For those who don't like Sakura, don't be so quick to dismiss this chapter. It is called 'Matou' for an evident reason not because Shirou gets with Sakura. Though that is an option...
The Fifth Assassin is a Spy - Matou
Shirou was coming home from his work at the bar Copenhagen, Mata Hari saw as she walked invisibly beside him on the bridge.
She wasn't going to leave her Master. She couldn't fight but she at least could buy him a few seconds against a Servant. Well, assuming it wasn't Berserker.
Mata Hari shivered. That Berserker had been terrifying. She had never seen or felt anything as terrifying as him. She would almost call him a monster. But the Berserker's Master had called him by his name and if anyone from legend would look like the cross between monster and man, it wouldn't be surprising if Heracles was him.
But that was a matter for another day. Mata Hari happily shoved the memories of Berserker aside. If Berserker came after her, there was absolutely nothing she could do. Other than die and she didn't like to think about that.
Shirou turned off the main road onto a side street that would eventually wind its way to Shirou's home. Mata Hari followed, drawing power from her proximity to her Master. It wasn't much, but it was enough for her mana level to stay stable. Good thing she didn't need much power.
Then she paused.
She felt something. A presence. A being of magical strength was nearby.
Mata Hari glanced to the side. Shirou was walking straight onward, unaware of the new person. Her Master really wasn't much use in detecting threats. Then again, she hadn't taught him how to detect hostility. Hmm, how could she do that?
Ah, go to the beach with him. Mata Hari nodded to herself. Flirt with him in full view of hundreds of hormone filled males and the hostility ought to be enough for even her oblivious student to detect. It would also help increase his resistance to being seduced. Two birds with one stone. And she could have one of the icy drinks called slurpies. She wanted to try one. Three birds with one stone was even better.
But what to do? How could she help keep her Master alive though this encounter?
Mata Hari broke off from Shirou's side. She couldn't fight so staying by him was pointless. She couldn't protect him.
But maybe she could negotiate with the other Master and Servant?
"Feed on him, Rider!" A voice cried out harshly.
Rider huh. The last Servant that hadn't met Shirou. But Mata Hari recognized the voice of the Master. It was the boy that Shirou was almost amiable with, the Shinji Matou person.
"Shinji?" Shirou turned toward the voice, head cocked in confusion. "What are you doing out this late-?"
A flash of gray metal, moving almost too fast for Mata Hari to see flew out at Shirou. But what was too fast for her to do anything about, wasn't faster than what Shirou could do.
Shirou ducked a little and the chain that would have penetrated his arm cut at his sleeves.
"Trace on," Shirou muttered beneath his breath. Instantly, the power flowing into Mata Hari drastically increased.
A second chain and dagger flew out. Shirou reacted extremely fast and pulled out the metal wrench he had been carrying everywhere since he got 'mugged' by Berserker.
It was nice of Mr. Kuzuki to return the lost wallet that had been found outside the temple. Though, Mata Hari had her suspicions about the man. He was too much like one of those bodyguard agents she had sometimes met in the course of her work. Men like him don't get a life as a normal teacher.
But Saber's Master had demonstrated an ability to control memories and stealing a wallet would be embarrassing for a magus. It was saying that their own wealth wasn't enough.
But the clang of metal on metal resounded and broke Mata Hari from idle musings as she ran for where the other boy's voice was.
A grunt.
Mata Hari glanced back to see her Master slam into a wall, his wrench bent almost in half. But the other dagger was deflected away, which Mata Hari supposed was a good thing.
"Ah, Assassin," Shinji greeted Mata Hari as she got close. "I'm here to help relieve you of your duty in following this schmuck around. No need to thank me. All of us will benefit."
Oh yeah, magi could sense her. Mata Hari had almost forgotten about that due to Shirou's being oblivious about it.
Shifting her form into the material plane, Mata Hari appeared in the casual outfit she wore rather than her dancing garb.
"Margaretha?" Shirou asked in surprise before yelping.
Mata Hari cast a second glance back only to see Shirou was now wrapped up in the chains that Rider had thrown at him.
Oh, she was a cutie. Long purple hair, a short, black dominatrax dress, and a statuesque body that Mata Hari would have killed for in her dancing days. Just those long legs alone would have made her career as a dancer much better and her fans even more adoring.
"Is this about Shirou Emiya being a witness to the Grail War?" She asked with an air of disapproval, folding her arms under her breasts, intentionally giving them a little prop up. Shinji's eyes dropped to her chest and stared for a good long second.
Mata Hari endured it. Sexual urges reduced rational thinking. The less rational Rider's Master was, the more likely she was to be able to talk him down using a soft voice. Of course, pheromone was on and dissolving his wariness.
"Of course, my dear," Shinji's gaze came up to her own and he gave a smile. The boy was handsome but the malice hiding behind his face twisted it. Reminded her a bit too much of some of the nastier characters she had met as a spy. "I felt that Mr. Emiya was a risk to the sanctity and secrecy of the Grail War. From long experience as his old friend, I know that he won't let things alone and would try to dig into it. It is only a matter of time before he stumbles across things he isn't supposed to know."
Shinji shrugged like he was helpless. But beneath his superficial body language was taunt lines and a hidden pleasure. He was enjoying this.
"Rather than let that happen, only for grieving friends to start questioning why, I figured it would be best to drain him of his magical energy and leave him in the hospital for several days. At least he would just be one of a number rather than anyone unique," Shinji shook his head and looked wistful. "Truly, it is sad but a necessity."
Mata Hari slowly nodded.
This boy was like her, a seducer. While she was used to charming boys, this child had focused on women. She was a master and could see how he was trying to play her, using smooth words to lull her.
It wasn't the first time someone had tried to seduce her. The boy had some experience but it remained to be seen how good he actually was.
A game of seduction would end in her victory though. The boy had obviously decided to seduce her once he saw her. But that left a conflicting first impression on her from when she had seen him but he hadn't seen her. Now, if he was good, he would use that conflict to flare her interest in him. If he wasn't, he'd try to press on and get it all over in the first meeting.
"I see," Mata Hari let her first words leave her mouth before tilting her head and dolefully looking up at Shinji through her eyelashes. She wanted to make an air of helplessness, of vulnerability. That should appeal the most to the type of character she was suspecting of him. "Does this mean that he will survive?"
"Of course, he will," Shinji put on an expression of surprise. But it was too slow. A micro-expression of annoyance was covered up first. "I'll even order Rider to be gentle in her feeding."
Shinji thematically turned to Rider, walking towards the tangled up Shirou and waiting Rider.
"Rider," He called out in an arrogant tone. However, he was acting dramatically enough that she could tell that he was faking it. "Be gentle on him, we don't want him to suffer, now do we?"
Rider gave a short nod before lowering her lips to her Master's neck and biting it. Shirou gave a shuddering gasp of pleasure.
Oh? This didn't seem like how to eat a person's soul. But she needed her Master's magical energy for herself. And as Rider was distracted and her chains all tied up…
"Oh, dear Shinji," Mata Hari sweetly called out, plying her voice with audible (and fake) affection. "Thank you so much for your help."
Shinji turned back to her, with a cocky smile.
"But what shall I ever do to thank you?" She nibbled on her lip before brightening up before he could speak. "I know! I'll give you a lit~tle~re~war~d."
Shinji's smile widened into a smirk at the implicit promise.
"Let's begin, shall we?" Mata Hari tempted, rocking her hips side to side.
Manifesting her dancer's outfit, she watched as the boy's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.
"Hmm, hmm," Assassin hummed as she sashayed forward, lips smiling with the tempting promise of future delights.
Feasting on her Master, Rider paused and looked up.
Oh dear. Rider was wearing a blindfold.
Her Noble Phantasm was conveyed through sight. The blind Servant could probably sense the magical energy but would not be affected by her Noble Phantasm at all.
"Master-" Rider called in a quiet tone.
"Shut up Rider," Shinji harshly ordered without looking away, stepping towards Rider. "Focus on Shirou."
Rider paused before shrugging and turning back to a droopy eyed and panting Shirou's neck. Oh, the poor boy. Mata Hari really needed to give him training to resist seduction if a neck bite was all that he needed to get into the mood. But she wasn't going to deny the gift of a Servant letting her Master fall into Assassin's clutches.
"Look at me," Mata Hari sang as she started to dance. "What do you see? A woman of the night?"
Her legs flashed in a long kick that exposed her underwear for a brief flash. Mata Hari smiled at the boy who was slack jawed as her magical energy built up.
"Be charmed by a woman~like~me~" Mata Hari hummed to the beat of the dance. Throwing a wink and a kiss towards the blue haired Master of Rider, Mata Hari let her Noble Phantasm's invocation end.
The boy was still slack jawed, and his eyes glazed. Her Noble Phantasm had temporarily removed his self-motivation and ego, rendering him not unlike a puppet.
Placing her hands on her hips, Assassin ordered in her kindergarten teacher voice. "Now come here please."
The boy stumbled forward before catching himself and running to her. Rider had stopped feeding on her Master and was facing their direction. Shirou on the other hand was passed out in her chains and hands.
Rider wasn't going to get involved as her Master had ordered. Arrogance was always so easy to use in her targets but not even Mata Hari had expected Shinji to be this arrogant as to let a Servant use her Noble Phantasm on him.
Mata Hari hummed in satisfaction before hearing ominous skittering. Turning around, her heart hammered. She had thought that Rider was busy toying with her Master!
But it wasn't Rider and Rider was in front of her, not behind her. No, it was a swarm of insects and worms. Involuntarily, Mata Hari let out a scream of disgust.
The swarm paused and then gathered together into one spot. Mata Hari gaped as the various disgusting bugs merged and squirmed together until an old man appeared before her.
"Who are you?" She whispered in shock, raising one hand to her heart which was pounding in fright like a drum running to a fast beat.
"Zolgen Makiri," the worm-man answered promptly.
"How did you do that?" She asked, still not recovered from the shock.
"I transferred my soul and mind into the body of my famiiliars centuries ago," Zolgen answered truthfully.
"Centuries ago?" Mata Hari asked, ignoring the boy ogling her ass behind her and Rider whose interest was now pressing in on Mata Hari's awareness.
"Yes."
"How old are you?"
"I do not remember. I remember becoming the patriarch of the Zolgen family 500 years ago."
"Five hundred? What have you been doing for all this time?"
"Trying to obtain my wish on the Grail."
"Which is?" Mata Hari asked.
"True immortality so that I can achieve my goal of-" the worm-man faltered. "-of…"
"Did you forget?" Mata Hari asked incredulously out of shock.
"Yes."
Well, that was problematic. How do you negotiate with someone who had forgotten their objective? She doubted that her Master or anyone else for that matter even had a clue as to how to grant immortality so this Zouken would be involved in the war.
"Well, can you tell me what you know about the Grail War?" She asked.
She was not expecting the answer she got. Nor the answers to the questions that those answers had created. Even after dismissing the two, instructing them to forget about falling under her Noble Phantasm and to convince themselves that they didn't remember the night for a different reason, whatever would be hardest for them to see through, her mind churned. She had learned of the depths and depravities that Zolgen would sink. And she did NOT want him to set his eye on her. She did not want to be turned into a puppet nor eaten by a Grail gone mad with evil. Nor did she have a prayer of facing the left-over Servant Gilgamesh who was watching and laughing over this corrupted Grail War while waiting to kill all of humanity. She was no hero. She was, at best, an Anti-Hero, one held up as a lesson of who not to be. But she didn't want to die. She didn't want to see a world gone dark with all the evil of men. Neither did she want a world where any of her precious daughter's children, if little Louise did have children, could die in such a massacre. She might not be looking out for the greater good, but there were some things that couldn't be ignored. Some things that couldn't be tolerated.
And she also knew that this was one of them. If she died and got devoured by a magus chalice turned into a receptacle of destruction, then she wanted to go down fighting. Some things were better suffered such as letting her abusive ex-husband take care of her daughter, he had been a bad husband but a better father. This was not like that.
Behind her, Mata Hari could hear the chains rattle as Rider's hands tightened in anger at what the worm was describing.
Rider could barely hold her anger in. This was…this was worse than she had ever imagined.
A doomed war. One set up so that victory through battle was impossible. King Arthur as Saber allied with Medea as Caster, who had slain her own Master and taken a paramour as her new Master in the fortified temple on the hill. The hill which was where the Grail would manifest in this war. Heracles, whose legend was after her time, the descendent of Perseus who slew her, as Berserker combined with a Noble Phantasm that not even her Pegasus could beat. Bellephron could kill him but it wouldn't be enough to kill him a dozen times. Cu Chullain as Lancer while under the command of the priest who was most definitely not neutral while tugging his spider web of misery from his sanctuary.
And behind them all, was Gilgamesh, King of Heroes, the strongest Heroic Spirit, watching and guarding the priest and the Grail.
Victory through the Grail War was impossible. Even if she devoured the entire school, she would not be strong enough to defeat each foe. And given how her acting Master had acted towards Assassin, letting the Servant of Murder use her Noble Phantasm on him, Rider didn't have any hope on Shinji's tactics and strategy directing them to victory over their foes.
Sakura could not escape this way. Victory through the Grail War would involved turning Sakura into a monster, into Zouken's Black Grail that ate Servants through the power of Avenger in the Greater Grail. Even if Medusa felt like that was an option, the corrupted Grail that could not grant any wish other than through destruction.
No, Rider would not permit that. She had fallen to being the monstrous Gorgon but she would save her Master. But how? Avenger would kill Sakura if the wish was made for Sakura's freedom and Sakura could not get the grail without being turned into a monster.
"Can you remove the worms from Sakura?"
Rider's head snapped up at the question from Assassin.
"Yes."
Could this be? Could this be how Sakura would be saved? By an arrogant command from Shinji and Zouken letting himself be charmed into becoming Assassin's puppet?
If so, then she would take back every mean thought she had about him. Okay, only half about him. Would a quarter suffice?
"Then do so," Assassin's anger and horror was audible in every word she said.
"Yes. It will take several hours to complete." Zouken did nothing but given that his worms were his body, this body could do nothing and he would still obey.
"Hold it. Can you finish it before dawn?" Mata Hari glanced towards the night sky. The questioning had taken hours to get through. Zouken, while under Assassin's sway, had talked and talked and talked. Much of it had been insignificant to Rider, the discussion of tactics and Servants from the last four but since Avenger had been part of the third, Rider had been forced to listen to it all.
But it certainly explained how she was here. If Gilles de Rais had been summoned with his horde of demons, then she was definitely a candidate for summoning.
Rider inhaled, pulling in the scent of sweat, spices, and alcohol from the delectable boy she was holding. It pained her that she had fed on Sakura's true friend. But she obeyed her Master. But along with the captured boy's delicious scent, was that of the odors that came from the hours before morning. Less than a few hours before Sakura would wake up at the Matou home before heading over to Shirou's for breakfast.
"No." came the old magus's reply.
"Is there a way to put you under the sway of my Noble Phantasm tomorrow night?" Assassin asked.
"I watch most of Fuyuki," Zouken stated.
"Where don't you watch?" Mata Hari asked.
"The church, inside the Tohsaka residence, inside the Einzbern castle, and anywhere that Gilgamesh is." Came the answer.
"So dancing anywhere would put you under my sway again?"
"Unless I know to not watch, I will be taken under," Zouken affirmed.
"Forget anything that might tip you off about my Noble Phantasm," Mata Hari ordered. "I don't want you to avoid me. Tomorrow night, you will remove Sakura's…Sakura's infestation." the word was spat with all the disgust Assassin could put into it. Rider wished she could add her own as Assassin's didn't seem enough. "I want you to prepare yourself for that. Do whatever and make false memories for yourself if you have to. Just make sure that you will be susceptible to my Noble Phantasm tomorrow night. If there is a preparation for removing the worms from Sakura that would make you suspicious enough not to watch me, neglect it."
Rider felt her grip tighten, the chains squeezing Sakura's friend.
"Rider," Assassin spun around to look at the other Servant, stepping away from Shinji who still standing nicely and quietly for once. "I don't think we can win this on our own. Will you promise me to not tell anyone of what we learned tonight? Is there anything I can offer you?"
"Just save Sakura," Rider didn't have to think hard. Zouken was the only one who could save Sakura. But Zouken had purposefully set his descendent, Sakura, and herself up to fail. She had no loyalty to him like she did to her true Master.
"I will," Mata Hari's resolve was audible, her disgust at what the magus had done, horrible. "But not tonight. My Noble Phantasm ends at the break of dawn. If it ends before he finishes, he would just put them back and hide."
Rider nodded. "Our conspiracy is set. You free Sakura and I will aid you in anything you want."
"Hmm," Mata Hari hummed to herself. "I might just take you up on that. Shirou's training could use another person." A shake of air and the sound of flying hair told Medusa that Assassin was shaking her head. "Sorry, we need to focus on the more important matters. I suppose I was just too focused on training Shirou for the last several days. But I can't fight and there is no way we can defeat Gilgamesh. It's pointless to even try."
Rider nodded in agreement. Gate of Babylon alone would be enough to kill either of them and Rider doubted that the Servant who was described as having a powerful ego would appreciate being mind controlled like how Zouken or Shinji was. And unlike them, he could kill with just a single thought and one of his numerous fired Noble Phantasm. Even Rider could have killed Mata Hari several times over in the amount of time it took for Mata Hari to invoke her Noble Phantasm, it was just Shinji's command that held her back.
"What can we do?" Mata Hari asked the night sky.
Rider didn't know how to answer her.
Not sure how which route to go for. Mata Hari and Shirou working with Bazzett to figure out who is messing around while everyone keeps Shirou out of the loop about the Grail War or freeing Sakura from Zouken by taking advantage of Zouken keeping himself a human male for 500 years (well his soul still is at least) through Mata Hari's Noble Phantasm.
Would taking both be a bad idea? Have Mata Hari and Rider figure out what is going on but not know what to do to win? Have them keep Shirou in the dark even as Mata Hari helps teach Shirou the skills he needs to figure out what to do as he uses Bazzett to hunt down the Masters?
Eh, maybe someone will adopt this. My interest has waned. If it revitalizes, maybe I'll continue this.