Whew, sorry for taking so long. Life got busy, I got cold feet over ending my story, and everything else. Yes, you read that right, this is the last chapter of Technician's Order. The next part will be a sequel, "Technician's Order! Working with a French Maid".

Chapter 21: Clean Up This Mess!

"So, you have a catalyst ready?" Roman asked Shirou as the lights on the summon array on the ground lit up and the presence of magical energy flooded the room. Inactive as the summoning ritual hadn't started yet.

"Yes," Shirou nodded, thumbing the ruby gem in his pocket. Without that gem and whoever left it, he wouldn't have been able to meet Saber. He withdrew his hand from it and stepped forward.

"Good, because I don't have authorization to enter the catalyst storage," Roman sighed. "Ullr and Olga are the only ones who can enter or authorize someone to enter and only Olga can allow something to be removed from it. A lot of it is too delicate for untrained handling or would deteriorate in unprotected circumstances."

"Trace on." Shirou enunciated, his entire focus on his magecraft. This needed to be perfect. And if it meant going through each step much slower than normal, then at least he'll spend the minimum amount of time to get this right. "Judging the concept of creation. Hypothesizing the basic structure. Duplicating the composition material. Imitating the skill of its making. Sympathizing with the experience of its growth. Reproducing the accumulated years. Excelling every manufacturing process."

With the final words, Shirou's palm made contact with the cool hilt of Caliburn.

"Um, Shirou?" Roman asked, doubt and confusion filling his voice. Mash was wide-eyed beside him as she stared at the duplicate of the Sword of Selection. "What are you doing?"

"Using projection," Shirou answered. "Its usual purpose is for use in rituals."

"Yes," Mash nodded, her eyes still fastened onto the sword. "That is how projection is conventionally used, as an assistance for ritual magecraft."

"Yes, that's true but," Roman shook his head. "I don't think magi are supposed to use projection to serve as the catalyst for a summoning ritual."

"It'll work, won't it?" Shirou shrugged. "Then that's all I need."

"Well…" Roman sighed before shrugging. "Don't know but shouldn't matter that much. We'll still get a Servant either way."

"This will be fun," Da Vinci smiled. "I knew he would do this and we will end up with a strong Servant. But I can't say what else will change from using a near-illusionary duplicate as a catalyst."

"Will it not summon her?" Shirou turned to face Da Vinci, a frown flashing onto his face. He hoped this would work. But if it didn't, would he stop? Would he take the risk?

But at the same time, what else could he do? Stop in fear of success? He had waited too long for her, he had looked into every lead he could. Would he let even a slim possibility of meeting her stop him? To be honest, he didn't think he could even give up the slimmest thread.

"The Throne of Heroes version of her, possibly," Da Vinci stated. "You replicated Caliburn's history so that will be an undoubtedly powerful catalyst. But you also make minute errors with your recording so that will make things go a little sideways. You may be able to summon a Servant with the memories of your time together or you may not. She could even be from a different history, like Saber Alter, though I doubt you'll end up with any class other than a Saber right now. Still a small chance of it though and probability is a delightful way to liven up one's life."

"Good enough for me," Shirou kneeled down and reverently placed Caliburn flat in the center of the summoning array. His reserves were a little low from trying to replicate Caliburn as perfectly as he could but he should still have enough for the summon.

"Remember," Roman reminded Shirou. "We don't use the Holy Grail as the basis of the summoning ritual. You'll have to use Chaldea's chant rather than Fuyuki's."

Shirou nodded, his mind already going over the incantation. It wasn't like he knew the Fuyuki version anyway. He didn't know it when the Grail War happened and afterwards, he had no intention of letting there be another Grail War.

Shirou breathed in, wishing desperately for a miracle. But he had to move forward, throw his luck on a toss of the dice. And if he won, he'd be happy, if he lost, he'd try something else.

Shirou extended his left hand into the circle and called.

"My will creates your body, and your sword secures our destiny. If you heed the Wise Man's call, and abide by our will and reason, then answer me."

The circle responded, lights spinning and twirling clockwise into solid glowing rings, magical energy thrumming throughout the room and into his bones. Shirou could smell it, mana converted from electricity and mana gathered from the earth, controlled by FATE, Chaldea's summoning ritual basis and controller.

"We hereby swear," Shirou let the recently memorized words pour off his tongue. To be honest the words felt a little embarrassing to say like this. But what he intended was close enough. And he would embarrass himself a thousand times over if it meant having a chance to succeed. "We embody all that is good in the world. We shall defeat all that is evil in the world."

Shirou could feel his circuits thrumming with magical energy. He had rested and recovered, preparing all the magical energy he could muster for this moment. And now, he was pouring it all out. After this, he would have Command Seals to use for connecting his world and Olga to this one.

The whirr of energy spiking, the dimming of the electric lights, the scent of heavy magical energy, all were growing.

"Seventh Heaven clad in the three words of power!" Shirou found himself raising his voice in desperation. Please, please, come. "Come forth from the circle of binding, Guardian of the Scales!"

Whirr. Whirr. Whirr.

Olga opened her eyes at the sound of the circuits spinning wildly. Not her own circuits. No, those spiritual things were quiet and inactive inside her soul. She meant the large gears above her head. At times they were slow, sometimes fast, often doing nothing. If she had to guess, the gears represented Shirou's usage of magecraft in connection to his internal world.

But what could Shirou be doing that involved him to exert so much now? She had gotten used to them rotating when he and Chaldea wasted their efforts trying to open a path to here but now they were whirling along faster than ever.

The question penetrated her dull fog of apathy and depression.

For a moment, Olga debated just going back to sleep. But no, that irritating noise was bothering her. Might as well go see what was going on. And get it to shut up so she can go back to reflecting on how completely and utterly she failed when the world needed her most.

Staggering up, Olga emerged from the tent of swords. Now that she had thought on it, didn't the swords here look familiar? Like the ones that Berserker had used against Mash?

Olga shivered and looked around. No, the ground was still barren, save for the armaments scattered about. Brown, dusty, ugly ground. But then again, it was a human soul. Ugliness was a human property. Like incompetence.

She looked up, seeing the 27 gears spinning wildly above her head. Yes, Shirou was doing something. Probably the summoning Romani had forced her agreement on. Not that it could affect her. Not unless he overreached himself and killed himself, thus destroying her soul and forcing her onto reincarnation or the afterlife, if she even managed to make it to either.

Olga scowled at the reminder that she, who had only tried and failed to live up to her duties and everyone's expectations of her, was now completely dependent on another. Life, health, even her very existence. The only thing she had left was her soul, her circuits, and her crest. Not that it wouldn't have been better taken care of by anyone other than her.

The world shuddered. Olga staggered at the sudden change, the loss of steadiness on the ground. One hand flashed out to catch herself onto Berserker's swords, the rough stone almost cutting across her dry skin.

What had happened? What was going on? Had the summoning changed things? Was Shirou Emiya dying?

Olga eyes fell, then paused.

Olga squinted and rubbed her eyes.

She opened them and peered at the horizon again.

Something was happening. Not out in the real world where she was a failure talked about and mocked behind her back, but in here, the world where she didn't belong but couldn't leave.

The mirage of green, the distant glint of life on the distant horizon was different. It was larger, bigger. A flash of gold too?

She must be seeing things. Blinking and hoping it would clear her vision, Olga focused.

It was bigger. No, it wasn't growing bigger. It was coming closer.

What was going on? How could a Reality Marble change? Was she going to die? Would it be better for her to simply die?

The reality marble shuddered again.

"No, no, no," Olga muttered in panic, dread of her upcoming death filling her. "I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"

A third earthquake shook through the small world and up her legs.

What was going on? Why was Shirou's Reality Marble shaking? What could be happening? Had the Servant betrayed him like Lev betrayed her? Why didn't he use his Command Seals to stop it!

Glancing up, Olga felt fear shake through her depression, the mental mists of her dejected mind unable to stop the other emotion from overpowering her.

Her eyes darted to the other horizon. The green was spreading. Now it wasn't on the distant edge of the horizon. No, it spread from horizon to horizon, a rushing tidal wave of green that flashed over the ground and distant brown plains, reaching towards her like a flash flood. A crushing wave that would undoubtedly destroy her.

Olga scrambled up onto the hut, her wrists aching at the sudden exertion after days of lying on the ground. The crude sword was her only hope against the oncoming threat. She couldn't die yet, she couldn't die-

She was already dead. The thought slowed her reckless climb. But what would that do? Would she have to suffer like how Lev tried to force upon her? An eternity of a moment stretched out to infinity as she interacted with a black hole-like information singularity?

The green swept closer. She could see it now. No longer covering the horizon, it was the horizon!

"Aaaah!" Olga could only scream as green got closer and closer, swallowing up this wasteland and its swords.

The all-consuming green reached her.

The light of the summoning died down.

Shirou blinked back the afterimages of pure white light filling the room. His heart hammered. Had he succeeded? Had he failed?

"Shirou," Arturia whispered, a risqué bra and panty set in hand as she stared at him. Excalibur and Avalon were in her other hand while a bag hung by its strap.

"Saber," The word slipped out of his mouth unnoticed as he stared at her beautiful face. Green eyes, noble cheekbones, delicate nose, lovely blond hair unbound.

The two stared at each other, eyes drinking in a sight that hadn't been seen for either decades or millennia. The image of the person they wanted to see again the most.

Hesitantly, Shirou took a step forward, his heart still beating an orchestra of emotions. Love, happiness, shock, nostalgia, disbelief.

"I'm," Shirou tried to say only for the words to escape him. He opened and closed his mouth again but the words slipped his mind before even making it to his vocal cords. They were inadequate, insufficient. Not capable of conveying his wishes towards her.

"Shirou!" Arturia looked at him before a smile, not a big one but a happy one, broke out across her face. Happiness shone from her eyes, her mouth, even her cheeks. "Bretahemwhemyato!"

Shirou couldn't understand her. But he knew what he wanted to hear from her. He felt her emotions radiate from every part of her. Love, happiness, joy, exultation.

"I'm back, Saber," he choked out in his native Japanese. Something damp was on his cheeks. "I'm back."

Saber took a step towards him, both arms rising up and out towards him. Shirou took another step-

"Get back you changeling!" A body in white with blonde hair tied up in a ponytail held by a black ribbon interposed. "I will not permit you to harm my Master!"

Shirou blinked down at the backside of Arturia and raised his eyes up over her head to see Arturia facing him, her arms still outstretched and the smile starting to fade as she confronted an Arturia pointing Caliburn at her, keeping her from reuniting with him. But where Shirou could smell the powerful magical energy of a Servant from the Arturia closest to him, he could tell that the Arturia facing him was his. His love. His beloved.

He nodded. He was definitely confused. More confused than when he saw Saber Alter.

Hubbub exploded in the room among the watchers.

"Oh, this is exciting!" Da Vinci was jittering in her spot. "The tearful reunion of two deep loves intermixed with the intriguing mystery of the summoning ritual bringing forth the real Arturia Pendragon! Live! In the flesh! Impossible for any catalyst or summoning ritual! Yet the ritual worked, the catalyst, still manifested, the Servant summoned and recognizing her Master! And beyond all possibility-"

"Romani! We have an unauthorized detected life-form! But that's not the worst of it!" A hologram of Karen Cook, the person left in charge of the Command Center, popped up, looking frantic. "FATE has suffered a catastrophic failure! We're losing parts of FATE!"

"-a living manifestation in addition!" Da Vinci crowed. "An impossibility! A living, flesh and blood human being! The original herself!"

"What?" Romani gawked at her before glancing at Da Vinci beside him, babbling about how this could have happened, then at Mash besides Ritsuka, her eyes wide and jaw slack, then at the Servant in front of them confronting her living counterpart. "How? We still have our Servants here! The summoning ritual…was a success? How could FATE have been damaged?"

"Not the summoned Servant but the actual person!" Da Vinci continued, too excited to listen. "Fresh from the Reverse Side of the World, neither Spirit nor Spirit Origin but a corporeal human!"

"We know the ritual was successful," Karen explained. "But something interfered! We've lost entire sections of FATE."

"I hadn't the slightest clue that we would be observers of an unprecedented event, the manifestation of an ancient legend in a carnal body!" Da Vinci cheerfully announced. "Obviously, Chaldea lacks the on-site material to truly incarnate a spirit or Spirit Origin thereby preventing the liberation of said Servant from dependence on FATE. Protection against Servants going rogue, you obviously know. So it must have happened on the other end! But how? Why? With what materials? What a Mystery!"

"Um, is this supposed to happen?" Ritsuka turned to ask Mash. "Because this seems like it wasn't supposed to happen."

"I-" Mash opened her mouth and closed it a few more times wordlessly, gaping like a fish out of water. "I- I—I-"

"Shirou?" Arturia confronted a mirror image, except for the clothes and weapons guarding her love from herself. "Wikithatonea?"

"I do not know what is going on." the Saber Servant replied to the question. "But no one will persuade my Master that they are his Servant in my place! No matter how identical their likeness is to myself!"

"Shirou?" Arturia looked past the Servant to Shirou.

"Um," Shirou's brain belatedly kicked into action.

Arturia was beautiful. She was just as beautiful as he remembered if not more.

His brain may have kicked in the wrong direction. But at least he was right.

"Except, Arturia Pendragon entered Avalon!" Da Vinci was pacing now, her hands gesturing wildly, almost smacking Romani who was trying to figure out what damage had just happened to Chaldea. "Avalon, part of the Reverse Side of the World, where physical form must be abandoned to enter. To my genius, there is only three possible answers! Either this is Arturia's original body, an incarnation of her spirit into a frame identical to the spiritual pattern, or a new form was procured. However the defenses of Chaldea oppose any attempt to transport across either time or space. Without a Rayshift, there is no connection to an external area that could work as a vector of entry. Unless…"

Da Vinci paused for narrative tension. Nobody was listening as confusion and pandemonium was reigning supreme.

"I think," Shirou puzzled through, trying to figure out what was going on. Why couldn't he understand Arturia? Wait, she only knew Japanese thanks to the Grail so she was now speaking in her native tongue. Why hadn't he thought to learn…what would the language have been? Old English? Ancient Gaelic? Original Welsh? Latin? British history classes weren't something he had taken in high school. "I think I summoned you and you from the Throne of Heroes?"

"Yes, my new Master!" Saber declared excitedly as she kept her eyes on her opponent. "I apologize for not formally introducing myself, but I am Saber Lily Arturia Pendragon. I am still in training so I apologize for not being as strong as I would be if summoned as my older self King of Knights self but I will do my best to live up to your expectations! I am sure that we will do our best to fulfill the First Order and protect the future of mankind!"

"Unless the opening to the Throne for the information appertaining the Heroic Spirit Arturia was intercepted and the body and actual soul of Arturia was supplemented!" Da Vinci was talking to herself but in her excitement was too caught up to really care about who was, or rather wasn't, listening to her. "Recreating the corpus of Arturia, or transporting the material from wherever in the world it was, if according to the assumption it is still in the texture of man. But perhaps it was transported across textures in addition to be tagged onto the summoning response. Not impossible at all, though the qualifications of such a spell would require one to be almost in the same league as me. And as Avalon is infamous for containing the Magus of Flowers, Merlin himself, the most likely caster of such a Mystery was Merlin, who is according to legend almost as good as me, the Omnipotent Genius!"

"Mash, are you okay? Mash?" Ritsuka asked, waving a hand in front of her face, worry obvious in his features.

"Senpai!" Mash finally seemed to break out of her stupor. "It's-It's King Arthur! It's King Arthur Senpai!"

"Ah, yeah, guess so?" Ritsuka obviously wasn't feeling the excitement.

"It's the real King Arthur, Senpai!" Mash was almost jittering. "The original King Arthur! Not even a Heroic Spirit but the human King Arthur!"

Da Vinci preened to imagined praise, rather than the bedlam around her. "But even the original body might still be around if a Mystery was applied to deny the passage of time and the wound healed while the spirit and psyche was taken from the corpus. Which all leads to the recreation of the body at this destination as the most likely outcome!"

Da Vinci whirled around to gesture triumphantly at the room. Which was still occupied with their own dramas such as Arturia wanting to get to Shirou, Arturia using the threat of her sword to keep Arturia away from her Master, Shirou trying to get to Arturia, Mash rattling about like an excited fan who got to see their hero, Ritsuka looking taken aback and confused, Romani worrying about the damage on Chaldea, Karen Cook flustered as she kept getting and conveying reports on the damage done to FATE, and the other magi trying to figure out how everything had gone so differently and if the ritual was a failure, a success, or something to be further investigated.

"Hey!" Da Vinci protested with a pout. "Did no one listen to my genius? I just elucidated the mystery behind this course of action! Did nobody listen!?"

"Um, I did," Ritsuka raised a hand as he turned away from Mash fussing over her hair and appearance. "But I didn't understand a single word."

"Do I look okay, Senpai?" Mash worried, now brushing imaginary dirt from her skirt and coat. "I don't want to look bad when I meet the real King Arthur! I read that first impressions are crucial when meeting people! And my social skills are horrible in regard to first meetings!"

Da Vinci sighed before lifting her mechanical bird on her shoulder into the air.

"CRAAAWWW!" the harsh mechanical screech like scraping of steel on chalkboard shrieked across the room, causing everyone to flinch.

"Why did no one but Ritsuka listen to my genius discourse!?" Da Vinci loudly complained into the sudden silence.

Time passes, unnoticed and uncared for.

She waits, standing and watching the horizon.

Stalks of grass swayed.

Shirou would come. She was sure of it, her faint, insignificant hope carrying the entire weight of her dream.

But that was not today. Perhaps the morrow. Or the next century. Or in a thousand thousand years.

She could only wait to see. And hope on the slimmest of prayers.

She wishes that she could see him. Her stubborn, former Master who would not let anything stand between them. And with that determination, perhaps not even the boundaries of the world itself would stop him. And if he did come, she wanted to greet him and welcome him here, to a place where humans were not meant to be. Welcome him to the place she wants him most, by her side, even if he has changed from his journey.

The brilliant place changed.

And that disturbed the waiting person.

Avalon was the eternal paradise. It didn't change. But unmistakably, for the first time since she arrived and was greeted before settling into her vigil, something disturbs the utopia.

Screams? Arturia turned to look but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just the fae screaming in united agony.

And then they stopped and went back to their frolicking play, their actions when uncalled upon.

Arturia wanted to know what had bothered them. What was the cause for the disturbance?

One thought, one thought that had been occupying her brain for longer than nations had stood, stopped her. What if Shirou came while she was asking? What if she missed his arrival and thus lost her chance to reunite?

She turned back to her watch. Her duty was done. Now was her chance to find her meal of happiness. She hoped it wouldn't be long but she was prepared to wait for as long as necessary.

Arturia blinked.

No, she was not wrong. There was something here besides herself, besides the faeries, besides the sun, the clouds, the wind, the plants, and a tower.

From the foot of the strange tower, a tiny figure is growing larger. Not larger, the almost inactive brain of Arturia Pendragon corrects her, closer. Someone is approaching.

Her heart seemed to leap. White hair. But Shirou had to search endlessly. It would only be sensible if his heart had gone white from the sheer duration of time. As long as he was still the man she had loved, she could accept physical changes.

But wasn't that a robe? Had Shirou worn a robe? She didn't think so but it had been so, so, so long ago…

Her memory finally kicks in, returning a name to the face and outfit of the approaching person. Merlin.

And he is not as cheerful as she would have expected. No, his usual air of mirth, a joke no one but him knew, was gone, his hair was frazzled like he had been running around worried and pulling on it. Flowers still bloomed in his wake but she did not recognize the type.

She must have forgotten much. But then again, entire generations had been born, learned, taught the next, forgot what they had learned as age rusted their mind and then died while she stood waiting here.

Merlin approached, a solemn expression on his face, and a knapsack hanging from its straps on his staff.

Arturia waited for him to speak.

"Arturia," Merlin greeted her. "I have some, well, I'll be honest. I have pretty bad news and a little good news."

"Bad news?" Arturia's heart froze. Had something happened to Shirou? The last she had heard from Merlin, it was about the possibility of her and Shirou meeting again. But what if Shirou had died? Had he fallen in love with someone else and wasn't searching for her anymore?

"The world just ended."

Arturia frowned. So Shirou hadn't fallen in love with someone else. Truly, that was a relief…

"Ended?" She repeated.

"Incinerated," Merlin grimaced. "All history, future, present, past, over 3000 years just got burned up. The Human Order is gone."

"Shirou?" Arturia asked immediately, mind trying to grapple with the news. Saving the world was something she could imagine. It wasn't a far cry from saving all of Britain. But hearing that the world had already ended and that she had missed it…

"Fortunately for you, your timeline has him still alive," Merlin told her. Arturia exhaled in relief, her long-ago court experience and restraint presently missing in regards to controlling her expressions. "Found a hold-out from history in a place called Chaldea and is working there to fix the issue. But, there is only so much he can do before CHALDEAS's field will be insufficient to stave off the Incineration. Once 2018 is over, even Chaldea won't be around. And that's all the good news I have. Too bad really, I was hoping for the next season on that anime, the drama of the production team and actors on that show was going to be interesting…"

"I see," Arturia mustered her brain, rousing it from her torpor. It had been a long, long, long time since she had done more than just wait. She couldn't leave her vigil and there was only so much a brain could do when the body stood in the same spot for indeterminate amounts of time.

In simpler terms, the boredom was problematic. To adjust for the situation, she had learned to achieve a near permanent zen-state of simply watching and waiting in the same position for what must have been years on end.

When you existed in the Reverse Side of the world, you could do things that normal humans couldn't.

"If all history was destroyed, then," Arturia's mind came clinking back along, gathering up parts that hadn't been used in generations. "How are we still alive?"

"We're in the Reverse Side of the World," Merlin answered. "Everything associated with the texture of humanity is gone, including our mortal lives and past beyond memories. But we already exist in Avalon which is not linked to the Incinerated parts so we continue existing along with everything else here."

"Alright," Arturia accepted with a nod. Strategy was a language she had spoken so long ago. But she felt like she was missing large swathes of vocabulary and tactics from being inactive for so long. However, bits and pieces seemed to be coming back as she actually did something. "Avalon is one of the fellow hold-outs. How certain are you that we will not be incinerated as well?"

"We won't be," Merlin blew away confidently. "Sure, if we leave here carelessly, we will die too, unless our destination is a place separate from the Incineration. But we won't be touched as it is too much bother to reach here. Though, remember the scream of all the faeries?"

"Indeed," Arturia nodded. "It almost roused me to action."

"You mean you almost woke up," Merlin teased. Arturia glared. "Okay, okay, don't glare at me like that." Arturia did not stop. "Anyway, we don't have much time right now so I'll be brief. That moment of screaming was the moment of the Incineration."

"I see," Arturia cast her mind back. That time felt recent. But no one could read time passing here in Avalon. If time passed at all. To worsen matters, her zen state made the passage of time feel insignificant. "The Incineration can reach us but only to cause brief pain for nonhumans."

"No, that was because the Fae felt the Incineration like a bad sunburn," Merlin corrected her. "Remember, they are terminals of Gaia and an entire texture of Gaia just got burned away in an instant like the worst sunburn ever on some skin. Hmm, sunburn, Incineration, mankind, manburn. I think I'll copyright that term; 'manburn', hire some lawyers, make some big bucks in the 2000s, make some memes, use the money to make figurines-"

"Merlin." Arturia reminded him to get back on track.

"Right, right," Merlin resumed. "Anyway, it is not irrevocable. There is still a way to win. But to even try, Chaldea will need to go to the 7 Singularities, remember, there are only 7 major Singularities left to defeat, retrieve the Grails sustaining them, and defeat the Servants and others guarding those Grails. Some Servants are already being summoned, both for and against the Grails but I reckon the longer you take, the harder it will be. Without all 7, Chaldea will not be able to face the King in order to recover a chance to restore the history of humanity."

"I see," Arturia nodded. What was a Singularity? Who was the 'King'? Not herself presumably. But it looks like Merlin had more information than she did and was coming to her with a proposal of action. "So how will I help? You would not tell me this without a plan or an idea of one."

"I'm going to be helping out in the worst Singularity, procrastinating its complete destruction. Just need to wait for that guy to return to his capital and begin the summoning ritual. Took him long enough to decide on it," Merlin grumbled but shook his head. "Don't really have time now. Anyway, unless Chaldea knows what I just told you, they won't be able to reach the furthest Singularity. Well, maybe they can but they need to know what is at stake here and why they need to look for it without waiting on the Incinerated outside world. They can't postpone dealing with it like they are planning to do now. Full-hearted and all out, not half-hearted is what they need."

"You will be using me as a messenger to Chaldea then?" Arturia asked, piecing together why Merlin was telling her this. "If so, then what is a Singularity?"

"Time is running out," Merlin looked up at the sky. "I've only got a small window of time right now and it took me a looong time to find this stuff. Honestly, I have Clairvoyance to be able to see anything in the present and I can watch the entire world from Avalon, but can't find a set of underwear in my tower?"

"Hurry up, Merlin," Arturia snapped. "What else do I and they need to know?"

"Well, get ready for a long journey," Merlin tossed Excalibur sheathed in Avalon at her. Long forgotten reflex from 2000 years ago had her catch and buckle them to her side, only to stop as she realized that her light blue dress didn't have a belt. "You'll need those.

"And you will want this," his staff twirled, tossing the bag at her. Catching it Arturia cocked an eyebrow at him. His smile was too mischievous right now, that twinkle in his eye reminding her that he was doing something for his entertainment and her headache.

Suspicion and hackles raised, Arturia opened the bag and reached in with the hand that wasn't supporting the weight of the bag while holding Excalibur.

"I hope you don't mind me pulling a Cath Palug on you," Merlin continued prattling as Arturia's mouth dropped open. "But I'll be kicking you out now. Remember to wear that for Shirou!"

"Merlin!" Arturia protested as she looked up from the scandalous lingerie in her hand. "I cannot-This is-!"

"Shirou would love it~" Merlin's grin was from cheek to cheek even as magical energy started pouring from him. Behind his back, his tower started to light up, magical energy and spell matrices showing themselves in increasingly ever more complex circles and spirals. Mandalas that would take years to decipher by all but the most expert of magi. "And at the bottom is a few more outfits for variety."

"But-" Arturia sputtered as a vivid blush covered her face. She couldn't win this. There was no way for this conversation to turn out well. She had to retreat for the sake of victory. To another topic! "How?!"

Shirou? Was she going to see Shirou? How? In order to meet…

"Hey, hey," Merlin wagged a finger at her. "This is fundamentally the end of humanity, though we hope to reverse it. Regardless, Shirou is a human and has searched for you after the end. That means, his pursuit was endless. And you have never stopped waiting for him so that qualifies as continuously. Admittedly, not quite in the way I foresaw 2000 years ago but hey, a nice surprise never hurt anyone, right? And best of all, you won't be wearing that dreadful armor. Brides should not be wearing heavy armor to the wedding bed. Break the bed in another way, not by dumping metal on it!"

"Wait, you mean?" Arturia nearly dropped the bag, Excalibur, and Avalon as hope surged through her body, the spark she had so carefully and tenderly protected through her watch instantly erupting into a grassfire consuming her soul.

"Conditions for the miracle were met," Merlin spoke rapidly and his words clipped as short as he could speak. Magical energy continued to flood out from the magus. "It's an opportunity and we all need a messenger to kick Chaldea into gear. Chaldea has already begun to send a request to the Throne of Heroes. Given who is answering, it isn't that hard to tack on a tagalu-Ow, my tongue! Havefun!"

"Wait-!" Arturia yelled, her hands clenching on her stuff as her emotions played havoc on her mind and body. Merlin's wave was not helpful.

Then she vanished, her soul transferred from Avalon as Merlin's spell finished its work. He inhaled for the first time in a minute, no longer having to speak as fast as he could.

"Well, that solves that problem," Merlin spoke to empty air. "Now he's on the path to actually face the King. Okay, next. Gilgamesh is still an hour out from Uruk so I can't hijack that summon until it happens. Now let's see. What to do while waiting. What to do, what to do… Well, the fae are talking about a new rock on the borders. Might as well check that out."

With that, Merlin started walking towards the edges of Avalon.

"So that's the case," Da Vinci nodded, crowded into Romani's office around his desk. "Thought as much."

"Incinerated?" Romani mouthed. "As in, the outside world is gone?"

"Indeed," Arturia said, now that translation talismans had been brought out for ease of communications. Though, it wasn't perfect, such as how the term 'communicator' ended up being a five word long phrase in her old Welsh from the early A.D.s, but it was better than nothing. Or using Lily to translate.

Arturia shot a glance at the summoned version of herself from the Throne of Heroes who was sitting on the other side of Shirou and kept on looking between her and whoever last spoke, her eyes wide.

"Wait, the world ended?" Lily blurted out, her eyes wide. "But I thought the First Order was about preventing the loss of humanity?"

"Reminder: Update FATE's download memory banks with the current situation status," Romani muttered to his digital communicator. "When it is repaired to operational status, that is."

"Not quite the world itself, but everything associated with humanity. And it looks like we were preempted," Da Vinci corrected. "If the world, as in the entire planet, was destroyed, then even Chaldea wouldn't be able to survive. But the portion assigned to humanity, the Human Order, the texture everything humanity knows and has, is gone. But incinerated, you say? Like burned up?"

The word Da Vinci used was not English or Japanese or any language the more modern humans knew. But apparently it meant something to both Arturia and Saber Lily.

"That was the term Merlin used," Da Vinci smiled at the confirmation, tapping a finger on her cheek, deep in thought even as Arturia continued. "He did not have much time to act. Apparently, Chaldea was only open during the summoning so it was a limited window of opportunity. He also had a Singularity to get involved with, to filibuster its destruction."

"Um, I think you mean procrastinate?" Lily ventured forth, correcting Arturia's translating talisman.

"Perhaps," Arturia externally accepted the correction, viewing it as of little importance. Especially as Shirou's thumb ran over her hand as their fingers laced together. Her beloved still seemed to be in a state of minor shock, wanting to confirm again and again that she was here. However, in the spirit of honesty, she was feeling the same attitude, seeking confirmation that Shirou was here, with her, from the warmth and texture of his rough hands. "Time was not in abundance so he didn't have much to say."

"But he had enough time to-" Romani broke off with a coughing fit as he looked away from the bag of clothes Arturia had brought. "Never mind. Different priorities perhaps?"

"Indeed," Arturia stared at the doctor, almost daring him to make a comment. Wisely, he did not open his mouth.

"So, we already lost?" Lily asked, looking disturbed and angry. "Before we even got to fight? That's… That's not fair!"

"Reversal of the Phenomenon is still possible," Da Vinci smiled. "It looks like we'll need to meet up with Merlin for more details. Or we'll learn more as we go through the Singularities. Either way, the course is clear."

"Yeah," Romani's shoulders were slumped. "Yeah, it is, isn't it? We don't have any other choice."

"Look on the bright side Romani!" Da Vinci slapped Romani on the shoulder. The man nearly fell over. "We're not alone, there is an ally, and we now know how many Singularities we have to fix."

"Yeah but we lost FATE," Romani glumly rebutted. "Thanks to compartmentalization, we can still generate Command Seals and power what Servants we have but we can't summon any new ones and the databanks are slag."

"Can't do anything about the data," Da Vinci shrugged. "And I personally can't help in rebuilding it. FATE has protections against a Servant interacting with it other than being a recipient, remember? Post 5th Grail War upgrades after what Caster did."

"Yeah, the whole Caster Servants are magi and therefore Masters too loophole," Romani nodded. "But all the data we had collected over the years on Servants is toast. Unless the back-ups?"

"The physical back-ups managed by TRIMEGISTUS are fine but the classified information about the first two Servants summoned which were stored only on FATE is gone," Da Vinci shook her head. "I'll help the magi rebuild the summon program and databanks and be available for consultation but the brunt of the work will have to be done by the magi. But if we can get Olga to unlock the archives, we can- Actually, you can authorize access to the classified technical files for FATE, can't you?"

"Huh?" Romani jolted up slightly. "I may need to double check but yeah, you're right, I can do that now. I'll get on that and hand them over to the magi."

"I'll start preparing the circuitry, computers, and other materials," the acting head of the technical department nodded. "Give the destroyed components to me and I'll melt them down into usable raw materials again."

"Ugh, we're going to have to start a new recycling program," Romani slumped. "Can't waste anything now that we are cut off from supplies. No more fertilizer, no more components, not even the puppet bodies. Hope Aiden and Caleb are able to make sure that we don't taste any recycled waste in the food."

"Focus Romani," Da Vinci chided. "Let's first get all the information we can before we start making plans and changes. Anything else, Arturia?"

Da Vinci turned back to Arturia who was staring into Shirou's eyes again.

"Like 'no need to trouble yourselves with providing myself a new room, just give me a key to Shirou's'?" Da Vinci asked, eyebrow raised. She shook her head. "Reunited star-crossed lovers. They're going to be in their own world like this for days."

"Wait, will that be a problem? With Shirou being our last technician?" Romani frowned.

"I think Shirou will be able to focus on his job while on the clock," Da Vinci considered. "But we won't be able to separate the pair with a crowbar. But given their own dutiful nature, we might be able to separate them by giving them duties, though I will be surprised if they didn't conspire to meet while on the clock as often as they can get away with it."

"Eventually, they'll stop being inseparable," Romani brainstormed. "They should eventually realize that they are not going to leave the other and be able to handle separation though it will likely be a process requiring days to reach that state."

"Look at you, Roman, hitting the psychology books," Da Vinci teased.

"Hey!" Romani frowned. "Olga needs me to be ready to handle her mental health. There's nothing wrong with a doctor caring for a patient. Besides, that stuff is confusing."

"Um, is this normal?" Saber Lilly asked in concern at her human and Master's behavior, her voice causing Shirou to stir.

"For now," Romani assured. "But you might have to get used to the idea of Shirou paying more attention to…her and not you. Gah, this double Servant and human will be so confusing. How will we keep them straight?"

"Saber Lily and Arturia Pendragon," Da Vinci shrugged unconcerned. "Not that hard to tell them apart. One is a Servant and the other is a human. Also, it will be almost immaterial with both of them following Shirou around, won't it?"

"I suppose," Romani shook his head. "Too bad we can't slap them on a honeymoon policy, send them to the Hawaiian branch for two weeks and wait for them to return to normal."

"No running off to Hawaii, Romani," Da Vinci chided. "It's incinerated remember?"

"Curse you Lev," Romani shook a fist. "For burning Hawaii and sticking us with these lovebirds! How are us singles supposed to handle this!"

"Your priorities are messed up but yes, this will be annoying," Da Vinc nodded in disapproval. "The two of them still aren't paying attention to us."

"Should I take notes for them or…" Saber Lily wondered.

"You're the currently responsible one among the three of you so go ahead," Romani sighed. "Anyway, Shirou, Arturia? Care to join the rest of the world? The remaining part of the world at least?"

Neither responded to their names.

"With conviction, Romani. Like this," Da Vinci chided before taking a deep breath. "HEY! Shirou Emiya! Arturia Pendragon! Stop ignoring me! You can keep ignoring him but answer my questions!"

The lovers jumped in their seats, jolted back to the real world.

"What did I do to deserve being treated like this?" Romani moaned before shaking his head. "Anyway, we still have some questions that need answering before we can give a comprehensive report to Olga…"

Shirou breathed in and out, opening his circuits with the usual imagined trigger of a gun, ignoring the flash of pain accompanying any use of magecraft. He stared down at the Command Seals on the back of his hand. The same shape was here as it was in the old Grail War.

"By my Command Seal, manifest the Reality Marble," Shirou ordered, one of the symbols flashing before vanishing. Shirou shuddered as he felt magical energy rush into his already opened circuits before diving deeper into his soul as well as splitting into the Bounded Field he had set up as a preliminary measure for his Reality Marble.

Even split, the energy was too much. He couldn't bear it for long!

Shirou hurried through his chant. "I am the bone of my sword. Iron is my blood, And fire is my heart. I have overcome countless battlefields undefeated. Not once have I retreated, Nor asked for quarter. Searching for my final end. As long as she waits, I will fight, Here in Unlimited Blade Works."

It was only as he felt the explosive release of magical energy that Shirou relaxed.

Oh, and he might have to rework the chant. Arturia wasn't waiting any longer in Avalon. Seemed more than a little awkward to be looking straight at Arturia as he mentioned her waiting for him.

Though she did look quite fetching with that blush…

"Wow!" Saber Lily's eyes were wide as she looked around. "This is beautiful!"

"Huh?" Shirou was shaken from his reverie by the exclamation. What was so beautiful about his Reality Marble?

"Avalon?" Arturia seemed shocked as she also looked around.

"Huh?" Shirou felt himself instinctively query into his Reality Marble and blinked at his mind's response. "Huh, I have Avalon again. A perfect copy of it at least. The original is still on her belt."

Everyone in the group looked down to where Avalon hung innocently on Arturia's belt, Excalibur still sheathed in it, like it couldn't possibly know what they were talking about.

"So where is it?" Saber Lily asked as she craned around. "And there are so many weapons! I've never seen such a collection before."

Shirou wondered that before the answer almost reflexively arose from the depths of his mind.

"Avalon is…" he frowned. "That can't be right…"

"What is?" Romani inquired, a faint worry line on his face.

"My copy of Avalon is around and permeating my Reality Marble," Shirou finished, still frowning. "But that doesn't make sense."

"So that explains the grass," Romani said like adding two and two made sense.

Grass?

Shirou finally looked around his Reality Marble and was flattened.

His Reality Marble had changed. Where once it was a brown wasteland, now it was green and gold. Grass stalks filled the land from horizon to horizon, turning it into an idyllic grassland.

"No, it is close but not quite," Arturia corrected as she examined the fields, stepping a little closer to Shirou and taking his hand. Shirou laced his fingers through her cool, slender fingers. "The tower isn't here and the sky is different. No Fae nearby either. The grass is the same and the weapons are new. There is also quite a bit missing. But you could put this land next to Avalon and think they were quite similar but they are unmistakably different."

"So, like an entrance?" Romani asked. "Like you would have to pass through here to enter Avalon? The place that is."

"Perhaps," Arturia shrugged. "Regardless, I have no desire to go back while Shirou is here."

Shirou felt a smile tug at his lips.

"I am very confused," Ritsuka said plaintively.

"Mr. Emiya's copy of Avalon decided to settle around Unlimited Blade Works rather than inside," Mash explained to her Master. "As such, it has caused the Reality Marble to take on an appearance similar to that of the Avalon on the Reverse Side of the World."

"But that just makes me more confused," Ritsuka objected. "How is a sheath and a place being the same thing?"

"I-I don't know," Mash stammered. "I guess EX rank Noble Phantasms are just like that?"

"So my copy of Avalon is sheathing my Reality Marble," Shirou nodded in understanding. "Makes sense. Would that affect Olga in any way?"

"Should provide additional protection," Romani idly bit his lip. "I imagine that unless you use your Reality Marble directly, anything that shatters your soul would not affect your Reality Marble. But that said, I don't think your Reality Marble would last long without your soul…Maybe? To be honest, I don't think I know the answer to that."

(True Route)

"So I shouldn't fight inside my Reality Marble," Shirou concluded.

"Definitely not," Romani agreed. "While it would rework the environment to be ideal for you, a destruction of the Reality Marble would damage you and almost certainly kill Olga. Also, it would remove you from the Bounded Fields of Chaldea and any assistance the rest of Chaldea can give."

"High stakes then," Shirou didn't mention that he could think of a few situations that would render even such a case preferable.

"And in such a high stakes battle, Olga could easily be killed in the cross-fire," Romani looked like he had bit into a lemon. Shirou had to nod in agreement.

Something to avoid if at all possible.

(False Route)

"So I can Rayshift and it wouldn't affect Olga?" Shirou felt some of the weight on his shoulders become relieved.

"Oh, yes, if you are asking about that…" Romani paused. "I haven't the slightest clue."

"Really?" Shirou raised an eyebrow.

"Hey, how often do you mix an EX rank protective Noble Phantasm, a Reality Marble, and a soul sheltering inside with time travel through Spiritrons?" Romani protested. "Unless you are some kind of super Caster, that situation will never happen. And I don't recall anything like this ever happening in the history of Chaldea."

"No one has done such an experiment," Da Vinci chimed in. "And as the resident super Caster, my statement is definitive! And the answer would be-"

She paused, letting drama build up and to gather everyone's attention.

"It all depends on what other Mysteries were thrown into the mix," she shrugged before starting to rub her hands together in glee. "I foresee no complications in a standard Rayshift but this is the very edge of Mystery and science. At these points, it isn't what is expected to happen that is interesting but what actually happens instead that is so intriguing to geniuses of science."

(Both Routes)

Olga stared at the surrounding Reality Marble, eyes wide, mouth slack.

The wasteland was gone. Different. Replaced.

Green and gold stalks waved atop the ground and beneath the armors and weapons. The hill she was at the base of was no longer barren, except for a spot of ground at the top of the hill where the three swords stood brilliantly, gleaming in the sun-drenched light.

Her head turned mechanically over the land. Everywhere she could see was green, weapons, and armor. If she hadn't been here for the transformation, she would have believed this was a different land from the Reality Marble she had been in…

Wait. Reality Marbles don't just change like that!

Olga stood up on top of the hut of swords, her sense of incredulousness overwhelming her depression.

This was impossible! Something must have happened! And if nothing had happened down here, and she knew nothing had, then the only logical conclusion…

Olga's head snapped up into the sky. Something must have happened in the outside world.

27 gears met her gaze, each of them moving slowly in comparison to the furious pace they had been at before the change had happened. Now they were almost immobile-

No, they too had taken on a slight tint of gold and green. Like something was covering them, sheathing them in a protective manner.

Olga raised a hand to cover her eyes before pausing. She invoked a family spell meant for observing the sun before turning to look at the sun.

She squinted, no telescope at hand to aid her in her observations. The sun was the same as it had always been. No difference. It was just the rest of the land that had changed.

But why?

Olga crept down the large sword she hid from the change on, getting close to but not touching the grass.

She narrowed her eyes at it.

It looked like plain grass. Normal, too healthy grass. Wild grass that would grow in secret meadows as opposed to well-kept and mowed pleasant grass on Animusphere private estates.

But was it? This was a Reality Marble. It was a reflection of the soul, a part of the human. Humans did not just change on a whim. Changes took time, effort. A single moment could start such a momentous change to a soul but it could never change it completely. Not without extreme effort, time, or magical energy or a great Mystery.

But another thing about Reality Marbles was that things weren't always as they seemed. What if the grass was parasitic? Just waiting for her to step down before attacking her and dragging her down before feeding on her? What if the grass was an invader to this Reality Marble, a hostile entity trying to suppress Shirou's soul as his body was converted into fertilizer? There were some Phantasmal Creatures from the Age of Gods that might be able to do such. Though she doubted there were many that were still around, especially near Chaldea. But there had been that one forest…

Olga narrowed her eyes at the grass which innocuously waved at her.

She didn't trust it. Especially as she couldn't feel the breeze that was causing the grass to move.

Olga climbed up higher on the top of her hut and huffed.

Now how was she supposed to sleep with the sun like this? What if the grass crept up on her? And why was Romani risking the technician she was inside like this! What was he going to do if she-

She snapped her eyes shut, eyes without tears to shed. But the pain was throbbing.

Why would Romani care? She must have made his job difficult. Why should he care about her, now that she was a dead spirit? He wasn't even a magus! That had been his nurse who had made sure to provide magical healing. He just knew more about Chaldea's medical equipment, physical and otherwise, than anyone else and had seniority over all medical staff. She had tried to find a replacement for him but how many doctors or magi keep up to date on spiritual, physical, and psyche ailments while being capable of using all the advanced technology the medical department had been filled with? Some of it was even from Atlas! And if she was honest, he wasn't bad at his job if useless outside of it. He just didn't do his job with the full seriousness her Chaldea needed and Lev had spoken for him-

Lev.

Olga's face contorted in a rictus of agony. Lev had spoken for Romani. Was Romani one of Lev's? What if he was a traitor? Was this sudden change his doing?

Olga sat on the roof of her crude domicile and thought about the risks and loyalties of the man she had handed her Chaldea to.

Hours later, this was how the group from Chaldea found her, still perched on the roof.

"So, the Once and Future King of Britain seeks to join Chaldea?" Olga lifted an eyebrow at the two blond women sitting opposite her on the picnic blanket. "While I understand the desire, we have no room for a king on staff. And this should all be Romani's business, not mine so don't waste your time bothering me!"

"I am no longer a king," Arturia, the human, replied calmly even as she held hands with Shirou. "Further, as of this time, there is not even the history of a kingdom which once called me its own."

Olga savagely bit into an apple rather than respond to the rejoinder.

Failure. She had failed. So completely that not even the Mages Association could accuse her of failure because even they were all gone! Wiped out so utterly that they only lived on in her memory.

Olga felt a mad laugh bubble up in her chest but she ruthlessly repressed it with a scowl on her face. Her constant history of failing was only now working in her favor. Every mistake she had made was piled up and dwarfed by this one and no one would blame her for this mistake because they had been crushed underneath it!

"I can help her," Shirou Emiya offered. "She has some skills that would be useful to Chaldea."

"Even if she didn't, I would still employ her," Romani threw in his advice. "We need every hand we can get. We're all that's left and we have one shot to resolve this."

"Deal with seven Singularities when the first one nearly wiped us out," Olga scoffed without any real hope in their words. "There won't be a single survivor when we confront this 'king' person."

Olga did not glance at Arturia. How suspicious. A person who shouldn't exist anymore appears in Chaldea after the attack, claiming that there was a king who had Incinerated humanity and they had to reclaim seven Holy Grails in order to succeed. And she also has ties to the only worker who had survived Lev's purge of his own department.

And now they wanted this stranger claiming the name of King Arthur to take up a leadership position in her Chaldea. Did they think she was an idiot? No Lord of the Clock Tower worth their fish and chips would fall for such a plot. Even Olga, as terrible of a successor as she was, wouldn't fall for such!

They had only one thing going for this plot. It was that desperate of a situation and Chaldea's own systems were in agreement with the information, as unthinkable as it was. Not even a hint of discrepancy, according to Romani and Da Vinci, though they had not found all 7 Singularities yet.

But Olga was not going to just give up Chaldea to some noble who had gleefully sabotaged her by holding back information on Lev's plot until after she had stumbled into it. And if King Arthur did turn out to be this 'king' responsible…

Well, Olga would be more than willing to let 'King Arthur' face her wrath.

Olga fumed even as she took up her glass of orange juice and drank deeply. This fluid and food was all she was going to get until the next day. It was intolerable but there was no helping it. And her stomach was speaking in place of her mind and she knew it. How could she let herself become so weak?

Speaking of weak, Olga could tell that if she tried to fight Arturia, she would die. How could she win? Even with the Animusphere Crest on her side, she would be helpless against the real deal or even someone able to successfully pose as it.

Olga glanced at the Saber Servant that Shirou had summoned. The identical resemblance was rather convincing. But as the demon possessing Lev had just taught her, how much a person resembled another was no evidence of truth. Any being could easily resemble a dead person, especially if the person you were trying to deceive never knew the dead person to begin with. Why, Olga was certain that a fake approximation of a Servant was indeed possible if a person managed to summon the Servant in question. At which point, a lot of effort could be put into making a convincing fake, even assuming that somehow memories were transferred over from the Servant into the human replica. Not impossible, rumors had it that the Ainsworth family had some magecraft capable of transferring memories between beings and other families had investigated similar functions to enhance magecraft research.

But the hopeless situation was still the same. If Olga wanted to win, she had to find some way to overcome this setback on her own terms without depending on the aid of another Lord. Or else the Animusphere family would find themselves beholden to another family, one that would use this information as blackmail for generations to come. It would be the political coup of the century.

Olga munched on some steamed broccoli, glaring at Arturia who was also eating, though she seemed to be the one eating the most. So what if they had brought enough food for everyone to eat while they had a meeting over a meal? This was her food, the others could eat whenever they pleased!

"If we didn't have Merlin's assurance, I would be in complete agreement. We are certain to lose more people," Romani nodded fervently. Olga scowled at the yes man. "But with his help, we know that we have one ally of considerable quality. Also, I feel like this is the best option for Chaldea."

Olga's scowl deepened. Unfortunately, Romani had reached the same conclusion she had, just slower and wasting her time. They were in such a bad position that they couldn't refuse assistance. All they could do was take steps to limit the damage.

Which meant that if she wanted the Animuspheres to at least be able to claim the credit, she needed Romani, who was Father's most trusted man, more than Father ever trusted her, to be in control. Even if he had betrayed her and the Animusphere family, she would be able to press a claim that Chaldea's success was due to her family's efforts, regardless of anything Romani could say or do. After all, they were the ones who found and recruited him.

If they succeeded. If they survived. If, if, If, IF, IFFF!

Olga sighed, her mind letting go of the familiar political manipulations she had grown up learning, the flames of anger snuffing out like someone had slammed the lid shut. What did it matter? She could never succeed, she could never win. All she could do is fail.

"Very well," She gave in, pushing away the food. She was no longer hungry, her appetite an illusion like her very continuation of life. "Hire her at an entry level position. You should be barely competent enough to do that much if you didn't think of it."

There, the simple solution. Simply put her someplace unimportant but under Romani's command. If he wanted to have another worker, he could deal with her. Olga was washing her hands of this mess. Again, since Romani wasn't good enough to remember that she had quit.

"Okay," Roman nodded. "I'll get started on the check-up…ahhh."

Romani groaned and buried his face in his hands.

"You will find I am in the optimum state of health," Arturia assured the head doctor.

"No, it's not that," Romani moaned. "You don't have any medical records and that is an absolute requirement from the UN for the medical department. I'll have to fill them out from scratch and apply the necessary shots. All the shots… And some of them need to be applied in a series with days in-between. Two weeks or so."

"Shots?" Arturia looked bewildered. Saber Lily winced as she understood from the knowledge of FATE.

"I don't have the time to deal with all of this…" Romani lifted up his face to look at Arturia. "Any possibility I could hire you to do medical department work?"

"I am unqualified for that position," Arturia stated.

"Not even clerical work?" Romani sighed in disappointment at Arturia's denial. "Oh, being able to read modern languages would be needed, wouldn't it. Ah, what am I going to do?"

"Saber Lily, would you assist by inputting further information into TRIMEGISTUS in regard to the common languages of your day and their translation to modern languages?" Da Vinci inquired, lifting her voice from behind Olga's hut where she was handling Olga's laundry. It wasn't like they could transfer clothes in and out of the Reality Marble on a permanent basis. But they could bring clothes for her to change into while the Reality Marble was manifested so her clothes could be cleaned. The stench was as bearable as Olga knew herself to be.

"Of course," Saber Lily agreed from where she was sitting while watching the picnic. When only a limited amount of food could be brought in it was best to limit who ate. Romani had decided that after considering how much food to bring in to make available for Olga for her one meal a day. "I would be happy to help."

"We'll find something for you to do," Romani muttered. Arturia nodded in agreement as indolence was not an option for any busy organization. Olga had not permitted such behavior back when she had barely any say in things. Romani put a check mark on the list of items to cover. "Okay, next item of business, FATE."

"FATE? Is it nonfunctional again?" Olga frowned. Like everything else, it would only go right on a whim until it could mess up in the worst time possible. As reliable as everything else in her life.

Romani groaned and buried his face in his hands. "I wish it was like before the Rayshift."

"What happened?" Ritsuka asked. Olga shot a glare at him, irritation poking her skin from the inside. Did it really matter? FATE had only rarely worked properly at the best of times and this was the worst of them.

"Well, FATE was not designed to handle the materialization of a human body with no Spirit Origin," Romani explained. "So when Merlin hitched Arturia onto the Saber Lily summon, FATE couldn't handle it. Broke down is a mild way to put it. Extensive damage in several compartments, some electronics are total slag and a few spells and Bounded Fields destabilized or exploded. Some aspects still work, like the Galvanism converter, Command Seal generation and distribution, and mana provision to registered Servants. But we can't register new Servants to FATE or summon right now."

He slid a paper over to Olga with the list of damages. Olga scanned and winced. As Romani had said, FATE, or at least the Servant summoning part of the great complex invention, was inoperable. If FATE hadn't been built in separate components brought together at the last stage, they would have lost all of FATE. Another thing on her long list of sins—No it wasn't! This wasn't her fault at all! This was Romani's, not hers! She had never permitted the summons!

"Your choice, your fault, your mess," she savagely bit out at Romani as she helped herself to a celery stick, glaring at Arturia who was reaching for her vegetable platter again.

"I know, I know," Romani sighed, her vitriol not affecting him like rain to a windshield. "It can't be helped. No one knew that Merlin would interfere. It will take months of work to scrounge up replacement pieces. And the coding and rebuilding the spells will be the trickiest part of the whole thing. Can't even let Da Vinci take a shot at it due to the anti-Servant defenses on FATE."

"Do whatever you want," Olga batted Arturia's hand away from the rolls and seized a roll for herself. She blinked at somehow finding Arturia's hand beneath hers before her eyes shot to the thief. "Get your own!"

"I am providing for myself," Arturia argued back, her other hand still linked with the technician's.

"Saber," Shirou rebuked, his Servant perking up at being addressed before slumping in realization he was talking to the other her. Shirou didn't notice as he used his chopsticks to put another piece of salmon on Saber's plate where it swiftly vanished like Olga's tattered hope of ever being good enough. "Be nice."

And now even the technician was looking down at her with pity! Lips pulling back in a snarl, Olga nearly snapped at him before remembering that she was permanently stuck inside his realm and under his power and influence. It would be easier for her to break out of a Caster's Temple than to defend herself against his Reality Marble.

Instead, she took her anger out on the wheat roll with her teeth. She had spent too long hungry to willingly throw food right now. But the wooden basket…

"A roll, Mash?" Ritsuka stopped her by leaning over and grabbing the basket first and offering it to the sole surviving Demi-Servant experiment. Olga glared at him. Why did this commoner consistently interfere with her!

"Oh, um, s-sure," Mash looked shocked at the offer but didn't turn it down. "Thank you, Master."

"Please don't call me Master," Ritsuka requested of Mash. "It feels awkward. I'm just some ordinary guy not in a maid café."

Haah, people actually paid stores to pretend that their waitresses were maids? Who would ever want that? Pitiful. If you had the money for that, just buy better quality food! Or invest into making more money so you could hire a maid if you wanted something so pathetically ordinary!

"Okay, I'll get the magi onto it," Romani ignored the byplay to start scribbling things down on his clipboard. "I'll have to move people off other things but we really need FATE to get back to functioning if Merlin is right and we are going to fight Servants. Wait, the documentation! We might be able to recover the original code from the documents of the original version of FATE and use that. But the patches… And finding errors and typos… Ahh, this will be a pain for the magi. Can I assign one of them to be the project manager so I don't have to work on it myself?"

Hah, deal with what she had to do, Romani! Ugh, she had a headache just from thinking about how Chaldea would fix FATE without the full staff of geniuses she and Father had assembled. On top of everything else.

But that didn't matter to her anymore, did it? No one would be able to ignore her incompetence after this catastrophe. Everyone would rise up and try to take pieces out of her, ruining everything her ancestors had worked for.

"The Command Seal is running out," Shirou suddenly spoke up. Olga's eyes darted to his left hand where two bright red marks like arrows still shone red, the third used to power this trip. "I don't think I can hold for more than half a minute."

"Okay, that's basically it. There are still some more things to go over but they can wait for tomorrow," Romani scrambled off the picnic blanket even as Mash, Ritsuka Shirou, Arturia, and the Saber started packing up. Olga got up and scrambled over to Caster so she could get into clothes that wouldn't vanish when the Reality Marble compressed back down into Shirou's soul. "See you tomorrow, Director!"

"I'm not the Director, you idiot!" Olga raged even as she stepped behind her stone hut, finding the Caster Da Vinci finishing hanging her clothes onto…was that a bunch of swords or laundry drying poles? Why would anyone make a sword like that?

Then the Servant vanished along with all the sounds of people, leaving only the sounds of grass blowing in a non-existent wind and the large gears in the sky winding down in a quiet realm.

Leaving the ghost of Olga alone in a foreign soul again.

She squeezed her eyes shut at a senseless, irrational surge of loneliness. None of them cared for her, she harshly reminded herself. They were just doing this because they wanted a scapegoat, someone they could blame for everything that went wrong with the First Order.

The thought was like sandpaper rubbing over sensitive skin. But it had to be true. No one would want to save someone like her, a useless disaster, a disappointment, a coward who always created more trouble than she was worth. Not unless they wanted something from her, even Lev only wanted a tool to manipulate. And as she was dead, a ghost hiding from the Human Order, there was nothing more they could take from her.

But she would kill if anyone tried to kill her again.

Saber Lily quietly listened in as she helped pack up the blanket and put it back into the picnic basket. She wasn't sure what she was to do now, but she wanted to help out. This was her chance to learn and enhance her skills! Also, they needed everyone they could use right now and she was eager to learn new ways to help out.

"Well, that went well," Romani looked pepped and lively. Da Vinci had asked if he had injected a stimulant just before coming down here so this was out of normal for the bureaucrat. "Avalon adding in the grass should really help with her mental health. She seems livelier already."

"She was really angry though," Mash frowned, her worry obvious even as she helped finish cleaning up the last of the picnic. "I don't think I've seen her that irritable since the coffee machine in the kitchen broke and everyone was stumbling around."

"Improvement!" Romani nodded in glee. "Soon enough she'll be screaming again, trying to kick me out of everything, and chafing at anyone being inactive! Everything back to normal."

"Can't we try to make normal, you know, more normal?" Ritsuka asked.

"Eh, we're more accustomed to her being enraged. Besides, right now anger is better for her than her apathy," Romani shrugged, leaving Saber Lily surprised. Some people were like that all the time? "All right, time to get back to work. I'll have to talk with the head of human resources to figure out who we assign to deal with FATE."

"I have to get down to the kitchen," Shirou pushed himself up. He had a small sheen of sweat from pushing his circuits to briefly keep up the Reality Marble without the help of the Command Seal. Saber Lily checked the connection to her Master and fastened it tight, reducing how much she drew on Master's reserves.

"Seconds?" The other Arturia perked up. It was still rather weird to know that you were facing your original when you saw someone identical to yourself. Lily didn't think she liked how it felt.

A stomach growled. Saber Lily blushed as everyone turned to look at her. Treacherous stomach! She didn't even need to eat as a Servant.

"I'll see if I can persuade the cooks to let me make something for the two of you, but no," Shirou sighed. "Some appliances need maintenance."

"I see," Arturia looked disappointed. Like when the rain was pounding and Arturia still had to go out and feed the pigs instead of listen to the stories of the travelling merchants. Still, very weird to see those expressions on a face identical to hers.

"Lily, come here," Da Vinci called out. Lily turned to face the Caster who was approaching with a…tablet, the databanks from FATE before it had turned to slag had informed her. "Here, use this to help improve translations so Arturia can start helping out."

"Okay," Saber Lily glanced at her mortal self, lips twitching down in a frown.

"And this is for her to practice writing in English or Japanese if she wishes to learn both," Da Vinci added. "Translation talismans and TRIMEGISTUS can substitute but learning the language gives a better understanding. You can grade her and correct her."

"Okay!" Saber perked up. For some reason, having something she was better in than the self that her Master paid more attention to was heartening. "I'll be glad to help out!"

I had intended for Olga to take part of the Summoning Ritual, chanting in concurrence with Shirou as they both summoned…but Olga fell into depression and having her recover too quick would be a slight on just how serious her breakdown is. I guess the story grew on its own away from my outline.

And that's the wrap. A sequel will be forthcoming but I am not offering any certainties on when it will be. That said, I was recently invited to a writing contest for Christmas and I think I can put up a side-story for Technician's Order for that so that will come first. Stay tuned for that.

Thank you to Eiskralle1 and shadyxlr for their help in beta-reading. And thank you to the people who left constructive reviews.