Disclaimer: NGNL belongs to Kamiya Yuu, Fate Stay Night belongs to Typemoon.

One reviewer had the same idea as mine, so I go ahead with my original idea.


===chapterstart===

The Wild Fire Tournament

When the floating island Avant Heim stopped at the sky above Elchea City, the Elchea citizens knew that there will be trouble.

It was to be expected. Their new queen was the source of many trouble these days. There were countless of wild rumors about her. They said, she was now controlled by the elves. They said, she auctioned Imanity race to get a lot of gold. They said, she experimented with corpses to create living dead.

Of course, she had also done some good. One, it seemed that there were increasing amount of food available in the market. Two, the homeless gradually disappeared from the street and placed in shelter. Three, the government provided jobs to eliminate unemployment. There were reforms in agriculture, finance, trade, public facilities and so on.

But the citizens didn't forget. The queen was a traitor. She might do these good things, but there must be hidden intention. Maybe she wanted to raise the value of merchandise (Imanity) before selling it to the highest bidder?

The distrust against the queen was all time high. But they couldn't do anything about it, since they had sworn an oath to obey her.

So when Queen Illya won against that one Flugel, none took it as a sign of Illya's brilliance. After all, it was normal for someone who was backed by elves to win against a Flugel. What the citizens worried about was that the queen antagonize the Flugels.

With that floating island blocking the sunlight, their worry was confirmed. What would happen now? Why Queen Illya made trouble with the Flugels? Did the elves instruct her to, or was it an excuse to hand over Elchea to the Flugels?

When hundreds of Flugels descended from the sky, flying with their white wings like angels of death, circling above Elchea, the citizens thought of one thing:

'We are doomed.'


=0=0=0=

The first thing that the Flugels did after descending to the palace was to visit the Immigration Office.

The Flugels learned from Jibril that Elchea had cunningly set up immigration laws. If they didn't want to be trapped in legal pandemonium and blackmailed like Jibril, the Flugels should follow the law to the letter. Even if there was no actual need to do it, the Flugels decided to close any loopholes that could be used against them.

The administration clerk was trembling all the time, but she issued temporary visa for all the Flugels. It seemed that it was already prepared beforehand.

That done, Azrael led her sisters to the throne room to challenge Queen Illya. But a messenger came and told her that she was waiting at the courtyard.

These hundreds of Flugels went to the palace courtyard, where Queen Illya and her staffs waited. After introduction and greeting, Azrael challenged Queen Illya.

"I challenge you for a game nyan. Give me the Akashic Record nyan."

Queen Illya promptly refused. "Rejected. You didn't set a wager and I want the representative of all Flugels, not just you."

"Why do you want to play with representative nyan?" Azrael asked.

"I want your race piece." Queen Illya answered.

The Flugels had commotion over this lowly Imanity who dared challenge a superior being and presumed that she could gained their right as species. Azrael gestured to calm them, and she said, "Our race piece is too valuable compared to this hypothetical well of knowledge that you said you have nyan."

"Well then, why don't we wager something else then? How about... I would stop spreading rumors that you are made from overgrown chicken?"

Azrael contemplated for a moment. For her, this was more important than getting this unproven source of knowledge. At least, she could win one game first to eliminate Imanity's advantage.

Imanity could arrogantly bargained with sixth-ranked Flugels like this because they had won once. As a result, their silly claim had some credibility, even if just a little. Azrael was aware that Imanity was using this to force the Flugels to play. But if the Flugels won one game and forced Imanity to retract their claims, the advantage would be lost.

"What do you want from us? Of course, race piece is off limits nyan." Azrael decided to probe first.

Queen Illya looked upon hundreds of Flugels who were hovering around the courtyard. "An alliance. Cooperate with us to fight our opponent."

Azrael frowned. Did Imanity try to get easy win by relying on the Flugels in their subsequent game?

"That would favor Imanity too much, while we gain nothing from it. That doesn't have equal value with your wager nyan. We won't become your weapon to conquer the other races nyan." Azrael said.

"Then how about this," Queen Illya said. "The Flugels are only obligated to help Imanity if and only if : the opponent does not belong to the sixteen races of Exceed." Illya said with a smirk.

The floating Flugels who was listening broke into chaotic buzz.

Azrael looked at Illya with confusion, but she couldn't guess Elchea's queen intention. She said, "I need to consult with my sisters nyan."

"Take your time."

Azrael ascended high to the sky and called, "Council of Eighteen Wings, to me nyan. Jibril too, come join us nyan."

Eight Flugels and Jibril made a circle around Azrael. Around them, the other Flugels were casting magic to block any sound.

"This needs consensus from the council nyan. What do you think about their proposal nyan?" Azrael opened the emergency meeting.

"They must be bluffing. There is no race outside the sixteen Exceed." One of the council member said.

"But that means even if they win, they gain nothing. Why do that?" other asked the question.

"Maybe they decided to throw away this game to give us false sense of security. After all, both sides don't really lose anything." Another said.

"Or they chickened out and give up, and trying to lose with dignity. They want out, so they propose a game where Flugels won't lose anything." Another gave her opinion.

"But what if there is something other than sixteen Exceed?" Another council member asked. "Then we have to fight it."

"That opponent will not be protected by Ten Oaths, so we can go all out slaughtering it." Another member said. "I don't think anything can be stronger than Gigants or Dragons. Or Old Deus."

"Plus, if we have to fight something other than sixteen Exceed, that will be our benefit." Jibril said. "We can encounter something previously unknown. We may even use our power to kill again."

The Flugels became silent after hearing Jibril. All of them still resent their loss of ability to do violence. Now faced with possibility to go back to the old times, many of them smiled.

Bloodthirsty smile.

"So if there is no opponent, we lose nothing nyan. And if there is, we get benefit nyan. Do we agree to accept this wager on behalf of Flugels nyan?" Azrael asked.

The council voiced their agreement unanimously.

Azrael descended back, facing Illya who was sitting on a chair waiting. "We have agreed nyan. The Flugels agree with the wagers you proposed. If we win, you will stop spreading rumors and clear our name nyan. If you win, The Flugels will help you to fight or play a game with an opponent, provided that the opponent is not one of the sixteen Exceed nyan. Is that right nyan?"

"Excellent! Now we have agreed about the wager, let's talk about the game." Illya said. "Because I am the challenged party, I will determine the game. The game we will play is this!"

Illya gestured to the courtyard where there is one stage and two special areas opposing each other.

===break===


Flashback, at the day when Illya play against Jibril

Saber stared at the budget report.

She frowned at the offending paper. The latest report told her about the amount of gold that Illya had transmuted so far. Reading the numbers and the projected price of staple food, she knew that she had miscalculated.

Stephanie Dora was very competent, and she had highlighted the discrepancy between the two in her report. And that made Saber realized her mistake.

Imanity had too much gold.

The blame lay on Saber. She was the one who set the required amount of gold needed for Illya to transmute. Illya worked hard everyday, and she was already halfway in reaching the goal. But it turned out that they already had enough.

Saber had overestimated the amount of food consumed by an average adult Imanity. She assumed that an Imanity would eat five bowl of rice for one meal. So the calculation assumed that an average adult would eat fifteen bowl of rice each day.

Well, considering that she ate ten bowl of rice for each meal, her perception was skewed. Berserker consumed twenty bowl of rice, so she didn't feel like she had overeaten.

Of course, Saber knew that she ate a little more than normal. That's why she based her assumption on someone else daily consumption. The Hound of Ulster, Cu Chulainn, ate fifteen bowl of rice everyday. See, it was partly his fault for eating more than average men!

Another person to blame was EMIYA. Ever since he took over the palace kitchen, the average food expenses had increased. He always cook some delicious food, that Saber and the others always ask for more servings.

Maybe this was the result of staying too long in Emiya house. Shirou had always indulged her eating habit, and the other occupants were also heavy eater. And in Disboard, EMIYA had replaced Shirou's role as her cook. This made her forget about normal eating habits for human.

"Saber? Is there something wrong?" Stephanie Dora asked with worried expression.

Saber and the core groups were inside the meeting room in the palace, waiting for Illya. The game Materialization Word Chain between Illya and Jibril had just begun. Saber was observing through telepathic connection, and she divided her attention to review some reports.

The game was proceeding well as they had planned. But now, what to do with this surplus of gold. If Illya knew that she had worked hard for nothing, she would throw tantrum. She mustn't know about Saber's mistake. Better yet, nobody must know. Now..., how to spin this into her favor while hiding her mistake...

Saber's eyes fell to the map on the table, seeing the Eastern Union.

That land..., that country had a lot of farm, yes? And marine industry was thriving there, yes? Imanity was planning to challenge Eastern Union and take the continental land back. The problem was, they still had no way to force Eastern Union to play according to Imanity's term, and no valuable thing that Eastern Union want. But if they could corner the Eastern Union...

A plan to use the surplus gold began to form inside her mind.

"Saber?" Stephanie asked again, worried because Saber was lost in thought.

"Ah, it's nothing." Saber answered her.

"Oh. Ok then." Stephanie said. "Then about my report, umm, the numbers are weird. Do we really need that much gold to buy food?"

"There is nothing wrong with the number." Saber said. She hastily said, "and you did well with this report. Your calculation is right."

Stephanie was now confused. "Eeeh? But, but the numbers!" She had difficulty articulating her thoughts.

"Indeed, if you assume that the gold is only for fulfilling our need, we had too much." Saber tossed the report to the table. "But my goal is not only that." Saber stood up and traced her finger on the map.

"Stephanie. I want you to recruit people, the requirements needed are only that they can read, write, and count numbers. I want twenty, no, fifty men. And another three hundred men for heavy labor." Saber said. There were a lot of unemployed people so Saber didn't think they would get lack of applicants.

"Eeh? For what? and the budget..." Stephanie almost shouted.

"I want to launch economic attack against Eastern Union. And don't worry about budget, we have enough gold, right?"

"E-Economic attack?" Stephanie said, not understanding. "What is that?"

Saber smiled. This was one sign that her plan would succeed, because apparently no one in this world knew about economic attack. "I will explain later. Now, hurry up and post announcement for recruitment."

"Y-yes mam!" Stephanie saluted and scurried to the exit.

Saber sat down and return to observe Illya's game. The game still continuing as planned, but nothing was set in stone. Illya could still lose the game, a Flugel's power was that strong.

Saber planned to use a victory here as stepping stone and use it to bait the remaining Flugels. But now she had doubts about it. Just one Heavenly Winged was already that powerful, what would happen if a whole race fought together? They said that the era before Ten Oaths were hell on earth because these powerful races fought each other. Now she could understand what they meant a little, after seeing Jibril.

In this other world, a Servant's advantage were physical power, magic, and Noble Phantasm, and the fact that these were hidden. The other race would underestimate them, assuming that they were weak, and then the Servants would surprise them by revealing their superhuman power and magic. This tactic allowed Servants to bait the overconfident enemy into betting valuable things, and then reap the rewards.

But this would not work against Flugel, a race created as living weapons. It was very possible that they were stronger than Servants. Their physical power and magic power might be stronger than the Servants, and they also had superior numbers. Because of that, they couldn't just propose a game of arm-wrestling or a race, a game that Servants could win easily against other races.

Even this Materialization Word Chain game was very risky. As Saber watch the game, she noted Jibril's vast knowledge and durability. Even if Illya won today, the Flugel would learn from the defeat, and the next game would be harder to win.

No, it was foolish to let the enemy set the battlefield. Saber must think of a game that allow her side to absolutely win without fail. A game where The Flugels couldn't use their overwhelming strength. A game that their side had the best advantage, while the opponent had worst disadvantage.

Was there a game like that?

But they must win the Flugel, or at least made Jibril owe them something. Imanity needed information, about the Werebeast, about the Elves, and the other intelligent races. Saber couldn't initiate her economic attack before she got more detailed information about Eastern Union situation.

Saber continued watching the game while thinking. If she didn't find a game like that by the time the game ended and Illya won, she would not tell Illya to deliver the provocation against the Flugels. Getting the library back was good enough.

Suddenly, Lancer entered the room with a grin on his face. He sat down on a chair, drawing raised eyebrows from other Servants in the room, Kurami, and Fii.

"Where have you been?" Saber asked.

"I was hunting." Lancer said. "I got us a wild boar."

"Illya is doing an important game. You shouldn't be doing whatever you like." Saber said in disapproval.

"So? It's not like we have to be here in one room. I can watch by telepathic connection when I am hunting."

"We will have quicker response if anything happens if we are gathered." Saber insisted.

"Yeah yeah, that's why I am here, earlier than my usual hunting schedule. More importantly, Archer, I give the wild boar to the kitchen staff. It looks a little different from our world's boar, but you can cook it, right?" He asked with hungry grin.

"A wild boar, hm?" Archer nodded. He closed his eyes and rubbed his chin, thinking about cooking. "The livestock and wild game here is similar enough with our world, I have no problem so far. Let me see it later and if there are differences, I will adjust my cooking."

The listeners all cheered delightfully. The food that Archer cooked so far had been delicious, even when he complained about difficulty in ingredients and tools.

Only Saber was struck speechless.

Saber was struck with sudden inspiration. Eureka! Of course, the answer was right in front of her all along!

"Ahahaha. Hahahahaha"

Saber laughed, drawing confused stare from her surrounding. She didn't care. She was so happy to find the game a Flugel couldn't win.

"Archer, save the boar for later. We will have cooking contest with The Flugels, use it then."


===break===

"We will have cooking contest." Queen Illya said to Azrael.

"Cooking nyan?" Azrael tilted her head.

So the two identical areasd were kitchen counters. Each area was quite large. There were the standard firewood stoves, some containers filled with waters, and preparation table.

Beside the two cooking areas, there was one table for the judges, and a stage for the MC.

"I will explain the rules." a woman with blonde hair stepped forward. This must be Saber, the Prime Minister of Elchea.

Rules of Cooking Contest:

1. Each side will send three participants to represent them in cooking contest. They can cook together or take turn, there is no limitation.

2. Standard cooking utensils and appliances will be provided to both sides by Elchea royal palace. Both sides will get identical things according to royal palace standard.

3. Participants are free to acquire additional utensils and appliances that they brought themselves.

4. Standard Elchea royal palace spices will be provided. Participants are free to acquire additional spices from anywhere else.

5. Ingredients should be provided by each side. Members of Imanity side or Flugels can help contestants by acquiring ingredients, spices, or cooking utensils. We will give one hour preparation time to gather ingredients.

We will provide standard food ingredients at the table in the center of the courtyard on a first-come-first-serve basis. Only standard and common ingredients such as flour, rice, potato, common vegetables, tomato, etc will be provided.

More ingredients can be acquired during the cooking period.

6. Only the six contestants may cook. Cooking is defined as any acts from preparing ingredients (such as washing), processing food (such as boiling), until serving food.

Helping contestants by giving suggestions are not prohibited.

7. All members of Imanity side or Flugels side are prohibited to directly interfere with other side's cooking.

8. Each side must prepare three dishes. Each dish must be prepared for three person portion at minimum. We will give two hours cooking time. If you run out of time, the dish must be served no matter what its condition.

9. There will be three judges. Each judge will taste a dish and give score from 1 to 10. Score 1 is horrible food, score 10 means heavenly delicious.

0 score if the dish is not completed.

10. The team with highest score at the end wins.

"Any questions?" Saber asked.

Azrael thought that the rules were okay. It was standard, and seemed fair enough.

"Who will be the judges nyan?" Azrael asked. The one way to cheat was to have unfair judges.

Saber nodded. "We are picking up the Ambassador of the Werebeast. She will be the first judge."

Clever. With a judge from another race unrelated with the conflict, no one could say that it was unfair. Unless Imanity had made a secret deal.

"The second one. Jibril, please come here." Saber said.

"Huh? me?" Jibril approached her from above.

Illya said to Jibril. "Jibril, I am calling one of my favor here. You will not help the Flugels in this game because you will be one of the judge. I ask you to be fair and impartial in judging."

"Nyan!" Azrael exclaimed. "Jibril can't participate nyan? But Nee-san want to eat Jibril's cooking nyan!"

"I am sorry Azrael-senpai. But this is something I must do. I lost the game against her. Please understand." Jibril said.

"Nyan! Why did you stop calling me Nee-san nyaan?" Azrael shook Jibril's shoulder.

"Cough. About the third judge..." Saber tried to ignore the wailing Azrael. "We haven't choose one yet. An Elf has different diet and taste... So we might choose one random passerby later."

"Nyan! That's unfair nyan! You can put your people on the street and make them acted as passerby nyan!" Azrael protested.

"That's easy to fix." Queen Illya said. "Just play Rock Paper Scissors with the judges, if they lose then they have to judge fairly."

Azrael was speechless for a moment. What an ingenious idea!

"Nyan, then we agreed to the game and the rules. Let us choose our contestants first nyan. I think some of my sisters wanted to discuss with me about the game nyan." Azrael said, and then she flew back to the sky, joining her sisters.

===break===


Jibril was left on the courtyard, while all the Flugels ascended high to the sky above Elchea to hold discussion. Technically, she was a judge, so she shouldn't help her sisters.

She approached Saber and asked, "Are you sure you want to do cooking contest with us?"

Saber had a curious expression and asked her back. "Yes. Why do you ask?"

Jibril narrowed her eyes and spoke, "I hope you don't had a false impression that Flugels cannot cook."

Saber was surprised. "You Flugels can cook?"

"It is a common misunderstanding because we don't need to eat and we rarely do it, but yes, we can." Jibril answered. "We are collector of knowledge. We collected recipe books and memorize it perfectly. As long as there is an instruction about how to do something, we can replicate it perfectly. And we have collected a lot of recipe books from many races."

Jibril looked above and said, "I saw some of my sisters teleported back to Avant Heim. They must have gone back to pick up some recipe books." She looked back at Saber and said, "You can still cancel this game and change it to something else."


===break===

Ding! Please choose one to proceed!

A. Maybe we should play something else...

B. It's Shokugeki time! Bring it on!

===chapterend===


AN

1. Editorme: I noticed that there is a lack of characterization in this whole fanfic. Only plot, especially in this chapter.

Authorme: That's fine, let's add more plot to distract the readers! They just want to read about more games!

2. The title referred to Hyouka anime ep14.