NO CHAPTER TOMORROW instead I published today
***
12th of April, Third day of the Holy Grail War, 17:12 一 Tokyo, Adachi Ward
The sun was still up and about in the afternoon, uncaring of the conflicts that had slowly but surely been going forward in the city of Tokyo.
But the fight in that one particular middle school was not the only thing that was gonna happen today.
The afternoon was about to end, leading the day into the night. Usually night time was to be the most dangerous and perilous time during a Holy Grail War but due to Caster's interference two whole nights went by without a single conflict, on the other hand a few battles went on during the day instead.
However, just because the night was more dangerous than expected it wouldn't stop the Masters involved from taking action forever.
"Night is coming, Master Julius. What are your orders?" A beautiful woman with a moderately ample chest and firm buttocks, adorning a pair of metal rimmed glasses with long brown hair tied in a pony tail dressed in a white buttoned shirt and black pants, politely asked the young man seated on a chair in the center of the room right before a table filled with stacks paper and a map of the entire city.
The young man was dressed in black from head to toe with a long sleeved shirt, gloves and pants that seemed to blend as if they were nearly a single piece of clothing due to their tonality being perfectly matched.
The boy, Julius, looked to be at the end of his teenage years, the only part of his body that was visible was his impassive, youthful face. He slightly turned his head to look at the woman for but a single instant, as if to acknowledge her presence, before looking back to the map of the city before him in ponderation, tapping his finger in rhythm on the table a few times.
Finally after a few seconds of silence he finally opened his mouth. "We have confirmed the presence of the mercenary Haldor after his battle yesterday and have a rough grasp of where his new hideout might be and I believe you were also quite confident in the position of that girl from the Clock Tower, I believe you said her name was Yvette, she is a student of the modern magecraft department if I recall correctly."
"Yes, her full name is Yvette L. Lehrman, she was originally a student under the department of mineralogy but changed it a year or so back, her family is well known for making artificial mystic eyes out of gemstones. We are fairly sure of her hideout due to her frequent outings in the city so we believe the location we currently have marked to possess a very high chance of being accurate." The woman quickly summarized the information needed on the other Master from what they collected thus far.
She knew that Julius, despite checking all the information they brought in at least once, was extremely fixated on eliminating Haldor as his top priority, so he might not always pay too much attention to the others unless something really worthwhile about them actually came up.
"We have no information on her Servant apart from his appearance, she habitually brings him around without dematerializing and calls him Saber in public but that was all that we could gather."
"I see." Julius nodded before looking at the location of her supposed hideout on the map. "So it's a magus that specializes in mineralogy crafts and a close ranged Servant."
"...Sir, we are still not sure if she was just putting on a cover or not so it is not unlikely for her Servant to be from another class." She gave a quick cough and tried to be more open on the result of their research in case they were wrong.
"It doesn't matter, Alicia." However he quickly interrupted her to dismiss her worries. "Whether it is a lie or not does not matter. If she was smart enough to make up a somewhat credible lie that means her Servant could at least fight in a semblance that resembles a Saber, in the other case in which her Servant is unsuited for close combat all we need to do is simply close our range."
The woman, Alicia, simply closed her mouth and didn't continue any further before she realized something else from his words. "Sir, do you actually intend to target her?"
"Isn't that obvious?" Julius asked back neutrally without even looking at her.
"My apologies, I just thought that with Haldor and his Servant now possibly injured and with their location under our radar we would have aimed for him instead."
"A wounded beast is more dangerous than a cunning one." After all, a cunning beast was smart enough to put their survival as the first and foremost priority, something one that was wounded could not afford to.
When you are certain of your own death it was the moment when you automatically became the most dangerous you could ever be. If dying becomes a certainty nothing stops you from taking the utmost sacrifices to spit on your killer after all.
And Julius was sure that Haldor would do exactly that in that very situation.
"I see. In that case how shall we proceed then?" Alicia quickly asked for the next instruction.
"Take out your phone."
"Eh?" Alicia tilted her head in clear confusion and shock. 'I-i-is he asking me for my number or something?'
Fortunately for her Julius was still turned to the map and all the training she was subjected to since a young age helped her rein in the blush that would have otherwise tinted her cheeks. Her inner turmoil even made her forget that Julius already had the number of everyone who worked in the personnel.
"...Yes sir, I got my phone." She took out a nine digit foldable phone from her back pocket barely containing the shaking of her hand.
"Good, pass it here to me." Julius said in his usual commanding voice.
"!!" Alicia's eyes nearly popped out of her sockets at that, her hand now trembling for real for a few seconds before she somehow forcefully stilled it somehow.
"...Hee– coff coff. Excuse me, my throat was a bit sore. Here Master Julius." She quickly put her phone on top of the table for him. Julius quickly picked it up and with a flick of his wrist he opened it.
"What's the password?" He asked as soon as the screen turned on.
"4707[1]!" Alicia immediately exclaimed back without stuttering, her tone a pitch too high for a normal conversation.
Quickly typing the code in the phone unlocked revealing a wallpaper of a cat stretching his back, seeing that Alicia was feeling extremely embarrassed from it but she heaved a sigh of relief when she saw that Julius didn't change his expression upon seeing it. '...Maybe he also likes cats… I should write that down.'
Meanwhile Julius opened the phone registry.
'Is he checking my calls?'
He wasn't.
Julius went to the call section and quickly digitized a number but he waited as his finger hovered before pressing the call button.
"HoOOOoooଠ໐࿁ං࿀00000." He started intoning with his throat, his voice tone changing continuously until he stopped at the one he found the most appropriate. He finally pressed the call button.
The phone squilled for a few seconds before someone picked up.
[Hello, this is the police station. What is your emergency?]
"Good evening, I would like to make an anonymous signalation."
***
Alicia could only stand still looking listless at her now broken phone, she actually wanted to cry (from getting her hopes crushed, she usually changed phones quite frequently due to her line of job). 'How did things get to this…'
Julius destroyed the phone after making the call to avoid possible problems, he could have just destroyed the SIM but alas Julius was an extremely paranoid person.
"I will procure you a change for it on the way. Arnold, prepare the teams for action. We are moving in thirty minutes and expected to make contact at any moment between seven to ten in the night." Julius told Alicia before addressing a burly man with a prominent muscled figure inside the room.
"Yes, Master Julius." The burly man larger than a fridge with short slicked back brown hair nodded respectfully before getting up and going out of the room full of monitors to make a few calls.
Also getting up from his own chair Julius looked at the still perfectly immobile Alicia before opening his mouth to speak in his usual flat tone of voice. "Come on, we will take a replacement burner phone and all the equipment for the operation in one go for efficiency."
Alicia could only stare with a stone faced expression as she responded with an elegant slight nod of the head and followed after him.
'Thirty? Thirty WHOLE minutes…Oh god.' However internally her emotional state told a completely different story from her outer stoic appearance. 'I LOVE HOLY GRAIL WARS.'
After all, Alicia might have been an assassin, electrician, plumber, cook, bodyguard, amateur magus, herbologist, non licensed surgeon, expert in mathematics, killer of magi, architect, expert in physics, non licensed physiotherapist, highly trained sniper, unofficial chess grandmaster, amateur programmer, poison specialist, mechanic, non licensed psychologist, foreign languages expert in twenty two different languages, pilot and experienced artificer of explosives.
But above all else she was a massive simp with a crush for her boss called Julius despite knowing his past.
So she was indeed loving this Holy Grail war.....if not for one thing she seemed to have apparently kicked to the corner of her mind to forget about.
Following the two of them an invincible (invisible) figure clicked her tongue in annoyance but with a hint of mirth mixed in at the scene. She was what Alicia has been doing her best to try and forget about for a while.
A bi–coff
A Servant
***
Meanwhile somewhere else in Tokyo, Roppongi
Roppongi in the Minato ward was a quartier of Tokyo known for its Roppongi Hills, the country's biggest integrated property development built by a certain tycoon, the center of the complex was a fifty four story building named after the said tycoon, the Mori Tower.
"UNO!"
And right now on the rooftop of that very building two people and a bird were playing cards. The man with long white spiky slicked back hair was the one who screamed by the way.
"Hmm." Berseker was pondering with a frown on his brows as he looked at his own cards.
"PEEP" Pierre also pondered to himself for a bit.
Then the Servant and bird shared a brief look, for but an instant they seemed to have surpassed all sorts and manners of language barriers without Haldor's help and nodded at each other.
"Plus four." Berserker said as he put his card down.
"Oh! What color?" Haldor asked, thinking he must have forgotten.
"The color doesn't matter." Beowulf said as he shook his head. "It's gonna change again anyway."
"...Wait, you don't mean–" Suddenly realising the meaning behind his words Haldor turned with a horrifying expression to Pierre.
"PEEP PEEP PEEP" Said the bird sagely as he picked a card from his wooden card holder with his beak and put it on the pile, it was another plus four. He then pecked at the green color to signal the color change.
Haldor on the other stared at the scene horrified.
"Fuck!" He ended up swearing. His rotten luck never failed him indeed.
The game went on for a while and the cards in Haldor's hand never decreased after his previous call. In the end Pierre won as he finished his cards first with Beowulf following afterwards.
This was their eight match of the day at UNO.
Pierre won all eight but that was not something that would surprise Haldor, he knew his pal always won, he had a one hundred percent win rate and never once lost in his life.
He was the strongest after all.
What irked him is that whatever it was UNO or any other table game they played he never defeated Berserker as well. This wounded him in a way way deeper than he could have ever imagined.
He could have tried to take a sudoku each for him and Berserker and try to win at that but what satisfaction would he ever gain at beating a man from the sixth century or around there in a mathematical game. Even worse yet he would not take the risk in the off chance he somehow lost at that too, his luck was that rotten after all.
"Bah!" Scoffing to himself Haldor just picked up a boxed juice from his back pack and picked the paper straw before stabbing it on the aluminum and starting to drink from it.
"What a sore loser we have here." Beowulf said humorously to Pierre with a smile on his face looking at his sulking Master.
His wounds had already been treated and he was now finishing his recovery, so to pass some time they had decided to play some games. However not everyone had fun apparently.
But it is what it is.
Pierre on his end just nodded vigorously at him in affirmation. Of course, Pierre, as the strongest, could never sympathize with the loser who lost every single time.
"Thanks for the compliment, bastards." Haldor said grumply as he stopped sucking from his straw.
In the distance the slow was slowly starting to show its first signs of receding and would soon set. And thus night will come.
It has already been over an entire day since their fight with Saber and his Master, while the fight has been hazardous they still managed to come out of it without any major loss, only a few dead gangsters.
Additionally, after this battle the bond between Berserker and his Master has certainly made a great leap of improvement but not everything was perfect.
'This can't go on any further.' Haldor looked at the city from their advantage point, they were now so high up that everything might as well have looked smaller than an ant. The sight was breathtaking but that didn't lower Haldor's dissatisfaction.
'Just coming here we had to get rid of so many puppets before I could start treating Berserker and now there are already more of them that took their place. This is just too annoying.'
"Hey guys…" Haldor said wanting to address the situation but suddenly he became hesitant as he trailed off with his words out of nowhere.
His face suddenly scrunching up like a greek statue.
"PEEP?"
"What is it, Master? Is there a problem?"
His two companions asked simultaneously at his words.
"..."
"..."
"..."
But then he did not answer, instead he remained silent and so did the other two making the atmosphere quickly turn awkward as they stared at each other wordlessly.
"JUST SAY SOMETHING, DAMN YOU!" Beowulf screamed, having had enough of the unnerving silence.
"...I'm sorry, good fellows. We shall talk later…" Finally, with his expression still like a stone carved statue, Haldor spoke in a serious, level headed tone.
"Why?" Berserker asked, tilting his head obliquely. Pierre also did the same with his own mirroring his gesture.
"I fear…" Haldor started with the look in his eyes turning even more serious than before.
Berserker had never seen his Master get this serious before.
"That I really need to go take a shit right now, sorry. We'll talk later."
***
At a certain bar where someone forgot that they had better things to do than waste their time
"Haaaaaa, I meant that if you ever had anything that you REALLY wanted maybe you would be interested." Sialim said after a long sigh, trying to dumb down the concept as much as she possibly could, her face still serious but her eyes were actually starting to get red from the blood flowing through her capillaries as she stared unblinkingly at the boy who was still only in his underwear despite how much time had passed since they woke up.
"Yeah, but I just don't really want anything right now." Came a flat response, one that had pretty much been repeated through slightly different variations for a few hours now.
"...Are you doing this on purpose?" Finally Sialim couldn't take it anymore and asked bluntly to the boy, both of them still keeping perfectly calm expressions, save for the quivering of the girl's right brow and eyelash.
'Or are you simply just retarded…' She even asked herself internally without externalizing it.
On her left Archer was covering his face with the palm of his hand from second hand embarrassment from looking at the two of them having such a dumb conversation for hours.
She had been trying to make him understand the point of her question after understanding that the boy seemed abnormal in his thinking by his answers, but she made no progress whatsoever.
On the other hand Gilgamesh was feeling damn good right now. He felt so refreshed and happy that the boy was making someone else annoyed as hell by his antics that he felt like he was on literal cloud nine. The world really revolved around him, otherwise how could all his efforts on the boy have been so promptly repaid by making someone else suffer from his dullness this soon.
Their questioning had been the most pointless conversation he had ever seen in his entire life. After all, no matter how she phrased it the boy couldn't even entertain the thought of wishing for something for himself in the future.
Someone who has never wanted anything their whole life simply cannot just imagine suddenly wanting something.
'She most likely refuses that such a human could exist so she has been ignoring the obvious despite knowing deep down. But it just makes this all the more entertaining to watch.' Gilgamesh was sure the girl asked if he was doing it on purpose just to try to grasp at every last straw at this point.
She really seemed to take that notion as an insult apparently.
"Why would I do it on purpose?" And of course he asked right back, totally missing the point of her question.
'Please at this point just tell me you are retarded or autistic instead… I can live with that at least.' Sialim was growing extremely tired from this long talk she had with someone who might as well have just been a moving wall with a creepy stare.
"I give up, this is pointless." In the end this was all she could say in response
"If it was useless then maybe we shouldn't have had this conversation in the first place." On his part the boy offered a piece of his infinitely vast wisdom.
'Thank you very much Sherlock, I would have never guessed.'
Was what Sialim would have wanted to say but her professionalism prevented her to, thus keeping it all on the inside of her mind.
Save for a slight twitch of her left brow behind her monocle, which Archer had previously recovered for her at the school, the rest of her appearance left nothing to show of her annoyance.
An impeccable poker face.
One that nothing could ever–
"Oh wait, are you angry?"
–break…..up until he asked that question when he saw the girl remaining silent.
"No." Sialim replied flatly.
'I am furiously angry.' But her face somehow seemed to grow more and more hostile despite her expression being the same as before.
"Ok." But the boy was unaware of it. This type of emotional expression was way too advanced for his understanding.
On their part the two spectating adults were doing their best to not laugh out loud.
Archer turned into spiritual form to make his laughter soundless and Ruler was giving a smile that spoke volumes about what he was holding inside louder than any word or action ever could.
'I should arrange situations like this more often.' Gilgamesh was having so much fun he was actually already planning to try to make as many people as possible suffer like Sialim was right now.
'The problem is that I don't know what kind of people the other masters might be.' He was pondering this one little problem in his thinking though, he felt like an easy solution was there he just had to wait for the right moment.
He was looking at it after all.
"I believe we have wasted more than enough time. It's already late in the afternoon so I would rather retire for the rest of the day." The girl said to Gilagmesh, clearly done with talking with his Master.
"There is no need to hurry now is there? You already spent so much time here anyway, why don't you join us for dinner instead?" Gilgamesh offered with unusual kindness.
'I really needed a baby sitter after all.'
***
At the same time
BOOM
An explosion overtook an entire section of a construction site where a new apartment complex was to be constructed.
From the smoke and ashes pieces of metal like charred wood flew around due to the aftermath of the explosion.
"How many did we get, Master-chan?"
"Give or take around five of them, I guess?"
From a cemetery not too far off in the distance (relatively speaking) of the site two asian men were surveying the building by looking at it with a pair of binoculars for each of them while hiding behind a stack of sand bags arranged like a wall.
The construction site they made exploded was loaded with some let's call it special C4 that Kairi had hid inside the previous night waiting to bait a few of the annoying puppets looking at their hideout and destroy them in one go.
The plan had succeeded flawlessly.
Saber was also nearly fully recovered by now thanks to all the treatments Kairi had been administering him for the entire day.
"So, what are we blowing up next?" Hajime said excitedly, eagerly asking for their next target. Blowing up an entire building from a distance was unexpectedly funnier than he would have ever thought.
"Nothing else unfortunately. It would attract too much attention, next up–." Kairi had to pour water on his enthusiasm as he patted his stomach to feel if the inner layer armor inside his shirt was in place before pulling out his shotgun and loading it.
"–It's our turn."
Saber could only look at his Master display in awe. 'He really looks cool when he loads his weapons…Hold up.'
"Wait, what do you mean by our turn? I'm still a recovering patient who had suffered grievous injuries." However he suddenly grew defensive of his alleged participation in said operation.
At which Kairi just smiled back.
"All the more reason to get the exercise to get back in shape, don't you think so too?"
"Master-chan." Saber grabbed his heart as if in extreme pain. "How could you betray me like this? I thought we were friends, when did you turn into such a slave driver now? Also, wasn't the plan to stay here and do nothing?"
"Sorry, Saber. But I feel like we really need to start doing something about all these puppets, you probably do as well, don't you?" Kairi gave his Servant an apologetic smile before offering an explanation. "Also I said until night comes so I didn't lie and that was also to fight at your one hundred percent which you don't need to deal with the puppets around here. Come on now, our delivery is coming soon."
Kairi then nudged him to follow him with his hand and Hajime could only sigh in surrender as he got up on his feet to go after him.
"Fine." He quickly materialized his sword and unsheathed it.
Twenty seven or so minutes later they were done with the puppets around the cemetery. They would probably be replaced by other puppets soon but at least for a short while they would have a bit more privacy.
In the distance the police officers were surveying the construction site that exploded a while ago, but they would find no evidence on who was responsible, Kairi was thorough after all.
At the same time a courier truck was approaching from the distance.
"Is it our's?" Saber asked his master while yawning.
"I hope so, It would be very awkward otherwise after all." Kairi smiled as he pulled out a cigarette, at least everything seemed to be going well for the two of them.
***
21:23 — In a certain underground Jazz Bar
The door of the bar opened as Yvette and her boomer– coff mentally middle aged Servant made their way back inside after another busy day.
Hector put the bags he was carrying on the long counter and then went for the fridge to recover something to drink for himself. If your life was hard enough by itself and on top of that you had to deal with one hell of a crazy teenage girl, then alcohol was most definitely the solution to most of your problems.
"Drunkhard old man." Yvette said in a haughty tone as she plopped on one of the sofas.
"Haaaaaa." Hector gave a long tired sigh at her words. "Why am I catching insults for everything I do?"
"Humph you should know it yourself, blee~." Yvette harrumphed in playful discontent as she stuck out her tongue.
'I swear she is way beyond my understanding.' Hector didn't ponder on his moody Master and just got back to drinking his beer. He had another long night before him to prepare for.
"I swear you teenagers are really such a drag." He lamented.
"A drag? ME!? Watch that language, geezer, did you kiss your wife with that mouth? It is uncouth to call a beautiful budding flower beauty like me a drag."
"If you are a so called beautiful budding flower then that is the lowest beauty bar I've ever heard of." He blurted rhetorically.
"Oh please, of course it is, this is an underground bar, Saber." She countered. "The bar is literally low already. Hehehehe, bar and low, did you get that? That was so good right? You should try to keep up, old man."
"That was easily the worst joke I have ever heard in my life and one that only an old granny or grandpa would make, I guess I misjudged your inner age Master. You are an old lady on the inside it seems." Hector however smiled as he took a swig at his bottle and laughed.
That suddenly shut her up.
Yvette could only wordlessly stare back in shock at Hector's rebuttal, and looking back at her own joke it truly was terrible… like a dad joke, definitely one that an old folk would make and not a cheerful, young and beautiful soon to be concubine of the easily hottest teacher ever found in London like the one she was.
He got her good this time.
"You damn geezer!!! This is all YOUR fault!" Of course to counter attack Yvette chose the spear head tactic of all women, being unreasonable.
"How is it my fault now?" Hector pointed at himself with an incredulous expression as Yvette approached him in strides ready to slap him on the shoulder.
KNOCK KNOCK
Yvette froze mid-step and Hector slowly lowered the bottle in his hand.
They looked at each other. Then, in perfect sync, they tilted their heads slightly toward the door.
"…That didn't trigger anything." Yvette said, slightly taken aback.
"No fluctuation from your bounded field?" Hector asked back.
"Nope~" She answered, shaking her head trying to act all cute.
"So…" She continued after a beat, lips curling into a mischievous smile, she was actually hoping for something exciting after all. "Either it's someone very rude, very brave–"
"–or very normal." Hector finished trying to pour cold water on her excessive enthusiasm despite his vigilance.
"Oh come on, who could possibly be normal and come here?" She said in barely masked anticipation.
KNOCK KNOCK
"POLICE! OPEN UP!"
"..."
"..."
***
Hello, hope you enjoyed
¹Fun fact: Alicia's code is the word count of this chap
If you liked the chapter please leave some thoughts on it.
Maybe even a powerstone or two
[1] it's the word count for this chap lol