Okay, since people have requested that True and False have more differences, there is now a base chapter 20. This is it.
Checklist 20 Base: Testing is Mandatory
"Whew." Shirou wiped the sweat off his brow as he examined the repairs to the wall of the central room.
When he had hit Lev with Caliburn, most of the attack had gone into the Singularity of Fuyuki. However, when Lev had closed the portal, it had taken Shirou a second to cut off the energy flowing into Caliburn.
A second's worth of energy that had been turned into Caliburn's ray of light now impacting the wall behind the portal. Yeah, Shirou had done a fair bit of damage to Chaldea's center. Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasms could do a lot of damage to walls. Who would have guessed.
"At least that was easier than fixing up after the bomb," Tom stretched, his thickly corded shoulders popping as he stretched. The repairs weren't done yet but at least the damaged sections were removed and the replacement parts ready to be set in. "More concentrated damage rather than spread everywhere."
"Sorry for the trouble," Shirou apologized. "I figured that it would be easier to replace the walls than it would be to replace the Director."
"It was a good call. Easier to replace the wall than the head of the Animuspheres," Tom shrugged before glaring. "But don't think that this will make up for what happened to Roch."
"Again, I never met Roch," Shirou sighed.
"Hey Shirou, report to the testing station," Roman's voice interrupted their conversation as the communicator chimed on. "Da Vinci's plan is green to go so your shift on repairs is over."
"Okay," Shirou responded into his communicator.
"Plan, huh?" Tom raised a bushy eyebrow. "Something going on?"
"Finding a way to keep Olga fed and supplied," Shirou responded as he packed up his toolkit. "I don't have the reserves to keep the Reality Marble open for long so we're hoping that we can find alternatives to power the Mystery. Otherwise, we'll have problems keeping Olga alive."
"Ah," Tom nodded before turning back towards the replacement panels and preparing to pick one up. "Good luck then. If we have to replace the director too after all this, I don't know if Chaldea will stay intact."
Shirou nodded. Chaldea was one of the best groups he had found. Sure, they had some dark sides, but who didn't? And while they did restrain themselves from interfering unless the entirety of humanity was at stake, his boss had no problems with letting him go off on his own during his time off to save people as long as he didn't do so under their name and gave regular reports on information he uncovered. At least, he had had no problems when he was alive.
But who knows what will happen in the future. With Chaldea being gutted as badly as this, the very existence of the organization was at risk. But at the same time, the discovery of more Singularities meant that Chaldea couldn't be permitted to dissolve. There wasn't anyone else who could address that problem. But at the same time, Chaldea wasn't in any condition to handle a Singularity, much less the several they had found.
Well, nothing for it but to deal with it as the problems came. First problem being keeping Olga alive and the second problem being getting back in communication with the outside world.
Shirou frowned as he thought about the communication equipment he had examined. There had been nothing wrong with them. Well, the more mechanical pieces at least. He had no clue about the magecraft based communication devices.
Maybe the problem wasn't on their end? But if so, then how did every single piece of equipment fail on the same day? What had Lev done? It couldn't be coincidence that it happened at the same time as Lev's attack.
But that wasn't his problem right now. Right now, the thing he had to worry about was being tested again for Rayshift and Master affinity.
Shirou finished packing up, nodded at Tom who was straining to pick up the panel on his own but managing, and headed towards the large doors.
"Let's see," Da Vinci muttered to herself as she puttered around in the tester's station while Shirou waited inside the full body scanning machine. It looked like an MRI, only with the Chaldea logo on it and longer. "Modifications are adjusted, baseline is streamlined, ooh, let's fix that decimal, and program looks good to go. Don't need any special devices it looks like but with Unlimited Blade Works and the director inside, the superficial won't be enough…"
Shirou waited patiently.
"Wait, that would pick up indications of Noble Phantasms and mistake them as a link to a Heroic Spirit… Well, would that work?" Da Vinci mused as she did the final check-over. "Probably but let's double down on the test. One with and one without. Why not do both? I am the Ultimate Genius! No reason to limit myself."
"Ha ha," Shirou gave a dry laugh. "Didn't that logic result in Olga being unable to leave my Reality Marble?"
"All right, double the pain input," Da Vinci muttered.
"Can we do without that?" Shirou asked in faint alarm.
"Then don't be so mocking!" Da Vinci scolded before huffing. "Honestly, it's like you don't appreciate art!"
"I don't recall passing my college art class," Shirou responded.
"You never went to college," Da Vinci pointed out before Shirou could say it himself. "And your art teacher would have been inferior to me if you had."
Shirou paused at that. She had a valid point.
"Way to show your arrogance," He responded with instead.
"It's not arrogance if every bit of it is justly deserved," Da Vinci's voice was full of satisfaction and smugness.
"Except for the humility," Shirou muttered.
"I will have you know that I am humble!" Da Vinci's voice was strident and then paused. "When I want to be."
"And when was the last time you wanted to be?" Shirou asked with a twitch of the lips. It was somewhat boring just sitting here. He wanted to fidget but he didn't know if it would affect the test results.
"Oh, sometime when I was alive," Da Vinci replied flippantly. "I don't really remember the details. I think it was a lost bet with a Russian acquaintance. Okay, the semi-colons are in the right spot and the code is ready to run."
"Anything I need to know?" Shirou was not too nervous as the machine's internals started to whirl.
"Don't do any magecraft, don't open your circuits, try not to use nerve circuits-" Da Vinci began giving instructions.
"I don't do that anymore!" Shirou protested. "It was a misunderstanding from when I was young!"
"And don't do anything with your Reality Marble either," Da Vinci rolled on, ignoring his protests. "I managed to get it to work from the inside as well so that the ongoing Rayshift doesn't throw off the results either. Instead, we can examine your Rayshift and Master affinity from inside the Reality Marble as well as externally. Oh, I should send a message to the command room about that so they don't worry about the piggyback onto Ritsuka's and Mash's Rayshift. But it would be like a simultaneous internal and external probe so despite the complications, the reading should be rather accurate. Ooh, I wonder what we'll learn from this!"
"I feel like a lab rat," Shirou called out before the noise of the machine rose to the level of an engine and continued to grow louder.
"I don't use poison on lab rats," Da Vinci called back, not that Shirou could hear her anymore. "Don't worry, any rat poisoning will be completely accidental."
Him not hearing her was probably good for his sense of worry.
"And now I wait for the test results," Da Vinci sighed and slumped in her chair, puffing out a cheek. "40 minutes, give or take 2 minutes and 18.4 seconds of waiting. I don't want to get bored! Okay, what else do I have to do today? Hmm, which manual was I rewriting again?"
Thanks to shadyxlr for betareading.