DISCLAIMER: Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night, and all related characters and concepts are the creation and property of Kinoko Nasu and the staff of TYPE-MOON. Exalted, Scion and all related characters and concepts are the creation and property of White Wolf/Onyx Path Publishing. Forgotten Realms and all related characters and concepts are the creation of Ed Greenwood and presently owned by Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro. G. I. JOE and all related characters and concepts are the property of Hasbro. Dead or Alive, DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball and all related characters and concepts are the creation and property of Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo.
This is a not-for-profit, just-for-fun project.
Writer's Note: Certain dialogue sequences in this story are lifted from DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball: Venus Vacation, but I trust in the intelligence of my readers and the (general) availability of the game to recognise them when they see them.
Memorial Garden Courtyard
Hogwarts Castle, Scotland
July 8, 2004
On paper, Ginevra Molly Longbottom (nee Weasley) was a junior Auror—not fresh out of training, nor a rookie, but one without much in terms of seniority. While the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had been gutted during the conflict with Voldemort, during both phases, enough remained of the experienced staff to maintain the general hierarchy. Rank and seniority had its privileges.
However, she was also a war veteran—a war hero, if you believed the popular press—and a fully-accredited combat instructor for the Auror Division. She’d been trained in strategy and tactics to a degree that no one her age, regardless of profession, generally was, and had experience in applying them that perhaps twenty other people in the country, at most, could match.
(Admittedly, a vixenish side of Ginny reminded her, five of those people were in the garden with her—or even six, if Hermione happened to be dreamwalking—and Ilya might count too, depending on her training . . .)
However, she wasn’t simply a soldier, no matter how skilled—Aurors were investigators, as well. And again, she was ahead of her peers in that area. While she’d missed out on “The Affair of the Philosopher’s Stone,” her school cohort had faced any number of puzzles and deadly conundrums during their years at Hogwarts. And again, she’d been trained accordingly: the youngest Weasley of seven and only girl, she’d always had a gift for thinking laterally—it was a survival skill against pranksters like Fred and George, or the restrictions of her authoritarian mother.
But she’d also (unlike most witches and wizards, she often thought witheringly) learned how to think critically, as well—poke holes in ideas, beliefs and arguments, to test their validity and flaws. The skill had saved her life more than once, before she was even of age; nowadays, it had given her the highest successful closure rate of any presently serving Auror.
And as such, when Galen started turning dead white, she started thinking.
It was possible that he was putting on a show for their visitors. Anyone bearing the name “Akiha Tohno” would absolutely be someone Galen would be wary of, even if he seemed more familiar with this one than the unlamented Tohno matriarch that Ginny had heard of—and he was definitely that good a liar. . .
But honestly, the redhead didn’t think so. She’d seen the expression on his face once before, and had the time to take a good, long view—his being Petrified afforded her the luxury. She knew what absolute terror looked like on Galen Salvatore’s face, and she’d seen it again now, before he’d locked himself down with Occlumency; if possible, he looked even worse than before. Between that and the fact that Luna—arguably the most unflappable person she knew—was equally scared, it implied “Very Bad Things,” as the blonde was won’t to say.
(Though the redhead never had figured out just how Luna was able to vocalise capital letters . . .)
You’re distracting yourself, chided the disciplined part of her, and Ginny drew up her own Occlumency training to centre her mind. Shoving the emotions out of the way (for now, at least), she considered the pair of girls before her.
Akiha Tohno, she only knew by name; and the one she knew wouldn’t be this young. She was, at a glance, very much the high-class lady that Takara had been raised to be—polite and formal in speech and manner, soft-spoken, self-contained and inscrutable in disposition. Ginny recognised the type, since they were as common in England as in Japan. It would be like dealing with Tracey Davis, if she was more aristocratic in bearing and background . . .
Fortunately, dealing with Takara had taught her a few tricks to see past the mask, at least as it was fashioned in Nihon, and Baroness von Einzbern had passed on a few diplomatic tactics that worked against a broader range of cultures . . . Honestly, though, gaining Fleur Delacour as a sister-in-law had done as much or more for Ginny’s arsenal in this situation—the older witch had snobbery honed to an art form, and was very invested in making sure that all her little sisters were well-armed for such confrontations.
As such, the redhead was reasonably confident that she could see past anything the Tohno girl might attempt—her friend, on the other hand, was another matter.
“Hakuno Kishinami” was, after all, also a name that Ginny knew quite well. She (or he, depending on preference) was the centrepiece of the Holy Grail War playset’s “Hecate Edition” figures—and the resemblance was uncanny . . . But she’d never looked like that in anything Ginny had seen—almost military, and dangerous with it.
I think I need to have a word with Fred and George about their future release plans, the Auror mused grimly, before another thought occurred to her. And I don’t think a research assistant’s authority is going to cut it if we want to stop the Unspeakables or anyone else from poking into or weaponizing the source material, “Director’s pet” or not . . .
Unfortunately, when it came to the Department of Mysteries, Ginny could count on the number of its members she trusted on one hand with a finger left over—and that was if she included Hermione as one. And in-law or not, the redhead didn’t have the pull to rate a consultation with the head of the department strictly on her own say-so, not through official channels—and she couldn’t get into the Department without going through them. Galen might have a back channel, but Ginny wouldn’t want to count on it—Croaker was the sort to deny that sort of favoritism in the name of objectivity.
And normally, I’d applaud—but if we’re going to have a LOT of these kinds of people showing up, and Galen’s terrified . . .!
She resisted the urge to bang her head on one of the castle archways, but it was a near thing.
There was nothing for it, Ginny decided at last. She’d have to try to track down Gwydion and see if his clearances rated Croaker’s immediate attention. Going by their previous encounters, the field agent was competent enough that she expected he was fairly high-ranked in the Department of Mysteries—just a colossal pain in the ass to deal with (if much less so than his colleagues, or at least in less infuriating ways). Which, of course, explained why someone so capable was only a field agent: he couldn’t cut the politics required in higher circles—or more accurately, really didn’t give a damn about them.
(Ginny rather liked him for that.)
Finding him was going to be a job, though. And knowing him, when she did, it would be because the Unspeakable was going to walk up behind her and ask what took her so long . . .
The redheaded witch suppressed a groan. She could feel the headache forming alre—
Her thoughts were immediately interrupted by Galen suddenly spoke up, with the professionally blank expression that told her he was heavily immersed in Occlumency.
“As much as I hate to do it,” he said carefully, “for some of this explanation, I’m going to have to speak obliquely—”
Ginny’s snort of disbelief was muffled by Neville’s much louder one, though Luna got the lion’s share of attention, even though she limited herself to a brief cackle, this time—her self-possession really had improved.
Meanwhile, Takara, Shirou and Ilya were all just giving him Looks—though the half-Veela broke hers off when Galen stared back for a beat.
“Forgive my friends,” he said with a sigh. “I have a generally deserved reputation for misdirection and theatricality, but in this case, it’s because what we’ll be discussing is a cognitohazard—” He stopped, then asked, “Actually, are any of you familiar with the term? I know that Rin’s the only actually trained magus among you, and I don’t see her there . . .”
“An antiquated term for an ‘information hazard,’” said the younger, red-eyed version of Ilya (and wasn’t that a sight? Obviously not a Veela, but no less beautiful, bizarrely). “Information that is dangerous if disseminated—or even possessed—to others or the holder.”
She smirked.
“Well, this is a class above the standard definition,” Galen said seriously. “With regard to certain entities, and especially deities, names have power—and worse, will draw their attention if used. We absolutely DO NOT want that to happen.”
Thunder did not rumble with that statement, though a part of Ginny really felt that it should have; when Galen spoke in that tone, it seemed to require it. And part of her recognised that she was trying to distract herself from being terrified, because he was obviously terrified, and that was always REALLY BAD—
The red-haired Auror dove into her Occlumency training and forced herself to listen.
“But you’ve been using Erik’s and Krampus’ names with no problem . . .?” the younger Shirou (though again, with darker eyes than Ginny was used to) questioned.
“It’s a matter of scale,” Galen replied. “Multiple versions of the Christmas Devil exist in the omniverse, but almost none of them are deities—and as I’m not a child, I’m outside the majority’s sphere of influence. And Erik doesn’t really have omniversal influence, or even multiversal influence—he’s more or less limited to his particular branch of reality, being either unknown or nonexistent outside it. After all, your world’s version of the Norse pantheon doesn’t have a ‘God of Mecha,’ does it?”
“Not that I’ve ever heard of,” Shirou admitted, “but I’m not really up on foreign mythology . . . There’s nothing about that in Hrunting’s history, at least.”
“Right, the bulk of your weapons are either Asian or Celtic . . .” Galen mused, before shaking his head. “Either way, their limited influence means that unless we’re on a plane where they’re active, they won’t hear us. The same would not be true if I invoked, say, a one-eyed wanderer by his divine name; he’s recorded as the King of Asgard in more versions of the World—and worse, clairvoyant enough in a lot of them to trace the call . . .
“But what I’m about to discuss?” he prompted sharply. “Has no such limits, being largely outside what we think of as ‘reality’—if I name any of them directly, they will hear, and if we are VERY lucky, humankind will have died out by the time they think to investigate . . . And none of us, singularly or collectively, are, have been or WILL EVER BE THAT lucky.”
(And after that, the lack of following thunder REALLY felt wrong . . .)
“So, before we begin in detail, I’d like a ‘yes or no’ answer,” Galen continued, taking a deep breath. “Do any of you have any data on a Servant Class called ‘Foreigner . . .?’”
In a very neat trick for what looked like a “Force Ghost,” both Ilya and Luvia’s counterparts visibly paled.
“Keep that in mind, going forward,” he instructed, before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.
“So, Scion was a role-playing game I once ran. Some years after our ‘chronicle’—the in-game term for a campaign—concluded, a second edition of the game was announced. It was going to have a revamped rule system, which we thought it needed, having noted several flaws during play, and additional elements, like adding the Arthurian mythos as a pantheon—”
Ginny noted that another blonde, who’d just walked in and was dressed in a sensible blouse and skirt combination—along with an air like a younger, mundane McGonagall—was locked intently on Galen after that comment.
(The redhead would be damned if she could figure out why, though . . .)
“—along with several others . . . Including one derived from the works of H.P. Lovecraft.”
If possible, the two pale “ghosts” got paler still.
“After many years of waiting, the game was finally released,” Galen continued. “And the mechanics made it laughably unplayable. Worse, the existing pantheons had been revamped: new deities had been added to some, and others were entirely absent—including Erik’s divine sire—and so were some pantheons. So, my admittedly tentative plan to adapt the existing Band of Scions, or to just advance their timeline such that they could be the gods who sired the new player Scions, became useless. However, I still kept collecting the books, because I liked a lot of the lore behind it, and I wanted to see what they’d done to the Arthurian stories, if nothing else. And if I’m honest, I kept hoping there’d be a fix for the problems with the rules somewhere down the line. . .
“And there wasn’t,” he admitted. “But it did end up answering some lore questions, in a roundabout way—including about my own campaign, in hindsight. Specifically, why were the rules SO different between editions . . . And where did Krampus come from?”
“And the answer is . . .?” asked the Luvia lookalike.
“The answer to the first is that the Mythos isn’t affected by Fate as is normal, because it warps reality—or erodes it—by its very presence,” Galen replied. “And as to the second question . . . He was never intended to be Krampus, at first. He was just an NPC I made up to play with the system myself and take some heat off the two-player group. He started out as a member of the Tuatha—the Celtic pantheon—and got adopted by others as I got new lore from other sourcebooks, or he got ‘killed off’ in a fight; later revealed as faking his death to a greater purpose, of course. And I could get away with that because trickster gods and those kinds of ploys are common in myth—just look at Odysseus, or Medea.”
The lycan wizard grinned. “It certainly made his time spent as a Scion of your pantheon fun for me, Lady Astraea.”
The blonde blinked—though whether at the revelation or the genuine respect in his voice at the use of her name and title, Ginny couldn’t say. The Auror was, however, fairly certain about the predatory expression on her face once it had sunk in.
“Really . . .” the apparent goddess said, with a low chuckle (that for some reason but Ginny in mind of a hyena).
“Eventually, however, it became clear that Erik’s player was not going to give up on the Norse pantheon, despite his character’s issues with their way of life, so if I wanted to keep the Band together, they’d have to join him.” He scowled before muttering, almost to himself, “Also didn’t help that Ragnarök was the only pantheon-specific book produced, despite the wealth of material in Greek mythology and others—cheap, lazy bastards . . .
“Anyways,” Galen continued in a more normal voice, “I was going to turn him into Santa Claus, because there are elements to him that tie him back to the King of Asgard, and I like holidays and whimsy—”
That garnered another round of looks and snorts which baffled the visitors.
“—but I eventually decided on Krampus, because he fit the Norse themes better, and was even native-ish to the area, since Germany and Scandinavia have historical and geographical ties . . . And that left the campaign with the Fenris Wolf redeemed, Erik happy in his forges with his wife, the former mortal Marcus as king of Svartalfheim with Brynhild as his queen, and Krampus as leader of the Wild Hunt, consort to the ruler of Helheim. But that begged a question I never answered in-game: how did he actually survive all those fights, and how did he switch pantheons so often, so easily . . .?
“And what I’m about to tell you,” Galen warned, “based on what you told me, not even Erik knows—nor will your missing friend, by design, and telling him is a VERY BAD idea, for the same reason. Understood?”
Once everyone had nodded in acknowledgement, he continued, “As before, the Mythos was the answer: because he was their unwilling, unwitting way into the World as Scion knew it. By becoming a God himself, he tied them to the World; and by breaking Fate the way they did—time travelling to rehabilitate the Fenris Wolf and invalidate the dictates of Ragnarök . . .” He shook his head. “The backlash from that paradox turned out to be what released the Titans in the first place; meaning that it created a time loop that couldn’t be undone, because their escape caused their apotheosis, ultimately, so the Mythos couldn’t be expelled as they slipped in through the cracks. . .
“Not that Krampus took it lying down, of course. You don’t use a Scion of the God of Vengeance like that—himself the God of Cruel Punishments, no less—and not expect to suffer for it . . . But he doubtless surprised even them. His first step was to get his Bandmates out of the line of fire. Routes to Svartalfheim were easily closed off, but Erik was harder—more stubborn, for one, and as likely as not to go poking around the Mythos out of curiosity and bring it on himself. Krampus eventually set off a series of subtle sabotages and arguments within the Aesir that played on Erik’s paranoia, driving him to settle on Mars. Still technically part of ‘The World’ as Scion’s rules define it—being the mortal realm—but off of Earth.
“If nothing else,” Galen concluded sombrely, “Erik would at least have a chance to see the Mythos’ incursion coming and have time to run. Or to dig in and try and make a stand, if he chose to.”
“Strange,” mused Akiha coolly.
As everyone looked at her, the girl elaborated, “Does it not strike anyone else as unlikely, that a ‘God of Cruel Punishments’ would be so concerned for his friends?” She raised her eyebrow in that elegant way that Japanese women and Hermione could apparently do instinctively as she added dryly, “Or to have any at all, actually?”
“He’s a good guy,” Ghost Shirou countered, almost defensively.
The boy who was apparently a younger version of Takara’s father hmphed quietly—apparently not convinced by that statement for some reason, and looking at Akiha with concern.
Leaning slightly, she whispered to Takara, “I thought it was your Mum who didn’t like Galen . . .?”
Apparently not quietly enough, though, because the Japanese schoolgirl twitched—
“Krampus is the Christmas Devil—as one movie put it, the shadow of Saint Nicholas,” Galen answered. “He brings punishments rather than gifts, but only because you’ve earned them—unlike his queen, it’s his punishments that are cruel, rather than the deity himself . . . But if you give him an excuse, he will drag you through torments that will write entirely new legends with a smile on his face, because he loves nothing more than seeing justice served.”
“In other words,” Takara said lightly as she placed a hand on his shoulder, “there wasn’t actually much role-playing involved, Anata . . .?”
That took their visitors aback (both physically present and otherwise) and Ginny knew Takara was deliberately flashing her ring with her choice of using her left hand—seriously, what was she playing at . . .?
“Regardless,” said the last blonde to have entered, with an authoritarian tone that definitely reminded Ginny of McGonagall “We have heard how he dealt with his allies—now, he did deal with his enemies . . .?”
“Among other things, Second Edition introduced the concept of ‘Mantles,’” Galen replied. “This was a way of explaining deities being adopted by different cultures and changing in the process, such as the Olympians going from Greek to Roman”—he nodded at Astraea—“or something like the various reincarnations of the Hindu pantheon. Divine identities could be discarded, to be picked up by others . . . It took a long time, even with the newly-cosmic perspective he possessed as part of the Mythos—but Krampus was immortal, and had access to the Stars Purview, which was intertwined with the concept of Time. He found a realm where the Mythos was only ever fiction, and only ever would be; somewhere they could never follow him, because the pure Mythos entities never had been human to enable them to do the same . . .
“The Mythos’ key to the World broke itself in the lock—and tore away everything that ever connected him to his former identity. He bound them to the World—and to that World, only. They can’t just come through anywhere in that reality; they have to go through Earth, where they can be fought—and those incarnations of the Mythos can’t expand beyond that reality. Worse, the concept has been set in Fate, now: having been trapped there once, they can be trapped again. It’s theoretically possible to bind the whole of the Mythos to that reality, though you’d need to do it to every individual version across the whole of the omniverse . . . And they can’t do anything about it, because any inheritor of the Mantle would just repeat the process—vengeance and cruelty are the Mantle’s essence, and killing the Mantle wearer just sets things back to square one.”
(Ginny couldn’t help a slow smile creeping across her face. It did sound like a wonderful punishment . . .)
“They hate him, but they can’t touch him—or at least, they couldn’t,” Galen finished grimly.
“. . . So how in the world did he end up on our doorstep?” Ghost Ilya (or “Ilyasviel,” Ginny supposed, because they weren’t close) demanded.
“The Mythos exists within the cosmology of Dungeons and Dragons, as well. And being as at least some of them are beyond space and time—two in particular—they’re aware of their counterparts across the ominiverse; why do you think I’m not naming anybody . . .?” Galen shook his head. “I can’t imagine the amount of time and effort it must’ve taken to get the Seldarine to do their dirty work, or move Erik into a position where he’d come into contact with him—and that would piss Krampus off more than ANYTHING else, after what he did to keep his battle brother AWAY from their tentacles . . .
“A peaceful, joyful life was never for him—I call him the consort of Helheim’s ruler, but he was never who she truly wanted, and they both knew it—but he could recognise true love when he saw it, and he did in Tamamo no Mae. That, as much as anything else, stayed his hand—and as she’s one of your country’s ‘Three Great Evils,’ you can just imagine how much that pained him.” Galen’s eyes darkened. “And now, imagine what it means to him, to have such a love endangered . . .”
He was silent, almost seething, for a moment—until Takara murmured into his ear amusedly, “No role-playing at all . . .”
For a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, Galen flushed—and Ginny smiled on seeing his Occlumency crack, even for just an instant. As Neville had said, it was nice to be reminded that the trinity were human, on occasion.
“It was backstory; I never got the chance—!” Galen said defensively, before continuing firmly, “But regardless, while Krampus tore Fate’s bindings to shreds in shedding his Mantle, the frayed threads still exist. They’ll be reaching for connections, from either his end or the Mantle’s—and Fate will be trying to weave a new pattern around him, regardless; meeting Erik only serves the Mythos’ plans, because it firms the existing one . . .
“And it’s made all the worse,” he added, “because they’ve already infiltrated your cluster of the omniverse, so they have the opportunity to—”
“WHAT?” chorused from multiple throats.
Galen grimaced. “Extremely short version: in another worldline, a Demon God managed to make fiction into reality—the Mythos is now genuine, and because of their nature, they can basically reach any part of your version of said reality. The Throne is atemporal and the ‘Foreigner’ Class exists . . .”
“So why,” Shirou asked suddenly, “wasn’t this guy obliterated on arrival?”
Ginny turned to him, and so did everyone else.
“I know how the powers that be work in that reality,” he said in a tone like hammering iron. “If he was the key to opening up the World to a direct assault, rather than the trickle that the Servant system allows for, Fuyuki should’ve been buried in the annals of history seconds before he could show up. Why is your world still standing if he’s that big of a potential threat?”
“Good point,” Galen agreed thoughtfully. “I mean, they take the path of least effort, it’s true, but obliterating him would have been the least effort, compared to what would happen if things actually kicked off . . . Heck, given the scale of the threat, it’d almost be worth materialising a—”
Galen stopped. And not just “stopped talking,” but completely—for an instant, Ginny could see him not breathe, and she wouldn’t have put even a Knut on his heart not ceasing to beat, as well.
“. . . The Throne,” he repeated slowly, “is atemporal . . . And one of the best counters to a Foreigner-class Servant is another Foreigner—and that’s what this is all about, isn’t it, Lady Astraea?”
“It’s the design the Parcae have woven,” she said, carefully not naming any details. “Unfortunately, the mortals of this era seem remarkably free-willed . . .” She narrowed her eyes at him. “As you are well aware, going by your continuing use of obliqueness.”
“For all my love of theatricality, Lady Astraea, I can be subtle,” Galen said dryly, before smirking and adding, “In point of fact, the one is usually an excellent cover for the other . . .”
“. . . OK,” Ilyasviel chirped to her half-Veela self, seeming oddly cheerful. “Now I understand why you wanted him.”
(Was she actually like this as a child? Ginny wondered . . .)
“It was more like I was pressed for time than actual want, but you can’t argue with the results,” Ilya replied, gesturing at her figure with a smirk.
“. . . Would anyone care to translate all this into the Queen’s English for the rest of us?” Ginny finally demanded, her patience exhausted. “Or do we need to suffer through another ten minutes of doublespeak and posturing before one of you gets to the bloody point?”
She took a little satisfaction at watching several faces turn red at her outburst—though by the faintness of the colour on Galen’s cheeks, she was pretty sure it was only because he allowed it to show through. By contrast, Akiha was as red as Takara used to get when they were girls—if there was any doubt that she actually was the teenager she appeared to be, that pretty much killed it . . .
“Sorry,” Galen muttered, before taking a deep breath. “Again, the extremely short version is that their world has a defence system that the Mythos falls under—but the portion of it specific to the Mythos was compromised to the point that it’s basically suicidal to invoke. And any potential replacement for it is either unreliable because of ties to the Mythos, or just not close enough to the necessary parameters . . . But their wayward friend might do, with a caveat: there’s a very thin line between his becoming what they need, and what the Mythos wants—and given the Mythos' general ability to perceive the future, the fewer hints they have about what’s coming, the better.”
“In other words,” Ilyasviel said grimly, “we’re trying to derail the plots of near-invincible, near-omnipotent—and worst of all, near-omniscient cosmic horrors, with an nonexistent margin of error between success and failure.”
Ginny couldn’t help it—she grinned.
“Lucky you wound up here, then,” she said lightly.
Everyone turned to shoot her a disbelieving look, but she fixed her eyes on the trinity.
“The seven of us have never met an impossible challenge or immutable law that we couldn’t twist into a knotted pretzel between us—eventually,” she added quickly, because Hermione was still a vampire, but they were no less determined to beat that, too. “And beating future threats, even when your window of opportunity to react is measured in fractions of a second, is a specialty of yours.”
She stared almost hard enough at Galen to brush the edges of his Occlumency defences, but you wouldn’t need his skill at Legilimency to read the direction of her thoughts.
(Their trip through time in her fourth year had left an impression, after all.)
“I’ve told you all before, Ginny—I’m not nearly so clever as I made it look like at the time,” Galen sighed. “I managed more than half of what I did because I had the ultimate cheat sheet stuffed in my head; and even then, you know how often things went bad—”
Out of the corner of her eye, the red-haired witch noted Akiha Tohno staring at Galen with an expression she couldn’t read; a quick glance saw Shiki Tohno looking, as well—and Takara was looking smug. . .
But not at Akiha, or her father’s counterpart.
“Anata,” she said with clear amusement, “have you or have you not just spent the last twenty minutes explaining to us how you wrote the cheat sheet, this time . . .?
“You worked within others’ rules, yes, but every ambiguity, every loophole, every unmentioned or unconsidered detail—that was you. What limits and weaknesses they have, you know; the way Fate really works, for them and for him, you defined. There is no one better suited to pointing these people in the direction of their friend, and the best way to help him.”
She moved closer, with that light. gliding step of hers that made it seem like Takara only ever paid lip service to gravity. It certainly impressed their visitors; Young Shiki visibly started at the movement, and Akiha inhaled sharply, if quietly. Ginny expected that only an Animagus whose form had sharper hearing (which was, essentially, everyone here) would’ve caught it. Funnily enough, though, Hakuno Kishinami didn’t look at all impressed—or even so much as perturbed by any of what had gone on.
(She had the either had the self-discipline of a Master Occlumens, or the emotional range of a teaspoon, as Hermione liked to say—Ginny wasn’t sure which way she’d bet, but either option made her dangerous.)
Takara, meanwhile, had neither eyes nor ears for anyone but her husband—and when she spoke again, her voice was pitched in that “only-Animagi” volume and tone.
“Do what you do best, mon cher.”
For once, Takara’s use of French did not trigger a reenactment of Gomez Addams’ infamous response to it. Instead, Galen’s eyes unfocused, and Ginny fancied that, if she looked deeply enough, she could see something glittering in their dark depths . . .
“What are they doing?” Akiha murmured in Japanese, her voice low and filled with a mix of confusion and outrage. “And in public, at a time like this?”
“Not what you’re thinking,” Shirou answered, and Ginny realised the Tohno girl had asked him directly. “Galen’s one of our major planners. I’m better at tactics and adapting on the fly and Luna, among others in our group, is better at technical work and puzzle-solving, but in terms of sheer creativity, with a somewhat sadistic bent—”
Neville coughed in a way that sounded remarkably like “Marianas Trench.”
“OK,” Shirou corrected himself, “a lot of sadism—but my point stands: if you need an answer to a problem in a way that no one is liable to see coming, and a few backup options if they do, then Galen is the man to go to.”
“And all that—intimacy,” Akiha finally settled on the last word after struggling for a moment. “What is that in aid of . . .?”
“Oh, that’s defined as a ‘perk,’ really,” Luna said helpfully, her tone of voice distinctly airy. “Galen loves to watch his wife move, you see—but she loves to watch him dream.”
“. . .” Akiha was struck dumb—there was no other word for it. Despite her largely composed facial expression, the Tohno heiress positively radiated confusion.
Hakuno, surprisingly, reached out to pat her shoulder.
“You get used to it,” the brown-haired girl said sagely.
But I don’t want to get used to it . . .! Akiha protested silently.
The Tohno heiress was inwardly reeling over the events following their arrival. First, dealing with people she knew, and who seemed to know her—including a near-twin to the man she’d hoped to find—and yet, whom she did not know at all . . . Then, there was the revelation that her intended target was apparently an unwitting game piece in a cosmic cold war that could destroy her entire reality—and he really hadn’t seemed that important!
It was nearly as foundationally-shattering to Akiha as the almost gleeful revelation of one of the strangers here as not merely the wife of the that near-twin she’d found, but also Shiki’s daughter . . .!
(Yes, the part of her that was trained to be the Tohno heiress knew what the actually more important revelation was—but Akiha was also a teenage girl in love, and at the moment, fully reacting as one.)
She wasn’t certain how much more of this she could stand—barely an hour ago, she’d been at school, before being abducted into an alien supercomputer, then a version of her world that included humans turning into the heads of giant robots, and now THIS . . .! Things were just changing too rapidly, and far too bizarrely, for her to keep up!
That’s what happens when you decide to play “hero,” her Servant opined mentally. The smart ones learn to just roll with it. She tilted her head. Didn’t you say you’d studied your organisation’s files?
Akiha had, but it was one thing to read words on a page, and quite another to experience such a thing as it happened to her. She felt profoundly grateful that Shiki, Hisui and Kohaku had endured theirs as well as they had—and even Tohsaka-san and Saber-san, too—
The Tohno heiress resisted the urge to bury her face in her palm at the sudden realisation that she also likely owed the object of her search several apologies. Supernatural powers aside, he had said he originated on a world without them, and indeed, where her own was fictional. No doubt, his sense of disorientation regarding this kind of thing would’ve been far greater . . .
So, you don’t want to kick him in the balls anymore?
Reluctantly, Akiha admitted, I won’t say it isn’t still a temptation, but I think it would be in very poor taste for me to do so, after all the present revelations . . .
Well, I’m still going to kick him in the balls when we find him, Hakuno warned. He broke my Nero.
Doubtless, that would be a problem in the future—Akiha could feel the headache starting already . . .
Seeking something to distract herself, Akiha focussed on the now-silent lecturer before her. He truly was almost identical—his skin tone was Caucasian rather than the smoky ash-grey of the half-drow, his hair a light chestnut brown rather than white (though the brown hair held streaks of grey in nearly exactly the same pattern that the druid’s had held sky-blue highlights). He was also both human and looked to be at least twenty kilos heavier—and all of that muscle, it appeared, once he’d removed the concealing coat.
(It was quite warm out here, all of a sudden . . .)
Aside from the weight, however, he looked very similar to the druid when he’d wished to appear fully human, and shape-shifted to do so. His eyes were the same deep shade of blue (making Akiha wonder if she’d see those gold flecks in them if she looked deeply enough), if rounded rather than almond shaped. His voice lacked the druid’s growling edge, but it was just as certain, and slightly deeper and more resonant thanks to his extra mass, vibrating against her bones when he got loud enough and sending an answering wave of goosebumps along her skin.
It was a pity about the face, though—while Akiha was no expert on Western attractiveness standards, it was much plainer and less pleasing to her eyes than the druid’s had been. It made that muscular body such a waste . . .
Sounds like someone has a crush, Master, Hakuno teased—or she seemed to be, given that her mental voice sounded as nonchalant as her speaking one.
I DO NOT! Akiha fired back. My heart is long since spoken for . . .!
(And that was why she was doing this, and why she had to succeed—she and Shiki needed that wish . . .!)
The thought of him drew Akiha’s eyes opposite to their original target. Her face was hidden by the silken veil of her hair—straight and fine, and dark enough to look blue when the light struck it just so—which was terribly frustrating when the heiress wanted nothing more than to absorb every aspect of her face again.
Akiha needed to know exactly who her mother was—!
“All right,” Salvatore-san said as he stirred from his seeming trance. “I’m going to tell you what you need to keep him away from, or figure out a way to twist differently, if you want the plan to work—as well as a couple of ideas that might help you out.”
“And his ideas usually do,” the older Emiya-san acknowledged. “Even the crazy ones.”
In a voice that was even deeper than Salvatore-san’s, the only man present who was even larger than he was (and significantly so, at that) grunted, “Especially the crazy ones.”
“Yeah, we’ve gotten that impression of our version, too,” the real Emiya-san (or at least, the one Akiha was used to dealing with) replied, before he paused, looking embarrassed. “Well, mostly, anyway—he did turn Saber into a dragon for a while.”
“HE DID WHAT . . .?!” demanded more than one voice.
Writer's Notes: I didn't quite make it before midnight, I see - sorry.
Then again, I hadn't planned on an entire CHAPTER of exposition, either . . .
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Originally Posted by Xamusel
