It takes a few minutes to get Cu up to speed on our situation - there's a lot to go through, with Chaldea, Hanam, Mash, Mordred, and myself all having unique problems at the moment.
"Huh. And here I had you mistaken for Saber. You really are the spitting image of your 'father', huh?" Cu says, and Mordred breaks down into the same bout of villainous laughter he did in my previous loop. "Still, to think this place had become a singularity… what a mess."
"And here we are with only one servant on our side with regular access to his Noble Phantasm!" I say with a forced laugh.
"Oi, who said I was on your side?" Caster says, his eyes narrowing.
Shit. He's closer to me than the others. Even though they're all quickly ready for battle-!
"Pfft, I'm kidding, I'm kidding!" He says with a laugh. "No need to get so tense! I mean, the Grail's obviously incredibly cursed, so it's not like there's any point in fighting for it anymore. Besides, I only went along with the summoning because I wanted a good fight in the first place - and in your current situation you guys ain't it."
"Oi, I was seriously preparing myself for death there! That wasn't funny!" I say with a strained smile. "On another note, I keep hearing about this 'Grail' thing, but I'm still pretty clueless about it, beyond the fact that there's a war over it or something. Can someone explain that to me?"
"Well, apparently someone caught the blood of Christ in a cup when he was being executed two thousand years ago, and so the cup became magic or something. For some reason or another, Father had a good number of his knights go out searching for the thing." Mordred says. "Galahad was the one who found it, but it just wound up killing him, so the search was called off."
"Wait, wait wait!" Romani yells, popping in on the holographic communicator again. "I thought Galahad got taken up into heaven, not killed!"
"...Is there a difference?"
""Yes there's a difference!"" Hanam and Romani both yell at him.
...As someone who has both been sent to another world and killed, I can confirm that the two are different.
"Anyway," Cu says, "at some point some mages created a 'Holy Grail' in Fuyuki, which was basically just a wish granting device. It summons seven servants, who fight amongst themselves to claim the thing - thus, 'Holy Grail War'."
"...But why summon them in the first place, though? Does the grail need some kind of weird blood sacrifice to do it's thing?" I say with a raised eyebrow.
"That's because the wish granting isn't actually the purpose of the ritual." Says Romani. "The real goal is to use the disturbance in the fabric of reality created when all seven servants are killed in order to hitch a ride to the Throne of Heroes - and by extension, the Root.
The whole wish-granting aspect is a bit of an unintended side-effect, really. A lot of mana is returned to the grail when each servant dies, and with enough mana all kinds of weird stuff becomes possible. That's actually how command spells work - they throw a bunch of mana at the servant to get them to do something they wouldn't otherwise be able to, or would not want to do."
"Huh. Good to know, I guess." I say. Not really sure what this 'Root' thing is, but that can probably wait. "So, what now? I mean, we're here and all, but it seems things are already wrecked. If the Grail is horribly cursed, we can't use it to repair the timeline, right?"
"Well, there's good news on that front!" says a woman I haven't seen before as she pops into the communication hologram. "We don't need to repair the timeline - to start with, the timeline isn't so fragile that something on this level could actually topple it. Singularities like this would normally be pretty easily cleaned up by the Planet's own defense mechanisms."
"It sure doesn't look like it's cleaning itself up…" I mutter.
"And that is our big clue!" the woman says with a smile. "Sustaining a Singularity like this would take either a particularly unique Noble Phantasm, or-!"
"Enough mana to imitate such an effect!" Mash exclaims. "As expected of the genius Da Vinci-chan, you've already got it figured out!" Eh? Da Vinci? As in the painter? Wasn't he a guy, though?
"Exactly! So, in that case, you won't need to use the Grail. Just removing it from the singularity should be enough - either by destroying it, or just rayshifting it out."
"So I get to pillage Father's treasures again, huh? Nice!" Says Mordred with a grin.
Oi, is this guy really a 'Heroic' Spirit?
***
"So, eliminate Saber and claim the Grail. How do we do that?" I ask. "If she beat Heracles, then I feel like going into this without a plan will get us killed."
"Hm. Well, first we've got to clean up the extras." Says Cu. "I'm not keen on getting attacked from behind by Lancer when we go to confront her, and Archer will need to be taken out before we can get to the cave where the Grail and Saber are camped out."
"...Who are Lancer and Archer, anyway?" asks Mash. "Do either of you know their true names?"
"Lancer never revealed her true name to my knowledge, but her Mystic Eyes of Petrification make me believe that she is Medusa." Says Hanam.
"...Yeah, that's a bit of a dead giveaway, huh?" I mutter. Ugh, at least I don't have to figure that part out the hard way.
"Archer's a total mystery, though. The bastard keeps pulling out Noble Phantasms that definitely don't belong to him, and he seems to have endless copies of each." Caster complains. "I've had my own foster father's sword fired at me from that bow of his at least three times in this mess of a war!"
"Caladbolg was a prototype to several Holy Swords… could that be-?" Romani asks.
"Nah, It's definitely Caladbolg. I've heard the guy use its true name. And he's also got the Shield of Ajax, and Beowulf's sword, and a whole bunch of other ones." he continues to grumble. "Well, you guys won't have to worry about it. I'll handle him. As long as Saber is busy with you guys, I should be able to finally finish the fight against him."
"That's stupidly risky, though!" I say. "Wouldn't it be better to push our numbers advantage?"
"Sure, but I've been trying to pin this guy down into a proper one-on-one all friggen war! I got summoned because I wanted to fight, and I'm gonna get my fight, dammit!" He says. "I mean, with three servants who have support from a master, you guys should be able to handle her, right? Hell, you've got the guy who killed her in your group, it shouldn't be a huge deal."
"Yeah, but what if Archer beats you and comes after us!?"
Cu laughs. "Kid, I'm the Hound of Ulster. I once held off the whole army of Connacht for three months all on my own! Even if this chump is somehow my better in combat, I can definitely stall him for a day or two."
"Well, before we get to all that, the first thing to deal with is Lancer, right?" asks Romani.
"Nope. The first thing we've got to deal with is… her." He says, pointing at Mash menacingly.
"Wait, I thought you said you were joking about fighting us!" I yell.
"No, that's not the problem, Master." Says Hanam. "The issue is…"
"...That I can't use my Noble Phantasm, right?" Mash concludes with a frown.
"That's probably right, yeah." Says Mordred. "Unless you can activate that shield, you'll just end up annihilated the moment Father gets serious. Plus, considering that Father can freely use his Noble Phantasm and I can't, I'm probably going to need Skull Guy to be doing something other than carrying Master around all fight."
"...So shouldn't you tell her the thing's True Name, then?" I ask. "You know what it is, right?"
"So you noticed, huh? You're actually pretty insightful, huh Master?" He says. Oi, 'actually'? What's that supposed to mean? "Well, I'm not telling. That guy must have had a good reason not to tell her, or he would have done it. I may have only just met shieldy here, but her personality is infinitely preferable to his!"
"Thanks, I think?" Mash says. "Anyway, if Mordred won't tell us, then how..?"
"Hm. Well, it's not the kind of thing that can be taught." Caster says, stroking his chin. "We'll just put you in a situation where you have to use it. So, no hard feelings, but I'm gonna try to kill you now, and I don't want Saber or Assassin to try to help!"
"So you were going to fight us after all!"