Jeweled Sword

(Monday morning)

(Sakura)

"Hnn..." Stirring as she 'woke' from a half-sleep of quizzing her copy of Caster about various things, Sakura looked around, constrained by Shirou's arm around her, before giving up and simply checking the time via the Realm when it was suggested to her. Which pushed her all the way awake.

"You should have woken me up earlier," she grumbled at Rider, while getting up and shaking Shirou awake as well. "If the two of us oversleep, no one is getting breakfast."

"Don't worry about that," the Servant sent back. "It's taken care of. And you need the rest." Her Master simply took that in silence while walking over to the wardrobe which she pulled open - and was totally unsurprised to see held a neatly ironed set of her uniform hanging next to a few more of her clothes. She recognized them as ones she had left over at various points in the past, the latest being after the group left her house, which now seemed a lot longer ago than just one night. Caster must have moved them here at some point.

"Oh, that was when I was dealing with a room for Tohsaka," the person herself, or rather not, added. Shrugging without thinking much about it, Sakura took out her uniform and looked over it.

"I hope Rin didn't try to take up cooking," she quipped to Medusa while changing. It was getting quite normal to converse in this way. "Nothing of the sort, though we will be eating something resembling a German breakfast cobbled together from whatever happened to be in the kitchen."

Illya must have packed everything in a hurry to make it back before dawn. "No problems fitting everyone in, I hope?" The blouse was a bit on the tight side, but thankfully the skirt fit perfectly. Maybe the first one shrunk a bit?

"Besides her, there's six of them. It'll be three in one room and four in another, but they can handle it." Sakura nodded, seeing the layout of the Emiya estate that Caster was showing her. "Space-wise, it would have been nice to use their castle, but any trickery or traps aside, Caster's Realm is centered here." She turned around to see Shirou still sitting on the bed, simply watching her.

Uh. She turned back, reached in, and pulled out some of his clothes. Holding it out and waving it at him as though it was the most natural response, "We don't have much time, you know?"

"Yeah," he said apologetically, quickly following her cue and taking it from her. "It wouldn't be good to show up late."

Sakura sat down on one of the room's two chairs, fiddling aimlessly with the cuff on one of her sleeves while facing him. "What?" she said, smiling while making her intent to stay put clear. "Oh, breakfast is already waiting."

l

(About noon, Homurahara Academy roof)

(Shirou)

Shirou looked at the rather mixed group in front of him. Rin had taken the precaution of securing the only two doors up, so Kuro and Saber were relaxing in the open, enjoying the light breeze that frequently blew this high up. Though they made sure not to be too close to the edge of the roof, just in case someone happened to look up.

"It's unfortunate that we no longer have any direct leads to Caster," Rin said, eating a lunchbox that had been delivered by Servant from back home. They were still quite warm, though how such things work with Spirit Form is certainly a mystery.

"Like this, it's possible she's actually nearby," Kuro added. "While she might have only a few days at some distance from Fuyuki, she would have longer if she was closer."

"By the way," Sakura added casually while trying to feed me something from her exactly-identical-to-mine box. "Did you manage to learn anything that might be useful about the Jeweled Sword?"

Shirou ate the offered bit of sausage as Rin paused mid-bite before replying with a sigh, "Perhaps. It's at best theoretical, though."

"Doesn't the Caster class have (Item Construction) as a class Skill?" Sakura followed up before opening a flask of tea. "You're allowed to collaborate on the project, aren't you?"

"Are you asking me or telling me." It was not delivered as a question.

"Wait a moment," Shirou broke in. "Sasaku can only improve things with her Skill, it's a really weak variant."

"She can get around a number of restrictions with enough information and magical energy though," the girl next to him pointed out. "That and improve is pretty vague as well, even if it isn't full construction."

"Well, that's true," he said, glancing at Saber who appeared uninterested in the conversation. "Kojirou, did you find out anything with Rin?"

"She can answer for herself," the swordsman chuckled. "Like she said, theoretical."

"It has to do with how to interact with the parallel worlds," Rin took up the explanation. "Kojirou draws in swords from there, but they also return afterwards. The latter part is actually the critical question for constructing the Jeweled Sword."

She paused in case anyone wanted to ask the obvious question, before answering it. "The Sword's plans have what I now think is basically a diagram of multiple jeweled blades crammed into one another so that they end up being forced into other dimensions, forming a link that magical energy can pass through. In essence, if you can 'plug in' enough blades into other dimensions, the amount you can draw through the collection of them rises. Like fishing with many rods at once."

"So you need to do the last part of Saber's technique, but on a set of blades that you made here?" Kuro asked with some curiousity. "Are the blades easier to make than they sound?"

"Actually, the item Caster gave me to reproduce strongly suggests it should be doable for that sort of quality. While manufacturing a single-crystal hand-length blade is a challenge, that might not be strictly necessary. The harder problem is actually sending them to other dimensions while keeping them connected. Saber's swords aren't connected to one another during (Tsubame Gaeshi), that I can tell anyway."

"I see," Shirou mused, putting the pieces together. "So you have a specific part of the process that you know in abstract how to do, what it does in the construction, and various critical details, but don't have a way to actually do?"

"That's about it," Rin nodded. "Well, like Kuro said, we do need to actually fabricate the blades in question, but it should be much simpler than earlier attempts which aimed at constructing the final connected blades somehow in a single piece. I actually suspect that Zelretch himself made one blade in each world and connected them, but we can't pull that off without having the Second magic."

"There's an odd physical phenomenon she might be able to use," Sakura muttered to herself. "Due to the Uncertainty Principle, particles might be be in the 'same place' if they are packed very densely, since they can have very different momenta. Crushing things into one another like a neutron star core would work, but keeping blades intact would be impossible to control."

"Hold that thought," Shirou frowned, something else on his mind. "Where did you know that?"

Sakura froze as the bell rang out the end of break.

(Afternoon)

(Rin)

As soon as we were able to, after the day's classes ended, we made our way back home. Shirou was, understandably enough, unsatisfied by Sakura's brief explanation about Caster's magic circuit containing information. While this was of some interest to me, what was occupying my mind at that moment was how close we might be to cracking the Jeweled Sword problem.

"No matter how you look at it, a magic circuit shouldn't contain a large amount of knowledge, right?" he said with clear skepticism. "I don't know exactly about the magic crests thing, but Tohsaka said they transfer the ability to use some spells, not someone's entire knowledge base."

"It's probably part of the bit of her soul that got removed with it," Kuro volunteered, showing up around a corner from Spirit Form. She was wearing one of my older tops and skirts, rather than the rather eye-catching outfit she was summoned in. "It isn't that surprising since I even got Noble Phantasms and combat techniques from another Heroic Spirit." It seems to be fitting her better now than before? Must be my imagination.

"That's a plausible mechanism, but still not something that would happen by accident," Rin mused, reflecting on the possibility that making the blades as a single-crystal jewel each might be necessary to survive dimensional transfer, in which case natural gems would never be workable material. "And in your case, it would have to involve Noble Phantasms, or else you wouldn't be summonable in the first place."

"Shishou had her reasons," Sakura replied with some conviction. "As it is, this happens to short-circuit any informational advantage she might otherwise have."

"Oh, I don't doubt she had reasons," Shirou muttered. "It just seems that the operation was risky enough, without adding more complicating factors."

"You should just ask her directly," Kuro offered. "Provided you can trust her answer. It would be handy if she had a copy of her journal in that circuit, but that would be too convenient, for sure."

"I quite agree with that sentiment," a boyish voice butted in from the side, causing everyone's head to snap in its direction, as a tall man in a jet black suit suddenly stepped in between us and the speaker. Gilgamesh! How did he get so close? For a moment, it seemed as though a battle was about to break out right in the side-road we were traveling down.

"George," Sakura said calmly, while tapping the man blocking her line of sight on the shoulder. "Move aside Kojirou."

"Is that one of Father's suits?" Kuro asked as Saber obliged after a moment, probably also after asking Shirou. "And that's definitely-"

It was indeed the small King of Heroes, with our Caster on his arm. Her image just doesn't match that skirt, Rin thought, remembering how the Servant had criticized her own choice of clothes a few days ago. Probably not her choice. Kuro giggled nervously as the two sides quietly exchanged various looks.

"I thought you'd take a bit longer to get back," Kojirou said, right about the time Shirou added, "How come I couldn't detect you two approching?"

"We had to cut short the sightseeing, hitched a ride to save time," Gilgamesh grinned, clearly in a good mood. "Because someone ended up without a contract, and started burning through her reservoir at an alarming rate." That's right, we hadn't taken that into consideration when guessing she could last a few days.

A couple of people swallowed nervously as Shirou coldly continued, "Thanks for taking care of her, but I'd like my little sister back now."

"Aww, but I really wanted to play a bit more," Gilgamesh injected childish sincerity into the line before abruptly dropping the act and shaking the girl off his arm. "Onee-chan," delivered in the tone of an order.

Sasaku dipped her head slightly in his direction before walking over to Saber. "She'll explain," Archer concluded before simply walking away to bring a rather anti-climatic end to the discussion.

Did that... just happen?

(Saber)

"Where did he go?" Gilgamesh had actually met us just one street away from Shirou's home, so Rider was still agitated when we stepped through the front door. Sakura just shook her head as several homunculi maids poked their head out from the corridor behind her Servant. "Somewhere else."

"We have our work cut out for us," Caster said, as the door closed itself behind us. "Unfortunately even if the Grail manifests, the system that controls and manipulates it is in a seperate area of Fuyuki, and warded to hell and back."

"It shouldn't be that much of a problem to you," Illya said, pushing her way through the maids who quickly moved aside to make room. "Yes, those systems are rated to stop even Casters, but with time and no enemy Servants around you should be able to chip away at it."

"Hmm, seems like you're gathering an army here," Sasaku commented as an aside to Shirou. "They came along, don't look at me."

"About that,-" Illya said, before being interrupted by Rin with, "You have the blueprints for the Jeweled Sword, right?"

"Er, no?" Caster replied. "I don't remember finding any. Where did you hide it?"

Rin thought over the events of the last few days. "You took a rather cliche-looking treasure chest, didn't you? It should have been inside that."

"Oh, that," Sasaku fished around in her Armory and dropped a large chest in the middle of the living room that indeed looked like a fantasy theater prop. "Oddly, placing it in the Armory didn't cause its contents to be listed separately, which seemed a bit fishy."

"That's the one," Rin said with sudden trepidation. "It's just a special sort of storage item, but taking precautions wouldn't go amiss."

"That just screams suspicious," Saber commented, slow-stepping around it. "We should do this outside in the courtyard."

(Emiya estate, courtyard)

(Kuro)

"Don't just throw open the lid, take it slowly, ok?" Rin cautioned from behind several wards and magical shields. Before cracking open the lid, Kuro reconsidered her location and stood to the side for the process. Magic Resistance or wards and shields aside, it made sense to stay clear of the front.

Everyone held their breath as the Archer opened the box, peeked inside, then opened it the rest of the way. That book-like thing must be the blueprints, and that looks oddly familiar.

She took out the book and held it up for everyone to see before setting it aside and fishing out the box's second treasure, a long wand that looked like it came right out of the Prisma Phantasm anime. "Rin, aren't you a bit old to cosplay as a magical girl?"

"Put that back!" the magus exclaimed. "That's a real Mystic Code and it's dangerous!"

Well, I don't know the second part is strictly true... Kuro motioned for Sasaku to examine the toy-looking item, which the latter could only do while being in close proximity. Caster warily took hold of the wand's handle and began trying to analyze it. Rin was holding her head in her hands with a complicated expression.

"Try holding it up, like this," Taken by sudden inspiration, Kuro struck a pose, balancing on one foot. "See, you look the part."

"I don't think this matches a magical girl costume," Sasaku muttered distractedly while mimicking her. "Nah, when they're not transformed, it customary to be in your uniform, right?" Kuro cheerfully danced up to Caster before abruptly pulling out a sword and cutting across the outside of her arm.

*bonk*

A few drops of blood splattered on the ground and across the wand as Sasaku instinctively hit the Archer on the head with it. "What are you doing?" she said, upset, as the head of the wand started to glow an ominous red.

"Oh no," Rin moaned.

l

Notes:

Kuro is wearing one of the young Rin outfits. (A red and black that matches her own color scheme)

Kojirou is, as Kuro mentioned, wearing one of Kiritsugu's suits.

Caster was "improving" clothes by making them fit better for both the above (and herself).