knew that he'd never do something like that, if he did have to make such a point he'd ensure that no lives would be lost in the process.

"I hope they were able to bear their disappointment." Illya replied, carefully not letting her thoughts show. This was a dance, not one that she'd had much chance to perform in the past, but her grandfather had at least ensured that she knew the steps and moves.

"Oh, they'll survive, I'm sure."

Alice reached down into one of her bags and pulled out a book that she'd purchased during their shopping. It looked fairly old, not so old that it was in leather, but old enough that it might have been printed while the Blitz was still going on. She flipped through a couple of pages, then put it back in the bag.

"I want to thank you for promising to make sure these get back to me. One of the down sides to using these proxies is that I can't go shopping. I mean, I've got no money of cards on this body, and even if I did I can't bring them home since this body will soon dissipate."

The change of topic was a bit odd, but Illya simply nodded. Mentally casting around something of her own to talk about she recalled something she'd heard earlier and had been meaning to question her companion on.

"Earlier you called me the White Princess of the East, where did that come from?"

"There's no need to be modest Illya," Alice admonished her, a mock stern expression on her face, "Ever since you took over the Circle of the Chosen people have known that you're more than just the eighth Campione's sister. Many of the lesser groupings of Japan feared that you would move to subsume them as well, though in the end you didn't. Also there were some rumours that you had some sort of spirit bound to your will, but there was nothing confirmed, not until the affair with the Great Sage Equalling Heaven"

Alice paused for a moment, her face growing serious.

"I don't think you know how amazing what you did was. The divine beasts created by the Monkey King were by no means weak. They were creatures that none but the most talented of magic warriors could ever hope to stand against. But your protector, that giant that you have bound to your will, he tore them apart with almost casual ease.

"That shouldn't be possible. No being of such power should be so easily bent to a mortal's will, but you've managed it. That alone would've made you famous, but you've also stood up to your brother when he was under Venus's spell."

"I barely managed to keep him occupied for half a minute, and in that entire time all my Servant could do was endure, the one time I tried to attack it became a mess that almost got my giant killed."

"And Erica Blandelli, the Diavolo Rosso and one of the most gifted K nights of the current generation, was unable to hold him for even a third of that time despite the aid of one of the few knights who are her peer and the personal student of her Eminence Luo Hao. Such an achievement is certainly worthy of a title, and white seemed an apt colour, and given your status as the sister of a King the title of princess seems like one you deserve."

It was all Illya could do not to flush with pleasure. She might, in many ways, be more mature than her physical appearance would suggest, but one thing that she'd never really outgrown was the childish desire to be a princess. In her minds eye she could already see herself, dressed up in a flowing white gown that looked suspiciously like a wedding dress, held captive in a castle, that looked suspiciously like the Einzbern families castle, only to be rescued by a prince on a white steed, that looked suspiciously like her onii-chan riding Snow.

The pleasant daydream was dispelled by the sound of the Illya's cell phone ringing. Picking it up she saw that the caller was the hotel where she and her brother were staying. Curious she clicked the accept button and held it to her ear.

"Yes?"

"Ah, Miss Einzbern, I'm calling you at Miss Tiamat's . . . request. Apparently she has a very urgent matter she needs to speak to you about."

There was a definite rough edge to the speaker's voice which suggested that the fallen goddess had been less than gentle in getting him to agree to her needs. To be sure she'd gotten better at speaking to mortals not 'in the know', especially after a talk with Shirou. Given that none of the flight attendants on the trip here had called any sort of security on them at least some of it must have sunk in.

"Put her on, please."

There was a click, a moment of silence, and then there was Tiamat's distinctive voice.

"Illya Von Einzbern, is this device connected properly?"

Ancient and intelligent though she was the Mother of Dragons was like most traditional mages in that she wasn't very good at handling modern technology. Still, she was getting the hang of it faster than any of Illya's family would have managed. The white haired girl imagined her grandfather would probably have blown up the kitchen trying to get a microwave to work. Tiamat had ruined a plate, which had been enough for her to learn her lesson. But even though she learnt with admirable speed she was still quite a long way behind the curve.

"Yes Tiamat-san, how can I help you?"

Granted, she might not be too fond of the big breasted goddess, and that was in no way her jealousy speaking, but even so she knew it was a smart thing to be polite to a being on par with a Servant despite her reduced state.

"I just returned to the domicile that King Shirou had arranged for us, only to find that he has departed from this country to return to the Far East."

". . . What?" It was all Illya could say as she blinked down at her cell phone as though it had somehow betrayed her.

"It would seem that Guinevere has left your brother's hospitality and is now also returning to the city of Tokyo in order to confront the Black Prince and try to awaken her King. King Shirou is concerned with her, so he has followed after her with all due haste. He says that the flying vehicle shall be ready for you on the morrow. I shall be departing immediately."

". . . What?" That seemed to be all she could say. The sudden changes were hitting her one after another. Normally she would have been able to bear up better, but her mind had been in full 'conniving magus' mode, and suddenly switching tracks had thrown her for a loop.

"I shall myself be leaving immediately as well. Though my divinity may still be a remnant of what it was it should still suffice to carry me to King Shirou's kingdom in short order. I shall pass your best wishes to you brother when I see him."

There was a click, then the unmistakable sound of a dialling tone.

". . . What?"

It took Illya another couple of seconds to realize just what it all meant. She'd been left behind. Every one of the other members of the small group that had arrived in London had departed using their various powers and left her with no there way to get home other than the airplane that wouldn't be ready until tomorrow.

They'd all left her behind!

Some of her growing anger must have shown on her face because Princess Alice shrank slightly away from her. It wasn't a movement of fear, rather it was the kind of action taken when a kettle had just finished boiling and you knew there was going to be a whistle and a jet of hot steam. This was the kind of action taken in regards to something with potential danger that must be respected to avoid getting hurt.

The inside of the car rang like a bell as Illya gave vent to her frustrations by shouting the first thing that came to mind.

"STUPID ONII-CHAN!"


-()-


Sasha Dejanstahl Voban was not a man accustomed to rage.

He was the oldest living Campione of the planet, he wielded some of the most powerful Authorities that gods had to offer, he was feared by the massed and venerated by his followers. Anger wasn't really an emotion he'd needed to have much familiarity with in the centuries of his life.

Irritation he was familiar with, frustration too. Aggression was one of his favourites, the sweet sensation of adrenaline flowing through his veins as he pushed himself to bring down his prey. Actual anger though, that wasn't something he'd had too much experience with in the last couple of centuries.

The main reason for this was that there were very few in the world brave or foolish enough to arouse the wrath of a Devil King. That went double for the Marquis given that amongst the God Slayers he had a singular reputation for both viciousness and a lack of restraint. On the few occasions that he had been enraged the results had been of such magnitude that they could only be described as 'Apocalyptic'.

Indeed, the only time in recent years that he had been truly angry had been when the sixth Campione had slain the Heretic God that Voban had gone to a lot of trouble to summon to the mortal plane. The results of that anger had required the local maps to be rewritten after a couple of the mountains in the area had been subjected to the kinds of lightning strikes that his Strum Und Drang Authority could produce when he put some effort into it.

The exact cause of his anger lay all about him in the cratered and burning wasteland that had once been one of his more favoured estates.

The small manor and the surrounding grounds had been given to him as a tribute by one of the Hungarian magical associations that had tried to curry his favour in the years following his ascension into a Devil King. While it had been too small to serve as his true home the lands had been situated in a beautiful part of the countryside as well as being close to a small town that had a well deserved reputation for having some fine vineyards. Staffed with competent servants and always well stocked with food and drink the estate had served well over the decades as one of first Campione's favoured retreats. It was a place where he could go when he wanted to relax between hunts and simply enjoy some tranquillity.

Utterly ruined, event he local down was a depopulated ghost hamlet, its residents dead and gone. Even his own servants were slain, either by the hands of his attackers or by being caught up in his own attacks. Given what he'd seen of what had happened to those caught by those attackers he honestly thought that being blasted from existence by his lightning was the kinder fate.

More anger surged through him as he stalked forwards over the expanse of ash and rubble that had once been the manor's entrance lawn. He didn't care for the town's people or the staff, not in any meaningful way. They had been there to serve him and to maintain the area. Most of them hadn't known his true nature, only knowing that he was the wealthy land owner to whom they must show the greatest respect. To him they had been only slightly more than mobile pieces of the landscape.

But for all that they had been his!

If Sasha Voban could be said to have a true nature then those that knew him best would describe him as a 'hungry wolf'. He was relentless in his hunt and vicious in bringing down his prey, yet he was never needlessly cruel; every malicious act was always driven by a purpose. These people hadn't been his pack, they hadn't been companions, but just as a wolf protects its territory so did he protect what was his.

And he had failed.

The though burnt through his mind, even as lightning cracked the sky, a visual expression of his frustration.

It hadn't been that his opponents had been powerful. Certainly to a normal human they would have been dangerous, but to someone like him, a Devil King wielding the power of gods, they were little more than ants to be stepped upon. Their strength, their agility, their corrosive skin, none of it had meant anything to him.

Sheer numbers, that had been the problem.

Before him lay a relatively intact corpse of one of his attackers. Half its chest was gone, but skull face was still intact but the yellow glow in the eyes was extinguished. The black mass of its flesh was decomposing at an accelerated rate, but it still held together enough to show the potent musculature that it had once boasted. With a snarl he brought his foot down on the skull-face, bone and flesh smashing beneath his shoe's heel.

He didn't know who was responsible for this, what he did know was that whoever it was would pay a high price in the future. A price pain in blood and flesh and screams.

His enraged scowl faded slightly as a memory danced at the edge of his recollection. Something about attacker like these having appeared before, it hung just out of reach, on the tip of his tongue.

Bah! If it was important he could learn it later. For now he had to concern himself with making his way to the nearest town so he could arrange transport back to his main mansion. The battle had seen just about every vehicle he knew how to use either smashed or blasted apart, so if he wanted to get anywhere he'd have to do it on foot.

Or rather on paw. The power of his first Authority flowed through him as his form shifted. It really had been too long since he'd simply run in his other form. Perhaps there would be a chance to salvage something from this night.

But later . . . later there would be vengeance.


-()-


"Not enough, not enough, not enough, not enough . . ."

The muttering figure was truly a wretched sight to behold. His body was stick thin, as though he had been starving himself for months but had somehow managed to survive. His hair was long and matted with grease that made its off grey colour seem darker than it actually was. The clothes he wore were old things that might once have been of fine quality, but age and neglect had educed them to little more than rags that hung on him like the clothes of a scarecrow.

However all of these details were secondary to the fact that both of the man's legs ended in ragged and bloody stumps just below the knees. The same was true of his left arm as the limbs had apparently been removed at just above the elbow.

The crippled mage was currently being carried by one of his skull-faced creations at speeds that would have made most motor vehicles seem slow by comparison. Every step was an agony to the mage, but pain was something he was familiar with in all of its variations. Pain was something that he could ignore. Instead he concentrated on what he had learnt.

It hadn't been enough, but he had learnt.

The stolen slivers of Authority, they had grown in his care, beneath the meticulous touch of his magic and artefacts. They had been tiny, miniscule things, sparks of power so small that under normal circumstances they would have simply faded away like morning dew under the rays of the sun. However he had made his Thief well and those tiny motes had been held and trapped, kept in the mortal world long enough for him to integrate them into his creation and to feed them the power that would sustain them. The function of trapping the tiny sparks had been hard, oh so very hard. The research he'd conducted could have filled multiple volumes, the equations he'd scrawled out had covered the walls of his workshop, the work it had taken had cost him so very much.

In the end, mortal magic hadn't been enough though, not for what he wanted. Not to gain the vengeance he craved. It had only been then that he'd remembered the gifts he'd prepared for her. He'd known that she would have treasured them, that they would have been signs of just how much she meant to him, but in the end he'd never had the chance to present them to her, so instead they had sat upon his desk, an eternal tribute to his loss.

They'd been hard to obtain, but certain deals he'd made and favours he'd promised had allowed him to get them. Two artefacts of enormous power, an Angel's Bone and a Dragon Remnant. These were the remains of gods that had been defeated in ages past, examples of divine power solidified into a form that mortals could use. He could have used them in the early stages creation of his Thief, their abilities to channel energy and focus it had been invaluable, but he'd refused to touch them, to violate the memories they represented. But as he had approached the end of the project that would let him make the Wolf King pay, his desire for vengeance had eroded that reluctance. When he'd hit a brick wall and been unable to progress more he'd been unable to even think of stopping, of abandoning the project. So when he had exhausted all other options he'd taken them up to his workshop.

And there he broke them.

Priceless artefacts of incomprehensible power, things that men had been willing to trade their souls for in the past. He took them, he broke them and he fed the shattered shards into his creation along with his blood and other prepared potions and concoctions. It hadn't been enough to grant his Thief true divine power; if it had been that easy then the secret would have been learnt long ago. What it did do was impart certain divine qualities upon the Thief, qualities that would allow it to contain and use the divine power they held.

To be sure doing such a thing to a mortal would be impossible, mortal flesh could not support such power for very long without other divine blessings working to reinforce it. Were a mage to do the same they would find the very cells of their bodies melting into rotting soup beneath the pressure in less than a week. Their souls would fair no better, eventually cracking and breaking beneath the same pressures. The only reason that Campione could survive such was that the rebirth ritual which Pandora put them through upon their ascension altered them to be able to withstand their new power. To attempt to merely understand those changes would have been the work of a lifetime, even to a genius like him, and that was assuming he could find a God Slayer willing to allow him to examine them whenever he needed to. Replicating it . . . a fool's dream.

But . . . his Thief wasn't mortal, it wasn't even human. As its bodies crumbled it could easily replace them, all that was needed was new material to work with, more trash to be recycled. Likewise all the bodies were connected via the single pseudo soul that constructed from shaved off portions of his own soul. This meant that all bodies could draw upon the power of the fragments even if they had never physically touched them. The divine power of the remnants had seeped into the collective soul, becoming something not of the flesh but inherent in every iteration of his creation. It was an accomplishment worthy of legend, something that even the greatest sages of history would have looked upon with admiration and respect.

Of course it hadn't been easy, not by a long shot. There had been many nights of pain as he'd carefully guided the merging process and integration of the artefact shards. Pain of the body as his bones had creaked and his veins had burned from the magic being channelled. Pain of the spirit as he'd been forced to magically hold the fragments in place as they tried to discorporate into ambient energy. Pain of the mind as he forced himself to concentrate ceaselessly upon his take as time stretched torturously from minutes to hours to days. But all the pain had yielded results as his Thief had eventually assimilated the divine qualities of the remnants into its flesh and gained the powers that he'd wanted his Thief to possess.

In the end it had worked, the pseudo flesh of his Thief had been able to hold the slivers and keep them from dissipating. It had been even harder to ensure that they would be given enough of the correct sort of mana to survive and grow, but that had been accomplished as well. In the past it had been shown that human magic was able to sustain divine power, for short periods at least. Talented and powerful mages could briefly wield divine powers granted by gods through spell words or compacts. His Thief ensured a meticulously measured and refined steady flow of power sustained the trapped shards.

It was a wild hope, an experiment that should never have worked, but he had poured every drop of his genius and ingenuity into it. He'd sacrificed resources that other mages would have devoted a lifetime to find. He'd reduced himself to little more than a living skeleton as he'd willingly drained his vitality into his creation.

And it had worked.

Well, sort of.

He'd hoped that he'd be able to use the tiny shards to grow new Authorities. In their own way the divine powers of the gods were at once overwhelmingly complex and breathtakingly simple; their power by eclipsing the greatest and most intricate spells of humanity while at the same time being as straightforward as an avalanche. Authorities were almost living beings like divine beasts in their own right, yet they remained linked to their masters in a way that defied comprehension, at once a part of them and yet separate at the same time.

It had been this that the mage had hoped to capitalize upon, the fact that they weren't simply a function but rather something akin to living things. That had been what she had theorized, and it had been what he had proven. Authorities possessed their own life forces, or at least something that operated in much the same way. There was so much he didn't know, were they aware? Did they think? How did that impact their relationship with their users? Were they symbiotic? Parasitic? Were the gods their servants rather than their masters? So many questions, so much he didn't know. But in the end he didn't care, not anymore.

Instead he focused on the one thing that mattered to him, if an Authority was alive, in some way at least, then that meant that the tiny fragments he'd caught were alive. And all living things, from the tiniest blade of grass to the vastest tree, strove to continue. That was why he had his Thief carefully feed the shards, so that they wouldn't die, so they would grow.

And his theory had worked, little by little, like the cuttings of a plant putting forth shoots, the slivers of Authorities had blossomed and grown. Much energy had been needed, many many trash had needed to be cleared from several cities of their scum and refuse to continue the process, but as it had progressed he'd felt something almost akin to joy spring up in his heart. It was just like she had theorized when she'd been studying Heretic Gods and Campione. This . . . this was proof that she'd been right. Like a tree growing from a planted twig a full Authority could be grown from a mere sliver of power. This was an achievement that mages had dreamed of for millennia, a miracle that went in defiance of the world. That had been what he had thought, that had been what he had aimed for.

But the powers of the heaven's weren't so easily grasped by the hands of mortals, not even mortals as insane and brilliant as he was. Not even with the aid of forbidden secrets and the remains of fallen gods.

What he had in the end was not the perfection of a divine Authority, no power to rival a god. What he had was a huge mass of divine energy held together inside his Thief's 'soul' like some sort of unholy union of a tumour and a fetus. When he'd realized just what had happened it had sent him into a fit of rage and despair so violent that when he regained his senses he found that in his frenzy he'd cut himself and blood now stained the floor about him, but it hadn't mattered. All that had concerned him was the . . . abominations that he had in place of Authorities.

One after another he'd checked each of the shards, hoping that one had escaped this . . . aberration, but all were the same. Not one of the precious stolen sparks of divinity had grown into a true Authority. All of them had become these ghastly mutations. It was all the same, failure and ruin.

When he recovered enough of his composure to think rationally once more he had to admit that it made a kind of sense. He'd stolen part of an Authority, but could it be that an Authority was not a uniform power? Did it have composition, perhaps even some spiritual equivalent to organs or components? Could it be that rather than growing a cutting into a complete copy he had instead tried to clone a being and ended up with nothing but a mass of muscle and veins without skeleton or a nervous system?

So instead of the powers of a god what he had was a number of masses of divine force without the perfection of true Authorities.

What he'd hoped to do was to grow pseudo Authorities that his Thief could use. Powers to match a Campione enough that his Thief's many bodies could bring them down. Instead he was left with malformed grotesqueries of Authorities. Crippled and maimed from their very conception.

But not useless.

Perhaps he had been premature in declaring the results of his work to be unusable. Though the clumps of misshapen power couldn't copy the magnificent powers and abilities of their 'parent' Authorities that was not to say they did nothing. Connected as they were to his Thief his creation could command them; however in response to those orders all they were capable of was releasing floods of power without definition or focus. Just raw power that couldn't even be perceived by mortals, no destructive force or area changing effect, just unshaped power. To a normal mortal it was akin to being hit by an invisible truck, but to a Campione it would be little more than a minor inconvenience.

He'd almost been about to give into despair at the failure of his plan when he had remembered a theory he'd once had in passing. It was a theory that he'd never shared with anyone save for her, just something that had occurred to him while in his garden. It was a wild and almost foolish theory, one that could never really be proven, but she'd listened to it and not laughed.

The notion had been that all Authorities had a certain 'taste' or 'flavour' to them. When they manifested into the world that quality spread into the world around them as naturally as heat would radiate from an engine that was being used. His theory was that rather than being used to overpower them it was possible for another Authority to instead interfere with that natural part of their functioning. To use the same metaphor the idea would be disrupt that process so that the expelled energy would instead interfere with the 'spark plugs' of the engine so they weren't firing properly. If the shedding of 'burnt' mana was interfered with then it was entirely possible that the Authority itself wouldn't be able to function properly and might even stall.

The problem was that in order to achieve such a result then you'd need something of equal quality to an Authority to interfere with it. And what god or Campione would be willing to risk their own Authority in order to damage another one? If it was done incorrectly then both the Authorities might end up damaged or crippled. In the end it had been a wild theory, not something that could ever be proven, so he had forgotten about it.

Now though, now he had the chance to prove it. These monstrous and disfigured mockeries of Authorities weren't good for much, but they might serve for what he wanted. All they could do was release waves of divine power, but his Thief did have control over the type and force of those waves. The released force could, in theory, be tailored to cause the interference needed. It would be weak, of no consequence to even a novice mage knight, but it might be enough to halt an Authority.

It was a small thing, despite the size of the pseudo Authorities they still could not compare to the power of true divine abilities. But that was acceptable. They might be pebbles in comparison to the engine that was an Authority, but a pebble didn't need to smash an engine apart to stop it. All it needed to do was interfere in just the right place at just the right time. And if that was the case . . .

Modifications had been needed. What his Thief already had was a good foundation, but it had to be refined and reworked. If all went as planned then there was a wide margin of error in what could result. At best then his Thief would be able to completely shut down the Authorities of his foes, a thought that brought a twisted smile to the mage's lips. However, it could also have no effect and his theory would prove incorrect. The simple fact was that the latter was far more likely that the former, but he could improve those odds by improving his Thief.

It had been difficult, oh so very difficult. His Thief had been a masterwork from the offset, a wild mixture of alchemy, ectoplasmic control, magically altered biology and manifested curses. Many of the spells and rituals needed to make what he wanted hadn't even existed, so he'd had to invent them himself. It had been difficult, the task of an age, but he had been a genius of the sort that men only ever dreamed of, and in the end he had succeeded. There had been sacrifices, the resources that had been exhausted, the sheer magical power he'd invested into it, decades shaved from his lifespan and his body damaged and reduced. All to grant his Thief the ability to use his malformed and aberrant pseudo Authorities in the way the mage had imagined.

And it hadn't been enough!

His Thief made a running jump, crossing a whole river in a single leap, and the mage hissed in pain as they landed once more. The salty iron taste of blood filled his mouth and he had to spit it out lest it choke him.

"Not enough . . ." he muttered again.

His Thief had feasted well on the scum that it had tracked down; the initial assault upon the first Campione had been by a force of nearly two hundred bodies, each of them superhumanly strong and fast. The grown Authorities had been ready and prime for use, the weapons upon each body honed to a razor edge. Everything had been as ready as it could have been.

And it still hadn't been enough.

The thought echoed in his head, a maddening repetition of his failure to kill the Wolf King.

The initial attack had been a disaster from almost the first. His Thief had found the old Devil King seated in his study and enjoying a glass of wine, that had been easy enough. But in the moment that his creation had attacked everything had begun to spiral out of control.

That first attack had only been with about five bodies. For all of the Thief's formidable stealth skills it could only sneak in so many before it was detected. Even getting that many into the large study had been more due to Voban's absolute confidence in himself than it had been to the bodies' concealment of themselves. It hadn't mattered; as soon as the five black figures had moved to attack the Marquis had moved with the kind of speed and savagery that was impossible for mere mortals to possess.

Wolves had come out of the shadows even as the first Campione's hands had become claws. In the space of a single breath all five would-be assassins had gone from being on the attack to being corpses on the floor.

The mage had sent in the rest of his Thief's bodies, hoping to overwhelm the King through sheer force of numbers when his Authorities were cancelled. The plan had worked, at least in part. Under attack from a multitude of directions Voban wasn't able to destroy all his attackers at once. Well, he could have, had he unleashed the full power of his more destructive Authorities, however in the face of a foe that was clearly not a deity he restrained himself to merely his favourite power. That had been what the mage was willing to gamble upon, the absolute confidence of the oldest living God Slayer.

It had paid off; at the cost of a further twenty bodies his Thief had been close enough. Close enough to release a carefully tuned surge of power from the pseudo Authorities it held against the flow of the oldest Campione's own Authority.

And it worked! The flow was completely cancelled and the Authority vanished from his control.

For all of half a second.

Then the power had come slamming back. It had had some effect, in the brief instant that the Authority had been cancelled the wolves it summoned had frozen in place and the claws upon the Marquis's hands had . . . flickered, for want of a better word. Then it had reasserted itself and Voban had torn into the ranks of his attackers like the beast that was his power.

It had been different then, though he might not have noticed it consciously the first Campione had been aware that something had been done to his power, and even though he didn't know the details it was enough to enrage him. For all their superhuman nature the bodies of his Thief were human in the end, enhanced and strengthened but still mortal in origin. In the face of an angered Devil King they had fallen like wheat to the reaper.

Seeing the numbers of his Thief falling so quickly the mage had grown desperate. The false Authorities had worked, if only briefly. Maybe if he used more power, if his Thief had more bodies . . .

And so it had gone. As more of the main force fell the remainder had spread out through the manor and consumed the servant staff to create new bodies. The mage had wanted to leave them, they weren't trash, they were simply those unfortunate enough to have to serve the King. But he needed their flesh, needed the bodies they provided.

But even that hadn't been enough, so he'd directed his Thief to send spare bodies to the town while the main force of the remainder shifted to simply distracting the Marquis. It had worked; the infuriated Campione had ended up reducing his elegant domicile to a burning ruin in his hunt for his illusive tormentors before the next wave of attackers had arrived.

The town had been small, but it had still had a healthy population. Between men, women and children there had been well over six hundred.

All of them had been swallowed up by his Thief.

And it hadn't been enough. Even though they had swarmed him, even though he'd had to call up scores of undead servants and summoned up storms, in the end it hadn't been enough. His poor Thief had been burnt and blasted and torn to pieces, body after body falling until only a handful had remained.

That had been when the mage began to sacrifice more of himself to his creation in an attempt to grant it more power. Power enough to escape, to survive, to continue another day. First one leg, then the other, then even his left arm, each had been fed into the body that had been kept near him and the strength the sacrifices gave had rippled out to all the other bodies. The Thief had been created using his own flesh. That flesh had been augmented and transformed, but at its root it remained his flesh.

More than his flesh though; it had feasted upon the sacrifice of his magic. Pathways of magic where not wholly physical, but they were rooted enough in the physiology of the body that the act of sacrificing the flesh also gave them to his creation. It was a mad, near suicidal action, one that no mage would ever contemplate, but he'd done it anyway.

It had crippled him even more than the loss of his limbs, what he had surrendered was what allowed him to use magic in the first place. Though his channels were many and strong having such large portions of them torn out had left those that remained fractured and scarred. If he was fortunate then perhaps a tenth of his original ability would remain, and even that was unlikely. But by sacrificing of himself in such a manner he could strengthen the foundation, grant his Thief more magic, more ability, more strength. Strength enough to survive, strength enough to get him to safety.

That had worked, and that was why the mage was now being carried by one of the last three bodies of his Thief as they all distanced themselves from the ruined manor and the enraged Campione as fast as was possible.

"It worked," the mage muttered to himself, oblivious to the wind whipping at his hair, "It worked, but not enough. Too small, too slight, not enough time to do anything, no vulnerability, no weakness. Not enough, not enough, not enough."

Again thunder rumbled across the sky as the storm Voban had called into being sounded its call.

"Too loud, too loud. Make it go away, steal his thunder, steal it, steal it! Can't though, not enough. Why? Why not enough? Not enough bodies? No, there'd been more bodies than ever, and still not enough, no change in that. More bodies didn't generate more power, only more physical utility and options. More power . . . is that even the problem? No, not a question of power, power doesn't matter. It's ownership, the size of ownership."

Lips pulled back from bloody teeth in what might have been a smile in the eyes of a madman. Unfocused eyes glared blearily at the world around him without really seeing any of it. The moon was bright tonight, peeking through a gap in the cloud cover as he looked up. He could only see a sliver of it, but that was enough to-

"Yes . . . yes, that might be it! I grew them, but they're still small even though they're larger. They can't affect him for long because they're slivers. I need more, more power, feed the slivers, make them larger, stronger. Need to feed them, more. More, more, more more more . . . Can I get more? Has to be the same, can't go after others, has to be the same as the ones they were taken from. Can we steal more? Yes, steal. That worked once, can try again, again and again and again. Have to be careful, but if I use my Thief well . . ."

His words lost any sort of coherence as he slipped deeper into his own thoughts.

The irony, one known to none, not even the gods themselves, was that for the mage a Campione was the target of all his hatred. Though none could know it in another time and another place had the mage fought a god instead then he might well have become a Campione himself. Such was his genius, such was his talent.

But now who could know what the future held. A Campione is a mortal that has overturned the hierarchy of the world by slaying a god. This was because they could overturn destiny and seize a possibility that should be impossible.

What would happen when one with that potential chose to battle one that had already realized that potential? Especially when they were pouring so much of their mind, their soul, their potential, into a creation like the mage's Thief.

So many possibilities.