I got several review that indicated that they liked the idea of Shirou staying as a technician. And that is the draw of this story. But I also really like the idea of Shirou being able to go to North America, Camelot, and Babylonia too (to be fair, those weren't out when I started writing this story). So, I think I'll set up a divergence point, with two routes, true and false. This chapter will continue with the first, Shirou as a technician and I'll wrap up this arc and declare the story over after the arc.

Meanwhile, the False route will continue into a sequel, Working with a French Maid or French Maid Order (name undecided). I'll start that story up soon (my version of soon) and it will follow the False route of this chapter, which will be published simultaneously and immediately following this chapter.

Checklist 20 True: Testing is Mandatory

"Da Vinci!" Roman greeted happily as he put down the paperwork that was on his desk. "Here to save me from the bureaucracy?"

"Only for a moment," Da Vinci poked a hole in Roman's hopes and dreams of an early escape. "Unfortunately, stemming the flood of paperwork is a miracle in and of itself. Now, increasing your efficiency by telling you to do this document before that one is definitely within my capabilities."

Roman followed the Caster's pointing finger and dug frantically through the documents on his desk before comparing the two side by side.

"Yes, that definitely would make this one easier," he muttered as he laid the first on top of the second. "But you probably have something for me. Is there a new problem? Or did we finally manage to make contact with someone?"

"Unfortunately, no, our communications are still silent," Da Vinci said as she took a seat near Roman's. "But I did manage to finish analyzing Shirou's Rayshift and Master compatibility results."

"Great!" Roman said, a look of relief on his face before it got swept away with worry. "Or are you here to tell me that we can't make Shirou a Master? Because that would make a cramp in things if he couldn't be."

"Of course he is capable of being a Master!" Da Vinci berated. "He fought in a Holy Grail War! Those results were never in question. No, the only thing that was questionable was his Rayshift affinity, but even that paled when confronted by my genius."

She flicked on her communicator screen and sent the pop-up screen straight to Roman.

"As you can see," Da Vinci began as Roman started reading the lines and charts on the screen. "Shirou's normal test data is almost confusing if you don't know what you are doing such as the technicians who administered this test first. But being the marvelous genius that I am, it is as simple as a child's puzzle to me."

Da Vinci preened, waiting for praise. Regrettably, Roman was too focused to notice.

"Good, good," Roman muttered half-heartedly as his mind and eyes bent to on the chart, following the curves and lines. "So this chart is the raw…"

Suddenly the desk flew into Roman's stomach from the sudden force of a kick.

"OWW!" Roman's head and torso slammed down into his desk. He glanced up at Da Vinci's pouting face and wheezed as the papers on his desk scattered across the floor. "What was that for?"

"Oh, sorry, I must have been bored from the silence of my deserved praises," Da Vinci said icily as she turned her face away.

"I did say it was good!" Roman protested as he tried to straighten up from having the wind knocked out of him.

"You were speaking of the raw data!" Da Vinci cried. "A monkey could have gotten that!"

"Well," Roman sputtered as his defense was shot down. "It was interesting! I had only once seen a spiritual analysis of a person to have a curve like that and hers was very and distinctly different. Hers was more understandable, for one."

"What is impressive is how I was able to turn that raw data into something that could be evaluated by the standard requisites for Rayshifting!" Da Vinci stabbed forward into the hologram of charts. "The analyzer's method of testing was warped by the weight and significance of Shirou's Reality Marble into producing those curves. It should have been straight lines but due to his Reality Marble having its own inherent heavy pull of Mystery, when we set the machine to probe his soul, the rays got slightly pulled in. That resulted in the stagger of data points which is those swirls you were so admiring of!"

"Uh," Roman's mouth hung open.

Da Vinci huffed in obvious disappointment.

"Just look at the second chart," Leonardo sighed in resignation, moping at the lack of well-deserved adoration. Roman had gotten to know the Caster well enough that he could discern what expression was what emotion. Sometimes. The Mona Lisa was really hard to read. "That is what happens when I adjusted for the Reality Marble having an inverse exponential effect on spiritual particles when they approached the part of Shirou's soul where his Reality Marble is."

Roman looked at the line chart and felt his heart lift at the much neater diagram. "Oh, that is much better!" he cried.

"Yes, isn't it?" Da Vinci said with an air of smugness. "My genius was able to rapidly figure out how to deal with Shirou's triple affinity of Reality Marble, Origin, and Element. It was like seeing through a polarized lens but if you could get past all the swords, then it was an almost normal soul behind it. And with a bit of work, I was able to figure out what was hidden by the heavy polarization of sword as well as how to flatten out the inverse exponential effect."

"No idea what you are saying, but it sounds amazing," Roman agreed readily as he compared the nice lines and data points to the orange line that was the standard requirements to qualify for a Rayshift. "Hey, this says—"

"Yes," Da Vinci sighed. "Shirou Emiya is just barely not capable of being Rayshifted safely. We could probably force it but…"

"But that would put both him and Olga at risk for potentially no gain," Romani slumped into his chair and mourned. "It's so close though."

"It is unfortunate," Da Vinci agreed. "A few more points in a few more categories and he would have met the minimum qualifications."

"In better times, even that wouldn't have been enough," Roman agreed. He had seen some of the test data for Rayshifting. As the head of the medical department, he had to look at Rayshift data to determine any possible medical or health complications that could come from a Rayshift. "We rejected some candidates who were above minimum qualifications, you know. Too bad that we can't use Shirou as a Master."

"I figured that out," Da Vinci waved a hand dismissively. "But even I know that Olga would want to start having something to show the Association and U.N. to show that we are already recovering, if she wasn't having her breakdown that is."

"I hope she will change her mind after she gets some rest and destresses," Roman muttered. "I can't be director."

"You'll do fine as a substitute," Da Vinci encouraged. "I mean, how long will this last? 2018 was the original projection for the last of humanity's existence so you only have to be director for this year, next year, and whatever fraction of the year after that until everyone is dead. That's less than 3 years at longest. And we might even be able to get help from outside so you can find someone more qualified to help replace those we lost."

"Yeah," Roman looked down. "Poor them. To think that Lev would do that…"

"No one could have foreseen it," Da Vinci stated definitively. "Chaldea had defenses against possession and somehow the Demon managed to find the one person who could do the most damage to possess. Even Olga wouldn't have been as capable of bypassing the security that Lev helped design. And looking back, even I would have guessed that Lev would rather commit suicide than let himself become a puppet of a Demon."

"And none of us noticed," Roman threw his head back against his chair, the sorrow pouring through his chest. Lev and he were friends, or at least he had thought they were friends. "We were too caught up in our own things to notice any signs of distress and coercion that Lev was giving."

"Oh, get over it, Romani Archaman!" Da Vinci shouted at Roman, startling him up into a jerk. "We are dealing in the affairs of man and magi. None of us can guess where a person will be a few years down the road. I had some friends and idealists who had to be put down before they became a greater threat to society. We can only mourn who they were and who they could have been while burying their corpses and doing our best to carry on. That is life and you know it. You remember your own siblings, don't you?"

Roman winced at the childhood memory, closing his eyes as he remembered. Of how he knew what they would do and what would happen to them before he even saw his older brothers' faces for the very first time. Of how that family dispute had ended, with multiple brothers dead, women raped, and hundreds killed in a short civil war. And now, he wonders if the person he was right now would have stood aside as a bystander like he had back then. Would he have done the same and just watched? Or would he have tried to stop them and weep his first tears along with Dad?

It was a lot harder now for him to say. Back then, he already knew how everything would go. Now, he only knows what he could remember. Was that truly the best outcome? Or could he have made better decisions? Or would that lead to even worse outcomes or even the entire timeline being pruned?

But Da Vinci was right. He had to acknowledge who his friend had been while knowing that the remains of his friend was his enemy and dedicated to the destruction of humanity. And he would not let everything be lost and all that could still happen be lost.

Opening his eyes, Romani met Da Vinci's eyes with determination.

"Thank you Da Vinci," he told her with a steady voice.

"You're welcome," Da Vinci acknowledged. "But I believe that you would have gotten over it yourself. You are an average human but I believe in your abilities. Far inferior to my own of course, but you are not insignificant. You are the one who convinced me to stick around after all."

"Hopefully we can do the same on Olga," Roman resolved. "Though, I suspect that that will lie more with Mash, Ritsuka, and Shirou than you or me."

"She'll open up more to them than to you or me," Da Vinci agreed. "But we can't prioritize her, this is a Grand Order after all. There is nothing more important."

"And for that, we need to keep our ability to fight on going," Roman muttered. "Three Singularities at the least and Darkwood suspects that he is finding indications of another somewhere around the Middle East but he can't pin anything down, neither time nor even if it is in the Middle East."

"There will be more than just those," Da Vinci shook her head. "If our enemy can make 4 Singularities, they won't stop at just that. They are making these Singularities for a reason and they won't stop until they achieve it."

"And we don't know why or what their purpose is," Roman frowned, his mind tumbling through impossibilities. "But why? What benefit could come from causing the genocide of mankind?"

"We'll find out by investigating the Singularities," Da Vinci said. "It's either that or figure out when, where, and how someone managed to get a Demon to possess Lev and sneak it past our defenses."

"Oof, talk about a hard choice," Roman winced. Investigate the past which may or may not have Servants or try to figure out everyone who could have summoned a Demon in the modern era and associated with Lev Lainur at any point in his past and hope the investigator didn't get possessed too. "But we should pursue both leads. Lev and the Singularities. We can't leave this alone. We need to deal with the group behind the Singularities directly or else they will keep on making more. Unless creating them is a one-time thing?"

Roman looked hopefully at Da Vinci.

"I don't know enough to say either way," Da Vinci shrugged. Roman slumped down, despair at the idea of ever-increasing numbers of Singularities coming their way. "They created Singularity F after all and then timed the creation of the other Singularities for the start of our First Order. Or the other way around, had Lev time the First Order for the creation of the other Singularities. Or since we are talking about different time periods and the Quantum Time Locks, it could even have been coincidence or an accident but that option seems off the table after Lev's attack."

"Urgh," Roman dropped his head down onto his desk. "I was hoping you would say that we would only have to deal with these Singularities and then deal with the enemy organization. But if we have to deal with both, we will need…"

Roman jolted up, tired mind speeding up like a wheel going downhill.

"Shirou's Master ability!" he exclaimed as he examined the data, flipping the chart to the next one. "We could have him summon a Servant and then assign him into a second team, one to hunt down the organization in our time."

"Shirou is good at combat and could be decent at tracking down clues when supported," Da Vinci agreed. "But dismantling an entire organization by himself will still be difficult, even with a Servant by his side."

"Yes, but we would need someone whose biometrics and spiritual diagnosis is already in our databases there. That way we can check to see if Shirou has been compromised again. If he has, then we know we will need to vet the forces to see if they are still themselves and try again," Roman brainstormed, his mind twisting as it tried to prepare for a hypothetical future that depended on their successful interference in the past. They couldn't let things happen like this again. And they knew that Shirou was one of the people who wasn't already working for the enemy or he wouldn't have had his mind affected by Lev. "And Lev was one of the people cleared to know Chaldea's location. And he already demonstrated the ability to invade Chaldea through a dimensional rift. If he decides to finish us off, we will need some combat ability. More than just Mash preferably."

"You want to make Shirou our security force and a Master while being the entirety of our technician's office?" Da Vinci raised an eyebrow. "And I thought you were overworking both of us."

Roman paused as he realized just how much he was about to dump onto Shirou. "Good point. Hmm, how can we handle this?"

"Romani, learn to take a joke," Da Vinci sighed before sticking out a tongue and hitting herself on the head. "Go ahead! Shirou will be fine with being overworked. And if he isn't, then we'll just say that a hero could do it and he'll volunteer."

"What?" Roman looked up at that. "Why would he do that?"

"He didn't tell you? Oh wait, he's slightly embarrassed by how childlike it sounds," Da Vinci smiled, in a teasing manner if Roman trusted his instincts. "Shirou wants to be a hero. He wants to be a real-life living hero."

"You're joking," Roman asked as disbelief coursed through his veins. "You can't just become a hero easily like that. You need to have and take advantage of the right opportunities by various means, beyond just getting famous. I mean, you could create such opportunities but even then, you'll need more than a fair share of luck to succeed. It's more suicide than success."

"Good thing we are in a succeed or everyone dies in under a century situation, right?" Da Vinci smiled.

Roman groaned at the reminder of the stakes, the heavy weight he was trying to handle crushing onto his shoulders again.

Shirou was getting off-duty, stretching his arms as he was tired. Even with the long break where he just lay there, bored, and let the machine scan him, he still put in a nice 12+ hours of work of work.

Beep. Beep.

Shirou's comm went off and Shirou glanced up at the communicator on his wrist. It was ringing, indicative of a message.

"This is Shirou Emiya," Shirou answered as he tapped the communicator to indicate he wasn't dealing with anything requiring his full attention.

"Shirou," Roman's voice replied from the few inch high hologram his communicator was projecting. "We've analyzed your spiritual readings."

"Great," Shirou glanced at the time. Hmm, that had only been an hour or two ago. "What were the results?"

"Did Da Vinci not tell you?" Roman asked in slight surprise.

"No, she wanted to run an in-depth analysis first," Shirou recalled. "To double check some stuff if I remember right."

"Ah, well, I can see why," Roman shifted and some shuffling sounds came through the transmission. "It turns out that you are just and I mean just, a few points short of not being able to Rayshift."

"Ah," Shirou closed his eyes, a bitter pang hitting his internals. His raised hopes dived back underwater, never to be seen again. "Well, that's disappointing."

"Well, you technically can Rayshift," Roman clarified. "But we can't guarantee your safe return or spiritual integrity. If things got really, really bad, bad enough that we are almost certain we are about to lose Ritsuka unless we can Rayshift some help right on top of him, we could Rayshift you. But it would be almost a suicide mission. Parts of your soul could be transformed into something else, we could lose your soul sometime in the past, or the Spiritrons could spontaneously decompose, reject your spiritual patterns and your body breaks apart and you are returned to Chaldea and all of that would be independent of whether or not you actually manage to even reach the mission in a Singularity."

"Sounds like fun," Shirou commented.

"It's very much not fun!" Roman shouted. "A lot of fatal effects could easily occur-"

"I know, I know," Shirou held up his hand to stop Roman's worries. "I was just being sarcastic. I'm sorry. I understand the risks."

"Oh," Roman coughed awkwardly. "My apologies. I have been under a bit of pressure myself and I might have overreacted."

"Still," Shirou moved away from the tangent. "Put me down for such a suicide mission if it comes up. I would like to help in any way I can."

"But if you die, or if your soul is lost, so does Olga," Roman worried. "That means that your life is worth two, simply on the count of numbers."

"Oh, you're right," Shirou grimaced. He wasn't used to valuing himself. Usually, if he died, it wouldn't change much. Not much would be lost. It would suck that he couldn't meet Saber but he was fine running that risk. But if someone else died because he died? "Well, still, put me down for it."

He wasn't going to run away simply because the stakes got higher. He just couldn't afford to die now. His continued survival simply had to take a higher priority than normal.

"I would much rather use you as an emergency security officer," Roman shook his head. "Lev wasn't seriously crippled by you, but you still dealt a tremendous amount of damage with your Noble Phantasm. But the reveal of your trump card means that Lev now knows everything that we have at our disposal. Well, not the Reality Marble, but he knows the maximum damage you can do with it."

"And he can invade Chaldea at will," Shirou concluded, the memory of the portal springing to mind. "Meaning that we are almost defenseless against him."

"We have extensive defenses, it would be easier to break into the Clock Tower or Atlas than here, but there is only so much we can do against someone who knows how to avoid the worst of them," Roman disagreed. "Still, being able to temporally and spatial transport, even if it requires a Holy Grail, into the heart of Chaldea means we can't ignore the risk of him teleporting some bomb or other nasty. So, I would like to do more than just give you Command Seals."

"Wait, I thought you said I wasn't able to be a Master," Shirou objected.

"No, I said you couldn't Rayshift," Roman stated. "Your Master affinity is pretty good to be honest. And having a secret Heroic Spirit inside Chaldea that Lev wouldn't be aware of is a pretty nice trump card."

"I see," Shirou nodded, his mind churning. "Wait, you want me to summon a Servant?"

"Yes," Roman nodded, his eyes set. "We need you to use Command Seals anyway so going a step further isn't much more effort."

"Yes," Shirou whispered, his hopes now a singing siren. His voice was clogged and he cleared his throat. "I will happily agree."

"That's a relief," Roman smiled. "Now all I need to do is get authorization from Olga and we'll be set to go. When is the peak of your daily power?"

Shirou told him the hour of night and Roman had to end the call to call Olga, instructing Shirou to save as much magical energy as he can for the summoning.

Shirou blinked at the bluish white walls of Chaldea and smiled. He already knew from the moment he realized that Roman was building up to requesting Shirou summon a Servant, who he would summon.

He wouldn't want to summon anyone else.

Ritsuka was getting really bored when the call came in. An unchanging Reality Marble sounded exciting until you had spent a few days inside. And Olga was just sleeping after she came out of her coma. Sleeping, waking up, getting something to drink and eat, glaring at him or Mash whenever they tried to talk with her until they let her fall back asleep again.

"Hey, Ritsuka, Mash, Director!" Roman cheered happily after the comm bleeped twice. "Good news! We finished analyzing Shirou's spiritual patterns."

"Okay?" Ritsuka wondered what that was supposed to mean before the recollection of the end of the last conversation came back. "Wait, is this about Shirou being a Master?"

Mash sat up, pulling her attention away from the textbook, and held up her own communicator to her ear "Will he be able to be use the Command Seals and Rayshift?"

"Um, yes to the first, and no to the second," Roman wavered. "He is definitely capable of being a Master, nothing to the extent of Ritsuka who seems almost uniquely specialized for it, but his Rayshifting capability is almost there. We would be able to send him into a Singularity but I wouldn't count on him getting back."

"Oh," Mash deflated slightly.

"But after Lev demonstrated his ability to attack us in the heart of Chaldea, me and Da Vinci agreed that having someone capable of fighting back against a second such attack is necessary," Roman explained. "So, we're giving Shirou Emiya a position of Master and making him into the leading member of Team S. Once we reestablish communications with the Mages Association, Team S will be in charge of investigating how Lev came to be possessed. With any luck, that will lead to discovering our enemy and taking out their base. Hopefully, that will resolve all the Singularities in one stroke."

"So we won't need to deploy to the Singularities?" Mash asked with a hint of hope in her voice.

"No, Chaldea will still need to," Roman shot it down. "The Singularities are the only other clue we have to our enemy. We need to follow both leads in order to restore humanity's future. But cutting off the source will make dealing with the Singularities easier so that will help you guys as well."

"Oh," Mash sat back, blinking.

"Should we wake Olga up then?" Ritsuka asked.

"Please," Roman requested. "We need her to sign off on it. That will allow us to give Shirou Command Seals that he can use to power his Reality Marble and keep her alive."

"Got it," Ritsuka walked over to Olga's snoozing body and shook her shoulder. "Hey, Director. Please get up."

"Mmmm," Olga groaned and rolled over onto her side away from him, obviously trying to stay asleep.

"Director, you need to wake up now," Ritsuka repeated, shaking again.

"Mmm." Olga grunted, ducking her head down into her collar bone.

"Let me try, Senpai," Mash offered. Walking over and crouching down, she cleared her throat. "Director, if you won't wake up, you will die again."

"Hey!" Ritsuka objected. "She won't die from not waking up."

"But if she doesn't wake up, then we won't be able to keep the Rayshift going," Mash pointed out reasonably. "Which will lead her to starving to death as a Singularities could take days to resolve. Days in which we won't be here, giving her food and water."

"It took us less than a day last time," Ritsuka recalled. "We can Rayshift in and take care of it and then return back here, right?"

"Actually, we have pinpointed two Singularities. One is the entire region of the Roman Empire and the other is France," Roman informed. "They are both much, much larger than Singularity F. Unless you Rayshift right on top of the source of the Singularity, either will take you weeks to search."

"Oh," Ritsuka was taken aback. "So these are really big ones?"

"Singularities come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, Senpai," Mash taught. "They are stains upon history after all. Some stains are big, others are small. Singularity F was really small which made it hard for LAPLACE to initially find. But the benefit was that it was quick to search. Even if the source of the Singularity had been small and well hidden, no one anticipated spending over any longer than a week to find it with A team backed up by everyone else."

"Oh," Ritsuka nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. A trade-off of size and speed. Harder to find small but quicker to deal with-"

"Just shut up!" Olga sat up, glaring at them. "I'm trying to sleep here and your incessant babbling and disturbances are getting beyond annoying!"

Piece said, the director plopped back down and planted her elbow over her eyes to block out the light.

"Sorry," Ritsuka whispered, feeling bad for her. It must have been hard trying to sleep while everyone kept on talking at her bedside.

"Um, Senpai," Mash hesitantly spoke up. "Weren't we trying to wake her up?"

"Oh, yeah," Ritsuka felt chagrin paint a light blush onto his cheeks. "Right. Well, she's awake now."

"Yes, that's true enough," Roman's voice agreed. "Director, I just need your permission for a few things and then we'll let you get back to sleep."

No response.

Ritsuka wondered if she had already fallen back to sleep. But no, she had just been awake, enough to yell at them for disturbing her. She couldn't have gone back to sleep that fast.

"I already told you to deal with that, Romani," Olga opened her mouth at last, grudgingly and irritatedly.

"I know but we still need your signature," Roman tried to pacify her. "At the very least, we don't need your acknowledgement, just the confirmation that the information was delivered to you and you are aware."

"Then go ahead and waste our time," Olga harshly decided. "I already handed over control to you."

"I know, I know," Roman flattered. "I've been taking care of as much as I can but these things need you more than anything I could do."

"Stop flattering me and get a move on!" Olga took her elbow off her face to glare at Mash's communicator.

"Ri-Right!" Roman stammered before a pause which sounded like him collecting himself. "Okay, we've analyzed Shirou Emiya's spiritual data. He's just short of being Rayshift capable but is fully capable of summoning and supporting a Servant with Chaldea's support. I want to make an exception for him and just slot him into a seventh team, one focused on security in case Lev sells out our location and a physical assault occurs."

"Not Rayshift capable?" Olga asked, an odd but somewhat thoughtful look on her face. A flash of interest, something that was genuinely there for perhaps the first time since she came out of her coma. Not her anger which burned out like fire in the husk of a log or exhaustion or indifference. But, maybe, sympathy?

Ritsuka wasn't sure. But if he had to guess, Olga emphasized with Shirou a bit over not being capable of Rayshifting.

"We could probably brute force it if we tried but I am unsure if we would get him back in the same state we sent him out. Might have some spiritual damage with an unknown extent," Roman explained. "But I'm not sure on that. Rayshifting isn't my field of expertise, you know."

"Then don't make him a Master," Olga sighed and lowered her arm to the ground to use as a pillow for her head. "If he doesn't make the minimum requirements, then he doesn't qualify."

"But we need him to have Command Seals," Roman pleaded. "Command Seals would solve many of our problems. Also, while Lev is capable of moving around between reality and Singularities, we know that whoever he is working for must have some form of base. They are doing unprecedented magecraft, creating new Singularities in the past, despite Quantum Timelocks supposed to freeze interference like that. If we don't take their base of operations out, they will continue producing new Singularities. Chaldea needs a strike team for that base. Even one more Master for such an operation will help immensely."

"Use the Mage's Association to take care of the present," Olga dismissed. "Or recover a team of Masters from cryopreservation."

"Yes, but," Roman wavered before a note of determination filled his voice. "We already know Shirou isn't compromised anymore like Lev was. For dealing with a group that managed to get Lev Lainur himself possessed, it is crucial that we have someone we can verify wasn't suborned. A thorough analysis of Shirou Emiya after the operation could reveal any traps like that."

"Very well," Olga sighed, obviously giving up. "Do it your way, Romani. You can make him a Master for however long you can get away with it."

"Thank you, Director!" Roman cheered happily. "We'll get Shirou Command Seals as soon as possible. I'm also thinking of having him summon a Servant as well, just in case Lev decides to attack while Mash is Rayshifted. Give Chaldea a new secret weapon, one he won't expect."

"Do what you want," Olga dismissed. "Now, as you are done-"

"Not quite," Roman interrupted. "I know you want to have some results to show to the Mages' Association-"

"No," Olga flat out denied, without even listening. "Let them remove me if you won't. There is nothing I can do for Chaldea now that wouldn't make it worse."

"But-"

"You already have your permission, Romani!" Olga yelled, a flash of anguish streaking across her face. "Stop bothering me!"

"Okay," Roman said in a quiet, defeated voice. "Understood, Director. Sleep well. We'll end the Rayshift soon and switch over to using Command Seals to power manifestation of the Reality Marble and supply you that way.

"Ritsuka, Mash, please prepare for the end of the Rayshift. We'll be Rayshifting you out later today. Help make the Director as comfortable as possible, give her as much as she can eat and drink, and make sure that the injection spot doesn't stay bleeding when you pull the tube out," Roman switched over to the two people willing to listen to him.

"Understood," Mash nodded sharply.

"Thank you," Roman sighed. "Honestly, I had hoped that we would get a go-ahead to start scouting the weaker of the two Singularities but I overreached."

"Don't worry," Ritsuka assured him. "I'm not too fond of diving back in myself but if the world will end, I'm willing to help out in any way I can. Besides, this way we can do it with more people. That should be better, right?"

"You're right," Roman gave a relieved sigh. "I look forward to getting more help from the rest of humanity. It will make things a ton easier."

Okay, that was the True iteration of this chapter. The next chapter is the False iteration. You'll figure out why they are named that way soon enough.

Also, fair warning, the first few sections of the False version will be identical to this before the divergence happens.