13: Victory!
In the end, we make camp in an abandoned shopping mall. Given the associated cliches, I'm ready for the place to be crawling with undead - but they turn out to have cleared out quite some time ago. Of course, the whole mall has still been thoroughly destroyed. A few lucky finds of bottled water aside, any hopes of finding, say, an intact mattress, or food, were in vain.
"Guess we can't get too lucky, huh?" I mutter with a wry smile as we settle into a burned-out clothing store.
"Well, if you're starving, I can go catch some skeletons and we can make some bone broth or something." says Mordred with a shrug.
"There's so much wrong there that I don't know where to begin…" I mumble.
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding!" The saber says with a laugh. "I'm uncivilized, but I'm not that bad."
Mordred stretches, and his armor dematerializes in a cloud of blue lights, leaving behind a set of red underclothes. A red loincloth, previously worn under the Saber's armor, and a red chest binding. For her breasts. Because Mordred is a woman.
"...So you were a girl after all," I mumble.
"Oi, who are you calling a little girl!? I'll kill you."
"No, he didn't say 'little'..." Mash says.
"I'm more confused that you didn't correct us…" I mutter. "We've been calling you a guy this whole time."
"Eh? Just how long do you think I lived as a man? You think I'm gonna get all pissy 'cause you're treating me like everyone treated me in life?" She says, rolling her eyes.
"Eh… well I guess that's understandable." I reply.
Cu wanders over at around this point. He raises an eyebrow at Mordred, but doesn't comment further. "I've set up some basic defensive runes, so it should be safe for you guys to get some sleep. I, on the other hand, need to prepare some more runes."
"Thanks, Caster." I say. "Any clue where Hanam went?"
"Assassin wanted to run a few errands. That demon of his apparently didn't pick up after himself, so he has to go track down some of his misplaced dirks. He's down to five or so, now." He replies. "Also, he wanted to see if he could figure out where Lancer ran off to. If he can make sure she's not gonna be hanging out with Saber and Archer, that'll take some stress off of us."
...What the hell!? "He'll get killed! We have to-!"
"Relax, kid. Assassin's smart enough not to pick a head-on fight with another servant, especially with his arm missing." Caster says with a chuckle. "Besides, he's got strong presence concealment. He could probably dance around in Saber's face and she wouldn't notice."
"...Fine." I say, sighing. "I'm gonna yell at you if he dies, though."
"Yeah, yeah. Have some faith in your servant, would you? You'd never survive a grail war acting like that."
There's no sunlight when morning arrives. The sky is still blanketed with smoke, and dark red light is the only thing visible - that and the still blazing fires in some parts of the ruined city.
Still, I need to do my best today as well! To overcome every obstacle, and save the world or whatever! And that means..!
"...I need to start the day right! Mash-tan, Mordred, it's time! For! Radio Calisthenics!"
"Radio caliwhat now?" Says the knight.
"Eh? You mean the daily Japanese exercise broadcast, Senpai?"
"Mm, mm, that's right!" I say. "It's important to get your daily stretches and muscle training done, every day!"
"Oh, so it's just warmups, then. Jeez, say it plainly, instead of using weird giant words!"
"But do you really think we'll be able to get a signal, Senpai?" Mash asks.
"Heh! Don't worry! One of my secret abilities… I have the entire routine memorized!" I say, flashing a thumbs up. "So just follow my lead!"
"Wow! That's amazing, senpai!"
"...No it's really not." I mutter, scratching the back of my head.
...Calisthenics still isn't the same without Emilia-tan, huh? According to the Old Man I've still got two-and-a-half years to go… which can be a hell of a long time with [Return by Death].
Well, I started these exercises knowing she wasn't present. And I know that Emilia wouldn't want me to give into despair just from her absence. So let's finish strong, for her sake!
"And then raise your arms to the sky, and shout 'victory'!" I conclude.
"V-victory!" "Victory!" "Victory!" shout Mash, Mordred, and-
"Eh, Caster, when did you join us?" I ask the blue haired man.
"Hm? A few minutes ago. I finally finished the last of my rune array, so I decided to hop in." He says. Hang on, he was up all night and he just finished!? Runes are hard, huh?
"Not that your bizarre ritual wasn't entertaining," says Director Animusphere as she pops into existence nearby. She's covered in bandages, and I can clearly see the back of a medical chair behind her, and an IV drip off to her right. "But we don't have time to waste here. Remember, you don't have any food supplies, and if we have to rayshift you out of there it may take months, or even a year before we can get UN approval to send people in again!"
"Wait, were you able to get in touch with the outside world!?" I exclaim.
"...No, communications still seem to be malfunctioning. Even the magical communications with the Clock Tower and Atlas Academy are malfunctioning. We managed to get a response from the Wandering Sea, but it just came back as garbled nonsense per usual."
"Mm. Even the Magi, huh..?" I mutter. "Well, we'll be heading out as soon as Hanam is back, so for now we're just killing time."
"And when will he be back!?" The director yells.
"Eh? How should I know?"
"Use your telepathy! He's your Servant, right!?" She screeches.
"Ah, come to think of that, there was an ability like that, wasn't there?" I mutter.
"Senpai, it's not healthy for her to raise her blood pressure right now, so please stop!"
A/N:
Well, it's still Monday in Hawaii, I think.
Bit of a short chapter, but I'm tired, and I wanna go to bed, so let's end it here.
Next chapter Friday probably.
REVIEW RESPONSE CORNER:
Raj8 said:
I can completely understand keeping the cast more limited and I approve, it says a lot that Subaru and Mash have barely interacted from Mash's perspective after all.
Ah... I gotta write more downtime, huh?
Overall I'll be completely fine if you go with the interpretation that Servants can't be summoned inside Chaldea as otherwise you get the issues on why they don't just summon Media or a similar Caster who can drain a lot of energy from a layline and then Support multiple Servants at once. Especially if it's in a place where they can non-lethally drain from humans. For example in Rome if Media non-lethally drained even a 100K people she'd probably be able to support dozens of Servants in cost.
They'll probably be... present, but not many. There'll be reasons for it.
Ouch I knew Hanam was weak especially without his NP and missing an Arm, but weaker than Mash. Truly Cursed Arm has it rough.
One hand and daggers makes it a rough time for him.
Powerlevels are bullshit, though. He might still win from sheer experience.
123ABIR123 said:
Your fic is amazing you should update more ,
I'm writing as fast as I can! Please have mercy on me!
Will evil subarus from the IF light novels will make an appearance
*Villainous Laughter*
JD91B said:
Hey maybe you could make omakes or something with summoned characters from Re:zero for lols. That would be funny to read. Thanks for the chapter.
There's an omake planned for the end of the arc, but it's not quite that.
SING MY ANGEL SING said:
Seeing as you mentioned both Reid and Reinhard having a chance of appearing, I can only imagine the latter's reaction to his highly respected ancestor's real personality.
something something never meet your heroes.
NoNameAvailable Bis said:
Lesson of the day: when Cu wants a fight, Cu gets a fight. Hang in there, Mash!
Cu: "Disengage skill? why would I need that useless thing?"
... and somehow now I'm really eager to see the KnK event covered. Still, not for a while, I suppose, and you're right about not bloating the cast. That's often a pretty big issue with FGO stories, unsurprisingly.
Cast bloat is the death of many a fic. "And x was there too" does not a good story make.
Crown of Reaper said:
Nothing happen in this chapter except Mash getting her NP. I'm not complaining but to be honest, I was hoping for them to fight Medusa but yeah, four Servants and someone who smells PURE EVIL is a very good reason to haul ass.
EVERYONE wanted that fight. Everyone except Medusa, who was the one who got to choose if it happened.
Say, is the Emiya family at least coming to Barusu's Chaldea? I haven't played FGO personaly(it's not in my contry, BS) so I'm not sure when the Zero Accel event happens in the timeline. While Barusu isn't very good with magecraft that doesn't mean that he can't be good with GUN.
This is the era of the internet! There are WAYS, my friend. (You can use a vpn/emulator if you so choose. On the other hand, gacha is bad civ, soooo)
Accel Zero Order is I think post america, pre camelot
Sorry for keep sugesting Servants, it's just that some deserve more spotlight than they get, both in game and fanfics.
Well, it all comes down to what fits in the plot. Subaru has bad affinity for Emiya, so the guy probably won't appear for some time yet.
Guest said:
For some reason while I was reading this chapter I suddenly thought "EMIYA Alter and Subaru as Servant and Master would be a total disaster". What do you think?
Emiya alter wouldn't know what to do with such a useless servant (lol). In all seriousness though, they'd probably figure out a way to get along, albeit at the expense of subaru going full sidestory edgelord.
IhevMelons9 said:
I can't wait to see the servants(especially the female servants) react to the infamous scene in episode 18.
Subaru: *Peacefully eating sandwich*
*stomping noises*
Subaru: "Oh hey guys...wait, why are you all mad?"
*Gets punched in the face.*
"You bastard, you should have chosen REM!"
Really depends on the servants. Also, they'll be seeing it from his pov, so him getting murdered by her was a thing they might remember.
Do said:
Power level like this note the stats are not a hundred percent accurate just like you can have a tank empt and a glass full tho that is not accurate enf
Shik
Enkidu, Gilgamesh, Solomon(not grand), Karna Reinhard(if there is th in re world, ancient saber dude unless he is Arturia or Arthur time paradox, possibilities include ones from ruined world, and Fontana, there are others who can be hear but not because of spec circ
High tier servent
Mid t s
Low t s slough up to the most useless
So in comparison we have weak animals, normal human( weakest s is possibly here though not likely, maybe), mg, strongest humans dead ap anc weak to mid serv, high t s dv, beasts op f possibly defar. Keep in mind that there are traits skills and etc involved like an anti div beating a sv with better stars sv with low stats e rank strength hs op kill abl which requires no strength cmon to ex kill but is of dv so unless there's a monster class saitma on lose CSU than every ones doomed can beast one take a punch to the face?I want your opinion airs girls and author sans'
Uhhhhh. This is really hard to read. Please use full words next time. Um, so what you're saying is that powerlevels are of dubious use, I think? In that case I agree, there are way too many weird gimmicky matchups for them to be useful outside of as a shorthand.