Like clockwork, Ritsuka took the time to figure out what the new Servants were all about. The easiest for him to figure out was Kosma— for a Berserker, he was the quiet sort who liked to be out of everyone's way. Were all the male Flamechasers like that? Regardless, his wish to be by himself proved impossible as Pardo roped him into her money-making operations— mainly as a bouncer to keep the line neat and without arguments. When he wasn't being forcibly employed by the feline shopkeeper, he was with RITSUKA and Sakura babysitting.
He also found out that he, Pardo and the ever-elusive Hua were squadmates so RITSUKA was rather familiar with him. His relationship with the other Flamechasers was a bit odd too. He avoided half of the ones Ritsuka had summoned; aside from Sakura and Pardo, he only spoke to Eden and surprisingly Kalpas who was friendly in return… well, as "friendly" as the other Berserker could possibly be. The remaining three, he avoided like the plague.
Speaking of Eden, her story was pretty straightforward. She was a singer who decided to join the fight to protect humanity.
…She also liked getting drunk. Ritsuka was not expecting the refined singer to be a regular patron of Moriarty's bar. Eden was also incredibly generous with gifts; Pardo showed him a trick where after giving a few nice words to Eden, shewould just give them a bunch of beautiful carved gems and jewelry.
"Pardo?"
"Yes, Master~?"
"I don't really have any use for this." Ritsuka said as he stared at the handful of polished jewels Eden gave him.
"I guess that's true… I'll take them then!"
Aside from that, Eden was also interested in the other musicians in Chaldea; Ritsuka would also find her in Ms. Crane's shop, working with the Caster on some designs. From time to time, Eden would offer to host a concert for him but that was always shot down by the others who probably mistook what she meant. Either that, or they didn't want to take any chances. Lastly, she was basically beloved among the Flamechasers (minus Kalpas but he didn't dislike her which was the main point). It was surprising that there was someone like that considering all the unique… personalities but Mobius told him he just had been summoning the problematic ones.
"Including you?"
"Hmph, I have no issues with anyone. It's them who dislike me for some reason."
"Right, for some reason."
Last but not least— seeing as there's five more Flamechasers he's yet to summon —was Vill-V. The sole Extra Class Servant of the lot (so far) was undeniably unique with her personality. Or rather… personalities. Ritsuka quickly found out how Vill-V's MANTIS surgery, the ones that gave the others their unique physical traits, gave her the unique ability to split her mind which led to her having multiple personalities.
The second Sion learned that, she and Vill-V became quick friends. The Alter Ego would also find herself around the other inventors where Ritsuka feared all of them may make the next problem Chaldea would need to fix. Maybe he was just being paranoid but the longer it was calm, the more anxious Ritsuka got. That aside, Vill-V's other relations was… hard to describe. Her main personality was overall nice if a bit eccentric considering everything about her but the less said about her other personalities, the better. He still wondered who Kevin was…
After another morning of grinding for materials for the stockpile, Ritsuka decided to relax by hanging out with one of the new Servants… Okay, maybe relax wasn't the right word. Either way, he soon found three of them in Vill-V's workshop. There was the engineer herself, but Mobius and Eden were there too. The Caster was there because apparently Vill-V had challenged her to create something to make sure she hadn't been slacking while in Chaldea.
Eden was only there for moral support, watching them compete with a wine glass in hand and an amused smile on her face.
"I'm guessing this is a normal thing for them?" He asked the Archer as they sat on the sidelines.
"In a way," Eden giggled. "The two regularly had to invent new weapons and such for MOTH back when we were alive. At some point, the two began competing over whose creations were more useful in our fight, but they've never done so directly like this." Her lively smile took on a more melancholic feeling as she continued watching the two work. "To be truthful, it's strange seeing them be so carefree. Back then, we always had the threat of the Honkai looming over us but now..."
Ritsuka didn't know what the Honkai was, but he could venture a good guess. He was also used to hearing that sort of thing— about being carefree here in Chaldea; several Servants had admitted finding it strange being able to enjoy themselves in ways they never truly got the chance to before when they were alive. "But it's not an unwelcome sight, right?" Ritsuka chuckled, eliciting a joyful laugh from Eden in turn.
"Yes, it's not an unwelcome sight at all," she agreed before taking another sip from her glass. "Say, Master. Can I ask your opinion on something? Though I will be forever grateful to you and Chaldea for giving us a second chance... Why were we given one?"
"…Huh?" Ritsuka could only react blankly at her unexpected question. Seeing his confusion, Eden immediately tried to backpedal and tell him to forget it, but Ritsuka was now curious. "Don't take this the wrong way, but what do you mean by that?"
The newly summoned Archer initially remained silent and for a moment, Ritsuka thought she was going to ignore his question. "I suppose… I didn't want one," Eden sighed wistfully. "I'm not sure how much the others told about you, but in the end, we failed to protect our world. We were given a second chance to go into a deep sleep until the time came for humanity to rewalk the Earth but...
"But you didn't join the others. Mobius mentioned that before." Ritsuka nodded, recalling what the scientist had said before about the surviving Flamechasers. He watched as a solemn frown spread across her face.
"Yes, I had no intentions of moving on to the next Era," she said, closing her eyes and nodding. "I see myself as someone who could only belong to our Era and because of that, I walked away from the others. Even though there was one more mission left for me…" Eden trailed off. "And now I'm here— now we're here. I did dream of us reuniting in the afterlife, if it truly exists, but I never expected it to happen especially in this way."
As she continued airing her thoughts, Ritsuka began seeing what she meant. However, he could only give one answer: "...Sorry, but I cannot answer that." Despite the blunt and detached answer, Ritsuka continued to give her encouraging smile. "Eden, a question like that is something you'll have to find out yourself. I especially can't help since I don't know much about what it was like when you or the others were alive. All I can do is hope you find it soon." Ritsuka told her at risk of being unhelpful, but he felt that was all he should or could say.
Fortunately, Eden could still understand his intentions despite likely being drunk by this point. "I guess I can't disagree with that, Master. Asking someone else about this, especially someone still living, isn't right." Though she did let out a disappointed sigh, she perked up right afterwards with a swig from her glass. "In any case, thank you for lending your ear for a moment."
"It's no problem. It's the norm for me," he replied before turning his attention back to the competition still raging between the two inventors. Judging from what he could see, Mobius was assembling a few more ELFs; he remembered her refusing to create more of ELF-tsuka because she "wanted to save her cores," but guess the competitive spirit made her reconsider her previous stance. Meanwhile, he couldn't even begin to guess what Vill-V was making. He'd take a closer look, but something told him it's better to keep a safe distance away from her as she worked.
…Well, until she produced a giant gunbarrel out of nowhere.
"Woah woah woah! Hang on a second, what are you making?!" He immediately stepped in and intervened.
"Huh? Oh, I was thinking how the Storm Border could do with a bit more firepower. Sure, the other Servants are great and all, but I heard how the ship got ambushed and forced out of the air during your last mission," Vill-V explained her reasoning for her creation. "It sounds to me this place needs more ways to protect itself in case of emergencies like that. Especially since Chaldea is preparing to face what's in Antartica."
Ritsuka could understand where she was coming from; her heart was certainly in the right place. Unfortunately— "I'll have to stop you there, Vill-V. I don't think creating a weapon like this would be needed." They already have the Holy Sword Cannon. Anything more was simply overkill. "Besides, I don't think the Captain will let you install something like this on his ship." For starters, what she was making was black and gold! It would stand out too much against the sleek white of the Storm Border.
"You think so? Hmm… Well, good that you're not the type to wish for more weapons but you could have said something earlier," Vill-V sighed as she kicked her creation so far, causing it to comically fall apart. How that happened even though he was positive she welded some parts together, Ritsuka did not know. "Back to the drawing board it is then," she grumbled before they heard Mobius chuckling behind them.
"I guess that means I win this round by default. If I knew Master was going to shut you down, I would have only made one of them." The scientist had a triumphant and cocky grin on her face as she came over. Following behind her were the newly activated ELFs, five in total. All of them only had patient-like garbs on them, but were still easily distinguishable from one another (mainly from their wildly different hair and eyes).
"Don't get a big head because just because you made our missing colleagues," Vill-V pouted as she glanced at the five ELFs. Her eyes quickly narrowed at one of them, a male one with snow white hair and piercing blue eyes. "You."
"..." The ELF wordlessly stared back before floating away. Another ELF with teal hair followed after him where the two sat together on the tabletop.
"I've only implemented some rudimentary AIs in them. Give me time and I'll have them acting and dressing like their templates," Mobius added before glancing over her shoulder at the ELF clinging onto her back. This one was slightly smaller than the others and had long light-blue hair with purple eyes. "But it seems like they have some idea of who they are already…" She muttered with a level of curiosity present.
It was then that Eden joined them, somehow being able to walk without stumbling over. "Oh, I did not expect you to miss the others so much, Mobius," she giggled as the pink-haired ELF floated over to her. "Hello, Elysia. You may not be the actual one, but it's a pleasure to have you with us."
"Hello…?" The ELF replied/parroted before a bright smile spread across its face.
As for the last one, Ritsuka noticed the ELF was staring at him the entire time. The wide blue eyes were completely focused on him, almost distrubingly so. More strangely though, he already had an idea who this ELF was supposed to be. "Is that Hua?" He asked the three.
"Yes, the one and only Hua your other self is head over heels for," Mobius answered while rolling her eyes. "...Judging from the way she's looking at you, I might need to reset her memories before showing her to RITSUKA. But still, it's odd… very odd…" she muttered. Ritsuka could see her eyes light up as she tried to figure out why the ELFs were already latching onto those "they" knew.
"You sure it's smart to give RITSUKA this Hua?" Vill-V raised her eyebrow.
"Well, I have no use for them, any of them— especially her." Mobius rolled her eyes again. "Master already has his own ELF assistant; it's only fair RITSUKA has one."
"Hmm… Well, RITSUKA isn't the type to use a jar so it should be fine."
"Don't make jokes like that," sighed Ritsuka, glancing back at ELF Hua. "What else can they do?" ELF-tsuka's job was only to help him with some tasks (and unwillingly keep some of the Servants company in his place), while Klein was a research assistant as far as he knew.
"These ELFs are based on ones already created before in our world. They were supposed to assist soldiers in combat and the ones based on us Flamechasers were exceptionally good at it…" Mobius trailed off, seemingly unwilling to continue.
Unfortunately for her, Vill-V's grin returned as she identified the problem. "But you don't have what you need to make them combat-ready, right?"
Judging from Mobius's frustrated growl before turning around, Vill-V was right on the money. "In any case, I win this time. At least I made something." With that, she motioned for the ELFs to follow her back to her lab.
"I better go with her too. Until next time, Master, Vill-V," Eden bid them goodbye before chasing after her friend, leaving the two alone. Honestly, aside from stopping Vill-V from making a new weapon that may or may not end terribly, he really was able to relax. Now, it was probably time for him to go check on the others; trying to bond with Kosma might be easy since he was already well acquainted with RITSUKA but you never kn—
"Oh, before you go, Master, think you can give some suggestions for my next invention?"
"…We'll be here a while," Ritsuka replied with a wide grin.
A/N: And now ELFs of the remaining Flamechasers are here in place of the real ones for the meantime. It was just going to be ELF Hua just for a jar joke because "har har, I'm funny" then I decided to just go all in. I also didn't expect that convo with Eden either. It just happened cause I have little self-control when writing in case you guys haven't noticed. Anyway, not much else to say so see y'all next time!
And if you're wondering why I haven't done anything more with the Kousei sidestory… I just keep running into blocks while trying to write the chapter. RIP. Also for no one in particular, smol Dudu robbed me off all my crystals when I was planning to save for next patch. I truly have no self-control...
