fate/first order derivative

Part I.4

> continue: iteration 14, day 1, late night

"Good evening." The little girl curtsies. "Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Illyasviel von Einzbern. And this is my Servant, Berserker." She really has the whole creepy-horror-movie-child thing down pat. Give her a twin, and we'd be halfway to a Shining remake.

Saber immediately puts herself between us and them. I quickly retreat behind Shirou and Rin.

"I see two Masters and a Servant before me," the girl continues. "But who is the fourth?"

I glance around. No sign of Not Actually Satan. "Oh, who, me?" I hold up my hands. "Oh, I'm -- I'm nobody. I'm not really part of this. Like, at all. I'm just a -- a..."

Rin sighs. "He's a non-combatant retainer."

I roll with it. "Yes. I'm that. That thing she just said."

"Oh. Well." The little girl smiles. "Unfortunately, so long as you're with the Master you serve... you're still fair game."

"Are you sure?" I ask desperately. "You guys don't have -- like -- medics? Or ambulance drivers? Or -- I dunno... magic accountants or something?"

"Bored now." She snaps her fingers. "Berserker. Kill them."

McHugeLarge springs way high into the air. A bunch of glowy arrows hit him and explode, and he crashes to the ground -- but then jumps at Shirou and Saber blocks him, with enough force that it feels like an artillery shell just went off in front of us --

> cue awesome battle sequence

It is awesome! But it's like a typhoon or a tsunami! Great and spectacular and all -- at a distance. Not something I want to be right in the middle of!

Running would be awesome right now, but then I might be making myself a target. So I just stay back and cringe and try to make myself look as small and non-threatening as possible.

Eventually, Saber lures Berserker deeper into the graveyard. The von Einzbern girl walks away. "I'm going after her!" Rin roars at us. "You two -- go home!" She rushes away.

Shirou looks at me. "I'm going too. You can stay here if you want."

I give him two thumbs up. "Yep! Fine! Works for me! Good luck, dude!"

He runs off after Rin. I'm pretty sure I can hear him humming the theme tune for something under his breath as he goes. I glance around cautiously. No sign of anyone, but I'm still a little too close to where I saw that one really big explosion happen. I should probably fix that.

***

> skip to: iteration 14, day 2, early morning

So the battle ends in a draw. Shirou gets wounded somehow -- guess he ended up inside the blast radius or something. Saber convinces Rin to assist her with first aid, and I help them get back to his house.

"So I have to ask," I say to Saber once they've got Shirou patched up and put to bed. "What exactly happened in the courtyard a few hours ago? I really need you to tell me everything."

"There isn't much to tell," Saber replies. "Shirou managed to summon me just as he was being attacked by another Servant."

Rin grunts. "Lancer, right? Better known as Cu Chulainn."

"You guessed his identity too, I see," Saber says.

"Kinda obvious, don't you think?"

I try and keep things on track. "So nothing you'd consider weird happened. At all."