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Outside Yggdmillennia Castlevania
July 4, 2004
“I’m sorry, Master—you want me to do what?”
She couldn’t possibly have heard him correctly, XX decided.
“I want you to sneak Miss Tohsaka onto the Hanging Gardens and locate the Greater Grail’s position,” he answered her slowly, exasperation tingeing his voice.
Which was, sadly, an exact repetition of his previous statement—which he hated to do, she knew—so she had, in fact, heard him correctly. The prevailing question, then, was—
“. . . Why on earth would you want me to do that?”
“Because I am utterly amazed that Kotomine and his Servant actually managed to get the Greater Grail out of Yggdmillennia Castle without triggering some form of booby-trap—or self-destruct,” he answered bluntly. “Having pulled off the feat himself, as well as having the brains to convince the Magus Association he didn’t have the Greater Grail for seventy years, I refuse to believe that he didn’t plan for the possibility of someone trying to steal it out from under him.”
. . . Put that way, Artoria found herself reluctantly agreeing with the logic. Only a fool didn’t compensate for weaknesses that they themselves had managed to exploit in the past—and as much as might be wished otherwise, “evil” did not always mean “stupid.”
Ecchan had taught her that much . . .
Hardening her heart against the sudden pang brought on by the thought of her old friend (and the question of just how her Master had come into contact with Alternium again, to have had that strong a residue of it), XX asked the next important question.
“But why take her, and not you?”
She asked it with some suspicion—while her Master wasn’t as bad as some she’d encountered, he did have a weakness for pretty girls, particularly those younger than he. Not that he was lecherous, unlike the aforementioned others, but that he liked to please them—their smiles brought him immense satisfaction. And from what she’d seen of Tohsaka-san . . .
She has Ishtar’s looks and pride, with Ereshkigal’s professionalism—and the same tendency to collapse into a sputtering, flustered mess, judging by how her Archer’s managed to prod her into reacting . . .
Having observed her, XX could see just how Rin Tohsaka was compatible with the two Babylonian goddesses—and that made her a very dangerous opponent, in more than one sense. A threat to her Master’s well-being, certainly, especially if she played up the Ereshkigal aspects of her personality—the blonde sister, XX judged, was more his “type.”
Not that he would be wholly immune to Ishtar, either, she thought ruefully. And Tohsaka-san’s certainly smart enough to use that against him, if she figures out that she can . . .
She’d seen it enough with before, after all. Servants of both genders (and a few she wasn’t sure had one) had attempted to woo Master Fujimaru to one degree or another, regardless of any actual preferences the teen had. XX hadn’t really noticed it all that much at the time, but the distance of years—and recent late-night discussions with Mash-san about their Chaldea days—had made it clear enough.
If anything, at the time, Artoria had been thinking more about her first Master to notice her second in a romantic sense; which, really, only made her observations about Tohsaka-san all the more accurate. Given the number of romantics and gossips among the Servants of Chaldea, she’d gotten all sorts of advice on the subject of love. Though she thought that certain bits of advice could be discarded as a matter of course—things like sending rivals poisoned garments, burning her Master alive in a bell if he lied to her, or melting him into a goo (or other format) to be absorbed into herself, for example.
(Suddenly, both Rin and Frid independently felt as though they’d somehow dodged a bullet, for no apparent reason.)
Not that she was interested in her Master that way (anymore, really), but as his Servant, it was her duty to look out for his best interests; XX had yet to decide if Miss Rin Tohsaka qualified as being in that category . . .
“My Mystic Eyes probably could detect such a thing,” her Master admitted, drawing XX out of her thoughts, “but understanding it, and how it affected the Greater Grail, would take time—and this has to be done quickly, and with luck, discreetly. On the other hand, Miss Tohsaka is one of the few survivors of the original Holy Grail War ritual’s three founding families; there’s no one here who’s better qualified to assess the Greater Grail’s status and overall condition.
“And you,” he concluded, “are the only Servant with the speed and mobility to get her in and out of the Hanging Gardens hopefully unnoticed, but with enough firepower to get her out anyway if things go wrong.”
XX grimaced. Thus far, at least, his logic was unassailable. Still, she prompted, “And the reason you’re not getting backup from Sensei is . . .?”
“He got the Hanging Gardens here by agreeing to a peace-binding—which, knowing him, almost certainly includes a geas of unknown wording . . . Basically, what he doesn’t know about, he can’t be forced to stop.”
She would’ve liked to argue the point, but she’d seen how rules could be twisted (indeed, one of the best at it she’d ever encountered was presently giving her orders); and just as important, how they could twist those who followed them, in turn.
Sighing, XX nodded her head in acquiescence of the point—and stopped, raising her head to lock eyes with him.
“. . . Last question, Master,” the Anti-Saber Weapon said tightly, lifting a hand to point accusingly at the familiarly-designed weapon belted to his hip.
“Where did you get that?!” she demanded.
He blinked, stared at her for a beat too long (oh, no—had she accidentally created a temporal paradox again, somehow?) before he sighed in exasperation, grumbling, “Your sensei thinks he’s being funny, apparently.”
Now that point, she could have argued—but rather than delay things further, XX simply replied, “Very well—that addresses all my concerns.” She turned to the Japanese magus. “Shall we go, Tohsaka-san?”
The dark-haired girl nodded.
“Good luck, Tori,” Master whispered, at a volume and distance that only her armour’s sensors would pick it up. “I believe the phrase is, ‘May the Artorium be with you . . .?’”
XX appreciated the sentiment, certainly; however, in all her time as a contracted Servant, she’d yet to fail either of her Masters when given a mission—and she didn’t intend to start now.
If nothing else, she wanted to know where and why her sensei had come across that sword . . .
Once they’d gone, he collapsed for a little bit, in the shadow of a wall, as the stress and exhaustion caught up with him. Between fighting his way back to here with unfamiliar weapons that were magical enough to compensate, plotting and planning around the War, dealing with so many people who unexpectedly knew him (and those who thought they did)—“nerve-wracking” was a criminally-understated description of his frame of mind.
And let’s not forget the fact the day before all this kicked off, I was in another world entirely, fighting for my and others’ lives over the course of a week or so, all the while creating a believable history and culture almost completely out of whole cloth . . .
Not that he really knew much about that—the Seldarine had stripped away the memories along with his druid identity, if not his life (as he’d originally assumed they would). What he had in his head about the matter was more like a bare-bones Wikipedia summary, much like he understood Servants were supposed to get regarding previous summons (at least, the ones not named “Servant Saber, True Name Arturia Pendragon”). In short, on a number of levels he’d been working flat-out for days, and without supernatural stamina, focus or composure to bolster him, the wear was more than beginning to show.
In a faux-Austrian accent, he fell back on his favourite Terminator 2 quote, muttering to himself, “I need a vacation.”
. . . But, honestly, that had really gone far better than it had any right to. The Fate/Grand Order canon XX might have been oblivious enough to take him at face value (she was the “earnest tokusatsu hero” type, after all), but her familiarity with him implied that she’d learned at least some of his tricks. Heck, he’d apparently convinced her to use Presence Concealment, which meant that she had either great familiarity with his manipulation skills, no small amount of her own, or both—and she’d just gone along with his orders and reasoning.
Which meant that one of two things was going on: the first possibility was that she read him well enough to assume there was a gambit in play, but was nice enough not to call him on it, as Erik and Tamamo had been. The second, on the other hand, was that as with some other disturbing hints she’d dropped, she knew exactly what was going on, because time travel, and was just letting things play out.
And if it was that, should he take her non-reaction as a good sign? Because whether it was Arturia, Artoria, Arthur or freaking Mordred, the fact that blonde Pendragons tended to be a stubborn lot when it came to their ideas of right and wrong was pretty much a cornerstone of any TYPE-MOON universe . . .
He sighed. This really was getting to be too much—if it had been just Fiore and her family, he probably could’ve made his way through; he had the ability to do it. The personal aspects were discomfiting at best and nerve-wracking at worst, but he felt he could have managed. Add in the Grail War, and . . . Well, it was concerning, to put it mildly—when it wasn’t downright terrifying—but he had Rin and the Works’ help on that, and they had a track record with this sort of thing.
But add in the elements of the Scion universe (and Erik in particular), along with the foreknowledge that he had a trip to the ridiculousness of the Servant Universe on top of it . . . Or now that he thought about it, maybe he’d be going to Chaldea, which was worse than both the Servant Universe and the Great Holy Grail War put together; in both the “terror” and “ridiculousness” aspects.
. . . And with that little bit of nightmare fuel in the tanks, he thought wearily, I suppose it’s time for me to stop procrastinating, and go and face the music—I mean, Fiore . . .
Considering the upcoming conversation between them, he frowned, as a thought occurred to him—one that could be equally attributed to his fanboy nature, as much as his assumed identity, and sparked irritation in him regardless of its ultimate source.
If nothing else, I at the very least want an explanation as to why she didn’t stay on board the Wolfen, where it’s relatively safe . . .
“What the hell are you doing here, Fiore?”
Of all possible greetings from her fiancé, that one she had not anticipated; it was enough to snap Fiore out of her forward momentum and stop, blinking.
“I—” she hesitated, not liking the sound of the words as she said them aloud. “I was worried about you—”
“And I was coming to you,” Godafrid said sharply. “Damn it, this is the last place you should be. Against the numbers involved, you need high speed and mobility, which neither your chair nor your Manipulators allow; not against swarms that never tire, or feel pain. And that’s not even counting the Servants, which no reasonable magus should even try to keep up with.”
(EMIYA sneezed, and was immediately puzzled by it. Rin sneezed, likewise, though the feeling that followed her doing so was not one of confusion; rather, it was of being insulted.)
Much as Fiore hated to admit it, her logical side conceded that he had a point. Before she could do more than open her mouth, however, he continued, “More than that, you’re a Master; if you go down, we lose a significant chunk of firepower”—Fiore’s eyes narrowed, and she was about to point out that the same applied to him—“and your Servant is an Archer; known for both bombarding things from a long ways away, and the Independent Action Class Skill, which allows them a longer tether away from their Masters.”
The logical part of her had to concede that, as well. It was the magus option: rational, strategically sound, and put her at minimal risk. And she knew him well enough to hear the concern underneath the anger—it was that she was putting herself in jeopardy, as much as anything else, that was infuriating him. And Chiron had raised many of the same points, for the same reason, so Fiore knew that was what it was . . .
But at that particular moment, somewhere deep inside, she decided that she really didn’t care.
“You’re getting involved in this,” she pointed out sharply.
“I was out grocery-shopping!” he countered. “Our only immediate enemy was supposed to be headed as far away as they could run with the Greater Grail.”
Fiore flinched inwardly, but made certain it didn’t show. Still, she wondered—by “immediate enemy,” was he referring to the Titan artefact that Erik had been (and presumably, still was) worried about? Or had he foreseen Darnic’s inevitable betrayal of them long before she had . . .?
That possibility—and its accompanying self-loathing that she, whom Frid had repeatedly asserted was smarter than him, had missed it—fuelled her irritation with things further.
“And this still happened to you,” she countered angrily. “If you’re not safe in an open area during a ceasefire, then why should I be considered any safer on a ship that’s an actual target, and has already been infiltrated once?”
“Because even with its target status,” he answered sharply, “it’s got a hell of a lot more protections to it than you’d otherwise have by heading for the border of an enemy stronghold? There’s such a thing as ‘necessary risk,’ Fiore—and this does not qualify.”
Fiore opened her mouth to say, “And yet, here you are,” when an entirely different statement occurred to her. Her eyes narrowed, and she said tightly, “And even if it was, better it be yours than mine?”
Part of her felt a sharp satisfaction at the way he flinched; for all her failures, she could still follow his train of thought, apparently. That, however, was a distinctly lesser part—the rest of Fiore was livid.
“I am not a princess, to be put in a tower,” she said hotly. “I am not a pet to be leashed—or a puppet, to dance according your directions.” He opened his mouth, but with a sharply-raised hand, she snapped “You don’t get to talk” before he could actually speak.
“I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions. And if you’re all right with risking your life, then I am perfectly entitled to do the same.”
She had been treated as fragile and perfunctory for almost her entire life as a magus—but never by him, and that he was trying to do so now made her all the angrier. Barring a few instances where her disability did come into play, Fiore didn’t think of herself as being helpless; and she was finished with being useless in all of this.
“I never said you weren’t,” Frid fired back, a growling undercurrent entering his voice that indicated he was on his last nerve, as well.
“Not in words,” Fiore shot back. “But what you don’t seem to realise is you can leave—but there is no ‘safe’ for me anymore! If Darnic has turned—or intended to turn—on us, then there is nowhere I can go that I won’t be hunted. The Clock Tower will have its example; Yggdmillennia’s victory was my only chance to avoid that, and now it’s gone.
“And if I’m to be killed—by one side or the other—then I would prefer to be doing something, rather than sitting in a cage, however gilded, awaiting my fate!”
She shut her eyes, then. Because the tears were coming, she could feel them burning—and the young magus didn’t want to give herself another failure to be ashamed of.
A hand was laid atop her own, as rough as the voice that followed it.
“. . . No, I can’t.”
“You’ll die,” she whispered. “I told you, before this ever started—you can’t get me out of this.”
Until that moment, Fiore would never have believed that silence could seethe; but the tension hung palpably in the air, just the same. It was fury, she was sure—but not entirely, and that confused her. His pulse was racing—she could feel it where his wrist met her forearm—but his body wasn’t tight, as though he was suppressing anger. It was something else . . .?
“Damn it all to hell,” he muttered under his breath at last. “One way or another—or every way—I am so going to pay for this . . .”
“You’re right, Fiore,” he sighed. “Try though I might to think of one, there’s no way that Godafrid Úa Súilleabháin can get you out of this—”
He was interrupted by a sudden knock, and the voice of Erik.
“Sorry to interrupt,” the Norseman said in a not-at-all sorry tone. “But I’d like to borrow your boyfriend—he’s more up on Castlevania lore than I am, and it’ll probably be very helpful in my quest to punch Darnic’s new fangs far enough down his throat that he shits them out . . .”
Writer's Notes: Writing an angry Fiore - no, a genuinely infuriated Fiore - is hard . . . And after the last 48 hours, I really had trouble motivating myself to write an argument . . . Hope it turned out passable, at least, anyway.
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Originally Posted by Xamusel
