Chapter 10 Trifas Section 7

The binds are released and we all stand up, but Olga seems stunned in place. "Lev, what are you doing here?"

"Tsk, you're still alive, Olga?", Lev says in a pissed-off tone of voice. The finely dressed man in the green suit looks over the situation.

"Who are you!?", Amakusa demands from the new intruder.

"Me? My name is Lev Lainur Flauros, one of the 72 Demon God Pillars!"

"72… demons, huh?", Amakusa pulls out a few black keys to fight with. As demons, the church is the natural way to fight them. He throws them, but Lev simply blows them away with his cane. A strong blast of wind flies out and sends them tumbling to the ground.

"How rude, don't you want an explanation?", Lev looks down at the Grail in his hand. "How did this even get here? This is a Holy Grail made by our king. Seven of them were cast into various periods across human history to erase it by disabling key points. So I wonder how this got to this not-so-special time?"

"Wait, was it not supposed to come to Trifas?", Mash asks.

"Of course not. Something must have gone wrong when they were sent out. Another Singularity is acting strange too. I'll have one of us check that out after I deal with you all here. This Grail was meant to go to Rome, not Trifas."

Amakusa looks stunned. His eyes are wide and his hand gripping his katana tightly.

"No… that Grail was a gift from the lord… It was for me to save humanity, but if what you say is true…"

"Hm? It is from a god, not yours though. Don't worry, samurai. This will be used to save humanity. Once this is all over and Chaldea is dead, humanity will be better than before. But, we will have to incinerate everything first."

Jeanne d'Arc grips her sword, La Pucelle, and is almost about to draw it, but Sieg stops her hand before it can even leave the sheathe. "Ruler, I won't let you kill yourself again. We can beat this man."

"Sieg…", Jeanne nods her head. "I will trust you on that.

"This is my domain! Have you not realized that your strength has vanished, visitor?" Semiramis says smugly as if she's already won.

Lev glances over with a side eye and smirks. "Has it? You may not have realized that I am many times stronger than a single Servant."

The entire Hanging Gardens begins to tremble and shake. It's as if an earthquake hit it and it feels like the entire place may fall.

"Awaken, Demon God Pillar!", Lev shouts out and his body sinks into the ground. Right after he vanishes, a tentacle rises out of the ground. It's easily the size of a building and has hundreds of eyes on its surface.

But it was not done yet as tentacles wrapped around the Hanging Gardens, they spread all over its surface and into its halls, destroying all in their path.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA! Now, face your end. All of you!"

A voice comes from the tentacle, and hundreds of red beams shoot from the red eyes on its body.

"Lord Chaldeas!" Mash yells out as she activates her Noble Phantasm, blocking the attacks and saving our lives.

Olga quickly spins around and points behind us. "We need to get out of the area! It's too dangerous right now!"

With the help of the Servants, we all retreat not too far away, the demon still in sight. But, the onslaught never stops. The other tentacles lying around the Gardens become active and try to attack us, especially those of us at Chaldea.

Astolfo, Jeanne, and Sieg strike down the tentacles while Mash protects us as much as she can.

Ritsuka grabs his arm and presses a button on it, initiating a summon. Artoria, along with Medusa are both summoned to the battlefield and instantly grasp the situation. Blasting off at top speed, the two begin to destroy every piece of the Demon God as much as they can.

As Sieg's body erupts in green lighting, he blasts forward and cuts down another piece. Amakusa and Semiramis…are those two struggling? Sieg thinks as he spots both of them fighting as well, but due to her injuries, Semiramis has grown slower and Amakusa is trying to protect her for if she dies, the entire Garden falls apart. Sieg realizes this too and goes over to aid them, transforming his hands into Siegfried's and manifesting Balmung, he blasts the horde surrounding the two into twilight.

"I say we should postpone our final battle until this 'Demon Pillar' is dealt with."

Amakusa looks as if he's deciding like he even has to think at a time like this. "Fine, just for now." The three face toward the main pillar, Flauros, and get ready to fight.

"May you require aid, boy?"

A voice Sieg would recognize anywhere comes from the side, fast approaching.

"Siegfried!? I didn't know you were summoned!", Sieg sounds surprised but overall relieved.

"I killed you, along with that Lancer!", a voice bellows from the Pillar.

"You neglected to check for bodies. You simply blew the two of us far away and left. It took a bit to recover, but I blasted my way up here with my Noble Phantasm, and Karna should get here any second.

And just on cue, a laser shoots through the Pillar and it recoils, but heals just as fast as it received the damage.

"Karna, can you help out Chaldea? Even with Vlad, they seem to be getting overrun!", Siegfried calls out and Karna only nods in response, flying over the us.

"Return to Hell." He simply states, that all the pillars are incinerated as they writhe in what seems to be pain. They turn to ash but regrow just as fast.

"So they are stronger than they look? Very well, I will leave the extinction of the main body to them while we take care of the extras."

Karna lands next to the Servants on our side. "Lancer, Ruler. Interesting how we are fighting on the same side now. Do you not agree?"

Vlad smirks. "Quite so. I expected us to fight again. But this will work just fine for the time being. Try and keep up."

Next is Ruler's time to speak. "I know how strong you are, Karna. Do not let us down now. We need your power."

As for what I am doing in this situation. I, along with Ritsuka, are stationed back away from the fight. Ritsuka summoned Servants to our aid and is buffing and healing the main fighters while I stay back and give out orders with my eyes as best as I can. Even with the ability to see the future, some hiccups are made, but better than without.

Alice's gun runs out of bullets and she curses. "Damn, none of my guns can do much to these. Without actually weak points and their size, bullets can't do anything!"

Nick flies back and lands, sliding across the ground after being pushed back by a tentacle whacking him. "Alice, got any explosives? Use those, also give me some."

Alice accesses her Imaginary Space once more and pulls out a few grenades. She gives two to Nick and keeps two of them for herself. "Where do you even buy these?", Nick asks, genuinely curious.

"I craft them myself. I make all my weaponry myself for the most part."

Nick smirks and pulls the pin on one. "Then let's see how much punch this has!" He throws it at the eye of one of the tentacles and it explodes, sending shards of it through the body of the Demon God extension. Mash blocks the shards from hitting any of our allies with her shield.

"Not bad at all…", Nick says, quite impressed that a teenager could build something like that on her own. Olga runs up beside him and takes the second grenade out of his hand and etches a rune into it. She pulls the pin and throws in one more, producing an even bigger explosion than before!

"Heh, you should learn runes, Ketsueki. They're very useful.", Olga remarks with a sarcastic tone.

Alice does the same and tosses both of hers at once. "I agree, my teacher taught me some and I couldn't imagine fighting without them."

Alice has built-in runes in her clothing to make her able to move faster and hit harder, basically a rune version of reinforcement but constant, so the statement is as literal as one can make it.

From the left, a tentacle slams down on top of the three, but it was luckily stopped and then destroyed by a combined effort from Jeanne, and Karna. The former stops it and the latter destroys it.

"Keep focused.", that is all Karna says before he goes to intercept other attacks.


"It seems like I'm not too useful to you two right now. I'm going to go back and back up Serena and Ritsuka.", Alice runs back toward the two of us while Olga and Nick fight off more tendrils.

"Serena, Ritsuka, how are you two holding up back here?"

Ritsuka is heavily panting and sweating. "Fine… I'm not sure how much more I can take though. I've summoned too many Servants. So now I only have one left to spare."

"Take a breather. We can't have you passing out mid-battle, right?" Alice says after placing a hand on his shoulder.

Ritsuka falls to a knee and nods his head. "Yeah. You're right."

Alice then looks at me with a worried look in her eyes. "Serena?"

"My eyes are beginning to hurt, but if I stop, you all might… Alice, behind you in two seconds!"

A tentacle flies in and goes to attack Alice, but luckily for her, Mash defends her and parries the attack, leaving it for Jeanne to slice up with her sword.

Alice places both of her hands on my shoulders. "You're right, but take it easy. You're not used to using those eyes for so long at a time. If you use them so much, there's a chance you could go blind."

I shut my eyes, and the Mystic Eyes of Premonition shut off, resting them. "I'll give them and myself a break then."

Alice smiles. "I'll keep you safe during that time."

Sieg, along with Siegfried, both use Balmung to strike down any attacks that come their way. The two are in perfect unison. Sharing the same Spirit Origin, they can "feel" a connection between them which lets them know what the other is going to do and the body relies on instinct.

"Balmung!"

"Balmung!"

The two shout out as they attempt to take the life of the enemy, but to no avail, as he blocks it with other tendrils. Semiramis cannot bind it, and her attacks don't work very well. And Amakusa simply doesn't have the kind of firepower to fight the thing besides his Big Crunch, but that would endanger his new, temporary allies if he used it.

Blasted Tree would also endanger them. We have to take this thing out with normal attacks! Sieg thinks as he attacks several more times, trying to land more solid hits.

Whenever an attack was about to land, the Pillar blocked with rapid speeds and allowed no openings in its defense. Over and over again, strikes were attempted to little or no avail.

Dark smoke fills the area and the four Servants fighting are left blinded. The Demon God Pillar strikes with five tentacles coming from all sides in an attempt to strike down the four while they are distracted.

"Luminosité Eternelle!", a feminine voice shouts out as the sound of a pole hitting the ground echoes out. Jeanne d'Arc noticed the trouble and dashed over to give aid. The fog is blown away, and the attacks are all repelled.

"Everyone. Attack at once. If he can just block our attacks, then we need to destroy all barriers and blow a hole through the center!", Jeanne says and everyone agrees without question.

The now five run off in different directions to spread the Pillar's defenses thin. Semiramis formed smaller walls like the ones on the outside of the Hanging Gardens, and those walls began to blast the Pillar and any defenses it came up with.

Explosions roar through the area and the tentacles fall to the ground and are blown apart by Semiramis, while Amakusa Shirou continuously throws black keys at the monster in an attempt to subdue it since it is a demon. As well as that, he cuts it to bits with his katana, but still can't reach the main body. Jeanne d'Arc does the same with her blade, all to give an opening to the ones who hold Balmung.

The three all attack in unison, leaving the Demon God Pillar wide open for attack, and Sieg and Siegfried take the opening and use all they've got for this one chance.

They leap forward with godspeed and twist the handle of their blades, Sieg with his hands transformed into Siegfried's.

"The evil dragon will be vanquished…in this moment the world reaches its twilight!" They both yell out, blue beams pierce the heavens as they then are brought down onto the defenseless opponent.

"NOW FALL!"

"BALMUNG!"

The two Noble Phantasms make contact with the Pillar and it begins to melt as the two don't let up for even a second!

"Aaaahhhgguuuuhhhhhhh! Curse you!" Lev screams out as the Noble Phantasms end and an explosion decimates the enemy.

Smoke fills the area as the two swordsmen fall to the ground panting hard. And as the smoke clears, a Holy Grail is floating in the Pillar's place.

"Chaldea, you fought well, but this changes nothing! You still have six more to go! You have zero chance of saving humanity, only time will allow you to realize that, fools.", Lev's disembodied voice fades away as we presume he goes back to wherever he came from. The Pillar didn't die, but the threat is gone now and the Holy Grail is ours to secure.

Sieg without a second thought runs forward and grabs the Grail before Amakusa can even think of it. But, the man doesn't even budge.

We all run up to the area after the tentacles we were fighting vanish and the area is confirmed safe.

"Mas-Sieg!" Astolfo yells out in joy and hugs his former Master. "You're okay, I'm so glad~!"

"Rider! Yes, I'm okay. Thank you for worrying.", he pats his head as Rider continues to hold on. But Ruler grabs and shoves Rider out of the way and embraces Sieg, truly happy that he's still alive, even if just a fake body.

"Ruler, sorry I was captured. I wanted to be more helpful but—"

"Don't worry. I am just glad you are okay!"

Sieg smiles, then leaves her embrace and faces toward us. "I believe this is yours, right?"

The comm system activates and Romani and Da Vinci are there in audio form. "We do need that Grail, though it can be destroyed, it would be better off to supply Chaldea since we are low on power. With a Holy Grail powering the place, it could probably last a year on just this one!" Da Vinci says, excited that they won't have to skimp on power any longer.

Sieg takes one last look at it. But he notices Amakusa walking towards him, until he comes to a stop. The Ruler's wounded Assassin is right there behind him.

"Grrr…again, I am denied of what I desire most!", Amakusa growls, knowing that once again, the Grail did not favor him.

"Hmph. Still want to fight me for it, even though your army is mostly gone?", Sieg asked Amakusa, dangling the Grail in his hand for Amakusa to see. "I'm really out of patience for all your antics, and so is Ruler. More importantly, your Assassin can't bind me in place to take this Grail from me anymore."

"Sieg-kun, don't even humor this! This Grail is from Chaldea, and whatever it had taken from Heaven's Feel has already returned to our true bodies. Don't think you're better than you already are!", Jeanne called out to Sieg, worried about her loved one's beyond reckless decision to still try to fight Amakusa.

This is definitely a thing to behold. Sieg, whom I thought modest up to this point, showing some degree of heroic pride, staking the fight over the Grail that SHOULD be all ours now.

"Heh. You want to do it like this, huh Sieg? Fine, I'll humor you and your little duel. I won't even need of my Assassin for this, and in my state, I'm sure to win!", Amakusa responded to Sieg's call for battle.

"I want NO ONE in our way.", Sieg said as he glared at us. "Not Chaldea, not that Assassin, not the Singularity's other Servants…"

And then Sieg turned his gaze to Jeanne. But why did he suddenly stop talking?

"And most definitely, not my beloved.", without anyone noticing, he winks at Jeanne, smiling at her. She must be the only one to know that Sieg isn't gambling, and he's sure to win against an exhausted opponent.

"Then come, Sieg! I'll take that Grail, and your life!", Amakusa brandishes his katana.

"If you weren't even paying attention, I'm a lot stronger now than I used to be!", Sieg glared at Amakusa with his sharp ruby eyes.

Amakusa Shirou started to sprint at Sieg, despite his exhaustion from fighting. But Sieg wasn't about to fight fair, when his enemy had done anything but that in the past. Green energy covered his body and he dashed to reach Amakusa at the blink of an eye, almost completely disorienting his opponent as his sword's blade hit against Amakusa's several times before the human eye was able to register it.

"Ghhh!- What the- ?!"

"I was wrong when I said this was a fight."

Sieg then dashed behind Amakusa, but not before slashing the side of his body and his back. The cuts didn't seem deep enough to incapacitate Amakusa yet.

"Damn you!", Amakusa says before swinging his black katana at his opponent. But before he could even complete the swing, his katana collided against something and it let out a loud metallic noise.

Sieg had summoned Balmung to his hands, to stop Amakusa's attack from completing itself. He then pushes Amakusa's weapon aside with his greatsword and punches Amakusa in the face with Siegfried's metallic gauntlets.

"It's a humiliation, in return for everything you put me through while Ruler and I were trying to avert a tragedy here!", he shouted as he punched Amakusa a few more times.

"Aaaagh!", Amakusa grunts and snarls in pain.

"Come on, take another swing at me now!", Sieg says to his opponent. He plans to end this duel with his next attack.

"HAAAAA- !"

"I've won this!", Sieg said with a grin on his face.

Taking the smart approach, Sieg opted to disarm Amakusa of his katana with Balmung and spin it out of his hands, down the hole that Flauros had opened in the Hanging Gardens. Next, he pointed Balmung's long blade at Amakusa's neck.

"You're done. Try to fire Big Crunch here and I'll cut away your arms and your head.", Sieg gave Amakusa a sharp glare.

"Grrr…"

"Chaldea, the Grail is still within my custody. Come here to get your prize, because I can't afford to look away from this idiot if it means your safety will be at risk.", Sieg calls out to us, and Mash runs towards him.

"Yes, thank you Sieg!", Mash says.

Mash then takes the Grail from Sieg and stores it within Galahad's shield for safekeeping.

"I'm done here.", Sieg then looks at Amakusa again. "Do something this reckless and petty again, and you won't live to regret it."

"I already regret it now, homunculus.", Amakusa hisses.

Sieg walks away from his enemy, and returns to the company of Astolfo and Jeanne, with Astolfo being the first to jump in Sieg's arms and hug him.

Olga calls out to Semiramis and Amakusa, now that the hostilities have ended.

"If you really want to save Humanity, just let us get this over with. Chaldea will then let us summon you to help in our long effort. You may refuse, but it's not like that will change too much, because there are odds you can come to us anyway."

"Hmph.", Amakusa scoffs. "If it means I'll have another go at fighting Sieg and prove that I am the one chosen by God to save Humanity, then I will hear your call, Chaldea."

"And if Shirou is coming to aid you, I am too. I have to keep this obsessed young man in check, maybe get his mind out of this business and fill it with something else. Like me.~", Semiramis also replies to Olga's calling.

Nick raises his voice now that the area has calmed down. "Don't we have to kill him? Get the Grail and kill the one causing this all?"

We all look at him, but thankfully, the Director shoots him down. "No, I only said that expecting that the opponent wouldn't give up unless they're dead. Taking the Grail from the Singularity is enough to shut it down. Besides, once we get out of here the whole 'world' will vanish and correct itself into Proper Human History."

"So, would we consider this done? We will start the Rayshift sequence back to Chaldea then. You have a few minutes to say your goodbyes." Romani chimes in.

We say our goodbyes to each Servant. Siegfried, Vlad, Astolfo, Amakusa, Semiramis. And now only Sieg and Jeanne remain.

"Thank you for your help, you two,", Ritsuka says.

"It was no issue at all. We wanted to help humanity after all, so why wouldn't we join you?", Jeanne replies.

"What are you two going to do now?", Mash asks.

"These bodies are going to be recalled to the Reverse Side, but we can still be summoned to Chaldea as we both technically are Servants, at least a little bit. So if you still want us, then feel free to summon us. It'll grab these terminals that you see here."

Mash nods her head. "Understood, we will make sure to bring you to Chaldea. We can use your help."

And then particles start to surround us as the Rayshifting begins. "It seems like it's our time to go now. Stay safe you two!" Olga says as our consciousness begins to fade and we enter a brief sleep back to Chaldea.


When I open my eyes, I see the familiar Command Room in front of me along with several staff members.

"Congratulations on clearing Trifas you all. You did great!", Romani says while clapping. "We suffered no casualties either, so even better."

We each are helped out of our pods and given a moment to process everything.

"So, now that the first is done, there are six left. We will analyze what Lev Lainur said back there and try our best to figure out the Human Incineration Incident as best as we can. The next Singularity you all will be tackling is somewhere in France in 1431. But you have a while to rest since we need to prepare for that."

"Uh, Romani. What do you mean by 1431? This says 2001.", Da Vinci says in a concerned tone.

"What? No, it said 1431, I swear!", Romani looks at the terminal and she's right, it says 2001. "There's no way I misread it…"

Da Vinci pats his back. "I'm guessing you were just stressed out and read it wrong. Maybe you need to rest too?"

Romani clears his throat. "Well, I guess the next destination is 2001 France, not 1431 France, my mistake."

Even Olga looks confused, but by her expression, she passes it off as a mistake too. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.

"Anyway, YOU!", she points right at Nick. "To my office, immediately!", she grabs his arm and the two walk off, well, more like she pulls him as he gets dragged.

Ah, he's screwed isn't he?"


"Okay! Are all of you ready for the summoning ritual?", Da Vinci enthusiastically says to all of us except Nick and the Director who are probably in her office by now.

The summoning room is a large, mostly empty room painted white and gray. Large support beams on each corner, but they seem to serve a bigger function.

"So, how does this work? I'm curious.", Alice asks while looking around.

Da Vinci removes a rainbow colored rock from a safe and holds it up for all of us to see. "This is Saint Quartz. I'll spare the technical talk, just think of it like a battery of sorts. It'll power the machine enough to access, and retrieve data from the Throne of Heroes."

She then places it into a glass box, and the rock immediately begins to float. "Of course, we want the Servants from the Singularities we journey to, so instead of grabbing the entire Heroic Spirit, we only grab all instances of their Servant forms and combine them into one vessel. Meaning if they've been summoned previously in Grail Wars, they'll remember those too."

"Do you know what the Throne is like?", Ritsuka asks.

"Of course. I'm a Servant myself after all. The Throne is like a supercomputer. Heroic Spirits are the…well, think of it more like the Heroic Spirit, the concept of the hero, is a router, while the Servant, the copies of the Heroic Spirit, is like a computer connected to the router. Heroic Spirits have multiple of these computers hooked up to the one router and with that, we are gathering the data from the computers, rather than the whole router."

"But why don't we just grab the Heroic Spirit itself?", Alice questions Da Vinci, who was clearly not done with her speech.

"Getting the Heroic Spirit could mess up time stuff and what not, and worst case deletion from the Throne. Grabbing just the Servant is both safer for the Throne, and saves energy for us. There's not too big of a difference between the two besides power level."

A door opens up and Da Vinci gestures toward it. "Please, all of you for your safety, go into there and watch through the glass. If something goes wrong, and believe me, it has, it's much safer back there."

Mash seems upset at the statement, rather than having to leave as she goes into the other room without question, but her mood seemingly dropped slightly.

After we all make it inside the safe room, she pushes a button and runs into the room with us, shutting the door and watches as the room goes blue. The pillars on the side were actually made to hold white rings from the looks of it and stabilize the summon I think? The noise is quite loud as several figures are appearing in the center.

"I made sure to add the data from all of your body cams and watches into the computer there so it pulls the Servants you all interacted with. That way they're all familiar and not just random people showing up."

But no one replies and we all watch in amazement as the figures become more stable and the noise begins to fade.

After a bit longer, the room has returned to its normal form and the Servants we interacted with are all standing in the middle looking around.

Sieg, Jeanne d'Arc, Astolfo, Atalanta, Vlad III, Siegfried, Karna, William Shakespeare, Achilles, Amakusa Shirou, and Semiramis. They all look around and begin to converse with each other.

"Welcome to Chaldea!", Da Vinci opens the door and walks right out, putting on a small show as she does so. "All of you wish to aid humanity and so we will allow you to all stay here until that goal is fulfilled!"

"So this is Chaldea, eh?", Amakusa remarks.

"There's much more to it than just this room. We can't summon you all just anywhere, so this is our best place to do so. Just making sure, do any of you feel weird?"

After a brief pause, they all shake their heads. "I don't feel any different than normal. Why?", Vlad asks.

"Just making sure the summon worked right. There's always a chance of a failed summon and you go berserk or something. Like randomly added on Madness Enhancement."

"No, it seems you did just fine.", Sieg smiles at her.

"Well then. Now for some ground rules. Romani would explain them but he's busy with the post-Singularity checkup on the systems so I'll do it instead."

She clears her throat and looks all the Servants in the eyes. "Feel free to stay materialized or stay in Spirit Form, neither matters so it's whatever you wish to do. Chaldea is a living quarters with many different things for you all to do, but please don't mess with or harass the staff members."

"Let's see, oh! Absolutely no fighting outside of the simulator. If you are caught fighting and or causing damage, you may, at most, be at risk of being de-summoned and sent away for the safety of everyone else. If you have a bone to pick with someone, have it be in the sim."

"The rest is just standard no stealing, respect others, basic laws really, and if you don't know them then feel free to read in the library about them. Any questions?"

Jeanne politely raises her hand and Da Vinci picks on her. "Yes?"

"What is the living situation like here? Do we get rooms of our own or do we just go into Spirit Form? It is not like I am used to having a bed to sleep on, but sleeping in the hallways seems too far, no?"

"Excellent question!" Da Vinci yells excitedly. "You all will get your own rooms, you can pick vacant ones in the dormitory wing where they all are. They can be customized how you like and it will be your personal living space. They may be smaller than what you may have been used to in life-", Da Vinci glances at both Vlad and Semiramis. "-But there's no other way. This facility just doesn't have the room for a mansion."

Semiramis then, instead of raising her hand, just begins to speak. "What is the policy on sharing rooms, if any?"

"I too wish to know that.", the Ruler Servant adds on, and clearly, both Sieg and Amakusa are curious as well.

"Hmm, there's no issue, but we can't take down the wall between rooms or anything due to limited staff and wiring in the walls, but you can share rooms no issue. You will all still get your own personal rooms as well so for all I care, you can turn the unused one into a storage room."

Semiramis and Jeanne nod happily and look at their partners. "You hear that, Sieg-kun? We can finally have an actual bed to sleep on together, rather than flowers."

Damn, what kind of homeless life do they live in the Reverse Side? I think, trying my best to not catch their gaze.

"Any other questions?", she asks and looks around the crowd.

"What kind of facilities do you have here?", Astolfo asks.

"Well, that was what's gonna be next. I'll have Ritsuka and Mash give you all a tour of Chaldea since Mash has been here for a while and Ritsuka knows the place pretty well for how much he helps out. If that's okay with them anyway."

"Leave it to us, Da Vinci!" With that, they all follow Ritsuka and Mash as they are shown around Chaldea while Da Vinci returns to check on Romani. Alice and I decide to go to the cafeteria to get a meal after everything.

We walk in and see that it's pretty much empty aside from a few staff members, so we have free real estate to sit wherever we want to. We both get our food and sit down.

"So, Serena, what are your plans after this? It's nighttime after all so I'm just gonna head to my room and do some mechanics."

I think for a moment and respond. "I'm just gonna crash. It's been a long day…"

My mind flashes back to what Shakespeare put me through. "Maybe I'll take a bath in the bath house. It's basically a hot spring so it'll be nice to relax in."

"That does sound really good actually. I was gonna take a shower, but a bath…"

"Would you like to join me then? We'd be wearing towels so you don't need to worry about anything showing."

"We're both girls though, and besides, it's by gender after all so only girls can go into this one. Though I suppose there's the mixed…yeah, I'll join you."

"Then, let's eat all this fast!"

After all of that, we all took a long rest in our rooms, except Nick was walking back after a long scolding.


"Jeez, all that for acting on my own? She needs to lighten up more, it's not like I can die easily.", he paces through the hallway and reaches his room. Opening the door, he walks in and looks around.

His room looks like a rich person's room. A wooden desk, a comfy-looking bed, a couch, and a bookshelf filled with novels. It's much better than the majority of the other rooms in this place.

He walks over to a cabaret and pulls out a wine glass, along with a bottle of wine. He takes the cork out and pours some into the glass. After such a long week, he seems to need it.

"…"

"What are you doing here? Do you want some wine too, Arcueid?", Nick says, noticing a presence behind him.

"What point would that be for? I noticed you had returned so I figured I would pay a visit because I have news."

Nick turns around and faces the Princess of the Earth. She has long golden hair and red eyes, and her white and gold dress touches the floor. She seemed nonhuman as she just stared.

"News? Even if you had some, it's rare for you to even come near me. Must be pretty good?"

"The opposite."

"Oh boy.", Nick walks over and takes a seat. "You want to sit?"

"No, I cannot stay for long, nor is my body here, so I do not require any rest."

"Ah, right. Okay, what is this thing that's so important?"

Arcueid states as calmly as she can like a robot. "In one of these 'Singularities' of yours, France to be specific, Altrouge has become active there. No, I do not know how she might have gotten there, all I know is that she is there."

"Altrouge, eh? Weird for her to act in this way, she normally hides. What reason does she have to go to a Singularity?"

Arcueid remains silent as she does not know the answer.

"Lucky us, we are heading there next. Don't worry, Princess, I will handle her in your place since you can't leave the castle for many reasons. You are their weapon after all."

Arcueid's eyes fall to the ground in an expression as if she is sad. "I no longer have a reason to be here as my message has been received. Farewell, 'Nicholas Ketsueki…'", she vanishes like she was never here in the first place.

Nick rests his head on the back of the couch. Shit, if Altrouge is there, this won't be anywhere near as easy as Trifas as there's no way she'll be on our side. Especially with those two guards of hers. But, with her aid, maybe my own goals can be fulfilled.

"If I can… Then… no, easier said than done. But with her there there's at least a chance."

Chaldea, you better prepare yourself assuming Arcueid is correct. If you take this too lightly, you'll all die. Well, not like I'll warn them. They wouldn't have a clue as to what, or who I'm talking about.


Sieg collapses into the new white bed. After the tour and the summoning, he's exhausted. Being who he is, he covered every square inch of the facility and now wants nothing more than to rest.

He, along with Jeanne d'Arc, are Terminals here, rather than actual Servants, but there have been no issues. Now that they fully manifested into Chaldea. their minds will disconnect from their real bodies down in the Reverse Side and they will begin to live separate lives, but together.

"Sorry, Ruler. I wanted to redecorate some of this room, but I'm just too tired right now. Mind if we do it tomorrow instead?", Sieg asks while looking up at his dear Ruler as she brushes her teeth in the bathroom. A meaningless task for a Servant, but she still feels more normal doing it.

"No problem at all. Frankly, I don't want to worry about the room right now either. It is perfectly suitable for us, at least for one night.", she finishes up and walks over to the bed. She wears her white dress she always wears in the Reverse Side, while Sieg wears his normal outfit without the vest. They can go clothes shopping tomorrow at the small shop Chaldea has, but that can wait.

Jeanne turns off the lamp next to the bed and crawls into bed next to Sieg. She gets on top of his body and lays her head on his chest. "Am I too heavy?"

"You weigh just the same as you always have, which is…not heavy at all, even for me." Sieg grabs her hair and begins to stroke it gently in his hand. "I guess another new life is about to start for us, at least for a while."

"It is." Jeanne shuts her eyes and relaxes in his embrace, kissing Sieg's forehead slowly. "And we will be together for every minute of it…"