Welp this chapter is a bit late. I kinda forgot I had to upload it yesterday. Ops.
***
Rewinding the clock by a bit back to the 11th of April, Sunday night.
23:17 — Tokyo, a certain building on the outskirt of the city
Inside a house built like an old western manor that was seemingly abandoned for the past few years as vegetation grew on the walls of the house and the fences in the messy yard. And inside this desolate mansion three people were inside one of the bedrooms.
"Say… wasn't she supposed to wake up by late evening?" A young man asked dubiously inside the nearly lightless room.
"I guess there must have been a slight miscalculation indeed." With a cough the question was answered by a raspy old voice inside the same room.
It was now well late into the night, the initial thought of the young man's partner waking up was already gone by a few hours now.
"Don't fret it. She is going to wake up in a little bit. I can tell from her vital signs, I had been monitoring them this whole time after all." The old man said in a reassuring tone.
"...I would have rather preferred you kept that information to yourself." The young man grimaced at the information.
The old man was about to retort back but at that moment the person lying on the bed started stirring a bit. "Here, she's about to wake up."
The old man lit up the little candle lamp on the bedside table, giving the dark room a slight source of light that encompassed the vicinity of the bed but not much further than that.
RUSTLE RUSTLE
"Mh, waa…" The woman on the bed opened her eyes, she opened her mouth as intelligible grunts came out of her mouth and looked at her surroundings in a daze, her eyes still lacking focus as she was clearly still not fully recovered from her long "dream".
"You are finally awake, young lady."
Hearing a voice on the side her gaze fell on the bald hunched old man seated in a chair not far from her bed, he smiled amiably as she looked at him with unfocused eyes and a listless expression as her head wobbled for a while before suddenly snapping back to attention.
"!!!" The woman quickly jumped from the bedsheets, assuming a boxing stance she looked at both the old man and the rest of the room with a newfound wariness and clarity, now wary of the situation.
"Hohohoho. There is no need to be so on guard young lady, I am definitely not your enemy nor do I have any malicious intention toward you, unless you are to threaten my livelihood first that is, of course." The old man addressed the woman in a warm yet somewhat ceiling tone, speaking in fluent English.
She looked at the old man locking eyes with him for a second before deciding to slightly drop her guard, albeit only slightly so, intending to hear him out first. "Who-cough caah…"
She tried to speak but her throat was extremely sore and dry causing her to struggle when she tried to articulate actual words. She coughed in her fist for a bit and tried to clear her throat a bit before trying to speak once again.
"Who are you? And where is this place?" She could finally speak but her voice came out somewhat raspy and deep, especially for a woman, probably because she hadn't drank anything yet after such a long "sleep".
"My name is Matou Zouken and as you have probably guessed I am a magus. Or maybe you knew that already but your memories must probably be quite foggy I suppose." Zouken chuckled before continuing answering the second question. "As for this place it's just an empty house I made into my temporary workshop. We are in the city of Tokyo right now."
"Tokyo…" The woman grabbed her forehead with one of her hands massaging her temples with force. "Tokyo, Tokyo…Tokyo…"
She continued repeating the name of the city as if she were mulling over something.
"No." After a while the woman stopped repeating the name of the city and exclaimed.
"Mh?" The old man tilted her head at her sudden negation, unsure of what she might be referring to.
"...I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be in Tokyo."
"And where should you have been then young lady?" He asked back with a smile.
The woman's grip on her forehead tightened further, she felt her head spin and struggled to get a hold on those fleeting and scrambled fragments of her memories.
"You… you also shouldn't be here." Her hurdle continued before she finally added after struggling with her painful headache and confusion.
"You say really funny things, young lady. If you shouldn't be here and neither should I then could you take a moment to calm down and try to tell me where the two of us should be instead?" Tapping the ground with his cane once to adjust his posture on the chair he pointed the corner of the bed to the woman with his free hand, gesturing for her to take a seat there.
The woman stood there for a second pondering on what to do before ultimately deciding to comply and took a seat on the bed she woke up from before. Zouken continued smiling amiably at her all the meanwhile offering her a glass of water.
She took it with wariness, analyzing it for a while before finally chugging it all down in a single gulp. Her throat now felt incredibly better as the soreness somewhat diminished.
"So? Have you gathered your thoughts at least somewhat?" Zouken asked after seeing that her headache seemed to have somewhat diminished as well.
"Yes…we shouldn't be here in Tokyo." The woman answered, her voice regaining a much smoother and pleasant tone. "You are the head of the Matou family and…"
"And?" He repeated, inquiring for her to go further.
"Your family doesn't reside in the city of Tokyo and my destination also wasn't the city of Tokyo."
"That's somewhat of shallow reasoning don't you think? Maybe I was just out here for a little vacation and visiting a big city." The old man chuckled humorously at her statement.
"No, it isn't. Not in this period." His reasoning wasn't implausible but she still shook her head.
"And why is that?"
"Because the fifth holy grail war is about to begin. And I was sent by the Mage Association with the mission to participate as one of the seven Masters. The two of us should be…in the city of Fuyuki." She locked gaze with him once again, her eyes glinting with sharpness and coldness.
Zouken nodded in confirmation before opening his mouth. "Indeed. You would be right if not for one little mistake, young lady."
"You see, the fifth holy grail war is already long over. It has been two months now since it has concluded."
"What!?" She opened her eyes in surprise and disbelief at the news. "Two months…"
"It must indeed be shocking for you but I can assure you that it is the truth."
"How is that even possible?"
"It appears your memories are still foggy, do you still not remember how you ended up like this?"
The woman remained silent for a moment. She knew that admitting to the fact that she indeed didn't remember much would put her in a position of weakness in this discussion but she didn't see much of a choice other than this.
There was the possibility that the old man was lying but she felt like he wasn't and also lying about something like the current month is a lie that would be way too easy to uncover.
Faking knowledge about the current situation would also put her at a risk of not knowing when and if she would ever make a mistake that would enable the other party to trick her by letting her fall in her own misunderstandings.
"My memories are still very fragmented indeed." She admitted politely.
"I see. Well, many things happened so let me think where to start." Zouken massaged his chin pondering for a second.
"How about explaining why we are in Tokyo first?" The woman didn't let him finish his action and asked her question first.
She didn't intend to let herself be swept away by the old man's pace when she still had no clue about the current situation.
"Oh that?" Zouken nodded sagely as if approving of her question. "You see, we are in this city because another holy grail war started and this is the place where it is taking place. So, of course we are here."
"Another holy grail war? But you said the last one ended just two months ago, how could there be another one right now?"
The Holy Grail War was a large scale greater magecraft ritual, it was not something that could just be set up every few months.
"It's a long story. Also it is somewhat of a trade secret but I guess I should explain what happened during the previous war maybe?"
The woman maintained an impassive expression on her face but deep down she was wary as she noticed how the old man just avoided the core of the question by giving a half answer and skipping the process of its development. Instead he proceeded to ask once again to explain the circumstances of the previous war, he seemed very intent on delivering that point…
It's not that she wasn't curious about it but as her attempt to direct the conversation failed she knew she wouldn't be able to make Zouken slip up easily.
"Is it connected to why another war is happening here right now?"
"It might be or maybe not." Zouken just gave his usual light chuckle as he responded. "My job is just to tell you the necessary information. Whatever you can make good use of it or deduce something out of it has nothing to do with me after all."
The woman narrowed her eyes for a moment before nodding her head.
Taking it as a signal to go forward, Zouken resumed speaking.
"The fifth holy grail war had been a chaotic battle. While all grail wars had been as well this one went a step even further.
At the start this grail was probably one of the quietest ever seen with the only casualty being you."
THUMP
"Me?" The sound of the woman's heart suddenly roared in her head as she stared at Zouken in disbelief, somehow her headache seemed to be returning.
"Yes, you." Zouken nodded, pointing his finger directly at the woman.
THUMP THUMP THUMP
Her heart continued pounding inside her chest like a drum, her head vision started spinning as fragments of various memories clashed with each other.
"No…but I was…I was…" She mumbled inarticulately as her head became heavy and painful.
Some images flashed through her mind in a disordered manner, scattering even more chaos inside her psyche.
A church–A house–A road–A house–A church–A church–A house–A prie…
CLAP
Zouken clapped his palms together.
Suddenly her pain subsided, she was now feeling incredibly light minded but not with drowsiness but with a newfound "clear mindedness".
All her unnecessary thoughts were wiped out, now she felt like she could concentrate on the matter at hand.
"You…" Suddenly Zouken spoke, capturing the entirety of her attention.
"...were unfortunately unsuccessful in the summoning of your Servant. Instead of a hero of legend you summoned an anti hero who murdered you as soon as they were summoned." He spoke with a sad expression that conveyed his pity and empathy for the woman. "Or at least they thought they did, they cut off your left arm to appropriate of your command spells and ran away thinking you were dead."
'That…' The woman's brows furrowed for an instant before she calmed down and relaxed, regaining "clarity".
'...That must have been how I ended up in this situation. But what about my arm then?'
As she continued pondering Zouken didn't interrupt his explanation and went forward
"Fortunately your magic crest or rather that and your blood did its best to keep your body alive despite the missing heart. I just so happened to find you thanks to my familiars and decided to heal you; in exchange for a favor. But now I fear the request I am about to make will have to change due to currently dire circumstances."
"A favor?"
"Yes, I originally wanted to ask for some compensation in exchange for saying your life, a magus from an extremely old family like yours would of course pay back such a service extremely well."
"What changed?" She asked, tilting her head.
"I was getting to that." Zouken gestured for her to calm down and went on narrating. "Afterward the first few days of the war were relatively peaceful with little to no fighting other than a few minor skirmishes here and there."
Turning on a more serious expression Zouken took a pause before continuing. "Then a monster came."
"A monster?" The woman doubted her ears for a second, in something like a grail war what could possibly ever be called a "monster"? A certain Servant maybe?
"Your killer was the first to die by its hands, quite humorous don't you think so as well?" Zouken smiled as if laughing at the irony.
"Subsequently this monster went on to butcher more and more Servants and Masters as well, among them even my precious grandson ended up being one of their unfortunate victims." Zouken then patted his own stomach with a somber expression. "Eventually even I was one step away from being killed by that abomination. Fortunately I managed to come out of that encounter with my life barely intact, ohohohohoh."
"...I'm confused. What "monster" could have done something like this? How could it even butcher Servants of all things?"
"...It was a daemon who became the antithesis of all Servants with its peculiar abilities." Regaining his usual smile, Zouken answered her question.
The woman's intuition, honed from her years of work, tried to warn her that the old man seemed to be hiding something in his reply but she decided to ignore it for now.
"Anyway after this monster was destroyed, Tohsaka Rin, one of the few survivors of the previous war, also destroyed a gateway to the Root opened by the grail."
"...What!?" Staying silent for a moment dumbfoundedly as if checking she heard it right the woman then shouted in incredulity.
"Yes, I'm aware it sounds absurd but it is the truth. The Clock Tower is putting her under trial right now for committing the highest treason to the world of magi."
The woman sat in complete silence, shocked by the absurd event of a magus closing a gateway to the Root of all possible places in the universe. It felt like one of those bold fat lies.
She had indeed even momentarily suspected he might have been lying but the thought disappeared as soon as it formed, it was too dumb to be a lie after all.
Zouken then tapped the floor with an unusual strength using the end of his stick, his expression turning more solemn now.
"However I could not let it end like that, not after all those centuries of effort. Wasting such a chance to reach the ultimate goals of magecraft would have been an insult in and of itself. So using all my resources I relocated the grail to Tokyo, I obtained permission from the landowners to start a new war right here in this place and you…"
Zouken pointed at the woman with his trembling index finger, a finger that looked so dried up and feeble that it could have snapped with a mere gust of wind from the looks of it, and yet carried an extreme madness deep within.
"You were chosen by this impromptu ritual as a Master due to your familiarity with it for summoning a servant previously despite the result of it.
You, Bazett Fraga McRemizt!"
A madness the woman could not see right now due her unusu--no, her perfectly normal and clear minded state.
The woman Zouken pointed to was a beautiful woman in her early twenties with short magenta hair that strangely didn't grow during her time asleep and eyes of the same color as her hair with a single mole under one of them.
She radiated an aura of maturity and coolness as well as that of a warrior or a soldier mayhaps for a more contemporary term.
"The command spells in your left hand are proof."
At his words the woman, no, Bazett turned her head and only now noticed the outline of a familiar red tattoo on top of her left hand.
Rising the sleeve of the dress covering her she noticed the distinct shade of her hand and half of her forearm compared to the natural color of her skin in the rest of her body, they were much paler than her usual tone.
It was definitely her left hand but it certainly looked as pale as that of a corpse compared to her right.
"Is that all?" Bazett asked, breaking the silence that settled after Zouken's words.
"That is indeed the case." He nodded.
Bazett took a short pause munching on her words for a second before asking what had been on her mind for a while.
"...So, I take it that you would like for me to summon a Servant to partake in this war in exchange for saving my life? Or perhaps you would like for me to help you obtain it for yourself?"
"I guess you could say it is a mixture of these two." Zouken said before gesturing to his side with his hand. "But let me correct you on one thing, you need not summon any Servant as the grail seems to have taken your state as a special case and triggered an automatic summoning ritual. In short your Servant has already been summoned for a while now, you should be able to feel the contract between you two."
At that a person materialized from this air as if taking the old man's gesture like a cue for his own introduction.
"My pleasure to meet you." The burly figure of a tall man appeared out of nowhere inclining his head n geeting with a measured grace that seemed almost at odds with the surroundings.
From where she was seated Bazett could see that the man stood nearly a head taller than her, with broad shoulders and thick arms, clad in well worn leather garments that covered him like a bodysuit. He looked to be between his mid to early thirties, he had short slicked back brown hair and a close cropped beard.
From the way his posture carried him, he gave the impression of a noble that children would imagine from a fairy tale.
"I believe it should be like stating the obvious, however as you probably must have already guessed I am the Servant that answered the call for the search of the grail at thy behest." The man gave another court bow, this time deeper, as he politely introduced himself, his manners still extremely refined and his words came across as a mixture of both modern and somewhat outdated forms of speech. "I am the Servant summoned under the class of Assassin, at your service."
Bazett took in the man's appearance and concentrated on the command spells in her hand, most definitely they were indeed linked to the man before her. That meant that Zouken was telling the truth.
"Now pardon me but for formalities sake I shall ask." The man who introduced himself as her Servant, Assassin, bent down on one knee with one of his fists touching the ground and the other hand resting on his bent knee, his eyes looking at hers.
"Are thee my Master?"
Bazett took a moment to think by herself, she was still extremely confused by the entire situation despite her mind clearing a bit, however there was no denying the current situation and the link between the two of them wasn't fake so she nodded her head curtly.
"That seems to be the case. Regardless of how coincidental this summons appears to have happened, I am your Master."
Assassin nodded his head back and stood back up, placing himself on the side so as not to interrupt the conversation further.
"I am happy that you are done with the formalities so let me get to the point.
We would like for you to cooperate with us to complete and win this war. A plan has already been drafted and the chances of success are extremely high. So high it wouldn't even matter if we stumbled on a few steps of it even."
Indeed he wanted for her to participate in this war for him but something in what he said caught her attention.
"We?"
"Oh, what a blunder I forgot to introduce you to someone else as well. Though maybe he's the rude one for staying silent and doing nothing all this while. Made me forget he was even there." Zouken rubbed his chin before gesturing to one of the dark corners of the room. "Don't just stand there, meet your partner."
STEP
"!!" Bazett was momentarily shocked as she realized someone was standing so close by and yet she didn't even realize it until that person made the first move.
"Sorry for the surprise, I just didn't really find a right moment to intrude the conversation without making it awkward so I ended up staying silent for a while."
The person smiled as he gave a short apology as he scratched the back of his head in awkwardness for his sudden entrance.
"This young man here is the person I would like for you to work with." Zouken said, pointing at the boy who looked like he had yet to even finish high school.
A young asian teenager with short red hair wearing a long sleeved white shirt.
"Nice to meet you." The boy said as he extended his right hand for a handshake.
"Likewise but…" Bazett shook his hand before asking: "Who are you?"
"Me? Oh wait, I didn't really introduce myself, sorry." The boy laughed awkwardly, maybe embarrassed by his mistake. "Well, mmmm you can just call me Shirou I guess."
***
Hello there, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, this was a short interlude to recovered something that was skipped in favor of ending day 2 of the war earlier cause it had been going on for a really long while, to give you an idea day 2 which was started with haldor and beo against kairi and hajime it went from chapter 15 (or even the last few paragraphs of chap 14 if u will) and ended in chapter 26, I couldn't drag that much longer.
I finished my exams and while not everything went as I wanted I'm done until the next session anyway. I have only 2 other already made chapters and at this point I'm thinking of whatever I should just be releasing them all one after the other before I start writing again or continue with the one chap a week sechdule.
I dunno; most likely the schedule is gonna be pretty fucked up soon.
Welp leave comments on your thoughts on the chapter to let me know if you liked it and shit and maybe a few power stones.