(After a routine Free Quest)
"Hey Tamamo Cat, what do you think about humanity?" Gudao asked as his group bore the fruits of their latest Quest to the appropriate storage Vault.
"Oh, the humanity !" the Berserker replied enthusiastically.
"Master, why are you asking Cat such things?" the same-class Kiyohime slid in a disgruntled objection. "She's never been a human. Unlike, say... your Kiyohime."
"I see you've taken to that girl's habit of asking Cat random things," Saint Martha grumbled while keeping an eye on Kiyohime, just to be safe.
"I'll admit it's sorta intriguing to me how Cat can say just about anything, but never triggers Kiyohime's lie sensor. Or another way, it could mean nearly anything... well I guess that would also 'pass' which is interesting in its own way," the homunculus shrugged it off. "It's not that intuitive, how things function at the level you two operate at."
"Uh... I'm not quite sure how to take that," Kiyohime blushed for some reason probably worth worrying over.
"Oh dear, I guess that's enough for one day; since we've finished securing the goods the job's done. Good work." Gudao patted her on the head for a moment. "Martha, can you? I should go catch Artoria since she's nearby, apparently."
"And what can that girl do that I can't?" Kiyohime pouted as the saint took her hand to bring the Berserker back to her comfortably warded room.
"I kind of want the new Servant to get some time with her (Journey of the Flowers). Just some insurance," Gudao explained succinctly. "Somehow even though she and my partner have been around, Gudako seems to have not thought of this particular precaution."
"Ah." the green kimono-clad Berserker just blinked in confusion.
"You should eat something," the red-dressed one added. "I can be a messenger Cat, if you need to pass a message."
"No thanks," Gudao turned down her offer firmly. "You can come with me, or head to the Servant-side kitchen if you want to cook - you don't our food anyway - but I rather handle this one personally."
"Woof !"
Cat eventually decided that her selection of 'fresh ingredients' was too much to hold off on, and took off for the cafeteria, leaving Gudao to his self-assigned task of finding and pointing Artoria towards her latest... patient. No, client ? Either worked. One of the things they had noticed was that the Servants that showed up in Chaldea were, of course, willing to commit to the work of restoring Human History, but additionally seemed to frequently be 'on the line' of how much they necessarily cared about the opinions of humanity as a whole.
Even Artoria, who seemed to have, by now at least, come to some terms with the 'revelations' from her exposure to mud from the corrupted Fuyuki Grail, was still affected by the general orientation of the, now-confirmed Avenger, Count of Monte Cristo; while she didn't exactly blame the World System - it wasn't sentient after all - she didn't appreciate being caught in whatever its 'prison,' so to speak, of a reality happened to be at the moment.
Normally holding the likes of her and other inhumans numbering Greek goddesses, saints, Berserkers, warlords, man-slayers and so on would be a massive task; just preventing self-destructive infighting would be a monumental achievement in and of itself. But? Looking at Chaldea's roster suggested that it was not as random a 'selection' as the earlier list might imply. In fact, its Servants seemed to be jigsaw puzzle perfect for allowing the whole assembly to co-exist with hardly any friction that was not common to normal human organizations.
Yes, almost as if the Grail System knew not just who, which which version of who, could be added without touching off a powder keg.
"... ah Master, there you are !" a surprisingly chipper Artoria found him first.
Although he had been intending to seek her out, Gudao just blinked blankly for a moment, completely missing the otherwise very telling dark blue hat she had on. "Oh Artoria. What's up?"
"We have a quest line to go on," the dark blue Princess Knight answered with continuing cheer. "Christmas quests, to be specific."
"I see. Give me the general rundown," the Master replied smoothly, wondering about how Chaldea's systems had not picked up anything recently despite what was clearly shaping up to be some sort of at least Event-level situation.
"This hat came with a letter though one of the Friend Point summons, and I only just received them after they were cleared by da Vinci." Artoria handed over the document in question for Gudao to read.
"So... Mystery Santa claims that via a series of quests and his own (Santa Creation) Personal Skill you can achieve some sort of power level breakthrough," he concluded. "Um, not to bring up dangerous topics, but isn't this clearly Merlin's doing?"
"Probably," the blue lily-themed Servant replied seriously. "He did that sort of thing when I was younger and likely even more so when I was older, too."
"Are you sure he isn't going to make trouble for us?"
"Oh, make no mistake, he is definitely going to make trouble. But I think, since on top of everything else he's also one of Chaldea's benefactors, it will be worth said trouble."
"Unless I'm missing something, this isn't so time-dependent that we can't properly assemble the crew and gather our party?" Gudao asked with a raised eyebrow at Artoria's willingness to accept potential Merlin-induced trouble.
"I think you'd know if it was 'go time'. Indeed."
"Ok, I'll send a massage to da Vinci to start prepping and we'll gather everyone in the Briefing Room tomorrow, earlier with priority if something shows up on scans, of course. For now, I'd like to introduce you to someone."
"My Master's adopted son and his wife, right?" Artoria thought for a moment about that. "It's Gudako who's his relative, if I remember correctly."
"Well yes, it's pretty obvious if you just notice her rather unconventional hair color," he confirmed dryly, forgetting for the moment that it also applied to him.
(Training Grounds)
"You're pretty good with those," Kojirou gave his positive assessment, "Well you have a lot more than just that so I'm sure it'll all work out."
"Think you're just comparing me with my mortal self," Shirou shrugged while putting away his twin swords. "Can't imagine anyone would call that 'good' compared to Chloe."
"Well, you're not a Saber so it would be pretty hard for you to take Kojirou on directly like that," Okita observed while waving about her own razor-sharp weapon. "What Class did da Vinci's system eventually place you under, anyway?"
"Alter-Ego wasn't it?" Gudako spoke up rhetorically from the sidelines where she was sitting near to Sakura. "Interesting, really - since Anne and Mary are a regular Rider Class."
"... well I suppose that's because they both fit well as Riders. We don't since most versions of myself would be Archers, of course, and I guess she would be a Caster," Shirou clarified.
"Mhm." Gudako kept to herself the speculation that Sakura would probably be an Avenger if summoned solo.
She probably couldn't ever be though, at least with Chaldea's system. da Vinci had speculated that the low success rates might be a reflection of just how rare 'appropriate' Servant choices were, leading to some sort of fail-safe mechanism channeling all the energy into creating the Craft Essences which were so frequently the result. At least in previous Grail Wars, no one did the ritual and ended up with something odd like a teddy bear bursting with magical energy in return.
(Chaldea Cafeteria)
"Was it the best idea to let her go by herself?" Gudako asked Shirou as they had tea together. Which was to say across the invisible line for avoiding food cross-contamination. Although one might think he was the first one to have eaten on either side of that boundary, technically that would be Kojirou and da Vinci, since it was only after the first set of "harvests" from Fuyuki that the need became apparent.
"Doru knew her pretty well, I think he can avoid a disaster. And I can guess that you'll be very interested in his evaluation of her current person," Shirou answered wryly. There was no confusion about the fact that the couple could be rather widely separated with no ill effects provided they were in Chaldea proper.
"Hmm, I wouldn't ever say that you didn't know her..." Gudako demurred in a coy manner.
"Eh. It's not like I didn't know even before how things can turn around and around with Servants. Take, for example, that goddess Archer over there. Yes, you carrying far too much food for even two of you - did you ever even touch a bow before being summoned?"
"Of course not, who do you think I am?" Euryale retorted in annoyance. "But if you think that means you can look down on my archery skills, you've got another thing coming."
"Hm..." Their Master thought for a moment. "I get your point, but I winder if that's even Cupid's bow, really, since her Noble Phantasm is, after all, (Eye of the Euryale)."
"So you've actually managed to avoid the trap of going by appearances, huh. I'll have to give you credit for that," the middle Gorgon sister acknowledged the homunculus' conclusion.
"Don't give her too much credit," Shirou raised an eyebrow at the other Servant as if to provoke her. "I'm guessing that comes from a fusion of (True Name Discernment) readings."
"Basically," Gudako agreed with him. She didn't bring up the less directly observable details which Sasaku had pulled up for her; things like "wants to watch and enjoy that person's eventual demise" or "take her time and observe them writhing in pain" which wouldn't show up to a more standard application of (True Name Discernment), as the Skill tended towards information like identity, Skills and Parameters but not this also "obviously" relevant material.
The Masters' lack of concern was at least partially because it seemed like her target demographic, in multiple meanings of that, was humans, and they didn't really think they counted. Much more importantly though, it seemed quite clear that they would anyway not be actively trying to bring down Chaldea; for the moment a 'pass' rating.
Really, those two had at least hinted that some versions of Chaldea had successfully summoned Medusa, potentially either her very young form, or indeed since it came about by Gilgamesh's interference, her young-looking but undeniably experienced self as in the end of Shirou's first War. Undeniably they would like for that to happen here, as did the Masters.
"By the way," Shirou continued while Euryale made her way out of the cafeteria with the food she had picked up for Asterios, "Was Matthew that badly off? He didn't seem to be in any difficulty, to me."
"I hope you're right there, but really... uh though I have access to the relevant information, I don't know it all, so if Doru was concerned I'll be and since Sakura knows it better than he does, I'll take her say on it."
"Hmm."
Gudako eyed him for a moment before deciding to press the issue a little. "Did you happen to know there were a few more complex subspecies of the Crest Worm?"
"No."
She simply shrugged, prepared to let it go, but Shirou continued anyway, "Like you're probably thinking, I've never seen them before. And now I really don't want to be thinking about how exactly she managed to get some of their offspring."
(Matou Division)
"She's here," one of them said as though any of them might have missed not only the obvious energy signature, but also series of location tags pinging out their soon-visitor's current position.
"Hmm," Doru replied dispassionately as the door to the corridor opened. "Hello."
"Good to see you Doru," Sakura replied, identifying her former student immediately once her purple eyes caught sight of him. "The Masters told me about Matthew's condition."
"They might be a tad behind," he replied tactfully. "At least we don't think there's reason for serious concern; you'd know better in this case though."
"I suppose so," she muttered as Doru tried to hand her a file which he had already prepared beforehand. "Why don't you give me the summary for now."
"Of course. Well, the initial issue was ..."
l
(An Everdistant Utopia)
"Fufu, I think this'll do. Take a look at the itinerary I've laid out for Artoria !" Merlin announced, positively beaming with positive energy... to exactly no one, since he was alone in his tower of Avalon.
"Ahem." He reined himself in after remembering that Fou was currently in Chaldea, probably the second safest place the furry beast could be outside of his own tower. "I do hope they'll eventually appreciate just how many loose ends I'm trying to tie into them, it's not easy to cram all of that content into a single Event-sized, uh, event."
"Ahem indeed," a voice came from just outside of his elegant prison. "You better be being straight with me on this, Flower Boy."
The Caster turned to see none other then his comrade of the moment, Chloe, scowling at him while somehow perched outside his window. "You didn't have to come all the way here, you know; I can tell through my (Clairvoyance) that the invitation reached Chaldea."
"Of course I didn't. Hmm, a surprisingly open space for a magus."
"It's a prison, you know that? I can't get out even if it looks like there's space through the window."
"Oh..." Chloe thought about this for a moment. "What if I hopped in and helped kill you? You're not too far above my level, so I should have a Noble Phantasm that can do the trick."
"You do know that I'm not able to die in any useful sense, right?" he corrected her.
"That's just an attempt to rationalize your lack of creativity and willingness to experiment."
"... how did you even get here?"
"I'm not. This is basically like when you conference call with us over in Zelretch's place, but in reverse. Yes, it's practically a collect call."
"In that case, I didn't have to worry about warning you about getting trapped with me if you actually managed to get in."
"No, I wouldn't have worried about that either way; worst come to worst I'd just have to kill myself and then another Servant-level me would be manifested."
Merlin couldn't help but think that it was perhaps a bit too creative of a solution. "My specifics aside, it isn't exactly trivial for anyone to die here."
"Huh, I thought you knew about the circumstances of my mortal self's demise, but apparently not."