Chapter XLIX: Romeward Bound

Fortunately, we managed to avoid any duels to the death for the privilege of eating Emiya's food.

Not through tugging at heartstrings, as it turned out. Appeals to camaraderie moved neither of them, as Mash discovered. Neither did appeals to a common cause, because we did still have a Singularity to deal with, and we needed both Rika and Nero intact if we were going to make it through this. Appeals to sanity, because this whole thing was frankly ridiculous, equally fell on deaf ears.

What really calmed things down, funnily enough, was cold, hard logic: one way or another, Emiya would leave when this Singularity was solved, so the whole thing was moot. Pointless. Either he left with us when we Rayshifted back to Chaldea, or he would be pushed out when things were returned to normal, if he tried to stay behind. No matter what, he could only cook for Nero as long as this Singularity remained intact.

The look on her face told me the idea was tempting, but her pride as Emperor of Rome won out over her gluttony, and she eventually came to accept that she wouldn't be able to enjoy Emiya's food forever.

And then she said something dangerous.

"I shall simply have to accompany you henceforth! Mm-mm!"

Everything stopped. Ritsuka choked on his food, thumping his chest as he coughed, and I couldn't help but stare at her, a thousand different excuses and reasons to deny her racing through my head at lightspeed.

Like the fact that she was Emperor and the battlefield probably wasn't the place she needed to be, right now, although that one kind of fell apart when I considered how many Roman emperors had also been accomplished soldiers and field generals. When succession in the Empire was so bloody, trying to tell her that she shouldn't be fighting would probably get laughed at.

Maybe the fact that she was strategically important, then. She wasn't the only thing holding Rome together, but she was a pretty important lynchpin in Rome's resistance against the United Empire — and that was why it would probably be a good idea for her to be seen as leading from the front. The people would be much more eager to rally behind someone who was also risking her life, and it would undoubtedly do wonders for morale on the frontlines.

Or how about the fact that we were basically strangers and she had nothing to trust us but our word that we were on her side? That was kind of self-sabotaging, though, because we needed her to trust us, but at the end of the day, all we could really do was promise it until we had a chance to prove it more conclusively.

It was her guards who immediately jumped on that point, however.

"Your Excellency," the one said, leaning forward, "is that wise? We know very little about our…esteemed guests, only what they claim."

"I can vouch for them," said Boudica.

"A known rebel, who only months ago led an uprising against the Empire," was the guard's retort.

"It's funny that you think it matters," said Aífe. "I said so before, didn't I? If Nero's life was our goal, then you Praetorians wouldn't make the slightest difference. Thirty or thirty-thousand, crushing you would be little more than a warmup."

"A ploy," the guard tried again, "to gain the Emperor's favor and stage a revolution from within."

"To what end?" asked Arash. "The way she's saying it is harsh, but what Aífe's saying isn't wrong. A single Servant is more than enough to rout an entire army of conventional soldiers. As long as they have their own Servants, the United Empire doesn't need subterfuge to make an attempt on the Emperor's life."

I added the final nail. "Arash could have killed her before you even set foot on the mountain."

It was the simple truth. With his range, he could have sat up on the peak and picked her off before she could even have made it to the camp. Considering the number of arrows he could fire in a single volley with enough preparation, he didn't even really need to know which of them was the emperor, he just had to mow down the entire group.

The guard flinched and gripped tighter to his spear. In hindsight, that might have sounded threatening again when I was just trying to drive home the point.

"Enough!" Nero ordered firmly. "Mm! I have already made my decision! Your emperor decrees it!"

"Your Excellency," the guard tried one more time.

"Besides," she added, "if Servants are such fearsome combatants, then surrounding myself with five of them is surely the most secure place in the Empire, is it not?"

The absolutely maddening thing was…I couldn't actually argue that point. Because it was true. If the enemy's win condition was to take out Emperor Nero and conquer Rome after her death, then the safest place for the Emperor to be was not tucked away in Rome, cowering behind her completely human Praetorian Guard, but standing right next to us Masters as we fought back against the United Empire with our superhuman Servants.

And instead of rejoining her with another argument to try and dissuade her, the guard backed down and surrendered.

"Don't we get any say in this?" Ritsuka rasped, still trying to gulp down air.

"None!" Nero replied simply.

Ritsuka looked to me for guidance, like I would come down from on high and lay out the law of the land. Like some kind of Moses thing, stone tablets and all. For a moment, however, I said nothing.

My first instinct, my oldest instinct, was to force the situation into the shape I wanted, by whatever means necessary. Direct violence wouldn't work, no, for a number of reasons, and if she couldn't be cowed with intimidation through a biblical swarm, then maybe she could be made so miserable through pests and creepy crawlies in her meal, her clothes, her bedding, and just in everything she did throughout the day that she would voluntarily leave.

How long would she be willing to stay if her every step was hounded by stinging wasps and biting flies, if her every meal was spoiled by maggots, if her entire wardrobe was eaten by moths? If every night's sleep was disturbed by mosquitos drinking her blood? If every wooden structure she so much as looked at crumbled under the hunger of a colony of termites? How long would she be willing to put up with that misery?

But I wasn't that person, and I didn't want to be that person. I had shed Skitter to become Weaver, and inevitably, I had left Weaver behind to be the person needed to beat Scion. Now… Now, I was just Taylor, and I didn't think Taylor would do such a thing.

So I did something I was still learning how to do. I compromised.

"Da Vinci still wants us to look into the Mount Etna ley line," I said at length. "Since we have to head towards Rome anyway, we may as well take the Emperor with us."

Ritsuka's face fell faster than his hopes must have. I wasn't sure I could blame him. Rika and Nero seemed cut from, if not the same, then very similar cloth, and having to deal with one could be tiring enough already. Two was going to be a challenge. A test of patience.

"Is that really okay, Miss Taylor?" Mash asked. "I-I mean, it's true, having Servants to protect her would be as safe as she could be, but can we afford to slow down that much?"

"We're not slowing down at all," I told her. "Emperor Nero will just have to ride with us in one of the chariots. If anyone can't keep up, they can just stay behind or catch up later."

Meaning that the Praetorian Guard would just have to deal with us technically taking over their jobs, because none of their horses could hope to keep up with either Aífe's or Boudica's. They could take their week to make the trip back to Rome.

That was my compromise. If Nero insisted on coming with us, then she could come with us. But we weren't going to be slowing down so that her Praetorians could keep pace.

"That's fine," Nero said with a nod.

"Your Excellency!" her guard sputtered.

"My decision is made!" she declared imperiously.

Once more, her guard surrendered. She must be just as willful and whimsical as she seemed if he wasn't being more dogged about his insistence on her safety. I could already feel the headache forming, and it wasn't going to get any better from here on out, was it? I was going to have to put up with her for the foreseeable future.

I suppose it couldn't be helped.

"Our next destination will be Mount Etna, then," I said, giving nothing away. "We'll access the ley line there and try to use it to get a location on each of the Servants inside this Singularity. We'll make a stop at Rome to pick up supplies first, and then we'll stay there until Boudica's arm has finished healing."

"I'm sorry to be such a burden," Boudica apologized.

"Of course you aren't a burden!" Ritsuka insisted immediately. "Everyone needs a little help now and again, right?"

"You've already been an invaluable help to us, Miss Boudica," Mash added.

And then Arash chimed in: "That wound was gained protecting the people of Lugdunum, wasn't it? You have nothing to be ashamed of."

They all said the sorts of things I wished I could have, but didn't know how. Being nurturing and supportive…it just wasn't something I was all that good at. Not because I didn't want to be, but because I'd spent so long honing myself into a weapon that I was having to relearn how.

I'd told a woman, once, that if I'd had the chance to do it all over again, I'd do better. Focus more on what mattered, on the people that mattered, instead of focusing on the goal to the exclusion of all the people who would get hurt along the way. I wasn't about to go back on that, just because it was hard.

"Once Boudica's healed, we'll figure out where to go next," I continued. "If Da Vinci's right, then scanning from atop the Mount Etna ley line should give us at least some idea of who and where we need to focus on next, and we'll come up with a plan of attack then." I looked pointedly down at the table, where our half-eaten meals still sat. "For now, let's finish eating this delicious meal Emiya went through so much trouble to make."

"Thank goodness," said Rika as she picked her utensils back up. "I didn't want to be the only one eating, but you guys were talking serious stuff for so long, I was scared it was going to get cold!"

Without fanfare, we put aside all talk of Servants, Singularities, and empires so that we could go back to the latest masterpiece that had been crafted for our tastebuds. If her earlier proclamation of claiming Emiya as her chef hadn't already said so, then the pleased noises Nero made as she ate, the little moans and groans and soft squeals, would have told the story of how much she was enjoying herself just fine.

Somewhere along the way, one of the plates of side dishes disappeared, and Arash and Aífe quietly ate that meager portion in the background. From the pleasant surprise on Aífe's face, it was much better than she had been expecting.

Some part of me — what it was tempting to call my "inner Lisa" — wanted to make a cheeky comment about how this was exactly the sort of food she could expect if she returned to Chaldea with us once this Singularity was resolved. I decided to keep that thought to myself, for the time being. Another card in my deck to play if the time ever came that I needed it.

Eventually, we all had our fill and our plates were cleared, leaving behind only a few crumbs and the better part of an entire loaf of the bread Emiya went through so much trouble to bake for us (and how he managed to do that without an oven of some kind, well, I couldn't have figured it out). Nero, in her magnanimity, handed it to one of her guards and told him to divvy the rest up between them.

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"Be honored!" was what she told him. "Your emperor is gracious!"

He didn't deny it. You probably had to get used to serving personalities like hers, when you were the emperor's bodyguards.

"That was so good," Rika said with a sigh, reclining as much as she was able to in her chair. "Emiya really outdid himself this time, didn't he?"

"Emiya's food is always good," her brother agreed. "I always feel like I'm eating at a five star restaurant."

"I know, right? We're getting spoiled! I can never go back to instant ramen again!"

"Really?" Mash asked. "I've never been to a five star restaurant, so the only thing I can compare it to is the Chaldea cafeteria food. Um, and a few of Doctor Roman's meals, but Doctor Roman isn't…a very good cook."

The twins shared an uncomfortable look, and they must have been thinking about why and how Mash had never eaten anything aside from the cafeteria's food before Emiya, but they let it slide, right then. I had no doubts it was one of many things they were likely going to bring up with Marie the instant she got her body back.

"Well, we've never actually been to a five star restaurant, either," Ritsuka admitted.

"I can still recognize really good food when I taste it, though," said Rika.

I couldn't help the smile that curled on my lips. "Truly, the greatest wonder of the modern world: you don't have to be an emperor to eat like a king."

Before Emiya had been summoned…when was the last time I'd had a good meal? Something more than the bland cafeteria food they served the Wards in Chicago or cheap Chinese from the chain restaurant at the supermarket? When was the last time I had actually gone out somewhere nice with great ratings, sat down, spent some of my ill-gotten fortune, and just enjoyed splurging on some fine dining?

I couldn't remember. Maybe Lisa had taken me out once, during a lull in the chaos that had been those handful of months, but… No, things had been so hectic; if it had happened, I couldn't remember it. And Dad… Dad had tried, on occasion, but he was stressed, overworked, underpaid, and depressed. None of those made a good cook.

It was kind of sad and pathetic, but… I think the last time I had a really good meal, something that warmed me from the inside out and danced on my tongue, was back when Mom was still alive.

"Meals like this are common in your era?" Nero asked, intensely interested.

"Some places, maybe," Ritsuka said. "Most of the time, you have to pay a fortune for it, though."

"My house-husband is good enough to be a professional cook," Rika added smugly.

I half-expected Emiya to shout from across the camp about how he wasn't her house-husband. It didn't happen.

"Mm-mm! Your era sounds quite fascinating!" said Nero. "I think I would like to visit!"

"Uh…"

The twins shared a look, then turned to me.

"It doesn't work that way," I said bluntly.

"Rayshifting isn't designed for that, Your Excellency, I'm sorry," said Mash. "Although we're able to send supplies back and forth and our Servants will be able to return with us, the process isn't calibrated to transport a living human to the future that doesn't belong there."

"You wouldn't remember it when it was all said and done," I added. "Even if we could, you'd lose the memories when the Singularity got corrected."

"Mmm," Nero hummed thoughtfully. "I can't say I understand all of this stuff you're talking about. It seems simple enough to me! What does it matter if I'll forget, in the end? Just seeing it for myself would be quite the adventure!"

The twins shared another look. This time, even Mash turned to me for an answer, like she didn't know how to let Nero down any lighter than she'd already tried.

"There's not much for you to see," I told her with quiet solemnity. "The rest of the world has been burned away. In our era, the only thing left is Chaldea. Fixing that is why we're here."

That took the enthusiasm out of her sails. Out of everyone's sails, really. It wasn't really the effect I'd been going for, but I thought that stark reminder might have been needed. It was easy to forget, after all, when you spent so much time cooped up in Chaldea itself that the only thing left was Chaldea. Our last bastion against the end of the world.

Maybe that wasn't so easy to forget. A reminder of what we were fighting for, what we were fighting against, and why we were here was still needed, every now and again.

A moment later, Nero rallied. "And to do that, you need to find this Holy Grail, yes? I can't say I fully understand how that works, either, but if it's what you need to retrieve to set things to right, then I will assist you in taking it back in whatever way I can! Not only for the sake of Rome, but for the sake of the future that can create such delicious food!"

"Ha!" burst out of Rika's mouth.

"We really do appreciate it, Your Excellency," her brother said diplomatically.

"Think nothing of it!" Nero said boisterously. "After all, your favorite emperor is as generous as she is gracious!"

She was certainly something, but I didn't think it started with a 'g.'

"Then Mount Etna is our next destination," I said firmly. "I think we can take another day to prepare, then set back out for Rome the day after tomorrow. As long as no one has any problems with that?"

"Nope."

"None."

"That's fine, Miss Taylor."

"Then it's settled!" Nero grinned.

"It is." Carefully and deliberately, so as not to startle her guards, I levered myself out of my chair. "With that taken care of, I'm going to update Da Vinci and let her know our plans." I glanced back at Aífe. "Aífe, Mash, I'll need the two of you for this."

Mash nodded. "Right!"

Aífe rolled her shoulders. "Very well, then. The Allfather would be rolling in his grave, to see what pedestrian ends his vaunted runes are being used for."

"Technology in a nutshell," I replied wryly.

Aífe huffed a chuckle. "Quite."

Mash stood, as well, and her, Aífe, and I left the tent, skirting around Nero and passing through the watchful gazes of her two Praetorians. At least they did us the courtesy of pulling the tent flaps back for us. Could it still be called chivalry when the concept of the medieval knight didn't even exist yet?

I'll keep an eye on things in here, Arash promised me silently. When I paused long enough to glance back over my shoulder, he offered me a reassuring nod.

I'll leave it to you, then, I said. Just make sure they don't try to kill each other. Or worse, become friends.

Things were going to be taxing enough with Nero and Rika in the same general area. I didn't know how I was going to deal with it if they teamed up on me.

No promises, was his cheeky retort.

A short breath hissed out of my nostrils, but I didn't dignify his comment with anything else.

The three of us left the tent behind and went to find a clear spot, which wasn't all that hard when the Praetorian Guards had sectioned off Boudica's tent and a generous portion of the land around it from the rest of the camp. There was plenty of open space to take advantage of, and nothing that needed to be done with it otherwise, so it really was as simple as picking a spot just far enough away to give us the illusion of privacy from Nero.

"Here is fine," I said.

It really was only the illusion of privacy, though, because several of the Praetorians were around within clear sight. It felt a little weird to be doing this in front of an audience who hadn't been around to see it before and therefore wouldn't know what to expect, but Mash and Aífe set about getting everything arranged quickly and efficiently.

The Praetorians stood at attention, diligent and stiff-backed, and they tried to pretend they weren't sneaking looks when they thought no one would notice. Aífe seemed to fascinate them more — probably because, as I remembered Marie lecturing me, runes were a magecraft that had originated in Scandinavia. Rome may have conquered almost the entirety of Europe, but the particulars of magic from that far north must not have propagated down into the heart of the Empire. I wasn't sure it ever did.

Whatever the case, Mash and Aífe seemed to be picking up the rhythm of working together like this, because they had the whole magic circle set up in maybe half the time it had taken them just a few days ago. When they were done, Mash set her shield in the center in the place of honor, and they both stepped back to give me room.

With the press of a button and a barked "Anfang!" the circle lit up and activated, and a familiar face filled up the blue panel projected above that massive shield. The startled gasps and awed muttering from our audience were ignored.

"Hello!" Da Vinci greeted me brightly. "Looks like I'm right on time this time, aren't I?"

"You are," I agreed.

"Hello, Miss Da Vinci," Mash said politely.

"Hello, Mash," Da Vinci replied. "Ah, wait, hold on a second, I have it here somewhere…"

She turned away from the camera and rummaged through something off screen, and a moment later, she returned with a sheet of paper, held one fist up to her mouth, and cleared her throat.

"Are you feeling alright?"

Mash blinked. "Ah…Yes?"

"No pain? No shortness of breath?" Da Vinci asked, and before Mash could answer, she went on. "You haven't noticed any signs of unusual fatigue? Your sleep hasn't been disrupted? No hallucinations or vivid daydreams? Loud noises aren't bothering you? You haven't been waking up disoriented in the middle of the night? No trouble remembering where and when you are?"

My eyebrows slowly started to rise. I didn't recognize all of that, but some of it I was definitely familiar with.

"N-no?" Mash said uncertainly, looking lost and confused. "At least, I don't think I've been experiencing anything like that."

"All right, then." Da Vinci set the paper down with a smile. "Romani woke up about an hour ago, but only long enough to hand me this list of symptoms to ask you about."

"Symptoms?" Mash asked worriedly.

Da Vinci waved it off. "If you're not having any problems, then there's nothing for you to worry about right now. I'm sure Romani will want to give you a more thorough examination later, but for now, we can just leave it at that."

Mash didn't exactly look reassured by that. "I-if you say so…"

"With that out of the way…" Da Vinci turned to me. "I suppose it's time for your status update?"

"Right." I wasn't sure it was any of my business that Romani wanted to give Mash a quick checkup for PTSD. The fact that he was keeping an eye on her was about the extent of what I had a right to know.

"I'm guessing since it's been about another three days for you that you've met our dear Emperor Nero," said Da Vinci.

"We have," I reported. "I left Arash to keep an eye on her, Ritsuka, and Rika."

Da Vinci's eyebrows rose. "Her?"

"Yes."

I still wasn't quite over that one myself.

"Well, I suppose this is another case of history getting the finer details wrong," Da Vinci mused, bemused. "I suppose…Greco-Roman views on masculinity being what they were, then if Nero behaved in a way they considered masculine, then her actual sex wouldn't have mattered as much, so they would have regarded her as male. Maybe. Possibly. It's a stretch, but let's go with it."

"She's also a dead ringer for the King Arthur we fought in Fuyuki," I added.

Da Vinci's brows furrowed. "That… That one, I'm afraid I don't have a good theory for."

"If King Arthur was descended from the Romans," I began meaningfully.

"That's not how genetics work," Da Vinci complained. "That's not how they work at all. No, I'm serious, Taylor, two people won't look identical just because they happen to have a connected ethnic background!"

Of course I knew that. I just didn't have any better explanation when the alternative seemed to be pure happenstance, which wasn't out of the realm of possibility, even if it felt like it should be.

"In any case," I changed the subject, "she wasn't able to tell us much of anything we didn't already know, but we did manage to agree to an alliance, based upon our mutual interests. I'm not sure how much help she'll really be able to give us, but if nothing else, having her with us should open up a few doors that we wouldn't have been able to open before."

"Having her with you?" Da Vinci cocked an eyebrow. "You mean she's going to be accompanying you from now on?"

"It was the best compromise we could agree on," I said by way of answering. "With us might be the most dangerous place for her to be, but it's also the safest, too."

"Because the safest place in the whole Empire will be standing behind almost half a dozen Servants," Da Vinci concluded, like she'd been thinking the same thing I was. She sounded about as happy about it as I was, too. "The logic is a bit recursive, but that doesn't mean it's wrong, either."

"At the very least, she'll be going to Mount Etna with us," I said. "If she's still determined to stay with us after that, well…"

I was just going to have to learn to deal with it then, wasn't I?

"Mount Etna?" Da Vinci parroted. "You're going to Mount Etna next?"

I nodded. "We learned some other information during our discussion with Nero…"

I launched into an explanation about this mysterious wall that the others had talked about, our guesses about how big it was, and an abbreviated summary of our theories about who it could belong to. Perhaps somewhat vainly, I hoped she would jump in and correct me, that she would say that it couldn't be the Great Wall of China, and then list off a bunch of bullet points about why, but she just listened intently to the entire thing.

"With the wall up and Pax Romana behind it, we can't afford to go charging blindly through it," I finished. "Our best move right now will be trying to find out as much as we can about the enemy, and your idea of using the Mount Etna ley line to boost our scanners seemed like our best option."

"Hopefully, using the Mount Etna ley line will help Queen Boudica heal faster, too," Mash added.

"Queen Boudica was injured?" Da Vinci asked, brow furrowing.

"She lost an arm protecting Spartacus from the enemy Servant's Noble Phantasm," I answered simply.

"Ah." Da Vinci nodded. "Yes, that's noncritical damage to the Spiritual Core. Since Boudica doesn't have a curse or a part of her legend about being maimed like that, repairing the damage should be as easy as throwing enough time and magical energy at it. Much simpler than Siegfried's injury in Orléans."

"My thoughts exactly."

"As for this wall you mentioned…" Da Vinci trailed off thoughtfully. "Mm, there's no way to make any more educated guesses without seeing it for ourselves, is there? How unfortunate. Well, the alternative would be to ask you all to scout it out, but since that would involve sending you into what is currently dangerous enemy territory blind, let's leave that as an option of last resort, yes?"

"I agree," I said. "It's too dangerous to attempt that right now."

"Your faith in me is touching," Aífe said wryly.

"There is a difference between courage and recklessness," Da Vinci retorted.

"It's a thinner line than you might think," was Aífe's own reply.

"We know too little to make it worth it, either way," I cut in before they could go further. Personally, I agreed more with Aífe, at least in principle, but the trouble was that no amount of bugs and cleverness could let me kill a Servant all on my own. Being a Master of Chaldea had forced me to learn to try to curb those impulses. "Without a better idea of what the enemy's forces look like, we could very well walk straight into an ambush."

Without turning around, I addressed the person who had come out to join us: "Ritsuka. Something wrong?"

Ritsuka stopped, and to himself, muttered, "That's never going to not be creepy."

I fought down a smile.

Da Vinci blinked and looked behind me as much as she was able. "Oh! Ritsuka! How nice of you to join us! It's… Well, I can't say, 'long time, no see,' I suppose, since it's only been a few hours since I last saw you, but it's been several days for you, hasn't it?"

Ritsuka let out a sigh. "Hello, Miss Da Vinci." To me, he said, wearily, "Rika and Nero are bonding."

"Ah." I checked back in on the tent using Arash's eyes and ears, to discover that Rika and Nero were indeed becoming fast friends, in spite of their little tiff over Emiya. In fact, Nero seemed utterly enthralled with Rika's stories of what the future was like. "My sympathies."

"Thanks." And he actually sounded like he meant it.

"In any case," I said, turning my attention back to Da Vinci, "the plan is to leave for Rome the day after tomorrow, making stops for supplies and rest as needed, and then beeline our way over to Mount Etna. Even with Aífe and Boudica's chariots, it's a lot of ground to cover, so it might take a day or two to get there."

Especially if Boudica's injury affected how long and how hard she could push it. It seemed entirely possible to me that we were going to have to make several stops for her sake no matter what.

"Meaning it will still be about three hours before I hear from you again," Da Vinci concluded. "Plenty of time to calibrate our scanners to account for the boost from Mount Etna."

"Right."

I would have thought that had already been taken care of, but considering how much of a mess things still were and the fact we were still trying to run the whole facility — big enough that it had taken an organization of about two-hundred to comfortably manage — with about twenty people, this probably wouldn't be the last thing that had to be put off to the last minute. It certainly wasn't the first.

"In the meantime," Da Vinci smiled a cheeky smile, "perhaps it would behoove you to strengthen your ties to Emperor Nero? It certainly seems like she'll be essential to your mission going forward."

I really don't like what you're suggesting, there…

"We'll try," said Ritsuka before I could say anything myself. He didn't sound very confident.

"That's all I'm asking," Da Vinci told him reassuringly. "As for me, it seems that I have some work I need to get to doing! Good luck, everyone! Tell Rika I said hi! Ciao ciao!"

And as she waved, her image flickered and disappeared.