Turning back the clock a bit
"POLICE! OPEN UP!"
'Oh shit, did they find out about the stolen jewels?' That was Yvette's immediate first thought at hearing the words police.
[Of all things you did I believe those were the less notable felonies Master.] Despite Yvette keeping her thoughts to herself Hector spoke to her as if he could read her mind.
[Shut up, Lancer!] Yvette screamed back as loud as she could inside her mind, making Hector grab and rub his forehead in annoyance. [I will not be arrested, after all I can't marry my professor in prison.]
"Ahem. I'm coming, wait up!" Clearing her throat and getting up from her chair Yvette spoke in a hurry in fear that the policemen would try to break the door.
She rushed to the door with brisk steps before opening it.
"Hello, how can I help you, sirs?" And spoke in perfect japanese with a cutesy tone to her voice.
***
Somewhere else
"And then my son started saying that when he grows up he is gonna marry a hundred girls after dating them throughout middle school and high school. Can you believe it? A hundred! It would be a miracle if he ever finds even one with this attitude."
"Come on boss, little Rentaro-kun is just nine years old, isn't he? There is no need to be harsh. Who knows maybe he will actually pull a hundred girls and start a harem."
"Oh please. I mean he is certainly not lacking in looks, he takes after me after all, but a hundred all at the same time is a bit of a tall tale even for a son of mine."
"Well, where there's a will there is a way, so I think it's better to just let him figure things out on his own about his mmmm, well, ambitions."
Inside a barber shop a man was getting his haircut done while speaking passionately with the owner of the shop (whom he just met today for the first time) about the aspiring ambitions of the sentimental life of the barber's son.
"Alright son, I'm done. Are you really sure something this simple is enough though?" Cleaning the fallen hairs from the veil on the customer's body the barber asked to confirm his thoughts on the haircut.
"For me simple is the best, boss." Getting up from his chair the man looked at his reflection in the mirror.
His once shoulder length hair was now cut to a ruffled short, slightly messy hair that fell naturally around his head without the need of being styled neatly.
"Yeah, this definitely looks the best on me, thanks, boss."
"No, worries, I'm happy you like it." Barber nodded happily at his enthusiasm for his work, despite it being simple trim.
"Kaito!" Suddenly a female voice screamed for the barber's name from the other hand of the hallway in the shop.
"Looks like my wife needs help in the women section. Tell your friend I'm sorry he had to wait so long for your haircut to be done. Your hair was really hard to cut." The barber sighed before bidding farewell to this customer.
"Sure, take care."
Reaching the sofas near the entrance of the shop the man gave a light kick to the leg of his friend who was passing time by reading a magazine available on the table.
"Oh, you are done, Saber." The friend in question was a man who dressed like an american motorcyclist or a gangstar for some, he even wore sun glasses during this late hour inside a shop. He was Kairi Sissigou.
"Liking the cut?" Kairi asked as stretched his body.
"Yup, I feel like it's the right one for the new clothes too." Hajime grinned while tugging on his new jacket.
He was wearing a long dark coat that reached below his knees. The coat has an orange lining and orange trim along the edges, and was worn open. Under the coat, he donned on a white dress shirt, a dark suit jacket with matching dark trousers on top of black fingerless gloves for his hands and black leather shoes.
The jacket was a gift from his Master that came with their delivery together with a… few other things.
After getting the new jacket though, Saber started wondering if his aesthetic looks weren't simply way too outdated, namely his haircut.
As Kairi finished his stretchings Saber picked the enormous steel suitcase at Kairi's feet and the two went out of the shop to reach their trusty stolen Corolla. Kairi started the car's engine while Saber loaded the suitcase in the car.
"So, where to now?" Hajime asked as he hugged the humongous suitcase uncomfortably in his seat.
"To hunt those damn puppets left and right." Kairi snorted as he quickly used one hand to put a cigarette in his mouth while his other continued to drive, and as he took a lighter to light his smoke he looked at Saber from the corner of his eyes. "You can start already while I'm driving."
"Wait, you don't mean…"
"Yup, destroy all those around our riding path, get to work buddy."
"Yes, sir…" With a little cry Saber turned into spiritual form and phased through the car's roof and was now standing on its rooftop.
The clothes Kairi gave also passed through together with him, they were a simple mystic code he ordered that could pass through physical surfaces for a short while. It was made simple enough that even Saber could use it despite knowing nothing about magecraft at all. It fed on the little mana Saber emanated naturally and when he changed his material form it went alongside with him, however if he remained in a spiritual form an overly extended amount of time the clothes would regain physical form and fall to the ground.
"Well, I guess I have got to start pulling my own weight once again." A sword materialized out of thin air on his waist inside a featureless black scabbard, it was an apparently ordinary Japanese katana.
And as if feeling the danger from Saber's presence four puppets started moving in the shadows among the various building's rooftops but stayed there so as to be out of people's sight.
"Mom look, there's a man on top of that car." A child on the sidewalk started fervently tagging on her mother's hand to look at Hajime who stood on top of the passing Corolla.
FWUSH
But before the mother could turn around Saber had already disappeared from the car, like his figure had been nothing more than a mirage.
"Yes, yes sweety." The mother seeing nothing just nodded at her son without giving it too much thought.
The child, feeling the dismissal in his mother's words continued to argue due to how wronged he felt. He definitely saw a man standing on top of that car. He swore on his card collection. How could his mother not trust him?
On top of one of the surrounding building rooftops Hajime sheathed his sword back and heaved a sigh.
"Well, that's four of them. However, many more to go now?" He asked rhetorically to no one in particular as he leapt from that rooftop to another as if he was floating on the air.
Behind him, he left four puppets completely severed to pieces.
***
Same time — Shibuya
In a silence that would have cracked the most composed person, four individuals were now having a sumptuous dinner inside a first class hotel.
The group was made up of two adult men together with a young boy and girl.
"H-here are your desserts, sirs." The young worker with bob cut black hairs and freckles from this morning (to whom Gilgamesh had thrown his keys at), who also apparently doubled as a server, arrived with the desserts they ordered as he stuttered briefly on his words, probably fearing that Gilgamesh would throw something his way once again.
"Well done, server." Gilgamesh nodded at him in acknowledgement of his manners despite his awkward speech.
The boy on the other hand just silently accepted the plate presented to him.
Oh and on top of that the boy was now finally dressed once again, he now wore a long sleeved dark blue shirt and brown pants. Gilgamesh was not about to let him eat nearly stark naked after all.
The young man gave a deep bow in return before swiftly excusing himself.
"It appears I forgot the most important things at hand on my return." Gilgamesh muttered with slightly upward lips as he looked at the retreating server.
"...You forgot to throw him your keys?" Recalling what had happened that morning and the one before the boy asked to confirm, he seemed to recall him saying he wanted to try and see if he would catch it the next time as well.
"Indeed. I was curious if he would still catch it when I got a little harder on the throw. Well, I shall let him rest for tonight it seems and test him in the morning tomorrow." Gilgamesh said satisfactorily, sealing the young man's fate for the next day without his knowledge.
'What are they talking about?' Confused by their brief discussion, Sialim just slightly squinted her eyes before letting the matter gloss over her mind as it didn't appear to be anything important.
She ended up accepting the invite to dinner offered as her Servant also thought it wouldn't hurt to hear them out. Until now, all they did was just eat and the two heroes made occasional small talks.
It was pretty much a normal dinner.
'I don't know why but I'm starting to get a bad feeling out of this.'
Sialim saw Gilgamesh smiling to himself fondly at the corner of her eyes and somehow grew suspicious for no particular reason.
Unfortunately though she had no proof.
***
In another part of the city
Inside of a wealthy mansion in Tokyo, Caster was sipping on his tea as he was dressed in a traditional japanese yukata that his Master had prepared for him at his request together with a few other outfits, it was colored yellow with clouds like patterns on its fabric.
During these past few days he had been trying all kinds of different tea from the current era to satiate his curiosity about the state of the modern world.
He was sitting patiently while his Master was talking with someone over the phone, someone he did not particularly like despite having never met him.
"Didn't you say you were going to make sure the church would have stirred clear from this, old man?" The young woman whined on the phone with irritation clear in her voice. "You are clearly not upholding your part of the deal, bastard."
[Now, now, let's try to keep our composure, young miss, I can of course explain myself, there were simply some unexpected problems, nothing to worry about too much.]
"You better explain then, Zouken. Just like how I allowed you to host this war in my territory, I can also allow you to die a shitty death!" She angrily screamed on the phone, her face red as blood went to her head. "You said you would have taken care of it! So why didn't you do it?"
The young girl was furious. Tokyo was her territory, inherited by her father after his death last year.
She had originally planned to take part in the Grail War of Fuyuki however her father's premature death had brought upon all manners of trouble to the girl.
While Tokyo might not have been the best magically rich land in the country it was still one of the best.
The death of the landowner had obviously ended up attracting the hungry gazes of all manners of thieves and vultures eager to lay their claim on such a territory.
But none survive against her in the end… well, all but one of them.
However, it still took her a considerable amount of time to kill them all.
By the time she got rid of the last of them the Grail War in Fuyuki was already over but even it had still been in full swing by a day more or a day less, she knew better than anyone else how foolish trying to go in there when she didn't even have a Servant of her own would be.
Which was one one of the reasons she decided to strike this deal.
[That was indeed my intention. But they picked a terrifying amount of executors and some of them are particularly tricky to deal with, one of these is especially so in particular even among them.] Zouken said from the other line calmly with a hint of being slightly crest fallen by the complication, but the girl grit her teeth as she knew it was bullshit.
[If it is so bothersome for you, don't be so down. Shirou can always take care of it with his partner, they will depart in a bit.]
"Tch. Shut up, it's way too slow like that and you're far too late. I will take care of it, they are already approaching the city anyway so Caster can use his puppets." She scoffed at his placating tone even more so than before with her haughty tone that clearly looked down on him.
[Ther–]
Zouken tried to continue speaking but the young woman just hung the phone back and turned to her Servant.
"Caster, how many puppets can we use to get rid of them?"
"Let's see." Caster stroked his beard as he looked at the map of the city they had on the table marred with cone shaped wooden pieces in various parts of it. "They are about thirty people, no, it's exactly thirty three in number my apologies, anyway I believe for this number of force we should deploy around two hundred and forty seven of them for assuring their death with certainty, I have never met this church people but they appear to have a certain level of reputation from the information I was provided by the grail so employing this much should be reasonable."
"That many? Wouldn't it be a problem if the other Masters noticed such a big movement?" The girl seemed to cool down her temper after hearing the number of forces suggested by Caster.
They had much more than just two hundred of them of course but still…
"Yes, it would." Caster nodded, confirming her worries.
"Then shouldn't we deploy less of them? Your puppets are incredibly powerful by themselves and the priest would be outnumbered either way."
"We could do that but the priests might get away if they have a solid teamwork or plan of action." Caster nodded again.
"Yeah but if a Servant gets involved wouldn't it turn out worse than that?" She tilted her head with a raised eyebrow as she was feeling like she was losing track of where her servant was going.
"It would indeed." Caster nodded once again for the nth time, sipping from his tea.
"Then why?" She asked with a scrunched expression as she was starting to lose her patience.
"Then why would you take this risk, Master?" Caster just asked back with a simple smile on his face.
"Humph. It's because of that useless old man."
"Is it now? He is certainly the reason why this situation is occurring but why are you the one so intent on fixing it?" His smile didn't diminish as it instead grew ever more mischievous.
"...What are you implying?" She looked at him with a deadly expression.
"Well, what could a poor deceased old man like me know? All I know is that all it took was the mention of some dashing young man to make you scream you would just do it instead, isn't that right?"
Saying that Caster earned a kick from under the low table by his crouching Master.
"Shut up. This has nothing to do with him!" The woman hissed with a faint blush slightly marring her cheeks. "And you never even met him so what would you know?"
Caster's smile turned from mischievous to warm as he whistled in his mind about this youthful passion, however this did not mean he was not suspicious of this so called Shirou. He worked with Zouken whom Caster absolutely did not have even a single grain of salt worth of trust, not that his master did, she also didn't trust that shady old man unlike the kind old man Caster was.
"Well, I am simply doing the same thing as you. I am taking a bet, just for a different reason I suppose." Caster scratched the back of his head as he rubbed his shin. "This is a war after all."
"..." His Master's blush disappeared like it had been nothing but a lie as she listened to his words in silence.
"It has been more or less three days and because of us no one made a single move during the night, someone is probably either searching for someone to ally themselves with or to destroy my puppets by now, maybe even both." Caster's smile was now replaced by a more serious yet still incredibly kind expression, like a teacher imparting a lecture to his student.
"Wouldn't you know that already from observing them?"
"I can track their movements but I cannot read their minds." Caster raised his index finger as he shook it left and right in denial before tapping on his temple with it. "What I can do though is try to think of what they would do in such a situation and try to move in advance."
"Have you ever heard of a man called Sun Tzu?" Caster asked.
"The author of The Art of War?"
"Yes, he was a man who walked the earth a few centuries before this old man. One of his most famous lines was: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
And from a book I received long ago from a certain figure when I was still living called the Way of The Taping there was one line that I found similar to this one for one aspect, it was that: Only by knowing one's own faults can one know the faults of the world.
Do you know what that similarity was?"
Caster asked his Master, despite the seemingly philosophical nature of the conversation, Caster's seriousness somehow had faded as he recited the citations of these books he once read. His expression seemed to turn to a more serene expression as he waited for the answer to the question he posed to his young Master.
The young woman took a second to ponder on her answer as she bit her lower lip in ponderation, as the heir to a magus family with a not so insignificant history she had obviously read all manners of historical texts from many different ethnicities and countries to broaden her knowledge.
Despite not being confident enough to boast about remembering both those books to perfection that was not required to her right now, especially when she was already provided with the essential lines, all she had to do was interpret them and not before long she opened her mouth to answer despite a hint of hesitation marring her voice.
"...Ignorance is the root of danger… something like that?"
"Exactly, that is quite a bright answer Master." Caster nodded in appreciation to the young lady before him.
"I know myself fairly well and you know yourself despite still finding out about yourself more and more as any youth…" The old man brought the palm of his hand to his chest as if trying to gently pat his own heart.
"However we know so little of our enemies, that is why our next step has to be a bet. A bet that will help us in getting to know them better."
***
"No, sirs I'm sure the deeds are all perfectly in order, I'm just not done moving all my stuff inside so I simply don't have them with me yet."
Yvette was frantically trying to convince the police officers of her innocence in her renting of the bar. She tried to talk with them at first but when they brought documents up she gave up and tried to use suggestion magecraft on the both of them.
Which failed due to the apparently strong sense of duty these two cops had to make sure that everything was alright in their city to the utmost of their abilities.
'Why did I have to find the probably only two cops in the world who give a fuck about their job so much, right now!? Where are these people in London?' Yvette could only curse to herself in self rightful indignation.
"Listen young lady, how about you come with us to the station? We will resolve all of these with a few calls to the original landowner and everything else after we retrieve their contacts."
'Then why didn't you do that already?' She wanted to rebuke the cop but chose otherwise. 'I guess there's no avoiding it… unless I hypnotize them even more heavily, that is hehehehehe.'
"Fine, let's go to the station then, sirs. I swear I'm innocent anyway." Yvette smiled heartedly as she agreed to their proposal.
"Then if you will miss, and you as well sir."
"Come on uncle, let's go." Yvette followed the cops to the bar entrance and beckoned to Lancer affectionately, also calling him uncle, which made Hector's face cringe quite a bit.
As the police officer opened the door Yvette put her hand on her star shaped eyepatch as she grabbed it and then removed it.
"Sirs." Being suddenly called out by the girl the two cops turned around only to notice that the girl they were escorting standing a little distance away from them, now lacking her eye cover, what was behind was a glass colored mineral seemingly transparent yet foggy in a way that made it seem like the inside was shining from the inside. The stone was inside her eye socket like a fake eye.
"Sirs." The girl repeated.
The two men suddenly flinched, suddenly bringing them out of their dozing realizing that they had been staring at it quite intently yet the two of them couldn't find anything strange in it, it was quite beautiful after all.
Almost like it was begging to be stared at.
"I am so happy for you two outstanding police men to be coming here and checking that everything was alright with a poor little girl like me…" The girl spoke in a soft, pitiful and yet grateful tone and yet in yet in the cops ears her voice sounded so distant, like a whisper from the distance.
What caught their attention more was once again that glassy eye… shining so brightly.
Like a piece of blue glass under the moon.
"___my uncle also must_____However there is no need to worry_____I am___you two__" Her words came and yet irregularly, it wasn't that she wasn't speaking at times but her voice simply seemed to come and go like the wind.
So if the wind was something that was sometimes there and sometimes not. Then her voice was simply:
Sometimes speaking in their ears and…
Sometimes speaking in their heads.
***
"Well, we confirmed things and everything seems to be in place. We thank you for your kind cooperation to the both of you."
Outside the bar one of the two officers removed his hat and bowed in the direction of Yvette who stood at the bar's entrance waving them off with a smile on her face.
"Sure. Bye bye misters~."
"No! I insist that I must apolo–" The police man continued bowing multiple times as he apologized again and again in quick succession.
[You should have done that from the start.] Hector spoke from inside her head, scoffing.
[Well, sorry Mister but this eye costs me quite a pretty penny in terms of magical energy and I wanted to avoid using it if possible.] Yvette retorted, displeased with his attitude.
The artificial mystic eye she just utilized was made out of a moonstone mineral and was one of the most inefficient types of artificial mystic eye she had.
It was a mystic eye of enhancement that charmed everyone who made eye contact with the user.
It was inherently stronger than a suggestion spell enacted though modern magecraft so it worked despite her previous attempt with her magecraft having failed on the two cops.
As she continued to wave her hand Yvette slowed down her movement as she started to look at her surroundings.
'There's barely anybody… I guess that's a Monday night for you.'
As the two cops reached their car Yvette skipped steps on the stairs to reach them.
"Hey misters, one last thing please."
"Hm? What is it?" One of the two turned around as he held the door of the passenger seat open.
"I just noticed there's barely anybody compared to the previous nights, is it normal for week days here in Japan?" She asked genuinely curious.
"Empty?" The police officer asked as he gave a look at the zone around before tilting his head. "But–"
[Master, come back! Something's not right here.]
"–the streets are so crowded now though."
And that was the last thing Yvette heard before everything turned white.
That night Arawaka, a part of Tokyo that had suddenly lit up in the middle of the night, the news would report it was an accident due to a sudden gas leak in the tubatures of a building.
This however wasn't all there was to it.
This was simply the first of a series of accidents among which the people living in Tokyo would either come to know through the news or be totally unaware of.
Far from it actually after all…
The night had barely just started.
***
Hello there, i hope you all enojyed the chapter, from the next things are about to turn a bit more hectic for a while so I hope everyone will like it.