Frank Discussions and Confusions in a Temple Hallway…

“Ouch,” she adds, looking up and wincing from the now red marks on her face where gauntlets met face!

Moments later. . .

The odd party of three Amazonian warrior princesses, female king, and boy magus have finally moved away from the small courtyard from which the King of Knights had been rescued and cleansed of corruption and into the relative (and perhaps dubious) safety of the main hallway of the temple).

A somewhat guarded truce has been declared between them all until this moment, with the implicit understanding that whatever all should come of this meeting it should be the HELL away from that dark and sinful pit that made them all shudder to even LOOK at, much less contemplate touching.

Frankly, Saber has had experienced that already and would rather NOT experience it again, even IF she cannot fully recall it. But she recalled enough of it to know that if NOT for the apparent rescue and whatever . . .cleansing spellwork that the princesses of Colchis performed upon here…

No, while she did not know enough about what exactly the Hell was going on, whatever next she and her Master should decide (up to and including trusting her mysterious rescuers) should be done well AWAY from those dark pits of sin!!

So far the pit showed no real signs of moving anywhere but in a set/repeating motion but frankly if something should change (or they did something that should cause change) they wanted at least SOME distance between themselves and IT in order to be able to do something about it (if possible).

So, soon upon arrival in the main hallway they would get down to business but first…

”Master . . .please forgive me for the mistake I did!” Saber cries out as she throws herself at a rather befuddled Shirou’s feet. “I should never have left your side and left you defenseless! And I should have been wiser when I attacked Assassin so he wouldn’t have defeated me with deceit and that Shadow creature ally!”

”Uh . . .you’re forgiven but . . . what are you talking about?” Shirou sputters, confused over his Servant’s odd confession. “Last thing I remember before finding my wound’s being tended by her . . .”

Shirou gestures to one of the Caster sisters and frowns, still not at all happy to have been experienced apparent betrayals after apparent rescues. Rather, he recalls having been bespelled Caster to come to the temple for some vile reason, most likely to gain possession of his Command Seal (and thus gain possession/control of his Servant against her enemies like Berserker) or just eliminate him and Saber directly (and thus lessening her competition for the Holy Grail). Servant Archer had rescued him, only to strike him down from behind after a rather heated argument in the Temple entrance.

IN much pain, he’d found himself being suddenly levitated/yanked towards a very concerned looking warrior woman in armor who was NOT his Servant. Only to awaken a bit later finding his wound bound and the bandages smelling of some rather powerful regents that seemed to be in the process of accelerating the healing of his wounds.

Unable to do much in the way of communicate with the warrior woman, he had been still willing to believe that the mystery woman was on his side despite the unearthly vibes she gave off (rather like a Heroic Spirit/Servant but not . . . quiet the same to his mystical senses).

Then he’d seen the ceremony that was being performed on his Servant by the two other Caster Sisters. His Servant had been bound magically in place, struggling and in agony as they’d been doing unknown mystical things to her, by appearance something corruptive by the demonic look her armor had taken and the corrupted essence he felt emanating from her very being. She’d been screaming in agony so of COURSE he’d tried to rush over to save her, only to be bodily wrestled to the ground by the very woman who’d bound his wounds and healed him.

Unable to free himself or disrupt the ceremony beyond cursing and shouting, instead of seeing his Servant being enslaved and corrupted into a slave under these mystery warrior woman, instead his Servant seemed to be hale and cleansed of whatever corruption had been done her. By that tar like substance he’d seen Saber been pulled OUT of perhaps?

Did whatever they’d done to Saber (helpful or not) done something to her memory? Altered it? Scrambled it?

”I woke up here in the Temple because Caster’s spell ensnared me and made me come here,” Shirou continues.

”But Caster is dead and never got a chance to ensnare you,” Saber blinks, confused. “I struck her down myself days ago and if NOTHING else I learned from my debacle with Assassin that . . . What are you talking about Shirou?!”

A delicate cough interrupts both Master and Servant, and turning they both see that the triplets seem to be giving each other a knowing look before turning back to the questioning looks both Saber and Shirou are giving them.

“Perhaps the mismatching of memories here has the same roots as to why we are three sisters?” Medea 1 asks her siblings before turning towards to Saber and Shirou.

”Am I to understand that despite both of you knowing each other and fighting alongside each other there are decidedly mismatched and unknown events and things between you two?” she continued. “That is, events for each of you happening differently than what the other recalls them as?”

”Which would be in line with the duplicated people we saw throughout this complex here,” Medea 2 mutters, thinking back to the THREE sets of young men out front sweeping away at the steps, just mere yards away from each other. Basically, they were the same person but from three different “routes” that time had taken with the Grail War here by those who’d set up this . . .city under the dome at the end of time.

”That would also be in line with us,” Medea 3 adds, if only to herself.

As an aside, not everyone was duplicated due to them NOT being . . .very relevant to the happenings that the Dome builders. They would be considered background characters and not much anything else in the “game plot”. More later on that…

“Now . . .what I might say will sound farfetched,” Medea 1 continues. “But bear in mind there are powerful, mysterious forces afoot. One of which is somehow related to what we saw with the Sun outside…”

Each Medea shuddered slightly at that alien, swollen red thing that had briefly appeared in the sky above.

”We are part of a powerful, mysterious thing. It is a magic ritual some call the Grail War so that goes without saying,” Saber deadpans.

”Uh, what happened out there is kinda well outside even what should be happening with the Grail War Saber,” Shiriou added pointedly, feeling that what might be said next would be VERY helpful right now. Or at least somewhat helpful…

“The timeline here in this land has been shattered and sown back together into a crazy quilt,” Medea 1 interrupts. “Maybe it has something to do with this Grail War in part, but not entirely. But I and my sisters are here as we are in part to it, and I dare say so are you two.”

”I and my sisters here come from three separate ‘time lines’ that center around some gods forsaken ritual called Heaven’s Feel,” Medea 3 continues. “Some kind of item that the winner would grant ANY one wish they desire, no matter how big or small. VERY powerful magicks in it and perhaps something . . .went horribly wrong. I believe that that black pit we pulled Saber from perhaps had something to do with the wrongess in part…”

She pauses and gives Shirou a questioning look.

”Boy, I am just happy that we were able complete the Cleansing ritual uninterrupted AND that we succeeded with only two instead of the originally planned three,” she revealed in a neutral voice.

”With how she had been screaming I thought you were torturing her so she would become your Servant to defend against Berzerker!” Shirou protested, if only to justify himself for his actions.

And I shall remember those wretched screamings for a LONG time in my nightmares, the Caster Sisters think to themselves, shuddering slightly the screams still echoing in their minds.

THAT had not been expected at all.

”Boy, I would have simply cut off that Command Seal on your hand to gain Saber’s possession,” the Medea who’d wrestled Shirou to the ground said softly. “You’d never stood a chance if I wished you ill. You should realize this. Get your HEAD in the game, boy!”

Coughing slightly, the main speaker starts again.

“That aside . . .Well, the best way to describe what is going on here with both of you could be summed up with that odd Servants with those rather LONG swords over there at the front gate,” she says, gesturing with her hand and opening the doorway out into the outer courtyard and revealing THREE Servant Assassins standing guard at the front gate, apparently engaged in some kind of bantering speeches but unaware of each other’s presence. That and that there was NOBODY there that they were speaking to here.

”Who’s that?” Saber blinks, not recognizing the purple haired samurais guarding the front gate, and blinks again as the Servants blur and start the bantering over (and over) again, obviously in some kind of temporal loop.

“Saber, it is Servant Assassin!” Shirou says, shaking his head in consternation at the blank look that she gives him. Obviously, the young man hadn’t quiet gotten the hint, but Saber proves to have when . . .

“Are you saying that there are multiple copies of Servants and Masters running around?” she asks quietly. “That this is Shirou . . .but not exactly the one I contracted with.”

“A different route,” she says softly, looking back at Shirou and then at the triplets, realizing that there is even MORE strangeness afoot than she’d realized. They were duplicates as well, maybe? “A different Fate.”

1. “Yes, but if you allow us a boon we wish to at least try to sort this out peacefully. Hopefully, we can reunite you and your Ma. . . your Shirou along the way and hopefully fix this dilemma before it is too late, Gods and Goddesses willing!”

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