Chapter CXXVI: Great Expectations
Another week went by, and then two, and November melted into December without much happening and no news about the upcoming Singularity. Thanksgiving came and went unremarked — I think I was the only American in the facility, or at least the only one left of the people who remained — and I didn’t bother raising a stink about it because I just didn’t have anything to celebrate.
A more religious person might have said that, in the aftermath of the sabotage and losing so many people, that was the most important time to be thankful for what you still had. The people you hadn’t lost. The life that hadn’t been taken from you when it so very easily could have been. And being entirely fair, it wasn’t like I wasn’t glad that we’d managed to rescue Marie and the twins and Mash and Romani had all made it through.
Okay, yes, I was thankful for all of that. That I didn’t have to try and do this alone, with no one but Romani and Da Vinci for support. That the twins were around to plan movie nights for us every week and Emiya was there to cook us good food and that I had Arash, whatever I might have thought of him when he was originally summoned.
But celebrating everything I was thankful for could wait until we’d won and I could be sure that everyone else I’d ever cared about was safe. Maybe then, I’d pitch the idea to Marie and we could all celebrate our success in whatever time we had left before the real world had to intrude.
In the meantime, I relaxed with my books and with the almost meditative feeling that came with my morning workouts, and I spent time watching pop culture classics with my other teammates while we waited. If part of that involved having to listen to Rika make yet more references after the fact and having to watch her, Bradamante, and Bellamy toss lines from those movies back and forth on the way to bed, well, it wasn’t the worst thing imaginable.
Rika was getting back some small slice of a normal life — hell, we all were — and I could suffer a bit of silliness for that.
In any case, it wasn’t until December 7th that we all got the notification letting us know to report for the briefing on the next Singularity. If I had to use a single word to describe how I felt, it would be “finally.” As much good as I thought that extended break had done for all of us, I couldn’t have been the only one who was feeling a bit anxious to get to the next step. I was ready for the next deployment.
My workout that morning passed in a blur, and so did the shower I took to wash off afterwards. Even breakfast, despite how good it was, was something that I only half paid attention to, I was just in that much of a rush to find out where we’d be going into which era and when.
Unlike the mess that was Okeanos, this time, we were going to be going to a real place with defined geography and a structured geopolitical situation. I could actually get some research in to know what to expect of the circumstances, and without the logistics of keeping and feeding a swarm on a boat in the middle of the ocean, I could actually build one up to use, and maybe I could actually be a little more active in the fighting. Even just causing a distraction at the right moment was more involved than Okeanos had really let me be.
The twins seemed to share my opinion, at least a little bit. I didn’t think it was fair to say they were eager to get back to work, but compared to how they’d been at the beginning of all of this, they might as well have been chomping at the bit. I guess, with four Singularities now behind them, they were more prepared mentally to tackle the dangers that awaited us and more confident in their ability to do so.
Was it too pretentious to say that I was proud of how far they’d come, as though I was the one solely responsible for it? Maybe.
What it meant was that we were all fresh and ready to find out what we’d be facing in the British Singularity by the time breakfast was finished and we needed to make our way to the Command Room, where Marie, Da Vinci, and Romani were all waiting. All of the Servants — from Aífe to Shakespeare — were present as well, and if our roster kept growing with every deployment the way it seemed to be, I had a feeling we might just wind up having these back in the briefing room again, if only to have a space that was more dedicated to that purpose.
Marie’s gaze swept across us as we entered, passing from face to face, and if I hadn’t known her as well as I did, I would have said she was waiting for one of us to turn tail and run. Instead, she just nodded.
“You’re all here,” she said. “Good. Let’s begin. First, with the issue of King Solomon’s seventy-two demon gods. Da Vinci?”
“Yes.” Da Vinci stepped forward. “Having completed as thorough an examination of that era as was logistically and technologically possible for us right now… As I told Taylor a couple weeks ago, there was no indication of anything wrong. Although we’re still largely blind on the issue of the structure regarding the remaining Singularities, we can rule out every single one of them as having any connection to the time of King Solomon. That era remains intact as a staple of proper human history, and nothing has changed about it since the Grand Order began in earnest.”
From the expressions on the others’ faces, this wasn’t exactly…welcome information, although most of them didn’t look all that surprised. It wasn’t news for me either, considering I’d already asked about it, but having it reaffirmed after a closer look was still valuable.
“For that matter,” she went on, “not just the issue of Singularities, but nothing unusual was discovered in the era of King Solomon. There’s no sign at all that he made any use of the seventy-two demon gods, such as you might expect if he’d cast them off into the future for some nefarious plot. We went over everything with the proverbial fine-toothed comb, so if anything like that had ever happened, we would definitely have detected it. The fact that we haven’t…”
“Oh,” said Mash, picking up Da Vinci’s train of thought. “The only way it could work is if he was summoned as a Servant.”
Da Vinci nodded. “Also the conclusion we came to on the issue. Of course, as we said before, King Solomon is a Caster of the highest caliber, so the idea that there’s someone out there powerful enough to force him to obey is… Well…”
The word she probably meant to use was ‘terrifying.’ Or maybe ‘shocking.’ But for me, the idea felt familiar. After all, half of my career had been spent hitting out of what was supposed to be my weight class, wasn’t it? Fighting an uphill battle against a powerful enemy wasn’t exactly new ground for me.
Honestly, it was actually about what I would have expected. An ultimate enemy that could corral numerous existences on the same level as Flauros and Forneus, let alone seventy-two of them? The idea that it could have been someone easily beaten was laughable.
Romani sighed. “It’s not pretty. Functionally, it doesn’t really matter if they have the real Solomon at that point or are just using the association of his name or something. What little we know about them already means we have to treat the threat seriously.”
Jeanne Alter snorted. “You mean we weren’t before?”
“Of course we were,” Marie ground out, glowering at her. “But there’s a difference between preparing for a completely unknown enemy and one whose abilities and limits you might have a better understanding of!”
So in some ways, it would actually be better if it was King Solomon.
“Of course, even there, we’re a bit limited,” Da Vinci admitted. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to gather more information over the next couple of Singularities. If the time comes where we do have to confront him directly, then it would be best to have a better idea of what we might be up against, yes? I imagine, in any case, that strong anti-magic armaments would be useful at that point, but that’s a problem for a later date.”
“If the pattern holds, then whoever this person really is, they’re likely hiding out in one of these remaining Singularities,” Romani added. “So try and be careful in case you ever do find him, okay?”
“Right!” the twins and Mash all said.
“And when we’ve got him dead to rights,” said Rika, “we’ll shove a boot up his ass!”
“Or a sword,” Jeanne Alter chimed in, grinning savagely.
“Think we’ll have room to ram a ship up there while we’re at it?” asked Bellamy.
“And a lance!” Bradamante chirped, thrusting her arm into the air as though to act the deed out right there on some imaginary enemy.
Hippolyta sighed.
I was just glad that we hadn’t watched The Lord of the Rings movies yet, especially not recently, because that would have been a prime moment for someone to derail things further with yet more references.
“It won’t be that easy!” Marie snapped. “He’s called the King of Magecraft for a reason, you know!”
“And we have plenty of ways around any spell he might throw at us,” said Aífe calmly. “If that is indeed who we ultimately find ourselves facing at the end of all of this.”
His Noble Phantasms were what I would be more concerned about, but what they might even look like, I couldn’t even begin to imagine. Something to do with splitting the baby in half? Whatever it was, I had to think it would be impressive for how much he was being hyped up.
“Hopefully, it won’t even come to that,” said Romani. I wondered just how much he actually believed it. “For now, let’s discuss the next Singularity.”
He reached over to his console, and with a few deft presses of the keyboard, he brought up the map of the remaining Singularities. Another few presses zoomed into the British Isles, where a large, bold dot sat near the bottom right, not quite on the eastern shoreline but not too far inland either. In fact, now that I thought about it, that should correspond right around the area of —
“London?”
“Yes,” said Marie. “The next Singularity is going to be somewhat different from your previous deployments. Unlike Okeanos, you won’t be making journeys over large bodies of water to different islands, and unlike Septem or Orléans, you won’t be traversing large swathes of the European continent. This time, the entirety of the Singularity appears to be centered on London — and only London.”
My brow twitched. Only London? That seemed like a positively tiny amount of land compared to what we’d become used to. After all, the last three Singularities had covered miles and miles of territory, so much of it that it had taken weeks to cover in Orléans and was only made shorter in Septem thanks to Aífe and Boudicca, and now we were suddenly going back down to a single city?
“My feet are saved!” Rika exclaimed.
Was there a reason behind it that we couldn’t see, some metric that governed how big a Singularity was based upon how much it was trying to change, or was it just completely arbitrary?
“Like Fuyuki?” asked Ritsuka.
Emiya’s cheek twitched, but if he meant to say anything, he held his tongue. Marie’s face paled. I could practically see the flashbacks racing through her head, and right then and there, I couldn’t do anything about them. My hands itched to curl into fists, but through an effort of self-control, I kept them loose.
“Oh,” murmured Mash, completely oblivious, “yes, that was the last time we had to deal with a Singularity of a similar size as this one, wasn’t it?”
“I’m afraid that the size of the Singularity has nothing at all to do with the severity of the deviation,” Da Vinci said with an apologetic smile, “or with how important the event being overturned is in relation to human history.”
“It’s not the size of the ship, it’s the motion of the ocean,” Rika added mischievously.
The sudden shift in Marie’s face from stark white to bright red was almost alarming.
“Quite,” Da Vinci agreed.
“You…!” Marie began, but before she could get anywhere, Bellamy interrupted.
“Well, yeah, but I’m not sure what that has to do with anything?” he said.
Emiya snorted, but it was Arash who leaned over and whispered the answer into Bellamy’s ear, and it was actually kind of funny watching his own cheeks turn red.
“Oh.”
I glanced at Rika, but she wasn’t looking at me. I had no idea if she’d done it on purpose or if it was a complete accident, but that little moment of irreverent humor had managed to distract Marie. I was going to have to do something nice for her later.
“In any case, don’t think that things will be easier or the mission shorter just because the Singularity covers less land,” said Da Vinci. “The size of the Singularity really only reflects the reach of the Grail’s influence, and that is only truly a measure of the focus of the one holding it. After all, Romulus and Flauros wanted to uproot the entirety of Nero’s Rome, and Gilles’ wish was revenge on all of France. It should be more concerning that the enemy’s focus is solely on London, not less.”
Quietly, while everyone was listening to Da Vinci, Marie took a deep, calming breath and visibly pushed her anger away.
“Exactly,” she said. “This isn’t a vacation, so I expect you all to treat it with the seriousness it deserves!”
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“Sure, sure,” Jeanne Alter drawled. “So get on with it already. What’re we gonna be doing in this shitty city anyway?”
Marie scowled and looked like she wanted to say something particularly acidic in response, but Romani came to the rescue and kept everything on track.
“The circumstances are still largely a mystery to us, as they usually are before we deploy you,” he explained patiently. “As far as the details we do have, however, we can at least tell you the era you’ll be Rayshifting into — the nineteenth century, during the Industrial Revolution. Specifically, the year 1888. As for what event might be the target of this particular Singularity, well, to be frank…”
“We have no idea,” Da Vinci concluded with an incongruent smile. Like she hadn’t just told us that they didn’t have any clue at all about what we were supposed to be fixing on our next deployment.
Romani sighed. “None at all. If we’re talking about major events that could disrupt the proper course of human history, there honestly really aren’t any that happened in London in the year 1888. It would be a different story if we were talking about the rest of Europe or even America, but that’s beyond the scope of this Singularity, so there’s no point in talking about them.”
“It’s possible that it’s not a specific event that is being overturned, but the entire era itself,” Marie said, and it sounded like an argument they’d had before. “London was a large part of the Industrial Revolution, a technological boom that revolutionized many fields and resulted in the world we know today. If something were to occur that halted that progress, it could set mankind back by a hundred years or more.”
That felt too broad when Orléans and Septem had been so narrowly focused despite the amount of ground they covered, but considering the fact that we didn’t really have any better ideas, I couldn’t say she was wrong.
“So we don’t have any idea what to expect?” Ritsuka asked.
“None,” said Romani. “We can measure the era and the geography just fine, but even accounting for the usual inaccuracies we have to deal with, this one is giving us even more trouble. There’s something interfering with our sensors, so we can’t get even a glimpse of what’s happening on the ground inside. We’re basically totally blind.”
“Sounds like business as usual to me,” Rika commented, and while I hated to agree with her, she wasn’t wrong. We’d gone into every Singularity so far without much of any idea what to expect, at least beyond a few vague theories about what was being thrown off course, and this one wouldn’t be any different.
“Hey!” Marie squawked. “Chaldea has some of the most cutting edge technology on the planet! If our sensors can’t detect it, then nothing else can!”
“From the outside, at least,” Romani added.
She shot a glare at the side of his head, as though to say, ‘You’re not helping!’
“It’s an unfortunate reality of the nature of Singularities,” Da Vinci said. “Having said that, if the distortion persists, then it’s also entirely possible that our ability to assist you from here will be impacted, too. In a very real sense, you might be almost entirely on your own once you arrive. There is good news, however!” she went on brightly. “Because it’s so much closer to the modern era, the time differential will be much smaller! As long as we can reach you, we’ll be able to respond much faster than the last few Singularities!”
“W-well, I suppose that is good news,” Mash hedged, trying to sound positive.
“Fou…”
But even the little gremlin on her shoulder didn’t sound very convinced.
“You said something about a distortion?” I asked.
Da Vinci sighed. “Unfortunately, there’s not much we can say about it beyond that. There is definitely something inside the Singularity that is interfering with our sensors and instruments, and depending upon what it is, it might also wind up interfering with our ability to contact you and provide real-time assistance, but there won’t be any way to know until you’re inside, and by that point…”
By that point, it would already be too late to do much to account for it, so it would be safer to assume the worst and prepare for it accordingly. In that case, we should probably assume that we wouldn’t be able to contact Chaldea at all until the very end. We should go into this expecting that we would be cut off from all outside help — all outside help.
“Will our ability to summon ‘Shadow Servants’ be impacted at all?”
Da Vinci gave me a helpless shrug. “It shouldn’t be. Considering the function is intended to be completely independent of Chaldea’s response times and the time differential, I can’t imagine the situation being so dire that you wouldn’t be able to utilize that function. But even so, I can’t offer you any guarantees either.”
“So it would be better to take along a well-rounded team, just in case something does make it impossible to call in reinforcements,” Arash concluded.
“Well-rounded, he says,” Emiya remarked with humor. “One could argue that you and I are already enough to fulfill that particular requirement, don’t you think?”
“If you think you’re staying here and making me eat British food for however long we’re in there, you’ve got another thing coming!” Rika told him.
He chuckled, shaking his head. “I suppose there’s that, too. My Master sure is a demanding one.”
“It goes without saying, Emiya and Arash will be deployed as usual,” said Romani. “Especially in a place like London, precision will be more important than raw damage output, although having at least one member on the team who can do both would definitely be ideal.”
“I do have less indiscriminate options, you know,” said Emiya. “Caladbolg isn’t the only Noble Phantasm in my arsenal.”
“The fact you can say those words with a straight face is no less ridiculous now than it would have been when we first met,” said Aífe. Emiya just smirked at her.
“The concern isn’t only a matter of destructive potential, it’s also a matter of close quarters,” Marie said sternly. “It’s entirely likely you might have to engage the enemy inside a building, or even the sewers. The worst thing you could do is bring the entire place down on the Masters’ heads!”
I grimaced at the mental image. It would be bad enough having to go through the sewers, but to be stuck down there, buried under rubble…
“I-I should be able to protect them in that case,” said Mash, “but getting out from under it afterwards…”
Emiya sighed. “Well, it’s not that I don’t have anything that can work around that, but if the space is limited, then my ability to guarantee a killing blow goes down.”
“Almost like you’re compensating for something,” Jeanne Alter said snidely.
Aífe smacked her on the back of the head again.
“Ow! Fucking…stop that!”
“Behave,” said Aífe.
Jeanne Alter scoffed.
“Jeanne Alter,” Ritsuka said suddenly.
She looked over at him. “What? You gonna reprimand me, too, Master?”
Ritsuka shook his head. “No. I’m saying we should bring you along.”
“What?” Marie shrieked. At the same time, Romani, Mash, and Da Vinci all clamored to offer their own misgivings.
“Ritsuka, I’m not so sure that’s a good idea —”
“— might not work out the way you think —”
“— sure about that, Senpai?”
“Why not?” Ritsuka asked, cutting through the protests. Marie, Romani, Mash, and Da Vinci all stopped. “She’s a close range combatant who can hit hard and has a powerful Noble Phantasm that can be used indoors without risking the building coming down on top of us.”
Marie, Romani, and Da Vinci all stared at him, silent, like they didn’t know what to say to that. It wasn’t like it wasn’t well-reasoned either. Putting aside any concerns about her personality, which themselves could be worked around, all of the things he’d just said were spot on.
“But she’s…” Mash began, but trailed off.
“What?” Jeanne Alter demanded. “I’m what?”
Mash didn’t say anything. Jeanne Alter sneered, her upper lip curling.
“Come on, Sugar Tits. What am I? A bad guy? A villain? Huh?”
“Hey,” Bellamy said, trying to step in, “no one’s saying that, okay? It’s not like my past is squeaky clean either. I was a pirate, remember?”
“None of us have perfectly clean hands,” said Hippolyta. “Very few Heroic Spirits ascended because of their peace-mongering ways, and those of us already here are not among them.”
“But none of you are getting this treatment,” Jeanne Alter pointed out, and when neither of them could deny it, she turned back to Mash. “So? Say it already! What am I?”
“You were our enemy,” Mash finally said, so quiet it was almost a whisper, “and I…”
I killed you, she didn’t finish, but I couldn’t have been the only one who heard it in the silence. Ritsuka and Rika were there, too, and they knew just as well as I did what it had cost Mash to plunge my knife into Jeanne Alter’s heart.
Jeanne Alter grinned nastily, but when she spoke, there was an undercurrent of bitterness there. “Yeah? That how it is? My old self fought against you, so that automatically means you can’t trust me, huh?”
Mash bit her lip and looked away, ashamed, and Jeanne Alter seemed ready to take that as confirmation, like she was about to turn away and storm out, and that would definitely hurt any progress we’d made with her since she showed up.
“No,” I jumped in, attempting to defuse the situation, “it meant that we couldn’t be sure that we could when we first summoned you.”
“But that’s not the case anymore,” said Ritsuka before I could go any further. I almost bit my tongue on what I’d been about to say. “After all, it’s only because of you that I’m still here, isn’t it? And we couldn’t have beaten Herakles or Forneus without you there to help.”
“Right!” Rika agreed. “First time I’ve ever heard of where saving our butts meant throwing the fire around instead of pulling us out of it!”
I resisted the urge to glance over at her, because that one sounded a little weak, but I guess she couldn’t always have a zinger or a really cheesy reference to pull out.
Mash sighed heavily, but managed to muster a fragile, apologetic smile. “Yes. I’m sorry, Jeanne Alter. Whatever happened in Orléans, you’ve more than proven yourself since then. I-I’d be…happy to fight alongside you in this next Singularity.”
I didn’t miss the worried look Romani sent her, but he wisely kept from bringing up any of that baggage, especially in front of the rest of the team.
“So it’s settled, then!” Da Vinci said a little too brightly. “The team deployment will consist of the Masters — Taylor, Ritsuka, and Rika — with Emiya, Arash, and Jeanne Alter!”
“We’re not sending anyone else?” Bellamy asked.
“For the moment, no,” Da Vinci replied. “The normal concerns we have about overburdening the Masters still remain, and with the situation being what it is, it would be better for them to be able to make contracts with local Servants chosen by the Counter Force specifically to deal with the circumstances inside the Singularity. If it turns out we here at Chaldea won’t be able to offer any other support once they’re inside, it’s all the more important that the assistance they do get is specialized. Does that make sense to you?”
Bellamy nodded. “Yeah. Sorry. Guess a guy with a big ship isn’t that useful when there isn’t an ocean to cross, huh?” He sighed. “Would’ve been nice to see what London looked like almost two-hundred years later, but I guess I can always go back after everything’s over, right? Just like that last Singularity.”
Marie opened her mouth, probably to chastise him for thinking we’d spend the money for something so trivial, so I stepped in before she could and told him, “We’ll see what we can arrange later.”
I gave Da Vinci a meaningful look, and she nodded. “Right. First, we have to clear the Singularity. Vacations can wait until afterwards. Does anyone have any other questions before we move on?”
“Yeah,” said Emiya, “a very important one, in point of fact: will we have to worry about a confrontation with the Mage’s Association?”
Marie grimaced. “That’s…actually a really good point.”
“What?” Rika said, confused. “Aren’t they…you know…like the rest of the world? I thought we didn’t have to worry about them until this was all over!”
“The Association is over fifteen-hundred years old,” El-Melloi II explained. He grunted. “The Director is old enough that no one is sure he’s even human anymore, and most of the families can trace their lineage back more than a thousand years. The whole place is even built on top of…” He stopped and seemed to think better of whatever it was he’d been about to say. “Nevermind. Point is, the Association’s headquarters is in London, known as the Clock Tower. If this Singularity covers the entirety of London, then it’s entirely possible that the Association of that era could get involved in some way.”
“Hence my question,” said Emiya. “No doubt, some of them would be more than willing to lend us a hand. Perhaps we might even discover a Master or two contracting one of the local Servants. But there are some of them who would without question attempt to interfere and stick their noses in where they don’t belong, even if it meant dooming the rest of the world.”
A shiver went down my spine. And if they found out about me and where I’d come from, what my life had been like, and what was parked in my brain, how many of them would be perfectly willing to screw Chaldea and the Grand Order over just for a chance to peek at what made me tick?
It was like Marie had told me so many times over the last couple years. It wasn’t what I could do that was so special, it was how I could do it, and there were plenty of less scrupulous magi who would very much like to pull me apart to see it at work. See my Corona and play games to test my connection to my passenger.
“I wish I could say otherwise, but you’re probably right about that,” Romani lamented. “Not everyone there is going to be like that, but there are at least a few who would do exactly what you’re describing if they thought they could get away with it.”
“Even throwing my name around might not be enough to stop them,” Marie muttered, frustrated.
El-Melloi II frowned, working his jaw thoughtfully. “I’m not so certain about that, Director. It wouldn’t work on everyone, but at least for the sorts they’re most likely to meet, introducing themselves as your representatives might afford them not only a degree of immunity from scrutiny, but also a level of political clout amongst certain factions. The word of the Barthomeloi would carry enough weight to protect them in that case.”
“And with the backing of two giants in the Aristocratic Faction, most of the rest of the families would fall in line.” Emiya made a sound of understanding in his throat. “I guess that’s as close to a guarantee as we’re going to get, isn’t it?”
“Unfortunately,” Da Vinci agreed ruefully. “Chaldea in its current form would be completely unrecognizable to the Association of a hundred years ago, so even if you tried to claim you were acting under our current authority, it wouldn’t hold much weight with them.”
Of course not. Chaldea as we knew it now was largely the result of Marisbury Animusphere’s efforts. The version from twenty years ago looked nothing like it did now, let alone a hundred, so using its name would get us nowhere at all.
If I could give him credit for anything, it was getting this place up and running. Even if I hated his guts for the other stuff he’d done, I could at least respect that.
“Great,” Rika groused, “so we’re gonna have to worry about a bunch of jerks getting in the way while we’re trying to save their lives?”
“I’m sorry, Rika, but it can’t be helped,” was the only reply Da Vinci could really give.
A thought suddenly occurred to me. “Da Vinci,” I said, “what happens if they find out about Mash?”
Marie sucked in a sharp breath as Romani’s eyes went wide, and even Da Vinci herself hadn’t seemed to have thought about that possibility.
“Oh,” Mash murmured. “That’s right. I’m a Demi-Servant. The Association —”
“— are absolutely not allowed to get their hands on her!” Marie snarled.
Her sudden vehemence took several people off guard, including a number of the bridge staff who had been studiously pretending to ignore us this entire time and now turned to stare. Mash looked at her with stunned surprise.
“D-Director?”
“Listen!” Marie said, and the heat in her voice seemed to take even Jeanne Alter aback. “Whatever happens, the Association isn’t allowed to get their grubby little paws on anyone on this team, do you hear me? Not Mash, not Taylor, not anyone! If they don’t want to take no for an answer then…then…you have full permission to do whatever it takes to stop them! Whatever it takes!”
She was completely serious, I realized. She really was giving us carte blanche to protect ourselves.
“You don’t mean,” Ritsuka began, but Marie didn’t let him even finish.
“Yes!” she said. “Use lethal force, if you absolutely have to! As Masters of Chaldea, your lives are infinitely more important to the Grand Order than a random magus from the nineteenth century!”
Both the twins and Mash looked at her with wide eyes and open mouths, and even Romani’s eyebrows had climbed up towards his hairline — but at least one of us was taking this license to kill with a bit more excitement than I thought it warranted.
“Ha!” Jeanne Alter grinned nastily. “Boss Lady, now you’re speaking my language! A chance to kill some pretentious English fucks? I’m actually looking forward to going on this thing!”
“I’m not saying you can do whatever you want whenever you want!” Marie insisted, jabbing a finger at Jeanne Alter. “But if someone is actively attempting to interfere in your mission and can’t be reasoned with, then they’re an enemy, and I’m telling you to treat them as such!”
Jeanne Alter’s grin only got wider. Christmas was still a few weeks away, if we were even going to have a chance to celebrate that this year, but Jeanne Alter looked like she’d just gotten everything she wanted.
“Don’t worry, Director,” Arash said, “none of us will let anything happen to our Masters. Not as long as we’re still around.”
Marie huffed. “Good!”
The twins shared a dubious, hesitant look, no doubt disturbed by the idea that they’d just been given permission to kill anyone who got in their way, no matter who it was. I couldn’t say I didn’t share some of that hesitation. It was one thing to do it in the heat of the moment when your back was against the wall or when your enemy was technically a ghost, but it was another thing to know it was coming and not balk at the idea of actually ending another person’s life.
If it came down to it… Well, we’d see how cooperative our hypothetical magus felt trussed up in silk and covered with spiders. I’d found a lot of people were a lot more afraid of that than dying, so they might not be quite so recalcitrant after I introduced them to my swarm.
“Guess I should be glad you’re not dragging me along for this ride,” El-Melloi II grumbled. “I’m still paying for the last time I was involved in another Lord’s death. I don’t need another debt saddled on my back for that.”
“You are?” asked Mash.
He arched an eyebrow. “You don’t remember? I already told you guys. I’m just holding the seat. The proper heir of the El-Melloi lordship is someone else entirely.”
However it was that worked. Clock Tower politics had always sounded positively medieval when Marie described them to me.
“Hopefully,” Romani cut in, voice strained, “you won’t encounter anyone like that and this will all wind up theoretical. Either way, Ritsuka, Rika, and even you, Taylor, a fully trained magus from the Association is going to be just better at magecraft than you, so no matter what, you should leave the situation to your Servants to handle.”
“Y-yeah, uh…” Rika turned to Emiya with a brittle smile. “I-I’m just gonna do that and leave it to you, okay?”
Emiya shrugged. “If that’s what you want, Master, then it’s fine by me.”
“Master…” Mash began hesitantly. Ritsuka gave her a reassuring smile.
“Don’t worry, Mash,” he said. “I trust you to protect us, no matter who the enemy is. And if…if we can’t convince them with words, then we’ll just have to hit them with the back of your shield until they give up, right?”
Mash’s mouth drew into a wide smile, and she nodded, “Right!”
My lips drew into a thin line, but I didn’t agree. I’d never had the chance to really test myself against a real magus, not one that was honestly trying to hurt me, but it felt like Romani was underestimating exactly how effective my swarm could be, especially when the enemy wasn’t a Servant that could only be harmed by something that was at least magecraft adjacent.
That didn’t mean I was going to get into an honor duel or anything. That was just plain stupid.
“Is there anything else we need to worry about going into this?” I asked.
Marie, Romani, and Da Vinci all looked to each other, like they were waiting for one another to speak up and add something. When none of them seemed to have anything else they wanted to address, Marie turned back to us and told me, “That should be everything. Unless there’s something else anyone had any questions about?”
This time, it was the Servants’ turn to all trade looks back and forth, and so did the twins and Mash. When none of them spoke up again, Marie took that for confirmation that we were all good to go.
“Right!” she said imperiously. “You have one week to prepare! On December the 14th, the Masters, Emiya, Arash, and Jeanne Alter will be deployed into the London Singularity to correct the deviance in proper history! Dismissed!”