Second Time

"What about Sakura and Shirou?" Rin asked, looking at the assembled group filling the living room.

"They have their own things to work out," Sasaku replied. "This is more of a discussion than final planning, and I'm sure Rider and Saber will keep them up to date. We're nearing a critical turning point, about-" she glanced at a clock on the wall. "Thirty hours from now, when the sun sets. To start; I think we have a pretty good idea where the other team is."

"Did you find out anything about them?" Illya asked, remembering what Kojirou had mentioned about the preparations for the previous battle.

"No," Sasaku said plainly. "Now, there are two areas with strong enough anti-scrying measures to hide even Servant-level signatures from various forms of indirect detection: the temple, which is mostly a natural feature, and the Fuyuki church. It is likely that Ruler was hiding in the former, so..."

"Did something change in the church's Fields?" Rin frowned. "Or rather, you mean it didn't change though Kotomine isn't maintaining it."

Caster nodded simply before continuing. "We have some advantages, even with Ruler's attempt to keep the field level. The main one is that while they have held position, and we have thus not scouted them, they in turn haven't scouted us; additionally, this means we know the lay of the land and they do not, at least not to the same level of detail. Secondly with the Field here as prepared ground, we should stand a good chance if only they would just charge at us." She finished her piece.

Kuro bounced in her seat, "So, long-distance shots? Easy enough. Arrows or exploding swords?"

"Figures that you wouldn't fear Kotomine's god," Kojirou muttered. "Unless they don't take their houses being attacked too seriously anymore."

"As long as he hasn't taken to arming Gilgamesh's kindergartners I think it will work out. But," Caster said seriously, "I will pay damages since the Church in this world has high-level kill-teams I rather not tangle with. How I'll do that is a problem for another day."

"Executors? I suppose, though it is quite likely they would also rather forget that Kirei was involved in this war at all."

"Are you likely to be able to identify enemies moving towards us on their approach?" Rider returned the discussion to the upcoming battle. "I'm guessing they wouldn't be able to do the same to us because we're in here."

"If they have very obvious Noble Phantasms, perhaps. But a normal sword or spear, not so much."

"An actual fight," Saber sounded optimistic. "If it's supposed to be an even battle, they should have a swordsman, I wonder if that means Musashi might show up."

"I should hope not," Rin raised an eyebrow. "Since you would be conceptually weak to them. Specifically. Like with Caster and kindergartners apparently. I don't get how that happened."

"It was just a turn of phrase," Sasaku responded without interest. "I doubt I'm specifically weak to children with firearms. Besides humans are hardly able to harm Servants in the first place. Now, what does concern me is if the enemy has an Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm. In such a case we would have to hide behind Kuro's shield, since that shouldn't count as a fortification."

"But the house would be destroyed, and we'd all be homeless," Kojirou added.

"I guess that means we'll all have to live in Illya's castle," Kuro grinned. "Ah yes, speaking of which I did use up some energy earlier and I was wondering... Illya."

"Er, what?" The addressed homunculus looked warily at her Servant counterpart. "Aren't you already contracted with Tohsaka?"

"Heh heh," the Archer flickered over in front of her as Medusa moved over to try and stop her. "There's no need for that, since I can just-"

Kuro's energy-seeking was interrupted by a sudden rippling distortion that blew the two apart. One of the nearby maids acted to try and break Illya's fall, but Medusa was faster and caught her first. Kuro went flying, but simply teleported herself back down to the ground, pouting.

"You know in some stories it's dangerous to touch past or parallel versions of yourself," Rin commented in a chastising tone. "So it might be best not to get too close to her."

"If only it was possible to have simply become a Heroic Spirit myself," Illya grumbled. "It would have helped a lot."

"Um, well actually..." Kuro turned to look at Sasaku. "For me, it involved that wand Rin had. However, by now you're too old to become a magical girl."

"That don't actually pan out," Illya frowned. "Sure I am actually older than the humans here, but then again Caster is even older. We both look about the right age, so it isn't about the 'optics' either."

"I'm pretty that was patter rather than a genuine explanation," Rin thought aloud. "Because after all, if it follows that Dimensional Refraction phenomena, it already has contracted with a magical girl version of Illya, thus Kuro. Whereas Sasaku is a more unique catch, so to speak. Ruby did say she didn't seem to have a magical girl version, which is understandable."

"Hooray for being a foreigner," Caster said in an exaggerated flat tone. "Next people will be cutting me open to see how my insides work. By the way, that's interesting since it seems to allow people to jump up to Servant level."

"But that's easy compared to actually mastering a True Magic, which what the wand uses." Illya pointed out. "Manufacturing a wand that does so is probably even harder than getting the Magic in the first place, while apparently one can construct a Jeweled Sword without the Magic. Somehow."

"Did Gilgamesh happen to say anything about this sudden change to the War?" Medusa inquired suddenly. She seemed to have taken up the role as the discussion's moderator. "It seems like a major point, but... I guess not."

"That would have been convenient, wouldn't it?" Sasaku mused. "Tomorrow is critical through, since I'm pretty sure the police will want to talk to Sakura."

"Is that going to be a risk?" In Rin's estimation, such an event would not rank particularly high on the ordered list of 'things that are hard to cover up' but without Kirei to do so, the situation was more complicated.

"Probably not, since they have no way of even figuring out what happened. It isn't even about an alibi since Sakura wasn't there for several days earlier. However, it would be best if they did not keep her busy past sunset. Suffice it to say I rather not intervene."

"You don't think they'd be very suspicious about her leaving for the whole weekend before her house blows up?" Illya sounded doubtful of this.

"There's nothing at all to actually go off," Caster remarked. "Stuff just spontaneously exploded as far as they should be able to. Without the ability to identify magical energy residues, there isn't an ignition source or detonator to be found. Also, once they realize something happened to Kotomine, if they haven't already or been told by Ruler, the Church will be on the job."

l

(Sakura)

"He is going to find out about Shinji at some point,"

"I know that, I just couldn't..." Sakura sighed, looking blankly at the door. It wasn't that Shirou had walked out on her as much as... she couldn't go on, and he could tell that his presence was worsening rather than helping her.

The door opened for a concerned Rider to peek in on her. "Is everything alright, Master?" She waved over the Servant instead of immediately answering.

"I know it's a great day, but I feel terrible," Sakura confessed while hugging Medusa as though she was the child she looked like. Odd, how earlier her more imposing form was just the reassurance she needed to seize her fate, but now she was much more approachable. Though, come to think of it, Medusa isn't lacking in muscle in this form either.-

"Did everything go fine with Shirou?" Rider asked after a moment, concern slightly tinging her voice. It was more melodious and of course higher-pitched than when she was Gorgon.

"I didn't finish telling him everything I should have," she admitted more to herself than anyone else. "Fighting Grandfather seems easier by comparison."

"That means you care about him a lot more," she said confidently. Unlike Caster who tolerated or more accurately took ironic amusement at being treated like her apparent age, Rider seemed to enjoy it, unsurprisingly given her history.

"I guess you're right."

"Let me tell you something." Medusa lowered her voice in a dramatic way. "Caster is jealous of you, never fell in love with her own husband, oddly enough."

"Really?" That was unexpected. "I thought they were together for most of her life as an immortal," Sakura said distractedly. Though her cloak looked very cute and was quite functional, it did hide her nice hair. Though she could wear it loose like before, when tied into a ponytail at the back, it was quite a striking look, especially paired with the Mystic Eye Killers, which looked like normal glasses of the modern age.

"Well, you can just ask the one you're carrying around, since she'd know. Though it might be unfair to go behind her back like that."

"No, since it isn't like I can compel her to answer." Sakura didn't have an interest in the subject, and didn't actually ask. "She'd refuse if the first one would. For the same reasons."

"Ok." Medusa let the topic drop because she had another thing in mind. "Is she actually weak to children for some reason? There's something very odd going on there, and not just Kuro and Gilgamesh. How did she die?"

"Well, that one might be important, huh?" Her Master took a while to gather her, or rather Caster's thoughts. "Her enemies were going to put her to death, so she asked them to have their children do it? Ah, it's because they had child soldiers. Um..."

"I don't get it," Rider said with some confusion.

"Yeah, it's odd," Sakura agreed.

"It's not really, they had me so my future paths came down to basically how I was going to die. Thus, I picked the most ridiculous one which they didn't expect."

"Do you mind explaining that one a bit?" Sakura frowned to herself. Sure, Servants might be rather blase about dying, given that they had already, by their own existence, proven it wouldn't do them in. But it seemed that most of Caster's achievements were only after she died, not before.

"Hmm, how one confronts death and, well, dies is pretty important. I think Medusa would know that from her culture as well. Anyway, that was an interesting moment because it was the first and I suppose only time I was told explicitly where my future was headed. Which was to say, my death. So naturally I immediately repeated it to my captors."

Medusa said something about epitaphios logos but it was mostly grail knowledge, since she had little experience outside of the Shapeless Isles.

"Yeah, basically that. Well, actually I commended the kids to their mighty one for being zealous with his zeal. And explained to them why I was on the other end of their guns. And told them to never lose in zeal to the followers of anyone else. And they let me go on for a while." Sasaku chuckled. "Imagine teaching Sunday school to the people about to execute you. Well, it was surreal all around for everyone I suppose."

"Then?"

"Then I finished. Then they shot me."

"But what was the point of it?" She wasn't quite sure if the story had a particular moral to it.

"I didn't say there was one. Anyway, I suggested they get twenty-one, but they wanted fourteen because they lacked the numbers. But, they ended up with only thirteen, so someone's girl got roped in for the honor. I met her afterwards, and given that this was after I died and came back, you can guess what happened to her. She didn't know it was me though, so she never found that one person who was shot by a firing squad of children."

"Well, that might not be so bad actually, all things considered." Rider shared her thoughts on the odd story. "I mean, it's unlikely the enemy will be able to get her to agree to die, after all. But I do hope this Grail stops letting children be summoned, Kuro and two of us looking the part is enough."

"I see. By the way, about Toh- Rin. Shirou and I talked about it, and after what happened with his sister we decided that..."

l

(That evening, Sasaku's room)

(Shirou)

Shirou glanced at what had earlier been a magic circle, but was now more like an intricate whirlpool that spread across the floor and up the walls of his Caster's room. "Am I interrupting?"

"Not at all," she said, sitting up and looking at him. The green runes and line drawings seemed to mirror her eyes, glowing darkly in the light. "Did Saber give you the rundown?"

"Yes." He paused to examine what was probably a small cluster of grapes at the edge of the formation as it currently stood. "I take it we're running out of energy."

"Close enough. We got through the earlier battle in great shape, but this changes everything and worsens the odds. If the other side are indeed in a similar situation as us, the most likely outcome is we will both run out during combat expenditures, since one side is unlikely to abruptly collapse. Given that even the Grail has very finite reserves in the context of Servants, we will need area control to access the leylines. Like, yesterday, to use an overused expression."

"Sakura seems to think that Rider becoming small is quite the boon in disguise."

Caster nodded. "Probably, though at best it buys us time. Illya's help might be the critical piece in winning the race. Though it's hard to judge since we've got part research, part engineering but also actual blueprints to go off." The Jeweled Sword. How odd that it should come about in a place and time like this. As though...

He paused for a moment to refocus. "I didn't know the full extent of Sakura's situation. You don't, I probably still don't, but I'm a bit surprised you reacted like that. Wasn't it risky?"

"Let me tell you a brief story about my people. When I came out of the house of those who afflicted me with hard labor, there was one who did a thing to us along the way. When the final peace arrived, the memory of him was finally wiped out from under heaven, as we had been commanded to do."

Shirou wasn't interested in following her breadcrumb-trail. "That makes no sense."

"When someone comes at you with deadly intent, take them seriously and do accordingly. She has told you that her Grandfather could attempt to size control of her body? If so, you shouldn't be surprised I jumped like a scalded cat when she did me."

He fixed her with a level gaze. "Perhaps not, though it's all in hindsight. What I don't understand is why you had to bring that up, since as you yourself admitted, they are likely centuries away."

"Even our children remember. If I was the type to have kept silent on such things, we wouldn't be having this conversation," she replied simply.

"For goodness' sake, I get that you're sort of Grail-translating into Japanese, but it's incredibly obtuse at times."

She raised an eyebrow, obviously because it doesn't seem so to her. "One, if I hadn't you would have noticed eventually and, two, you'd never trust me to actually answer given I had already tried to keep it hidden. Third it is my style to lay things out as-is. Most importantly fourth, if I was the type to keep something so important to me secret, you'd do well to be highly suspicious of what I claim is important to me."

"See, you could have unpacked that somewhat the first time around." Sasaku only shrugged in response.

"Do you actually teach people back at home?" He didn't try to hide the doubt in his voice. Sasaku didn't reply for a couple of seconds. "Not humans."

"..." They looked at one another for a moment before she continued. "I mentioned them, didn't I? We have various artificial intelligences around. Speed and networking aside, most are at the quality of a clever animal. Some reach adult human level, but only in narrow areas of expertise." Caster thought before adding, "You might be wondering if we could add together enough human-level narrow intelligences to get a human-level general intelligence. Theoretically, we could but practically the complexity increases more than linearly, making it essentially less useful than they were in their individual specializations."

I think I can see why she was more apathetic towards Illya. "So you're saying they aren't people."

This amused her. "They'd say they aren't people. Animals do have their rights, though your pet is unlikely to need a day of rest as it doesn't work. I know that in this world, even inanimate objects can become sentient, but that doesn't happen to us. Though we do anthropomorphize things as well. But there's a more critical thing about about both, which is why neither are our civilization." She paused, for emphasis perhaps. "They just don't satisfy mighty one anywhere near we do. Thus, we will always be the main part of the nation."

Shirou blinked in surprise. "Come again?"

"We're post-scarcity, what did you think we're doing? Ok, that's actually an unfair question. It's just our civilization's supergoal. I could go into a long analogy, but in the modern age, the carrot-nation is mostly orange carrots for a reason."

He waited for her to continue, but she had actually stopped rather than paused. "Because people farm them, yeah?"

"Exactly. Similarly with say the wheat plants, or chickens and cows. The modern ones are not the same as the ancient ones by design, and they exist not for themselves."

"I see... Honestly, though Sakura seems to have access to your records, I'm pretty sure they just confuse her even more."

"Not surprising, since it wouldn't have me explaining it. My thoughts and memories aren't laid out like a textbook, after all."

"I still haven't forgiven you for sneaking that in, by the way." She simply tilted her head in confusion. "You said it was just a magic circuit."

"Magic circuits are linked to the soul, and while it's true that I specifically made sure the bit I gave was quite densely packed, you're forgetting it had a protective lock on it, quite unlike a Trojan horse."

"What was that, by the way?" This was interesting, because Sakura hadn't mentioned what it was, and he doubted it was like accidentally putting in 'password' as the password.

"Basically a combination of being distressed on my behalf and wanting answers. Though she should have known I wasn't dead."

"Hm. Well, I think it was more that she though Gilgamesh would, how to put it, not 'take advantage' but, more like. Force himself on you."

"I see." Her lack of surprise stood out. Since he had been watching for it.

"I think she might have a bit of an unfortunate history," Shirou said as though moving onto a separate topic.

"If so, she never told me," Caster remarked, making her ignorance clear. Or at least trying to give the impression, badly.

"She hasn't told me either," he muttered, more to himself than anything. Given how the Servant had some pretty powerful analysis Skills, she probably knew a lot more. But it was best that she kept out of it.

"I need to discuss something about contracts," Sasaku said after the silence had stretched on for long enough to be its own dialogue.

"Shoot."

l

(Illya)

"That's unexpected," the Einzbern said as they drank coffee. "I thought for sure Shirou would never countenance it."

"It is a simple fact that we need to be firing on all cylinders," Caster replied in her usual manner. "And as you recall, it isn't as though Kuro could use your energy. Not that I would have countenanced her trying, danger aside."

"True enough. Well, it's just another part of the assistance promised under our agreement." The two of them shook hands. "I take it you have the necessary magical setup for forging a contract though, since it might be more difficult without Command Spells."

"The circle we used to summon Saber is still usable." Sasaku put down her cup. "Not to be pushy, but since we're going all-in tomorrow evening, it's important to get all our cards on the table in a timely manner."

"That reminds me, one of my maids would count as a decent magus, it might be worthwhile to see if you can link with her as well."

Sasaku turned to Kojirou who was sipping tea while waiting for Kuro to finish sparring with one of the maids, who had apparently been trained by Lu Bu. "By the way, is the contract between you and Shirou stable? I assume you would have said something if there was a problem."

"You're right. What's on my mind is who will be attacking us tomorrow."

"Hmm. Well I do wish you all the best in having that duel, since it would imply the other party isn't a holy sword user."

"Spoken like a tactician," he smirked. "But I do understand it will be a group effort, not just four one-on-ones."

l

Notes:

A supergoal is a goal with no higher goals, you do it because it is the supergoal, not to further some other objective, because there is no more important objective.

The main reason Caster says things like "If I was such-and-such a person" is actually because she's referring to functional decision theory (which is part of what she was teaching AIs, though it won't come up here). If you search FDT though, it only shows up at 2017, so she'd never be able to refer them to it since it's over a decade in the future for them.

A bit more still to tie together before the battle.