So many reviews to cover! I guess that's what I get for putting this chapter off for so long... thank you all for your reviews. I will respond to them here:

Diate: I consulted a few people about this to make sure I wasn't hallucinating something. Yes, magic output is determined with a numeric value known as units. As far as I'm aware, this affects both your capacity and output. For example, Rin canonically has an output of 1,000 units of magical energy and has 40 circuits plus 30 sub circuits. I had to do some math and a bit of guesswork when determining Shirou's output, but I think I did a decent job. This is taken from the wiki. As for "these games made for kids," please do remember that this is an isekai fic. Isekai, while not always, is usually based off RPGs. Although I did try to stay away from most game mechanics, this world is still inspired by high-fantasy RPG games.

Burhgers: Yeah no she dead

Exodus12345: I had a discussion with some people about this review too. Keep in mind that thanks to Herakles' God Hand, he has a major defense against magical attacks. He's going to be a key point in this war if the protagonists want to win. Let's not forget how cracked Merlin is. Even if he wasn't rigging the war with his real body in Avalon, he would still be a force to be reckoned with.

Chapter 20: Miyu

Elizabeth was shocked into silence. Even if the man was taller and was wearing some weird outfit, she knew for a fact that this was Shiro. After a couple seconds, she finally regained enough confidence to speak out.

"Shiro! What the hell are you doing here?!" Elizabeth shouted, stomping towards the man.

"Elizabeth, no!" Artoria grabbed Elizabeth's shirt and pulled her back.

"But Artoria!" Elizabeth shouted. Michael, on the other hand, stood up and put a hand on his sword.

"You dare—"

"You will not touch her!" Artoria shouted, drawing Excalibur and pointed it at the leader. Two swords Elizabeth was intimately familiar with appeared in Shiro's hands. Silence then spread through the church halls. "I am only here because of my contractual obligations to the grail! Do not forget that you tried to kill my master in the past!"

Several of the cloaked figures recoiled in shock while Michael put his hand up. The swords in Shiro's hands vanished into blue motes of light.

"Every atrocity you have done in my name! I was there to witness it!" Artoria shouted as she pounded her chest with her free hand. A few people lowered their heads, including Michael, Annette, and Carmen. "The only reason I have not waged war on you is because I am not allowed to!"

"But my queen—"

"Silence!" Artoria's eyes were burning with rage as she cut off one of the cloaked men in the background. "I am very disappointed in all of you. I tried to lead a kingdom of peace and freedom. Your actions have directly gone against what I spent my life building up. At this point in time, you are not worthy to call yourselves my subjects."

Artoria paused to let the echoes of her words sink in. She saw a few people shaking and she thought she saw someone crying, but paid no mind. Most of the masters were now looking down, guilt showing in their eyes.

"If you are not a master or servant of this war, please leave," Artoria said softly. A majority of the cloaked people bowed before turning and walking out.

"I shall explain the circumstances of this war and nothing else," Artoria sheathed Excalibur and crossed her arms. "In this war, there will be two factions of seven fighting the other. It seems that you are all of the same faction. The holy grail will grant three wishes to the winning faction."

"Wishes?!" Michael looked up in shock. The other members of the faction had similar reactions.

"Wishes," Artoria nodded. "The other faction does not know of your existence and as such you will not know of theirs. You will have to find them yourselves."

"Your Highness… wouldn't that be too difficult?" Xavier asked, raising a hand. "There are hundreds of thousands of people in Astarda. How are we supposed to find the other faction at all?"

"Your servants should be able to help you," Artoria nodded. "Now, I need to find a place for my master to lay her head."

"Your Highness, we'll be more than happy to—" Michael was cut off by a glare from Artoria.

"We do not trust you. Do you understand?" Artoria snapped. Michael nodded before looking down and stepping back.

"Good," Artoria then made her way down the podium. "Do not follow me. We shall stay here for two days before leaving."

/

Ten minutes had passed since Artoria left and not one of the masters had spoken, or even moved.

"We… we seriously fucked up," Michael looked down.

"Perhaps we can keep her here," Ophelia suggested. "We have all these powerful warriors on our side."

"Do you think she would accept that?" Michael asked.

"We formed this church to be more just and fair than the Church of Vivian," Jackson said with an irritated look on his face. "If we did that, we would be stooping to their level."

"We need to do things correctly," Giselle shook her head. "Queen Artoria does not respect us. We need to change that. Dishonest means won't get us there."

"The best place to start would be to win this war," Michael nodded his head before addressing the servants. "The first thing we need to do is get information. Have any of you already been in one of these wars?"

"There's no way of telling," Arjuna shook his head. "While we may know about the war itself, our memories of previous wars aren't included when we are summoned."

"I have," Michael's servant, who had introduced himself as Emiya to his master, raised his hand.

"How?" Arjuna's eyes narrowed a slight amount.

"I fought in one during my lifetime," Emiya stepped forward to take Artoria's spot. "Although the war I had taken place in was very different. We used class cards instead of summoning servants."

"Class cards," Nitocris said. Her tone showed confusion, but after a couple seconds, her eyes widened in realization. The other servants had similar reactions when the grail provided them the information.

"Most grail wars start out like this. The information Queen Artoria has given us was already more than I had during my war," Emiya stated coolly. "The first thing we need to do is to find out who our enemy is. I suspect Artoria will be going back to talk to the other faction when she leaves. I suggest we send a couple servants to follow them and relay back information."

"That…" Michael rubbed his chin. Following enemies to obtain information was basic warfare. It wasn't dishonorable. "Good job, Saber. We shall make our plans accordingly."

/

"Hey Artoria," Elizabeth was curled up in a ball as she leaned on the back of her bed. "What was up with that Shiro look alike? He seemed… wrong."

"Did you look into his eyes?" Artoria was staring outside the windows.

"Y-yeah. What about them?" Elizabeth asked, turning her head so she could look at her mentor.

"There was no light in them," Artoria's voice was somber. "When I first met Shirou, he had that same look in his eyes, but as we got to know each other, the light returned. For that, Shirou, though. He must have stayed on his path…"

"I… I see," Elizabeth looked down at the sheets. There was still so much she didn't know. About Shiro. About Artoria. About this war. "I think I'm going to talk to him."

"Ma— Elizabeth, that's dangerous," Artoria turned around to look at the young girl.

"I don't care. I need to know," Elizabeth said as she stood up. In response, Artoria faded into golden motes of light.

"At least let me go with you," Artoria spoke in Elizabeth's head.

"Fine," Elizabeth said as she walked out of her room and out of the in.

/

Emiya was conflicted. He looked down at his feet and listened to the sound they made in the snow. This feeling was all too familiar with him. On the other hand, that girl… Elizabeth.

Elizabeth seemed to be the polar opposite of Miyu. Outgoing with a short fuse, but he could tell that she cared for Shirou… this version of Shirou…

Still… Emiya thought to himself. It had been so long since he saw Miyu, he would grasp at anything remotely similar to her.

"Hey! You!" Emiya looked up to see Elizabeth stomping up to him in the snow.

"Is there something you need?" Emiya's facial expression didn't change as Elizabeth stopped only a few dozen centimeters away.

"What's up with you?" Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. "The Shiro I know isn't like you. He's always smiling and he's really nice. You're… I don't know! Just… explain yourself!"

"I see," Emiya said. Despite the coldness in his heart, Emiya felt a twinge of jealousy. "Does… he have a sister?"

"No, but he sometimes calls me that," Elizabeth huffed. She always hated when he did that. She didn't want him to see her as a sister. She wanted him to see her as a woman.

"Well, I had a little sister once," Emiya looked up at the falling snow. "She was my everything. Protecting her was my only job. It was the only thing keeping me alive… I failed."

Elizabeth stayed silent as she looked Emiya in the eyes. The second magus killer could recognize the increasing sadness in them.

"Thank you," Elizabeth turned around and started to run. Emiya did nothing but watch as he saw her figure grow smaller in the distance.

"You could have handled that better," Emiya whirled around when he heard another voice to be confronted by Artoria. He almost summoned Kanshou and Bakuya, but refrained. He didn't want to make his master look bad.

"What do you want?" Emiya asked.

"Shirou, what happened?" Artoria took a step forward. Emiya didn't step back, but his muscles tensed. "You… you look…"

"I apologize, but I've never met you before," Emiya shook his head, but was confused when Artoria recoiled. It was almost as if she had been struck.

"But… the war," Artoria muttered. "Didn't you have a Holy Grail War?"

"Yes, but we used class cards," Emiya said. The man held out his hand and a card appeared between his fingers. It was golden and had the picture of an archer on it. "When we installed them, we were able to use the abilities of the servant this card represents."

"What servant does that represent?" Artoria narrowed her eyes. Emiya paused.

"Class Card: Archer. Counter Guardian EMIYA."

/

Elizabeth sat on the foot of her bed, wiping the tears that would occasionally form in her eyes. That man's eyes… It looked like a dead man's. Elizabeth had seen dead men before. Their eyes were identical. Did the death of Shiro's sister affect him that much?

Elizabeth looked up as she heard footsteps. She saw Artoria looking at her with a defeated expression on her face.

"What happened?" Elizabeth asked. Artoria didn't seem to have any wounds on her. Even if she had been attacked, Avalon would have healed her wounds.

"I talked to him," Artoria mumbled as she sat next to her master. "He… he's much worse than what I knew."

"Oh," Elizabeth sniffled. "Will everything be alright?"

"I hope so," Artoria murmured as she leaned on Elizabeth. The young girl awkwardly wrapped her arms around the queen, shifting herself so she would be in a comfortable position.

"It's Shiro. He'll work through it," Elizabeth said, more to herself than Artoria.

"I guess you're right," Artoria whispered. Elizabeth didn't miss her shaky tone. "I hope you're right…"

I'm back, baby! I thought I had a handle on how this chapter would be written, but evidently I was wrong. Hopefully I can get back to the groove of how these chapters work. Thank you all for your patience. Anyways, please do consider leaving a review! I would love to read and reply to your thoughts. As this is an original world, I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Also please join my Discord! I would love to talk to you all and answer all your questions! I talk a lot about my thought process while writing, so if you're interested in that, do consider joining. The url is discord . gg (forego the spaces) followed by a slash and CpVs7R8KXz. Unfortunately you'll have to type the rest of the url in manually because I'm not allowed to post links. Thank you for reading and I'll catch you on the flipside.