“Asuka, are you okay?” asked Chisato with concern.

  She and Asuka, as well as Tamamo and Aife, were patrolling the center-west part of the city, with a focus on the riverbanks and the single, rge red metal bridge that allowed commuting between the two parts of Fuyuki City.

  “…I’m fine.” said Asuka, sighing.

  “Are you sure? You seem pretty out of it. Which can be dangerous when one of the opposing Masters is into sniping.

  “Yes… It’s just, Akeno’s mother, Shuri, asked me if I was willing to let her adopt me.”

  “Oh…” Chisato fell silent for a while as they headed for the bridge. “I think that’s worth seriously considering. And I’m getting a bit envious, I admit. I don’t have any memory of what it’s like to have a mother. I’ve been dropped into a state orphanage almost as soon as I was born, because of my heart issues. Takina also doesn’t, I’m sure.”

  Asuka blinked as she thought about something.

  “How about you ask Akeno about yourself and Takina? Maybe Shuri would be willing to gain more than one adopted daughter.”

  “All of us, sharing the same st name?” wondered Chisato, a smile slowly growing on her face. “… well, we’re all going to join Noah’s harem anyway, so we’ll all be a big family. But it being official would be kinda nice…”

  “Master, one person who fits your description of Miwa is about five hundred meters ahead, heading for the bridge. A female Servant is accompanying her. I didn’t get close enough for them to sense me.” said Aife to Asuka, returning from her scouting ahead.

  “Great! Let’s go!” excitedly said Chisato, breaking to a light run.

  “I’m messaging the others.” nodded Asuka, following her with her smartphone in hand. Aife and Tamamo both materialized.

  They had crossed most of the distance to the bridge, and they started to get a good view on it, when they heard the repeated sounds of bdes impacting each other. A fight had just started.

  Chisato and Asuka blinked when they saw who was fighting. Two Servants with the same face, hair and hairstyle were fiercely cshing in the middle of the bridge, one with a blue and metal pte outfit wielding an invisible sword, and the other with a fancy red dress with golden epaulettes, using a crooked red great sword.

  Miwa turned toward them as she heard them coming and tensed, a hand on the hilt of her katana.

  “Hey, Miwa!” grinned Chisato as she waved a hand. “Did you manage to summon twins, but they don’t get along?”

  “She is not my twin!” angrily yelled the Servant dressed in blue as she stepped back, taking some distance to reconsider the situation. Two new Servants and Masters had come, and they seemed to be on friendly terms with the one she was fighting.

  “Some beautiful people have come! Umu, this Emperor will accept you as Imperial handmaidens.” grinned the Servant dressed in red.

  Miwa rexed a little when she understood that Chisato and Asuka didn’t intend to use the opportunity to attack her. She was about to greet them back, when she noticed several bullets headed her way. Instantly adopting a Iai stance, she managed to cut every bullet before they reached her body.

  “Whoa whoa whoa!” protested Chisato as she violently contorted her body to avoid more bullets that she had detected thanks to her Acute Senses ability. She, too, was being targeted.

  “Assassin, cover me!” shouted Asuka as she activated her Red Empress.

  The blue Servant redoubled her efforts to defeat the red one, but they seemed both about equally matched.

  “Miwa, do you mind if we get involved? You opponent is firing at us.” asked Chisato.

  “Be my guest.” shrugged Miwa, welcoming the opportunity to observe her two rivals and their Servants in action. She was warily sharing her attention between Asuka, progressively getting wrapped up in a big red armor, and the direction from which the bullets had come.

  “Is your Servant the one in red, or in blue?” asked Chisato to be sure.

  “The red one.”

  “Okay!”

  Chisato has already spotted the sniper who had fired at her, a woman with bck hair crouching behind a red steel beam, up in a maintenance ptform on the other side of the suspended bridge. She jumped on one of the massive steel cables holding the bridge and ran on it at the speed of a horse at full sprint, knife and gun in hand.

  With a finger, she made certain her gun was set on paralyzing shots.

  Asuka was done equipping her Red Empress, and she made a powerful jump, assisted by rocket thrusters on her back, to bypass the Red and Blue Servants, while Tamamo and Aife helped Red Saber corner Blue Saber. Her thermal sensors had already spotted the two snipers, a woman on the bridge and a man on top of a building near the riverbank, and, according to the pn they had discussed previously, Asuka put herself in charge of catching Kiritsugu Emiya. Her Red Empress, with its not-quite-magical AT-Field and armored exterior, was uniquely suited to counter Kiritsugu's Origin Bullets. At worst, the AT-field would get damaged and turn itself off, and the physical amor should shrug off any bullet without a scratch.

  But as Asuka turned the corner of the building to cut off Kiritsugu’s retreat before he could get away, she got a bad surprise. A ball of white light was thrown at her from the side, and when it reached her, the ball burst into a multitude of luminescent white strings, bypassing her AT-field to ensnare her armor.

  “What the hell?” shouted Asuka, fighting against the resilient strings. She eventually managed to free herself, but the woman with long white hair who had fired the white ball and Kiritsugu had fled by the sewers, and her Red Empress was too bulky to follow them. She considered for a second using her smaller body armor and taking a rifle from her inventory but discarded the idea. She wouldn’t be able to free herself from another string ball with only her own body’s strength, and it would be giving a dangerous opponent too many advantages to fight in a confined space with only limited protection.

  With a sigh, Asuka returned back to the bridge.

  Chisato waved at her, one hand holding the body of a woman with bck hair over her shoulder, and the blue Servant had already been subdued, one of Akeno’s colrs around her neck. When she had tried to charge her Noble Phantasm, positioning herself so that the attack would be unleashed in the direction of the river instead of the city, but Aife had appeared on her back like a ghost, and snapped the colr close around her neck before she could react.

  Bell and Beowulf, as well as Darkness and Medb, appeared running from a side street, and slowed down as they took in the situation.

  “Kiritsugu and Irisviel both managed to escape in the sewers.” sighed Asuka as she joined the others. But she kept her Red Empress active, as a precaution.

  “You reprobates!” spat the captive Servant, furious, as she tried to remove her colr. “Are you proud of defeating me this way?”

  “Says the Servant whose Master who just tried to snipe us without exposing himself.” snorted Asuka. She knew about the difference of opinions between Artoria and Kiritsugu and didn’t mind exploiting it. Artoria's expression twitched in outrage, but Asuka ignored it. “You seem to have missed the ‘War’ part of the Holy Grail War. You think this whole thing is about duels? Or that we fight for something as egocentric as pride or honor? Being able to form alliances is part of any war, and you can only bme your Master for not doing the same.”

  “Umu!” nodded the Red Saber. “The valor of a Master relies not only on their battle prowess, but also on diplomacy and stateship!”

  “You must be Artoria Pendragon! It’s nice to meet you!” grinned Chisato after she carefully id the unconscious woman on the ground.

  “…How did you find out my true name?”

  “…That’s a bit complicated.” Turning to Miwa, who was still maintaining a wary posture, she nodded.

  “Miwa, you and Genos are the only ones among us who have not accepted Akeno’s leadership yet. Can you surrender to her peacefully when she comes? She should be on her way.“

  “Akeno-san has defeated you all?" wondered Miwa. "I remember Asuka looking down on her.”

  “Hey! I’m about as strong as she is! If it was her alone, the fight might had gone my way, but… I was stupid and challenged both Akeno and Chisato simultaneously.”

  Miwa looked at the collection of Servants and strong Masters around her, and knew resistance was futile. She released the hilt of her katana and straightened her posture.

  “I understand. As you said, this is a war, not a duel, and I do not stand a chance one against five. So I surrender.”

  “Nice! Welcome to the team, Miwa. Akeno and Tamamo are spoiling us with great food! Who is your Servant? She’s beautiful.” asked Chisato.

  Red Saber gnced at Miwa, who nodded.

  “I am Nero Cudius, the Emperor of Rome. I gratefully accept your praise and worship!”

  "…Worship might be a bit far, but… Why do you have the same face as Artoria? Are you sure you're not sisters or retives?" asked Asuka.

  "I'd like to know about that, too." grumbled Artoria, gring at Nero.

  “Yet another legendary figure who turns out to be a woman.” muttered Asuka.

  “Master should not call other Servants beautiful when she has me.” chided Tamamo, giving the impression of a housewife scolding her husband for looking at others.

  “Yes, yes. Your tail is the fluffiest of them all. I wouldn’t give you up for the world.” instantly nodded Chisato, which seemed to appease her Servant.

  Akeno and Rin reached them, accompanied by Britomart. Scathach was still on observation duty.

  After a quick introduction, Akeno looked at Artoria, who was now mentally preparing herself to suffer torture or something.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, Artoria Pendragon.” smiled Akeno. “I am Akeno Himejima, and the leader of our group. It’s a pity Kiritsugu and Irisviel managed to escape."

  “What does it matter to you? With me captive, they can’t take part in the Holy Grail War anymore. You should leave them alone, and release that woman as well.”

  Akeno gnced at Maiya, who had yet to regain consciousness.

  “I am not sure someone as devious and determined as Kiritsugu Emiya intends to give up that easily. Releasing Maiya, at the very least, might not be out of the question, but not right away. Let’s first go home, and we’ll discuss it.”

  Artoria nodded, understanding that she didn’t have a choice, with the colr sealing her powers, and several Servants keeping a close eye on her. Since she was a special case, with her true body being unconscious on the Other Side of the World, she couldn’t dematerialize like other Servants could.

  Akeno picked up Maiya in a princess carry after being certain she was disarmed, and the procession of Masters and Servants headed home.

  But when they finally reached the Tohsaka Residence, an unpleasant surprise awaited them.

  Sakura was gone.

  …

  All the Servants and Masters, with the exception of Akeno and Britomart, immediately spread out, hoping to find Sakura before anything happened to her.

  Akeno prepared some traditional tea and served a cup to Britomart, Artoria and Maiya. The tter two watched her warily.

  “There is no poison or drug in the tea. I am not the kind to resort to such crude methods.”

  “What do you want with us?” bluntly asked Maiya.

  “…Ultimately, my goal is to save this world. Maiya, you should be able to contact Kiritsugu Emiya, right?” asked Akeno as she gave Maiya her smartphone back.

  “Maybe.”

  Akeno rolled her eyes at Maiya’s hostile attitude.

  “Please call him, so that he won’t worry too much about your treatment, and for something else. I wish to speak to him and Irisviel today at noon, in a public pce. I will not tell you where until just fifteen minutes before, as I do not want that idiot to pnt bombs or something and murder civilians. As long as they do not try anything stupid, I can vouch for his and Irisviel’s safety. After that meeting, you will be free to leave with him. I am keeping Saber for now, though. I want to gather as many Servants as possible to help us save the world.”

  “Save the world from what?” frowned Artoria.

  “The gods who send us to this timeline wanted us to deal with two crises. The smallest and simplest one was expined to us, and is reted to this Holy Grail War.”

  Akeno proceeded to expin the situation with Angra Mainyu.

  “And you expect us to believe that?” asked Maiya when Akeno was done. “It sounds entirely too convenient for you.”

  “I am aware of it. I guess you will just have to wait and see. In another timeline that I know of, Kiritsugu Emiya and Artoria did manage to reach the Grail. But when Kiritsugu discovered the true nature of the Grail, and how it could never fulfill his wish, he used his remaining Command Seals to force Artoria to destroy the Grail with her Noble Phantasm."

  "The resulting devastation destroyed part of the city and killed over a thousand civilians, and this caused Kiritsugu to break. He retired, adopting a kid he had just made an orphan. Oh, and both you and Irisviel were dead before things reached that point. Which would make little Illya the Master for the Einzbern in the next Holy Grail War. She, too, didn’t fare well.”

  “I am still not convinced that you are telling the truth.” frowned Artoria. “But setting the matter of Angra Mainyu aside, you spoke about a second crisis. What is it?”

  “We do not know.” shrugged Akeno. “The Gods didn’t tell us. I assume we’ll know more when the time comes to deal with it. All we know is that we must join the Mage Association after the conclusion of the Holy Grail War, and that will allow us to be in the correct pce and time to deal with it. It is going to be a much bigger crisis than the current one, and solving it is expected to take at least a year.”

  “Now, I have spoken enough for now. It’s time for you to get to bed, and Maiya, you have a call to make. By 13h00 tomo… no, today, you will be free again. Please do not try to escape beforehand or do something reckless, or I will chain you to the bed. Lancer will keep an eye on you. This goes for you as well, Artoria, except for the part about being released.”

  “Do you intend not keep me as a sve? Being forced to fight your battles?” asked Artoria, her voice den with threat. “I will refuse to cooperate if you keep me captive.”

  “Even with the fate of the world at stake?” smiled Akeno, already knowing the answer.

  Artoria didn’t reply. She knew that if things really came to that, she would set aside her own situation and help fight whatever threatened mankind. She would free herself and take revenge ter.