I do everything I can to get myself ready for the fight at the end of the week. My enemy? Leonard Bistario Harway. With Rider and Caster, I'm sure that I can beat him, but nothing is set in stone. We can't be sure of victory, but we are not ensured defeat.
"Hey, you're the person going up against Harway, aren't you?" I turn around to Rin's voice.
"Good morning."
"Oh, sorry about that. Good morning."
"And yes, Leo is my enemy. But with Rider, I think I can beat Gawain."
"Do you now?"
"Yes, but I'll need an edge. For example, a critical blow delivered when he is most vulnerable." A note appears on the board that decides our fates. A message telling us when we are scheduled to fight our fated enemies. "Or having to fight him while Numeral of the Saint is disabled by default. I don't think that I can possibly drag out our battle for two-and-a-half-hours."
"I see. I'm going to have to fight his brother. So I'll scratch you back if you'll scratch mine. I'll keep him off your back if you kill Harway."
"You really want Harway dead, don't you?"
"Yes." Rin Tohsaka prepares herself for her battle to the death.
I want to be more like her, but at the same time, I really don't. A willingness to die doesn't always indicate strength, if the reason for dying isn't principled. I don't want to fight, but I have to, while Rin chose this conflict for her own reasons. "Who's there?"
Someone comes through the door. Rani. "Good morning."
"Good morning, Master." This is... Saber. Noire.
"About what happened yester-" She silenced me with a finger.
"Our actions yesterday were a result of the Moon Cell Automation manipulating us in order to allow us to access my Noble Phantasms without causing you to sport physical injury, leading to a positive-feedback loop where you will eventually die due to our complete lack of trust in one another. As to the motivations behind those particular actions and the motions it made us go through, it somehow managed to bypass the requirements of Hyperdevotion and brought us to the first positive rank. At the neutral rank, I don't know what degree of harm it would have brought you; rashes, friction burns, mild pain, et cetera. We do know that at negative ten, you will die the instant I activate HDD and that NEXT form can only be used when at positive ten." Noire laid me back down.
"You need to rest. You likely don't remember, but you went into shock yesterday after you asked me to cosplay for you. Scared me half to death."
"Can you explain how the Hyperdevotion works?"
"Well, the first thing you need to know is that I come from a reality where there are four major goddesses. We tend to compete for the faith of the people, known colloquially as shares. It wasn't until very recently, relative to me, that we refined a way for shares to come exclusively from the nation of the goddess in question. Before this, the shares were zero sum and a perfect split would leave all four of us with 25% of the total amount of shares. The Hyperdevotion works by using trust to supplant the shares that I would need to access HDD or NEXT form outside of certain areas."
"So, you need the faith of the people to access your divinity?"
"Not quite. You see, when we transform, we don't just alter our appearances or increase our power; we flood the area with shares, creating a temporary scared location that can support our existence without breaking down into information. The dome of the goddesses, Celestia, is already capable of supporting us without issue. This sacred zone also protects anyone that may happen to be with us; because the true form of a goddess is revealed the instant she enters HDD, and much like the Greek Gods, our true form will kill any mortal who happens to be looking at the time. A third reason is that the true form of a goddess like myself is extremely vulnerable, being just a mass of information with no real ability to defend itself without a form. Aside from the 'instant death of any mortal that happens to be looking' thing, there is nothing we can do to defend ourselves and can be easily captured or drained.
"So the shares protect the area, the people and you when you're at your most dangerous to them and vulnerable yourself."
"That's the short version, but yes, you're right."
"Good morning, Rani." She brought tea and was also dragging Rin behind her.
"I brought tea." Didn't I just make that apparent?
"Hello again, Rin."
"My teacher told me that the stars would lead me to the person who would teach me about humanity and living. Instead the stars showed me the fate of myself and Miss Tohsaka. In the fourth week, we would fight and you would have to choose one of us to save from Berserker, using two precious command seals in doing so. I was given the objective of self-destructing should it seem that I was about to lose with zero chance of a come-back. Regardless, there exists the Far Side of the moon, where all three of us will ally with the Harways with the objective of escaping an A.I. that has hijacked the processing power of the Moon Cell and used it to play games with us as a result of the hacking of someone in the War. This path has already been set in stone as the path we will take, so the only thing we can do is prepare for the worst. This week, the Moon Cell will declare all matches to be draws after our hacker makes her move two weeks early, so all that we can do is prepare for the worst. This hacker will try to eliminate the most dangerous variable to her plan, you; so stay on your guard."
"I will." After that grim statement, we enjoyed our tea. "You knew about this as well, didn't you, Rin?"
"Through different mechanics, but yes. I know that there are two 'routes' you could take and that saving me was the defining moment for one. Call it the 'Rin' route, if you will. In my route, you would fight Dracula, Li Shuwen, and her Lu Bu; while in the 'Rani' route you would fight a True Ancestor, Li Shuwen, and my Cu Chulainn. After that, you would have fought Leo and Gawain with the help of whomever you chose to save. After that you would have ascended to the Moon Cell and meet the cause of this war, a doctor named Twice Pieceman. But that doesn't matter anymore, because someone else decided to rip the script to pieces."
"Assassin, welcome back."
"So, what should we do with this?"
"We find both of our triggers and we try to find this hacker. With the unknown extra Master missing, but his Servant still alive, we can reasonably assume that he is on the Far Side, possibly as a test run by our hacker."
Yesterday, my actions... they weren't like me. Maybe around my sister or people I'm really comfortable with I'll tease a little, but asking a woman i just met to cosplay for me? What's going on? Is it really the Moon Cell exerting it's influence on me? My previously unknown desire to have gorgeous young women cosplay for me? An inevitable artifact of my death and me trying to deal with it? Or am I overthinking all of this? Maybe the Moon Cell just brought out desires and created a fantasy for Noire and I. The question is...why?
"So...how many chapters until they have an accidental kiss?"
"I give them four." A white board with three names along the top and 'chapters until accidental kiss' was quickly written with the number 4 beneath the second name.
"Perhaps it will take a little while longer, so I place it at ten chapters in." Said number was written beneath the third name.
"Well, I think they'll kiss next chapter but I'll place my bet on two chapters after this one. Now, what are the stakes?"
"I'll take your sisters as my own if I win all ten of these bets."
"LIKE HELL YOU WILL!"
"Oh dear..."