I Fall (RWBY Cinder SI/Multicross)

[d.fish]

Okay, I guess it's about time I go back and edit each snippet a little and start posting this into a thread.

1.1 Hello World

What is the first thing you expect to see when you open your eyes?

Do you expect to see the ceiling of your room? Do you remember the feeling of your bed, your covers, and your pillow? How about how your hair must be like, after a night of tossing and turning; do you remember how unkempt you might be?

You have a vision of what waking up is like, for you individually and no one else. It is a vision in your mind now, isn't it? You can see the color of your bedroom walls. You envision your night stand, your lamp, and your smartphone beside you, perhaps?

Good, good. Now, how long have I been...

No matter, now imagine something else for me, please. You do not remember when, where, or how you went to bed the previous night. You do not know how long you have slept. You cannot even look back and fathom the black oblivion of unfeeling sleep, but you know it.

You know it just happened.

It might be eons since you woke, but that makes no sense.

You have a feeling of wrongness as you wake, the sort of nausea that overwhelms your control of yourself, making you feel like a puppet with only one string. You can stumble at any time, and it is only the numbness in your muscles and the dizzying lack of strength that keeps you standing still.

Can you imagine it, perhaps?

Now multiply that by infinity and take it to the depths of unending abyss, and you have an inkling of what I am currently feeling, standing in this...

This...

'One bedroom Japanese apartment,' answers something in my head. It is not a voice, but it does feel mechanical, like a programmed digital assistant, like SIRI or Cortana, or the like.

My eyes scan my surroundings with curiosity, but locks of black hair block my vision to my left. That is not so strange, as that is the color of my hair. However, it has been years since I last had my hair curled. Induced curls are not agreeable with my naturally stiff and straight hair, you know? My vision falls from the hair, dismissing it as some vague figment of my haze filled mind, and fall to the polished planks of the wooden floor.

Perhaps it is just bed hair.

And perhaps this is all a dream, including the silk-like clothes that scandalously cling to my body and the overly heavy objects stuck to my waistline, and perhaps, perhaps...

I raise my eyes, and find myself compelled by the not-really-a-voice in my head to speak. Now I no longer think it friendly, with such strong, unnatural compulsion that I can feel it pressing against my mind like a weight on every inch of my brain. And to speak such strange, demeaning words to one such as I, the... "Are you my Master?"

The words are strange to my tongue, but they are equally strange to my ears as the man before me speaks. "Ah, yeah, I guess I did it. Alright, come find me when you're ready."

And then he leaves.

He leaves without another word, to leave me to wallow in my disbelief. He leaves and yet it is as if he beckons me to follow. It is in his body language, silent to the ears... almost as if Japanese is not his native tongue and that he has not the talent or the perseverance to learn true mastery over a foreign language.

It is the little things. The slight pause in his footsteps and motions before he looks at me over his shoulder, the uncomfortable hunch of his back, and the small twitches of each muscle, they all tell me things about him and his thoughts.

These observations I may have been able to make before, but not like this. I am not his keen sighted, and my ability to subconsciously do so quickens the beating of my heart.

The wrongness is still there as I follow him into the living room. There is nothing else I can do, so dazed by the entirety of my situation and the lack of answers to just about everything. It is a small room, and I realize the previous room is actually his bedroom. There is enough room on the couch for just two people, but he slides his legs over and there is no room for me.

There is a half full can of Asahi beer on the floor beside his couch that he takes a large sip from. The tiny, almost-handheld television is on, and I notice it is just passed winter, a new year. The Oscars are on and a young man named Leo is smiling on the screen holding up his golden award. This surreal image almost makes me ignore that no one in the crowd has a cell phone out, and that the television itself looks like one of those boxes from the late 1990's, just before things were steadily replaced by thinner and thinner devices.

"Huh," the man on the couch blinks in surprise, but there is no other reaction in him other than his taking another sip of his beer. His hair is wild and greasy, but there is a slight stiffness at the top that belies regal bearings, if only a week prior. He is wearing a wife beater, I believe it is called, the sort of loose undershirt that men wear when they are lazing about, and a pair of pajama pants. As if repeating my thoughts of surprise, he mutters into the top of his beer, "That little DiCaprio kid won."

Yes, that is not something that happens in the world. Something is definitely wrong with this universe. And just as it is triggered, I am informed, 'A summoned hero from a different time and space.'

Hero? Hero? I am no hero! I am not a good person, I subscribe to my personal set of morals, I will do all that human does, I am... I... am...

"Hey, so who are you?" The man says as if we are talking about the weather. He invites, somehow, a stranger into his house and this is how he asks who I am? His eyes are on the screen, but I cannot help but feel my eyes veer towards the back of his hand. The tattoo in deep, bloody red drawn into his skin seems rather disturbing in implications. Then he retracts his hand for the purpose of scratching the back of his head.

My lips clamp up, I do not want to answer. I do not want to give what few answers I have, when there is an unequal balance that weighs towards questions.

And I do not know what he will do to me if I answer. And I notice then that possibly the only thing that can make me seem more timid and weak can be shaking my head and backing away.

His eyes finally turn towards me with a disgruntled sigh escaping his lips, heralded by a burp of alcoholic breath. That disgusting gaze crawled over my body, tracing every line. He does not hide the lecherous grin that grows or his other reactions that equally disgust me. "You don't look like a knight, so you can't be the Saber, the Lancer, or the Rider. You don't have a bow, so you can't be an Archer. You have your mind, so you aren't a Berserker. You have blades, but you also have enough energy to be a magus. So you are either a Caster or an Assassin. Both are disappointing, but I can work with that, if I didn't know how disagreeable you are."

My skin crawls, but my lips are shut. I fear if I speak, everything will come out. And the more I speak, the deeper I dig myself—I may not be clever or cunning with the genre I have landed in, but I am not stupid.

Even so, it is a binary situation, in which I have no good options.

"Fine, seeing as you are like this, I will not bother with pretenses." He stands and his appearance stays the same, but his clothes change and his posture changes with them. It is an illusion being dispelled, a layer of plastic being removed.

I feel as if I can finally breathe. The world is not as it looks.

The couch is replaced by a throne, clean and ivory and pure, draped in red silks and purple satin. Crimson-pink lines run across reality as a false picture is torn and replaced by the real thing. The television is replaced by a seventy-inch thin screen. There are bound and blinded young women surrounding him, catering to his every want and need.

He stays the same dark, cocoa skin accompanied by blonde hair, but his clothes are so vastly opposite of what he was. They are silk and tailored to fit him, with a casual vest-on-shirt with several top buttons unbuttoned look that screamed pampered richness. He smirks as his hair falls to a side, beautiful in every way. "They say that your Servant will be befitting your personality, so being like me is not a bad thing, if you remember who is the Master."

But then he reaches forward with casual slowness. I see him coming, like a jogger might see a toddler stumbling ahead on the same road. I cannot believe it that he places his hand like a maw on my throat. This is not something done in civilized society, in America, in Asia, in... my world...

I can believe it then, moments later, as I find myself choking and the edges of my vision darken. The surprise after surprise bombardment on my mind is enough that I cannot even will myself to fight it.

His hand is hot as the runes on him burn. He almost gives him, but he does not. He hisses, strangely not with a hint of alcohol in his breath, but nevertheless disgusting. This close, I see a vein pulsing on his forehead and I see the blush of rage on his cheeks. There is barely any restraint in this man-child. "I am Atram Galliasta and I am your Master. Tell me your name, you disappointment. You are not the Witch of Colchis, you are less, you are trash, but if I have to use garbage like you, I will."

And who am I, if not...? The voice so helpfully supplies a name not my own, but it will do. I harden my heart then, and think to myself, I must find some way out of here. It whispers the name in my ears. It echoes in my mind. It is a piece of the puzzle falling into place. Knowledge of where I am is enough to tell me why I feel so weak, so limited. It resonates with my being enough that I can speak these words and they will not be lies.

"I... am..."

I choke out the words slowly. Between every few syllables, the sound of gagging, stuttering noise of wetness escapes my lips just as each breath escapes my lungs. I wish there is the strength in me to spit in his eyes, but there is not. His fingers dig deeper into my flesh, so I am forced then, to push on a mask.

"... Cinder Fall."

 

[d.fish]

1.2 First Steps

Atram Galliasta walks into his workshop and beckons me to follow. The illusion falls, and I see the long corridor we must walk through. It is lined with rows and rows of containers, filled with dimly glowing blue liquids and living bodies of children in an induced comatose state. I know what they are for, and it does not make me sick.

But that is not... supposed... to be my reaction. I should be sick. Yet I stand, and I walk after the tall, Mediterranean magus as if I see nothing. There is not even a twitch in my dead expression, but I feel something.

I cannot feel the conflict inside at all, but I can feel a want for conflict... a return to normality.

There is no answer from the ritual that summoned me or the system that now sustains me, though I can guess it is probably the remnants of what constitutes for the memories and the soul that comes before. It is probably the last fragment of what I remember myself to be, and it is overwhelmed by the nature that is Cinder Fall.

"You know," the magus speaks softly now. There is a dangerous undertone there, and a layer of elegance in his speech. "I didn't think you would be so disagreeable."

My eyes stare at him. I do not understand.

"Cinder Fall is not the name of a hero. Do you think you can just get away with offering me a pseudonym or pretend? Are you so stupid as to try to deceive your Master?" The black runes now glow red on the back of his hand. He does not shout, though he may as well have. The outward calm is only an illusion, I see.

His mindless slaves circle around me in their awkward, puppet-like state. Even if I know nothing, I must know that this sort of magic ought to be lowest, most amoral magic he should know. They do not even walk properly... but there is strength in them and in their numbers.

"I command you, answer my questions!" One of the three parts fade away just enough to leave a vague mark. He turns to me, his eyes wide, lacking in sanity. "Who are you, Servant?"

My mind races and information fills my head to the brim, I can almost see the words appearing before my eyes. My strengths and weaknesses, my powers and my abilities, I see it all in the best way that it, the ritual, can show it to me—in an augmented reality user interface that I am more used to seeing, than any paper page or parchment tome. It fills me of what Caster (True) is, and I make up in my head what is not quite a lie to patch together the mask that is Caster (False).

That is, if he must force me into a corner over something I do not even know well enough to answer, then I might as well answer him with bullshit.

"It may be best... if you think of me..." I fight against the urge to clear my throat. The marks are no longer there. I have enough energy—Mana, Prana, or whatever people want to call it—in me to fill that void away in moments. I try to keep my voice steady and to keep my face blank, and I hope he does not see through me. "... Cinderella, if you will."

"Cinder, Cinderella? Ah, I see. You think yourself clever, Servant? Don't answer that. That little attempt at subterfuge is cute." He pauses, the anger draining from him as he feels his superiority regained and his chest once more filled with pride. Atram Galliasta raises his hand again, emphasizing the Command Seals that can either force me to do something against my wishes, aide me into using a force greater than I am capable of, or some mix of the two.

I sigh in my head thankfully, that he only considers the first two options the only possibilities. It is almost as if he has never heard of The Monkey's Paw, though considering the universe that I am in, it might be an artifact here.

"You still tell me nothing. That is just a story, repeated a hundred times. Ah, must we do this, Servant? Do you see this, these Command Seals? There are only two left. Maybe I should just command you to kill yourself." He dangles his fingers limply before me, as if I am absolutely not a threat to him. "If you were the Witch of Colchis, I might have even wasted a Command Seal to make it so you can't betray me. But you're too weak to do even that, aren't you?"

He does not outright laugh, as if that kind of gloating is too beneath him, but everything else is strangely not.

Then he slaps me with such strength that I am hurled away and into the floor. Then the hardened leather toe of his shoe strikes against my torso twice, before he finally stops. There is no bruise left there, just like the earlier choking, but I can feel the phantom pain of it happening again and again echoing on each part of my being.

He breathes heavily, leaning against his knees, clearly a pampered scion even with his well defined and well toned body. Then Atram pushes his golden hair back. Sweat glistens on his brow, barely there.

This man pulls me up from the ground by my hair.

His face is inches away from me. His breath is hot and blinding and disgusts me to my core. There is splotches of blood on the ground, and I realize they are mine. Atram shakes his hold on my hair, tightening his grip, trying to hold my attention. "I know the command is vague, but the power is still there. It will keep compelling you to answer until you do or the power runs out. Answer, Servant."

"... Just like how the sword in the stone is a common theme, my story is one too. But why is it that you do not believe I can exist, but that the King of the Britons can?" I ask through the boiling emotions stifled by my nature and my abilities. "Are you so arrogant to think that you can summon anything better than me?"

His face twists, but he stays his hand. Some part of him acknowledges that I might be the best he can summon. At least he knows his place.

"Then what are your powers, do you have a Fairy Godmother? Do you have spells, Caster? You cannot be Assassin, I know that now. Can you even do anything, having such a young legend?" He sneers.

'But sometimes, it is not the age of the legend that matters.' The ritual answers for me, the remnant power of Atram Galliasta's command pushing me to seek answers from the only source connected to me. It tells me more and more until it can tell no more.

This is good, useful enough, that I wonder why is it that no Servant has not tried to utilize the ritual for their own gains. But then I realize, it is not that they do not do it, it is just that we do it in different ways. After all, Medea does try to fulfill the ritual, but her predecessor...

An image forms in my head, of how it is simply Medea being so obstinate to only use her operating system—her set of magic, where as I am so lacking in knowledge that I settle for any that is presented to me. Doesn't that just say that I am equally bad at all magic, all rituals?

Even so fully immersed into that which is Cinder Fall, I feel like laughing and crying at the same time.

And now my summoner thinks I am hiding something because I do not know how to answer his questions properly! Maybe I should just kill myself and save him the trouble?

"Well?" The runes glow red again. Atram is foolishly wasting mana just to intimidate me.

"I do have some insights into magic, as Caster." Rather, I have a Supreme Intuition in learning all things, as Cinder Fall, but I cannot just tell him that, can I? As Caster (False), what I tell him is the truth... from a certain point of view.

He sneers and nods, before standing straight and dangling me inches off the ground. "And?"

The power of each command seal is strong. They can compel a Servant into doing anything... for an instant. They cannot be a permanent, everlasting, and all-powerful command. The longer and more vague a command is, the weaker it is. This is the trade-off for a long lasting command. At that time with Atram, even if he tries to lawyer his way with his words, his intentions are for me to answer all of his questions forever.

It is sort of like commanding a Servant to always follow his commands. Following the initial surge of power, there is only a gentle push.

And I use that gentle push to further spew bullshit from these pretty rose lips now mine. Maybe I am smirking, unable to keep the smugness of bypassing Atram's will down. "Do you think, if I had the protection of a Fairy, you can hit me so?" Though I do, fool, through the Mantle I wear.

His eyes widen, as if just realizing what might have happened otherwise. It takes him a moment to regain his composure, and I have to good graces to ignore his fumble. "So you are just an over-hyped magus?"

"Yes." No.

"Fine. Come, I will show you how powerful I am, and how I could have had a much better Servant than you," He grunts with disdain.

We cross over the threshold and I feel the power of the magus' workshop. There is something in the air, the sort of feeling like walking into sauna, but it is not heat. It is power...

… and yet, it is so unrefined.

And there is something else here too. It is a stench that almost eludes me; this is the smell of death and blood and innocence lost. I remember this episode well, and I do not think even with Cinder's constitution, I can be unshaken after he reveals his power to me.

"Unlike you, I have talent," His pride rises higher and higher. It almost allows me to ignore how dead his slaves are from their blank stares. "This workshop is designed to make the system more modern and efficient. Nothing you understand."

But before I turn, before I run, he shows me. Six children locked in clear, glass cells rise to the platform. It is a grand machine, and I feel for a moment that it can be some kind of ritual of great power; perhaps he just does not know how to handle it. Many hundreds more victims line the walls around us, hanging like corpses in a slaughterhouse. These are a girls who has not reached their prime. She will not know school crushes, she will not find joy in discovery, she will not get to grow up... because he takes their body and refines them into a crystallized mana shard. The machine does all of the work for him, liquefying his victims.

"See this?" He picks up the shard. "It takes a month to make this, and I have all the resources in the world. Do you see, how you are the chink in my armor?"

The skills that now circle my being tell me how inefficient this is. I see their souls escaping intact, and one part of me wishes them well into the afterlife while another part of me laments how much energy their souls' escape wastes. Either way, I cannot do what the Caster does and conjure from thin air... but I can do better than him and his machines.

It reminds me of having completed the programming of a game that I will market, and comparing it with the first attempt of a child to write the most basic form of Pong into code. Or perhaps seeing a toddler make a sand castle, and knowing I can make better. And yet, I find myself thanking him. This is not a ritual that he shows me nor is it any spell of power. It is just a... simple curse.

It feels almost wrong to want to slap him down, but I find myself quoting the Caster whose place I took, "You are using machines to imitate the magus, when you are yourself a magus. Ignoring the inherent flaws in the logic of your 'Primordial Curse', it is inefficient."

He blinks and his lips part, though he says nothing.

Perhaps it is simply that I can see the light of their souls.

I sigh a hiss of fire and ash, and dust. There are many things more powerful than I in this world, but I have advantages too. It seems the soul is something... less studied.

… I am the Passing, the Road to Death,
Autumn drops red and gold on her wreath...

I blink, and the introspective vision is gone. I turn myself back to the matter at hand and dismiss it as ramblings from my deranged mind.

However that I lack in power, it is enough for my soul to stretch outwards and the fiery blood within me to express the long restrained urges of this body. It is enough for my fiery hands to drag the poor souls back from whatever dark oblivion awaits them, and into the kiln of blood and death. And from what may be nothing to Atram Galliasta comes a shard much, much larger, for... so many reasons, on top of the fuel being something he cannot perceive.

Inside, I sigh in lamentation of being unable to replicate Medea's feat, if only from my perspective.

"What did you do?" His eyes wide as his posture. His hands fling to his sides and he expresses his disbelief.

"This machine, do you really need it?" I ask, knowing the answer.

"I... I put everything I had... all of my connections, all of my favors, all of my resources... into designing this workshop for omitting the elongated incantation process. Just the incantation takes three days!" He looks upset.

"I don't need incantations." I tilt my head, acting surprised. And then, the last shred of me within me speaks, "This workshop is a piece of shit, close it down."

He blinks and he nods.

This is not how the script goes, but some small part of me is happy, hopeful.

"I guess I underestimated you, Servant. To think you're this capable," He smiles to his slaves, as if they are a captivated audience. But then, he returns to the rails. "I command you, do not use your Noble Phantasms on me."

I do not even know if I have... Noble Phantasms. Even so, Medea has a Noble Phantasm that works on herself. It is so ridiculous that he so easily allows his emotions rule him. I want to point these out, to have the last laugh perhaps, but then his fist impacts with my cheek.

It hurts about as much as his slap from earlier, which is to say it tosses me a meter and knocks my vision around. Specks of blood fly all over the white, plastic floor. His face barely twists, as if he is either not so good at showing his emotion or he has only been trained not to show any emotion. The words in his voice, however, tell another tale. "You're no better than the witch, but—"

Yep, I think I have had enough of this already.

I will not wait like Medea... I do not have the patience to wreck this man's everything—his workshop—before his eyes before killing him. I do not want to wait. I want it now. I want it now. I want it. I want it. I want. I want.

My desire burns.

A spurting, wet noise fills the workshop. In this sterile environment, it is almost silenced. What follows is a light thumping of flesh against plastic. It is the sound of an arm falling to the ground. I look down at the specks of mana-filled blood of a magus that now mar my porcelain fingers. It is enticing and my tongue swirls within my mouth in anticipation, but I turn away and pick up my prize.

Atram Galliasta stares at me in surprise and dawning horror. "Y-You..."

"Did you know that the Caster of the Fourth Holy Grail War, a Gilles de Rais, had been strong enough to crush cement with his bare fists? It is a fascinating study on how even the weakest and least melee-ready of Heroic Spirits forced into these vessels can be so... inhuman." I stare blankly at my summoner, as his slaves beside him catch a sad, sad case of spontaneous combustion.

Click. Click. Click.

Ah! I have heels. It is so quiet, I can finally hear them click against the floor. This is so neat, but it will have to wait. I really need to give this the attention it deserves.

And it seems Atram Galliasta finally stares at me with the amount of attention I deserve too. I strut to him, wondering if he sees how I am mocking his puffed up pride. All the many hundred twitches and signs of terror fills him as he falls on his behind and crashes into the rails on the ritual platform, trying to backwards crawl away from my approach. "But you know, with me, it is different. Like the Archer of this war, where his specialty is in melee rather than in shooting, I too have other specialties. I... well, why am I talking to you? Aren't they simply wasted on a simpleton like yourself?"

I think to the future, of how I cannot have the luck that Medea has. I cannot simply leave, so soon. I need to use the available resources that I can gather and... Seeing Atram scramble to his feet and run to the door, I sigh and plunge myself deep into him from behind, and grasp his very soul.

This will sustain me long enough so that I can plan, at least.

A splash of my former Master's blood and body turns my attention back from the soul between my thumb and ring finger, and back to the trash at my feet. Okay, maybe I am lying to myself. Maybe I want him dead not before he's abusing me, but because I want to save the children. After all, I can take the abuse, right? But that... that is a conflict that never comes up.

I am who I am, after all.

As if an afterthought, I leave him with one final word, before the light leaves his eyes and after I kick him into the pits below his workshop. Pity it is no abyss of the mind like Medea can conjure on whim.

"... Fall."

 

[d.fish]

1.3 Loopholes

Next, the story gets dark.

It is as the old saying, in this universe, goes, 'To be a magus is the walk along... er, beside... death', maybe? I do not quite remember, but it is something along those lines.

There are lives here on the line, and youthful ones at that.

But I am weak and feeling weaker with each passing moment, so... stay with me. I promise I will not become too unreliable of a narrator.

Looking at the lines of children hung on stacks like carcasses of cows in a slaughtering house, I feel one part of me grimace and fill with hatred, while another simply dismiss it entirely. Over half of the children here are from Fuyuki City, over one hundred in all. Oh, do you I will just skim over individual lives of people innocent of wrongdoing? That is such a Cinder Fall thing to do. I am not her, I am me, and I am... whoever I am... whoever I want to be.

At least forty of the children are already too dead to be counted as living—they still breathe, but their minds are gone either from trauma and abuse or from the process of the Primordial Curse. In the name of efficiency, I send them off quickly and quietly before I rouse up the children who can live on. After all, if they are going to die anyway, why not fill me up to the brim? There are over thirty of them who have been shipped over from Europe and the Middle East.

I am surprised.

This is 2004.

That means, this is just three years after the attacks on New York. This means that transportation security is at the height of its... paranoia. How does Atram sneak his 'materials' into Japan? On one hand, even shipping should be more secure, but on the other hand I know of the reports of the incompetence of such security. It is, after all, all over the internet.

But I digress.

I do not know how Medea disposed of these children safely. I wish I did; I do not see any means of making sure they all survive and transition into a life of normality (or whatever they may find, seeing as I cannot wipe their memories of the events leading up to their freedom). Maybe she just left them outside?

That is what I do, in anyway, as I find myself in a dilemma. Even with all of the resources in this man-child's workshop and all the dozens of souls I harvested, I do not believe I can last past the week... even if some Servant does not show up at my door. My Mana, without a Master, will surely run out soon.

I pace back and forth, careful to circle around the pools of blood that have now been tracked all over the once sterile flooring. I do have ideas of plans, but I see little means of carrying them out. I need... more information.

It is then that I realize that this 'modern' facility does actually have a computer and internet. Now I am even more confused; how does Atram get away with doing all of this without getting anyone's notice?

In the back of my head, I make a note to search for any records he may keep, to brush up.

Cinder Fall's story has one ability that has risen into the realm of legends that few, if any, Heroic Spirits can comprehend. I cannot rightfully call it a Noble Phantasm, but it is a tool that makes less sense to me than anyone watching. It is her ability to take over the communications and devices of hundreds, bypass the cyber security of even the most important tools of a nation, and to gain access and control over an entire army's worth of robotic drones.

Clickity clack.

Let us be honest with ourselves here, we both know this is not how computers work. I should not be able to walk up to a keyboard, type for thirty seconds, and gain access to even the most secure and private files on this hardware and all other hardware directly linked to it in a network. On an unrelated note, Atram is into some sick shit... and I cannot believe he labeled this folder 'homework'.

But this is 'Hollywood Hacking'. It's the sort of thing that you see when a person takes a shitty Dell laptop and somehow is able to crash the systems of an invading Alien armada. It is also what you see when I pull out a collapsible, holographic tablet—a Scroll—and I am able to interface with...

Huh.

Windows XP.

The operating system for the distinguished magus sacrificing people for power, I suppose.

This is not hacking, this is not even any kind of Aura-bullshit that seems like magic. It is straight up magic; the kind that says "fuck you, logic". There might even be some kind of weird ritual that summons passwords from who-knows-where-garbage-bins and... I cannot even bring myself to care. It is basically what Cinder does in her story: tap a few keys, act smug as her minions ask what she is doing, and suddenly she is listening to the General's cellphone.

In this case, it even has a fancy name, False Mastery of Technology. I am not even looking for secrets or trying to do something like... oh, aim missiles at the Kotomine Church. As amusing as that may be, using satellites to watch what each of the cast of this war might be a better usage of this skill. Yet all I am doing right now is looking up the addresses of each location, such as the Emiya House or the general location of the actual ritual site, and downloading a map. As nice as the idea of doing more with this is, I do not simply have the Mana to keep myself constantly engaged to a screen yet.

As I turn away and send a couple spells of exploding lava (magma?) around the workshop, I allow my mind to wander. Looking down at the map in my hands, I cannot help but think one thought.

… I do not want to remember how people lived before GPS were an everyday part of our lives.

It is after gaining the locations of great interest that I then don on a second skill. As Caster, I do not have any specialties like Assassin's Presence Concealment, but in Cinder's legend, she is able to walk in broad daylight without fear due to her ability to disguise herself. It may be at times the aide of an illusionist at her side, but when I am a Servant formed by the legends of the "hero", the side characters fall to the side lines and are never heard from again.

In this case, I do not trigger any use of illusions, but I am capable of Hide in Plain Sight. Unlike actual disguises and greater skills of combative capabilities... this is simply a skill that lowers my threat levels so low that no one thinks much of me. I am seen as a nobody, the average being, and not a Servant.

I sigh sadly.

Unlike the opponents I will surely face, so many of my skills are not combat related. Maybe, just maybe, the safest way for me to come out of this alive is to just take a dip in the Grail Mud and run for it to the other side of the world?

I shake my head... that is a Gilgamesh thing to do. While I am arrogant and I have an ego (not helped by the enhanced intellect and intuition skills that I now possess), my ego is perhaps only half of the size of Gilgamesh's ego. No, it is probably not even a third the size!

Wandering out and completely disgracing the image that is Cinder Fall by robbing an ATM at a local bank for some quick cash so that I can eat some trashy fast food, I think to myself, 'If the deaths of the last Holy Grail War allowed the ritual to speed up by fifty years, and the previous wars have all been spaced by sixty years for the Greater Grail container to gather mana to summon heroes...'

My foot steps pause as I step onto the leylines of Fuyuki City, the very throbbing veins of Gaia; each step closer to the thickness in the air.

'… Then where has the energy from the previous rituals gone?'

 

[d.fish]

1.4 Picking Up

You know, even with magical super hacking, there is still more steps to the process than clicking a dozen keys and shouting, "Woo! I'm in!" Of course, I do that first, since even in the worst case scenario, having the proper forms filled, badges worn, and holding a digital clipboard like I own the place helps.

In some cases, it becomes less 'gross incompetence' and more 'this is how the average human does when colliding with a heroic spirit'. Cheating is, after all, the name of the game.

The dial tone rings three times before someone on the other end picks up the phone. It sounds like the other person is eating chips or sipping on a large shaved ice drink that is usually sold at most American Seven-Elevens. There is some rustling of papers, and then a rather bored voice comes up, "Hello and welcome to the NSA, how can I help you?"

"Hi, this is Cinder Hackerman, the NSA Spying Inspector, from the NSA," I speak into the Scroll, though still slightly uncomfortable with speaking into a piece of light that I can somehow touch on a subconscious level. "I work at the NSA. Call me Cindy."

"Hi, Cindy! I'm John Cena from the NSA. What can I do for you?" It is a man on the other side, and his voice is just a tidbit deeper than the office worker in my mind. Still, he does sound as tired and as bored as the average office monkey.

"Hello John," I reply. I know that name from somewhere... but where? "I need to check the surveillance on Japan. It's all procedure, you see."

There is a slight Boston drawl in his voice, and I wonder if he is from Massachusetts. "Alrighty, do you want satellites watching for your bogeys or just some electronic eyes? I see that... Jap... Pan... is an very developed region, so we can give ya the works."

"Oh yes, that is what I asked for! I need to see if things are working by doing a month long surveillance on a Fuyuki City. Would there be any problems there?"

"Well, just paperwork, I'll have to check that digitally. Uh..."

"I have the paperwork for satellites to watch for around a dozen targets plus their potential residencies." I pause and press a couple keys. "I will forward the test targets to you."

"If you have the paperwork, Cindy, then I'll patch you through to the relevant eyes in the sky." He pauses. "Wow, that is a really random bunch of targets. I guess the higher ups are getting serious with testing our satellites on allied areas, huh? Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Oh, thank you, John and yes. I seem to have lost my spying handbook, can you send me one with a list of assets in the region?"

"Sure, you can pick it up at... Fu... Yu... Ki... postal office tomorrow at 9." He sounds like he has never once even heard of any Japanese names before now. It seems like an honest case of ignorance, and I have no reason to get upset at him for a whole group of people for something so minor. Still, it is hilarious.

"Have a good day, Cindy."

"You too, John."

After all, not every can be done with the False Mastery of Technology skill. I cannot simply make the satellites turn to the castle, the church, the temple, and the residencies, and have the eyes in the skies follow around a bunch of teenagers and beings that might well expose some unnecessary eyes to the world of magic... without the proper paperwork.

I sigh again as I look down on my Scroll, thankful that unlike most bureaucracies, this one I am dealing with is tangled and convoluted enough to allow such things go unnoticed for a long time. It is only after the Snowden event, some eight years from now, that they even really start to begin to think about the idea of perhaps maybe cleaning up internally.

Whatever the case, there is an opportunity, and who am I to not take it?

Anyway, getting the hardware in place takes some time, so even if I do not need it now, I still get it ready. I will need it soon enough.

I turn my attention to the other clandestine surveillance programs that are now at my disposal. The Scroll is such a great tool for utilizing them, mainly because it comes from a society that is at least some dozen years ahead of the technology available to the world of 2004 in many areas, such as the area of artificial intelligence (Penny), robotics (Penny), and espionage (Penny).

Come to think of it, that robot girl is the pinnacle of many fields in that world.

It is a pity that I do not currently have the capabilities for replicating such technology (I do not have the powerful skill, Item Construction, despite being Caster and that skill being pretty much a requirement of the class). Having an artificial intelligence as an assistant will make my next moves easier; I can see why the Einzbern magi see the need to make homunculi.

Still, while Tohsaka Rin is playing chess on the board of this grand game of the Fifth Holy Grail War ritual, I am doing something else. Tohsaka has a few extra pieces and Emiya can make more pieces stay on the field and steal some pieces. Kotomine is playing checkers with us, and Gilgamesh just gets twenty-one points in blackjack on his first turn. This makes Ilyasviel's position rather sad, but I regret being unable to even pity her, seeing as if I join them at the table, I will have an even worse position.

That is right. They may not be playing on one board, but they are all at the same table.

Me?

I am in the basement playing Magic the Gathering and I have not even opened my first booster box to build my deck yet... in this metaphor. Does this make any sense to anyone?

I admit, I do not have Item Construction as is fitting, but I do have skills the accommodate. One is my ability for intuitive, accelerated learning that is only partially falsely applied to the legend of Cinder Fall, but the other is... from what I remember and not from what I know innately... almost completely false.

Yet as it is a part of her and mine legend, it is a part of us. With the proper materials, we can do great things with this skill, and... change the world, perhaps.

It is also one of the main reasons why I am playing Magic the Gathering to everyone else's chess—I require far more time to rev up my engines, so to speak. I need not only the materials that I need, but also energy that I do not have. I need the space that can hide things larger than the spaces are, and I need backing that is now missing. All of this is compensated by my legend, because the truth is something else entirely.

I trudge along into the hidden caverns that I do not know of, into places that I do not know exist; after all, the depictions of such inner workings in their entirety do not exist. The Heaven's Feel route has not been animated.

As I draw closer and closer to the shadows and darkness, I find myself smiling.

Compared to her legend, this is just... silly. One may be called the Six Billion Demons and All the Evils of the World, but it is confined, and it has never truly engulfed a world in fear and hate and rage. It promises to consume the world, but what kind of promise is that to someone who knows and once guided the fate of a world consumed?

Even more, it has not formed a physical form yet. It is still just a part of the ritual, it is still building up, and it is still lacking. Perhaps to the mind of a child, or to an autistic teen like Emiya Shirou, the darkness and its whispers are too much, but I allow it to wash over me.

I feel like I am in a cold shower, but a shower never the less.

My skin tingles and goosebumps grow, but I do not shiver. I feel at ease. We do not have the relationship of a devourer and its devouree; why, we have the relations of raw materials and a master sculptor!

My hands tingle and yet I allow no flames to run down my arms, no lava to drip drop down my fingertips.

Only the Black Dust ever so slightly chimes its song of doom, unheard for the world that is its stage. My eyes of burning coal watch the dribbling mass of black curses and evil mud as the unholy noise reaches its arduous peak upon the mountain of blood and bone. Only the thousand screaming mouths of hell welcome them, the six billion demons waiting to consume all life.

And it is to this delicious material, that I begin working on the improvement of one of my key magic-related skills that I falsely stole from a greater legend now lost to time, the skill of Grimm Creation.

 

[d.fish]

1.5 Oops

For Fuyuki City, there are five Holy Grail rituals of note. The first two are lost to the ravages of time. The third is when things get interesting; when the Servant Avenger, the false god Angra Mainyu, dies and somehow possesses the so-called 'Greater Grail'. It is in the fourth ritual that the process is almost completed, if not for Emiya Kiritsugu's decision not to make a Monkey's Paw wish. And now, we are here at the cusp of the fifth attempt at enlightenment.

Since the deaths of the fourth are what are fueling the fifth ritual attempt's early showing, then it begs the question where are the energy left by the heroic spirits from the first to the third ritual attempts? Energy does not disappear, after all.

First, we have the sixty years' worth of accumulation from the veins of the world that summon the heroes. Supposedly, it is in the passing of six-seventh of their number—and their returning to where they are summoned from—that fuels the completion of the ritual. This makes no sense to anyone seeing this, unless the energy gained from the heroic spirits' automatic function of returning to their starting point is many times greater the sixty years of accumulated power. Because if this is not true, then why not just set up multiple collection points along the Fuyuki City leylines and have a constant stream of power instead?

Considering that the ritual itself is considered a high tier of magic, I can only assume this is because it is perceived as creating energy from nothing—since the origin point of heroic spirits are outside of time and space. And since it is possible for such a device to collect this energy from the deaths of heroes, and at the same time be so easily be corrupted and changed into a womb for a childish evil, then the assumption will be that the energy from the previous rituals are still on this earth.

That energy is not collected by the greater grail collection device, seeing as there is no discrepancies in how the earlier rituals take place...

… but I digress.

Let me think more on the matter at hand.

Pain.

Pain. Pain. Pain.

Okay, whatever I am doing, it is wrong.

So my ritual starts at the beginning, as Grimm Creation is no single magic spell. It is a complex skill that approaches magic, in creating self-perpetuating shadow beasts that... you know, something so similar to this happens in Hollow Ataraxia? It occurs to me then that perhaps there may be a better way make a good enough distraction and assistant, but I am already here.

It is the sort of sunken loss that keeps people from selling stocks that are tumbling, even though they know their shares may wind up to be zero the next day.

As someone who used to work in finance, I think myself more disciplined than this. I believe I can over come such a flaw because I do it so much...

That arrogance is unbecoming.

My mission here is two-pronged, I have so many goals that rely on this to work. Grimm Creation does not simply make life that hates life, shells without souls. Any magus can do that; look at the Einzbern, who have stacks and stacks of homunculi. No, my first reason for being here is to make assistants, and my second is for my own existence to continue.

I need a way to survive without crippling myself with an insatiable appetite for mana, or forcing myself to sit on a single point on the Fuyuki leylines, or anything that basically is the cause for Medea to lose so horribly (such as gaining the attention of Gilgamesh).

To that end, with hours or minutes left on my hands, I need to sink myself into the most vile substances into this world. Well, no, that is a lie; I doubt something as simple as Angra Mainyu, which corrupted such as simple machine like the Fuyuki Holy Grail (or Heaven's Feel, or whatever stupid name the locals tend to call it) can be the worst substance in the world.

But the point stands.

Grimm Creation does not simply do, it approaches magic... true magic, in a sense. Because while Grimm are against humanity, they are not purposely made for fighting the world itself... at least, not this one, not this Gaia. This means... strange things happen.

Strange things like... it pulling the contents of the Greater Grail out, forcing what little power is at play within the current ritual to hasten and become the materials I need. It is a skill that ignores the rules of magic and alchemy of this world, because it is not of this world. It is not merely a "native-born foreigner" like the local pocket universes or Reality Marbles (these locals come up with the silliest names)... it is truly foreign. It is foreign like if this world is to its pocket universes like Latin is to English, then this is a skill written in dinosaur.

Never the less, this is the property of the Grimm—to ignore the rules of the world. And this property carries from one to another, allowing me to pull out the fetus that is Angra Mainyu and all the corruption within the womb that is the Greater Grail... for the purpose of creating something worse.

And perhaps the most horrifying thing about this skill is how it uses as much energy as I use to breathe for one second to make the least of the nightmarish horrors. Well, it is all in the name of my greater good, I rationalize with myself.

… That was then.

Pain.

Pain. Pain. Pain.

This is now.

After emptying what might be almost all of the souls I had on me and most of my excess power to create Grimm, I realize I have very little energy to sustain me in this world. As in I have barely minutes left. And seeing as Grimm do not have souls for me to stuff into myself like a bucket of French Fries, that is not an option. I also know too little on the subject matter of the Holy Grail ritual to attempt something large there, if I disregard that having that much energy means getting all of the attention I do not want. Anyway, I am using enough power to fill myself up to the brim, and that leaves me a little lacking even if the Grimm I want to make shows up.

But! I have a plan for that!

See, like Gilgamesh, I can anchor myself by taking a dip in the mud. If I remember correctly, mud is good for your skin too. It cannot be all bad, right?

Yeeeah, no. (And I think my mind and soul are hurting enough that... what am I talking about now?)
(And I think my mind and soul are hurting enough that... what am I talking about now?)
(And I think my mind and soul are hurting enough that... what am I talking about now?)

I do not know how Gilgamesh does it, but my current hypothesis is that he cried himself to sleep and then his ego allowed him to wipe that memory from his mind. It really hurts. It is the sort of hurt where you know the feeling of having a thousand needles pricking your skin? Now imagine having that happen inside your skin. Can you imagine it?

Now imagine that, but inside your everything.

Ah. Why is there no spamming of curses and all that insanity silliness, you ask? Well, I certainly am not insane. I am one hundred percent sane right up to the top of my head. You cannot say otherwise, not because I know not that I cannot be not not insane.

Nope.

But like many features of modern computing, you can easily squelch other people when everything goes black and what might as well be a command prompt window shows up with only words in bad fonts and all capital letters and colored all red spam the screen. It is the equivalent of putting the corruptive spirit Angra Mainyu on my ignore list. We are in my head after all.

I think at first I was just going to turn his words into comic sans font, but I think the problem is not that he is trying to curse me, but that it's really spamming up everything that I can see. Can you imagine? The word DIE carved into your eyes six billion times in a row, in comic sans? Even if it sounds hilarious—and it is—my eyes are still bleeding.

Right, so, I guess I am not either as egotistical or as stupid as Gilgamesh (what is even the difference when you can apply both so equally to that man-child?). It means I am feeling a lot of pain, even if I block out Angra Mainyu's stupidity...

… Huh, I wonder... if the reason why Gilgamesh is still so untouched by the fires is because his stupidity and Avenger's stupidity collided and...

Ah, even rambling in my head does not really distract against the pain.

Isn't this going to be the silliest death in this ritual (after Matou Shinji's) if I die from playing with mud on the ground?

"Yeah, that's pretty dumb," a voice answers me.

Ah, I seem to be speaking aloud.

"No, no, it is simply because we are so... connected. Yes, that's a good word for it," She answers. So she is a girl. Like me.

Hey, her voice sounds really like my voice.

Actually, she sounds exactly like me.

"Wow, you are observant." She is joking.

Is this a joke? I cannot see shit.

"Maybe that's because you're flailing around in a pool of mud and a lot of it got into your eyes? Do you do this often, because it does not seem sanitary." Click, click, click. She even has the same heels I do.

Somehow, this crazy bitch making a joke of my situation... and wearing the same shoes I am wearing... just pisses me off.

I try to stand up or to rub my hands against my eyes, but that grail mud is less mud and more black, oily gold. I feel like one of those seals or seagulls or whatever the fuck lives down in Mississippi waters that swam into the gulf when British Petroleum, or BP plc, went and took a shit in the ocean by spilling like five million barrels (actually just two and a half shipments) all over the Gulf of Mexico.

"Ugh." I cough uncontrollably, trying to get the few specks that somehow found their way into my mouth out.

"Okay, are you making fun of me? Because you can just burn that stuff of. It's literally oily mud," she sighs as she stops circling me and stands behind me.

"What are you... uck... suggesting?"

"Oh, I don't know..." I hear a rustling of cloths, as if she is shrugging. "Just burn it off."

But it's... oh. Ah. Oh... "I forgot I could do that."

A wave of fire burns it away; any more time I waste here is... oh, right, so I'm not limited by power anymore. My control seems to have dropped to zero, but that cannot be helped if I want unlimited usage of my Mana, after all.

… Some small part of me cries about how it is all so I can stop eating children's souls.

Before me stands a girl in a Grimm's mask. The ivory and red lines are most visible in this dim lighting, where only the vague lines of where the Greater Grail may rest is the only lightning we have in this deep, underground cavern. She is not exactly tall, actually exactly as tall as me.

Her skin is darker than mine by a shade, and there's all these ugly lines and scars and tattoos and markings all over her once-soft flesh. She is wearing... no, she has a giant curtain of red tied and draped over her shoulders. It is barely modest. And, of course, her hair is dark, and unlike the rest of her, it is pretty, styled, and absolutely gorgeous, like mine.

I know what she is, and considering the skills she inherits from me through the two connections that we have, I think she does too. It almost makes me immediately regret messing around with something literally more powerful than me and can barely comprehend. I wonder if I even have any influence on this creation of mine through her instincts as Grimm, but as I watch her living and breathing and her very presence being a thick miasma of death and hate and horror that might spawn or summon things worse than even what I want to make...

I sigh to myself.

"Well, shit."

 

[d.fish]

A short interlude for us to get another perspective.

1.X (Interlude) Introductions

When she had first game to, she did not know what to think.

She was Grimm but not—an aberration, a demon... and she can feel them inside her, the six billion curses, six billion demons, fighting each other and herself at the same time. She wondered to herself, why was she created this way, so crippled and held back by her own power?

She was a fake Grimm then.

She was a fake Huntress too, being able to use something so similar to Dust and Semblances in her few moments of flexing her unseen muscles. However, she knew there were no Dust, and she knew she lacked the innate skill of a Semblance... as if her set of powers she was so familiar with was swapped with something so vastly different... one that she knew none of the rules of.

It felt like fire burning inside her veins, inside the circuits of a soul not shaped like her own. It felt like pain and it felt like power; and she knew that was true power, because there was no power without downsides.

She took a breath inward, and it felt like she was biting into the cotton candy that was the purity of the world. Each breath was pain radiating outwards from her being. Each breath reminded her of the aberration that she was...

For the being known as Cinder Fall, there were no coincidences; everything was planned to the smallest detail. For all that she was, she knew the other was greater and held more advantages, even when she was given so many in turn.

Now they circled each other, like two tigress siblings watching each other for weakness and the moment the pounce. Her connection to the ritual womb that birthed her had been cut off, she was left with nothing from that which she was before she became that which she is, she no longer felt the rage that echoed in her being.

She was not honestly sure if she was thankful for this, because the pain of existing in a perpetual state of hatred was repulsive to the person she was now... and at the same time, she knew what occurred had allowed her opposite, her creator, her master... her Sister to shape her as she is. Her mind shaped, she felt affronted and only barely held back form bristling.

When she was looking down on the Sister, she thought it would have been so easy. A simple step here, and the Sister's neck would have been broken. A simple action would have ended her creator.

Yet she was created in the Sister's image, and all of her memories the memories of that one being.

How could she not at least feel thankful, for the gift of life, and of freedom from under the all destinies and fates, and Salem and Remnant? That too was proof of her individuality in a sense... in a distant memory, she gave her everything for a taste of power. She was a slave to it then. Now, if all she had to do was be stabbed a thousand times for a fraction of the power she once had, then she would rather have this than to return to the past... she decided, at that moment. The ability to make her own choices for herself, free will, was more precious at this moment to her than the last gulp of water in the middle of an unending desert. Even if she had no such desires of keeping this freedom, the Sister seemed like she had plans within plans.

She felt lost and torn in two directions. She could strike out and ensure her interests, but she knew the Sister was more powerful. It was definitely the case, because she knew Cinder Fall too well to not have stacked the deck in her favor. The other option was to yearn for and hope for the Sister to share their goals in their absolute entirety. After all, who could you trust, if you couldn't trust yourself?

She watched with baited breath behind her mask, wondering what the first move of the Sister would be. Would she attempt to take control of the situation? Would she dominate her through sheer personality? Would she ignore her and go on to her next task?

As powerless as she was against the Sister, she could struggle. She knew that the Sister had left room for such... freedoms.

It puzzled her, because they were of one mind, so how could she not understand and predict the one holding the reins on her?

"So..." The Sister turned away, the fires flickering and fading from her eyes. She scratched the side of her head, idly flicking dried flakes of the now powerless ritual mud from her hair. "Who are you?"

Did she dare? Would she claim the identity of her creator? The expression on the Sister's face was masked by the darkness, but to her adaptive Grimm eyes, she could not read the stony visage even under the best lighting. She was afraid then, to dare and be cheeky, and to be wiped from existence by the greater power before her... but she needed to test her limits. "Cinder Fall."

Almost, just almost, she nearly asked the name instead of stating it. If not for the mask, she knew the Sister would have seen her lower lip tremble. Fear... being so unable to control the direction of the conversation, and of her fate, she felt the mind killer encroaching on her will.

She must have been mistaken, because she thought the Sister gasped before regaining her composure. "Indeed?" The Sister's shone in the darkness.

A shiver ran up the spine of the self-proclaimed Cinder Fall. Those eyes belied the powers that she did not have and would be perpetually out of her reach—the powers of the Mantle of Autumn. They were a power greater than her and she knew that look. "Perhaps a little lacking," She amended, holding up the blades Tawrich and Zarich (how did she instinctively know their names?), which were a fraction of the powers of the Sister's dust weaponry and no close reflection (and how did she know their attributes?). "But I have all of your memories, if not your... ruinous... powers."

"... My memories, indeed." The Sister's stony expression grew more difficult to read by the moment, but her eyes shone brightly. There was a fury of emotions brewing with her and it frightened her. The tone was weird and off, as if the Sister was almost mocking her. It was throwing her off her game, and she knew that was what the Sister intended.

She wondered what the Sister must be thinking. Did she feel she shared too much with a simple creation?

"I wonder... do we... fight now?" The Sister asked, raising her dust weaponry in a mocking reflection of her stance.

She dropped her hands in supplication immediately. "No. We can both see the outcome... and besides, we are tied. You and I are... connected, can you not feel it?"

The Sister blinked and it was as if she was tasting the air for hints as she paused, coiling like a viper. A revelation, or simply an observation, came to her. "You shouldn't have a soul. Your shell is Grimm."

"... This is..." She acknowledged. She was an anomaly that neither of them could comprehend.

"You, as a Grimm... took? Consumed? You have Avenger's soul..." The Sister observed more deeply. She walked so close to her that she could smell the scent of her maker. The alluring, bittersweet smell of death, ash, and chrysanthemum tea licked her nostrils. Somehow, she found her maker's Aura intoxicating, enhanced by a charisma that she feels she now lacks. "You have Avenger's soul... Interesting."

It was as if her Sister was infinity and she was zero, and the Cinder Fall they ought to be was only one. Yet this talk of Avengers confused her; all she knew was of the new found power in her veins and an entirely different way to use it has been pressed into her every cell. It was instinctive usage, but did this mean the Sister did not mean for her to take all of the source material of her new found powers when she created her?

She hedged her bets. "Perhaps?"

"Yet, you're not..." She waved her hands around in a small circle as if to express insanity in the language of the the deaf or as if acting like she did not know the right words to say. "... trying to kill me."

Even now, the Sister must have been testing her...

"Why would I..." She nearly sighed. As she was probing her Sister, her Sister was probing her. Surely as she came to this epiphany, the Sister would too. It was tiresome, when they both knew their places in this relationship, this caution, this... necessary paranoia. She very nearly sighed again at that thought. "Why would I do that, Sister?"

Her Sister recoiled, as if struck. Yet she did not lash out, nor did she even grimace. Instead, her lips twitched upwards, into a hideous smile that Cinder Fall knew too well. "... Sister? I like it."

"What else would you be, if not my Sister?" It was better than to enter oblivion for unending time, and only to come out with a replacement for her former mistress that wore her face. Yet deep down, she knew she was not the Cinder Fall that she thought she was. This was not her original body; it did not have means of harnessing dust or the mantles of power she had accumulated during her lifetime. All she had was Cinder Fall's memories and skills.

Surprisingly, the Sister did not rebuke her.

She closed in, smirk growing wider to resemble a shark with gleaming teeth.

And Cinder Fall found herself unable to back away fast enough, as her Sister hooked an arm under her's and leaned against her ear. The hot breath against her nape caused her to shiver once again; the memories of Cinder Fall of all the times she did the same to others, only to be a diversion for their destruction.

Each of the Sister's steps were beyond her, and she found herself wondering if the Sister had degraded her intellect in order to keep her subtly in line... or if during the blank space in her memories before she awakened in this dank cavern, the Sister had risen to new heights of power.

So many questions...

Yet now, she felt like she was already one step into the grave. She was, after all, a failed experiment, wasn't she? What right did she have to life and liberty?

"Now," the Sister whispered into her ear, as softly and dangerously like a black widow, "Let's get tea and cake."

 

[d.fish]

2.1 Reflections

Unlike in the United States, it is very rare to find a classical diner open around eleven at night in Japan. But what they have here instead are small shops along the road, like this udon place we walk into after a good thirty minute trek. It feels nice to be able to think clearly, now that I do not have the souls of children floating around in my belly and I do not have the suspense of the necessity of jumping into the Grail Mud.

Now, some might be wondering, does an udon house have cake or tea? It does have tea, but this particular shop does not have cake. We will have to get some later... though I am thankful now that I had hit the ATM (literally) earlier.

Now, some others might be thinking, why did not I just make a contract with a Master? To that, I can only say that no Master is suitable for my needs. After all, I want to keep myself away from the playing field where things are fair... which means the favors are stacked against me. But I also do not want to entangle myself into such drama that might lead to my death, which every single Master has. There is also Shirou, who has practically no power for me to use and so clueless that we just cannot complement each other.

Ah, but Emiya Shirou is the main character! He is the protagonist! He... also has around twenty dead ends.

It never ends well.

But now, thankfully, I have a companion to talk to. Someone I can cry to about how I do not want to be Cinder Fall, about how I feel like my heart is twisting inside thinking about the dead children, about how I fear for my life because I am marked by the ritual...

… You know, things that I want to talk about with just about anyone but Cinder Fall. That too... will not end well.

Yet here we are.

(In the awkward silence, a waitress fills up our tea cups.)

We sit across from each other, staring deeply into each other's eyes, except I cannot see her eyes in the shadow cast by her mask, other than the two glowing red orbs where her eyes should be. They look like setting suns or burning coals, nothing too frightening, but similar to what I imagine Sauron's eyes should look like in the movies. From the utter loathing I feel radiating from her body, it is easy to tell how she wants to pounce on me and tear me to pieces.

A shiver runs down my spine. There should be some way to start a conversation with an awkward silence somehow, but I do not remember it. Of course, my tongue feels tied, because she is Cinder Fall.

(In the awkward silence, our waitresses quietly sneaks in between us to our table and delivers our udon onto us.)

"So..." I start to say before stopping. Even if I imagine any other person's face on her, I find my mind drawing a blank.

"So." She replies with the sizzling, sultry audible wine that is Cinder Fall's voice. Of all aspects of the source material, that is the one part of her that has not been modified at all, aside from her hair. For everything else, she is a twisted version of herself. In better lighting now, it is easy to see the fragments or scales of bone that protrude from her skin so evenly that people might think them decoration or accessories. "We have so much to talk about... I don't know where to start."

"Yes," I nod immediately jerkily. I should feel safe; even the satellites above are not looking down at where we are. This is one of the zones within Fuyuki that is farthest from any of the strands of leylines, and actually jut a five minute drive off of one of the highways that traverse most of Japan. "Perhaps it is best we start with what you know."

She volunteers herself so willingly, that I almost think her innocent. Then I am reminded of all of the waitresses huddling in the kitchen, too afraid to come out with my delicious tea. "I have your memories... Sister. It seems I also have all of my knowledge in Aura, Dust, and... the like... replaced."

"There is a lot of information," I murmur.

"Yes, well," She shrugs with a slight smile, showing off cute fangs I enviously do not have. "With that much information, I will need time to sort through them. It is a disjointed knowledge, with multiple users..."

I can imagine how difficult her predicament will be. Nevertheless, I ask, "Can you find out what kind of theme does this... information all share? Something that we can work with?"

"Yes. Is magecraft this world's equivalent of using dust?" It is a rhetorical question. She buffs her elongated nails against the wooden table.

I ignore the wood shavings that gather beneath her and nod. "Very well, at least you are not defenseless then. Do you know how difficult it is to find intelligent and beautiful partner in this world?"

"Oh, I do not. Do tell." Ah, the smirk returns. Somehow, we both know the flow of the conversation now, and it puts us at ease. Though, something else seems to set her mind at ease, because I can see her shoulders slack and hear her leaning back against the creaking wood of her seat as if some phantom danger has passed. "After all, I'm looking at one right now, aren't I?"

"My, what do you do with your hair, it is gorgeous," I cannot believe this is the direction of the conversation. It is almost... masturbatory...

… well, that and it is hilarious.

She tosses her hair back, exaggeratedly flaunting herself to the imaginary crowd around us. "I am simply fabulous, it is a curse. You understand, don't you, Cinder?"

"Of course, Cinder, it's a great burden that we must carry. What others must feel to be relieved of the burden of the beauty, intellect, and charm we share?" That is all I get out before both of us break down into lighthearted chuckles, and it takes us a minute to catch our breaths. "I suppose you know that this isn't Remnant then?"

"The moon is full tonight," her gaze turns to a side, watching the full moon outside the windows. And this explains enough, really, but she continues to speak unbidden, "and I am not... really Grimm. To be fully that seems to be against the rules of the universe, wherever we are."

"Another universe," I supply lazily.

"Ah." She blinks. "That makes sense."

"Of course," I sigh into a sip of my tea.

"... Of course," she replies. "And what are our goals here? Why here... and what was that ritual you made me from?"

I nod at her questions, her curiosity piqued. These are simple enough questions... to which I shall spew bullshit at rapid fire, or else. "The primary purpose of being here is to cut off from our previous ties. We have to gain enough power so that we cannot be threatened by anything again."

She mirrors my motions, not even looking up at me anymore and so relaxed in my presence. "It is an impossible goal, but there are no possible goals worthwhile."

"Exactly," I lie between my teeth with a smile of porcelain. "It is a pursuit of a lifetime."

"... I am immortal," She notes. And she is, as Grimm, as a vessel, and as Avenger, to my knowledge.

"A lifetime can be a long time," I smile. "And it's not like someone like you can get tunnel vision."

There, she acknowledges me mutely with a single nod. There must be many thoughts running through her head... I can attest to that. Her eyes evade mine, like she does not want to face me directly. Then she taps the table three times, before speaking again. "The ritual?"

"It is known as the Holy Grail War, these days."

"There was nothing 'holy' about the ritual grounds we were in."

I smirk crookedly. "It was tainted decades ago. Don't worry, with you out, I think much of what makes it have the status of corrupted is now gone. At most, there shall remain the malevolence, but the curses are all what makes you, you."

"Thanks," her voice drips with sarcasm with a tinge of zest. It scalds me how our voice evokes such turbulent emotions in people, namely me. "I feel so good about myself right now."

"Seeing as you are a copy of me, Cinder... you should." My reply came with just a hint of exasperation.

She scowls and crosses her arms over her chest. "Sister... why? Why did you even... make me?"

"Because I can." I see the storms brewing in her eyes, but I continue. This is a conversation that will eventually happen, best let it happen when it does. Obviously I have similar questions for whoever really brought me here and whoever made me, but I do not have the luxury as my... sister... to stare into the face of my creator. "Because I have to."

Her scowl deepens. "How powerful are the other participants in this ritual? What is the goal of it?"

Again, I sigh into my tea. Even I am actively keeping myself from thinking about it; it is simply my attempt at coping. The consequences of any action, any participation, are too dark for me in too many ways. "There are those who are powerful enough to tear the planet in half. And those who can negate any attack... and as you can guess, the reward for completion is a wish."

"A wish," she deadpans.

"Any wish," I shrug carelessly. "That is what is being promised, anyway. The truth is another matter entirely. Before I created you, it would have been the end of the world. Now, it is simply a large amount of power, being wielded by a vessel with the power of Wishcraft—the power to bring forth desires utilizing the brute force of power alone, in a sense."

She plays with her chopsticks and twirls them about. Though we share one set of memories, the more we experience different perspectives, the more either of us can predict the thoughts and actions of the other. And only an hour after meeting her, I feel like I already cannot predict her. Maybe I am just holding the idea of a Cinder Fall on a pedestal, but I feel like her intellect outstrips mine. "Brute force has its place, but such a thing, wouldn't it draw the attention of others? Is there any other way of using the power accumulated by this ritual?"

"The last attempt at the ritual a decade ago drew too much attention, but not nearly enough." I jab my utensils against my noodles. They are already cold. I forget so easily without piles of snow... it is still pretty much winter in Fuyuki City right now. "Power is power."

"It doesn't matter how we take it," she agrees.

I lean back, feeling like I have been talking to a young, hot, and female Lord Voldemort. Then I look up and down at her appearance, at the cowering waitress peeking at us from the kitchen door, and back at the single piece of cloth on her body. "Let's make you less... easily noticed. Before we talk about anything else."

(While this is happening, our waitress tiptoes over. She is shivering from head to toe and looking deathly pale as she stares at my creation with awestruck horror. Then she refills our tea dutifully.)

I reach over and caress her forearm, scanning and visualizing the drapery. Then mana rushes through my soul forming into a process of transmutation of the cloth and borrowing material from the air around her. To be honest, I do not see clothing being able to hide her identity. At most, we can hide her from regular people, and most definitely Emiya Shirou.

First, some material stretches and reforms in their base elements into actual underwear... the details to which are a lady's secret, for obvious reasons. And then some pants.

Definitely pants.

Now, I personally prefer something less skintight than what we as Cinders prefer, but I make them in accordance to her preferences. I do not need her to complain, or get suspicious of me not being entirely Cinder with her, over something this small. Still, I do not prefer these; they basically have nonexistent girl-pockets, which is the default state of girl-pockets... I hate girl-pockets.

Those types of pockets stretch poorly into ugly shapes when they try to hold a slim smartphone or a small wad of cash... at best! And it is all downhill from there. I can probably rant about them for hours, but back to the matter at hand.

Next, I put a fitting, silk shirt on her. It is one of those similar to the ones we wore at school; a button-up shirt for the more formal of occasions. It fits her well, as I well know, but we both grimace at the lack of other accessories. Dust crystals and the like, if we want them to be usable, require compliance with the rules of this world for them to exist.

If I want them, I need to create them from scratch.

After that, there is still a lot of material left, so after some proper, fabulous heels, I throw an over-sized sweater onto her with a nice, compensating hood that can hide most of her... abnormalities.

"It's... too big," she pouts at me. Then she starts wiggling in it and flapping the sleeves just a little over a hand too long for her arms around slowly. "It can't fit."

"That doesn't matter. It's cute. Cute is more important than... other things," I choke down a laugh and reach over again, before pulling the hood all the way down to cover even her nose. She struggles for a second, nearly flipping out of her seat. Then crosses her arms and pout angrily at me, all mockingly, which is a surprise to me. "It'll keep you hidden. That's what we need right now, when we haven't even started to lay any traps, do not have any detailed plans... or anything."

"Oh? Then what's next? Changing our names so that they cannot recognize us?" She asks. Even if her eyes are hidden by the hood, I have no doubts she is rolling her eyes.

I pause mid-action. "That's actually not a bad idea. The participants can recognize us through our legend. Cinder Fall, the name, if I can be summoned, then I should have been from the same place... probably."

"What are you going to call yourself then?" She wonders aloud quite amused with it all. "And what are you going to call me... sister?"

"A—" Avenger is actually one of the worst possible names to call her. It is kind of like if some clueless girl calls her Servant 'Archer' all day; it gives away such a large advantage of how to react against such foes. "Ash," I mutter lamely after the fraction of a second's pause. "Ash Fall, isn't that nice?"

"... Ash Fall," her face goes blank as she mutters the name to herself. She neither accepts nor denies it, however. She merely tests and tastes the syllables on her tongue. "Asche Fall, Ashe Fall, Ash..."

"And I'll..." What will I do? Either as the fake Cinder Fall or as the fake Cinderella, they both draw too much focus to me being someone greater than I really am. I cannot take that kind of lethal attention, I need to... I change my clothes into a crisply tailored bespoke suit, crimson in color and inlaid with far too many hidden patterns of Red Dust.

One of her eyebrows rises at my sudden change.

"Hm, that feels... decent," I say more to myself. I will need to bind my chest more to pull this off... Then I tie my hair back and try to get a feel for it. It will be a pity that I have to hide my awesome hair, but the things I do for victory...

"And I know I definitely look nice in anything I put on, so you can tell it doesn't look half-bad on you," she teases. "Maybe we should switch."

I stand and take a twirl, as if I am Sailor Moon and performing a transformation sequence, before a crimson fedora and overcoat wind into existence with the simultaneous motions of a thousand threads. The windows of the udon shop conveniently show me how awesome we are and I smirk to myself, "Carmen Isabella Sandiego, eat your heart out."

(In the background, our waitress brings us our bill.)

"So, what's the plan?" Cinder... no, Ash asks patiently, taking this all in stride. "I'll follow your lead for now."

My smirk shows some teeth now, as if to say she is not the only one with fangs. I cannot help it, because what we do next is going to be audacious, especially since each target will not only be still at full strength, but also because there are satellites focusing on each hit. It is a good next move, considering how quickly we can improve if only we have more information... and it leaves each side still nearly where they started. "We're going to steal some everything."

(The waitresses sigh in relief at our leaving.)

 

[d.fish]

2.2 Reflections (Cont.)

Summarizing the possible events of the Fifth Holy Grail War and each individual background in their entirety is an undertaking that will take longer than a single night. Instead, I only tell my Ash of the basics, of the capabilities of our enemies, and of the potential of the powers of this world. This is both enough to motivate her active participation and to make her wary of each action.

"Do we have a headquarters?" She means a base of operations, but I know what she means well enough.

"Nope."

"We can't do everything ourselves."

"Do you want to use the local criminal elements?" I muse. "They are not men of greed, and they are not easily led. It will have to be forceful, distasteful. And they will fall like leaves before our foes."

"So we cannot use traditional... allies... since they are useless and we can't defeat these Servants in an frontal assault. We do not have time to raise friends up to a level of required competence and we have no local support." She sighs and takes a step ahead of me in our walk out of the shopping district. "I can see why you made me."

I roll my eyes. "It does help that I made you based off of the most awesome girl in existence."

"Careful now," Ash chortles softly. "You're approaching, ah, what was his name... Gilgamesh? That level of ego is crippling. Though, I don't disagree."

We share a look of amusement again. Our interaction is so very awkward without such distractions. My eyes scan ahead and I see that we are nearly out of the shopping district and into the the foreigner's housing that the Japanese segregate away from regular Japanese households. Once we cross into that threshold, there will be many abandoned houses for usage, but...

A plan forms in my head, as I realize there are a few viable allies in range. I turn to my Ash and I see her also deep in thought and taking in the sights.

"Even if we appear under the guise of friendship, they will be too disgusted by me to accept," Ash whispers finally. Indeed, she is thinking of Tohsaka and Emiya and Einzbern. They are the ones I focus on when I speak to her, because I know their capabilities so well.

I do not disagree. Her miasma of evil suppresses all except the most egotistical or stubborn. Even the most powerful beings will fare no better than me, and feel like having an acidic taste on the back of their tongue, a stinging smell right under their noses, and a haze that clouds their thinking, when they come to be at her side. No, if we are to act together, then we have to rule out all of the actors who are not ostracized by society.

My heart tinges, and I almost feel touched. She is trying to take on the burden of her deficiencies on her own. I can almost feel as if she is feeling guilty, if she is not Cinder Fall.

But she is and of course, I do not believe her actions completely. But I can still hope, right?

So I rest a hand on her shoulder, taking her attention away from her frantic thoughts. "Need a hand with that?"

"I would like to discuss with—why do you have that?" Her face scrunches up into a cute frown.

"What, this?" I smile innocently and wave around the severed arm of Atram Galliasta.

"Yes, that," She deadpans.

"It is a command seal," I flip the hand around, displaying the two remains of used up command seals and one still there. There is power in it, isolated and preserved by my power. I find myself admiring it... there is something intricate about its design. Unlike the magecraft that I see being used by Atram or the residues of protections on houses like the Emiya house, this is truly unique. It is like having found someone who made a time machine in the western frontiers of America back when the cowboys were stealing everyone's land.

I can feel its power... but if I use it now, then I will have nothing left to study, to cut apart and dissect and learn all of its mysteries from...

"Not three? What a pity," Ash says as she leans in to get a better look. "Not only does it require a lot of power, but the precision... it's quite delicate, isn't it? We'll need to study it a while, but it must be the arrogance of previous Casters before us that truly hinder them. Why haven't any of them tried to replicate this? It is just an application of power, isn't it?"

"It is also a binding, a contract, a... knot of power, I suppose. There is power in that. I don't know how well it can work anymore, considering how every plug needs the correct socket, and the Grail Mud has pretty much reforged me from having such conditions against my existence." I hold it up. How I wish I can transfer it onto my own flesh...

"It is a pity we do not have the time to study this in detail," she muses.

"Pity, perhaps, if our destination not one that can lend some insight on this, after all... there is one side that can be an apt ally... if we apply some pressure." My smile is the smile of a pure maiden.

"Oh." She crosses her arms and looks at me as if I am incorrigible. "I think I know who you mean. Do we have to?"

My hands rise and I profess my obvious innocence and evident benevolence. Then I jog ahead at a merry pace. "It's just such a nice evening for a stroll, you know? I'm sure our future friends will appreciate this midnight walk as much as we will."

I crush a spying worm beneath my feet as it roasts into ashes and dust, and we cross into the threshold of our destination.

 

[d.fish]

2.3 Dealings

"This is a nice place to start," I remark, with one foot on the lands of the house now called 'Matou Residence'. There is a worn, bronze plaque marking it as such at the front entrance. Even from afar, there are fluctuations of power circling this residence, though to call it a simple residence or to call them simple fluctuations are an understatement. The Matou Residence is more of a mansion with multiple wings and floors, something you do not see very often if at all, in Japan. It belies an affluence that can only be gotten from continued wealth management of a great degree, or of power preserved for a period longer than most people's lives.

For this location, it is both.

"How so?" Ash turns to me, something inside her still unwilling to cross on over without my prompting. There is something nervous inside her, and that is only proof of the layers of protections here, I think. She is afraid, but she really does not need to be. She just needs to see what she can truly do.

I do not answer her immediately, but I spin around to face her. She is only a single step behind me and definitely within reach. A single arm darts out, the power in my clothes growing and enhancing me without stopping. The underlying principles of this dress is like an engine that does not stop, as long as I have the fuel for it. It glows hotter and brighter, from the dim blackness of the night, to the hot rod red of the sunset, to the scorching yellows of molten earth.

My hand plunges into her torso deep enough to slowly caress her heart. If there is a heart there, I may even run my fingertips along her veins and trace circles against her blood. But all that my skin feels is the goop that is the crystallization of the evils of the world... a thousand tiny mouths nibbling and trying to taste my flesh.

I pull out of Ash quickly in a messy way. The long, wet sound of lubricated flesh pulling out of her echoes into the dead silence of the night. The instant I am no longer inside her, the opening closes and disappears.

I bring my hand across, covered in black ichor. It smells of power, like the ethereal essence of dark gods from beyond the comprehension of humanity... so basically, it smells like hot, chocolate fondue, to me. With the concentration of my will, I focus each part of me as I spin a circle, and allow the dark blood to fall in a circle around me.

Like all essence that droop from the legendary creatures of the Grimm, a thousand and more insects and critters rise from the blackness, seemingly unending and becoming larger than each droplet that they came from.

I turn back to Ash, whose shocked expression twists into one of annoyance. "How do you feel? Can you feel them?"

"Yes, but I could use some warning the next time you do that. It felt weird."

"Of course," I nod. "I think, in the future, you can do it yourself."

"Maybe," Ash acquiesces. Then she blinks in surprise as each of the Grimm made from blood wiggles and grows and gains consciousness as their eyes begin to glow with the hate and blood lust no doubt coursing inside her. "I can feel each one of them, individually. How fascinating."

"It's not my mastery of Grimm, if they are only an extension of yourself, right?" I supply.

"No, but they are also their own entities and simultaneously me. For you to design this so, it is..." She looks at me with wide eyes, no doubt already plotting against me.

I quickly cut her off from that line of thinking. It will do me no good if she is allowed time to think like that, and I don't think I can keep my bluff up so long without subsuming into the persona of Cinder Fall completely. It is always easier to sink than to stay afloat. "Then deploy them, around this place. You can feel the boundaries, the... ahem, as the locals call them, 'bounded fields' that make up this territory. Don't destroy it, as easily as it is... we may have use for them later, and I have no patience for doing it myself. It doesn't matter what comes in... just don't let anything leave."

She nods, still wide eyed. "That seems simple enough. I'll have some of the larger ones split off into smaller ones, since we're dealing with a... worm user. Ten thousand should do it." Saying so, Ash's Grimm change and shape into curse-filled monsters as small as centipedes and Siafu ants and Asian hornets and brown recluses, leaving only a few as large as simple Beowolves to prowl the dark shadows of Matou's mansion. Even then, from the darkness of her shadows, more and more crawl out, making it impossible to differentiate between the shadows and the Grimm creatures that are a part of Ash.

"See, if I didn't do that, how would you know how to do this?" I poke her in the tummy right where my hands had gone through moments ago. It feels like a deliciously tight tummy now, with not even a scar.

Ash rolls her eyes again. As if she is used to me now, she just says, "The perimeter is secure."

I smile happily. "Let's go meet the magi then! He is quite an interesting fellow, despite being called pure evil by his mentor, peers, allies... well... but useful."

"I'm sure."

Then we walk into the bounded fields, the threshold, completely. While neither of us has the ability as the Servant knight classes that they call Magic Resistance, we do not necessarily need it in this specific case. This is not even because while Magic Resistance is, although the protection against magic at various levels, not negation of the spell itself and just the cancellation of a spell after contact and interaction is made... Well, it is different for each of us. Ash Fall is a being beyond such modern magecraft in the similar fashion that Nrvnqsr Chaos, an immortal being with some 666 beasts composed of his body, is. She can heal from and ignore such defenses, even if she by herself is wary of them. I am, on the other hand, akin to the Caster Medea, who simply cancels modern magecraft through brute force. After all, my dip into the unholy waters is the sacrifice of finesse for overwhelming power. "Come along then, Ash."

"Yes, dear."

A chill wind passes between us as I take her hand in mine and guide her along. The moon shines a path over us, and the front door creaks open before we reach it.

Within, the kindly, old man watches us with an observant eye.

His back hunches from his old age of over two hundred years, and he has more wrinkles on his face than Emperor Palpatine. The wooden cane between his hands supports his forward leaning weight and rings of gold illuminates his irises around his black, pinprick pupils.

If I say he sounds weak, it is because he perpetuates the image himself. Everything about him makes his enemies underestimate him. After all, he is the kindly, old man.

But here and now, we know otherwise. Even if not for the aura of authority he holds or the sinister energy within him, I can perceive dozens of glowing, yellow eyes behind him, hiding in the shadows. This is a Matou Zouken still with a hold over his power and within his stronghold. It feels almost silly how we charged here... how much of a disadvantage we may be at. This is a Makiri Zouken who has not been utterly defeated by Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia (seriously, Kinoko Nasu comes up with the shittiest European names)... a Zouken who has some hold on his mind, and an absolute confidence in himself even if he is not confident in his family.

"Welcome, participants of the Holy Grail War," his crackling voice sounds of the cracked earth and desolate sands. "Welcome to Fuyuki City and my abode... I am Matou Zouken."

I tilt my head downwards, playing on my illusion of weakness. We are similar animals, Zouken and I. We may look at each other like predators, but we pretend we are prey. It is just a tilt of the head, but the angle is low to a degree of acknowledging him as superior and master of Fuyuki City... a play on his ego. Even for creatures as sinister and cunning as Zouken, everyone has pride. "I offer my condolences for appearing unannounced on your lands, Archmagus Makiri. I am Cinderella and this is my companion, Ash."

"Oooh... it has been so long since I have heard that name..." He reacts to my introduction, but he acts like he does not notice it. He does not even notice my recognition of his power, so it seems. But of course, if he does react to something so simple, then this will have been a huge disappointment. His eyes linger on Ash, as if not quite understanding what she is. "Do come in, the night is dark and full of terrors."

That is invitation enough, and I feel the warding, oppressive bounded fields pull back. The defenses of this land, coiled like a snake ready to strike, do nothing. Though they are nothing to me, if they react truly, then it will draw unwanted attention.

I nod and smile, the innocent and pure maiden that I am. "Thank you for your hospitality, Lord Matou."

He responds similarly and turns his back towards me, supremely confident in his survival. "Follow me and we may speak in my study."

"Your study? My, my..." I feel almost as old as him as I speak in rhythm with the old monster. "I would love to admire your extensive collection... as I understand it, you are quite the bookworm."

Before we take another step further however, a fourth actor intrudes upon us, stomping loudly.

A tall, thin figure appears at the top of the flight of stairs above the entrance. He has the silhouette of a man with lightly curled hair. With one hand covering his mouth as he yawns, his voice breaks any smooth facade of civility that we had. "Hey, Gramps, what's going on? Intruders? Who's the weird looking freaks?" His eyes however, ignore me and trace up and down Ash's body in a way that I am affronted by.

Ash is mine.

She is my creation. She is my companion. She is my friend and ally and evils and horrors and toy. A punk like you think you're good enough to even look upon that which is mine?!

"Hello, we are guests in your home... who might you be, child?" I smile up at him with my eyes nearly alight with false humor.

"I... you... I'll have you know I'm the heir of the Matou family, bitch! And this is a school night, don't you know how rude you are?" It seems a simple slight can wake Matou Shinji up well.

I bow my head again, "I apologize, Matou Shinji. You do not need to squirm like a worm over something so minor... it is dark and I simply did not see your features in only moonlight."

He seizes up and stares, his mouth hanging open. Nevertheless, Matou Shinji, a boy who is good at everything that is not related to magecraft or the supernatural, catches himself quickly. It is now that he truly wakes up and realizes this is no dream, because I see the creeping recognition that I come as a guest of his grandfather. "Er... right, I'll just... go back to bed... You know, it's still school tomorrow... I'm the captain of the archery club, after all..."

Matou Shinji nearly falls on his behind as he creeps hastily away. As he does so, I turn back to Zouken and smile widely, my eyes nearly slits of flame.

"Ahem, Shinji is..." Zouken actually reacts, shifting as if there is a thousand critters under his robes shrugging at once.

My eyes almost greedily ablaze as I watch him turn back to face us, the kindly, old grandfather once more and any semblance of discomfort lost. Once more we stand on the knife's edge.

… Perhaps seeing the last true member of his family sharing his blood and still here with him being rather crude has him feeling feelings that he does not want to feel. I do not fault him for it. I cut him with an kindly smile and a wave of my gloved hand, "It is quite fine. You do not have to explain for him or to worm your way into my good graces, Lord Matou. After all... we are already here..."

 

[d.fish]

2.4 Dealings (Cont.)

We glide silently through the ancient yet well-preserved Matou abode, its fine wooden floor making not a single sound, its halls having not a single echo... a haunting, chilling house too large for its few occupants. The two hundred year old manor lies so pristine that its mahogany and marble and copper lining all shines with barely any wear and in even better condition than when it was first built. It is all a facade, of course, a silken veil draped over our senses.

The distance is silent except for remnants of my own power dripping from my now less than stellar control, the childish manifestations of my own struggle... impeccably crisp clicks of my heels upon varnished wood. There is no need for swaying, but there is every need for being fabulous while doing the deed. After all, why be evil if you cannot show it off? If you want to struggle, struggle for power. From my nudges in the dark to my painfully obvious strut, I am overriding Zouken's influence or my own—ruination of his lands, his places of power, for all but me.

None of the childish antics phases Matou Zouken. He does not even pause to acknowledge them... but I know he sees them. So see them then, so you can see nothing else, Matou Zouken.

The study is a beautiful room. There are bookshelves lining each wall, each one an ancient tome. Many of them are the first prints of classics, others are grimoires of observed or stolen magecraft, and many more unmarked books could just be about anything. There floats about a musty, comforting stench, the smell of paper and ink, like an old, unused library taken up to eleven.

Many artifacts of power and interest litter the tables; many catching my eye. I know nothing about most of them, but some are gem stones that contain mana, others are ancient, mundane devices so old that no one uses them anymore, and more are items of magic and items of power.

There is something inherently classical and aristocratic in the airs of the room. It is an atmosphere that is now lost to Zouken. Yet even with the simple elegance there is something that sets me off here as much as anywhere else on this land... something that teases me into lashing out. There is something inherently pathetic about this place, despite its power and opulence.

He takes a seat first, and the stretched out leather that he calls a face twists into a mind-scarring grin. "Please." He speaks with a voice deep with all the negative emotions in his being barely hidden behind his mask. "Make yourselves... comfortable."

Pity for the twisted man with only shattered pieces of his soul almost wells inside me, but if not for Ash's inherent miasma being a thousand times more heartrending. I slide into the offered seat, opposite of him in front of his desk. "Thanks... I'm surprised this isn't some kind of trapdoor that throws me down into a pit."

Beside me, Ash sighs loudly as she places her head into her palms. Nevertheless, she still rests her bottom onto the plush, leather chair before her.

Well, for her sake, for now, I will play it the orthodox Cinder way.

It is still fun...

"Oh, you are my guests. I would have you be comfortable. Would you like a spot of light refreshments?" His smile does not move, but his eyes watch us with a sort of crazed intellect. Perhaps half of his moments are still sane, but not all of them contain the intelligence that he once had. It is a pity then, that he has such sharpness of mind now. "So many participants of the ritual in the past have lost their way. I would only wish to give you guidance."

"No, thank you... I can help myself." I materialize a paper cup of coffee in my palms. Does he expect tea? I smile into my cup.

"I am fine too," Ash adds. There is something hungry in her voice and her hold on my hand tightens as she clamps down with an iron will on the beasts within.

"I understand there is a constant restructuring every time the ritual occurs. The turnover, I believe, is enough reason to warrant some quick reading before hand." I raise a hand and act as if I am some highborn lady studying her nails, despite them being covered by my white gloves. "Still, if you do have some advice... I would not be adverse to hearing them."

"Oh ho... it is good that the young still value the voice of their elders," He chuckles.

I shrug carelessly, "Well, perhaps my purpose here is to pick your brain for all the treasures held within?"

Matou Zouken's eyes shine in the darkness. The clattering of claws and slithering of slimy bodies carry the burden of his unease. More eyes blink in the shadows of the room, illuminated only by few flickering candles hung above us. "My knowledge, young Cinderella, is a precious commodity. If you can pay the price, I may consider a... contract. After all, I am have become rather tired in my old age."

"Perhaps we can work out some kind of an agreement. Although, you should know, what I'm after." He knows the false name I don, he has an assumption of my potential and my power... and my weaknesses.

"And what is that that you wish for?" He leans forward, a thousand worms tense.

"A... loan." I taste the words with humor on my tongue.

"A loan?" He blinks, and that is the hook. He is a man of great control over his finances; an influential and known player in the exchange.

Red eyes blink behind me, a tidal wave of the creatures of darkness awakening at once, spreading out in every angle. A hush falls between us, and a chill wind passes through. One by one, the candles flicker and dim, until there is absolute darkness.

Then and only then, my eyes open aflame. "Yes, Lord Matou. I desire a permanent lease, free of usury, of your delicious knowledge."

"Hearken, girl... you are in the center of my place of power," His voice vibrates through the room, nowhere and everywhere.

But the metamagical worm is already slipping out once more from my gloved hands... These velvet palms almost aglow in the moment's moonlight, I reach forth and grasp the head of the old magus. The taint spreads, never able to be cleansed, like a tar that can never be removed. It saps him of all that he is...

… Yet as he has no mantle, no great aspirations of power, there is only the shattered pieces of his soul. It is not my doing that made him this way—he did this to himself. His soul mutilation is his price for living so long.

The Grimm's taint wait for no one, not even the shards of his knowledge, the essence of his soul.

They scour and sew, rending each piece from their physical bonds, wherever they are... as long as a single of the thousand gasping maws have a single hold on a single iota... then I can draw them together. This is perhaps why I am so lackadaisical and lacking in my efforts in face of his confidence... He is but a mortal man, no matter how he cuts his soul, no matter how many he sacrifices and tortures, and no matter how much he loses.

Pity and disgust at Matou Zouken wells once more inside my mind. His lost potential now seeping into my fingertips, I feel rather dejected at the inefficiency and loss. A pity, and nothing more... I sigh, "You are a tired, old man, Lord Zouken. Perhaps it is time for you to retire."

Then I take his shattered will and Ash devours his familiars and flesh.

"What now?" Ash murmurs and turns to me. "That was anticlimactic."

I peer at as moonlight once more slips in through the curtains. It is such a pity nothing in this room is left. Everything that the Matou owns, the books, the artifacts, and the familiars... they come from ashes, they return to ashes... Is it strange that I feel greater pity that I spilled my coffee than because I have killed Zouken?

He is quite the midnight snack biscotti, as rancid as the aftertaste may be...

Whatever the case, I now hold Matou's former brilliance, unfiltered by madness... his studies into command seals, into the whole system, his crests, and his binding and absorbing. The disgusting feeling is now gone, but replaced by something more disturbing, as if there had been eyes on us that were now gone. I shake my head to remove such thoughts, there is nothing to worry about. I peer up to where I can sense the last two occupants of the manor, a sense of familiarity returns.

A sleeping young lady screams at the top of her lungs from her bedroom, like a hole has been made in her chest and as if her whole body is on fire, and I... smile...

 

[d.fish]

2.Interlude He Comes

There once was a faraway castle, hidden in a pine tree forest, enchanted to defend its people.

Its walls were heavy and ancient, having withstood the test of time.

As time crawled on, the memories of men lost knowledge of the castle, and it became forgotten to most.

There was a fairy tale about it, but things usually changed, as all things were wont to.

The forest became a haunted ancient battle ground, the castle became a mirage, and its occupants... where did they go?

On this day of winter, with the lands untouched and fresh fallen snow untouched, there was bunch a single girl here. She hummed her deathly melody as children often do, a muffle on the caution of men.

Looks, as they say, were deceiving.

And as the wolves prowled and circled the forest, she felt no fear.

After all, what was there to fear, when she was about to call her protector? Even in the depths of her mind, she knew and knew well that those who held her here were just testing her. She was too valuable to throw away.

Wasn't she?

But what of mother... she died so easily.

But what of father... he abandoned her in death.

But what of herself... she lived a life of torture and soon, even if she wins, she shall die.

That was to be the end of her tale, wasn't it? Her whole purposed was laid out ahead of her. What was she afraid of? What did she have left to lose?

… Perhaps, just perhaps, she was not all right in the head.

But that never stopped anyone!

All the innovators and leaders of the world were not right in the head... all those who do not conform to the rules of man and the will of their survival were so too. And yet, some of them were the best of men, and some of them still lived either in life or in legend, to this day.

But for this snow-haired girl clad in white silks, surrounded in a pine tree forest, enchanted to defend its people, far away from the faraway castle, the future was bleak and sorrowful...

… Still, a boy lived. This boy, she decided, took everything from her.

This boy shall suffer as she had, for the last decade and more.

Before she died, she will have her pound of flesh, metaphorically and literally.

She smiled then, and smiled more as her incantation finished, and her protector was summoned from the nether abyss out of time and space. This was her protector, a great being and a nonconformist, and he was all hers. He would not be taken by the boy, or by her grandfather, or by the world. Yes, she decided, at last she shall have one who could stay by her until their deaths.

Her protector...

Her mighty protector, too powerful for all of her family to force into insanity...

Her divine protector, whose footsteps were followed by the thunderbolts and lighting of the skies and shook even the heart of grandfather into submission...

This was the protector who allowed her to stray and wander, anywhere away from the faraway castle...

"Will they suffer?" She wondered, craning her neck to see the face so high. "Will my enemies feel fear?"

He watched her from on high, covered in lion-skins and crowned by a girdle of gold, standing atop a bull so large, it could easily barrel over any castle wall. And yet, he was larger, greater, and more magnificent than any monster... and yet he knelt to her. "Their hearts shall quake," He answered, his voice the voice of thunder and sky. "They shall know a demigod foe who stand one step in the realm of gods. They shall know an enemy that is more Heroic Spirit than Servant... they shall know me and tremble."

She shivered then, not from the snow falling on her naked skin but from the rumbling of power in the undertones of his voice. She watched him and saw a man who carried the biggest stick and spoke most softly. He was his father's son. "And you are mine. You are mine and no other's... How is it that you still retain your mind?"

"Never shall my mind be taken by another, be they mortal or divine." He chuckled understandingly. He knew, he know, and he saw through her as if she had nothing to hide. "I come, for there is a task for only the greatest of heroes. After all, heroes are only as good as their villains make them be."

Her heart quivered at the thought of facing enemies his equal. She felt so vulnerable and weak at the feet of an ally... would her weakness be more evident in face of her foes? "How can I be sure...?"

"Are you already worried for me, my lass?" The edges of his eyes wrinkled as he smiles; his skin was fair... it even glowed of divine protection, yet it was still the flesh of mortals.

She turned away abruptly, her lips pouting and her mind racing, "Hmph! I'm just... just thinking about myself!"

"In that case, I shall offer my sincerest apologies," He said, not believing a single word of her false selfishness, yet so tender to her nevertheless. His hand reached down, large enough to scope her up whole, "I shall offer you a ride upon my shoulders, my lady."

"... Fine." She jumped on like a child first arriving at an amusement park. This was her Berserk... no, this was her hero. "... I'm a little worried about you."

"Then put your heart to rest," He replied as he rested her on one shoulder. "I shall wield my full strenght... mine is the original strength of legends and myths, the strength that is root of all heroes to come after me. Let them come and face the divine justice of the Twelve Noble Phantasms of Heracles."

 

[d.fish]

3.1 Veneers of Normality

"Hey, Sakura! Where's my breakfast?"

… stomp, stomp, stomp.

"Hey! Sakura! Are you still sleeping?"

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

"I can't believe you're so lazy!"

Stomp. Stomp...

"You better not be gone already, going to Emiya's house again. Emiya's my friend, you hear? He's mine!"

Knock! Knock! Knock!

"Hey! Sakura! Are you in there?"

The door opens with a click as its well-oiled brass hinges turn soundlessly. A messy mop of dark blue peers through the doorway before the rest of the head of Matou Shinji peaks in. He looks around, before stomping loudly to his sister's bed.

He stares down at Matou Sakura with a storm of emotions brewing in his eyes. Most of those deep, caring and guilty emotions are buried under this storm of wanting, disgust, and jealously, as well as kinship and the protectiveness all brothers feel for the younger sisters of their family... and the urge to bully them while protecting them. He sighs at last, after a minute of studying her face, and then shakes Sakura almost gently by the shoulder. "Hey, if you don't get up, you're going to end up truant."

"... Brother?" She blinks and touches her ample chest, as if something is missing.

"Yeah, it's me. Who did you think it'd be? Get up already, I'm going to grab some snacks and chill out with my hoes and, uh the Archery Club needs me, obviously, so don't bother with breakfast." He sighs as if all the problems in the world—his problems, that is—are her fault.

"O-Okay," she nods and shrinks into herself. "I... I just had a nightmare... and..."

"I don't care, Sakura!" Shinji whines before stomping to the door. Before he leaves entirely, he turns over his shoulder and gets one final word in, "You better not go see Emiya. I'll know, Sakura. Oh, and gramps wanted you to see him tonight, so don't be late."

Then he is gone, and Sakura is alone again.

"Was it really a dream?" She wonders to herself... but there is no time.

There is only thirty minutes before school, and Fujimura-sensei was undoubtedly making trouble for her senpai. Not that it is any trouble, if Sakura is honest with herself, but she does not want Emiya-senpai to be saddled with all of the work of cooking and cleaning for the older lady. Of course, Fujimura, a teacher at their school and Emiya Shirou's legal guardian, is welcomed at any time. If she can be even more honest... ignoring the heat rising to her cheeks... she will have admitted to herself that she does this to work beside her senpai.

Emiya Shirou is her inspiration and to do even the most mundane things in the world with him is a luxury she wishes she had. And in truth, she likes them to be the most mundane things possible, considering all that she has seen of the supernatural.

"Oh no! I'll be late," she whispers more to herself instinctively. If she hurries, she can still make breakfast for Emiya-senpai and allow herself some peeks at his face. She wonders cups her cheeks and sighs, wondering if one day he will notice her feelings. As her chest thumps like an engine is rumbling within, she thinks... perhaps not. That is... that is so embarrassing!

What will she do if it happens?

Matou Sakura does not know... but a girl can dream, right?

These are the worries and the daily life of Matou Sakura desires. She wants these problems and embraces them for their normality... or in her case, how calm and meaningless they are, but at the same time they are so important to her specifically. These are, after all, the normal problems of an average Japanese highschool student in her position, are they not?

They can be, if she blocks out the other side of her life.

She does not like the supernatural life. Even as she tries her best to think of anything else while brushing her teeth and combing her hair and making sure to appear as the best side of herself to the Emiya household, Sakura can only mask that which is underneath...

… and in doing so, Sakura knows the answer to the previous question that goes, "what if one day, Emiya-senpai notes me?"

As she hugs herself, curled up in her bathroom under the cold, running water, Sakura holds back a sob. She knows she cannot have that happy, normal life. She cannot just be an average Japanese highschool student, worrying about the next archery tournament, the deliciousness of the food she cooks for her senpai, or if she can share more moments with the one of her affections.

Sakura knows this, because she knows she is trash.

She does not question this.

She acknowledges this as an absolute of the world.

Within her body and mind are...

She chokes back a sob, before shaking herself. Even if it is an act, she must be cheery and helpful and nice. Even if it all an act, even if Emiya Shirou sees through it and is now only acting like he does not, it is... better. It's almost like having the dream she has had since... It does not matter. Because Emiya-senpai is not that kind of person, Sakura reasons with her own mind.

Perhaps it is silly to argue with herself, she wonders, but she is doing it. Emiya Shirou is not the kind of person who gives up. That is the core of his being, along with his will to do good and to do right by anyone he meets. If he knows of her situation... if he confronts Grandfather... Sakura shivers again, the weight of dread and despair at the corners of her eyes. But it has not happened yet. Senpai does not know... and Sakura reassures herself.

Sure, he is not the most handsome, or the most intelligent, or even the strongest, but this is what Sakura l-loves about her senpai.

Perhaps being hardworking, caring, and stubborn is enough, but for Sakura, Emiya Shirou cannot be defined by those words alone.

And it is this that she tells herself, conquering her own fears and doubts about herself with her confidence in another, that Sakura finds the strength to go on. She can do it, if only because Emiya-senpai is there beside her.

Sakura comes out of the bathroom, prepared for the day.

Everything will be normal, she tells herself. She will not be subjected to a thousand worms crawling in her skin, gnawing at her flesh and bones, carving spells and power into her body and mind. She will not stay chained to the walls or buried under a thousand creatures who will never see the light of day.

All of this can be true, if only big brother's last words are not still echoing inside her head.

A cold sweat runs down her back, even as she cooks beside Emiya-senpai. Even as he leaves his house, trusting her to clean up and lock up, she cannot help shivering. She hopes she does not seem different to Emiya-senpai... this is not how she wants him to see her.

If he knows how scared she is, if he finds out what she is, then all of this... this... this thin layer of normalcy will crack and fall apart. Sakura does not think it can ever come back together again...

Even fake happiness, to her, is better than the utter darkness of the truth of the world.

So she carries on, and goes to school, barely making it before the bell.

And life goes on, and her worries settle.

Things will go back to normal now.

The pain is gone.

That is just a nightmare.

Grandfather will see her at night.

Big brother will later be upon her.

She will smile to Emiya-senpai in the morning.

Everything is back to normal.

The perfect, snow globe that is Fuyuki City is intact... her life is intact... and it has not fallen apart. There is no pain, no burning, no thousand maggots within her veins. There are no red eyes watching her from the shadows.

But then, the spell is broken, and the peace is at an end, as all things come to an end—

An arm wraps around her neck, holding Sakura's nape at the elbow. It is strong but carries a pleasant scent. It is her friend and captain (of the Archery Club), Mitsuzuri Ayako. She is smiling, and that is usually never good. "Yo Sakura! What are you doing here moping all by yourself? Come eat lunch with us!"

Before she can protest weakly by stuttering a refusal, Sakura has her table combined with some of the other girls who she believes to be her polite acquaintances. "O-Okay..."

"You know, I was just telling this ghost story," Ayako says once they are in their clique.

Sakura shivers at this, but hides it. For her, the atmosphere of vague happiness of even acquaintances are is more important than her spilling her guts. Nevertheless, she thinks of the things Shinji brags of to her, of the things he says Grandfather has taught him. Ghosts are real, she knows, and they are more frightening than what school children can come up with. Still, if only for Ayako's sake, she nods and smiles to the best of her ability, "That sounds i-interesting, Ayako."

"Okay, so this is a true story, about a family," Ayako starts.

"Not this again," Himuro Kane, another mutual friend, groans. Perhaps it is because of Kane's glasses or long, straight hair, but she is the serious one of the group. "It's that stupid little red riding hood story again, isn't it?"

"I-It actually happened!" Ayako squawks.

Sakura giggles aside softly, knowing the routine that these girls went through when interacting. "It sounds like a fine story, Ayako."

Instead of feeling better, Ayako leans back and rolls her eyes. "Oh, not you too, Sakura! I get it! It's because we're in a classroom, and there's sunlight, and it just isn't the right atmosphere."

"Actually," Kane interjects. "Speaking of the right atmosphere, did you finish your English homework?"

Ayako droops. "I can't believe I'm missing Tiger as a teacher..."

Sakura frowns at this and looks around. She knows that if Fujimura-sensei hears the nickname the students often call her by, she will erupt in hilarious outrage, much to the teacher's chagrin. Then she will take it out on Emiya-senpai that evening.

"You're just upset we have a competent teacher for once," Kane reasons while petting Ayako's head.

"Don't you patronize me! Tohno-sensei gives too much homework!" Ayako grumbles.

Sakura sighs; if she were a more outspoken girl, she can just change the subject. She hates this soft side of herself, but she cannot help but feel it is also a side that has helped her survive to this point.

"Oh, look, now you're made Sakura sad!" Ayako pouts exaggeratedly.

"Me? You're the one who's being an idiot!"

She finds herself smiling inwardly nevertheless. Even if she cannot see herself truly being their friend, even if their time together will end soon enough... these are good people and for the moment, Matou Sakura is content.

She thinks to herself, that if such happy days of adolescence can go on forever, she is willing to take on a hundred times what she endures each night. Looking around at this table of friends, at this classroom of chattering classmates, and at this school bursting with energy and youth, she thinks this is just about as best as it can be. And perhaps senpai will even notice her when she makes him dinner this evening?

She smiles to herself as she holds her hands to her heart, feeling the rumble of the world within her chest and the rush of joy warming her from the top of her forehead to the tips of her toes.

There is nothing that can ruin this for her.





(Yes, that's right, this is a Sakura Arc.)

 

[d.fish]

3.2 Veneers of Normality (Cont.)

The orange sun is setting by the time Sakura leaves school. The skies look like they are on fire, and yet the air is cold. It should be spring now, but it is still winter, and Sakura feels like something is wrong with the city.

The air does not feel right to her, but she cannot put it into words why. All she knows is somehow, the streets she walks remind her too much of the basement. It frightens her to think that maybe the horrors of the Matou are somehow spilling into her calm, normal life.

She quickens her pace, knowing that Emiya-senpai's house is less than a ten minute walk away.

As Sakura turns a corner, she nearly runs into a woman standing by the side of the road. "Oh, sorry," she mutters, before trudging ahead.

"Hm?" The woman looks up and something stops Sakura in her tracks. "Why are you sorry?"

Sakura turns around and takes the moment to study the woman in more detail. She looks no older than Sakura, but her more formal outfit, a kimono, makes her seem that way. In a way, she looks very like Sakura's friend, Mitsuzuri Ayako, except her hair still retains its natural, black color. What surprises Sakura is that the woman is standing on the side of the road and staring down at what appears to be a cardboard box of black kittens. She quickly forgoes her curiosity for politeness however. "I-I almost ran into you."

"Oh."

"... Yes, so, um..." Sakura backs away, knowing that she is already late to Emiya-senpai's house.

"Wait." The woman stands straighter. Her piercing, blue eyes stare into what may well be Sakura's soul. Her voice is tight and her words strange. She is intimidation squeezed into a tiny package.

"Y-Yes?"

"Do you live around here?"

"N-No, I live south," Sakura replies.

The strange woman's head tilts sideways. "That is in the other direction."

Sakura bristles, "I'm not going home right now."

"Oh."

Sakura tries to stare the strange woman down, but she finds herself wanting to be just about anywhere else. She excuses herself with a final, polite, "Is... is there anything else?"

The stranger blinks. "Yes, can you take these cats in?"

"N-No!"

"Oh... okay," The strange woman sighs and then turns back to the cats.

Sakura blinks, realizing that she is already forgotten and not a factor in the strange woman's life. She cannot think of one time that she has been dismissed with such... well, lack of emotion. Even Grandfather leaves with a vague sense of glee and amusement.

How ever strange it is, Sakura shakes her head. She has more important things to think about too.

She hurries towards senpai's house in record time, a smile ready for him and some kind of warm sensation in her tummy. Her heart, since this morning, has been beating erratically, and she coughs this up to her own jitters.

When she arrives, she is thankful that Emiya-senpai has not come home yet.

But Matou Shinji is leaning against the door to the Emiya compound.

"... B-Brother...?" Sakura's steps slow to a tittering, clumsy crawl. Why is he here?

"Sister," He replies cockily. Shinji pushes himself off of the walls of the compound and struts towards her as if he is stalking a prey. There is a strange smile that twists the corners of his lips weirdly.

"W-Why are you here?" She asks numbly.

"Didn't I say Emiya is mine? Shouldn't I be asking you that question?" As he stands only a step away, Sakura shrinks into herself. Shinji towers over her in self-confidence, and he does not hold back when lashing out against her now. Now, he is staring down at her, upset with her as usual, "Now, besides, Grandfather has asked you to go home."

"It isn't night yet," She struggles weakly. It is a poor excuse, especially to a man who controls every aspect of her life. She knows better, she knows she should have just listened and bowed her head and excepted this is the way things are.

But this is her way of struggling against what is set in stone.

Shinji knows this too. He slings an arm around Sakura's shoulders, making an almost exaggerated effort to take in her scent. "Come on, don't be upset. Besides, you'll not find Emiya here anyway."

"W-What?" Her eyes widen, fearing the worst.

As if not hearing her, and boasting like he has pulled off the heist of the century, Shinji continues to gloat. "Yeah, I dumped all of my cleaning duty work on him. He'll be there until evening, I bet. What a sap."

'I can't believe people still say 'sap' like an insult,' one part of Sakura wants to say. That part is ruthlessly silenced. Instead, Sakura shivers and shrinks more, trying to appear obedient and beaten... and not relieved that Shinji had not found some way to kill her senpai without anyone knowing.

She knows he will, if he wants to, if he can... if Grandfather helps him.

"Look," Shinji continues to say. "No one else is behind helping him. I can't believe the oaf likes that kind of work... I swear, he must be mentally handicapped."

"S-Senpai just likes to help..." Sakura protests.

Shinji huffs a snort before turning to her, and slapping her hard enough to exert himself. "Shut up. I didn't ask you."

Shakily, Sakura nods and tries to back away. The whole left side of her face hurts, but it is just surface pain. She wishes she can smile now and tell Shinji that he is not hurting her. She wishes she can tell him that things will be alright, and that she is sorry for whatever pain she is causing him.

She wishes she can say whatever it is that can please Shinji, but the words die in her throat.

"... I... you... don't look at me like that," Shinji sighs and turns away. He brushes his hair back as if showing off to his fans, before realizing they are in a public place. He grabs her by the wrist, pulling hard enough to strain her... any other girl will be crying by now. "Come on, Grandfather asked for you."

"W-Why?" She asks before realizing her outburst.

"I don't know... now hurry up," Shinji tugs.

He pulls her back to the Matou residence, his hand never leaving her wrist. It is as if he thinks the moment he lets go, she will disappear. It is so strange to Sakura that Shinji even thinks she has anywhere else to go, let alone the ability to escape.

Shinji's hand is covered in sweat, and his pace is nothing like his normal, relaxed pace. While he is no match for senpai, he is one of the best athletes in school. That he is panting and sweating are easy enough cues to Sakura that he is not exerting too much effort... he is scared.

Of what?

As they come home, he lets go at last. Sakura idly prods the now purple skin of her wrists. It is not so bad, she thinks to herself.

"Hey, what are you waiting for?" Shinji calls from the door, obviously still upset. "I can't believe I had to put off karaoke for this! Are you trying to be a little kid?"

Click.

The door opens.

A woman glides down into sight. She seems to be wearing some kind of silky material that glimmers and shifts in the light, or perhaps this is the light of the sunset affecting her vision. "I'll take it from here, Matou Shinji."

"... I... O-Of course." He nods, and runs up to his bedroom.

"Um," Sakura blinks.

The woman walks to her with a slow pace, as if studying something about Sakura that she cannot see. "Hello, Matou Sakura. I am Cinder. We will be living together for the... foreseeable future."

"Oh... Welcome..." If this is the will of her Grandfather, she has no room to complain. She looks away; as if the shadows of the room coalesces to this woman, Cinder, she is blinding and deafening to stare into. Instead of looking at her, Sakura bows and stares a hole into the ground. "I hope I can help you with whatever you need..."

Cinder chuckles. "Now, now, don't be like that. After all, I am to... take your place, in a way. You'll not have to put up with old Zouken anymore, I'll be the one in charge now."

"Is... Is Grandfather alright?" Her eyes widen. What if he dies? Where... what will happen?

"Oh, don't worry your cute, little head over such a thing." Cinder is only inches away. She cups Sakura's cheeks and lifts her chin to stare into her eyes. Sakura so desperately wants to turn away... she feels like her heart is about to burst from her chest, from fright or nervousness or shock, she does not know what. Cinder smiles, "There... now, Sakura, I will be taking charge of the other matters of the house, including the Matou studies of the magecraft. You can call me... senpai."

"... O-Of course." No matter how much she is struggling, not a single part of her body is obeying.

"How adorable, you're flushed. Was Shinji rough with you?" Cinder leans even closer, paying far too close attention to all the small details for Sakura's comfort.

"A-ah..." Embarrassment drowns Sakura, and she cannot help it, with Cinder so close. This woman is...

"Come along now," The floor sinks and Sakura cannot see anything but a pure blackness under where there should be floorboards or even just a torture chamber or the earth. It feels like she is stepping into a different... "Come on, we have work to do, people to meet and kill..."

As Sakura ponders why Cinder's voice sounds so similar to a voice so familiar to her—a thought that seems to slip her mind every time she thinks of it—she wonders... where is Grandfather?

 

[d.fish]

3.3 The Melancholy of Tohsaka Rin

This was it.

This was the moment she had been waiting for.

Her whole life built up to this moment, and she had been preparing for it since as long as she could remember.

Tohsaka Rin knew she did everything right, she followed all the rules and reviewed her own actions a thousand times. Every scenario she could think of ran through her head, and in the moment's flash of light, she knew she had succeeded.

She had finally done it.

She had summoned the legendary hero of humanity to fight beside her, much like her father had.

As the rush of power faded, she blinked and then frowned.

Where was the Servant?

Where was her Saber?

Because obviously she would have summoned the best Servant, Saber. She knew from that fake priest that several had already been summoned. He even teased her on by telling her that only one of the knightly Servants had been summoned, and that it was not the one she wanted.

Where—?

A loud crash echoed through the house.

She looked up... oh, no, it's upstairs...

But before she could react and before her body carried her up, something crashed through the second and first floors of her house and landed before her, in the circle of summoning. He was a majestic being dressed in red and black, her colors. She knew that without having used a reagent as an anchor, the summoned hero would be one best suited for her, so this was no surprise.

What was surprise, however, was that the hero raised his hands and struck a pose. "Dynamic entry!"

She did not know what to say. In fact, she was speechless, but for a few words. "... My house..."

The repair costs flashed before her eyes and she shuddered. Maybe it was not so late to back out of the Holy Grail War? No... even if it was not too late, she wanted this. She slapped her own face mentally and steadied herself. This was the work of generations of her family; she had lost her mother, father, and sister to this ritual. It must be completed.

"Are you—"

"I ASK OF YOU!" The Servant spoke suddenly, with the lungs of ten men. If he were any louder, Rin thought he might have spoken in gold plated words. "ARE YOU MY MASTER, TOHSAKA RIN?"

She sighed and rubbed her head. This was what she wanted, she repeated to herself. "Yes. Since you know my name, which class are you? Which hero are you?"

"ME? I AM KALEIDO MASK!" A glass rose appeared in the man's lips. That is right; he had a flamboyant mask on, with rainbow, peacock feathers growing out of the top like some kind of... peacock butt. It was such a small mask, however, that it did not cover any distinguishing features at all. What was obvious about him was that he was in his prime and had white hair with a sort of dark skin. Wait, no, it was rather swarthy, but dark was not exactly the right word. Perhaps 'incredibly, permanently tanned' would be better.

"... Right." Rin realized this was going to be a long ritual. She gave one last futile effort in being cordial with her Servant. "Take off your mask, please."

"AH, YOU HAVE FOUND MY SECRET IDENTITY, TOHSAKA RIN!" He took it off, and suddenly, he was no longer in a suave suit of red and black colors with a white tie, but in some kind of weird outfit of red with some kind of skin-tight black armor underneath. With all the leathers, it looked like the dream of some sexual deviant. "You thought I was some hero of the distant past? But it was I, Emiya Shirou, of your future!"

Rin tried to work her mouth, but it felt dry, especially when this 'future Emiya Shirou' threw off the red cloak as if it were some random jacket a rock star would throw at his fans.

It landed on Rin's face and threw her on her butt.

The pain helped; she blinked. "What the hell."

"Tohsaka Rin, I shall help you realize your dream! Do you think you have enough of me? Well, you don't! I am infinite! I am powered by all the bearer of all the dreams of those who place their dreams upon me! I! AM! EMIYA! SHIROU!" He turned and struck another pose.

"Tell me, Tohsaka Rin, do you wish to fight in the Holy Grail War?"

"Tell me, Tohsaka Rin, do you wish to win this Holy Grail War?"

"Let me tell you, Tohsaka Rin, I, Kaleido Mask, will help you win! With me by your side, our youthful vigor shall overcome any obstacle! We shall face all the foes that we will face! Our enemies many, but at least you don't have a snarky version of myself by your side, some counter guardian version of me who only wants to kill himself because he's a pansy-ass! NO!" He opened his shirt. "IT IS I, KALEIDO MASK, THE TRUE VERSION OF ME!"

Rin turned around and counted to ten, hoping the nightmare (?) would end. When she finished counting, she pinched herself and counted again. Then she took three deep breaths. She could work with this.

She would work with this.

She would work with this.

She asked for this—

"Also, you're my wife in my future."

Rin fainted.