AN: I'm back folks, let's see what's been on your mind. "Duder," wrong, it's not Robin Hood. "DarkBlight," valid criticism, and CIVIL! Thank you for the review. "Markus-Antonius," I have ways around that as I get further, but for now with most of the servants being technically not revealed yet I have to go that way. Anyways, time to start.
Speech
Thought, magical communication
Higher Being (i.e. Demon, Grail, ect) speaking, Berserker Class talking, Scene/POV change
Higher Being thinking
Interlude: Meet your servants
Emiya Estate: an Hour after the last chapter (it's now 11 PM)
Rin had left ten minutes ago, after they had worked out the finer details of the alliance, including Rin and her servants moving into the Emiya compound at the insistence of Queen Gilgamesh. Of course, the Toshaka heiress hadn't caved easily; she had to be threatened by the petulant golden queen with being deaged to toddlerhood before she finally submitted to that term.
Now Naruto was sitting in awkward silence trying to figure out what to say, when the silence was broken by the blue dressed Saber: "So, Queen Gilgamesh was it? Do you perchance have a twin brother?"
The golden armored queen raised a single eyebrow: "No I do not…"
The swordswoman blush subtly, " 'King' Artoria Pendragon. I asked as the archer in the last war looked very similar to you."
Naruto's eybrows shot up at her identity, but before he could comment, the black armored pale blonde spoke: "That doesn't surprise me, in all likelihood he was an alternate version of our Gilgamesh here. Much like we are alternates. Though I am curious as to why you claim to be 'King' when you are clearly a woman."
Artoria bristled, and spoke through grated teeth as she defended herself: "The kingdom would not accept a female ruler as easily as a male one. I had to hide my gender to ensure an easier unification...Though in the end it doesn't seem like it mattered."
A snort left the fully armored lancer's lips, and her voice, so much like the two already mentioned, broke in: "Now now, we all had our own paths to rule. Though judging by your appearances, I ruled longer."
Before either of the others could speak, the armor of the woman vanished revealing a much more…well endowed…version of the blue dressed one. Artoria and Arturia both hung their heads in shame, and the rest just were silent as they tried to wrap their heads around this.
The first to react was the young blonde in chainmail: "So, this is another potential me."
The Lancer's smile dimmed: "Ah, no sorry, that joke was in bad taste. But yes, I am a potential future of yours. Unlike the other two, I returned Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake, and retained my spear. This allowed my…development…to continue at a normal pace."
Mordred's head "thunk'd" as it hit the table, drawing the attention of the room's inhabitants. The silver armored blonde with a purple cloak spoke with a noticeabl French accent: "What's with him?"
Artoria's blush intensifies: "Err, that's my 'son,' Mordred…I don't think 'he' is too happy with how this conversation is going."
Arturia butt in, don't tell me Merlin also did that to you…And let me guess, Mordred is another woman like we are."
Mordred leapt to her feet: "Who's a woman? Go ahead and say it again! I'll fight you both!" She was in full rage mode, but she was quickly whapped by Scathach for "being a nuisance." That mollified the infamous knight a bit, as that spear really fucking hurt when the lancer hit her with it.
Naruto's face was blank as he spoke: "So, I somehow summoned four versions of 'King Arthur,' Mordred, Scathach, and a female version of Gilgamesh…so the only ones I don't know are you two."
The silver armored blonde with purple robes spoke in a quite obvious French accent: "I am Joan of Arc, and I am not fully pleased to be working alongside English people."
That sparked a shouting match as our protagonist's head slammed into the table. It was just his luck to get several of the greatest heroes of England…it was also his luck to get one of France's most famous…and it wasn't too much of a surprise they got on like a roof and fire.
Looking to his left, he was annoyed but unsurprised to see that Gil was watching with undisguised amusement, rather than breaking it up. Turning his head to the right, he saw Scathach staring in a mixture of annoyance and surprise, though surprise seemed to be winning…along with a slight amount of amusement, reading her lips, she was amused by how "lively" the group was.
But while he was taking this all in, his final servant, a blonde in a red and white dress, who had yet to introduce herself, was fuming. She had been denied the right to introduce herself in as grand a manner as she desired. This would not do.
Rising to her feet, the woman called her blade, a curved red sword, and waited to the count of three…Before slamming her sword into the table, shattering it and breaking into the shouting match.
Glaring at them all, she spoke in as regal a tone as her annoyance would allow: "Are you not among the greatest heroes of all time, or not? If you are ACT LIKE IT! You are embarrassing yourselves in front of the Praetor."
Silence enveloped the room, as the shouting heroes sat down; a single eyebrow rose on Naruto's face. Praetor. That was a Roman title, so he at least knew she was a daughter of Rome…though that still left a lot of people as options…especially as he had just found out "King Arthur" had always been a woman in his timeline.
The red dressed woman glared once more, before a smile broke across her face: "Umu. Now that that is settled, I can introduce myself! I am Emperor Nero Claudius Caeser Augustus Germanicus! I will fight alongside you in this Grail War, my Praetor!"
A brief moment of silence resulted from this, before Naruto slammed his head into the broken table and the Maid of Orleans and the British heroes, at least the Christian ones, joined forces yelling at the Emperor…or would it be Empress…who persecuted Christians so harshly.
Growling to himself a single thought pervaded his head: "Fuck this, I need to sleep." As such he created a M1911 pistol, and calmly fired into the air to get everyone's attention. When he spoke his voice was deathly calm: "I have been up since five in the morning. I died earlier tonight. I fought three figures of legend to a standstill. It is now currently eleven at night. I have school in the morning. I need to sleep. You can get back to arguing in the morning, but right now sleep is the priority. So I bid you all good night."
He rose from his seat in the ensuing silence, and with a quick application of Magecraft fixed the table…but before he even made it to the door a voice called out to him: "Ah! Wait! Master! Who's going to protect you while you sleep?"
Swearing lightly, he turned eyes that were starting to blur to the servants: "Do as you wish, I am too tired to give a shit right now. We can iron everything out tomorrow when I am less irritable and not about to pass out. So again, good night."
As he trudged out of the room, the day's events making him even more sluggish on top of his need to sleep, he was vaguely aware of his servants following behind him softly. It was a comical sight, a half asleep teen leading a group of nine dazed servants to a room to sleep.
Naruto didn't even bother getting ready to sleep, he passed out as soon as his head touched the pillow. But while he fell into the realm of dreams, his servants held a council.
Gilgamesh frowned at her "comrades" for this war. They were all legends in their own right, though none could match her own saga. Normally she wouldn't be doing this, but her "master" had earned a modicum of her respect by his words and deeds, and so she would aid him a little.
And so she laid down the Law, her voice was as hard as diamonds: "What happened tonight was inexcusable, and will never happen again. By your actions you disgraced your reputations and legends, while our 'master' may not care, I do. From now on if there are issues, you will resolve them civilly with words. If that fails then you will spar with me as judge."
The blonde paused for a second before continuing: "We can only rely on each other in this war; while Toshaka may have allied with us she may still backstab us. And there is who knows how many other heroes are out there. Any division will be dealt with harshly. And even if I have to drug our master with the strongest aphrodisiac in existence and make him RAPE you all into compliance, we will present a unified front. Do I make myself clear?"
Silence met that declaration, before the lancer version of Artoria spoke: "While you worded it in an extreme way, you are correct…What happened tonight was a disgrace, and should never have happened. I will keep the peace in this house as best I can."
Then Scathach spoke, her tone lazy: "Aye, kinda a bad way to end the first day. I'd rather not piss off the people who would make sure any fights in the future for me are fair…So I'll play nice as long as you all do."
With those two affirming their commitment to keeping the peace, the rest quickly fell in line. First Mordred declaring that she would rather die than tarnish her own code of chivalry; then the youngest of the Artorias promised her own support of peace within the group, though she did gently reprimand Gilgamesh for her crass threat.
Nero also readily pledged to uphold the peace, for the sake of her Praetor…And also because an Empress couldn't be shown up ever, it just wouldn't do. The next to agree was Queen Arturia, the black armored woman not in the mood to have another shouting match…especially since away from the heat of the moment it was apparent it was in bad form at least, if not outright a foolish thing to do in front of their master.
Then the blue garbed saber version of Artoria spoke, her words were slow and measured…but the result was the same, she would also support peace within the team to the best of her abilities.
The last to speak was Joan of Arc. First she made it quite clear she was not fully accepting of working alongside so many Englanders; but when chains started to waive ominously behind Gil's back, she hurried and clarified that she would be willing to put it aside for now.
The oldest legend was pleased, but she kept her reaction to herself. Afterall, it wouldn't have done for them to know she was bluffing. While she did have an aphrodisiac that strong, she would never use it; she wasn't sure what the male version of her the blue clad Arturia met would do, but it was against her principles to take away people's free wills (basically this version of Gil is what would happen if his personality remained the same as Kid Gil…while…you know…being a woman instead of a man).
They then set about deciding who would guard what until they could hammer something out tomorrow. Mordred and Lancer Artoria were assigned to sleep in the same room as their master, as a last line of defense. Meanwhile Queen Arturia and Nero were assigned to guard the two ways, exterior and hallway, into the room while astralized.
Finally: Joan, the youngest Artoria, Scathach, the blue dressed version of Artoria, and Gilgamsh herself would patrol the grounds and estate in astral form. While a few weren't fully happy with their assignments, they knew for now that it was necessary, at least until the Emiya estate was fortified to the best of their abilities.
Naruto's Soulscape:
While the servants were assuming their positions, Naruto stood before nine different orbs. Each was a different color, and had a different aura. He spent what felt like a few minutes trying to figure out what was going on. The instruction he received on the Grail War was bare bones, but he instinctively knew this had something to do with the war. The only question was, which Orb to interact with.
Finally, after felt like ten minutes he chose an orb. It was a silvery orb with a warm feel to it; and as soon as he touched it, memories not his own flooded into his consciousness.
He saw the girl in the memory train to be a knight, training sometimes until she collapsed in exhaustion. He watched her interact with her adoptive brother Kay, who was a Knight in training. Naruto readily approved of Kay, the man cared for his adopted sibling, and was something of a trickster.
In the memories he also met Sir Ector. The man was kind hearted, seeming to embody chivalry in every way…but he could see the man was weighed down by many concerns. What his limited knowledge of the legend, he theorized that the old knight was concerned over the enemies of Uther finding out his heir survived…and would come to wage war…or instead use underhanded means to gain the young girl as a political pawn.
He also saw her learning from Merlin, one of the greatest maguses in history…and a massive pervert and womanizer. The last memory he saw from her perspective was when a strange Dead Apostle stopped her, and offered her a way to meet some of her potential futures; this readily gave the vampire's identity away as Zelretch to the modern magus.
After the young Artoria accepted, the visions ended. Naruto once again found himself in the area with the orbs. Taking a moment to process everything, he considered his next orb choice.
Elsewhere in the Soulscape:
A pair of crimson eyes opened for the first time in years. The mind of the being the eyes belonged to processed the years of information it had missed in its sleep. A heavy snort echoed, "So, the boy has found interesting company. Maybe now his life will entertain me enough to stay awake. Though I doubt he will impress me enough to earn my aid."
Out in the city:
The knight growled in anger, his "master" ordered had him on another scouting mission. This assignment grated on his nerves. There was no glorious enemy to fight, most Servants on recon missions would flee rather than face him.
To top it off, he was part of a trio. Granted, he didn't mind comrades in arms, he would be thrilled to have allies…If it wasn't for the fact the slime ball who had usurped the roll of master was using several "Book of the Fake Attendant" to force the two women into being his sex toys.
To put it mildly, he held nothing but hatred for Shinji. Not only was he aware of what the scum had done to his adopted sister, but he had born witness to several rapes, and been able to do NOTHING. If he had thought it would atone for his failure, he would have killed himself by now, his wish be damned.
But all that would mean is no one would be able to run into someone able to free his true master from the horror she was trapped in. He had hoped to run into her "Sempai," to beg his aid, but his luck didn't allow that. As he stopped for a brief second, his ebon armor glinted in one of the street lights.
For now he had no choice to obey…But soon he would have an ally to free them from the hell that was their "home base," even if it cost him his life.
Elsewhere in the city:
One of the figures from the graveyard materialized inside the bounds of a medium house, the shadows covered the area, obscuring everything, but he had no problems seeing. He stared at one point of the room, where soft breathing could be heard, as he spoke: "How is she?"
A calm, but clipped voice spoke: "In all honesty she's lucky she summoned us when she did, another few seconds and she would have been beyond even my aid."
The first speaker's fist clenched tightly, leather gloves creaking: "Those people, and I hesitate to use that word, weren't even fit to be dog food. They're lucky my familiars dealt with them before she did."
The second speaker replied: "Indeed, how so much power could be contained in such a small frame baffles me."
A third voice broke in: "Gentlemen, if you're done talking about me behind my back, we have work to do."
Unknown Location:
A being of ancient malevolence gazed in displeasure at what it had wrought. Angra Manju, the avatar of all the world's evils, had broken the spirit within the grail itself enough to wrestle control of the system…and remove the limits for this war.
Even with using the stored up prana, accelerating the harvesting rates to almost detectable by the human mages, and over writing the laws of the grail war summoning…He had not managed to get enough "heroes" of sufficiently dark hearts summoned that his return would be assured.
It became apparent it didn't do enough to ensure a return. It was of no matter. Locked in the grail as it was, the being was basically immortal, and had nothing but time. In the end it would succeed, and bring an end to all things.
For now though it could torment the spirit with the fact that its victory was inevitable, and nothing the grail, or its apparently chosen champion could do, to stop it.
CHAPTER COMPLETE!
NEXT TIME: Interlude: Meet Your Servants Part 2
Omake: Six months after the last
Shirou sighed heavily for the fourth time in ten minutes as he waited for his bride to be to enter. The fight versus the Mountain in the melee had been easy, the man was a berserker…and any blow would have seriously injured the now blond, but the infamous knight was also highly predictable. That predictability had led to his death, though not before Shirou had the knight confess to the rape and murder of his relatives.
Of course this had led to the issue of Robert wanting him arrested for potentially wanting to insight a new civil war. To keep the peace he had renounced the crown…Though that didn't solve everything, while Robert was willing to let him go after the two talked…his eldest daughter wanted to finish the tournament, and that meant beating him.
It had been a ferocious duel, the princess easily was worthy of the title of "Warrior Princess"...Indeed she had nearly beaten him a few times, much to his surprise and earning his respect. But, in the end, Shirou was able to claim victory. This though had unforeseen consequences as he was soon to discover.
Apparently, the Princess, who he was surprised to learn was named Arturia, had made a deal with her parents, read a bet with Robert, where she would only wed someone able to defeat her…Which he had done like a damned fool.
So now here he was, waiting inside the Royal Sept to be wed. The guest list was a veritable "who's who" of nobility in Westros; his own sister had been escorted by King Robert's personal guard to be present for the event.
Daenaryis had not been pleased with finding out he was due to be wed, but she said she would "Tolerate the Baratheon hussy" as long as they were allowed to live in Westros. That comment had resulted in him needing to physically separate the two, but he was getting off track.
Jaime Lanister entered with an amiable smile: "Well soon to be nephew in law, my niece is outside the doors now, soon you won't have to worry yourself over the ceremony anymore. Though, as a fair warning, if you cheat on her by sleeping with another woman without her consent, I will kill you in the most painful way imaginable."
A commotion broke out outside the doors of the sept, which soon burst in as forty Drothraki warriors came rushing in. He recognized the symbol on their bodies, and his recognition was confirmed when the tall beautiful figure of Khalise Dathrome, leader of the LARGEST Drothroki horde in the world, entered.
She took one look at the assembly, before discarding them as not worth notice, and then turned to him: "Come my future Khal, one way or the other you are returning across the water with me to Essos."
Understandably the first reaction most had was disbelief. Drothraki crossing the narrow sea was unheard of, the fear they held for any water their horses couldn't drink was legendary. But soon Princess Arturia recovered enough to reply: "Your future Khal? I think not. Ser Shirou bested me in combat, and has to wed me now."
Sparks flew between the twos eyes as they squared off to start fighting there and then, with one of the Kingsguard handing the Princess a sword for the upcoming fight. Shirou swore he heard someone laughing at his luck… But on the bright side though, at least the ceremony was the least of his concern now.
List of Revealed Servants:
?: "John of Nottingham," Prince Hector, and Cu Chulaain
Rin: Archer, Sir Gawain, and Assassin
Naruto: Artoria, Mordred, Lancer Artoria, Queen Arturia, Gilgamesh Queen of Heroes, Nero, Joan of Arc, Young Artoria, and Scathach
Shinji Matou(?): Unknown Knight, ?, and ?
?: ?, ?, and ?
?: ?, ?, and ?
?, ?, and ?: ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, and ?
Anyways, review please.