The dawning sun staining the sky a light shade of pink. Beautiful in its own way as it stood the same colour as her hair as the girl before his eyes looked out over the city.

So naturally he pretended he hadn't seen her and did his best to just walk past. For they weren't even close, and she too could have the good grace to ignore him and it would be a truly peaceful world. There were other people present,

"Ah Cid." Sherry turned to look at him, poking her fingers together for a moment. "I must have worried you a lot with my sudden decision to leave but for a few weeks I'm going to be back in Midgar."

He hadn't been worried at all. "That's nice."

She smiled. "I still haven't managed to take care of everything, and I have so much unfinished business but if we can find a moment."

"Sure, go for it." He nodded along with the lightest answer possible.

"You've always been so understanding." She was blushing as she looked down so maybe he should even pay attention. But even if he wasn't she continued speaking. "I've made a breakthrough so it should all be over soon and I'll finally be able to finish things."

Casually he thought about it. In a way considering she was right in front of him she truly was the closest she'd been in a long time to avenging her fathers death. But given this was a conversation and not a murder attempt he figured she was still pretty far off the mark. "I hope you catch up to him soon."

The blank stare that met him for a moment bored into his skull. "I really will, because I've found a powerful ally to help me." She waved her hand. "This is a friend of my fathers helping me to investigate his death, Professor… Archer."

Professor Archer winced behind her at the introduction.

But that was fine as he smiled up at the older man. Because Cid wasn't really a participant and therefore knew nothing about the grail war. And like that he could pretend Sherry hadn't outed herself embarrassingly before the war had begun in earnest.

"Pleased to meet you Professor."

The man assumed a veneer of civility and smiled back. "Yes Professor Emeritus Archer, though there is no need for surnames I have told you Sherry, your father was a good friend of mine so treating me like a stranger seems so false."

"Wasn't I?" She blinked and then thought about it. "Um well I trust Cid and he's a friend I can always rely on so you don't need to treat him like an enemy."

The old man gazed into his eyes, and he let a lazy stare meet him back. As though he wasn't sizing the man up and considering whether to kill him.

Finally the old man nodded. "Perhaps it is good for you to have met an old friend, for I too have an old friend I might like to visit in this city. Young boy would you take care of my charge for a little while?"

"I can protect her from minor bandits I guess."

"That is all I ask. If anything truly dire were to happen she has a method to contact me regardless." The old man turned away and waved his hand.

It wasn't like Sherry needed to worry about him anyway. He was going to murder Archer instead so she really was safe.

Many came to the underground arena for the thrill of watching men die on the sands. Today however the stands were empty for he cared not to let them watch him fight.

He came to kill them personally for it was always more fun that way. A chance to test his blade again and a moment even if he had not reached the peak to feel his superiority over those who could never see it.

Four men stood before Fenrir. Once they had been knights looking into a series of disappearances. But with the order itself turned against them now all they had was their armour, their swords and this brief few moments left in the world. "Calm your breathing, work together. It will be more fun to kill you that way."

They still didn't find the resolve. Only one charging alone as he stepped past, the head falling effortlessly beside him. A second swing, a third.

The fourth man had already pissed himself as a disappointment. A boring fight as so many of them were these days as he slit the mans throat and moved on.

"Ah you find so few good opponents worth fighting these days I see." A slow clap from stands which should have been empty. "It has been a while Fenrir."

Laugos sat in the stands, a ghost from the past looking almost real again. "Did you fake your death or are you just so rotten that even the afterlife spit you back out as a curse upon the living."

"Six hundred years ago you participated, I believe you said that everyone summoned was so weak they could barely be called heroes."

Oh. "A Holy Grail War then." He thought it over for a moment. "But I already know I'm stronger than you Laugos at swordsmanship, and I have no interest in playing with your toys instead. Can't you just wipe the floor with them all."

"Well I'd certainly like to but the lineup this time is a bit scarier than… Bors was it who won your war?"

"I won."

"Yes so you did." Laugos stared intently down at him. "But two of the Three Heroes themselves and a man who must be Alexander stand against me. How would you like to test yourself against the girl who cut off Diabolos arm. Against the man who fought a dragon. Surely it would be more interesting than playing with these children you kill currently."

Anything would be more amusing than that. "You have more planned I take it."

"Of course, I have every intention of stacking the deck so far that announcing my victory is merely a formality."

Sherry had taken him to the library to read through books for research. Her form scurrying through the shelves as she searched for various books. Even as he pulled his own down about vampires and set it down.

When she came back it was with a whole stack almost taller than she was. "Plumbing the depths of history once again are we."

She blushed in her nervousness. "Ah I really haven't found something fun for you as well have I?"

He picked the first book off the top and eyed it. A tale of the founding of Midgar itself and the first king who had supposedly brought a dragon under his heel. "Well it's all hero stories so I'm quite fond of it in the end."

He eyed the pages even as he ignored her talking. The tale was one he knew reasonably well and if he wanted he could pull it off. A grand reveal where he declared Knight was truly Alexander the first king of Midgar, and Archer even thought that was who he was already. "Would you like to meet Alexander in the flesh?"

He already had shown a magic sword, he just needed a shield to stop the breath. A lost hidden city kept secret in the gloom, well he had one of those at the bottom of his garden if he needed it.

Sherry paused. "He would be a hard person to plan for, I've never really seen a dragon nevermind one who was supposed to be able to destroy a country."

He had seen a dragon, though only the one in his back garden at the end of the day. But maybe if he asked nicely it would come out and wreak havoc as his fourth noble phantasm. "It would probably be as bad as if Diabolos turned up itself."

She shuddered even as he felt Aurora tense up from her place in his shadow. "That would be a catastrophe I don't think anyone could recover from." She poked her fingers together. "If there was a hero you wanted to meet who would it be?"

"Momotaro." The answer was instant the easiest choice he could have made. Even if she wouldn't know it because no one from this world could hear of him.

Sherry nodded. "Natsume Kafka so you like more modern stories."

"I guess." Beta had sold it as her own again. He let his head wilt before turning the page to a castle hidden in the mists and an age old ruined city. Just like the one at the bottom of his garden. He could really pull this off couldn't he?

"But I guess if we were going for a more well known hero I'd pick Alexander the first King of Midgard." Like this he could just drop a ton of facts, and then add them to his costume and whatever he did people would see it as proof.

Lab coat billowing dramatically in the wind. A thousand more minor contraptions scanning the bottom of the lake below him as he gazed upon it once more.

It was not part of his legend, like so many other clandestine activities that would have been improper for a man of his standing. But it was his even hundreds of years after his death. A weapon waiting for his command. "Hello Nidhoggr it has been so long since I trapped you here."

The roar that answered thundered through his bones, a nightmare made real as the dragon beneath the lake writhed and rumbled against the chains binding it in place. Screaming, helpless how many men had died to lure it into his trap all those years ago.

What did it matter when it would bring him victory today.

"It seems you are as violent as ever old enemy. So today I shall give you a city to slaughter. They say Alexander was able to fight a dragon in single combat, but even after such a feat he must have been injured beyond belief. Let us see how many of his secrets you are able to drag out."

The dragon of despair, an apex existence that could slaughter an entire nation rose.

Darkness hovered on the horizon, a miasma capable of wiping an entire country from the face of the world trivially surrounding an unstoppable monster.

Tuesday then. For everyone at the table could manage the same feat easily enough. And it was only the weakest of dragons that roared in the distance.

He spun the goblet in his hand and stared intently at it. Because after this he was going to have to go back to using a normal drinking cup. For drinking Nidhoggr blood certainly didn't suit his ideal. "It will be a fitting tribute to the grail itself, a chance if only we are willing to seize it."

Elizabeth tilted her head and looked over to the mass of darkness on the horizon. Both Elizabeths did voices echoing in perfect unison. "Even if the grail could eat it, wouldn't it be corrupted by something like that?"

He gazed off into the distance. "Not half as terrible as if we filled the grail with servants as was planned. I would rather feed a dragon in and see what happens, then find out what would happen if you poured all the evils of the world into the grail."

He didn't need to win the war, merely to fish in troubled waters.

And eat millet dumplings.

AN: Short chapters for this so I have another one. Now to try and get the other thing out before the weekend ends.

Aniisomeone: Servants guessed are right, this should require little Fate knowledge honestly. Grand tournament between heroes of legend is all you truly need.

Fateful Twilight: Ah one day I will die offscreen now thank you. Nidhoggr shall come before we have a shadow garden chapter though.

Yuukiasuna-chan: A bit of a while till that but it shall come.

Kirillsteblin8: Will try to live up to those expectations.