CHAPTER 12:

FATAL ATTRACTION

Rin hung up the phone, and looked at Harry and Medea. "That was Kirei. Rider has been summoned. Meaning only Saber, Archer, and Assassin are left. I know which one I'm going for."

Medea looked at Rin's hand, her Command Seals showing. A pair of near-circles and a line. "Saber, no doubt. Though each class has its good points. Personally, I think we would do best with a Saber or an Archer to complement my own abilities. While my power is substantial, if I get attacked by a more physically powerful Servant, I would be in danger. An Assassin, while a good scout, would be redundant with my scrying ability, unless they had substantial ability in physical combat. In theory, even I could summon my own Servant."

"You could?" Rin asked.

"Yes, I am a Magus after all, and could game the system a little. But I haven't done so for a number of reasons. The first is my mana reserves. Between the leylines here and the mana I'm getting from Harry, I have more than enough for combat and my Workshop. Summoning a Servant isn't out of the question, but they may be too weak to be of any use, even as a guard dog, and even if they weren't, they may be confined to a relatively small location. That was my second reason, by the way. The third is that I wanted to wait until discerning whether you would be a Master or not. If you were, then the need for another Servant would be redundant. Fourthly, it may disrupt the ritual I am formulating for Sakura, not to mention the analyses I am performing on the soil samples. I could go on, but I won't."

Rin nodded. "Got it. Time's against us. Tonight's the night, when my mana is at its peak. I'll get Saber, and things will be awesome!"

Famous last words.

Harry had managed to negotiate for some leave for the next week or two, starting that day. He cited that there were problems with Megissa that he was helping her out with. And there were quite a few problems to deal with anyway.

The von Einzbern Master had arrived in Japan a few days before. Raiga Fujimura had brought them intelligence of an albino girl with blood red eyes, about ten years old at the oldest, escorted by a pair of women of similar appearance. His man, who had been working in a car hire office at the airport, had heard the name Illyasviel von Einzbern.

While Rin went to school, Harry stayed, only to realise that the clocks had been shifted forward by an hour. Something Rin would doubtless be realising once she got to school…which would be hilarious, as she was far from a morning person.

Still, Rin had asked Harry to enter her father's old Workshop and prepare it for the summoning. So he did so. It was hot and dusty work, even despite the fact that it was winter. Still, the various benches were shifted, revealing a faded magic circle, one Tokiomi himself used in the previous Grail War.

After all that, Harry went to his rooms within his trunk and had a bath (the bath itself was pretty much huge, more of a hot tub than a bath in terms of size and shape). As he did so, he looked at the Command Seals. Knowing what they had, what they could do, he found himself loath to use them. Okay, if it was an emergency, and he needed her help to avoid dying, yes, he'd use one.

Still, it seemed cruel. It'd be a necessary evil when dealing with less obedient Heroic Spirits, true, but still…they were people once, even if it was long ago. Even against Medea, he felt ill at ease using one.

And there was also the fact that they resembled the sign of the Deathly Hallows. Even now, he couldn't escape them. True, he had brought the Cloak of Invisibility to this world, but it seemed like a chain, a curse.

It was another reason he felt empathy with Medea. It was the fact that their lives had been stage-managed. Dumbledore, Fate, Magical Britain…they used him up and spat him out. Snape, perversely, had done him a favour. He had given Harry the incentive to find something else to do after defeating Voldemort. Though in the unlikely event that he could bring Snape back from the dead, he was going to kick the greasy-haired fucker in the balls until there was nothing left but testicular paté.

Medea, however…she never even got to be the hero in the first place, just the sidekick. He had seen her past. She did a good chunk of the legwork in helping Jason obtain the Golden Fleece. And she did it out of misplaced love for Jason, instilled by Aphrodite.

He leaned back and closed his eyes. He didn't realise someone had entered until he felt the displacement of water in the bath. He opened his eyes, and stared at what he saw. Medea was sliding into the bath in front of him, wholly and magnificently naked.

Staring at her generous bust, her slender body, and her elegantly beautiful face, the most coherent thought that came to Harry was one he thought before. Namely, Jason was a fucking idiot.

To his credit, Harry recovered quickly. "What happened to keeping things professional?" he asked, even as he blushed, and the blood rushed downstairs.

"Oh, it's business as well as pleasure," Medea said, with a smile. Though she too was blushing a little, shooting not-so-discreet looks at his now-erect member, visible despite the suds. "Your sister is summoning her Servant tonight. If things go awry, we may need to deal with them. Remember, the geas technically applies to you two, not the Servants. The more mana I have, the better able I will be to deal with them, should they prove rebellious. Especially if I have to use Rule Breaker and bind them to me. Well, long enough to force them to commit suicide, anyway. So, a mana transfer ritual would be desirable."

"And your idea of breaking that to me was by trying to seduce me in the bath?" Harry asked.

The Greek witch chuckled. "Well, I wanted to see you flustered a little. You really are a virgin, aren't you? We don't have to do it here and now in the bath anyway. We don't even have to do it, period." Her face fell. "But…I'm sorry, I went about this the wrong way, didn't I? It's been a while since I've tried to seduce someone without an ulterior motive in mind, mana transfer notwithstanding. You've been so damnably nice to me, and while you had Sakura in mind when you wanted me to become my Servant…I was touched, you know. When you asked for my help, you asked Princess Medea of Colchis. You spoke my name without hatred. Yes, you were wary, but hatred? Contempt? Do you know how much I yearned at many a point to hear my own name spoken of in tones other than those?"

"I've seen your memories, Medea," Harry said. "I do know."

She nodded. "You treat me as a human being. Even in my old life, I wasn't treated with the same respect. When Atrum Galliasta made his feelings about me clear, I didn't expect this life to be any different. You at least wished to see my side of the story. You even took me out to see this modern time, not for strategic reasons, but simply for me to experience it. I know you expect me to heal Sakura, but…that matters to you more than winning the Grail War. In my life, when people approached me, it was rarely to help others. It was to curse or spite others when it wasn't about gaining power, partly due to my reputation. Heracles was an exception, and even he couldn't stop the Thebans from expelling me once I had removed Hera's curse from him. It wasn't always that way. I originally had a ritual dagger like the Rule Breaker, only it healed instead of severed. I miss Pain Breaker."

"I miss many things from my old life. Hedwig…Fred Weasley. Sirius, Remus, Tonks…I miss my old broomstick and my wand. It's not that I regret coming to this world, to Fuyuki. I just regret having to leave everything else behind. And Medea, if we do this…I don't want to lose you. I mean…I'm not sure I can call this love or anything, but I'd like to think we're friends…we could both die during this. And even if we survive, what if the Grail's just some big monkey's paw? What then?"

Medea just looked down at the bathwater. "Then it is what it is. I am used to being betrayed. Why not by an omnipotent wish-granting cup? But…under certain circumstances, a Servant can possibly be bound as a familiar even if the Grail is gone. With your mana reserves, it may be possible. While I require a lot of mana, I am nowhere near as mana-intensive as Servants like Berserker. My studying of the Grail system suggests that possibility, even if it is a long shot." With that, she scooted over to his side, and gently took his face in her hands, turning him to her. "You know…you are the first person to say they didn't want to lose me with any sincerity. That is probably the most touching thing I have ever heard." And with that, she pressed her lips to his own.

At first, it was a simple, chaste kiss, despite the lust both of them felt, a tentative thing, testing the waters. But almost as soon as that one ended, they locked lips again, only more lustfully, hungering for a connection. Harry thought that she tasted bittersweet, not in a bad way, but rather, that the beauty of her was tainted by her past, by her sorrow and rancour. He wondered how he tasted to her.

He broke it off, and looked at her. "I think we'd better get out of the bath first before we take this any further, wouldn't you agree?"

Medea's smile told him that she agreed wholeheartedly…

Some hours later, Harry was exhausted. You couldn't call what they just went through lovemaking: it was mostly lust, mixed in with the affection they already shared, and he was lucky to get a contraceptive charm in place before their lust got the better of them. Still, if someone had told him that he would lose his virginity to an infamous figure of Greek mythology, and it would probably be his next Patronus memory from just how good it was, he would have laughed in their face. Then again, considering how old she was, she probably had enough experience in how to pleasure men, though he worked to try and ensure that the pleasure was mutual. Judging by the goofy smile on her face as she lay next to him in bed, half-asleep, he had succeeded. Hell, she was beautiful enough already, but that smile took years off her.

That being said, while he had heard of a little thing called 'afterglow', he didn't think it meant that Medea's eyes would be glowing gently through her half-closed lids. He guessed it was due to the sheer amount of mana passed onto her. So he was exhausted magically and physically, despite the potions he had in between sessions.

Medea roused herself from her stupor, rolling onto her side, and began gently tracing her finger along his chest. "So…you enjoyed that?"

"Words fail me. No, really, they do," Harry said, gently running his fingers through her hair. "Did you enjoy it, though?"

"Of course I did," Medea said. "Not every woman half-deafens their partner while climaxing, despite what the hentai of this country would claim. Anyway, you were more considerate than virtually any other lover in my time. Still, I feel ready enough to deal with any unruly Servants. I think we should have another bath first, though…"

They finished in time for Rin to come back, Harry cooking dinner. Rin somehow knew what they had been up to, despite their activities taking place in the trunk, and was muttering about them both being perverts. To which Medea snarkily replied that Rin should try getting laid herself, given how grumpy she was. Maybe she could persuade Sakura to rope Shirou into a threesome.

Needless to say, Medea had to shield herself from some Gandr curses, even though she was finding it hard to concentrate, what with all the laughter.

Still, Rin felt that the cleaning of the ritual circle was satisfactory, and decided to hold the ritual at what she thought was 2 AM, the time when her mana was at its peak. They tried to correct her, but she wouldn't listen.

Medea was to Astralize, keep herself out of view until they could confirm the Servant's willingness to be bound to Rin. She also took down most of the defences against Heroic Spirits, save for the detection ones, at least until the Servant was summoned. Just in case they interfered with the ritual.

As Rin prepared herself, she muttered the incantation, filling the old summoning circle with mana, causing it to glow with first green, and then red light. "For the origin, silver and steel. For the cornerstone, gem and the Archduke of Contracts. For the ancestor, my great master Schweinorg. The alighted wind becomes a wall. Close the gates in the four directions. From the crown, come forth. Trace the three-forked road leading to the kingdom. Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill. Repeat fivefold, and when each is filled, destroy it."

"Looking good so far, Rin," Harry said. "Ready to start it in earnest?"

Rin shot him a look that said, Of course!, before she closed her eyes, and began the final incantation. "Heed my words. My will creates your body, and your sword creates my destiny. If you heed the Grail's call, and obey my will and reason, then answer my summoning! I hereby swear that I shall be all the good in the world, that I shall defeat all evil in the world! Seventh Heaven clad, and the great words of power, come forth from the circle of bindings, Guardian of the Scales!"

A shockwave of energy knocked Rin to her derriere, and Harry staggered. But as Rin exulted, Harry noticed a distinct absence of Servant. "Harry," Medea said, "I sense a Servant falling towards this house from above. I don't think it's an enemy, yet."

Before Harry could relay this to Rin, who was wondering where her Servant was, the house shook, and an almighty crash reached their ears. Instantly, the two siblings, followed by an Astralized Servant, scurried out of the basement and towards a living room where they heard the crash.

Between them, they managed to burst open the door, to reveal a man, dressed in black, with a red coat or mantle over it. His skin was tanned, his hair white, his eyes silver, his expression briefly marred by a look of surprise. His features looked disturbingly familiar, though Harry could not understand why for the life of him. That being said, Harry got a sense of weariness and fatigue from him, something Harry felt mirrored his own psyche.

"Is this really a Servant?" Harry asked.

"Of course he is. He must be," his sister declared, before frowning. "But is he a Saber?"

The man just gave them a wink and a cocky smirk. Harry got the distinct impression that this guy, badass though he looked, was going to be trouble…

CHAPTER 12 ANNOTATIONS:

So, Harry and Medea have gotten it on, and we've finally caught up to the prologue. And yes, Harry, Archer is definitely going to be trouble…

Now, I didn't write Harry and Medea having sex in explicit detail because, well, I suck balls at writing lemons. I generally find it better to cut away to black, and then fade up on the aftermath. And keep in mind, this was partly an expression of lust and partly the infamous Nasuverse mana transfer ritual. This isn't to say they aren't in love, or at least won't end up in love, as their discussion beforehand reveals. They're just somewhat awkward when it comes to things like this.

Anyway, the next chapter is the beginning of the events of Fate/Stay Night proper.

No numbered annotations this time.