Heir to the Blacksmith - Chapter 41 - Plasma_Assassin - Fate/stay night (2024)

Chapter Text

WARNING: This is a recap chapter of the Battle of Kings. I’ve tried to keep things interesting and add new details but you’ve been warned.

“Alright, Rin.” Scathach spoke up, resting an elbow on the table and her chin on the back of her hand. “If we’re going to do this, then let’s go with what happened with you Masters first. You’ve all left details out when telling us beforehand, and I would very much appreciate the truth.”

Rin, in response to this, only grimaced slightly. Her eyes lost just a fraction of their luster as she realized what they would have to admit to everyone here at this table.

She had, of course, expected such a line of questioning. However, that didn’t make it any easier for her to actually do so.

“Alright. Fine.” She sighed, all of the bravado she’d tried to put on slowly bleeding out of her. “I’m sure that I don’t need to repeat the beginning of the Battle of Kings to anyone here.”

“Actually-“ Angelica cut in, her hand raised with a blank look on her face much the same as Ciel. “I would appreciate such knowledge.”

“Ah, right.” Rin chastised herself mentally for forgetting about the two people at the table who had absolutely no connection to the battle itself.

Mentally, she took a moment to fight back the encroaching soul that was Ishtar and silently thanked Ereshkigal for not being as troublesome as her sister.

“The Battle of Kings was an event that happened the midnight of February 27^th after the opening attack by the Yggdmillennia forces and their Servants lead to Servant Rider: Ozymandias of Egypt, issuing a challenge of combat to Shirou.” She relayed professionally, getting silent nods from both women and a small ‘oh’ from Ciel.

“That explains why my br- the thing controlling my brother chose to move on the Grail when he did.”

“We’ll circle back around to that.” Luvia cut in, hoping to keep things at least somewhat orderly, as the primary note-taker of this whole recap dinner.

Of course, a couple of the others were taking their own notes as well, Gray and Olga being chief among them, but she couldn’t afford to slack off just because of that.

“Right, well the deal struck between Shirou and Ozymandias dictated that the battle would commence February 27^th outside the limits of any city, which led to our assault at the stroke of midnight on the Yggdmillennia’s compound on Ra Island within the Seto Inland Sea.”

“That compound was of Ozymandias’s creation.” Fiore added in, ironically, more comfortable with the tense, professional setting instead of the rather relaxed atmosphere the table had had beforehand. “It was one of his Noble Phantasms, The Ramesseum Tentyris.”

“Thank you, Fiore.” Rin nodded, thankful for the inclusion even if they had assumed as such in the week leading up to the assault.

“Shirou, Medusa, and Semiramis carried out the initial assault as a three-pronged offensive to split their forces and allow easy entry into the pyramid, if not destroy it outright.”

“Gray went with Big Brother, too.” Olga included, scratching that fact down in her notes as she did.

Feeling a phantom burning sensation, the silver-haired girl looked over and saw Illya glaring at her. Her own eyes narrowed as she recognized the competitive glare that shone in the Emiya’s eye.

“I wouldn’t exactly say that I was a part of the offensive, however.” Gray shook her head, placing a chicken wing on her plate. “I was only there to help Shirou in case things went horrifically wrong before we could back off.”

“I’m still noting down that you went with him.” Luvia said simply, taking a sip of her drink. “Pedantic or not, Lorelei does want as much detail as possible.”

“So, you’re throwing me to the wolves just to get in her good graces? Gee, thanks.” Gray deadpanned at her friend, resting an arm on the table as she stared down its length at the Edelfelt heiress.

“I wouldn’t say wolves. I’m just trying to do a proper job.” Luvia smiled innocently.

“As amusing as this is, shouldn’t we continue?” Morgan questioned with a small grin, politely placing some noodles in her mouth after she finished speaking.

“Right.” Rin nodded, catching herself back up to where she had left off. “This is where our accounts are going to begin splitting apart. Following the offensive, the Servants went down to assault the Ramesseum Tentyris from the ground and infiltrate it while the Masters and humans stayed in the Hanging Garden to offer support if or when necessary. However, within moments of Morgan bringing Shirou and Gray back onboard the fortress, Morgan le Fay opened a rift and space and dragged us all out of the fortress and out to a forest somewhere on the western coast of Kyushu, Japan.”

“Any particular comments on that part, Morgan?” Medusa asked, currently working on a decent-sized chicken leg.

“Hmmmm. Not that I can think of.” The Queen hummed before smiling innocently, acting as if multiple people at the table weren’t interested in the mechanics of her teleportation and its limitations.

Agreement between them and the Magus Association or not, she wasn’t just going to spill such secrets idly.

“Fine, keep your secrets to yourself.” Semiramis scoffed, only the small curve of her lips revealing that she was merely having fun with the comment and not truly annoyed.

Morgan did not doubt that she would immediately try and recreate the spell herself if she learned its specifics, though. That was just the kind of shrewd woman that Semiramis was.

“Once we appeared in the forest, we took a moment to catch our bearings and make sure that nothing was afoot before the tear in the Textures appeared.”

“Said tear-“ Angelica suddenly started up, immediately grabbing everyone’s attention since this was information that none of them had been privy to before now. “Was created by the wish of the thing. I was taken away by my Servant before we entered the mountain proper, but its wish was undoubtedly the same ‘bring humanity back to its prime’.”

“Taken away by your Servant?” Illya leaned forward in interest, her eyebrow raised.

“That’s right. My Servant, Okita Souji, took me away right before ‘Darius’ attempted to attack me.”

“Darius…” Luvia muttered, writing the name down.

“Okita Souji is your Servant?” Gray blinked a couple of times, having not expected to hear that name in tonight’s recap.

“Yes, though she is….different than expected. Her appearance looks nothing like what she is meant to look like and she was summoned with a nearly blank personality and a near lack of memories of her life.” Angelica explained, trying to keep her voice steady as she spoke and failing.

Why had everything had to go wrong from the moment that this stupid Holy Grail War had been found out? Before going after that blasted tablet she and Julian had absolutely no issues, and now…

“I didn’t think you could mess a Servant summoning up that badly.” Illya snorted, only to get a serious shake of Morgan’s head.

“You can’t. If what caused all of that was due to the summoning itself, Okita Souji would have never appeared. This is something to do with the actual Heroic Spirit themselves.”

“And where is your Servant, currently?” Bazett questioned, her eyes narrowing on the young woman as she tensed up ever so slightly.

“I….do not know.”

“H-huh?” Fiore gave her a confused and worried look, as did about half of the table.

“Wait, you’re unaware of where your Servant currently is?” Rin questioned, unable to believe what she was hearing.

“After bringing me to a safe location, everything about her just…changed. She said she had to go, left, and then a few moments later my teleportation stopped working. So, I was unable to go anywhere.”

“Hold up, teleportation?” Luvia looked up from her notes this time, small sparkles in her eyes as she realized that potentially she might be able to scavenge such a secret off of the blonde-haired woman.

“Yes, a utilization of my family's Magecraft.” Luvia clicked her tongue in annoyance but didn’t give up hope just yet. “We channeled it through a particular Mystic Code to teleport, however the Mystic Code broke during those events, so I’ve been unable to do anything like that since.”

‘sh*t!’

“Luvia…stealing is wrong.”

‘It's not stealing if they still have it.’

“Augh….”

In the background, Olga merely furrowed her eyebrows and stared deeply into the small notebook she was taking notes on. Her eyes blinked more and more frequently until she hissed quietly and rubbed them, blinking and rubbing her eyes in sequence to try and get their normal clarity back in them.

“I told you that you’d need glasses if you spent so long staring at those screens, Olga.” Gray admonished in amusem*nt, grinning a little as Olga pouted and pointed a small but accusatory finger back at her.

“I don’t need glasses, and Big Brother does it all the time.”

“Shirou isn’t exactly the most accepting of health risks when it comes to his personal enjoyment.”

Olga just pouted at the older girl before deciding to leave their small conversation there as it looked like the recap was continuing and her vision was back to normal.

“Right, well, after the tear in the Textures opened, Gray worked on sealing it as best as she could, decreasing its size by at least a factor of 10. However, after this stabilization, the Dragon alongside a host of spirits, invaded this Texture using the tear.”

“And this, I’m assuming, is where the Divine Spirits come into play?” Xuanzang asked, too curious not to pipe up at least once.

She had thought that the battle of the Ramesseum Tentyris had been hectic; listening to this she began to wonder exactly who had been under the most stress that night.

“That’s right,” Luvia took over, allowing Rin a chance to have a drink and eat some food before it was all taken from her. “Astraea for myself, Manannán mac Lir for Bazett, Ishtar and Ereshkigal for Miss Gorilla here–“

She very purposefully did not look at Rin as she said that, missing the half-second glare that the Tohsaka head shot at the back of her head before rolling her eyes and looking away. That argument wasn’t worth missing out on this food at the current moment.

She’d absolutely make sure to get her comeuppance later on, of course, but not right now.

“And Parvati and Kama for Sakura.”

“Plus, Amor and Eros for Caren.” Ciel added in, getting a couple wide eyed blinks before Luvia and Olga quickly scribbled that note down.

“Really? Caren of all people has Eros?” Gray blinked, stupefied over that knowledge.

Based on the look that Ciel shot her in return, her confusion was not only understood but deeply felt by the blue-haired woman.

“She does, at least she says so. Which reminds me, the four of you have managed to stay separate from the Divine Spirits that possessed your body, at least I believe so..” Ciel began, giving an unsure look in Bazett’s direction and getting a silent thumbs up from the woman.

She was just sitting back and enjoying the show, and information, at this stage. However, if something came up that she did need to add information to, she was more than willing.

“While Caren, Amor, and Eros combined into a single being. How did you manage to achieve that?”

“Senpai stabbed us all with a particular blade that he had at the moment of our possession.” Sakura answered simply, smiling politely at the Executor. “While each of the Divine Spirits removed the blades after a few moments, the ability of the blade in question kept our souls separated just long enough to avoid them being fused into one on first contact.”

“I see, without such a blade I can see how Caren, and potentially other possessed, would be fused into a single being.”

“Precisely, we think that Sherou had an inkling as to what might have occurred, but we have no way of confirming that at the moment.” Luvia sighed, the worry in her expression easy for everyone to see.

No one could really blame her for that, though. Her boyfriend was in a coma, and it was all because they had managed to be possessed by Divine Spirits, of all things.

It wasn’t exactly an easy reality to come to terms with.

“After our possession, Ishtar tore out the heart of Illyasviel, allowing the Dead Apostle’s curse stored inside to spread freely throughout her body and complete her transformation into a proper Dead Apostle.”

“I’m still me though! Don’t worry!” Illya was quick to try and assuage anyone’s worry, waving her hands around comically.

Olga felt her cheek twitch when the white-haired girl specifically skipped over her in her assuaging, able to feel the passive-aggressiveness in that single action alone.

“This is where the events will split off once more. With Bazett, possessed by Manannán, and Gray going off to fight Illya in a separate location while Sherou stayed to fight Ishtar and Kama, with the assistance of Astraea.”

“Not that he actually saw her as assistance at the start.” Rin muttered, still rather aggravated, that Luvia of the three of them came out with the least mud besmirched on her name from that entire fight.

She and Sakura now had the stigma of housing Goddesses that tried to murder Shirou at the start of that fight and Luvia got to get off easy with ‘She was trying to help the entire time’? What kind of unfair bullsh*t was that!?

“What a bitch. We should tie her up and have our way with-“

‘Stop. Do not.’

“In terms of our fight with Sherou, it began rather simply, with Ishtar and Kama on the offensive to try and murder Sherou in revenge for trying to stop their possession while Astraea tried to aid him despite him seeing all three as enemies.”

“Ishtar saw Shirou as almost a slight on her existence at that stage. As the successor to Gilgamesh and the one who tried to stop her incarnation, she wanted him not only dead but broken too.” Rin tacked on, her gaze dark and her teeth gnashed subtly as she did.

The reminder of what Ishtar had tried to do in her body of all things never failed to piss her off.

“Kama, on the other hand, just wanted Senpai to stew in as much suffering and misery as possible, so following in Ishtar’s footsteps and antagonizing and attacking him worked well in that goal.” Sakura responded, the picture of a polite, composed mai-

The wall behind Sakura cracked as one of the twin Gae Bolgs slammed into it, the thin pole of the weapon’s shaft pressed against the thin slice on her neck caused by the blade of that very same weapon.

“Do not think that I can’t sense the possession taking place, Kama.” Scathach warned, her eyes seeming to glow slightly as she stared dead into the bright red eyes of the Matou turned Goddess.

Slowly, almost like an afterthought, her hair began to turn silver starting from the roots.

“Ugh, I should have expected one of you Servants to do something like this.” Kama sighed, hissing in pain a little when her fingers touched the edges of the cut.

“Rather bold of you to come out right now, don’t you think?” Semiramis hummed, resting her chin on the back of her hand as she raised an eyebrow at the Goddess.

“Believe it or not, but I didn’t make that decision this time.” She sighed, slouching a little in her seat. “Little miss maid had to take a moment to step back and recover her mental strength.”

“From that lone sentence?” Rin questioned, worried about how worn out Sakura must be if that alone was enough to bring her down.

“Her one goal in life is to serve Shirou Muramasa and do everything she can to make him happy. The fact that her own body was used to do the exact opposite….well such misery hardly goes down well.” She giggled, her eyes lighting up with manic energy as she finished.

“Continue your recap of the events, I’ll make sure to keep an eye on her.” Scathach commanded, her spear buried in the wall jiggling a little before whipping back into her hand, the longer spear left resting against her chair while the shorter one sat in her hand, its tip tapping rhythmically against her calf.

“Understood.” Luvia nodded and continued. “Following a short bout of fighting between the four of them, Ishtar commented on the three of us being dead to try and shake Sherou.”

“Based on the fact that he’s upstairs sleeping, I can only assume that that means he didn’t react how she assumed he would?” Gray snorted, clearly finding amusem*nt in the idea of Shirou following anyone’s expectations of him.

“Precisely, Sherou….I think, for lack of a better word, he snapped.” Luvia confirmed, gnawing on her lip gently for a moment as she thought over the horrifying moment that she, through Astraea’s eyes, watched the light in her boyfriend’s eyes just disappear.

“He began the chant to expand his Reality Marble-“ Morgan perked up in excitement at this knowledge, and despite her attention never wavering from Kama, Scathach’s posture seemed to straighten ever so slightly. “-using the Goddesses surprise and an all-out barrage of weaponry to his advantage and managed to actualize it properly.”

“Oh-hoh. Well, this fight just got a lot more interesting.” Morgan purred, her eyes pulsing with light ever so slightly as she listened with much more rapt attention than before.

“I’m not certain what the full extent of the Reality Marble’s abilities are because Sherou spent most of his time inside fighting Ishtar while Astraea held off Kama. But I do know that his Reality Marble was a landscape perfect for the formation of blades, capable of bringing forth any blade he had made or seen before at a quality at or near the original and far faster than he ever could out in the regular world.”

“It can create new blades too.” Rin cut in, getting a surprised sound from Luvia at the sudden knowledge.

“Well, I’d imagine so, given his skillset as a Magus.” Morgan hummed, trying to figure out exactly why Rin said it as if it was a big deal.

She wasn’t the type to add superfluous details about something like this, her words clearly held a meaning that no one else at the table was grasping. She could only hope, for her hopelessly mounting curiosity that she would clarify a little further.

“During their fight, Ishtar had her leg cut off-“

Idly, Illya leaned over in her seat to look over and see Rin with two, perfectly fine and healthy legs.

“And noticed that Shirou’s attention left her entirely to follow the flight path of her limb.”

“Rookie mistake.” Scathach clicked her tongue and shook her head, joined morosely by Heracles.

“The eye will follow motion, it’s only natural.”

“While I’m sure the two of you are having fun, her explanation isn’t exactly finished.” Semiramis scoffed, grabbing some more food from a plate nearby.

“Thank you. Ishtar found that odd as well, no matter how many times he made her bleed or cut off portions of her hair his gaze had never faltered like that before. However, unfortunately, she managed to figure out what was happening before Shirou could complete it. The Reality Marble itself was eating everything that came off Ishtar, and probably Kama and Astraea too, and using it to create an entirely new blade.”

“A blade with the powers of a Goddess?” Morgan questioned, only for realization to flash across her features as the twin-tailed magus shook her head.

“A blade with, in this case, an Anti-Ishtar property.”

There was a sharp inhalation of breath across the entire table at what Rin had just revealed, even from the Servants and Bazett. A Reality Marble that could create something using the bio-information of a living creature was one thing, a Reality Marble that could use that information to create an Anti property blade designed specifically for that creature was something else entirely, especially if it worked on a Goddess of all things.

“You’re joking!”

“There’s no way!”

“That has to be cheating!”

“Yeah! Go Onii-chan!”

Everyone went silent at Illya’s loud shout, turning their heads slowly to look at the white-haired girl, who currently stood on her chair with a fist up in celebration.

“…What? That’s really cool.”

Rin couldn’t help but smile at the girl’s defense of herself, raising an eyebrow and grinning demurely at her.

“Want to know what else is cool, Illya? I know what Kuro-chan does now.”

“NO WAY! Tell me!”

“Impossible!”

“How??”

Illya, Olga, and Gray all said at once, the three clearly the most interested in the mystery that had surrounded Shirou’s personal blade since the day he had finished crafting it.

For someone who was utterly unrepentant in explaining and showing off his blades and their abilities to anyone who asked, Kuro had gone a record amount of time without anyone learning of what secrets it held. Though, Rin supposed that Gilgamesh had seemed to know what it did.

But he was dead now, so it totally didn’t count.

“Once again, Ishtar figured it out.” Rin admittedly regretfully, annoyed that it had been her to discover the secret of the blade and not the Tohsaka head herself. “So, I’ll let Shirou explain once he wakes up instead of ruining the surprise.”

“AW COME ON!” Illya let her legs buckle to sit back down on her chair with a loud ‘whump!’ and slid a bit further down, clearly not happy with the secret continuing to be upheld.

“That blade explains how his last attack against Ishtar managed to do so much damage.” Luvia mumbled, her fingers holding her chin as she replayed the last moments before Unlimited Blade Works shattered around them.

She had always wondered what that blade had been, and how it had managed to carve so deep into Ishtar. Now, she supposed, she knew the answer.

And really, all it did was raise more questions about the exact limits of such an ability.

“Yeah, however, that blade and the danger it posed seemed to shift something in Ishtar and her concentration went through the roof, leading to her landing a Perfect Punch on Shirou as he tried to cut her in half.” Rin finished off her explanation with a movement of her hand, showing where the blade had cut into her body and how far down.

“A perfect punch?” Fiore questioned; her eyebrows knit in confusion as Xuanzang looked at Rin with no small amount of awe.

“When the breathing and actions of a punch are done to absolute perfection, the damage and impact of the punch can be magnified to the point of being a Magecraft in and of itself.” Rin explained, wanting to be polite and accommodating without actually revealing too much of the ability’s effects.

Sure, she may have to clarify some stuff with Luvia later, but so far Fiore was a tentative ally.

“It's quite a powerful ability.” Xuanzang clarified a little further, missing the small sigh and facepalm that Rin did at the end of the table. “Sun Wukong used it a few times throughout our journey, though his regular strikes were more than catastrophic enough.”

“And then what happened?” Morgan questioned, deliberately steering the conversation back on track so that she could hear more about Shirou’s Reality Marble and what he could/did do with it.

“Well, luckily Sherou managed to defend himself on instinct.” Luvia continued, shivering a little as her complexion paled. “But Ishtar’s punch gouged a hole in his abdomen and left most of his organs torn to shreds and his intestines hanging to the floor.”

Near the other end of the table, Fiore turned slightly green and held a hand in front of her mouth as she gagged. The girl clearly took in that knowledge the worst, even if both Illya and Olga paled slightly at hearing the damage that he had taken.

“Now I know why you didn’t want Kaa-chan here…” Illya muttered beneath her breath, only able to imagine her reaction if she had heard such a thing.

“It’s a miracle that a coma is the only thing he left that fight with.” Jeanne muttered, worried but not outright disgusted like some of the other girls.

Though, no one else was particularly surprised by that. War was a rather brutal endeavor after all.

“And that amount of damage to him shattered his Reality Marble, bringing them all back to the clearing in the forest that we had created.”

“Fascinating, clearly there’s a mental link between the caster and the boundary of the Reality Marble itself, perhaps enough mental static in the form of injuries can cause the World Egg to collapse in on itself?” Morgan muttered, idly eating some food as she tried to figure out the exact cause of why that had occurred.

Of course, there was no way of figuring that out for certain without seeing it first-hand, but the theorising alone was something that she was finding incredibly fun.

“Perhaps, I hadn’t considered that.” Kama responded, Scathach’s eyes sharpening in warning. “Oh, calm down, I’m being polite and playing along.”

The casual dismissal from the goddess, while amusing to the Queen of Shadows, was far less so to some of the other combatants around the table. A few of them watched her warily as she clicked her tongue and tugged at the outfit adorning her body.

“This thing is so utterly stuffy, I’ve had enough.”

With her mind made up, the Goddess clutched the shirt and skirt that she was wearing and activated a small Magecraft, the threads unwinding themselves and reconfiguring into new patterns and shapes at her whim. Leaving her not in the formal skirt and long-sleeved shirt that Sakura had chosen to wear that morning, but in something far more…..showing.

Now her body was adorned in thin materials not unlike silk or satin with brilliant golden bands and beautiful golden petals capping each end of the material. An outfit as beautiful as it was enticing and seducing, especially when she raised her arms to show a few purple tassels that hung from the golden petals atop her shoulders.

“Hmmm, not too bad.” She hummed.

Of course, the main object of her affection and desires lay above their heads, asleep and unable to appreciate the work she’d put into it, but at the very least she knew what she could do the next time her host had to take a step back.

Meanwhile, two other deities nearby found their interest piqued.

“Oh? Well isn’t that a neat trick.” Ishtar hummed, placing two fingers on her lips while floating upside down in Rin’s mind.

“Fascinating. That gives me a few ideas…” Manannán grinned in Bazett’s, clearly enjoying whatever strange ideas he had concocted.

Both women shuddered a little at the idle comments from their ‘roommates’ and tried to pretend that they hadn’t said a single thing. However, it took Rin a lot of effort not to start yelling at the Goddess of Beauty.

“With that out of the way, after Shirou’s Reality Marble broke, I wanted his attention and misery stuck on me and only me.” Everyone startled a little at Kama willingly taking part in the conversation, though the way that her cheek smooshed against her palm showed that she didn’t exactly find the situation very stimulating.

“He was so focused on that twin-tailed Princess, it was annoying. So, I decided to use an ability of my host to draw his attention to me, her Reality Marble.”

This time it was Kama that Morgan’s attention snapped to, her blue eyes locked onto the Goddess with a focus and intensity that the Indian deity wished she had a tenth of right now.

“Sakura has developed a Reality Marble?”

“Developing.” Kama corrected, eyes half-lidded and tone dead. “I summoned the only inhabitant of that stupid place and got stabbed in the back for my troubles.”

“Quite literally.” Rin grinned smugly, a flash of blue fire making her blink quickly and startle back, only to see the tip of Scathach’s Gae Bolg just barely breaking the skin of Kama’s neck once the embers disappeared.

“Stand. Down.”

Kama, with her chin raised to avoid the spear digging further into her neck, lolled her eyes up to stare at the woman as she crouched on top of the table, clearly prepared to make whatever mess was necessary to keep her in line.

“Ugh, fine. Whatever. See if I take part in this stupid thing again.”

With a final roll of her eyes, she slumped in her seat once again, stubbornly keeping her lips pressed together even as it seemed like a few of the table’s occupants expected her to continue speaking.

“Well, continuing one from where she left off-“ Luvia cut in, eager to keep the conversation going to not let things get too tense. “Kama summoned an entity from Sakura’s forming Reality Marble which turned on her, using her as a hostage and a way to keep Ishtar or Astraea from instantly attacking.”

“Not that, that lasted long.”

“And, as Miss Gorilla said, ended up being destroyed by Ishtar after egging her on.” Luvia finished off, giving her rival a small grin as the other young woman just glared minutely and huffed.

“After that,” Rin growled, quickly clearing her throat and smiling innocently as she tried to keep explaining. “The fight continued again, but by that stage, Ishtar had been too corroded by my own emotions to cold-heartedly aim for kill shots on Shirou. I believe it may have been the same for Kama, but she’s being pouty so we can’t know.”

Kama just gave the twin-tailed girl a half-lidded deadpan stare, not rising to the bait that had been so blatantly hung in front of her face.

“After a short bout with both Ishtar and Kama, Sherou was saved by Astraea and finally acknowledged that she was working to try and help him.” Luvia explained, sounding oddly proud over something so simple.

The look of absolute death that Rin and Kama both shot Luvia made it evident right away why that was the case.

“And then Astraea used her Authority as the Goddess of Justice and created a pseudo-reality based on a courtroom to try both Ishtar and Kama for their actions.”

Now Morgan’s attention was locked onto Luvia, the poor Queen’s head swimming with intrigue and questions and absolute want in quite a few forms.

From the sounds of it, Astraea’s ability wasn’t a full-blown Reality Marble but the intertwining of a true Authority through a pseudo-reality was still something to behold from a thaumaturgical perspective and something that she absolutely wanted to see at some stage.

She wanted to dissect it, pull it apart, analyze all the pieces, and stitch it back together in as many ways as possible to test their results. However, seeing as she didn’t have an Authority –that honour belonged to Le Fay and Vivian, annoyingly enough– being able to just see and investigate would have to do.

A Reality Marble, however, could be recreated. Of course, the inner mechanisms, terrain, and boundary would be different, but the actual, physical construct of a Reality Marble could be replicated, and being able to see and experience one in action would be absolutely invaluable to that.

“Through the trial, both were found guilty and so had their strength and output hampered when the pseudo-reality ended and fell apart.”

“That was just after I got there.” Olga informed the table, getting surprised looks from the two girlfriends of Shirou and Kama.

“Wait you were there while they were gone?” Rin questioned, placing her palms on the table and leaning forward.

“I was.” She responded, straightening her back out and trying her absolute best to be calm and professional. “The backlash from your battle was severe, to make sure that I got out ok I used a spell to give myself a limited form of foresight. With my current proficiency, I can only see a second or two into the future but it’s enough to avoid things if I’m prepared. I…I don’t know why, but somehow, I managed to supercharge it this time and saw much further ahead. Much…. much further ahead.”

The girl shivered and flinched, a stinging pain surging through her eyes, an itching sensation persisting even as the pain dissipated. Freezing up, the girl tried her absolute best not to make any sounds or show that she was in any kind of lingering pain as she looked back up with bloodshot eyes while continuing to rub one of them, her lips parted ever so slightly to let her silently suck in more air to fill her dully panging lungs.

“Big Brother he….In the future, I saw he accepted a deal with someone that….I just knew that it was bad.” She tried to explain, her voice warbling a bit in confusion as she tried to explain the instinctual, gut feeling that had wracked her at that moment.

Scattered throughout the table, Scathach, Semiramis, and Morgan all squinted their eyes a little at the girl’s story, their minds running a mile a minute.

Seeing into the future was a tricky ordeal even with the most stable of foundations and prodigal skills. Oracles even back during the Age of Gods often had to simply rely on basic explanations and vague details simply to get something even roughly accurate.

Very few beings were actually able to look into the future and find something accurate, let alone an entire scene like Olga had described herself seeing. Someone did not simply do something like that merely by ‘overloading’ a spell, it just didn’t happen.

No, there was something else behind that phenomenon.

“I tried rushing to get to him as fast as possible but the four of them had moved really far in a short amount of time. But then I heard….Well, I heard your voice, Lady Pendragon.” She said, turning to look at Morgan, getting a widening of the Queen’s eyes.

‘Oh. That very much explains how she was able to do that now.’

“I felt a push on my back and my next couple of steps sent me hurtling in the air towards the beach you were on. When I got there, Big Brother was on his hands and knees until I called out for him. He hadn’t made the deal that I had seen but…I also didn’t see the dealmaker at all, so I don’t know where they were.”

“If you weren’t there in the timeline you originally saw, you might have scared them off in this one.” Heracles suggested, clearing an entire chicken leg in an instant right after he finished eating.

“That’s the most likely explanation, if that’s the moment they chose to appear, they were probably waiting for a moment of isolation or weakness.” Scathach tacked on, frowning a little as she saw the expressions that flashed across Rin and Luvia’s faces.

“However Big Brother sensed the shattering of Astraea’s courtroom and warned me, so I managed to get away before the fighting started again.”

“I see, thank you.” Luvia muttered, gnawing on her lip for a moment before shaking her head and continuing.

“Following their reappearance in reality, Kama went to re-engage Sherou before he….well I’m not quite sure what he managed to do but he combined the abilities of what Illya calls ‘Boundary’ and ‘Territory’ into a single activation.”

Silently, Morgan stood up, much to the amusem*nt or confusion of the entire table. Her footsteps measured and calm as she walked around its length and turned the corner to make her way further into the house. Her footsteps went silent for a moment before the sound of a door opening echoed through the entire house.

The entire table sat silently as they heard both Morgan and Artoria’s voices right before there was a spike of prana and the sound of a loud impact. Footsteps grew louder as they made their way back down the hallway and into the kitchen, revealing Artoria holding Morgan off the ground like a misbehaving kitten by the back of her dress with her arms crossed behind her back and held there by the wrists by her other hand.

“He is resting, Morgan. Keep it in your dress.” Artoria hissed, clearly less than pleased at her sister’s actions.

Morgan, on the other hand, looked utterly remorseless in her annoyance, struggling in her sister’s grip and unable to even slightly free herself.

“I wasn’t going to do anything like that, Artoria…..yet. I just need answers.”

“You can wait.” The King of Knights rebutted, looking at Percival and giving him a sharp nod before placing Morgan firmly down on her feet.

Only once the white-haired knight stood up and placed a hand on the Queen’s shoulder, did Artoria let go of the older woman. Her gaze kept glued on the silver-haired woman suspiciously as she backed off, only giving the quickest of glances towards the food.

She wanted to join in on the meal and eat with the rest of them, of course she did, but she had a duty, and she couldn’t afford to shirk her responsibilities while everyone else was busy with this meeting.

She would allow herself to calm down and relax only when her Master opened his eyes and got up. Until then she would stand guard and make sure that his condition did not deteriorate for any reason, as she believed a proper Servant should.

‘When are you going to wake up, Shirou…?’

With an annoyed huff, Morgan warped from her position beside Percival to the seat that she had previously sat in, crossing her arms and crossing one leg over the other underneath the table.

Of course, she understood her sister’s worry, it was a natural reaction to seeing someone in that kind of state after all, but the sheer fervor that she had in protecting him was getting a bit worrying.

Honestly, Morgan was genuinely considering stirring the Tohsaka to head up and sending her Artoria’s way just to make them both calm down.

Because while she knew that Artoria had been getting closer to Shirou over the past two weeks since he had summoned her, and broken through her shell with startling ease, the Queen simply couldn’t help but find the idea of her ‘first time’ being with Rin and not Shirou to be the funniest thing on the planet.

But enough about that, for now. Now was the time to focus on the recap and information, she couldn’t miss out on anything.

“Can I continue now?” Luvia questioned, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow at her Servant.

“Yes yes, go ahead. Don’t mind me.” The English Queen smiled innocently at her, getting an amused exhale from the Finnish magus before she kept going.

“Using that combination of Boundary and Territory he managed to level the playing field a little bit more, though I’m still uncertain on some of the effects of Boundary. Rin, did Ishtar figure anything out?” She looked over at her fellow magus and got a nod in return as the twin-tailed girl stood back up after managing to eat a good portion of her meal.

“She did, actually. The exact mechanics behind it are still a mystery, but Boundary allows Shirou to enact a conceptual component to his attacks. Ishtar believed it to be a ‘lengthening’ of his blade. Extending the edge of his blade, and its movement, all the way to the extent of the Boundary.”

“Ah, I see now.” Scathach hummed, making a small hand motion next to her head. “It likely works under a similar principle to Gae Bolg and its retroactive piercing. Shirou’s blade had moved from point A to point B, therefore anything between those points must have been cut through.”

To emphasize her explanation, she held both of her hands up to act as the points in question and traced a finger between the two points. Her experience as a teacher was more than evident as she continued.

“As for the simultaneous activation, that’s a harder matter to surmise but I can take a guess that he perhaps used the synchronous natures of both abilities to overlap them.” She hummed, drawing a small circle in the air with her finger as she considered the Bounded Field-esk nature of both abilities.

“That’s the most likely answer.” Morgan nodded, considering it herself now that she had calmed down a little. “It’s certainly a fascinating application of both abilities. I can’t imagine that its toll on the body or prana reserves is light, however, to make up for that effectiveness.”

“I don’t think so either, because he started slowing down a lot quicker than he already had been, using some combination of bow and arrow to deadlock a charged attack from Ishtar that blew the beach to kingdom come.” Rin shook her head and explained, shivering a little as she remembered watching Shirou drop.

“Which is when we appeared.” Heracles said, getting a nod from the twin-tailed girl.

“Ok ok! Our turn!” Illya said excitedly, bouncing in her seat with her hand raised.

“Very well, go ahead Illya.” Rin chuckled, sitting back down alongside Luvia and letting the girl hop up excitedly.

“Great! Welcome one and all to the great Illyasviel’s recollection of events!” A pair of glasses spawned to life over the ridge of her nose and a blackboard and chalk appeared behind her.

“Huh? Big Brothers Project- AH!” Olga yelped as a piece of chalk struck her between the eyes.

Illya only smiled innocently at the accusing looks that she got, another piece of chalk held between her fingers as if it somehow absolved her of ever having thrown one at the other girl.

In all fairness, the girl hadn’t thrown a piece of chalk at the Animusphere girl who dared to try and steal her Onii-chan from her.

A wire had though.

“HEY!”

“Aaaaanyways!” Illya said, quickly drawing on the blackboard to draw the conversation away from Olga and her annoyance. “After Ishtar ripped my heart out, which was a bummer–“

Multiple people sitting at the table stared at Illya’s back with unreadable expressions, unable to figure out if she was fine and just venting with humour or if something actually had to be done about this.

They didn’t know what they could do about this, none of them were exactly well adjusted themselves, but something.

“I sorta lost myself for a bit in the haze that the curse created in my mind. It was….actually really angry.”

In an instant, all the energy bled out of the girl and her posture slouched a little while she was drawing a cartoonish fire on the blackboard.

“It’s like when you’re having a bad day, that just keeps getting worse and worse. And you keep thinking that you’ve hit your limit but then something small but annoying happens and you find out that, actually, you can get angrier. Again, and again…It's almost addicting. You just keep getting angrier and angrier and everything else just bleeds–“

There was a dull ‘thunk’ as a bead of golden energy struck the back of Illya’s head and made her forehead smack into the blackboard and bounce off painfully, all the slowly climbing malice in the girl disappearing in an instant as she clutched her forehead and cursed at the top of her lungs.

“Oops.” Olga muttered, buffing her nails on her shirt.

“Hm.” Illya squinted her eyes at the girl and made a pointing gesture between her eyes and Olga’s before turning back to the blackboard and pushing up the glasses that had slid down her nose slightly.

“Sorry about that. So! After that, I sort of went on a mindless rampage for a bit that Gray and Manannán helped contain and kept me away from Onii-chan and the Goddesses, thanks guys!”

Both Gray and Bazett silently held up their drinks and nodded before taking sips, more than happy to let Illya keep talking if she was going to stay this enthusiastic about it.

“About…. I think like halfway into the fight–“

“About a third, actually.” Bazett interrupted, getting an energetic nod in return.

“Right! About a third of the way into the fight I felt a gap back to the surface of my consciousness and did everything I could to bring myself back. Turns out that I’m a bit of a sore loser and don’t like losing–“

“We know.” The simultaneous answer, from at least half the table, made her jolt and turn around, sniffling dramatically before she made a loud sound like she was crying and turned back around again.

“WAAAHHH! Rude! But being beaten up by Gray and Manannán for so long led to the curse in my body growing stronger and stronger to try and keep up, which started to bring –y’know– me back to the surface. And it worked too!”

“I think something may have been lost in transition.” Rin deadpanned, getting a sticking out of the tongue from the younger girl.

“Yeah, well nothing's perfect and I’m like…way stronger now too.”

“Can’t exactly refute that..?” Fiore mumbled, very unsure how she managed to find herself in the middle of so many monsters despite actively agreeing to come here.

“Exactly! Anyways, eventually when I was basically fully to the surface I ... Sorta just started fighting to get revenge for how much you guys carved me up.” The Emiya girl admitted sheepishly, giving an apologetic smile to Gray and Bazett as they both leveled death glares at her.

“Is that…all?” Angelica asked, her brows furrowed together slightly as she looked at the cartoon timeline that the girl had drawn out.

“Pretty much! There really wasn’t anything super interesting on our side of the fight. It was just a lot of Gray and Manannán using their weapons and magic to carve me up and a lot of me trying to carve them back up in return.”

“In Manannán’s words, ‘She was a damn good punching back, just kept getting back up’.” Bazett deadpanned, getting an offended sound from the girl as she huffed and sat back down with her arms crossed, her creations fading away to sparkles of prana.

“I’ve been demoted…” She sniffled, wobbling side to side as Heracles idly rubbed her back with a single hand.

“And now I believe it’s the Servants and Fiore’s turn to explain their side of the night.” Rin continued the conversation before it could derail any further.

“I believe so, I don’t know if it will take as long as your explanation did, Rin, but there’s a fair amount to cover on our end too.” Morgan said, wondering if she should do the same blackboard trick as Illya before deciding not to.

If it was just her that went through everything then she may have done so, but she was fairly separated from the rest of the Servants for most of the night, so it was better not to deal with such a potentially clunky visual aid.

In her seat, Kama’s eyes and hair suddenly switched back to their regular purple and she blinked quickly while sitting back up and looking over the clothes that adorned her body.

Sakura could admit that the clothes looked great and accented her curves marvelously, but she couldn’t help but find herself a bit annoyed. She had quite enjoyed that aspect and she didn’t get to cheat like the Goddesses could and transmute one material into another, so this metal was here to stay now.

However, she did transmute all the material to look a lot more professional than previously, turning all the metal into bracelets, anklets, and other accessories hidden by her clothes. She wasn’t the biggest fan of having metal rings around her thighs like Kama had done, but it was a great waste of metal, so she not only kept them but added onto them too.

“Boooooo.”

‘Quiet.’

“Nice of you to join us again, Sakura.” Heracles nodded respectfully as he stood up, clearing his throat and addressing the entire table. “Our version of events starts just after the initial assault on the pyramid began, where myself, Artoria, Percival, Medusa, and Scathach raided the Ramesseum Tentyris while Morgan and Semiramis stayed aboard the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.”

Heracles took a moment to let the information settle in before he continued, making sure to keep his gaze on a swivel so that everyone at the table got an equal amount of his attention.

“Most of my time was spent on the outside of the pyramid itself battling, Servant Archer of the Yggdmillennia forces, Arjuna. As it was decided that keeping as many ranged options as possible from interfering with the other fights would be useful, and my particular Noble Phantasms would fare well against the potential Noble Phantasms that he, himself, had.”

“Based on what we heard on the boat trip, that was a clever decision on our end.” Morgan grinned, getting a serious nod in return from the muscled behemoth of a man.

“That’s correct. Much like my Master, the exact details of the fight aren’t incredibly important, however his power and skill were the real deal. In melee combat, I was more than able to handle him but at range, we were near equals. At least until, I can only assume, the moment when my Master’s heart was destroyed.”

“The freedom from the cycle of life, death and rebirth.” Semiramis cut in, having caught onto Heracles’s lack of knowledge of the term. “In other words, instant death.”

“Thank you, Semiramis. That explanation explains his confusion and the effects of the Noble Phantasm in question, it claimed one of my lives in an instant. No damage, no resistance, simply just a life gone.”

“Dangerous, but intriguing.” Scathach muttered, cupping her chin in her hand as she thought over what she had just heard.

“The battle, following that, was far more one-sided than I would like to admit. I feel that the increase in power that you felt, Master, was overflowing into me as well. Eventually, Arjuna was unable to keep up and I vanquished him while breaking into the throne room of the Ramesseum Tentyris itself, where I met back up with the rest of the raiding party.”

After finishing his side of the story, Heracles sat back down, looking to see who would continue after him. Which, after a moment of silence, turned out to be Scathach.

“I suppose I’ll go next then. I was part of the internal strike squad but split off fairly early when a summon of Ozymandias tried a sneak attack on us while we were weakened from a curse inlaid on the pyramid. It seemed to be a curse that acted similarly to a poison that not only lowered our parameters but also caused severe internal damage if we didn’t have enough endurance.”

“Which I cured.” Semiramis added in, quite egotistically.

“Much to our thanks, but that particular event comes a little later.” Scathach responded without missing a beat, “The creature that attacked was, I believe after a conversation with Heracles and Medusa, known as an Ammit.”

“Based on everything you said it sounds familiar.” Heracles nodded with his arms crossed. “Crocodile jaws, lion and hippopotamus feet combined. The chimeric nature is one of the biggest giveaways.”

“It kept trying to use a particular ability on me, creating a pseudo-reality around us that consisted of nothing but a set of weighing scales, however it kept fizzling out before the scales could move. However, with my knowledge base, I can’t quite pinpoint exactly why that is.”

“If it truly was an Ammit, then perhaps it was trying to evoke the weighing scales of Anubis? Ammit historically was known as the ‘Devourer of the Dead’.” Luvia explained, having quite a bit of knowledge surrounding Egypt thanks to some of her families….exploits.

“That would explain it then. Despite inhabiting a Servant container at the time–“

“Excuse me?”

“At the time!?”

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

“-my soul itself was still very much considered alive due to the complicated nature of my summoning, therefore making me immune to the effects of its scales.” Scathach continued, purposefully ignoring the litany of shocked exclamations and surprised questions.

Bazett merely sighed quietly at the Queen of Shadows ignoring everyone’s shock, getting the feeling that she was doing it specifically to mess with everyone.

“The creature was a good opponent, magic resistance and regeneration meant that it could take a good beating and keep going. However, it couldn’t keep up, so I used its body to break down the wall of the throne room before it disappeared.” Scathach spoke simply, as if it was an easy task to achieve.

Which, to her, it may have been –a thought that only reminded the table exactly what kind of monsters currently sat at it.

“And that is where my individual side of the events ends.”

“Great, now mind finally explaining that stray comment from before?” Rin questioned, her eye twitching a little.

Scathach had been jerking them all around for days about what had occurred during the Battle of Kings, only informing Bazett, Artoria, Morgan, and Heracles while leaving everyone else in the dark. She continually avoided the topic with a simple ‘the pieces are all there, put them together’ but now she had nowhere to run. She’d agreed to this dinner and its stipulations, so she had to clarify herself.

“Hmmmmm, fine.” Scathach sighed in disappointment, shaking her head slowly. “When I used one of my Noble Phantasms and opened the Gate of Skye to drag as many of the Sphinxes into the Land of Shadows as possible –this occurs towards the end of the fight– there was a ... resonance effect, I believe.”

Scathach stopped for a moment to mull over her words, her hands up once again to serve as visual aids for her explanation.

“Quite simply, the shard of myself that made up Scathach, the Lancer, and my true soul which still inhabited the Land of Shadows began to draw on each other. However, while my true self merely inhabited the Land of Shadows, my Lancer self was metaphysically tied here by the Holy Grail and the command seals that Bazett, at the time, still had. Therefore, instead of my Lancer self being pulled towards the larger, stronger, whole that it was originally a part of, my true living self was pulled towards my Lancer self instead.”

“Is the Land of Shadows not meant to be something inescapable?” Luvia questioned; her head tilted to the side slightly.

“Ideally, yes, but it's not truly that impenetrable. I alone have control over the gate, and thus the authority to pass through it as I please, which is why my true self came through instead of just stopping at the boundary. And when we struck each other, we merged together. But the weight of memories and experiences here on his Texture gave the ‘personality’ of my Lancer self an edge. Therefore, my two selves merged into one proper whole with all of my memories intact and untouched, instead of just my living self that happens to have the memories of my Servant self.”

“So, you’re essentially the exact same Scathach that we knew before, but stronger, faster, and far less restricted?” Jeanne questioned, trying to wrap her head around all of this.

She was a simple farm girl, not an educated and trained magus, all of this talk of souls and barriers and merging selves was just beginning to hurt her brain.

“That’s essentially correct, to avoid the nitty-gritty details.” She nodded with a satisfied smirk.

“A real Heroic Spirit revived in the modern day, I can’t say I expected a second one…” Rin muttered dryly, hoping that she was at least somewhat easier to deal with than Gilgamesh.

She was, of course, far more tempered and self-controlled than Gilgamesh had ever been. However, Scathach also had a battle lust that Gilgamesh never could have matched, and that brought its own set of troubles with it.

“I suppose it’s our time to explain the main portion of the Battle of Kings.” Medusa sighed, standing up alongside Percival and Xuanzang as Scathach sat back down.

“After splitting off from Scathach while she dealt with the Ammit, we made our way to the throne room in a short time, running into Ozymandias, Hessian Lobo, Xuanzang, and a large Sphinx.” Medusa began, looking over at Xuanzang as she politely lifted a hand to around face level.

“That Sphinx is the Wehem-Mesut, sort of like the King Sphinx that Ozymandias could summon.” The Buddhist explained, smiling at Medusa as the blindfolded woman nodded her head in response.

“When we got there, Xuanzang and Fiore’s betrayal was revealed when she struck out at Ozymandias and the rest of his forces began fighting us. Artoria went after Ozymandias himself, Xuanzang and Percival went after Wehem-Mesut and I engaged Hessian Lobo. However, I struggled quite a bit due to the curse’s effects on me, so my fight was less of a proper engagement and more of a stalling diversion.”

“Mhm, I made sure to help when things got really dicey in the middle though!” Xuanzang reassured everyone, grinning at the Gorgon Queen.

“Yes, I have to thank you for that. What happened during that moment, if you don’t mind me asking?” The woman raised an eyebrow beneath her blindfold as she thought over the events once more.

It had been such an instantaneous action, her appearance between Medusa and Hessian Lobo amidst her retreat from the Wehem-Mesut and the aria that she had spoken. Medusa, in her curse-induced weakness, had barely been able to keep track of her, let alone notice whatever it was that had mangled the attacking limbs of both Hessian and Lobo.

“Ah! I recited the sutra of the Nidana-vagga. The Nidana-vagga has to do with the twelvefold chain of dependent origination, one of which is the idea of ‘causation’. Due to all my practice, I can recite any of the Buddha’s sutras at a rapid speed, so I recited the sutra just before they struck me. It was simply causation that striking someone would lead to being struck back.” She explained as if anything in that sentence was something normal or to be downplayed.

“Hm, from the sounds of it, it sounds similar to the {High-Speed Incantations} skill that certain Caster Servants have.” Morgan explained aloud, wondering exactly what the extent of the skill effects were.

Based on the small details in Medusa’s slackened expression and shoulders, it was very likely a potent reciting skill, likely to the point of overlapped dialogues if the timeframe was to be believed.

“I see, well I do greatly appreciate it. Without your assistance, I’m not certain if I would be standing here right now.” Medusa placed a hand over her heart and nodded respectfully.

“No problem! It’s the least I could do.” Xuanzang gave her a thumbs up and a big grin, her enthusiasm positively infectious.

“Why didn’t you just petrify him? Did it not work?” Illya asked, blinking owlishly at the shake of the Gorgon’s head.

“It did not. For a completely separate reason as to why it didn’t work on Artoria, Ozymandias, or Heracles. They could fight it through sheer Od quantity, whereas Hessian Lobo’s Od seemed to just…burn through my petrification. I believe it has something to do with Hessian Lobo being, as Irisviel described before the Battle of Kings started, an ‘Avenger’ class Servant.”

“Sounds ominous.” Ciel muttered, getting a few jolts from those who sat nearby since she had been silent for pretty much the entire dinner so far.

“It felt so as well. But following that, the rest of my fight with Hessian Lobo was essentially a race around the throne room to try and keep myself intact and keep them distracted, at least until Heracles fell through the ceiling like a small meteor.”

“With my assistance, Hessian Lobo didn’t last for much longer, since Medusa was no longer outnumbered and could rely on me whenever she was put in a pinch, and vice versa.” Heracles recounted, looking over at Medusa as an indication for her to continue.

“And receiving an antidote for the curse's poison was the final nail in the coffin for Hessian Lobo, something which I do have to thank you for as well, Semiramis.”

In response the Queen merely smirked co*ckily and flipped some hair over her shoulder, clearly enjoying the limelight and the knowledge that her skills had come in handy.

“You’re very welcome, my blindfolded compatriot. Honestly, the fact that Ozymandias thought he could challenge me to a battle of poisons was the most insulting slight of the night. So, knowing that it directly led to his allies being cut down is much appreciated.”

“Not just Hessian Lobo, that antidote helped Xuanzang and I finally best Wehem-Mesut as well.” Percival informed her, only inflating her ego even more.

At the end of the table, Rin silently held her head in her hands and stared blankly at her mostly empty plate of food, already lamenting the ego boost that her Servant was getting. She was hard enough to deal with as it was, this was not going to make it easier.

“Our battle with Mehem-Mesut was much the same as Medusa’s with Hessian Lobo, in that it was a diversionary combat, but it was also far more equal due to our numbers advantage despite the Sphinx King's advantage in terms of pure statistics.” He explained, his right hand making small motions in front of him as he spoke.

With those small hand motions, his perfectly upright posture, and the tone of voice that he spoke with, the idea that he had been a knight of the Round Table was more than evident.

“However, even then it was far from an easy battle to win, at least until the arrival of Lady Scathach after victory over the Ammit.

“You’re welcome.” She smirked and nodded, but otherwise stayed silent.

The Wehem-Mesut had been a strong opponent that she would have much rather fought instead of the Ammit, but her choices had been made and she simply just had to deal with them. At least she’d managed to get some combat against the powerful Sphinx King.

“For My King’s version of events, she would have to be asked, as no one else engaged Ozymandias aside from her until his allies had been dealt with, but following those losses he began to grow more defensive and panicked, even drawing in the sphinxes that he had been using to body block the attacks of the Hanging Garden of Babylon to attack us instead.”

“Those sphinxes were no joke. Fast, strong, and durable. Not to mention that even when torn apart or outright disintegrated, more just kept appearing thanks to the pyramid’s effects.” Heracles spoke up once again, remembering how he had practically waged a one-man war against a fair few of them.

“They were certainly a threat, which is why I decided to open the Gate of Skye in the first place.” Scathach agreed with him, nodding her head seriously.

“However following my incarnation back upon this Texture, I was able to get all of us out of the Ramesseum Tentyris right before Artoria could unleash Excalibur on the pyramid and Ozymandias alike, using Jeanne and the remaining Yggdmillennia as a waypoint.” The Irish Queen explained, looking over at Jeanne poignantly as she finished.

With a startled blink and small yelp, she hopped to her feet, smiling shyly at the whole table and giving them a small wave before clearing her throat into her closed fist. The girl took that small opportunity to calm her nerves and open her eyes towards the group once more, not speaking to them as Jeanne the exuberant girl from the countryside of France, but as Jeanne D’Arc, the Holy Maiden of the Hundred Year War.

“Right, well towards the beginning of the combat against Ozymandias, Hessian Lobo, and Wehem-Mesut, I used my Magic Resistance to make my way through the pyramid unaffected by the curses and other magical effects of the Ramesseum Tentyris and collected all the Masters, bringing them well outside the effective range of the Ramesseum Tentyris. Unfortunately, in the time between their extraction and the appearance of the other Servants, both Darnic Yggdmillennia and Celenike Yggdmillennia tried attacking me and so I had to deal with them.” Following her admission, the woman clasped her hands together and muttered a small prayer.

“It sounds bad but….Death was really the only way.” Fiore tried to reassure everyone there, “They wouldn’t have tried to stop if she hadn’t–“

“Fiore, it's fine.” Rin tried to reassure her, giving her the best comforting smile that she could right now, “Nearly everyone here are experienced warriors and fighters, we all get it.”

The Yggdmillennia girl just nodded silently and relaxed back in her wheelchair, looking over as both Morgan and Semiramis stood up.

“And now, to end the night’s retelling, allow myself and Pendragon to finish things up.” Semiramis crowed, bowing in a fashion both dramatic and mocking.

“Our version of events begins shortly after the teleportation of our Masters when Le Fay teleported into the throne room of the Hanging Gardens.” Morgan began explaining, creating a 3D wireframe of the throne room in the air above the center of the table for them all to see.

“Much like the fight with Hessian Lobo, my main goal was diversionary stalling while fighting Le Fay.”

The small stick figures within the wireframe representing Pendragon and Le Fay began to move around with small particle effects vaguely recreating the fight as best as Morgan could recall.

“At the time we hadn’t learned of the tear in the Textures so I was trying to get information out of her as I fought, and give Semiramis enough space and time to focus on the artillery assault with the Ramesseum Tentyris and then the antidote for the ground forces.”

Morgan spun the wireframe slowly so that everyone at the table could get a better view of the miniature battle that she was creating for their viewing pleasure.

“Following the completion of the antidote, I turned my attention to the battle between the two of them and threw my hat into the ring, as it’s said.” Semiramis picked up where Morgan left off, “The two of them were making such a mess of my throne room that I couldn’t just allow it to continue, so I used one of my Noble Phantasms to fill the entire throne room with the worst poison I can concoct while giving Pendragon here the antidote at the same time.”

“I wondered how that worked since we were flickering through the throne room constantly. Was it a centered effect that was stuck to me or something else?” Morgan asked, intrigued by the exact mechanics of the other Queen’s Noble Phantasm.

“A mixture, that particular poison was developed specifically to deal with those outside the Alliance and so I made sure to have everyone in the Alliance develop antibodies to that specific concoction and used a targeted effect to have the poison be especially susceptible to the antibodies in your system.”

“Effective.” Morgan nodded, both women blatantly ignoring the absolute death glare that Rin was shooting at her servant.

“However, that poison ended up being the downfall of Le Fay, after she powered herself up by tapping into the Leylines she was arrogant and assured of her victory. Which is what ultimately led her to underestimating the both of us and unable to guess our plan of attack.” Semiramis continued, crossing her arms under her impressive bust and huffing proudly.

“Between the two of us, we left Le Fay unable to figure out who would be dealing the final blow, which ultimately came at my hand. She was expecting a proper melee strike, but all I needed was to get a hand on her to shatter the purification spell that she was using to protect herself from Semiramis’ poison. Once the spell broke, she was down for the count, and able to finally meet her end.” Morgan described, her expression darkening as she clenched her fist, and the wireframe shattered into small, light blue sparkles that quickly faded away.

Going over the fight like this again reminded her of exactly how bad it was for Le Fay to be allowed to come back again, which is why she couldn’t allow it no matter what. The Witch had made multiple ways to resurrect herself and Morgan would be sure to thwart and destroy each and every one with the utmost mercilessness.

Now if only she was able to locate the sister of her Master and deal with whatever ideas Le Fay had put in there, she could be rid of her and her terrible influence once and for all.

But, of course, the Witch never made anything easy, no matter what it was and Kristiina had been missing since the night of the Battle of Kings, with absolutely no evidence as to where she had gone, so more traditional methods of tracking her down had to be used.

“Alright, I believe that that just leaves me?” Ciel questioned, clapping her hands together softly and looking around, nodding quickly when she saw everyone in agreeance.

“Great. My end of the night is rather simple. Caren had called because she wanted to call in a favour from me to help retrieve her father’s corpse that was being puppeteered by the entity within the Holy Grail, Angra Mainyu.”

‘That answers one question.’ Rin thought to herself, swallowing some soba noodles that had managed to survive the ravenous appetites of the various historical figures around her.

“Just shortly after midnight, two swirling masses of mana struck Caren as we were talking and knocked her off her feet in an instant. I thought it was an attack at first, but I found out rather quickly that it was actually Amour and Eros possessing her. I thought that they were trying to attack me at first, but they were quick to assure me that that wasn’t the case. However, in their efforts to get to Caren first, their three souls slammed into each other and fused into what is essentially one soul with most of Caren’s personality at the surface. Though I’m not much of a fan of her trying to get me to call her ‘Super Caren’…” She admitted sheepishly, scratching her cheek and averting her eyes for a moment as she let the information sink in.

“I think I just heard Senpai groan in pain….?” Sakura muttered, turning in her seat to look in the direction of Shirou’s room.

“That checks out.” Luvia nodded right before placing some pasta into her mouth.

“After that, I tried to get more information out of them, but shortly following that Kirei Kotomine entered the church looking to finish Caren off, unaware that she had been possessed or that I was there, which I pretty quickly fixed.”

“Oh, that poor, poor man.” Gray sighed and shook her head.

“He deserves it.” Rin deadpanned, gesturing to Ciel to please continue.

“Right….well the battle was over quickly since he truly wasn’t much of a threat. I used a weapon I had developed specifically to deal with Angra Mainyu on him, which not only incinerated his body but did a fair amount of damage to the foreign god as well. However, to what extent that damage extends I cannot say for certain.”

“I’d say pretty high.” Illya cut in, humming curiously as she thought it over. “With the Grail supercharged thanks to Altrouge’s visit a few months ago, his core is still probably protected, but I and Kaa-chan haven’t felt his presence since that night, even slightly, and I don’t think that Sakura has either, right?”

“That’s correct, though I just assumed that was due to Kama and Parvati.” The maid responded politely, taking a drink of water.

“I’m surprised that he was that easy to deal with, however. I would have thought that he would be back in full strength with the tear in the Textures.” Luvia questioned, looking between Ciel and Illya curiously.

Only for Semiramis to pipe up first, much to their surprise.

“It makes more sense than you might think. Unlike the Divine Spirits that invaded you girls and directly entered your bodies, Angra Mainyu is using the Holy Grail as his main body and simply just splitting himself off or ‘infecting’ others with himself. More akin to creating golems or familiars that you can take control of at your leisure.”

“Not only that, but the Grail was already pretty supercharged alongside the mana that was already trapped inside it from the last four failed wars. So, his power was sort of like already at its peak y’know?” Illya tried to explain, placing a hand way above her head for emphasis. “Also like the familiar thing, there’s only so much you can put into something else by proxy before things start going all haywire.”

“Good to know, though I have gotten more of those weapons on order after everything that has happened. Additionally, the church has decided that I am to stay here unless something vital needs my attention due to the chaos that the tear is causing.” Ciel informed them all, getting a round of nods and understanding murmurs.

“Alright, I believe that that’s everything apart from Artoria’s side of the night.” Luvia announced happily, getting a small round of cheers as everyone either lifted their drinks or utensils in the air.

“Now that that’s over. I hope that everyone can relax, chat, and enjoy themselves for the rest of the night.” Rin said, grateful to everyone here that they had agreed to this request and that –apart from a couple of close calls with Kama– no violence had broken out.

“A toast! To the Table of Square!” Illya announced, leaping up to stand on the seat of her chair with a glass raised above her head dramatically.

“Illya, really?” Rin sighed tiredly.

“The Table of Square!” The girl's quick, forceful, retort got a jolt from the twin-tailed girl.

“Oh, why not, ‘Master’? It’s a rather amusing title after all.” Semiramis grinned, raising her wine glass demurely in response to her heated glare.

“I believe it to be a rather amusing twist on our own organization.” Percival added, clearly taking the entire thing in jest as he raised his own glass.

“Ugh, alright…”

“To the Table of Square!” The entire table cheered, clinking their glasses together in one big conglomerate above the center of the table, or as close as they could reach.

Following that cheer, the table devolved into multiple conversations that overlapped and intersected at random and chaotic points in time, the food and drinks steadily wearing down as the night went on, but not so fast that Rin couldn’t load up a very, very large plate and stand up with it.

“Hm? Going somewhere Miss Gorilla?” Luvia asked, looking over from the conversation she had just been having with Gray and Olga from across the table.

“It’s not fair for us to be getting all of this and Artoria gets nothing just for trying to protect Shirou. So, I’m going to bring some stuff up for her.” Rin responded so seriously that Luvia almost felt bad for trying to rile her up.

Almost. It was just too much fun.

“Here, bring this up too.” Morgan suddenly said, flicking her fingers up and placing a bottle in the crook of her arm, “She may not accept it but it's to help her unwind a little.”

“You’re right, she may not. But I’ll hand it to her anyway.” Rin snickered, sharing a slightly mischievous look with the Queen of Britain and walking away, towards Shirou’s room.

As she did, she passed the loungeroom where the TV sat, still turned on watching the news with its volume lowered. The news reporter disappeared from view as some shaky, grainy footage began to play, clearly taken from the ground level of a large city.

Footage that, a moment later, showed itself to be from Zhejiang, China. The moment that the tear in the Textures, and thus the Dragon, reached the city of Hangzhou a few hours earlier.

XXXxxxXXX

Side Story: The Clocktower Chronicles V

“Alright, now can anyone tell me the correct ratio of quartz to ruby particulate needed to draw more efficient fire-based Bounded Fields?” A rather plain looking brown haired, bespectacled, woman asked, writing the question down on the blackboard with a plain piece of chalk.

Instantly a few hands shot in the air, though no students outright spoke up. A rather welcome change from some of the poor woman’s earlier classes.

“Hmmmm, Miss Edelfelt. Ah, uh, I mean Miss Kristiina Edelfelt.” The stuttered over herself, blushing minutely in embarrassment at the rookie mistake when she saw the split second of confusion between the two sisters.

“Ahem. Assuming proper purity standards for both materials, it’s a 3:1 split between quartz and ruby.”

“Close, but not quite.” Kristiina jerked in her seat at the professors words, nearly falling off entirely and having to grab the desk in front of her to avoid that painful fate.

A few desks behind her and to her right, Shirou snickered quietly at seeing her in such an ‘unsightly’ position, only giving her a wide grin when she heard and whipped her head back to glare at him.

“Mr Muramasa, since you seemed to find her answer amusing, I assume you know?” The professor asked, getting a slightly twitch of Shirou’s expression before he just nodded and rested his cheek in his palm.

“It’s a 2:1 ratio of quartz and ruby.”

“Once again, close but not quite!” The teacher sing-song’d getting a loud thump as Shirou’s arm flinched and his forehead met the desk.

“HAH!”

“Alright alright, lets please not start this now.” The professor begged the two students, quickly pointing to the still raised hand of Luvia; the girl the picture perfect definition of elegance and poise as she sat with a straight back and her arm raised perfectly straight.

“The question is a trick one.” She began, purposefully avoiding the gazes of her sister and crush as she lowered her hand. “Both answers were correct but in different circ*mstances. 3:1 for more offensively based Bounded Fields and 2:1 for more defensively based Bounded Fields. Additionally, if the Bounded Field is designed to analyze or contain flames, a 1:2 ratio is actually most efficient.”

“Well done, Miss Edelfelt!” The professor smiled, nodding her head. “I hope you were all listening class. Different Bounded Fields require different mineral components to work most efficiently. An easy rule of thumb to remember how is-“

As the professor turned around, Luvia looked down at Shirou, hoping to get some kind of impressed look or really any reaction at all. Only for the girl to deadpan as hard as she possibly could as she saw Shirou and Kristiina both flipping each other off behind the teachers back, murder in their eyes.

‘I really don’t know what I expected with the two of them in the same class…’