DISCLAIMER: Lunar Legend Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night, and all related characters and concepts are the creation and property of Kinoko Nasu and TYPE-MOON, along with whomever they’ve happened to license them to, such as Geneon, Funimation, A-1 Pictures and Netflix.
This is a not-for-profit, just-for-fun project.
Sighișoara, Romania
June 30, 2004
Rin sighed as she settled into the hotel room. She’d been raised to be frugal, but she had to admit, it was nice to splurge every once in a while . . .
Not that there was a whole lot to this hotel—it was a “bed-and-breakfast” inn, not a five-star chain hotel. But as foreign as it was, there was a sense of coziness that she had to admit she liked. There were heavy blankets were on the bed, thick, shaggy rugs on the floor; meals were served in a Western-style dining room, but in a home kitchen rather than the industrial sort that a larger hotel would use.
There was also a minimum of electronic record-keeping, which made it less likely her name would pop up on anyone’s radar. Most magi weren’t up-to-date on technological capabilities—Rin herself (grudgingly) included—but there were always outliers; the Magus Killer was simply the most blatant example. It was part of why she was based here, rather than in Trifas proper, where the Grail War was to take place.
The presence of a magus in Yggdmillennia territory at this point in time virtually screamed “Association/Master of Red,” after all.
Of course, just because Rin was out of their city, it hardly meant she was out of their sphere of influence. Given what Yggdmillennia was pulling, they’d want to put agents out to locate incoming magi, so they were aware of retaliatory strikes before they were literally on their front doorstep. Fortunately, she had a cheat available: access to a Holy Grail that was capable of detecting potential Masters over the range of its system, and the ability to communicate with her.
Ilya’s senses weren’t a perfect fix; not every potential Master was a magus, and vice versa—Rin knew that better than anyone, after all. But she still had a hell of a lot more warning than any other magus in town of any competitors’ presence, which was a comfort. Especially when she had no idea who the hell else Zelretch might’ve drafted into this thing . . .
Kotomine Shirou.
Just thinking the name made her want to retch. Imagining what that bastard might have twisted Shirou into, given the blank slate he must have been when the Magus Killer found him . . . As distorted as the idiot was, at least there was something in him capable of caring. But if he’d been, not sacrificed like the rest of those poor children, but actually raised under Kirei . . .?
He would be a monster, walking around with her friend’s face (just a FRIEND!)—no more human than a Dead Apostle, Rin was sure, and less so than Zelretch.
The Servant class was enough of a tip-off, really; she knew that Kirei had been the Master of the Fourth War’s Assassin. That told her all she really needed to know about this analogue’s probable style, intentions, and personality. And according to the brief she’d been given, he was supposed to be the Church’s “official overseer”—which should raise alarms in itself, given the apparent existence in this War of a Heroic Spirit whose job was exactly that.
No, Rin was staying as far away from “Kotomine Shirou” as she could reasonably get. They might be listed as being in the same faction, but she was damned certain that they weren’t on the same side—and that there was something being plotted behind the scenes.
Really, Rin sympathised even more with Shirou’s frustration over not being able to do more with this. She was absolutely terrified—or she would be, if she let herself actually stop to think about what she was liable to be up against. Right now, her best hope was that Zelretch wasn’t selecting the members of this “Red Faction” solely for the purpose of screwing her over . . .
. . . And even that wasn’t her only hope.
None of the other Works personnel had actually asked, out loud, what Rin planned to do in regards to her Servant for this War. To summon a Servant, of course, one needed either high compatibility, or a catalyst, and preferably both—and for one Servant in particular, she did. A Servant she both cared about, and wanted to strangle; one that she could never trust around Shirou, or the Works, because he was liable to try and destroy one or both . . . But she could rely on him to come when she called.
And so, when she found an appropriately undisturbed space, and Ilya assured her she was unobserved, the Japanese magus got to work.
“For the elements: silver and iron.
The foundation: stone and the archduke of pacts,
And for my great master Schweinorg, let RED be the colour that I pay tribute to.
“Close the four gates, come forth from the crown,
And follow the forked road leading to the kingdom.
Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill—repeat five times, but when each is filled,
Destroy it.
“Heed my words: my will creates your body, and your sword creates my destiny.
If you heed the Grail’s call, and obey my will and reason, then answer me!
“I hereby swear that I shall be all the good in the world;
And that I shall defeat all evil in the world.
Seventh Heaven, clad in the Great Words of Power,
From the binding circle: thou, Guardian of the Scales!”
As expected, the blast of power erupted, forming into a familiar, red-clad shape—and as before, he smirked lazily at her before drawling, “My, my. Looks like I’ve—”
“Shut it, EMIYA,” the magus hissed icily. “We’ve got too much work to do for your bullshit.”
Archer started, nonplused. “Huh?”
Rin adopted a smirk of her own, savouring the look on his face.
Millennia Fortress
Trifas, Romania
July 1, 2004
Anyone who noted the tension in Frid’s posture as he walked the halls of the castle Yggdmillennia had claimed as their home might’ve been forgiven for assuming that it had to do with the literal army of golems and homunculi that could be glimpsed gathering in various places around the grounds. In point of fact, the source of said tension was a lot simpler—and more complicated, all at once.
I’m ENGAGED?! How the HELL did THAT happen? I’ve dated exactly once in my entire life and that relationship crashed and burned spectacularly!
Again, most people would be forgiven for assuming that he would be freaking out over being at ground zero for the mystical death match about to start—and if he’d actually been a genuine, trained-from-birth magus, Frid probably would’ve been. There were two factors that prevented him from doing that, however.
First and foremost, Frid’s identity and life had been grafted onto a man who’d been literally months away from being eligible for the title role in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”; someone who’d given up on all possibility of something like this ever happening. And secondly, from what little Frid had been able to glean from memory about “his” life before waking up on that plane, he didn’t know about what Yggdmillennia planned to do.
And that, of course, meant that freaking out over something he shouldn’t actually be aware of would raise a nice, big warning flag to the clan of paranoid magi whose stronghold he was currently walking through—decked out in neon lights, no less.
So, better to focus on the freak-out topic that wasn’t liable to get him immediately killed and/or vivisected (one did not preclude the other), since, while he’d never seen evidence of it, mind-reading was apparently a thing that TYPE-MOON magi could do.
. . . Although, that was assuming that Saber wasn’t just being a jerk to Shirou, of course—or a mistranslation by the dubbing people. Still, better safe than strapped to a table; he seemed to recall that Astolfo’s Master had a thing for bondage dungeons . . .
“Seemed to recall”—honestly, that was part of the problem.
Depending on how you looked at it, Frid was a pushing-forty menial labourer, gamer and geek who’d woken up from what had to be a fever dream with an additional quarter-century of memories in his head—with supporting evidence of identity—or . . .
Or he was a twenty-five-year-old magus who’d woken up remembering almost forty years' worth of memories—with a supporting personality—that told him everything around him was ultimately fictional; at least, from his perspective. The dissonance between the two identities was making it hard to sort through everything, since he’d either increased his life experiences by sixty percent, or one hundred and sixty percent, and a lot of them overlapped.
If he’d been, say, a wizard in the style of the “Harry Potter” series, with access to Occlumency—or perhaps a druid with a genius-level intellect and a Wisdom score eclipsing that of many deities—then maybe it would’ve been easier to handle. But as it was, straightening out who he was, what he knew, and how, was taking time.
Thus, he was kind of fixated on the one point, right now.
According to the memories he’d managed to untangle, they’d first met in London, as fellow prowlers of the Clock Tower’s library. Fiore was a first-rate magus, with a heart and older sister issues, not unlike a certain other “Fate” heroine—though really, it seemed to be a standard magus design . . .
(In a town some distance to the North, as well as one in the Far East, certain magi sneezed. The former vowed vengeance if she found out Shirou had taken her name in vain; the latter merely continued listening to her acquaintance’s proposition.)
In any case, the teenager was lovely, intelligent, charming, and enthusiastic about learning; qualities his misanthropic self—one of the many points of commonality between his lives—had little defence against. When it came to social cues, he might be oblivious enough to qualify as a harem protagonist (honestly, too—that one attempt at dating? He’d had no clue the girl was into him until she’d said so), but he also had manners.
Seriously—when a pretty girl smiled upon seeing him, and invited him to sit, with no knowledge of ill-intent on her part he was aware of, he was supposed to refuse . . .?
They’d become friends, basically, and (while they’d each eventually left the Clock Tower, for one reason or another) kept in touch. It had actually encouraged Fiore to learn to use a cell phone, even if she’d been embarrassed at needing her little brother to teach her how—something he was reasonably sure that “canon” Fiore hadn’t really known how to do. For that matter, neither had he; his only cell phone had been an analogue one, and used only briefly.
The engagement request had come from her patriarch, Darnic—and hadn’t that been a surprise . . .
The actual origin and meaning of the name “Súilleabháin” and its variants was in some dispute; all most scholars could agree on was that it referred to the eyes: “bright-eyed,” “hawk-eyed,” or something similar. In Nasuvian lore, of course, that sort of name brought to mind a very specific connotation—as such, Frid had been unsurprised that his family’s work had revolved around refining their genetic propensity for, and the general power of, their Mystic Eyes.
In Japanese, what Frid possessed was called the “Yoseigan”—which sounded like it more rightly belonged in “Naruto” than the “Fate” series—alternately translated into “Fairy Eye,” “Glam Sight,” and (his personal nickname for it) “What is Seen Cannot Be Unseen.” In layman’s terms, it allowed him to see and make sense of things that the brain normally couldn’t process; high-speed movement was usually the given example. And it was true: using the Yoseigan, he could keep up with the kind of fighting Enforcers, Executors, or assassins like Soichiro Kuzuki, were trained to engage in—it was very handy for not just going down like a chump when he encountered one.
But it was more than that. Being able to see everything the eye possibly could, and see past the kind of bounded fields that used mental manipulation instead of physically bending light; being able to translate any writing, instantly . . . The eventual goal, Frid knew, was to see a way to the Root, but for the here and now?
It made spotting and disarming magical locks, and traps, a hell of a lot easier—hence his being hired for this job. . . Aside from the part the whole “fiancée” thing had to do with it, at least.
. . . And how the hell had he wound up with one of those, again?
Frid shook his head. Honestly, with the way he was having trouble sorting out his mind, and the general circumstances—if that fever dream had anything to do with reality, then he’d have suspected someone had slapped a Dungeons and Dragons true reincarnation or true resurrection spell on him. But those built a physical body out of elements of the world, if physical remains were unavailable to be transformed. That would explain his being a magus, but how would a TYPE-MOON world’s elements would have been available to use in the first place?
In a particular tube in the dungeons of the Millennia Fortress, taped to its otherwise empty insides, was a note:
Dear Yggdmillennia,
I.O.U. one (1) homunculus.
Sincerely,
Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg
P.S. Challenge accepted!
Taking a deep breath, Frid reminded himself that the metaphysics and reasons behind however he’d ended up here was, at this point, immaterial. Right now, he had a delivery to finish, and a boss to report to—who just happened to be his nineteen-year-old fiancée, and the mirror image of India Eisley at that age . . .
I’m almost freaking forty—so why do I feel like I’m back in high school . . .?
Fiore fidgeted in her chair, turning the tray of pastries on the table in front of her to be just so—making that the eighth time she had done so in the last five minutes.
Caules sighed. It was a sigh of long-suffering that would’ve been familiar to any sibling. While there was a certain impish delight to be had in watching his big sister squirm like this, by now it had long since passed the point of amusement and was rapidly descending towards the point of being irritating.
“Fiore,” he said at last, “there’s no need to get so worked up—”
“Ah!” Fiore bolted upright in her chair, startled, before looking to him, her complexion darkening in embarrassment. Though whether that was because of her behaviour, or the fact that she’d apparently forgotten he was even in the room, Caules couldn’t say.
“Sorry,” she murmured, not elaborating of what she was apologising for. “I’m just worried. We know his plane got in on time, but he didn’t call or come to the castle—”
“Because it was three in the morning,” Caules pointed out reasonably. “He likely got to sleep during the flight, but he wouldn’t have woken us that early outside of an emergency.”
Godafrid Úa Súilleabháin could fairly be said to be a lot of things—and “tactful” wasn’t always one of them—but he was generally polite.
“You’re right,” his sister admitted. “But I sent him on this mission, and if anything went wrong . . .” She worried her lower lip anxiously. “Even when catalysts like this are easy to find, they’re heavily guarded; if he got hurt . . .”
“You didn’t send him because he was the easiest to contact, or the cheapest,” Caules said. “You sent him because you could trust him to get the job done, and because he’s good at what he does.”
All true things—Caules had been amazed that Fiore had needed to badger the man into working for cost, never mind a fee. It wasn’t exactly the most financially sensible way to operate . . .
But that same sentimentality makes him an ideal match for Fiore, the younger magus thought. Especially when it’s paired with a vindictive streak like he’s got . . .
He hadn’t been sure what to expect of his big sister’s “pen-pal”—and knowing Fiore like he did, Caules assumed that she was seeing him more positively than the man deserved—so he’d done some digging of his own. Especially once Lord Darnic had proposed engaging Fiore to him; that was the head of Yggdmillennia’s right, but Caules was still going to make sure that Fiore was happy, regardless of all else.
What he’d discovered painted the picture of a magus . . . Who wasn’t much of one, really.
Oh, he had a bloodline of some age and recognition, but never a lot of influence or renown; and seeming little to no interest in the politics of the nobles above him. And he was regarded as intelligent and interested in learning, but he seemed to perform few if any experiments of his own, preferring to acquire knowledge from books, or scouring sites across the world for information—again, much like Fiore herself. Save that he tended to use his magecraft in meddlesome, albeit subtle, ways in the non-magical world around him. Wherever he tended to set up shop, for example, street crime rates took a sudden and sharp decline . . .
Which, Caules admitted, Fiore might also do, if our magecraft and Mystic Codes were such that she could manage it without drawing attention.
He also had a reputation in the mundane world as a translator and code-breaker; be it digital encryption or a long-dead pictograph, few ciphers could withstand his skills, apparently—and they were in high enough demand to command quite the sum. Even if the Yggdmillennia name and fortunes didn’t support the siblings, his income could have, and it would make a nice addition to the family coffers.
And that was on the mundane side of things; as a magus, there was the Mystic Eye trait of his bloodline to consider, and the fact that while he had only eleven Magic Circuits, they were apparently some kind of mutation—unusually dense, and as a result, strong enough to be capable of generating more, or denser, levels of prana than they would otherwise be able to support without sustaining damage . . .
Which might be capable of fixing Fiore’s legs, Caules mused to himself, if we could figure out how to transfer the quality; a denser, more robust set of Circuits might alleviate the strain that using them puts on her nervous system. But even if it doesn’t, if that quality is transferrable to any degree on a genetic level, like the Mystic Eyes supposedly are for his family . . .
The result, Caules supposed, could be a magus of truly terrifying capability—which made Lord Darnic’s proposition a sensible, even desirable one. But that was the political, and magus level of things. On the personal side—
Caules’ thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a maid, announcing the very subject of his thoughts; followed shortly by the man himself appearing.
“Good morning, Lady Fiore,” the freelancer said crisply, his professional expression spoiled somewhat by an underlying warmth in his voice, and a slight reddening of his cheeks. He turned and added in a slightly cooler tone. “Lord Caules.”
Caules nodded in response to the older man’s own, which prompted the freelancer to return his attention to Fiore, and continue, “I am pleased to announce the successful completion of the task you set me.” He un-slung the oddly patterned tube from his back—a carrying case such as were used for maps, scrolls, and similar documents.
“Behold!” he pronounced dramatically. “The BLUEPRINTS OF FRANKENSTEIN!”
In all defiance of the warm summer morning and the sunshine pouring in through the windows, ominous thunder rolled.
To her own embarrassment, Fiore eeped at the sudden sound, as Caules jumped—then stared at their guest, even as one hand rose to rub his temples.
“Did you honestly just use illusion magecraft for a practical joke . . .?” her little brother groaned disbelievingly.
“My sense of the dramatic demanded no less,” Frid confirmed with a grin. “I mean, how many chances am I going to get for something like that?”
Fiore quickly brought her hand up to cover a giggle. Frid’s sense of humour could be odd at times—and inappropriate or dark in how and when it chose to come out—but there was a good-natured irreverence to it that tickled her own fancy. It was one of his more attractive features.
Not that he’s short of them, she thought, feeling her cheeks heat up again. With a deep breath, Fiore calmed herself; it wouldn’t do to give Caules more fodder to tease her with.
“If he realised how besotted you were with him, you might be in trouble,” her little brother had pointed out after their last phone call. “At least, you might be if he wasn’t already wrapped around your finger.”
Her face had burned for hours after that remark, and it put her future plans in a sour context. She was sure he would do as she asked, or at least try . . . But she didn’t like what it said about her that she was going to ask in the first place.
How could she not, though—?
Her attention was seized by the opening of the case, and the careful, almost reverential actions of removing and unrolling the pages that had been contained inside. Fiore leaned over to get a closer look as they were spread across the table—far from the pastries and coffee tray, obviously.
They were remarkably intact, given their age and the likely state they’d been in at the time they were last used—yellowed, naturally, and the inks were far from as vibrant as they could’ve been after nearly two centuries, of course. But the sort of water and mildew damage and outright fading one would’ve expected from a mundane document of this age, exposed to the elements, was not present.
“As I told you, I started in Ingolstadt,” Frid said. “Mainly having Shelley’s ‘novel’ to use as a basis for investigation, it made sense to begin where Victor was educated, and began his original experiments—I felt if the ‘creation’ scene held any accuracy, it was unlikely that he’d taken and carried the blueprints with him from that point.”
There would be more to it than that, of course, Fiore knew. Frankenstein had been a magus, if an unconventional one; even a satellite workshop, not intended to be permanent, would’ve been hidden, had defences . . .
“Failing that, I felt that the next best place to pick up traces was in the Orkneys,” he continued.
Where Frankenstein worked on the bride the creature demanded, Fiore mentally finished for him, the one he destroyed before completion.
“And I admit, that was a search,” Frid confessed. “Shelley didn’t exactly go into detail on where Victor was, and trying to trace a magus’ path from two centuries ago across all those little islands? Not easy.”
Fiore’s eyes lowered in shame. “I’m deeply sorry for making you go to so much trouble . . .”
He grinned—Frid almost never showed his teeth, but the degrees to which his mouth stretched differentiated his smiles from his smirks.
“I enjoyed it, and you knew I would,” he countered. “I told you I’d do something this fun for free.”
Her face heated up again. He had, too—but she’d had her pride. Still, she could imagine him tramping across the moors, senses alert for every possible detail, checking off areas on a map, making entries in his notebook . . .
She’d watched him do it in the Clock Tower’s archives, and the light in his eyes when he was on the hunt transformed his entire expression. Frid wasn’t a researcher in the scientific sense; he enjoyed knowing things, but didn’t do it for the sake of the knowledge. For him, it was about the finding—tracking down the hidden secrets, buried in places no one would think to look. It was one of the reasons they got along so well; and one of the reasons she loved him.
. . . Or at least, found him attractive—she didn’t think she knew enough about love to call it that, yet. In quieter moments between them, though, he’d confessed the same, so she felt reasonably secure on that end of things . . . Mostly.
“I wish I could’ve joined you,” Fiore murmured, and meant it. Books and such were her passion, but she did enjoy “field trips,” as Frid termed them, much as he loved libraries.
Unfortunately, while they were a romantic setting—for the Gothically-inclined, at least—the Scottish moors were not wheelchair-accessible.
“Me, too,” Frid said sincerely, and she blushed.
“Well,” Caules said suddenly. “Thank you for your efforts, Frid—these will be a great help to my project.” He gently picked up the pages, and then half-turned away, before adding, “And now, I’m going to leave before I need to see a dentist about all this sweetness I’m being exposed to.”
“C - Caules!” Fiore sputtered, suddenly having an entirely new reason to blush, and more fiercely at that. Her only consolation was that Frid was now blushing, too.
“Just for that,” the older male growled mock-fiercely, “I’m teaming with Lord El-Melloi II to whup you this weekend.”
Fiore cringed inwardly at the mention of the boys’ weekly “online gaming” sessions with one of the Lords of the Clock Tower. Caules did so as well, but more visibly.
“Ah, yeah,” the younger male said awkwardly. “About that . . . Sis, do you want to explain for me? Thanks!”
He departed without another word, leaving Fiore to fume silently over irresponsible little brothers leaving their older sisters holding the bag . . .
Fortunately, she’d prepared for something like this, and met her fiancé’s raised eyebrows with a gesture to sit down. Preparing him a cup of tea the way he liked it—Frid preferred coffee, she knew, but he wouldn’t have come here without having had his “daily allotment” of it already—she pushed the pastry tray towards him; it contained as many of his favourites as she’d been able to arrange for on short notice.
And from the way his eyebrows rose even higher than they’d already been, he noted that fact, as well.
“. . . Battle preparations in the castle, and bribery behind closed doors,” he murmured neutrally. “What war do you want me to fight in, Fiore?”
Inwardly, she winced at his choice of words—even as the part of her that was trained as a magus applauded his observational skills—but managed to keep it from showing on her face. “About that . . .” she began, echoing Caules.
Fiore explained about the history and nature of the Holy Grail War, the events of the Third War and the intentions of the Yggdmillennia Clan going forward. Throughout it all, Frid listened stoically, with that empty expression on his face that appeared whenever he wanted to mask his thoughts—or was really, truly angry.
“. . . And you’re all right with this?” he asked flatly, once she had finished.
Fiore winced again. It wasn’t the best segue into the part of the conversation she needed, if not wanted, to have—but it was unlikely she’d get a better one . . .
“. . . Not entirely,” she admitted quietly. “Which is why, though I’m ashamed to admit it, I have another, very selfish request to make of you.”
Taking his hands in her own, as well as a deep breath, Fiore steeled her courage, looked into his eyes, and pleaded.
“Will you please, please find a way to join the Red Faction . . .?”
Writer's Notes: As promised! Enjoy! 
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Originally Posted by Xamusel
