043 - Aftermath O

Olga Marie Animusphere

Olga made her way from the Command Center to the Rayshift Chambers at a brisk, but controlled pace. There was no inelegant stomping through the halls in a frantic rush thinly veiled as walking. She was the Lady Director of Finis Chaldea and she needed to project an image of calm control and authority at all times. Whoever said otherwise was engaging in a painfully transparent campaign of character assassination through outrageous slander.

Her trusted subordinates knew better than to spread baseless rumors like that, anyway.

Or else.

Fortunately, there wasn't that much distance between the two locations, so (there wasn't much of a chance to make a fool out of herself in her hurry to see them again.) it only took her a couple of minutes to arrive. Just in time to (nervously pace around the chamber) watch the final stages of the Rayshifting process and watch the Coffins open to release (her only friend in the whole world) two of her most trusted subordinates.

(She immediately pounces on Mashu to wrap her arms around her, overwhelmed by joy and relief that she's alright after the ordeal.)

She stands back while the two of them regain their bearings after the disorienting process, a small smile her only concession towards her real feelings.

"Fujimaru, Kyrielight, good job out there." She speaks up once they get out of their Coffins. "Welcome back."

"Ah, Lady Director!" Mashu stands to attention with a startle, apparently having missed Olga's presence until she spoke up. "Thank you for your kind words!"

That's a pretty blush on her cheeks. Truly, that girl is a treasure. (She can't believe she used to be scared of her.)

"What's this? A rare word of praise from our stern Lady Director!?" Haku covers her mouth with a hand, taking sharp breath in a painfully exaggerated display of shock. "Did our heroic actions saving the world finally melt her icy heart?"

"… It never ceases to amaze me how easily you can blurt out the most impudent of things, Fujimaru." She huffs dismissively to hide the effect these words had on her, feeling the tip of her ears grow uncomfortably warm all the same. Truly, that other girl is far too cheeky for her own good. "Maybe you could use a visit to Medical, just to make sure there are no unintended aftereffects on your mental health. A week or two under observation sounds like a prudent measure."

The effect is immediate, Haku's easygoing smile twisting into a worried pout as she raises both hands in surrender. "Please, have mercy."

"I'll consider it." She nods magnanimously, struggling a bit to keep a vindicated smirk off her face. It feels good to win for once. "Now get your ass to Meeting Room 12, we're going to have a preliminary meeting about the Singularity while memories are still fresh."

"Meeting Room 12, huh?" Haku muses, the usual amused glint quickly returning to her eyes. "Still didn't find the time to fix any of the others?"

"Don't say anything unnecessary, Fujimaru." Olga holds back a sigh, the redhead simply cannot help herself, can she? "Chaldea is short on hands and rich on problems, prioritizing is just common sense."

The meeting itself is little more than a re-telling of the Exploration Team experiences from their own point of view. The change in perspective is certainly interesting, might even make excellent material for some sort of biographic work once the Grand Order is over, but there's precious little new information there. Even diminished as they still are by the traitor's sabotage, Chaldea's observation means are top notch, after all.

(Thankfully, the topic of the so-called Water Nymph Incident is politely avoided by everyone's tacit agreement.)

Still, some topics did pop up during the meeting that bear further discussion.

"Right, back to the Rogue Servants." Olga speaks up once Haku and Mashu are done with their part. "That's not something we encountered during Singularity F. Or something we expected at all, their potential existence was strictly theoretical until we encountered Ruler."

"Esh… I'm not sure Jeanne counts as a Rogue Servant, actually." Haku comments, making an iffy gesture with her hand. "The Ruler Class is a bit special, designed to be independent from the start and summoned arbitrate when the conventional rules of the War are spurned."

"She did report believing she was there to arbitrate a regular War when she was first summoned." Caster adds with a nod of agreement. "Maybe a consequence of Gilles abusing his Grail to create the Dragon Witch, creating an opening for some other agent to fight back through."

That comment makes Olga frown, because the Incineration of Human History leaves very few candidates for the role of 'other agent' in this specific circumstance. The traitor and whatever power stands behind him obviously wouldn't sabotage their own effort like that, Chaldea obviously wasn't in any position to do something like that and the other options…

"Are you suggesting the Counter-Force intervened?" Olga questions with skepticism. "I was under the impression the Singularities are beyond its reach."

After all, if the Counter-Force could intervene, the Grand Order would've never come to pass in the first place. No, this whole incident falls into the same category of events as someone successfully reaching into the Root, even if way more nefarious in scope. Something the Counter-Force failed to prevent.

And now that Human History has been incinerated… well. It's hard for the collective unconscious will of mankind to do much after Humanity is already made to never have existed. Gaia might have fared slightly better, but Olga isn't sure that what was left behind after the Incineration can still be called a living planet either.

"Don't count the Counter-Force out so soon. It may be severely weakened after the Incineration of Human History, but assuming its influence is completely gone would be the height of foolishness." Caster chastises her with a knowing smirk. "In fact, it's safe to assume its influence was present, to some degree or another. But I was thinking of something more direct. Like the Grail or the ritual itself fighting back against the abuse. Or that mysterious Demon Lord Re'em of Haku's."

"Demon Lord Re'em provides." Haku immediately agrees, crossing her arms under her breasts and nodding in a sagely manner that makes Olga's forearms develop goosebumps. Nothing good can ever come from Haku acting sagely. "But he won't get directly involved before the time is right, so it couldn't be him."

"You are the expert." Olga concedes, happy to delay that particular headache for a few more minutes. "So either the Orleans Holy Grail had enough autonomy to indirectly rebel against its owner, or Gilles' harebrained scheme caused some sort of glitch in the ritual that compounded the whole situation."

"Following that logic, the rest of the Rogue Servants would've been Independently Summoned in response to Jalter's Berserker Servants." Haku takes that though further than Olga had even considered yet. "That makes sense and remains loosely within the rules of a conventional Grail War. Or rather, within the expected exceptional deviations from a conventional Grail War."

… It's a bit frustrating that everyone in the room seems to know more than her about the Holy Grail War, considering it was Father who won it.

"Right, I want someone digging through the logs and doing their best to figure out the specifics of the entire thing." She decides, grabbing all her sudden doubts and unwelcome feelings of inadequacy and firmly shoving them somewhere they won't annoy her. "If Rogue Servants are something we can expect to keep popping up in further Singularities, I rather we don't learn about it only when the Exploration Team stumbles headfirst into them. Again."

"Awww, worried about me, Lady Director?" Haku teases with a smile that catches her by surprise and (makes her heart beat faster) annoys her to no end. "You don't need to worry about me, I'll manage even if I have to improvise. Just like I did last time."

"I–Idiot! Of course I worry about my subordinates!" Olga immediately shoots back, her flawless mask of calm and control only slightly cracked by the unexpected words. "B– But it's reassuring to know you are capable. That's a good job you did out there, Fujimaru."

"Hehe~! I told you already, Lady Director." Haku scratches the back of her head, predictably allowing the acknowledgement of her skills go to her head and immediately making Olga regret giving it in the first place. "I might be incapable of summoning Servants, but I'm pretty darn good at working with them."

"Previous experience?" Roman pipes in for the first time. With some nonsensical questions as expected. Of course Haku doesn't have previous experience, where would she even—

"Out of the billions of people living outside of the Clock Tower influence, I ended up being tested and chosen for my potential as a Master." Haku answers, not even remotely addressing Roman's question. "What an amazing coincidence, that the right person was in the right place at the right time. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to compare it with looking for a needle in a haystack and finding spun gold instead." Haku continues, leaning both elbows on the table to rest her chin on her interlocked fingers and lips stretched out in a wide smile. "That just doesn't happen on its own, you know? Thankfully, Demon Lord Re'em provides."

… Right.

That might be the creepiest smile Olga has seen in her entire life. Though that might just be the sheer contrast with Haku's usually warm and cheerful demeanor. The sudden transformation causes a knot on the pit of her stomach, as a sense of foreboding makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand on an end. She's suddenly missing when the girl simply acted sagely beyond her years. That was an acceptable level of unsettling, at least.

"I feel like I've already asked this question before, but I'll do it again." She speaks up, distantly surprised at how calm and collected her voice is coming out. "Will you ever become a threat to Chaldea, Fujimaru?"

"Never! I'm here to help, one hundred percent." Haku answers immediately, the creepy smile on her lips melting back into the usual cheerful expression as quickly as it had appeared. "I'll stand by Olga's side, no matter what!"

That answer makes Olga want to drop things, to take her up at her word and never mention the topic again. "Even if your precious Demon Lord commands otherwise?" Instead, she challenges further.

"He won't." She answers immediately.

"How can you be so sure?" Olga frowns. She wants to believe, but… "Demons and Gods are alien creatures whose true motivations are beyond human comprehension." She's just experienced first hand how devoted Haku is to that creature. "How can you so freely promise that what's true now will remain true forever?"

"Because I know him, better than anyone else in the entire world, in the entire history of humanity on this little ball of dirt." Haku's head turns fully towards Olga, amber eyes full of conviction drilling into her own with an intensity that nearly steals her breath away. "I know him better than he knows himself, because there's nothing and nobody closer to him, to the core of his true self, than me. With maybe, maybe, the singular exception of a certain witch."

The words of a fanatic, or close enough for them to make a shiver run down Olga's spine. If it wasn't for that last line, for the small wavering on her gaze at that little admission of doubt, Olga would've never believed her. Even now, it takes all she has to push down her worries. After what the traitor did, trust doesn't come easily anymore.

But this is Haku.

She might not have known Haku for the longest of times, but they have been intense times. Trying times that have put their true mettle to the test and made the best and worst parts of each of them shine through. She likes what she's seen, even with all her infuriating, mortifying, exciting, maddening, flustering, entrancing, heart-warming… Haku-ness. She wants to keep Haku by her side, she wants to keep experiencing more of that.

More importantly, though. Olga wants to believe, and she refuses to allow the scars of a wound left behind by a piece of shit exert that much power over her life and choices.

"I'm not sure who's crazier here, Fujimaru." She finally speaks up again. "You with your ravings about that weird cult of yours… or me for trusting you anyway."

There's more to discuss after that, the meeting is far from over. But she's feeling too emotionally drained to get too invested in the rest now that her main worries have been addressed. Sure, they can expect more followers of Demon Lord Re'em to keep popping up around the Singularities, even if that makes no sense. But it's not like Olga has had any reason to think poorly of them so far, so it's not a big problem.

Feeling her eyelids droop all on their own, Olga startles a bit, shaking her head and sitting straighter.

Haku even goes out of her way to make it clear she will stand on the side of Chaldea if there's some sort of confrontation, so they'll deal with things one way or another. Who cares about the small details?

Olga's jaw tenses as she holds back a yawn. She hasn't been sleeping neither well nor much since… since forever, really. But it's gotten worse since the incident.

There's also that unpleasant experience with the aborted Eldritch contamination proving that the self-contained nature of a Singularity has certain limits and they need to keep an eye out for other potential breach threats but… Chances of that happening again are relatively low in the first place.

Even assuming they encounter some other exceptional circumstances, dealing with them will always be subordinate to actually resolving the Singularity unless they present a clear and immediate threat like the Mountain of Flesh did. Their first priority is restoring Human Order, even if that means allowing some side effects to slip past them.

Strictly speaking, that's already happened once through Team Red's Memory Crystal and...

… And…

… And…

Without ever managing to finish that last thought, Olga ends up falling asleep at the table.

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