Saber Wars: V
Ritsuka stared at the block of steel on the floor.
Well, it looked like steel to him.
It was silvery.
Crouching down, he squinted at it for a couple of seconds, cupping his chin and putting on a thoughtful expression.
Really, it wasn't for any particular reason as he very much doubted he was going to glean anything from this, but it probably made him look as though he was uncovering some earth shattering secret, so he would continue to do it. Really, he was more in line with the Director's theory on all this.
"What do you see, Senpai?"
A metal cube.
That was what he wanted to say.
"It doesn't look all that impressive, but I suppose that's the point." Is what he actually said, rubbing his chin a couple more times before standing back up, then turning his head towards Heroine X and raising an eyebrow at her expectantly.
With his words, he figured she would not be long in talking about how this was actually some super amazing metal from the far future or something.
"Hmhm!" With a smug look in those keen eyes, Heroine X strode forwards and then mounted the box with one foot, standing atop it like a victorious hunter would stand atop prey, leaning forwards to look him in the eye, both arms folded over one another. "As expected of those sharp eyes that Masters were known far and wide for, you were quick to deduce that Altrium in its metal form is far greater than the flimsy materials known to earthlings."
With an almost dismissive wave of the hand, she continued on. "Indeed, we in the Servant-verse have moved beyond such simple metals. Altrium, made from those superparticles, is stronger than even the toughest metals on the planet and lighter than all of them! Not even the blow of the strongest of Sabers - namely me - could easily break it."
He glanced back down at it, then towards X.
It really didn't look like much to him.
"Isn't that just titanite?"
"...Hah?"
Several heads turned towards Ash, who had otherwise been silent as he picked at the string of his bow. Even now, he didn't raise his head from strumming it like a guitar. "Titanite. Metal of the gods, endowed with greater properties than ordinary metal. Then there was the fabled geisteel, as fitted upon the Drang armour that I wore on one occasion."
Geisteel?
That sounded pretty unique.
A hum from Gwynevere brought his eyes towards the Goddess, she was nodding her head up and down to support the words of Ash.
"Admittedly, I paid little attention, but during their time, the works of Drangleic and the skill of Llewellyn the forgemaster reached even my ears. I have little doubt his only competition would have been Trahaearn when he still lived."
With a brief pause, her eyes turned downcast for a moment. "A pity that the two never had a chance to meet, I am curious what such a meeting would have inspired, though I have little doubt it would have facilitated the two to greater heights…"
That sounded like some pretty high praise coming from a Goddess, especially when he only knew about Trahaearn as the God who made the Lord Vessel, and given that Da Vinci said it was basically akin to a proper Holy Grail, that was something serious. He suspected that Andre would probably know more about the pair of them, all things considered.
He should probably pay the man a visit in his forge when this was all over.
A faint grumble from Heroine X broke him from his thoughts. "I've never heard of…wait…Titanite?" she cupped her chin with a slightly thoughtful look on her face, then glanced towards Ash. "You got any of that stuff?"
Ash paused, then glanced in his direction for a brief second, likely searching for whether that was acceptable or not.
Ritsuka didn't personally see the harm in it, not unless she had some sort of Noble Phantasm or personal skill that let her analyse metals and learn the secret art of how to cut through them or something. That sounded fairly unlikely to him. With a nod to the Avenger, Ash quickly ducked his hand into his bottomless box for a brief moment.
With a few seconds of waiting, his hand returned with a small shard of the metal held between his fingers, tossing it towards the Assassin who managed to catch it with only a single hand.
It was a little cool.
She brought it up before her eyes and cupped her chin.
Lily made a small noise of amazement. "Do you also happen to have an eye for metals, Miss X?"
The Assassin gave a faint smirk while her eyes remained on the shard. "You tend to pick up a lot of things when travelling through the Servant-verse. Namely what you can use to patch up damage and whatnot…as for this." she lowered it down and then stared at Ash with a sense of newfound scrutiny.
"This definitely ain't any earth material." She announced after a couple of seconds. "We have a complete manifest on all materials native to this planet during this space and time in the far future and none of them are anything like this…Well…Perhaps Professor Tokiomi might know about it? If there's a Servant-verse counterpart at least."
Ritsuka pinched his brows and placed his hands on his hips. "You seem pretty interested about the metal all of a sudden. You don't mean that you could fix your ship with it, do you?"
It would save them running around, but he was hardly in the mood to just hand over all their titanite to this person.
He was generous, but not quite that generous.
Besides, he knew that Ash wouldn't approve and the Director definitely wouldn't approve.
Heroine X made a small noise, lowering the shard down and shaking her head. "Nah. Would be easy if that were the case, but my ship is specially designed to be put together with Altrium. A bad idea to make a craft with materials made of different melting points." glancing to the side, Ritsuka could swear she looked almost embarrassed. "Makes re-entry into a planet a problem…or so I'm told by…uh…people."
People, huh?
Her effort to literally fight back sweating was giving him the idea that if he pulled out a pocket mirror, she could probably introduce him to these people.
"Can I keep this?" She held up the pebble sized shard of titanite. "Worth dropping by the Space-Clocktower…They would probably buy something like this. Or their archeology division would. They like fancy rare rocks and it would definitely help out a lot with my food costs."
Ritsuka wanted to laugh.
She wanted to sell the rock for lunch money.
"You want to see that…for lunch money?" The Director voiced his thoughts out loud, not even bothering to keep her incredulity from her voice, though it swiftly shifted into something else. "No, wait a moment. What was that thing you said earlier? Space-Clocktower? Are you…What is that even supposed to mean in the first place? Do you honestly believe that we would believe such an outrageous claim as that?"
Heroine X gave a dramatic shrug of her shoulders. "I mean, I know that earthlings of this era are sceptical, so it's really none of my concern if you believe me or not."
"It absolutely is our concern if you're going to be running around trying to swipe divine metals from us with such a flimsy explanation for a justification." Naturally, the Director didn't let her get away with that.
Ritsuka spared her a brief look before waving his hand and in an effort to get her to calm down a little. "Perhaps we could probably do with a bit more of an explanation first? I don't think we know much about this Servant-verse you keep talking about beyond the little stuff you've been dropping here and there."
Someone clapped their hands rather loudly, he jumped and turned as Gwynevere stepped forwards with the sparkle in her eyes returning in full force. "A very well made point! Let us hear about all the details of this land you hail from, clearly it is one of boundless imagination if you can so quickly draw forth details regarding it."
Heroine X looked at them oddly for a couple of seconds, then folded her arms once again and furrowed her brow. "The Servant-verse, huh? Well…I figured that it would be in the name, wouldn't it? The Servant Universe. It's in the far future, well beyond this universe, and everyone is a Servant."
Ritsuka frowned.
That…that didn't make a lot of sense to him.
How could everyone be a Servant?
"Miss X…when you say that everyone is a Servant, do you perhaps refer to the Throne of Heroes?" Lily asked, tilting her head rather cutely and placing a single finger on her chin as she did so.
Heroine X briefly looked at her before twitching, clearly captivated by the rather adorable sight for a couple moments before she coughed twice to clear her throat. "Hah, hah. No. The Throne of Heroes is like some dusty old warehouse compared to the Servant-verse. Not to mention that place doesn't make a lick of sense in the first place, given how easy it is for Servants to qualify for whatever class they want, whenever they want to."
Blue eyes turned in the director of Ash and narrowed ever so slightly.
He didn't even so much as blink - or show any reaction at all - from the blatant suspicion of the girl, it was clear she still didn't buy his whole explanation that he was not an Archer and that he was an Avenger.
Turning her focus back towards the group, Heroine X raised a finger and pointed upwards to the sky. "It is where Servants conduct deeds befitting of a Servant while having the greatest view imaginable. Space. That is to say…it is literally a universe full of Servants. Legends have been freed from their old shackles and need no longer care for their origins, they may act as they see fit and do whatever it is they want to do…unfortunately you sometimes get some troublemakers, but that's where people like me come in."
Jutting her chin forwards, Heroine X produced a rather proud smile. "That is what the Servant-verse is. Now do you understand?"
"...Not in the least." He answered after a couple of seconds.
Quite frankly, it sounded rather insane if he was being honest with himself.
An entire universe that was filled with nothing but Servants who just did whatever they wanted? That sounded like an absolute nightmare half the time, and he was limited to the Servants of just a couple of worlds.
An entire universe full of that sort of thing?
…How many worlds were suffering from Elizabeth concerts?
Someone made a small noise, akin to a nervous laughter, the owner soon being outed as Marie when he looked for the source. The Queen scratched the side of her chin while tilting her head. "I can't say that I completely followed along with the explanation, but that certainly does sound as though it would be a very…freeing environment. The sort of place where you can just act without being constrained by your past legend."
Then she frowned. "But hang on…surely not every Servant would be thrilled with the idea of a fresh start, would they?"
Heroine X shrugged her shoulders. "I wouldn't know about that. I mean…There have probably been a couple of trouble makers in the past. Though with things as they are, most just have their hands full with the crazy schemes of the current Servants. Like…There is apparently this rumour that another Universe is in the middle of colliding with our own at the moment."
What the heck was with this escalation?
Lily swiftly raised her hand. "Isn't that dangerous?"
"No idea. I'm not a scientist." X dismissed rather swiftly. "All I know is that the Galactic police are dealing with it at the moment…Some real shenanigans are afoot in the Servant-verse. Though you tend to pay attention when an entire fleet of ships flying under the banner of the 'Azure Sentries' just warps into a system and starts policing it."
"Azure Sentries?" Ash made a small noise of confusion, Ritsuka glanced at him and saw the look of befuddlement. The blonde frowned for a second, then turned to him. "No, it is merely that there was a Covenant known as the Blue Sentinels."
Gwynevere hummed. "I know of them, they worked under the command of Quella when he was made member of Flann's council in Heide, though they continued to operate long after he had parted ways with them. A noble sort of folk, but somewhat ineffective against less…direct threats."
She frowned. "That and, if memory serves, without his guidance they turned to being akin to thugs running protection rackets within the country of Volgen."
Ritsuka frowned a bit at that. "Protection rackets? So what…they were police turned gangsters?"
Ash hummed for a moment, then shrugged. "I am making an effort to search my mind at the moment…but picking through memories is decidedly challenging. What little I can gleam at a surface level is that Volgen was a merchant federation, the Sentinels were effectively the governing force of the kingdom." his lip curled into a sharp frown. "...Greed. A rather despicable human trait was traded in abundance there."
Not like he could say any different.
A merchant city operating like that hardly surprised him at all.
Though he could hardly speak for the character of Quella, the time he spent with the Spirit was limited.
"Well, setting aside the similarities…" He turned back to Heroine X, who had apparently been silently following along the conversation with a touch of interest. "What you're telling me is that the Servant-verse is just an entire universe filled with Servants?"
"Yes…" She responded slowly, looking at him bemusedly. "I thought I made that clear by now?"
The Director scoffed loudly. "She is clearly speaking nonsense. For one thing, a Servant cannot operate without the existence of a Master to support them-"
"I can." Ash commented from the sidelines.
"Shut up, you." Came the swift retort from the Director. "We have long since established that you are an exception to the norms, but I severely doubt that every single Servant in this fantasy land is supporting the same circumstances."
She waved a hand to X and frowned. "Even if we were to entertain this delusion of yours with even a shred of seriousness, it falls flat on its face the moment it is introduced to the basic traits of a Servant."
Then she pointed to him. "A Master is required for a Servant to exist, but you have given no mention of Masters and whenever you do actually speak of them, it is in much the same way a person would talk about a dinosaur. Implying that they don't exist…but if they did not, then you would not even be allowed a single day before you faded from existence."
Leaning back, Olga shot back an almost taunting grin as she locked eyes with Heroine X. "Well? What is your answer to that?"
"...I mean…I exist without a Master right now." Heroine X pointed to herself and gave a flat look. "I could run around at full speed, use my Noble Phantasm, personal skills and all of that stuff…I don't even have that fancy Independent Action of an Archer, I can just do all this stuff without needing to worry about that. Same with most Servants."
Hands falling to her hips, Heroine X leaned forwards and smirked right back at the Director. "Don't get upset just because you're jealous about how much cooler the Servant-verse is compared to yours."
"J-Jealous!?" Olga made a sputtering noise, then sharply pointed towards the face of the grinning Assassin. "Don't give me that look! Not even five minutes ago you were all but begging for a stone so that you could sell it to buy food! How much better can your 'Servant-verse' be if you need to ask for handouts from such a 'backwards planet?'"
And just like that, Heroine X's face burned bright red, likely a mixture of both embarrassment and anger. "Wha-you-food is expensive in space! That has nothing to do with anything!"
Ritsuka would have been more tempted to interrupt the argument had it not been for the fact he noticed the rather thoughtful look that now adorned Mash's face, brows rather tightly bunched together as the girl cupped her chin and hummed lightly.
Setting aside the background shouting match between the Director and Heroine X, he stepped closer to Mash and then angled his head as he spoke. "Something on your mind?"
"Hmm? Ah, sorry Senpai." She hastily replied, head shaking from side to side as she fixed him with a small smile. "I was just considering something that Heroine X said earlier and was rather confused."
"Which part?"
Because as far as he was concerned, there wasn't much she had said that wasn't confusing or concerning.
"Well…she claimed to be from the future." Mash began after a couple of moments, cycling her hand in circles as she spoke. "Which would mean that she somehow had the means to travel through time, if we are to take her at her words, but she doesn't display the sort of class for that sort of thing…Which would imply that it is her rocket ship that could travel through time."
Ritsuka gave a long blink at that.
He had completely overlooked that.
"Good catch, Holmes." Mash sputtered a little and a faint dusting of red crept up her face as he turned away from her and towards Heroine X, Ritsuka stepped forwards and raised his hand, looking at the Assassin with a frown. "If I could just interject for a moment, there is something I would like to ask."
Heroine X paused, then immediately broke away from Olga and reverted her expression back to its usual countenance without even so much as a blink. Further shocking the Director with how swiftly she had seemingly been forgotten by the Servant, Ritsuka winced at the glare but was thankful it wasn't aimed at him.
"Yeah, what do you need?"
"Thanks, my associate." He pointed over his shoulder in the direction of Mash, smiling patiently at the Servant as he did so. "Just picked up something rather important. Now…You claim to be from the future, right?"
"The very far future, but yes."
He didn't think adding in the 'very far' was necessary but it did give him a good idea of what it was like.
"Now…Does this not imply that perhaps your ship is capable of travelling through time?"
Heroine X looked at him rather oddly for a couple of seconds, before she leaned back and raised a brow. "Well…yeah? Isn't that obvious? In the first place, it is the Servant-verse. I thought I clarified to you that this was a universe, so naturally my ship can warp from planet to planet."
Ritsuka stared at her blankly.
He felt like he was missing something.
A sigh from the right dragged his gaze to the Director, the woman was rubbing her brows as she sent another biting look at the Assassin before she glanced his way. "If the words of this idiot have any weight to them, then she means to imply that she is somehow capable of moving faster than light."
"...Okay?"
"...That is akin to travelling through time."
"...How?"
"Because light has a set speed, it is a fundamental aspect that nothing travels faster than light." The Director explained slowly to him, pinching her fingers together while giving him a flat look. "You can cheat that rule by altering the spatial distance between you and the point you are travelling, hence teleportation, but you cannot change the speed of light. Therefore, if you are moving fast enough to reach another location before the light can reach you…then you have technically moved forwards in time."
That was…Huh?
"Sorry…so…"
"The sun." The Director pointed upwards. "What you are seeing when you look at the sun is the appearance it held as of eight minutes ago. Because it takes eight minutes for the light of the sun to reach us. Supposing I could instantly travel to the sun right now, I have moved eight minutes into the future, because the light of that sun in that instant has not yet reached us."
"...So you go so fast that you travel into the future…because the stuff you're seeing is actually from the past?"
"...Yes."
He turned towards Heroine X and stared at her for a couple of moments in silence, the Assassin was just looking at the Director with a slight look of intrigue on her face for a second or two, then visibly dismissed it with a shake of the head before shifting her gaze back onto him and giving a single sage nod of the head.
"What she said…But much more impressive than eight minutes. Try thousands of lightyears."
Hang on a moment.
"Wait, but doesn't that only apply to travelling into the future?" He asked the Servant, she paused for a moment and then blinked twice. "Why would you be able to travel into the past if you could move faster than light?"
"You're still thinking of time in terms of linear progression." Heroine X shook her head. "You can go from A-B, but the truth is that time is much more complicated."
"...How complicated?"
"""Very complicated.""" Three sets of voices answered at once, Ritsuka blinked and glanced around to find that Heroine X, Ash and Gwynevere had all joined forces for the sole purpose of telling him that time was complicated.
Heroine X shook her head. "The point is that the Bureau for temporal anomalies detected something strange happening in the distant past that could affect the future that we operate within. Stuff like that is pretty serious, hence why they decided that they would send me back in order to deal with it."
A beat.
Then she added on. "Though we don't actually know what the cause of it even is, all we can gather is that it originated within this era and that's about the extent of it. Trust me, between this calamity and the possible union with another universe, a lot of people have their hands full right now."
"...That just sounds like you received a warning from the Throne of Heroes about the incineration of Humanity and decided to allow yourself to be summoned unto this era in order to find the problem and correct it."
Ritsuka had to hand it to the Director, she was really doubling down on the whole idea that Heroine X was some sort of con-artist or Servant experiencing a sort of eighth grade syndrome which, all things considered, he really would not put past them. It was a lot easier to swallow than the idea that they were from the very distant future.
"The inny what now?"
Several sets of eyes stared at the Servant with differing levels of bafflement.
"Are you…truly this stupid? Is it a curse?" Olga commented aloud, tilting her head and then humming thoughtfully. "Perhaps akin to the evaporation of reason like that of the Paladin. By now, I would assume that he would have concocted the same manner of insane explanation for a summoning. If his claims about lunar travel are any indication."
Lunar travel?
Oh yeah, he did say something like that once.
Heroine X scowled, bringing up a hand and then pointed towards the Director. "Hey, that seems like a pretty disrespectful way to thank someone for coming all the way from the future to help! If anything, you guys should be thanking me right now that the greatest Saber has deigned to come to this land of dinosaurs and help out."
"D-Dinosaurs?"
"That's right! You stegosaurus!"
Ritsuka snorted, then quickly disguised said snort as a cough and pointedly looked away from the rapidly reddening Director.
It wasn't helping her case either.
Given that he knew Stegosaurus would flush their back plates with blood to produce a dazzling effect.
Coughing several more times, he lowered his hand. "Comments on our standing as dinosaurs aside - of which I am obviously a Liopleuredon - but if you're here to help us with the Incineration of Humanity, how come you ended up crashing in the middle of France? From the very beginning, it wouldn't have even been a Singularity if we hadn't been here in the first place."
"Oh, that."
Heroine X immediately pointed upwards. "That's the reason right there."
Ritsuka followed her line of sight, then frowned for a second before he returned his gaze to the Assassin. "The band of light?"
"Yeah, that thing is stupidly powerful." Heroine X shuddered as she sent another wary glance towards it, expression twisting into a pained grimace as she managed to grind out the next couple words. "It is…probably stronger than my Secret-calibur."
Ritsuka sent another glance to the band of light that hung in the sky, then shot a glance towards the others. He could have guessed that it was stronger than Excalibur at a glance, but to hear it admitted so openly about it. That was a rather shuddering thought to consider.
He knew it related to Solomon in some capacity - it was definitely something that belonged to them - but that just didn't fit with the notion of a Noble Phantasm. Not even the doom sword of Ash was comparable to what the Band of Light was in terms of scale, to say nothing of the power he had seen from Gwyn.
But that was for another time, right now his focus returned to Heroine X as he made an effort to piece together what he assumed happened.
"So…you entered earth and then ran afoul of the band of light?"
A nod of the head, the blonde grimaced even deeper as she tugged at her cap. "I…wasn't quite expecting it to be there, but that's hardly my fault! Who would even put that there in the first place?"
Ritsuka folded his arms and regarded the Servant warily for a couple of seconds before he replied. "King Solomon."
Heroine X opened her mouth, then closed it and frowned, then turned to him and pinched her brows in confusion. "Who?"
"...I'm sorry, did they just send you back in time or did they send anyone else?"
"What the heck is that supposed to mean?"
Despite what could otherwise be called a nuisance, it was hardly long before their group was moving once more.
Though Ash found himself more and more thinking along the same lines as Olga that this Servant really was just insane, then again, perhaps there was some small trace of validity to the story of the Servant. Given that no matter how much he raked his brain, there was no trace of her anywhere in his observed memories.
Not an ounce.
Which was somewhat confusing, though he had hardly been searching for all that long, there was still generations worth of memories and visions that he was sorting through to try and find some ounce of them, but nothing related to the construction of a rocket ship that had been flight capable.
…Maybe they really were from the future?
It would certainly be…
…No, from the very beginning, it was said that Servants could be summoned from different points in time. Meaning there was nothing preventing a Servant from the future from being summoned as well as the distant past, which could imply that this Servant was indeed some possible individual from the very far future.
Ash scratched the underside of his chin as he internally debated it further.
The more he thought about it, the more he found himself leaning towards that idea.
Not that Olga was incorrect and the Servant was slightly deranged - the obsession with Sabers was proof of that - but it did not mean they were lying about their origins. For one thing, who would possibly think of creating such an elaborate ruse in the first place? That hardly made for an ounce of sense to him.
In the end what did it really change if there was one more slightly delusional individual running around in Chaldea?
He had little doubt that Ritsuka would still welcome them all the same whereas he…
Ash frowned to himself as he went over his thoughts of Heroine X.
His first reaction had just been to brand them as a nuisance and then kill them.
It had been earned when she attacked them, but he still held onto the feeling that it would be better to just get rid of them here and now and save themselves the trouble of being dragged along in an otherwise pointless endeavour. From the very beginning, it was hardly as though they needed her here to find all these bizarre supplies.
Now he just…didn't really care about her beyond the fact she occasionally annoyed Gwynevere and suddenly his annoyance had been drowned out by a brief pang of something whenever he saw the irritation on the face of his mother.
It sickened him.
A feeling that originated from his affection for her and his dislike for her.
Was he truly contemplating allowing this Servant - an otherwise unknown variable beyond whatever traces of madness she spewed out - to remain around them for the sole purpose of annoying his mother? What an utterly petty reasoning and that he considered it for even a moment was stupid.
Clicking his tongue under his breath, he turned his eyes forwards once more and made an effort to banish the thoughts from his mind. It was hardly an easy endeavour, but there was still more to be mindful of beyond the fact that he was watching his mother get slightly annoyed every time she was overshadowed.
Namely that this was a mockery for training.
Or at least training by what he understood it as, especially given that it was training granted by Gwynevere.
His eyes darted towards her and narrowed, not that she seemed to notice.
Then again, why would she?
But this training of hers was nothing like the training he had endured, that he still remembered even now. When they spoke of Gwynevere assisting them, he had come down with the sole intention of putting a stop to it.
Rather, he had been rather surprised that Ritsuka even allowed such a thing in the first place, briefly entertaining the idea that he had been manipulated in some capacity by his Mother's powers, but there was no ounce of that upon him.
So he followed them, despite his misgivings about being near his Mother, just to ensure that things did not progress as far as they might have done.
And he was…
…Was he disappointed by what he saw?
He was.
Though he was more disappointed that his Mother was taking so long to reveal her hand, surely she would have known that he understood what her training entailed, so was this all just some pathetic mockery of him just to try and lull them all into a false sense of security before she sprung her trap and revealed her true colours?
If so…when would she do it-
"Your emotions are akin to a raging storm, one that even the blindest could see."
He almost paused at the voice but quickly gained his ground once more, keeping silent as he maintained his stoic visage into the back of the speaker's head.
Not that it stopped them from talking.
"If you have some misgivings about me, then you may speak of them openly. It is hardly as though I hold much sway to force silence from you."
His eyes narrowed in annoyance at her casual words, she knew full well the power she still held over him. Even without her authority.
"...What is this?"
"What is what?" Gwynevere replied back smoothly, a touch of innocent confusion in her voice.
"This…farce."
"You will have to speak more clearly, for if you refer to the Servant that we travel with, then I believe you were present for her words and explanations as well." She gave a light chuckle as if finding something rather amusing. "But I am indulging in her fantasies for the moment, they are wild and imaginative. I am curious to see if there shall ever come a time where she does not have some outrageous answer-"
"Not that." He fought back the growl, folding his arms tight over his chest and scowling deeply at her. "This…training. If it could be called that. What game are you playing here?"
Silence.
Gwynevere said nothing for several seconds, then she made a quiet sound. "Oh."
His brows furrowed at the reaction she gave, it was less than what he had been expecting. Much less.
Then came the light sigh from the Goddess. "Tell me, did you follow us down here purely because you lived in terror that I would subject them to the same manner of training that I did unto you and Gundyr?"
He kept silent, but it was answer enough.
"...I suppose there was little reason for you to abandon those thoughts, so I shall allow you to believe in them."
His lip curled. "You make it sound as though you are doing me some manner of favour."
"I am." She replied back without missing a beat. "I am saying that your suspicion of my training is earned, whereas another might have been rather insulted that you considered their methods to be nothing more than brutal savagery."
Waving a hand, she turned her head ever so slightly so that she could see him from the corner of her eye. "Rest assured, you and Gundyr were the only two I ever had taught in such a crude manner, and I learned that it was foolish to venture from how I would normally train those who would serve."
So what was he? The exception?
His expression must have shown the level of his incredulity because she closed her eyes and shook her head from side to side, bringing her gaze forwards once more and breaking contact with his own.
"Understand that there was a reason you were trained as you were, and there is a reason that Mash and Lily will not be subjected to the same training."
"Is that supposed to bring me some measure of comfort?" He scoffed under his breath. "Because the mere fact it happened at all - to your own children - is proof enough that you can hardly be trusted with the welfare of others. Even bonds of blood do not stop you from-"
"And how is it that you acquired the armour of Lorian?"
He fell silent.
"And what fate befell Llew when he opted to stay behind to delay you?"
Gwynevere turned her head, glaring down at him with coldness in her gaze.
He quickly ducked his head to the ground to avoid it.
"Do not speak of bonds of blood as if you care for them in any capacity. Your father fought to keep your friends alive after you deemed them unworthy of living and you cut him down, or even before then. For all your claim of hating the flame, you walked through into the keep of Lothric and - I presume - killed your half-siblings just so you could go to the flame. Had you left them be, it would have only been a matter of time before you got your wish."
His hands clenched into fists.
"...I had to be sure." Was the response he gave, because he did need to be sure. There needed to be absolute certainty that the flame would never be lit again. "And I hardly knew that they were my siblings at the time."
"And would it have mattered?"
…No.
It would not have.
"Bonds of blood indeed." Gwynevere remarked with a cold tone of voice, turning her head away from him. "You did as you believed was right at the time, just as I have always done what I know to be right. It was a mistake to raise you as I did, that I shall admit openly."
A mistake, she called it.
It was not an apology.
She just said it was a mistake.
"But Lily and Mash are not you. Do not be so arrogant in believing that you understand all there is of me. You saw what I needed you to see and lived how it was needed for you to live."
Needed?
"Hmph." A quiet grunt escaped him as he turned his head away from her. The scowl on his lips returned in force and creased his entire expression. So he was subject to special treatment because of what he was.
It did not change anything.
Whether he actually valued those connections of blood or not did not change the fact that humans very much did.
"...So that is what you claim then, is it?" He muttered quietly, letting out a small breath as he straightened himself out, unfolding his arms and lowering to them his sides as he did so. "And why go through all of this trouble? What value is there in training Mash and Lily in the way that you are? I doubt it is born of concern for whether they could save the life of Ritsuka."
"...Is it not the duty of a knight to protect their lord? Such a thing should go without saying." Gwynevere dismissed, pointedly avoiding answering the question of whether or not Ash was right. "Besides, it is more born of their potential when it comes to such things. I can see the potential Lily holds, especially given I have seen a version of who they might become, though I do find their attitude rather jarring."
The altered Artoria then.
"But I believe she could be a splendid knight when given the right opportunities to shine, all she requires is some confidence in her own abilities and she would soar."
The pride in her voice was hardly lost on him, but he cared little for her pontificating.
From the very beginning, he had guessed that was why she had gravitated towards Lily in the first place, but Mash was an entirely different case.
"And what of Mash?"
Gwynevere paused for a brief moment, the silence was unexpected.
It lasted for several seconds before she made a curious noise. "I found her lack of experience in all matters of life saddening…For a girl to be surrounded by such diverse figures and yet remain almost akin to a bare garden, it was…a personal insult for me not to lend my aid in her growth."
"She has Ritsuka-"
"And that…is the problem." A sigh. "She bases herself too much around the interests of one person…I believe that you would be the first to argue against the notion of basing yourself around the wants and desires of a single person."
He felt his temper flare. "The two are not even remotely comparable."
"In practice? No, you are quite right." She agreed rather easily. "Yet the principle remains strong, what I wish is for Mash to have some measure of independence if she were to be separated from the boy for whatever reason in the future, I wish for her to find her own reasons for doing things. Rather…I would very much like it if she could become her own person."
"...Is that some manner of sick joke?"
"Not at all."
"You…" He almost wanted to laugh, if it didn't taste like bile in his throat. "You strip me and Gundyr of everything but duty…t-then you claim that seeing Mash like that is too tragic for you to stomach?"
"...I believe you should be asking yourself why Mash exists in such a state to begin with?"
He blinked and then frowned. "Excuse-"
"You hate me so much for raising you and Gundyr as I did, but that was born of necessity." She looked him in the eyes this time, a piercing gaze. "Tell me…Where was the necessity in raising Mash to be the way she was?"
Ash stopped walking.
Gwynevere stopped as well, for only a brief time. "For all you claim to hate me for how I raised you, perhaps you should understand that you are working under those who have done the exact same thing as I."
He kept staring at her, though he did not enjoy the thoughts that crept through his mind.
"...Well, at least the boy is making steps to let her grow." With a shrug, she turned back around and resumed walking. "Perhaps you should accept the explanation that I simply found you and Gundyr unbearable to look at and could hardly stand to see the same thing again? Who is to say…"
Ash remained standing for a few moments more, watching as the others peeled away from him without even realising he wasn't with them.
But her words lingered in his mind.
He never once thought about Mash in that context…but it was adding up.
The naivety which sometimes matched his own, the basing of an entire personality around being a Servant to Ritsuka despite having only known him a short time…not to mention the fact she did not seem to have very many interests beyond things related to Servants or a quest for knowledge.
…She had never been beyond the walls of Chaldea.
He blinked several times.
Then started walking again, his expression blank.
"Alright, we're going back to the ship!"
Lily blinked at the sudden announcement from Heroine X, they didn't provide so much as a further elaboration before she turned on her heel and started marching back the way they had come, sparing her not even a glance as she did so.
That being said, Lily was still able to catch a glimpse of the expression on the face of the Servant, she winced a little as she saw it.
It was definitely not a pleased expression.
She waited for only a moment before she took off after the Assassin and past a rather confused looking Ritsuka.
"Why are we going back, Miss X?"
The reply came barely a second later. "I got an alert that there is a Servant signature closing in on my ship. One that isn't registered or known, I don't think I need to explain why letting someone near my ship unsupervised is a really bad idea. There are all sorts of suspicious characters out there."
Lily blinked twice, then gave an understanding nod of the head, soon turning around and calling out towards the others. "Miss X says that there is an unknown Servant closing in on her ship. We need to go and make sure it isn't anyone with malicious intentions or an otherwise dangerous individual."
"Alright, that makes sense." Ritsuka replied rather easily, nodding his head up and down as he jogged to catch up with them. "Really, I probably should have summoned an Archer or something to stand watch while we all went looking…Then again, everything did sort of rush past me."
It sounded like he was being a little hard on himself.
Giving him a reassuring smile, "It was a bit hectic, Master. I think you can be forgiven for not immediately summoning a Servant down here to stand guard. In the first place, I don't think we were expecting other Servants to be here in the first place."
Ritsuka still looked a little dubious, but slowly nodded his head. "I guess you're right about that…Still, it might have been an idea for a Caster to set up a bounded field so that we could at least be alerted or to keep the craft more or less hidden…" he shrugged, then brought up a tiny smile. "Well, I'll remember that for next time."
That was the spirit.
"Absolutely!" She cheered rather loudly, clapping her hands together. "What are mistakes if you don't learn from them? That would be rather bad if you just kept repeating them again and again."
"It would be embarrassing." Ritsuka replied with a wry tone of voice, quickly shaking his head and adopting a more serious look. "That being said, did X give any indication what sort of Servant it was or did they not have that much information?"
"They didn't say…"
"Well, if it was a Saber she probably would have started sprinting right off the get go." Came the dry retort from the Master and Lily couldn't really fault him for that. In the first place, he was probably right as well. If it had been a Saber, then she was certain that Miss X would have made full use of her speed and run away from them faster than they could all react.
She could only offer a faint chuckle at his words, bringing her hand up and scratching the side of her cheek.
"How has training been, by the way?"
Lily jolted for a moment, then turned towards Ritsuka and blinked.
"I realise that this was sort of an out there situation." He continued on with, looking over his shoulder briefly - she assumed towards Mash - before he turned back to her. "But I just wanted to make sure that you're prepared for another fight if it comes to it. That battle with Blackbeard looked a bit tough."
Prepared for another fight?
Did that mean he was going to rely on her for the fighting once again?
That was…
She smiled rather brightly, thumping a fist against her breastplate as she did so. "Not to worry, Master. As a Saber Servant, I shall serve as the vanguard without fail. I am still strong enough to fight whatever Servant we might face, you can count on that. I know that Mash and Queen Marie are just as ready."
Ritsuka remained silent, then nodded once more he moved forwards and patted her on the back twice. "That's good to hear. I'll be counting on you guys then."
"There's a Saber with them!"
Came the shout from up ahead, soon followed by a thunderous boom.
Both Lily and Ritsuka turned their eyes ahead and watched the blur of Heroine X vanish away into the distance.
"...Oh damn."
Lily was inclined to agree, that didn't sound all that good.
Siegfried wasn't sure what had happened.
He was summoned, then he fell into a cave and then he all but stumbled into this woman who had said…something about dragons before she dragged him back to the surface and then proclaimed to be on an adventure.
In the next moment, they stood in front of some sort of silver craft that he wasn't sure either of them understood. From the very beginning, he was terribly confused about what was happening, but he was neglecting asking the woman what was going on, primarily because he didn't want to say anything that would be bothersome.
She looked as though she was having fun.
The brown haired woman paced around the exterior of the metal craft a few more times, humming all the while, then she walked towards him and placed her hands on her hips. Nodding her head several times, then jerked a thumb over her shoulder towards it. "I shall be brutally honest. I have not even the slightest idea what that is."
"...Sorry. I don't either."
"Eh, I wasn't expecting you to." She admitted with a shrug of her shoulders, then turned around and stepped backwards until she was shoulder to shoulder with him. He glanced down at her, then towards the craft.
He suppressed a wince at the feeling that emanated from it.
There was no denying that it was dangerous in some capacity.
Rather…it was similar to his own Noble Phantasm.
Das Rheingold.
Which meant that this was somehow cursed to attract many people to it, but then also bring them folly when they did arrive. It put him on edge, because both he and the person next to him had doubtless been attracted to it, but that also meant they were doubtless under the influence of whatever curse was upon this craft.
He could already feel it, like ice running down the back of his neck.
It was dangerous to stay here for much longer.
Glancing left and right, he narrowed his eyes before he looked down at the woman. "I believe that it would be dangerous to linger here much longer…"
"Oh, so you feel that too then." She admitted rather nonchalantly, shrugging her shoulders once. "It is a bit strange…Hmmm. There's a sense of want but also mixed with a warning in my body. As if trying to take this is a bad idea, but it is the temptation that will make it all the more appetising…"
Siegfried grimaced.
Was she already under the effects of this curse?
With a clap of her hands, she turned to him and smiled. "Well, only one thing for it."
He tensed himself.
"We wait on the sidelines and see who comes and claims it."
He loosened his posture quickly, then furrowed his brows in confusion. "...Sorry, if I am mistaken. But I assumed you would try and take it for yourself."
A tilt of the head. "Well…The temptation is there, but that's hardly my role in all of this. Sooner or later, someone is going to come along and try and take it, so all I want to see is what happens when they do. I think that would be much more interesting, don't you agree?"
No.
It actually sounded very inconsiderate.
A bit negligent as well.
He turned his eyes towards the silver craft and frowned. "I believe it would be safer if we tried to remove it."
"...Yes, but that sounds a little boring to me." A sigh, then she moved around to the front, placing her hands on her hips and looked up at him with a raised brow. "Don't you have a sense of excitement? I told you, this is an adventure. It would hardly be an adventure worth having if we just hid away all the interesting things, would it?"
"...True." He admitted with great reluctance. "But if someone were to stumble upon it like we have done, then they might not be so capable of avoiding the danger it poses."
The woman flattened her gaze at him. "...Is this the knights chivalry I'm always hearing about? Hmmm…well, that could be interesting it itself…But I guess I would have preferred to have been around something more lively-"
She paused, then furrowed her brows and looked into the distance. "Do you hear that?"
Siegfried could not-
He froze, then turned his head in the same direction and squinted.
A dust cloud was fast approaching them, mixed with a flash of what appeared to be golden light as well.
Then came the distant shout on the wind.
"DIE SABER!"
The woman leaned back a little, her brows climbed up her forehead. "...Well. That seems interesting."
Siegfried could tell this was his fault. "Sorry."
"Don't be." He did not like the way the woman was grinning at the moment, "This is probably going to be the most interesting story so far."