Chapter 4 - Trifas Section 1

The Director takes a look around the open field. "The Rayshift was a success. Welcome to Trifas, Romania."

"I can't speak the language.", is the first thing that's on my mind. How are we supposed to communicate with people when I can't speak anything but Japanese?

"Don't worry, Serena. The wristband you're wearing has an automatic translator in it. You can hear what they say in Japanese and they can hear what you say in Romanian. Isn't it so useful?", Olga alleviates me of my worries

"That's good that we don't have to worry about a language barrier. Now, let's head into town and get information.", Alice suggests, always quick to the point.

"Good idea. We can say we are travelers. It's not completely untrue." Mash says.

We all advance toward the town of Trifas which sits in the distance. Its city walls can be seen from even where we are.

Ritsuka touches his right arm. Wearing this armor on my arm feels weird. It's pretty heavy. I'll have to get used to it.

"Oh, by the way. If we run into any Rogue Servants, you will form a contract with them just like in Fuyuki. Got it, Ritsuka?", the Director commands.

"Just curious, Director. Can no one else do it?", he asks Olga.

"They could, but you're already trained for it and have Command Spells. We can train them some other time."

Ritsuka nods his head. "Alright. I'll do it then."

"Thank you. You understand how the Spells work, right?"

"Yes, I read about them in the Chadea database. Though, don't they seem a little inhumane? Forcing people to do things they might not like?"

"I suppose so, but you don't have to use them like that. They can aid you too by boosting ability output among other things."

Ritsuka smiles again. "Alright, I'll use them if need be."

Olga looks down in uncertainty. "Good, we might need them later."

We walked for about 30 more minutes. Chatting about whatever comes to mind. And eventually, we reach the town of Trifas.

I look around at the antique-looking place. "So this is Trifas. Looks neat. Oh look, that shop sells some good-looking bread! Wait, we don't have any money.", I look down in pure defeat. The bread cannot be obtained legally.

The Director puts her hand on my shoulder. "Remember QP? You can turn it into different currencies depending on where you are. Use that if you want the bread so bad."

"I'll be right back then!"

Alice walks up to me. "I'll go with you. What if you get lost or get attacked? Remember that we are in hostile territory. Be careful."

Nick looks around. "Well, I'll look around too." He begins to walk away.

"Wait, don't leave me behind! I'm joining you!", Olga shouts and runs after Nick.

Mash and Ritsuka, now alone, look at each other. "Well? Want to do some sightseeing too? We can get something to eat if you want."

"That sounds fun. Let's do it, Senpai!"

Ritsuka and Mash look around and eventually settle on a simple sandwich shop. The two order what looks good on the menu and find a nearby place to sit down and rest their legs. "Is it any good, Mash?"

"Yes! Do you want any of mine?", she asks.

Ritsuka seems surprised at this statement. "Are you sure I can have some?"

"Of course!", she enthusiastically responds.

"Then, don't mind if I do."

Mash hands over the sandwich and Ritsuka takes a bite out of the uneaten corner. "Wow, it is good!"

"Right?"

After a while of eating and resting, the two continue to walk the streets. Trifas is surprisingly busy today. Children playing, people walking, all sorts of activities.

"So, Mash, what do you think of this place?"

"What do I think? It's a nice place. Seems peaceful. And this blue sky…back at Chaldea, I never got to see one due to the constant snowstorm. But, this sky has a band of light in it. I want to see a normal blue sky someday."

"Mash…don't worry, we will finish this and you can see the blue sky then. I will be by your side as your Master and Senpai, and you as my Servant and Kohai."

"Senpai…", her voice trails off. "Of course! We'll do this with everyone!"

Mash and Ritsuka continue to look around. Absorbing the atmosphere while chatting mindlessly while passing the time.

"This is where we were told to meet. It's been about three hours I think since we arrived in Trifas. It seems like everyone else got carried away like us." Ritsuka looks up from his wristband and around at the busy city.

The two hear footsteps and the remainder of Chaldea shows up.

"Sorry, we're late. Serena was taking her sweet ass time to stare at clothes." Alice says while seeming slightly annoyed that I like clothes and wanted to see what they had here.

The Director comes up with her excuse. "Yeah, Nick and I would've been back sooner if it weren't for us getting lost. This is a big place and most streets look the exact same."

Ritsuka scratches the back of his black hair. "It's no problem at all. We only just got here ourselves, though I didn't think we would be the first."

Myself along with the rest of Chaldea smile in slight embarrassment.

Mash speaks up. "What now?"

"I'm sure they have an inn we can all stay at. Let's do that.", Nick suggests while looking around at the buildings.

"Good idea, there's a map over there. Let's check it out." The Director points toward a directory of the city and we walk over to investigate it. She is the one who reads it while the rest of us stand a bit back.

After looking at the map, she sees that the inn is only about a ten-minute walk from us, so we get moving. All we have on us is our clothes and some rations which Alice carries all of it in her pocket dimension.

"Remember, our excuse is that this is a company trip. As for our luggage…Oh! It got lost on the flight, or something- no, that won't work…", Olga's master plan dies nearly immediately.

"Follow me real quick. I have something that can solve that.", Alice says while beginning to walk away.

We follow Alice into an alleyway and she brings out two suitcases and a few backpacks. "Just choose one and put your stuff in real quick."

I grab a suitcase. "Good thinking, Alice!"

She smiles in response. The two men grab backpacks, and the Director grabs a suitcase, leaving the remaining two backpacks to Alice and Mash. Alice gives us some of what we had her to hold on to such as spare clothes, underwear, books, bath supplies, and whatever else we may have thought we would need on this journey.

We stuff everything we brought inside the bags and close them up. "There we go, now we won't look suspicious.", the Director says. "Let's head to the inn then!"

We all walk to the inn and go to check in at the front desk. Or more specifically, Olga checks us in under the guise of this being a company holiday.

"What kind of rooms do we get?", Ritsuka asks all of us while looking at the Director.

"All they had were doubles so that's what we're getting. This is the first Singularity, so who knows if we will get attacked during the night. How about… Serena and Alice, myself and Mash, and Nick and Ritsuka? Does that sound okay?"

We agreed with her and booked the rooms. The price is not bad for six people either.

Alice and I find room 214 and unlock the door. The wooden door opens and the smell of a freshly cleaned room hits our noses.

The room is quite simple with two beds, and two dressers to hold clothes. A TV, and a bathroom. The view outside is a decent sight of the city, but nothing top-notch.

"Alright, let's unpack before we settle in. Otherwise, I won't unpack at all.", I say.

We unpack our belongings and put them in the dressers. I then flop onto my bed with a little bounce.

"This bed is pretty comfortable!", I say while rolling around and getting a good feel of the white sheets.

"Well, feel free to relax, Serena. The Director said today is a free day. As for myself, I'm going to look around the inn and the town."

"Alright, have fun. I'm gonna take a nap."

Alice gives a smile and heads back out.

I stand back up off the bed and undo the Chaldea uniform top and set it to the side and do the same with my shoes, skirt, tights, and hair tie leaving only a black shirt on.

"We have the rest of the day off, huh?", I think out loud and lay down in bed closing my eyes.

It's so weird. One day I'm just relaxing in my apartment, and the next day I'm time traveling to save the world… Mom, Dad… I will save you. I will make all this right!

After that, I drift off to a peaceful sleep.

I wake up to Alice walking into our room. Quickly sitting up, I am met with her gaze.

"Sorry, did I wake you?", she says while looking a bit surprised.

I rub my eyes and yawn. "Yeah, don't worry about it. How long has it been?"

Alice looks at the clock. "It's 8:00 PM now."

"Jeez, I was out cold! How was your walk?"

Alice is now wearing a more casual appearance. A black hoodie with some green on it and black pants. She takes off the hoodie to reveal a gray shirt underneath and the hoodie vanishes into thin air as she throws it into her pocket dimension.

"It was nice being able to see everything here. I wouldn't have ever visited this town otherwise. Everyone was nice too." Alice looks toward the bathroom.

"Alright, I'm going to take a bath now.", she says as she begins to make her way over to the bathroom.

"Sure, I'll go after you then!"

Alice walks into the bathroom and starts to run the bath. After a bit, I can hear her get in with a splash of water.

"Hey, Alice?", I call out after her through the door.

"Yeah?", she's hard to hear because of the door separating up, but we can still have a good conversation.

"How do you feel about all this? This Singularity thing?"

There's a brief period of silence, but that silence is cut fairly quickly. "Well, I've been in the magecraft community for a while now. It's still weird to me though. I thought time travel wasn't possible. Not like this anyway. Going back in time to fix the past. I didn't know this would happen when I signed up for Chaldea.

"You signed up for Chaldea?" I was abducted from the doctor's office when I was brought to Chaldea, so this is a little weird for me to hear from her.

"Yeah, I live in a place in London called the Clock Tower. I saw an ad hung up for Chaldea and my Sensei suggested I try it out so I could meet people. I wasn't doing much at the time so I joined, but not thinking much of it. But…now all this happened, I want to finish this all so Sensei can live and I can go back to my life there.

"Yeah, I understand that. As I said before, I was dragged here against my will, but decided to stay because I had nothing else back in Japan besides my parents."

"I didn't have anything in London either. I didn't have any friends back there and was sort of an outcast due to my scared-up body and my job. You see, as an assassin, people were either afraid of me or just didn't want to be friends because they were worried I'd die one day and leave them. So it was pretty lonely besides Sensei."

"Alice… I'm sorry to hear that. No wonder you were on your own when we met."

I recall the time we first met in the cafeteria and how quiet she was.

"Yeah…", that is all she says in response.

"What's life over there like generally, for magi I mean.", I ask her, not knowing how magi act since I didn't know it even existed until recently.

"A lot of shitty people. All the mages care about is power and wealth. Yes, there are some good people, but most of the higher-ups are just power-hungry. I didn't hate it there, but it could have been better."

Alice gets up from her bath and a hairdryer turns on. Not long after, she exits the bathroom and sits on the bed only wearing a white towel. "Alright, you can go now. Feel free to use my hairdryer."

"Thanks!" I respond and walk into the bathroom after her.

I take a quick bath and take forever to dry my long hair. It's always been a pain to dry since it goes down past my butt when it's not in my hair tie, even when it is it still reaches my waist.

Afterwards, I walk out of the bathroom to see Alice resting on the bed eating an apple she must've had on her.

"Ah~. That bath felt great. Your hair dryer works wonders too. My hair normally takes forever to dry with how long it is."

Alice looks my way. "Why do you keep your hair so long? Doesn't it get annoying for you? I keep my hair short to avoid that.

I touch my bangs with my hand. "Sometimes it does, yeah, but I went those few years without getting it cut and I already had long hair before that. I guess the look just grew on me. Plus it looks nice with Musashi's hair tie."

"That hair tie, you said you bought it at an auction?"

"Yep, it was quite expensive but I really like Musashi and his style of fighting and all that. However, I have no idea if it's genuine or not. I like to think it is because the red paint was faded and it looked beat up.", I walk over and pick up the black and gray spiral of a hair tie. It's made out of wood, but still sturdy after all these hundreds of years.

"Hm? But there's no red on it? There's only gray and black.", Alice points out.

"Oh, I painted over the red. It was faded and all and I planned to wear it, so why not have it match me while also refurbishing it?"

"I see, well you seem good at painting." She says.

"Thanks but I can't paint very well, or draw even. This design wasn't hard to paint over so I guess that's why it looks so good."

I put the tie in my hair and return my silver hair to its natural state of a ponytail.

"Hey, Alice? Wanna come with me to get some snacks for the night? I saw a store nearby that sells some good stuff. We can even watch a movie together later if you want?"

"Sure, I'll come with you. And that movie sounds nice. It'll keep us occupied enough, but we shouldn't stay up too late since we have to wake up early tomorrow."

"Got it!"

And with that, we leave our room and walk the dark streets. Of course, there are street lamps, but even those can't cover everything in light.

"The air feels nice out here."

The cool night breeze hits my face as the sound of animals makes noise in the distance.

"Yes, it does.", she replies and seems to soak in the air as well with a peaceful expression.

We continue to walk the dead streets. Seemingly not a soul around. The store I saw should be pretty close to where we are now, so maybe another few minutes of walking?

An arrow flies through Alice's head, killing her instantly. I look over and before I know it I'm attacked too and killed.

I look up in complete shock, and my Mystic Eyes go off, warning me of incoming danger.

"ALICE!"

I throw myself and her to the ground, and an arrow flies over us, barely missing our heads. I can hear it impact the brick wall behind us and stick in.

Alice immediately transforms into her combat outfit and I do the same.

"Tsk."

I hear footsteps from the roof above.

Alice stands up and begins to look around. She notices a slender figure on the roof and gives chase. She quickly climbs the building onto the roof using some crates and begins to run after the figure. I can't do such a thing like her so I follow on the ground.

The one who fired was someone with a bow, an Archer?

Gunshots ring out and in response, bow shots fly through the air and into the distance. I can't see exactly what's happening but I sure can infer.

Alice manages to get a good look at the figure. A girl with green hair and cat ears, a yellow tail under a dress. She also has a bow in her hands, aiming to kill.

Alice pulls out a silenced SMG from her imaginary space and begins to fire. The cat dodges the bullets easily with extreme agility and retaliates with her own projectiles.

I won't be able to keep up with a Servant like this one. She's too fast. Alice thinks as she continues to dodge and attack when she can. She reinforces her feet and legs to keep out of the way of the arrows.

The Servant notices me running down below and fires at me. It seems like she's either trying to kill Chaldea or anyone who's out at night. Either way, that means I might wind up dead.

I barely manage to dodge the arrows fired at me using my Mystic Eyes and hiding behind solid objects. I can't do anything to her, and Alice is not able to keep up against such a nimble Servant. How can we possibly win this?

Alice scrambles to think of a plan, but can't come up with one too easily with her life on the line.

I can't use explosives since we are in a town with innocent people nearby. I can't close the distance between us either.

At the edge of a roof, the girl aims toward Alice's head, ready to fire. Alice gets ready to defend herself with a large sheet of reinforced metal she pulled from her Imaginary Space.

The arrow is released and will impact Alice. She braces herself but knows that she will most likely be thrown off balance and killed by a second shot here. Nothing more can be done.

"HAAAAAAAAAH!"

A figure moving at the speed of green lightning illuminates the area and cuts down the arrow with no problem. The figure lands on the roof and gets into a stance where he can attack at a moment's notice.

"You…"

The Archer seems to recognize the boy on the roof. He has light brown, messy hair and red eyes. His build seems average. Not too muscular, not super skinny either. What I can tell from a glance is that he is used to fighting.

"Atalanta…I guess this means he has allies after all. Unfortunately for you, Archer, I'm going to have to kill you here for their safety.", the boy says while shooting a glance at Alice and my general direction.

The Archer smirks. "You must have a death wish, homunculus!"

Atalanta notches three arrows and fires all of them at the boy, but he dodges around the side and runs to the Archer to cover distance and get rid of her ability to shoot. But with blinding speed, she repositions several rooftops away and rapidly fires arrows at both the boy, and us.

"Both of you, get to cover!", another voice says, quickly approaching the two of us. A massive flag blocks the arrows for me, and Alice jumps off the building and also takes cover behind the flag.

"Who are you?", I ask the blonde woman in purple.

"I am a Ruler Servant, true name Jeanne D'Arc. You're from Chaldea, aren't you?", she asks with an expression that shows she already knows the answer.

"Y-yes we are. How could you tell?", I reply while still cowering behind the cover.

"Atalanta would not attack random civilians. So I assume you would be Chaldea, the only enemy toward the people on her side."

"Atalanta? That's the name of that Archer?", Alice looks at the green woman who is fighting the boy who just saved us from rooftop to rooftop.

Jeanne nods her head. "Yes. I can explain more later, but for now, I need to provide backup for the boy up there. Atalanta has to be neutralized, here and now."

And Ruler begins to run after the battle, leaping roof to roof where the other two are.

Alice grabs my wrist and pulls me and herself into an alleyway. "Let's just leave this to them. We're greatly outmatched, and I don't want to make them worry about us."

I agree with no way nor want to argue back, and we simply watch the fight from afar.

"Again you two get in my way, just die!", Atalanta yells out.

The boy keeps running forward, Jeanne d'Arc quickly catching up behind him. Neither of the two responds with words, only their action.

"But I know you cannot survive this!"

Her bow begins to glow, and mana explodes from her body. Aiming the bow into the air with an arrow nocked, she chants—

"O Apollo, O Artemis! I pay my greatest respects to you both with the arrows leaving my bow! Phoebus Catastrophe!", she yells out as the arrow is released. What seems like thousands of projectiles fall from the night sky like rain.

"That won't happen! Sieg, get behind me!"

The banner rapidly unfolds and glows golden.

"Luminosité Eternelle!", Jeanne yells out and the two are temporarily protected from the Noble Phantasm.

Failing to eliminate the two new threats, Atalanta vanishes into Spirit Form and gets away, her mission half completed.

Once the onslaught ends, Jeanne dematerializes her flag and takes a breath. "Sieg, are you okay?"

"Yes, thanks to you, Ruler. What about them?", Sieg asks while looking our way.

"They should be okay. Let's go check on them."

And the two run over to the alleyway we are hiding in.

Note:

Sorry this one took so long. I was pretty busy and didn't have much time to write. All of Trifas is finished though, so this Singularity will be released weekly until it's done. Thank you for reading!