Not As Planned (Battle, v2)
(Tohsaka house, Summoning room, a little earlier)
(Sasaku)
She looked at the various formalcraft instruments and reagents neatly laid out in drawers. They had most likely last seen use in constructing the slightly scuffed summoning circle occupying the center of the room. The damage was probably from Rin summoning Kuro. A few days ago now.
That said though, all the other reagents must be elsewhere. There should be magecraft and spell books around somewhere as well. Rin had some method of storing magical energy, which Sasaku had detected and noted but couldn't reproduce without more detailed information, or better yet instructions.
The Tohsaka family should have built up a substantial cache, of information and materials. Even given they would have gone to some pains to hide it, there was shockingly little evidence of the expected treasure trove. She wouldn't be surprised to trip over an entire library worth, or something similar in scale.
While Sakura might expect me to only be able to flip through a few tomes, of course I will throw everything in the Armory and analyze it there.
A soft sound from the side broke her thoughts of some light reading. Either that or the energy signature from Kuro forming her paired swords. Damn it.
"Kuro's attacking me, come over!"
"...on my way." Saber didn't seem particularly enthusiastic, but he would keep his word. That said though, the plan required a tradeoff - if he was too close Kuro might not show, to far and his help might be too far if needed.
Sasaku hurriedly pulled to hand the sword she had prepared beforehand in the Armory, and quickly rushed Kuro while also getting clear from the wall. The space was necessary to swing the large weapon around. Unlike with Lancer, Kuro already knew she would have the upper hand, so playing defensive would simply mean getting bashed by her.
Kuro grin flashed before her in the moment before the green shimmer of spears being thrown from her Armory blocked both sides' sight. Moving her advancing foot a bit to the side before it touched the ground, Sasaku sent her weapon slicing around to where she guessed Kuro would teleport to. The Archer had definitely seen her moving forward but wouldn't catch the side-step. It was only a question of if she knew about the minimum range on the spears or not...
...or she just went for it really fast. Kuro appeared in a slightly different spot, and Sasaku's swing was too far away to reach in time. Obviously her teleport technique isn't restricted to first throwing two pairs of swords...
Fixing her feet firmly into the ground, using the summoning circle she was standing on the edge of as an anchor, Sasaku allowed her horizontal cut to smash directly into Kuro's instinctive block with her left sword.
Kuro's right-handed riposte was properly adjusted for Sasaku's actual position, but as the Archer was thrown backwards, her blade now missed the Caster's chest by a decent look of surprise on her face as she suddenly found herself several paces away was encouraging, but it wasn't a clincher move by any chance.
Sasaku rushed forward on the attack again. Where's that Saber, don't tell me he got lost... Of course, she didn't know that he was actually having trouble finding them through the carefully warded walls and floors of the house.
Rather than give in to her surprise, or perhaps because of it, Kuro stepped into Sasaku's attack and basically repeated her left-right parry-and-riposte combination. And despite using a much lighter weapon and a single hand, she easily redirected Sasaku's swing and closed in well past both point and cutting portion of the blade into grappling range. Oh crap!
As she was turning for the best chance at the deflection, Kuro abandoned her initial attack and instead shoulder-rammed Sasaku. Because she had stepped forward off the summoning circle, trying to fix herself to the ground failed miserably. Though Sasaku ended up giving ground, she ended up back on the summoning circle.
But Kuro simply charged forward to close the distance again, clearly confident in her superior combat strength. And she's right to be. Sasaku felt her arm complain as she tried to fling it in the way of her attacker, though she was already preparing a sidearm to her left hand, rather than attempt to restore her two-handed grip. Both sides met again, and this time, summoning circle anchor or not, Kuro's momentum sent Sasaku skyward with hardly any resistance.
While in mid-air, the sight of Kuro summoning a new sword to replace the one she had lost in the exchange flashed for a moment in Sasaku's eyes before she hit the ground. She blindly thrust upwards on a guess about how quickly Kuro would reach her.
It wasn't a wrong guess, just that Kuro has a great level of combat instinct and blocked the last-ditch attack without even noticing it.
And then a beat-down occurred.
(A moment later)
"Don't blame me for your weakness," her savior Saber said with only a touch of irony. Well obviously I'm weak, I'm in a Caster class container!
Still he had, as planned, gotten there and 'stopped' Kuro with his massive polearm-sized sword. Sasaku grumbled, but if anything it only amused him. He didn't even help get Kuro off her! Though the Archer was light enough.
At that point, she suddenly encountered two surprises. First, Shirou's energy levels took a sudden, shocking drop. Second was the realization that she had not actually lost contact with him in the first place.
What the hell was going on there?!
Grimacing as her body quickly knit itself back together, or well enough functionally anyway, she quickly decided to split her 'forces'. "Keep an eye on her!" she threw to the Saber on her way out. With his speed, Kuro wouldn't even be able to enter spirit form before getting skewered or cut in two.
Sure, was not disarmed by any stretch, but the swordsman was well rested, fully stocked on energy and probably wanting a good fight.
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(A moment after that)
(Sakura's room)
Shirou was in the relatively empty room where she and Rin had been held earlier, which was as expected. He was also unconscious, again expected given the sudden mana outflow she detected earlier. What was not expected was his undressed form, draped on an equally bare Sakura.
Shirou's Caster just blinked for a moment before automatically pulling her Master up and towards her to analyze his condition. She sighed in relief as the incoming information was processed. Just shock due to the gradient. He hasn't lost too much in total.
Her eyes narrowed unconsciously as the scan confirmed there was no real physical damage despite that. It was better than the alternative of course, but even Kuro with her Skill wouldn't be able to take that much without some after-effect on a normal human.
"How did you-?" she asked a shocked Sakura while lowering Shirou onto the small bed in front of her. She reconsidered her question. "Rather, what happened?"
"Um," the other girl replied softly after recovering. "Well he said something like 'Take all my-'-"
"Stop right there," Sasaku cut her off. "Way too much information." She threw the bed's lone thin blanket over to cover its two occupants.
"Ok, I guess I understand what happened," she muttered. Some sort of resonance effect that greatly amplified the transfer flow beyond expectations. They must be super-compatible I guess.
"Will he be alright?" the purple-haired magus asked simply.
"Yes, he'll be back up in due time." Sakura giggled for some reason, but then Sasaku remembered that she might have the right tool to handle Kuro. "Can I borrow your Rider's blindfold?"
"Huh?" Sakura blinked at the oddness of the request before catching on. "I take it you encountered Rin's Archer? Oh. Did you get the information on geasses?"
"She got the drop on me while I was looking," the Caster explained, noticing that Sakura took out the requested Noble Phantasm out of 'nowhere'. It's like she also has an Armory? "I plan to use this to keep her down until I find it."
"Ok," the magus agreed while handing the purple item over. "By the way, can you er, move Rin to the next room? In the moment I... forgot she was here."
Sasaku turned and realized that, indeed, they were in the room where she and Rin had been held earlier.
Are you kidding me?
(Sakura)
"Can you actually use it?" Sakura asked curiously. After Caster had brought Rin to the adjacent room - fifty-fifty chance she actually ended up going into Shinji's - she returned to double-check on Shirou's condition and pick up the mentioned Noble Phantasm which she had put down for the task.
"Oh this?" Sasaku glanced at the item in her hand. "Your Rider is Medusa right? And this is one of her Noble Phantasms, Gorgon Breaker? I can tell since you did use it on me earlier."
"It is, but can you use it? There's reasons why I could, but..."
"Hmm, no problem," Sasaku replied. "If I know enough about it, I will be able to use it, provided you don't mind lending it to me for a while."
"Er, ok then."
Sakura just lifted the edge of the blanket and scooted in, pressing her body against Shirou's. "Come back when you've found that book or whatever else we need."
"Uh huh. Well, take care."
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(Tohsaka house, Summoning Room)
(Later that morning, still before sunrise)
(Sakura)
Eying the statue-like Saber with the crossed arms and large sword on his back who was leaning on one of the walls watching an apparently sleeping Kuro, Sakura's attention was immediately drawn to the book that Caster held out to her. "Is this all?"
"There weren't the reagents here to make a geas scroll," she explained quickly. "But this is probably better anyway. More flexible. Rather than a contract with specific terms, it gives you the ability to give commands as you want."
Sasaku glanced at a somewhat recovered Rin who was sitting on the floor next to Kuro with a frown and raised her voice slightly so the red magus could hear. "It has limitations, by the way. The most direct compared to say Command Spells compelling Servants is you can't command them to kill themselves or similar things. The binding is less powerful than a scroll, but well, a human probably can't free themselves regardless."
"Can you command someone to not attempt to free themselves?" Sakura asked the obvious question.
"I imagine so, yes."
The two of them looked at one another for a moment before Sasaku added. "I want to get back home, and I'm sure you also want to discuss that additional 'business' you haven't gotten to yet."
Sakura nodded. "Are you ok just leaving everything though?" Doing so meant anyone, such as Grandfather could just walk in and take it.
"I haven't left behind anything of value," Sasaku said slowly. Rin made some sort of strangled yelp as she continued, "I basically emptied everything, not that there was much by the way, into my Armory."
"Can you actually read it all?" Sakura began to think that she, like Shirou, should ask the Caster to teach her magecraft. It's almost certainly better than anything I've 'learned' so far.
"Oh, I'm processing it as we speak," Sasaku said as if it was a foregone conclusion. "First sweep suggests there's not much that's particularly new, though it will improve my efficiency in some areas. Unfortunately while there's some formalcraft, I didn't find anything convenient for mana transferal."
Sakura flushed pink. "I don't really have a problem with it though..." she muttered, low enough that Rin couldn't hear. Though, given the other magus did use Reinforcement, maybe she could. Sasaku, though, just shook her head.
"We have several sources of magical energy, and several Servants who happen to have different use needs, and at different times too. It would be ideal to have some sort of central system for gathering, storing and releasing all that energy."
She glanced at Rin, who appeared to be listening intently. "Like the system used for the Grail... why doesn't Tohsaka, one of the three Founding Families, have anything on it?"
"It was stolen," Rin replied sullenly after both Sasaku and Sakura stared at her for a moment. "Whoever killed my father in the previous Grail War also stole a great deal of the most important documents and artifacts."
"Anyway," Sasaku said when Rin fell silent, "I have basically everything else in my Armory, so we can leave whenever." She gave a significant look at the spell book in Sakura's hand. "Do what you have to quickly. Every moment Shirou-nii and I are outside of the Realm, we're basically throwing away energy for nothing."
Sakura's expression turned stony for a second just before Shirou's head appeared around the door. "Shinji's up and he's asking why we're all in Tohsaka's house." She blushed, ran over and quickly distracted him, while the two of them went downstairs to the living room, before he noticed what was going on inside.
Not long after Sasaku followed them. "The Church will take care of any Servantless Masters," she volunteered.
Sakura brightened upon thinking about the rather reserved priest who nevertheless was a good listener. They had not met since she became a Master, as he was the Overseer who had to remain neutral. "That will keep him safe until everything blows over."
"He's not really a Master though?" Shirou asked, but his Servant just held up a hand. "Will be hard to tell since he didn't do registrations. He wouldn't know if Zouken was the Matou Master, and both Sakura and Shinji would be equally unlikely to him. And, he's lost a hand which, while unfortunate for him, might have had the Command Seals."
He nodded. Sakura frowned, remembering what Zouken had done in the last Grail War.
"We'll have Saber quickly deliver him and return, then we'll go to my place. All of us. Together." The emphasis was clear. The two girls nodded in unison.
"I have one concern though," Sakura said firmly. "Is Saber's Master going to show herself? She's not... oh no, don't tell me Taiga is a magus too."
"Wait, what?!"
Everyone just stared blankly into space for a moment at the thought. Sasaku and Shirou recovered first, though.
"Oh, he's actually-" Sasaku started, pointing to Shirou.
"It's her," Shirou said in about half the time, indicating his Servant.
"Huh?" both of them said at once, though for different reasons.
"It's complicated." Sasaku summed up, sighing.
(Shirou)
"Sorry, we figured out that my Command Spells probably won't work on him, and he wasn't getting any magical energy from me," Shirou explained apologetically. "Since the only other person present at the Summoning was you, we just figured..."
"Eh." Sasaku just shrugged.
"How is that even possible?" Sakura asked in clear confusion. "You mean Servants can be Masters?"
"Most fathers are also sons. Caster Servants are magi, so it's possible. It's also possible the Grail system was confused because Shirou was summoning a Servant despite already having one, so it pushed the contract to me, who did not have a Servant. Anyway, you have stuff to get done upstairs. Can you ask Saber to come down?"
"Right." Sakura quickly left, still holding her spell book. Sasaku looked at Shirou.
"You have questions about my magecraft." It wasn't a question, but he nodded anyway. "It doesn't add up, even if we're both magi. I already have you, and you shouldn't qualify, why would the two of us even be able to summon a Servant, together or not?"
She motioned for him to sit down. "I explained to you how my Alchemy (Exchange) Sorcery Attribute works, right?"
"Yeah, you can perform mysteries that you know. How is that special though, if you already know how to perform it..."
"Hm, hmm..." Sasaku smiled, switching to explanation mode. "Does knowing how to use a gun, and how a gun works, allow you to shoot someone with your bare hands?"
Ah. It must have showed on his face. She continued, "Actually, you do have a point though, apparently not only does the Grail perform a powerful and general Wish-Granting, the Grail system was created with the help of the Einzbern. They possess a Wish-Granting Sorcery Attribute, and can actually perform mysteries that they do not know."
"Wait a second, why use the Grail at all then?"
"That's an interesting question, and as an outsider I wonder at that. My best guess is it's a double-stage process like a rocket, where they realize the Grail, then use the Grail to realize something even higher."
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Notes:
No detailed discussions in Matou house, at least without a serious privacy Field. Zouken is listening.