75: Kōng Chéng Jì

As the mission briefing comes to an end, I contemplate the absolute mess I've been summoned into. Already, I find myself wishing that Kongming had just gone ahead and taken the lead in our summoning. Dealing with Gray face to face was traumatizing enough for me; fighting Gilles de Rais again is asking way too much of me, dammit!

We're up against overwhelming odds. Lancelot, Fafnir, the Dragon Witch, Dracula, Saint Martha, Clovis I, whatever the hell Francois Prelati might be cooking up… any one of those would be a nightmare to deal with alone. Having to tackle all of them working together is terrifying. Especially where we are now, isolated from any allies aside from a crippled Siegfried and his slightly sketchy Master.

I close my eyes, and examine the board. I've started play with a king, a bishop, and two pawns, and my opponent hasn't lost anything.

It's a good thing I'm playing against an idiot, then.

"You said that Chevalier d'Eon arrives tomorrow?" I ask.

"Yeah." my Master says. "But if Mash's team doesn't make any stops, they might be able to reach us in time to help. So if you've got any tricks to stall her…"

"Stall her?" I chuckle. "Why would we need to stall her? The only question is how to avoid scaring her off before she attacks. When your enemy hangs their knight, you take the piece, Subaru."

He gives me a slightly shocked look.

"One day isn't enough time to set up a full 'Temple', but my [Territory Creation] is A-rank, and we've already gone to the trouble of finding this Leyline." I say, a grin stretching across my face. "Saber Class or not, Chevalier d'Eon was a mundane human from the near-modern era. I can't imagine her Magic Resistance is higher than C-rank. I won't claim that I can annihilate her, but if we can bait her into one of my bounded fields, tipping the odds in Siegfried's favor is well within my capabilities."

Subaru seems to relax considerably. "I don't know all of her abilities, but I do know that she'd barely beat Siegfried even if we weren't here. I guess if we have a Caster providing support…"

"Pardon, Monsieur Subaru." Merry, the girl who had been introduced as the master of Siegfried, interrupts at that point. To be honest, I was fairly sure she had completely stopped paying attention a while back, but maybe my teacher's instincts aren't properly calibrated for French peasants. "Um, that is… Lord Siegfried says, he doesn't think he'd stand any chance against anyone right now without me using a Command Spell."

So she was zoning out after all, but Siegfried was taking notes. What a reliable classmate (lol).

"It's that bad, huh…?" Subaru sighs. "How many do you have left?"

"...Only two." She replies - and then, color drains from her face, and her eyes flick to the side. "Um, if there's any way that we can… not fight that Saber, I think it would be the better option."

…What did Siegfried tell her, just now?

Or was it Siegfried? There's too much about this girl that doesn't add up. The only surviving human in the city not only has the potential to be a Master, and has high quality magic circuits, and somehow acquired command spells - you're kidding me, right!? That's obviously suspicious!

Sure. Your other summoning ritual "failed". I believe that. As if, idiot!

But all of this comes down to-

"No, the best option is to eliminate her here. Even if it seems risky, I'm totally certain that this is the optimal path to victory." I don't intend to compromise with this girl. I'll have her put her cards on the table, where I can see them, whether she likes it or not.

"Hey, Professor, if it's going to be risky-" Subaru starts to say, but I interrupt him.

"It won't be. This isn't my advice as a Clock Tower Professor, or even as the former Master of Iskander, King of Conquerors. This is my [Tactician's Advice], my A+ Rank Personal skill granted to me as China's greatest strategist Zhuge Liang." It's bad manners to smirk, but I can't help myself. "Any strategic advice I give is guaranteed to be 100% correct, even if there's information that I'm missing."

Cu Chulainn lets out a low whistle. "I'd heard of that skill, but I didn't know it could reach that level - that's pretty absurd."

"Professor," Subaru asks, a small frown on his face. "'100% correct' - is that by your standards, or Kongming's?"

In an instant, he cuts to the glaring weakness of the skill. Sure, there are counters - another with the same skill, or a Servant with a high enough Luck stat. But ultimately, the most glaring weakness of [Tactician's Advice] is in its name. It's the advice of Zhuge Liang, not Waver Velvet. That monster of ancient history, for whom any number of losses is a mere statistic so long as it brings us closer to victory.

That's an exaggeration, El-Melloi. Throwing away lives needlessly will only cause resentment among the troops - in any case, it's my impression that we've been summoned by the worst sort of master for a tactic like that.

I sigh. "It's Kongming's standard. But part of the evaluation includes morale management - so long as you remain the type who can't stand taking losses, sacrifices will probably remain as low on the list of options as possible."

"Right, in that case I'm going to avoid relying on it too much." Subaru says. "It'll probably interact badly with my whole thing too…"

"So, with all that… Should we pack up and leave to avoid Berserk Saber?" Merry suggests again.

"No." I shut her down again. "The odds are good that she'll catch us anyway, and I'll be more competent defending than attacking. If you're too unsettled to use a command seal to help Siegfried fight, then we'll just defeat her without him. Master, give her your shirt."

"Eh!?" The girl freezes completely and for a second I wonder if she passed out standing up. Embarrassment, confusion, and terror war for dominance on her face in a pretty amusing fashion.

"Oi, Professor, what do you-?" Subaru starts to ask.

"It's a Mystic Code, right? Merry doesn't know the first thing about magecraft, but you went to the Clock Tower - give her the training wheels, and use your own spells for the upcoming fight." I explain.

"That's… I mean, you're right, I guess. But my Magic Circuits are damaged. I can't cast anything without something to draw the mana out of them." He says.

Seriously? How the hell did that happen to you? I know there are some poisons that will do it, and the Magus Killer had some kind of trick like that, but Natsuki Subaru doesn't have the kind of pedigree to demand special attention like that.

"I'll make you some Fulu talismans or something. Give the simple to use mystic code to the poor novice." I say with a sigh.

"I guess that works." He says, unstrapping his shirt. "Tossing around talismans like some sort of Onmyouji sounds pretty cool, to be honest… even if it feels weird to use the Chinese variant. Here, Merry, wear this."

"N-noooo!" She finally screams, crossing her arms in front of her face. "I can't! I can't fight, and I can't wear a man's clothes! I caaaaan't!"

"Ah, for that matter, it's still got some bloodstains, huh? Whose idea was it to make our uniform white, anyway…?" Subaru asks, examining his shirt in his hands. "And it, uh, kind of smells."

"Noooooo!" Merry screams even louder.

"...We've got some spare female uniforms. I'll see what I can do to get one rayshifted to you guys." Cu Chulainn says. "A clean one for you too, Master."

It's only after a long day of preparation that I finally get the chance to speak with Subaru alone. Academically, I understood that a lot of work went into setting up the type of defenses someone with A-Rank [Territory Creation] could make. But I never had anything approaching the chance to do it myself, so it had only remained in the airy realm of theory for me.

"Hey, Professor - you didn't push yourself too hard out there, did you?" Subaru asks.

"No, I'm still feeling fine." I answer. "Becoming a Servant has done wonders for my constitution, it seems."

"Huh, I see." He says, and an uneasy silence falls between us.

"...I'm sorry, by the way." I finally say. "That it was me summoned, instead of the Waver Velvet you knew. It's got to be awkward for you."

He laughs a bit, looking away. "It's fine. I'm already used to this kind of thing, anyway. Besides! The Professor Velvet I know was probably too old to handle this kind of stuff, even with Servant was pretty shocking, seeing you with dark hair like that."

Well he has a… point… hey, hold on!

"What year did you say you were from, Master?" I ask. Maybe the grail got it wrong?

"Didn't you say it earlier? It's 2016 in the modern day." He answers.

"What do you mean my hair has gone gray by 2016!? My dad only started in his fifties!" I shout. But no, I know the reason! I know exactly why this would happen! "Rider, Reines, Flat… give me my youth back, you bastaaaaards!"

"There was only one Fuyuki Grail war in this timeline, you know? I don't think that the you I met would have known your Rider." Subaru says.

"So it's just Flat and Reines then!?"

"Ahaha…" Subaru rubs the back of his head. "I mean, I owe Flat-Senpai a lot, but there's no denying that he's kind of a stressful guy to deal with, huh?"

Obviously.

"Speaking of stressful people to deal with, though…" I say, finally turning to the thing that's been eating at me the whole day. "You're going to give me a headache if you keep this up, Master. You went to the Clock Tower, didn't you? Why are you wandering around blabbing everything about yourself to anyone who will listen, huh!? You're among mages, why the hell are you talking about your damaged magic circuits where anyone can hear you?"

"Oh, that, huh?" He says, glancing away with a nervous chuckle. "Basically… we're allies for now, right? So I need to do whatever I can to hold up my end of things. Besides, with how things are, no one at Chaldea is going to try anything."

"I could maybe see what you're saying with regards to Chaldea. But what about that Merry girl?"

He blinks. "What about her?"

I groan. "You utterly gormless-! Listen, just what do you suppose the odds are that the single survivor of this city has the aptitude to be a master, good magic circuits, and command spells!? Not to mention, we have no idea how she found you after you were released from Prelati's Reality Marble. Her Servant is crippled, do you really think she'd be wandering about randomly looking for stray Chaldeans to take home!?"

His brow furrows. "That's… hang on, go back. What's the issue with the Command Spells? Doesn't anyone who summons a servant get them?"

"That's just it. Everyone who is selected by the grail to summon a servant gets command spells. Just contracting a stray servant wouldn't do it. You could summon me through Chaldea's summoning system; what summoning system was Merry trying to summon through? What did she summon with it? She has command spells, there's no way that she could just get nothing. And taking all of that into account, do I really need to remind you who holds the Holy Grail in this Singularity?"

Natsuki Subaru closes his eyes. He thinks for a few moments, before he finally comes to an answer. "Well, we'll deal with her betraying us when it happens. To be honest she had me at her mercy before, and chose to save my life… I guess it could be some kind of long con Prelati trick, but to be honest I don't think that guy would have been able to resist rubbing my nose in it for this long."

'We'll deal with it when it happens'? What a ridiculous answer. Is it his clairvoyance - he can foresee and overcome any betrayal, so he doesn't worry about it?

Think more carefully, El-Melloi. Recall what we've seen of his ability so far - does it seem something that invincible? He's playing the Guqin for everyone.

…I get it now.

Kōng Chéng Jì.

The Empty Fort Strategy. When lacking enough men to defend a fortified position, Zhuge Liang once threw open the doors of his fortress; predicting that his foe, Sima Yi, would assume an ambush.

To be honest it was an act of sheer desperation. I'd do it again given the same situation, but if I had to do it too many times, I'd probably end up with more than a few of those gray hairs you're so worried about.

Can a person really live, applying that kind of philosophy to every interpersonal interaction? Isn't that too much!?

Well, whatever his clairvoyance is probably helps. My guess is that it's short term - in that sense, his gambit also forces his enemy's hand early. There's no room for a long siege if the gates are already open. If his enemy accepts the gambit, he can foresee it and crush the enemy at first sight like he did with Francois Prelati. If they decline the gambit, he has an ally until they finally see through him.

Seriously… just how have you been living, Natsuki Subaru?

"I know that it's probably the wrong decision." He finally says, shoulders shaking. "I know that. I know that it could go wrong in so many ways, that there's a chance I could finally get trapped for real this time. But even so… it might be old habits, or maybe it's just that I don't want to become someone who strikes first. Whatever it is, I just… can't. I can't just kill the last survivor of this town simply because-"

…Good Grief.

"Who said anything about killing her?" I ask. "Didn't you say you were my student? Is the me of this world seriously type to kill someone just because they were suspicious?"

"...Huh?" I chuckle at his shocked expression.

"I'm not some American Pulp Detective who shoots everyone he meets and leaves a trail of bodies leading to the culprit. The British Tradition has always had a lighter touch." I laugh. "All I need to do to force her hand is to give her a good scare - and she's bloody French, Master. It'll be child's play."

A/N: Jokes about French cowardice are pretty stale to me these days. But Waver is a Brit from the early 2000s, for him they're peak comedy.