Chapter 37: Mass Comprehension

I do not own Fate/Stay Night and stuffs.

o. o. o.

Illya,

You'd think I'd know what to say after trying to write the same letter countless times by now, but I suppose that it's just another thing to put on the long list of failures made in my life. To be honest I don't even know how many times I've tried writing to you already, and I doubt that this scrap of paper will be the one that you'll have in your hands, but I'll keep on going in the off chance it is.

I'm… no. I won't say it, even on paper. I've done too much to consider ever being redeemed, and actually doing so would probably only make things worse for both of us even if I am dead by the time you read this.

There is so much I want to say to you, to tell you, to hold you and protect you again with my two hands… but it's impossible now. The damn curse that rendered your mother's sacrifice meaningless, that's threatening the world, and is killing me is taking its toll. I doubt I'll last much longer than a month or two at this rate. It's a miracle that I still have enough motor functions in my hand to write this legibly.

Damn. I must have gotten softer than I thought. I've put down this much and it's all meaningless gibberish. Your mind tends to wander when it reaches its end stretch… and I'm barely past thirty. This whole letter really is turning out to be a bad joke. I'll scrap this later, but I might as well finish it.

You probably didn't know this, but near the beginning of the Fourth War, before things spiraled out of control, I begged your mother to abandon the war, run away with me and you, and hide somewhere where Acht wouldn't find us. I got down on my knees, held her tightly, and cried my heart out to her. I loved the both of you so much that I was willing to forgo world peace just to stay with you and be selfish. I know of at least a dozen different places that the old bastard still wouldn't even think or consider looking at if we had made the decision now.

Your mother said no. She said that I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I did something so selfish. I could barely tolerate being happy even back then. I didn't deserve it then and I certainly don't now.

If I allowed myself to give into my moment of weakness, I probably would have killed myself out of guilt and self-disgust.

If I knew then what I knew now though… we'd probably be at one of those locations all together, and the only magi that knew we were there would know better than to utter a single word about us.

For clarification, yes, I did try to get you from Acht multiple times. Anything else you've been told is a lie. The bounded fields around the castle mixed with the region's natural defenses made the place one of the most secure locations in Europe. Even if I was at the peak of health and had all of my equipment and resources it would have taken me months to manage to plan a moderately feasible way inside.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, the curse that's eating away from me prevents me from even doing that much. My mind is progressively losing its sharpness, and the few functional circuits I had I gave to Shirou as an investment for his attempts.

In fact, I almost didn't make it back the last time I tried to get you. My health fell faster than I thought while I was climbing one of the mountains near the castle and I barely managed to get myself to a local hospital in time. I spent almost four months recovering from pneumonia there, and to be honest my body's never been the same since.

If I ever thank your grandfather for anything other than Avalon, you, and your mother, it would be for making me learn German. It's a useless language as far as the rest of the world is concerned, but it did save my life… if only for a short while.

Then I would have put a bullet in his skull. You'd have to be blind to not notice the homunculus on the hospital staff keeping tabs on me while I was there after the first week. One of them even had the nerve to give me a picture of you in the middle of one of your "adjustments". I tore it apart the instant I saw it. I couldn't bear the image of seeing you like… that.

I hope you haven't hurt your brother too badly. Yes, your brother. Not by blood, but I consider Shirou as much mine as you. He does need to be slapped upside the head occasionally for his sheer stubbornness, all things considered I believe that should be the family's greatest defining trait, but he's a good kid and he doesn't deserve your anger. I've already done too much to him to warrant such treatment. He lost his family due to my actions in the war, and worse he's…

There's no real way to explain it, but Shirou isn't like other humans, even by Magi standards. What he went through in the war essentially broke him. I may have saved his life from the fire, but what was inside, what I unintentionally did to him… what he could have done and become…

Illya, I have killed many people in my life. Both innocent and guilty, and in many ways that even had your mother look at me in disgust when she saw it firsthand. I always despised what I did, but it was often a necessary evil in our world in order to save lives. I hate the very idea murder, and those who tried to paint it in a glorified light even more. I would have gladly carried countless sins on my shoulders to ensure that the world was forever peaceful…

What I did to your brother… I can't, and won't ever be able to rationalize or forgive myself for it. It crossed a line and accomplished something that even I am beyond sickened by…

What I saw in my dreams… was me passing my stupid childhood dreams of becoming a hero onto your brother… and in the end putting him on a path that would lead him into willingly becoming a Counter Guardian, and damned to murder for all eternity.

I cursed your brother on a path that would result in him being betrayed by his own borrowed dreams. Just writing this sickens me more than you could imagine.

Even worse, if what I saw has come to pass, then that very Counter Guardian is fighting in your war under the title of Archer. If so, do not trust him near Shirou. Archer's true goal is to kill his past self and cause a paradox in order to possibly escape Alaya's grasp.

Had I not had the visions… if I didn't know what would happen… even after everything I've done to avert those outcomes, I will be haunted by this knowledge and the images until I die soon.

I'm being vague and talking in circles again. To the point, I essentially broke your brother in the destruction of the war that took your mother. He has literally no sense of self-preservation if someone else he is focused on is in trouble, and only finds self-worth from aiding others. Just last night he nearly fried his magic circuits experimenting with his spells for over fourteen hours, and was honestly confused when I forced him to rest and have a day off to relax.

The bottom line is that Shirou has the capability of manifesting a fully developed Reality Marble. He hasn't summoned it completely yet, but even now I can see the results… and they truly terrify me for a good number of reasons.

If I did nothing, your fool of a brother would have given up his life or gotten hurt for anyone in his line of sight that needed help.

After what I did… the only people that he should be willing to do that for, and is in fact aiming to do that for is you and those he truly considers close to him…

It was the best I could manage to increase the likelihood of both your survival. Make no mistake, Illya, your brother is completely willing to die for you, and to be honest I fear that if not managed carefully he may do just that without even thinking.

What kind of father am I? Training and sending my near suicidal son to protect the daughter that believes I abandoned her, who likely wants nothing more than to kill him? I certainly didn't get it from my father. For all his faults, raising me to the best of his abilities and taking care of me was something he did do right.

Damn. Now I'm dwelling on my first kill. I really am losing it now.

The visions I mentioned earlier. I don't know where they came from or if they are some sort of sporadic phenomena caused by a true magic, but they showed me the war you're in, or at least some possible versions of it. All I know is that I've gathered more than enough to confirm that they are too accurate to simply dismiss.

They terrify me, to put things mildly.

One major path results in you having your heart ripped out of your body. Multiple have Shirou dying in even worse ways, or even becoming a monster like myself. All of them have the world in great danger…

And none of them solve the fact that regardless of what happens, you will die in a year regardless.

But that doesn't mean that I have not found anything of use. Just the opposite.

In the past few years since I started having these visions, I have gathered everything I could and prepared Shirou for what was to come. Your brother is in possession of every minor detail that I have obtained about the war, and with the training I have provided him, he should have an overwhelming advantage over everyone involved in this war. Should everything have worked out, he should have managed to obtain what is needed to save your life, and set himself up to deal with the large number of other great threats that have arisen in this War, including dealing with the corrupted Grail itself. I will leave explaining the details to him, otherwise this letter would be unbearably long.

Your brother is however unaware of one thing. I have not told him about Archer's identity, nor his reasons for wanting to kill him. It was a risk on my part, but I cannot truly trust Shirou with this information. There's no telling what he would do with it. In all honesty, I don't know what Archer… no, Heroic Spirit EMIYA would do if confronted by his past self out of the blue like this, or if he found out about what I have done.

From what little I gathered about his past, I have likely already diverted the current timeline from his, so I don't know if he will even be able to be summoned now, but if he is, be careful. EMIYA is difficult to read. Most of the time he will fall in line to his master's orders and behave as if he has nothing better to do, which may in fact be how he feels, but if he sees an opening to get what he wants be assured that he will take it. He is a careful planner, and isn't concerned by ethics in order to get things done.

If Shirou has summoned King Arthur as Saber, please talk to her about Archer. I have also informed her of him in another letter I have written. Hopefully together you two can at least allow EMIYA to have some closure, if nothing else.

And tell him… tell both your stupid stubborn brothers thank you.

I love you, Illya. More than you can possibly imagine. Never believe anyone that tells you differently. What I would give to spend some time with you again. But I would give even that up to ensure you live through this hellish farce of a war and live a happy life.

I have entrusted everything to Shirou to make this happen. The war. You. Your mother. Any and every loose end I have witnessed I have given your brother to resolve.

What happens after that, I leave in your hands. Your brother will need someone to keep him anchored once his goal is fulfilled, lest he fall down the path I took. There is no doubt in my mind that Shirou will protect you from anything the world will throw at you.

All I ask is that you protect him from himself.

Sorry in advance for giving you the harder job.

I… no. I'm done. I'm surprised that I've managed to put down this much. My wrist is throbbing horrifically, to the point that it's hard to get anything down now. I'll put it on the pile of other letters I've made and probably burn it with the rest of the rejects when I've made my decision on which one to give you.

I'll have to do it when your brother is away. Ever since the kitchen fiasco he has a panic attack whenever he even hears I tried to turn on the stove. Honestly, you can't even see the burns on the ceiling anymore.

Damn. Dropped the pen. It's hard to hold anything now.

I love you Illya. I miss you so much that even this curse can't block out the pain. Please, listen to your brother.

Please, be happy and live the life you deserve, the one I failed to provide you while I was alive.

Kiritsugu Emiya

P.S. On a side note, if you are still debating on whether to kill your brother or not, do try his cooking before you make a final decision. The boy can make just about anything to a professional level now. Thank all that is reasonable in this world that the curse killing me hasn't taken away my taste buds yet.

o. o. o.

Clocktower:

She walked through the halls as she always did: with proper poise and a neutral face that made it impossible for anyone to determine what she was thinking of or where her destination may be.

Regardless of who came across her path as she made her way to her goal, the results were the same. Upon recognizing her, the countless underachieving introverts would get out of her way allowing her to travel unimpeded, as it should be. Some of them may have greeted her, possibly have thrown her a compliment of some sort as she passed by in an attempt to gain favor with her, but she paid them no mind. To her, such things were to be expected like a stray gust of wind during an evening walk. Completely expected and even easier to ignore.

Had anyone had anything of actual interest to say, she would have picked it up instantly. However that rarely was the case, and today was no different.

The area of the Clocktower she was walking in was considered one of the more dangerous areas in the establishment. Nowhere near as concerning as where Gazamy was held, but ultimately few places were.

Still, simply traversing the area where most of the Hermit Sealing Designates were held was generally considered a rather risky thing to do, even for the Enforcers. Most of them were in reality quite harmless (when compared to the standard magi at least), their outstanding and unique discoveries more minor conceptual phenomena that were otherwise deemed impossible by magus standards.

Perfect spherical manifestation and comprehension. Spiritual fusion to the point that the resulting existence was a flawless entity. The ability to instantly communicate with any creature, be it mystical or not, on sight. Perfectly contained perpetual temporal loops.

Most of them relatively minor by themselves… but putting them in the same location at once had proven to yield rather concerning aftereffects at times. The fact that Zelretch had more often than not been seen spending some of his free time here only added fuel to that fire.

The last time he had been there, the entire floor had been swarmed with experimental creatures that were supposedly an attempt to replicate some phantasmal species from a popular children's game going about. Pouch Creatures or something like that. All she knew was that those red and white ball monstrosities absolutely destroyed the main entrance and the maintenance entrance to the area when they all blew up and made repairing the damages nearly unbearable. Managing to get a hold of the ones that could plow through the ground like water before the public saw too many of them was even more of a nightmare.

One intern had made the mistake of trying to pet one of the monstrosities. A little yellow rat.

After she had been electrocuted with enough amperage to literally fry her nerves, heart and brain, no one else had hesitated in crushing every little mistake that met their eyes into a chunky red paste.

On the plus side, from what she heard the number of students that were distracted by modern day electronics dropped phenomenally for the next few years because of it.

Most members of the staff wouldn't consider walking here alone due to the potential dangers involved. The Designees themselves weren't allowed to exit their workshops without specified permission for their own safety as much as everyone else's. Most of the time it didn't matter that much since many of these individuals practically lived in the lab anyways. However, there were more than a few that were just as adept at playing the political game as well and were given permission to move as they pleased within the grounds so long as they didn't cause trouble.

And then there was the one that she was visiting…

She knew he was inside his workshop as she approached. The main entrance to the area had a system in place to indicate who was in their workshops, who wasn't, and if they were in the middle of any experiments. The one she was going to was in the middle of something. However it was the general rule of the Tower that if she wanted something from someone, she got it without question.

A notification was sent ahead of her, so she had expected him to open the door within moments of her knocking. She pretended to ignore the cheap generic "do not disturb" sign hanging from the door handle.

Five Seconds. Ten. Thirty.

She would have knocked again after the fifteen second mark, but she had better self-control than that.

After two minutes with no response, she knocked harder and pressed a button on the doorframe that allowed her voice to be transmitted inside. "You have had ample time to prepare for me McGinty. Open the door or I will slash your budget in half."

Four seconds later the sound of something loud hitting the floor was heard and her way was opened with no one on the other side. Instead she was given a full view of a wide array of shelves and tables full of an assortment of tools, equipment, machinery, materials, clothes, vials, gems, and other such items. All of it was organized and categorized, not to her perfectionist standards of course, but in a manner that none the less showed the signs of a professional's work.

The sight in front of her was no doubt likely one of the most diverse and expensive arrays of thaumaturgical equipment in the Clocktower, partially because most of the more valuable equipment in the Clocktower was made here. Likewise, she knew for a fact that this was only a pittance compared to what the blacksmith was working on in his private areas. No self-respecting magus would simply allow visitors, which in of itself was a minor blessing, to see the full endeavors of a workshop on first sight.

"An I thought that when I put up tha "do not disturb" sign on tha door, people would get that ah don't want ta be disturbed," an annoyed gruff voice from one of the adjacent rooms, clearly nowhere near as accommodating as the ones she had encountered earlier that day. Given the distance he was at, it was fairly obvious he had opened the door through some sort of contraption or spell so that he wouldn't move from whatever he was doing. "It's not like ah couldn't be working wit potentially lethal and or dangerous materials."

The Queen of the Clocktower's eyebrows narrowed just a hair as she made her way to the voice's source, irritated by the disrespect she was being given. "Most people would find a way to manage to put their personal projects on hold when they are told I am coming."

"An mos people are tryin ta glue their lips to yer arse," the old man retorted without hesitation. "Ah think ah speak for ta both of us when ah say that it's a good thing that ah am not one of them. My poor lips don't deserve that treatment. Don't think my back can take it either."

The young woman didn't bother to comment on that statement as she walked into the adjacent room and found the large old man hunched over a desk with several tools in hand that appeared as precise as the skills probably needed to use them, a crude headband on that held several enchanted magnifying glasses in front of his face, and a small stand holding up what appeared to be a ring that he was carefully inscribing runes onto. A quick glance at her surroundings showed that the entire enclosure was filled with significantly more precise and delicate equipment than the one she had just been in.

"A custom order?" she asked with mild curiosity. Despite being a Designate and a teacher in the Tower, the old man still kept his mystic code crafting business alive as much as possible.

"Experiment," he muttered, not once allowing the conversation to distract him from his work. As rude, massive, old, and crass as he was, the man was a professional and could focus with a steadier hand better than nearly anyone else when he was on the job.

It didn't hurt that he had a pair of bracelets on that enabled him to have abnormal machine like control over his hand movements either.

"Turns out that most objects tend ta become unstable if enough concepts are removed from them. Gaia doesn't deny them, but has trouble… recognizing them for lack of a better term. Almost as if it forgets what they are at times. Remove too much and most things either just fall apart or in some cases just fade away. Blokes in Spiritual Invocation are researchin that bit. Makes makin some protective equipment and other things that way a bloody pain ta do."

"You're fabricating an alternative," she surmised as she looked at the ring with the smallest bit of curiosity. This was the man that created her gauntlet and her rapier. His work and methods were of her impeccable standards, so whatever had his attention must be worth at least some interest.

Even though she was familiar with runecraft, she could, not that she ever would, admit honestly that she was incapable of deciphering the old man's array. Oh she recognized several strings of the near microscopic symbols he was etching into the ring, but there were many more that she had never seen before. She suspected that there was a good chance that the old man was using several letters that weren't known to the general community, ones that were only taught in certain select circles, but she couldn't be too sure and she didn't bother to inquire about them. Asking questions about such a guarded subject was, rude, improper, and above all pointless. Spreading this sort of information would only cause more problems then solve.

"Runes can add conceptual effects. They can take them away just as well. Ah already figured out how ta do that part a year ago," the old man muttered. "Takes some tweakin of the thing the runes are on though. It's a lot trickier than simply addin an effect. Temporarily imitating immunity is one thing. Completely ignoring an aspect of reality an bein able to switch what aspect is bein ignored is another. This here's the next step. Ya set off the runes in a way or two and everythin from the hand the ring's on to the matchin bracelet is enveloped in a bounded field that denies the specified concept… or that's what ah'm aimin for. Gotta finish tha bleedin inscription first."

"I see. The rune sequence and the materials you are using are unstable until you complete it." While she was not an expert on manufacturing and runic based processes, she was more than proficient and knowledgeable enough on both counts to come up with this conclusion almost instantly.

"Ah sneezed eight hours into my last prototype. Damn thing near turned ta dust right in front of me," the Irishman pouted with some annoyance.

"You should have prepared better. Such a mistake is inexcusable." She wasn't mocking him. There really was a bounded field frequently used for workshops that was made for that exact purpose and was practically a standard for magi everywhere. Many thought it was a joke when they first heard about it, but after the fifth story of a magus' experiments killing them because of an inopportune sneeze, complete with autopsy reports and pictures, they frequently sung a different tune.

"Yer concern is heartwarming." His tone clearly indicated otherwise. He personally didn't set up such bounded fields onto his workshop because he honestly believed that they were meant for lazy shits who couldn't wipe their own asses without uttering a spell. "What is it you want, lass? You wouldn't come here in person if it were just fer a job request or report. And as much as people enjoy the sound of my voice, I doubt that yer here for that either."

The Queen's face remained stoic. Truth be told she did hold somewhat of an emotion close to appreciation and amusement for the old man's personality. He was one of the few people in the Tower that spoke to her in such a manner despite knowing who and what she was, and one of the fewer that neither wanted something from her nor was plotting against her. To him she was just another possible customer. Granted a powerful one that could execute him whenever she wanted, but otherwise their relationship was rarely outside of supplier and customer.

She was rarely treated in a manner outside of her station, and while most would, and rightly so, consider it a grave insult, Barthomelloi allowed it simply to expose herself to the experience. The old man had earned this liberty as recognition through his craft and knew well enough to not push his luck in public or assume too much familiarity. Practice made perfect after all, and it would not do for her to be unaccustomed to something as plebeian as being addressed with something other than the greatness that was a Barthomelloi. For that, she was grateful for his unknowing services.

Still, much like the vast majority of the Clocktower nobility, she could only tolerate such treatment in small doses.

"It's been over a week since the Fuyuki Ritual has commenced," she stated, her voice as crisp and even as ever. "And not a single participant has died yet."

Shirou's poor performance is reflected onto me. I don't tolerate poor performances on my record. Ever. Her silent insinuation was heard loud and clear.

"I guess yer not countin that idiot that got offed before summoning his Servant then," Sirius snorted, not at all bothering to hide the fact that he was keeping tabs on the war as well.

"Putting my intelligence to question is a rather foolish thing to do, McGinty." Her tone carried a faint edge to it. That alone was more than enough to make a good number of people in the Tower to get on their knees and beg for forgiveness.

"Just makin a statement, lass. No need ta get snippy." The old man brushed away her threat without batting an eyelash while still scratching runes on the ring inches from his face. "Can't really call someone who didn't even contribute to tha war a participant, now can we?"

He let out a brief knowing chuckle just before the woman was about to speak again. "Then again, if yer confused as ta why the lad hasn't offed anyone yet, yer lookin in the wrong place. Lad's taken out a big fish just a couple o days ago if memory serves."

"The individual that was reported interfering with the ritual." She could already tell that something was occurring in the war that should not be. "I don't play games, McGinty. Speak clearly. There is clearly more to this ritual than you are pretending."

Sirius didn't turn around. He didn't freeze up, stammer, or even try to lie or make up an excuse. He merely sighed in annoyance as he continued to etch his runes onto the ring less than a foot away from his face.

There was no point in delaying. They always knew that Barthomelloi would find out everything sooner or later. They had only hoped it would be after things had calmed down a bit.

Best he could do now is present things in a way that would hopefully allow Shirou to have a future.

Sorry lad, but the timer here's run out. Ya better get yer arse in gear quick, cause this is one lass that sure as hell doesn't have a soft spot for ya.

Lorelei spent the rest of the afternoon wishing for a Dead Apostle to show up more than any other point in her life, even if it was just so she could have something to take her frustrations out upon.

o. o. o.

By the time they had made it back to the Emiya residence, Shirou was struggling to stay awake.

Even after Saber returned, the damage that the teen had sustained earlier had finally made itself known in full force. The broken bones. The burst brain vessels. The destroyed and then regenerated heart. The overheated circuits. The lost blood. The fact that he was even remotely aware of his surroundings was a praiseworthy accomplishment.

Physically he was almost fully recovered, but the combined weight of the damage to his mind and sheer exhaustion were the greatest offenders. Throughout the entire trip back, he had periods where he had been speaking, or rather muttering, his scattered thoughts out loud and had not even been aware of it. Other than the bloodstains on his body and some red skin above where his heart was, his body appeared to be in perfect shape.

It just went to show just how erratic his mind was at the moment given that in one particular instance, he had somehow managed to string together Taiga, Illya, dinner, homework, killing Caster, shoelaces, fixing his bike, meat and potato stew, and that Barthomelloi was coming after him in a single incoherent mumble.

Sakura was faring a good deal better. While she was still a bit bloated on prana, she had managed to sink enough into healing her wound that by the time Saber had returned to close proximity she was all healed save for some tenderness where she had been pierced through. She was still a bit dizzy from her experiences, but it was a far cry from Shirou's near crippled state as she helped him walk to his home. Saber needed to be as unimpeded as possible in case they were attacked again on the way back.

Illya, on the other hand, had not said a single word ever since she read the letter that Shirou had given her.

"We're almost inside. Just a little bit longer," Sakura said as she shifted under his weight. "I have a key to the house but I can't get it like this."

"Of course." The blonde didn't hesitate to shift her Master's weight onto herself. She had plenty of experience carrying the injured to safety during her lifetime. "Illyasviel. You are invited into Shirou's home obviously. However…"

"Huh?" The small girl blinked, clearly not paying attention to where she had been until just then. Looking around, she saw that they were at their destination. She also noticed after an additional few moments that said destination's entrance was vastly less than what was needed for Berserker to get through. "Oh. We're here."

Without so much as a gesture to command her Servant, the Giant instinctively obeyed his Master's wishes and gently lowered her to the ground before becoming spiritual. No one there thought for a millisecond that just because they couldn't see him didn't mean that she was any less dangerous though.

Sakura opened the doorway without any hesitation and stepped aside to allow everyone in. Wordlessly everyone took off their shoes (Saber had returned to her modern attire as soon as she entered the home) and made their way to the living room…

"Shirou, I know you are stressed from what happened, but now really isn't a good time to cook a feast." Saber sighed as she fought her Master's attempt to limp to the kitchen.

"Illya's here. Can't be rude…" the homeowner muttered more to himself than anyone stubbornly as he futilely tried to make his way to his favorite part of the house. Since everyone was focused on him, no one noticed the albino's crimson eyes widen momentarily as if seeing something for the first time before narrowing in thought.

"Shirou, even you can't make anything in your state," Sakura gently argued with him. "I'll make some tea and get some snacks for everyone, okay? It's my turn to cook anyway."

The Emiya paused at Sakura's declaration and looked up at her with confusion. "It's your turn?"

The purple haired girl mentally sighed in relief. Normally it was impossible to get Shirou away from the kitchen if he really wanted to cook, but being who he was he would without question step aside if he thought he was intruding on someone else's "personal time". Even in his current state he wouldn't go against this fact.

Also, she was relieved because it was actually his turn to cook that night. She had been in charge of lunch that day while he was going over that night's plans for the hundredth time.

"Is he really going to be able to explain everything like this?" Illya frowned, her cheeks puffed out childishly. "I know I said I'd listen to him, but I assumed that it would be tonight."

"Your brother has been through much, Illyasviel." Saber calmly sat on her knees at the table next to her. "Please be patient. We can use the time waiting for him to recover to discuss what happened tonight with Sakura in addition to our activities in the War so far…"

"No," Illya cut her off. "I still have no real reason to trust any of you. Until you convince me otherwise I won't say anything."

"Fair enough." The former King sighed reluctantly, knowing that there was little point in arguing.

"Illya-chan. What sort of snacks do you like? We have crackers, cookies, chocolates…" As Sakura listed off the treats that Shirou had stored in the kitchen, mostly for Taiga, the homunculus' eyes started to sparkle with childish delight and greed. Saber pretended not to notice.

It took a few seconds for the girl to realize that she was on the verge of drooling in front of others before managing to pull back her impulsive nature and school herself. "I'm not sure." She spoke with as much maturity as her small body would allow. "I'm unfamiliar with the snacks that are served in Japan."

"That's alright. I'll just get out a little bit of everything, and you can try and see what you like from there."

Sakura's response was exactly what the small girl was hoping for. The Einzbern allowed herself to chuckle in satisfaction before pausing and turning to see Saber looking at her with an amused look. "… What?"

Saber gave the girl the smallest of amused smiles before turning to the kitchen. "Sakura. Truth be told I have yet to partake in many of the refreshments of this era as well. If possible could you by chance add a bit more to each sample?"

"Sure thing."

Illya's eyes widened at the Servant's dubious actions, seeing the swordswoman in a completely new light as the elder turned her attention back to the younger. While they may be enemies in the war, they were no doubt allies when it came to being gluttonous gourmets.

Neither of them noticed Shirou staring at them accusingly from across the table. The only male human in the house may have been out of it, but he could still sense a threat to his position in the pecking order when he saw one. He'd have to be careful of these two. Still it would be best to remain quiet for now, lest they turn their greedy nature onto him.

Plus it was never a good idea to make a comment about a woman's eating habits. Especially if the one doing the commenting was a male. Even being crippled and in his current state wouldn't save him from divine judgment should he open his mouth.

"Getting back on subject though, I believe it would best that we first review…" Saber began to speak about more serious subjects when the house phone began to ring.

"Ignore it." Illya frowned, not liking the interruption. "I have heard that these… what's the term… phone merchants… are relentless and call at the worst times."

"It's Luvia," Shirou mumbled as the bounded fields in his home leaked in the call's identification into his head. Standard caller id was fine, but this method also registered lines from Magi who were often impossible to keep track of via normal means. Given that said individuals don't normally use the phone, this rather out of the way method was quite useful for someone like Shirou who had a social life in both worlds.

"Even worse." Illya's face soured at the information. She felt like a fool for trusting the girl with the sword that Shirou had given her earlier. She made a mental note to ask him about the blade later. "Why bother to talk to the traitor?"

"She's needed and I owe her," the red head grunted, hoping that he could have rested at least a bit more before this conversation took place. His mind was still fuzzy as hell, but with a seemingly critical conversation at hand, he was forcing himself to regain control over his body as much as he would absolutely love nothing more than to fall asleep. He muttered a small spell and channeled prana into the table, instantly turning it into a sender and receiver for the conversation. It was a gift from Sirius; from what he's heard, it was a big hit at the Clocktower when it came to holding long distance meetings. "How much did you see?"

"Everything outside of the temple," the blonde's voice calmly stated, though the strain was noticeable. "So enough to know that the Einzbern Master should be with you, Rider is not, and that you are the proud new owner of the most distorted heart I have ever laid eyes on."

"No really, Edelfelt. Tell him how you feel," a new voice from the line spoke up, catching everyone's attention.

"Nee-san?" Sakura blinked in surprise as she put the snacks and tea she prepared on the table.

Shirou held back a groan and settled for simply resting his head on the table so no one could see his face. On the one hand, it was great hearing from her again and confirming that she was alright. On the other, she had to show up now. Of all the times to come clean with Rin…

"This one unfortunately managed to find her way into my home recently." Luvia's stressed tone didn't change, something that was picked up by everyone.

"I take it she was present when the Witch divulged some rather condemning information." Saber calmly drank her tea. The stability of the situation was growing worse by the second, and had she been any less used to such circumstances she would be showing it much like nearly everyone else at the table.

"Oh I saw my share of tonight's activities. Don't worry about that. Edelfelt has been MORE than helpful in explaining what she knows to me and how you are responsible for the headaches I've been having these past couple of weeks, so please do not bother wasting your time to get me up to speed." Rin's voice was surprisingly calm and collected. Shirou and Sakura shivered instinctively, knowing that it was a bad omen. The fact that Rin was avoiding calling Luvia by her first name was also another major indicator that the Tohsaka had gone full circle and was so enraged at the moment that she was perfectly at ease. "I'm just having trouble deciding on what to DO exactly with such information. So many options…"

Shirou didn't dare make a comment as to how on earth she and Luvia had managed to stay within proximity of one another given the circumstances without trying to kill one another. Normally they were at one another's throats, but now he was afraid that they really would go all out if not handled carefully. It really might be the proverbial trigger that would send things spiraling to hell. "If… if you're planning on killing Luvia, don't. She's needed."

He attempted to hide the fact that his throat and chest felt irregular as he talked. However given the look Saber had on her face he was falling short of his goal.

"Oh? I'm needed?" The foreigner's voice perked up with some curiosity and a hint of mocking spite. "How so? The last we spoke, you claimed that I was just an convenient way to ensure that the right Caster was summoned."

Saber interrupted her Master before he attempted to speak again. "In case you haven't noticed from what you have witnessed, Shirou is not in an ideal condition to explain much in detail. I recommend that Sakura and I answer as many questions as possible to put as little stress on him as possible. For anything that requires additional information, Shirou can inform me through our connection. I assume this is acceptable with all parties?"

There was a brief moment of silence as those involved contemplated the offer. Shirou nodded to Saber in a silent appreciative thanks.

Luvia spoke up first. "Very well. Your offer is both appreciated and recognized as the most efficient one for getting through this discussion. Now, about my earlier inquiry?"

"The Witch has been experimenting on your sister," Sakura answered upon seeing the glance that Shirou gave her. Truth be told, she had only managed to give him a brief summary of what she had learned inside Caster's Temple before he had gone off to Illya, so it could be said that she had played one of the most crucial roles in the night's events despite having failed her initial objective. "From what I managed to learn from sneaking into her workshop, she's turned Marjatta into something called a Lesser Grail."

"What?!" Illya slammed her hands onto the table in rage, and in all honesty she was not the only one that was surprised by the information if the stares Sakura was getting were any indication. Although she had claimed that she would not participate in the conversation until her questions were answered, she clearly had decided that this was an exception to the statement. "As if your deplorable existence was not enough, even a Servant has the nerve to desecrate the Ritual's process?!"

""Your" existence?" Rin echoed in a way that those hearing could practically see her frown. "What exactly does she mean by that, Shirou?"

The addressed male did groan this time as he tried to ignore the stares he was getting as well as the headache he had. His only solace at the moment was the tea in his hands that helped distract the pain enough to talk to Saber mentally.

"One issue at a time please," the King of Knights diplomatically addressed everyone. "If we allow things spiral out of control we aren't going to have any progress tonight. It is difficult enough time keeping things organized as it is. Everything will be explained in time, but we can't get distracted from the primary issues at hand." She paused momentarily at something Shirou told her, staring at him with some skepticism, before turning to Illya. "Illyasviel, I believe you would be the ideal individual to elaborate to those unaware of what exactly a Lesser Grail is."

"Obviously," the girl muttered coldly under her breath before lecturing everyone. "A Lesser Grail, to put it simply, is a container that gathers untold amounts of prana over an undefined amount of time and means, and uses that power to set off the Greater Grail. The latter of which, outside of being the actual system that enables us to summon our Servants in the first place, is what enacts the wish granting mystery that we are, or should be fighting for right now. The Einzbern is the designated supplier of the Lesser Grail for each War."

"Which is you, the position itself being nothing more than a glorified sacrifice," Luvia's voice stated factually, causing those who were not in the know to blink surprised. "Due to certain circumstances, I happened to figure out the nature of Emiya's activities some time ago. Obviously he has apparently left some things out when I confronted him about this, not that I am surprised by this point, but it is enough that I will have vastly less trouble comprehending the situation compared to most."

"You seem awfully calm about your sister being turned into a sacrifice," Rin noted, half out of curiosity and half out of attempting to gain another rise out of the foreigner.

"Given Einzbern's accusation, I believe it wouldn't be inaccurate to say that we all have someone that is at risk of being something that they do not wish to be at this point," the blonde countered dryly. "And seeing that Emiya has been quite busy for some time preparing methods to prevent two of them from fulfilling this role, I don't see why he is incapable of doing so for a third person."

"I apologize that your memory is so faulty, Edlefelt. However, I must remind you that the third, like you, took a contract to kill him. The War gave us an excuse to do this should it happen, yes, but you two went in with the aim for his head in particular, so I am having trouble seeing why he should even consider doing this for an egotistical little…"

"Rin!" Shirou snapped, causing everyone to stop talking. It was not often that he raised his voice, and even rarer when he did so at someone he trusted. The fact that he bothered to speak at all in his condition was enough to underscore just how frustrated he was. "That's enough. Sakura, you said that there's a problem with Marjatta's condition."

Sakura looked hesitantly as Shirou. Illya's accusation of her being a Lesser Grail was something that she didn't expect, and she didn't like the fact that Shirou was avoiding eye contact with her either. "I… Yes. I don't know exactly what being a Lesser Grail entails exactly, but I did see Marjatta in Caster's Workshop. I had snuck in with the goal of getting her out of there, as planned, or at the very least severing her connection to Caster with a copy of Rule Breaker that Shirou had made me by cutting off her arm, but…"

"Obviously something prevented you from doing so, otherwise we wouldn't be in this situation," Luvia's voice was emotionless and dry.

Sakura swallowed heavily. "She was inside this container of liquid and was generating terrifying amounts of power from it. More than anything I had ever seen or imagined before. Every pulse it gave off nearly overwhelmed my nerves. Had Caster not set up her bounded fields, I think we would have been able to sense Marjatta from the bottom of the mountain if not even further. She didn't respond when I came in, and after going to the room I… discovered what she was from some of Caster's notes lying around and found out that her setup was the focus of all the power that the Witch was stealing from the city… and that it was unstable. Caster has to frequently adjust the bounded fields around her to keep the setup from collapsing on itself. If I had tried anything, even with Rule Breaker, I'm certain that I could have set off a chain reaction and done untold damage to the area. The only way I can see us getting her out alive, let alone getting rid of the mana generator safely, is with Caster's, your Caster's help in dismantling it."

"I see…" Luvia was clearly thinking going over what she was learning. "So Emiya's bluff to use Excalibur on Caster earlier… was a way to prevent her from informing us of something that we already knew in the first place. As far as she knows, my sister is simply inside a heavily armed prison and more importantly, we supposedly don't know about her plans and time limits."

Shirou remained quiet through the explanation and hoped no one would question how Sakura would know how to read ancient Greek or get through Caster's notes in such a short time period. They would be up long enough without having to discuss the presence of an Apostle Ancestor here. The vampire was keen on staying in the audience seat where no one saw him and all things considered Shirou wanted to keep him there too.

"Wonderful," a certain Tohsaka muttered sarcastically under her breath. "Of course there would be that sort of complication. She's possibly in the one state that even if we did agree on killing her as a last resort, even that action would be unavailable to us via normal means. As it stands, "saving her" and "killing her without destroying the mountain" would require the same steps and plan up to the very end."

"So long as your goal is to ensure my sister's safety, you have my full cooperation. Still there are more questions that need to be answered. How is it that she managed to get control over Rider?" Luvia pressed. "Rider was with Berserker the entire time and Rule Breaker only allows the user to steal control over a Servant if the Servant is stabbed. If she can repeat such a feat…"

Shirou scowled as the rest of the girls looked at him curiously and some apprehension. Among all the things that had gone wrong that night, he considered loosing Rider, betraying her trust in his abilities, to be the greatest.

Saber began elaborating as she already knew the bulk of what happened and the reasoning behind Shirou's actions. "Due to Sakura's condition and what Zouken had done to her, she was unable to properly sustain Rider. As a result of an agreement that Shirou had with him, he served as a stand-in Master for Rider shortly after she was summoned. A Book of False Attendant was created through the process which he until tonight held onto at all times while Rider stayed with Sakura. It was unfortunately that which was stabbed by Rule Breaker when we both went to recover Sakura inside the Temple. Unless anyone else has been exchanging ownerships of Servants, the odds of this happening again are nonexistent."

"I see… so that is why you were so emaciated when you appeared at the Matou Fire," Luvia mused. "You were still adjusting to supplying two Servants with power at once."

"And the reason why you could not inform us of this rather interesting situation before is because?" Rin questioned firmly. While there was a good deal of irritation in her voice, she was primarily focused on getting a better picture of the overall situation and why Shirou had allowed things to go unaddressed for so long.

"Zouken needed to be addressed before anything could get done safely. From what I have been told and my brief encounters with him, he tends to know things he shouldn't." Saber easily reverted back to being Shirou's mouthpiece while taking another snack. "Having the Crest Worm that contained his soul right next to Sakura's heart complicated things, so it took longer than normal to set up the right conditions. Otherwise he would have been dead years ago."

Shirou nodded softly in agreement as his eyes focused aimlessly on the twisted memories involving the twisted magus. Just thinking of the old bastard caused his migraine to pulse with greater intensity.

The only reason why it wasn't worse was simply due to his memories of the worm's last moments. Shirou wasn't a sadist by any means, but he would savor that image of fear and desperation for decades.

Everyone's expressions soured to some degree, but none more so than Sakura's. She had known of course of the worms in her body, but even she didn't know that she had essentially had that parasite of a man inside of her for who knows how long.

"Well, at the very least, I highly doubt anyone here can contest to his title as Magus Killer anymore." Luvia casually sighed in an attempt to get things moving again. "Even the Witch seems to be wary of you now Emiya."

"I'm somewhat surprised that Caster is giving you this much trouble in the first place Onii-chan," Illya spoke up. "When you and Saber went into her Temple, I had assumed you'd finish her off then and there without trouble. Even if…" She realized what she was about to say and bit hard on her tongue. She didn't want to talk about him just yet.

"Caster was almost vanquished," Saber stated factually after sampling another of the snacks that Sakura had provided. "Inside her Temple, her combat ability was significantly greater than we suspected, and Assassin, though injured, was supporting her. Even I am uncertain of the outcome of our battle if I did not receive additional aid. Had Shirou's attempt not been off by more than but a few centimeters, I am certain that Caster would not have been able to recover from the wound he delivered her. It was a praiseworthy attempt. Not many could produce such results from outside a Caster's Temple borders. We only retreated due to the fact that while Caster and Assassin were wounded, I was still not capable of adequately protecting Sakura and Shirou by myself in that area."

"Then again…" the voice of the Princess spoke up from the line. "If what the girl says is true, then there is a good chance that it was fortunate that you did not dispose of my counterpart. We have no way of measuring how much time it would take for Marjatta's cell to destabilize without its owner present. It may have very well resulted in your inadvertent destruction."

"Wait, wait… back up for just a moment please. You mean to tell me that Shirou almost assassinated a Servant?" Rin asked incredulously.

"Wouldn't be the first time I nailed her from behind," Shirou mumbled halfheartedly as he drank some more tea. The hot fluid did help his nerves somewhat but it wouldn't get rid of the thirst he was experiencing. He would have chalked it up to his Apostle condition, but it was rarely ever this strong. The sensation had grown from "easily ignorable" to "distracting annoyance".

"Shirou can copy weapons and instruments seen from the memories of others. Waver Velvet showed him some of his experiences during the previous war," Saber elaborated. "One of the Noble Phantasms used by Lancer was ideal for penetrating Caster's defenses."

The King of Knights remained impassive she remembered Darmuid's final moments and his vengeful last words. She didn't know if he was just being spiteful or he held some sort of precognitive power, but the fact of the matter was that most of the things he cursed onto her and Kiritsugu did come to pass in the worst possible way… not that they didn't deserve it for all that they had done…

"I. But. Damn it Shirou! Do I really have to be the one to point out that you're doing it wrong?!" One could almost hear Rin tearing out her hair in frustration. "Servants kill Servants! Masters don't!"

"Even I have to agree with Tohsaka on this," Luvia admitted. "The fact that you are constantly attempting and succeeding in directly interfering with Servants is both bewilderingly impressive and outlandishly imbecilic, Emiya, regardless of how peculiar your mysteries are."

"As futile it may be, I don't blame him for trying," Illya mused neutrally after swallowing another treat. "The Servant needs to learn her place, and having Onii-chan do so is only fitting. Kiritsugu is dead, and he should stay that way."

The room went quiet as the girl's words were heard. Assassin's identity was no secret among them, and with it came a good deal of issues that would need to be addressed sooner rather than later.

As far as Shirou was concerned, the only Servant on that mountain that was going to die was Caster. He frowned and spoke up instead of allowing Saber to do it for him. "I made a mistake of not getting rid of her when I had a chance. I'm not going to again. Once she's out of the picture, none of the others under her control have any reason to fight us, and we can deal with the real problems at hand."

"Gilgamesh," Saber stated coldly as she glared at her drink.

"Gilgamesh?" Illya asked in confusion, being the only person there that had not yet heard or been informed of him.

"The Archer from the previous war," Luvia supplied as if he was a side thought. "Your father's Servant I believe, Tohsaka. It seems that I'm not the only source of our current issues after all."

"The King of Heroes and without a doubt the strongest Servant to ever be summoned," Shirou grimaced as Saber voiced his thoughts. "Illya may have summoned Heracles, but even he doesn't stand a chance in hell against that monster alone. Most Servants don't."

"If he's so dangerous and powerful, then why hasn't he done anything yet?" Rin grunted impatiently. She had heard in passing about how powerful her Father's former Servant was, but the fact that the previous head of the Tohsaka family had still died during the previous war was something she still had trouble comprehending.

"That man's ego knows no limits," Saber recalled her encounters with the obnoxious Servant with distaste. "To him the world is already his, and because humanity is so weak he probably rarely possesses desire to impose his authority, much less have the need to. This war is probably just entertainment to him. However, given what is at stake he will no doubt get involved sooner or later. Knowing his personality though, he might act soon since there hasn't been any "progress" lately. He certainly didn't have any issues with showing up a few days ago."

"And you didn't fight him then?" Illya looked at her skeptically.

"Part of waging war is knowing when and where to battle." She frowned, not exactly happy that she didn't fight then either. "Staying on the planet for over ten years has done nothing to impair his power. Had we fought then, the odds of my victory were far from ideal, and that would be after we caused significant damage and casualties to the area."

"Hmph," Illya snorted as she puffed out her chest proudly. "I supposed that you were waiting to team up with me then. With Berserker and Saber together, there is no way that a single Servant would be able to win."

"It would make little difference against that one." The King of Knights shook her head solemnly while shooting down the girl's claim. "From what I have seen, Berserker would not fare well against him. Gilgamesh possesses the originals of almost every Noble Phantasm in existence and can fire them off at will. Shirou's power is the natural counter for such tactics, which will enable me to engage him in close combat where he is significantly weaker. Even so, given from the information we have gathered, if Gilgamesh manages to take out his true Noble Phantasm before I get to him… it's all over."

"Enuma Elish," Shirou spoke up again, but this time there was trepidation in his raspy voice. As composed as he was, just thinking about the weapon always seemed to unnerve him to his core. "The Sword of Rupture. Anti-world Noble Phantasm. Just seeing that thing through Waver-nii's memories caused me to black out. I can't even begin to tell you guys how absurd that monstrosity is and how much it terrifies me."

The blonde Servant winced as her connection to Shirou's mind allowed her to see minor glimpses of the drill like weapon in between the erratic static that came from his trying to process the impossibility. She was somewhat used to her Master's peculiar disposition, but this was the greatest first hand example she had so far, and it wasn't pleasant.

Still, if this was what the Emiya experienced just looking at a memory of the weapon, then the real thing itself must be a terrifying existence to behold.

"If Gilgamesh is so powerful…" Sakura frowned. Shirou had filled her in on a good deal of what he knew about the war and what he was trying to prevent, but there were still a good number of blank spots that had yet to be answered. Her being a Lesser Grail being one of them. "Then why did fa-… The previous Tohsaka head loose?"

Everyone there pretended to ignore Sakura's momentary slip as they were more interested in what Shirou had to say. Given that he and Saber didn't say anything was a clear indication that there was a good deal to talk about.

Saber nodded as she took in the information Shirou gave her. When it came to long explanations, the boy seemed to be limiting his messages to general pieces of information that she may have not been aware of and the path of conversation. He appeared to be too tired to send anything more detailed through their link at the moment, which was concerning.

"Given Gilgamesh's personality it's not difficult to see. Gilgamesh is extraordinarily egotistical and prideful. An individual with the stereotypical magus mindset would find it nearly impossible to control him. More so that they would have trouble even comprehending that they would have trouble controlling a Servant in the first place. The same would occur with any relationship between a closed minded magus and a prideful and independent Servant. Something was bound to give. In this case, we believe that the trigger came in the form of a third party…"

"A third party?" Illya looked at Shirou and Saber skeptically. "Humph. Why should I be surprised? The Tohsaka family was always the bottom of the three families that contributed to the War. I should have figured that they would prove incapable of controlling their Servants, let alone what's around them."

Luvia wisely did not say anything regarding that comment.

"Oh yes. Fine words coming from a walking doll that's incapable of doing anything for herself," Rin's standard fake polite voice shot back. "All you have to do is make your Servant do all the hard work while you do nothing. Truly the Einzbern knew what they were doing this time, and as opposed to all of the other Wars they've failed."

"Kirei Kotomine," Saber quickly stated the culprit's name, being the only one who was paying attention to how worked up Shirou was getting worrying about everyone fighting. Instantly the shots between the female magi ceased, their minds focused on what Saber would say next. She closed her eyes and recalled her brief experiences related to the man. "Originally the Master of Assassin in the previous war and student of the Tohsaka Master. He constantly hounded Kiritsugu, even going against Tokiomi Tohsaka's orders and knowledge at times. Even when he had lost his Servant and was seeking refuge in the Church. On the last day of the fourth war, Kiritsugu infiltrated the Tohsaka household and found evidence that Tokiomi had been killed with minimal struggle. Despite that, when I encountered Archer at the summit of the War, it was clear that he was being supplied prana from a Master. Given Kiritsugu's encounter with Kirei at the same time in the same area, the only reasonable conclusion we have is that the man killed his teacher with Gilgamesh's knowledge, and they formed a new pact. Gilgamesh allowed this as he saw Kirei as a more… interesting Master to have. That is the most logical conclusion Shirou and I can come up with."

The room was deadly quiet for several moments before Illya spoke up. "I take it that you have something in mind to deal with this errant Servant? The strategy you stated before sounds reasonable. However I doubt that that is all there is to it."

"Some." Shirou admitted, glancing at Saber again.

"Shirou has given me a copy of Avalon, my lost scabbard. It's the only thing we know of that can directly counter the Sword of Rupture's power. It's only one strategy we have though. We had hoped Shirou would fully master Unli… his magic, in time for the War, which would have enabled him to have a shot of taking Gilgamesh down alone in case something happened to me, but he is still a few years off from accomplishing this, so he can only fulfill a support role. We have reason to believe that Archer would somehow manage to stand a chance against Gilgamesh. As mentioned, Shirou does not have any information about him, but I do and…" she hesitated, not wanting to give away Archer's identity prematurely. A glance at Illya told her that the girl knew exactly who the Counter Guardian was, but she had no certainty about the others. If no one else knew of him yet, then it would be best to approach it as carefully as possible. "There is some merit to this assumption. Other than that, obviously a mass attack with as many Servants as possible would be ideal, and…!"

Saber looked at Shirou accusingly. While she knew exactly what this last option was, she did not expect him to actually come out and admit such a risky plan with everyone. Revealing it now could possibly cause what little cohesion that existed between those here to fail magnificently.

"Don't hold back, Emiya." Rin's voice was polite and calm again. "As I said, Edelfelt-san has informed me of everything. That includes the ridiculous story of your father seeing several futures. After all that has happened so far, I believe it is best to lay out your cards now and get it over with."

He glared at Saber, telling her to go on with the explanation. It was clear that he had a good deal of distaste for admitting this as well, but now wasn't the time to hold back such important information.

"… and… as an absolute last resort… Sakura."

Everyone blinked in surprise. Up until then his explanations had made a sliver of sense to all of them, but this admittance definitely caught them off guard. "Sakura?" Luvia couldn't help but feel as if a bad joke was being played on her. She had been patient and understanding of the situation up to this point, but this new piece of information was outlandish, even for her. "Of all the times to spew poor jokes Emiya, you chose now? She couldn't even defeat Marjatta! How on earth is she supposed to beat the strongest of Servants?!"

"By all means, I'm curious as to how you came up with such an absurd notion as well," Rin asked with as much ire and curiosity. Unlike the blonde Master, she knew that Shirou wouldn't dare admit to something like this unless he was damn sure of it, regardless of how bad of a taste it left in his mouth. "… Does this have to do with her condition as a Lesser Grail?"

The Emiya cradled his head into his hands. His headache was spiking again, so much so that it was getting hard to think or listen to everyone there. Saber frowned at this. She had had some close calls during her lifetime, even with Avalon's regeneration ability supporting her, but regardless, the damage he received from the battle should have been completely addressed by now. She would have to ask him about the nature of his injuries as soon as they were done talking.

"Yes, you are correct Rin. You all are aware that the system itself is corrupted. It turns out that Sakura's powers, her element of "imaginary numbers" meshes with the curse in the system. Too well. If left unchecked, and if she's the one that sets off the Greater Grail system itself, she could possibly unleash a genuine incarnation of Angra Mainyu, the God of All the Evils in the World, onto reality."

"How on earth is something like THAT supposed to help us?!" Illya snapped as she looked at Sakura warily. It was clear that the albino was reaching the end of her patience with how ridiculous the situation was. "If anything, that only gives us a reason to kill her now!"

"No one is killing anyone," Shirou growled with a threatening tone that he himself did not notice was just a hint unnatural, all while not taking his head up. Thankfully no one seemed to be willing to interrupt him again.

Saber's mind was flooded with information as Shirou's mind began to go over Sakura's status with the sort of sharp focus that normally came after going over a subject countless times, thus knowing it inside and out. "… Despite her condition… or rather, because of it… if Sakura manages to tap into her powers, to her connection to the Grail system itself, to Angra Mainyu… she can absorb Servants into herself forcefully. If it's just Gilgamesh, even though his soul is the equivalent of roughly three Servants, then there wouldn't be too much risk of her getting out of control given that she has more training and experience this time around. In fact, we had managed to orchestrate Caster to be summoned just for this occasion. Rule Breaker can sever her connection to the Greater Grail if things prove to be problematic. There's even a copy of it in the Workshop right now inside a bounded field that will prevent it from disappearing just in case Shirou is no longer around and the worst happens."

"Just a moment," Luvia started slowly. "… From what I've gathered, the main purpose of obtaining Rule Breaker, is only so that you may sever the connection between Matou here and the Grail, ridding her of the worms aside. Matou, no offense, is a Lesser Grail that may cause the end of the world, and only a last resort for dealing with another apocalypse that has just the barest chance of succeeding in that task. Is that correct?"

Saber could already see what Luvia was getting at. While she did somewhat feel for the girl and what was going to happen, she could not afford to allow herself to show such sympathies. She gave Shirou a look as she responded to the question, warning him of what was to come. The look back told her that he had come to the same unfortunate conclusion. "That is the initial idea correct, but it's useful enough that we may need it for another purpose later."

"So…" the blonde's voice slowly began to show more strain, and even Shriou in his current state knew that something was going to give any moment now. "By chance, wouldn't that mean that the entire purpose of fooling me and my sister into summoning Caster… and us being in the current situation now… is all the simple result of Emiya wanting to play the hero saving the damsel in distress, using her miniscule chance at solving another issue as a paltry excuse to justify his outstandingly poor judgment?"

Shirou closed his eyes in frustration as he thought of his response. From Luvia's perspective, she really did have every right to be pissed. Not only was the War she had staked her life in a farce, but nearly every major decision she's had outside of willingly entering the thing had essentially not been her own. Not only that, but she was now coming to the conclusion that one of the biggest reasons for him putting her in such danger with regards to her current choice in Servants… was simply to save a girl he liked, when Luvia and Rin obviously shared similar feelings with him no less, that very well be one of the biggest issues they would have to deal with.

From a practical standpoint… killing Sakura early on really would have been the most efficient and safest thing to do. It would make dealing with Zouken, if timed properly, significantly easier. It eliminated the risk of her turning into the primary Lesser Grail and prevented Angra Mainyu from being born. And it overall freed up everyone's hands and attention to deal with every other issue that came up much sooner. Rider's loss would have been a detriment, but she still didn't compare to Saber and she wasn't the only Servant that he would have eventually teamed up with. True she may have been a possible solution to Gilgamesh, but the odds of that happening were so minor that it really wasn't worth considering in most cases…

He knew this. Kiritsugu had pointed this out and explained it in full detail in his notes. The man even mentioned that he would have done this in his son's position without hesitation. Hell, even Waver and Sirius admitted this to be the case when they went over the sensitive topic with him, and they liked the girl.

But as far as Shirou was concerned it wasn't going to happen. End of discussion. He had ensured that Sakura lived and Zouken died. His objectives with regard to that had been achieved. As for Caster…

"Calm down," he replied tiredly. It was hard to muster up energy to speak at this point, let alone keep his eyes open. "You were going to participate in the War regardless of what I did. You've seen how much of a pain it's been for all of us to deal with Assassin being different than what was predicted. How much worse do you think it would have gotten if Caster was different too? Would you have been more comfortable if you had summoned Morgan Le Fey and stuck Marjatta with her less savory side? Or perhaps a corrupted Cleopatra? We'd likely be stuck in a similar situation to the previous war regardless."

"Worse," Saber muttered under her breath as she recalled her experiences, battles, and encounters with Morgana. As much of a pain Caster was, and even though the witch came from the Age of Gods, she paled in comparison to Saber's stepsister on a good day.

He didn't bother mentioning that due to the timing and the way things had been set up, the only other Servants that Luvia had a shot of summoning by the time Waver came back to Fuyuki with Marjatta were Caster, Assassin, and Archer. Berserker and Lancer had already been summoned by that point, he had pretty much ensured summoning Saber given what he had and what he was, and Zouken had informed him that he had done some tweaking to the system to ensure that Sakura would be summoning a Rider class Servant shortly before the War even started.

All three classes were difficult to control for one reason or another. They already had enough trouble with an out of control overpowered Archer, and if she and her sister had summoned Assassin and one went out of control like Caster did? … Well, odds were pretty likely that they wouldn't be having this conversation.

"He has a point," Rin sighed in a way that everyone that knew her could tell that she was mocking Luvia while still supporting his case. "I mean, if I was in his position, I would do the same thing. There's no point in knowing what a specific Servant can and will do if they aren't even summoned in the first place. Besides, why are you so angry? It's not like he was contracted to kill you on purpose."

"Rin…" Shirou grunted warningly. He really didn't want anyone to get excited. Excited meant yelling, and yelling never helped when dealing with a boat load of sensitive information.

"No. I'm curious about this myself," Illya spoke up with sharp eyes and accusing curiosity. "Do tell Edelfelt, what were the terms of the agreement? Who was the other party, and the price? I want to know exactly how badly someone wanted to steal my prey."

"Illya, you're really not helping…" Shirou gave his sister an accusing look. "Besides, there is likely no point in asking."

"No point in asking?" Sakura blinked in confusion.

"He means the contract signed was geassed, so I am unable to speak of the details to others. Not even Caster knows." Luvia sighed with some mild irritation. "It's a basic procedure for rather sensitive jobs like this one for obvious reasons. Emiya should also be quite familiar with them by this point as well."

"Familiar enough to know the in's and out's. Don't really need to get a geass scroll to keep me quiet that often so long as Barthomelloi is involved." His bland response managed to cause those that knew him to smile briefly. His fear of the Queen of the Clocktower was well known to all of them.

"I can admit that the contract's format was nothing outstanding though. Well, outside of who was involved really," Luvia added as if adding in a meaningless comment. "Standard payment procedures. Standard silencing subjects. Standard contract…"

Shirou's eye twitched at the statement. Saber noticed.

"Something she said catch your attention?"

"Later. Now's not the time," he mentally replied without giving any visible signal.

"A geass is just a thaumaturgical contract, correct?" Sakura asked contemplatively. "Then theoretically, it should be nullified easily with Rule Breaker, shouldn't it?"

"Along with the connection the contract has to the other party, yes. It's a rather noticeable procedure for all directly involved." Caster stated factually. "I believe that it's in everyone's best interests to avoid any further outside complications time being."

"Not like having a Dead Apostle Ancestor here is bad enough," Illya grumbled in annoyance, not realizing how big the can of worms she had just opened was.

"An Ancestor?!" Luvia shouted in surprise and alarm. She wasn't the only one that was stunned by the new information as everyone's eyes shot wide open at the statement.

"… Merem, we are going to have a very long talk in the near future about your methods of interacting with those close to me and topics that are and are not permissible to talk about." Shirou's eye began to twitch more irritably. "Circumstances?"

The albino looked away as if admitting she stole a cookie. "Ah. Well, I was planning on… participating in the battle between the Casters, Rider and Saber a week ago after it had started. Berserker and I were not that far away, but before I could get there he showed up out of nowhere. He looked my age and had blue eyes, but… I don't know how but he could turn his limbs into Divine Beasts of all things." She shivered at the memory. "One of them turned into this massive whale like creature and managed to kill Berserker through raw power alone."

"Four divine beasts?" Caster's voice was unstable. "In this era? That's… that's absurd. An individual with that much power would be considered a major power even during my time."

"His limbs?" Rin asked in a tone that Shirou recognized as one that indicated that she had already figured out who the culprit was. "Anything you forgot to include in your explanation, Shirou?"

"Don't even try to assume that I'm responsible for this one," the accused grunted, not happy that the girl had not decided to keep mum about the subject. "I'm just as surprised that he's here in the first place as you are."

"You know this abomination?!" Luvia's voice increased in volume and hysterics, and for good reason. "How?! Barthomelloi would kill you for having any sort of relationship with an Apostle! No! Ignore that! By what forgotten mystery are you even alive from encountering such a thing in the first place?!"

"Merem Solomon. Twentieth Apostle Ancestor and member of the Church's Burial Agency," Rin summarized factually and some resigned exhaustion. "I never thought he'd be back here again."

Illya blinked in confusion, trying to keep up with the new information she was being given. She had vaguely remembered the vampire introducing himself as such, but she had been so stressed during the aftermath of their battle that she had forgotten it. Outside of subjects related to the War itself and Thaumaturgy, she wasn't given that much information on the outside world. True, she knew of the Church itself and some of its dealings, but not outside of what was relevant to what she was doing. "What's the Burial Agency? He was here before?"

"The Burial Agency is the best of the best the Church has to offer when they need something addressed permanently. Executors pale in comparison to them. They are the ones the Church uses whenever they're planning on taking out Ancestors and the like, and they are very accomplished at what they do." Shirou grimaced as Saber voiced his thoughts.

He didn't get into specifics that he had learned from his position in the Clocktower and his conversations with the Ancestor, but from some of the bits and pieces that Merem had told him… he never wanted to encounter any of the other members. Ever.

"He was here at the end of the Louvre incident. He supposedly likes to collect artifacts and was interested in a mace that Louvre found shortly before everything happened. It was simply coincidence that we met him then, and the only reason why Barthomelloi didn't destroy him, and Shirou's home in the process, was because he works for the Church in hunting down other Apostles," Rin elaborated what little she knew about one of the most powerful beings on the planet. "Normally I wouldn't even dare speak of the incident for obvious reasons, but these are clearly exceptional circumstances."

"As for why he's here now? The best I can guess is that he's interested in watching the War itself and the Noble Phantasms. A common mantra among the older Apostles is that boredom is their greatest enemy." Shirou hoped that those who didn't know of his relationship with Merem would miss the fact that he had avoided mentioning anything about the time between the Louvre incident and now.

"That isn't right," Illya spoke up, gaining confused looks. "When he fought Berserker, he kept me out of the battle by carrying me on one of his beasts, one that flew. I asked him why he was interfering, and he simply replied that he was interested in seeing "the wonderfully exciting beginning of something new"."

"Something new?" everyone asked in confusion, all drawing a blank as to what the small Apostle was referring to.

"Wasn't he interested in the Grail?" Luvia probed suspiciously.

"No." The smallest one there shook her head. "He seemed to be familiar with it actually, like he was related to it in some way, but didn't seem to have any desire or care for it. He even said that if he would have participated in the war long before now if he actually did. If he was interested in Angra Mainyu, he likely would have left me alone to expedite the ritual instead of delay it."

"… So, a Dead Apostle Ancestor stopped you from making a frustrating situation worse… from our perspective at least, ripped your Servant apart several times, discussed with you in a predictably vague manner that he's not interested in the War or the Grail, but something that would come from the situation at hand… and then I'm assuming he simply let you go once things calmed down?" Rin attempted to summarize the situation in a tone that clearly did not hide her frustration as much as she wanted.

"More or less." Illya's cheeks pouted. She hated being addressed as if she was powerless when she still had Berserker at her beck and call. "Other than the damage to the surrounding area, I honestly would consider it a tame and low key encounter with an Ancestor."

"At least we aren't dealing with Tatari," Shirou muttered under his breath. From the little he had read up on that particular Ancestor, the only way they'd be safe from that one was to simply get the hell out of town as fast as bloody possible. Even Merem wasn't too keen on dealing with that particular monstrosity if he could help it.

"Tatari?" Several eyes turned to him curiously and confused. The thirteenth Apostle Ancestor was a bit of an unknown, even for those with the proper clearance to secured information about the twenty-seven. Only a handful of individuals even knew of its name, let alone existence in the first place.

"You don't want to know." He drank some more tea, grimacing as his sore throat met the liquid. His thirst didn't abate at all. He must have drank it too fast, since all he got for his efforts was a small burning sensation in his chest.

Saber managed to glimpse a few key details about the Apostle Ancestor from Shirou's mind… and couldn't help but agree with him. As powerful as they were, the only ones that might, key word, might stand a chance against such an absurd opponent were the Casters.

"Wait," Luvia spoke up. "If he works for the Church, couldn't we get him to help us? If we give him proof that the Grail is corrupted…"

"A fruitless endeavor," Saber replied as the assassin shook his head in denial. "He's probably more curious as to the outcome of the events here than worried about how things are turning up. Only after the conflicts here are somewhat resolved should we expect him to do something about Kirei… if he's still alive after this."

"Something tells me that won't be a concern," Luvia's voice made it clear that something was making her slightly unnerved. Shirou and Sakura guessed correctly what it was within a second.

"Don't even think about it, Rin." From what he had seen, the priest was just probably just as dangerous as he had been in the previous war. It was still impossible to read his body language for emotions and thoughts, but there was no way of masking the man's way of walking and carrying himself, betraying his training and technique. The man was a professional killer.

Saber agreed completely. "We need him to keep Gilgamesh in check for as long as possible. He's also a former executor. He would unquestionably defeat you if you tried to take him on yourself. Even Kiritsugu barely managed to achieve victory against him in the last war, and that was with Avalon giving him extreme regeneration abilities."

Shirou grinned feebly. "Just to let you all know… I'm not the only one that's gotten a new heart thanks to the thing." If at all possible, he'd like it if no one else in their unstable group went through the experience either. It hurt like hell.

The line was silent for a good few moments before the sound of someone taking in a deep breath was heard. "You are making this very difficult for me, Shirou. First, you tell me that the traitor who raised me is responsible for my father's death, and now you tell me to do nothing about it. I'm having trouble figuring out what's more of a pain to understand at the moment, this entire situation, or what's going through that head of yours."

"I doubt anyone knows what's going though his mind by this point," Luvia clearly pouted.

"If you don't mind, I believe now would be a reasonable time to get to the other main topic for tonight." Sakura broke the silence again before the conversation got any darker. "Shirou, didn't you say that you were going to convince Illya of everything?"

The Einzbern looked at her brother skeptically as he slowly went through what Sakura asked. "Can he? It looks like he can barely keep himself awake."

"I…" Shirou grunted as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. It really was getting hard to think. It wasn't just the exhaustion, but his entire body had been feeling off since he was shot in the heart (as peculiar as that sounded in the first place), and not in a freshly recovered way either. Despite being fully healed, his skull had not stopped throbbing since the battle, and every now and then it felt as if is chest was being stabbed from the inside out by countless tiny needles. He tried to ignore it to keep his mind fresh and prevent everyone from gutting one another, but he really was reaching his limits. "… Saber, can you help me to my workshop? I need to get some papers and make sure that nothing sensitive can be found if Caster breaks in."

"You're destroying your notes. Is that wise?" Saber noted as she stood up and moved to help him, putting his arm over her shoulders to support his weight while ignoring the smell of dried blood and bile that clung to his clothes. It was a common scent that often accompanied the end of a fierce battle, so she was not particularly bothered by it. "A bath may be in order after this."

"I have copies in hard drives hidden in multiple locations. Definitely places that Caster wouldn't look. As for the bath, I'd probably pass out and drown if I had one now." He smirked weakly. He blinked several times getting up as his vision temporarily grew blurry, but it corrected itself moments later.

Most of his notes were stored in several computers in the house with another additional copy hidden in the Fujimura household and one last one on a private secure server that Sirius made for international access. The only Servant that would even give the things a second look let alone know how they would be used is Assassin, and he definitely wasn't going to give the woman any hints if he could help it.

Saber frowned as she noticed his moment of weakness, but didn't point it out. She doubted that the others at the table missed it either. Regardless she slowly made her way out of the room with her Master. "… I see. We will be back in a moment."

"Hard drives?" Illya blinked in confusion as the pair left, not familiar with the term.

"Electronic information storage devices. What stores all the raw information on computers," Sakura replied. Rin may have been the genius of the pair when it came to Thaumaturgy, but the younger sibling had a far easier time understanding technology.

"I see… so they are like the brain of the computer?" Illya inquired curiously, her expressions once again regressing to that of an innocent child.

"More the soul… or just the frontal lobe for those who aren't educated as Magi. Where all the information is stored," Sakura elaborated factually.

"I see. I see. Modern technology really is a peculiar craft." She bobbed her head up and down in understanding. "And how do computers connect to this… intraweb? What is the exact method of exchanging of information? Does it also have to do with this hard drive?"

"Please don't tell me I sound like this whenever I ask questions about technology." Rin pleaded out loud, horrified at the thought of sounding as oblivious as a (seemingly) twelve year old child.

"I can only make assumptions Tohsaka." Luvia stifled a minor giggle, not saying that she suspected that her rival was even worse than she thought.

Had a certain Archer been present for the conversation, he would have without hesitation confirmed his Master's worst fears.

"Ah… I'm not exactly sure about that." Sakura bashfully looked away nervously. "I only know some general information about computers. Parts and functions. What you're asking is a good deal more technical that a professional would focus on. Shirou might know…" She paused. "Actually, I doubt it, he's more hardware oriented than software…"

"Hardware? Software?" Illya's head shot back to Sakura expectantly with wide eyes. If anyone didn't know any better, they could have sworn that she was sparkling with innocence.

"Er… The components themselves, and the functions within them," the more mature of the two hesitantly replied, wondering how she got stuck in the situation.

"I see. Now I get it. But… why do they call them hard drives, if they store information for soft ware?" The girl tilted her head to the side in confusion.

"Um… well…" Sakura began to look around nervously. The girl that was supposedly older than her was bombarding her with questions like the child she appeared to be, and it was really to get to areas that she had no answer for. She could have sworn that she heard a snort of a barely restrained laugh over the phone, but couldn't tell who the source was. Mentally she shouted out a plea for someone to change the topic of conversation so she wouldn't embarrass herself anymore.

"As amusing and informative as your conversation is… I believe that we still have some more slightly important things to discuss," Rin's rather annoyed voice echoed from the table, killing the mood in an instant. "Such as how we are going to manage to deal with Caster AFTER she gets Rider to spill everything she knows to her. Sakura, as Rider's Master you spent the most time with her right? For clarification, just how much does she know?"

"Rider?" Sakura blinked in temporary confusion, flashing to depression as she remembered that her Servant and confident was no longer there, and then pushed her feelings aside to ponder the question. Rin was correct in her concerns, obviously. All things considered they probably should have brought this subject up earlier in order to determine what could go wrong. No doubt Caster was interrogating Medusa as they spoke, attempting to wring out as much information about them as possible in order to gain the advantage as quick as possible.

In contrast, given how things have gotten so far, Rider doesn't know much that hasn't already been shouted to the world already.

"Well, she does know of the existence of Shirou's original notes on the alternate Wars, but he's already destroying those and she doesn't know of the copies. There's the information on the other Servants. Gilgamesh and Kirei, but that would only make her even more paranoid and defensive. It would probably prevent her from acting out in the short term save for maybe stealing more prana from the city…" She began to list off what Rider knew of, but she couldn't help but feel that he was missing something.

The only other major secrets that Shirou had been keeping from virtually everyone was that he had a Reality Marble, which everyone but Luvia and maybe Illya knew by this point… and… and…

Her face paled dramatically and her stomach fell through the floor.

"It seems there is something that we should prepare for." Illya frowned as she noted Sakura's alarming change in appearance.

Before she could reply, Saber's voice was heard from outside. "Shirou!"

Sakura was the first to respond to the frantic cry as she ran outside to see what was happening. The bounded fields around the building hadn't been triggered or broken in any way, so there shouldn't be anyone attacking. That however made things all the more alarming, as to her knowledge Saber never raised her voice for any reason outside of emergencies.

"What?! What's going on?!" Rin shouted through the phone, her voice clearly worried, but was ultimately ignored by Illya and Sakura as they rushed outside to see what the commotion was all about.

What they saw was Saber leaning over to support Shirou as he attempted to gasp for air as he threw up copious amounts of blood and chunks of lungs onto the earth. Every brief inhale and exhale he made was wet sounding, but his voice itself was the most unnerving as every hint of it that came out of his mouth sounded almost metallic, and hollow sounds of things not of the human body scraped from the inside.

"He started to complain about his chest just as we were coming out," Saber explained to the girls as she supported him, ignoring the fact that she had some blood on her clothes and face. "The pain grew worse as we were coming back until this happened. What little I know of medicine isn't enough to deal with this, and Avalon isn't helping for some reason."

Sakura grimaced as she grabbed onto Shirou's heaving shoulders and attempted to inspect him. One of the benefits of being trained by him in reinforcement was that it increased her knowledge and familiarity of the human body. It was nowhere near perfect and she was nowhere near good enough to consider it good enough for standard medical use, but it was useful enough that she could usually identify the initial cause of major problems.

It only took a few moments for her to see the source.

"His OD is fluctuating like mad. I've never seen this before. His left lung and heart…" She blinked in disbelief. "They turned into… like bladed mesh. They're tearing themselves apart inside of him. Avalon's healing the damage but every time they move everything just gets shredded again. He's choking on his own blood."

"Blades?" Illya frowned as she looked at Shirou in confusion and concern. "You mean like in his Reality Marble?"

Saber and Sakura didn't even bother wasting time being surprised by the girl's statement as Shirou continued to gasp for air and unload crimson fluid below him. "Do either of you know any spells to deal with this?" the former asked somewhat impatiently.

"No. I was never trained in those kinds of mysteries," Sakura admitted as she knelt down and stabilized his head. "What I can do is try to stabilize his circuits. His prana is running erratically. If I do that his insides might return to normal, but it's hard if we can't get him to stop moving like this…"

"Is that all? Why didn't you say that in the first place?" Illya huffed in an annoyed tone as she strutted forward, ignoring the blood that got onto her shoes and clothes, and lifted her brother's head enough to make eye contact. Her intent to use her Mystic Eyes to paralyze and knock her brother out cold stalled though as she saw that his brown human eyes were not like they were before, but glowing silver and slit. Not only that, but his blood drenched teeth revealed elongated canines.

Shirou heaved unsteadily as his dazed eyes seemed to look forward but not see anything at all. "Ill-ya?" He gasped out in exhaustion. Whether the question was to ask what she was doing or if it was her in the first place no one knew.

The girl blinked several time before backing up a step, clearly afraid of him.

She seemed more surprised when he shakily managed to lift up an arm and hand her a blood spattered file and a small journal and attempted to smile harmlessly.

"H-Here's e-!" He lurched forward and unloaded another small load of blood onto the ground beneath him. Despite the toll it took on him, it was clear that he was making an effort into trying to make sure it didn't get on anyone. "Here's everything. S-Sorry I took so long."

Looking at the documents as if realizing their existence for the first time, the girl took a few moments to take the bloodstained papers from his hand and hold them to her chest. "Stupid…" She muttered the feeble insult under her breath before stepping forward without any of her prior hesitation and waited for a pause in his rampant coughing before lifting his head up and glaring at his non-human eyes.

"Kiritsugu really is unfair, making me take care of someone like you." She frowned in annoyance as she channeled prana into her mystic eyes and knocked him out in a matter of seconds. Had he been in better condition, he easily could have resisted the rather weak thaumaturgical impulse like any other second rate magus, but that clearly wasn't the case.

Standing to her full, if limited height, Illya glared at Sakura and Saber as they got to work stabilizing and attending to the now unconscious Shirou. She barely noticed the dark shadows that Sakura produced go into Shirou's mouth, likely so that they could clean out his air passageway of the blood that may pool inside. A crude method, but it was not as if they had any other to go by at this point.

At the same time, Sakura had also cut a hole into his side in order for all the blood pooling in his chest cavity to leak out and not crush his lungs. She had minimal medical training, but she had learned enough to know that the cause for many deaths in terms of internal bleeding caused by broken ribs was suffocation due to the collected blood compressing the lungs against the rest of the body.

"When, dare I ask, was anyone going to warn me that Onii-chan was a Dead Apostle?"

o. o. o.

Somewhere off the coast of Australia:

He took his time in front of his private full body mirror, ensuring that every facet of his appearance was ideal. His crisp and styled cut black hair. His tan unblemished skin. His gleaming white smile. His facial hair trimmed in just the right way that women would consider his appearance rugged and sexy while still being short enough that they wouldn't consider it possibly getting in the way.

It wouldn't be hard to mistaken him for a male model with the effort he put into everything. His body was nothing short of impressive, standing tall and proud at a solid six foot one, and a hundred and eighty pounds of refined lean muscle, the Spaniard confidently inspected everything about himself once more.

It was not out of vanity that he put so much into his appearance. Not entirely. While he did put a good deal of effort to ensure that he was presentable and provided a proper representation of those under his charge at all times, tonight was a special case.

His attire was simple, yet at the same time colorful. A crisp and dry cleaned high collar black military suit with the expected ornate buttons and medals that represented feats and honors that no one outside of the system truly cared about save for the fact that it meant that he accomplished a good deal of feats. Over his left shoulder that traveled across his chest to his left hip, he bore a violet sash, a reminder of the life and loyalty he once held. Over his right he donned an identical white one with red trimmings, to represent his current loyalties. A saber hung off of his waist, a symbol of his position as a ranked member of the military when he received it, but now enchanted with various spells to make it more effective in battle.

And on top of his head, a rather large and old fashioned Spaniard hat from the sixteenth century. The feather had long since worn away, and it didn't truly match the rest of his outfit, however that was irrelevant. The hat itself was like an old friend of his and had been with him through many battles throughout his deceptively long life. His nameless companion was always with him during important events, even before he became a privateer. It was something worthy of the leader of an awe inspiring march of military might just like the ones he witnessed as a child.

And hosting a dinner for his Master was without a doubt worthy of such an occasion.

He gave himself yet another look over, scanning himself for any imperfections that only his eyes could seemingly make out. It always astounded him just how greatly fashion and cosmetics seem to change in the modern world. However, he admitted that he was not against the developments in the past twenty or so years. Humanity had finally developed a modicum of subtlety and practicality in their products and standards, and it pleased him.

He even admitted that the current style that he had his facial hair in was a good deal more comfortable and attractive than his old favorite back when he had been alive. Getting his moustache to curl like it had was always a bit of a trial, not to mention that it itched at the worst times.

Of course he wouldn't dare attempt to try his charms on his Master, his Commanding General. It was not only pointless, foolish, and insulting to do so, worthy of a court martial if not be put down all together… but there was also the fact that he preferred the company of those more… masculine.

Admittedly it was a peculiar taste that caused many to have negative views of him, but it was of little concern. Not like he was the first person in a position of power to have such tastes. It always astounded him that people tended to be surprised whenever a notable member of the Church gets caught with their pants down, literally, with a choir boy or two. Hell, it had been happening since before he was even born, let alone turned.

"Sir!" One of his men stepped into his room after knocking. Crisp and professional, the man stood at the ready as soon as he stepped inside. Unlike him, the man was wearing a more modern attire for those in the military with camo colored clothing. It reminded him that he was using an American based unit to keep things up and running for the week. Not exactly his first pick, but he had to admit that they did have an efficient work ethic when given a task. "It is time for your meeting."

"Perfect timing my friend, as expected," he replied in English with a hint of his Spaniard accent, enough to be noticeable but not enough to confuse anyone that heard him. He had a natural gift of tongues, even when he was a child, be it for charisma or for other languages in general.

It always amused him when he told people that he was actually Italian. He moved to Spain as a child barely out of diapers and subsequently grew up there, hence the accent.

"At ease. Anything of note to report? The little beastie didn't give you any trouble this time did he?"

The Soldier's mouth twitched at the small joke, but that was the largest movement he made at attention. "Negative. After the previous episode, the men know better than to let their guard down."

The Captain nodded. Normally he would make a larger fuss about sustaining and attending to that creature as he despised being nothing short of immaculate when in front of his Master, but as with all wild beasts, one could not always be correct. Thankfully, his Master understood this perfectly and did not hold the incident against him… and also nothing happened this time.

He was not exactly suited to handle such an abomination anyways.

"Quickly, do tell me your thoughts." He twisted to give himself an inspection of his back and sides. "Too much? Too little? Not enough flair? Does my rear stick out too much? I still have dreadful nightmares the last time I missed such an obvious and humiliating flaw." Said event was almost two centuries ago.

"In all honesty sir, I am not one to ask about such things. Fashion and dealing with nobility were not exactly a common topic where I came from. Much less possible dealings of those of your position," the soldier replied honestly, avoiding the topic of his commander's rear.

"True, but there is no harm in asking for an outside opinion," the man whimsically admitted. He had after all completely ignored his family's wishes when he was but a sheltered boy to join the military. He essentially started his life over from scratch, learning what common culture was first hand. Several attempts were made on his life for that, but that was to be expected. One didn't attempt to leave the world of Magi without such risks. "Simplicity and practicality are arts in themselves, if applied right. So long as the Grand Marshal is easily identifiable among those he is responsible for and is an appropriate representative, all will fall into place."

The visitor nodded understandingly. "All things considered sir, if I hadn't seen you eat and drink before, I would have suggested something that wouldn't stain just in case. Your outfit costs more than I probably would have made in my pension if I had retired."

The leader snorted in amusement. The man's compliment more than confirming that his image was indeed worthy of his Master. "It always astounds me how little countries care for those that have fought for them. I thank you for your contribution for tonight."

"Just doing what's needed of me." The soldier saluted again. "Will that be all?"

"In this room, yes. Please do accompany me as I make way to our guests." He walked past the soldier without sparing him a second glance and into the hallway, not bothering to watch as his subordinate closed the door behind him and took his spot behind him and to the left.

"So I take it that everything is well? No problems preparing tonight's meal?" While he did adore his ship and did try to keep things as well preserved as possible, even he had to make some adaptations as time went on. Thaumaturgically, the vessel was a marvel that was unstoppable and undetectable via any force on the open sea save for a handful of individuals. When most humans laid eyes on it, they either ignored it completely or had their impressions warped to assume it was a moderately large pleasure cruise ship instead of the massive armed sailboat it was.

Despite this, the kitchen of his boat was completely modernized and supplied with the latest technology whenever available. Thaumaturgy and mysteries of the arcane could only help so much when your original kitchen looked like a cross between a butcher shop and a torture chamber. Plus it made storing and preserving his drinks vastly easier as well.

Of course, having installed plumbing and better bathrooms into the ship helped with the quality of existence on his pride and joy a great deal as well.

"Yes sir. Our guests of honor are waiting your arrival on the bridge as expected. Both have been supplied with the brands that you have explicitly pointed out and to our knowledge appear to be satisfied with them."

"Hah," the captain chuckled. He knew his charge was merely relaying his beliefs. His Master was a difficult one to read on a good day with those that she did not care about. To assume that the man could tell if she was pleased with anything was the same as expecting him to tell if she was disappointed with the same matter. It was akin to handing a plastic coin to a blind man and asking him what side was black and the other white…

Well… that would have been the case if it weren't for the fact that she had a bad habit of being far more insulting and bitter if she wasn't happy with something. Given from the fact that the soldier from Utah wasn't hesitating, it seemed to be the case that she hadn't reduced any of his men into a miserable weeping mess with her tongue waiting for him. Trained soldiers or not, the girl was relentless when she wanted to be.

He opened the large wooden doors to the outside and breathed in the strong salty air. Australia was always an interesting land to visit. So far out of the way of anywhere really and yet the mysteries native to this land always seemed to surprise him…

… That and Australia was where most of the world's remaining phantasmal beasts tended to live nearby these days. Africa was being swarmed by more humans by the day now, and most thaumaturgical beasts tended to instinctively stay away from South America ever since ORT landed there, or so he had been told.

He marched professionally to the dinner table that had been set up on the center of the bridge and stood at full attention in front of a young woman that appeared no older than fourteen years of age… and the truck sized white wolf lying down right behind her, lazily lapping up blood from a large saucer obtained just for this situation.

Snapping his feet together with an audible click, the man stood ramrod straight and saluted the pair in front of him. Without any indication that they had been paying attention earlier, the soldiers around the ship had matched his movements perfectly just as he did so. Even the most strict training would not be able to enforce such a perfect reaction from the humans there attending some of the most dangerous individuals on the planet. "I have come as requested! My lady, I hope everything is in order."

Altrouge Brunstud did not appear to notice his unnecessary display as she calmly drank the blood served to her in a wine glass. Both knew she was rather put off by his constant military behavior every time they met and the fact that he seemed to love making a show of it as well, but at the same time both knew that he would never stop even if she threatened him to.

Silence permeated the area for minutes as the elder child of Type Moon casually sampled the drinks provided, ignoring the man standing at full attention in front of her and the beast that was staring at him in mild boredom.

"… Do sit down Fina. You look ridiculous standing there like a fool," she relented after fifteen minutes.

"And I will continue to play the part so long as we continue to be." Said fool, the Eighth Apostle Ancestor, Fina-Blood Svelton bowed deeply with a wry grin on his face before taking his seat and motioning to his charges to proceed with the meal. Within moments, a variety of dishes was spread out in front of them. "So how was Australia? I must admit, it is rather interesting for you to visit this part of the world."

"Peculiar." The red eyed girl replied bluntly, as if the word summarized her trip perfectly for anyone to understand. "The mysteries that originate from this island are a good deal similar to those of the Native Americans, and yet are of a different mold at the same time…"

White Knight Svelton could easily tell that the girl was not in a good mood. "I assume it was rather tiresome to find shelter and sustenance during your travels…"

"Please do remind me of this trip the next time I have the idea to visit another barren wasteland," the half breed pouted slightly as she drank her blood.

"I keep telling you, that is why we have that dusty old Strout," the Privateer grinned, clearly amused. "He doesn't mind a little sun every now and then."

"I'll make sure to let him know you said that the next time I send him off on a task." She was very much aware that her two Knights didn't exactly see eye to eye most of the time. In fact she was quite amused by their bickering more often than not.

The good natured Italian would have snorted, but he had just taken a bite of the steak that had been prepared. As always, it was very rare. Allowing himself a few moments to chew and digest, he gathered his thoughts. "So then, what business is up for discussion tonight? It is not often that you take the time to call me out and visit me on my ship. Much less, so far away from our usual areas of influence."

Most would assume it would be because ships are slow. Others would assume it would because they had some means of communicating over long distances…

While both were correct, the real truth of the matter was something far more embarrassing and thus less known: Altrouge was remarkably susceptible to seasickness. Even a small amount of rocking would cause her pale face to turn a shade of green. The only reason why she tolerated being on his ship now was simply because it was docked and not going anywhere.

"Tatari is dead," his superior stated simply as she placed down her empty glass and request for a refill from one of the soldiers there, who attended to her almost instantly.

"Truly?" The captain would be lying if he said he wasn't surprised. While he was technically higher ranked, Fina doubted more than a small fraction of the Apostle Ancestors were even capable of fighting the Thirteenth, let alone kill him, or more accurately, it. He, admittedly, was not one of them. "How so?"

"It seems that he had the unfortunate fate of manifesting in the city that my sister was dwelling at the time." The girl sighed as if talking about some minor issue, like a lost dollar.

Ah, that explains why she was all the way out here. She was the only one that knew when and where that bizarre phenomenon would show up next… or where he should have showed up in this case. She was making sure that he really was gone for good. Even if they did have a pact, it was always a bit of a chore for her to keep tabs on that one.

"Mmmm. First Chaos, then Roa, now Tatari. Arcruied is certainly managing well recently…" It was an understatement. The previous Tenth and Thirteenth were among the most difficult Ancestors to kill, period. The Pirate could only think of maybe two or three other Ancestors that were a bigger challenge to figure out how to put down permanently as those two, and one of them wasn't even from the planet in the first place.

"We welcomed Chaos' demise since he was Ortenrosse's. However Tatari was a long term investment of mine," the girl stated factually.

"And with dear White Wing's little ritual coming up in a few years, losing any sort of power now would be concerning." The White Knight nodded in understanding. "However I still do not see the purpose of this meeting. As it stands you need more subordinates in positions of power, and while I would gladly throw in a few names…"

He chuckled lightly as he looked at the soldiers at his command.

The issue was that he had never made a Ghoul, Undead, or Apostle in his existence.

"… So then, what sort of show shall I perform for you on this occasion?" He shrugged before placing another minor piece of meat into his mouth and savored the taste. Oh he was certainly thanking his stars for when he came across that culinary and supply unit from France a few decades back.

"We need something to counterbalance this loss of power while White Wing is distracted with his project." The black haired girl summarized. "Something that won't get his attention, but a significant action regardless."

"A fine line indeed. Subtlety but with force behind it. Who do you have in mind?" In inter-Apostle Ancestor matters, the main question was always "who". "What" came much later.

Altrouge's gaze was unflinching, crimson pools that contrasted her pale skin and dark hair perfectly. "We need some new blood in our ranks. This Ash of Miracles that Solomon has sponsored has my curiosity."

Fina blinked a few times in genuine surprise. He had been with his master for centuries and was used to her way of thinking, but even so he was still caught off guard by her decisions sometimes. "Him? Truly? Isn't it rumored that he's young, even by human standards? Even Solomon admits that he is only about as strong as Louvre was…"

All things considered, White Wing's decision to make Louvre an Apostle Ancestor was more of a joke than anything among the other Ancestors. Apostles were immortal yes, but waiting two hundred years for the weakling to finally gain enough power to fulfill his role was still a bit of a stretch. The man was more of a place holder for Ortenrosse to claim that he had one more spot on the list of Twenty Seven under his influence. If it weren't for the fact that coming across powerful and influential Apostles was growing more difficult as time went on, Altrouge would have killed him herself as a reaction to having her pride insulted as such.

"Doesn't that make you all the more curious?" his elder countered casually. "Solomon is all but a traitor to our kind and rarely gets involved in our politics, and yet when it came to this child he willingly took the initiative, something he never does."

"Yes, but aside from that he has been rather mute with excess details. All in all I'd rather focus on the targets that I know of and are against us than ones that seem to not bother getting involved at all," the White Knight pointed out factually. "Other than his title, apparent age, and supposed potential, little is known about him, and I doubt that Crown will change that habit anytime soon." Much less for us.

He left unsaid that Solomon despised his Master with a burning passion that was only rivaled by Blackmore. It wasn't a secret to anyone and wasn't worth bothering to actually bring it up.

"All the more reason to enlist his aid." Altrouge seemed to be amused by her bodyguard's uncertainty. "An Apostle that no one seems to know about and is capable of hiding even from our gaze. If Solomon of all people put in the effort to place him among our ranks, then there must be something quite special about him. Something that we can use…"

Fina sighed in defeat. He knew that look. It was his Master's way of saying that something had her interest and she would not stop until it was hers. And if he didn't help she would make him miserable. It was a childish habit, and she would deny it to the point of threatening to sick Primate Murder on the accuser, followed by actually following through with it, but all things considered there was little he could do. "What would you have me do milady?"

Surely she didn't actually expect him to just walk up to Crown and ask him where the newcomer was? The Twentieth was many things, but a weakling he was not. All things considered he was one of the most powerful of the Twenty Seven despite his low rank. As strong as the military man was, he did not fancy his odds against the Demon Summoner in a one on one fight.

That wasn't to say that he would lose, far from it, but victory would no doubt come with a heavy cost.

"I didn't take you for being afraid of Crown, Riza." Altrouge smirked, all but reading his neutral expression perfectly.

Apparently she was considering it.

"I am a practical man. I prefer to undertake tasks that are in my favor, as you well know. Clearly there are some additional factors that will work in our favor then?" He chuckled in mild shame that he had been read so openly.

The girl didn't respond instantly as she drank some more of the blood served to her and stared at the glass with a bored fascination. "It appears that our acquaintance has recently taken an interest in that peculiar ritual that Kaleidoscope fabricated in Japan some time ago."

"Japan? Oh, you mean the one invoking alternate forms of… no, no that was in Peru. Ah, the one invoking Heroic Spirits and the Third Magic, right? What was its name again… The Holy Grail War? I had forgotten that was taking place so soon." He had to scratch his head a bit in order to call up the correct information. As great as the Five True Magics were, they rarely actually interested the Twenty Seven… save for Zelretch for obvious reasons. "It would indeed prove to serve as a fine show, but I personally would not be willing to risk… ah."

All things considered, Servants were generally seen as beings on par, or even stronger than the Twenty Seven Apostle Ancestors on average, exceptions such as Primate Murder and ORT excluded for obvious reasons. While the immortal nobles were powerful and did tend to wish to put breaks in the perpetual boredom that accompanied their near limitless lifespans, they were not foolish as to risk their existences on some petty entertainment that would not gain them anything in the process.

Exposing themselves would only result in the War itself being put on hold and being turned into a large scale Apostle Ancestor hunt. Especially with a member of the Church designated as the moderator.

"There are a good number of eyes on this particular ritual. Barthomelloi's dog is a participant and everyone seems to be curious as to what he will do." Despite what others may have assumed, Altrouge was actually quite amused by the Emiya's title as the "Queen's Silver Dog". To her it was akin to small children attempting to get a rise out of her. Knowing the shallow fools at the Clocktower though, it was likely more of an attempt to get the poor boy killed. The fact that Barthomelloi tended to sick said "dog" on Ortenrose's subordinates whenever he hunted Apostles only further entertained her.

Secretly she wondered how much further urging the White Winged Lord would need before he would admit to being a "cat" person.

"Emiya… now there's a name I haven't heard in some time." As a general rule, Fina hated lone assassins and mercenaries by sheer principle. He couldn't stand those that worked by and for themselves. No country. No honor. No pride. Such things left a terrible taste in his mouth. He could never comprehend such reprehensible individuals.

At the same time, he could not deny that the man was a bit of an artist in what he did. As much as he would rather not speak of it, the truth was that even he had learned a few things from the few exploits he had heard about the Magus Killer. The Church and the Magus Association weren't the only ones that had kept their eyes open whenever his name had been uttered.

"Am I to understand that you wish for me to multitask in… what is the location of the Ritual again?" he asked skeptically.

"Fuyuki," His master replied after swallowing more food. "And no. So long as Barthomelloi focuses on Ortenrosse, I see no reason why we should deprive her of her new favorite pet. Simply encountering Solomon will be enough. There is need to antagonize that woman needlessly when we share a mutual target to harass."

"Fair enough. I have enough terrifying females in my life." Fina grinned tauntingly at his Master, earning an irritated glare in response. She did not like being compared to Rita Rozay-en, the Fifteenth Ancestor.

All joking aside, Lorelei Barthomelloi really was one of the few humans on the planet that the other Apostle Ancestors were genuinely wary of to the point that they did not even consider her a human in the first place. To approach her with nothing but utmost caution was a near death sentence. The woman had already single handedly dispatched three Ancestors by herself.

"Don't even try to place blame of the source of your tastes on me, Fina. You had them before I had even turned you," the girl glared as she focused on her meal.

That was more true than most would know. He had been forced to be a privateer for the Spanish Crown after his at the time secret lover, who happened to be one of the lead commanders for the Navy at the time, singled him out for his homosexuality in order to avoid getting caught himself. Essentially, he was banished from his home and country despite all the love and effort he had put into protecting her and her people. It was almost a decade after the event that he had been turned.

He dramatically placed his hand over his heart and gasped. "Me? Blame you? You wound me, my lady! How could you ever assume that I would ever do anything so crass?!"

"Watching you and Strout in the same room is reason enough," she grumbled much like a petulant child, staring at him with accusing eyes.

"That fossil lacks even a single elegant drop of blood in his stale body," the male pouted just as childishly. Just imagining how horrid the man's blood must taste sent shivers down his spine.

"His bladework begs to differ, unlike yours," the elder pointed out factually, knowing that her Black Knight was far more accomplished with his sword than her White Knight. "Now if we are done bickering like mortal children, we can continue with our original discussion."

The somewhat flamboyant man's features hardened as his posture lost the energetic tenseness that it held earlier. "Of course. Now then, since we are speaking of dealing with Solomon, I take it that you have come to deliver some sort of restitution for his cooperation."

Despite his misgivings with dealing with small Ancestor, it wasn't the first time they would deal business with one another. Normally it had something to do with an exchange between Altrouge and the Church in an attempt to cripple Ortenrosse in some way, and with a good deal more talking and back alley meetings in preparation, but in those cases Solomon was usually apathetic to the entire situation… or was sated with a trinket or two to add to his collection.

Now though they were asking him for information, if not a conversation with his pet project, his protégé… dare say even his friend. Useless millennia old knick knacks weren't going to sate his urge to spit in their faces.

"Of course. Your toys are fun to play with, but they are not of the sort that Crown would enjoy wasting his time with." The girl nodded her head in agreement, ignoring the small twitch in her Knight's face as she insulted everything he lived for.

Before he could respond though, his master proceeded to whistle several notes in rapid succession.

In response, the tremendous wolf behind her, Primate Murder, The Beast Of Gaia itself, who had been lazily resting on the deck behind her, raised its head up almost instantly.

Unlike his soldiers on the bridge, who had all flinched and stayed clear away from the tremendous monster, some even collapsing under the very change in reality, Fina didn't so much as twitch in the creature's presence. He had spent over a decade restraining this instinctive impulse, the ghost like memories of his past human self screaming and begging him to run and flee with every twitch made by the beast ignored with a will that surpassed anything a normal human could possess.

And at the same time, he swore multiple times in his mind about how he absolutely hated it whenever his Master commanded the monstrosity around on his Ship without prior warning. He nearly lost his vessel the first time she had decided to visit with it unannounced.

… And the Second.

… And the two dozen times after that until he finally wised up and set up a bounded field that warned him whenever the monstrosity was within a five hundred knot radius of the ship.

Every time a paw twice the size of a truck tire landed on the bridge the entire ship trembled as if it was also terrified of the creature walking on it. Slowly, at least for it, Primate Murder sauntered up to the one it deemed as its master and placed its front right paw in arm's reach of her. Strapped onto the tremendous limb was a deceivingly simple looking leather pouch that no doubt held a good deal of items on the inside and was durable enough to withstand being on the monster for an extended period of time.

The girl opened up the flap on top and within moments pulled out a large but simple box with some runes on it that Fina recognized as sequences to preserve delicate and perishable items inside. He stared at it curiously as he had neither seen the box before, nor had any idea of what was inside that could possibly entice Solomon. He was interested in trinkets, not insects or bones or…

His Master opened the box in front of him.

His mind stopped working instantly and his face turned a pale shade.

"This is your first time seeing it, I believe," Altrouge casually mused, enjoying his reaction. "I am somewhat surprised you recognized what it was so quickly."

"… I do not need eyes to recognize the nature of what is in front of me, milady." Fina's boisterous and confident disposition was gone as his voice rose to no greater than a whisper. He licked his lips hesitantly, trying to find the right words and questions to ask for this unexpected development. "I was unaware that… is that by chance all…?"

"A third." Her response was as casual as it could be, as if she was speaking about the weather. "More than enough to serve its purpose should I have need of it. In all honesty, I was getting rather annoyed by the fact that it was serving no purpose other than gathering dust for centuries."

A lump formed in his throat. Oh, mentioning that during negotiations would definitely cause a few tensions at the bargaining table. All things considered, he wouldn't doubt Solomon forgoing subtlety and attempting to murder him with all his might the instant he found out what the Corsair had in his possession, let alone caught a glimpse of it. He had dealt with forbidden treasures over the centuries, but this definitely set the bar. "I did not assume we were in such a dire situation."

As far as she was concerned, Ortenrosse they could manage. Solomon and Blackmoore as well, normally, even if they should attempt to interfere with their goals. All at once, which was likely to happen during the Aylesbury ritual in a couple of years' time, even she was a bit skeptical about, but she was still confident that with her guards that everything would turn out her way.

Having a significant joker in the works that they had next to no information about on while this potential world shaking free for all took place on the other hand…

Her soft voice held a sharp edge, like a serrated fang to the listener's neck. "Solomon has never done something like this before, and the timing is suspicious. Allowing our enemies to gather more strength when the ritual is so close would be foolish. This token is more than enough to prompt him to grant you an audience. If you cannot sway the child to our influence, or unable kill him without significantly risking yourself, gather as much information as possible and ensure his neutrality, if at least for the duration of the ritual. We can deal with him at our leisure afterward."

Essentially, she was stopping a problem before it became a problem. She didn't know how big it was or could be, or even if it was a problem in the first place, but she couldn't afford to overlook it now.

If the cost was some of the golden hair that she stole from her sister, so be it.

o. o. o.

A/N:

(Sitting behind a panel of uber enchanted and fortified glass, videotaped from an undisclosed location.)

… Man if I didn't already know that my fics have such a polarized fanbase I'd be shitting bricks letting this chapter out.

And you guys thought that this chapter would be nothing but simple exposition. Hah!

FYI. I hate exposition chapters so, SO much. Tohe trick you have to fit in is to blow up the characters who didn't know everything's reactions to epic proportions to get anything out of this.

As of now: Rin really hates Luvia. Luvia is tweaked at Shirou and her sister, scared of Rin, and pissed at Sakura. Illya is wary of… pretty much everyone except Saber, and very leery of Sakura. Sakura's the only one that actually doesn't have hard feelings toward anyone… save Marjatta. Saber is more focused on trying to keep Shirou alive. Berserker is… Berserker. Princess Caster is pissed off at Shirou…

Everyone doesn't trust Archer. And likewise everyone is essentially pissed off at Shirou for one reason for another… and Shirou is unconscious. Again. I really have to stop doing that.

Ok. First things first. Fina-Strout Svelton. Eighth Apostle Ancestor. If you look him up on type moon wiki… you'll only find a handful of information on him. I took what was there, and fabricated the character appearing in the story. This is not Cannon! This is only my educated guess as to what his character is given what little we know! Don't bitch to me about it!

Cannon:

He DOES like drinking the blood of young boys, and the name Fina originates from the thirteenth century Italian Saint Fina, so the oldest he can be is around 750. Throw in the uses of Parades (the name of his reality marble) in history combined with the general history of real world pirates...

Using those as the base for his character, I have fabricated what I hope will be a passable character of my design that will fit the part for the duration of the story. It will no doubt be wrong compared to whatever Nasu comes out with, obviously, but again, I'm doing it anyways. Why? … Honestly I don't know, but I felt like it fit the more I thought about the general design so I went with it. It's not like we'll be getting Tsukihime2 in the next decade anyways.

Not Cannon:

Essentially Fina is a homosexual corsair (… or butt pirate for the more crude of humor), his appearance is based off of Oberyn Martel's (Game of Thrones). His personality can be considered flamboyant enough that it is clear he is gay to those that pay attention, but it is not his only notable defining personality trait, nor is it the only thing that pops up when others think of how to describe him. He is very professional when on the job and extremely dedicated to his duty to the point of minor (but not blind) zealotry, despite being kicked out of the Spanish navy and living most of his life as a pirate when he was alive. The only thing that he is more dedicated to than Altrouge is the men and women that he has taken under his wing.

As side hobbies, he enjoys keeping up with the latest fashion trends, watching the occasional soap opera, exercising, wine (and blood) tasting, prolonging international conflicts, spying on world power and their military exercises, and playing the violin. He does not enjoy most forms of current pop music, considering it lazy, inelegant, and an affront to sophisticated ears.

Out of the Twenty Seven, he can be considered "among the bottom half in raw power, but among the most efficient and lethal to mankind overall" which is why he has such a high rank, as opposed to Merem Solomon, who I (Personally) consider to be "among the top half in overall destructive capability". While he has made fun of Louvre in the story, they are roughly the same age (again, something I have made up), which makes him the youngest of Atlrouge's main bodyguards. He is stronger than Louvre simply because Fina is naturally more distorted than him to the point that he has mastered his Reality Marble for centuries already.

Overall he can be considered one of the most social and accepting of the Twenty Seven Apostle Ancestors, and shares many viewpoints with Vam Fem when it comes to humans despite the fact that there is bad blood between them. He is somewhat capable with modern technology and recognizes its worth, but relies on his subordinates for tasks that require more advanced knowledge.

In contrast, Fina is not fond of Magi and members of the Church for reasons and events that stemmed from when he was alive. The former is a bit peculiar as he was born as the inheritor of an at the time reasonably powerful family with a good number of quality circuits that were well suited for his family's field of study.

I will be adding more to his character as more chapters come out.

For Altrouge.. yeah she's pretty much going to be an off screen boss for this fic. Kinda like Barthomelloi only more so in this case. Keep in mind that she doesn't really care one bit about Shirou, Kiritsugu, or anyone named Emiya. She's just keeping her priorities straight. I took some liberties with her personality and such, but not to the level that I'm going with Svelton.

Overall, I'm timing things such that the Grail War takes place roughly six months to a year after the events of Meltyblood… or events that yield the same results as what happened in Meltyblood. I know that Tsukihime happens in 2000, and meltyblood supposedly happens a yearish after that, but I'm being a bit liberal in this case and stretching that time gap a bit more. So sue me.

As for those of you who are confused as to why the hair is important… well, let's just say that Merem Solomon is one of Arucreid's biggest fans… metaphorically speaking.

On a side note though, No. Arucreid, Shiki, and everyone from Tsukihime are not appearing in this fic. They are mentioned at the most.

Shirou's condition turning like that is a bit out of the blue, but there is a reason for it that I was going to put in this chapter but then it got too long.

There are also going to be more scenes coming from the clocktower in the oncoming chapters. Shirou may be out of reach, but someone in particular there is going to be in some real deep shit real soon.

On other news… no one has picked up my challenge yet. BOOO! Go back to the Author Notes two chapters ago and look at it again!

I'm going to give FFD a bit of a break and start working on my Naruto fic again. It's been a while over there and some of the fans are starting to get a bit tweaked.

Um… tv tropes please. More fanart please. FSN anime coming out damn soon. Claymore manga finished. Kenichi manga finished. Naruto manga… still dead to the world as far as anyone's concerned. Tried to speed run fate hollow ataraxia and 100% it but only got to before my job sent me halfway across the country for a month.

Really. I got the project on a Thursday, and the higher ups sent me out on Sunday night to work on Monday. It sucked balls.

Meh. Tired now. Gonna sleep and try to ignore all the curses and rage that will be sent my way by tons of individuals that I won't specify.

So Review! Worship the Log! Never ask Arucreid Brustud for a Haircut! And REVIEW AGAIN!