025 - Tale of Two Jeannes (Part 1)
Olga Marie Animusphere
After the absolute clusterfuck that was Singularity F, Olga thought she was prepared for whatever the current Singularity had in store for them. Good news, she was right, bad news, it didn't really do much to soften the blow.
France in chaos after King Charles VII was killed without an heir? The whole country besieged by dragons? Two different versions of Jeanne D'Arc running around mere days after her supposed execution at the stake? Rogue Servants!? Rogue Servants were supposed to be a purely theoretical phenomena!
No, focus, Olga, take a deep breath and focus. You don't have time to flounder about in a panic. You need to center yourself, regain your balance.
Close your eyes. Inhale. Exhale. Open your eyes again. There.
Now, let's tackle this problem in a rational manner. First of all…
"You said you had a theory about the origin of the Singularity?" She asks, holding back the urge to rub the bridge of her nose. "Let's hear it."
"Ah… it's more a clue than a proper theory, but this whole mess seems to have been caused by the Dragon Witch." Haku… Fujimaru explains. "Some believe she's Jeanne D'Arc, some believe she's just an impersonator, but everyone agrees she's at the center of this incident."
"But you've already met the other Jeanne D'arc." Olga frowns. That's a mighty suspicious coincidence she'll have to take note of, but there's nowhere near enough information to make anything of it yet. "What did she have to say about it?"
"That's the thing, she doesn't know anything either. There's definitely two versions of Jeanne D'Arc active within the singularity, independent of each other." Fujimaru continues with uncharacteristic seriousness. "The one with us has been running around with a small group of allies, trying to help wherever she could. But she's met resistance from people who are afraid of the other Jeanne and there's also the fact that she's… There's something wrong with her."
"We can hardly blame the locals when the other one is running around burning the country to ashes." Olga huffs. "And of course there's something wrong with her, Servants aren't supposed to get spontaneously summoned."
"Oh, she was apparently summoned to arbitrate a Grail War and what she found here instead caught her by surprise." Which, as far as Olga knows, doesn't really clarify anything. It just makes things even more complicated. "But her memories are a mess and most of the power she believes she should have is nowhere to be found. We lack the information to confirm or deny her beliefs, but she's certainly weaker than any other Servant we've encountered so far."
"Could it be a problem with her summoning? The scans report holes in her Spirit Origin, like she's missing pieces of herself." Roman chimes in. "If someone tried to hijack her summon and only partially succeeded… That might explain the two Jeannes."
Olga inwardly scoffs at his comment. That's a rather out there… huh. No, it isn't. That's actually a pretty solid suggestion. They don't know for sure whether the Dragon Witch is a Servant, but she doesn't necessarily need to be. Maybe she's some flavor of Demi-Servant, something similar to Mashu, created by infusing the stolen shards into a living person.
Or maybe something even less pleasant. Necromancy is a thing and the original body of Jeanne D'Arc should still be around.
"No, that doesn't make sense." It's Caster's turn to interrupt. "The Dragon Witch was active first, the timeline doesn't match a hypothetical split summon. Which is such a fascinating concept! Why, I had never even considered such a thing to be possible in the first place and—"
Nevermind, why did she think the man's expertise would be useful for anything outside Medical?
"Not now, Caster. Save the mad science for when we don't have a Singularity to solve." Olga cuts the eccentric genius off with a sigh before she can work herself into another fugue. "We clearly lack enough pieces to solve this particular puzzle, so we'll have to keep our eyes open. What about the rest of her group?"
"The girl who killstole all my wyverns is Servant Lancer, true name Elizabeth Bathory." Haku reports dutifully. Or the closest to dutifully that Olga can realistically expect of the girl, at least. It's healthy to ensure one's expectations align with reality. "A nice enough gal, once you get past her egomania, abrasive personality, lowkey sadism, delusional aspirations and terrible singing voice."
"Another Rogue Servant." Olga frowns. At last with Jeanne, they had a clue about her origin, but what's the infamous Blood Countess doing here and why's she being so friendly? It doesn't match her legend at all… "What can you tell me about her?"
"Only that she wants to help and she's been following the rest since they met. In all honesty, we haven't really had time to talk beyond the most pressing matters, I thought contacting you guys was more important." Haku shakes her head. "Hopefully, we'll have time to catch up later, the soldiers are throwing a victory party."
"Good." Olga nods in approval, that was the right course of action. "Keep us posted."
"Speaking of which, the two of them have shown interest in forming temporary contracts with me." Haku continues. "But I didn't want to get ahead of myself without Lady Director's approval."
That's… Olga wants to say it was idiotic to wait for her permission instead of jumping at the chance. On the other hand, that would be hypocritical when she's known all through Chaldea for her neurotic need to be in control of everything. Sure, she's trying to change, but… she's not exactly having much success there. Has anyone even noticed her attempts?
"Authorized." Olga snaps curtly in the end. "In the future, use your own discretion in regards to new contracts. It's simply not practical to wait for authorization every time."
"Roger that! I'll formalize the contracts as soon as I have the chance!"
"What about the last two? Jeanne's… handmaidens?" Olga has to search her mind for the right word to use, because she refuses to dignify the first descriptor that comes to mind by verbalizing it. "It's obvious they're not regular humans, but their appearance reminds me of a certain group in particular…"
"I guess handmaidens is one way of putting it." Haku comments with a snort. "They are Einzbern Homunculus, I assume you're familiar with them? They're also… Oh, you're going to love this, Lady Director!"
"I very much doubt I will." Just having the Einzbern involved at all is enough to give her a headache. The reclusive alchemist family should have nothing to do with France during this time period! "But let's hear it."
"They fellow believers." Haku fishes out her holy symbol necklace from inside her clothes to illustrate the point. "Funny how the world works sometimes, huh? Demon Lord Re'em delivers."
Olga was right, she didn't love hearing that. She didn't love it at all. One of the first things she'd done after returning (to life) from Singularity F, or rather, after putting off all the fires and making sure Chaldea wouldn't randomly blow up on them or collapse under their feet, was to research the alleged Demon Lord.
The only references to any Re'em she could find were about the phantasmal beast by that same name, a creature sometimes confused with the unicorn, whose blood could have powerful effects over the body. There was nothing to tie them to the entity she was researching, beyond their demonic nature. Which means nothing, because all magical beasts are demons.
Then there's that holy symbol of hers, it depicted some sort of serpent or elongated dragon, whose research again had once again produced no results. The creature was portrayed with something on its head that could maybe pass for a horn, if you squint and tilt your head sideways. Besides that, there's the very basic connection between serpents, dragons and demons in ancient myth, which once again means absolutely nothing.
Her last hint, the supposed nature of this Demon Lord as Solomon's last gift to humanity was just another dead end. Solomon's legacy is wide and varied, from renowned apprentices like the Wizard Marshall himself to the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem, including the five arts compiled in his mysterious Lesser Key and the very Magic Crest system that single-handedly ensured magecraft would survive to this day.
She has a feeling that, whatever or whoever this Demon Lord Re'em was, it has remained hidden in the shadows of history even since its very inception. Which bears the question of how did his never-heard-of cult somehow manage to get involved in every Singularity they've found so far and infiltrate Chaldea itself.
For a certain value of the word 'infiltration', of course. Haku hasn't exactly been circumspect about her beliefs. And yet, much like the mystery of the two Jeannes, she simply lacks enough pieces to puzzle together a proper picture.
Holding back a sigh of resigned frustration, Olga looks up again to realize she's gotten more distracted than she thought and the conversation has moved along without her input.
"You know?" Fujimaru is musing in an idle tone. "I'm surprised there was a leyline nexus smack-dab in the middle of a random-ass fort."
"Not that surprising, actually." Roman answers with a soft smile that makes Olga want to punch his face for some reason. "Forts are often built by expanding on existing settlements, which can go back all the way to the far past of shamanistic tribes guided by mystics. Besides, powerful locations like a leyline nexus don't only attract supernatural creatures, normal humans are drawn to them too."
"Alright, that's enough of that." Obviously, rather than moving along, the conversation seems to have been meandering aimlessly. "If there's nothing else to report, we all have important jobs to get back to."
The one and only, inimitable Renaissance Woman
As she gets back to her Workshop, Vinci-chan is a bit distracted by Haku-chan's report. Or rather, but the ideas that came to mind during that meeting. And that's not even about her split-summon idea! Well, not just about that, but she can think about more than one thing at once, that's what mental partitions are for.
No, it's about Roman's original theory about the two Jeannes. Sure, the origin of the Dragon Witch cannot be the product of a hijacked summon, since she got there first. But, now that she has time to think about it at length, the rest of his proposition remains valid. What if someone partially summoned the Heroic Spirit Jeanne D'arc, somehow picking and choosing only the pieces they wanted?
Now, that might seem like a random thought or an impossible leap of logic for a normal, non-genius and regular mind of the poo people, but it's all very clear for someone like Vinci-chan. Which means just Vinci-chan, by the way, because there's nobody else like her! You just need to start at the end and work your way backwards!
What's the end, would the poo people ask? Why, the end would be a simple question!
What would happen with the leftover pieces of the Heroic Spirit, after a successful partial summon?
There's a wide smile on Vinci-chan's face as she finally walks into her Workshop. Of course, there's still much to do before she brings her ideas up to the Lady Director, she's still missing a lot of boring but necessary things like facts to back her hypothesis with. Still, she's fairly confident she's onto something there and—
Oh, her other thought process just vomited something interesting. Apparently the Iron Scales Trait of the Edelfelt family has already been theorized as a viable method to force split summons? There's something there, something great, maybe a whole new school of customized Servant Summoning and—
Oh, the OTOHIME Graviton Chamber (trademark pending) is finally done with the trial run!
And… bingo! Whoever said you need to wait for food to age properly didn't know the sheer rapture of being the one and only Renaissance Woman! Now they can stuff the pantry with real wine and cheese.
And it only took her ten hours and advanced technomagic to commit heinous heresy on the laws of physics!
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