Recapitulation

(Shirou)

"What have you kids been up to?" Sasaku asked with the neutrality of one inquiring about the time. Saber, noticing her, grabbed the blanket off Shirou's bed and draped it about it around him. Taking her cue from him, Medusa took out her cloak for Sakura in turn. Shirou noted, in some distraction, that apparently the ear-like protrusions in Rider's hood were a permanent fixture. Which made sense since Medusa didn't have ears or anything else that rose above her hair.

"I-I did something, but I don't know what. I didn't mean to..." Sakura trailed off as Caster pointed at her, no it was the wall behind her. "That wall is quite close to the other, outer wall, that forms the boundary of the estate. That in turn limits the extent of the Realm's Bounded Field, and while it is facing away from Fuyuki Church, I would rather not have a weak spot there."

"By the way," Shirou jumped in. "You said my room is in the center of the estate, but it isn't actually in the center. I also don't get why you made your preparations next door."

"It's a conceptual sense of center," she replied. "Since you now come to my room to consult me, that is now the center. It's like how the world as a globe has a geometric center, but if a location is closer to the gods, the other side, or what-have-you, that might be the center of the world."

Coughing as though to clear her throat, Caster blew softly at the mist still hanging over the back half of the room. Sakura started, but nothing happened immediately, though after a while the mist seemed to fold in on itself before settling into her.

"Why didn't you do anything earlier?" Saber sent the sharp question her way, but Sasaku raised an eyebrow in return. "I don't have a link to Shirou anymore, so I didn't know. Sakura has always disrupted the Field, so of course I expect a void to happen to some extent. You two-" she nodded at Rider, "-running like something had caught on fire tipped me off."

"This is your fault, isn't it?" Shirou prodded her. "I mean, most magecrafts can't be used when you're literally asleep."

"My magecraft can't do that," she retorted quietly. "I can't even analyze it, which could be extremely useful."

"It might be the combination of the two," Sakura added with some nervousness. "Ah. Like how you can make use of standard magecrafts after learning about them. This one, though, isn't shared in that way, but it can be..." She cast her eyes to the side, and Medusa abruptly tried to slide around her as she reached out for the Servant's hand, which was not covered by cloak or anything else.

Shirou groaned as the girl in front of him nervously pulled on Rider's arm, revealing that it had a pale discoloration and what looked like black veins running down from the hand. Medusa simply sighed and shook off Sakura. "It's not that big of a deal, it was like that in my earlier form, but you didn't notice since well, there were scales and I generally looked, you know."

"Shirou, your arm."

Wordlessly he pulled out his right arm from under the blanket. Nothing. Sakura wasn't taken in, though. "Your other arm."

"Hmm..." This one had looked like a few hairline cracks webbing over the forearm.

Saber examined himself, but found nothing. "I don't get it. Why the difference?"

"Rider was trying to shake me awake, for the first. The second, well, I was holding onto that one," Sakura answered simply.

"I'm wondering if maybe you two should spend the rest of the night in seper-"

"No. And you're an idiot for suggesting it." Shirou cut Caster off rather hotly. This time it seems she does't get what's happening. "Don't you see that makes things worse not better? As far as I can tell, the situation escalated when Saber pulled me away."

Sasaku's eyes narrowed in thought. "And I've stopped wondering. Clearly you know something I don't."

"Is that a new experience for you?"

"No," she smiled faintly. "Though you might be right on multiple fronts if it is combination of magecrafts. Since I assume Sakura has very little will to harm you. By the way, are you fully awake now?"

Sakura blinked before realizing the last question was directed at her. "Yes."

"Why don't you two take a shower first. Saber, Medusa, I'd like to take a look at you outside, if you don't mind."

"Is this really necessary?" Saber answered first. "Think about it this way; if I ignored it, clearly doing so will come back to bite us in the later battle. You want to make sure you're in top form, right? It won't take long if there's nothing of concern."

(Medusa)

"You can't do anything about it?" she asked after the Caster had hmmed and huhed thoughtfully a few times over her.

"You might try asking Shirou for the use of his Avalon," Sasaku said finally. "It probably gave him resistance, and can probably aid recovery. I can't just dispel the effect, even on myself, if you were wondering."

"Actually I had in mind that time when she, well, not-Sakura attacked you."

Caster idly scratched at the spot on the right side of her neck. Despite her attempts, getting a magical circuit to 'regrow' had not worked. "It depends, portions that are actually taken over don't count as being me, so I can't purge the effect. Compared to that attack, though, what happened to you is mild; a bruise compared to a stab, and to Shirou probably about as little harm as could be done."

"I'm not sure, but both your and her magecrafts might be in flux. The latter especially might be a more powerful but less under her control since she just absorbed all those crest worms."

"Understandable. Jumping power levels isn't the smoothest transition." Sasaku paused to glance at Medusa sideways. "I hope you're not thinking that I was thinking of doing her in."

Rider didn't blink. "Of course not."

"She seems more shaken by it than Shirou does, which is not unexpected, I suppose."

"He's pretty sure she'd never harm him. She isn't so sure." By Medusa's guess though, being desperately anxious to not do so was probably the best way to avoid it. Though for a moment there before Sakura woke up, she had felt a sort of terror creeping up her arm. It ended when she awoke though.

"She's going to be very powerful. I know you think less of Gilgamesh's prediction than I do, but we both know there's a difference in having overwhelming power and abusing it."

"The thought of battle makes me regret, somewhat, giving up my previous form's power. I could have waited to use the potion."

Caster shook her head. "For how long? Ruler would probably have waited us out, perhaps. She must have seen you coming in with us. Remember that while Gil might have been more powerful, she might have had ways to deal with that, while even Command Spells had trouble with you."

"True. Assuming Overseer ones work on any Servant, anyway."

(Kuro)

"Well that's about it," Rin's Archer told her after the conversation had ended. "Though, come to think of it, it's a little odd they would have that discussion in the living room like that."

"You do know that, even then, she could've blocked you from eavesdropping by simply wanting to or something, right?" Illya appeared next to them somehow, sitting down casually as though she had not herself been listening in on them.

"Honestly, I'd have been more worried if they had tried to keep it quiet-like," Rin shrugged. "Or perhaps they were going to share eventually but now they don't need to?"

"Yeah, I've been filled in, if that's what you were asking," Illya said. "I guess my, adoptive, brother brought home a real powerhouse. Wonder what Father would think of that..."

"You know, I've been wondering about him," Kuro decided to satisfy a question that had puzzled her. "It's hard to believe he had a running discussion with the King of Heroes on life philosophies, in the midst of a Grail War."

"They didn't really converse directly. It wasn't even that Lancer carried messages beyond a couple of one-liners. Really, they were both trying to convince her of their particular ideas, two conversations that overlapped. What really worries me is that Caster seems to agree with him in part, and it's going to be a problem if he actually does come back."

This seemed to intrigue Kuro. "Oh. How so?" The, uh, little one isn't as bad as the older one, but I'd hardly see Sasaku agreeing with either."

"It's the details, right? He has this idea that everyone should serve the king, and since he's the ultimate king, everyone should serve him. She agrees, but has another king in mind. He knows this."

"He knows that?" Rin blinked at the thought. Her father hadn't the easiest time dealing with his Archer, and by the looks of it Kirei went into their contract with more tools but got handled even more deftly by the boy. Except at the end, or perhaps even at the end.

"Doubtless, since she pretty much, no exactly, said it to his face."

"That seems unlikely, since he hasn't, you know, killed her." Kuro seemed a bit less doubtful of her statement than would have been comforting.

"I wondered about that too. Well, he must figure he has a way to keep her collared or will before it becomes an issue. Who knows if he finds her a useful tool, or wants a rare trophy, or a challenge or something else. It's possible the two of them have their own weird game of a relationship."

Rin thought for a moment. "Is that your guess or hers?"

"Hers." Illya laughed for a moment. "All that aside though, it is odd they assumed that those magecraft systems can interact that way."

"How so?" Kuro watched as several of the maids took the opportunity of an empty courtyard to practice their halberd forms. "You meet the conditions for use and just will it, yeah? It does seem to skip both incantations, rituals and the like as advertised."

"You forget that those conditions also include the strictures of her nation, such that she can't use the normal Formalcraft designs, or runes. What she's making looks like an inscribed magic circle, but it is of her design. And the symbols are a form of their ancient script, for example."

Rin, who hadn't actually seen Caster's room recently, didn't see why one form of a magecraft was fine versus the other, and said so. Illya simply nodded. "I suspect it's actually the prohibitions as she understands them because there's no other referant for those. Thus an external magecraft is prohibited, but she can, and is, basically writing her own system into existence. Reverse-engineering, if you will."

"That won't be very strong though," Rin mused.

"Probably. Well, if a lot of people sign up to it, as it were, it would strengthen naturally. However..." Illya turned to Kuro, changing her pitch for emphasis. "It might be that this makes up the new Emiya magecraft, since Shirou didn't inherit Father's."

"They were both alive in my world, and I don't think he gained any magecraft then. Besides, isn't Sakura the one who is actually able to use it?"

"She's a Matou. The World seems to like its magi family line consistency. Her family's ability to bind even Servants doesn't mean the magecraft is now part of theirs."

"But if anything, the system should just be the Sasaku magecraft," Rin pointed out. "Granted, that's really awkward since she's a Servant."

Illya agreed easily with that. "No, you're exactly right, which is why it is oddly convenient that there's a family without control of its own Magic Crest now."

Rin tapped a finger on the wooden floorboards. "But there's no way you could convince the World that the originator, Sasaku, counts as being in the family. You can't fabricate paperwork for the World."

"Ah, but that's just the thing." Caster's third Master dropped a bombshell. "When I made a contract with her, her True Name was revealed to me as Emiya Sasaku."

"That's not possible," Kuro muttered. "You can't simply change records in the Thro-" She stopped short. "Quite a few of us don't have records in the Throne."

"Can you get to your, speculative, point?" Frowning, Rin voiced her growing frustration at the homunculus' oblique approach. Possibly because she realized that Illya had been hoping for some of the Founding Familes' insight into the Grail System, which she didn't have. Or Illya herself either, apparently.

"Look at it this way; Gilgamesh had some basis to 'taunt' Father by suggesting he join the Counter Force. And Kuro seems to innately know that Shirou can also join it, which in both cases means becoming a Servant at the least. Caster is already a Servant. Assuming she indeed doesn't have records in the Throne, were were they before she was summoned?"

"You mean the Grail System? Wait, Mama? But she, er, hasn't been around for a decade here?"

"So the Einzbern also thought. But while you and I are descended from her, she and most others like her are descended from Justeaze, who is the System." Illya warmed to the topic at hand, possibly the real issue on her mind throughout. "Actually, meeting you strongly suggests besides becoming a Heroic Spirit in the Throne and then being summoned as a Servant, it might be possible to cheat in reverse; becoming a Servant and then maybe getting added to the Throne. In fact, your own use of another Heroic Spirit's power would point to the possibilities if Shirou were to gain the magecraft of a Caster Servant. He also gained Command Seals before doing magecraft somehow. Though perhaps Avalon counted enough."

"That seems like quite the cheat," Rin said. "For example, Kojirou's technique is so godly it stands in for a standard Noble Phantasm. But it isn't necessarily impossible for a human to gain it, which he at least claims to have done."

"If you could pull it off, that wouldn't be the worst investment of one standard human lifetime," Kuro grinned. "It would have been easier to use Ruby earlier on and become a Magical Girl-class Servant."

"But you're an Archer."

"If you had Ruby and learned enough from Saber, who knows, you might become a Saber yourself. I know you wanted one really badly after all. I wonder if there's a branch were you summoned a Saber Tohsaka for this war."

Illya shook her head at that last comment. "The World dislikes duplicates."

Kuro waved a hand between the two of them, taking care to keep a bit of distance, though. "Considering our situation, Rin and a Ruby-Kojirou taught magical swordswoman Rin would probably be allowed."

"Maybe separately, but I think it would be disastrous if we did something like form a contract," Illya allowed.

"Given my luck in this war, I'd end up being summoned by Caster and have to take orders from her."

"Hmm? She's never actually given Saber an order though? Shirou might, but very rarely if so."

After a moment, Kuro nodded in agreement with Illya's assessment of the situation. "He's maybe the only one who doesn't have to have a reason to fight. Protesting her own weakness is at least a part of making him uninterested in battling her, I'd wager."

"He'd wipe the floor with her," Rin stated simply.

"Certainly. If anything, that makes it more surprising that she never tried to find a way to change that calculation. While we still had our Command Spells, I'm sure she was lying about them not working on him?"

"I would have assumed their contract was just weak. Or perhaps given how she got out of hers, she figured it wasn't worth the risk."

That jogged Rin's memory. "That might be it. If the Spells worked, he'd have to backstab her at some point before she could use one to, uh, suicide him." A couple moments of awkward silence followed.

"I'm starting to think that Caster is a, what do they call it, power-bottom?" Kuro paused as the other two stared at her. "It's Grail information, ok? Not like I was reading stuff I shouldn't have been."

"You shouldn't have added that second part," Illya pointed out, when it was clear that Rin wasn't going to.

(Abbi von Einzbern)

"Are you kidding me," Caster was muttering to the small video-player on the table behind her as she worked on her magic circle. "If one side has already built a whole civilization in O'Neill cylinders and your last-resort weapons can't reach them, how does them escalating to a one-sided strategic curb-stomp lead to 'destroying everything'? Protagonist logic, I tell ya- Unless the World doesn't see them as human and prunes the branch. But that seems unlikely, since the moral is that they are human..."

"Er, sorry to interrupt," Abbi began, holding up the item she had been tasked to deliver. "You wanted these as soon as we found them." The requested item was a rather oblong stone, about two feet tall and six inches in diameter.

The Servant looked up. "Perfect. That's-" she looked over at the already-shaped ones sitting near the door. "-the third of the large ones. One more to go." The rock floated out of the homunculus' hands over to its requester, who sized it up approvingly. "Thank you."

Before making her way out, she had one question of her own. "You don't seem to use gems like Tohsaka or precious metals like Einzbern, why do ordinary rocks work for this?"

"Hoh. That's because the ritual only requires the right number of rocks."

"I've never heard of a ritual that used four large rocks and eight small ones..."

"Then it clearly isn't copied, now is it?" Smiling, Caster took out a small mallet and what looked like a small green-bladed knife and began shaping the rock.

l

Notes:

It's ironic that while she had a darker shadow dream, no one was (particularly) harmed in this case, compared to...

Fate Grand Order has quite a lot of interesting Pseudo-Servants, depending on how you view the concept. Always take it with a pinch of salt, of course, but I found it hilarious that the wiki lists Shiki (both ones you can get) as possessing "Herself" as a Pseudo. Kuro (or Prisma Illya) aren't Pseudos though.

"Strategic" could be "as opposed to tactical", "grand strategy implications" or "civilization-ending in scope"