To Reach the Lights Beyond the Heavens (High School DxD - Essence CYOA SI - FGO Reincarnation Chapter 7)
"So..." Michael said uncertain as he, MHX and Nobunaga in CPU form dragged around, converged at the spaceship, and found some table and chairs to sit down.
Odul has left after Michael got some agreement of magic and combat lessons from her, along with a way to contact her to schedule things later on.
"So..." MHX sat at the table with Michael, while Nobunaga's computer container was connected to a hologram projector, which allowed her to manifest as a hologram sitting with them. "How about I gets us something to drink?"
"Uhh, there is really no need..."
After a bit of awkward back and forth, MHX got three cups, tea for Michael, some elaborate chocolate for herself, and boiling water for Hologram Nobu.
"...Galaxy Fondue Spiral a la Mode." MHX finished saying her drink's overly long name.
"So it's a chocolate smoothie?"
"It's Space Chocolate Smoothie."
"I see. Very important distinction."
"Enough about Ecchan's secret sweets stash. Which you know, she's gonna go on a revenge quest if she comes back, and find they're missing." Nobunaga interrupted, to which MHX sadly nodded but drank the smoothie all the same. "What I'm wondering about, is why am I given boiling water!?" Hologram Nobu tried to slam her hand on the table only for it to go through. She mimicked the motion again, only stopping on the surface, and then made the sound "Thud!" with her mouth.
"Because you would have complained if I didn't get you something, or if I got you something that wasn't good enough, and I'm not bringing out the good stuff for you as a hologram. So you get boiling water, act like the steam smells good or something."
"Gasp! I am betrayed!" Nobunaga flinched back in shock.
[Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha...]
"You shut your mouth!" Nobunaga looked up, shouting at the ship's A.I.
Michael looked up till he located one of the CC camera at the ceiling corner. The camera looked cannibalized from different parts. Michael wondered by a futuristic space ship would have someone that would be considered so old.
As though in response to him look, the CC camera turn to focus on him.
[Hello again, Meatbag Master. Congratulations on your reincarnation. User Pilot and Hazardous Stowaway were in sub-optimal emotional state without you around]
"Who the hell are you calling a 'Stowaway'? And I was not sulky!" Shouted Nobunaga.
"Yeah!" MHX echoed the sentiment with a blush.
"Umm, thanks?" Michael wasn't sure how to reach to the ships response but it did confirm something for him. "I...have some questions, then I need to get back before my parents wake up." Michael took a moment to gathered up his thoughts and courage. "So...you...two really know me? From a past life?" Michael's question stop the antics for a moment, as the Servant patiently listened to him. "Just how...how does that work? Don't past lives involve hundreds of years between each one. Or at least reincarnation would be in the same dimension? How do you know I am...who you think I am?"
Michael didn't know why he was nervous. If this was an elaborate trick by two dimensional travelers, or magicians then it involved way too much work, just to pull a fast one over a 10 year old. Reincarnator or not. Yet, this was this odd sense of...familiarity and comfort when he saw X and Nobu just sitting there with him.
[Tracking of quantum signal identifier through sufficient mana battery to implement a multi-dimensional sonar]
"...What?" Michael was lost.
"We used a Holy Grail to locate where your Soul went after you died, since neither Ereshkigal nor Morrigan could find you in the Underworld. So we figured you reincarnated somewhere." MHX explained.
"...What?" Michael shouted at the ludicrousness of what he heard. "There are just...so many...I have a lot of questions. You guys know gods? Did I know them too? Was our relationship casual enough to be on first name bases? You used the Cup of Jesus to track my Soul!?" Michael jaw just dropped at the sheer absurdity of MHX's statement.
"Meh, that's way too complicated, X-chan! Basically in your past life, stuff happened and you died, and since we couldn't find you in an afterlife, we figured you reincarnated somewhere. Then we used a wishing machine made up of magical energy to just follow a trail leading to where you ended up." Nobu offered her own simplifying of the events, waving off the complex technicalities MHX said.
"That has far more ridiculous implications!" Michael lost all composure. "I mean, you went to the Land of the Dead for me? Just why? There is no way I warranted that much sacrifice!"
For a moment, MHX looked like she was reading something, before giving a quick look at Hologram Nobu, who gave a subtle nod. Michael missed all of this in his shock.
"It's wasn't as difficult as you think, given that the Underworld was just a trip away in Babylonia during the Age of Gods." MHX shrugged. "Also it wasn't a sacrifice as Servants are 'necessarily' alive so to speak, so back then going for a trek down in the Underworld to check if Ereshkigal was hogging your soul or not, wasn't as much of a big deal. Sure now we can't do that willy-nilly since I incarnated and have a living body, while Nobu has a Grail Fragment, that thankfully, only act as an anchor to the world, in the absence of a Master, but the point is, and I think you are misunderstanding something here, Michael." Something changed about MHX. "I had hope that in a new life this self-deprecation would be completely gone, but it seems there is still bits of it, so I will say this clearly to you now."
At that moment X stopped acting like her comedic silly self, and had a far more mature and regal aura about her.
"You are my friend, and you are worth all the effort it took to find you."
The memory-less emotions rushed through his chest. Feelings of joy, gratitude and relief seem to overwhelm him. His face felt hot, and he tried to force his eyes to stay dry.
"Why? Was...What I got from you was that we were in a battle or something like that, right? Is that why you needed to find me? Is there something I can help with?"
"Foolish!" Michael snapped to Nobunaga's direction. "Did you not hear what Artoria said? You are my Retainer, my friend and confidante. War, adventure, saving people? All of that is in the past. There is no epic battle, nor great quest." After such grand declaration, Nobunaga simply smiled with kindness and content. "We just wanted to find our friend, and live out the full life that was denied us before."
"Sorry, but we really did track you down through different dimensions and timeline just to hang out." MHX (whose apparent real name was Artoria?) gave a sheepish smile, before a slow dawning horror came to her. "Wait, does that mean we're the ultimate stalkers?"
"Nah, that's still Kiyohime. Thank the Buddha she locked-on to Gudako, and not Michael." Nobu shuddered.
"There is also Raikou, but she took Hakuno as her child."
"There is also Serenity...Should I be worried that we know a surprising amount of stalkers?"
As Nobu and MHX argued about semantics of where knowing other stalkers absolved them of being stalkers themselves for not being as back, Michael found himself smiling at the silliness of his two...friends.
He didn't realize he was crying until MHX hugged him. With Nobu trying to do the same, and phasing through the two hugging, falling to the floor. Dun Stallion 2.8.9 laughed mechanically at the indignant A.I. Servant.
x=
"Why didn't you want me to tell him how he died?" MHX asked.
After things calmed down, Michael and the two Servants talked for a while, before he had to leave to get back to his camp. MHX asked him to leave Nobu's CPU's with her for a bit, she can upgrade it to handle containing Nobu's Spirit Origin.
Michael accepted given that Nobunaga's continuous antagonistic childish fights with Dun Stallion 2.8.9 was causing the CPU to heat up enough to cause smoke.
"Look, the Grand Order, the Singularities, the Alien God's descend? All of that is in the past. Chaldea took care of everything after he died." Nobunaga explained. "Do you really want to be the one to tell him, he died defending the place he thought of as his home, and it still got wrecked? Yes, Chaldea won, but they lost a lot in the process. If we tell him about his past life, he'll probably feel obligated to travel and find them to make sure they're alright, or go on some soul quest to get his memories back, and I'm pretty sure that will be hell of a difficult thing considering how he lost them. I mean, the hammer's effect carried over to his next life? Even after Shamhat turned all six billion curses of AM into blessings, and then condensed it into that 'Essence' thing she talked about, Michael still didn't get back his memories."
"AM?"
"Angra Mainyu."
"Oh, right."
"So my point is, let's not give him a reason to want his memories back. Since if he didn't get them back already, it will likely involve hell of a journey, quest or karmatic sacrifice to get them back." Nobu continued. "Also, how much of his memories will he get back? Will it just be the Grand Order part of traveling as a Master of Chaldea, or will it include everything from when he was stuck in the timeloop in Fuyuki? What if that causes some super accelerated soul rot to happen to him?"
"Okay, okay got it." MHX raised her hand for Nobunaga to stop. "Okay, I got it. No mentioning past life stuff, but what if he asks?"
"Michael was always perceptive when he needed to. If he wanted to know, he would have asked. I think he noticed us avoiding the subject, and is going along with it, because it feels right." Nobunaga shrugged. "Also, let's say we tell him, and everything go okay, what if he goes on some revenge quest, like he did on Goetia?"
"The Alien God is defeated, and I think Chaldea was fine the last time I talked to them." MHX took thoughtful for a moment, and then sighed. "But okay, I see your point. It's a new life, might as well let him live this one, rather than have him try and continue the last one. It's a fresh start for him and us in the this world, so let's just do that. Live here, one day at the time."
"Great! So how's that Photonic Crystal coming along?"
"I'm not adding something that high-tech to your new container! Truthfully I was worried you infected the internet in this world when I found out you somehow became an A.I. Thank god, Michael was smart enough to not give you an inch on that!" MHX continued to gather the components to make the new container of Nobunaga's A.I. core.
[Such high level material would be wasted on a poor software as Demon Archer anyways]
"Et Tu, X!? And you! I'll show you 'poor software'!"
After a brief comedic cyber fight, which caused in one of the ship's engine's overheating, and blowing out smoke, resulting in MHX getting angry and scolding both A.I., things grew quiet again.
"Say..." MHX said after a while. "Should we be worried about that Valkyrie?" She asked, while disassembling, welding, and building the new CPU with the ship's help.
"Hmm?" Nobunaga tilted her head.
"I mean, the way she was acting with Michael; I haven't known her long, but she seemed like the strict, no-funny-business-allowed type of person. Like a middle school's hall monitor. Yet, around Michael she was surprisingly, I dunno, nicer with him." MHX tried to explain the oddness she saw in the valkyrie's interaction with her former Master.
"Maybe she mistook him for Magni?" Said Nobunaga.
"I don't think temporarily being a Demi-Servant from a Class Card means you are that Servant." MHX shook her head.
"But it's likely to affect your karma, and it's likely that that followed him to this life. So, perhaps he gives the feeling of being Magni-like to Norse beings." Nobu placed her hands behind her head, and crossed her legs.
"Hmm, well, Magni is one of the people to survive Ragnarok. So maybe since Michael give off a 'Magni-feel' like you said, she felt that it's wrong for him to die early in his life? But the motherly 'I want to protect him' feel she gave off was worrying." MHX frowned.
"You're right!" MHX looked at Nobu with a raised eyebrow. She was worried at her companion's sudden enthusiasm. "We should be the ones being motherly to him and raising him. Why, it's a rare opportunity to shape Michael's development, don't you think? After all, whose knows what's best for him, like his two best Servants and friends." Nobu wiggled her eyebrows.
Her answer was MHX throwing a wrench at Nobu's head, that due to Dun Stallion's meddling, actually managed to hit and hurt the Hologram Nobu.
"Oh god, why it hurts!?" Shouted Nobu holding her head in surprise.
"We are not Hikaru Genji'ing our friend, you perverted twit!!"