Jeanne d'Arc Alter was feeling positively thrilled today.

On a surface level there wasn't truly much reason for her to feel that way. Everywhere she went her presence acted like a repellent for the denizens of Chaldea, humans and servants alike. She didn't care about them of course; they could eat dirt for all she cared. The whispers that came from them whenever she had the misfortune of passing them by didn't bother her either. So what if she tried to kill them and end the world? That was like a week ago—basically an entirely different life from the present! And it didn't matter how they saw her anyway. After all, she had a title that outweighed any insult that could be thrown her way.

With one exception, that was. One that she was going to take care of today.

But before she would do anything about that particular shitty title that pertained 'relations with a farm animal' as her other self would call it, she had a much more important business to take care of first.

A smirk curled up her lips as her target came into view around the corner of Chaldea's otherwise empty halls: her partner, King. Immediately, she began to slow down the pace of her previously brisk walk to match that of her Partner's.

After all, is sticking side-by-side not what partners do?

So here she was now, walking behind her partner some few meters away—close enough that she'd never lose sight of him but far enough that a passerby would assume they weren't travelling together—at an equal pace. Their footsteps blended with each other, eventually becoming a single stereo sound that echoed against Chaldea's cold halls. Where was he going? She didn't know; didn't care either. Perhaps some, maybe even many, would declare her stupid for doing such an aimless act, but it was not without reason. This was her chance after days of observation, something she did with one simple reason behind it:

He had not come face to face with her since she was summoned, and that, to her, was unforgivable.

And even if she was stupid for doing it, it was far less so than when she had paraded herself as someone she was not just because of some madman's words and a conman's act. Something that he had seen through and pulled her out from. Which was why she found his willful act of avoidance—and she knew it was willful, it had to be—so unforgivable. Why declare her his partner if he wasn't even going to interact with her after?

So, she was angry at him. Not deeply angry, but she needed to have a talk with him.

Yeah, just a talk. Nothing more. The fact that she was following him quietly and had yet to talk to him was simply a matter of—Well it didn't matter why.

She would make him acknowledge her, not the other way around.

After almost five minutes of the silent and steady game of cat and mouse, Jeanne Alter lost sight of King for the first time owing to a sharp corner turn made. Undeterred, she quickened her feet, breaking into a half-run to catch up with her partner—only to stop dead in her tracks as she met an unexpected face at the turn.

"Well, well, look who it is~"

The Saint, La Pucelle, The Woman Oh-So-Holier-Than-Any-Other, Jeanne d'Arc stared at her with level eyes that pierced her—or at least wanted to—as she stood in Jeanne Alter's path.

"Good morning, other me," Jeanne said. There was no smile on the Ruler's face, but she did keep her tone at a neutral level, perhaps out of politeness.

"Hah! 'Other me'?" Jeanne Alter said with a sneer. "I thought that bastard back then already made it clear that we are not the same."

"Maybe so, but you were created in my image," Jeanne pointed out.

She clicked her tongue. That she could not argue with. Gilles—the real one—had wished her initial existence out of a desire for the real Jeanne d'Arc to come back to life and exact vengeance upon the people who killed her, something the Ruler had no desire to—though why she could not comprehend. Her own current existence was something of a mystery judging by what the Chaldea bigwigs said, something about 'an existence anchored by Chaldea's own', whatever that meant.

"Well, who cares!" she snapped. "What are you doing here blocking my way? Now I've lost sight of Master!"

"Well, Master is exactly why. I've been watching you for the past week." The Ruler's eyes narrowed. "You're stalking him," Jeanne accused.

"What? No, I'm not! I'm just being a Partner, you see? Part-ner!" Jeanne Alter yelled while gesturing her hands at each syllable of 'partner'. Stalking? Her? In what world? Just because she had been following him around without saying anything she was a stalker? Of course not! They were just having a rough patch as partners, that was all it was! The moment she caught up with him—maybe corner him somewhere he couldn't escape—it'd all go back to normal.

She was NOT stalking him.

"You keep saying that: that you and Master are 'Partners'." Jeanne's face became that of concern. "I don't think you know what that means."

At that, Jeanne Alter bristled. "Excuse YOU?" she almost shouted, indignant as she inched closer to Jeanne with her teeths bared. "Who are you to question the relationship between me and him?" The Ruler had the decency to avert the gaze at the question, something that only made Jeanne Alter narrow her eyes. "Why do you care so much anyway, huh, you holier-than-thou woman?"

"Well you're kinda like my sister, so I feel responsible for your actions."

"Your what?" Jeanne Alter balked. "I am not your sister," she hissed. First calling her 'other me' and now declaring that she was her sister? The audacity of this woman, she thought. But, hah, what else could you expect from the holy bitch?

"You sure didn't mind being my sister back then, though," said Jeanne, head tilting in genuine confusion and was that a tiny fucking smile on her face?

"That was Not. By. Choice," she hissed through gritted teeth, though it did not seem to deter Jeanne by any means.

"Either way, I don't think you'll have to worry about not seeing Master today," Jeanne said, turning and beginning to walk away from her. "Have you heard about our new assignments?"

"Assignments?" Jeanne Alter asked as she begrudgingly began to follow her counterpart in lieu of any other options. "What assignments?"

"Did none of Chaldea's staff inform you?"

"No, they—Well, now that you mention it, I think there was some chump that tried to approach me a few hours ago," she said, fingers on her chin.

"And?"

Jeanne Alter chuckled. "Dunno. He ran away when we made eye contact."

Jeanne sighed. "I should've known," she lamented. "You're on a team to gather resources at the last singularity—your singularity."

"What? Who put me on the team? I sure as hell didn't ask to be included!"

"Who else?" Jeanne shot her a glance that signalled that the answer was someone that she knew.

Her feet stopped. "You don't mean…?"

"Master picked you. King did."

Every step King had taken today had been done with the utmost care he could fucking muster.

Part of it was habit; just about everything he did since the whole isekai thing he second guessed. Even something as simple as eating his lunch at the cafeteria he had first looked at the others; were there any sort of pre-meal ritual in this world? some sort of international custom? All he found was that it was actually rather varied from person to person, with some going into a deep prayer while others a simple gesture or none at all. Some would call him paranoid, he called it properly paranoid.

As for the other part, it was Jeanne Alter.

And that was all he had to say about that.

"I trust that you all understand the assignment," Olga's voice rang in the command room, breaking King out of his musings. "To reiterate, you will delve once more into the France Singularity—or its remnants I should say—to gather resources for Chaldea."

Beside him, Ritsuka nodded. Indeed, today was to be some form of momentous for Chaldea, albeit not as much as the entry to France had been. A few days ago, he had been informed alongside Ritsuka that they had managed to identify remnants of the singularity. Initially thought to be a mistake to be corrected, calculations by Da Vinci and her team (mostly herself from what he heard) determined them to be non-volatile and would disappear by themselves once they corrected all seven singularities, and instead should be looked further upon as potential avenues for resource gathering for the time being, especially for food.

"It shouldn't be anything too serious," Romani said from his chair that overlooked the command room. "The most you'll encounter are some wyverns and undeads—nowhere near the amount when you first entered France, of course. Should there be an anomaly in the form of more powerful beings, our sensors would detect them and you'd be the first to know."

King sighed with relief on that before realizing, with a small pang of horror, what he just did. Had he really been so desensitized in this place that he instinctively let out a sigh of relief at news of wyverns and undead?

Yes. Yes he had.

"I must say," added Da Vinci, who had chosen to take part in supervising in a rare time of leisure in her work, as she sauntered over to the masters and their chosen servants at the top of the command room, "you two sure picked some interesting choices to bring."

King gulped. 'That was definitely directed at me, wasn't it?'

How could it not after his first choice of servant?

As if on cue, Olga then began to detail their mission in full, her vision panning to the masters. "In brief, your mission is simply to seek resources for Chaldea by any means necessary. Whether it be hunting animals, trading for produce items, or even cutting down trees. For trading, we have provided you with identical replicas of coins from the time. The servants for this mission will be…" Her gaze slowly changed from the masters to the servants, and with each given a glance, she began listing their names:

"Cu Chulainn, Emiya, Jeanne d'Arc, Karna, Chevalier d'Eon, and… Jeanne d'Arc Alter."

The last name on the list gave rise to a quiet unease in the room, mostly on the human side of things. The other servants, for their part, gave little reaction to the white-haired Avenger; a snort from Cu Chulainn, a side glance from d'Eon, and nothing at all from Karna.

Bringing her to this mission had been King's decision.

To most, and even himself to some degree, this could be seen as a move of astronomical idiocy. However, this was not a choice he made lightly nor without reason. Jeanne Alter, or Jean to make it easier to differentiate the two Jeannes, had been a… not exactly thorn on his side, per se, but definitely some form of constant dull ache. He would liken it to an unsavory character in high school who decided one day that you and them were buddies, actually, and refused to hear otherwise and stuck to you like a harmless but persistent tumor.

Throughout the week since the fall of the France Singularity, Jean had been following him at any chance she could and, well, let's just say that she wasn't exactly an expert at espionage. Of course, he never once made an attempt to say something to her or tell her to stop stalking him or even to turn around and face her when her presence became unignorable. He couldn't. What if she was just looking for a gap in his guard to strike at when he least expected?

"Say, Jean? Can I know why you're–"

"Ha! You finally let your guard down!"

"Wait, wait!"

The mere image in his mind made his teeths clatter in fear.

So, that was exactly why when Olga went to ask him about who he would want on the team on this mission, he first chose Jeanne Alter, along with d'Eon and Karna. After all, there was no safer place than being surrounded by five other, no-grudges-needed-avenging, servants that could protect him, was there?

"Well, that is all from me. Now, Mash, if you would?"

"Yes, Director. Come, Senpai, Mr. King."

As they had when they entered France, the two masters made their way to the coffins. On the way there, he did his best to avoid eye contact with the Avenger and prayed to all that is holy, divine, and merciful that he would not end up being alone with her at any point in the singularity.

Until the moment he entered the coffin, her piercing glare did not reciprocate his attempts.

"Good luck, Senpai. You too, Mr. King," said Mash.

"Fou!"

"Haha, yes, you too, Mr. Fou."

"Yeah, don't worry about it too much, Mash. I mean, what's some wild animals going to do to us that The Dragon Witch couldn't?" Ritsuka said in a joking tone, before his eyes turned slightly fearful. "No offense, Jeanne Alter."

From the angle inside the coffin, King couldn't see the Avenger, but he, too, hoped that she did not take offense to it.

"Alright, Rayshift in three, two, one."

A bright light, a feeling of weightlessness, and an indescribable feeling of travel later, they were once again in the wide open green plains of France.

"Whew! Guess we're back to this damned country," Cu Chulainn said, breaking the silence, with Gae Bolg lazily draped over his back. "So, where we goin'?"

"Well, if we're going hunting, then I say we should head over to that city over there. Trade a bit and ask for some good spots," Ritsuka said. "What do you think, King?"

"Sure. Let's do that," he said. It sounded like a good enough plan.

As they approached town, King couldn't help but sneak a few glances periodically at Jean. He had positioned himself so that he was behind her and surrounded by two other servants, that being Karna and d'Eon, the two servants he had chosen to accompany him alongside Jean. He had reasoned that he needed someone who was at least aware of the threat Jean might possess to him. And of the two, likely d'Eon would notice it, but Karna? That man is as pure as can be. He probably already thought of Jean as a comrade the moment he heard that she had become a servant of Chaldea.

But Karna was his strongest and most reliable servant, so of course bringing him was a no-brainer.

"Sorry for bringing you to something like this, Karna," he said apologetically to the Lancer on his right. He didn't explain why he had picked Karna and d'Eon to the both of them, so it had to have looked to them like he was bringing them along for a mission that was too simple, especially to Karna. It was like bringing a nuke to kill a mosquito.

"No need to apologize, Master. On the contrary, it is my honor to be able to take part in something so important," Karna said in his ever stoic voice.

"Important?" What could be so important about what amounted to a convoluted grocery trip?

"Of course. What else could be more important than keeping hunger away?"

Well, when he put it like that… "I guess you're right. Thanks for coming along, Karna."

"Of course, Master. Whatever you need me for, I will accomplish."

He had really lucked out by summoning Karna, hadn't he? Never could he imagine someone so strong could be so painfully humble. Even Saitama would have second thoughts if someone told him to do their groceries! He supposed he could do without the Lancer's constant misattribution of his actions to some great virtue he supposedly possessed, but other than that? He almost felt guilty by how nicely Karna treated him.

In contrast, d'Eon was still largely a mystery to him.

The blonde-haired Saber walked beside him with equal pace at an arm's length distance. They hadn't exchanged words much since d'Eon came to Chaldea, nor had he done so with most of the new servants beyond exchanging pleasantries for that matter. He'd chosen them after Karna when choosing the servant lineup. His thought process went something like this: First, Jean to make sure he wouldn't be caught off guard by any ambushes, then Karna, the strongest servant he could think of, and finally someone who understood the danger Jean possessed, i.e. someone who was directly under her control for good amount of time: her servants.

d'Eon's name was the first to come up when he thought of such a servant, something he attributed to that strange conversation they had during Elizabeth's second concert. Now that he thought about it, why did that conversation take such a strange turn back then? He remembered that it started out with him trying to deescalate the situation by any means, which he did via an admittedly rude question about d'Eon's identity, and it somehow escalated entirely towards it. Regardless, d'Eon should be able to identify if Jean was going to attack him, maybe even faster than Karna could if the Avenger saw no need to sweeten her words with lies.

"Hello, Charles," King greeted—Wait, Charles?

"Good day to you too, Master," d'Eon greeted back with a smile on his face. "How are you today?"

"Uh, good, so far anyway," he said, the last part in a whisper. "Sorry about that. I don't know why I called you Charles."

"But I am?"

"Sorry?"

d'Eon gave a light chuckle. "Charles, Charlotte, Chevalier, d'Eon, I go by all of them, of course. But today, in lieu of any matter that imposes me to be otherwise, I would say I am a man. Charles, as you said."

Huh.

"I… see," King said, processing the information. He had pieced together that d'Eon's gender was ever-changing from what the books had said about him, but seeing him becoming a, well, he this particular day was different. "Good for you." He didn't know what else to say. This was his first time meeting someone so… flexible, for the lack of a better word.

"Indeed. Deciding even such a little thing on my own volition feels surprisingly… liberating."

King nodded his head, not quite understanding what that meant. "Sure. If it makes you happy, then I'm glad you can, uh, express yourself," he said in a small attempt to relate to this still foreign concept.

"I'm glad you feel that way."

"You do?"

"Of course. You were the one who encouraged me to do so after all." He was? "Even if as a devoted knight I cannot divert from my orders, small decisions within them are still within my hands. Is that not what you conveyed to me that night?" No—actually, he didn't know. Was it? "In the end, it was by my own volition that I threw myself onto Karna's spear to help you—though I suppose that stretches my oath as a knight quite a lot, doesn't it? Haha."

That was a lot to process, King thought, and for the next half a minute, he stayed quiet as each word d'Eon said made their way into his brain.

"I guess?" he said after a moment of silence, not even looking at the Saber, though still d'Eon responded with a satisfied hum.

"I must say," d'Eon said, "I was surprised when I heard that you had picked me to accompany you on this mission. Is it because you believe I have more experience with the situation here?"

King gulped down a nervous lump. If d'Eon was referring to Jean, he did not show it. Maybe d'Eon was being discreet as the spy that he was, or maybe the possibility of Jean turning hostile had passed by even the Saber and he was merely referring to France as a whole. He prayed it was the former.

"Please. I'm counting on you to have my back."

"But of course. I will lay my life on the line for yours."

For the rest of the way, there was something that stuck with King from that conversation: he knew, somehow, even without being told or there having been telltale signs—he had still looked as androgynously as always, but maybe he preferred it that way—that d'Eon was a guy on this particular day.

How?

King mentally punched himself. Right, there was that one part in the master-servant relationship, wasn't there? Some passage said that given a high enough bond or trust between a master and servant pair, it would be possible for some sort of metaphysical bond to form between them, allowing them to know things about the other without the need to talk.

But then, still, how? He, no offense to d'Eon whatsoever, did not think himself particularly close to the Saber. Moreover, he couldn't recall having interacted with him more beyond that brief conversation they had.

Surely, that couldn't be enough for d'Eon to consider him a close confidant?

"We're here," Emiya said.

The town looked just like about every other town they visited last time. Same old buildings, same old marketplace, same old people. Really, the only thing different was that no one recognized them. Thank fucking god, because Jean seemed eager to glare at every passing citizen that was unlucky enough to cross her sights though she held her tongue back.

It wasn't long before they approached the marketplace and bought rather enormous quantities of flour, rice, eggs, and other kinds of necessities. The seller looked appalled for a good moment when they laid down their order, to say the very least. Regardless, he still brought out the goods and accepted the payment with haste. He was, let's just say, more than eager to disclose a few good hunting spots around the area for a few extra coins.

"Well, let's determine by drawing lots," Emiya said, as six sticks suddenly appeared between his fingers, three of them with a bit of green paint at the tip while the other three with blue.

"Do you just have that ready all the time?" Ritsuka asked, eyeing the sticks with a slightly scrunched face.

"Projection, Ritsuka."

"How versatile."

"Fou!"

"Thank you. Now, if you would?" Emiya turned to the other servants. "Blue goes with Ritsuka. Green goes with King."

Well hold on now. He hadn't heard about any sort of team pairings beforehand.

"Say," King said, "would it not be more efficient if all of us go together instead of splitting up?"

"Maybe," Emiya conceded, "but at the moment, we have yet to locate any hot spots for animal activity, so at least for this first expedition I believe it's better if we split ourselves. Wouldn't you agree?"

Well, shit. That was a waterproof argument he got there.

As each of the servants took a stick each, King begged to the gods, the rng kinds, the gacha kinds, certainly not the kinds in charge of designating him with his unwanted fame, to please let Jean draw blue.

"Karna, d'Eon, and I will go with Ritsuka. The rest will go with King."

Fuck.

The forests of France seemed especially thick that day, and as King and his servants waded through dense packs of leaves one after another, the prospect of finding even a single animal seemed to grow dimmer by the minute.

But Jeanne Alter could give less of a shit.

"There!" she yelled, pointing her finger forward to a patch of trees.

"Um…" Jeanne opened her mouth, seemingly wanting to interject, but kept her mouth shut as she and the rest followed Jeanne Alter's lead.

"You sure we going the right way?" asked Cu Chulainn behind her

"Yes. I. Am." Of course, she wasn't really drawing a path towards animals or hunting spots or any of that irrelevant shit, but they didn't need to know that.

Suddenly, a whizzing sound broke the forest's ambience. Her eyes followed the sound and found several animals—boars and some deer—lying dead on the ground with holes in their midsections. They didn't know what hit them.

"Well, would you look at that?" Cu Chulainn said, flicking his hand to retrieve his crimson spear. "The animals are right there," he added snidely. "Master. I got a bunch of 'em."

"Right, thanks," King nodded as he walked to the scene of Cu Chulainn's hunt. "Guess we should pack this up."

Jeanne Alter grumbled at the order. She was so close! Just one or two more minutes and she would have reached her destination. Now she was instead stuck with gutting carcasses so that fucking Chaldea could get more food. The audacity of that damned organization. Had it not been for her partner being one of their figureheads, she would've started burning the place.

But King wanted her here, so she'd relent. For now.

"Girl. You don't actually know anything about this place, do you?" Cu Chulainn said, swiftly separating meat from bone with his hands.

"And who the hell said I did, huh?" she snapped.

"Our enemy during that whole damn singularity, and she doesn't even know the place." Cu Chulainn shook his head and sighed.

She huffed. "Why would I? That was literally an entire lifetime ago! Who I am now is not who I was then."

"Fancy words," Cu Chulainn said dryly. "And who are you now exactly?"

She puffed her chest with pride. "Why, our Master's Partner, of course," she said smugly.

"Riiiight…"

"And his only Partner, too!"

"Whatever makes you happy, Avenger." The Lancer stuffed the skin and meat gathered from the carcasses into a brown bag and lugged it over his shoulder as he made his way to a nearby leyline they had set up to transport the materials. "Crazy girl," he muttered.

She heard the man, but refused to dignify it with a response. She was above that, and the sound of teeth clashing against each other was definitely not because of the remark.

A rustling of leaves from her right jolted her out of her thoughts. "And what do you want?"

"Nothing," answered Jeanne quickly. "I'm just a little worried."

"No need to worry too much, Miss Goodie Two Shoes." Jeanne Alter stood from the carcass she had been working on, and threw the goods over to the vague direction of the leyline. "Whatever misconception you have about me and Master, I'm not going to go so far as to maul him." Well, maybe she'd leave a couple of scars here and there, but hey, that's just Partner stuff. She hadn't cross checked that of course, but who cares? It sure sounded right to her.

"It's not Master I'm worried about."

"Well, what is it then?"

"It's you."

Her? She was worried about her? Jeanne Alter could no longer contain her anger. Was this bitch just fucking with her? First stopping her from having her long overdue talk with her partner, then having the audacity to call her 'sister' like that identity she took was anything but a momentary sham, and now having the gall to condescend worry about her. They were NOT related. The fact that her true name was 'Jeanne d'Arc Alter' meant nothing. She was her, and Jeanne d'Arc was Jeanne d'Arc; she would get that through the bitch's head, by force if necessary.

"You… What do you know about–"

"Jeanne? Jean?"

King's voice startled them both as their heads whipped towards him. For a moment all of them stood in silence. King's head darted between Avenger and Ruler, no doubt confused as to why the former had her finger pointed dangerously close to the latter's throat; he'd understand why in a bit, Jeanne Alter thought.

In fact, she should make him understand right now and get away from her holiness right here; kill two birds with one stone.

"Good timing," she said, stepping towards King with haste. "Come with me, Master."

She gripped his wrist hard, and before he could argue, ran off away from the other two. She ignored Jeanne's "Wait!" and Cu Chulainn's indifferent stare as she sped up.

She knew fuck all about hunting spots or animal gathering areas in the forests, but small and isolated openings? She knew them all too well. How else did she change into 'Jean' without anyone watching all those nights? It took barely a minute for them to reach such an opening in the forest with how quickly they moved.

There was silence for a while as her grip stayed tight over his wrist. The forest itself seemed to have gone away before the tension between Partners. There was no howling of animals, no rushing water, no rustling of the leaves. It was just them and nobody—not even another living being—else.

Just like she had wanted since a week ago.

"Finally," she said, turning to him with fire in her eyes that met his icy cold ones, "we're alone now, Partner."

She let go of his hand, but he didn't turn his back to her or even take a step back. Instead he stood his ground, arms crossed and his eyes unbroken with hers. Even so, he stayed silent, mouth unmoving. She gritted her teeth. If he was going to be uncooperative, then so be it.

"You sure don't look like you're in a talking mood, but rest assured, I'm in a good enough talking mood for the both of us," she hissed. He would get a piece of her mind, one way or another.

She took a step towards him, and briefly thought on how to approach this bump in their partnership. Words? Fists? Blades? She had no doubt someone like King could take on all of them with stride and understanding, just like he had all those nights they had met when she assumed the identity of 'Jean'. Maybe if she showed him the edge she had at those nights then they would go back to how it was, her talking about some menial bullshit while he listened and saw her as her and no one else.

She wanted that back, and she would get by any means necessary.

Step after step she took, with each the distance between them growing ever so closer, until eventually they were close enough for their chests to almost meet. Even so, with their breaths—hers in frustrated huffs and his in almost unnoticeable calm breaths—mixing, still he stayed quiet.

'Say something, damn it!' her mind screamed as if he could hear her thoughts, her eyes narrowing in their neverending staring contest. A brief idea came into her mind to speak up first; confess to him how… how neglected she felt for the past week, but her throat turned the words to dust as they came up. If she was the first to speak about it, then she would be admitting defeat, that she needed him more than he needed her, and that wasn't how it was supposed to be. Partners are supposed to be equals!

Ten seconds passed, and she held herself still. Thirty seconds passed, and her gaze fell down, their staring contest over. One full minute passed, and she couldn't take it anymore.

She would make him talk—forcefully.

Her sword materialized in an eruption of flames in her hands, and she began to draw it back. She would strike him with the intent to kill—she knew he could handle that much.

But could she?

Then, just before her blade hit him, rustling came from behind her.

"Fou!" Fou's cry echoed through the forest as he nimbly navigated through the terrain—pebbles, vines, and small animals—on the way to his destination.

Getting away from Ritsuka was easy, Fou thought. Just flail around a little, make the boy flustered, and Mash eventually popped out to say that maybe he needed some fresh air. Of course, fresh air wasn't really the reason why Fou had gone rogue. Not at all.

The reason was actually a certain blonde, scarred man.

Really, he was still quite angry at being forced into a mascot role for those god forsaken concerts. Him? A mascot? He could hardly think of any gestures more insulting for a beast like himself.

There was, of course, a second reason for it. Namely, even after more than a month of first meeting him, Fou still couldn't quite get a good picture of the man named King the same way he could Mash and Ritsuka. In the final battle, he had heard, King had managed to single-handedly control that Fafnir dragon by attaching himself to the creature, fearlessly riding it on its back to prevent it from escaping and destroying more of France. Certainly, a strange behaviour for a human, mage or otherwise. Why go so far as to risk your life when simply deploying any servant to do the same job would have sufficed? Was this man simply too prideful? Or was there something else he was missing?

This time, Fou thought, he would get to the bottom of this puzzle piece named King.

It would not end with him being degraded to a mascot again.

After a few minutes spent running, a hint finally revealed itself to Fou in the form of the distinct sounds of an argument—a one-sided one from a sharp, feminine voice. He recognized it as belonging to one alternate version of Jeanne d'Arc. 'Bingo,' he thought. He overheard what King did to the Avenger back in the singularity. If there was anyone she would argue so passionately to, it could be none other than the object of his curiosity.

So, he leapt to the opening where he heard the argument through a foliage of bushes, letting out a "Fou!" as he did.

For a moment, there was silence as his black beady eyes met the other-Jeanne's amber ones. There was anger in her eyes, though most of them were not directed to him, Fou could tell. Another point of interest was her right hand—more specifically, the fact that it was holding a dark sword whose edge was dangerously close to King's neck. The scarred man's face was as stoic as ever even with the blade a movement away from an open wound. His eyes flickered to Fou's for a brief second, before returning to Jeanne, the gaze in them as unshakable as ever.

"Fou?"

Just what the hell was he interrupting?

"Fou? Oh, there you are." Ritsuka's voice rang out from the bushes, before the boy emerged from the same direction Fou had come out from. "You were gone for a while, and we got done in the meantime, so I followed your trail here."

'Well,' Fou thought, 'Guess that's the end of that.' At least he didn't become a mascot again.

"Oh, King. You're done too?" Ritsuka's eyes wandered to King, but stopped at other-Jeanne, and Fou saw a bulge travel down the boy's throat, though he did his best to make it silent.

"Yeah," King said to Ritsuka nonchalantly, as if a blade wasn't being held on his neck at the very moment. Calmly, he brushed aside other-Jeanne's sword with his fingertips—it would seem the Avenger had lost her bluster—and passed her by while giving her a pat on the shoulder. "Should we go back?"

"Y-Yeah, sure," Ritsuka stammered. He pulled up his communicator and relayed to the command room that the mission was over.

And that, Fou supposed, was the end of that.

"Fou…" he whined, listlessly making his way over to Ritsuka.

His second attempt at analyzing King had failed once again, this time by a timely intervention. It irritated Fou, somewhat, that both of their meetings were foiled by something outside of his control. First it was that atrocious idol's shows, now it was whatever other-Jeanne's problem was.

However, it wasn't all for naught.

'So he really is fearless.' That was one aspect of him confirmed, Fou thought. Even with the weapon of a servant held so closely against his neck he refused to show any signs of cowardice. Between this, and his philanthropy of advice to Ritsuka, something was beginning to form out of the fragments, and Fou had found himself more intrigued by this singular human more than he had expected. A mage, yet charitable. A wealth of strength, but he refused to show them. A man that was in the right place at the right time, maybe too conveniently so.

It would seem that the puzzle piece named King was proving a more complicated puzzle than the larger picture itself.

What the fuck.

'Deep breaths, King. Deep breaths,' he said to himself in what felt like an infinite mantra as he made his way back with Ritsuka.

It didn't work.

'What the FUCK happened back there?'

Jean. Jean happened. Well it didn't fucking matter what happened—all that mattered was that he handles it correctly. At least, he thought he did. The divine intervention (or beastly, should he say) saved his ass at the last second. He didn't know which was going to give up first: his act of indifference, or his neck towards Jean's blade. The former was something he was accustomed to, clenching his ass, teeth, and arms worked wonders to keep his body from breaking into panicked shivers and his face from turning to mush. The latter? Well, let's just say that you can't recover from decapitation.

He kept throwing glances behind his shoulder; Jean was still there, following him and Ritsuka with her head pointed down, her bangs shadowing her eyes. Still, King could tell that she was glowering. Glowering at him judging by how his neck felt like it was being pricked by icy needles.. She didn't say anything, and neither did he for that matter. Ritsuka and Fou were quiet too, and only the sounds of forest life and crunching grass broke the silence throughout.

The word 'why' kept repeating in his head as he continued walking in silence. Why did Jean drag him to that clearing in the middle of nowhere? Why did she drop vaguely threatening remarks just to close in on him without saying anything? Why did she draw her fucking blade on him?

Why?

"Ah, I see you're done, Master," Karna said as he and Ritsuka reached the leyline point. "Did everything go smoothly on your end? I heard that your group was… separated."

Karna, King was reminded, was not exactly the most subtle person in the world, as evidenced by his eyes turning sharp when they flicked towards Jean behind him. Every other servant's eyes went towards Jean too, of course, but only Karna gave that kind of sharp glare people thought could kill.

"Yeah," he answered. "Everything went smoothly. We just split up to… talk about some things."

If Karna was surprised, he didn't show it. "I see. Good to know."

It was, in a sense, the truth. Everything did go smoothly—anything that resulted in his head still being on his shoulders went smoothly as far as he was concerned. But really, he only gave such a milquetoast answer to avoid further angering Jean. Who knows what she would if he aired her out in front of all these guys?

"Very well," Olga said from Ritsuka's comms device. "Be ready. We'll prepare the rayshift."

As the seconds to their extraction ticked by, King's gaze shifted to Ritsuka—the boy's shoulder, to be precise. There, perched on Ritsuka calmly with his back slightly arching was his savior. His beastly, furry, adorable savior.

"Fou, do you have a favorite snack?"

"Fou?"

"Just tell me."

"Fou!"

"Right… I don't speak Fou. Remind me to ask Mash later."

"Foufou."

Jeanne Alter was this close to burning down Chaldea.

Her armor rattled and clinked with every step she took as she wandered aimlessly around the base with teeth gritted to the point of almost grinding them. Every passing second, her mind conjured up new ways on how to go about burning down the goddamn place. Should she start with the humans—especially that white-haired director? Cutting the head off the snake seemed tempting. Or maybe she should start with the servants—take the sword away before delivering the killing blow.

But of course, she already knew who to start with: King. She just had to find where the bastard was.

As she walked down the hall, looking for any signs of her 'partner', she became aware of the sound of footsteps accompanying hers—multiple footsteps from different people. She stopped her walk and dug her heels into the ground, before twisting with a hiss of friction to face her stalkers.

"Oh, it's you all, huh?" she said snidely. It was her former servants, some of them, at least. She counted four among her confronters, notably less than the nine servants she summoned back then. There was that annoyingly noble knight, the pale faced dracula, the other saint in town, and that executioner who kept wagging his tail to that queen. "And just what business do you all have with little old me, hm?"

"Do you take me for an ignoramus, Witch?" d'Eon said, his eyes narrowing at her. "I heard what you did with Master in the hunt."

"Master? Why, I don't remember doing anything with that boy," she said, feigning ignorance. She knew it wasn't fooling any of them, but their increasingly sour faces made quite the treat for her eyes.

"I have my personal vendetta with you, Jeanne d'Arc Alter," Vlad III declared, taking a step forward. "To be summoned with my madness forced upon me, I could think of fewer things you could've done else to humiliate me more. But I am willing to let bygones be bygones; a remnant of a different life, if you will. Threatening our Master, however? That I cannot let slide. My pride as a Prince of Wallachia will not allow it."

She held back the urge to roll back her eyes. "Wow, look at you! What a noble servant. You want a medal to go with that?" she said with faux extravagance, spreading her arms apart while giving him the toothiest grin she could. His face did not budge. "Well, why don't we just get it out the way, hm? What about you two, why come to me?" Her eyes turned sharp and went to Sanson and Martha.

"I am of the same opinion as Lord Vlad," Sanson said calmly. His gaze was level and his tone calm, a far cry from what little she remembered of the mad executioner back then—though she supposed she was to blame for that. "If you act out of turn and Chaldea decides that you need to be disposed of, then I will deliver you with the dignity you deserve. That, I promise you."

"Hah! Another man too far up his own ass, I see," she sneered. "And you, oh Holy Saint? What reason might you have to confront me?"

"I simply see a soul needing guidance—physically, if necessary," Martha said, her eyes closed as if she couldn't bear to see the mass of volatility in front of her.

At that, Jeanne Alter's lips twitched. 'So that's it, huh?' Fucking self-righteous bastards. They just wanted to cage, kill, remove her, was that it? Well, she wasn't going anywhere—not before she and her partner settled things. And if she had to fight for it, then so be it. Fake or not, the concept of struggling against those who see her as nothing more than a blight was no stranger to her; she would not back down this time either.

With a flick of her hands, her weapons manifested in her hands: a sword and a banner in her hands each. She glared at her offenders, saying nothing. They would never understand.

d'Eon gave a simple sigh. "Then, so be it."

In an instant, their weapons were drawn as well. For a moment, there was silence as a staredown ensued, either side waiting for the other to make the first move.

Then, Jeanne Alter lunged.

"Stop!"

Everything stopped. The deep rumbled through Chaldea's halls and reverberated in her body, and her opponents' too, likely. In the now still and cold hallway—the heat of the battle shaken off by that one word alone—their eyes were all drawn to the source of the voice. Standing on the other side of the hall opposite them with his arms crossed, sharp deep blue eyes narrowed, and mouth in a frown was none other than their master.

It was King.

"Master," d'Eon greeted politely, his sword still pointed at Jeanne Alter. "Worry not, we four should be able to keep her at bay. In the meantime, perhaps you can notify the director or other servants to–"

"That won't be necessary."

The four words yanked the tension from the room like it was only a petulant child. They all turned to look at King, including herself.

"Forgive me for my impudence, Master, but are you hearing yourself?" Vlad asked. "I understand that we are up against an entity that destroyed humanity and that we need all the help we could get, but it is proper conduct for an army to discard any ragtags within its ranks. Trust me when I say that I am coming from a place of experience."

"I am inclined to agree with Lord Vlad, Master," Sanson said. "If it is mercy that you are concerned of, then I commend your compassion, but you can put your faith in the painlessness of my executions."

Martha said nothing, but her eyes glanced between King and Jeanne Alter repeatedly, her gaze lingering on each for a few seconds as they did.

"I understand," King said, his voice still obeying that calm tone of his, "and I agree that she needs to be taken care of—but I'd like to leave that responsibility to me, and me alone."

"Master," d'Eon said slowly, his eyes frowning into concern, "you are aware that this could get violent, are you not?"

"If that turns out to be the truth, then I request your trust that I can handle it myself." He turned to Jeanne Alter. "Then, I ask you again to extend that same trust to Jean that it won't come to that."

"Are… Are you sure, Master?"

"I trust her," he said. Not a 'yes' or 'I am', but reassurance of his trust in her. "Sheath your weapons."

In that moment, her rage dissipated, as if never there in the first place, and with her rage gone, so did her weapons along with her will to fight.

"I… I see," d'Eon said, sheathing his sword. "Then, I'll leave it to you, Master."

"Were you any other man, Master, I would doubt your sanity," Vlad said bluntly. "But a man such as yourself might know what he is talking about. Very well, I shall sheathe my spear."

"As you command, Master," Sanson said simply.

Her four would-be opponents then simply turned and walked away from her, as if mere seconds ago Chaldea's entire structure wasn't at risk from their confrontation. Martha, just as she was passing King, put a hand on his shoulder, and gave him a knowing smile.

Then, all of a sudden, it was just them two again.

"So," Jeanne Alter started, "what are you going to do with me?"

For a brief moment, King did not respond and instead simply stared at her, as if daring her to do anything but ask—but for once she did not bite. No, this time she would swallow her pride, and just ask him.

"Nothing," he said.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

"Nothing?" she asked, not even bothering with a facade over her confusion.

"That is right," he said. "And, Jean, I'd like you to do the same."

He'd… like her to do the same? Nothing? What even–

Suddenly, it hit her like a freight train. A 'moment of Eureka' as the Greeks said according to what the Grail told her.

And she was stumped.

'That's it?'

How annoying. The distance he created between the two of them was not shunning or rejection. He just wanted her to integrate into this whole Chaldea place, didn't he? Do nothing, just be herself and go with the flow. It was laughable to her. Why would she, The Dragon Witch who was not more than a week ago their biggest enemy, play buddy-buddy with the humans and servants some of which wanted her dead?

'Because I can't be by his side otherwise,' came the immediate rebuttal from herself. She sighed. What a meddlesome guy her partner was.

But she couldn't say she was displeased.

"Alright, Master," she said. "I get it. I get it now."

"You do?"

"Mhm," she nodded. "Can't say I like it, and you must be out of your mind telling me what to do, but I get what you're trying to say, and even if I find it annoying, I guess giving it a try won't hurt." Well, she wasn't really sure that was going to be the case. Like, mingling with her self-proclaimed 'sister'? Blegh. She'd rather eat dirt. But for her partner? She'd try it once.

"I see," he said. "Good to hear."

She huffed to his short response. How dare he so nonchalantly resolve all the tension between them with so few words? How dare he tell her to make herself comfortable as if she didn't want to kill him every time she saw him last week? Really, the gall of her partner was incomprehensible. All that just so she could learn how to be herself?

Her cheeks felt tight. Goddamnit, she was smiling, smiling very, very hard.

"Hmph. Alright, I'll humor you. I'll play the good girl the best I can. I won't be pointing my swords at anyone—well, maybe occasionally I will. But… just don't act like—like I don't exist again, alright? After all, we're Partners, aren't we?" she said, her face faltering at the end. This wasn't like her, she thought, but to hell with it. She needed this.

"Yeah," he said after a few seconds of silence, "yes, we are—Partner."

And that was enough for her.

King didn't get it.

He supposed he never did. His sudden uprise of fame starting from two years ago (who the hell just assumes that a guy who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time was actually the vanquisher of the monsters?), the sudden and seemingly unexplainable jumps in logic people made to make him a hero back in his world and a mage in this one, and also smaller things, like how Karna seemed to think that he was some sort of noble figure to be looked up to.

He never truly got any of them; how and why they happened, but he had come to turn the other cheek and simply live with it. He never seemed to be able to stop them from happening, or even foresee them happen, and thinking about them only served him painful headaches that became their own problems.

So, when it came to unexpected developments involving himself, King had learned to stop thinking.

With this, he could not do that.

"Yeah, yes, we are—Partner," he said uneasily, his face for once starting to get tired at keeping up 'The Expression' as he had come to call it. It seemed that he had been using it far more often than ever since coming here, sometimes even subconsciously he had put it on. As such, he'd thought to name it. Well, maybe 'The Expression' wasn't the best name. Work in progress, he supposed.

Jean huffed again, this time carrying the distinct undertone of satisfaction within the sound. He did not know how he satisfied her. He was just carrying on with his day, hoping to avoid any more of her after that near-disastrous mission, en route to the cafeteria to get some lunch. But of course, how could fate just let him be? He just had to come across Jean against four of her former servants with their weapons drawn against each other. His first instinct was to run away—it always was the first thought to rush to his mind in these kinds of situations, run the fuck away—but his tempered psyche immediately told him that running away was a stupid idea. The optics, the chance of his footsteps being heard and rendering it all moot, and a really, really small part of him kicking him for running away from his problems again.

So, he stayed, and after a few agonizing seconds, shouted for them to stop.

And then the really fucking stupid part came in.

"That won't be necessary," he told d'Eon. Then, "I trust her," he told everyone there.

Why did he do that?

He could blame it as a knee-jerk reaction, typical of how he always weaved his words before his mind actually filtered them to prolong, and eventually, escape a particular situation. But he remembered how he felt saying those words—they were heavy, and distinctly coming from within his heart.

But still, why did he have to go and say them?

"Well, I guess I'm going to the cafeteria then. Try out this… 'talking with others' thing. Sounds like a good place to start. You better watch me." Jean's tone had softened compared to their previous interactions, so did her face. He… still didn't get how the bullshit with him panickedly answering 'nothing' calmed her so much.

But he guessed that meant that she wouldn't try to kill him anymore?

"Alright," he said, "see you there."

All's well that ends well. He was just going to go along with it.

Jean gave him one last smirk, before turning around and heading to the cafeteria.

It was then where, suddenly, a thought popped into his head. Jean was the product of a Grail's wish, wasn't she? That was what he heard from Olga and Romani anyway. Then… maybe he could get some info out of her.

"Jean."

"Hm?"

"What do you think of the Holy Grail?"

For a moment, she stopped and put her chin on her fingers, as if thinking carefully about it, but the amused grin could tell anyone that it was a mockery of deep thinking. "I'd wish for humanity's downfall, I guess. Just a few little words and it'll all disappear," she said, before chuckling. "Is what I would've said a while ago, but since my Partner here is trying to save the word, I guess I have to put that on hold. So, nothing. I have nothing for that damned Holy Grail."

'That is not what I was asking,' he thought dryly, but an answer was an answer he supposed.

"Anyway, see you for lunch."

And with that, it was over.

And even if he still didn't get it, King allowed himself a sigh of relief.

He turned back against Jean's retreating figure and into the direction of the Chaldea bathroom. All the tension churned his bladder quite a bit. As he made his way, a thought pricked the back of his mind, namely about Jean. Even if he didn't get the full picture, it was hard to miss that she felt happy somehow, and maybe even grateful for whatever it was that he did. Was it what he said? Saying things like "I trust her" and "Nothing"? He just did that in hopes that she would listen and stop stalking him—to save his own skin.

That, and maybe it did upset him to see her getting slandered like that.

Regardless, he was out of the mess with Jean now, somehow, in one piece. Dare he say, that went well.

'Oh, well. That's my Jean problem settled, I guess?"

Walking inside the cafeteria, Jeanne Alter made up her goal: get lunch like how 'a normal person' might do it. She had shirked this typically necessary routine of one's life in the past week, because if servants don't need to eat, then the ones that do must do it for some damnable 'social' reasons of some kind, and she had decided she didn't want to take any part of that. Well, that wasn't the case anymore. Now, she was going to go eat.

Somehow, it was harder than it sounded.

Her foot tapped impatiently on the cafeteria floor; rhythmic clangs resounding with each tap, drawing even more attention to her than there already was. The mood, she noticed, had immediately changed the moment she entered the damned place. About every single one of the human staff's gazes snapped to her before they returned to their foods with hushed mumbles, while some of the servants—especially the ones who she almost came to blows half an hour ago—had their eyes trained on her constantly. It was, to put it nicely, fucking annoying.

"Pork chops? Wow, Chaldea really is the best! I sure lucked my way to the five-star hotel for servants~" said the pink-haired servant in front of her as he merrily made his way over to his table, leaving no obstacles between her and the counter.

The next few steps she took were accompanied by a deep breath. Alright, this was it. No funny business. Just go up there and ask for lunch. No nothing else.

She slammed her hand on the counter.

"Hey! Where's lunch?"

…

Alright, that might not be it, Jeanne Alter.

The Archer (she remembered him as the one who owned that strange world of gears and weapons) who was clad in a simple gray shirt and apron looked at her with flat eyebrows. Was he looking down on her? Her mouth started to twitch. Maybe her way of asking for food wasn't proper, and his last impressions of her were all of the 'Dragon Witch', and this was her first time here, but surely, those wouldn't warrant a–

"You take your own portions."

Oh.

Hastily, she scooped the assortment of foods onto her tray, not caring to make it look presentable or properly consider the ratios of each part of the meal, and left in a hurry. Because she was… hungry, yes, totally not because she was embarrassed. That was NOT blood rushing to her cheeks, just… lighting, yes.

Sitting at a vacant table, she took a moment to look at the food on the plate. It was unexpectedly… fancy, she thought. She tried to recall memories of food, any kind of food, only to find remembrances of bland rations and stale bread she ate with her soldiers as a show of camaraderie when she was still called 'The Saintess', and before she was called 'Goat Fucker'. There were also faint hints of warm, juicy meals of another life, but she wasn't going to trust that Holy Saint's memories.

So, she had no frame of reference.

For a solid minute, she didn't take a single step towards putting the food—pork chops, apparently—to her mouth. It wasn't until it hit her that her food might get cold did she start haphazardly putting a bite together.

'Err, the sauce on top, then… eat the pork with the fried potatoes? Is that what you're supposed to do?' Oh, to hell with it. It's food, not rocket science. If it really was more complicated than that, then it wasn't going to be worth it anyway.

So, Jeanne Alter clumsily spooned the bite and put it in her mouth.

'Ho-ly. Shit.'

She didn't remember the following seconds, except for what she saw immediately after: an empty plate. Leaning back on her chair, she made an undignified sound through her mouth. Eating, she decided, was fucking awesome.

Then, in the corner of her eyes, she spotted blue, a distinct blue, a blue the Grail told her is named denim blue. Her lips curled. How lucky she was! Not only did she get to eat such a scrumptious meal, but her other target for today was also here.

With a skid, she stood from her chair and made her way towards the man wearing denim on his uniform, standing out like a sore thumb from the rest of the human staff. She wasn't deaf. She heard the rumors sometimes. About how 'that guy in denim' made the plan to turn the army against her. And his name was…

"James?" she called out, placing her hand on his table and leaning towards the chewing man.

And immediately, she felt a drastic shift in the room's atmosphere. She ignored it. This was between him and her.

The man, James, kept chewing the food in his mouth. The only reason she even knew he noticed her was his eyes visibly shifting behind his shades.

"So, were you the one who made the call for, uh, Operation Goat-Fucker? Was that what you called it?" she said nonchalantly, but with an undeniable edge hanging off every word.

James finished chewing, and instead of a reply, she was instead met with a small sigh as he leaned back slightly, head now tilted towards the ceiling, as if she wasn't worth the attention. Her face twitched. Somehow, he was exactly what she expected, yet also far more annoying of a human being. And those shades, how annoying it was to be unable to see the eyes of the person you're talking with.

"A part of me wants to kill you," she said loud and clear with honesty, to which the temperature of the room became low. She thought hard about her next words, and about how it all went down. She became Goat Fucker, then she, in all her anger, decided to kill King, but her haphazard attempts at it only led to that fateful conversation they had in the end of that night. "In fact, I'd kill you in any other circumstance, but if you didn't do that, then maybe I would've never talked with him the way I did that night, so…"

She took a deep breath, and stood up straight away from James.

"Thanks. …That's what you're supposed to say, right?"

He didn't answer. She huffed as she turned her face away from him. The audacity of this man was unfathomable. To slander her name, turn her entire army against her, and sow the seeds of her defeat, only to not even give an answer when she, the offended party, instead thanked him for it. It was slightly humiliating, if she had to be honest.

But, considering she wouldn't have her partner if it wasn't for what he did, the small humiliation was a fair price.

Suddenly, the sound of something plastic clicked from James' direction. She turned back towards him; his shades were off, revealing blue eyes that stared back at hers. There was a small, almost imperceptible small on his face that was slightly obscured by his beard.

For exactly ten seconds, he only stared directly at her eyes without saying anything, before uttering his first words to her:

"You're pretty funny."

"Okay, forget what I just said, I'm killing you now."

That night, Olga Marie would read with knuckles pressed strongly against her forehead about how a certain servant tried to maul one of Chaldea's staff and how several servants had to physically prevent her from going through with it.

In that moment, the first spark of thought on how future potential inter-servants conflict could be handled flew in the director's head.

"I can't believe he just said that!"

"Calm down. He meant nothing with it… I think."

"And what you think is supposed to comfort me? And why are you following me anyway?"

Jeanne had the decency to look sheepish as Jeanne Alter glared at her. They were walking side-by-side, away from the cafeteria, a few minutes after she almost got her hands on that damned James Ryder. She could've done it too, had it not been for all those meddling servants holding her back, including the Ruler beside her.

For the next minute, they walked in silence, the sounds of their boots against the floor being the only sound. The coldness of the halls was starting to creep up on her skin, but not in a way that was uncomfortable.

"So? Why are you still following me?" she asked again, this time not even looking at Jeanne.

"I want to apologize," Jeanne said, drawing her eyes to her. "It wasn't my place to say that you weren't Master's 'Partner'. Your definition's a tad bit different from most people's, but… I think it's great in its own way."

She looked at Jeanne for a moment, taking in what seemed to be genuine regret in her face, before turning her eyes back to the road ahead. "Hmph. As if I need your approval."

"A-Am I really that unpleasant?"

"You're nosy."

"Ack."

"Self-righteous."

"Eek."

"And most importantly, really annoying."

"Ouch."

Jeanne rubbed her shoulders, as if each of Jeanne Alter's words were physical punches. She pinched the bridge of her nose. Why, oh, why did she have to share a face with someone so maiden-like? They weren't supposed to even mingle. Jeanne should be with Martha and Marie, and the rest of the good girls, while she was far more than comfortable with madmen like that knight Berserker and her Partner.

But maybe she could make an exception.

"So I guess I can't shake you off my back, huh?"

Jeanne stared at her, mouth slightly agape, before it transformed to a sickeningly sweet smile. "Of course! I guess I'll be annoying you, then, 'Jeanne'."

"You should probably call me something else, and vice versa."

"Well… I won't mind too much if you want to call me big sis–"

"Don't push your luck."

"Jeanne!"

They both turned back at the voice, it was Ritsuka, calling out to a Jeanne.

He seemed to realize his mistake as he brought his hand to his mouth. "U-Um, sorry. I meant the normal Jeanne– Wait, that's not what I–"

She sighed. This could get annoying fast if she were to integrate into Chaldea as planned. She needed a way to distinguish herself from this self-proclaimed sister of hers. And, wouldn't you know it, the perfect method was already there.

"Jean," she decided.

"Eh?"

"From now on, just call me Jean."

Hey

I swear I'm not writing this Jalter/King shit as romantic lmao. Men and women can have deep platonic relationships!

Anyway, sorry this took so long. Got into a rut of "I'm a shitty writer" thoughtline over and over again and felt like every line I was churning was dogshit (you can be the judge of that). Now, I'm still a subpar writer, but at least I can write again.

This is, yet again, another filler, as I've said in the last chapter. But of course, I'm guessing some of you might be curious on how much filler I've got planned, so I mapped it out below.

The Roadmap to Septem (Subject to Change):

Chapter 26: Astolfo (unintentionally) Challenges Chaldea

Chapter 27: Elizabeth (unfortunately) Wants to Hold a Concert

Chapter 28: The Masters' Daily Life at Chaldea

Chapter 29: The Prelude to Septem

Chapter 30: Septem Starts

Yeah, a lot, isn't it? Well, that just means I got a lot to say.

As always, tell me what you think of the chapter.

Later