Chapter 03: False Start

"Welcome to the house of God, Kariya Matou." Risei Kotomine proclaimed at the young man who had just entered the church, glimpsing the uncovered Command Seals upon the back of his hand. "I almost didn't think you would do as your duty demands."

Predictably, the young man before him rolled his eyes. "Favoritism in the house of God? He must be rolling in his cloudy throne."

"Do not mock the Lord's Name, young man." Risei chided him as he took a seat on a pew, gesturing for Kariya to do the same on another. "So which Servant have you called upon?"

"Berserker." Kariya raised his hand, prompting his Servant to materialize while grasping it. The female Servant, adorned in a mix of very old samurai armor and a very snug bodysuit upon a- well, that was quite the blessed body, gave a serene smile as she hugged Kariya from behind. "Berserker, this is the referee."

Then Risei locked eyes with her. Risei was not unfamiliar with the idea of women being powerful combatants, but just now, he'd expressed serious doubt on how a clearly Japanese woman of the old age had achieved such as she was clearly a samurai, not a kunoichi.

Now, Risei looked into those eyes and knew that despite not having dropped her smile, this woman was truly a Berserker. Her eyes did not convey the slightest bit of interest in him beyond the quick evaluation of a potential threat that had been found lacking.

But she didn't do so with the surgical precision that Assassin had. Berserker's eyes conveyed barely restrained violence, human dignity a far away concept for seemingly anybody that wasn't the Master she was hugging.

And Kariya had somehow earned this... monster's loyalty without the single use of a Command Seal. Perhaps he really hadn't been wasting his years away as Tokiomi often implied. Time would tell on whether the Tohsaka Head would become pleased or distressed about this.

"Very well, then." Risei nodded his approval. "I'll slot you in for Berserker, and let the other Masters know that the position has been filled. Now, all that remains are Lancer and Caster."

"Fine, then." Kariya sighed as he got up and immediately made for the doors. "Let's get out of here, Berserker."

The woman followed after him immediately, fading from view almost immediately. Risei watched Kariya leave before speaking one final encouragement to him. "Rejoice, Kariya-shounen. Your desire to properly bring your family glory will surely come true. Give my regards to your patriarch."

Kariya, who had paused to give him an unnecessary look of disgust, suddenly blinked in surprise before a wide grin spread across his lips. "Well, that's going to be impossible... 'cause I already killed him! HAHAHA!"

And with that, the church's doors closed loudly, Risei's shock prevalent despite the echoes of Kariya's cackling.

"Well, that was slightly fun." Kariya finally stopped laughing after he'd put a block between him. "Almost makes up for that bastard implying that I'd be happy to give the Worm any sort of glory."

"Ah. So he truly is a false priest?"

"No kidding." Kariya answered Berserker's question with a huff as he glared up into the night sky. "I'm still not sure if coming home was either good or bad for me. I mean, it's obviously good for Sakura-chan, but I came home just to visit my teenage crush and her daughters, only to end up committing a long overdue patricide and becoming a foster parent! ...you have no idea how glad I am to have additional protection for her during this war."

"My blade shall rend through those who shall seek to harm her."

"I'm counting on it." Kariya replied, feeling a little apprehensive at how morally taxing the upcoming days were about to become. Raising his ring up to look at it, Kariya sighed again. "With the Corps' strong aversion against the taking of life, I honestly worried about getting kicked out for killing my grandfather. Can you imagine that after a quick scan of my ring and memories, I'd actually get congratulated for killing him? Well, not exactly congratulated- I mean, Sinestro did do that, but the Guardians were all pretty disgusted by Zouken and actually praised me for my 'immediate action'... and none of them except Ganthet ever praised me for anything! Sorry, I-I'm rambling, aren't I?"

"It's fine. Your stories of worlds beyond the stars fascinate me. Tell me more about this Ganthet and the Guardians?" Berserker replied as Kariya finally reached where he'd parked his motorcycle and rode away from the church.

"Well, the Green Lantern Corps is pretty much the largest existing law enforcement force. In space." Kariya clarified, trying to explain his work in a way that a Heian Era warrior would understand. "After being chosen for our capability to overcome great fear, each of us is granted a ring with the unique ability to harness the green colored light of the Emotional Spectrum, allowing us many manners of creation-based abilities as long as one has the will and imagination for it."

"From the information that the Grail is providing me... isn't that very similar to the First Magic?"

"In a manner of speaking." Kariya answered, because he'd also seen the parallels himself almost immediately after learning it's functions. "The ring takes my willpower as fuel, otherwise it wouldn't respond to me. In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power, Green Lantern's Light."

Kariya's ring glowed brightly, before quickly fading away at his behest.

"That wasn't the creed I saw you use before." Berserker noted.

"It's not. That is the oath taken by almost every acknowledged Green Lantern in our Corps." Kariya answered as he made a turn. "However, it's something I couldn't completely empathize with due to my experiences until Salaak suggested I make one to fit myself better, albeit Tomar was pretty annoyed at that. Kilowog just didn't give a care as long I'd become a better Lantern for it."

"Fellow... Green Lanterns?" Berserker noted.

"Yeah." Kariya confirmed. "Lantern Salaak of sector 0 is basically mission control at Oa, being the guy who directs others and watches over our records. Lantern Tomar-Re of sector 2813, a little bookwormish and a stickler for the rules but great to hang out with. Lantern Kilowog of sector 0674, the rookie trainer. God, I still get nightmares of his bootcamp. I mean I did eventually form my personal oath thanks to him, but I still protest the necessity of training in the middle of a continent-wide sandstorm without my ring!"

Kariya paused to take a breath. "And finally, there's Lantern Thaal Sinestro of sector 1417. He's easily the greatest Lantern I ever met and probably the strongest, too. Plus, when I first got to Oa, he was the first to stand up for me being the first human there, even if, or maybe because, I had inherited his friend's ring."

"They sound like great comrades." Was that a hint of envy in Berserker's tone? "You keep mentioning 'sectors'. Are they similar to territories, with each assigned to a daimyo?"

"Not exactly. For example, I may be assigned to sector 2814, but I'm not the sole Lantern for that." Kariya explained. "Even for Earth police, you don't assign a single officer to an area like that. I haven't met all of them yet, but there are ten of us at minimum to each one-"

"Master, I sense a Servant." Berserker suddenly cut him off, excitement that was not his flooding Kariya's mind. Even so, adrenaline charged his body into action. "Further ahead! Shall I engage?"

"Not all Servants have been summoned yet." Kariya warned even as his ring confirmed the presence of a entity similar to Berserker, already speeding up. "We'll just check on their identities. If they start anything, it'll be your job to finish it."

With that said, Kariya sped his bike right into the parking lot of the library and brought it to a swift halt before a boy who looked like a nerdy college student.

And the redheaded mountain of a man beside him, his mantle still billowing even his figure frozen while his sword had been raised up.

Raikou appeared with a loud crack of lightning, the proof of her divine blood crackling wildly enough that she was sure the enemy Servant would keep his eyes on her instead of her Beloved.

Of course, she still hadn't drawn her sword, merely settling to lay a warning hand upon the hilt while glaring at the enemy.

"Aha!" The mountainous man declared as he made to stride forward, only hindered by the boy Master who had immediately shrieked and grabbed his Servant's side at her sudden appearance. "An enemy Servant just as my Master desired proof of my dependability! I am Iskandar the Great, the King of Conquerors! And I am the Rider summoned to this Grail War!"

A king? Not quite the Shogun, but such a difference was merely in culture and name, wasn't it? Casting a look at Beloved, she saw him sigh before giving a relenting shrug. Immediately appreciating his allowance of her to indulge in etiquette, the samurai replied in turn.

"I am Minamoto no Yorimitsu." Raikou answered, using her famed name. Only her Beloved would know of her personal names. "I have been summoned into the service of Kariya Matou as his Berserker."

"Matou?!" The boy Master shrieked even harder, his eyes nearly popping out at her Beloved's visage. It really did seem that his clan still had significant clout despite her Beloved's hatred for his patriarch. "Shit, one of the Founding Families right off the bat?!"

"Relax, kid." Her Beloved spoke up. "There are still two more Servants to be summoned, so the Grail War hasn't officially begun yet. I'm not going to start anything if you don't."

"W-W-Well, we won't be starting anything either, Lord Matou!" The boy Master assured him. "Rider and I aren't cheats."

"It's not cheating to seek out information, boy!" Rider protested, his eyes still not having removed from Berserker's. "But still, to think that such a great warrior was actually a woman of such superb beauty."

Berserker's smile grew just a tinge more malicious, her Prana Burst(Lightning) beginning to-

"Stop it." Her Beloved's light chiding pierced through her thoughts, removing his hand from where he'd lightly chopped her head. "How about you tell your name, kid?"

"Ah. Right. Sorry. My name is Waver Velvet, third generation." The boy took a moment to rearrange the books in his hands. "I'm the Master of Rider. So, um, if we won't be fighting now..."

"We can talk about what you desire from the Grail badly enough to kill for it?" Her Beloved asked bluntly with all of the wisdom of a man who had experience literally worlds apart from others.

For some reason, Rider scoffed loudly. As for his Master, the boy blinked once, then twice, then cleared his throat to answer. "I entered into this Grail War for the recognition. You're a fellow magus, so you'd get it, right?! I want to make those at the Clock Tower who never acknowledged my talents to realize their folly!"

...what? The boy wanted to use the Grail's stupendous power for something that petty?

"There's nothing wrong about what you want to do, but using the Grail for something like that is just stupid." Her Beloved rightfully pointed out, much to the boy's shock and Rider's agreeing chortle. "Your ideal isn't wrong, but your way of accomplishing it is. If you want your superior's affection, then grow more competent. If your superior is somebody who would reward your failures with derision and successes with malice, then remove your admiration from them. Waver Velvet, this is just my personal opinion, but I really think that somebody like you should stay away from the Clock Tower's toxicity."

"See?! Even this lord magus you pay respect to agrees with me!" Rider exclaimed. "Your wish must be something as lofty as the Servant you have summoned to aid you! If you wish to be so smallminded, then how about using the Grail for something you have absolutely no control over."

Rider hefted his Master up, the boy dangling by his sweater. "Like your puny height for one thing. Or your effeminate looks."

"You..." Waver took a shuddering breath before freeing himself of his Servant's grasp. "What about you, Lord Matou? What do you desire of the Grail?"

"Just Kariya, please. As for my wish..." Her Beloved paused to think it over. "I'd wish for full health and prosperity for all of my daughter's life. God knows she's deserves it."

Raikou blinked. While her Beloved hadn't decided on a wish yet, that did seem like one Sakura-chan did absolutely deserve, even if she hadn't survived the horrors that no child should have suffered.

"Now listen, I'm going to leave you my number- Wait, do you have a phone?" At Waver's confirming nod, her Beloved fished out a piece of paper and waved his hand over it, his ring flashing as a set of numbers and his own name suddenly wrote themselves into it before he handed it to the boy. "Give me a call when you both get sorted out. We'll probably have more to talk about when you do. Even if the war has already begun, I won't be wanting to kill you like the other Masters as long as you don't harm any of the civilians of this city. Understood?"

"Of course, Lo- I mean, Kariya." Waver took the paper warily.

"Good." Her Beloved swiftly turned about and mounted his motorcycle. "Let's go home, Berserker. Sakura's waiting."

Berserker nodded her assent before dematerializing. Cuddling with Sakura-chan was a new habit she was quickly beginning to enjoy, even if it made her miss Kintoki more.

Reika Rikudou had once asked herself a driving question.

"How does one know when they'd fallen in love?"

Before that defining moment, she'd always considered the notion of love to be negligible at best. She was the heiress of a wealthy and old family, of course. She had many obligations to fulfill and goals to accomplish.

And that didn't even go into her personal goal of becoming an apex human.

Reika had striven to become powerful and successful in all twenty three years of her life, seeking self-betterment and achievement in physicality, mentality and spirituality. But even with all that, Reika had always felt something... lacked.

Until she'd run into... him.

Their first encounter couldn't even have counted as a proper meeting between them. It had been during a business meeting at a zoo four years ago. There had been an incident in which a Siberian tiger which had broken free and had already caused four casualties during it's bout for freedom.

Then he'd appeared out of nowhere. Appearance-wise, he was completely average. Black hair, common hoodie, lanky visage. Then he'd completely shattered her misconceptions by defeating the tiger under a minute. Neither had he used any martials she knew off, nor had he used a small weapon or tool on his person.

Instead, he had fearlessly walked up to the feline predator, completely fearless of the human blood already on it's maw and claws before pummeling it with a brutal mix of punches and kicks that were simply too fast and powerful for the tiger to quickly recover from.

It was a awe-striking sight that had struck many others beyond just Reika herself, the image of an unassuming man pummeling a beast twice his size with enough force that the tiger had limped it's way back into the cage they'd brought for it.

As for the man himself, he'd somehow vanished despite being the center of attraction, leaving only the memory for Reika to hold fast to.

Their second encounter had been a total accident, albeit one from which she would gladly at least acquire his first name.

It had been a frankly terrifying experience, to be actually abducted by actual aliens from outer space. All of her martial arts expertise, social wiles and cultivated intelligence, completely meaningless. It wouldn't even be until later that she'd been taken for a whole five days, but she had then be rescued by a team of different aliens who battled her captors for the sake of arresting them and saving their captives.

It had been a shock to not only see them all adorned and wielding a strange green energy, but to see him amongst their ranks.

Green Lantern Kariya, he'd introduced himself as. He truly was from Earth, the first human to be chosen to join what seemed to be an intergalactic space police organization, with Kariya and nine other Lanterns assigned to the 'sector' that included their solar system.

In the end, she never learned what she'd actually been kidnapped for, instead wanting more of Kariya's company, even long after he'd returned her home.

She wanted to know more of him. So she took it on as a personal project. But how could she find somebody who seemed to have spent his lifetime covering his tracks? With only a first name as her guide and his designation as a space cop, Reika learned quickly that she couldn't rely on him actually having much of a social or economical life in his home planet.

So she took the zoo incident as a cue and tracked down urban legends instead, searching specifically for incidents that involved the terminologies 'green', 'light' and 'superhuman'. There had been a surprising lot of the third terminology, but thankfully a pattern began to form.

Kariya rarely seemed to rarely return to Earth, and whenever he did, it never seemed to be more than at least an average month's worth of days before going on to vanish for years. For some who had met and known Kariya, he was a pleasant, albeit introverted person with surprising persistence that could put tungsten to shame. For others, a stranger with a willful attitude that always clashed with others.

As she worked her way back in their chronology, the stories began to form a pattern until finally...

She found him in Fuyuki, looking from afar as he dropped off his foster daughter at school. A very recent situation because he stayed far longer than ever in the city, Reika even counting his off-world visits to never span beyond a week after becoming a parent.

Then, another out-of-the-world experience happened once more, granting her closure to the surprising attraction that had befallen her along with a lot more answers and benefits, even if it had left her with greater inquires.

"Reika Rikudou. You have great love in your heart. Welcome to the Star Sapphire Corps."

She had become so much like Kariya, yet pointedly different. But still...

Love? She had fallen in love? Reika knew that there was something substantially wrong with that feeling, but the violet ring on her finger seemed to disagree.

Oh, well. Love Conquers All, and all that.

At least she didn't actually have to leave her world for any interstellar duty beyond introducing herself to Aga'po.

Now, she just had to check on if the magical circle- sorry, glyph she'd just drawn was done properly. From the book she'd been surprised to discover in her family's archives, it was supposedly a magical summoning spell that would bring forth a person from beyond the timestream for varying purposes.

Of course, there'd be magic to deal with alongside aliens being real. Naturally, she rented an apartment and gotten to preparing, along with a few extra scribbles that assured complete devotion from whatever she would call forth.

For what moron would summon an unknown entity and not take similarly protective precautions?

"Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill.

Repeat five times, but destroy each when filled."

As Reika chanted, her glyph started to glow.

"Let silver and steel be the essence.

Let the Archduke of Contracts be the foundation.

Let gold be the color I pay tribute to.

Let a wall be risen against the wind that shall fall.

Let the four cardinal gates close.

Let the three-forked road from the Crown reaching unto the Kingdom rotate."

As Rea chanted, her glyph's brightness started to increase while a strange burning sensation struck the back of her hand.

"Heed my words!

My will creates your body, and your sword creates my destiny!

If you shall heed my call and obey my will and reason, then answer me!"

The Summoning Glyph intensified, with Reika wincing as the billowing wind increased in pressure

"An oath shall be sworn here!

That I shall attain all virtues of all of Heaven!

That I shall have dominion over all vices of all of Hell!

"From the Seventh Heaven, attended to by three great words of power, come forth from the ring of restraint, Guardian of Scales!"

Reika finalized her chant with a set of crimson symbols burning into the back of her hand as the Summoning Glyph before her brightened into a golden color with hints of violet in the air before erupting powerfully enough to nearly blow Reika off her feet.

When the wind and light finally died down, the woman couldn't help but gasp at the Servant that had been summoned.

Before her was a young woman adorned in gold. Seriously, her dress, her jewelry, even her face had golden facial markings.

"I ask of you..." The woman stared straight at Reika, her emotionless eyes staring at Reika. "Are you the one to be my Master?"

"...yes, I am." Reika stepped forward and put forth a handshake. "I am Reika Rikudou."

"And thus, our pact is sealed." The woman took the hand. "My memories are a bit lacking, but as the Servant designated as Caster, my magecraft shall pave your path to victory for the attainment of the Grail."

"Grail?" Reika's eyes narrowed. "Do you mean the holy cup that's referred to in Christianity? Also, what's this about a designation? You say that your memories are lacking, but do you at least remember your name?"

"...it seems that I have a lot of explanation to give you, Master. As for my name..." Caster paused as she cupped her chin in thought. "I do have an alias I think I was given to me as an insult, but later grew in notoriety with me... or was it that I latched onto it as a complement...? Until I recover my true name, you may refer to me as... Goldface."

The King stood in the study, looking around at the moonshine-lit room in distaste. At first glance, it was a lovely room, stacked with books that couldn't be read in a human's lifetime even they had done all but nothing beyond sitting to absorb their knowledge.

But it was a waste to Gilgamesh, to lock up this things like treasures and jealously guard them. Moving on from his highly hypocritical opinion, Gilgamesh finally stepped forward as the designated target for his ire made it's appearance.

Designated, not true, for Tokiomi the Groveler had that spot well leashed. Striding forward and glaring downward, he made his move just as the masked figure in black reached to grab the central gem of Tokiomi the Groveler's defenses.

Naturally, that deserved a spear pinning the sandworm's hand as it stabbed through the pillar holding the now shattered gem.

"You lowly worm." Gilgamesh greeted, letting all of his annoyance color his tone without changing his expression as the sandworm slowly turned to behold him, it's shock very apparent despite it's mask. "Who gave you permission to come here?"

Just before the sandworm could completely look at him, {Gate of Babylon} ensured that such a crime didn't happen, six swords and eight spears tearing through the sandworm with brutal efficiency.

"You are not worthy to gaze upon me."

Of course, the final sword was aimed directly at the sandworm's face, shaving most of it off while correcting the sandworm's head to properly face the dirt.

"After all, a worm should be facing the ground... when it dies."

KingVessel: Well, that was fun. Please leave a review. Also, while I'm sure you'll all be researching the GL villain that is Goldface, I would like to proudly declare that she is not an Original Character! Good luck figuring out her identity!