Disclaimer: I do not own the Fate franchise it belongs to Kinoko Nasu and Type-Moon.

Fairies and a Haunting

Chapter 2

Four years ago

"Why are you dressed like that?" Ayame asked, looking and sounding genuinely confused while staring at Sella.

"One must dress appropriately for the situation." Sella primly said, the German homunculus wearing feldgrau and a pickelhaube instead of her usual maid's uniform. "As I will be accompanying you in battle, it seems fit I wear something more protective. However, unlike my late sister, I am not physically able to wear heavy armor. Therefore, I have decided with something lighter, but not as…tasteless, as modern combat fatigues."

Ayame stared, open-mouthed at her partner - retainer according to Sella - for several moments, before shaking her head and regaining her composure. "Okay…" she said. "...that makes sense…wait, no…I…you know what? Never mind…I go around dressed like a witch and from a video game no less, so I've got no right to complain when others go around dressed strangely…"

"Very good, my lady." Sella said, and prompting a sharp look from Ayame who briefly wondered if Sella was making a joke at her expense. In the end, though, that didn't sound like her, so she just decided to let it drop.

"...let's go." she said.

"Yes, my lady." Sella responded.

The Present Day

Ayame paused as she stepped over the threshold of the Tohsaka estate, and tilted her head back to glare up at the obnoxious facade of the mansion before her. "Something is very wrong here." she said firmly.

"Metaphysical integrity is compromised by approximately 7.00035%." Sella said while fiddling with the dials on a mystic code, gauges tripping while antennas shimmered with faint wisps of corposant. "Standard values for the Tohsaka estate, considering it stands on a confluence of leylines, should only be between 1 and 2%, peaking at approximately 3% during active rituals."

"So, something has been set off." Ayame said softly. "And whatever it is, it's only been getting worse, I assume, the longer it's been left unattended."

"So it would seem, my lady." Sella said.

Ayame clicked her tongue, before holding out her hands. "Glitter, fairy lights." she said, and summoning several fairies from the Reverse Side of the World. They hovered between her hands, flickering curiously and, if one paid attention, with a hint of apprehension. "So, you sense it too, huh?"

The fairies flickered their assent, and Ayame nodded. "Don't worry, I'll take care of it." she said. "But, it might get flashy - because it's not magic if it's not flashy - if not outright explosive, so I'm going to have to ask for help. Just…surround this place, and keep anything from getting out, or anyone else from getting in, at least until we're done."

The fairies flickered before flying up and around Ayame, who smiled reassuringly. "I always do." she said to the fairies' unspoken admonitions for her to be careful, and with a cheerful flicker, the fairies flew off. They traced the edges of the estate, and dancing around in a spiral of golden sparks, crafted what looked like a spiraling dome that enclosed the entirety of the interior, before vanishing into invisibility.

"Thanks!" Ayame said with a cheerful wave, golden sparks lighting up across the air above. "Let's go, Sella."

"Yes, my lady."

Ayame sharply glared up at the ceiling as they entered the (former) Tohsaka mansion, as the lights lit up on their own the moment they stepped into the interior. "Would you look at that?" she sarcastically asked. "Someone turned on the lights…how thoughtful of them."

"Impossible," Sella quickly disagreed. "We are alone in this house. My sweeps show no sign of life besides ourselves within this place."

"...Sella…"

"...oh, I…um…my apologies…"

"Right then…" Ayame said with a sigh, taking off her hat to rub her head before putting it back on. "...keep sweeping, while we go around the house. If an artifact is behind this, then we'll find it where the…wrongness, or the haunting, is at its worst. Of course, there's still the issue of what if an artifact isn't behind this, but the place really is just haunted…"

"...we could palm it off to the Holy Church." Sella pointed out while adjusting her mystic code. "I'm sure Sister Ortensia would be more than happy to hold an exorcism or two."

"Knowing that woman, she just might be." Ayame sourly said. "Now, if only she could learn to bite that tongue of hers…anyway, moving on!"

The Black and White Magician gestured, Sella falling into step behind her as they began going around the house. First up, the living room, with the hearth bursting into flame the moment they walked into the place. "Well, that's cheery." Ayame dryly said before glancing at Sella who looked back at her.

"Metaphysical destabilization spiked to 10.55521% when the flames went up," she said. "Before falling back to the 7 to 8% range."

"Hmm…" Ayame hummed, while walking around the living room. The buyer had redecorated, which didn't really come as a surprise considering the Association - or rather, Luviagelita Edelfelt - had stripped this place of everything valuable after Rin Tohsaka's demise. As before, the furnishings were still Western in style, but more modern, and less obnoxious.

Less portraits of people doing their best to look like statues, and more pictures of people in the middle of something memorable. The toys on top of the mantel were also the kind that could be bought with kiddie meals at fast food restaurants, collectibles yes, but hardly the sort stuffy, inbred, upper-class fops and dandies would lower themselves to.

Ayame found she preferred the buyer's taste, in all honesty.

Patting the dark-finished sofa, Ayame nodded slowly to herself. "Let's move on." she said with another glance at Sella.

"Yes, my lady."

The basement - formerly the Tohsaka workshop - was as bare as Ayame remembered it. Luviagelita had stripped it completely, more than that, she'd torn up the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling just to be sure there weren't any hidden compartments of anything. Well, in the case of ritual circles on the floor, she'd made sure to remove the flooring in one piece, so the circles could be taken intact back to Finland, but that was beside the point.

Then again, it wasn't as though she was wrong. A secret compartment had been found, filled with Edelfelt heirlooms Tohsaka had obtained - stolen, according to Luviagelita (which Ayame found ironically humorous considering Edelfelt's reputation as thieves) - back during the Third Holy Grail War. Including the grimoire of one of the two Edelfelt Masters from said war, which Luviagelita had literally chained - it had been a gold chain, to be sure, but still a chain for all that - to her waist until it could be brought back home to Finland.

Thankfully, Luviagelita had had the courtesy of having repaired the place before leaving. Even if it was just the basement, it would still have damaged the property's market value had it been left in ruins.

Of course, given the house was clearly haunted, that might still happen, but still.

"This place makes my skin crawl." Ayame complained.

"Metaphysical integrity has been compromised by 9.00001%." Sella said. "However, it must be pointed out that this was formerly the Tohsaka workshop, so it should come as no surprise."

"Hmm…the artifact could be here, then." Ayame mused. "Then again, Edelfelt was very thorough in this part of the house, so I'm not really sure she could have missed anything…still, we'll take a close look just in case. By the way, Sella, I'm pretty sure this place is…colder, than it ought to be."

"Please give me a moment." Sella said, checking her mystic code for a moment and then giving a moment. "Your suspicions are correct, my lady. There is a slight entropic effect at work here, consuming ambient heat and other forms of energy, most likely as part of the supernatural phenomenon at play in this house."

Ayame blinked. "Entropic?" she echoed, eyes widening as her eyes connected the dots. "Consuming energy? Oh, so that's what's happening!"

"My lady?" Sella asked, sounding confused, and causing Ayame to whirl in her direction.

"This house is built on top of a confluence of leylines." she said. "Deliberately so, to power any rituals made by the Tohsakas…and like you said, it could be powering this haunting as well."

Sella blinked in her turn. "I see." she said. "Yes, that might work. A ritual here to disconnect the property from the leylines, as well as an exorcism for good measure, should be enough to end the haunting."

"That said," Ayame continued. "We should still look around for an artifact, just in case. Even if we could end the haunting by disrupting the connection to the leylines, leaving a magical artifact just lying around is just asking for trouble."

"It would be prudent, yes." Sella agreed.

"Then let's start looking closely at this…basement." Ayame said, reinforcing her eyes and snapping her fingers, flames igniting over their tips. "The Flames of Illusion Shine the Light that Reveals the Truth."

The flames shimmered to gold, fey mystery undoing all but the most profound concealment spells. Together with her reinforced eyes - and in Sella's case, a pair of goggles with multiple magnifying lenses - they pored over every square inch of the former Tohsaka workshop for any sign of an artifact behind the haunting. After about half an hour, though…

"...it would seem our search continues, my lady." Sella said while taking off her goggles.

"Sure looks that way." Ayame said with a sigh, and extinguishing her Flames of Illusion. "Come on, then."

"Yes, my lady."

"Huh…guess the buyer wasn't kidding." Ayame deadpanned as she and Sella walked into the kitchen, and found pots and pans floating in the air above the counters. Then as they walked further into the room towards the floating pots and pans, two things happened simultaneously.

First, the pots and pans just fell to the counters with loud clangs.

Second, the door behind them slammed shut with a loud bang before clicking locked.

Looking very unimpressed by such an obvious scare tactic, Ayame strolled back to the door and tried to unlock it, the lock being on their side of the door. Unsurprisingly, the lock refused to turn, Ayame only ending up breaking the lock for her trouble, the Black and White Magician holding up the broken dial in front of her.

Then there was this sense of…being laughed at, and made sport of. Ayame gave a sickly smile at that, and which had Sella grimacing, the homunculus stepping away and closer to the nearest counter. She knew her master, and her response to this situation.

Ayame stepped back, and pointing a finger at the door, fired a heat laser. Then she - and Sella - were diving for cover as the beam ricocheted off the door and around the kitchen, before expending itself against the refrigerator door. Again, there was this sense of being laughed at, only there was audible, ghostly laughter this time around.

Very faint, to be sure, and neither Ayame nor Sella were sure if they were just imagining it, but it was there.

"Fuck this." Ayame said, igniting flames at her fingertips and pointing them at the door. A moment later, and a fireball blew the door apart in a hail of burning splinters and sparks. Naturally, the carpet on the floor beyond started to burn, the fire spreading quickly until a gesture from Ayame put it out. "I'm not playing games…whatever you are!"

As though in response, jars of spices on a spice rack began to wobble and shake, before flying violently through the air and across the room at Ayame, who sidestepped them to shatter against the wall. Another burst of fire later, and the spice rack was reduced to a smoking mass of slag and half-melted metal.

"My lady," Sella pleaded. "Please remain calm. Whatever entity or phenomenon is at work here is clearly trying to make you lose composure. If fear will not work, then anger, it seems, will suffice."

"...good point." Ayame conceded before taking a deep breath. "Thanks, Sella."

Sella just bowed wordlessly while Ayame took a look around. "Right then," she said, holding up a hand and igniting her flames again. "Shall we start looking around here, or do your readings show the artifact probably isn't here."

"Please give me a moment." Sella said while checking her mystic code. "Metaphysical destabilization is within 7 and 8%, even with all the elemental magecraft cast recently. It is unlikely the artifact is here."

"Then we'll have to look somewhere else." Ayame said. "Right, let's go."

"Yes, my lady."

"This is weird."

Three words Ayame would repeatedly say as she and Sella made their way through the rest of the mansion, the haunting increasingly growing unreal as they went. In a room turned into a workspace of some kind, scattered papers, files, folders, and envelopes rose into the air and briefly flew around before arranging themselves neatly in the shelves against the wall.

Then there were the apparitions in the upper floor corridor, ghostly, Human-shaped things running across the corridor from one wall to another. They moved normally, but somehow simultaneously gave the impression of running as though through caramel or oil. Even reinforced eyes couldn't make out any features from the apparitions, thin and washed out, barely substantial as though they were flat and dull imitations of people.

The sounds were real though. Not screaming, not shouting, just…laughter. The laughter of children at play, of indulgent parents laughing at the antics of their children, ghostly and echoing in the emptiness of the house.

In another room, all furniture abruptly started floating up into the air the moment they walked into the room. For a few moments, they just floated in the air, then they began to spin, flying around the room increasingly faster, prompting Ayame to put herself in front of Sella just in case, only for the flying and spinning to slow to a stop after several moments. Then the furniture abruptly inverted themselves, rearranging themselves back into place, only on the ceiling this time.

Ayame and Sella quickly scoured the room, working under a fey-empowered shield in case any of the furniture started falling while they were working. It didn't happen, and indeed, the furniture stayed in place on the ceiling even after they left.

"Do you hear that?" Ayame suddenly asked.

"I…yes…" Sella reluctantly replied, looking to and fro. "...it's like singing…"

"...yeah…" Ayame muttered. "...singing…I can't make out the words though…but this melody…"

"Oddly soothing…peaceful, even…" Sella remarked.

"It's a lullaby, I think." Ayame said. "Can't quite remember the name, though. This is weird."

"So you've said many times over the past couple of hours and more, my lady."

Ayame grunted wordlessly in reply, before she opened the door and entered a child's room. There was an eep, and a little girl peered around the corner of the bed. "W-who are you?" she squeaked out. "A-a-are you real? Y-you not like t-those…things, in the house?"

Ayame and Sella stared, neither of them so much as even considering this was anything but a trick. As far as apparitions went, this one was…very lifelike. A little girl, probably six or seven-years-old, dressed in prim red and white with her hair tied up in a pair of pigtails…

"...really?" Ayame said, barely holding back the urge to facepalm as she realized who this apparition was supposed to be.

"My lady?" Sella asked telepathically.

"Play along for now, Sella." Ayame replied in kind. "I want to see what this…haunting, is trying to play at."

"It could be a trap, my lady." Sella warned.

"True," Ayame agreed. "But sometimes you just have to spring a trap."

"...this is also true." Sella admitted after a moment.

"Please…" the apparition of a younger Rin Tohsaka said, crawling out from behind the bed and slowly approaching Ayame and Sella. "...I just…I just want to get out of here…find my mommy and daddy…can you help?"

Ayame blinked and knelt down. "Yes, I can help." she said, holding out a hand. "We'd heard there could still be people in here, so we actually came to help. Take my hand, and don't worry, we're here to help."

"Really?" Rin asked.

Ayame smiled softly, even Sella amazed at the sheer…duplicity, her mistress was capable of. Or was she genuine? It was so hard to tell. "Yes, really." Ayame said. "Come along now, we'll get out of here, and we can go find your mommy and daddy."

Hesitantly, Rin came even closer, and took Ayame's hand. Again, the haunting's depth and attention to detail was impressive, the apparition's hand feeling very genuine, solid, warm, and soft, like a child's in every way.

"Let's go." Ayame said, getting to her feet and gently pulling Rin along. "The exit is…this way. Let's hurry before anything bad happens."

Rin nodded silently, the three of them hurrying - but not so much that Rin would have difficulty keeping up - back down towards the foyer and the front doors of the house. As they reached the upper floor landing looking down over the foyer below, Rin winced, then crumpled, clutching at her chest.

"It hurts…it hurts so much…" she gasped out as Ayame caught her and laid her out on the ground. "...help me…please…h-h-help me…b-big sister…I…I don't want to….m-mommy…d-daddy…I…I…"

Words failed Rin as she went into convulsions, thrashing and writhing against the ground despite Ayame's efforts to calm her down, before her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed, limp and lifeless on the ground. In contrast, Ayame's eyes and face were unreadable, and they stayed unreadable as the girl's body withered, flesh wasting away as skin dried and wrinkled up, tightening around her bones until it crumbled to dust, leaving only a small skeleton that grinned morbidly at them before also crumbling into a dust. A cold wind blew inexplicably through the landing, and blowing the dust away.

For a long moment, Ayame was silent and still, before turning to look up at Sella with a small smirk. "How was my acting?" she asked.

"I'm sorry, my lady," Sella apologized. "But I'm not really qualified to answer that."

Ayame laughed as she got up to her feet, and then Sella gasped as Ayame pulled her close by the waist, and then leapt over the balustrade to fall several feet down to the foyer below. Heavy boots slammed into the foyer with a resounding thud, Ayame falling to a crouch to help absorb the force of impact, before releasing Sella.

"Now then," she said while pulling out her mini-elemental furnace, lips twitching into an excited grin. "My turn!"

A/N

Sella and Ayame go into the haunted Tohsaka mansion, where things get very weird. Not that it really works on our heroines, but to most people? Yeah, time to run.

Of course, now that Ayame's through playing around, she's decided to do things her way.