A/N: And, with this, we are finally caught up. Chapter updates will go back to their original weekly schedule. Until I inevitably fall behind again, that is, the we'll have to play catch up again.

048 - Beyond Time and Space

Elizabeth Bathory

The world is ending.

The ground shakes and shifts, the skies darken as the clouds part to reveal the alien stars of an unearthly firmament. Peebles and mountains alike rise unbidden, the love of the planet forsaking this doomed timeline. The very lifebreath has long since faded away, creating a harsh reality where only the few Servants who haven't faded yet could ever hope to survive.

Soon enough, space and time will unravel, reality as she knows it will die in a last vision of incomprehensible beauty. Only two souls will ever bear witness to the end of this Singularity. Looking at it like that, there's something romantic about this whole—

"No, wait! I don't want a romantic death yet!" Elizabeth snaps out of her weird mood with a shrill cry. "I don't care if I'm a Servant, there's so much more I want to accomplish first!"

"Take heart my dear companion!" The Cake Queen tries to cheer her up with a pat on her shoulder. "I believe it's not our time yet!"

"What do you mean? This better not be more of that magical girl feels-good nonsense crap." She snaps at her sometimes frustratingly optimistic partner. "I might sell baseless hope to the unwashed masses, but I don't huff my own product. I'm a realistic gal! And your hat looks like there's a jellyfish trying to eat your head!"

That was a bit harsher than she intended it to be but, in her defense, she's about to die with all her hopes and dreams still unrealized! She never made it big, she never had undying love sworn to her by tasty handsome hunks and gross sweaty fatsos alike! She never got to try out Chaldea's famed eight-digit R&R budget!

"Ara?" The queen removes the hat from her head to examine it closely with a cute frown on her face. "I thought it looked rather cute…"

"N–No, it's my bad. It actually looks very cute!" Ah, Elizabeth apologized on reflex! Marie is dangerous as expected, her idol charisma is off the charts! "Sorry, I'm just a bit tense about the whole impending doom thing."

"It's fine, there's nothing wrong with wanting to live." Marie reassures her with a smile, putting her hat back on and utterly ignoring what looks suspiciously like a black hole suddenly taking shape above them. "Besides, the jellyfish comment gave me an idea for a new design that—"

"I'm sure it'll look adorable!" Elizabeth interrupts her before she loses herself down this random tangent and forgets the actual conversation. "A–Anyway… You were saying?"

"Ah, yes. Look around us, we're alone." Marie regains her smile, spreading her arms and spinning around to demonstrate while… yup, still ignoring the black hole. For her sanity's sake, Elizabeth will do the same and play along. "The incident is solved, but we're still here."

"Now that you mention it…" Elizabeth already knew, of course, but she hadn't stopped to consider there might be a reason. "But I'm not sure how that matters. Maybe cute idols are resistant to the end of the world?"

For a lack of anything better to do, she takes another look around them and immediately regrets it when she catches sight of what looks like the entirety of the Pirenees getting swallowed by the black hole. A shiver runs down her spine as she notices the black hole immediately growing in size until it takes up half the sky.

"I'm sure that helps." Marie nods. "But I think it's because our contracts are still here."

"They may be still in place, but they've been frozen since P-san vanished and—" Elizabeth cuts herself off, realization sinking it as soon as she says it out loud. "You mean that the contract is keeping us from fading away, frozen and everything?"

"Oui."

"That… that's gotta mean something, right?" Elizabeth knows she's not the smartest tool in the shed, so she doesn't know what it means, but it would be too cruel to be forced to live through the end of the world for no reason. "P-san wouldn't just forget about us, right? There's no way this is an accident, right?"

"Of course! This is our chosen Master we're talking about!" Marie's words and smile have no business being as reassuring as they are. "Even if she can be a bit foolish and reckless sometimes, that only means she's living her life to the fullest! There's no way she didn't make plans for us!"

"I only wish I had your optimism." Elizabeth sighs, feeling a bit better in spite of herself. Stupid Cake Queen. "You remind me of the maids back home, praying and believing with absolutely no basis…"

[If God is really all that, why didn't he save her? She never asked to grow up into that… evil… bitter… ugly… old dungeon bat!)

"Mhh? Maybe I have been praying to someone…" Marie trails off with a mischievous smile, hands wrapped behind her back as she sways in place.

…What.

"...What."

"After all…" Marie only smiles wider. "Our dear Master was quite confident in her faith."

Realization can be such a sinking feeling sometimes."...No."

"Haven't you heard?"

"No." She tries again, more firmly this time.

Not that it deters Marie in the slightest. "Demon Lord Re'em provides!"

"Look, there's no way a fictional cult that's clearly intended as a trendy gimmick is actually going to help." Elizabeth tries to be the voice of reason. "I like P-san as much as the next gal feeling suddenly conflicted and confused about their own sexuality, but—"

Unfortunately for her and her perfectly sensible reasoning, it's at that point that she feels her contract with P-san reactivate with a pulse of magic that shakes her to her very core. She has never experienced this feeling before, but she instinctively knows what's going on. No Servant could possibly mistake the feeling of a Command Seal with anything else.

Except maybe a Berserker, but they don't have proper brains, so they don't count.

As the already fraying fabric of reality seems to fully come undone around them under a crimson glow, she turns towards the Cake Queen with a baleful glare.

"I. Hate. You. So. Much."

"You don't really mean that~!"

Mashu Kyrielight

She… won.

There were so many soldiers, all of them seemingly willing to put aside their differences and get her first. It was scary to watch them close in to surround her, and they were so much stronger than she was expecting a normal human to be! But she somehow managed to defeat them all. She's not even feeling winded.

Haku-senpai said that she was stronger than she thought. Mashu had believed her because it wouldn't make sense not to, but she didn't really believe her, if that makes sense. Now, though? Watching both groups of battered and bruised roman soldiers slowly retreat from the field… It's hard to summon arguments against it.

…Maybe she's a bit more useful than she feared, after all.

"Fou!" Her introspection was interrupted by a soft padded paw suddenly hitting her face.

"Ah, Fou-kun?" She startles, reaching over her head with both hands to find Fou comfortably nestled there. She must be more out of it than she thought if she didn't even notice him climbing! "Did you sneak your way into the Rayshift again? How do you keep doing that?"

"Fou Fou, Fou!"

"You are right, I should stop underestimating you." Mashu agrees with a chuckle, picking Fou up from his roost and lifting him in front of her so they'd be at eye level. "Do you think I've been underestimating myself, too?"

"Fou, Fou!"

Mashu has no idea what Fou is saying, but she has no doubt they are wise words. She'll try to grow a little bit wiser too, so she doesn't weigh everyone down with unfounded insecurities.

"Right, I'm done with the interrogations." Olga announces, drawing Mashu's attention back to the current situation. "As a side note, hypnotizing trained soldiers from the Classical Era is a royal pain in the behind."

"They don't make men like they used to anymore." Senpai crosses her arms with a sagely nod. "Save for very rare and honorable exceptions, like our Lady Director. Or my favorite Kouhai."

Ah… there's no need for flattery, really. Mashu will become useless if she's too busy blushing to pay attention to her surroundings!

"The Roman Empire seems to be divided into two factions. On one side there's the United Roman Empire, whose soldiers wear purple. On the other is the True Roman Empire, whose soldiers wear red. Confusing, I know." Olga soldiers on, ignoring Senpai's words of flattery in spite of her own blushing cheeks. But that's just natural, Olga is incredible like that. "The United Roman Empire is the aggressor here, having attacked from the outside and having already conquered around half the territory. They swear fealty to the Purple Empress, who has allegedly summoned the Emperors of Old to help her take over and lead Rome down the right path."

"Well, that probably explains the Servant overpopulation, but isn't purple supposed to already be the color of emperors? Talk about redundancy." Haku comments with a frown. "And wouldn't there be a problem if she dresses every single soldier in the color of emperors? That's gotta be heresy or something."

"We'll have to figure out all that on our own." Olga shakes her head before continuing her explanations. "The True Roman Empire still controls the City of Rome, alongside the inner territories and follows the Crimson Empress who is very much not Nero. In fact, the Fifth Emperor is nowhere to be found after being ousted from power by the champion of the Crimson Empress. This champion is a 'mighty fighter out of this world' and has gathered many other incredibly strong warriors under their banner through strength of arms alone. Which couldn't be anything other than more Servants thrown into the mix. Looks like we're in the middle of a civil war."

"Damn…" Senpai lets out a low whistle. "Sounds like a right mess."

"That it does, but we work with what we have." Olga agrees. "First things first, we should secure a leyline ASAP to ensure—"

"Actually" Senpai cuts in with a raised hand. "There's something I'd like to try first."

"Fujimaru, I swear. If you're going to keep questioning my every order, I'll–"

"I wouldn't dream of it, the Lady Director is really hot when she takes charge, you know?" Senpai cuts Olga again, apparently missing the whole point. "But I have been thinking a lot about our rather exceptional situation. About how time affects and doesn't affect us. I have an hypothesis I want to try out as soon as possible."

"By all means." Olga huffs, turning her head away in a way that Mashu is starting to realize doesn't necessarily mean irritation. "Please illuminate us."

"I got the idea from Vinci-chan's hot spring and how it takes advantage of Chaldea's status as a floating island in the sea of time." Haku-senpai explains. "At a purely functional level, both Chaldea and the Singularities are beholden only to the passage of their own internal time, disconnected from the greater whole. When Chaldea connects with a Singularity, our timelines synchronize, so interaction becomes feasible, but… that's as far as it goes."

A white chalkboard appears behind Senpai, showing different bubbles labeled as Singularities and adorned with clocks, including Chaldea itself. She illustrates the point by drawing anchors between Chaldea and a Singularity, the connection causing their little clocks to merge into one for as long as they remain connected. Wow, Senpai looks good while wearing glasses and holding a pointer stick, it makes her seem even more reliable than usual.

"Once we disconnect, there's no longer any synchrony. Time and causality within the detached parts become once again independent and unrelated to each other." She continues explaining. "A week has passed since we retrieved the France Singularity Grail, but that's from our perspective. From theirs, no time at all might've happened. Or maybe it's been years."

Mashu isn't an expert in Singularities, she lacks the specialized education required to properly discuss Senpai's proposal. But, as a future member of the Exploration Team, she was at least taught the basics, enough to tell when something is outrageously farfetched. Senpai's words make at least some sense, as far as she can tell.

"I'd say it's more like both and neither." Olga adds in a thoughtful tone, clearly drawn into the explanation. "Since we're no longer connected, their personal time remains in a state of flux from our perspective. A bit like Schrödinger's Cat."

"Schrödinger would hate the way his little thought experiment is being used nowadays, it was intended as a reduction to absurdity." Senpai chuckles. "But yes, that's what I was working towards, sorry if I'm beating around the bush too much."

Olga frowns at that. "We observed the destruction of the Singularity, Fujimaru."

"We did. From the outside. Without any real awareness of what was going on within the Singularity." Haku-senpai argues. "There's no telling how much time passed inside or what happened within, beyond its eventual destruction. Nothing is set in stone."

It doesn't seem like Olga has a counterargument, because she simply rolls her eyes. "Do you have a point you're getting at with all that, Fujimaru?"

"Why, yes, this Singularity is its own Island of Time, fully detached and independent from the others. Just because the Chaldea that synchronized with France has already observed the destruction of the Singularity, it doesn't mean the same event has taken place from this Singularity's perspective." Senpai explains with a grin. "Time is a very wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. And Command Spells have a documented ability to mess with time and space."

"You can't possibly mean…"

But Haku-senpai has already raised her right arm, the Command Crest glowing an intense crimson in the back of her hand as she lets her magical energy flow free. One of the three seals started gathering more and more of the free-flowing power until the red glow became a blinding white, a process that soon repeated for a second one.

"By the power of my Command Spells… Marie! Elizabeth! Come to my side!"

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