Ok first of all, sorry for taking a long time off. I've been real busy in Uni and had no time to work on anything. So I wrote this in case I got swamped with Homework and wanted to post something.

So as the title says it's Iori's interlude now, and one you already guessed which route he's on. So enjoy the read.

Also I haven't really proofread this one yet. So I might get back and revise some sections at a later date.

Interlude 2 : Samurai Remnant

"Oi Lion, how long are we going to be down here for? I have to get back to the surface soon for my date with the Braver."

"Tch, of course all you can think about is your potential boyfriend, you've known him for nearly 5 years and you've gone anywhere with him, you stupid pallum."

"At least I have progress, you skank of a woman! Anytime a guy tries to get close, your personality turns em away."

"Oh yeah I'll show you–"

"Kaguya, Lyra, can we please not fight while doing this mission?" Ryuu asked as she's heard this bickering for over half an hour. We just need a few more minotaur horns and Lygerfang furs, and then we can relax for the day."

"And who's fault is that you stupid elf!" As the Vice Captain of the Familia accusedly pointed her finger at the blond elf. "Today was supposed to be my holiday and you Lion, asked the both of us to just get some drop items."

Hearing those words, Ryuu was red in the face with embarrassment and decided that the ground was looking very interesting. Eventually a small voice was heard from her mouth while they were still traversing the dungeon.

"I just wanted to go on a small mission after what happened two months ago, we've been busy helping around Orario so much that we haven't partied in a while. The request also seemed like a perfect fit since we do need the money for all the medicine we've been distributing."

"Yeah Miach's really helpin us a lot, so it's nice to see that the city is getting back to what it used to be. Though I do wish a certain rival of his wasn't milking this situation." Lyra said with a bit of disdain.

"What you still mad that he out conned you into buying that overpriced perfume a while back, you love-struck buffoon," Kaguya said as she gave her friend a smug smile. " I told you that you could have used mine, but of course you decided not to follow my advice."

"Yeah right, who would want to go on a date with a guy smelling like another girl?"

"Touché."

"Can we atleast focus on the mission?"

"Sure, as soon as you tell us the real reason we're down here, Lion."

"Just to let you know Lion, you need to work on your poker face. It's not too obvious but anyone who cons as much as me will catch on quickly. So what's actually going on?"

Feeling ashamed that she got caught, Ryuu turned her head around and confessed to them.

"Well, 3 days ago our usual informant told me that there were some unknown groups of people who were sighted by the homeless, leaving the dungeon at night en masse. One of them was brave enough to see what was going on, and heard them screaming about a monster on the 17th floor. Eventually, they were caught when Shakti and her Famillia were passing by after another day of helping with the relief effort."

"Was it a monster from a lower floor? I can see the schmucks losing to some mid-level monsters, but from what you're saying it could be from the lower floors. "

"Unfortunately Lyra we don't know. I checked in with Shakti's Familia, but all they said was that it looked human. They got no name, no obvious features, just that it was a guy's voice and that he's a swordsman strong enough to fight against multiple second-class adventurers at the same time.

'I really think we should have atleast brought Alise for this," Lyra said with a bit of a huff.

"Lyra, you know we can't bring everyone else. Everyone else is either busy with rebuilding the city or helping the Ganesha Familia with law keeping," Ryuu answered like it was the most obvious thing.

"Well we should atleast hurry up, I don't want to stay in the dungeon for long especially since I want to kick back and have a drink." Kaguya concluded with both of her companions agreeing.

After an hour of sprinting and fighting, they had finally found a safe area and rested for a bit, "You know, I still think that we are underprepared."

"Well if it all goes well we can atleast blame Lion for our injuries," Lyra began to smirk at those words while Ryuu could only look away. But before they could continue to chat they heard multiple screams and sounds of weapons clashing.

Taking it as a sign to hurry up, the girls began to ready their weapons and locate the source of the noise. The sround around them was bloody but not so much that it became slippery, and as they were running they noticed the amount of drop items and magic stones left at the ground.

"Is it just me or is someone just leaving behind perfectly good magic stones on the ground?"

"No it's not just you Lyra, either someone's an idiot or they want us to find them. Either way, Lion, Lyra, some of these magic stones look like from level 3 monsters, we're probably gonna find a group fight so keep your guard up.

And Lyra, see if there's any traps nearby, I don't want Alise and the rest of the girls mourning for us, because we were careless. Plus it would be a pretty shit way to die."

After a few more minutes, the Astraea Familia members eventually reached the center of all the fighting. Coincidentally, they were in a room similar to the Goliath boss room, though the biggest difference is that it wasn't as big and that the Big Wall of Grief wasn't there.

As they hid behind some jagged rocks they saw a man in a dark green kimono paired with a black hakama, though the blood on his clothes was obscuring most of it. They also saw that there were half eaten bodies of dead adventurers on the ground. The sight made their stomachs churn, but they had to deal with it for now, there is a battle and they can't get off guard.

The man who was fighting held a katana in one hand, a wakizashi in the other. His stance held firm, his blades were a bit lower than what kaguya would like, but before she could raise her concerns his blades moved swiftly and precisely, slashing the nearby minotaurs' arms and maiming one their hands in the process.

The lygerfangs then rushed to pounce the swordsman, their paws aiming for any part of his body. Though they only could get minor scratches off of him, the man still looked like that affected him. Although he was still fighting all 5 monsters, he was getting sluggish, his attacks lacked the killing blow but it seemed to be a stalemate.

"This will settle this."

Finally they heard his voice, he sounded no older than his early twenties, if they had guessed he was probably Kaguya's age. But that wasn't their focus; instead he did the unthinkable the man simply sheathed both of his blades. For a moment, the man's presence simply disappeared, they could see him, but it felt that if they took their eyes off him, even for a second he would simply vanish.

The monsters were also affected by this, but instead of shock they simply rushed in for the kill, arms raised, it looked like they were going to pave his skull in. Seeing this, they were about to take action and help the lone adventurer. Lyra prepared some bombs that contained bits of sharpened slag that she bought off some smiths, she was aiming for areas where the monsters would take the most damage, while Kaguya and Ryuu were about to flank the rest that survived. However, they quickly learned why there were so many magic stones left in the hall.

To most people, it looked like he disappeared, through his skill and speed the samurai had created a cyclone of sword slashes cutting through his opposition, leaving only his afterimages remaining zigzagged.

However, to them, to any experienced adventurers, they saw the moment he unsheathed his blade, he had already decapitated a lygerfang within a split second and cut through all the monsters in angles that they thought were impossible.

From cutting their tendons, to slashing through their heart, to complete bisection, it wasn't even a fight, but a slaughter. And in the end they could only stare as the samurai defeated all of his enemies in less than a minute.

"Hah… that should do it."

With the dust settling there wasn't much remaining around him. Either through carelessness or calculated strategy, all of his slashes had broken their magic stones. The only thing left was the drop items of the slain monsters as proof of his feat.

However, the next thing that happened completely caught the girls off guard. The man who had just killed all 5 monsters…

Had suddenly passed out.

They had various reactions towards this, but shock completely dominated their faces. But this wasn't the time for that.

"Lyra, check to see if there are traps nearby, Lion stay close and prepare to attack if necessary."

They both quickly nodded at the commands and got to work. After Lyra gave the ok, Kaguya and Ryuu were now only a couple of meters from the man. As they got closer, they heard a familiar yet unexpected sound coming from the man.

(Growl…)

"W-Was that his stomach?" Ryuu said with an incredulous look on her face.

Evidently it was.

Deciding to ignore that for now, they turned over his body and checked to see if he had any major injuries that needed to be taken care of. Thankfully his injuries seemed light enough that he just needed a standard potion.

"Lion, I can take care of this for now, could you secure the place with Lyra, I'll begin searching for anything to identify him with."

With that Kaguya began checking the man for anything. Starting with his blades to see if there's a smith god's emblem etched into it, the remaining Evilus members that they caught nowadays had pretty bad blades, so they usually had crude or even makeshift weapons. After finding a blacksmithing mark on the blades she made a note of it.

Next was to see if he had a Evilus mark anywhere on his clothes, though uncommon some idiots did have their insignia on them. After checking both front and back, she found nothing of note on his clothes. She could search further, but even she had her limits.

What she did find was some coins that's unfamiliar to her, and some gems. However, what caught her eye was the red book with gems in its cover that he had. It looked like one of the more expensive grimoires, it looked a bit tacky for her tastes, but she wondered how a luxury item like this was with him.

"Did ya find anything on our mystery man ?"

"No, he looks clean, but he seems to be dealing with extreme exhaustion and hunger, my guess is that he hasn't eaten for 2-3 days, maybe more. His blades seemed custom made, it doesn't look like he's a part of Evilus, but let's ask Lady Astraea just in case.

"Let me take a look at him, maybe I can find something."

"Be my guest."

The pallum then began inspecting the man as well, but like her vice captain, she couldn't really find anything that could identify him. They were well made blades to be sure, but even she knew that it wasn't created by a level 5 blacksmith let alone made by a god.

"Well, I can say that he ain't in the guild's shit list and he's also not on ours. And that grimoire on him is also expensive, the gems alone would be around 500 thousand valis a piece. "

"What about Finn? Did he ever mention a dual wielder with great skill? "

"Nope, when I went to his office on official business, we were discussing any major members of Evilus that were still alive, but none of them describe this guy here."

"Great… well we can atleast interrogate him back when he's awake, let's take him to the guild. They take care of him until he's awake."

"Yeah I'm gonna take a rain check on that one. His injuries aren't too bad and the guild is still busy taking refugees by the boatloads."

"Then where do you suggest we put him?"

"We got a spare room at home that we haven't used in a while, and we can ask one of the Hygieia members to spruce it up and put him there. Plus we all could use a shower for all the running we did, I'll even use my stash of Morbul to make it faster."

"So that's your real reason, you just want to take a bath quicker."

"What it's practical! We have a healer at home and we can just dump him with Neze and Noin to guard him. No matter how strong he is, I doubt he can overpower two Second Class Adventurers while hungry and in our own home right? Lion back me up."

"I'd have to agree on this one, Kaguya, not for Lyra's sake but if we left him in the hospital he might break out easily and we would lose our only lead. And as much as I hate to admit it, the best course of action is to bring him with us and let our Goddess interrogate him."

With a great sigh Kaguya responds,"Fine, you two make valid points, but one of us is gonna have to carry him." Kaguya said to the detriment of both of them.

"Pass, I might be stronger, but our height difference is just too much to be efficient."

"Also pass, I might be comfortable touching others in a fight, but this…I'd just rather not."

Cooling down her increasing anger, Kaguya took a deep breath,"Fine I'll do it, but Lyra grab the drop items we need, and Lion you'll lead the charge outside, If we're lucky we can get back within an hour or two."

"Preferably an hour so I can have more time to prepare for Finn. Also if anyone asks about the drops, we'll say that it's for his hospital fee and an exclusive extraction service."

Ignoring the deadpan stares of her peers, Lyra began to grab all the nearby items and any rare ones along the way back.

"This doesn't surprise you, Saber?"

"It does not.

I knew that was the only choice you could make."

"I try to do what I believe to be right. Sentiment and sympathy have their place.

Living peaceably is the obvious way to lead a happy life. It's as simple as breathing.

I know. I know all of that. That's precisely why I've followed along.

But even so

That was never my goal. It was never something I dreamed of.

My goal has always been the same; it cannot change. The one thing I crave for is…

…to master the Way of the Sword.

So you see, Saber. I'm not a kind person

"That dream again. The one decision that ended my life

if I had any regrets.

…Then I just wished I could have said goodbye to Kaya."

It was then the young man awoke from his slumber, he couldn't remember what happened before he was exhausted, but he heard a few girls' voices just before he passed out.

When he first arrived in that monster-infested area, he fought all types of creatures that somewhat reminded him during his time in the Waxing Moon Ritual. Although they were easier to deal with, not having Saber to cover for him made it much harder than it needed to be.

While his blades were still effective, he realized that some of the enemies' hide resisted his blades a bit more than he'd like, thankfully the monsters still died when their heads were separated from their bodies. Though afterwards he tried making sense of where he was.

He knew that this wasn't like the Reality Marble Archer once showed, the magical energy required for something that big for so long would have killed a normal mage, so he ruled that out. After walking for a bit, he found some stairs leading upwards, and figuring that he had nothing to lose he climbed it and reached an abandoned town not long after.

Unfortunately, once he reached there he found some bandits hiding away in an underground basement in one of the establishments he entered. But before he had a chance to talk one of them immediately tried to pierce him with his dagger.

"3 of them have weapons on them, and the last person only brought his gauntlets."

The fight was challenging, though not because of their teamwork nor strength, but due to the space he was in. The cramped basement meant that he could realistically only use his wakizashi in that encounter and even that was still not ideal, and he couldn't turn away from his opponents either. Not because of pride or honor, Musashi already beat that into him, but if he did he would have opened his back for enemies to strike.

Choosing the Earth Style of Niten Ichi-Ryu, Iori began to deflect the assailants' attacks, they chose to aim only his vital areas and didn't even try for faints to catch him off guard and although their forms were sloppy they were much quicker than he was anticipating. Each strike was faster than an average ronin back home.

"They're still slower than the average servant, but are regular bandits normally this fast?"

But in due time, his experience and techniques made an opening for him to send out three of his jewels to cast his Fleeting Ember spell to distract them long enough to reach outside. Once he did, the fight was practically over, he maintained his earth stance, but switched his wakizashi for his katana. As the brute with the gauntlets ran towards him, he was already prepared with his counterattack.

Not even a second later, Iori then cut down the man. Seeing one of their allies defeated so easily the rest of the bandits decided to rush him and try to kill him immediately. Unfortunately for them, Iori had already prepared 9 of his 12 remaining jewels for his Firebird spell. And the fireballs all hit the targets burning them to death.

Once he knew the coast was clear, he searched their bodies for anything he could use. Although the burned men left nothing of note behind, the man he bisected had a bloodied map on him. He figured out that it was a map of the area he was in and saw that the stairs upwards was west of his location.

After that more brigands tried to kill him for some reason, and it took him quite a while to find out how to get towards the next set of stairs. The map he got only covered the one floor he was in, so he grabbed his notebook and made a map for the floor he was going towards.

And after days of going back and forth, rationing what food the town had left, he found himself in a spacious circular room. The monsters he fought were strong but that might be because he hadn't eaten for a while. The bandits that kept coming after him only had the bare minimum on them, so even killing them for supplies was not worth it.

He also found out that the stones that the monsters dropped could substitute as the jewels he was using for magecraft. He still needed to carve and shape them to make them more effective, especially the bigger ones, but he also found that they were stronger than his usual gems.

Eventually he found himself a bit tired and leaned at one the walls, he still kept his senses alert as the last time he thought he could relax, a monster spawned from the walls beside him. He didn't know how long he rested, but he woke up to a dozen monsters on the other side of the room he's in.

Running past them, he discovered the half eaten corpses of unlucky people by these lion-looking monsters. He used 4 of his newly created jewels and crushed them in his hands activating his Discernment spell, Although Gramps explained how this spell works, Iori only understood that this allowed him to see the weaknesses of his enemies better. And sure enough the monsters he slashed turned to dust. He figured out later on that the stones he collected were the cores of the monsters, and that if he destroyed them it would fatally wound the monster.

When he inevitably got lost again, he found the spacious room again. This time when he cleared the room, he inspected the remains of the people that he saw. He found a note containing info about another party that would come around in half a day to clear something called a goliath, as it would respawn soon.

"Goliath? Like the one mentioned in the Bible? I didn't see something resembling that."

But he's in luck, if another party is coming then he can ask them if they can take him from this damn place. Not that he dislikes it per say, but he's getting tired of being ambushed every few minutes.

So he stayed in the room he was in and simply waited.

Scanning the room around him, he found that the room he was in was relatively lavish, something you wouldn't normally find in Edo, Japan.

"Where am I? This doesn't look like anywhere from Asakusa. Ueno maybe? No, that wouldn't make sense."

The next thing he noticed was that his clothes had changed, his regular kimono and hakama had changed to just a standard white shirt and pants. While his Katana and Wakizashi were also nowhere in sight.

"Just where am I?" The young man said as tried to sit straight on the bed.

After stretching his muscles a bit, he got out of bed and looked more closely at the room. White stone walls covered the room, beautiful flowers decorating the vases, and the bed was one of the most comfortable things he felt in his life. One other thing that caught his eye was an emblem on the wall. To him it looked to be the handle of a standard broadsword with wings surrounding it.

The emblem looked elegant and noble while simultaneously also not looking gaudy, Though the main problem was that he had never seen an emblem like this before. He knew quite a lot of different organizations in Edo due to his partnership with Sukenoshin. So this clued him in that he was no longer in Edo.

Deciding to finally get some answers, Iori went towards the door. However, the moment his hand went near the doorknob, a red-headed girl came bursting through the door and accidentally tackled him to the floor.

"What the!"

"See I told you guys that I heard some noises in the guest room," The girl that tackled him then waved at her friends and they all started to surround him looking at him with different expressions. Some were just wary, others looked like they were ready to fight him if he did something out of line.

"So you're finally awake, you were sleeping there for 3 days, we thought you might have died without us knowing anything about you.

So here's your situation, in a few minutes our Goddess is going to interview you. You'll be asked some standard questions, like your name, age, if you're a part of Evilus, and in the end you might go free, in jail, or depending on how severe your crimes are, die. But don't worry I'm sure it won't get that far."

Iori's face soured quite a bit, hearing that may die didn't scare him. No, he was pretty sure that he died, it was the tone the girl had said it with. Judging by their attire they weren't a part of the magistrate and…

"Wait a minute, those ears! Circe had descendants?!" When Iori spotted the elves of the group in front of him, he wanted to slap himself to see if he was still dreaming, his head trying to make sense of how that Heroic Spirit could even have kids. Let alone kids with different hair colors.

"Um Alise, I think you scared him." Celty voiced her concern.

"Whaaaaat? Noooo he's just afraid that our Familia caught him."

"Alise…" Ryuu said with a sigh.

"Well, c'mon get up, we'll get you to Lady Astraea's office and we'll have a nice, long chat."

"Chat she says, well it couldn't get any worse right?"

As Iori was dragged by the red headed girl named Alise, The only thing he thought was her surprising strength, it was one thing for servants to be much stronger than regular humans. But he was very sure that none of the girls were Heroic Spirits. In fact if he didn't know any better these girls excluding the ones that looked like Circe and the one that looked like she had beast ears, they all looked like women you'd find in Kyoto. Well minus their eccentric hair colors.

Though he did wish Alise would stop pulling on his arm so hard, "Oi, could you slow down, you're going to tear my arm off if you keep pulling so hard," Indeed it was as if Rogue Lancer was here and was currently pulling him like Saber did. A horrifying notion for sure, but atleast they weren't Rouge Berserker levels of strength.

"Oh sorry about that, I thought you were atleast level 3, so I didn't really check my strength. But Lion said that you beat monsters that level 3s struggle with, so I thought you'd be atleast level 3 or have a unique skill."

"Level? Skill? Do you mean my skills in Niten Ichiryu?"

"Hm? Why are you playing dumb? You know the Status that shows up on our backs, the things written in hieroglyphs that only gods can read."

"Status? Like parameters for fighting? Also did you say gods? I was under the assumption they all left."

With that the girls stop at their tracks, baffled at the notion that this man in front of him was acting like this was his first lime living in Gekai. Though no one could really call him out, the man's posture and face screamed as if they were crazy, yet the swordsman also looked straight at them with curiosity.

Afterwards the girls were discussing something that Iori couldn't really hear, with some of them huddled up and others still keeping an eye on him. He wondered about their previous silence to his statement. Although he didn't practice much magecraft, Gramps still gave him the rundown of how magecraft works and that the Age of Gods have ended, though he only really explained that the gods suddenly left earth and only small monsters were left in the world.

However, as they were all were probably so engrossed in their thoughts. A woman suddenly spoke and brought all the girls and Iori's attention. "Oh our guest is awake, I hope the girls weren't too rough with you."

The woman in front of Iori had long brown hair that reached her back, her eyes were of a deep blue color that it reminded him of stars. Her dress was also quite simple wearing a pure white kittel and long complementary skirt. He honestly thought he was seeing a goddess in human form, though he pushed that notion aside as he remembered where he was.

"Lady Astraea? How was the meeting? We thought you would be coming home later."

"Oh, the meeting with others was faster than we thought, Hermes said that tackling the supply runs was getting harder since he only has so many Familia members, so he was forced to make a partnership with Iris.

"Oh Lady Iris, haven't heard from her since I left the empire." Noin said in surprise. "Though I'm surprised that they would even work together, I remembered that Lady Iris once said that she would rather start fighting Hermes in a brawl than work with him. How did he get her to cooperate?"

"Hermes didn't say, only that we won't need to worry about supplies for a while."

"Anyway, let's head to my office and discuss the matter with our guest here."

With Iori being guided to Astraea's office,the lady herself was sitting down on her office chair and Iori sitting opposite of her. While Lyra, Alise, Kaguya, and Ryuu were standing guard in case anything went wrong.

Her office was quite quaint, and while Iori was used to sitting in seiza when speaking to important figures around Edo, he did at times meet with people who preferred to sit with chairs in important meetings.

"So I guess I'll start, my name is Astraea, Goddess of Justice, and what about you young man?"

"Miyamoto, Miyamoto Iori"

"What Familia are you from?"

Iori sat there in silence, thinking deeply on his answer. He didn't know what a Familia is using the word family; he deduced that she meant something like a clan. However, he already gave out his last name, so he reasoned it wasn't what they were asking. "I don't have one, what even is a Familia?"

The rest of the girls went still again, they had various expressions on their faces, but they all looked towards their goddess and she nodded at them.

"Then where are you from?"

"I'm from a town called Asakusa."

"Then could you tell us how you ended up in the dungeon?"

"Dungeon what's that? I don't know what that is."

"Interesting… It's the place we found you in, there are monsters there and magic stones that many adventurers fight with their lives for. You were in rough shape when we found you, but luckily we have a healer on standby here and let you rest in our home. By the way it's been 3 days since you passed out.

How about before you woke up in the dungeon, what were you doing before?"

Iori looked uncomfortable in answering, although they saved his life he wouldn't tell everything that happened before, even if they are aware of the supernatural.

"I was fighting a friend for a wish I had, we were in Asakusa main temple. He was a skilled fighter, better than myself. If I were to compare him then I was a river moving swiftly, but he was an ocean fast but powerful strikes that seemed to engulf his enemies, although my skills closed the gap, in the end I lost.

Next thing I knew I was in the dungeon with gramps wondering if I went to the afterlife."

The goddess furrowed her eyebrows "Gramps? After we found you we asked another Familia to see if there were anyone else in the dungeon, but they only found members of Evilus."

"Oh I meant the book I had, I found it after my mentor's passing, my little sister and I called him gramps since it was the last thing he gave me."

The woman in front of him smiled, but Iori could sense that while her smile was genuine, it also signaled something else. Afterall from what he could tell, the woman in front of him was a genuinely kind woman, and somewhat reminded him of Dayu. That's why he could tell that he may have messed up.

"Then Mr. Miyamoto, could you please tell us if you are a part of Evilus, if you answer this truthfully then we will consider what happens next."

The boy's eyes scanned the room, during the entire investigation he had been trying to find out where he was and see if he could escape. The room he was in presented few ways of escape, with his best plan was to jump through the window. However, even Iori knew it was probably futile, he walked through 2 flights of stairs and guessed he was at least 20 meters above ground. Doable but judging from Alise's strength he would last very long on foot.

So after his silent analyzation, Iori spoke again

"I'm not a member of Evilus."

"I thank you for mostly being truthful in our interrogation, Alice take Kaguya with you and rush to the guild that Iori here is clean, Lyra, you and Ryuu can go back to what you were doing, I need to chat with the young man here a bit more."

Before any of the girls could answer, the goddess had pushed the girls outside the room and began sitting in her chair once more.

Iori was a bit baffled by what just happened, but he kept an eye on Astraea.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything, I just wanted to continue our chat with a bit more privacy.

I seem to recall you come from Asakusa?"

"Yes, that's my hometown. It's a lively town near Edo Castle."

"I'm sorry but I haven't heard of that town nor have I heard of Edo Castle."

"Eh? If you don't mind me asking where am I?"

"You're in Orario, The Labyrinth City. I'm sorry to say that you're no longer in the Far East."

Hearing those words, Iori slumped his shoulders. He somewhat knew that he wasn't anywhere in Japan when he awoke in the dungeon. Everything he saw there made no sense otherwise, even the woman in front of him, reminded him of the aura Circe had when she got serious.

"I had a feeling that I wasn't in Edo, but I didn't expect that."

"If I were to speculate someone must have kidnapped you after your fight with your friend and brought you here, what the goal was I don't know. You don't seem to be much different than the average human.

However, I can tell that you don't currently have a home. Your lack of a Falna also is a mystery, as far as I remember Amaterasu, forces almost everyone to join one of their gods, she doesn't mind if you join a minor or major, just that you have to join. Though I heard rumors of a young man who refuses due to personal reasons.

So here are your options: you could join a Familia, live in Orario, and find out why you were sent here.

Or you could try to go back to the Far-East and live your life. I give you my word that if we find out who sent you here, I'll send a message by Hermes to inform you of their fate."

Iori didn't know what to think, he didn't think he could go home, as everything that he was told contradicts what he knew before Saber impaled him. However, before he could answer her, the Lady of Justice asked another question towards the young man, a simple problem that she asked quite often.

"What is justice, Miyamoto Iori?"

"What is justice ?" His head tilted at this seemingly random question.

"I've asked this question towards many mortals, their answers are so varied, yet so interesting. Some say it's eye for an eye, others say it's to do what's right, and some say that it's to help those who can't help themselves. So I ask you, Miyamoto Iori, what is justice?"

"Seeing as I can't lie, I might as well be honest."

"Justice huh…I haven't lived a life that could be defined as righteous. I have committed both good and evil, so I don't know if this is correct, but to me justice is making sure that peace is maintained. I want to prevent unnecessary bloodshed and protect the innocent."

The brown-haired Goddess who was sitting quietly had a serene smile when he answered her question. "Sorry, I didn't think you'd be this genuine in your answer. I typically only ask this dilemma to my Familia, but I also wanted to hear your answer."

"Why? I don't see what makes me special."

Astraea then began walking towards one of the cupboards that contained a variety of books. She took one of them out and put it on the table.

"We looked through a lot of documents trying to discern who you are, and when we eventually brought it up to the guild, they too couldn't find anything. No illegal entry and no suspicious activities from Evilus for 2 weeks, the best we got on you is a rumor of a man fighting members of Evilus in the dungeon when it's still restricted to most people.

Essentially you are a complete unknown, and from Ryuu, Kaguya, and Lyra's testimony a skilled swordsman too"

1 year, I want you to be in my Familia for atleast a year."

"Huh?" Now Iori was truly confused, it felt as if Rogue Berserker grabbed and threw him onto the ground again.

"I expected a bit more emotion, but I can work with that. You don't know this, but recently Orario just had a massive internal struggle, Evilus had destroyed about half the city, and killed off almost all the older adventurers, so we've been struggling to maintain peace around the city."

She then walked towards the window overlooking the city, "Evilus is still out there and I worry they might strike again when we least expect it. And as much as I trust my girls to take care of each other, I can't help but worry.

And that's where you come in."

"What?"

"Kaguya and Ryuu's reports said that even when you were tired, you defeated 5 mid rank monsters by yourself. And that your swordsmanship surpassed Kaguya's own."

"You know if I joined, then I'd be the only guy in your Familia."

"Does that bother you?"

"It doesn't really, but won't you damage your reputation? From what I could tell you are considered one of the Virgin Goddesses."

"I've never really cared for my reputation, if I did then I wouldn't be a Goddess of Justice."

"I don't have much of a choice do I ?"

"You do, while I want you here, I'm not heartless enough to force you here."

"I see… I guess this is my chance at atonement.

I don't know what will happen next, but thank you, Lady Astraea."

"Then… I accept, I don't know how much I can help." Iori bowed his head towards the Goddess, "But I hope I can atleast live up to trust you have in me."

With that Astraea smiled at him, "Great, I knew I made the right choice."

"So how does this work? I only got bits and pieces from our conversation, but how does one join a Familia?"

When Astraea heard his question she almost fell over nothing, as Astraea became really quiet all of a sudden.

"Um Lady Astraea? Why did you go quiet all of a sudden?"

"I'm sorry"

"Eh?"

"When you were unconscious, we needed to know if you were apart of Evilus, so that we could report it to the guild. So I snuck into your room and used a small part of my authority that I could still use down here. So when I used my blood to check if you were in a Familia, it also registered you into my Familia."

"Then, what was the point of the interrogation?"

"Haha… I didn't tell anyone else yet… so I just told them a white lie and said that I used another method.

So… Welcome to the Astraea Famillia."

Holy shit Kazuradrop is in FGO now, I guess I know who I'm saving for the next 2 years. And Melt got an NP upgrade too Woooooo.

Now for the Q Section

Sagittipotenta: It's not that he forgot the name "Miyamoto" he's wondering why the name "Miyamoto Iori is familiar to him" as it was Musashi secret identity in the Las vegas event.

Please feel free to review and leave questions in the comments. I always read them and may answer them like this in the future.