Chapter 4 - War Council
Emiya Residence, Fuyuki City - Main Fate World - Moments after the end of the previous chapter, Six Days before Rin Tohsaka summons her servant, Current Date: 25th of January 2004
(Jeanne d'Arc Alter/SI's P.O.V)
"Y-yes, I am your master," Shirou says once she has broken out of her momentary daze from being awestruck by the blonde [Saber] servant with said servant giving an affirming nod toward the redhead as the following words soon solidify the pact…
"Then henceforth I shall be the sword that shall grant you victory in the Holy Grail War," Arturia says before her gaze turns toward me and Serenity with a wary look in her eyes, something that Shirou is quick to notice as she decides to introduce us before her new servant can do anything more than just glance our way.
"This is Jeanne and her Servant [Assassin], they'll be our permanent allies in the Holy Grail War," Shirou says while making sure to stress the fact that both myself and Serenity are allies and not future enemies, which prompts a look of confusion from the blonde knightly servant as she frowns at her master's words.
"It should not be possible for a servant to form a pact with another servant unless they are some sort of [Caster] and judging by your armaments Miss Jeanne, you are no [Caster] class servant," Artoria says which admittedly she would be right if the Holy Grail War was a typical one, if only she knew just how atypical this war is from the very start of it all.
"True I am not at all a [Caster] class, but let's just say that I'm much more Extra than you can possibly know right now~," I say with an admittedly arrogant smirk, watching Arturia frown at my words before turning her head towards Shirou with one question passing through her lips.
"Master, do you trust this unusual servant and her [Assassin] subordinate servant?" Arturia asks Shriou as she wants to know directly from her master if she trusts me, thankfully I already know how Shirou will respond to that question, that being…
"Implicitly so [Saber], she's helped me with my problems with magecraft and even helped me summon you in the first place properly, so I ask that you at least give her a chance to prove herself," Shirou says sincerely, with Arturia's green eyes staring into her golden-brown ones for any sign of doubt or insincerity before giving the redhead a nod and turning back to me.
"Very well, I shall withhold my doubts about you for the time being as per my master's wish, but if you betray her trust I shall strike you down, no matter what you may be," Arturia says with a determined look in her eyes, the simple notion of betraying Shirou makes me feel a burning fury unlike anything I've experienced before save for one other person within my heart as I can't stop myself from responding to those words.
"There is no way in hell that I will ever consider betraying Shriou [Saber]" I say with a downright scathing tone of voice, the images of her future male self's demise at the hands of those they had saved flashing in my mind in that moment as I have absolutely no intention to see my Shirou meet the same fate.
Both Shirou and Arturia look surprised at how intense my hatred of the notion is, but it is this same hatred that allows Arturia to give me the benefit of the doubt at last, as she dismisses her armor and allows her armor to fade, showing the royal blue dress underneath to show itself.
With [Saber]'s summoning over, the four of us soon move further into the Emiya household, specifically into the living room as we each sit at the table to discuss matters regarding the Holy Grail War.
Something I just know will shock Arturia as we get into the details of what's truly going on here in Fuyuki…
"So let's get the big issue out of the way for the sake of [Saber] here first and foremost since she'll need the most catch-up here, the grail isn't going to be giving any wishes no matter who wins the Grail War," I say to start our little impromptu war council, with Shirou simply nodding her head while Serenity is fine with the idea mostly because she already has two people who she can touch without killing.
"W-what, that's preposterous the whole point of the Holy Grail War is so that the winner attains their wish in the first place!" Arturia says once what I've said has properly registered in her head, as that's the whole reason she agreed to sign up as a servant in the first place.
"Perhaps I should be more clear about what I mean, the grail isn't going to be giving any wishes without destroying the entire world in the process due to the grail's corruption," I say once Arturia's outburst is finished, my words stunning her as the blonde knight looks horrified at the notion that a single wish would bring about such catastrophe in the first place.
I can see the conflict brewing within Arturia's mind right now as on the one hand, she wants to believe that she can still get her wish somehow, but on the other if what I say is true then how can she even consider making a wish when it would only cause wanton destruction in it's wake.
She wants to believe that what I'm saying isn't true, but from the moment she was summoned only a few minutes prior, she already could tell that this war was not a normal Holy Grail War at all with my inclusion in it as both a servant and a master.
"Do you have any proof of your claim?" Arturia says after a period of contemplation from the [Saber] class servant, prompting me to wordlessly nod and hold up two fingers as I decide to lay out my evidence for the blonde to take in.
"The first piece of evidence is none other than your master herself, and her history which ties back to the last Holy Grail War 10 years ago," I say which surprises Arturia as she hadn't expected me to use her own master as a way to prove my claim.
"She's right [Saber], there was a great fire that happened 10 years ago that swept through this city and to this day there was only ever one survivor of the Fuyuki Fire, that being myself…Emiya Shirou" Shirou says as Arturia's eyes widen at the fact that her master is the daughter of her previous master Kiritsugu Emiya, although she remembers that the man had another daughter and wonders why she isn't here too but that's beside the point right now…
"To add to this, just before the fire started, I think there was a report of a golden light occurring just before the fire began although that was disregarded as some sort of PTSD fabrication by the authorities at the time," I say, this time I'm mostly bullshiting about there being a report as I am attempting to tie her prior actions in the last Grail war, hoping that Saber will connect the dots in her head since, despite the fact she has a downright idiotic wish in my eyes, she's no idiot by any stretch and will likely figure out what I am implying
Arturia's green eyes widened in shock as the implications of what I just said hit her like a freight train, the blonde knight looked down at the wooden table and began to realize that perhaps there was a reason why Kiritsugu ordered her to destroy the grail.
It never made sense to Arturia as to why Kiritsugu made that dual Command Seal order of destroying the grail and she believed at the time that the man she loathed working with simply betrayed her right at the apex of their victory.
But with the added context of the grail being corrupted coming into the equation, it begins to make a worrying amount of sense as the man was nothing but dedicated to his goal and to suddenly pull a complete 180 at the very last moment made no sense if not done for a very good reason.
"You said that you had two pieces of evidence, not just one even if that one piece does make a lot of the stranger things that happened at the end of the last war make more sense with the context of the grail being corrupted," Arturia says as she willing to admit that there is something very wrong with the Fuyuki Grail, even without including my presence in the Fuyuki Grail War.
"The second the malicious magical energy that resulted in the Fuyuki Fire in the first place still lingers in a place that is now known as Fuyuki Park, as if the very ground that it burned has been ingrained with some sort of curse," I say confidently, but then Shirou looks at me slightly confused before she spoke up.
"You mean Fuyuki Central Park?" Shirou inquires, to which I quickly nod my head while I silently curse my past life's spotty memories regarding location names in Fuyuki, I might have to ask Shirou to show me around Fuyuki proper later on so I don't make that same mistake again.
Arturia takes a moment to ponder on this piece of information and while she is willing to believe my words on this, she wants to verify this for herself so with that in mind, there is only really one request that she can make that will put her doubts to rest once and for all…
"Master, Miss Jeanne, I would like to see this place for myself when we have the time as I want to see this cursed park for myself if only to put any lingering doubts about your word about the grail to rest," Arturia says politely as she has no reason to distrust the words of myself or her master at this point, as the way things are currently, the corruption of the grail would explain many of the things she saw in the last war.
"While Shirou has school tomorrow, I'd be more than willing to take you there myself," I say as I give Shirou a deadpan look as I have not forgotten the fact that she forgot to tell me about how the school was organizing an event that she was going to on a Sunday.
While Shirou does give me an admittedly sheepish smile, Arturia appears quite hesitant to allow herself to be far away from her master where she would be vulnerable, as a result, we do agree that if something happens tomorrow and Shirou needs Arturia's aid, the redhead will summon her to her side immediately with a command seal.
Speaking of those command seals of hers though, that needs to be addressed now before she goes to school tomorrow…
"Shirou, we're gonna need you to cover up your hands for a while, lest any potential master figure out you're in the Holy Grail War now," I say with a frown as I recall that Rin Tohsaka will likely be made aware of the fact that [Saber] has been summoned and will likely be on the lookout for a potential master.
A brief idea to genuinely burn Shirou's palm slightly before covering it up in bandages is swiftly tossed out in my mind mostly because of three primary reasons, the first is that Taiga would likely cause a ton of fuss regarding the wound which might end up drawing Rin's attention anyway would defeat the entire point of the idea.
The second factor is one that immediately came to mind as a counterargument to my very own idea in the first place as with the introduction of Arturia and their established pact, a certain sheath that is nestled away inside Shirou's body is likely working at full power or at least as much as it can without being Arturia herself.
As such Avalon would likely end up healing away the burn too quickly to be even used as a viable excuse for bandages in the first place, and to be perfectly honest about my feelings regarding the idea itself, the final reason is that I don't want to harm Shirou myself in any capacity if I can help it.
With that brief idea completely discounted in my head, the three of us discussed the issue for the next several minutes to try and find a solution that wouldn't arouse any suspicions with Shirou's classmates or Taiga.
Unfortunately, no real answers come up that wouldn't be seen as odd, as the only idea that would have a reasonable chance of working falls flat due to Taiga as no one can deny that the brunette would draw a lot of attention regardless of what we choose to do.
In the end, the only thing we can realistically do in this scenario is just to have Shirou put on something with long sleeves to try and obscure the command seals as best as possible while putting blind faith in Shirou's luck to avoid being seen with those command seals on her hand by either Rin or Shinji, especially the latter of the two.
Shinji already is someone I want to give the Pierre Cauchon Treatment until he's nothing but ash due to his treatment of his adopted sister Sakura, but considering Shirou is a girl in this timeline I am even less inclined to have Shirou around that bastard as I don't want to consider what he'd do should he find out about her being a master…
While I may have a ton of faith in Shirou's skills as a magus now due to getting a ton of the stuff she has from various routes of her male self, hell will freeze over before I even consider the possibility that pathetic little vermin laying a hand on my Shirou.
With that tentatively sorted out the three of us decide to turn in for the night with Saber insisting that she stays in Shirou's room, with the redhead surprisingly agreeing to it without any real issue regarding it, another small change regarding the difference between the canon Shirou and and the female Shirou that exists here in this world.
Although I am slightly jealous that it's the king of knights who gets to sleep with Shirou first and not me, unfortunately, Arturia is not yet a part of my retinue so I cannot risk her being accidentally poisoned by Serenity since the purple-haired [Assassin] will likely want to be close to me as well.
Soon enough I head to my assigned bedroom and place my weapons in my pocket space while using the shroud of power to strip me of all my clothes before slipping into my futon to sleep, sensing serenity laying down next to me and cuddling my body tightly.
At first, I considered asking Serenity to let go but decided against it because I couldn't bring myself to deny her that closeness as this is probably the first time she's had a chance to be this close to someone physically in a very long time.
"Guess you and her really have rubbed off on me…." I say to myself as I soon begin to fall asleep, with dreams of my old master and my 'big sister' awaiting me with warm smiles, emphasizing one particular point about this new life I have.
I miss them, for all the posturing and bravado I displayed in front of the two of them, I miss both Gudako Fujimaru and the other Jeanne…
Tohsaka Residence - Roughly 30 minutes later
(General P.O.V)
It is almost entirely silent at the residence of the heiress of the Tohsaka lineage of Magi, with the night late as it is the young woman is sleeping in preparation for tomorrow's day at school, her facade as a prestigious student requiring a meticulous sleeping schedule so that she can better maintain said facade.
Unfortunately for said young woman, it is only almost entirely silent as one Tohsaka Rin is awoken from her slumber, hearing the sound of the house phone ringing loudly enough to break the dark brown-haired out of her peaceful sleep, the young woman grumbles in annoyance as she slowly got out of bed to see who it is that is calling her at this hour.
The phone continued to ring even as she walked out of her room and eventually reached the rather basic landline phone, so basic that even a magus like her can actually use it somewhat reliably at the very least, either way, she picked up the phone and soon heard the voice of someone she really didn't want to speak to right now.
"Good evening Rin, I hope I haven't interrupted anything too important with my call," the voice of one Kotomine Kirei says with amusement, likely knowing just how late it is for Tohsaka Rin to be awake right now but still going ahead with the call anyway.
"Kirei, I would appreciate it if you got to the point as I have school tomorrow," Rin says with clear irritation at being woken up by Kirei of all people in the first place, soon hearing a chuckle from Kirei's end of the phone call as he decides to oblige her request for frankness.
"Very well, I just wished to congratulate you on your success in obtaining your desired [Saber] Servant and wish you all the best for the Grail War to come," Kirei says which prompts Rin to freeze as she processes what her 'Guardian' has just said to her, eliciting confusion and a slowly bubbling feeling of anger begin to simmer in the back of her mind.
"Kirei if this is some joke, it isn't funny as I haven't even managed to summon a servant yet," Rin says as she gets silence from the other end for some short few seconds before the Tohsaka heiress realizes that this isn't some idle joke from Kirei's part and soon she began to struggle to maintain her composure over the phone.
The moment she hears Kirei begin to chuckle as the priest realizes what's going on, Rin immediately hangs up on him and lets out a scream of pure rage and frustration that would have made a certain Avenger living in the Emiya Residence grin darkly at the sight of.
"Agh, I can't believe I missed out on getting [Saber]!" Rin says while gripping at her hair, this having been the worst news the brunette could wake up to as she had planned on having everything set up to summon a [Saber] in a few days.
But now she has re-orientate her plans for the Holy Grail War to accommodate a non-[Saber] Servant, which is at least doable since she still has time to do that as opposed to doing so on the day of the summoning, which means she'll have work to do after she comes back home from school tomorrow.
"If only I could have gotten a [Saber] Class servant as planned, the war would have been a piece of cake, now I have to plan around facing one with either a [Rider], [Assassin], or a [Archer] class servant!" Rin says while having an extremely grumpy look on her face, feeling her body yearn for slumber once more before she sighs deeply and with her grumpiness turning into a minor bout of despondency, she returns to the comfort of her bed once again to try and get back to her much-needed sleep.
She can focus on adjusting her plans tomorrow when she's had far more sleep under her belt after all…
Airport Nearest to Fuyuki City - Early hours of the morning, Current Date: 26th of January 2004
(General P.O.V)
"Not gonna lie master I'm surprised you're so willing to fly in one of those metallic deathtraps you call a plane," Says a blue-haired, red-eyed man as he grumbles about having to fly to Japan in a private jet, said Master being a magenta-haired woman in a black two-piece business suit who is waiting for a taxi to arrive to pick the both of them so that they can head to their intended destination.
"Welcome to the joys of modern travel where we place our faith in science to not send us spiraling down into the sea below," says the magenta-haired woman with only the smallest amount of snark as both she and her blue-haired friend have been waiting for a taxi to show up now for a minute or two and one has yet to show up.
The woman glances at her friend momentarily and is glad that she was able to convince him to put on a similar business suit to herself as his normal attire would have attracted a lot of attention, not to mention would have probably brought the magus association down on her.
Granted she could have had him stay in spirit form until they got to Fuyuki which would have potentially saved her the headache, but she wanted to spend time with her new associate directly and this was the best way she could think of that wouldn't attract mundane attention.
"Hey Master, can't you call your friend to send someone to come fetch us or something?" the Blue-Haired man says to his magenta-haired friend, the woman shakes her head before pulling her suit sleeve down to look at her hidden wristwatch to check the time.
6:03 am…
The Magenta-haired woman frowns as she considers her options to reach her destination, while she would prefer taking a taxi over to Fuyuki City to meet with her friend, she may have to end up having to take a bus to her destination instead which would mean she wouldn't have time to prepare a base of operation for the conflict ahead.
"[Lancer] if a Taxi doesn't show up in the next two minutes, we'll have to take a bus route to Fuyuki instead," The Magenta-haired woman says to her Blue-haired friend, who has now been identified as the [Lancer] class servant of the upcoming 5th Holy Grail War.
[Lancer] sighs as he gives an affirming nod before adopting a particularly bored look on his face this was not exactly what he was expecting upon arriving on the continent that houses the Holy Grail War, but he can handle the boredom so long as he gets some worthy opponents to fight later on.
"Hey Master, about this priest friend of yours, do you trust him?" [Lancer] asks the magenta-haired woman, mostly as an idle question to pass the time although he has a strange gut feeling that he should at the very least ask her that much.
"Of course [Lancer], we've worked together for various assignments in the past and I trust him implicitly, not to mention he's supposed to be the neutral party in all of this so if I can't trust him, then who can I trust?" The magenta-haired woman says with a smile on her face, with [Lancer] grimacing before conceding to her point even as his gut feeling isn't going away.
Eventually, the two are forced to abandon their plans to take a taxi and instead head to the nearest bus stop to acquire transport to Fuyuki City with both master and servant eager to head to the city that shall be the battlefield of the 5th Holy Grail War.
It would be several hours later that [Lancer] wishes he had listened to his gut feeling and cautioned his former master against the one-on-one meeting she insisted on having with the man known as Kirei Kotomine at the Fuyuki Central Park…
He can only hope that his former master, Bazzet Fraga McRemitz, survives somehow…
Author's Notes
And here we all are again, I do apologize for the fact that this is over a month late but admittedly my focus has been drawn to IRL issues as of late as well as struggling to get the proper muse for fanfiction writing.
Now then, we'll have two plot point discussions here today so let's start with…
Jeanne's interactions with Arturia
Here I've been trying to have the two master and servant pairs work on their plans for the war ahead, especially since Jalter is trying to ensure that Arturia knows that the Grail is corrupted fairly early, with some at least viable evidence to back up her claims.
It also helps Arturia gain some measure of context regarding the events of the previous war she was in, especially with what Kiritsugu did at the end of the 4th Holy Grail War, but she's not entirely convinced yet which is why the trip to the Fuyuki Central Park will be that nail in the coffin and cement that belief among other things…
This is also where both Jalter and Shirou are trying to plan and attempt to keep her new status as a master a secret for as long as possible, even if their best options aren't exactly possible either due to Avalon or Taiga simply being Taiga.
Rin's introduction to the story
Here we have a certain Tohsaka heiress basically being told that all her dreams of summoning a Saber Class servant have gone up in flames by none other than Kirei himself because it benefits him whether or not she did summon Saber on this night.
If she did, then he knows who's probably got Arturia who a certain golden blondie king of Heros would be very interested to know about…
But if she didn't, then not only does he get to utterly ruin Rin's night while coming off as if he's congratulating her for a non-existent victory, but he can probably FEEL the frustration, rage, and anger from his 'apprentice'.
Now some of you are likely wondering why I'm not discussing the final 3rd of the chapter yet, we'll get to that next chapter, and as for why, well…
Next time on Fate Saint Alter: A Walk in the Park, capture of a one-armed Irish woman and Sparring between a Frenchwoman and an English knight.
See you all next month hopefully!