"Eh." Really nothing say, though maybe biased—nobody taught Shirou, not Magic-interested. But Rin reaction pleased—surprised looked him—get her, expected experienced magus not Shirou Emiya. "As said earlier, quite uneducated. Well listen remember. Now 5th Holy Grail War, mythical cup granting any wish—with caveats but can. You one 7 Masters killing each other for it. Adoptive dad was—Shed Magic circle and Artoria inherited from him. Later ask her past war/Kiritsugu. Clear so far?"
"She in past war? Impossible!" Rin.
"Why? Servant pool small. Plus didn't die then, memory intact." Really don't get surprise. "More questions or continue?"
Waited weak nods/grunts "yes continue." Hung more nonsense. "I'm intermediary in Counter Force between Ala.. hm you don't know words. Forget—simpler easier. World soul wants live, humanity soul wants live—created tools eliminate existence threats. Usually energy-expensive then I appear—come resolve via locals—you. Mmm no understanding eyes—fine lower. 5th Grail War end: apocalypse and—you solve yourselves or summon dozen Balance Guardians raze city/population all Masters/Servants—solving radically their way."
Weak plan point—might not believe. Other hand—trying stop apocalypse some form! Thin moment—believe/do as want nothing stops, risk disbelieve possibly die with city—risk not all take.
"Won't let you!" OYASH threateningly piped.
"Eh." Damn, I really have nothing to say to that. It's just Emiya Shirou. Everyone looked at him with some surprise. "Said the half-assed mage with a weakened Servant to an inter-world cosmic entity. To clarify—my task is to prevent the 'apocalypse' from happening, in one form or another. Destroying one city is a small price if we don't negotiate or you fail in the process."
And then a thought sharply pierced me—jokes aside, but I'm in anime, and here's a genuine Japanese MC trope—so if I were really an entity of that scale in my place, in the end, it'd be some authorial fiat. Namely, a miracle and a magical confluence of circumstances—they'd kill it off at the end. Which makes you think about the transience of existence and bending reality for the sake of tropes.
"Shirou, you idiot!" And Rin socked him in the head. "Sorry, please continue."
Somewhere deep inside, I even teared up. But then I remembered anime tropes and the girl smacking the Japanese MC trope on the head, and my mood sank even lower.
"Ahem, as some of you have probably realized—you've been CHOSEN!" Here I decided to play on the emotions of at least two presents—the Japanese MC trope and Artoria. "By me. To become HEROES and save the WORLD! Well, or at least this city. And to start, I need you two to form an alliance—shake hands for the formalities."
I waited until Rin and the Japanese MC trope shook hands and continued. "Excellent, and yes—of course, each of you will get something valuable! Shirou will fulfill his wish and finally be able to save someone—and if you try really hard, Sakura, Taiga, Illya, and even Rin will survive this war! They usually die."
Ignoring the next exclamations and Rin's mouth agape in surprise, I continued. "You're Rin—you'll learn a couple of secrets from the past that you've been lied to about the truth of, and you'll get revenge on your father's killer! And as previously stated—not die and save your sister. So, are you motivated?!"
I waited until I got a "Yes" from Rin, some nonsense about saving from Shirou, and Artoria, who was watching Shirou, nodded too. And everything was fine until the Fire Nation... ahem, I was getting carried away.
Until Archer-Shirou brazenly declared. "And what do I get?"
"The Servant's opinion doesn't count." I really don't care about his opinion; luckily, he's on Rin's Command Spell like a chain. "I have no business with the fact that you've been chained by a Command Spell and can't fulfill your wish—you're to blame yourself."
Not listening to what he muttered in response, I started the next part of the show. For this, with the help of Glamour, I begin creating illusions of folders with documents and flip through them, tossing "extras" aside. Because of this, losing contact with the body, they dissipate—which is convenient, but I learned this trick for a long time! All for the image! Though the process itself makes me sweat; good thing I'm in a mage clone—in my real body, I couldn't handle it that fast.
"Excellent, but you two won't be enough. So, where's the script for this world?" Well, I've made an impression; time to wrap up, so I stopped at a newly created folder.
I open the folder and start flipping through the sheets. "Seems like this one, so—anyway, Rin and Shirou meet in the yard, Rin fixes the destruction in the yard and finds out that Shirou as a mage is nobody. After which she for some reason decides to take Shirou to the church to the Watcher so he'll withdraw from the war, where he hears what I already said earlier and decides to participate. On the way back, they meet little Illya, a battle ensues where Artoria loses and Shirou stands up for her, spouting nonsense about women and that he'll save everyone. After which he gets beaten too, then Illya leaves. And Rin decides to take care of him—which ultimately leads them to an alliance."
While there's a moment, I quickly switch between clones and actually find Illya in the city near the church in the park. Though I try not to get close to the church, I keep one clone literally on the edge of my Enhanced perception—which even let me see Gilgamesh. Not sure if it's him exactly; looking at him gave the feeling it was an ordinary person. But he's a blond and he often goes into the church—so probably him! And right now, that helped me find Illya—she doesn't turn off her circuits and shines in magical sight like a supernova.
It took me a couple of seconds, and all this time I pretended to be reading something in the folder; luckily, illusions have no eyes. So I could calmly see how surprise appeared on Rin's face. "As I said earlier, you two won't be enough, and for successfully completing the task, you'll need another ally. Of all the remaining Masters with Servants at the moment—the only one who fits is Illya."
"Remaining?" Rin latched onto the slip.
"Yes, the war's been going for about a month already. Caster and Assassin are already dead; the others don't fit." Yes, I decided to include myself in that list too. "So, where's Illya's file. Ah, daughter of Emiya Kiritsugu, whose mother died in the previous war. And Kiritsugu got too severe wounds and couldn't recover, so he took her—which is why the remaining relatives placed all the blame for the failure on Illya and subjected her to 'improvements,' preparing her for the next war. Due to constant pain, her mind got damaged, and her body stopped growing, frozen at 13 years old. The only thing keeping her alive was the pride of the magus family. And also hatred from the relatives' stories that her father abandoned her because he had another child. That's you, Shirou Emiya. So, the slowly going insane girl placed all the blame for her pain and suffering on Shirou. Main desire—to take her little brother for herself? What? Why with that data is she marked as a potential ally?"
Not listening to Shirou's exclamations, I pretend to flip sheets. "Hm, so—battle, Rin gets beaten. Another battle, Rin and Shirou get beaten. So, here—Illya kidnaps Shirou, then offers to ditch the alliance with Rin and form one with her—and then... Hentai happens?"
I deliberately paused, pretending to be surprised and also to admire Shirou's face. But actually, pure water, ahem, lie. But they did apparently form an alliance, so there's a chance. Or am I projecting wishful thinking?
"That didn't happen!" Archer-Shirou.
"Just because it didn't happen to you doesn't mean it won't here. This is still a different world, even if it's a copy of yours. And anyway, Shirou—you've grown in my eyes, loli-bro-con, that's commendable!" Of course it didn't happen, but I couldn't resist teasing Shirou.
"I! NO!" Japanese MC trope.
Rin covers her mouth in shock with her hand, but the smirk in her voice betrays her. "What tastes you turn out to have."
"Shirou, don't worry—she's a Legal loli and only looks like a 13-year-old girl! She's long past 20! And you're not blood brother and sister—so everything's within the law of this country!" I decided to "support" him. "Okay, and what happened next? Hm, yeah—her heart gets ripped out and head chopped off, and Shirou sits on the castle ruins afterward crying over her body, lamenting that he couldn't save her. Classic, really."
That apparently did happen, and while a new round started—"I'll save her!" from Shirou. I pondered that Illya is quite cute and pretty strong magically. On the other hand, I really can't vouch for her psyche, and she looks like a kid. Plus, she's apparently an artificial human—which doesn't exactly inspire trust. Homunculus, I think that's what it's called here?
The word itself didn't thrill me. They apparently have a whole family of Homunculi across many generations now—essentially clones of once-living people. Hm, wait—I said earlier she's Kiritsugu's daughter, so half-Homunculus and half-human.
That didn't improve things much, and deep down, all the disgust at her very nature remained. Though, when it's all over, it might be worth finding out if her family makes girls to order, even if the template is red-eyed blond. I saw her recently in the city with two maids—exact copies of her, just older. Though if they could add elf ears to her!
The inner disgust teamed up with paranoia on the theme—what if there's something inside her body and head—and now they're trying to overpower my passion for pointy ears and general sexual frustration amplified by the stress of recent years. Parity holds for now.
***
Read the story months ahead of the public release — early chapters are available on my Patreon: Granulan