Chapter CXI: Back to Base

For a moment that lasted an eternity, I didn’t exist. I hung, suspended between thoughts, a fly in amber.

And then, suddenly, I was stuffed back into my body, and I came to with a gasp, just in time to hear the whir of hydraulics and the hiss of my pressurized Klein Coffin sliding open. By the time my vision slid into focus and I could see again, I was looking out at the cool lighting of the Rayshift chamber. The air that rushed in to greet me was positively chilly by comparison to the almost tropical environment of the archipelago where I’d just been, and goosebumps prickled up my arms as a shiver shuddered down my spine.

My first step outside of my coffin almost saw me pitch over, head spinning from the sudden lack of bugs to map my surroundings, but once again, Arash was there to catch me and keep me on my feet. A hand found itself between my shoulder blades and rubbed soothing circles there to help ease the discomfort.

At least the disorientation wasn’t quite so bad this time. Losing large chunks of my swarm to Forneus and to things like Jeanne Alter’s Noble Phantasm had made losing all of it to Chaldea’s sterility a little less of a giant jump.

“Thanks,” I murmured to Arash.

“Anytime,” he replied with a smile.

“I’m really starting to hate that!” Rika complained.

“I’m sorry, Master,” said Bradamante, “I really wish there was something I could do to help you with that, but this isn’t an enemy I can vanquish with my lance.”

“Is something the matter?” Hippolyta asked at the same time as I heard Bellamy utter a low, impressed, “Whoa.”

“The process of Rayshifting can be somewhat…disorienting,” Mash explained shortly. “At least, for those of us with physical bodies.”

“Implying, then, that Servants have no such trouble?” said Hippolyta.

“It’s been like this the last two Singularities, too,” Arash told her. “Us Servants are fine, but the Masters have to deal with a little bit of adjustment.”

Which might have had something to do with the fact that we were being pulled across space and time like a yo-yo.

“It sucks!” Rika added petulantly.

“But I think it’s been getting a little bit easier each time,” said Ritsuka.

“Says you,” his sister groused.

“Fou…”

My lips pursed. Of course that thing made it back with us. I didn’t know why I’d expected anything different.

“This place is so cool!” Bellamy said, grinning broadly. I watched him with a faint curl of amusement in my belly as he spun around like a child, arms thrown wide, taking in everything he could see. “Awesome! So this is what the modern era is like? Man! Who would’ve thought I’d ever be standing here to see something this amazing!”

In the background, I heard the door whir and whoosh open, but I seemed to have been the only one who noticed. Arash let me stand on my own now that the disorientation had passed enough that I didn’t wobble even a little.

“It truly is impressive,” Hippolyta agreed.

“Isn’t it just?” Bradamante said excitedly. “Oh, wait until you see the simulator, Queen Hippolyta! A-and once it’s all fixed up, too!”

“Of course!” said Marie as she strode into the chamber stiffly. “Chaldea makes use of some of the most cutting edge technology on the planet! The advancements we made have pushed entire fields of study ahead by decades! Did you think it was just going to be a linen closet at the back of a university lecture hall?”

“Boss Lady!” Rika greeted brightly.

“Director Marie,” Ritsuka said with a smile.

Mash gave a respectful nod. “Hello, Director.”

Bellamy, perhaps not sensing some of the condescension in Marie’s tone, just laughed a self-deprecating laugh. “Yeah, I had no idea what it would look like! When I was alive, the most complicated thing I could use was a pistol!” He tilted his head back, looking around again. “A place like this, something tells me all of this stuff I’m seeing is way more complicated than that.”

“W-well,” Marie blustered. “It’s a good thing you understand, then! Which means you know better than to go poking your nose in where it doesn’t belong!”

“There are some places with really delicate equipment that the whole facility relies upon,” Arash said more diplomatically. “The Director here has arranged orientation tours for new Servants to introduce them to what everything is and where it’s safe to go, so for now, Sam, Queen Hippolyta, just follow the rest of us around until we can get you up to speed.”

Bellamy gave him a thumbs up. “Got it!”

“Of course,” said Hippolyta.

Marie huffed, but didn’t comment. The faint burst of red to her cheeks stood out even more starkly against her pale skin than usual, and as I’d noticed before, there was an unusual stiffness to the way she was holding herself. As she came closer, gravitating towards me first and foremost, her hands fidgeted, like she wanted to reach out and touch me, or maybe give me a hug, and her bottom lip looked swollen.

Ah. My heart ached a little. And I hadn’t been here to help her through this one. She was standing here and coherent, though, so at least it didn’t seem like it had been as bad as it could have been. Small mercies.

She gave me a once-over, twice, and her brow crinkled a little as she attempted to keep her anxiety off of her face.

“You’re back,” she said, and it came out breathless and almost scared, as though saying the words out loud would make them a lie.

“Safe and sound, Director,” I replied.

Her eyes lingered on me for a moment longer, and I held her gaze the whole time, doing my best to reassure her without words, and then she turned her attention to the others, giving them each a once-over, too. “You’re all back.”

“As if there was ever any doubt!” Da Vinci crowed as she walked in next. “Romani might not be much of a programmer, but even he has the training necessary to calibrate the Rayshift settings to account for tagalongs, Director! I should know, I’m the one who trained him!”

That snapped Marie out of it. “You are not!” she said indignantly. “All non-Master staff members received that same training as part of the job training! It’s part of your mandatory certification for every other position in Chaldea!”

Da Vinci held up a finger, smiling coyly. “Ah, but I’m the one who revised that training when I upgraded the coding for it!”

Marie scowled thunderously, and, sensing that this could very easily turn into an argument that might show her in a negative light to our new allies, I cut in before she could start, “Director, was there something you needed us for, or are we allowed to go and eat…”

I trailed off, floundering a little. How long had we been gone, exactly? I didn’t think it had been quite two weeks, but it had been closer than not. Ten days? Eleven? So that was, what, about two-hundred-forty hours, give or take —

“Breakfast,” Da Vinci supplied helpfully. “Here in Chaldea, you’ve been gone a little over forty-eight hours, almost two days exactly. It’s still technically the breakfast hours.”

“Breakfast, then,” I allowed. No reason to doubt Da Vinci’s sense of time. She probably had the magecraft equivalent of an atomic clock hidden somewhere in her workshop.

“I could go for something to eat,” Ritsuka agreed. “We haven’t had anything since last night, and, well, we did just get out of a fight.”

“Me, too,” said Mash. “Ah, if that’s okay with the Director.”

Marie opened her mouth —

“No, wait, we can’t!” Rika cried suddenly. “Boss Lady! We need to go to the Summoning Chamber right away! It can’t wait!”

“What?” Marie snapped impatiently. “Just who do you think you’re trying to give orders to?”

“We need to bring back Emiya!” Rika insisted.

All of the warmth in the room vanished, and every smile on everyone’s face went with it. Even the ever-present upturn at the edges of Da Vinci’s mouth had soured and become strained.

“Rika,” Marie began.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Da Vinci.

The breaking of Rika’s heart was a visible thing. “What? But you said that — !”

Da Vinci shook her head ruefully.

“Excuse me, that was a little misleading,” she went on. “Yes, Rika, it wasn’t a lie to say that we could bring Servants lost in the field back using the FATE System — the whole system was designed specifically to make that sort of retrieval possible, in the case that we had any casualties. Marisbury and his team had certainly considered the likelihood of such a thing happening, especially in a Singularity, where any number of threats might present themselves. However… You see, it’s not as simple as just running down to the Summoning Chamber and chanting the incantation again.”

“I-it’s not?” asked Rika. “But…!”

“You’re attempting to summon a particular Heroic Spirit,” said Marie. “You haven’t forgotten what’s necessary for that, right? Especially since it wasn’t that long ago that we did the last one!”

Rika’s brow furrowed, confused, until her brother spoke up and said, “Saint Quartz.”

Marie grimaced and closed her eyes, looking like she was asking some higher being for patience. I didn’t think mages were particularly religious, and Marie herself had never given any indication she worshiped a god of any kind, so for a brief moment, I idly wondered which one.

“Just so,” said Da Vinci. “I’m afraid that while we can most certainly bring our dear chef back onto the team, it can’t be done at the drop of a hat, so to speak. It’s going to take a little more preparation than that.”

“How much preparation?” Rika demanded.

“Only a day,” said Da Vinci. “You see, from our perspective here at Chaldea, it’s only been about two hours since he was…defeated by Herakles. There hasn’t been much time at all to prepare things to resummon him. I know it isn’t going to be easy, but you can wait just until tomorrow, can’t you?”

Rika’s brow wrinkled. “I…I guess so…”

“You’re going to have to,” Marie told her sternly. “After our last attempt at summoning, I refuse to take any chances! Everything that we can account for, we’re going to account for!”

“Last attempt?” Hippolyta asked politely.

“Ah…” Da Vinci smiled a strained smile. “Yes, you see, it wasn’t quite… Well, we were attempting to summon a particular Heroic Spirit, and I’m afraid…”

“We didn’t get who we were expecting,” Ritsuka finished for her.

“And yet, at the same time, we did,” said Da Vinci.

“Is…that a thing?” asked Bellamy, confused. “I thought summoning was kind of a crapshoot anyway. Like, even if you fished a piece of my ship out of the sea where it sank, you might not even get me instead of the guy who originally owned it or something.”

Like using a shard of the Round Table — and it had blown my mind to find out that was actually a thing that the Mage’s Association had sitting around — and expecting to get just Gawain instead of Lancelot, Tristan, Mordred, Percival, or even King Arthur…herself.

“There are supposed to be ways around that,” Marie huffed.

“Chaldea has pioneered many improvements to help cut down on some of the randomness built into the spell,” Da Vinci said. “Not merely catalysts, but mechanisms to ensure that the intended Heroic Spirit is the one who appears. Not…all of them have been successfully tested and ironed out, it seems.”

“Huh,” said Bellamy. “Who were you going for, then? And who showed up instead?”

“Me.”

Marie squeaked and startled, and so did Rika, as Jeanne Alter suddenly appeared amidst us, grinning savagely at their reactions. No one but Arash seemed to notice the little jump I did, too, because I wasn’t expecting her to show up unannounced like that either.

“Sup, bitches,” said Jeanne Alter, and Marie’s face twisted in expression of almost apoplectic fury — she couldn’t even get words out, at first, as Jeanne Alter continued on blithely. “My ears were burning, so I thought I’d come down and see who was saying all sorts of bad things about me.”

“I thought we established you’re not supposed to do that!” Marie said waspishly, once she’d finally settled on what to be outraged about first.

“Huh?” Jeanne Alter drawled. “That’s a stupid rule. Why would I follow that?”

Marie snarled. “You…!”

“Jeanne Alter,” I said calmly. Her gaze swung over to me, lip starting to curl, like she was expecting me to scold her, too. “Thank you for helping out against Herakles.”

The difference between me and Marie, however, was that I had dealt with Imp before. I already knew that Jeanne Alter wouldn’t respond to simple scolding. The harsher I tried to deal with her, the more belligerent she would become.

“W-well, of course.” Jeanne Alter huffed and looked away. A faint dusting of red sat on her cheeks, barely visible. “I may not like you guys that much, but you’re my Masters, so even if it’s super annoying, I need you to stick around if I’m gonna stick around. And, I mean, that guy was a demigod, right? I would’ve killed him just on principle.”

So the easiest way to defuse her was to give her positive attention instead. I thanked her, honestly, openly, and earnestly.

“Oh my god,” Rika breathed, eyes wide. “No way. I thought it was just the Boss Lady, but Jalter, too…?”

“What?” Jeanne Alter demanded, annoyed. “Me, too, what?”

“N-nothing!” Rika squeaked. “J-just, uh… Th-thanks for helping us out? It was super cool to see you turn Herk into ikayaki!”

Jeanne Alter scoffed. “Of course it was!”

“Did you come down here to make sure we made it back okay?” Ritsuka asked.

“What?” Jeanne Alter rolled her eyes. “Of course not! Like I said, my ears were burning, so I came down here to make sure that no one was badmouthing me. Especially after I got the killshot on that muscle-headed asshole!”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

A hand materialized behind her and landed an open-palmed smack to the back of her head. Despite the fact that it probably hadn’t hurt all that much, Jeanne Alter flinched.

“Ow!”

“Your achievements are certainly to be lauded,” said Aífe, “but you were not the only participant of that battle. Your ‘killshot’ would not have been one without the combined efforts of the other Servants who wore Herakles down.”

“Tch. Pain in my ass,” Jeanne Alter sneered. “It’s not like I don’t know that, you know.”

“I’m honestly amazed you guys managed to beat him at all,” Romani said as he walked in through the door. “A Noble Phantasm like that just isn’t fair. Twelves lives? A stock of eleven resurrection spells? Even for the greatest hero in Greece, that’s just a little too far!”

“Right?” Rika agreed, nodding vigorously. “It’s like he went to the Noble Phantasm shop, picked up a totally sane one, then ordered ten more just in case he ran out!”

“I guess he stocked up on Phoenix Downs right before he got summoned,” Ritsuka said wryly.

What? Phoenix Downs?

Rika whirled about and mercilessly slugged him in the shoulder. “I told you, you’re not allowed to make the same kind of jokes as me! That’s my job on this team!”

Ritsuka, rubbing at the spot where she’d hit him, just smiled and chuckled. It was another video game or cartoon reference of some kind, then.

Romani sighed. “Well, it’s good to see you’re all in high spirits, all things considered. And that you all came back in one piece, too.” He squinted at us warily. “A-and…none of you made a deal with King David, did you? You listened to me when I said that was a bad idea, right?”

“You still haven’t explained that one, Romani,” said Marie, annoyed.

Romani laughed awkwardly. “W-well, so, the thing about that is… You see… U-um, King David is… What I mean to say…”

He sagged. “Listen, I’ve got no excuse. Just trust me that it’s a bad idea, okay?”

Well, that wasn’t suspicious at all, was it? And judging by how Marie was reacting, whatever that was all about, it wasn’t something she was privy to as Director of Chaldea, which meant it probably wasn’t something in his personnel file.

Just which department had he been a part of at the Association anyway?

“We offered to bring him back to Chaldea with us, but he declined,” said Mash. “Other than that, Doctor, our interactions with him were…actually quite limited. U-um, I don’t think he made any offers to us while we were there?”

“None,” I confirmed.

I wasn’t sure what kind of offer he expected King David to have even made for us. What, was he supposed to try and sell us the Ark? The incredibly dangerous artifact that no one could safely touch?

Romani sighed again. “That’s a relief. W-well, I was there when he turned down your offer for a Servant contract, so I knew about that much at least, but it’s a good thing nothing happened the rest of the time either.”

He looked down at the tablet in his hands, and then, very transparently, shifted the topic of the conversation.

“So we’ve already taken care of the Grail you retrieved from the…Demon God, Forneus,” he said, “and it shouldn’t take too long to have that hooked into our systems. It’ll be good to start having more of a surplus on our power grid. And the Okeanos Singularity is confirmed to have been resolved — which, I mean, of course you guys know that, you watched Drake and her crew being returned to their proper place in history.”

“In other words, you did your job, and you did it well,” said Marie. “Despite a few…hiccups in the process, you succeeded in fixing things. As expected of Masters of Chaldea.”

“We’re proud of you,” Romani translated. “Good job, everyone.”

“Thanks, Doc,” said Rika.

“Our next target will be the British Singularity,” he went on. “This one will take place in southern England, although we’re still narrowing down the exact era. But…we have some time before we’re going to worry about that. I think we can afford to take a couple of weeks break, right, Director?”

“Of course,” said Marie. “What, did you think I was going to send them off as soon as they got back? They’ve earned at least a week or two of rest, after how quickly they resolved the Okeanos Singularity.”

“In the meantime, I’m going to try and do some research on these so-called Demon Gods,” said Romani. “I might have to try and use the SHEBA lens to get a better look at the era of King Solomon so I can see if it’s possible to confirm whether or not they actually are related.”

Flauros and now Forneus? If the pattern held and we started encountering one of them for each Singularity, then if they weren’t actually related at all, they were at least borrowing the mythology, which, from my understanding, was almost as bad. At that point, it would be a distinction without much of a difference.

“Will that actually work, Doctor Roman?” asked Mash. “Doesn’t the SHEBA lens start to lose focus before the start of the Common Era? And the amount of energy required to look that far back…”

“We may have to cut back any plans for future Servant summonings to make it work,” said Marie, “but with the new Grail we just acquired, we should have enough that it might be feasible.”

“But, Emiya!” Rika protested.

“Of course, we’re going to summon him back first!” said Marie. “But beyond that… We’ll have to run the numbers to make sure, but the amount of power needed to get a high enough resolution scan of that era to be worth the effort might make further summonings impossible, at least in the short term.” She grimaced. “As much as it pains me to say it, discovering the origin of these Demon Gods that have gone through so much effort to throw history off course is more important.”

“Somehow or another, I’ll make sure to find the necessary energy, Director,” said Da Vinci. “You’re right, knowing more about our ultimate enemy is indeed more important than finding more allies to add to our roster.” She smiled. “Provided, of course, that the pattern doesn’t hold and the enemies in the next Singularity aren’t even stronger than the last. I shudder to think what sort of Heroic Spirit could make Herakles seem weak by comparison.”

“Oh god,” said Rika, horrified, “don’t even joke about that, Da Vinci-chan!”

“Well, at the very least, we can assume that the Counter Force will provide the necessary assistance in the case that it winds up being true,” said Da Vinci. “After all, it provided us with a dragonslayer when we were faced with dragons…” She looked pointedly over at Bellamy. “…and a sailor when we needed a ship, didn’t it?”

Bellamy blinked. “Huh. I mean, I guess it did, didn’t it? I never thought of it that way.”

And it provided us Aífe when we needed someone who could kill the most venerated hero in Roman history. But on the flipside, it had also provided us Stheno when we needed a god who could match Romulus’ divinity, and that had been nowhere near as helpful.

“I don’t think we should count on that always working out like that,” I said.

“Perhaps not,” Da Vinci allowed. “Well, in any case, it’s something we can worry about later. We still have a couple of weeks to plan the excursion into the British Singularity, yes?”

“Right,” said Romani, nodding along. “So for now, I know you guys didn’t have breakfast before that battle, and you’re probably pretty hungry. Why don’t you all… Uh, the Masters and Mash, at least, go get something to eat from the cafeteria?”

That sounded really good just then. Mine couldn’t have been the only stomach that was growling and demanding food, and while it almost certainly wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as Emiya’s usual fare, at that point, I could’ve gone for a bowl of soggy cereal.

“And our debriefing?” I asked, more as a matter of professionalism than because I actually wanted to stand there and go through it.

“We can handle that later,” said Marie. “Of course, I’ll also be expecting your after action reports, too, but those can wait a few days.”

Rika groaned and Ritsuka grimaced, even as Mash said, “Of course, Director.”

“Hey, it’s proper procedure!” Marie snapped at the twins. “You’re Masters of Chaldea, aren’t you? That responsibility doesn’t end once a Singularity is repaired! There are other things that are expected of you!”

“Of course, Director,” Ritsuka echoed Mash, perfectly respectful, although he looked like he’d just eaten a lemon.

Impatient and a little irritated, Marie shooed us away. “Go! Get something to eat, unless you want me to find something else for you to be doing!”

Our group filed out of the room. I lingered for a moment, hesitating, my eyes tracing Marie’s form as I scrutinized her for any sign of distress, but she was holding herself together well enough and I knew she wouldn’t appreciate having her problems aired in front of everyone else. A little reluctantly, I turned and left with the others.

Once we were out in the hallways, Mash let loose a sigh. “Another Singularity resolved. We’re one step closer to saving the world.”

Ritsuka laughed a little. “You know, that really does sound like something out of a manga or video game.”

“Finally!” said Rika, pointing at him. “Someone gets it!”

It probably said something about my perspective — and Earth Bet as a whole — that I couldn’t really agree.

“Manga and video games?” asked Hippolyta.

“Modern entertainment,” I told her shortly. “If you didn’t get that information when we established our contract, then the orientation package from Chaldea will probably fill in the holes later.”

“Ah.”

“Fou, fou!”

My cheek twitched.

“I suppose it might sound a little unbelievable, outside of context,” Mash said thoughtfully. She scratched under Fou’s chin absently, to the little gremlin’s delight. “But, things are already extraordinary, aren’t they, Senpai? Less than an hour ago, we were singing with Captain Francis Drake and her crew after retrieving the Holy Grail from the Demon God, Forneus.”

“Point,” Ritsuka allowed with a smile and a little laugh.

“And Senpai finally sang along with us!” said Rika. “Man, Senpai, I didn’t know you had pipes like that!”

My lips pursed, but I said nothing. Was that supposed to be a compliment? I’d never really done much singing before, so I had no idea if it was even any good.

“Better than I was expecting,” said Bellamy, as though he was answering my question. “I mean, you can’t really compete with Euryale, right? But she was so hung up about it that I thought she was going to be as bad as Ritsuka!”

Still wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a compliment. “Better than I was expecting” and “not as bad as Ritsuka” weren’t the same as “good.”

“Oh, come on!” Ritsuka complained, exasperated. “I know I’m not that great, okay? You guys don’t need to harp on it!”

Mash giggled. “I think it’s the spirit that matters, Senpai. It’s, um, i-it’s true, you weren’t the greatest singer there, but your heart was in it! I’m sure everyone else felt that, too!”

Ritsuka sighed and sagged.

“Be thankful you never had to go to karaoke after school with him,” Rika said viciously. “It’s no wonder Minami broke up with you when you nearly blew out her eardrums on the first date.”

Her brother favored her with an unimpressed look.

Bellamy gave him a friendly, reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry so much about it! You might not be all that good at singing, but trust me, there were a lot of folks I sailed with who weren’t all that much better. Captain Drake’s crew was an exception, not the rule!”

“Thank you,” said Ritsuka flatly. “That makes me feel so much better.”

“Well, I thought he was complete shit,” Jeanne Alter said snidely.

Rika stuck her tongue out at her, and Jeanne Alter responded in kind. And then squawked when Aífe slapped her over the back of the head again.

Mash sighed wistfully. “They really were a bunch of great people, weren’t they? Even if they were all scoundrels, even if they all did many terrible things in history, and even if many people suffered as a result of their actions… They were friendly and kind to us while we were there, and we couldn’t have solved the Singularity without them.”

“Even the worst monsters in history had family and friends who loved them,” I said quietly.

I suppose I technically fell into that category, too, didn’t I? Maybe not on the extreme end, not compared to the worst of the worst who were all remembered for their atrocities, but no matter how necessary they were at the time, I’d done plenty of things that many would have called cruel. Necessary evils were no less evil simply because they were necessary.

“Really, Master?” asked Bradamante, skeptical.

“Eva Braun married Hitler.”

“For his winning personality, I’m sure,” Arash joked.

Who knew? I only knew as much as the fact that she’d married him and committed suicide with him, staying by his side to the very end. I couldn’t imagine what she’d seen in him, but history was rife with warlords, criminal kingpins, and genocidal madmen who nonetheless had somehow managed to have tender, loving home lives.

Wonder if it made me better or worse to some degree or another that I hadn’t managed that myself. Even at my worst, I wasn’t anywhere near the same ballpark of monstrous as Hitler had been, but even he had somehow maintained a romance while ordering the deaths of over six million people.

“Whatever she saw, she saw something,” I said. “Whether she was just that ignorant of how horrible he was or if she was just as bad at her core, they apparently loved each other enough to die together.”

The twins traded dubious looks. I guess for my invoking of what Aisha had called “Godwin’s Law.” Yeah, Hitler was a bit of an extreme example, wasn’t he? Ghengis Khan or someone a little further out of living memory might have been more appropriate, although Attila the Hun had a bit of a new twist to it after Septem.

“Still,” said Mash. “Sailing with Captain Drake… It was…fun, wasn’t it?”

“Which part?” asked Rika wryly. “The one where we all sat around for days on end without much to do, or the one where she handed us a bunch of gold, then swindled us out of it in poker?”

“Don’t lie,” said Ritsuka. “You enjoyed every minute of those poker games.”

“And Go Fish!” Mash added.

Maybe this break would be a good opportunity for me to get to the bottom of the story behind why something as simple as a children’s card game delighted Mash so much.

“Maybe.” Rika hummed. “You know, though, as boring as a lot of that was, I think I want to do it again. Go sailing, I mean. Just take a trip to a bunch of new places, cruising around on a ship — maybe with a hunky boyfriend to hold onto me so I can shout, ‘I’m Queen of the World!’”

Somehow, that was about what I expected from Rika.

“Just make sure to watch out for icebergs,” Ritsuka told her dryly. Rika gave him an anemic punch to the shoulder as revenge, as though to remind him that he wasn’t allowed to make references to pop culture.

“Icebergs?” asked Mash.

Rika turned to her with horror. “Oh my god. You’ve never seen Titanic!”

“The ship that sank in the North Atlantic almost a hundred years ago?” said Mash. “U-um, I’ve read a few books about that…”

“What’s this?” asked Bellamy. “A movie about a sinking ship?”

The twins traded a look, nodded to each other, and said, together, “Movie night.”

“Movie night?” Bellamy echoed.

Rika glanced back over at him. “You guys can come, too. In fact, let’s get everyone there! The more the merrier!”

Maybe not Shakespeare. I doubted he’d be able to keep from commenting on every scene and critiquing the storytelling. We probably wouldn’t get through the first twenty minutes before everyone got sick of him.

“You’ll have to clear it with the Director, first,” I said, and when Rika winced, I added, “but I don’t think she’ll say no. As long as you’re responsible about it.”

“Why bother?” Jeanne Alter drawled. “Isn’t there some stupid saying these days about asking forgiveness instead of permission?”

“Sure,” said Ritsuka, “but if we do that, well…”

“Boss Lady’ll chew us up and spit us out,” finished Rika. “I like being unchewed, thank you.”

“I want to say the Director isn’t that bad,” said Mash, “but she would absolutely be upset if you tried something like that without clearing it with her first, Senpai.”

“I’ll talk to her,” I promised. “It’ll be a…good way to decompress, after everything.”

A good bonding exercise, too. I wasn’t sure all of the Servants would appreciate a movie like Titanic — it had been popular enough to make its way over from Aleph, so I’d already seen it — but I was sure that there were probably other movies that would capture the interest of those who didn’t.

I just had to hope that Rika wouldn’t pick any of the superhero movies I’d heard about, the ones based upon comic books. I didn’t know that I could watch them and keep quiet when I knew the reality better than the fiction.

“Just…” Rika began, quieter than normal. “Not until we get Emiya back.”

I thought of the girl from a day ago, sitting all alone, looking at the darkening sky towards a horizon where the sun had long set, and how she’d confessed her insecurities to me, her worries, her fears, her feelings of inadequacy. The terrifying certainty she’d felt that her Servant would never forgive her for ordering him to fight to his death.

There was only one thing I could say to that.

“Of course.”

“So he can hold your tissue box while you sob when Jack dies,” Ritsuka teased.

“Hey!” Rika squawked, slapping her hands over Mash’s ears. “Spoilers! Some people here haven’t seen the movie yet, you know!”

“W-what?” Mash asked, confused.

“And besides,” Rika went on, “I wasn’t the one who ran out of the room shouting about cooties when Rose dropped her robe!”

“I was, like, five years old!” her brother protested.

“Oh?” said Aífe, curious. “Now this is starting to sound interesting.”

I glanced over at her, remembering the romance novel she’d been reading when I first found her in the library, what, a month ago now? Something like that? If she’d found that an engaging enough read…

“I think you’ll like it.”

Especially the ending, where Rose went to sleep as an old woman and woke up young again on the Titanic with all of those who had died when it sank. She might appreciate that a lot more than the rest of us did, the idea that love could persist after death.

“Probably a good thing we didn’t watch it before we left for the Okeanos Singularity,” said Arash. “Might’ve been bad luck to watch a movie about a famous ship sinking before we went out onto the ocean ourselves.”

“Oh man,” Rika groaned, “you’re gonna give me nightmares!”

We continued on like that, tossing ideas back and forth, with the occasional joke thrown in for good measure, and hashed out a basic idea for a movie night where we could get all of the Servants and Masters together and sit down. Titanic was chief among the suggestions for what to watch, and Rika refused to hear a word otherwise, but what else we might watch afterwards wasn’t as easily agreed upon.

For that matter, we needed to find a room where we could all fit, because one of our bedrooms would be way too cramped, and the twins didn’t know the facility well enough to make any suggestion except the gym. It became quickly obvious that this was going to be a lot more work and preparation than it seemed at first glance, so the movie night that Rika had originally wanted to have the day after we brought Emiya back wound up pushed back and postponed until we had a spot we could use.

By the time we made it to the cafeteria, the only things we’d wound up agreeing upon were that there would be a movie night sometime soon and Titanic would be the first thing we watched. Everything else was left up in the air at that point, because four of us had something much more important to occupy our attention then.

Namely, food. I just had to hope Rika wouldn’t burst into tears when it wasn’t Emiya’s.