Fate Grand Order is the creation and intellectual property of Nasu Kinoko and Type-Moon.
Still Better than Black Keys: The Series.
Chapter Two: Do I Really Have to Save the World?
And so, our brave heroines advanced through the burning Fuyuki City, heading towards Saber's stronghold.
"I am the terror that flaps in the night! I am the jackal who gnaws on your bones! I am... Servant Archer!"
Shielder leapt towards the small purple figure blocking their path and slammed her shield down on him.
KA-BONG!-!-!-!-!
They raced over and past the crater in the ground where he'd been smashed into.
A weak voice came from the bottom of said crater. "Ouch."
"See?" Caster asked as they started running down the street again. "I told you he was no big deal!"
Shielder hummed thoughtfully. "You shouldn't assume someone isn't a threat just because they happen to be a cute animal. Someday I might tell you about a certain dread bunny..."
"Fou fuuuuu!" Fou said, sitting on Ritsuka's head and somehow not falling off as she ran.
"And this one? You know this one?" Olga Marie asked Ritsuka.
"I don't watch Disney cartoons but I think that's Donald Duck when he puts on a costume."
"What's a Donald Duck?"
"Arrrghhhhh."
"I am Servant Lancer," the tall sexy hooded lady with the scythe said, blocking their path. "Get ready to die!"
"Mommy," Ritsuka drooled, looking up and down at her.
"Shielder, be careful," Caster said, hiding behind a half crumbled wall. "Lancer is extremely fast on her feet, and her Harpe deals wounds that can't be healed with magic! She also has petrifying eyes, because Medusa!"
Lancer smiled and hummed sweetly, casually pushing a statue that stood next to her, that of a screaming young man with seaweed shaped hair. It fell over and shattered.
Olga blinked. "If she can do that, why hasn't she petrified us yet?"
"Because then I couldn't do... this!" the Lancer said, moving at such high speeds that she passed like a blur next to a gasping Shielder. She grabbed Ritsuka, pulled her up, and brought her teeth next to Ritsuka's neck.
"Oh, horror of horrors!" the orange haired girl said. "This busty, extremely hot dark beauty wants to rape me! But fret not, companions! Go on, and I'll take one for the team! Just don't forget my sacrifice!"
Lancer frowned. "Rape?" she asked. "Hardly. I only want your blood."
Ritsuka blinked. "Eh? My blood?"
The dark beauty nodded. "I mean, it's not like I am against homosexuality at all, I'm Greek after all, but I am so consumed by darkness by now that I cannot find any joy from sexuality anymore. Only BLOOD and SADISM will suffice."
"But sadism is-" Ritsuka began.
"Of the non sexual variety," Lancer interrupted her.
Ritsuka pouted. "Oh."
"LET. GO. OF. MY. MASTER!" Shielder growled, slamming her shield down on Lancer's head from behind.
SLAMMMMMM!
"That was sort of a cheap sneak attack for a Knight of the Round," Olga commented.
"How actually familiar with Arthurian lore are you?" Caster asked from behind her wall. "That stuff had more betrayals than a full season of Sakura."
Lancer's eyes bulged as she staggered away from Ritsuka, dropping her. "That... That was only one lucky hit..." she said groggily. "Now I'll use my superior speed to-"
WHAAAACKKKK! She was bashed again.
The sexy weirdo stumbled around in situ. "N-Not bad... But..."
KABOOOOONG!
The battered woman hopped back, bruised from head to toe. "Curse you and your gaze blocking weapon, harlot! It's not worth it to spend so much mana in a fight for such a weak girl."
"But the Grail provides you with infinite mana, that makes no sens-" Caster began pointing out from her hideout.
"Evil Grail! Hence, Cheapskate, Petty Grail!" Lancer roared. "It doesn't matter! I shall use my blinding velocity to escap-"
DOOOOOONG!
"At least let me flee! You can't just kill me for comedy just because I'm a Lancer! That joke stopped being funny years ago, you, you bully!" Lancer weeped, shoving the girl with the shield back, and then running away down the street, disappearing from sight.
Ritsuka gazed after her, with hearts flowing out of her. "I'm so rolling for her," she decided.
Caster sighed and decided not to tell her that at the time of this writing Adult Lancer Medusa still wasn't in the gacha. Maybe she'd be happy with Ana or Rider Medusa. "Good job, team!" she said instead. "We have almost reached Saber's stronghold!"
"You didn't do a single damn thing!" Olga told her.
"Caster! Squishy!" Caster reminded her.
Ritsuka sobbed. "I'd even trade a Batman for her..."
The boy gently hovered above the broken and fiery wastelands. He wore a Chinese fighting outfit, made of silk and barely stained by a few old, large spots of dried blood. The thick black veins running across his angelic cheeks, if anything, only added to his beauty.
He stood above it all, with dead eyes that quietly scanned the city. In his lips, unheard by all, a single delicately spoken word.
"Illya..."
Olga Marie, the Caster, Ritsuka and the Shielder tip-toed their way across the destroyed houses, walking past him while looking upwards. Every so often, they would sigh lovingly.
"Do you see?" Caster whispered. "He's... so beautiful, damn him..."
Long blond hair, spiky and charged with electricity, trailed behind the Berserker.
"I'm not a shotacon, but dammit...!" Ritsuka chewed on her lower lip.
After they passed his section, they agreed not to talk about that again.
They stopped before a large cave near the top of the mountain.
"This is where the Greater Grail manifested," Caster said. "Saber resides here, looking after the Grail, the same way a dragon would protect its hoard!"
"It looks like a miserable place to live," Ritsuka observed. "Why couldn't Saber build herself a nice house up here? A cabin, at least?"
"That doesn't matter!" Olga Marie snapped at her. "Caster, would you happen to know Saber's True Name? It sounds like you've fought her several times."
Caster rasped. "It's not so much that I've fought her myself- squishy Servant, remember?- but that I've taken a lot of data concerning her battles with the rest of Servants. There's no mistaking her Noble Phantasm, Excalibur, the King of Swords!"
Galahad's eyes widened under the bangs. She turned around and began walking downhill.
"SHIELDER!" Olga Marie said.
Galahad glanced back over her shoulder. "Director, that's the King of Knights, the Once and Future King, King Arthur herself! I stand no chance against her! She was my boss for a reason!"
Ritsuka whistled. "Not only Sir Galahad was a woman, but King Arthur too! Were all of you in Camelot women?"
"Of course not!" Galahad said. "Sir Agravain, Sir Gawain, Sir Kay, Sir Percival, Brave Sir Robin, and that horrible duplicitous person known as Sir Lancelot were all men! Or alleged men in the case of that last person mentioned!"
"Wasn't Sir Lancelot your father?" Olga asked.
"I don't want to talk about that!"
Caster sighed. "What a pain! Look, you can't turn around and leave, we have to fight her at some point and it's unlikely we'll get any more reinforcements. You succeeded where she failed, right? You were the one who got the original Grail! So you have that advantage on her!"
Mash sighed and walked back up. "That's a different kind of task. I feel bad having to fight her... but then again she also once sank a boat full of babies. Now, how to draw her out..."
Caster smiled and pulled two oddly shaped grenades from her pink handbag. "Not a problem." She threw them into the cave, shouting "SKULD BOMBS!"
There were two big, ground rattling explosions, and the cave spat several clouds of black smoke. The girls waited anxiously, with Mash readying her shield, but nobody came out.
"Maybe she moved to a better place after all," Ritsuka said.
Shielder breathed out. She put a hand to the side of her mouth and shouted, "DINNER IS READY!"
Someone stepped out of the cave.
It was a woman, even shorter than Mash, yet not as short as Caster.
Slowly, the pale woman opened her nearly serpentine golden eyes, devoid of any emotion or warmth. Eldritch and abominable tears like crawling scabs went up from her collar to her cheeks, framing her beautiful face like that of a sinister but elegantly gorgeous doll. The rest of her attire was similarly dark, much like the palpitating mud covering her rocky surroundings.
She spoke, with a cold, controlled voice that sent chills down everyone's spines.
"What an interesting Servant," she said, eyeing Shielder carefully. "What is your place of origin?"
"You... You don't remember me!?" Galahad gasped. "Sire, it's me! Sir Galahad!"
"That name means nothing to me. Not anymore, if it ever did," the pale female replied. "I cannot remember anything but the embrace of the Grail, and the sting of lost love. Only anger and bitterness remain in my soul, and any and all trespassers are to pay that price."
"That... That is Saber?" asked Ritsuka.
Olga Marie nodded. "She's incredibly powerful as well! I'd never felt that kind of strength before..."
Shielder clenched her small white teeth, trying to endure Saber's piercing inhuman stare that was worse than the director telling her she was disappointed in her. The dark Servant continued. "Won't you answer? For I suspect we share a country; that table you hold more than once held my feasts. You can keep it if that is your wish, however. I no longer hunger for anything, but the Grail I serve does. And I shall feed it with your essence!" she defiantly roared, jumping down while swinging her long blade around.
The sword's edge clashed viciously against the shield's surface, sparks flying everywhere. Mash was pushed back further than she had been by Lancer previously, since this Servant was that much fiercer than the hooded woman. It took all of her strength simply to endure enough to not be toppled by the sheer force of Saber's attacks.
"Caster, do something!" Olga Marie said.
Caster had ducked already behind a huge boulder, holding a mallet with a long handle in her shaky hands. "Caster...! Squishy...!" she repeated.
"Caster! Useless!" Olga Marie yelled at her.
Mash had to remain mostly stationary as the more mobile and agile Saber unleashed the brunt of her skilled and feverishly savage sword strikes on her shield, relying on its size to make up for her comparative lack of fighting aptitude. Ritsuka chewed on her lower lip, unsure of what to do to help. He kept on waiting for Olga to suggest something, but she only stood there chewing on her thumb while frantically trying to think of alternatives.
"We're screwed, aren't we?" Ritsuka summed up rather succinctly, seeing that.
"Gh… gh… !" the director said, still chewing.
"Aren't you too old to still be sucking your thumb?" Ritsuka couldn't help asking.
"Shut up!" the director cried, pulling her thumb away. "I don't suck my thumb, I'm a big girl now! Er, I mean… SHUT UP!"
"What's wrong?" Saber challenged, at last showing some emotion. "Why won't you come forward? To defend, you also need to retaliate! Otherwise you are only stalling, child!"
"Mash, let's pull back! retreat!" Ritsuka urged. "Please!"
"That's not a choice anymore," Olga grimly declared. "She won't let us."
Finally, Saber swung with enough might to send Galahad flying and crashing against a stone wall, from where she slumped to the ground like a thrown ragdoll. "Oh, geez...!" Ritsuka flinched while the shield rolled away from Mash's hands.
"I understand how you feel," Saber simply stated, marching towards the fallen Shielder, who even now struggled to get back up. "Painfully so... Let me, then, put an end to your heartache."
Mash breathed out, grabbing her shield and pushing herself back on her feet with its support. "Thanks for the offer, Sire. But I'm afraid I'll have to decline!"
"So be it," Saber said, and swung forward again. The next clash of their weapons sent Galahad staggering down to her trembling knees, while Saber stood over her, glowering from the power that flowed from the Grail Mud into her. "Your duty ends now, Protector," she said, lifting her sword, ready to deliver the final blow. "EXCALIBUR MORGAN!"
Back at Chaldea, Doctor Romani threw several switches up. "All right, all communication systems are back to optimal power!" He smiled. "Re-establishing communications with Mash, Fujimaru-kun, and the Director! Let's goooooooo."
The screens all around him showed a blinding flash of white heavenly light while a female young voice shouted over the primal noise of a massive explosion of raw power.
"Emissary of Yggdrasil!"
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! MY EYEEEEEEEES!" the doctor cried.
"Okay, so maybe you aren't so useless after all," Olga Marie told Caster.
The small Servant, while clearly spent and tired, smiled smugly, and wiped the sweat off her forehead with a hand. "My Noble Phantasm is nothing to sneeze at!"
Galahad pouted. "Why do I feel like I was cheated out of my big moment for some reason?"
Saber still managed to smile, even through the thick blood, poisoned with Grail Mud, flowing down her perfect features. "I see," she softly said, while her body began disappearing into radiant sparkles. "Galahad. You still retain the power born from defending others, while I lost mine, and with it my edge. Ultimately, no matter how Fate changes, I'm doomed to face the same destiny when I'm left alone."
"Yeah, well, before you go," Caster asked, "how can we revert all of this and settle matters? The Grail should have told you something about that through the time you were bonded."
"Eventually, you will know what you need to know, Norn of Times Yet to Come. But now, both your time and mine have passed. Let us vanish into the ether as these children fight for the future that is rightfully thei-"
"Wait!" Ritsuka cried. "You don't have to go! Why don't you... Make a Contract with me and become my Magical Servant...?!"
At this point, were this some anime, we would have a very tight closeup on one of Ritsuka's eyes as some abrupt chilling music shrieks taking over the scene. As it happens, you will have to imagine that happening.
Saber actually paused enough in her disappearance as to ask, incredulously, "I beg your pardon...?"
"Nah, you'd need to earn it," the girl said. "After all, you tried to kill us! Look, I'm not a resentful gal, and I doubt either of you have got anything better to do, so whaddya say, huh? The Director here told me I can have more than one Servant, exactly how many can I have, Director?"
"I don't know," Olga shrugged. "Seven at most, maybe? Before this, I'd have been surprised if you could support even one, but..."
Saber and Caster looked at each other, dubiously, then shared world-weary shrugs of shoulders. What was the worst thing that could result from contracting permanently with this child, in any case...?
In hindsight, the fact they heard thunder roll at that moment from the very bottom of the ground should probably have clued them in.
"Great job, Mash, Fujimaru-kun!" Roman praised them as they descended into the cave, to confront the Grail itself. "Now all you have to do is to reach the Holy Grail and see if Caster can purify it. After that, I'll punch the coordinates to bring you back home!"
Saber guided them to the end of the cave, where a small cup-shaped artifact was resting on top of several boulders, constantly oozing blackened, dense blood from a mouth shaped like a wide goofy grin.
"I was expecting for something more... majestic!" Fujimaru confessed.
"It doesn't look at all like the one I once held," Galahad said.
"This one is man-made, after all," Saber said, with a weakened voice. Ever so slowly, the black markings were fading away from her face. She raised her sword and pointed at it. "If we cannot purify it, maybe we should destroy it. It killed Shirou, after all!"
"Who?" Fujimaru asked.
"My apologies, but I can't let you do that!" a strong male voice said from the darkness.
"Who- Who is that!?" Caster said.
A man stepped out from behind the Grail, clapping softly. "I didn't expect you'd get this far. Beyond my plan's expectations and my own tolerances! Master Candidate number forty eight. It was my mistake to naively overlook you as an improbable child!"
"Professor Lev?" Galahad asked.
"Lev!" Roman's hologram said. "Professor Lev, how in the world did you get there!?"
"Romani! So, you survived as well!" Lev laughed. "I told you to come to the command room immediately, but it seems you didn't listen. Honestly... Trash who can't even follow orders! Just the mere sight of you makes me want to throw up! Why is it that humans always try to avoid their preordained destinies?"
Galahad grabbed Fujimaru and pulled her behind herself. "Master, fall back! Fall back, please! That person is dangerous... Th... That isn't the Professor Lev we know!"
Olga's lower lip trembled. "L-Lev...? Oh, Lev! Lev! What are you saying! This isn't a time for jokes! Now more than ever, you need to get serious...! Without you, I don't know how I could protect Chaldea!"
"Director, don't!" Mash warned her. "That man is..."
"Hi, Olga. You seem well," the man told her casually. "Looks like you had a rough time, too."
"Yes, yes, that's right, Lev! The command room blew up, the city's in ruins, and I can't return to Chaldea!" Olga Marie said. "I'm going crazy from all these unforeseen complications! But it's okay, as long as you're here we'll be fine, right? That's how it's always been, right? You'll help me this time too, won't you?"
"Yes, yes, of course," the man nodded, with Caster aiming her grenade launcher at him, and Saber doing the same with her blade. "Honestly, all these complications have irritated me. And the biggest complication is you, Olga. I set the bomb right under your feet, yet you still live."
"S-Shoot him, please!" Galahad asked, shivering.
"We'd cause a cave-in!" her king reminded her. "This is an absolute last resource!"
"... What?" Olga Marie asked. "... L-Lev? Um, wh-what's that supposed to mean?"
"Sorry, you're not actually alive. You're already dead. Your body, at least, long ago," the Professor told her.
"What?" Ritsuka said.
"Trismegistus thoughtfully transferred you into this land after you'd become residual thoughts," Lev told Olga, who had paled very starkly. "You had no aptitude for Rayshift while alive, right? You couldn't teleport while you had a physical body. Do you understand? You only gained the aptitude you so desired after you died."
"What the-" Caster's mouth scrunched aside.
"That's why you can't return to Chaldea," the Professor explained. "The moment you do, your consciousness will vanish."
"Wh-What? I'll vanish?" Olga blabbered. "Wait... I can't return to Chaldea?"
He nodded. "Indeed. But that's too sad of a story for you. Let me show you the fate of the Chaldea that you devoted your entire life to."
Before anyone could stop him, he opened his arms, and the whole cave glowed in red. The environment shifted into a crimson, suffocating inferno. Saber wrapped an arm around Caster, protecting the weaker Servant with her body.
"Wh-What is that?" Olga Marie asked, as she recognized a shape assembling itself before her. "Chaldeas is bright red? It's a lie, right? It's just an illusion, right, Lev?"
"It's real. I've connected the dimensions for you. Having the Holy Grail allows me to do so," he told her. "Now behold, descendant of Animusphere. Behold your folly! Not a sliver of blue representing human survival remains. Nothing but a burning, bright, red! That is the outcome of this mission!"
"Saber, do something!" Caster said.
"What am I supposed to do!?" Saber asked. Most of her issues through the War had demanded little from her but swordplay and blasts, and they had failed her. A previous failure in another War also weighed in her mind. But she also remembered a certain red haired young man, and so she left Caster in the arms of Fujimaru and charged at Lev, swinging her blade.
Several black tentacles erupted from the ground and snatched her up, seizing her limbs. Saber cursed in Welsh and struggled mightily.
"Isn't it wonderful, Marie? Once again, your incompetence has brought forth tragedy!" Lev laughed, the underground trembling. Rocks falling all around.
"Don't—Don't be absurd!" Olga said, levitating and being suspended before the grinning man. Saber pulled, the markings receding further from her face as the Grail claimed its energy from it. Pouring it into the blazing chaos. "I'm not responsible! I didn't fail! I'm not dead! Who are you!? What have you done to my Chaldeas!"
Lev sneered. "It isn't 'yours.' Honestly... What an annoying girl you are!"
"Let her go, you... you freak!" Fujimaru told him.
"The children should be silent!" Lev said. Mash bashed on several black tendrils coming at her, barely keeping them at bay.
Olga hiccuped. "Wha... Something's pulling... my body across space?"
"I told you. That place is now connected with Chaldea," Lev put his cane under an arm and tipped his top hat. "I could kill you now, but there's no grace to that. I will grant you your final wish, instead. Go ahead and lay hands on your treasure. Think of it as benevolence on my part."
"Wait—What do you mean, Lev?" she demanded. "My treasure...You mean Chaldeas!? No, stop, please! Chaldeas? A high-density body of data? A territory of dimensional anomaly?!"
The man adjusted his gloves. "Yes. No different from a black hole. Or perhaps a sun. Well, either way. A human touching it would be a hellish disintegration on the molecular level. By all means, have a taste of infinite living death!"
Mash jumped. She tried to reach for her.
She was yanked down. Galahad fell.
The Saber was flung on a wall of rock.
"No... No, no! Someone help me! Help!" Olga Marie said. "I... I don't want to die here! Because I've never been praised... I've never been praised by anyone! Why? Why does this always happen to me!? No one ever valued me! Everyone hated me!"
Her spine arched, and cracked.
"No! Stop! No, no, no, no, no... I haven't even accomplished anything yet! From the moment I was born, I've never been accepted by anyone..!"
And then Olga Marie burned.
"Director!" Fujimaru said.
Saber growled, crazed by righteous fury, and had her path blocked by her knight's shield.
"No! Don't do it, Sir!" Shielder warned her. "If you approach that man, you'll die the same way!"
"Oh? Impressive, Kyrielight. And to think I never placed hopes on you," Lev addressed her. "You can sense that I have become a fundamentally different life form. Shall I reintroduce myself? For those not in the known... My name is Lev Lainur Flauros. In the year 2017 I was sent to dispose of you humans. Are you listening, Doctor Romani? As a friend who studied magecraft with you, let me give you some final advice."
"We never were friends," Roman said icily.
"Same difference!" Lev waved his hand. "Chaldea is finished. You humans have reached the moment of your destruction."
"What do you mean?" Roman asked him. "Is it related to being unable to see 2019?"
"It's not 'related', you oaf! It's the reality that this is the end. Unable to observe the future, you babbled that it had 'disappeared.' That was truly wishful thinking. The future didn't disappear. It was incinerated."
"But... If something's incinerated, it disappears, doesn't it?" Ritsuka asked.
"The children should be silent!" Lev repeated. "Your end is certain. Your era no longer exists. Chaldeas' magnetic field may be protecting Chaldea, but any outside of it will face the same fate as Fuyuki City!"
"Someone wasn't hugged enough as a child," Caster murmured.
"So, that was it," Roman said stoically. "We didn't lose contact with the outside world due to interference, we simply lost the outside world itself."
"Hmpf, you really are perceptive. A shame I didn't kill you immediately..." Lev pondered. "But that, too, is futile resistance. If the time within Chaldea passes 2018 it will be wiped from this universe. No one can change the outcome now! This is a rejection of humanity by human history!"
"Geezer, you're human too!" Ritsuka said.
"No, I said I am not! You didn't perish because of your inability to evolve, nor did you perish due to war with foreign species. Rather, it was your own foolishness! Your incompetence! Because you lost the grace of our King!" he ranted madly. "Like a bunch of worthless scrap paper, you'll be burned away without a trace! You-!"
A flying Skuld Bomb exploded on his face.
Lev, with bleeding tissue all over his features now, stared insanely at the Caster.
"You talk too much and say nothing. Nothing of any value," she told him. "Don't speak on behalf of the King. You don't know the true meaning of the word."
He seethed and raised his cane towards her, but halted when the fabric of reality changed back around them. There was an earthquake.
Lev tugged down on a piece of flesh hanging from his cheek and retook a dignified standing, like a gentleman. "Ah, is this singularity at its limit?" he mused. "Curse you, Saber. If you'd just obeyed, you would have been allowed to live. Even though you were given the Holy Grail, you caused trouble by wanting to sustain this era."
"I wasn't myself at the time," she told him, "but maybe a part of me still was."
Caster blinked. "So... That's why you didn't outright kill us..."
"Farewell, Romani," Lev started vanishing away. "And you Mash, and you, Candidate Number Forty Eight."
"I have a name!" Ritsuka said.
"Believe it or not, I have other things to do," the man bowed. "My enjoyment of your destruction ends here. Now, be swallowed by the dimensional warp. But I'm not that evil, I'll allow you to say a final prayer!"
He disappeared just as the cave began caving in.
"The underground cavern's collapsing! No, the cavern wasn't stable in the first place!" Shielder shouted. "Doctor! Perform an emergency Rayshift!"
"Understood! I'm already doing it!" Roman seemed to work frantically on his side. "But I'm sorry, it may collapse faster than I can fix it! If it does, then do what you can on your side! I mean, we can survive in space for a few dozen seconds, right?"
"Just do it already, you incompetent clown!" Caster roared.
Roman flinched. "No respect at all! Just hang on to your consciousness! If we don't lose that, I might salvage...!"
"We won't make it!" Mash predicted.
"Yes. Yes, we will!" Saber said, grabbing her hand, and they all were swallowed by a burst of white light.
Fujimaru Ritsuka woke up staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.
"What a strange dream," the girl mused quietly. She noticed she was only wearing a white, thin hospital gown. "I dreamed I was in Hell with a pretty girl and the Joker, and there was-"
"Fou..." Fou said, sitting on her chest. "Kyu, kyu..."
"Fuck," Ritsuka said.
"Hm? Ah, the hero has awakened," a gorgeous young woman with long, wavy dark hair said, sitting by her bedside. "There, there, that's how a main character should be. Good morning, Fujimaru. You're conscious now?"
"Obviously," Ritsuka said, unable to get up. "Did Mash and the others survive?"
"Mash is at the medical wing under revision by Roman as we speak," the woman said with a subtle Italian accent. "And Caster and Saber barely received any real injury. They are recovering quickly, you'd be surprised at how much even the weakest Servants can survive!"
"I'm glad," she said, wearily. "Who are you?"
The woman smiled proudly, with a fist on her large bosom. "Haven't you ever looked at the Gioconda, the masterpiece of the Louvre? I'm Leonardo Da Vinci, Caster, a Chaldea collaborator. Or rather, you might call me the third Heroic Spirit they summoned."
"So I'm back at Chaldea," Fujimaru said. Fou began licking her cheek.
Da Vinci nodded. "Thank you for your hard work, but I'm afraid we still need to ask for more from you. All other candidates for Masters were put out of commission, and you heard what Professor Lev said. You remember that, don't you?"
"Unfortunately," Ritsuka groaned.
"That snake in the grass!" Da Vinci fumed. "I still can't believe I didn't suspect him before! Sorry, my dear, but thanks to his actions, now we depend on the choices you will make. They will probably save us all, just like the multitudes of brave souls who weren't remembered by history as they saved humanity. You've been given a role to fight, not as a heroine, but as a human walking a path that was preordained by the stars..."
"I hurt all over. I want to be alone!" the girl decided.
Mash peeked into the room, once again wearing the uniform of her internship. "Ah! Good morning, Senpai. I am glad to see that you're okay."
Ritsuka managed to lift her head enough to see her. "Are you back to calling me Senpai? No 'Master' anymore? Don't you remember anything from back there?"
Mash took another chair by her bedside. "Of course I do! Sir Galahad and I share a mind, we are always aware of what the other says or thinks. It's... complicated. The best word for it, you might say, is 'fusion'. It used to be that she was barely a little part of me, but she's grown larger over the years."
"Doesn't that worry you?" Fujimaru asked.
"No. She wouldn't ever hurt me," she said warmly.
Ritsuka sighed. "Sorry to be so unhelpful back there."
"That's okay. Nobody could have asked more from you, Senpai."
"Ahem! I'm all for your reunion, but could you bring your attention here, please?" Roman asked, appearing on the doorstep.
"Oi, always the mood ruiner!" Da Vinci rolled her eyes.
"This is serious. The Director has just died," Roman said, not in his usual mood. "First of all, congratulations on surviving and completing your mission Fujimaru-kun. Well done."
Ritsuka groaned. "I don't want to do that again."
"Don't say that! You're a natural, a pro!" the doctor praised her. "While the situation was forced on you gradually, you bravely faced the challenges and overcame it! That earned my respect and appreciation. Thanks to you, Mash and Chaldea were saved!"
"You're only trying to sweeten the deal," Fujimaru told him.
"I'm sorry, you don't have much of a choice, and neither do we," he told her, frankly. "Believe me, if I could, I'd spare you this, but-"
"Are they all out of commission for the foreseeable future? Even Team A?" Mash asked.
Roman nodded.
"Does that... include Mr. Gut?" Mash added.
"He's critical as well, indeed," Roman confirmed.
"I see!" Mash hummed. "It'd be tragic if something were to happen to him in that vulnerable state..."
"Ah ha ha ha, yes," Roman said with no humor.
"For instance," Mash elaborated, "you're still low on energy, aren't you? If his cryo chamber were to run out of its power, that would be a true-"
"Mash," Roman told her sternly. "You are pure Sir Galahad."
"Pure Sir Galahad never shied away from slaying a monster, sir," she said quietly.
"I am the default director for now, under an oath to preserve lives," he told her. "Discuss that issue further with my eventual replacement, if Mr. Gut hasn't recovered by then."
"Yes, Sir," she politely answered.
Ritsuka looked at Da Vinci. "What in the world was that exchange about?"
Da Vinci smiled. "You don't need to worry about that right now."
Roman sighed. "It's a shame about the Director, but we've no time to hold a service. All we can do is grieve. And then, after we are finished with that, we must defend humanity in the Director's place. That's how we pay her tribute."
Slowly, Fujimaru nodded.
"From Chaldea's state, what Lev said was true. We can't contact the outside world," Roman lectured. "I fear humanity has already been destroyed. Sorry about any family and relatives you had outside, Fujimaru-kun. I... really am."
"It doesn't hurt as much as I would have thoug t," she said, resting back on the bed. "Weird. Then again, I never had all that many friends, and my grandfather was the only relative I had left."
Roman paused at this before nodding. "Chaldea seems to be the only place outside of the normal timeline. Perhaps it's staying on the timeline right before the collapse. Think of it like a colony floating in outer space. The outside world is dead, until we do something about this situation."
"My stomach hurts," Fujimaru said.
"Now, the Fuyuki Singularity was destroyed, thanks to you. That didn't alter the change brought upon the course of human history, though, as I've just told you, so we hypothesize that the future had to be changed due to another cause. The Caster of Fuyuki has been a great help with that, actually."
"Oh, so she has talents after all," Ritsuka said.
"She isn't much of a frontline fighter but she appears to be peerless as a researcher," Da Vinci allowed. She smiled in a somewhat stilted fashion. "Although she needs to learn how to assimilate one thing or two about rank."
Roman sighed. "For the time being, with her help, we've already isolated a newly-discovered dimensional disturbance against which Fuyuki pales in comparison. Another singularity. A turning point for humanity."
"Hmmmmm?" Ritsuka lifted her eyebrow
"What if this naval voyage wasn't successful?" Roman twirled a hand. "What if this discovery was wrong? What if this nation couldn't become independent? What if Spider-Man had joined the Fantastic Four?"
"I thought you had just said that we had to be serious," Da Vinci scolded him.
"I am being serious. Anything, no matter how deranged it might sound, goes now. Destroying singularities is like causing the foundation of human history to crumble. The future had already been decided when they were formed. As Lev said, humanity doesn't make it to 2019, but we're different. Chaldea has yet to reach that future. Do you understand?"
"No. Do we have to destroy them or not?" Ritsuka asked.
"It's more like we have to 'fix' them, generally speaking," Da Vinci explained. "Nothing good could come from the path taken by the human species in Singularity F, so it had to be destroyed. But the same cannot be said of most key points in history."
"Exactly. We will have to return the singularities to normal," the doctor agreed. "So here's the deal. Rayshift into these seven singularities and get history back on track. It's the only way to save humanity. There are no other Masters left. And until you can contract anyone else, Mash, Caster of Fuyuki, and Saber are the only Servants we have."
Ritsuka looked at Da Vinci. "You?"
"I'm needed here on a regular basis," she told her.
"I realize you're being forced into this situation. Even so, I'll still say it." Roman cleared his throat. "Master Candidate Forty Eight, Fujimaru-kun. If you wish to save humanity... If you wish to have a future beyond 2018... Then you alone must go and face these singularities in human history! Are you prepared to do this? Can you shoulder the burden of Chaldea and humanity's future!?
"No pressure or anything, RIGHT!?" Ritsuka said.
Da Vinci facepalmed. "He's terrible with that kind of thing!"
Ritsuka pouted. "I don't want to, but like I have a choice!"
"That's the spirit!" Roman gave her a thumbs up.
"No, it's not," Mash deadpanned.
"Thank you, Fujimaru-kun!" the doctor said. "With those words, our fate has been decided. We will now carry out the Prevervation of Humanity as laid out by Olga Marie Animusphere, former director of Chaldea! Our objective is the protection and recovery of human history! Our search target will be each era's relic and Grail! Our opponent is history itself! Many great Heroic Spirits and legends will stand against you!"
Ritsuka rolled on the bed, placed herself face down, and covered her head with the pillow.
"Challenging them is an act of blasphemy against the past! To save humanity, we must defy human history!" Roman was fired up. "But this is the only way to survive! No, the only way to take back the future! No matter what sort of end awaits us! To reflect our determination, we shall abandon the original mission name, First Order! This is now Chaldea's last yet original mission. The Grand Order! in the name of the magical world's highest order, we will take back the future!"
Ritsuka tossed the pillow on his face. "SHUT UP!"
To be Continued.
Omake!
"As for your first lesson on how to be a Master," Da Vinci lectured her, putting on a pair of very sexy glasses and crossing her long legs, "Masters have the ability to analyze their Servants' parameters, skills, and matrixes. Fujimaru-chan, as a Master, once you become good enough, you should be able to analyze your Servants' data. First, you need to learn their True Name and Noble Phantasm. As your trust with them grows, your Servant's power will grow too..."
"Strength: E. Endurance: E. Agility: C. Magic: D. Luck: C. Noble Phantasm: B," Caster of Fuyuki said, raising a hand.
"Is that on a standard F to A model?" Ritsuka asked. "What a crappy Servant. Are you an One Star?"
Caster slammed her mallet on Ritsuka's head.
"Strength: B. Endurance: A. Agility: B. Mana: A. Luck: C. Noble Phantasm: A+," Saber added.
"Now that's MUCH better!" Ritsuka said, with a huge bump on her scalp. "You'll make battles a breeze, Saber-chan!"
"Don't get too excited. You're an even weaker and crapper Master than Shirou, so odds are you'll just gimp me on the battlefield."
"Okay, maybe I deserved that after what I told Caster..."
"You did!" Caster growled.
"Strength: C. Endurance: A. Agility: D. Mana: B. Luck: C. Noble Phantasm: A," Mash said.
"Only a D in Agility? But you move like a gymnastics champ! You act faster than anyone I've ever seen!" Ritsuka said.
"Even the weakest of Servants will alway greatly outclass any living human beings," Da Vinci said. "I could easily defeat you or even a professional combatant in arm wrestling, and I never was muscular in life!"
"Um, yeah, about that," Ritsuka looked up and down at Da Vinci's chest. "If you're Da Vinci, why are you-"
"I chose the body of my greatest artistic achievement as a means to manifest myself before asnswering Chaldea's call," Da Vinci said. "For someone with my capacities, that was easy!"
"Ah, so it isn't drag," Ritsuka said.
"No."
"So you don't have a penis?"
"No. The point of becoming a woman was not having a penis anymore. What kind of woman would I be if I had a penis?"
Saber hewed and blushed for a moment.
Ritsuka blinked at her. "You have a penis?"
"I... I had one... for a brief time... B-But that's not to be discussed here or now!"
Mash winced. "I served a futanari... Dear goodness, I never imagined it..."
"I wasn't any less of your king because of that!"
Ritsuka looked back at Da Vinci. "And why did you want to be a woman in the first place?"
"Isn't it obvious? Because I didn't like being a man. Lest of all an old, bearded man."
"You were gay?"
"It's not only that, a gay man is happy being a gay man, but I mostly liked men and I'd be happier as a woman, that is, in an era where women weren't treated like domestic slaves, of course. I wouldn't have become a woman back in my day, I can tell you that!" Da Vinci shooed the thought away.
"Mostly liked men," Ritsuka noted.
"A true Renaissance Person must be open minded," Da Vinci said.
"Oh!" Ritsuka smiled lecherously. "So I still have chances...!"
"I can't say I blame you at all for being interested, but I don't believe on dating in the job, thank you!"
"Dammit!"
"Look at it this way," Galahad told Ritsuka. "It's better not to date Servants at all, since it sort of is necrophilia."
"Yuck," Ritsuka said. "I wish you hadn't told me that."
"Although it should be noted that I'm a Heroic Spirit inhabiting a still very alive body," Mash added.
"Uhhhhhh..."
"I'm technically not dead yet either. It's complicated," Saber said.
"I'm a still living Divine Spirit so- H-Hey!" Caster of Fuyuki said. "It's not like that gives you free reign to make us your harem or anything, you idiot!"
"I wouldn't dream of it...!" Ritsuka said piously.
After a moment of shared silence, Caster of Fuyuki slammed the mallet on her head again, just in case.
Author's Notes:
Who was Rider? Who, indeed? In truth, I forgot about him or her. Feel free to suggest who it was in the comments, assuming you care enough! I know I don't! Law of Conservation of Narrative Detail, folks!
It's all fun and games until Olga Marie is horridly burned alive.
I honestly thought this chapter was going to be longer. As you probably have noticed by now if you've read my previous works, fight scenes aren't my strong point.
Be good!