Chapter XL: Passing Grade

Aífe clicked her tongue.

"You have so little faith in me, do you? Even you, Boudica?"

At that moment, my connection to my ravens reestablished itself, and I could see through their eyes again, even as Boudica's stern expression wavered and waffled.

"Even in my time, your nature is well-known," she said, but the thread of uncertainty made it sound more like an excuse than a legitimate reason. "You have a reputation for ferocity."

"Well-earned, many would say," Aífe said indifferently. Like she was talking about the weather and not how she was renowned for her brutality. "I'll make no secret of who I am. Having said that, I'm no longer a marauding tyrant, and my days of errant wandering are long past. I do, in fact, understand the concept of restraint."

"I'm not so sure about that," said Arash. "That attack you were about to land on Emiya didn't look very restrained to me."

One of Aífe's eyebrows cocked. "You mean the scratch I was going to use to drive my point home?"

"With a cursed spear famous for killing people with one blow?" Arash countered.

"Any weapon can kill a person in one blow, in the right hands," Aífe replied bluntly. "Isn't that the ideal of Eastern martial technique? That a true master might wield a blade of grass the same as a sword?"

"An ordinary blade of grass isn't a Noble Phantasm!"

"No, she's telling the truth." Emiya sighed and shook his head. "Loath as I am to admit it, if she really wanted to kill me, I would definitely be dead."

He held out a hand, and in a flash of light, another red spear appeared in his grip, completely identical to the one Aífe was holding, down to the raised vine pattern that snaked down the shaft. I'd never seen either before today, not the original in Aífe's possession or the replica in Emiya's, but just going by what I knew of the mythology and what I knew of Emiya's abilities, there was no mistaking it now.

Gáe Bolg. The spear Cúchulainn used in the Ulster Cycle, and always to lethal effect. A more poetic woman might have waxed dramatically about how its striking color was a result of all the blood that had soaked into it.

"Oh wow," said Connla, grinning over the lip of Boudica's chariot. "Pops would be super pissed if he saw that!"

"As someone who died to it, it's to be expected that you can tell the difference immediately," said Emiya. "But you're correct. This Gáe Bolg, and that Gáe Bolg," he nodded towards Aífe, "are two different things. One is the spear whose technique Cúchulainn perfected, a sure-kill Noble Phantasm that always gouged out its target's heart with a curse so strong that even a tiny nick will fester and struggle to heal."

Emiya spun the spear around, rolling it over the back of his hand and twirling it in a way that looked familiar, but nothing like anything I'd seen him do before. My eyes turned to Aífe, who was scrutinizing him with a sharp gaze — because it looked an awful lot like how she handled her spear, only different in an obvious but indescribable way.

He took a strong grip of the shaft again, pointing the deadly tip towards Aífe.

"The other is a predecessor, a weapon one step older, from before he improved upon it. The original, if you will, a Gáe Bolg Prototype. When the blade enters the body, it sprouts countless thorns that rip and tear from the inside out."

And now that he'd said it, I couldn't not see the subtle differences. His had a longer haft and a slightly shorter blade, and the bottom third of that blade was serrated with fang-like spikes, like the teeth of a shark — or the sea monster whose bones it was said to have been carved from. Aífe's was shorter on the overall, but the blade was longer, with undulating waves along the edge that ended in sharp points.

"This version can't be thrown as a Noble Phantasm without causing great destruction," Emiya went on. "If Aífe had thrown that version, I would have been killed, without a doubt."

Aífe snorted, smirking. "You're quite the interesting Heroic Spirit, Emiya. I've heard of heroes who can borrow or even steal the Noble Phantasms of other heroes…but I can't say I've ever heard of one who can replicate Noble Phantasms through something as hollow as projection magic."

Emiya smirked back.

"I'm a man of many talents."

"And you're going to be putting one to use to make up for what you just did to me!" Rika shouted at him. He faltered, his confidence failing, his smirk slipping from his lips. "You'd better take responsibility, Emiya!"

"Rika…" Ritsuka breathed, exasperated.

Emiya's entire face turned bright red, and he dropped it into one hand in a vain attempt to hide his embarrassment. Rika was just as red and panting like she'd run a mile, but for an entirely different reason. She looked how I must have when Cúchulainn fought that corrupted version of Emiya back in Fuyuki.

We were going to have to go through some exercises to get her and her brother used to channeling large amounts of magical energy. The simulator worked to teach them their limits, but since it was all virtual reality, they hadn't had the chance to actually push them. Not in a way that would actually mean anything.

A concern for later.

In any case, it seemed as though this "test" was over, one way or the other. Time to move onto the next step of "negotiations," so I stepped forward and got closer to the huddle of Servants who still hadn't moved from the stalemate they'd been locked in for the past couple of minutes.

Arash glanced back at me over his shoulder. Master!

I know what I'm doing, I sent back to him. Just make sure you keep your eye on Aífe.

I didn't actually expect her to try anything, not now, even if I was fairly sure she could extricate herself from her current situation any time she wanted to, but on the other hand, the only Servant who hadn't done anything at all to stop her was Lancelot. He was still watching from the keep. Was that faith in Aífe, to know she wasn't actually going to kill Emiya? Or callous disinterest in what actually happened?

He was a hard man to read. Not for the first time, I missed the convenience of Tattletale's powers.

"So," I said as I got closer, "have we passed this test of yours?"

Eyes like gemstones turned in my direction, and then Aífe relaxed, her tense muscles loosening as she leaned her head back. One hand left her spear, and she used two fingers to gently push the blade of my knife away from her neck. Arash let her, but didn't quite relax himself yet. My dagger remained close enough for a quick attack if she showed any signs of sudden aggression.

"If the United Empire had any warriors on my level, I'd tell you to run on home to your Chaldea and let me handle this situation on my own," she said bluntly. "Fortunately, the number of Heroic Spirits who can compete with me is vanishingly small. As neither my sister nor her Hound are here, I'm almost certainly the strongest in this…Singularity by default."

She smirked again.

"So yes. Your Servants are adequate for this situation." She huffed. "As for you Masters, I'm sure I'll get a better measure of you over the course of this little adventure, so I'm willing to wait to pass judgment on you three." This time, her lips curled into that now familiar savage grin. "Don't go disappointing me, now."

I nodded, because I wasn't in the mood to make banter or play her games, and turned to Boudica. "And you, Queen Boudica? Are you satisfied with our skills?"

She blinked at me dumbly for a second, like she'd completely forgotten that half the point of this whole thing was her doing her own test of our abilities. Having to change gears so quickly to stop Aífe had probably distracted her from it entirely.

"O-oh!" And now she, too, relaxed, letting her sword fall back down to her side, away from Aífe. "Yes, that's right, I was testing you, too. Well…" She looked at Arash, glanced down at my knife, and then back to me. A smile broke out over her face. "I can honestly say I'm impressed. Yes, you've passed my test! I have no more doubts about your abilities!"

Her smile turned sheepish. "There's just…one problem I think we need to iron out, before we officially become allies."

"Problem?" I repeated.

"Could you tell me your names?" she asked. She nodded towards Arash, then Emiya. "I know that this is Arash Kamangir, and you've been calling him Emiya. And I think…I heard one of you is named Taylor?"

"That's me," I confirmed. I gestured behind me towards the twins. "The brunette is Ritsuka, the redhead is Rika." Then to Mash. "That's Mash. Shielder Class Demi-Servant."

"Demi-Servant?" Boudica said curiously.

"Through a form of possession, I'm borrowing the skills, abilities, and Noble Phantasm of a Heroic Spirit," Mash explained as she relaxed now, too. "U-um, we're not sure which, so I can't tell you who it is."

Boudica smiled a motherly smile. "And even with a limitation like that, you still performed so admirably!"

Mash blinked, and then twin spots of faint pink blossomed on her cheeks. "A-ah. Thank you?"

"No more fighting?" Connla whined. "Lame! Things were just getting good, too!"

"We're not here for your entertainment," I said dryly.

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Aífe slanted a sly glance his way. "If you really are that bored, Connla, and need something to do, I would be only too happy to deliver your punishment now."

Connla flinched.

"Ah, no, that's okay, Ma, I'm good!" he said hurriedly, backpedaling for all he was worth. "In fact, I think I'm gonna go see if Uncle Lance needs anything, okay?"

He made it all of five feet from Boudica's chariot, and then Aífe seemed to teleport next to him like Arash and Boudica weren't even in her way. In a flash, she had him by the ear again, and he squawked as she pulled on it like she was trying to tear it from his head.

"Argh! Ma, Ma, stop! Come on, stop! Leggo, leggo!"

"This is twice in one day that you've interpreted my commands to your own pleasure," she scolded him. "Twice, Connla! You know just as well as I do the things at stake here, and you thought it fine to play games with something so serious? Not once, but twice?"

"I'm sorry!" Connla whined. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Using her grip on his ear, Aífe shook him about.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!"

"This is child abuse," Ritsuka muttered.

"You wanna try and stop the murder machine, Onii-chan, I promise I'll say something nice at your funeral," Rika whispered back.

"We're a few centuries too early to be calling CPS," I told them sardonically.

"In this era, the closest thing the Romans have would be the molesters," Emiya added wryly. "It would defeat the point."

Finally, Aífe let her son go, but only so she could slap him upside the back of his head so hard that he slammed into the ground face first.

"Since you seem to love being creative with how you interpret my orders today, I think this time I'll give you one that you can't wiggle your way around," she said as Connla slowly picked himself up out of the dirt. "You get to stay here and guard this castle. From inside the outer wall."

Connla groaned. "Aw, Ma…!"

"If you don't think you can handle that much responsibility," she went on casually, "then I'm sure there's a nice herd of sheep you could watch in Britain instead."

Connla heaved a huge, heavy sigh. "Fine…"

"I'll carve you a new spear before I leave," she told him. "I expect this one to still be intact by the time I return."

Connla kicked at a patch of dirt petulantly.

"Yeah, yeah, I hear you…"

"Then we should get going as soon as possible," I cut in, addressing her. "The sooner we can touch base with Emperor Nero and gather more information about what enemies we're facing in this Singularity, the sooner we can solve it."

"A wise move," Aífe agreed, turning to me, "but you sound quite impatient. Are you in that much of a rush?"

Was I? I didn't think so. It just seemed obvious to me. We weren't here to sightsee. This wasn't a road trip vacation through Europe. We were here to do a job as efficiently and completely as possible, because there were another five Singularities after this one that we needed to handle, and we had a little under a year and a half to do it, with no idea at all how long it was going to take to fix each one.

Unless and until we ran into Lev — or Flauros, as the case could likely be — or his mysterious king, whether that was Solomon or Satan, we weren't likely to learn much of anything new about the overall situation from any of the Servants he was using as proxies. Our only objectives, then, were to recruit new Servants to Chaldea, correct the Singularities, and get Marie —

Oh.

"No, actually," I said slowly.

Behind me, the twins shifted. "We aren't?" asked Ritsuka.

"It's news to me," Rika agreed.

I turned to Mash. "Mash? I need you to set up a magic circle so I can have a stable connection to Romani."

She blinked at me. "Out here?"

"Yes," I answered. "We need to know if we can stabilize the connection that way without sitting on top of a Ley Line Terminal."

"Oh!" she said. "Right!"

She hefted her shield and swept it about, swiping it over the ground to and fro, and using the bottom edge, she carved a simple, basic circle into the dirt. Once it was finished, she set her shield down in the middle the way she had when the twins did their summonings back in Chaldea's summoning chamber. When she was done, she stepped back and looked at me expectantly, and I stepped towards it, thrusting my hand out over the center. With the other, I pressed the buttons on my communicator and barked, "Anfang!"

The basic circle lit up with blue light, and over the top of the shield, a fuzzy image of Romani formed.

"T-lor?" he asked me, startled.

"Can you hear me?" I asked him back.

"C-mmunica-ns are st-ll s-otty," he replied. "— ng on, I'm — to fix -em."

"Even this close to the Terminal, it's still this bad?" Mash mumbled.

Aífe came up beside me and dropped down to one knee. "Give me a moment, I'll try and clear this up."

Inside the circumference of the circle, she carved several runes, and each one lit up as she finished drawing it. Around the entire inside, she went, and although the designs were somewhat familiar to the runes Marie had been teaching me, they were alien enough that I could only guess at their purposes. If the modern runes I'd been learning were attempted recreations of the oldest forms, then these would have to be the fabled primordial runes, wouldn't they?

Marie would have been chomping at the bit to see just one of them.

Finally, Aífe drew one last rune, and the instant she was finished, the image cleared up and Romani came in crisp and perfect, no static or fuzz at all. He blinked at it, bewildered, and said, "That's all I had to do?"

"Not hardly," said Aífe as she stood back up and stepped away. "I stabilized the flow of mana that connects you to this era. Whatever gadgetry you were fiddling with over there, it had nothing to do with this."

Romani laughed, self-deprecating. "Yeah, that makes a whole lot more sense."

She arched one eyebrow. "You're welcome."

Romani blinked again. "Oh! Um, thank you?"

Aífe huffed a breath out of her nostrils.

"Anyway," he changed the subject, "I'm going to guess that you guys managed to pass her test?"

"Well enough," Aífe answered.

"That's not what I'm contacting you about," I said. "Romani, is Da Vinci around?"

"Um, I can get her, if you need her for something," he replied. "Why? Did your bikes not work? Da Vinci will be so disappointed if they broke the first time you used them."

I shook my head. "That's not what this is about, either. I need her to tell me how many crabs she needs."

Romani's brow furrowed.

"Crabs?"

I jerked my head over my shoulder. "About a ten minute walk from here is a coastline, and on the seabed, there are crabs. Since crabs are one of the things Da Vinci asked me to get for the Director…"

"Oh!" he said and turned to check something on his console. "Let me take a look… Ten minute walk… To the south, right? Has to be, there isn't another major body of water in any other direction. A coastline… Yes, I'm seeing it, the Élorn estuary, and since that's France, that would make it… Yes! That's the habitat range of the European Green Crab!"

An instant later, he was out of his chair, and back to us, he shouted, "Hang on, I'm going to get Da Vinci!"

An awkward silence followed him for a handful of seconds.

"Can't he…page her through his console?" Ritsuka asked uncertainly.

Mash sighed. "Yes, Senpai. Yes, he can."

I held back a sigh of my own and wondered how much sleep he'd gotten in the last forty-eight hours. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if he'd been up for three days straight trying to get everything ready for the Rayshift.

After a few seconds more, he came back and sat back down, and sheepishly, he told us, "I forgot that I can just page her from here."

He typed out a quick message on his keyboard, and the sound of his fingers tapping filled the awkward silence. He finished it with a final flourish.

"There. I marked it urgent, so she'll put down whatever she's doing and be here in a few minutes."

He sighed and sunk back into his chair, looking suddenly exhausted. His voice was tired when he said, "So. Anyone want to tell me what that spike in mana expenditure was all about? Rika's readings got pretty close to the yellow for a few seconds there."

Rika's head swung around and she glared pointedly at Emiya, who coughed into one hand and refused to meet her eyes.

"I…may have started pulling out my more costly spells," he admitted reluctantly.

Romani blinked, and then his brow furrowed with confusion as he looked between Emiya and Aífe, and slowly, he leaned forward towards the camera. "I thought you were just going to test them," he accused.

"Is it a test if they aren't pushed at all?" Aífe asked, arching one eyebrow.

Romani slammed a fist down on the console, shaking our view of him.

"That's not the point! I know I said I was only going to send reinforcements if Mash's vitals hit the red, but that's because I thought you were going to only focus on the Servants! It goes doubly so for the Masters!"

"You think it's possible to test one without affecting the other?" Aífe shook her head. "Regardless of what you might think, no one was in any real danger at any moment. You insult me if you think I have that little control over myself."

Romani's brow drew down. "You —"

"I'm here! I came as quickly as I could!" a voice off screen announced. "What's the emergency, Romani?"

A short breath hissed out of Romani's nostrils and he visibly tamped down on his anger as he leaned back away from the camera. To the side, he said, "It's not really an emergency, but we needed you for something. Taylor found some crabs and she wants to know how many you need."

"Oh?" Quick, clipped footsteps clacked against the floor, and a moment later, Da Vinci's head came into view from off to the right of the screen. "You found some crabs already?"

"We landed near the French coastline," I informed her shortly. "There's a booming population of European Greens under the water."

Her smile twitched. "Ah, yes. That's right, you did land off course. I'm sorry to say that we're still working on identifying why."

A question I was going to be bringing up later, when there was a better time for it. Things turned out okay this time, but we couldn't afford to have it happen again, especially when it could mean landing in the middle of the ocean.

"How many do you need?"

"Well, yes, to be on the safe side…" She used her fingers to count off the numbers in her head. "About six dozen, I'd say!"

Romani jerked and turned to her, baffled. "What?"

"S-six dozen," Ritsuka goggled. "That's…a lot of crab legs."

"I think I'm gonna be seasick," said Rika.

If we were actually going to eat them… Thinking of it that way, it probably would be a good idea to restock our food supply with local fauna at some point, just to make sure we never ran out. It wasn't like we had any other way of replenishing what we were eating.

"They're quite small," Da Vinci reasoned. "If they were a larger species, it would probably be enough to have just one or two dozen, but the European Green is nowhere near big enough."

I nodded. They were tiny. Maybe not unusually so for a crab species, but they weren't much bigger than my palm. When I did a quick estimate in my head, six dozen seemed like a very reasonable number, considering what she was going to be using them for.

"Do you have a container ready for them?" I asked.

She smiled. "I have one prepared just for this! It'll only take a few minutes to get everything set up."

Good. We were finally on the path to getting Marie her body back. Just a little bit longer. Hold on just a little bit longer.

"Before we leave for Rome, we'll head back towards the coast and I'll gather those crabs for you," I told her. "That should be enough time for you to get ready."

"I'll be waiting for your word," she promised.

She gave us all a wave and then left.

"Right, I should probably let you guys get to that, then," said Romani. "I'll be monitoring things from here, so when you've got everything prepared, contact me again and we'll get the retrieval process started."

He lanced Aífe with a glare. "And if you need help with anything else, let me know. The other Servants would be glad to drop in and lend you a hand."

Aífe, of course, was completely unfazed by the implied threat.

"Will do, Doctor," said Ritsuka.

Romani's image flickered and disappeared. With our conversation done, Mash came over, bent down, and picked her shield back up. The runes inside her makeshift circle died.

"Crabs?" asked Aífe, amused.

"The Director —" Mash began.

"Puppets of Huginn and Muninn's quality can't be built from just anything," I cut her off, because this wasn't the time, place, or person with whom to be airing Marie's dirty laundry. "Bone that mimics the consistency and strength of actual bone needs specific substances, and crab shells are apparently one of them."

Mash's brow furrowed, but she deferred to my judgment and kept her mouth shut.

"Huginn and Muninn?" Aífe echoed. She glanced upwards. Whether or not she actually saw my ravens, I didn't know, but the gesture was clear enough. "Ah. I suppose I can understand choosing names like that for a pair of ravens, even if they are…puppets, you said?"

"Like you said," I replied, "they're similar to golems, only more…mechanical."

I honestly had no idea how to better explain them, because that was about the extent of my knowledge on the subject as it was. Da Vinci had consulted me on what I wanted in Huginn and Muninn, and she'd gone over how to use them when she was finished, but the actual construction was out of my wheelhouse.

"I'll take your word for it," said Aífe.

"And you need these crabs to build more puppets?" Boudica asked.

"There's a very special one that Da Vinci is currently building," was what I told her. "It's important to the future of Chaldea, so it needs to be made exactly right."

"Or else Director Marie might not come back," Rika whispered, so quiet that I was probably the only one who heard her.

"I see." Boudica smiled warmly. "In that case, I would be only too glad to lend you my chariot to reach the coast."

"That would be useful," I agreed.

And then I stopped for a moment, considered how fast she'd been moving through my range when I first spotted her, how fast she must have been moving to make it back here from whatever frontline she'd been camped out on, and I had to wonder…

"Exactly how fast is your chariot?"

"Oh, it's fast enough for me," Boudica demurred, "and I'm sure we'll make excellent time, but I don't think it's anything special."

"Would you like to test that with a race?" asked Aífe, mouth slowly pulling into a grin.

"Maybe later," said Boudica politely. "For now, I think we should just get to the coast, right?"

"Right," I answered.

"Fast enough for me," she had said. Maybe she didn't actually know her top speed in terms of miles or kilometers per hour, and that would make sense since she was from a time before measurements like that even started being used, but…

As long as it was faster than our bikes, "fast enough," indeed.