For those who don't know much about Fate Stay Night or Fate Grand Order or who just chose to skip over the cutscenes in Fate Grand Order, this is my exposition chapter. Most of what you need to know will be explained here.
Checklist Item 7: Overachieving is Acceptable
Shirou watched warily as the single most feared being in the Clocktower waved a French fry at him. It would have been simpler if the French fry wasn't flying freely on its own, without any magecraft animating it, that he could smell, or anyone touching it. As it was, it hurt his head enough to consider that the French fry was somehow flying on its own.
Zelretch snorted. "The times are so far apart that even I would despair, and I am a worker of Miracles and Magic."
"What do you want Zelretch?" Shirou asked with a long-suffering tone. If only he wasn't Rin's teacher. And a Magician who was regarded as one of the strongest Dead Apostles by killing Type Moon. All of which meant that Shirou would have to be an idiot to get upset at him. It helped to remind himself of that at times.
Didn't stop Rin from tackling him sometimes. What did she think he was, a suicidal idiot? There wasn't even anyone to save.
"However, one of myselves got a message from a fairy. And a lollipop. It was a pretty good lollipop."
Zelretch looked Shirou straight in the eyes, and said, "If you want to meet again as normal people, two miracles must occur. One must wait continuously, one must pursue endlessly. They must realize that it is impossible to succeed yet at the same time be capable of enduring patiently. Is that … the story of a dream that shouldn't be waited upon?"
Shirou stood there, mind racing, just like when he had first heard the prophecy. Hope blossomed in his heart again. Saber. He can meet Saber again.
Zelretch snorted as he added "Of course they would think that. Nuttier than a bee and the little fae knows that too."
Zelretch caught the French fry from out of mid-air - did that French fry try to dodge? Shirou really did not want to think about it - and ate it.
"Needs more iron." The vampire smiled.
Shirou shuddered and turned around to see a beautiful sunrise, much prettier than the Second Magician's smile. A sunrise where he had said farewell to his love. Where she now stood in front of him, smiling her sad smile just like in his memory.
"Shirou." Her voice spoke.
He knew what was coming next; he had already lived it. But she was so beautiful with her golden hair floating in the breeze.
"I love you."
Shirou's eyes watered and as he blinked, she vanished again.
"I love you too," he muttered to himself.
"Saber."
Chaldea, Antarctica
Shirou awoke.
He blinked. The ring of his alarm continued to play.
He hit his alarm on his communicator, causing it to silence itself. Getting up and stretching, he listened to the pops of his back. He didn't have the time to return to his room and bed, so he had just staggered to a break room and collapsed on a chair.
As he cracked his neck and did some stretches, he looked around the room. Tia Alcocer, one of the three cooks was also sleeping in a chair not too far away. Apparently, he wasn't the only one so tired that he didn't make it to his room.
Shirou checked the time. He had slept for four hours. Just the time he had set his alarm to go off before falling asleep.
The workload was heavy, and the employees were few. So Shirou had taken it upon himself to take less sleep now in order to get the power plants for the Evocation-Invocation Engine working.
He didn't know what would happen to the three people in the Singularity if it collapsed on them before they could manage to reverse the Rayshift, but he figured that it would be bad. Probably bad for humanity too.
But while the emergency generators are capable of handling the ongoing demand for the Evocation-Invocation Engine that was the heart of the Rayshift technology, it also left the rest of Chaldea on a slightly above bare minimum energy budget. As Roman had explained in last night's emailed message to all the employees, that meant that they didn't have Laplace observing the director, the last Master and Mash. Therefore, if Gaia caught onto the abnormality of their existence, it would try to erase them. But until then, the trapped people were still alive.
Funnily enough, motivation in Chaldea had risen higher after that.
You could kill the entire command staff and morale would plummet but fail to kill even one of them and morale will soar to greater heights than if all of them had survived.
Humanity didn't make any sense, Shirou concluded while trying to ignore the fact that he was a human.
He was rather successful. One of the perks of developing a Reality Marble.
But does ignoring the fact that he is human while contemplating humanity not making sense, makes sense?
His head hurt. Resolving to shove it aside until he can bring it up with Rin so he can give a logic puzzle in order to keep her from nagging him too deeply. Or he could give to Taiga so that she could burn herself out following the logic puzzle. Either option could buy him some time if they got upset with him.
Shirou yawned. He was so tired. And sleepy. Maybe he had been pushing himself too hard. But he needed to get to work. There were people to be saved.
As Shirou yawned again, he decided to go down to the cafeteria. He would need a good breakfast to help get him thinking straight during his investigation into who was trying to take down Chaldea.
On the bright side, he only had 22 candidates for the murders. There were the 19 other survivors in Chaldea and the three people inside the Singularity.
Of course, if the saboteur had died along with everyone else, then he would never find the murderer. But everyone would be safe from further attacks. And if the saboteur had faked his death, then Dr. Roman would find out as he was both a magus and a doctor, not to mention that he had access to the entire collection of Chaldea's records.
But if Roman was the saboteur or worse, working with the murderer, then Shirou would have his work cut out for him.
Regardless of what he would find, Shirou was determined to save the remainder of Chaldea. He would either save everyone or they would all be safe from further harm.
His stomach growled quietly. At least the first step, after having breakfast, was clear.
He needed to find the fragments of one of the saboteur's bomb.
Singularity F, Fuyuki, 2004
After Mash finished off the last skeleton on the bridge by smashing her shield into it and knocking it off the bridge, she looked around the area. She reported in a slightly mechanical voice, "The hostile life form has been removed. Let's move on."
Olga Marie Animusphere smiled smugly from where she stood in the far back as she admired Mash's work. "I didn't know what would happen with that monster, but I expected nothing less of a Servant's body. Such power."
"Not that it makes them look any less scary," Mash grumbled before clearing her throat. "By the way Director, I have a question for you. The Fuyuki in our data and this Fuyuki are just way too different. What happened in this city, exactly? What are your thoughts, Director?"
Ritsuka had been wondering about that too. He was from Japan and as far as he remembered, no cities caught on fire like this. It would have been all over the news.
Olga Animusphere sighed briefly before replying "Mash, Ritsuka. I'm only going to say this once, so listen up. In a singularity, history is disrupted. We in Chaldea, observes the future through an Earth model called CHALDEAS." She held up one hand. "At the same time, a familiar called LAPLACE compiles past records." She held up her other hand. "You can say it is LAPLACE's job to gather data on history that wasn't made public, and information that was buried in darkness that no one knows. According to LAPLACE's observations, an unusual Holy Grail War was confirmed in this city in 2004."
"Like what Mr. Emiya said, right?" Mash asked.
Ritsuka then decided to ask his question since they had talked with Mr. Emiya. "By the way, what is a Holy Grail War? Is it over the Christian Holy Grail?"
Ms. Animusphere grinded her teeth before replying. "The Holy Grail is a magical chalice that is the root of all magecraft. It is capable of granting its holder's wish. Mages in Fuyuki completed one long ago and in order to activate it, summoned seven Heroic Spirits. That was the beginning of the Grail War and unknown to anyone, they were summoned to this town. The Fuyuki Holy Grail War system is simple. Seven masters fight each other and the last one standing gets the grail."
They walked through a city intersection. It seemed so weird to be in a city and yet nobody is around. Ms. Animusphere ignored the flames and ruined architecture, and continued her explanation, "Chaldea has known about this since 1934. My father… I mean, the previous director used this data to build the summoning system. That's what makes up Chaldea's Heroic Spirit summoning System, FATE. Our third invention after LAPLACE and CHALDEAS."
Mash frowned. "Wasn't SHEBA the third invention?"
Olga Animusphere smiled, a rather pretty and wistful smile when Ritsuka thought about it. From his few opportunities to interact with her, she seemed to be a tsundere. "SHEBA was actually created by Professor Lev. Well, I guess you could say that we both worked on it."
Ms. Animusphere suddenly wiped the smile off her face before continuing. "Seven Servants fought here, and in the end, Saber was victorious. The town wasn't destroyed, and the Servants shouldn't have been noticed by anyone, but… Now this is happening," She waved her hand around at the destruction. "We should assume that the outcome changed due to this Singularity. The anomaly in 2004 brought about an alteration to human history and as a result, we're no longer able to see 100 years into the future. That's why it's our job to repair this anomaly. Somewhere here is the reason history has been disturbed. Once we analyze and eliminate it, that will complete our mission. All of us will be able to return to the present."
"I see. Got it." Ritsuka said and nodded. He understood now. As Mash had earlier told him before they met up with the director, Servants were legendary people summoned from beyond death. They needed a Master (which was me! Why me of all people?) in order to live again as they needed a person's magical energy to keep on existing as though they were alive. Mages summoned Heroic Spirits, a synonym for Servants, in order to compete with each other to get a magical, wish-granting Holy Grail, which seemed to be like a genie like in the bedtime stories his mother used to tell him.
But something went wrong. Somehow, the Holy Grail had turned into a monkey's paw, like that one English story that he had read in high school. The monkey's paw granted your wish but every time it granted a wish, it granted it in the worst possible manner. If you wished for money, you got in the form of life insurance on your loved ones. If you wished for your loved one to return to life, then it granted it in the form of a zombie. At least, that is how he thinks it went… It had been a few years, okay?
So, in 2004, a group of mages came together to fight over the Holy Grail in what was called a Holy Grail War and it resulted in the Grail being destroyed instead of being used as a monkey's paw. Mr. Emiya and Mr. Saber had won the war but that was in normal history. This was a Singularity where history itself was changed, and in this case, it was the fact that the Holy Grail had not been destroyed. And in order for them to get back to the present, or was that future now, they had to find and eliminate the thing that caused history to change.
"So why aren't we headed towards the Holy Grail?" Ritsuka asked.
Ms. Animusphere scowled. "Because the Holy Grail being used is a symptom, not the cause. Something, some object or person, caused the winning team, Saber and Shirou, to lose the Grail War. If we can find that and eliminate it, then the Singularity will be fixed."
"Oh. Okay." Ritsuka said.
Mash sighed a little in relief as the group approached the next intersection. "Anyways, although we don't know what happened to the Grail War, it's good that the mission is so simple."
Monster cries came from down one of the side streets. Ms. Animusphere and Ritsuka jumped in surprise. Fou jumped down from Mash's shoulder while good, reliable Mash wheeled to face the group of skeletons approaching with her shield ready to catch the first wave of arrows.
Olga Animusphere shrieked, "Not these guys again! Get rid of them!"
Mash replied readily, "Understood!" Then the girl charged the pack of skeletons, shield in front and deflecting every arrow aimed at her.
The skeletons stood no chance. They only managed to get a third volley off before Mash ran the full several hundred meters to them, appearing to Ritsuka like a pink and black blur of speed.
Once the younger girl reached them, she hit them like a bowling ball. The first skeleton she rammed flew backwards into another skeleton, dispersing both of them.
But Mash didn't stop there like she had the first time she had fought. She took a step to the side, wheeling her shield around and knocking a skeleton's rib cage off.
As she continued her swing all the way through a full circle, killing a few more skeletons, Ritsuka saw that a skeleton on the opposite side of Mash had nocked and aimed an arrow right at her!
"Mash! Duck!" He called out to warn her.
Mash completed her swing and saw the skeleton jump back. Her eyes widened as she yelped and dropped to the ground in a roll with her shield held off the ground.
It worked. A pair of arrows flew over her head, both clattering to the ground after impacting a wall.
Suddenly a hand grabbed his collar and yanked him to the side.
"You get behind here!" Ms. Animusphere snarled from behind the cover that the building offered.
An arrow flew past him, scaring Ritsuka. He hadn't even noticed that a skeleton was aiming at him!
"Incompetent commoners! This is why I wanted Masters who had combat experience!" The director continued her snarl before devolving more into her complaints. "I wanted top-grade Masters! I wanted mages who would face creatures that could threaten all of humanity. I wanted Masters who could maintain a Servant and come out alive. So why do I get this stupid commoner with the common sense of a lemming! Why couldn't…"
Ritsuka stopped listening. It sounded like she was just venting to herself. Besides, she had saved his life. Judging by her words and actions, she was a European tsundere. Maybe she was an evil person as Mash and Roman had said but just as Roman had said she was a sweet person underneath.
He peeked out from behind the wall. In the few seconds he was distracted from Mash's fight, Mash had destroyed most of the skeletons. As he watched, the Servant swung the shield from the right side of her body across her, using the edges sticking out from it to smash into the skeleton and crumpling it to the ground. She side stepped a different skeleton trying to use its bow as a club against her and swung her shield back to her right side. The skeleton crumbled to the ground, destroyed.
Mash now faced the last skeletal archer. Sensing it's impending defeat, the skeleton backed up while drawing another arrow from its quiver. Mash didn't give it a chance to fire as she darted forward and slammed the bottom edge of her shield across its legs, destroying the legs and the skeleton.
Ritsuka sighed in relief. He was not used to this! He had never fought in his life, well with the exception of the karate dojo that his twin sister had dragged him to when they were both kids, but that was sparring! Not battle like this!
The director walked past him, judging there to be no threat now that Mash had killed all those skeletons. Ritsuka followed behind her.
Mash turned and walked back to join them, shield held firmly at her side.
"Phew," Mash sighed. "The battle is over Master. I'm relieved that we pulled through again."
"Yeah, me too," Ritsuka admitted. "Thank you Mash." He turned to the director. "And you too, Ms. Animusphere."
Their reactions were polar opposites. Olga Marie Animusphere hmphed and crossed her arms while Mash blushed a little and said softly, "Yes. I am happy to be useful."
"Well, let's not waste time." The director turned around and walked back to the street they were walking down. "This way."
Mash and Ritsuka grinned at each other before running to catch up. The director might not have been appreciative but they knew that they had saved each other. Besides, maybe she didn't know how to handle thanks like that.
After getting back on the ruined road that they had started on, Olga Animusphere frowned suddenly and turned to Mash. "Hey, Mash. Is it possible that you can't use your Noble Phantasm?"
Noble what now?
Mash shrunk down into herself and hung her head. She took a few more steps before replying. "Apparently."
A moment of silence stretched out before Mash continued. "I don't even know which Heroic Spirit fused with me –and I am unable to use the power of its Special Arts."
Mash glanced up to Ritsuka who still sported his look of confusion on his face and explained. "A Heroic Spirit's secret weapon is called a Noble Phantasm, Ritsuka senpai. I'm sorry for explaining this so late. Servants are equipped with a unique skill called a Noble Phantasm. It's derived from each hero's legend and great deeds and is a secret weapon."
Ritsuka was impressed. So, a hero's legend gave them secret weapons then. Would that mean that a hero like Sasaki Kojirou would have a powerful sword then?
Mash continued explaining, with a look of shame on her face. "However, I am unable to wield my Noble Phantasm. I can somehow use it as a weapon, but its output is decreased. I can't even release its True Name."
She shrunk further in on herself. "In fact, I don't even know what the origins of this weapon of mine might be."
She hung her head again, "In any case, you can think of me as a failed Servant."
Ritsuka really didn't know what to say. He barely had any idea of what was going on.
But Mash made all that redundant as she suddenly perked up, a look of determination on her face and stared him right in the eyes. "Or maybe just a capable kouhai that can get even stronger. I don't have any leads on the Heroic Spirit that fused with me, but with you as my Master, I will figure it out as I grow."
Olga Animusphere suddenly spoke up. "That's true. Masters have the ability to analyze their Servant's parameters, skills and matrixes."
Really? Ritsuka thought. How do I do that?
Director Animusphere spoke again before he could ask. "Ritsuka, as a Master once you become good enough, you should be able to analyze Mash's Servant data. Any Servants you make a contract with from this point should be the same. First, you need to learn their True Name and Noble Phantasm. As your trust with them and your ability to use your prana grows, your Servants power will grow too."
She clucked her tongue. "Well, it's not like you have that much potential in you. The fact that you can't use Mash that well shows that." Ritsuka winced at the snub.
"Once we get Chaldea's Rayshift capability back online, we're going to shift a first-class Master here." Olga Marie Animusphere nodded her head in time with her own words.
"Then you're fired."
Ritsuka froze. What!?
She explained without noticing that he had stopped. "Newbies with no combat experience can spend their time terrified in some corner in Chaldea." She noticed that both Ritsuka and Mash had stopped and turned around. "What?
Ritsuka analyzed her words. Remember that she is tsundere. She won't say what she actually feels. She just saved my life and now she is saying that I will be sent back and hide in Chaldea—OH! She isn't going to send me back home, she just intends to get away from being in this Singularity! Back to the safety of Chaldea!
Recalling the swarms of skeletons everywhere, he felt relieved. He didn't want to get killed by skeletons in a burning town. Besides, Chaldea has that simulated battle thing at the entrance. Didn't it mention something about recording my score? It should be able to be ranked and thereby give training, right?
Feeling relieved that he wasn't being fired but instead being relocated for training, Ritsuka smiled in gratitude. In his good mood, he decided to tease the director, "Could it be that you're worried about me?"
She blushed prettily and wheeled around. "O-Of course! You're our only fighting force here! If you get taken out, who's going to fight?"
Mash smiled and relaxed now that the two didn't have their feelings hurt. "Anyway, I'm glad you two understand each other better now. Let's move before any more skeletons show up."
Olga paused and used her comm to double check the map. Yup, this was the location of the park that that one technician-what was his name again? - had pointed out.
Or at least it was where the park was supposed to be.
Here we are. A cliffhanger. Hope you enjoyed it!
Next month we'll progress more on what is going on. Just remember that this is a Singularity. Nothing says that a Singularity has to match up with only the appertaining time line's history.
Thanks to Eiskralle1and shadyxlr for betaing this chapter.
Omake: May the Fourth not be with Taiga
"Something, some object or person, caused the winning team, Saber and Shirou, to lose the Grail War. If we can find that and eliminate it, then the Singularity will be fixed."
At that moment, a certain tiger like person walked out into the cross-roads up in front of them, with a glowing blue sword on her back, and a mountain of snacks clutched in her arms.
The person saw, them, swallowed the snack that she was eating, and hollered "Hello!"
She ran up to them, still holding all of her snacks, which was really impressive considering how large the collective whole was. "Finally, I thought I would never see another person again!"
Mash jumped in front of the group, setting her shield to defend against the newcomer. The stranger ignored it. Probably because she couldn't see past all the food in her arms.
Olga opened a line of conversation. "Hello, where did you got that blue sword from? It is so—shiny."
For all of her skills, Olga Marie was not good at flattery.
"Oh this?" One arm shifted to support the mountain of food by itself while the other grabbed the sword on her back and waved it around. Mash's eyes widened and she moved her shield to always be between her and the light-radiating sword. "I got it from some blond, baseball hat wearing teenager in a park where a meteor had just fallen and who was hungry and wanted to trade for Tora-Shinai and some food. Being the generous person that I am, I agreed and gave her my sword. Cool huh? It looks like a lightsaber."
Mash replied faintly. "Yes, yes it does."
The brown-haired woman continued. "But when I went over to Shirou's house to replenish my food, I found another blond woman trying to live in sin with my cook- I mean ward! In order to protect my food, I chased her out with this awesome sword!"
Her head tilted, popping out from the side of the food pile. "Funnily enough, I don't really remember the duel all that much. I just brought out this sword and then everything went red and blue. When I woke up, the town was on fire and neither Shirou nor that Saber woman were anywhere around. The Dojo had been repainted red though and all the lights were burnt out."
She frowned as she tapped the hilt of the sword on her cheek. "Come to think of it, you are the first people I've seen today since I had dinner."
Olga Marie Animusphere nodded, looking a bit bemused, and asked while she waved her hand in front of the weird woman. "You will lend me your sword."
"I will lend you my sword," the woman agreed. She handed the sword over, hilt first. "It is a very pretty sword isn't it? I didn't know they made swords like this." Her hand plucked a snack from her pile, opened it, and plopped it into her mouth.
Olga nodded again. "Now that we have this Noble Phantasm, Mash defeat this source of the Singularity! Then we'll head to the park and defeat the original source and bring balance to the Force."