"FUJIMARU'S WHAT?!" The shout filled the room as Goredolf reacted to the news of their "failed" attempt to rescue the missing Master. His eyes scanned Kousei's appearance, his face in disbelief. "Please tell me this is a practical joke and you just dyed your hair while you were stuck wherever you were…"

"N…No, sorry," Kousei apologised with a skittish laugh, making Goredolf groan in exhaustion.

"Oh, this will not go over well… not at all…" He sighed in defeat and acceptance. "Has any of the Servants learned of this… unexpected change of plans?"

Mash couldn't confidently answer no. "No one has not told any of them anything yet… but I have a feeling they're already finding out." If not, then very soon. They were on a ticking clock before things got even more complicated and needed to figure out how to solve their little issue. "But I'm not sure what we are supposed to do now. We have to send Kousei back but what after?"

They could not just bring Ritsuka back now that they know he has a family there…

"Is there a way for us to travel there?" Goredolf suggested. "Wait, beyond that, if time is moving faster there than here—"

"No need to worry about that, Director," Sion quickly interjected, knowing what he was about to say, "I've checked the data and now our times have synchronized. We should have no worries about Kousei returning after months in his home world."

That was a relief but they were still left with several problems. One of which was about to rear its ugly head. The door burst open and in rushed a breathless Kadoc. "We have… problem…" He huffed out as he shut the door behind him and moved to stay behind Mash, pulling Kousei close. "They're… coming."

They already had two geniuses with them but they did not need them to understand what Kadoc meant. In a flash of light, Mash changed into her Servant form and planted her shield on the floor. "Kousei, keep close. They'll be after you. It won't be intentional but they might accidentally hurt you."

Kousei couldn't help but gulp at her warning. While he did have many, many… many… self-defence training, if his dad's stories were true then that didn't matter much. As soon as he hid behind Mash, the door burst open again, this time off its hinges as a few Servants rushed in. "Where is he?!"

It took a lot of careful words but after nearly an hour, the small gathering of Servants had calmed down. That didn't stop piercing stares towards Kousei as he found himself the centre of attention from every single Servant that came in. Most of the faces he saw were ones of inquisitiveness and curiosity, but there were still many narrowing their eyes at him or had downcasted looks. It was more than obvious the news that they "failed" his father so terribly was not going over well with some of them.

Just in case, Kousei stood behind Mash as she tried her best to address everyone's questions. The most pressing question was naturally what are they going to do next? With Kousei's existence, this was far away a simple matter more so than it was before. "Right now, we need to figure out how to send Kousei back. It was our mistake that brought him here and we have to fix it." What happens after would be decided upon later when the time comes.

How they were going to send him back was another question on its own. The machine they made was meant to only pull in Ritsuka (and it failed in that); it didn't have a switch to reverse its settings.

"Zemlupus, take Kousei to a room he could rest in," Goredolf ordered him to which Kadoc nodded. The second Master of Chaldea turned his head towards the dimensionally displaced teen and motioned for him to follow. The Servants who gathered in the room reluctantly parted to give them passage with a few trailing behind to keep an eye on him.

'Is this going to be how it'll be the whole time…?' Kousei could not help but wonder to himself as he kept close to Kadoc. Soon enough, they reached their destination— a spare quarters where Kadoc closed and locked the door behind them before letting out a long exhausted sigh.

"That won't actually hold them back but it gives us some time…" Kadoc loudly muttered as Kousei sat down on the bed. A tense air filled the room, the two staring at each other. Finally, Kousei broke the silence with a question.

"Zemlupus… So you're Kadoc Zemlupus, right?" He asked with an inquisitive look.

"Yes," Kadoc bluntly answered while giving a curt nod. "I take it your father told you about me?"

"Yeah. He said you were a cranky guy who hated his guts 'cause you thought he stole your thunder," Kousei recalled the stories Ritsuka told him and his siblings. "Then you nearly got killed and joined up with Chaldea."

"That's a massive oversimplification but yes, I hated your father for a while," Kadoc nodded. He was still ashamed of it but he was not going to hide what he did. "Did he say anything else?" He could not help but ask, wishing to sate his curiosity of Ritsuka's opinion.

"Well… he said he does miss you and the others dearly and wishes you two could patch your relationship before he got stranded," revealed Kousei.

That answer made Kadoc scoff though he could not hide the small grin on his face. "Typical. That sounds just like him," he sighed in exasperation. "He has not changed at all, huh?"

"Nope. As far as I remember, he has not changed much; the kind and gentle person who always tries to be there for others, especially those close to him." There was not a single moment Kousei could recall where his father didn't try his best for everyone else, not to mention Kousei himself and his siblings. There were naturally moments of disappointment but Ritsuka always made up for it however he could. "But I'm curious, what was he like here?" Kousei wanted to hear what his father did before he got stranded.

"If you want to hear from the beginning, I'm not really the best person to ask. I was in a coma during the Grand Or—"

—Creak!

"...What was—?" "AHHH!" CRASH!

Before Kousei could finish his question, the ceiling vent broke and a couple of Servants fell out— crashing loudly on the ground. "Ow…"

"I told you you were too heavy…"

Well… At least they could tell him more about his father…

It was strange; Kousei had not come back from lunch. He had gone off to use the bathroom after eating and nothing since. The raven-haired girl found herself impatiently tapping her desk as she glanced at her hidden phone. She had already sent him several texts but he had not received any of them.

"Did his phone die or something…?" she muttered to herself. He had already missed a class but he could just have been called for something. The school staff (read: the headmistress) occasionally did that but why was she not called as well in that case? It was nearly impossible for anything terrible to happen to him here on campus grounds, so she had to cross out that possibility for now.

'If he doesn't show up by the end of the day, I'll have to go looking for him myself,' she decided before putting away her phone. If something happened to her brother, then nothing in the world would stop Hikari from finding him. After all, she was a Fujimaru too. No matter what, they never give up.

A/N: And now we have Kousei's sister in the story. How long until Ritsuka himself show up? Soon, I think shrugs