53: The one who calls people idiots is the idiot, idiot!

I bite back a scream as I snap back into reality. Phantom pain dances along every one of my skin cells as I heave breath after breath. Slowly, my consciousness clicks into place and I comprehend my surroundings. The rattling of the carriage, the tinkling of [Guillotine Breaker]'s hooves as we move. My shoulder still hurts from its dislocation earlier, and my fingers are still broken, and behind us I can hear the loud footfalls of the Tarrasque.

"-Senpai!?" Mash asks, eyes widening with worry. "Senpai, please use some magecraft to heal yourself first, the rest of us can handle ourselves."

"I'm fine." I say, brow furrowing as my mind starts moving to make use of the reset.

"Ah… okay then." Mash mutters returning to her seat.

Anyway, the reset point changed again, huh? What a position to spit me out in, though - after everyone's already injured and my only option is to opt into a contract with piece of crap Prelati. Honestly, what the hell has Satella been thinking lately? Still, all things considered, the solution's pretty easy this time, I think. We just need to move faster. It should take Berserk Avenger the same amount of time as before to create those magic items and come after us, so if we move just a bit faster, I can summon backup and we can kill that bastard.

Soon enough, fog swallows the carriage and we find ourselves on the same flowered hill as last time.

"Oh dear." Marie says as the carriage starts to slow. "It seems there's another lone Servant in our path."

"Yeah, yeah, let's get this over with." I sigh, and emerge from the carriage.

"How do you do, fellow defenders of humanity?" Prelati says, arms spread wide in the center of the field.

"We feel like shit, obviously. Now hurry up and bring us to the leyline, we don't have time to talk. That damn Avenger's going to show up before we can finish summoning backup if we don't move fast." I shut him down immediately. "Don't ask how I know that, I can't tell you - not that I would in the first place."

"Wait, Subaru-!" Jeanne tries to get a word in, only for Prelati to interrupt with a laugh.

"Well, well! Aren't you an interesting guy, Natsuki Subaru! But I'm afraid I can't do that-" He starts, but I cut him off.

"You want a contract, right? Fine. Now hurry up and do your job." I say, and my depleted command spells flash as he smiles widely.

"Aren't you going to ask how I know your name?" He says with an amused look.

"The real question is 'how long were you watching us for?'" I retort.

The alchemist simply laughs, and a second later the flowered hill disappears, and we stad in a familiar clearing.

"Natsuki, what-?" The communicator beeps to life, Olga Marie's image appearing in the air.

"Sorry, I'm gonna need you to shut up for now, Director. Prelati, can you set up a magic circle?" I ask.

"Hmmm? Are you sure you trust me to do something like that?" He asks.

"Of course not, but you can do it quickly with an illusion, right? We have to go fast or we'll all die anyway - so hurry up and slap it down. Mash, we're gonna need your shield too. Summoning with no catalyst is a last resort." I say quickly as I do my best to recall the summoning chant - it doesn't have to be perfect. Just get close enough for the first few lines and the rest ought to follow - and I can't add those extra lines Prelati stuck in to get a Foreigner, or Reid might show up again.

"No, really, where are you getting the notion that they'll catch up so quickly? Sure, Dantes was fast, but I'm almost certain we killed him-" Mozart says.

"No, the bastard has some OP self-heal garbage." I say, watching as Prelati's illusory circle takes shape and Mash puts her shield in the center. "Alright, let's start this-

"Let silver and steel be the essence. Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation. The ancestor is-" Crap, I can't remember the name Mash had me use the first time. "-the Great Sage, Flugel."

That seemed to work. The circle is pulsing with blue light now.

"Let rise a wall against the wind that shall fall. Let the four cardinal gates close. Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching unto the Kingdom rotate.

"Let it be declared now; your flesh shall serve under me, and my fate shall be with your sword. Submit to the beckoning of the Holy Grail. Answer, if you would submit to this will and this truth.

"An oath shall be sworn here. I shall attain all virtues of all of Heaven; I shall have dominion over all evils of all of Hell.

"From the Seventh Heaven, attended to by three great words of power,

"come forth from the ring of restraint, protector of the holy balance!"

The blue light of the magic circle glows brighter and brighter, turning almost white - and a moment later, a form in heavy armor with a shield and spear takes shape.

The voice of a young girl rings out from the summoning circle. "By your call I come! Seventh seat of the Round Table-!"

"Geh!?" Mordred face faults.

"Lancer, Gareth Beumains, reporting for- eh? Ehhhh?" The proud declaration of the blonde girl turns into confusion as she tilts her head, a vacant look on her face. "Sir Mordred? And Sir Ga-!"

Mordred lunges forward and covers her mouth. "Shut up! Don't say his name. That girl, she's a demi-servant, borrowing the shield bastard's power, and he didn't tell her his name when he gave her his power. You know what that means, right? That guy wouldn't just cripple her for no reason."

Gareth nods, closing her eyes in a thoughtful manner. Mordred removes her hand, and her fellow knight nods a few more times. "Homu homu… I see, I see. But, Sir Mordred… are you sure he didn't just forget to tell her?"

"What." Mordred gives her a deadpan stare, and I find myself doing the same. "Gareth, what are you talking about? I mean, it was that guy. He had a reason for everything he did."

"Ah, Sir Mordred. My sweet, innocent little brother." Gareth shakes her head, a smug smile creeping onto her face. "Poor, naive, stupid Sir Mordred. You always were a terrible judge of people's personalities."

"Who the hell are you calling stupid!?" Mordred's sword starts to blaze with red light.

"Ah, wait, wait, calm down, calm down! This is just, that thing, sibling banter! That's all! Gawain did it all the time with Agravain!" The Lancer waves her arms in front of her face.

"Wasn't that clearly bullying…?" I ask. There's no way that will-

"Ahaha! So that's what it is, I see, I see!" Mordred laughs and sheathes her sword.

She bought it completely!?

"Ahem! Anyway, as I was saying, you didn't really pay enough attention to the other knights, so you were probably tricked into thinking he was a stoic genius who always had a plan, but the truth is… Sir Galahad was actually a total airhead!" Gareth nods triumphantly.

"Ah, she said it." Mozart notes.

"The only airhead is you, you airhead!" Mordred screams, pointing angrily at her sister.

"...Oops." Gareth mutters.

"Sir… Galahad…" Mash mutters. "I see, so it was Sir Galahad!" In a flash of light, her armor changes, a dress-like cape appearing in her hips, and a plate of metal appearing to displace the stomach armor that Da Vinci had put into the hole in her armor.

"Mash, are you okay!?" Doctor Romani yells, appearing on the communication terminal.

"Yes! This is… Doctor, I feel amazing!" The shielder exclaims. "We know now - it was Sir Galahad! The Shielder's name is Galahad! And… this shield, I understand now. As long as I believe in myself, it won't fail. That's how this shield, the Round Table, Lord Camelot, works!"

And yet, it's failed twice before, in some failed loops… why is that?

I'll have to think about it later. For now…

"Alright, we're running low on time, so let's make a plan." I say.

"[Ira Lupis]!"

The plan executes flawlessly. Edmond Dantes is utterly defeated, and this time we're free to keep an eye on him until he vanishes completely.

"Confirming defeat of the enemy - The Count of Monte Cristo completely dispersed." Mash says with a sigh of relief.

Gareth doubles over for a second, and I jump forward to heal her, but Mordred's hand stops me. The next instant, the Lancer dematerializes her helmet and throws her head back in laughter. "Wahaha! You let your guard down just because I look small!" She starts to dance around a bit, thrusting her gunlance here and there. "I'm a Knight of the Round Table! As if I'd lose to the likes of you, haha!"

Without her helmet, I can see that her blonde hair has two patches of brown on the sides that look kind of like… "Hey, Mordred, her hair…"

"Looks like a dog's ears, yeah." The Saber grins, and then her face gets super serious. "-Don't tell her. Whatever you do, you can't tell her, okay? Rule fifty-four of the round table, 'The puppy knight must not know that she is a puppy knight.'"

"Ah, I understand. That's definitely a cute little sister you've got, Mordred."

"Hm? No, she's older than me. Mother accelerated my aging, that's all. So I'm only biologically older than her. Gareth is still my older sister."

Something weird just came up! "Just how old were you when you died?"

"Ehhh… I mean, I'm an adult. You've seen my body, right?"

Her phrasing makes me blush despite myself. "D-don't say it like that! I meant, how long did you live for?"

"Oh, ten years or so?" She shrugs.

Ah.

...

Julius Juuklius, I know you're laughing at me, from across the gap between our two worlds. Please stop.