Lords of fate: tireless battle in the burning midday sun

[lantzblades]

Lantz sighed “The urge to quote certain comedic gentlemen is rising rapidly but I’ll refrain for the moment. Mike stop being argumentatively bi polar and accept that, for the moment you aren’t in a place where opinion matters absolutely. Life is too hard here for the idea of democratic rule to take hold. Further there’s a stigma to such an idea when your king is immortal and a god of war so to speak. And which is it? Are we friends or aren’t we?”

Lantz paused “As for my strength, well I think that Emiya Shirou would agree that if you only did things when you had the strength to do them the world would be a sorry place”

Rin corrected mike after hearing him speak “queen, we have a queen” her voice showing a bit of disbelief and awkwardness as if she wasn't sure if she was lying.


Merlin merely sighed and began to speak “firstly so we don’t spend all day standing around that man there is called lotus saint. Secondly, it is as Lantz says this era is not yours and such ideas are alien to the people here. Ideal and reality do not often meet perfectly, least of all here. And Finally the sister of whom you refer was within the borders of the darkened king a short time ago. Though I am unsure of where she is now.”

Morgan simply looked on impassively not volunteering any information.

[SeiKeo]

Shiki heard the comments from Lantz and Merlin. She then just stood there, and waited for her partners response: she didn't doubt at all that it would be explosive.

[Mike1984]

Wait, so not only am I with a scientist, I'm with a mad scientist? This guy's rambling on about routes, and saving people, and of course he's still going on about the king? The mad ones are smarter anyways. But....

I walk up to Mike and grasp his shoulder. "As much as I can see your desire to get these secrets out now, don'tcha think it'd be best to wait until we get settled in? Bit of an awkward time for revelations."

Feeling Shiki grabbing hold of my shoulder, I momentarily calm down. Then, hearing her concern, I respond to her question.

"But, if Shirou is from the ro.. sto.., erm, if Shirou followed the path I think he followed, then I don't think he's going to go with us unless he has a reason to want to talk to me. So, I simply have no choice but to tell him at least some of it now. Still, I understand your wish to get moving, and I'll try to be as quick as possible about this. Hopefully Rin will answer the basic questions, and I can explain the details later."

I start molesting my chin with my right hand 'This is going to take longer than I thought'.

"While I won't give my name away just yet, I will say the initials for my name are 'L' and 'S'."

I swear to god if this takes too long...

Moving away from Shiki slightly, I turn to the man opposite me.

"Look, I have more fucking important things to think about right now than some 'guess the troll' competition. Just tell me your name or shut the fuck up", I say, losing my patience with his bullshit.

Wait, troll? Called "LS"?

Ah, I see.

Well, that figures, I guess. Lotus is certainly the sort of moron who would wind me up in this way. But, still, if he's going to troll me, then I see no reason to acknowledge him by actually giving him a valid response. So, I keep quiet, and let him think I'm still unsure.

Lantz sighed “The urge to quote certain comedic gentlemen is rising rapidly but I’ll refrain for the moment. Mike stop being argumentatively bi polar and accept that, for the moment you aren’t in a place where opinion matters absolutely. Life is too hard here for the idea of democratic rule to take hold. Further there’s a stigma to such an idea when your king is immortal and a god of war so to speak. And which is it? Are we friends or aren’t we?" Lantz paused “As for my strength, well I think that Emiya Shirou would agree that if you only did things when you had the strength to do them the world would be a sorry place”

Sighing, I respond to Lantz. "Why does life being hard limit democracy? And, in any case, I'm not talking about democracy. I couldn't give a fuck how the rulers are chosen, as long as they don't expect people to treat them differently and obey them without question, and don't oppress people with different views from them. Who makes the law is irrelevant to me, because I don't obey it anyway. What interests me is what laws they make, and how harshly and inflexibly they enforce them. An oppressive democracy is every bit as bad as a oppressive dictatorship. It's just less likely, because of the nature of the systems. As for the "stigma" associated with the idea, once again, that's not the fucking point. The point is that people should be allowed to express their own opinion and do things their own way, not to be forced to obey some arbitrary dictator or else suffer torture and an agonisingly painful death."

I sigh sadly as I come on to the topic of our friendship. "As for being friends, well, I don't know any more, honestly. I mean, thought we were friends, but I also thought that friends didn't usually threaten to kill each other, especially not in support of some evil fascist dictator."

"I know you have some bizarre opinion of Alter being somehow 'misunderstood', but she's not. She's an evil fascist, and I will not let her oppress this world. If that means that I have to kill you, then so be it. And, honestly, if you're supporting that evil bitch then I'm not sure I even want to call you a friend, because people who care more about maintaining order than doing what is right are the worst sort of people. At least with someone truly evil you can deal with them, by force if necessary. Moronic rule-followers are much harder to get past, because they sincerely believe that ensuring that form 134D is stamped in triplicate is more important than stopping the city burning down."

"Just look at Tokiomi. He was more fucking interested in following some fucking centuries-old non-aggression pact than in ensuring the well-being of his own fucking daughter, and then even forced that bullshit into the mind of her elder sister too, to the point that she won't even acknowledge that her fucking sister exists, even when she's told directly that she's being abused. That's the sort of bullshit you get when you obey the rules without question even when they're so clearly and utterly wrong, and I'd rather die than let that sort of philosophy come to rule over this country, and maybe even world."

"And, with regards to your 'strength', you're totally missing the fucking point. Any government which bases the rights of the people on how 'strong' they are is one which should be destroyed as soon as possible, not supported. And, it's all well and good saying that you don't need to be strong to do the right thing, but that only works if you are actually doing the right thing, like Shirou does. It's absolutely absurd to act as fucking selfishly as you are without the strength to back it up. Seriously, what possible reason could you have for wanting to support Alter? She's a fucking evil dictator, she does not deserve any kind of help whatsoever."

Rin corrected mike after hearing him speak “queen, we have a queen” her voice showing a bit of disbelief and awkwardness as if she wasn't sure if she was lying.

"Ah, yeah, that makes sense, I gue...", I say, politely, my voice drifting off as I remember what I had just told her.

"Hang on, what about your sister?" I shout, angrily. "Do you not care that she's being tortured? Has your idiot father brainwashed you that much that you can't even acknowledge her existence?"

Merlin merely sighed and began to speak “firstly so we don’t spend all day standing around that man there is called lotus saint. Secondly, it is as Lantz says this era is not yours and such ideas are alien to the people here. Ideal and reality do not often meet perfectly, least of all here. And Finally the sister of whom you refer was within the borders of the darkened king a short time ago. Though I am unsure of where she is now.

Hearing Merlin start to speak, and once again to attempt to defend his authoritarian government, my mind blanks out. But, then, I hear him mention the "sister" that I was referring to.

Wait, Sakura is here? Maybe I can save her more direct...

And, then, I realised the second part of his statement, and my mood changed.

Wait, did he say that she was in Alter's country? SHIT, that's not good....

"Crap, if Sakura is in Alter's country, then she needs help. We have to find her and rescue her, before Alter gets hold of her and does.... Well, I dread to think what she'll do to Sakura if she captures her", I say.

Then, I turn to address Lantz, shouting angrily and barely restraining myself from punching my former friend in the face.

"Lantz, are you really going to support that bitch still? You're not only condemning this world to oppression, but you're also going to cause Sakura to suffer at Alter's hands. Sorry, but I simply can't allow that. If you go with Alter, I promise that I will kill you personally. I'm fucking sick of your constant willingness to sacrifice Sakura at the first fucking opportunity, and this time you're just going too damn far. It's one thing to write a story which fucks her over, but this isn't a game. If you let Alter get hold of her, she dies for real, and there is no way in hell I am going to let that happen on my watch. That bitch has to be stopped, and anyone who actively wants to assist her despite knowing her true nature deserves nothing more than to lie in the grave beside her".

"Tohsaka? You have a sister?"

Then, finally, having seen Rin's apparent reluctance to respond to Shirou's question, I choose to instead answer him myself, and explain the situation.

"Well, since Rin seemingly isn't willing to acknowledge the existence of her own fucking sister, I guess I'll have to do it for her", I say, angrily.

"Rin's sister is Sakura. Yes, I know it seems odd, but she was handed over to the Matou family at the age of four by her idiot father, and then tortured for eleven years in the most horrific manner. Her only happiness in life is the time she spends with you. Her grandfather is an evil monster who implanted worms in her to allow him to control her, torture her and even kill her on a whim", I say, sadly.

"She needs help, Shirou. If she's here like Merlin claims, and in Alter's territory, she'll need to be rescued, before it's too late", I say. "But, it's not that simple. If you come with us, I'll explain everything in more detail, and you can help her when you get home too".

[Ace]

I grinned. "Oh, don't worry about that, O-," with a tap on his nose, "nii-," tap, "chan," tap. "I'm sure we'll spend lots of time talking with each other soon enough." Just for that added bit of oomph, I crossed my arms underneath my breasts in emphasis.

Shirou couldn't help but blush. Geez, who the hell taught Ilya to act like that! He was interrupted from his thoughts as Lantz and Mike continued arguing with each other. For friends they didn't seem to get a long very well....

“As for my strength, well I think that Emiya Shirou would agree that if you only did things when you had the strength to do them the world would be a sorry place”

Wait, what was Lantz saying? They had never met before so why did he act as if they did? Mike also seemed to know more about him then he should as well.... Their argument got more intense with Mike even threatening to kill Lantz. Even though Shirou didn't know anything about them he still thought it was bad for friends to fight like that. He didn't want anyone dying if he could help it.

"Rin's sister is Sakura. Yes, I know it seems odd, but she was handed over to the Matou family at the age of four by her idiot father, and then tortured for eleven years in the most horrific manner. Her only happiness in life is the time she spends with you. Her grandfather is an evil monster who implanted worms in her to allow him to control her, torture her and even kill her on a whim", I say, sadly.

"She needs help, Shirou. If she's here like Merlin claims, and in Alter's territory, she'll need to be rescued, before it's too late", I say. "But, it's not that simple. If you come with us, I'll explain everything in more detail, and you can help her when you get home too".

Rin's sister is Sakura....? Now that he thought about it, they looked sort of alike? Their hair colours were completely different. But what was Mike saying? Sakura never mentioned her grandfather before nor did he ever see him. Shinji and Sakura lived alone didn't they? Besides, what was this about worms? It just didn't make any sense. How did he know any of this? "Mike, was it? Sakura's grandfather is dead, I think. How do you know any of this? Why do you and Lantz both talk like you know me...?"