The Day of Fate

The day he was introduced into the world of the Magi will be the day his life changed. As far as orientations went, that was one hell of an introduction. The man who introduced the world of Magecraft nonchalantly shattered his and Morgana's perceptions of reality and physics by simply materializing a lion from out of nowhere and then reshaping a lump of coal into a pound of diamonds.

At first, he thought they were merely parlor tricks or stage tricks. He even questioned it. Then they showed more abilities be it summoning fantastical creatures for the group to pet to displaying the innermost personal thoughts of one of his fellow candidates on a projector screen. Once the doors opened to the hidden truths of this world, the man leading the orientation introduced the real reason they were here: To save Humanity's future.

All of it sounded ridiculous, but considering Ren and his friends' experiences, it was no surprise that there are things in this world that contain realities beyond conventional human understanding.

"All of you have two options. Now that all of you mundanes have discovered the true nature of the world we live in and what your actual work with Chaldea is, you can either leave and submit yourselves to memory erasure, You can go back to your boring lives and forget what you saw today, or you can do more. You can rise above your mundane stations. Become more than just simple cogs of fate. All of you can become the beacons of hope for human history. The Stars that shine a glorious new path!"

Silence fell upon the gathered Master Candidates in the Large Conference room in Chaldea's London Headquarters when The blond-haired man dressed named Kirschtaria Wodime finished his speech. The silence was heavy and slow.

"All who choose the path of saving Human History rise!"

The Phantom Thief turned Master Candidate of Chaldea rose.

Every so often, whenever he ate lunch, studied, or worked out, the memory of that day would play back in Ren's mind. It was like watching a favorite youtube video over and over again. He remembered three distinct segments of that memory, the display of Wodime's and some of the other Magus' mysteries and a video presentation of Chaldea's true mission.

After he and five other candidates had stood and accepted the mission, they began their training earnestly. The first few days consisted of having everybody's magical circuits awakened. What followed after was studying the very basics of magecraft.

While Ren was a diligent student concerning regular academics, In terms of talent in magecraft, he was at the bottom rung. He had a paltry five magic circuits, while the other candidates had twenty to fifty. What he'd lack in abilities in magecraft, he'd have to make it in pure physical prowess and combat capability.

Lucky for Ren, his time as a phantom thief had prepped him for the upcoming dangers. He was ahead in that regard.

His time training had passed in a blink of an eye. Three months into his introduction into the Moonlit World, the order from Lord Wodime arrived. He and Morgana would soon find themselves deployed to Antarctica to participate in the Grand Order.

Of course, on such an important day, it figures that a lot would go wrong with Ren's attempts to reach the Arctic North.

It began with the delay of Ren's flight. Because of engine problems, Ren had to wait until the engineers had fixed it. While he was waiting to get on his scheduled flight, the other Master Candidates managed to get transferred to other planes. For whatever reason, Chaldea couldn't find any alternate planes for Ren to take. The former phantom thief had called into the London Headquarters asking for another flight on a commercial airline; The management at headquarters shot him down. They explained that placing another master candidate in a commercial airline unconnected to their organization was a security risk. In the end, Ren had to wait.

When he finally reached the Phoenix Airfield, there was a heavy snowstorm. His journey was again delayed for another three hours as he had to wait until the storm had calmed down before a shuttle could come and pick him up and transport him. He had to sleep in the airport waiting area until the snow cleared up. He did not arrive until Midday. By then, the rest of the Master Candidates had already gathered in the Rayshift room; They were ready to begin their first mission.

Upon finally arriving, the dark-haired youth found that he couldn't attend the first mission. There were several tasks he had to do to participate. The first thing he needed was a general medical evaluation. The second thing he was also required to do was attend a proper orientation to headquarters. He would have to go on the next Rayshift. The only upside to missing the first mission was that he would have more quiet time to explore more of his new home.

"Look at this place!" Morgana said, looking at the halls of Chaldea with glimmering eyes. Ren nodded in agreement. Once the chaos of the past few hours had settled and he began walking towards the medical ward, he could finally mentally center himself and absorb his surrounding. While walking within the white and blue metal hallways, Morgana continued to gush about the complex machinery making humming noises and the futuristic-looking architecture.

"Futaba would go nuts if she were here!"

"I wish I could tell the others about all this," Ren said wistfully.

"You know the rules."

"I know," Ren said glumly.

For the first time since he had met the Phantom Thieves, Ren had to lie about what he was doing lest he end up endangering them. He didn't like it: it went against all his beliefs. At the same time, Ren could not tolerate the prospect of any of his companions dying because of the choices. The most he could do was inform them that he couldn't say anything more because of a Non-Disclosure Agreement. Most of them agreed not to pressure him. Part of him suspects Futaba would attempt hacking other Chaldea servers to find out what exactly is going on.

The pair finally reached the medical war and was greeted by a red-haired man sporting a blue shirt and white coat.

"I take it you are Amamiya Ren? Master Candidate number 48?" The red-haired man asked in perfect Japanese. Ren's eyes widened in surprise. He stood there stunned at his fluency. While he had spoken with plenty of foreigners doing his part-time jobs in Japan, none of them had spoken with the level of fluency of the red-haired man.

"Yes. That's me." Ren replied. The red-haired man nodded and motioned for Ren to sit on one of the beds.

"Romani Archaman. Just Roman will do. Just give me a few minutes. I need to run the standard check-ups. Once that's finished, I'll send you up to your room. If you're not quite tired yet and are feeling hungry, you can have the run of our cafeteria as well. Oh! Is that cat your familiar with?" He asked. The man's eyes widened with joy as he spotted Morgana's tail protruding from Ren's backpack.

"I am not a cat! I am Morgana." The cat hissed. Ren rolled his eyes at that. At the end of his second year, Morgana accepted he was a cat. However, a few months later, the black furball backtracked to deny it again. He wondered what exactly happened for him to regress.

"Ouch!" Romani said as when he went to pet Morgana and was scratched immediately. Rather than be angry, the red-haired doctor let out a sigh as if he expected this to be a regular occurrence. "It figures."

Archaman then continued with the usual motions for a check-up: Checking his heartbeat, Checking Blood pressure, and questioning Ren's overall health and state of mind. Afterward, he began to make some small talk with the young Chaldean Master.

"I've lived in Japan for quite a while." The Red hired man said he was filling out a form on his tablet. "I love the food there. I loved traveling to Kyoto and Sendai during vacations. I miss Akihabara; I used to love buying volumes of anime and Super Heroe shows!" His voice filled with a rhythm of nostalgia and longing.

"I take it you are a big Featherman fan?" Ren speculated when he heard the mention of superheroes.

"I was a big fan since Zephyrman, actually," Archaman said proudly. "Magical Girls too. Magical Detective Loveline is one of my top ten.

"I have a good friend that's also a fan. I think you'd two get along." Ren chuckled. "When is the last time you've been to Japan?"

"It has been a while," Romani said with a frown. "I haven't been back since what? Five? Seven? Ten years ago? A lot has happened there. Hasn't it? Those last two years must have been wild. That whole Phantom Thieves phenomenon; I wished I was there when it happened."

Ren and Morgana's ears perked up at the mention of their former group. It was always interesting to hear what others' responses from Magi society were to the whole thing. Oddly enough, no Magus ever considered the Metaverse incidents as something that was magecraft related. He had heard that Clock Tower did send Enforcers to investigate what was going down. Unfortunately for them and fortunately for Ren and the rest of the thieves, they did not find anything remotely supernatural. Ren's current working theory is that either Yaldabaoth prevented them from looking at it too closely or, Lavenza was intervening to allow him to play Yaldabaoth's and EMMA's games unhindered.

"So I have to ask the age-old question then. Do you believe the Phantom Thieves are real?" Ren asked. At that question, Roman grinned.

"A group of Magi reforming society? You better believe it!"

"Really? From how most of the other mages at Clock Tower talked, you'd think they all believed it was some elaborate publicity stunt. So you're part of the few that believe they're Magi."

"Certainly! Neither Clock Tower nor the Holy Church could understand how Phantom Thieves manipulated their target's minds. The Targets they examined had no trace of Magecraft used. Whoever those groups of Magi were, they were definitely on a level in which they left no trace of their presence. I bet the Church and Clock Tower's pride was pretty wounded at being unable to solve how the Phantom Thieves were doing their crimes. They likely brushed that entire case aside and focused on more obvious uses of magecraft to investigate and conceal."

The red-haired doctor seemed to take a certain level of glee at the Forces of Clock Tower and the church coming short in their search for Ren and his friends.

"And you're alright with them getting away with it, Risking the whole masquerade," Ren asked curiously. Morgana angled his head and stared curiously at Roman.

"The world of Magi is often cruel, Amamiya-san. Very few men and women can step into this world and retain their sanity, morality, and life. The fact that this group of Magi used their abilities to help society despite the danger they've placed themselves in speaks volumes of their character."

"And what makes you think they're good people?"

"The nature of their targets. Any true-blooded Magus would have chosen more discreet targets. No! These Magi decided to use their magecraft in the service of the people. I've always hoped we have more Magi like that come in and similarly use their talents."

Ren and Morgana smiled at his response. At that moment, both decided that they liked Roman and hoped they'd be able to talk with him more in between missions.

"Well... they haven't been active lately. I do hope the thieves have managed to stay alive," Ren said after a short pause. Morgana snickered. Ren spent all of his time trying to suppress his smile.

"Oh, they are certainly alive," Roman said.

"Really? What makes you say that?"

"Call it a gut feeling," Roman said. Ren frowned at the statement. Roman decided to elaborate. "There is also the fact that if captured, The Lords at Clock Tower would probably brag about getting the finest of samples," Romani added.

"Interesting theory," Ren commented. "I do hope it's true."

Roman nodded in response as he focused more on filling out Ren's information. Once he finished filling in Ren's general info, he had a few final words to say to his coworker. "All done," His hands reached out for a notepad and wrote words barely legible for Ren to read. "Here you go, your room number and the directions there. "

"Thanks," Ren responded, accepting the note gratefully. "I'll take your advice and go to the cafeteria first.

"If that's the case, then getting there should be easy. Just go out the door and to your left." Roman responded with a smile.

Ren turned around and took his bag with Morgana in it.

"Oh, Amamiya-san?"

"Yeah?" Ren turned around.

"Welcome to Chaldea."