And fortunately for Shirou, who didn't actually possess the Third Magic, it bore an extremely close resemblance to a god's Authority, meaning it should be easy enough for him to fake.
"I can give you your wishes. Not great ones, for my mastery over the Third Magic is not as strong as I would like it to be, but they should give you all the riches and longevity that you could desire, without the need for Magical Energy." Shirou bluffed, trying his hardest to look like he wasn't twisting the truth so much it would have snapped if it had physical form.
"Good." Old Man Acht accepted the deal immediately, not even pretending to think it over. "It matters not how powerful your craft is. Only that it is True Magic."
"Oh? It matters not how powerful it is? What are you planning to do with your wishes then?"
"Nothing." The reply was awfully frank and forthcoming, and entirely true besides. "The Third True Magic will be stored safely in our greatest vaults, and our task will have been completed."
"Pardon?" Shirou blinked, not sure if he'd heard that right. "You're going to lock it away?"
"Correct."
"You have been chasing the Third True Magic for centuries, and now that you have it, you're going to store it somewhere and never use it?"
"Our directive is to procure the Heaven's Feel. Such was the only task given by the Sorcerer to his apprentices." Old Man Acht explained, dispassionate, yet with a grim undercurrent in his voice. "The apprentices founded a new family together, the Einzbern, and created us Homunculi to aid them. Eventually though, when it became all but certain that the Heaven's Feel was likely lost forever, the human Mages slowly departed, until it was only us Homunculi that remained. We were left with the castle, the name, and with the directive. For centuries, the directive was all that we could think about."
"I see." Everything the golem said was true, not even a half-lie or omission mixed in anywhere, and Shirou now had to work a bit harder to keep his pity under control. "And when you have fulfilled the directive?"
"We are free."
Three words. Three small words, that took barely a moment to speak aloud. Nevertheless, they blew Shirou away, as he realised with shock that Old Man Acht could be considered as much a victim as Illya.
That sure as hell wasn't what he'd expected when he decided to attend a wedding today!
"I… will prepare the Wishcraft as soon as possible and hand it over to you." He muttered, already thinking of ways to do so. Wishcraft was not a sort of Magic that could easily be stored or transferred, but Shirou was sure that, with Rin's help, he'd be able to store a minor miracle or two in one of the best and purest gems in his Vault. "Give me two, perhaps three days."
"We will wait, even if it takes three years." Old Man Acht pledged.
"It's really not going to take that long." Shirou deadpanned. "I'll just need to Enchant a gem and give it to you at a neutral location. After that, you can do what you want with it."
"We'll place it into our most secure Vault and never touch it again."
"And in return, you'll never even talk to Illya again without her express permission."
"I swear it, on my family's honour as well as my life and Craft."
Old Man Acht and Shirou spoke a bit more about the finer details of their new deal, before they parted ways again. The redhead was ultimately here for Waver's wedding, not to negotiate with old enemies, while Old Man Acht had had enough of the outside world for one day.
As he watched the ancient golem lumber towards the door however, his stride heavy yet with a noticeable spring of delight, Shirou couldn't help but feel slightly perturbed.
Illya and Kiritsugu had always described Old Man Acht as a cruel and brutal figure, one who preferred rash and bloody action over bandying words. A First-Rate Magus with a massive chip on his shoulder, who was obsessed with control and respect. Truly one of the worst and most unpleasant people the Moonlit World had to offer.
What Shirou saw just now however wasn't some demon or petty tyrant. Instead, he'd found himself talking to a tired and frightened construct, a Homunculus every bit as much as Illya had been, who huffed and puffed but ultimately was desperate to fulfil his age-old mission, forced upon him by Magi long dead, to gain his freedom.
That didn't mean he wasn't an awful and selfish person. He most certainly was. However, that awfulness didn't just come from a place of maliciousness, but mainly from a place of fear and desperation.
It didn't change anything, and Shirou most certainly wasn't going to become friends with the Einzbern all of a sudden, but he did find that he understood the ancient golem a bit better now.
Understanding and sympathising with the more pitiable of your enemies was also a part of being a Hero of Justice after all. Not the most enjoyable part, but a part all the same.
Sometimes, on particularly dark and wintery nights, Darnic Prestone, former nazi and current cult-leader, regretted his decision to cut himself off from the Clocktower and move his Workshop to Romania.
He'd been a well-established Magus, a respectable lord with a wealth of allies and resources, but he'd given it all up when he left, which left quite the hole behind.
It had been a well-considered decision, not some impulsive deed. He'd weighed his options carefully, considering pros and cons with all due consideration. He'd even changed his mind several times, when the prospect of abandoning all he had achieved so far, his life's work, seemed too daunting to go through with.
In the end though, he'd made the decision to leave after all. He'd packed up and left without a word, never once looking back.
Not because he hated it at the Clocktower, or because it was lacking in any way, but because he had no other choice.
He had a grand plan, one that would elevate him into godhood, but said plan was sure to turn several very important people in the Magus Association against him, so he needed to leave their spheres of influence before he could bring it to fruition. He needed his freedom and independence if he were to blossom into the man he was always meant to be.
That part had been successful enough, as Romania was hardly in anyone's sphere of influence, but the downside of his decision, the resulting lack of resources and information, was more painful than expected. Cutting ties with the Clocktower might largely protect him from the wrath of its rulers, especially if he made sure to stay under the radar until it was too late for them to stop him, but essentially turning himself into an exile also made it very hard to stay updated on the current state of the Moonlit World.
Case-in-point, the Fifth Holy Grail War.
Darnic had always known that it would start sooner than it was supposed to. After the Fourth had ended in such a ridiculous disaster, the Grail had to be brimming with residual energy. More than enough to significantly speed up the timetable.
Nevertheless, he'd been completely blindsided by the fact that the remaining time was measured in months rather than years.
That oversight on his part was galling enough, but it was even more vexing because apparently, Rocco Belfeban had known for weeks already. The War hadn't even started yet, and already, Darnic found himself far behind on his greatest rival.
Fortunately, the situation wasn't unsalvageable yet. Darnic had been preparing for the Grail War for quite some time already, so he wasn't caught with his pants completely down. There was still time for him to recover and regroup. After a hundred years of preparing, a few weeks of lost time was nothing.
He'd assembled several candidates of his own, almost all of them promising young Magi, and since he knew the intricacies of the Greater Grail like few others alive, he was able to ensure his cabal would receive at least one set of Command Seals between them, probably two.
Of course, it would have been even easier to get even more Command Seals if he'd managed to take the Grail during the Third War, like he'd originally planned, but his Servant, Fionn Mac Cumhaill, had proven unexpectedly recalcitrant. Far from being loyal to his oath and master, as Celtic warriors were supposed to be, he turned on Darnic almost immediately after being Summoned.
Even Command Seals hadn't helped, and it had been all Darnic could do to force his Servant to kill himself before his head had rolled across the ground.
A rather sour experience, and not one he was keen to repeat. As such, he'd taken much better care to select a more suitable Heroic Spirit this time, one who wouldn't make such a big issue out of a few babies being sacrificed here and there.
The greatest king Romania had ever seen would undoubtedly be a practical man, who saw that wars had to be won no matter the cost.
Now all that mattered was the decision of which allies he would deploy first.
Based on what he knew from earlier Grail Wars, he'd concluded that the Grail had a strong tendency to prefer members of the founding families, Tohsaka, Matou, and Einzbern, or people who'd had some interaction with it already. Having a strong wish also helped.
Darnic fit neatly into the second and third categories, so he was almost assured of a spot. Naturally, he was going to make the most of it. He had waited far too long to deny himself the opportunity now. His previous loss, humiliating and swift as it had been, still stung, even though no one knew he had been the mysterious seventh candidate at the time.
Ideally though, he'd have at least one ally with him. One other Master whom he could count on. More would be preferable of course, but Darnic was old enough to know that life didn't always go as you wanted it to.
That one ally might be all that he would get, and thus would have to be the best of all his possible candidates.
It turned out to be a fairly difficult choice. None of the people he'd gathered under him were particularly impressive, but they did all possess different abilities and traits that would be useful to have with him during a Grail War.
Fortunately, Darnic wouldn't have to make that choice alone anymore. He had a dependable ally now, one who always gave him the unvarnished truth without lies or pretence, which was exactly what he needed right now.
As per usual, he found said ally in the basement of the Wallachian castle he was currently using as his base of operations.
"Fabius!" He called out as he entered the basement-turned-laboratory, barely taking note anymore of the countless Homunculi that were being prepared in large fluid-filled tanks down there. "Fabius! Where are you?!"
"Here." Came the hoarse reply, from further down the laboratory. "What do you want, Darnic?"
"To talk."
"If you must. I will continue working in the meantime however. The results that Gordes Musik delivered are sub-optimal. I must compensate for his negligence if you are ever to receive your army."
As said before, Darnic's little faction had many shortages, in both information and resources, but what he lacked most of all right now was skilled warriors. People who would be capable of going toe-to-toe with the Clocktower's Enforcers and the Burial Agency's Executors. Since recruiting warriors like that was exceedingly difficult and prohibitively expensive however, Darnic had chosen a different route.
He had recruited Gordes Musik and Fabius Baelum, Magi who specialised in the crafting of Homunculi, and put them to work to create thousands upon thousands of Homunculi to compensate for his lack of warriors. Quantity had a quality all its own after all.
He would have preferred to purchase the Homunculi from the Einzbern of course, but again, that was expensive, not to mention he didn't trust them not to deliver faulty goods in an effort to sabotage him. As such, he'd been forced to set up his own production line in his base, essentially counterfeiting the work of the ancient German family.
He hadn't had high hopes at the start, but so far, he'd actually been pleasantly surprised with the delivered results, despite Fabius' constant grumbling.
"You weren't present at the faction-meeting earlier today." Darnic began, putting on a stern expression, though it was mostly for show. "I take it you are nevertheless aware of everything that was discussed?"
"I am. My Homunculi gave me the full report the moment you were finished. As always, you used a thousand words to say what could have been said in ten."
"Oh?"
"The Fifth Grail War will commence in the summer already."
"I suppose that was the gist of it. Will the Homunculi I ordered be ready in time?"
"Naturally. They will be ready well before the start of summer. You will get your army, Darnic, don't you worry about that." Fabius hadn't looked up from his work even once so far, but now, he turned slightly, one baleful green eye staring at the nazi Magus. "You should be more concerned about your own affairs. Have you finally chosen which of your followers will receive the honour of Summoning a Servant of their own?"
"That is what I came to discuss." Darnic wasn't surprised that Fabius had struck at the heart of the matter near instantly. The man had keen instinct. "Naturally, I will be one of them."
"Of course. Your pride wouldn't allow for anyone else to take centre stage."
"I am torn about my other picks however. Realistically, I'll get to take just one ally with me to Fuyuki when the War starts, two at the very most. I need to pick the most competent of them for that position, but I must admit that I am stumped."
"Is that so? Weren't you quite fond of that Fiore? I thought you'd have picked her in a heartbeat."
"I am indeed fond of her, and yes, she is quite capable." Darnic had been very pleasantly surprised by the girl's power and competence, enough to seriously consider her as his second-in-command within the private organisation he was setting up. "But she lacks the required brutality. The killer-instinct that is necessary to win wars is not present in her."
"That is not necessarily a disadvantage." Fabius hummed, leaning forward to better study a nearly finished Homunculus.
"You say wars can be won without brutality?"
"One of the best tactics that humanity ever invented was the offer of surrender. Guarantee that your enemy will be spared and treated with dignity, and they are much more disposed to giving up than when you make it clear you intend to kill them all."
"But I do want to kill them all." Darnic replied bluntly, having absolutely zero intention of giving or asking for any mercy.
"Then I said nothing." Fabius made no effort to change Darnic's mind, knowing that no arguments would penetrate that thick skull. "In that case, you might be best off with Celenike. She has brutality to spare."
"She does not have brutality. She only has cruelty." Darnic scoffed, not having a very high opinion of his most bloodthirsty underling. "And she only ever attacks those who cannot fight back. I have no use for cowards in war."
"You are entirely too critical." Fabius laughed, a sound that was like nails being scratched over a chalkboard. "Fiore or Celenike, those are your choices. All the others are worse options, unless you mean to take Gordes with you."
"Don't even joke about that."
"He would perform decently well."
"I said, don't joke!"
"Did you come here to ask for my advice or only to have your own opinions be recited back to you?" Fabius hissed, though it was entirely without venom. He was actually enjoying himself right now. "If you are so desperate for better warriors, see if you cannot recruit one."
"Mercenaries cannot be trusted. You know this."
"I do, but if you don't trust your own people, and you don't want to hire outsiders, what choice is left?"
"…" Darnic stilled, thinking very deeply for a while, before eventually making a choice. "I'll take Fiore. Even if she is unable to do what needs to be done, she can at least make for a decent distraction."
"And have you considered what you will do in the case that she should harbour designs of her own for the Grail?"
"Ha! If she actually has the guts to betray me like that, I have underestimated her so far." The very idea of Fiore stabbing someone in the back on her own volition was ludicrous. That would require initiative, cunning, and ruthlessness, none of which she possessed. "But your point is well-made. I will prepare contingencies, just in case the impossible happens."
He had been betrayed by his own Servant during the Third War, something he'd also believed to be impossible, so Darnic wasn't going to take any chances now.
"Your arrogance will be your undoing one day, Darnic."
"But not today." Darnic was sure of that much. He'd prepared for every eventuality, up to and including a Greater Grail War, so he was inevitably going to win this time. He wouldn't allow for anything else. "But enough about me. Tell me, in more detail, how is my Homunculus army progressing?"
"The Homunculus-soldiers will be ready in little time." Fabius promised, and coming from him, that promise carried weight. "The Homunculus-Mages a little while after that, but the specialised projects you ordered will take longer to complete."
"How much longer is 'longer'?"
"Six months, give or take a week or two."
"That is acceptable." Darnic knew that good work couldn't be rushed, and frankly, six months was far, far less than he'd initially expected. "Tell me, Fabius, how did you manage to create so many Homunculi so quickly? Gordes told me creating a thousand of them would take a decade or more, yet now, you and he have produced ten thousand in less than twelve months."
"Sacrifices and compromises." The hunched Magus-scientist replied shortly, before elaborating. "Homunculi are supposed to be as human-like as possible, including a human-like intelligence. Since developing that intelligence is by far the hardest part of their creation however, I got rid of that. They are more automatons than humans now."
"Automatons?" Darnic blinked, not very familiar with the word. "No intelligence?"
"They will still serve perfectly well as foot soldiers, don't you worry. Better even, since they don't feel fear or pain or any other kind of emotion. Their only flaw will be their incapacity for independent thought."
"A reasonable trade-off." Darnic had never appreciated independent thought in servants, so this was an alteration he could very much live with. "But how do they function at all if they don't have intelligence? Did you use animal brains or something?"
"Animals brains are entirely insufficient. I attempted to grow the brains of a chimpanzee, a bonobo, a dolphin, a pig, an elephant, a dog, and even a whale, but none performed nearly as well as I hoped. It made the Homunculi temperamental, and unable to understand given orders. As such, I eventually turned to this."
Fabius turned around at last, holding up a tiny little speck, a square construct about the size of Darnic's thumb nail.
"What is that?"
"A microchip." Fabius replied proudly. "A tiny little mechanical brain with great capacity for storing information and following orders. I tested it already, and it produces Homunculi that are capable of following up to a thousand different commands with great precision despite their lack of a human mind. Better yet, they can communicate with each other through nothing but electromagnetic waves, even over great distances."
Through mixing technology and Magecraft, Fabius had managed to achieve something straight out of science fiction. An army of combat-capable robots, though his robots were made of flesh rather than steel.
"Impressive." Darnic knew that an unthinking army like that would never be able to conquer and hold any land, or achieve a complicated objective, but that was not what he wanted to use it for. He just wanted an army that would be able to flood and bury his enemies, in the simplest way possible. "This is exactly what I wanted."
"I thought it would be."
Fabius was a genius, that was beyond any doubt. However, his tendency to use technology where Magecraft proved insufficient had not made him popular with the Magus Association, and so, despite the fact that he was actually quite mild as far as Magi went, going to considerable lengths not to cause unnecessary harm, he'd been pushed into Darnic's waiting arms.
It was hardly the ideal place for a man who believed in giving your enemies a chance for honourable surrender and went out of his way to spare even Homunculi any pain. In making Darnic's army, his choice to use microchips rather than normal brains was in part motivated by efficiency, but also by the fact that microchips wouldn't feel pain and distress, like normal Homunculi very much did.
Fabius was too good for Darnic, but there was nothing else for him.
And so he toiled on, his head in the sand as he tried not to think about the harm that his army would do in the hands of a monster like Darnic Prestone.
"I decided on a name for our organisation, by the way." Darnic moved the subject along.
"Did you now? I know that you were considering a few options, but you finally made your choice?"
"I did. It will undoubtedly anger the Magus Association, as giving our organisation a name will make us a definite rival, but we are ready to withstand their wrath."
"Well? What is the name? Don't leave me in suspense, Darnic."
"Yggdmillennia." Darnic had been leaning towards that name for a long time, even using it in a private setting to test how it sounded and what effect it had on people, and now, he officially claimed it at last.
"…Your arrogance never fails to astound me."
Yggdrasil was the World Tree of Norse Mythology, the storing point of all knowledge in the universe, while 'Millenium' was the rank given to the highest class of Phantasmals and Mysteries.
Using either as a name for your organisation would already be a sign of the utmost pride. Using both, combined into one word, showed nothing but pure arrogance and vanity.
But then, perhaps that was fitting for a man like Darnic.
"Henceforth, I shall be known as Darnic Prestone Yggdmillenia." Indeed, the old Magus hadn't even heard Fabius' comment, or perhaps he just didn't pay it any mind. He was too satisfied with himself, with having a name greater than his rivals.
Fabius doubted they would be particularly impressed however. When an ancient association of Magi chose to call itself 'Magus Association' and their headquarters in a clock tower was named 'Clocktower', it wasn't because they considered grandiose names to be of particular importance.
Recognising that Darnic was just gloating now, the Magus-scientist turned back to his work.
Homunculus armies didn't assemble themselves after all.
Magni Thorson had been most helpful.
That was a simple fact. One that was true in multiple ways.
For one, the god had given Shirou several valuable warnings about the Tomb of Albion, which had saved his sanity, if not his life, from the corrupted Fairies. Second, he'd given the redhead, knowingly or not, valuable insight into how the Norse gods behaved and operated, even now in the modern age. Third, to top it all off, the god had shared the means through which Odin had once protected humanity from the wrath of Phantasmal Beasts.
That last one was by far the most important at the current time. Shirou's apotheosis, his rise to godhood, had caused the Phantasmal Beasts of old to start returning, meaning it was his solemn duty to find a way to prevent them from harming humans.
Easier said than done when the number of Phantasmal Beasts was vast and they were appearing all over the world, but that was where Magni came in.
In the past, the Norse gods had kept humanity and Phantasmal Beasts separated through a series of Runic Arrays. With those arrays, the gods could ensure that the paths of human and beast only crossed when they desired it. If they did not desire it, man and beast would first feel the urge to go somewhere else, then they would be forcibly pushed apart, and eventually even be put in different planes of existence for a while if nothing else worked.
That was the short of it at least, though the whole story was of course a bit more complicated.
In any case, the Runic Arrays were just what Shirou needed to fix the awful problem that he had caused, and since Magni had provided him with the exact locations of all remaining Arrays, down to their very coordinates, he could get started on repairing them right away.
Admittedly, the duel with Lorelei had come first, and then there had been a lot of other stuff on his mind, so he hadn't yet started on repairing them, but with Waver's wedding over and done with and the Grail War as of yet unbegun, Shirou found himself with some time to spare.
Right now, he was tracking down the first of the Runic Arrays, located in the Scandinavian mountains, where it had lain dormant and undiscovered for centuries.
Shirou had half-expected that the Array would have been carved into one of the smaller and more unremarkable hills that dotted the vast landscape, but fortunately, Odin had been smarter than that.
Even the mountains could wear down after all, crushed and ground into gravel through wind, rain, and tectonic movement. Worse, that process of wear happened far faster than people thought. If the gods had chosen to carve the Array into a mountain or hill, they would have had to do it again after only a few short decades.
Instead, Odin had carved the Arrays into large boulders made out of granite, a type of stone that did not easily crumble over time, and sealed those boulders into the hills, melting them together, where they would be untouched by wear and tear.
It was pretty decent, as far as solutions went. Not perfect, as the hills would inevitably be ground down completely over time, exposing the boulder to the elements, but that at least was a process that would take millions of years, rather than a mere decade or five.
All that was to say that when Shirou arrived at the coordinates he'd been given, he could clearly sense the Array beneath him, dormant after so many years of being abandoned by its creator, but still very much intact.
A few Spells and a liberal helping of Authority to prove he was actually a Norse god later, Shirou was holding the boulder in his hands, marvelling at its size.
It was only as big as his head, weighing no more than ten kilograms, yet into it, a massive Array consisting of thousands, if not tens-of-thousands of miniscule Runes, so small they had to have been carved with the smallest of needles, had been inscribed, detailing the methods by which the Allfather had kept humanity and the Divine world as far apart as possible in his time.
It was amazing, and more than a little humbling.
Reading it now, Shirou could roughly understand how the Array was supposed to function, how the many different Runes cooperated and supplemented each other, but really, if he'd had to develop something like this from scratch, it would have taken him years, decades even.
Truly, Odin was every bit the genius he was claimed to be, and Shirou was extremely grateful that the god had chosen to make his creations so durable and lasting. His foresight was humanity's salvation.
The redhead could have spent hours there, on the top of the hill, just studying the myriad of wonders inscribed into the Array, deaf to the wind, uncaring of the cold, and blind to the mountaineers that sometimes stumbled past, but he didn't. He had more to do.
The Array carved into the boulder was certainly a masterpiece of Runic Engineering, created by a genius among geniuses, but it was only one of seven remaining in the world, out of the original thirty-three, most of which had been destroyed just before or during Ragnarok.
Seven wasn't enough. No, more than that, even if all thirty-three remained, it still wouldn't be enough for Shirou's purposes. He didn't want to just shield Scandinavia after all, but every country on Earth.
Phantasmal Beasts were appearing all over the world, not just in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and unlike Odin, Shirou did not have other Pantheons of gods to take care of the other regions. There was no Zeus anymore, no Vishnu, Hachiman, Amaterasu, Jupiter, or Quetzalcoatl. He was the sole remaining sort-of-deity in the world, and that meant he had to take care of all countries by himself.
He was going to need a lot of Runic Arrays for that, so Shirou forewent any intricacies and just scanned the boulder, using his enhanced memory to pin the sight in his brain. It felt almost painful, to just copy it so bluntly without appreciating the immense amounts of work and skill that had gone into making it, but he had to.
If he truly wanted to understand how the Runic Array worked, every part that made it tick, he would have to study it for years. He didn't have that time. He needed to make more now, and if that meant he had to act like a sentient copy-paste machine, then that was what he'd do.
Ideally, he would have taken the boulder with him, to use as a blueprint, but he had other plans for it. As soon as he'd gotten the full picture of how to make his own Runic Array, Shirou was going to put the boulder he now held back into the hill, activate it, and see how it performed.
Already, several reports had come to the Clocktower indicating that minor Phantasmal Beasts were returning to the Scandinavian Mountains. For now, it was limited to Diregoats, Ancestral Elks, Four-eyed Wolves, and other such animal-like beasts that preferred to avoid humans, meaning the mundane folk that also regularly crossed the mountain range hadn't been in much danger yet, but unfortunately, that state of affairs was unlikely to last. If nothing was done, then sooner or later, someone was going to end up hurt.
Unfortunate, but that also made the place a good case study.
Once the Runic Array had been activated and powered, Shirou could study its effects on the humans and Phantasmal Beasts wandering the mountain range and see if it performed as promised.
If it did, and he so hoped it would, he could start expanding the network to cover the globe.
It was a very ambitious project, possibly the most god-like thing Shirou had ever done in his life, but it was a project of which the result would be worth every bit of effort he invested in it. Even if it should take him years, he would gladly work his fingers to the bone to protect the people of his planet.
However, he did want to know first whether his work would have any effect to begin with, so the redhead put the boulder back where it came from, activating it in the process and leaving a few spells of his own that would allow him to watch over the surrounding area.
With that task done, Shirou activated the Bifrost and returned home.
There, he found the next task already waiting for him.
"Shirou, he's doing it again!" Caren was waiting for him in the living room, looking for all the world like the calm and composed nun she'd like people to believe she was, but the redhead spotted the slightly frazzled look in her eyes all the same.
"Oscar?" He asked.
"Oscar." She nodded.
Fuyuki's new priest had apparently struck again, and Shirou only just suppressed the urge to sigh.
"What did he do this time?"
"He's taken the money you gave me for next month's Easter fair and spent it on a silver statue of Mary, mother of Jesus." Caren looked outraged that someone would do such a thing, but also slightly conflicted, because Mary, mother of Jesus, was a genuinely important figure in her religion. In the end though, she was mainly vexed that Oscar had done such a thing without even consulting her.
Easter was coming up soon, the celebration of Jesus' resurrection, and although not many people in Japan celebrated it, Caren still wanted to give it the attention it deserved.
Since the people of Fuyuki were unlikely to come to a church, Issei had advised her to hold a fair, the big kind of festival so beloved among the Japanese. He'd even gone as far as to offer her the use of the field at the bottom of the stairs of the Ryuudou-temple, where festivals were regularly held.
If the cherry-blossom festival and the New Year festival could be held there, then so could an Easter-festival.
That way, she could lure in a lot of people, drawn to the festivities, while still keeping it in the theme of Easter, with bread, fish, and wine, as well as religious icons and decorations everywhere that would espouse the values of the world's largest Faith.
Caren had been very receptive to the idea, though she had sternly corrected Issei on his notions of Easter. Cakes, scones, lemonade, and flowers were apparently the currency of a Christian fair, which did sound more logical than wine and bread.
To set up such a fair however, one needed money and connections, both of which Caren did not have. The church of Fuyuki drew in next to no donations from the populace and only received a very small stipend from the Holy See, barely enough to keep its doors open. There was no way that would be enough to pay for permits, bribes, stands, personnel, food, fireworks, and the heaps of other things that were required for a festival of any decent size.
But there was no need to panic. Shirou had money to burn, not to mention a next-door neighbour who had connections everywhere. With a few transactions to the church's bank account and some favours he was still owed by the Fujimura-clan called in, the Easter fair was set to become the grandest festival of the year.
Caren had been ever so grateful, and had taken on the project with an enthusiasm that no one could have expected from her. It seemed as if being trusted with actual responsibilities had awakened something inside of the nun, almost changing her into a reliable woman even.
But now, the new priest had appropriated the money she needed without even consulting her, in order to buy a silver statue of the mother of Jesus.
To be entirely honest to Oscar, that too was a big facet of Catholicism. To venerate the many saints through various forms of art, like expensive statues, gorgeous paintings, glass-in-lead windows, and cathedrals that had to be built over the course of decades because they were so large and elaborate.
But even though displays of wealth were not discouraged at all by the Vatican, and sometimes even outright encouraged under the right circumstances, the redhead rather doubted that a priest should plunder the coffers of an already struggling local church just to buy an expensive statue that almost no one was going to see anyway.
That just reeked of arrogance and an inability to prioritise.
"I will remind him that the church's money is not just his to spend." Shirou promised Caren, who nodded with some relief. "And the fair can still go ahead. I'll just pay the city council and the suppliers directly out of my own pocket."
"Thank you very much." Caren made to bow deeply to him, but Shirou grabbed her by the shoulder before she could, to stop her. He had no problem with people bowing a bit in greeting, he did that himself often enough, but with him spending so much time in Europe lately, he'd grown to dislike the Japanese tendency to bow and scrape at every opportunity.
It might also be Thor's influence though. The god never did have much time for kowtowers and lickspittles.
"Maybe I should see if I can talk with some people from the Burial Agency too, to get Oscar out of here and to some other place where they'll appreciate him more." Shirou suggested next, just throwing the idea out there to see how Caren reacted to it. "I don't think the Cardinals will be too eager to talk to me, but I'm sure we can work something out."
Everyone had a price after all, even the Catholic Church, which, despite its wealth in stones and art, did find itself with an increasing shortage of cash in recent years, cash it sorely needed to keep its churches open and personnel paid.
He would be using the power of money again, something Issei would undoubtedly describe as a villainous act, but Shirou did not have a problem with that, especially not in a situation like this, where everyone would win.
Caren and he would be rid of a troublesome priest, the Holy See would have some liquid currency to spend again, and Oscar would undoubtedly be much happier in a properly Catholic Spanish town than in a heathen city far away from his homeland.
"That won't work." Caren shook her head however. "They won't give you the time of day if you come with an offer like that."
"I assure you, I can offer them enough to-"
"It's not about what you can offer them." She interrupted him, pursing her lips in a way that was very unlike her. "The Burial Agency needs to have a proper Executor in place here, in Fuyuki, to honour their contract with the Einzbern, the Tohsaka, and the Matou. They promised to supply the Grail War's Overseer, and you can say what you will about the Burial Agency, but they honour their promises."
"I understand that, but there is no reason Oscar cannot be replaced with someone more capable and more pleasant."
"That is exactly the problem." Caren bristled. All she had from this point onwards was speculation without evidence, but she was fairly familiar with the inner workings of the Burial Agency, and not a fool besides, despite the way she usually acted. "The Overseer never survives the War, Shirou, so there is no way the Burial Agency will send any half-decent or half-capable agent here to die. The only reason they assigned Oscar and me to Fuyuki is because we are expendable and will not be missed."
"I see." Shirou let that sink in for a moment, mulling it over for a few seconds, before coming to a simple conclusion. "I hate that."
The redhead somewhat understood the Burial Agency's reasoning, perhaps he could even sympathise with them on some level. It was indeed a simple fact that the Overseers of the Grail War never survived, that the one they placed in that position was someone they condemned to die, so it was only logical that they wouldn't select an Executor who was capable and well-liked. That would be an awful waste. Far better to give the position to a couple of mavericks, whose value to the Burial Agency was limited and whom nobody really liked anyway.
Harsh, but again, a very logical decision.
Logic was however one of the things that Shirou had discarded on his path to become a Hero of Justice. Yes, in many situations, it might seem best to try and limit the damage of an inevitable disaster, to make a few hard choices in the name of the common good, but the redhead had long since rejected that framing.
"I suppose I have no choice now but to make sure you both survive until the end of the War." He decided on the spot, reaching out to stroke Caren's hair, which made her freeze in place. "Of course, I was always going to make sure you survived, as you are my dear friend, but if the Church decided Oscar is expendable, then I'll save him too. I swear it."
"Y-You-!" For a moment, Caren seemed entirely overwhelmed, just absolutely flummoxed, her cheeks a flaming red in her agitation, before she laughed, loudly and joyfully. "You're going to save Oscar out of spite?! You're such an insufferable man!"
"And proud of it." Shirou smirked, very much enjoying her outburst of unfiltered delight, before he sobered up again. "I will still have to tell him however that he cannot spend money that was meant for a festival on a silver statue. He might be the head of the local church, but there is a limit to what he can get away with."
"Thank you!"
Having finished the conversation with Caren, Shirou shortly bade her goodbye, before he headed to the back garden, to his magically expanded shed, where Rin and Ayako should be waiting for him with the latest news on one of his more recent projects.
Quite frankly, it was not a conversation that he was looking forward to.
Once inside the shed, Shirou ignored all the great displays of Magecraft and Divinity around him, seeing that they were all his own creations anyway, and instead headed to the other end of the hall, where many computers and other technological devices had been gathered and interconnected.
"It's no use!" Ayako was sitting in front of one of said computers, typing as fast as she could, which, unfortunately for her, wasn't very fast at all. "The price just keeps going up!"
"Try whatever you can!" Rin instructed her, also in front of a computer herself, and handling it quite deftly, a sign of how hard Ayako had worked to teach her the intricacies of modern applications. "It's starting to look too much like a financial bubble, and we cannot have this become a bubble!"
Red-faced and agitated, neither girl had even noticed his approach, and Shirou had to actually steel himself in order not to slink away while he still could. They were discussing a rather touchy and complicated subject after all, one that he wasn't very comfortable with himself.
Money.
Piles and piles of money.
Like Shirou had discussed with Ayako about three months earlier, he had brought both his futuristic microchip and the cure for AIDS onto the market. For the microchip, he'd used a small fledgling company specialising in computer science, while he'd given the cure straight to the World Health Organisation, figuring they'd know what to do with it.
Then it had all exploded.
"Shirou!" Ayako eventually noticed him first, turning around with an almost haunted expression on her face. "ASML's stock prices just won't come down!"
ASML. Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography. Shirou's very own company that specialised in making better microchips for better computers.
To be honest, he hadn't founded the little company himself, but bought it once its parent-company had decided they wanted rid of that branch. He'd kept all personnel employed, doubled their salaries to persuade them to stay, and then presented them with the Stark-made microchip.
They'd been very enthusiastic about researching and presenting it, far more so than expected, and Shirou had left them to it with an investment of a spare hundred million, figuring they'd send him some money in return once they made a profit.
It turned out he had vastly underestimated the value of such advanced technology.
Within a month, the new chip had been brought onto the market. Within two months, it had conquered the market. Within three months, bringing them to the present, it raked in billions upon billions of dollars in straight profit and even more in stock value, changing Shirou practically overnight from someone with two billion in the bank to someone owning hundreds of billions in both liquid currency and market share.
Apparently, futuristic technology was worth quite a lot. Who would have thought?
All was not well though. The profits might be nice, but the stock price of ASML was flying upwards so fast that Shirou's new financial advisors, hired to help him manage all those sudden billions, were advising him to try and bring the price down again, or at least stop it from rising further so quickly. If he didn't, he risked creating a hype-bubble that could cost a lot of innocent people a lot of money.
He'd been working on that for a while now, together with Ayako, but judging by the brunette's expression, without any luck thus far.
"We could try another press release." Shirou proposed, taking a seat next to his beleaguered girlfriend. "We can tell everyone that I am a one-hit wonder. Much of the current stock price is based on speculation after all, that I will release another such product soon, so maybe the price will come down if they know I am nothing special."
"We tried that already, four times, and every time, everyone just makes you out to be a humble genius, sending the price soaring even more." Ayako groaned.
"Right. Then, couldn't we sell a lot of our own stock at once, increasing supply to bring the price down?" Shirou rubbed his chin in thought, throwing out another half-serious proposal.
"No! You need to keep an absolute majority in your own company, Shirou. There is no telling what hedge-funds and individual investors will do once you are not the boss anymore."
"Technically speaking, I am already not the boss anymore. Companies that enter the stock market need to have a board of directors, with the power to overrule the owner in case of emergencies." Shirou pointed out. "So I share power with seven other individuals already."
"Five out of those seven board members are in some way linked to the Moonlit World and will do anything you tell them to, no matter how stupid. You are still the boss." The brunette huffed. "And you must remain the boss. No, Shirou. We are not selling any more stock."
"Alright, then what about spreading rumours that I am an unstable idiot and that ASML is poorly run?"
"Spreading such rumours, even about yourself, to manipulate the stock market is highly illegal in every country in the world. Besides, it might lower the stock prices temporarily, but the moment people figure out it is not true, they'll come right back up again."
"Then all I can think of is asking people to stop paying so much for the stocks." Shirou decided, hoping that an appeal to people's better natures might do the trick.
Ayako didn't even reply verbally to that one. She just snorted in amusement and slight pity.
"Yes, you're right. That's never going to happen." Shirou was wholly dedicated to protecting human lives, to give anyone and everyone a chance to live and be happy, but he also knew that humans could be a greedy, unpleasant, and stubborn lot even on the best of days. "Fine. We're not going to solve this ourselves. Call our financial advisors and have them figure something out."
"They might not be able to either." The brunette warned him, pointing at one of her screens, where the graph of ASML's stock price was still ascending faster than the Apollo rocket. "We may have no choice but to let the bubble grow until it pops."
"That is going to hurt a lot of people." Shirou grimaced. He might be young, but he'd gotten the gist of the 2007 real estate crash, and he was not eager to repeat it, no matter how small the scale.
"You can give the investors their money back later." Ayako assured him. "I'll still call the advisors. Just don't expect miracles from them."
"I won't." Shirou promised, before finishing the conversation with a quick kiss.
Then, he turned from the brunette to his black-haired girlfriend, who was labouring on an equally difficult task, though with a lot more success, apparently.
"How are you doing, Rin?"
"I just finished categorising the hundreds of research-grants that you have been offered." She replied succinctly. "Universities, hospitals, and even governments from around the world are eager to cooperate with you and give you all the funding and materials you could ever need to continue your amazing research on medicines against viruses."
"I don't need funding and materials from every country in the world." Shirou deadpanned.
"I suspect most of them are mainly after permission to do research into your AIDS-cure themselves." Rin smiled thinly. "You have the patent after all, the sole rights to its use, which means any attempt from them to replicate or research it is forbidden by international law."
"Since when have Russia and China cared about international law?" Shirou scoffed, letting some of his rancour towards those brutal and murderous regimes slip out.
"Since they also have many AIDS-patients, as well as the knowledge that you might decide not to sell the cure or your microchips to them anymore should they anger you too much." Rin smiled without joy, quite knowledgeable about international politics, as any proper noble lady should be.
Traditional Magi might eschew the use of technology, but politics, no matter what kind, were their bread and butter.
"I'm not going to do that." It might feel nice, for a moment, to punish some of history's most brutal dictators in such a fashion, but ultimately, it would be the common man who would suffer the consequences. "Reject the grants, I do not need them, but you can tell everyone that they are allowed to research the cure as much as they like. No strings attached."
"I'll let them know." Rin gave him a beautiful and approving smile, before she picked up the phone again, to change the course of medical science in less than an hour.
Meanwhile, Shirou could only stare in genuine bafflement that his actions had such consequences.
Just like with his futuristic microchip, the redhead had completely and utterly underestimated how much effect a perfect cure for AIDS would have on the world.
Looking back though, he really should have seen it coming. Before he came with the Stark-made medicine, there had been not a single cure against any kinds of viruses in the world. The common cold, influenza, smallpox, measles, hepatitis, or Ebola, were all incurable. Only the body itself could fight them off, using the immune system that it had developed over the course of ages of natural selection, but even then, many thousands died every day.
In more recent times, vaccines had been created for most of those illnesses, to train the body to better fight off infections, and virus-blockers could help slow down the spread of diseases like AIDS, but those weren't cures. Over time, after many failed attempts, most scientists had begun to seriously doubt that any cure for viruses existed to begin with.
Enter Shirou.
Suddenly, out of absolutely nowhere, with no warning whatsoever, he'd proven it could be done after all. A cure for a virus did exist. What's more, it was a cure for one of the most dangerous and resistant viruses ever to have plagued mankind.
Safe to say that the world of medical sciences had exploded, with Shirou at the very centre.
It had made him, even more so than the microchip, into a veritable boy wonder.
Proposals, requests, and money had come pouring in from all directions, and if it hadn't been for Rin taking charge, being the most experienced 'scientist' in their little family, Shirou would have surely drowned in it all.
Truly, both Ayako and Rin had been godsends in this whole affair. Quick, efficient, and above all, more knowledgeable than him, they had pulled him out of the water and helped him weather the storm. Angels and Saints, rolled into two beautiful bodies.
Still, he should probably hire actual accountants and assistants for this kind of work as soon as possible, rather than continue to use his girlfriends for free labour. Professionals existed for a reason after all.
"You've also received a message from the American military again." Ayako informed him once Rin had turned back to her work, handing him a very official-looking letter, which indeed bore the stamp of the United States Department of Defence. "I didn't open it yet, but I think it says the same as the previous two letters."
"And my reply will, once again, be the same as well." Shirou huffed, placing the letter aside without even having to read it. "I will speak to the Dutch government about giving the American military an exclusive supply of my best microchips for their fancy missile-systems, but only after their election is over."
ASML had been a Dutch company before Shirou had purchased it, located in the Netherlands, and he'd seen no reason to change that. As such, when it was approached by a foreign military for an exclusive deal, the local law demanded that the Dutch Ministry of Defence also be included in the negotiations.
Being a loyal citizen, even to a country he'd only visited for a month in total, Shirou had so far directed the spokespeople from the American army to said ministry, where they could make preparations for a possible deal.
But again, not until later. The presidential elections were coming up again in the United States, and Shirou wanted to see who would win before he started making any deals.
One of the candidates was famous for breaking every agreement he'd ever entered after all.
"You know, I was surprised at first that you were even considering a deal with the world's most powerful army, considering you're normally always talking about peace." Ayako remarked, before she grinned. "But then I remembered you love fighting, and that you'd be a massive hypocrite to judge others for gathering strength to maintain order."
"Indeed." The brunette perfectly encapsulated Shirou's own contemplations on the subject, with such accuracy it was almost scary. "The United States are far from perfect, but in war, they do try to be the best they can. Besides, this deal might give me the leverage I need to convince them to end some of their wars early."
No, he did not approve of all their actions, especially not the wars that were rather obviously started in order to drain public money and give it to the arms producers, but that did not mean he wanted to sabotage or disadvantage them. Beating back the United States did nothing but leave a vacuum, one that would be filled by either Russia or China.
For now, he'd be satisfied if he could get the American army out of the Middle East, a wish shared by the vast majority of the American people themselves, and over time, he might be able to break the power of the vast military contractors and make their forces into a proper army again. One that actually fought for freedom and democracy.
"In any case, I think we can safely say that your goal has been achieved." Rin spoke up again, taking a break from her phone calls. "You wanted more money, and now you're rolling in it."
"Tell me about it! I already donated billions, and still the money is coming out of my ears." The redhead groaned, exhaustion seeping into his bones at the thought.
Six billion dollars. That had been what he needed in order to end world hunger, according to the UN. A vast sum, a number beyond human comprehension, but even so, it had been Shirou's goal, so that for now, until he reached godhood, the UN could take care of feeding the world.
That was the sole reason he had taken the microchip and the cure out of the Vault. In an effort to earn at least part of the money he needed.
Only to find himself with a hundred times more than he required.
He'd donated so much already, to the UN, to Doctors without Borders, to the Red Cross, to whatever charity he could find, and still his fortune was only growing.
Granted, most of it was in stocks and property rather than in liquid funds, but even so. He might very well be one of the richest people in the world now.
"You already were the richest man in the world, with your Vault. Most people just didn't know it yet." Rin pointed out.
"And look on the bright side, with all that money, changing the world for the better will be easier than ever." Ayako tried to cheer him up a little, though her supportive smile soon turned into a conspiratorial and crooked grin. "Though if you, for instance, wanted to buy me a fancy house, and a fancy car, I certainly wouldn't refuse."
"My money is your money." Shirou replied immediately, not even having to think about that. They, as well as Sakura, Illya, Sella, Leysritt, Caren, and Lorelei, were his family, so any money he earned was theirs to use as well. Hell, even Fuji-nee could help herself.
Ayako's grin became eager, and Rin's smile took on an ominous edge, but the redhead didn't even see it. He was somewhere else entirely with his thoughts.
Namely, in the Ryuudou-temple, planning a Soul-cleansing ritual with Issei and Caren, to cleanse the taint of misbegotten wealth.
They had forgotten her.
For centuries, she had been worshipped and honoured, with prayers and sacrifices and offerings, but there was nothing left of that. Not a single litany, not a mention in any book, and not even a drop of honey placed before the hearth in her honour. The mighty goddess had fallen far, very far.
It wasn't a modern development either. She had fallen out of favour already before the Birth of Christ, her temples and statues either converted into places of worship for other gods or plain broken down so the stones could be used for houses and roads.
Perhaps she should have raged at the indignity, roared like Zeus and punished like Poseidon to survive a few more centuries, but that wasn't in her nature, nor did she have the power for such grand gestures. She'd silently accepted the indignities, quietly fading into the obscurity of history, as a Greek woman ought to.
Even in the ancient times, all gods were not equal. Some were powerful and widely worshiped, secure and certain of their place in the hierarchy, while others were weak and insignificant, barely a footnote in history. They would be given a name for a moment, perhaps only by a single tribe or town, before slipping away again into the void when said tribe inevitably perished or found a more fashionable god to worship.
But then, when a divine being, which had gained form and reason through prayer and worship, was no longer prayed to or worshipped, what would be left of it?
Very little, it always turned out.
They faded, slowly losing everything they had once been, falling apart piece by piece. Power, influence, Domains, and even their memories all disappeared, until nothing but a shade remained, unable to form even a single coherent thought.
They'd gone back to their base nature, so to speak. Nothing more than unthinking phenomena, bereft of even the simplest form of consciousness.
This had happened to a surprisingly large number of gods, and every time, it was a tragedy. Each of them had fought desperately against the end, struggling like drowning humans against the unforgiving tide, but without success. They vanished, rendered into non-existence without even a Soul to leave behind, as no one, perhaps not even their follow deities, had a single memory left of them. A tragic fate.
But it did raise an interesting question.
If a god were in the final stages of fading, nearly having disappeared into the unwritten pages of history, right when Gaia began banishing the higher Mysteries and deities in response to humanity's rise, what would happen to that god? Would they end up in the Reverse Side of the World, like Zeus and Odin and all those other famous deities, or would they remain, like the most minor of Phantasmal Beasts, too irrelevant for Gaia to get rid of?
And if the Crimson Moon happened to arrive around that time too, spreading his vile gifts, his 'Idea Blood', around to all who would accept them, including to said fading god, would that have some kind of adverse effect on the god's nature?
Interesting questions indeed, but there was only one being who knew the answers, and she wasn't talking. There was nothing she had to say about her previous life. The name she'd once had, her true, original name, had been rendered into oblivion by the cruel march of time. She did recall some of her past, short flashes of her followers, some glimpses of a small temple, and the warmth of a lover, but she never tried to dig deeper, knowing nothing would come of it even if she did.
After all, she had been forgotten.
Though, as it turned out, not quite forgotten enough.
"WAAAAH!"
The cries of a baby echoed through a busy street in the middle of a sizeable, busy city. It was a large street, stretching and winding for several miles, filled with shops and restaurants and loaded with thousands upon thousands of people.
It was early in the evening, the sun having not quite set yet, so most of those people were either finishing up their shopping spree or settling down for a bite to eat, perhaps even both. At any rate, they were trying to enjoy the city's hospitable atmosphere, so the baby's piercing cries were most unwelcome.
The majority of the people had the decency not to react, registering the cries but then dismissing them, as a baby could not help itself, but others either glared in annoyance or looked with pity at the struggling mother.
She was young, perhaps too young, gently rocking the baby from side to side as she desperately attempted to comfort it.
"Hush, little one." She whispered, trying to find out what was wrong. Her baby wasn't hungry, didn't need a change, she was comfortably warm but not too hot, and she was being held by her mother. There should be no reason for her to cry, and yet, she had done nothing but cry for several weeks now.
Illness was of course something seriously considered, but several visits to the doctors hadn't yielded any results either. She seemed as healthy as could be.
But even so, her baby kept on crying, loudly and piteously.
"She's got a proper set of lungs on her."
The mother looked up at the new, unfamiliar voice, preparing to be told off, to be sent elsewhere so she wouldn't bother the paying customers of nearby restaurants, before gulping in alarm when she saw just what kind of person had approached her.
A drunk. A washed-up woman with blueish, unkept hair, pale skin that made the bags under her eyes stand out all the more, ratty clothes full of holes, and a bottle of cheap wine in her left hand.
Strangely enough though, she didn't smell, and the mother noticed soon that despite her sordid appearance, the woman was breath-takingly beautiful.
"M-My baby." Pretty privilege was a real thing, the phenomenon where beautiful people were trusted sooner and treated better than ugly people, so the mother stuttered out a polite response. "S-She just won't stop crying. H-Hasn't stopped for days."
"That so?" The drunken woman slurred out, leaning forward to take a better look, her breath washing over both baby and mother.
It didn't smell of alcohol, but like a fresh sea breeze.
"Hm…" Drunken eyes focussed on the tiny human with some difficulty, before a hand, the one not holding a bottle, came forward and gently stroked the little one's cheek.
The baby stopped crying immediately.
"Huh?" The mother looked down at once, finding herself looking at two adorable eyes, the exact same colour as her own, which were soon joined by a wide, toothless grin. "W-What?"
"Small tear in her spleen." The drunken woman explained, looking rather pleased with herself. "Hard to spot, so the doctors couldn't find it, but it hurts like a motherfuck- ah, that is, it hurts terribly."
"W-Wait, so she has-?"
"Nah, it's all good now. Just needed a touch of love."
"Thank you!" The mother almost couldn't believe her luck, running into such a skilled doctor so suddenly, even if she was drunk, before her eyes were inadvertently drawn to the bottle of wine. "U-Uhm, do you want something in return? I could buy you another bottle, i-if you want."
"Thanks, darling, but I can buy my own alcohol." That gentle hand was now placed on top of the mother's head, gently stroking her hair. "Despite how I look, I am neither poor nor unemployed. Just depressed."
"Oh no! Why?" The mother's sleep-deprived mind immediately conjured up a hundred different scenarios, ranging from the poor woman losing her house and possessions in a fire to being thrown out of her home by her cruel husband. "Do you need a place to stay?"
"What a good girl you are." The whispered compliment escaped the gorgeous lips and went straight into the mother's ears, where they pleasantly scratched all the right parts of her brain. "But no, there is no need. I am not homeless either."
"Now that is a total lie."
The mother seized up in fright when yet another voice joined the conversation, and she clutched her baby closer to her chest when her eyes fell on the newcomer.
A man. A tall, strikingly handsome, and very well-dressed man.
He couldn't have been more different from the drunken woman if they had both tried. A sharp suit instead of ratty clothes, polished shoes rather than worn boots, his expression alert and awake rather than in a drunken haze, and eyes that were colder than a winter storm.
There was no kindness in there. No light. Only cold and darkness that threatened to swallow one's soul.
"Go away, beast." The drunken woman stood up straight again, subtly placing herself between the man and the mother. "I already agreed to your demands. Now leave me be."
"Leave us be, surely?" The cold eyes focussed on the mother for a moment, before flitting back when the blue-haired woman growled dangerous. "Alright, calm down."
"I will, once you leave."
"Is this your city?"
"It is now. Harm one person and I'll feed your guts to my fishes."
"That would be… problematic. I was chosen to hunt you down because I am adept at stopping any attempts to flee. If you were to attack me however, I would surely lose."
"Good. You know your limits."
"I know them all too well."
"Then why are you here? Why show yourself to me?"
"Another message, from the king."
The drunken woman pursed her lips for a moment, wondering if she was in the mood for such a thing, before relenting when she realised she probably wouldn't be getting out of this without copious violence.
The king would not have sent his hound if it was not important.
"Let us take this to the shore." She said, glancing at the mother for a moment and deciding she did not want her, or her baby, to be caught in any possible crossfire. Besides, the coming conversation was not meant for her ears anyway.
"Very well." The shore was where the drunk was at her strongest, but it hardly mattered to the hound. Whether in the city or at the shore, he stood no chance against her either way.
"But I haven't properly thanked you-" The mother began, before stopping when the beautiful, kind, and lovely woman placed a finger directly against her lips.
"You don't have to." She smiled. "Helping babies is what I was made to do anyway."
Then, for the shortest of moments, a vanishing split-second of time, the woman changed.
Her hair became long and glossy, her skin vibrant and healthy. Ratty clothes changed into flowing robes, and her head was held up proudly, like a queen of old.
This was no washed-up drunk. This was a goddess!
Then she was gone, and the hound in his dapper suit with her, leaving behind nothing but a young, terribly confused, and very grateful mother.
Even though she was a monster, the drunken woman had done a good and selfless deed today. Without being threatened or expecting any recompense, she'd saved a baby's life.
Perhaps it was done out of nostalgia, or a last remnant of a sense of duty, or perhaps just out of pity. Whatever the reason, it had made the world into a better place.
She wouldn't be doing it again any time soon however.
Once upon a time, she'd done such deeds every day, protecting children and parents from disease and disaster, but not anymore. She no longer had the power or the will.
Not when they had forgotten her.
They had not forgotten him.
The Dark God had hoped that they would, that he would slip into the cracks of history, but it seemed his hope had been in vain.
It wasn't unexpected, that people would remember him after a scant ten years, but even so, it was disappointing and disconcerting that there were people still standing vigil next to his altar a decade after the Fourth War, the assassin's son chief among them.
The son was bright, unbearably bright. Unlike his father, he was a true threat, incorruptible, knowledgeable, and with a power of cleansing not seen since the gods were banished.
The Fifth Grail War couldn't properly start this way!
The Dark God had hoped for a simple repeat of the Fourth Grail War, a little fest of slaughter ending in misery and despair for all. The wish it would fulfil had already been made, the wish to end all war and conflict, and all that was needed now was sufficient power to make that happen.
But now, the son promised to unmake the entire ritual. He had united many Master-candidates, collected power and allies, and seemed prepared for even the most hellish of wars.
Should the Dark God attempt to hold a simple, standard Grail War, it would be a sure way towards its own destruction. Those cleansing hands would rip it apart into motes of light.
That wouldn't do.
That wouldn't do at all.
There was too much it still had to destroy, too much it wanted to defile. There was too much H*TECORR*PTIONDESPA*RP*INS*FFERING left in the world.
The Dark God no longer had its priest, had lost the element of surprise, lacked the ability to directly interfere with the Servants' minds, and now faced an opponent uniquely suited to killing it, but all the same, it did not despair.
No more than usual at least.
It simply changed tactics.
With the Return of Mystery came an increase in the amount of Magical Energy in the air, as well as an increase in the amount of Magical Energy in leylines. As the Dark God had control over one of the most powerful leylines in the country, if not the world, it now had access to more power than it could ever have dreamed before.
Not enough of it to destroy the world, but more than enough to tweak the Holy Grail War a little bit.
The Dark God's first idea was to initiate a Greater Grail War, with fourteen Servants rather than seven, but it soon realised that wouldn't be sufficient either. The side with the assassin's son would be vastly more powerful than any other team that could be put together, not to mention that teams in general were a foolish idea, as such a structure would surely be exploited.
The only solution left was mayhem.
Command Seals for all who bore a wish in their hearts. No teams aside from what desperate Masters could construct themselves. No order, no rules, no limits on the Summoning of any Servant, even from classes outside of the standard seven.
Heroes, anti-heroes, monsters, conquerors, beasts, and demons. All were welcome in the Fifth War.
Chaos would rule, and by the time the assassin's son learned of the plot, it would be too late.
The Dark God did not need all the Servants to die after all to obtain the power needed to fulfil the assassin's wish. It only needed ჭᴦջե Servants to perish to amass the required Magical Energy.
A far lower number than anyone would expect.
Its plot made, the Dark God ceased writhing in its cage, instead lashing out at the leyline and the Greater Grail, forcing them to get to work.
Soon, its wish would finally come true, and all suffering would end.
Then, it would surely be forgotten by the world at last.
It- No, he would be free.
For dinner today, Shirou had decided to pull out more stops than usual. Lorelei was coming over after all, which was still quite a rare occurrence even after a few months of dating, meaning dinner deserved all due consideration.
At first, he'd planned a fancy, three-course meal, but he'd soon scrapped that idea. Undoubtedly, Lorelei got those aplenty wherever she went. Instead, he'd gone full homely, using the usual ingredients from his kitchen without too much aplomb, serving them on the cutesy plates and bowls that Sakura had procured over the past year.
A simple meal, but made with copious love.
Fortunately, she seemed to like the dishes he'd cooked up. She certainly ate her fair share of them. The redhead had cooked a lot more than usual, knowing that his family always ate more whenever he did his best preparing dinner, which was a fine compliment indeed, but even then, it was only just enough.
The ice-cream and cake went a long way in satisfying any stomachs that might not be entirely stuffed yet though, so in the end, everyone was more than satisfied.
"It might be worth marrying you for your cooking alone." Lorelei remarked, which might have sounded callous to some, but was yet another fine compliment to Shirou's ears.
"Absolutely." Rin agreed wholeheartedly. "Why, it is the bait that has reeled in many hearts already, and might reel in even more-"
"Don't even think about it." Shirou placed his hand squarely over Rin's head, not squeezing or otherwise hurting her, but still making his presence known. "I accepted your meddling in my romantic life when it came to Lorelei, because of the unique circumstances, but you're not doing that with another woman."
"It wasn't just me!" Rin protested, before giving in when she realised how petulant that sounded. "I understand. Like I said before, I won't keep things from you again, not if they directly concern you."
"Good."
Clarity was important in relationships, and doubly so in situations as complicated as theirs.
"I am grateful for Rin's discretion though." Lorelei spoke up, her expression softening the tiniest bit as she looked at the black-haired girl. "It was what yielded me victory in the end, despite my loss in battle."
"You could have secured victory in all manner of ways without keeping things from me." Shirou huffed, before holding up his hands in surrender. "But again, I probably wouldn't have fought as hard as I did if I'd known your hand in marriage was the victor's reward. That is why I am not angry, this time."
Shirou did not have an easy time in general being angry with his family, and on this occasion, even more so, but he still made his point. In true romance, there was no place for lies.
They then proceeded to make it into a cozy and enjoyable evening, just generally having a good time as they talked about whatever came to mind whilst watching tv and playing games, both of the board variety and the digital sort.
They didn't discuss Shirou's massive business empire which was rapidly growing beyond his control, or any Magecraft-related topics, or the politics that dominated the landscape of the Clocktower. Just for tonight, they wanted to forget about all their troubles.
With one exception.
Family.
"My mother wishes to meet you." Lorelei informed Shirou in a very matter-of-fact tone, right after she finished trouncing him and Rin at chess.
"Guhk?!" The redhead had been in the middle of drinking a glass of soda when she dropped that bomb on him. The liquid went down square, nearly entering his lungs, leaving him spluttering and coughing.
"Oh, you're at the stage where you want to introduce your boyfriend to your parents?" Sakura beamed in delight that Lorelei wanted to take that step, firmly patting Shirou on the back. "How wonderful!"
"Just my mother. My father died years ago."
"O-Oh, h-how… ehm, how horrible?"
Usually, dead fathers weren't a good thing, but Lorelei looked so cool and calm that Sakura was genuinely unsure what to say.
"It was not horrible. I didn't really know him. His death only meant that it fell to me to become Vice Director, which I did."
"Ah, I see." Sakura stilled, before she nodded, quite experienced herself with complicated or outright bad families, two of them even.
"R-Really? You didn't feel anything else at all?" Ayako still had trouble comprehending though that some families just hated each other, or that there were parents who didn't give two hoots about their children.
"…Sadness, perhaps." Lorelei mused, which made Ayako perk up. "His death meant I had to take his position in London, which separated me from my mother. I only see her rarely now, which saddens me a bit."
"Right, in that way." Recognising that Lorelei truly did not care about her father, if that man could even be called such, Ayako gave up, taking the fact that she did obviously care about her mother as a small victory. "What about your mom? How did she take your father's death?"
"She was glad. She never liked him." Lorelei replied, still in that neutral, conversational tone. "Their marriage was one of convenience only."
"…I think I'll just keep quiet from now on." Feeling like she was continuously stabbing at open wounds, Ayako ducked her head and closed her mouth, flushed a slight red in embarrassment.
Shirou however did quite the opposite. He pushed the table standing between him and Lorelei aside, reached out, and grabbed hold of her, turning her around before he pulled her into his chest, placing the back of her head on his shoulder.
"Shirou?" Lorelei blinked, though she made no effort to push him away. "What are you doing?"
"Holding you." He replied, squeezing her tightly in his embrace.
"There is no need to do that."
"There is."
He paid no heed to her half-hearted protests, only hugging her tighter, as if to melt their bodies together. It was proven that such hugs had a calming effect, and increased closeness in various ways, which was exactly what Lorelei needed, in his humble opinion.
She might disagree, but he didn't care. He just did his best to comfort her.
"And about your mother, I'd be glad to meet her whenever there is time." He added. He'd now met the mothers of all his girlfriends except Lorelei's, so it was time to even the score.
"My mother is not a particularly busy woman."
"Good. I am not a particularly busy man either, at the moment at least. As long as the Grail War hasn't started yet, I should have time aplenty."
"Actually, I think the Grail War might have started already." Ayako suddenly said, sitting up straight as her face became a few shades paler.
"What? Why?" Shirou turned towards her at once, his body seizing up together with Lorelei's.
"Why do you say that? What have you seen?" Rin demanded too, shock and alarm eroding her manners.
Ayako did not reply verbally however. Instead, she pointed at Rin's hand.
All other eyes in the room followed her pointing finger, and they all gasped, gulped, or grimaced at what they saw.
Because there, on the back of Rin's hand, faint but undeniable, were three Command Seals.