Also Known As, If I'd Watched "Fate/EXTRA: Last Encore" Instead . . .
Somewhere else
Unknown time
Darkness—but, within that darkness, a sense of something lighter, moving within it; much like the sun, when seen behind closed eyelids. And a voice, feminine but somehow off, with a timbre not quite human . . .
“—Start, confirmed. Welcome back; a pleasure to see you. Hello, welcome—as always, I’ve kept you waiting for quite a while, Master.”
The term was familiar . . . Or was it the voice? Did he know this person?
“This is the Spiritron World SERIAL PHANTASM,” the voice continued. “Abbreviated as SE.RA.PH and built in virtual space, it is Tsukimihara Academy.” There was a brief pause. “Excuse me, but regulations require me to scan your data values . . .”
Some of this sounded familiar, but it was primarily confusing. Enough of what he was being told sparked recognition, but not enough to bring out details—it was like remembering the information was somewhere in the book, but not the page number.
. . . Why was this happening? And why did it feel like he was halfway between waking and dreaming?
Pulsing lights and sounds that wouldn’t have been out of place on a science-fiction program interrupted what little thought process he had, followed by another set of statements from the mysterious voice.
“Label: Admitted student. Category: Administrative authority, special access. Quality: B- . . . Confirmed. Now then, I will load your records from the Other Side.”
There was another flash, followed by an electronic screech and hiss of static, as the darkness turned to a dull, amber light.
“My apologies,” the voice intoned. “There was a failure in record access. ‘Your name’ is a required field. ‘Your heart’ is a required field. ‘Proof of existence’ is a required field. Please enter your name, gender and contracted Servant once more.”
A screen of sorts appeared before him, dotted with symbols that looked Asian, before an eye-blink at the sudden brightness the screen provided resolved the characters into English letters.
“Gender” was easiest—“male” was entered immediately. After a moment’s thought, a name swam to mind, and he entered that as well (noting that his hands had become both visible and clearly male hands in the process). Spotting an entry for “nickname” in addition, he paused and contemplated it briefly.
“Frid,” he decided, entering the name as he spoke it, before hitting the final confirmation—it was a diminutive of a version of his actual name, so not something that would sound as ridiculous as a white guy with a Japanese name, but not his real one, either.
Once the screen holding that data disappeared, a second one came up, with the words [Running compatibility algorithm, please wait . . . Match found.]
“Confirmed,” the voice said cheerfully. “Thank you for your patience, Mister Frid.”
Why did that bright, happy tone suddenly fill him with dread?
“Good morning,” it continued, blithely oblivious to his thoughts. “Now then, have a safe trip.”
At those words, the world suddenly went white—and “dread” swiftly gave way to “panic” . . .
Tsukimihara Academy (?)
Far Side, Moon Cell
The last few hours (had it been only hours?) had been trying, to put it mildly.
To start with, Frid had apparently found himself in the world of Fate/EXTRA—which was not only quite different from being dead, as he’d expected to be, it wasn’t the world of the Works’ home base, either, which he’d have expected Ilya to recall him to if he had survived that mess in Trifas.
Given what happened, and what we had to do to try and fix it, I’m amazed I died that late—if I did in fact die . . .
After all, if XX’s predestination paradox held true, he still had to—and would, regardless of what happened around him—survive long enough to meet her younger self, somehow.
Still, this was concerning, to understate things to a criminal degree. Unless the Moon Cell functioned very differently from what he’d read, there was no way for it to have recorded him at all, so what the hell was he doing here . . .?
There was no sign of Shiki, either, which crossed off the most obvious theory: that Ilya had finally cracked the Moon Cell’s protections to the point where he could be sent in as backup. Which shouldn’t have been an issue, since Rin had said Shiki had gotten out of that mess—but given how time had apparently been reacting around him, it wouldn’t be (all that) surprising to find himself having a hand in things, retroactively . . .
(Though why Ilya would send him, exactly, given that he’d lost his druidic identity and Shiki’s own issues indicated that Mystic Eyes were unreliable in the Moon Cell was unclear. Maybe it was simply that the Moon Cell likely didn’t have a record of him, therefore couldn’t spot him as an obvious anomaly—like, for example, as a duplicate of a pre-existing record)?
Then again, his current “self” (digitised body? Avatar? He wasn’t quite sure how the manifestations worked) in the Moon Cell wasn’t quite correct, either. As Godafrid Úa Súilleabháin, he’d been in his mid-twenties; as Kieran Holt, he’d been not much older, appearance-wise, though the ageless qualities of his elven blood made it difficult to judge. Without the input of outside elements, he ought to be a middle-aged, six-foot, 72-kilogram Caucasian weakling with light chestnut hair, blue eyes, permanently bent knees, spaghetti arms, and more physical ailments than a single human being really ought to be allowed to suffer.
The height was correct, as was the colouration, but as to the rest? He looked about student age—a decade younger, minimum, than he really ought to be—and with the wiry kind of build that he associated with Shiki. It was a lot closer to his original self than Kieran or Godafrid, but a lot more toned and in-shape than that incarnation of him ever had been.
Moreover, he was currently dressed in a school uniform—something he’d never worn in his life. It wasn’t the standard Fate/EXTRA uniform, either; where that one had the pale, sandy colours of the uniforms Shirou and Rin’s school used, this was a black-with-white-trim number that he actually thought looked kind of sharp . . . Although why his brain—and the Moon Cell—identified it as “Mystic Code: Memoria of the Far Side of the Moon,” he had no idea. Wasn’t that supposed to be from Fate/Grand Order . . .?
And that was another oddity: unlike seemingly everyone else here, he still possessed his memories, rather than the preprogrammed personas of “normal high school students” the Moon Cell forced on prospective Masters—though it seemed a lot more laidback about it than he remembered. They might be “in school,” but he didn’t remember the classes actually talking about Heroic Spirits in the game playthroughs he’d seen, whereas here . . .
Still, even aside from those oddities, Frid appeared to be a few steps beyond even that. For example, he could see Command Seals on his hand, and actually had access to a terminal; which he could and did use to check the status of things. Although, when he tried to find out why he had all these privileges, it only told him that he was rated as “Administrator: Special Access,” whatever that meant (though at least now, he could guess why he had the status in the first place).
And the fact that his “terminal” looked like a smartphone—something else he’d never touched in his life—Frid put down to the Moon Cell’s apparent sense of humour; it did cast Kirei Kotomine as the administrator of its Holy Grail War, after all . . .
Regardless, he could safely say that he had no certain idea of where or when he was: there were enough inconsistencies to allow for doubt, after all. Including not only a cerise-haired chick who seemed to be playing the part of Shinji’s henchwoman (he refused to consider the idea that Shinji Matou had a girlfriend), but the presence of Hakuno Kishinami—and the female version, at that—within this same pseudo-setting.
At least the confirmation of her presence allowed her to take on her usual role, rather than him; given his luck and the strange circumstances, he’d not have been surprised to find out that this setting regarded him as Hakuno’s placeholder, otherwise. And if he’d wound up finding Shinji Matou acting like his “friend,” Frid would’ve made a genuine effort to discover whether the rule against attacking Masters outside of the Arena was enforced before the Grail War had actually started.
Plus, Hakuno-chan, it had to be admitted, was kind of cute . . .
No—those were bad thoughts, bad thoughts! Regardless of gender, Hakuno had the Sorcery Trait “Eroge Protagonist”—no good would come of associating with her!
. . . Besides, Frid admitted to himself, he was probably just seeing elements of Fiore in her.
(Whom, he’d found out, had grown to be an Olympic medal winner in gymnastics, in this magic-deprived world—which, much like the presence of Sialim Eltnam, he attributed to TYPE-MOON’s desire to flip expectations in the EXTRAverse.)
Still, it wasn’t the same; Hakuno’s chestnut hair was a shade darker, but that wasn’t as noticeable when it gleamed under the sun. It also wasn’t as wavy, but it always caught his attention when it moved, just the same—
The sudden blaring of alarms caught his attention—as did the flashing red lights that washed over the entire area. The announcement that 128 slots were now available for all remaining potential Masters (effectively meaning “kill your way to a spot now, or else”) was even more so.
Fortunately, it appeared to be easy enough to secure himself a spot and soothe his conscience: Shinji’s Number One Hanger-On came at him, and apparently had no idea how to actually fight. If it had been one of the EXTRA characters he knew—barring the Harways, the crazy cannibal lady, the idiot who’d corrupted Arcueid (and wow, this place was a target-rich environment, wasn’t it?)—it might’ve been an issue, but a non-entity whose best reference was Shinji . . .?
Yeah, no.
So, his spot was locked in easily enough, all he had to do was summon a Servant, and hope he didn’t wind up facing Hakuno, somehow . . .
Frid glanced at his hand again, suddenly realising why the design looked familiar—
Again—yeah, no. In fact, not only no, but HELL, NO!
Frid manifested a keyboard.
[Administrator Override Authorisation Accepted—Summoning Program Paused. Open Data Search . . . Match Found. Open File in New Window. . . Merge Existing Files? Y/N? Y—]
[Save File As ******]
[Warning: Relevant Data to File Detected in Administrator Data. Advancing Decision to Primary Core . . .]
[Core Decision: Priority: Fulfilling Administrator Desire—Copying Necessary Data. Estimated Time to Completion: 999 Cycles.]
[Resume Summoning Program . . . ]
Wide-eyed, the little girl in black Victorian dress stared at her hands, and then around her. “Alice is . . .? Alice is alive . . .?”
“Alice, Nursery Rhyme,” Frid said. “I wasn’t willing to lose either of you—or break you up, for that matter.”
The Caster Demi-Servant—or maybe Pseudo-Servant; it was hard to tell, since neither of them had a body to possess . . .
“Nursery Rhyme . . .” Alice repeated, nodding. “Alice is Nursery Rhyme. Nursery Rhyme is Alice. Servant, Caster . . .”
She curtsied, as a properly-raised Victorian girl ought to, and introduced herself, “Hello to the wonderful you. Let’s make this a beautiful dream . . .” She hesitated briefly, drawing inward with a shy blush, before asking, very quietly, “Can I call you ‘Big Brother,’ Mister . . .?”
Writer's Notes: Because I just finished Nursery Rhyme's "arc," and I am seriously considering throwing this set against a wall . . .