Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Warily watching his older brother run about the room, Alphonse sits in his wheelchair quietly. He’s always been known as the quieter of the Elric brothers, but he’s never felt it quite so sharply until now. Ed, his older brother by a year, is leaping about the room, shouting in glee as he does, more emotional and excited than Al has ever seen him before. For his part, Ed is typically quiet, prone to moody bouts of silence, and when he does show his emotions, it’s usually explosions of anger and defensiveness.

Honestly, Ed is the most emotional person that Al has ever known, but he does try so hard to hide it.

Right now though, Ed doesn’t seem to care at all. He gleefully holds a box in his hands, practically skipping as he bounds about. Al is silent in his wheelchair, more than happy to let Ed revel in his glory. It’s not often that he’s able to see his brother smile so broadly, if at all. Ever since the accident, Ed hasn’t smiled much at all. Oh, he tries, of course, being the big strong brother that he is, but he hurts too, and he’s been desperate to not let Al see that side of him.

Finally though, Al’s curiosity gets the best of him and he wheels himself over to his brother. “What is it?”

Planting his feet on the ground, Ed gives him a wild grin. “It’s our salvation!” His grin is almost manic, close enough to scare Al a little. He’s never seen Ed look like this before, a bright gleam in his golden eyes that seems both unusual and familiar. Maybe it has to do with their father. Mom always said they had his eyes, even if Al can’t remember him like Ed can.

However, when Al peers inside the box, all he sees is a glass flask, a bulb so that it might hold liquid and a little tube that would filter the liquid out. It’s cracked on one side. He sits back in his seat, feeling a little more than disappointed. “It’s junk.”

“No, it’s a relic,” Ed proclaims proudly. He says the word with reverence, but there’s a flash on his face that almost looks like contempt. Al knows from that split second that this object once belonged to their father, who left them when they were just children. This thing now though, despite Ed’s distaste for it, holds the key to everything they’ve been dreaming of. That’s how Ed is looking at it at least. “It’s our key to get into the next Holy Grail War.”

Al gasps. “Brother, we’re too young!”

His eyes turning to molten gold, Ed grasps the box tightly against his chest. “I’m a brilliant alchemist! Mom said that we’re the tenth generation of mages in our family. That means I’m strong.” They read the same books, though Ed is a little more ahead of them. Al sinks in his seat though. They’re still young. Most mages that compete in the Holy Grail Wars are decades older than them and much more advanced. Even if Ed won’t admit it, Al knows that experience can sometimes count a lot more than natural abilities. “I’m going to summon the strongest Servant and win the War.”

“Brother…” Al bites his lip. More than anything, he wants to persuade his brother to hold off – to wait for the next War – but he knows that Ed won’t. Al knows, somehow, that the command signals will appear on his brother’s hand, his eagerness and pure kindness a beacon to the Holy Grail. Ed is too good. He’s too desperate. He wants to repair their home, their life, their family.

Ed is everything the Holy Grail will want in a Master.

“I can do this,” Ed proclaims, his entire face bright now. “I can win! Everyone thinks about the top three classes, but I’ll sneak in with another.” He laughs, clear and earnest. It both breaks Alphonse’s heart and gives him hope, especially when Ed lays a hand on his arm. “You’ll walk again, little brother, I promise.”

*

“You need to be quiet,” May whispers to Xiao Mei as they crouch behind the house. The small panda seemingly glares, her animal eyes glowing in the dark, but May ignores it. The oldest and largest house out of all the Xing clans, it’s more of a palace to May. She’s not used to such extravagance. Then again, no one in her clan would be, not even her, despite being the daughter of a king. She’s the lowest of the high, in her mother’s words, worth little more than a shrug of the shoulders.

Not anymore though. Opening the lid of the box just barely so that the glow gleams on her face, May stares down at the stone. She’s the youngest person in the world to ever lay eyes on the stone. In truth, she was never to see it, never even know about it, but people have such loose tongues around her. After all, in most people’s eyes, she’s little more than a child. The only reason she’s here is because it’s her eleventh name day and every prince and princess celebrates their name day at the Xing palace, regardless of whether or not the Emperor actually cares.

Nonetheless, May counted herself lucky to have her name day around this time of year. Every child of the Emperor knows about the Holy Grail Wars. From the time they are born, they are taught about it, in hopes that one of them will be chosen and they will win it. For the Emperor, for their Father.

May smiles as she closes the lid. She alone out of her sixteen siblings knows the truth. She, the youngest of all of them, the quietest, the most temperamental, the smallest, the least expected, knows what must be done in order to even be considered by the Grail. Because while her siblings fought with and betrayed one another for their father’s approval, May realized early on that it was on the human that helped create her that chose who fought in the War. The mysterious Grail chose, and she was determined to be worthy from the very minute she realized that.

When the seal appeared on her hand the night before her name day, May nearly cried. And when she stole the relic, passed down through her father’s family since before time could be remembered, she kept silent as could be. She closes the lid now and breaths as quietly as possible. In minutes, the palace guards that protect the vault will see that the relic is missing. Whether or not they or the Emperor understands the meaning of its disappearance is beyond her. No one will believe that a young girl is a Master in the Holy Grail War, but she will show them. She’ll show all of them.

“We need to leave now,” May sighs, casting one more wistful glance at the beautiful city. Xiao Mei nuzzles against May’s leg, and she scoops the small animal up to place on her shoulder. It will be a long time before she lays her eyes on this sight again, but she swears, to the gods of old and new, that her people will be able to look at it too when she returns.

*

Winry is standing in front her of parents’ graves alone when her hand begins to burn. She gasps in shock and bends over, grasping onto her right hand tightly. When the burning finally subsides, she stares down at the strange red mark on the back of her hand with wide, blue eyes. She’s never seen or heard anything like this before.

“What’s happening?” she whimpers, but her parents do not hear her cry. They’re dead, killed in a war in which they were only trying to save lives while everyone else ended them. Her lip trembles and tears build up in her eyes, but she doesn’t make a sound after that. Crying is good for the soul, or so she has been told, but she doesn’t know whether she’s supposed to cry or not.

For a long time, she stands in front of her parents’ tombstones, her eyes drifting to the grey stone and then back at the red mark on her hand. She doesn’t know what it is, certainly doesn’t know what it means, but after a while, she thinks she can remember her father having the same mark on his hand once before. She asked him about it once, didn’t she? He’d merely smiled and ruffled her hair, said that it was nothing for her to worry about.

He was wrong apparently – wrong and now dead.

By the time she drags herself back to her grandmother’s house, Winry is too tired to think. She’s spent days crying and sleeping, not knowing what else to do after her parents’ unexpected deaths. Her granny sets a bowl of hot beef stew in front of her, but Winry barely notices it, stirring spoon idly in the liquid.

Abruptly, Granny Pinako snatches Winry’s hand, her grip firmer than what some old codger should be capable of. “What’s this?” she demands, her tone as sharp as her eyes as the light of the dining room shines almost menacingly off her glasses.

Winry jerks her hand back and hides it nervously. “Nothing!”

She doesn’t know what it is. As far as she’s concerning, it is nothing. Still, while she doesn’t know, in her heart, she knows that it is more than anything in the world, more than she could possibly dream of. Nothing for her to worry about. Her father should’ve told her when he’d had the chance, when he’d been alive. Weren’t things passed down through mage families? They may have been a young mage family, her Granny being the first to have magical prowess in three generations, but still, it would have been nice to know something.

Instead of being angry at Winry hiding something, Pinako collapses in her chair, a solemn expression filling her face. It’s sadder than when she found out that her son and daughter-in-law had been killed. “Oh, my dear sweet child…” Her words are filled with a weight heavier than one being stuck with the task of raising their child’s daughter. “You dream of something greater than the world. It will take great training to prepare you for the War in two years.”

Winry blinks in confusion. “The War…? But the war is now, isn’t it? That’s what killed Dad and Mom.”

Pinako reaches out and Winry gives her grandmother her hands, including the marked one. Her Granny sweeps a calloused hand over the mark. “This is a different War, one I’d hoped you would never be a part of, one that makes me wish I had never known magic.”

A wind seems to blow through the house. Winry doesn’t understand. One day, she will, and she will be harder than her grandmother and parents ever could have been.

*

“We must ensure that we win the Holy Grail War.”

“There are more…extraneous variables for this one that the last few combined.”

“Then we must be even more careful than before.”

Father turns away from his partner after proclaiming a truth that he’s loath to speak about. Of course, truth be told, he’s never been fond of the gold-toothed man, to the point where he refused to ask the man’s name or tell his own, but his partner has never asked. At least the man has loyalty. And that is necessary when it comes to working together in the Holy Grail Wars.

It is every man for themselves, but if two Masters were to find each other at the start in order to form a truce, it could change everything.

This is the fourth Holy Grail War that Father has competed in. It is why he was given the name Father in the first place. No other Master has been called upon so many times. He must win this time. The Grail must be speaking to him, proclaiming him the rightful owner before the War, to have given him the command signals so many times. It’s given him a longer life not known to mortal men. This is more than just a War to Father now. It is his life, his sole purpose, his very being.

“I’m surprised you chose the class that you did,” the gold tooth doctor admits idly. His voice is idle; his words are not. Father knows probing when he hears it.

And he smiles casually. “Assassin is stronger than he appears. That is what I want.”

The doctor tilts his head. “To look weak?”

“To be a surprise,” a boy’s childish voice responds from the shadows. It’s still a slight shock even to Father to see an innocuous, small boy step into the light, wearing a schoolboy’s outfit. He doesn’t look older than ten. His eyes are near black and yet strangely glittering, his smile sweet. Father has spilled the blood of children that look less innocent than this one in order to summon a Servant.

Father tries not to laugh when his partner startles, not out of fear, but confusion. “You are a Servant?”

“I am Assassin,” the child replies, gazing up at the old man. He turns his eyes to Father, a child looking to their parent. There is nothing in his eyes. It’s a strange sight. He holds no contempt, no disgust, no hate. He merely awaits an order for his Master. It is more than any other Servant has given him. “I do hope that your cohort’s Servant is more impressive. I am not fond of wasting time.”

After clearing his throat, the doctor moves to the table and slides his hand down the dull side of a gleaming sword. It’s old-fashioned, but looks as if it was crafted the day before. “Then I will not delay further. I found my needed relic.”

Father watches without blinking as the boy moves towards the table, his gaze burning and yet light as he stares forward. He just barely avoids needing a stepping stool in order to see what lies on top. For the first time though, Assassin smiles, and it is not childlike at all. Cold pierces Father’s heart and he feels a swell of glee build in his soul. “You will summon Saber? A strong class indeed. And this one…” He chuckles. Oh, no, he is not an innocent child to toy with at all. Who is this Assassin? “I am the strongest of my class, but this would be a mighty foe indeed.”

For someone as proud as his Servant to admit that… Father does not even blink. He is allied with Saber for the time being, but he knows that if it comes to it, his Assassin will do whatever is necessary to sever those bonds. After all, assassins work alone and in the dark in the end.

*

It is a well-known fact that participating in the Holy Grail Wars is passed down through the generations of the Armstrong family. Olivier has known this as far as she can remember, studying the tactics that her family has used in the past, learning other families’ and mages’ weakness and strengths, working on her own. When she struggled and failed, her father would pat her on the head while she ranted and raved.

She would not lose! She would win the War!

Her father did say that she was far too strong-minded.

Half the time, whenever she practiced magic, she would use too much mana and whatever she was focusing on would explode into ruins or sometimes even turn against her. More than once, she had to duck behind something, lest she be injured by her own attempts at magic. She merely contained too much magic in her soul to be contained though. Her father did say that she was stronger than most and her determination and anger only fueled that power.

When the mark appeared on her hand, Olivier was not surprised. She merely harrumphed that it arrived so late and went on about her day. As far as she was concerned, the Grail should’ve known the second she was born that she would be destined to fight in this War. It was nearly a month before one of her sisters spotted the telltale mark on her hand and told their father. She would have liked to have taken her relic by force or found out, but as it was family tradition, he merely gave it to her.

“You will lead our family to victory,” her father says, bowing as he hands her the relic, a metal gauntlet with strange markings on the knuckles. It’s nearly five times to size of her hand and twice the size of her father’s, who has the largest hands that she has ever seen in her life. The warrior that wore this gauntlet must have been a massive and fierce warrior, truly a Servant destined for her.

Olivier takes the relic in her hand and smirks. It’s heavy, almost too much for her to hold with one hand, but she refuses to hold it any other way. This Servant will bow down to her, whether he giants over her or not. She will be the Master, after all.

*

The Holy Grail War did not sound interesting at first. Oh, Kimblee heard about it at the Clock Tower when he was there, and it practically bored him to tears, if he was capable of tears. People would whisper about it, mostly older mages from ancient families, but he didn’t see the point in it.

After all, none of them could ever want the Grail enough for it to call on them. They were weak, pathetic, little creatures. He could squash them all like bugs and they would only have time to gasp in indignant rage that someone like him could defeat them. It would have brought him great joy to do so.

Everyone believes that power in magic came from generations upon generations of mages in a family. That’s why the Armstrong family and the extinct Hohenheim family are so revered. Kimblee is the first of mages in his family for generations. His parents shipped him off when he was a child and died shortly after. He never truly knew them. He doesn’t truly care. They had no magic dancing in their fingertips, not like he does, so powerful that he didn’t know what to do with it when he first went to the Clock Tower.

He was bullied, shoved aside, told that he was nothing – but he learned and he waited and he watched. He listened. And he knew, above all else, that he was destined for more.

The command signals appear on his hand before anyone else’s for the next Holy Grail War, a full two years before May Chang is even born. He is young when it happens, not even a student at the Clock Tower yet. It’s a surprise even to him when he learns what the marks are about, but he is curious and bright and he enrolls in the school right away. It puts him in debt, but he doesn’t care. The Grail has aspirations for him that he doesn’t know about yet. That’s enough to interest him.

By the end of his school, no one bullies him, if only because they are afraid of him. There is something wrong with him, a few people say, but Kimblee pays them no mind. He tugs on the gloves that cover his hands and hide the command signals that tell the world who he is. Honestly, he doesn’t care if people know that he’s involved in this War or not, as it’s merely an exercise in curiosity for him, but there are other things that he doesn’t want people to know about.

Like the murders. Being in prison would not help his cause.

Kimblee sighs at the sight of the woman gagged before him. Her eyes are wide with fear, red like blood, hair white as if she has seen a ghost. But no, she is just an Ishvalan, another component to his cause. After all, every summoning requires a sacrifice, most especially a Servant for the War. “You should count this as an honor,” he tells the woman as he leans down to look her square in the eyes. She jerks away from him, fear terribly evident on her face. It’s a heartwarming sight. “You’re helping me win the War!”

When he starts the incantation, it almost looks as if the woman’s eyes go white with fear, the pupils so small against the bright light of the magic that glows in the room. He can’t wait until the walls are painted as red as her irises with her blood.

*

A fifteen year-old Ed grins furiously as he holds a palm out towards the flask in the alchemy circle that he created and blue lights crackle around him. He will be a Master and his Servant will appear. Al sits a few feet back, his wheelchair pressed against the wall, and looks on in worry.

In his mind, Ed is completely confident that everything will go according to plan. People look down on the Caster class, but he knows it in it and out. It is his family’s class and no one knew it better than his father. Ed has read the books to the point that he can recite them by memory. Every time anyone else tries to summon Caster, they always fumble and fail, unable to match up with them. No one will expect this, as all believe the Hohenheim line to be dissolved. His father may have been a bastard, but he was smart and the magic he passed along to his son even greater.

It’s almost as if Ed doesn’t even need the Caster Servant in order to perform the same results. He’s a mage in his own right at such a young age that it would astound anyone. It could have been Al though. Only one child is allowed the rights to their parent’s inherited powers. He can feel the power in his little brother simmering underneath his weak surface, but Ed knows that he must be the one to carry this burden for now.

Ed smiles back at his little brother encouragingly. He will use up all the magical power in him to give his brother his body back, to bring their mother back, and then it will be Al’s turn to pass it along. Ed doesn’t hold any illusion about his survival in this War. He never has. Al is the hopeful one.

But for this moment, Ed hopes beyond hope that his Servant, the one he is summoning, will help him accomplish his goals.

*

The explosion of the arrival of her Servant blows Winry off her feet. She cries out as she flies back and tumbles against the floor. Pinako, who just barely managed to stay on her feet by grasping onto the wooden threshold of the door, rushes to her once the wind dies down. Light still crackles eerily in the room, delicate thunder and sound of electrical charges surging in the air.

“I’m alright,” Winry mumbles as she waves away Pinako’s concerns. She allows her grandmother to help her up, but nothing else. However, when her eyes settle on her Servant, she freezes and grabs hold of the older woman’s arms tightly, blue eyes wide in shock.

Standing in the summoning circle that Winry created painstakingly with Pinako is a beautiful blond-haired woman. Her hair is short, cut like a man’s, but only for a moment. She seems to assess Winry in that moment, taking account of her look, and then golden hair descends onto her shoulders like a cape, flowing over the armor that covers her shoulders. Winry can barely breathe. The woman absolutely beautiful.

And…not who she was expecting at all.

“Archer?” Winry finally manages.

The woman breathes. She never takes her eyes away from Winry. Surely she should have thought that Pinako, an older and more experienced mage, was her Master, but it is as if the Servant knew right from the start that this young girl was her Master and accepted it before she even fully materialized. There is a hint of a smile on her face, a look that instantly makes Winry wish she could see it completely. This woman, her Servant, her Archer, could likely shatter a hundred foes with a true smile.

“I am here at your command, Master,” the woman says in a clipped, military-like tone and even bows.

Glancing at her granny, Winry hesitates, not knowing what to do. She’d known that she was summoning the Archer class, one of the three strongest classes in the Holy Grail War and not someone meant for the likes of her, but she had no idea that her Servant would be, well, a woman. She feels strangely emboldened, confused, and scared. Her Servant, on the other hand, seems to have no hesitation about her Master.

“Winry,” she says, “my name is Winry.” The woman straightens up and nods. There isn’t even any acceptance in her eyes. She is at her Master’s command. Winry doesn’t know how to handle this. Pinako told her that she might have to fight with her Servant for dominance, especially considering the class, but it appears as if Archer is ready to serve immediately. “You are the Hawk’s Eye?”

“That is the name I was given,” the woman replies cryptically.

For some reason, the woman’s amber eyes makes Winry’s heart beat faster. “But is that the name you wish to be called by?” Her heart swells when a look of surprise flashes in the other woman’s eyes. It is the first sign of emotion that Winry has seen from her. “I will not call you by anything that you do not want to be called, not even Archer, if you wish it.”

The woman bites her lip. “Riza. You may call me Riza. Few ever have, but as my Master…”

Winry rushes forward and takes the woman’s hand. As she does, the metal armor dissipates from Riza, replaced by simple blue dress, so meager compared to the extravagant armor she wore before. She does not know what to say to this woman who she did not expect, but she feels a kinship towards her as well already. Maybe that comes with the whole Master and Servant thing, but Winry isn’t for sure.

Riza looks down at her, still surprised, but there’s a hint of softness in her eyes as well. “You are going to make this War very difficult for me, aren’t you, Winry?” she asks, her strong feminine voice a mixture of resignation and teasing.

Winry laughs and grips the other woman’s hand tighter, delighted and terrified and filled with wonder. She could not have asked for a better Servant. Archer shakes her head. Or is it Riza? Winry knows that she is supposed to think clinically, to think of her Servant as a class, not a person, but already she sees the woman behind the mask of the Hawk’s Eye, the person who she truly had no idea about. But then, if no one else knew about her, that would be a great advantage for them. Winry hugs her Archer, despite herself.

She is still a child, much like Edward Elric, for all her loss. She knows nothing of the War.

Yet.

(Archer and Caster know better.)

Chapter Text

“You know, if you drink milk, you might grow taller.”

Ed sits in his seat at the table, seething to the point where the table might actually melt from the fury radiating from him, and yet the older dark-haired man sitting across from him doesn’t even seem to notice. He gleefully pours the must-detested milk into his bowl of cereal, bought only because Al likes it, and then sets it to the side. The asshole seems to enjoy drinking milk and using it in every meal if only for the fact that Ed has to buy more and complains every single time.

Caster can’t like milk this much.

On the other hand, it seems an awful lot like Caster likes pissing Ed off even more.

It’s enough to make Ed scream at his Servant every morning. “I’m not short!”

Upon grinning at him around the spoon in his mouth, Caster pulls the utensil out and proclaims, “I didn’t say you were short. I merely said that you’d grow taller if you drank milk.”

As Ed grumbles furiously in his seat, he catches an amused expression on his younger brother’s face. As soon as he realizes that Ed notices, the look vanishes from Al’s face, but it’s too late. Four days in and Ed can already tell that his little brother is fond of Ed’s Servant. They haven’t had an older man around their place for a long time, so it’s easy to project father-type feelings on the one man available. It’s only natural. If he was younger, Ed might have fallen to the same folly.

Caster isn’t exactly father material though. He’s roguish and deplorable. Intelligent as he clearly is and shrewd in his demeanor, the man is a complete bastard. Sure, he got them a few extra fruits at the farmer’s market by flirting with one of the sellers, but underhanded tactics were something to sneer at. The Caster class wasn’t supposed to be sneaky in that sort of way. They were supposed to be brilliant with magic and capable of overtaking the enemy with unknown talent.

There is no way in hell that Ed is going to get the Grail if all his Servant can do is flirt. The so-called incredible Flame Alchemist is absolutely useless as a Servant.

*

Winry can’t help but gawk as Riza dissembles and reassembles a gun in less than thirty seconds in the backseat of a moving vehicle. As far as Winry knows, Riza has never seen a gun before, not in her lifetime, before she was called upon as a Heroic Spirit, and yet she works the weapon with such ease that it seems as if she was born with it. Considering the Riza is in the Archer class, Winry supposed that she might have been given knowledge of long range weapons, but this is  little more than Winry can conceive.

“Are you sure you’ve never used a gun before?” she asks, peering into the backseat of the car.

Riza smacks the ammunition into the butt of the gun and carefully takes aim at something in the horizon through the windshield of the car, squinting one eye as she does. “This is a very convenient weapon,” she simply says. She doesn’t sound amazed or confused, even though the technology is beyond her time. She isn’t even impressed. She just…is. The gun becomes an extension of her.

Despite never having fired a gun before in her life (in either of their lives), Winry knows without a doubt that her Servant could hit a target almost a mile away. It should be impossible with that weapon, but not for someone like the Hawk’s Eye.

Dropping the gun into her lap, Riza looks down. “I don’t know if I like this plan or not.”

“People will expect someone like my granny to be your Master,” Winry says lightly, “not me.” Pinako didn’t like the idea of parading about as Archer’s Master either, but all of them know that Winry speaks the truth. Winry knows for a fact that she doesn’t look like much a mage. Her father didn’t either. Pinako is at least known in the inner mage circles for her strength. “We’ll be more protected this way.”

“It will leave you open to attacks. I cannot defend you both at the same time if I’m separated from you. Do you not trust me to protect you?” Riza does not raise her eyes to Winry, but the words still pierce her soul. Gods, Winry is innocent in this. She knows that must harden, for her and her Servant’s sake in this War, but it is hard on her. She has been tough all her life without being a cold shell. What is there to life if there is no love or pain?

Winry places her hand on top of Riza’s, the one still holding onto the gun. “I trust you with my life. I could not ask for a better or more dedicated Servant in this War.”

Riza hums slightly, glancing up at her. “And what do you know of war, Winry?”

The use of her name startles Winry a little. It is only the second time that her Servant has used it. She has tried again and again to convince Riza to say it, but the older woman is always so proper, deferring to her as Master or even her surname. Winry garnered the idea that the Hawk’s Eye never allowed herself to be anything but proper and the fact that it is ingrained into her mind even now speaks of the levels. Just what was she forced to hide in her own life before she was pulled into being a Heroic Spirit for the Holy Grail Wars?

“What do you know?” Winry manages to counter.

The smile on Riza’s face is tiny and it is not happy. Oh, how Winry wishes that she could see a truly happy smile on her Servant’s stoic face. “That either men must die or they kill. There are no victors in war, only survivors. That is the way war works.”

A chill runs down Winry’s spine. For the first time, she feels afraid. She did not think that was capable while she was in the presence of her beloved Servant.

*

As she lies on her mattress, May can only surmise that the gods sought to punish her for striving too high of her station when they gave her this Servant. An expression on her face like she drank week old milk, she watches as Lancer pours through the books she gave him. All map books, so he could scour the world and figure out where he needed to start his world domination.

Honestly, did the gods have to give her such an idiot Servant for this War? Was it become of her age?

“We must win the Holy Grail War before you can win the world,” May points out for what feels like the thousandth time. She doesn’t even move from her spot on the mat, lying on her back and peering at her Servant upside down.

For his part, Lancer doesn’t even blink. He looks only a few years older than her, though his body is clearly defined with muscle and she knows that his Noble Phantasm hides more secrets beneath. She wasn’t surprised that he looked similar to her father. She did not expect anything less of a Servant to come from Xing. They were a very particular nation, holding onto their ancestry closely. Still, all that aside, he acts very much like a child.

And he eats so, so much. May is certain that the amount of food her Servant eats could feed a village.

“I’m not going to win the world,” Lancer says proudly. “I’m going to conquer it and make it mine.”

May groans and throws an arm over her eyes. Lancer doesn’t even seem to notice. He doesn’t seem to notice anything besides his grand dreams. She’s trying her best to convince him that winning the Holy Grail War is the best option in order to fulfill his desires, but it’s hard when he’s so easily distracted. One second he’s planning world domination, the next second he’s dying of starvation, and then he’s talking about a long lost love, and then he’s back to intensely viewing maps of the world. She supposes that she should be happy that he at least enjoys books on military tactics.

“We need to focus on winning the Holy Grail War first,” May tells him, pulling her arm away and rolling back onto her stomach. She pulls herself up onto her knees so that she can look proud and strong. Lancer blinks at her curiously, but he does not look impressed. He never does with her. “I will save my people if it is the last thing I do.”

“A pitiful thing, simply ‘saving’ your people,” Lancer says, not unkindly. He’s mocking her, she can tell, but not in a cruel way. It doesn’t help her understand him anymore. Does he think her stupid or not? Is he mean or not? Why must he make things difficult for her? She is his Master, not his little sister that he can coddle, tease, and protect. “You dream so small. Maybe it is because of your height. Perhaps there is not enough room for you to dream for more.”

May jumps to her feat, fury written all over her face. Lancer doesn’t blink in fear. As he shouldn’t. She is only a child in his eyes still. “Saving my people is a big dream! It is more than likely that my clan will not survive another generation. I am…” She clenches her fists at her side. “I am the only child.”

“You’re a princess, are you not?” her Lancer replies, but he sounds a tad uneasy for the first time. She has ranted at him before, leaping at him even and attempting to come to blows as he laughed at her. This time though, he looks as if he’s holding himself back.

“The last princess of my clan, most like,” May tells him, “unless I save them.”

For a long time, her Servant is silent and stares at her. She feels as if she can see something in his dark eyes, slight as they are. She has always had big eyes for a person of Xing, a novelty among her father’s children. No one has eyes like hers in the court. And if she does not succeed in winning the Holy Grail War, it is likely that no one ever will again. She feels the weight of hundreds of people on her small shoulders. She is a child, yes, but fighting is all she has ever known. A Servant could understand that language.

After standing up for a brief second, Lancer bends back down, this time on one knee and bows his head to her. “On my honor, I will serve you and avenge your clan.” May doesn’t bother correcting him. It does feel as if she’s avenging them, despite the fact that they are not gone yet. They might as well be. She has to face that fact sooner or later. Lancer peers up at her, a bright gleam in his eye. “But I cannot do that on an empty stomach. Is it time for supper yet?”

It takes everything in May’s soul not to throw herself at her own Servant and beat him black and blue.

*

Assassin frowns as he gazes out the window. Father is used to his Servant’s bouts of quietness, but the look on the young boy’s face is unsettling. It is distant, having grown more with each passing Heroic Spirit being summoned to the world for the Holy Grail War. Father is not so certain how someone as clearly dark as his Servant can be considered a Heroic Spirit, but he does not question such things. It is not his place, especially not when Assassin has been so good to him.

“Can you feel the other Servants?” Father asks as he pours himself a glass of red wine. Assassin never partakes in drinking, though it would have looked absurd if he tried. He wonders if the Servant could take on a different form or if he is forever stuck in a child’s body. It suits their needs for now, but Father can’t help but wonder how a warped an age-old mind can become in a body like that.

“Archer moves quickly,” Assassin says quietly. He seems angry, but then he seems his angriest whenever he is quiet. He does not like not being able to hunt someone down. Archer’s constant movements have caused considerable problems for him. The Servant is not acting like a typical Archer class. They are one of the three strongest, but they typically form a stronghold to snipe from. This one does not.

Father swirls the wine in his glass. “And the others?”

A sneer crosses Assassin’s innocent face, turning it into a twist nightmare in the window. “Berserker runs wild as ever, but then he is always mad with fever. Lancer is indolent, which is a shame. Rider is…” He grimaces, like a child might when faced with the option of eating a vegetable. He dismisses the other Servant without even finishing his thoughts on him. “You know where Saber is.”

With the gold toothed doctor, of course. Saber is either with his Master or with them. The Servant is stronger than Father could have ever imagined and much easier to handle than the strangely volatile and quiet Assassin, but Father wouldn’t have traded Servants for anything. He knows how deep Assassin will go in order to win the Holy Grail War, even if it means his own death.

Tilting his head to the side, Assassin reaches out and taps the glass with his fingernail, muttering under his breath, “Where are you, Caster?”

And that is when Father finally drinks. Try as he might, even though it is one of his many skills, Assassin cannot find Caster. The Servant remains hidden to everyone in the War, seemingly not existing whatsoever, though Assassin assured him that he felt Caster’s presence being summoned. It is a terrifying thought that Caster could appear at any moment completely in surprise. What magic does that Servant and his Master have up their sleeves?

Many people look down on the Caster class, but not Father, oh no, not when he had used it himself. In the right hands, Caster could be all powerful. In the wrong hands, Caster could be a disaster waiting to happen. And depending on who the one with the command signals summoned, Caster could destroy the world.

*

“Do not frown, my Master! Surely it would create wrinkles on your glorious face!” the great oaf in front of her proclaims.

Olivier just barely manages not to draw the sword at her side and stab the fool. Her Servant, an incredibly large and muscular man, stands before her proudly – without his shirt on. She can’t imagine why he decided it was a good idea to go shirtless in the middle of the night, especially when he seems to practically sparkle whenever any light hits him, but she has also learned that questioning him of his shirtless tendencies does not produce results.

At least none that she likes. If she has to listen to the man talk about the fine specimen that he is or how it would be a crime to hide such muscles under clothing, she might just kill her own Servant and take herself out of the Holy Grail War.

“I told you only to materialize when I call for you!” she hisses. The less she has to see him, much less speak with him, the better. Rider is one of the most powerful classes in the War, if not the strongest, but it appears as if brawn is chosen over brain in this case. Every time he starts to drone on about brilliant battles of the past and the excitement of the future War, she wants to bang her head against a wall. The man gets so damn emotional over everything. She wouldn’t be surprised if he wept once they started battling other Servants. The man could go on about honor. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you tripped every sensor in the building when you came out.”

“But then I would not have been able to bring you the files you wanted,” Rider points out. As a Heroic Spirit, he can materialize and dematerialize out of thin air using the mana that she supplies him as his Master, but he cannot do that for things of the physical world. She knows that – has known it since she started training for the War – but it doesn’t make her any less aggravated at the man.

Why was she cursed with such an excruciatingly annoying Servant? Even worse, her volatile temperament towards him doesn’t even seem to faze him in the slightest. She can’t tell if he truly doesn’t know that he pisses the hell out of her or he’s simply too stupid to realize it.

Snatching the files out of Rider’s larger than life hands, Olivier opens the folder and begins to flip through them. There is no one around at this time of night, especially not at this small building. Even if Rider did walk around, singing at the top of his lungs, there probably wasn’t any measures to prevent a break in. After all, who would want to look at old birth records saved from a building that burnt down to the ground years ago? Most of the paperwork kept here is useless.

That is, except for the file in her hand. It confirms her suspicions, but also brings new questions. “So, the Hohenhiem line didn’t die out…” The only other family of mages to come close to the prestige of the Armstrong family (and by close, it is secretly older), by all accounts, it appears as if Van Hohenhiem, a once great mage, vanished without passing on the secrets of his magic. No one knows of his whereabouts or if he is even alive.

But now, Olivier alone knows the truth. A member of the Hohenhiem undoubtedly holds the command seals of a Servant, but it is not a grown man that she will face. No, it will most likely be Edward Elric, a mere boy. She is almost certain that he is the one to have summoned Caster. Hohenhiem’s are particular towards that class, having only been denied it once in the past Wars when a veteran mage of the Holy Grail Wars called Father took it first.

“They send a child to do an adult’s work?” Rider asks as he looks at the faded photo depicting a three year-old Edward and his younger brother Alphonse. It is the only known picture and proof that the Hohenhiem line did not die out. No one will expect a child to be a Master. The fact that she knows means that she will have an advantage. Abruptly, Rider bursts into tears and clutches a fist to his heart, startling Olivier and causing her to crumple the paper in her hands. “Oh, this is a travesty indeed! War is not meant for the innocent! What has this world come to, my dear Olivier?”

“Be gone!” Olivier snaps, just barely managing to keep herself from using one of the command seals to order her Servant to stop his pathetic bemoaning.

*

There’s a sound of something splattering against the wall and something like a sack of potatoes being dropped to the ground. Some people might flinch at that, others furrow their brow in confusion, but Kimblee knows those the combination of sounds very well. He smiles. They’re such simple sounds, but they always come at the end of a beautiful symphony. It’s only sad that it’s over.

However, their work is never done here. There are always more fish in the sea, as the saying goes, flowers to be picked, prey to be hunted. It really is quite lovely.

“Did you enjoy yourself, Barry?” Kimblee asks as he shuts the door and locks it.

“My Master is too kind to me!” Berserker is short and stocky, his body hidden by bulky strange armor and his face by a mask made out of a skull. He looks as if he walked right out of a nightmare, a thing of beauty really. The knife in his hands is much smaller than the heavy blade he typically wields, but they both decided it is best if he keeps that hidden until another Servant shows up.

Though Kimblee can’t see his Servant’s face, he can almost see a smile on the skull mask. There are flecks of blood on it now, but it doesn’t bother him. The warm feel of blood makes him feel alive and he does not want to hold Barry back from feeling alive once more. They’ve carved a bloody path to the city where the Holy Grail War will be fought, building a name for themselves, striking fear into the hearts of men and women everywhere they go.

It’s a lot more fun than Kimblee anticipated, truth be told.

For all Barry’s murders and excitement about chopping people up, Kimblee can tell that his mind runs much darker than his Servant’s. The Heroic Spirit (a humorous title indeed, considering what Barry did in his lifetime) is simple in his atrocities. He murders for fun, dances gleefully about in his victims’ blood, and revels in the fear that washes away all other emotions from their bodies. He doesn’t have the…curiosity that Kimblee holds in his soul. Whereas Barry laughs at their victims, Kimblee learns.

The other Masters will think him reckless and wild, but every action they take is for a reason and part of a plan that he has been working on since he was given the command seals. If it takes burning the world and drowning it in blood to get what he desires, then that is what he must do, and Berserker is all too willing to help his Master do such a terrible and wondrous thing.

Suddenly, Barry goes very still and silent, glowing red eyes locked onto a window that is covered by a near transparent curtain. It’s the quietest that Kimblee has ever heard his Servant be. The man steps over the body cleaved in two, not even noticing the way his shoes squelch in the blood on the floor, and pushes the curtain open to reveal a dark, cloudy night sky.

“What is it?” Kimblee asks curiously. He’s never seen his Servant act in such a way before. It would’ve been disconcerting for anyone else but him.

“Another Heroic Spirit is close by,” Berserker answers in a feverish tone. Kimblee catches the bright glow of the other man’s eyes in the reflection of the window and notes the way that he seems to tremble ever so slightly in anticipation. This is when the real fun will begin. “Not calling to me though, traveling fast towards the city. They know of my presence, but they are ignoring it.”

“Well, now that’s just rude,” Kimblee scoffs, folding his arms across his chest. “Shall we remind them of their manners?”

Berserker cackles and turns around, waving the thin knife in the air. “A challenge finally!” He points at the body in the corner of the room, slumped over and looking a little worse for wear. There would be no open casket funeral for this couple at least. “I feared growing tired of slaughtering lambs. Killing a lion, however, will truly be fun.”

Kimblee reaches for his hat on the table and places it on his head. As he gathers his jacket, he tries to think of who the other Master and Servant might be. Not being in a place of power, it has been difficult for him to gather information on the other Masters, so he will need to see these people in order to determine their worth as opponents. Lucky for him, he has a special talent in gauging others’ powers and picking out their weaknesses as well.

This will be fun.

*

They’re walking through the park near their house when Caster abruptly stiffens, like he was wrapped up in an invisible rope and stopped on the spot. Ed glances back at him warily as Al rolls ahead of them in his wheelchair. Staring straight ahead unseeingly with wide, dark eyes, it looks as if the dark-haired man isn’t even breathing.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Ed pipes up, trying to prompt a reaction out of his Servant.

But Caster doesn’t even look down at him. “I feel…” His voice is strained and confused, like he can barely manage to get the words out and even then he doesn’t finish the statement. He furrows his brow and forces himself to take a breath, still looking forward. His fists clench at his sides to the point where he would have painfully dug his nails into his palms if not for the gloves he’s wearing.

“Is it another Heroic Spirit?” Ed asks eagerly, his golden eyes shining with excitement.

Already living in the city where the Holy Grail War would take place certainly has its advantages, but they’ve been waiting for what feels like weeks for another Master and their Servant to show up. What Ed wouldn’t do to see his Servant in action! The man says that he’s the most powerful Heroic Spirit, but talk means nothing, especially when that’s all Caster seems capable of doing.

“Yes.” Caster’s mouth twists into a thin line. “No.”

Ed huffs. “Yes? No? Do you feel another Servant’s presence or not?”
“I do,” Caster snaps, uncharacteristically caustic.

Ed blinks in surprise at the heated glare that Caster shoots his way, but then glowers back in return. Almost immediately, Caster looks away, the heat gone from his eyes, replaced by a blank expression, but it’s not out of fear or respect for Ed. It does tell Ed one thing though that he’s been suspecting for a while: Caster hides a lot of what he thinks and feels behind masks. The fact that whatever he’s feeling now has shown cracks in that mask speaks levels. If only Ed knew what those levels meant.

“This is…different though,” Caster finally admits, seemingly unhappy with being open with his Master. What sort of game is this Heroic Spirit hiding so much from him?

“Different how?” Ed demands.

“I don’t know.” Caster frowns. For once, Ed believes him. Half the time, Caster will dance around answering any of Ed’s questions and finds loopholes in his demands, hem-hawing about this or that, but Ed sees the unsettled shadow on Caster’s face. He turns to cast a look at his little brother. Fear pools in the bottom of his belly. What would make his Servant feel like this? “I only know that it feels different – and familiar. Calling me toward it.”

“Are they looking for a battle?” Ed read that Heroic Spirits could do that, call over a distance requesting a battle. It’s like putting up an ad – except the ad was for a fight to the death. It seems a bit mad to Ed, but that is how it has been done throughout the years. Every time, a Heroic Spirit answers that call.

Caster shakes his head. “No. It just…calls to me.”

“Are you looking for a battle?” Ed asks. With all their waiting, Caster was growing bored. There was little for him to do. He enjoyed himself in the city, donning a nice suit and talking with many people, trying new things in the modern age, and sight-seeing. But he was a Heroic Spirit and in the end, he was destined for great battles and War, not idle chitchat, watching television, and reading books. “Should we investigate?”

“We should take your brother home first,” Caster says, his eyes falling onto Alphonse, who has just now noticed that the two of them stopped. Alphonse smiles at them. If Ed didn’t know that his Servant was an absolute bastard, he would’ve thought that Caster’s eyes softened while gazing at the wheelchair-bound boy. “It will be dangerous and protecting the two of you at once will be more difficult.”

Ed sighs. “Al won’t be happy. He’s better at healing magic than I am.” A terrible irony, considering the fact that the one thing he could not heal was himself. He knows that Al would never admit to trying, but Ed saw it for himself. He has to push the thought out of his mind.

Caster smirks down at him. “Then I won’t get hurt. They won’t even touch me.”

Ed snorts derisively. He wants to believe that his Servant is that good, but he doesn’t have high hopes for the smug asshole.

*

Attempting to gaze out the window of the car as they speed by, Riza has a difficult time concentrating on the stars in the sky. She tries to point out constellations from her time and compare them to what they’re called now, but her eyes keep drifting away from the blinking lights and onto the sleeping girl in the passenger seat in front of her.

Curled up in a ball with a blanket over her and a jacket punched up against the door as a pillow, Winry looks so…small. She’s a lithe, little thing, beautiful blonde hair in a pony tail. Her ears are newly pierced, something that Riza suspects she did upon seeing Riza’s own ears being pierced. Winry took to her immediately, accepting the fact that the Hawk’s Eye was not exactly how they were depicted in the stories, just as Riza understood the second she laid her eyes on the young mage that she was her Master. It warms her heart, despite her attempts to keep it hardened.

Then again, did she not do the same thing upon seeing Winry but with her hair? She was never allowed to have long hair in her time and it only took her a second to realize that she wanted to wear it long now. As a Heroic Spirit, she doesn’t have to hide anymore. She can be who she is – and Winry gave her the right to be whoever she wanted. She is the Hawk’s Eye, but she can be Riza too. The freedom is daunting, made even more so that the young girl doesn’t even seem to know just how strong she is.

Upon coming closer to the city, Riza has been able to feel the presence of other Heroic Spirits in the distance, but she shoved them aside. They aren’t priorities right now. The time to face them will come soon enough, but right now, they need to set up base. Her Master needs a proper bed to sleep in. Pinako needs rest after the long drive. And Riza needs to figure out a way to be in two places at once. The idea of leaving Winry unguarded even for a second leaves her uncomfortable and frustrated.

However, a sudden wave of shock rolls over Riza, startling her to the point of making her jump in her seat, and she leans forward to grab Pinako’s arm and shout, “Stop the car!”

Pinako slams the breaks and the car comes to a screeching halt, nearly hitting two men in the street. One of them is wearing an expensive-looking white suit, a hat tipped over to shadow the top half of his face. The other… Riza would not need to see the squat man in his strange armor and skull mask to know that he did not belong in this world. She can feel his strong presence crackling in the air, making the hair on her arms want to stand up on end. She sees something else though, a dark and foreboding aura surrounding him.

Sitting up straight and looking wide-eyed and confused having been thrown forward and woken up so abruptly, Winry unbuckles her seatbelt. “What’s going on?” When she finally sees the men standing silently in the middle of the road in front of their car, she jumps back. “Who are they?”

Riza touches Winry’s hand, but glances at Pinako instead. “Stay in the car.” To anyone looking in, it would appear as if Riza is talking to the older woman and not the younger. Pinako nods her head. Winry’s hand stiffens underneath Riza’s touch. “I will take care of this.”

Popping the door open, Riza steps out of the car and slams the door shut. She never takes her eyes away from the men. The shorter one, the Servant that she can feel, stares at her with a burning intensity that looks a mixture of wildness and exhilaration, but the other one, the Master, looks at the occupants in the car. His cold curious gaze makes Riza want to curl her toes in her shoes in fury. She knows what a man who is capable of careless murder looks like and she doesn’t want him to ever look at Winry like that.

“What do you want?” Riza demands.

“To you a warm welcome to the city, of course!” the Servant answers cheerfully. She takes note of the knives at his sides. She doubts that any welcome he is capable of giving would be pleasant. “We thought you might want to say hello upon coming in.”

“Well hello,” Riza responds coldly, “and now goodbye.”

The Servant laughs. “Oh, not so fast, missy! How about a proper greeting, worthy of our stations?”

In the blink of an eye, he pulls out a knife and throws it at her. She sidesteps it easily, spinning in a circle and pulling out a handgun as she does so. Without even pausing, she shoots the gun and the bullet deflects another knife thrown at her while she was turning. The next shot hits the knife in his hand, knocking it out of his grasp and into the ditch.

What sounds like a low male’s voice drawls in the back of her mind, “Who brought a knife to a gun party?” even though she has never heard the joke before. The voice sounds familiar and intimate, as if she has heard it a million times murmured in her ears. She blinks and shoves the thought away. She can’t afford to be distracted by some voice from her past. She is here and the past is gone.

“The next one won’t be so kind,” Riza tells the other Servant.

The skull-masked man hops about on his feet like some sort of manic child, holding the hand that she shot the knife out of. “Oh, I like you! That’s the spirit I’ve been waiting for!” Despite the mask, she can hear the grin in his voice. She imagines that many people have shuddered in fear upon hearing him speak. She does not have the patience for that though. “I think you just might be my dream come true, Archer.”

Riza narrows her eyes. “I would not count on that.

The Servant, however, merely chuckles and gives her an almost elegant bow. “And I will be your nightmare, a true match made in heaven.” He pops back up straight and bounds off the street, over the guardrail, and down the hill. “Until next time!”

Riza watches the Servant until he vanishes into the night. She is left in silence with the Master. Silent in his crisp white suit, he tilts his head up and catches eyes with her for a second. Riza sees a cunning man in those eyes, but not a cold one. He’s not heartless. No, he’s something else entirely, something frightening. A monster’s motives are easily understood in the end, but this man looks at her like she’s a tool. But for what? He’s a man with a mad dog off a leash. What kind of man summons that?

Giving her an almost pleasant smile, he tips is hat towards her and then follows his Servant into the night. Riza does not move from her spot and only turns when she hears a car door open behind her. Winry stands just outside of the car, clutching her jacket in front of her chest. Her blue eyes glow in the moonlight as she stares at her Servant.

“It’s alright,” Riza says. “He was merely probing for information.”

Winry frowns. “He figured out your class.”

“But he doesn’t know who I am,” Riza pointed out. “And I know his, something he doesn’t know. I would know Berserker anywhere though.”

“His Master…” This time, when Winry pulls on her jacket, Riza can tell that she’s not shivering from the cold. It takes everything in Riza not to pull the younger girl into her arms. Her Master is tougher than anyone will give her credit for, but she needs to be harder. War does not leave any room for softness. More than anything she wishes that Winry would not have to go through this. “He felt off.”

“I felt that too.” Riza places a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “I will not let anything happen to you.”

She will die before she allows any harm to come to Winry. Riza knows that in her soul. And in the Holy Grail War, all that is required of any Heroic Spirit is a fight to the death for their Master.

Chapter Text

Ed isn’t afraid of heights and he doesn’t think a little fall will kill his Servant, but he does wish that the man would step away from the edge of the roof. They’re seven stories up, the cold wind whipping around them furiously, and Caster is crouched down gazing across the street with a strange type of intensity. His dark eyes are focused, but confusion still struggles to the surface. It’s a bit like when Ed was younger and would look at his father’s mage books: he knew what he was looking at and yet he still didn’t understand what it meant.

Forcing himself forward, Ed leans his arms against the concrete and peers down were Caster is focusing. His elbows just barely avoid touching Caster’s expensive-looking black dress shoes. Despite being absorbed by whatever he’s feeling, he must not be too concerned if he’s still wearing the modern clothes he settled on. Still, crouched down, his own arms resting on his knees, Caster is an attack waiting to launch. Ed can feel it in the coil of his gut. Caster may appear at ease, but he’s ready to fight at any given notice. It’s a new side to his Servant that Ed hasn’t seen yet and catches him off guard.

“What’s down there that’s so interesting?” Ed asks.

Caster has been silent since the park, even when they dropped Al off back at home and Ed convinced him that he needed to stay behind. It’s a bit unsettling when it comes to a man who seems to thrive off speaking. Now though, he inclines his head in the direction of the hotel across the street. “Why don’t you look for yourself and tell me?”

Grumbling under his breath, Ed leans forward and looks down. A black car pulled up to the front of the building moments ago. An older woman stepped out to speak with the lobbyist inside, most likely to procure a room, and is just now returning to the vehicle. She’s small, probably would only come up to Al’s head even when he’s in a wheelchair, but Ed can somehow tell that she’s a mage. He doesn’t know how to describe what he feels; except that it’s something he can tell in his bones. Maybe it comes with coming from such a long line of mages.

When the front and back passenger doors open, two more people step out. Both with long blonde hair, the younger of the two is thin, wearing a skirt and jacket, her hair pulled up in a pony tail. She stretches her arms above her head, like she’s been in the car for a long time, and then looks up at the taller woman, reaching for her hand and then pointing to the building. The older woman’s hair hangs loosely over the shoulders of her dark blue blazer. She’s wearing a decent suit, though nowhere near as fancy as Caster’s. It looks more professional than flashy like his.

“A Servant, a Master, and her granddaughter?” Ed surmises.

Caster nods his head. “So it appears.”

“What do you want to do?”

Ed surveys the area. While it’s not in the heart of the city, it’s still relatively a public area. Any fight they get into here could be problematic. It’s best when battles are fought in places that can’t draw the attention of the crowd, lest the Church that supervises the Holy Grail War has a fit. He knows all about those idiots. They like to stick their fingers in where they don’t belong all the time, all under the belief that the War is theirs to watch over. He wonders who in their group has the command seals.

When Caster doesn’t respond, Ed glances over at him again. He’s surprised to see the older man clenching his fists again. He looks…strangely pained. And very aggravated. He doesn’t know why he’s feeling the way he does. The expression on his face reminds Ed of his mother’s a year after his father left. The fresh pain was gone, but a hollow and never healing wound was left in its place. What is Caster’s problem? Well, there is only one way to find out.

Without any warning, Caster stands up – and then steps right off the ledge of the building. Ed chokes on a shout, jerking half his body over and grasping onto the concrete tightly, and watches as Caster smoothly cuts through the air, the air around him glowing as he shifts out of modern day attire and into clothes that are more suitable for him. By the time he lands on the sidewalk across the street from the three other people without a sound or flinch, he’s wearing some sort of blue and gold get up that looks like some sort of two piece robe.

Groaning to himself, Ed throws himself back and digs his fingers into his hair. Why him? Why did he get stuck with such a melodramatic ponce? The idiot was going to get himself killed pulling stunts like this and then Ed would be knocked out of the Holy Grail War.

*

“I can’t wait to sleep in a bed again,” Winry sighs as she stares up at the building. Riza can’t help but smile a little. Back in her time, she counted herself lucky if she was able to sleep in a bed at all. Most of the time, she didn’t have that luxury. The only time she did was whenever she would… Well, that was in the past. Beds were much more common now and not for just certain people. “We’re going to be on the highest floor. It’ll give us a perfect advantage point to view the city.”

Starting around the back of the car, Riza opens the trunk and starts to pull out their luggage. Well, it’s more of Winry’s and Pinako’s luggage. As a Heroic Spirit from the past, she has very little to carry with her. “We should get inside. It is late and–”

If not for the flash out of the corner of her eyes, Riza wouldn’t have noticed anything was amiss. It’s only for a second, but it is enough for her to jump to attention. This time though, she doesn’t go for the handgun tucked in the shoulder holster underneath her suit jacket. She leaps in front of the car, blocking both Winry and Pinako from view, and a golden bow and arrow materializes out of thin air. Not quite a long bow but still larger than most from her time, the golden bow is an intricately designed and stunning sight. It most likely looks strange against the modern suit she is still wearing, but Riza doesn’t even flinch.

Neither does the dark-haired man whose heart is the target of her arrow. He himself is merely holding a white gloved hand up, his middle finger and thumb pressed together. Riza’s heart stops and for a second, much to her shame, the gleaming bow and arrow glimmers in the air as she hesitates. The man’s dark eyes widen, his eyebrows arched, and his mouth gapes open. Both of them are seemingly frozen in time as they stare at one another.

It can’t be him. It simply cannot be… By all accounts, it should’ve been impossible that they would be summoned at the same time for the same Holy Grail War. There are countless of Heroic Spirits that can be summoned as Servants. And yet, despite all the odds, they find themselves together again – except this time, they are against one another. The bow feels terribly heavy in her hands despite its weightlessness.

“Riza?” the man manages to ask in a gruff tone, her name scraping against his throat.

His hand drops to his side weakly. The desire to scream burns in Riza’s mind, her chest seizing, her throat clenching, her heart aching. Why him? Of all the Casters that could’ve been called upon, why him?

“Archer!” Pinako shouts warningly, playing her role well. Winry quails behind her.

But despite whatever Pinako wants, Winry does not want to fight and neither does Riza. She lowers her bow and lets it vanish entirely, the glow of the bow fading into the wind. Her eyes never leave his. She has never seen such pain before – and yet so much longing either. It’s ridiculous how much she wishes that she could rush towards him. She didn’t think she would ever see him again and yet here he is, as flesh and blood as a Heroic Spirit can be. He can die again. She could kill him this time. She should. Her fingers twitch.

Riza has never felt the urge to run away from a fight before up until now.

“You’re not supposed to just run off like that!” a young boy shouts as he bursts out of a door from the side of the building Caster just leapt off of. His golden hair tied in a braid, he stops to bend over and put his hands on his knees, panting after most likely just racing down a flight of stairs. Riza quirks an eyebrow up in a questioning look. That is Caster’s Master? He predictably shrugs his shoulders, flippant as ever. “Jumping from buildings and the like – don’t be such an idiot!”

“My apologies, Master,” Caster says, his voice filled with the same sarcasm she remembers. She hates the way that his voice makes her heart leap. He should not have that sort of power over her. She would say that it has to do with his charm as a Heroic Spirit, one of his gifts, but she is not as easily swayed as other women might be. It’s only because it is him. On anyone else, it wouldn’t even affect her.

The young golden-haired Master straightens up and swings his eyes in her direction. His eyes match his hair, bright and exceptionally sharp. “Is she why you’ve been acting so strange? Who is she?”

Riza stiffens. She’s a little more than annoyed that she couldn’t feel Caster’s presence from the get go, but then, perhaps because of his skills, he’s able to hide from the other Heroic Spirits. Everyone has their own talents. Riza has her own that Winry only knows a little about. The fact that she did not even know of Caster’s presence near her until she saw him tells her something. Even now, she can’t feel him and can’t determine his level of strength.

She doesn’t need that though. She knows his strength and weaknesses inside and out, just as he knows hers. It almost makes her want to laugh. Most Servants struggle as they try to name one another, waiting patiently until one Heroic Spirit names themselves and gives away part of their strength. Riza won’t have to fight that battle with him and he won’t with her. She knows him like she knows herself and vice versa. No one knew her in her life as well as he did. He knew things about her before she did, drew them out of her, made her weaknesses her strengths.

A glow surrounds Caster as he returns to modern clothes, a black suit with a white button up shirt and a white scarf to match. It looks elegant. Then again, he always was one for expensive taste. “We should leave. Your brother will be worried.”

“What are you talking about?” the boy snaps, leaping forward and clenching his hands into fists. “Is this a fight or not? Isn’t that what Heroic Spirits do when they find one another?”

“Not tonight,” Caster responds coldly.

The boy steps back, clearly taken off guard by his Servant’s tone.

Riza is too, to be honest. Whenever he spoke like that before, it made everyone around them go silent. He didn’t abuse his power very often unless need be. She blinks, feeling more vulnerable than ever before. She hasn’t felt this way since she was alive and with him in their own time.

Caster smiles at her. It’s not happy, but it isn’t sad either. “You won’t say my name now either, will you?”

“I’m supposed to kill you,” Riza says quietly.

“You had my permission then, if need be,” he tells her.

“I didn’t…” Riza steps backwards the second he takes a step towards her. She wants to be closer to him, needs to be, but she is also afraid. Every inch of her is screaming to rush towards him, as if she is meant to be at his side and not facing him. She was never meant to point a weapon at his face, only hold it at his back in case he went too far. A million years could pass, and she would still feel the same way.

Caster steps back, forcibly so, and looks to his Master. “We’re leaving.” Before even letting his Master respond, he turns and begins to walk away.

“I’m the one that gives orders!” the boy exclaims, but after glaring at the three women on the other side of the street, he throws a hand up in the air in contempt and follows his Servant.

This time, Riza doesn’t watch them go. She tears her eyes away, because she cannot bear to see him walk away. When the two men are gone from her sight, she stumbles, her knees buckling from underneath her, and falls against the car. The vehicle is the only thing that keeps her standing. Winry rushes to her side, taking hold of one of Riza’s elbows and placing another on her side. The worry in her eyes is overpowering. It shames Riza to her core.

“You know him,” Winry says delicately. “From your past?”

“He is the Flame Alchemist.” Riza must be open with her Master. It’s the best way to ensure victory. So many Servants fail because they cannot bare to be honest with their Masters. It hurts too much. Riza feels as if she’s opening old wounds. Why did it have to be him? She spent so much of her life protecting him and now she must kill him or be killed in return. Despite him not coming close to her tonight, she can still remember the heat of his touch. It almost makes her shiver. “Roy Mustang.”

Winry gasps and pulls the hand away from Riza’s side to hold against her hand. “The man you vowed to protect with your life, according to the histories, during the Mage Wars.”

Riza turns her head away. Yes, he is the man whose life she promised to protect for as long as she lived. And now she lives again, and she must kill him. He is the man who told her to put him down in case he went too far and sought too much beyond himself. But more importantly, Roy is the man that she loves with all her heart and soul. Could it be that they could not be summoned as Heroic Spirits unless they were brought here together?

*

The sound of Caster punching a wall is enough to cause Ed to flinch. It’s not the dent in the wall that bothers Ed so much as the blood on his Servant’s hands. He’s never seen Caster act so violently before. Honestly, he didn’t know whether there was anything in the world capable of bothering the man. He acted so flippantly about everything, even the fact that they sometimes didn’t have money for things as simple as food. After all, he always found a way to get them something somehow.

This though… Ed is unsure of how to handle his Servant’s suddenly temperamental behavior. He hasn’t spoken since leaving the hotel. The abrupt bouts of silence that he’s fallen into since the park have thrown Ed off guard completely. He was sure that he had his Servant figured out. Now he isn’t certain of anything. It doesn’t help that all of Ed’s questions have fallen on deaf ears and he isn’t about to use one of his three command seals on a mere question.

Al rushes forward, wheeling towards the older man without any hesitation. Ed goes to grab him and hold his brother back, but the boy is able to sweep out of his reach. Not even bothering to ask for permission or with any pretenses, he grabs hold of Caster’s bloodied hand. A green glow surrounds his hand. When it fades away, Caster’s hand is back to normal, pristine, clean, and undamaged.

Caster looks at his hand like it isn’t his own and then bows his head. “Thank you.” The words sound rough from not speaking for so long. Al merely nods his head and wheels backwards against the wall.

“You want to tell me what this is all about?” Ed demands heatedly.

Shooting him a glare, Caster bears his teeth in a cruel grin and then turns away from him. Apparently not. The Heroic Spirit hates dematerializing for whatever reason, but he looks close to doing it now, just so that he can get away from his Master. It’s unusual for Servants to mingle with other people outside of their Masters, but Caster has been an unusual Servant from the get go.

“You’re hurt,” Al says gently. “Sometimes it helps to talk about what hurt you.”

Caster glances at Al, but there is no anger in his eyes for the younger Elric. As his Master, Ed can be a thorn in his Servant’s side, but it’s different with Al. He’s able to drag out a side of Caster than Ed has to fight tooth and nail to just get a glimpse of. It’s probably the injury. Or maybe it’s the way Al talks. People always open up to him better than Ed. He’s not nearly as abrasive.

And so Ed tries his little brother’s kinder approach. “The other Servant – you knew her? Is that why it felt different for you?” He needs to know these things if they’re going to fight in the Holy Grail War together.

“Knew her…” Caster sighs and finally sits down after pacing for so long. “You might as well say that I know myself – that I know that two plus two is four or that the world is round. Know her? She is a part of me.”

“Who is she then?” Ed waves at the books lying in the corner of the room. He read them so many times, to himself and to Al, he has the contents memorized. All of his Heroic Spirit’s history, written upon page after page, detailing the expansion of Caster’s power and strength. “There’s nothing written about any specific woman in the tales of your life.” Ed folds his arms across his chest. “According to every historian, you were a great big flirt and broke the hearts of women everywhere you went.”

“Not every woman’s,” Caster says with a hurt smile on his distant face, “not hers.”

*

Cheers swept through the camp as he passed through. Women called his name and men chanted his title, their words filling him with more hope than his recent victory. Roy grinned and waved a hand at them, the sleeve of his robe falling down slightly to show the tattoo on his arm. One red-haired woman in particular, most likely a cook, giggled and turned away when he cast a wink in her direction. It was always so simple charming the hearts of the people these days, what with the power that he contained.

“Another victory, sir!” one of his personal guards, Havoc, said, clapping him on the back. Most people would never dare touch a mage, but Roy made sure that the people watching over him day and night felt warm and invited with him. He wanted them to feel attached to him, to make their duty personal. That, and well, sometimes he got lonely. He didn’t like to keep himself distant from those supposedly beneath him like many other mages did. This war didn’t just affect mages, after all.

“Why don’t you celebrate tonight with the others?” Roy swiped the mud off his guard’s shoulder. Havoc was taller than him, his sandy blond hair a wild mess after wearing a helm all day. “You were exceptional in battle today.”

“I would not be a knight worthy of guarding the Flame Alchemist if I wasn’t exceptional at all times,” Havoc pointed out cheekily. His blue eyes caught sight of a curly brunette woman she passed them. One of the shieldmaidens from a small town that was not pleased with not being allowed to fight on the battlefield, she typically stuck her nose up at any mage regardless of what side they were on. Nonetheless, she’d managed to captivate his guard. “But if you’re commanding me to celebrate…”

“I am.”

“Then who am I to say no?” Havoc bowed somewhat sardonically. It wasn’t near enough proper of Roy’s rank, but he had never been one to question people on their ranks. Havoc was from the country. It had never been expected of him to ever be around lords or ladies, much less mages of Roy’s caliber, and yet his unexpected skills had landed him in such places. Roy would never hold that against him. With a light grin on his face, Havoc bounded towards the woman, calling out if she needed any help with the load of clothes she was carrying. Roy would not question his guard’s description of celebrating.

When he ducks into his tent, Roy finally allows himself to relax. He sighs, his shoulders falling, his body loosening, his mind unraveling. Everyone expects so much out of him. Lord Grumman thinks that Roy alone will be able to end the Mage Wars and settle things once and for all. Roy isn’t so certain. While he knows in his mind that he’s the strongest mage of their time, his heart lies elsewhere. He was bred for war, but he’s so tired of it. He thought his magic would resurrect people from hopeless situations, not dash them their hope away entirely.

“You should rest, sir,” a flat voice says his right side.

“And here I thought, there was no rest for the wicked,” Roy responded teasingly, peering at the tent’s other occupant with one eye.

Riza stiffened at his words, her face a mixture of disapproval. With her hair cut short and her dirty armor covering her body, Riza did not look like much of a woman. When she wore her helmet, it was impossible to tell the difference. The only thing that might have drawn attention to her sex was her pierced ears, but she kept those hidden with a tuff of her soft blond hair. Women weren’t allowed to be knights after all. They most certainly weren’t allowed to be the head of a mage’s guard.

“You can let your guard down now,” Roy told her as he began to pour two glasses of wine. The pitcher had been newly refreshed by Fuery most like right before Roy’s arrival, so that it was still cool to the tongue. The boy was punctual in his duties, if nothing else. “There’s no one else here but us.”

“Sir–” She froze instantly when he held a glass out in front of her.

“You did your duty. You protected me.” Roy wiggled the goblet in front of her face. “So please, allow yourself to be at ease.”

Taking the glass from his hand, Riza gave him an almost petulant look and then took a sip. Only then did he smile and take a sip from his own. Before she could do anything else, like tell him off or suggest that it wasn’t proper of her, he stepped forward and placed a hand behind her head, his fingers threading through her hair, and kissed her right on the lips. He could taste the rich red wine from her. Despite the sudden action and all her talk of properness, she kissed him back, as if she couldn’t contain herself.

When he pulled back though, Riza’s amber eyes darted to the ground. “I shouldn’t have–”

“I started it,” Roy told her firmly. “You’ve nothing to feel guilty about. I certainly don’t.”

She’d been terribly humiliated when he had called her out on being a woman and even more so when he had confessed to being attracted to her before he’d realized that she was in fact a member of the opposite sex. Honestly, he didn’t understand the qualms about that sort of thing, but then again, mages were of a different sort. Nowadays though, he could not deny himself of her. Every time they were near each other, he felt a fire under his skin to be even closer. Every kiss seared his skin. She kept herself hidden under her armor so much that when he was able to drag her out of it finally, it felt like a mirage.

“I couldn’t do this without you, you know,” Roy mumbled as he pulled her closer to him.

Riza rolled her eyes, not meanly though. “If you’re trying to pull me into bed–”

“I mean it, truly,” Roy insisted, pressing his forehead against hers. She was always so cool to the touch whereas he was always hot. “I don’t know where I’d be without you. Most likely dead or worse. You’re my guiding star.”

What if she hadn’t been a part of his guard? What if he’d never met her? He could not imagine life without her. She had saved his life countless of times, nearly died for it, in fact. A godsend with a bow and arrow, she was able to somehow make up for the gaps that his magic had. She’d once grabbed a knife with her bare hand right before it hit him in the face. And with that same hand, she had touched him, caressed him, held him, scratched marks down his back, soothed his wounds. What would he be without her?

*

Wrapped in a thick white robe after taking a steaming hot shower, Winry should feel nothing but relaxed, but her body is tensed up and her eyes are wary as she gazes upon her Servant. Riza is sitting on the edge of a bed. They could only afford one room with two beds, although Riza assured her multiple times that sleeping on the carpet floor would be wonderful for her, but it isn’t enough for Winry. She wants more for her Heroic Spirit. She wants her to be happy. Are Masters supposed to want that for their Servant?

And yet, as of now, all Riza looks is troubled. She is a reticent person by nature. All the stories Winry read about the fabled Hawk’s Eye is that she was a silent warrior. Or rather, he was a silent warrior. The people writing the histories were clearly wrong about her and for good reason. Women in her time weren’t allowed to fight and yet she struggled and hid her identity in order to do so. She must’ve truly believed in the Flame Alchemist’s ideals in order to do something like that.

Winry frowns, despite herself. And now the Flame Alchemist is here. That stupid golden boy summoned him for the Holy Grail Wars as Caster. Winry’s heart aches for her Archer. She thought she knew the Hawk Eye’s history in and out before summoning her, but apparently there is more to the story. The biggest surprise wasn’t that the legendary warrior was truly a woman. There was so more hidden than Winry could have ever imagined. Still, she doesn’t feel lied to or set back. Riza couldn’t have known this would happen, right?

“You loved him, didn’t you?” Winry says quietly.

Riza’s head drops even further, her eyes staring at her hands in her lap. “Shameful, is it not? I vowed on my honor and life to protect him and yet I…” She wrings her hands together. “I was a part of the Old Guard. Any member is not allowed to love. I broke the rules.”

“That’s stupid,” Winry scoffs. Riza looks up at her sharply. It’s the first time that her Servant has ever been close to insolent, but she doesn’t care. Winry has never been afraid to speak her mind. “You can’t control what your heart feels. Rules don’t apply to it.”

“You speak so simply,” Riza says, “like him.” She shakes her head. “He thought we could be together after the Mage Wars were over – that he could end it and whisk me away to a better place. He was so idealistic.”

When she smiles at Winry, it’s not a happy one, but not sad either. It’s filled with memories that Winry will never know, that all the history books missed out on. Winry’s heart aches just thinking about it. All she wants is for her Servant to smile, but now she knows part of the reason why she doesn’t. Riza was never allowed to smile in her time. She would shine too brightly if she did so. She would be too much. And when she does, even when it isn’t happy or light, the emotion that it evokes is too strong for anyone to bear.

“What happened?” Winry asks.

Riza looks back down at her hands. “What else? I died for him.”

*

Glimpses of her lying with him flashed in her mind. He held her close in those memories, burying his face the crook of her neck, grasping her tighter than anything before. Her fingers clenching and her body seizing and her soul humming along with his. She almost cried just thinking about it. But no, that wasn’t her. She would not falter even now. After all, this was what she expected in the end, was it not?

Roy was held in front of her by two large men, his hands kept away from one another and his special gloves tossed to the side. She knew little about the magic that he yielded, that her father once held, but she knew enough. She knew that she didn’t contain the magical ability to learn her father’s skills in order to pass it on; she knew that he’d been forced to filter students one after another to find the right one, this one, this brilliant and honorable man.

She knew that she would die for that man without any hesitation.

Roy was not so accepting. He refused to fully understand that if it meant her death or his, she would not even blink. A sword pressed to her throat, she did not even feel the urge to cry over her death. Their enemy could pressure him all they wanted into doing what they told in order to save her life, but a simple shake of her head, a dropping of her eyes, told him no. She would never forgive him if he did otherwise.

Her death and her unwillingness to forgive her were the same thing in the end. He would die somehow either way. At least with her death, he would live physically to end the Mage Wars. And no doubt he would do that. With her gone, she feared nothing would hold him back. She hoped he would not rage in his loss. She hoped he would not break with her absence. But a memory could only last so long before it felt like nothing else.

“You will not raise a hand to save her?” their enemy growls as he presses the sword against her throat, causing a thin line of blood to run down her skin.

Roy starts forward. Riza breathes out. Roy stills.

“Love, take your time,” Riza tells him, a bright smile on her face, unlike anything he has ever seen before, “I’ll see you on the other side.”

She barely feels the slice across her neck. She hears a terrible scream as she collapses to the ground. Warmth pools around her, but it’s only her own blood, reminding her that she’s dying. The screams do not stop, not even after they become horse and hollow. Then there is red, fiery hot red, angry and loving and vicious. A gentle touch as someone pulls her close. She’s too cold to feel warmth any longer though. Words murmured to her, tears soaking her face. And all goes black, and she remembers no more.

*

“And now you’re destined to fight her,” Ed huffs.

Caster growls like a caged animal. “I killed her once. I don’t know if I can kill her again.” He runs his hands through his hair and turns away from the both of them. Edward has never seen his Servant so bare before. He’s more of a wounded animal than person now. The man has always been eager to fight and throw himself into the War when the time comes, but now, he looks ready to hide.

Al rolls his chair forward. “You didn’t kill her.”

“I may as well have!” Caster snaps. When Al pulls in on himself, the older man flinches and turns away. He has never once raised his voice at Al. Oh, with Ed, he’ll fight all he wants, but with Al, he’s gentle, kind, and soft. Ed knows that it isn’t the wheelchair, but something else that he can’t put a finger on. His Servant is able to both not give a damn and care intensely at the same time. “I could’ve saved her…”

“At the cost of your own life,” Ed points out. “Archer is a protector class in the end, from what I’ve seen. She wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Burying his face in his hands, Caster mumbles, “You don’t know what life was without her.”

“You’re not the first person to lose the love of their life,” Ed replies callously. He knows it’s harsh, but his Servant needs to hear it. Ed spent half his childhood watching his mother, whose husband left her. No amount of brilliant magic skills from her children could make up for the fact that her husband disappeared and left her to raise two kids on her own. Ed had seen heartbreak. His Caster was no different. “What happened?”

Caster laughs, cold and mirthless enough to shake Ed to his core. “I destroyed the world. That’s what happened. I couldn’t be the man she believed I was without her.” He pulls his head up, tilting it and examining Ed with such sharp eyes that it makes him take a step back. “That’s the kind of Heroic Spirit you summoned for the Holy Grail War, just so you know – one capable of destroying everything. Are you ready for that kind of responsibility?”

Chapter Text

The fact that Lancer is able to follow her around invisibly should give May some sort of comfort. It instead offers him the ability to make snarky remarks in her ear wherever they go. She’s forced to keep a straight face as Lancer comments on a man’s idiotic-looking mustache and then rambles about all the restaurants she passes up.

“Food requires money, you know,” May mumbles tersely.

“A broke princess,” Lancer muses. “That is a new one.”

She tenses up at his words, fists clenching at her sides and shoulders hunching. Comments like that shouldn’t dig at her anymore. She has never been bothered by her clan’s lack of wealth - they have always had enough to survive - but for some reason, now that she’s forced to see her position from another’s perspective, humiliation creeps up on her like a silent knife between the ribs.

“I should not have said that.” Lancer’s words are awkward. He isn’t used to apologizing. After all, he is a hero from the legends. What did they ever have to apologize for? Still, despite his teasings and selfish behavior, May knows that he is not a cruel person by nature. He would never say anything with the intentions of hurting her. That’s a strange comfort that she doesn’t like to think about.

“It does not matter if it is true,” May says in a tone implying that she is done with the conversation. She doesn’t say that she forgives him though and she can tell by the way he goes silent that he knows this. She’s not a cruel person either, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know how to cut someone to the quick when she’s hurt.

From what Lancer has told her, he has felt the presence of other Servants, which means that the other Masters in the Holy Grail War are in the city as well. The prospect both excites and terrifies her. She knows that she will most likely be the youngest Master in this War and therefore possibly the weakest. Her family’s magic has been passed down to her, yes, but her magic circuits might not be as fully developed. It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t have the time. It is now or nothing.

“May!” Lancer’s sharp shout in her mind snaps May back into attention. Though he isn’t in corporeal form, she is somehow able to feel him tugging her to the left and she ducks into an alley, pressing herself against the brick wall. She’s so short that a trashcan next to her is able to block her from view.

Her heart racing in her chest, May steels herself. “Is it another Servant?”

“Yes.” Lancer’s voice is almost eager, but there’s a touch of wariness in it as well. He doesn’t want her so close to the battle when he does fight with another Servant, although she can’t see how that can be helped. Besides, she’s strong enough in her own magic to provide assistance.

“Do you know which one?”

“Not without dueling with them to find out,” Lancer responds as he slowly comes to form next to her. He scans outside of the alley, his dark eyes wider than she remembers ever seeing them before. He’s still in the modern outfit he came up with in order to blend in, so he must not feel too much of a threat. “There are too many people here though. It would be against rules to fight with so many witnesses. The mess to clean up would be difficult.”

May peers out at the crowd of people. “The mess? I do suppose too many innocent civilians would get injured…”

When Lancer glances at her, it’s only for a second, but she catches a strange look on his face, one that oddly looks like...regret. It’s gone in a moment’s notice, but she doesn’t miss his reluctance that resonates in her mind. It’s almost like there’s something he knows that he doesn’t want to tell her. She wonders if all the other Masters have this sort of vague telepathic connection with their Servants. She’ll just have to question him on it later.

“We need to leave,” Lancer finally decides. “What is the closest non-populated area from here?”

After consulting her memory of the city map, May says, “There is a forest with many trails just two miles south of here. The girl at the doughnut shop said it was large enough to get lost in.”

“Then that is where we will go,” Lancer responds, straightening up and dusting off his black jacket.

“I am not running away like a scared child!” May proclaims indignantly. That would be just like Lancer. He would scuttle her away somewhere away from the fight and leave her thinking her safer. Well, she wouldn’t stand for that. This is her War just as much as it is his, if not more.

Lancer smirks at her, much like a big brother would at his little sister. She is his Master, not some child that he was babysitting. “We are not running away; we are leaving a trail. No doubt the other Servant senses my presence. If they want to fight, they will follow us. To not do so would show that they are a coward or weak. By leaving, I am giving us the option of a duel without needless casualties.”

May frowns. Needless casualties? The only people that die in this War are supposed to be Servants and sometimes Masters if they got caught up too much and tried to push their way back in. An enemy is only completely defeated if they are permanently eliminated. She’s known that from the time she was born due to being in the Imperial family. The Holy Grail War is different though...isn’t it?

Her thoughts are rudely interrupted when Lancer scoops her up into her arms like she’s little more than a kitten. Despite her struggles and protests, her Servant merely grins and bounds away in the direction of the forest, little more than a blur and moving like the wind, which forces her to grip onto him tightly and stop fighting. What an insufferable Heroic Spirit! He would want to eat an entire buffet line after this duel; she just knew it.

*

By all accounts, Saber does not look like a threatening man. In a crisp white shirt and black slacks, he looks more like a middle-aged man that has recently got off from work at the office, even with the eyepatch covering his left eye. Somehow, even that looks normal on his weathered face. He smiles at children that scuttle past him, steps out of the way of oncoming women to give them comfortable space, and nods his head politely to men. To anyone watching him, he would come off as quite the gentleman, probably a man with a family back home.

Assassin’s youthful presence makes it all the easier to fool people in thinking Saber non-threatening, but he doesn’t need the other Heroic Spirit to trick others. Despite his class and his past, he has always been very capable of deception. It’s a talent of his that is normally unheard of for his kind.

It’s because of his appearance that he is able to traipse about in public with his Master. Of course, the two of them are never seen together. They keep a proper distance from each other whenever Saber is in corporeal form. The best thing to do would’ve been for him to stay invisible, but he likes to walk around. It gives him a sense of his bearings and he’s able to map the terrain better. He likes to know where he’s fighting.

While his Master peruses a shop for a few chemical ingredients for one of his magic experiments, Saber sits at a table outside a coffee shop, reading a newspaper. It’s something so blandly normal that it almost makes him laugh. Assassin would scoff at him for this. The little Servant tries to stay away from worldly and modern things as much as possible, as if to distance himself from this new world. Though he would never say it aloud, so as to not poke at Assassin’s temperamental pride, Saber rather thinks that Assasin’s distant nature is a defense mechanism to protect himself. The Servant would never admit to such things though; he likes to come off as being above such human emotions now that he is a Heroic Spirit.

Still though, how did a child become a Servant to be called upon? Or was he a child in his life? It’s a curious enigma, but Assassin is more close-mouthed than his Master.

Something flashes in Saber’s mind, the coffee cup rattling in his hand and nearly causing it to spill. He’s careful not to jerk his head about, but he sets the cup down and pulls the newspaper up to obscure his face. Concentrating, he tries to pinpoint the source of that gut feeling that comes whenever Assassin shows up. No, it isn’t him though. It is someone else, something else. Another Servant. It takes an extreme amount of strength not to crunch the newspaper up in his hands, especially when he feels the Servant suddenly leave.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he spots his Master step out of the store, looking in the direction of where the other Heroic Spirit just was. They catch eyes and Saber nods his head. He has only been around Assassin so far, and they are partners, as far as two can be in a War to the death. It will be so nice to be in the company of someone that he can kill. He doesn’t want his skills to get rusty, after all.

*

An infinitely black fog seeps in from underneath the door and Assassin appears in its wake, already looking out the window with an intense gaze. Though the fog is gone once he becomes fully formed, it doesn’t seem to leave him, instead hanging over him like an aura. The darkness is both there and isn’t. Father has always found it curious that Assassin comes and goes in this way, though every other Heroic Spirit he’s known does so with light, but never remarks on it.

“Another Servant is in the forest, barely a mile away,” Assassin announces. He has familiars set everywhere in the forest to alert them of anyone or anything that might be coming their way. This castle is known throughout the city, but as it is on private property, rarely anyone comes to see it. Almost all know to stay away, although they can’t say why. The unknown magical barrier surrounding it does give one an eerie feeling.

For a moment, Father’s heart speeds up, but it dies down quickly. He’s known for a while that at least one fight in the War will happen here, but he thought it would be further down. “Are they headed this way?”

Assassin doesn’t answer at first and then- “No, they’ve stopped.”

“What does that mean? Is it a trap meant to draw us out?” Father asks. No one should have known that they were here. He set up the right barriers to ensure that other Servants or Masters would be able to detect Assassin’s presence in these walls. He is the most talented mage in the Holy Grail War. Who could have bested him? A cold feeling runs through his veins. “Caster?”

The one could have possibly outplayed Father. He is loathe to admit that anyone is better than him, but the fact that this Caster has apparently been able to avoid any and all detection from Assassin has clued them in on the fact that he is not one to be trifled with. It is why he has always prefered to summon another class besides Caster. He does not like to be the weaker one in any partnership.

“No, I wouldn’t have been able to sense him,” Assassin answers, a hint of bitterness tinging his words. He closes his eyes, viewing the world from one of his many familiars no doubt. “A young man and an even younger girl with distinctive Xingese appearances…” He opens his eyes. “It’s Lancer and his Master. She looks nearly as young as I do. I don’t believe they know that we are here though.”

Father steps up to the window. He can’t see this other Master or their Servant, of course, but he has always liked this view of the forest. It makes him feel as ancient and powerful as those tall trees. Somewhere out there in his forest is the Xingese Master, someone of the Imperial family no doubt, and their Heroic Spirit. “What are they doing then?”

“Waiting,” Assassin says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. A small smirk filled with almost child-like glee appears on his face. “And it appears as if their guest just arrived. Saber followed them to the forest.”

“Should we meet up with them as well?” Father asks. He doesn’t have to ask his Servant this question - he can just go on his own and Assassin would follow him - but he also doesn’t want to leave the shadows just yet. That is where this class works best.

The child Servant contemplates the question, but then shakes his head. “Saber can handle it on his own. And I’d like to not show our hand just yet.” No, it is best to keep back unless absolutely necessary. He doesn’t want the other Masters to know about his and Assassin’s partnership with Saber and his Master until near the end, perhaps not until they are forced to backstab Saber in order to win the Holy Grail. The shadows are where they live, and so in the shadows they will remain.

*

“Lancer, we have been here for nearly an hour. Perhaps you were wrong about the other Servant.” May smooths the back of her dress before sitting down on a large stone. Before her, Lancer paces, his long legs taking wide steps each time, his hands clasped behind his back. He’s acting uncharacteristically jittery, unable to stand still or stop glancing towards the direction of the city.

Something should’ve happened by now. The Servant that Lancer felt in the market should have followed them into the forest. Lancer’s edginess is so strong that it creeps into her subconscious. This whole being connected to him was beginning to become problematic, his strong yet hidden emotions being forced onto her. She eyes him curiously, taking note of his physical appearance. Perhaps, through the royal bloodline, they are somehow related. That might be cause for why she is able to read him so easily and vice versa.

“They will come,” Lancer insists stubbornly, glancing to the city once more.

May folds her arms across her chest. “It will be dark soon and there is no lighting. It would not be advantageous to fight here.”

This actually stops Lancer for the first time. He turns to look at her and frown. “Yes, you are right. We should move you to a safer location.”

That nearly causes May to choke on her own tongue. She hardens her expression and her arms tighten even further in their position, as if turning into a tight ball will keep him from being able to move her. “Lancer!”

“A jest, my princess,” Lancer responds with a wry grin. He doesn’t do a good job in hiding the nervousness that sits at the edges of his upturned lips. He wasn’t entirely telling the truth.

Before she can say anything further though, his eyes widen and he darts towards her. She barely has any time to let out a surprised squeak when he grabs hold of her, tucking her against him, and rolls off the rock and nearly into a bush. A second later, the rock she was sitting on explodes, gravel and debris flying everywhere. The only reason she isn’t cut by any of the stone is because of Lancer shielding her with his body. When she peers around him and the dust settles, she gasps at the sight of a middle-aged man in white shirts and blue slacks standing in a small crater where the bolder used to be.

“So you’re fast,” the unknown man says, turning his head to look at them head on. It’s only then that May notices the man is wearing an eyepatch over his right eye.

Lancer snorts as he stands up straight and deposits her on her feet. She stands just a little behind him to his left, her fists clenched at her side, in a defensive stance that she was taught long ago. Servants are the ones that fight one another in the Holy Grail War, but she’s not naive despite her age. She knows that she might have to get her hands dirty as well and fight on her own.

“Or perhaps you are slow, old man,” Lancer returns, his voice all confidence. Where is the nervousness that she felt strumming through him moments ago?

“Would you like to test that assumption?” the man - no, Servant - asks. There is no arrogance in his voice, no hint of pride, a touch of irritation at being insulted perhaps, but nothing else. This Heroic Spirit does not need to brag in order to know his own skill.

Lancer puts his hands on his hips. “No, I came all the way out here to have tea with you.”

Two thin, razor sharp swords materialize out of thin air into the Servant’s hands. He holds them with ease, careful not to grip them too tightly yet with a firm, assured grip. One of them has to be a part of his Noble Phantasm, but it’s difficult to tell which one when they look exactly the same. Lancer eyes them only for a second before turning his attention back to the other man’s face. There’s something unsettling about the almost dead look in the man’s one eye.

“Then let us begin.” The Servant moves slightly, the sun glaring off of the polished metal of one of the swords, blinding her for a moment.

And then the fight begins, the rush of Lancer’s movements to meet the other Servant head on nearly knocking May off her feet. She just barely manages to keep standing when the two Servants collide with one another, their swords clanging so loudly that that the sound rings in her ears. As she watches the two Heroic Spirits clash, May suddenly realizes just how weak she is compared to them. This fight is like nothing she’s seen before. Their figures are more like blurs as they leap about and duel with their swords. Lancer is more agile, bouncing off of the ground and large trees alike, using every bit of the area and his lithe body and speed to his advantage, but it’s also clear from the way the other Servant presses down with his swords that he might be stronger physically.

As the fight goes on, May does what little she can to help. When she realizes where the other Servant is going to land, she launches, blasting the ground, and causing him to change course suddenly. It throws him off balance just enough to give Lancer an advantage and nearly bring one of his curved swords down on the man’s head. He avoids it and lands to the side, like he planned it all along. Most of the time though, she can’t get a decent reading on the other Servant. The duel is too quick and moves everywhere. He even manages to slice a few large branches down that Lancer barely manages to avoid.

What May really needs to do is find the other Master. She’s confident in Lancer’s abilities and knows that he can last a long time in a fight. All Servants rely on their Masters for mana to replenish their energy and strengthen them in battle. May might be young and as such her magic circuits not as developed as others, but she has always carried a shockingly large amount of mana for her size and age, surpassing even most veteran mages. But if she were able to cut off the other Servant’s supply of mana somehow or damage it in the slightest…

“Not so bad for an old man!” Lancer taunts as he rests on a branch almost two stories in the air. The other Servant faces him on another branch. Neither one of them are panting for all the fighting they have just done. They could have been taking a walk in the forest for all anyone else knew. “But I would expect nothing less from you, Saber.”

“You as well, Lancer, though I’m surprised at your choice of weapon. One might be under the impression that you wished to be in the Saber class instead.”

If Saber’s words got under his skin, it is difficult to tell. Lancer shrugs in response and twirls one of his swords with a single finger. “Who says this is my only weapon?”

“You’re fast,” Saber reiterates. His visible eye flickers towards May almost imperceptibly. “But not fast enough.”

In a flash, Saber leaps from the tree branch, the strength of his jump breaking the branch and causing a loud crack in the air. May has no time to even react before looking up to see Saber’s twin swords bearing down on her. She doesn’t even scream before diving of the way, the swords missing her by mere centimeters. The air of the swords swishing brushes against her skin. Despite not being stabbed by Saber’s swords, the thorns of the bush she threw herself into cut her skin anyways. He hacks at the bush and she cries out, slamming her hands against the ground, causing the earth underneath him to revolt and toss him in the air.

It doesn’t seem to stop him at all. Instead, he uses that fall to generate more speed as he crashes down on her again, and she knows, oh God, she’s going to die. Saber is going to kill her and he doesn’t even look like he cares about the fact that he will be killing a child. No, Lancer will save her! He would! He will!

She huddles in on herself. A roar tears into the air, a shadow falls over her, and there is a loud crash and scraping sound so deafening that it makes her head spin. Dirt, leaves, rocks, and sticks blow over her in a gust of air, leaving her to cough on the ground. When May finally pulls her head out from her arms, she’s left in awe at the sight.

Her Lancer stands before her down on one knee, his back to her, more shield than fighter. Saber towers over him, no longer looking like the fatherly man he appeared to be as first, his one visible eye glaring furiously. At first, she assumes that Lancer was able to parry with him just in time, but then she sees one of his broken swords on the ground at her feet. She blinks and looks up, only to gasp in shock when she sees that Lancer did not block Saber’s attack with his weapon, but with his own hands.

Lancer is grasping the blades of Saber’s swords with his bare hands. His knee digs deeper into the earth as Saber pushes down on him, being at the advantage with higher ground. Lancer grits his teeth, his arms shaking, but he doesn’t back down or move out of the way. He is her shield, her protector, her legendary hero.

Saber uses all his strength to push down harder, the swords digging into Lancer’s black gloves. “Impossible! My swords are able to cut through everything!” Using his incredulous anger as fuel, he growls wordlessly and Lancer is shoved further back towards her.

“Not everything,” Lancers ground out, glaring viciously up at the other Servant. “Not my Ultimate Shield.”

May does what she can with her magic, giving him as much energy as she dares. Lancer yells out as her magic floods through him and shoves with all his might, throwing Saber back and into a tree. He’s on his feet before Saber, but it doesn’t take the other man long. Lancer’s shredded gloves fall from him, revealing the once pale skin of his hands to be a solid, charcoal black. May can’t help herself: she stares at the sight of his Noble Phantasm in awe just as much as Saber seethes at it.

Lancer holds up a hand, the tips of his nails sharpened into claws. “With this Shield, your swords are utterly useless. Nothing can penetrate it! And with it, I can also shred anything into shreds.” When he smirks, it’s not the pleasant or teasing smirk that May has come to associate with Lancer. It’s almost...frightening. It looks like he’s ready to take a bite out of anyone that gets in his way and taste their blood. “Would you like to see how your precious swords fair against it? Breaking a Servant’s Noble Phantasm would be a glorious way to start this War.”

Saber says nothing, merely breathes heavily and glowers at Lancer. Then he glances to the east and shakes his head. “An intriguing idea, putting these two contradictory Noble Phantasms to the test, but my Master believes this is not the right time.” As he grimaces in disappointment - no Heroic Spirit likes to be forced to flee or leave a battle - his swords dissipate in the air like fireflies at night. “But make no mistake, Lancer; next time we meet, I will kill you and that child you have for a Master. She has no business in the Holy Grail War.”

Rather subconsciously, Lancer takes a step in front of May, blocking her from Saber’s view. “She has every right to win it, as I will do so,” he proclaimed. “I do not enjoy killing, but I will be glad to be rid of you.”

Snorting, Saber vanishes before them just as his swords did. Lancer does not move away from a defensive position and his Ultimate Shield covers his hands for at least another minute until it seems clear that Saber has indeed left them alone. The black slowly creeps away from his skin until it reaches his fingertips and vanishes as well. His fingers return back to normal as well, no longer looking like sharp claws.

Standing up, ignoring the dirt and leaves all over her dress, May peers warily at Lancer. She has never seen him so tense before, like he is a second away from snapping like an overwrought bowstring. Not knowing what else to say, May takes a deep breath and asks, “Are you alright, Lancer?”

The Servant turns to give her a light smile, his eyes bright and merry again, but she can detect the traces of his nerves. He’s not easily rattled - he can’t afford to be as a Heroic Spirit - but this encounter has definitely left its mark on him. He’s angry, at himself for not defeating the other Servant, at Saber for daring to attack her instead of him, at her for being in the way and forcing him to show one of his tricks… She can’t tell. But it nests inside of him like a wasp.

“Not a scratch and I did not break a single sweat,” Lancer tells her. “You pack a lot of punch for someone so small.”

Lifting her hands, May steps towards him. “If you are tired, I can-”

But Lancer waves her away. “I am fine. Save your strength.” He pauses to look down at his shredded gloves and then looks back up at her. “You handled yourself well. Even when faced with him alone, you fought back.”

May frowns. “I cowered in the end.”

“You trusted me to protect you,” Lancer corrects gently. The tone confuses her. Is he trying to comfort her? Make her feel better? “That is my job as your Servant and you finally let me do it.” The job of a Servant is to win the Holy Grail War, but perhaps there are other duties as well. After all, it wouldn’t do any good for a Master if they are killed in action. But let him protect her? Most of the time, that meant him hiding her away, never to be seen by any of the other Masters or Servants. He would put her up in an unknown location if he could. “You are a stubborn one, May Chang, but then, most mages are. I should count myself lucky that I have a Master that wants to help as much as you. Some would leave all the work to the Servants.”

“That would not be right of me,” May insists. “The Holy Grail will grant both of us wishes, so we should both work to fight in this War.”

When Lancer throws his head back and laughs, it is finally as carefree and teasing as normal. She doesn’t know why, but it feels like such a relief to hear him laugh like that again, especially when she remembers that awful smirk on his face earlier. If she was a weaker person, she would have said that she was scared of Lancer, if only for a moment. But she can’t be scared of someone that ruffles her hair and eats enough food to feed a family of four and wears silly clothes, could she?

Chapter Text

The next few days, Ed isn’t able to rouse Caster for anything short of a command seal. The Servant won’t come out for anything, not even to antagonize him during breakfast with a glass of milk or send the two of them off to school. What is once routine comes to a sudden end as Caster falls into a dark spell. Al waits for him at the door, fiddling with the breaks of his wheelchair, until it becomes apparent that Caster isn’t going to walk to school with them and then he follows Ed, who is already halfway down the block.

Ed isn’t fooled though, not for a second. Caster might think himself slick and he is able to hide his presence from the other Servants, but he can’t hide himself from his Master. Ed can feel his Servant’s invisible presence all the way to school and feel him parting as he follows Al to his class before returning back to their small house. He has always done that, whether he realizes that Ed knows or not.

Seeing Archer wounded his Caster in a way that Ed could never have anticipated. He knows that Caster is most likely the most powerful Servant in this Holy Grail War, but now he knows that his Heroic Spirit’s weakness was invoked as well during this War. There is no way he could’ve guessed that some old woman would just so happen to summon Caster’s counterpart for the War and definitely no way he could’ve known that it would happen to be the woman he loved.

Ed fights the urge to slam his fist against his desk during class. None of the history books warned him about this. Every book says that the Hawk’s Eye, a member of the Old Guard tasked to protect Caster during the Mage Wars, was a reticent man who valued honor and loyalty and forsook love. How in the hell could he have known that all the history books are wrong? Roy Mustang, the Flame Mage, fell  in love with a member of the Old Guard, a woman that wormed her way into a society that would deny her otherwise.

And now she is one of the Servants destined to fight to the death against him.

Groaning under his breath, Ed buries his head in his arms. What is he supposed to do? He knows that Caster will never fight to kill her. Oh, they would fight. He knows that already. He saw the way Archer stepped in front of her Master. Her bow only flickered for a second. She will fight to protect her Master, even if it means she dies in the process. He just doesn’t know how far it will go. Will she kill Caster? Will she protect her Master and try not to kill Caster in the process, even if it means her own death? She died for him before. All the history books he could find talk about that, some for only a sentence.

“She deserves more than a mere sentence,” Caster growls furiously.

Ed nearly jumps in his seat. Jerking his head upright alone causes the students next to him to look at him oddly. When he scowls at them, they look away, but that doesn’t make him feel any better. Curse Caster for making him look like such an idiot in public! He doesn’t see why he has to continue going to school when he is a Master in the Holy Grail War, but Caster insisted on keeping up appearances.

It appears as if Caster hasn’t gone back home as Ed thought. He wonders if his Servant has learned to mask his presence to his own Master now. Perhaps with time after being summoned, his power grew. Ed would have to examine that carefully. Who knew how volatile Caster could become, especially now?

Go home, Ed thinks as forcefully as he can. Try as he might, he can’t connect with Caster as well as he hoped. He has an inkling that Caster is blocking him out though. Why, he can’t fathom. Surely a mental connection would help them.

“There are too many Masters in the city,” Caster reasons. “It would be foolish to leave you alone.”

“And you haven’t been an idiot before?” Ed grumbled under his breath.

Again, the student next to him looks at him warily, but Ed ignores him this time. He doesn’t care if his fellow classmates thinks he’s strange. He knows that he isn’t popular and most of the kids call him weird, but none of that matters to him. People like Al. He is kind and good and helpful despite everything. Ed doesn’t feel the urge to make friends with these people. Soon enough, he’ll be studying at the Clock Tower in London and none of these people will matter. He could bring on Al as a pupil so he could study to be a mage too, despite the rules of how magic is passed down through a family. They could change that; he knows it.

“The Holy Grail grants only one wish, you know,” Caster murmurs, “so don’t be greedy.”

Ed snorts. Caster would know that all too well, of course. Ed heard Caster tell Al that he lost everything because of greed. He wanted too much. He thought that he could end the Mage Wars and live a calm life in solitude with the woman that he loved. In the end, he was only able to do one and had lost the other and even then it came at a terrible price.

To strive to fly too high means the fall could be perilous.

Ed doesn’t care though. He has to do this. He has to win the War. He’ll fix his brother. He’ll give them their lives back. Maybe he could even save their mother. They’ll go to the Clock Tower and study the magic that was passed down to the both of them through their father. Ed will accept nothing less. In the back of his mind, he thinks he can sense resign from Caster, but he ignores that too.

*

“This is the most likely location for the Holy Grail to be summoned,” Winry points out as she looks up at the temple. It doesn’t seem like much. There are actually three locations where the Holy Grail could be summoned, but as a mage that has a latent in feeling the presence of mana and any sort of magic, she feels it strongest here.

Riza walks up a few steps and gazes at the temple. Winry wishes she could read what was going on in her Servant’s mind right now, but she has closed herself off even more since crossing paths with Caster. Despite her frustration, Winry knows better than to push the other woman. Riza is used to hiding her emotions, not dealing with them. It wouldn’t be fair of Winry to force her to face them right now. Still, she can’t help but wonder if Riza is thinking of the War ahead of them or the battle that she will most likely face against Caster.

“Should such an omnipotent thing ever exist?” Riza suddenly asked.

Winry starts. “That’s not for us to ask!”

Instead of looking ashamed, Riza looks at her coolly, but says nothing in return. Riza has been reticent since being summoned, but she has grown quieter over the past few days. She walks around the examine the area again, her face blank, getting a feel for the terrain. Winry tries to watch her Servant as inconspicuously as possible, but she imagines that very little escapes her sharp senses. Pinako sits on a bolder, silently smoking a pipe. With no other Servants or Masters in the area, she doesn’t have to put up a front as much. Still, she never leaves them alone together unless they’re in private. The fact that one Servant is able to hide his presence is tricky.

Riza freezes and turns sharply to examine the woods surrounding the temple. Winry glances around too, but she can’t see or feel anything out of the ordinary. She closes her eyes to concentrate until she finally feels a pulse in the air around her, like a distant heartbeat. She’s talented at sensing out others, but still struggles to pinpoint them from a distance. This one is trying very hard to mask themselves.

At Riza’s sudden change in behavior, Pinako stands up and walks over to them, smoking the pipe a little more furiously. “What is it?”

“We’re not alone,” Riza says, still gazing through the trees. Winry blinks in surprise when she notices the gun in Riza’s hand. When did she pull that out? “Show yourself - unless you’re a coward!”

A woman scoffs from the forest, causing Riza to aim her gun in the direction. Both Pinako and Winry take fighting stances, just in case, though Pinako moves closer to Riza. None of them are caught off guard when a blonde-haired woman steps out from behind a tree. Her hair is as bright as Riza’s, but much longer and thicker. There is a slight sneer on her severe-looking face as well. Winry thinks for a second that the woman might be beautiful if she smiled more, but she looks incredibly dangerous instead.

“I am no coward,” the woman replies.

“Then where is your Servant?” Pinako demands.

Almost looking displeased and very much aggravated, the woman waves a hand and the largest, most muscular man that Winry has ever seen appears behind her. He’s also, somewhat shockingly, shirtless. When the woman notices how pink Winry’s cheeks are, she glares back at her Servant and snaps, “Put a shirt on, you lummox!”

“The cool breeze on my bare skin is incredibly soothing,” her large Servant intones, but he does as he is told. The battle armor that suddenly envelopes him is absolutely brilliant. Silver and shiny, he seems to glow in the moonlight. His huge fists that look as if they could punch a hole in a stone wall bare-knuckled are covered in metal gauntlets decorated with intricate designs that look to be very old incantations.

With that done, the mystery woman turns her attention back to them. “So I see you’ve found the place as well. Not bad for an old woman and child.”

“You as well,” Pinako replies coolly as she straightens up and resumes a calm posture. Winry hesitates to follow, but does so. She still feels like a bundle of nerves whenever another Master and Servant is around. She’s going to have to work on containing that. Riza, for her part, doesn’t move a muscle and keeps her gun trained on them, but she doesn’t appear tense either. Holding the position to fire at any second’s notice looks natural for her. “I thought the Armstrong heir was only good for magical combat.”

“So you know me,” the woman, Olivier Armstrong presumably, says. “Then surely you know that your fight in this War is a hopeless cause. I will win the Holy Grail.”

“The Holy Grail War’s fate is not written in stone.”

“My family has won the three of the last ten Holy Grail Wars,” Armstrong proclaims proudly as she jabs a thumb against her chest. “That is more than anyone else. Our bloodline is the oldest in record and therefore my magic is the strongest. Who is there to compete against me?”

Pinako taps the ash out of her pipe and smiles slyly. “I heard a rumor that Father was chosen as a Master again.”

At that, Armstrong scowls and shakes her head, though her bangs still cover half her face in shadows. “Good. That will give me the chance to crush him like a bug and rid him of the Wars forever.”

Winry frowns and considers the woman’s statement. From what her granny has told her about Father, a mysterious and infamous repeat Master, that doesn’t seem very likely. For him to have survived this long and participated in so many Wars, he might just be their greatest foe. It would be nice if Armstrong is able to knock him out of the War before they have to deal with him. They don’t have to fight everyone. As long as they can last until the end, they have a chance. Outlasting, not outfighting, is sometimes the best strategy. Winry isn’t ashamed or embarrassed by it at all. It’s what the Assassin class does half the time anyways and the Archer class is good at perching and waiting. She can be patient too.

“Is this a duel?” Pinako finally asks.

“No, it is a warning,” Armstrong says. “Stay out of my way or I will destroy you.”

“Why not now?” Pinako counters.

Armstrong casts them a withering look and then turns on her heels. “You’re beneath me and I don’t see it fit to waste my time or mana on you. I’ll let one of the other foolhardy Masters knock you out.”

“We’ll see you at the end of this War!” Winry bursts out without thinking, fists clenched in front of her again. She ignores the glare from Pinako. She’s supposed to stay quiet and let Pinako do the talking, but she can’t stand the way this Armstrong woman is belittling them. She knows nothing. Her Archer could level her Servant; Winry knows it. “Just you wait!”

Without warning and seemingly absentmindedly, Armstrong flings two daggers at them, one aimed for Winry and the other for Pinako. Before either of them can even react or defend themselves, two quick shots ring out in the air, both of them hitting the daggers in mid-air and they go flying harmlessly to the ground. By the time Winry looks back to Riza, she’s pointing her gun at the other Servant again, like she never even moved to shoot the daggers.

Armstrong smiles, but it doesn’t make her beautiful like Winry thought it would. Somehow it makes her look even more dangerous. “Brilliant marksmanship, Archer,” she says. Winry tries not to flinch. Yet another Master knows her Servant’s class. It was foolish of her to explode like that and draw attention to herself. “But you shot the one heading for the girl first, so you’re either sentimental when it comes to children, a weakness most men think is inherent in women, or all is not what appears with your Master.”

“Oh, could it be, my dear Master?” her Servant cries out. “Another child Master in this War?”

“Perhaps,” Armstrong says, gazing coldly at Winry, “perhaps you’re right for once.” This time, when she jerks on her heels and puts her back to them, she doesn’t look back. Waving a hand in the air, her Servant follows, slowly disappearing in a glimmer of lights as she disappears into the shadows of the woods again. “Remember, stay away from me or suffer the consequences!”

Once they’re certain that the other Master is gone, all of them relax. Riza returns her weapon to her shoulder holster. Winry drops her hands to her sides. Pinako starts to stuff her pipe again. Winry looks out into the woods and then sighs. “I’m sorry for speaking out of turn like that.”

“This is your War,” Pinako points out. “I cannot do all the talking for you in the end.”

“I blew our cover,” Winry bemoans as she leans against the wall of temple and folds her arms across her chest, “and allowed Armstrong and her Servant to discover Riza’s class!”

Riza glances at her and then drops her gaze to the ground. Winry thinks it’s because of her use of Riza’s given name. Most Masters apparently call their Servants by their class, but Winry doesn’t like that. After all, is it not Riza that is fighting for her in this War? She is a Heroic Spirit and deserves to be called by her name, especially when it wasn’t allowed during her time alive or recorded in the history books after her death. It is only fair.

*

Ever since their meeting with Archer on the highway, Berserker has proven to be even more of a restless spirit than ever before. Kimblee didn’t think that could happen, but his Servant is a surprising one. Sitting down on the couch, Kimblee calmly sips on his glass of cabernet sauvignon as he watches the news. The glow of the television brightens the dark room, the only source of light to be seen from inside. He keeps the volume just low enough where he can still here and the occasional slicing and squishing sounds from the other room.

A nice home, this one. Kimblee thinks that they can stay here for a while. It’s one of those vacation homes, nicely set up for the holidays. Since summer has passed, it will be a long time before the people that own this place will come back to visit. By then, the Holy Grail War will be over and the two house-sitters corpses’ long since disposed of. A muffled cry comes from the back room, distracting Kimblee from the television only for a second. Well, at least one of them isn’t a corpse yet.

Berserker has grown very detailed in his work these days, choosing to take his time instead of destroying things outright. It’s an interesting side to the Servant, one Kimblee honestly didn’t think him capable of before. That’s why they needed to find a place to lie low in. Berserker was becoming more focused and somehow even more vicious and those two things definitely required privacy.

Besides, the wine selection in this vacation home is excellent. He could get used to living like this.

After a loud squelching side, Berserker appears in the room with him, standing by the couch as he cleans off the blade of his large sword with a white towel. Unlike other Servants, he never changes his appearance to make it more modern. Kimblee doesn’t mind. When he’s out in public during the day, Berserker can hide, but it’s in the dark at night when they’re both truly alive anyways.

“We’ve made the news, it seems,” Kimblee says idly, swirling the wine around in his glass so that he can savor the aroma of it. Berserker said that the wine looks like blood, but it’s not thick enough in Kimblee’s opinion.

They are able to hide in the shadows, but what they leave their bloody footprints behind them wherever they go. The Grail calls for destruction and death. Kimblee knows this in his soul. He feels as if he alone can understand and sense its presence, calling to him in a melodic way. From the forbidden and restricted books he was able to read in the Clock Tower, he knows that the Grail is alive, but it’s more than that. The Grail wants its own wishes to be fulfilled. It wants to consume them. He’s half in mind to let it have the world for a bit of sport.

“‘A grisly trail of bodies’, hm?” Berserker harrumphs. “These modern idiots have no taste for art.”

Kimblee smiles. “Artistic genius is often lost on the generation it’s created in.”

“I don’t understand why we haven’t heard from her!” Berserker exclaims, planting his hands on his hips. Though he can’t see his Servant’s face behind his skull mask, Kimblee can hear the pout in his voice. “I saw it in her the second we connected eyes on the road. She’s a Heroic Spirit to the core! She won’t be able to stand to let us go about free as we paint our path to glory with the blood of the innocent. She should be hunting me!”

“And you want to be hunted down by her?”

“I am not the prey if I’m the one laying the traps,” Berserker responds. It’s a good point. Kimblee likes the way his Servant is able to think outside the box. Winning the War has never been a huge deal to him, but he has found Berserker’s intense focus on Archer to be a bit maddening at times, even to him. They only met once, but he seems consumed by her nearly all the time. It’s a change in focus that Kimblee didn’t anticipate.

“Do you hate her so much that you want her dead?” Kimblee asks curiously.

“Hate her?” Berserker whirls on him, his red eyes glowing bright in the dark. “How could I hate her? Did you see her? I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful! More determined! And her eyes - so cold and sharp. Her face haunts my dreams. Would that she had shown us her Noble Phantasm instead of that pitiful weapon!” He sounds like he’s writing a love poem and practically shivers. It’s rather beautiful. “No, I cannot bear the thought of anyone killing her, anyone but me. Only I should feel her blood slipping through my hands. I won’t have it any other way.”

“That’s very touching,” is all Kimblee says in response as Berserker becomes lost in his thoughts again. He’s trying to think of any way to draw out Archer. As far as he’s concerned, the other Servants don’t matter. Seeing as how the rest have chosen to ignore Berserker as well, Kimblee doesn’t mind. He likes the passion that Berserker holds for this Archer, even if it is twisted. It’s curious at least.

Kimblee watches the television where a cameraman tries to get a gruesome shot of a couple is being carted out of a house in black body bags and the reporter attempts to question a detective on the scene for any details. He lets his mind draft back to that night on the highway. Archer’s cold focus as she pointed a gun at them, the way she seemed to glide in the air as she easily side-stepped Berserker’s dagger and shot the other two. There was no hate or anger in her pretty amber eyes. He wonders what he could do to get those emotions to show in her eyes and thinks it will be quite exquisite to find out.

*

Al looks on warily as they pass a house blocked off by police tape and vehicles of all kind. There are police cars, ambulances, a fire truck, and even two news station vans. He’s never seen so many people crammed in such a small area before. On the outside, the house appears to be absolutely normal, kind of like their small unassuming house, nothing wrong with it. And then he catches a glimpse of the body bags lying in the yard like trash.

Ed sees them at the same time as well and comes to a halt. A furious heat glows in his golden eyes as he tightly clutches the strap of his backpack. This is the fifth vicious murder in town since the Holy Grail War started. Sure, there was normal crime still and people were caught in the crossfire and killed, as awful as that is, but this is something altogether different. The news picked up on it after the fourth one and they went into a frenzy. With a fifth murder and one so close to the school, it will likely be all the city will talk about for a while.

At least until the next murder.

Al tries not to shiver, but doesn’t manage to stop himself in time. This is the closest murder to happen near their home, only half a mile away. He knows that makes Ed feel edgy. He’s worried that it has something to do with the Holy Grail War, but he can’t figure out what or for why. Although he’s not supposed to know about it, Al found a map where Ed marked the location of all the known murders. They shot like an arrow towards the city around the time when Caster was summoned. A murder so close to home looks as if Ed might be the eventual target.

Just as Ed starts to walk towards the yellow tape, a voice asks, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Swiveling his head around, Al sees Caster leaning up against the wall in the mouth of an alley they were stopped by, hands shoved deep into his pockets and a hat tilted over his face. He wasn’t there seconds ago. Al was certain that Caster was at home, having not followed them to school this morning, but it appears as if he has been with them the whole time. That soothes Al and he drops his shoulders without realizing he was holding them tensely for so long.

On the other hand, Ed doesn’t look one bit pleased with Caster’s appearance as he growls under his breath and bares his teeth. “I’m going to get some answers.”

“You think they’re going to tell some short kid on the street everything that’s going on?”

There isn’t a hint of mockery or coldness in Caster’s voice. It’s flat, just as it has been since that night he explained to them who Archer is. Strange as it is, Al misses the way that Caster would tease his brother, how he would smirk after saying or doing something that would rile Ed up, and the faint warmth in his eyes whenever he listened to Al speak. Ed doesn’t see the way Caster watches him, the nights when Ed is up late reading or practicing and Caster will silently stand in the hallway, how he walks the perimeter of the house every night to strengthen the magical defensive barrier before retiring. Caster isn’t nearly as careless as Ed likes to complain.

Ed huffs and stomps away in the direction of the nearest police officer. Al watches as his brother shoves his way through a crowd of adults until he reaches the officer and proceeds to fire off questions. It’s a hopeless case, but that won’t stop his brother from trying. He can tell from the way Ed is slowly turning red and the irritated look on the officer’s face that things aren’t going well.

“Sorry about brother,” Al tells Caster. “He’s just worried.”

“As he should be,” Caster replies, his eyes searching the scene. He seemingly ignores Ed, but Al know better. Caster never quite lets Ed completely out of his sight, at least not here. “I checked inside the house before appearing. This is no ordinary murder. A Servant did this.”

Al gasps and grips the wheels of his wheelchair tightly. “But Servants are Heroic Spirits! Why would one murder innocent people that have nothing to do with the War? That’s wrong!”

“It is evil, but not all Servants are good, Al,” Caster points out, his voice far too devoid of emotion for the topic. He grimaces at the thought. Al knows that Caster does not think of himself as a good person. It’s true that the records of how the Mage Wars ended are foggy, but all of them agree that the Flame Alchemist ended them and peace reigned over that half of the world. Could a man that ended a war be bad? Al can’t see that in Caster; he knows that there is a good in the Heroic Spirit that perhaps he can’t see himself. “I’m not sure why he’s doing this. Perhaps, along with his Master, he’s able to draw out the energy from his victims to obtain more strength.”

Though it is awful to consider, Al thinks about Caster’s words as he tries to come up with his own conclusions. “So the Master and Servant using their victims’ life source and od to boost the Servant’s power?”

Caster rubs at his chin in thought. “It is possible. With certain techniques, they could draw out a person’s od and drain them dry. With the right amount of trauma and duress, a person’s od can be stronger than normal in their blood, so drinking it would prove fruitful as well as long as torture is conducted. All of that would allow a mage with the right incantations to funnel the mana in the area into their Servant. Once that’s done, they’re nothing but a husk to toss to the side.”

“That sounds…” Al looks down at his hands. “That sounds horrific.”

“It is,” Caster says without missing a beat.

Al’s stomach turns on its end. He doesn’t need to look up to see that the older mage is wearing a closed off dark expression on his face. He also doesn’t need to ask to know how Caster knows of such things. The Mage Wars were explosive and dangerous and filled with such dark times that even historians skirted some subjects uncomfortably. No one wants to read about a so-called hero that is capable of such awful acts of magic. He knows that Caster is good - he swears it in his heart - but there are times when he can’t understand how someone that can playfully tease Ed about milk be the same man that once obliterated hundreds of soldiers on his own in minutes.

“This Master is a very dangerous mage,” Caster says as Ed storms back towards them, pocketing his hands once more. “His methods are crude and volatile and it appears as if he’s let his Servant off its leash.” He pauses, watching as men from the coroner’s office load up the bodies. “But at least he signed his work for us. Berserker is leaving a calling card.”

“Yeah, I figured that one out,” Ed grumbles, shoving his hands in his pockets. Al doesn’t point out that his brother is mirroring Caster’s stance. It will only serve to aggravate him. “The officer wouldn’t tell me anything, but I was able to listen to a detective question the neighbor that found them. It was a bloody mess. The guy spent half of the conversation gagging. What I can’t figure out is why? None of these people were mages. Their magical energy was weak at best.”

“Perhaps their life force isn’t the main reason for the attacks, just a bonus or a distraction for other mages,” Caster points out.

“What else would they be for?” Ed questions.

For a minute, Caster doesn’t respond, his eyes still examining the scene. Al wonders if perhaps he can see the residual magic leftover from the incantations performed to drain those poor souls dry. He might be a Servant, but he’s a mage above all else, just as Ed and Al are. “It’s a calling card. To the ignorant, it would just look like some sort of deranged serial killer, but despite the crude magic, the ritual would have to be precise. Any decent mage would be able to sense magic. And to anyone knowledgeable of the Holy Grail War, this would obviously be seen as Berserker’s work.”

“Can we be for certain about that though?” Ed asks. Without any preamble, Master and Servant have fallen in sync with one another. No anger rests in Ed’s voice or face. He’s merely filled with thought. Caster still remains passive, but more thoughtful than blank. “What if it’s another Servant mimicking Berserker? Assassin would probably do something this sneaky. It would be a trap for any Master thinking they’d found the other.”

“It’s possible,” Caster concedes, “but this feels like Berserker’s work. Assassin… He wouldn’t like his work to be seen so out in the open.” Ed nods his head instead of blowing up about Caster dismissing his idea. “Regardless of what this is, the real question is who it’s for? It’s clearly meant for someone. Berserker and his Master are putting their crimes on display, but this looks and feels specific, intimate even.”

“Us?” Ed’s eyes flicker to Al worriedly and then back to Caster. He worries constantly about Al getting caught in the crossfire of this War, even though Al has reassured him that it’s his War as well. He might not be Caster’s Master and even have the magic crests that were implanted in Ed after their father’s disappearance, but family always fights together.

“I don’t know,” Caster admits, sounding troubled and frowning. “They are getting closer to you. I’m familiar with the dark arts, so it could be that the Servant is another mage that I may have crossed during the Mage Wars, but nothing else sticks out to me and the techniques are different from my time, more modern.”

Grumbling under his breath, Ed starts to walk again, leaving the scene of the crime behind him. Al unlocks his wheels and follows after him. Instead of vanishing again, Caster follows them in physical form. It’s for safety precautions. He can leap into a fight and defend them quicker if he’s already manifested. He walks looking to the world as a man without a care, but Al sees a readiness in every step that he takes. His hands are still pocketed as well, most likely to hide the fact that he’s wearing his special gloves despite wearing modern clothes.

“So what do we do?” Ed looks up at the sky. “Innocent people are dying and for what? It’s a blatant trap, but can we just ignore this? It feels…wrong to just turn a blind eye when we can do something about it.”

“If it has nothing to do with us, we should leave it be,” Caster says matter-of-factly. “Let the Servant who it’s meant for take care of their business with Berserker. That’s one less Servant for us to deal with.”

Ed gives Caster a very calculated sideways look. “And if that Servant is Archer?”

The only sign that Ed’s words affect Caster is the twitch of his lips, the rest of his face and body passive. If he is troubled by the sudden idea that Archer is being led into a deadly trap by Berserker, Caster says nothing to let them know and keeps on walking next to them. Al knows better though. He can see it in the Heroic Spirit’s eyes. If Berserker is trying to hurt Archer, then there is no way in hell that Caster is going to stick to the sidelines. Al can’t help but wonder if that is what Ed wanted all along since letting the attacks go on unhibited bothers him.

It appears as if just maybe Ed is learning the same manipulation that Caster has perfected so well.

*

Everything in Winry screams for her to cry, but she won’t do it. She refuses to let the tears out, not as she covers her mouth with her hands to keep in any strangled sound and her lips tremble in her palm. Upon catching sight of Riza’s reflection in the television screen, she rounds to face the older woman. Carefully, she pulls her hands away her mouth, but clasps them together and holds them in front of her chest. Riza won’t meet her eyes at all as she gazes down at the ground. She appears ashamed, but for the first time Winry can’t tell if her Servant is lying to her or not.

“How long have you known?” Winry asks in a pained whisper.

“After the second attack,” Riza responds, every note in her voice mournful. She does not take pleasure in other people’s pain. No, as a Heroic Spirit, it is in very nature to protect - it is the core of who she is - and yet she has ignored that part of her and shut it down. It was to protect her Master, Winry knows, but that doesn’t excuse Riza’s lying or hiding the truth.

“And you didn’t see it fit to tell me?” Winry demands.

“You would want to find and stop them,” Riza tells her.

“Of course I would!” Winry shouts, dropping her hands and clenching them into fists. She wants to find them right now and give them a good thrashing. When she was little and came across a kid bullying another, she always stepped in and did something about it, even if it meant chasing a bigger kid down while waving a wrench in the air. It is not only in Riza’s nature to protect. “Innocent people have died for something they know nothing about!”

Riza looks up at her intently. “You could have died. It’s a trap, don’t you see? They want us to chase after them.”

“You’re a hero, Riza,” Winry says. “It’s your job to protect people!”

“No, it’s my job to protect you,” Riza counters. This time, when she speaks, there is no regret in her voice. There is no shame in her eyes. There is only strength. When she made her decision to not tell Winry that the recent attacks were being committed by another Servant and Master, it was only for her. Riza chose her over them; she chose Winry over nine other innocent people. “It is my job to keep you alive and safe. It is my job to win the Holy Grail for you. I am not a hero, not anymore, just a Servant.”

For a moment, the two women stare at each other. Winry feels ten years older, maybe more, as a chill settles in her bones. Is that what Riza thinks she is? Just a tool to be used? A glorified bodyguard for a girl with dreams so big that fate sought her out? It’s so callous. Winry started to see Riza as a warm and kind person. She is learning to smile again. She enjoys getting ice cream at the park near the hotel. She watches television shows with them and asks silly questions. She pets nearly every dog that comes up to them when they go on walks. She is protective and dutiful and resilient and so full of love.

And yet she is willing to throw the lives of others away if it means keeping Winry out of harm’s way.

Swelling up with determination, Winry lifts up her left hand, displaying the back of her hand so that her Servant can see the three red command seals marking her as a Master. Riza’s eyes widen slightly. Everyone involved in the Holy Grail War knows that it is best to avoid using the command seals for as long as possible and only for the most extreme circumstances. Whether it is to alert a Servant who isn’t near you that you’re in imminent danger or force them to obey you or even to get them to do something even against their wishes, command seals are terribly important. A Master doesn’t just waste them frivolously.

This is not frivolous or wasteful to Winry. It’s the best thing she can do right now. How could she be a person that deserves the Holy Grail if she won’t even step in to save the lives of innocent human beings? They were being hurt and killed because of the two of them, and so they needed to be the ones to end it.

Pinako steps forward, her eyes flashing warnings behind her glasses. “Winry…”

“This is my decision!” Winry says, not tearing her gaze away from Riza. “These are my command seals to use. I am Archer’s Master.”

Though her gaze is wide, she looks back at Winry determinedly. Nothing short of a command seal will change her mind on the matter. She will not put Winry in harm’s way to save the life of others. She made the same decisions when she was the Flame Alchemist’s guardian. The woman is stubborn to a fault. Winry knows that it is tearing Riza apart to let people die, but she’ll let her honor be stained if it means protecting her Master. That is just how she works. It’s the most logical thing to do.

Well, then it’s time that Winry starts acting like Archer’s Master and not hide behind Pinako.

“Archer, I command you to hunt down Berserker and punish him for these heinous crimes with his life!”

One of the command seals glows on the back of Winry’s hand and disappears as air spirals around the two of them in a circle, both of their blonde hair whipping in the wind. Riza gasps as the command seal takes hold of her. Immediately, a light envelopes her and another burst of wind hits Winry, causing her to shield her eyes. When she opens them again, Riza is no longer wearing the modern suit that she was so fond of wearing. Instead she is in the full armor of the Old Guard, the white and red plates covering her. Despite her lack of height, Winry can see how, when she wore a helmet, Riza was able to hide her true gender.

Opening her eyes, Riza gazes down at Winry. “You can stay here, you know.”

“I’m not leaving you to fight them on your own,” Winry replies heatedly. “We’re a team. Besides, who knows what that other Master is capable of?”

“Something dark and terrible,” Riza says as she looks to the left. Though there is a wall before her and it looks like she’s staring at nothing, Winry can tell that she’s staring in the direction of Berserker. She can sense him; either that or he’s still calling to her, just as he did at every crime scene, hoping she would come to him. He’s going to get his wish now. Winry can only hope that she made the right decision.

Winry wraps her arms around herself. “How did you know it was him so quickly?”

“I didn’t at first,” Riza admits. “I might not be a mage myself, but you forget that I did fight during the Mage Wars. I’ve seen that magic before and was able to recognize it, but…” She examines the golden bow in her hand. “It is forbidden. He wouldn’t use that magic.”

“Caster?” Winry watches as Riza hesitates before nodding and bites her lip. There is little written about the end of the Mage Wars. They came about abruptly, only two months after the Hawk’s Eyes’ recorded death, and so either people didn’t truly know what happened or some of the records were destroyed as time passed. She can’t help but wonder if the Flame Alchemist became a man that Riza would not recognize after her death and if he is even the same man that she remembers now.

“It isn’t him though. It doesn’t… It doesn’t feel like him. I know what he feels like, even if he can mask his presence from other Servants.” Riza takes a deep breath. “But I feel something there. I can sense a Servant, so it isn’t him. If you ignore the magic, which was most likely performed by his Master, this is Berserker’s work.”

Winry shakes her head. “But why us? Why you? Why is he bating you?”

“Berserker is mad,” Riza says. “There is no asking reasons of a man like that.”

“If he’s doing this to get your attention, then it’s time we pay him a visit,” Winry proclaims firmly. “I’m not letting any other innocent people die because I’m afraid.”

At this, Riza smiles faintly. “I never once believed you were afraid, Winry. You’re incredibly brave, perhaps even braver than me.”

Winry blushes at the compliment and ducks her head. Taking a deep breath, she lifts her head up again and strides toward the door. When Pinako moves to follow, Winry shakes her head. This is her business. She used the command seal on Riza, so she needs to settle this as the Master. She opens the door and steps outside, taking a deep breath and inhaling the cool night air. It’s almost impossible to see the stars here in the city, so unlike home in Resembool. It makes her feel alone. However, when Riza steps up next to her, that feeling fades away. She’ll never be alone, not with Riza at her side.

Chapter Text

An eerie quiet permeates the warehouse. A chill runs up Riza’s spine the second she forces the door open and steps inside. Dust covers the concrete floor, the place not having been used in so long, but she notices that there are already footprints marked on the ground. They are not alone here. Riza doesn’t need to see the footprints to know that though; she can sense Berserker’s presence here, caking the place like mold. A weaker person would feel sick to their stomach upon walking in here. She feels nothing but the cold.

Winry walks inside after her and shivers, wearing a too thin jacket. She peers around the dark, probably able to mutely feel the same energy that Riza does, but there’s nothing for her to see. This place is abandoned, the perfect fighting grounds for a duel between two Heroic Spirits. Riza’s lips twist into a frown at that. There is nothing heroic about this Servant; he’s nothing more than a rabid animal that needs to be put down.

“Do you see anything?” Winry asks quietly.

Riza shakes her head. “No, I--”

A whizzing sound of something flying in the air interrupts her and she leaps out of the way just in time as three knives bury themselves into the ground where she was just standing. Before Winry can even say anything, Riza raises her guns and shoots three times at the rafters.. A loud crash follows, but it’s not the sound she wants. She hears the bullets hit the ceiling and then mad cackling from the walkway adjacent from them.

“I knew you would come!” Berserker exclaims gleefully. “Oh, Archer, you’re even more resplendent in your armor than I could have imagined.”

Riza fights the urge to growl and instead glares heatedly as Berserker steps out of the shadows and leans over the railing of the walkway. Imagined? Did he spend all this time thinking of her and not the Holy Grail? What is his aim here? His red gaze shines brighter than ever before, glowing with a terrible combination of madness and utter joy. The way he looks at her suggests some sort of strange longing. It jarringly reminds her of the way Roy looked at her when they crossed paths a few nights ago, but twisted into something terrible.

Not lifting her guns to aim at him just yet, Riza calls out her own demands: “What do you want with me? Why have you committed so many unfathomable atrocities against people not involved in the War?”

“I wanted to see you!” Berserker tells her earnestly. “I needed to behold your beautiful face again! I have long since thought about you since that night. You’re a dangerous beauty. I do wish you wouldn’t hide your Noble Phantasm from me though. I wish to see you in all your glory!”

That manages to catch Riza off guard. She blinks in surprise and actually feels a flush of embarrassment rise inside her. What is this Servant’s game? “You did all those things...killed all those people...for me?”

“I knew you would recognize my works of art,” Berserker explains. His voice is a sweet caress, as if he’s talking to a lover, and it manages to make Riza’s blood boil. She thought that he was trying to draw her out so that he could eliminate a Servant from the War when in fact it had nothing to do with the War or her being a Servant at all. It has only to do with her being a woman. “You’re a glorious Heroic Spirit. You would not be able to leave me be. I knew that, if I worked hard enough, you would seek me out yourself. You were drawn to me! We are connected, you and I, and I won’t have anyone else hurting you. I adore you too much for that.”

Riza tightens her grip on the guns. “You want to protect me from the other Servants?”

Berserker’s eyes glow even brighter than before. “I want you for myself. The others don’t deserve you. Only I complete you. I am the other half of your coin, your foil, your shadow.” He stands up straight and holds out his hands palms up like a scale. “You are pure light; I am pure darkness. I am your other half.”

“You are not my other half!” Riza snaps furiously, unable to contain herself. Berserker clearly is out of his mind, but more importantly, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He can’t be her other half, not when she already gave her heart to someone else long ago. That man is on this earth now as well, somewhere out there, fighting in the same War as her. He is her other half and always will be. A thousand lifetimes can pass, hundreds of Wars, and she will always belong with him. “This is madness!”

A low chuckle rumbles through Berserker’s chest. “Some might say that is a requirement of the Berserker class.”

“You mean nothing to me,” Riza growls through her teeth. “You are nothing. The only thing I feel for you in return is utter contempt and disgust.”

Berserker slaps the railing, the sound of metal against metal clanging in the air like a warning, and points a large machete at her. It looks a lot like he’s claiming her for his own, but she doesn’t belong to him. “I will convince you otherwise! Darkness always consumes light in the end!”

“Then let us begin,” Riza declares coldly, digging her feet into the ground and leaping up to the walkway in a flash to meet him. She will destroy him. Not only does Winry’s command seal push her towards her, but she knows that she has to end Berserker or he will only cause more destruction and death. She will bathe her hands in his blood and then do her best to assuage Winry of any guilt that she knows the girl will undoubtedly feel after.

Winry is not a killer, but Riza is and she will be one again to protect others.

*

He saw her lying on a ground every night, blood seeping out from between her fingers. He saw her smile as he raises a hand and fire comes to life all around him. The fire was as red as her blood, as angry and painful. Screams pitched high in the air and his lips twist into a snarl as he forced to flames to burn hotter to match his temper. There would be nothing left except ashes once he was done. The black soot would match his heart.

“You love her, do you not?” a man cackled in his mind. “She has saved your life countless of times. Will you not return the favor just once?”

Eyes shut tight, he tried to shut the voice out of his head, but it wouldn’t leave him alone. The light of the flames dancing against his eyelids, he struggled to picture anything but the light going out of her eyes. He thought to when he first came across her without her armor on. She’d screamed at him and fell naked into a pond when he accidentally saw her bathing. It had been so simple then. He’d laughed so hard that his sides hurt.

He wanted to laugh again; he wanted to see her cheeks burning bright red; he wanted to reach out and touch her bare skin and know that she was alive. She would tell him to stop now. She would put a hand on his forearm and slowly lower it to the ground. She would bring him back. Oh god, why couldn’t he bring her back?

A scream worked its way out of his chest, and he collapsed to his knees, burying his face in his hands. The flames exploded and greedily ate away at the army. Everything was so hot. This was hell, wasn’t it? This was his world without her. He didn’t need to die in order to lose his life; he simply became Death itself.

“Will you let her die again?” the fire demands of him in a whisper.

*

Roy snaps his eyes open and bolts up in a flash, sweat soaking his shirt. Ever since the fourth murder, he took to sleeping in a physical form, but it has its drawbacks. The nightmares come to him more vividly, his past life haunting him like a shadow in the night. He can’t escape them. He wonders if the other Servants struggle with the same issue or if maybe it’s just him. Mostly he’s torn between hoping that Riza remembers and that she doesn’t. It would be less painful for her.

Pressing a hand to his head, Roy closes his eyes and takes a few deep breath, the fires in his dreams slowly fading to black. He very rarely has good dreams when he sleeps in physical form and most of them are always set after Riza’s death. It’s strange that he never dreams about that exact night. It is more of a faint memory in his dreams. Maybe he can’t face it yet. Hell, he couldn’t face it then. Thousands of years have passed, and he still turns away from that night and shuts himself down.

Unlike normally after he wakes up from a nightmare, the feeling of dread doesn’t leave his chest. It rests in him uneasily, weighing him down. He struggles with breathing deeply. Grabbing a fistful of hair and clenching his other hand into a fist, he tries to shove it away physically, cut everything out and leave himself empty, but it refuses to go away.

The last words of his dream come back to him: “Will you let her die again?”

Roy opens his eyes and gazes out the window at the half moon. He instinctively understands what the feeling in the air means. Riza is in trouble. She’s fighting another Servant and despite everything, despite the fact that she is technically his enemy, despite the fact that only one of them can live out the end of this Holy Grail War, she is calling to him. Perhaps not intentionally or even consciously. But she calls to him nonetheless. It’s the same persistent feeling as that night when they were walking in the park and he just felt her presence.

It only makes sense. He isn’t whole without her. They fought together in the Mage Wars. There would have been no Flame Alchemist in the history books without the Hawk’s Eye to guard his back. Roy never would have realized the man he wanted to be without Riza. He would’ve died without her in the beginning, just as he destroyed everything without her in the end.

No, he won’t stand back this time. Roy pulls himself to his feet, his gaze locked in the direction out the window where he knows Riza is fighting Berserker. He doesn’t care if they’re set against one another in the War. He doesn’t care if it’s not his role to protect her. She’s incredibly powerful - her strength as a Heroic Spirit even managed to catch him off guard - but he can’t sit back while she is fighting. That wasn’t what they did. That isn’t who they are.

“Caster?”

Roy turns to find Edward standing in the doorway of the guest bedroom. He quickly notes that despite the late hour Edward is not in his pajamas. Wearing his black jeans, black t-shirt, and signature red hoodie jacket, he’s even got his boots on, like he was just waiting for Roy to wake up. His golden eyes glow as hot as a sword being tempered in fire. He looks ready for battle.

“What are you doing awake?” Roy asks.

Edward smirks and folds his arms across his chest. “You think I’d let you go help Archer kick Berserker’s ass on your own?”

“And just how would you know that’s what’s going on?” Roy is especially talented in sensing other Servants and their Masters, nearly as well as Assassin probably is. The only difference is that he is able to completely mask his presence whereas none of the others can. He can even mask himself from his own Master for the most part, but there are times when that kid surprises him. Edward is an extraordinarily talented mage in his own right; he would have been intimidating as an enemy or an ally had he been alive during the Mage Wars.

“I don’t know if that’s what’s happening,” Edward replies, “but I know you well enough.”

“Do you now?” Roy murmurs.

“You look fit to burn a building down,” Edward says. He fixes Roy with a fiercely determined gaze. One so young shouldn’t be able to look like this. He’s just a child, but he’s in a war now. There’s no time to be a child when one is involved in the Holy Grail Wars. He seems to have discarded that long ago. “And I know you’re tired of standing on the sidelines, no matter what you say. You want to fight.”

Roy knew what they whispered about him behind his back when he first became a mage, even before the Mage Wars officially began. They said that his magic was destructive and that he was prone to be volatile. That was the nature of the beast. He was as wild as his flames. They said that he would lose control. Flame magic tended to drive mages to madness. He had destroyed in the end - so much, so much had gone up in his flames - but he had never lost control, not once. His magic remained precise to the end, every loss calculated and cold.

He once felt like he could be more - that he could bring warmth and sunlight again - that he could give life. Riza reminded him of that when he began to falter in his beliefs in the Mage Wars.

He wants so desperately to feel that again, but instead he feels that wild desire to burn everything to the ground. Edward is right. He does want to fight. He wants to rage. He wants to let loose. What does that say of him when he feels those things still even though Riza is alive again? Is he broken? Well, at least he could put all that anger to good use and funnel it into his magic for this bloody war. That’s all he’s good at apparently. Maybe the other mages at the college were right. Maybe he was only good for war, death, and destruction.

“You’re good at protecting, too,” Edward suddenly says. Having turned to the side, the moonlight casts a glow on only half his face as he looks down at the ground. Roy straightens up. He didn’t realize that he was projecting his emotions so forcefully and allowing his thoughts to bleed into Edward. Normally he was so good at hiding them and keeping the young boy at a careful distance. “You’ve been protecting Al and I from the beginning. I see that now.” He looks back up to Roy. “You saved countless of lives in the past and you can do it again now.”

Roy breathes shallowly. “I ended countless of lives as well. You’ve no idea what I’m truly capable of.”

“You’re not a monster, Caster, not then, not now,” Edward grounds out. There’s no room for arguing in his voice. Despite the gravity of the situation, Roy feels a hint of amusement at how ready Edward is to fight over absolutely everything and anything. “You’re a Heroic Spirit, so you better start acting like one.”

A smile worms its way onto Roy’s face. “Is that a command?”

“Just hurry up and get ready,” Edward snaps. He turns around to leave when he pauses. Roy watches his back. It looks like Edward is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Maybe he is. Neither of them truly knows what the Holy Grail is or what this War entails. Edward has been keeping up a strong front for so long for his little brother. Sometimes though, it slips and he’s just a boy again. “You can save her this time, Caster, but you need to be prepared for when you can’t.”

Edward walks away before Roy can say anything. Roy turns to look out the window as his clothes shift from shorts and a t-shirt to the battle robes that he wore during the Mage Wars. The underlying threat of Edward’s words hangs heavy in the air, but he doesn’t feel angry about them. Edward is only playing his part as a Master in this War. Lifting a hand, Roy glances down at his upturned palm and then the back of his hand. It’s devoid of any marks, unlike Edward’s, which bears three command seals. He is going to have to figure out what to do with those.

You see, Edward still only views him as a Servant; he forgets that Roy is also a mage.

*

The fight is much more than any of them could have ever anticipated. Riza and Berserker seem to almost bounce around the room as they chase one another. Riza follows Berserker in a blur, only choosing to shoot her guns when she has him in her sights. She nearly growls when one of her bullets bounces off his armor and he’s able to deflect another shot with his machete. Berserker lands on the ground with a large thud, denting the concrete, and Riza smoothly leaps over the railing on the walkway, shooting at him as she falls down.

Frustratingly, Berserker uses his knives to block the shots. “Why are you holding yourself back, my dear?”

She lands a few feet away from him, lighter than him, so that only the dust is disturbed, blowing around her. One of her guns is empty and so she tosses the useless object to the side. She glares at him furiously as she reloads the gun with her last remaining extra clip. She can’t keep this up much longer. Guns have limited ammo. Soon, it’ll be as useless as Roy was on a rainy day.

“You’re not worthy of it,” Riza tells him flatly.

“Surely you must have noted that conventional weapons aren’t effective against my armor,” Berserker says. She can hear the smirk in his voice. He’s right though. She’s struck him multiple times with well-aimed shots despite the fact that he was able to fly around the warehouse at a wild speed. Missing shots isn’t in her nature. “I worked so hard to find you again. I need you to meet me halfway. Show me your true colors! Show me that beautiful heroic spirit I know you have!”

He’s on her in a flash. Riza’s eyes widen, but she just barely manages to block him with the gun, his large machete landing a powerful blow against the metal weapon. It’s the first time they’ve been so close to one another. With him looming over her, she can smell the blood on him. It’s the kind of scent that never goes away. So much death surrounds him; it seems to clog the air. The knife begins to dig into the gun as she tries to push back, but he’s relentless, the effort of holding him back getting under her skin.

“You’re mine,” Berserker whispers.

“Archer!” Winry shouts, her voice echoing throughout the warehouse.

“I am not yours,” Riza growls, her arms beginning the tremble. The knife is nearly halfway through the gun, rendering it useless. She was Roy’s and now she is Winry’s, but she will never belong to this monster.

Shouting wordlessly, Riza shoves back at him with as much energy as she can muster. His machete cuts the gun in half, but she manages to put him off balance when she pushed forward and plants a foot right in his chest, kicking hard and knocking him clean through a concrete pillar. Berserker is up in an instant, flying towards her, but she rolls out of the way. By the time she’s up on one knee, the bright golden bow is already in her hands and she lets loose an arrow.

Berserker doesn’t manage to completely dodge this one or perhaps he doesn’t try too hard because of his special armor, but the arrow grazes him in the side and passes through the armor before hitting the wall behind him with a solid thud. At first, he doesn’t seem to register what happened, but he freezes and grunts in pain as a bit of blood seeps out from underneath his armor despite it looking undamaged.

Pressing a hand to the wound, Berserker looks up at her and incredulously exclaims, “You shot me!”

“You’re not the only one with magic enhanced armor or weapons,” Riza tells him as she stands up straight, never once letting him out of the sight of her bow. He’s fast - faster than her, if she’s being honest - but that was when he was up against her using modern weaponry. The bow glimmers brightly in her hands, casting an exceptional light in the dark warehouse. “This bow and its arrows were forged with the specific intent of killing those that yielded magic. It seems to work even better on Servants.”

“That bow…” Berserker eyes the weapon in her hands, taking note of all the intricate details. It looks like a simple bow upon first glance, but then there are the carvings that mark it as special. No other bow like this one was made, not even after her time, and no one else could use it after she passed. Winry told her that the it became a simple bow after her death death, like she took its magic with her to the grave, even though she could never use magic herself. It is completely unique. “You’re the Hawk’s Eye!”

Riza does her best not to grimace. For some reason, she can’t stand that name now that she’s alive again. It only serves to remind her of the shackles that she bore during her time. It was a cloak that kept her hidden from the world. She could never be Riza then; she could only be the Hawk’s Eye. Maybe Winry influenced her too much because now she only wants to be herself.

“This is even more extraordinary than I could have ever dreamed!” Berserker exclaims excitedly. He presses his free hand against his chest where his heart should be, not caring that he splatters his own blood on himself. She doesn’t truly know if he has a heart. “The stories were all wrong about you. No, you had them fooled! You brilliant, beautiful woman! How many people knew your secret? And now I am one of them! I knew you would show me your true self when you brought out your Noble Phantasm.”

Riza narrows her eyes. “Be careful what you wish for, Berserker. You might not like who I really am.”

“Oh? I know who you are. I see your eyes.” Berserker taps on his mask near his own glowing red eyes. “You have the cold eyes of a killer. And that, my dear, is all I could ask for.”

Just as Riza lets off another arrow, Berserker swipes it to the side with his machete, but it’s a much stronger blow than the bullets and it knocks him to the side. This time, when he rushes at her and swings a heavy blow down with his machete, she’s able to meet him with the bow. It doesn’t even vibrate when his knife collides with it; not a single scratch marrs it when he pulls back to swing at her again. How she missed this bow truly. It feels like an extension of her soul in her hands. She’s able to meet him blow for blow, managing to slide around him and even let off a few shots despite being so close.

All of which seems to piss Berserker off. He starts getting sloppy with his movements, and she’s able to nick him once on his thigh and then another graze on his back. Just as he starts to snarl and Riza thinks she might be able to get the upper hand and even severely wound him, something blasts at her feet, knocking her backwards. She barely manages to stay on her feet as she slides backwards away from Berserker. Jerking her head in the direction of where the blast came from, she sees that man in all white again, staring down at them through a shattered window. He’s holding his hand, pointing it directly at her. When he smiles, he shoots off a red ball of energy and she is forced to leap out of the way again.

“Are you done playing around, Berserker?” the man, obviously his Master, calls down to him.

Winry clenches her fists at her side and glares up at him. “That’s cheating!”

“Is it?” the other Master asks, his voice amused and light. “Are we not in the Holy Grail War? What do you do then if not fight in war?”

Winry frowns, but is unable to say anything to refute him. He’s right, after all. It doesn’t matter who attacks whom; Servant or Master, they are all fighting. Riza is forced to watch both Berserker and his Master as the man leaves the room and calmly begins to walk down the stairs. He’s too close to Winry for Riza’s comfort. She’s a strong mage in her own right, but she is nowhere near as powerful as him. She’s not as dangerous either.

Finally, Winry manages to come up with something. “You’ve killed so many innocent people. That’s not war; it’s plain murder.”

“No one is truly innocent,” the man says, shrugging his shoulders, “and there will always be collateral damage in war. Lives will always be taken. Even the so-called ‘good men’, the heroes in wars, kill others. Leaders order the deaths of so many, their enemy and allies alike.” He gives Winry an almost soft look. It’s disconcerting. “Surely you don’t think you can come out of this war unscathed. Did you not order your Archer to kill Berserker? You will be a killer the same as I if that comes to pass.”

His words sink into Winry as her eyes widen in shock. Riza looks on hopelessly as realization hits the young girl. She thought that she was providing justice to those whose lives Berserker and his Master took by commanding Riza to take him out. She thought that she was avenging them. And she was. She is. But the facts are cold and simple when broken down. Riza can’t merely fight in this War; if she is to win, she has to kill as well. As her Master, all of Riza’s actions will be laid at Winry’s feet. The blood Riza spills will be on Winry’s hands. Riza hoped that she wouldn’t realize that so soon.

Tears pool into Winry’s blue eyes. “I’m not… I’m…”

“When you get down to it,” the man says, “all men are capable of becoming killers with just the right push, even the good ones.”

Anger burns hot into Riza’s chest. How dare this man hurt Winry like this? She can’t stand to see it go on any longer and so she turns from aiming an arrow at Berserker to his Master and lets off two shots in a lightning burst. He manages to put up a magic shield just in time able to deflect one arrow, but the other is able to slide through the hole the first one made. It barely misses him as he ducks to the side.

However, her switch to shoot at the Master causes Berserker enough time to attack her as well, and Riza isn’t able to leap out of the way in time or counter with her bow to avoid complete injury. His large knife swipes at her face, cutting her cheek, as she tries to twist out of the way. The cut burns horribly as blood seeps down her cheek and she staggers for a second, but before she can let off another shot to merely keep him away or he can attack again, a wall of fire shoots through the room, effectively blocking Berserker from her.

“What is the meaning of this?” Berserker yells furiously.

The fire crackles and hisses, but it’s not enough to drown out the sounds of footsteps from behind. She doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is, but she still has to stifle a gasp when she turns around sees Roy walking towards her, a stony expression on his face. The light of the fire reflects in his dark eyes, and she can’t help but note the cold fury in them. She has only seen that look in his eyes a few times, but she always knew that it was dangerous. She always brought him back when he looked like that, even in her last dying moments.

Riza doesn’t know if she can do that for him again though. A part of him broke after her death, and she’s afraid that the pieces to fix him aren’t there any longer - that he burned them away along with the world.

“How dare you interrupt us!” Berserker exclaims. “This is our dance alone!”

“How dare I?” Roy counters. His voice is so cold and quiet. She can hear just how lethal he is as he speaks. He isn’t looking at her, only on Berserker who appears through the flames. He doesn’t even notice when his own Master, that young golden-haired and eyed boy rushes into the warehouse behind him. He freezes when he sees what is going on and blinks rapidly. “Who do you think you are that you’re allowed to even touch her?”

Berserker grips his machete tightly and seethes, “She is mine!”

“She is no one’s!” Roy snaps and the flames rise higher. He’s wrong though. She is his, just as he is hers. It will always be like this. The heat of the fire wall caresses her almost gently, despite the fact that she knows touching them would burn her even through her armor, but it causes Berserker to take a step back. His flames have always been as hot as his heart. “You’re a delusional madman that doesn’t even deserve to be in the Holy Grail War, much less deserve her.”

“Is that jealousy I sense in a Servant?” Berserker’s Master laughs.

A fireball shoots towards the man without Roy even looking over at him or pointing in his direction, but the other mage is able to block that one as well. Sweat beads on his face though. It’s one thing to dodge an arrow specifically meant to piece magic, but it’s another to contend with magic itself on an entirely different level. Roy was the strongest of his time and it appears as if he might be the strongest again. As Caster, he is able to play the same field as the Masters along with the Servants.

Roy glowers at him in contempt. “I’ll deal with you and your disgusting use of the dark arts later, mage.” There is a tense standoff as Roy returns his attention back to Berserker. Finally, the wall of fire goes down, leaving them in the dark once more. Smoke from where the fire scorched the ground hangs in the air. “Stand aside, Riza. I’m going to burn this monster out of existence.”

Her heart leaps into her chest. She knows that look. She recognizes it in the way his body tenses. There is no hiding the fury written on his face now. He doesn’t bother hiding it, leaving himself completely open. She has only seen him look like this once after his best friend was murdered and his body left at the gates as a warning. He nearly destroyed an entire castle back then. It took everything in her to bring him back from that and he was so wounded afterwards.

He will kill Berserker, but not because of his role in this war. In his mind, the Holy Grail War has nothing to do with this anymore. He will instead kill Berserker out of selfish reasons, out of hate and rage, and that black hole those emotions cause in him will consume him until the end. That’s not the kind of man she fell in love with. She fell in love with a man that wanted to protect, save lives, return peace and prosperity, to help others. She could not love a man that would let his hate take over him and guide his path. That isn’t a hero worthy of the Grail.

Before Berserker can leap to attack, before Roy can unleash a destruction so terrible to name, Riza steps forward into his path, blocking Berserker from his view.

Roy hesitates, but then growls, “I told you to stand aside. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I won’t let you do this,” Riza tells him.

“Caster!” his Master calls out to him warningly. Roy’s hands shake at his side. She doesn’t know whether the boy is telling Roy to stop or to keep going. After all, what is her death to him except one step closer to winning the War? She doesn’t think that Winry will use a command seal on her to kill Roy - the girl is too kind and gentle and even heartbroken over their story - but she doesn’t know what Caster’s Master is capable of. If he was able to summon such a strong Servant as Roy, then he’s incredibly powerful and a huge threat, even at such a young age.

She can feel Winry’s concern for her, but Riza doesn’t look away from away from Roy.

“You would protect that monster?” Roy demands.

“I’m not protecting him,” Riza snaps. “I’m protecting you - from becoming someone you aren’t.”

Roy closes his eyes briefly, pain flickering across his face. “I’m not the same man you remember, not anymore.” He opens his eyes and for a second she sees the old Roy in them again, a gentleness strange compared to the raw power of his magic. “You will have free reign to end my life now, considering the sins I committed.”

“You’re still Roy to me,” Riza says quietly.

Clenching his fists to the point where his palms would’ve bled had he not been wearing gloves, Roy flicks his hand to the side and a huge line of fire shoots down uselessly to the other side of the warehouse. He nods his head and she takes a breath. She can see him again. He’s here, right in front of her; he’s with her again. With that settled, she turns and faces Berserker, lifting her bow to point an arrow at him again. Berserker settles into a fight stance, but she can see his hesitation. Against her, he was a match because of the extra mana and od his Master had stolen to give to him, but he was nothing compared to Caster or them combined.

A cut-off scream ends the standoff between the three Servants and they all spin around to find the source. This time, Riza does gasp out loud and nearly drops her bow in shock when she finds Berserker’s Master holding Winry captive, one arm around her throat and the other holding a knife. Winry struggles against him, her eyes wide with panic, but Riza notes the magical bonds tied around her.

The cold-eyed man smiles. “I fear we’ve outstayed our welcome. We’ll be leaving now.” Riza’s heart beats fast in her chest. The man can’t mean to be leaving with Winry. Oh god, she failed. She failed to protect Winry, the one person who is supposed to mean the most to her.

“Let her go, you asshole!” Caster’s Master surprisingly yells, stepping forward and looking ready for a fistfight. “Or I’ll tear you a new one!”

The young mage’s threat only serves to amuse the man though. “Trying to save her too? How very valiant of you. She is a pretty girl, after all.”

Roy lifts a hand, but Riza shakes her head. His magic can be absolutely precise, but Winry is too close to the other Master. Even if he did hit the other mage with his flames, there is no way that Winry will not get hurt as well. The shock could very well kill her.

This is where her skills came in handy. “If you so much as cut her,” Riza says as she aims at him, watching his every move as he steps back towards the door, dragging Winry along with him. “I will kill you right here.”

“I’ve no doubt about that, Archer,” the man replied with a laugh. “But I don’t want to hurt her, not yet.” He pats Winry on the head, the tip of his knife gliding through her hair. “Not until I’m capable of draining her dry. She has a surprising amount of power in her.” He points the knife at the young boy. “Him even more so. I’ve never met anyone with such untapped power before in then. With his mana and od, Berserker would be nearly as strong as Caster.”

“You want to try right now?” the boy shoots back heatedly. “I’m ready!”

“I don’t think so,” the man says. “Another night perhaps.” He nods towards Berserker. “Shall we?”

“Riza!” Winry calls out for her, but Riza can only take one step towards her before Berserker’s Master presses the tip of the blade against Winry’s neck. Berserker follows quickly, bounding out of the warehouse first. All Riza can do is aim her arrow, hope it flies true, as the man drags Winry to the door. Waving goodbye with his fingers, he takes one last look to smile at them and then roughly shoves Winry to the ground before vanishing out the door.

While the boy rushes to the door to make sure that Berserker and his Master are gone, Riza rushes towards Winry and collapses onto the ground. Her bow fades from existence, leaving only the moon, stars, and one streetlight as their source of light. Pulling the young girl into her lap, Riza smooths her hair back from her face. “Are you alright?”

Biting her lip to keep them from trembling, Winry nods her head. “I am. I knew you wouldn’t let them take me. I trusted you to save me.”

“Winry, I--” Riza cuts herself off as she looks down at the bonds. They’re still there, despite the mage being gone. She doesn’t know what to do. One of her arrows might be able to cut Winry loose, but she isn’t sure.

The golden-haired boy comes back, kneeling down next to them. “Let me,” he says. Riza hesitates and pulls Winry closer to her. There isn’t any hate or cruelty in his golden eyes though. His face is completely earnest. Perhaps he truly does want to help, but it’s hard for her to allow any other Master to touch Winry. It’s only when she feels Roy place a hand on her shoulder does she look up at him and then nod her head. Using a bit of magic, the boy is able to cut the magical bonds on Winry and they slowly dissipate into the air. As Winry rubs her wrists, he stands up and surveys the area. “Ah, what a mess.”

Once Winry is able to get to her feet, Riza following suit, she holds out a hand. “Thank you - the both of you - for helping.” The boy grunts a response and looks at her hand, but doesn’t make a move, like he’s never shook hands before. Winry doesn’t falter though. She might feel shaken after what just happened, but she’s stronger than she looks. “I’m Winry, by the way.”

After eyeing her suspiciously, the young mage finally sighs and shakes her hand. “Edward. And you’re welcome. But don’t go expecting it all the time!”

Winry smiles. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

The other Master, Edward, turns pink in the cheeks and then jerks his hand back, folding his arms across his chest and muttering under his breath. Although Riza can’t understand him, Roy seems to and he lets out a laugh, which only makes Edward grumble even more. Roy gives Riza a smile and warmth blossoms inside her. How long has it been since she has seen such a warm smile on his face? She hadn’t dreamed of ever seeing it again.

“Well, now that this is over, I think we should talk strategy,” Winry proclaims.

“Strategy? For what?” Edward demands. “What are you talking about?”

Winry places her hands on her hips. “For teaming up to fight in the Holy Grail War, of course!” It’s as plain as day to her, but Edward is left sputtering in confusion, waving his hands about, and rambling his protests so quickly that Riza isn’t even sure if he’s speaking an actual language anymore. “Clearly your Caster and my Archer work together much better as a team than alone. They’re a pair, after all, The Flame Alchemist and the Hawk’s Eye. It only makes sense that we combine our strengths to become a team.”

“She does have a point,” Roy points out.

Edward glares at him. “Only one pair can win the War.  It’s a fight to the death. This isn’t about making friends.”

“I’m not asking you to be my friend,” Winry sighs exasperatedly. “But I think it’s a good idea to be partners. We have a truce to work together and knock out the other Servants and Masters.”

For a moment, Edward considers Winry’s proposal. It’s not a bad idea. It also gives Riza a slight sense of relief knowing that she won’t be pit up against Roy. She eyes Roy sideways out of the corner of her eyes. He’s watching Edward very carefully, although the expression on his face says that he couldn’t care less about the outcome. So he hasn’t lost his touch with his masks, it seems.

“Fine, we work together,” Edward says. “But what happens when we’re the only two left?”

“We’ll figure that out when the time comes,” Roy cuts in before Winry can say anything. She gives him a sharp look, but says nothing, if only because Roy has turned away, his interest seemingly lost. Riza can sense the tenseness in him. Likely he doesn’t want to think about when that time comes, so he’ll avoid it for as long as possible. He never did like to face his fears.

The truth is, Riza doesn’t know if she can face them either, not this time. The road to the end of any war was dark and filled with so many obstacles and terrible truths, but at least she isn’t alone. That much she can be grateful for.

*

Standing in the darkest shadows, Assassin watches as the two young Masters and their Servants walk out of the warehouse. The fight between Berserker and Archer was very interesting and even more enlightening. He could tell that Archer was holding herself back, but for what reasons, he isn’t sure. Maybe she was unaware as well.

Caster, on the other hand… The moment he jumped into the fight, there was no holding him back. He was ready to burn everything to the ground along with him.

Strange that even looking at him with his own two eyes, Assassin cannot feel Caster’s presence. He can’t even sense the other Heroic Spirits strength. But it doesn’t matter. All that matter is that he finally able to put a face to Caster and his Master - and, even more importantly, a name. His Master will be greatly intrigued to find out that a young golden-haired boy named Edward was able to summon the Flame Alchemist, of all mages.

After sending a nearly translucent familiar to follow them so that he can finally keep an eye on Caster, Assassin smiles. No doubt Caster will find the familiar soon enough, but now he has something that Caster doesn’t have. Knowledge is power, after all. “I’ve got you now, Caster.” He takes note of Archer and Caster walking side-by-side with one another and the way Caster looks at her when she isn’t looking. “And I know your weakness too.”

He vanishes into the dark, blending with the shadows, and returns to his Master. Oh he knows so much more than any of the other Servants can imagine.

Chapter Text

Considering the size of their house and the amount of empty rooms inside, it is quickly decided that Winry, Riza, and Pinako more or less move in and stay at the Elric house. Sure, Edward squawked and threw one of his fits that didn’t seem to include a complete sentence, but he shut his mouth and got over it the second Roy smacked him upside the head. He most certainly stopped complaining when his little brother, Alphonse, greeted their new guests so cheerfully and offered to cook a huge dinner celebrating their partnership.

Despite it being under dire times, Riza can’t help but smile as she watches Roy interact with the two boys. It’s a far cry from the man that looked ready to burn a man into ash a day before. She doubts that he even realizes how he’s behaving with them and would probably deny it if she brought it up. After all, he never liked to admit when he was being soft back in their own time. It must be even worse now that he’s a Heroic Spirit. They aren’t supposed to be soft on their Masters.

And yet Riza can spot how much Roy cares about Edward and Alphonse Elric through his actions.

Even though Alphonse is in a wheelchair, he doesn’t let it deter him from being the main cook, although Roy helps him in the kitchen. Riza watches as Roy stands to the side, grabbing a seasoning from a shelf when Alphonse needs it, not directly involved but keeping a close eye nonetheless. He always manages to be there and paying attention when Alphonse needs help with something. And when Edward makes a snide comment in the other room, Roy is able to respond coolly enough to make the kid turn pink.

“You have a beautiful home,” Winry says as she walks back into the living room. She’s practically glowing from how pleased she is. A team is better than going alone, in her opinion.

Edward mumbles something that sounds like, “Thanks,” as he sits with his arms folded in the corner of the room.

Instead of being irritated by his lack of hospitality, a curious look crosses Winry’s face as she looks at him. “Is it just you and your brother here though? Where are your parents?”

Edward flinches, unable to stop himself, and there’s no hiding his immediate discomfort at the question. Winry picks up on it too and seems to realize that she said something wrong, but before she can apologize, Edward answers her. “They died.” It’s a simple answer, void of nearly any emotion, but Riza can tell from years of experience that it’s not because he doesn’t care. He’s intentionally shutting out all feelings concerning the matter because he most certainly does care.

“I’m sorry,” Winry gasps, putting her hands to her mouth. “I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s alright,” Edward sighs, unfolding his arms and leaning back against the wall. “You didn’t know. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.” His tone is almost gentle, a sharp contrast to the temperamental and moody behavior he portrayed before. “Besides, it’s a reasonable question. We’re not exactly old.”

Winry drops her hands underneath her chin and looks down at the ground. “My parents died as well. They were doctors in the war.”

“Our mother died in a car crash a few years back,” Edward says, his eyes flickering the Alphonse in the kitchen. It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots. His injury obviously is obviously a consequence of the accident as well. Riza can see the guilt plain as day on his face. Likely he remained uninjured while his brother and mother suffered. It reminds her of the guilt on Roy’s face right before she died. “I don’t know about our father. He left us when we were little.” He held out a hand and flexed it in the air. “But he must be dead if I received the family’s magic circuits. They only transfer fully upon death.”

Everyone goes silent in the room, contemplating lives lost in the past and lives that will be lost in the future. The entire Holy Grail War revolves around the deaths of Servants and sometimes even Masters. Riza wants to keep her eyes on Winry, but her gaze drifts to Roy again. He’s leaning against the wall by the fridge, hands loosely in his pockets, watching as Alphonse sautees something on the stove. As if sensing her eyes on him though, he turns his head and connects eyes with her.

Are they doomed to watch each other die over and over again? She wonders if he thinks this is his punishment for whatever he did to end the Mage Wars after her death. She wonders if this is her punishment for failing him and allowing him to turn into the monster he thinks he became. There’s a lot of things to wonder about these days.

*

Out of all the things that Ed was expecting, waking up to Winry’s smiling face hovering over his is not one of them. He yelps as he scrambles back against his headboard, pulling his blanket up to his chin to hide his already t-shirt covered chest. She rocks back on her heels to stand up straight, hands clasped behind her back, and actually giggles. This girl is mad. He never should’ve agreed to partner up with her. He doesn’t care what sort of twisted love story Caster has going on with Archer; she and this ridiculous girl have to go.

“What are you doing in here?” Ed demands, his face heating up despite himself. He’s in a loose t-shirt and his boxers. What kind of girl sneaks up on a vulnerable guy like this?

The smile never leaves Winry’s face and she doesn’t look the least bit abashed about startling a boy she just met in their own house. “You slept through breakfast. Alphonse asked me if I could wake you up or you’d risk being late for school.”

Ed scowls. “Why you though?”

“Well, Mustang offered to wake you up,” Winry tells him, “but a bucket of ice water among other things were going to be involved. I thought it’d be kinder if I did.”

Of course Caster would do something like that. Ed grumbles under his breath as he drops the blanket and gets out of bed. She does have a point. He would have likely blown the roof if Caster had woken him up. Sure, she could’ve been a bit less startling about it, but Ed would rather wake up to her pretty face than Caster’s smug one.

At that random thought, Ed freezes and slowly moves his gaze over to Winry, who is still standing there blinking innocently. Pretty face. He thought of her as pretty. There is currently a pretty girl his age in his bedroom while he is wearing nothing but a t-shirt, boxers, and very little dignity. His face goes bright red. Somehow, the same realization seems to hit Winry at that exact moment. She blushes and squeaks out a tiny “Sorry!” before darting out of the room.

By the time Ed is ready for school and has worked himself up to face everyone after a humiliating morning, everyone else is already waiting for him. Alphonse is at the door talking with Winry while Pinako is lounging outside smoking. Caster and Archer stand to the side, an appropriate distance between each other, acting for the world like they weren’t involved in a plot straight out of a tragic romance novel. It’s only when Ed reaches the door does he realize that Winry is carrying a bag of lunch like Al and Ed do.

“What’s going on?” Ed asks, annoyance creeping in. What is it with everyone making decisions without him?

“Alphonse said I could come to school with you all!” Winry says excitedly.

Ed sputters even as he takes the bag of lunch Al is handing over to him. “That’s absurd. You can’t just come to school with us. You’re not even enrolled.”

“I already called the school and asked, Brother,” Al tells him. Ed whips his head around to stare at his brother. Since when did he get so sneaky? Why is his brother so willing to betray him like this? “I told them she was a family friend visiting from out of town whose family is planning on moving here soon, so she wants to check out the school.” Al smiles, all good-natured and sweet, but Ed thinks there is a devious glint in his little brother’s eyes. “Principal Curtis thought it a good idea if Winry shadowed you in your classes since you’re the same age.”

Now Ed knows that Al is being sly. He went out of his way to do this - for what reason, Ed can’t fathom - but now he’s stuck with Winry, his partner in the Holy Grail War. And it’s not even War-related. They’re going to school together and she’s going to sit with him and have lunch with him and... She’s going to find out very quickly that pretty much everyone dislikes him and he’s a loner and he’s in this awful uniform that has no sense of style whatsoever. Suddenly, things that didn’t matter to him before seem very important.

Caster is smirking when he smacks Ed on the back. “Make sure you show the lady a good time.”

After Winry rushes to hug Archer, she takes hold of Ed’s hand and basically drags him out of the house, all the while exclaiming, “This will be fun!”

“School isn’t fun,” Ed insists, forgetting to jerk his hand out of her grip. “It’s boring.” He glances back, taking note of Caster and Archer following them from a distance. They aren’t talking to each other. Ed gets the distinct feeling that they have somehow managed to avoid one another despite being together at all times. “What’s the point of this, really?”

Winry slows down, letting go of his hand and biting her lip. “I thought, well… I thought if I went to school with you and Alphonse, it would allow Riza and Mustang some proper time alone together.”

There was that use of his name again. Of course Ed knows it, but he only ever thought of Caster as just that. Winry seems determined to view them as more than just Servants though, as actual people, but Ed thought that was a rather dangerous way of thinking. After all, they would be in situations where they will have to send those people possibly to their deaths.

“They’re together now, aren’t they?” Ed says. “In fact, they’ve barely left each other’s sides since the other night.”

“Yeah, but they’re never alone together,” Winry points out. “One of us is always in the room and they both feel too obligated to guard us to ever leave.” She looks a bit sad, but then, she’s probably more emotional over this new twist on the tale between the Flame Alchemist and the Hawk’s Eye than he is. “I figured school is normal enough where they would feel relaxed to do so. He can’t possibly stay with you all the time.”

Ed thinks on that. He knows that Caster is usually there, but he doesn’t know if he’s always there or if he flitters about the school or outside of it. Ed isn’t about to admit that he can’t always feel his own Servant’s presence or that Caster can actually hide himself from his own Master. It would either make him look too weak or Caster too powerful and though he’s partners with this girl he doesn’t want to give her an edge over him somehow.

“That’s...very nice of you,” Ed finally settles on saying. He thinks, if Caster wasn’t doing such a good job in shutting him out right now, he would feel how excited Caster is to have some time to just be with Archer.

A light pink crosses Winry’s face. “They deserve it, don’t they?” She ducks her head. “To be human again, after everything they’ve gone through - will go through for us.”

He catches a glimpse of the house where Berserker murdered the occupants a few days ago in a bid to draw out Archer and then looks back to Winry, who looks so terribly hopeful. Honestly, Ed doesn’t have the heart to tell Winry that that line of thinking is going to get her in trouble soon.

*

“So what do you normally do while Edward and Alphonse are in school?” Riza asks curiously. How something so mundane is so interesting to her, she will never know, but her heart warms at the idea of Roy doing such simple and basic tasks as walking the boys to school. This isn’t their world, but being in it now and knowing what they do of it, they have to at least try to live in it.

From what she has seen, his life with Edward is different than hers with Winry. For one, Edward never calls Roy by his actual name, always referring to him as Caster. She caught Winry frowning at that last night, but of course she has to know that not every Master will treat their Servant as humanely as she does. To most, Servants are just tools to be used and discarded after their use is up. Riza doesn’t believe that Edward sees Roy that way - she can’t, not when the two of them banter with each other so much - but she does believe he’s trying to see Roy that way, if only to protect himself and his little brother too.

War isn’t meant for children. They tend to be collateral damage, if nothing else.

Roy ponders her question for a moment, thoughtfully watching the children in front of them. “I mostly stay in my incorporeal form so that I can keep a discreet eye on them.”

“They’re in different classes though, aren’t they?”

“Yes, but I…” Roy rubs the back of his neck. In order to keep an eye on both of them, it means he has to move from Edward to Alphonse, which means that there are times when he isn’t watching over his Master but someone else. “That’s what he would want. The kid is incredibly protective of his brother.”

Riza smiles softly. “He’s not the only one.”

Roy scoffs and shakes his head at her. “Stop. You’ll make him think that I might give a damn about him.”

He can deny it all he wants - Edward can say that Roy is a heartless bastard - but Riza knows the truth. She’s been able to read him for as long as she has known him. He more than gives a damn about the two Elric brothers. She can see it in the way his eyes always sweep over to check on them, how he goads Edward into getting mad but is never truly mean to him, how he refused to lay down the night before until Edward was asleep and even then he went to check on the wards protecting the house first. As a Servant, Roy should’ve been civil to Edward at least; there is nothing that says he has to look out for his Master’s brother as well.

“I have to give him space sometimes though,” Roy admits, giving her an unusually shy glance that catches her off guard. “That’s just the kind of kid he is. So as long as I don’t feel another Servant’s or Master’s presence in the area, I’ll go to the coffee shop across the street.”

“A coffee shop?” Riza inquires. “That sounds so…”

“Domestic, I know,” Roy huffs, as if it bothers him, even though he obviously goes there of his own accord. And then there is that shy look that hasn’t quite left his face yet. “I could take you there today, if you like.”

The absurdity of the situation and his words hits Riza hard and she can’t manage to stifle a laugh from tumbling out. It’s such a pure and innocent laugh though. She didn’t know if she was capable of those anymore. Poor Roy doesn’t know whether to look crestfallen or confused by her reaction, so Riza calms herself and teasingly asks him, “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Roy harrumphs, the confused look being replaced by a slight scowl. “You’re making me sound like I’m as bad as Edward around women…” His cheeks do appear a little pinker than before. It’s...cute, she thinks. Is she allowed to think such things? Just two nights ago, she was in a battle for her life and soul with a obsessed, mad murderer and now she was walking kids to school and being asked to go out for a cup of coffee. How could she not laugh?

When she places a hand on his arm, he turns to stare back at her. “We’re Servants, Roy, Heroic Spirits in a war for the Holy Grail, some magical wish-granting item.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t live a little in the meantime,” Roy insists quietly, his eyes piercing hers. The intensity nearly makes her balk.

“Now you sound like Winry,” Riza says instead.

“This was her idea, you know,” Roy tells her, waving a hand at Winry. Riza isn’t exactly surprised. She knows that her Master has quite a few tricks up her sleeve. Ever since she found out the truth about who the Flame Alchemist meant to her, she has been coming up with all sorts of ideas. “She never outright said that the plan was for her to go to school with Edward so you would be free and have an excuse to spend time with me, but…” He smirks. “She did mention that you seem to have retained your addiction to caffeine.”

Riza stiffens, more out of embarrassment than irritation. “I merely like to remain as alert as possible at all times.”

“That’s what you used to say back then, too,” Roy replies, the smirk only broadening. She has to resist the urge to smack him on the arm. He’s right though. And this day and age has certainly come up with new ways to deal with a caffeine addiction. The hotel they were staying in had a decent enough coffee maker, but it would be nice to go to a real coffee shop and try something that didn’t vaguely taste of ground up dirt.

“And if another Servant or Master comes into the area while we’re gone?” Riza asks.

“I’ll know of them before they know of us,” Roy says, shrugging his shoulders. How can he be so cavalier about this? Then again, he was always reckless. He wasn’t much different in this Holy Grail War as he was in the Mage Wars, it seems. So willing to take risks, if only because he was so confident in his abilities. “Besides, I may have put a tracker spell on Edward, so I know where he is at all times. If anything happens or anyone unseemly shows up, we can reach them right away.”

“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” Riza sighs.

Roy comes to a halt, forcing her to stop as well. That intense glimmer is back in his eyes again. She nearly shivers when he reaches out to grab her hands, even though it feels like heat shoots through her fingertips at his touch. He has never been cold to her, not in his touch or his heart. Winry only hinted at what Roy had done after Riza’s death, but the one thing that stood out to her was Winry describing him as “coldly” ending the Mage Wars. Riza can’t imagine him doing something like that, but she is honestly afraid to ask him of it now.

“Please, let me do this,” Roy says - no, he practically begs. “I never got to do anything like this with you before. We always had to sneak around, keep things under wraps and hidden.” There is honest to god desperation in his voice and her heart leaps about in her chest. There is no time for this, she wants to say, but she can’t. “If it takes fighting in a War for us to be together, it’ll be worth it.”

Riza bites her lip. “Roy-”

“And if you keep saying my name like that, I’m going to have to kiss you right here,” Roy says, his voice suddenly huskier and lower than before. It causes her to blush. “You have no idea how good it feels to hear you say it.” He rubs a thumb in circles over the top of her hand in a mesmerizing way. She has suspicion that he’s touching her for more than just to do so. His most subtle magic is done through touch. She wouldn’t be surprised if he placed some sort of safe-keeping ward on her as well. “I’ve never believed in second chances, but…”

“But it feels like one when I’m with you,” Riza finishes for him. Roy grins. Even after all these years, even through death and rebirth, she knows him too well, like her own mind.

*

Nearly mid-way through the day, Ed is more than certain that Winry regrets her decision to join him at school, but she’s too stubborn to admit it. Everyone either wants to talk to her because she’s “new” or she has to listen to a few people make snide comments about him. The first time it happens, coming from one of the guys in his first class, she’s caught off guard and doesn’t know how to respond. By the middle of the day, she’s a little more than aggravated, but doing her best to power through all sorts of questions. Once school is over, she looks ready to hit someone over the head with a wrench.

“Not what you were expecting, huh, Little Miss Homeschooled?” Ed teases as they step outside, unable to keep the smugness out of voice or off his face.

Instead of giving him a scathing look like he expects, Winry looks at him and there is what looks like a film of tears over her bright blue eyes, which startles him. “How do you handle that every day?” she asks. “They’re all so…so mean to you.”

Ed shrugs his shoulders, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. Is she pitying him? “It doesn’t bother me.” It’s the truth. It has never once bothered him that most of the kids in his class think he’s weird or moody and tend to stay away from him. Being avoided is better than getting actively bullied. “As long as they’re nice to Al, I don’t care.”

They walk out to open area on the side of the building to meet Al, stopping next to the basketball court. There’s little to no people here, just the way Ed likes, but they come here more because of the service ramp. Ed shoves his hands deep into his pockets while Winry fidgets with the edge of her black skirt.

“But what about friends and going out and having fun?” Winry continues, not looking up at him.

“No time,” Ed replies. “If I want to study at the Clock Tower before I’m eighteen, then I can’t afford-”

The sensation hits him like one of Caster’s smacks upside the head. Ed jerks around and instinctively leaps in front of Winry, shielding her from the view of a young man crouching on top of the low roof of the athletic storage unit and peering down at them. Hand up and at the ready, Ed could shoot off a small blast of magic that would warn any self-respecting idiot away. Winry huffs behind him, most likely irritated at Ed for acting like he’s protecting her. Honestly, Ed is a little miffed at himself for jumping in front of her without a thought.

“What’s this?” the unknown Servant asks cheerfully. “Two Masters working together? How quaint.”

“What are you doing here?” Ed demands.

“Honestly? I got lost looking for something to eat, but was distracted when I felt the presence of a Servant.” The answer is so ridiculous that Ed thinks it might actually be genuine. The young man looks of similar descent as Caster, though younger, perhaps not that much older than Ed and Winry themselves. The way he effortlessly drops from the roof though and lands on the ground suggests that he’s more than a little athletic. “I am curious though. I see two Masters here, but can only sense one Servant. Why is that?”

Ed doesn’t bat an eye. So Caster always keeps himself hidden then. He wonders how that’s possible, seeing as how he read that all Servants could sense one another. Maybe it’s part of his old mage abilities. “Maybe your skills are a little rusty.”

“Maybe,” the Servant concedes, but then he grins and adds, “or maybe they’re cloaking their presence. Sounds shifty, like something Assassin would do.”

Gripping his arm tighter, Ed fights the urge to scoff. As if he would have raised the Assassin class for the War. Not that it’s a bad class or anything, but it’s definitely not the class that a top notch mage in their own right would go for. Ed will be the first to admit that he knows nothing about sneaking around. He’s more of the jump in the middle of the fire sort of guy and Caster is the one likely to create that fire if it comes to it.

“Are you here to talk or fight?” Winry questions from behind him. When Ed glances back at her, he sees that she’s in her own fighting position. Oh, yes, she was a mage as well, although not on the same level as him. She did look ready to fight someone though, especially after the day she had.

“I’m afraid I can’t fight,” the Servant sighs, sounding more than regretful. “May would string me up by my toes if I got into a fight with another Servant or a Master without her. She might be tiny, but she packs a powerful punch.” He rubs his chin in thought. “I am surprised to see other Masters near her age. What is it with this War and dragging children into it?”

Ed steps forward. “We’ve every right to be in this War, no matter our age!”

“Oh, of course, I wasn’t implying anything about your age.” The Servant tilts his head and gives them a close inspection. Ed gets the feeling that he’s being examined thoroughly. “Your height, on the other hand, might pose a problem. Just how old are you?”

That does it! Ed charges up a shot and takes aim. “Why you-!”

“Winry!” a woman calls from behind. “Edward!”

Just before Ed can shoot a blast of magic at the other Servant, Archer appears. She’s wearing her normal clothes still, that black suit that she seems fond of, but she has a hand hanging behind her, no doubt gripping the gun that she keeps tucked back there. It still amazes Ed that Archer is capable of handling long-range weapons for this time so easily, as if she was around guns all her life.

“Oh, you must be the Servant I was able to feel!” the Servant exclaims, bounding gleefully. He glances around and then stills himself. “Still no other Servant though. I wonder if they’re in their incorporeal form and cloaking their presence still. I doubt any Servant would trust another enough to protect their Master alone, no matter what Heroic Spirit they are.”

“I suggest you leave if you do not want to fight,” Archer warns.

The Servant scratches the back of his head. “Sure, sure, I don’t like fighting on an empty stomach anyways.” In a flash, he leaps back on top of the room. Ed blinks and stumbles, taken aback. He moved so fast, much faster than Berserker did in the warehouse. Archer is an incredible shot, but he doesn’t know if she could match that speed, at least not with a regular weapon from this day and age. “Because you’ve been so kind as to not outright attack me, I’ll give you a bit of advice. Saber is in the area. I wouldn’t cross paths without both of your Servants, if I were you. He won’t be nearly as kind as me. An insult against your height will be the least of your worries when he will actively cut you down to size.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Winry asks, already lowering her hands. How safe she must feel with Archer at her side. Ed feels a flash of irritation and something else...something that feels almost like jealousy. Which is absurd. Why would he be jealous of Winry? And where the hell is Caster? Is he even here right now? What’s he doing hiding if he is? This unnamed Servant is right in saying that’s more of Assassin’s style.

“I really would hate to see children get needlessly hurt,” the Servant says, “and I really hate that bastard.” It’s another simple answer, one that Ed is inclined to believe, especially with the way the Servant seemed to snarl when he spoke that last part. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find food and get back before my Master hunts me down herself. It was difficult enough convincing her to stay inside, what with Saber prowling about.”

Waving a hand at them, the Servant bounds away, little more than a blur as he leaps from roof to roof before vanishing altogether. Only until he’s gone does Ed lower his hand and let go of his arm. He glances back at Winry, who is looking at him with a slightly worried expression, and then to Archer, who is no longer holding onto her gun. He’s grateful that Al was late in getting out of class. He knows that just as Archer is Caster’s weakness, Al is Ed’s. Love is a powerful motivator and distraction.

“Well he was an interesting character,” Caster says behind him.

Ed jumps, having not expected Caster to appear out of thin air and speak, and spins around to glare at him. “And just where were you?”

“Watching, of course, gathering information,” Caster answers dismissively. So he was here during the entire ordeal and simply not in his physical form. For his class, the man sure does a lot of sneaking about. “I’m thinking the way he moved and his speed, plus his words, that he’s Lancer.”

“And why did it take you two so long to show up?” Ed demands.

Caster fixes him with a disinterested look that always manages to get under his skin. Ed doesn’t know why it unsettles him so much, except that it makes him think of something dead. What does a man have to see in order to be able to give a look like that? “We were here the second he spoke to you. I merely deemed it better to stay hidden to gather intel. Not every War is won in a battle.” He turns to gaze back where the Servant, Lancer, ran off. “Besides, it looked like you two had the situation under control.”

As that sounded suspiciously like a compliment, Ed shuts his mouth and continues to merely glower at his Servant. How did he manage to get someone so difficult? Just when he thinks that he has Caster figured out, the man up and does something unexpected. He did have the situation under control, but it would’ve been nice to know that he wasn’t alone or was at least being backed up by his Servant. Would it kill Caster to let someone in just for a moment?

Then again, Ed isn’t much better, not that he’ll admit it. Al would say that he’s the kettle calling the pot black.

Archer frowns. “If Lancer was telling the truth about Saber being in the area…”

“Then we should get out of here,” Caster says decisively. It’s both strange and not to see Caster taking charge, like it’s a natural part of him. It’s not him bossing people around so much as him being a leader. He’s a natural now as he was during the Mage Wars according to all the history books. “This is a partially isolated area, but there’s too much of a risk that someone will witness it. And this Saber doesn’t seem like the fellow to let that slide.”

Deciding that it’s best to go straight home to avoid an unexpected confrontation with another Servant, Ed rushes inside to gather Al, who is returning a book to the library. No one really talks on the walk home, although he does note that Caster and Archer walk a little closer to them. They also walk closer together, their hands and arms brushing against one another every now and then. Both Heroic Spirits seem too lost in their thoughts to notice the physical interactions, but when Ed glances at Winry, a small smile crosses her face. It’s so damn hopeful.

So far, he has met Archer, Berserker, Lancer, and Rider through Winry. Saber was mentioned today and their inevitable clash with him seems likely to come sooner than later if he’s in this area of town. Ed tries not to sigh in frustration, feeling about as on edge as Caster’s tense glare suggests. Where the hell is Assassin?

Chapter Text

From his spot perched on a chair, Ling rests his arms on the back and sets his chin down as he watches his little Master pace back and forth in the room. She has a brilliant amount of energy for one so small; he imagines that if he was more inclined to understand magic, he would see that she has even more magic built up inside of her. He knows that size means little when it comes to strength, but the moment he felt a fraction of her mana and od during his fight with Saber, he knew that she was much stronger than she appeared.

Perhaps even more than she knew herself.

Ever since his clash with Saber, Ling has kept a much closer eye on May. Not that he didn’t before, but beyond her extraordinary willpower and stubbornness, he didn’t consider her to be much of a threat. She’s so small, after all, with those big, innocent eyes and lips that twist into petulant frowns whenever he teases her. It’s difficult not to look at her and only see a child. And then he felt her mana surge through him while Saber beared down on him with his Noble Phantasm swords and Ling thought he might explode with how much power he felt.

It changed things, at least for him. He doesn’t think that May realizes it herself. She actually apologized to him for not being able to give him more strength! That almost made Ling worry that Saber managed to hurt her. Even though he knew next to nothing about magic, mages, or anything in that area, he could feel her mana and strength when they connected. If he focuses on her very carefully, using the connection between Master and Servant, he can even sense something in her, like a wall, that is blocking her somehow. He felt it then, her magic hitting a wall and only filtering through partially. Whether it is out of a subconscious fear or something else, he is very curious to find out just how strong his Master is when that mental barrier is broken.

He can’t help but wonder if there’s some way he can push her through it somehow or if he can break it. It will probably take something very drastic. He doesn’t know if he should be concerned that his mind is taking a rather dark path concerning a person that he is supposed to protect.

“So you confronted two Masters and one of their Servants,” May says in a terse voice, the kind she uses when she’s trying not to get angry. It’s kind of amusing, but if he tells her that, it will undoubtedly make things worse.

“Mmhm.”

“While having no clue where the other Servant might be.”

“Yup.”

“Alone - with no defense and no plan.”

Nodding his head, he adds, “It sounded like a good idea at the time.”

May throws her hands in the air. “In what world does any of that sound like a good idea? You could have been ambushed from any angle by the other Servant and would not have even known what hit you!”

“I did not sense another Servant,” Ling points out. That’s the thing with Servants, as he’s found out; he can sense when they’re close by. It usually hits him right a punch in the chest or a tickle in the back of his mind, depending on what they’re doing.

“Did you stop to consider that the other Servant can somehow hide their presence?” May asks him, putting her hands on her hips and staring up at him. Even crouched on a chair, he’s taller than her when she’s standing up. She’s younger than those two other Masters, and he thought they were young for the Holy Grail War. He can’t help but think of Saber’s words, saying that a child has no right to fight in the War. What if he’s right? No, now that he knows her power, he refuses to underestimate this child Master. “That is right up Assassin's alley, but I would not put it past Caster either.”

That is the same thing that crossed Ling’s mind when only one Servant showed up. Assassin he could see capable of doing such a thing, but if it was Caster, then the other Servant was incredibly powerful. Up against the other classes, Ling is certain that he’s easily capable of matching them, but Caster is a whole other level. To be honest, he would rather not go up against that Servant. It’s not cowardice so much as logic. May might be a much more powerful mage than she realizes, but a Heroic Spirit that is strong enough to be returned as Caster is deadly.

“You cannot just run off like that!” May exclaims, tears springing into her eyes. “What if you had been killed?”

“Do you have such little faith in me and my skills?” Ling asks, eyes narrowing.

When May looks him straight in the eyes and says, “Of course not,” it’s one of the most honest things he has ever heard in both of his lives. He knows right away that she does not doubt him. The way she is looking at him right now, it is almost as if she is concerned about him, not just because his death means her loss in the War, but something else. This little warrior has so much heart. It kills him a little to think that it might break in the end.

Moving so that he is sitting down, his thighs on the sides of the back of the chair, Ling speaks the question that has been hanging in the air, “So what would you like me to do?”

For a moment, May thinks, the worry gone from her eyes as she considers their next move. So far, very few advances have been made in this War, but that can’t last for much longer. Sooner or later, a fight will break out and then the floodgates will open. Slaughter will occur. Already, innocent civilians have been dragged into the War, murdered to benefit a Servant. Ling wouldn’t have even known if not for May, who spent half of one night shivering as she felt Dark Magic being used. He really needed to work on his magic perception.

“We need to thin the competition,” May decides.

Ling grins darkly. He knows exactly where he would like to start. Saber. Every time his thoughts drift to the other Servants, he finds himself thinking of that fight in the forest. He would like nothing more than to break that man’s Noble Phantasms and slice through him with his bare hands. Such vicious thoughts aren’t like him, but every now and then, they come out in bursts.

“But we also need to know who else we are up against,” May adds. “You found two Masters paired up near the vicinity of Saber, but only one Servant.”  She taps her fingers on the dining room table. “I wonder if there is a way we could draw the other one out.”

“What are you thinking?” Ling asks curiously.

May gives him a nervous smile. “Something dangerous.”

“Fantastic. Any way I can convince you to keep out of the line of fire?”

“Not a chance,” May replies, standing her ground, just as he knew she would. Ling doesn’t even bother to fight this time. He just lets out a laugh. A powerful, stubborn, little Mage indeed.

*

“To be honest, I’m surprised Berserker hasn’t committed another murder,” Roy says abruptly.

Riza looks up at him leaning against a column from her spot on the edge of the porch. It’s dark, the moon casting a comforting glow over the two young mages in the yard as they practise their magic. Edward is obviously the more powerful of the two, having come from a long line of mages, especially in attacks and offensive, but Winry is filled with energy and excels at defense. She is a protector while Edward is a natural born fighter. The two go hand in hand, though they don’t seem to realize it.

“It’s what I would have done,” Roy continues, still looking out at their Masters. She wonders if he sees them or if he is seeing some version of the future that hangs heavy on his mind. A yard where Alphonse is able to run around and chase fireflies once again or one devoid of any laughter or smiles, having been taken away by the War. She tries to be hopeful, if only for Winry’s sake, but it’s difficult sometimes.

“You wouldn’t murder innocent people in such a heinous way,” Riza points out plainly.

“Wouldn’t I?” Roy murmurs, so low that she almost doesn’t catch it. He sneaks a glance at her and a sheepish expression crosses his face when he catches her hard glare. “No, I wouldn’t. There are other ways to strengthen mana and od that don’t hurt people, although they’re not as strong or instantaneous.”

If she was used to speaking her mind so frankly, Riza would have told him off. She’s getting better at it thanks to Winry, but it’s hard not to go quiet and merely follow orders while keeping her disagreements to herself. But she hates the way that Roy speaks of himself now, like there’s something broken inside of him. It’s as if a shadow is hanging over him - the shadow of his life after her death - and he can’t see himself as truly good anymore. She knows without a doubt that he would not murder an innocent in order to win this War - wouldn’t have even considered it except to think of what the enemy would do - but now it’s like he’s afraid of what he might do.

It’s like he’s afraid of himself.

Roy would laugh and deny it until the end of days if she ever said it out loud.

“He will though, won’t he?” Riza says. “His Master seems all too eager to share in his bloodlust.”

A frown cuts across Roy’s handsome face. Whereas Riza has been troubled by Berserker and his strange obsession with her, she knows that Roy has been more troubled by the man behind the monster. He can get disgruntled all he wants over the way Berserker seems to think he owns her, but a mage that twists magic and uses the dark arts freely is not something that Roy is capable of letting slide. It more than irks him. After all, he spent so much of his time during the Mage Wars hunting down dark mages. Having a mage roaming around free to do that now is a personal affront. Edward doesn’t like it either.

“Not to mention that Saber is apparently in the area,” Roy grumbles. If Saber is anything like the warning that Lancer gave them, meeting him will perhaps be less pleasant than meeting Berserker.

“Forget Saber for now,” Riza says. “We need to eliminate Berserker.”

Roy waves a dismissive hand. “We need to focus on the other Servants. He’s not a threat to the War. We can easily rid of him later.”

Riza jumps to her feet, a flash of shock running down her spine. “He might not be a threat to the War, but he’s a threat to society, to innocents, to anyone that has no knowledge of this War. We’re involved in this. Every second we have knowledge of their crimes and stand aside adds blood to our hands.”

“I have plenty of blood on my hands as it is,” Roy responds, his voice far too cool for her taste. “A little more won’t hurt.” Riza presses her lips together and glares at him furiously. This time he doesn’t look guilty. “We need to be logical here and think of the bigger picture. Berserker and his Master don’t care about the War. They’re a thorn in our sides, but not a gun to the back of our heads. They’re a distraction. Killing him will not help us right now.”

Whenever plans were being drawn out during the Mage Wars, she always stood in the back and kept her mouth shut. Roy would ask for her opinions later, but very rarely did she ever feel the urge to disagree with him outright. Now, however, it’s like they’re on two different pages. A part of her knows that he’s right. If they want to win the War, they need to eliminate the actual players and Berserker is not truly fighting in the War. But the idea of ignoring his actions is too appalling. She tried it once, ignoring him to protect Winry, but now that they’ve crossed paths, she wants him gone.

“So we let a murderer run free,” Riza says.

Roy doesn’t break her gaze. “In order to be one step closer to winning the Holy Grail? Yes, we do. We’ll probably be asked to do a lot worse down the road.”

Riza tries not to wilt at the idea. She sneaks a glimpse of Winry who is trying to teach Edward a specific defensive shield spell. The girl ends up laughing when the spell backfires and knocks Edward off his feet. Riza can’t help but wonder if Winry will be capable of making the same cold decisions as Roy or if Riza will have to step in and do them herself. She wonders if Edward will be, no matter how hard he makes himself seem. They’re so young and innocent. At one point though, she and Roy were the same way, were they not?

A gentle hand on her arm brings Riza’s attention back forward. The guilty look is back on Roy’s face as he gazes at her, but his eyes don’t seem to be asking for forgiveness like they would have before. He’s accepted his fate. Riza can’t do the same. “I’m sorry, Riza,” he sighs, “for not being the man I used to be.”

“Stop acting like you’re broken beyond repair,” Riza tells him sharply, “and start being the good man I know you are.” She pulls her arm away from his hand and hurt crosses his face before he shuts it down. He’s damn good at hiding how he feels, but not from her. “If you keep letting the past dictate who you are, then you will never be worthy of the Holy Grail. This stubborn, self-loathing martyr man is exactly who I remember. What happened - what we did - what happened to us - it is done and over.”

For a few minutes, Roy is quiet as he contemplates her words. He returns his gaze back to the two mages. She didn’t mean to chastise him so thoroughly, but he needs to hear it. There are times when he’s eager to reach out to her, to experience life with her in a different way, and other times when he pushes her away and keeps her at a distance, like he doesn’t deserve to even look at her, much less touch her. It’s frustrating, to say the least. She hates the way that he wraps guilty around himself so thoroughly like a cloak. It does nothing but hurt him.

“You know my thoughts on Berserker are right though,” Roy finally says.

“I do,” Riza responds begrudgingly, “but I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it,” Roy says. “Truth be told, I don’t either. I’d like nothing more than to turn that cocky dark mage into ashes.” He inclines his head forward. “But it’s not about our wants. It’s about theirs and this War. We’re here to serve them.”

“Edward and Winry want Berserker taken out as well,” Riza points out.

Roy shakes his head. “See? Callous as it is, he’s nothing more than a distraction. Edward and Winry are focusing on people outside of the War and not the War itself. That’s dangerous. Distractions get you killed.”

He’s right of course, which makes Riza even more disgruntled. Berserker is a distraction. It’s all she has been able to think about these past few days whenever she’s alone. She wants him gone. She wants to protect those that have no knowledge of what they’re in the middle of. Even more, she wants to punish that other Master for daring to lay his disgusting hands on Winry. Just thinking of the way he threatened her makes Riza’s blood boil. And she does not need to be focusing on thoughts when they’re in the middle of the Holy Grail War.

Letting out a sigh, Riza looks up at the stars. “It feels like we’re only good for war.”

“At least we’re not alone,” Roy says in such a gentle voice that she can’t help but be pulled towards him. When his fingers brush against hers, she doesn’t pull away. They don’t hold hands, their fingers curling around each other’s, but it’s enough to help her breathe again. It’s enough to make her feel alive.

*

“This is a terrible idea!” May exclaims, her words almost unheard past the howling of the wind. She hates the way that she has to cling to Lancer, but at the speed he is traveling, she has no other option. He’s able to carry her with ease using only one arm as he bounds from rooftop to rooftop. At least she has her arms around his neck instead of the way he sometimes carries her like a bundle under his arm. That is just humiliating.

Lancer laughs. “I believe this was your idea!”

May frowns and says nothing in response. This is her idea more or less. But now that they’re in the middle of carrying it out, she’s beginning to rethink her own ideas. They are literally running headfirst into battle in order to antagonize a Servant that nearly killed her last time they crossed paths. What sort of plan is that? It sounds like something Lancer would think up, not her. She lets out a tiny squeak as Lancer leaps off a building and drops six stories to lightly land on the ground like it’s nothing. Bounding around like a bouncy ball is not something she will ever be able to get used to.

Pausing for a moment (not even bothering to catch his breath), Lancer examines the area. No doubt he can sense that they’re not alone. Another Servant is in the area. May knows in her heart that it is Saber. She can’t rightly say how she knows such a thing, except that Lancer is brimming with energy and unresolved hate. It was difficult convincing him to agree to a plan that didn’t involve him trying to end the other Servant. She’s still not entirely sure that he was telling the truth when he promised to follow it.

“Is he close?” May whispers.

Lancer doesn’t answer at first, so focused on surveying the seemingly empty shipping dock. Before she can ask the question again though, he sets her down and tells her, “Hide,” without looking back at her.

May twists her lips in irritation, but nods her head and scampers to hide in a small, dark space in between two large metal containers. She isn’t about to leave her Servant behind to battle another Servant alone, but she doesn’t need to be in the thick of battle to help him. She would only serve as a distraction. She knows that now. Crouching down so that she is hidden even more, she sits and waits silently.

Quite the opposite, Lancer strolls right out in the open and gleefully calls out, “I know you’re here, Saber! Are you so terrified to face me again that you hide? Not sure your Noble Phantasms can compare to mine?”

“Am I to fear someone that is barely older than a boy?” Saber’s voice calls out from above. May and Lancer spot the other Servant at the same time. He’s standing on top of three stacked shipping containers, loosely gripping his sword at his side so that the tip scrapes against the metal whenever the wind blows. “You gave yourself away when we last fought, Ling Yao, the Boy Emperor of Xing.”

Lancer doesn’t flinch at having been called out, but May clenches her fists tightly. Keeping a Heroic Spirit’s identity a secret is an integral part of the way. Knowing one’s true identity can be an advantage - but also a great disadvantage if they’re found out. Lancer’s Noble Phantasm, his Ultimate Shield, loudly proclaimed who he was, a near mythological and legendary hero from her own country. Her father used to read her stories about Ling Yao’s wild accomplishments and now he is here in the flesh serving her in a magical war.

But being in the flesh also means that he can die, Heroic Spirit or not.

“Well, it will be even more humiliating to be killed by someone not even a man grown then,” Lancer proclaims, a cheeky and childish grin on his face, “especially considering that you are an old man past his prime.”

Saber grips his sword tightly and brings it up in front of him. “I’ve grown tired of your talk.”

Twin swords appearing in his hands again, Lancer stands in a fight position. “Then let us not talk anymore.”

Instead of staying where he is, he rushes forward and seemingly runs up the side of the shipping containers to meet Saber, clashing swords with him. The sound of metal against metal rings loudly in the air. The two of them bound around the shipping yard, attacking one another viciously. Sparks fly in the air whenever their swords meet, but it won’t be long before Saber’s Noble Phantasm sword shatters one of Lancer’s carbon copies.

May closes her eyes and breathes as calmly as she can, doing her best to ignore everything around her. She shuts the world out until she can only sense herself. Tentatively, she reaches out with her mind until she finds Lancer, little more than a blur. His aura is a solid and cool yellow, even though he is in the middle of battle. It is easier to find Saber after since he is following at Lancer’s heels, though his aura is red hot and filled with wrath. Finding Saber’s Master is more difficult - the man stays completely out of sight - but when she finally does, a shiver runs down her spine. The man’s aura is strangely jittery, like he’s not all there. He’s dangerous.

Those three aren’t who she is looking for though. Now that she has found them, she stretches out her search far and wide. Ever since she was little, she was taught how to sense people’s auras. She used it to cheat when playing hide and seek with her cousins, always able to pick them out from their hiding spot in a tree or in a cupboard. It’s not so different now, except on a much larger and more intense scale. She passes through dozens of auras, nearly a mile away, which leaves her straining and sweating, teeth clenched together as she pushes herself. It’s taxing on her own mana, but just when she thinks she can’t go any further or she might pass out, a pale red aura thuds powerfully in her mind’s eye.

Relief blossoms in her chest to the point where she almost opens her eyes and loses contact. She treads carefully as she picks at the aura, but there’s no doubt in her mind that she is currently sensing another Master. He’s small, but incredibly strong. A mage’s aura will always feel and look different to a regular person’s aura. She lets out a gasp when she realizes that he’s not the only mage around. A light pink aura drifts close to his, delicate-looking but nowhere near as weak as it seems at first.

She found them. Step two in the plan is complete.

Opening her eyes, May leaps to stand up and dart out from her hiding place. “Lancer!”

Her shout serves as a distraction, causing Lancer to glance at her and just barely miss being struck by Saber. The sword slices through the sleeve of his shirt, but no physical harm is done. Being so close to hitting Lancer only serves to infuriate Saber more and he lets out a growl as he swings his sword again. This time, instead of ducking, Lancer grabs the sword with his hand, his Ultimate Shield protecting him, and jerks on it as hard as he can, launching Saber into the side of a shipping container, denting the metal beyond repair.

Lancer is at May’s side in a flash, scooping her up under his arm like a bundle again and ignoring her protests. “I don’t even need a weapon to put you out of commission!” He barks out a laugh even as Saber pulls himself out of the crumpled metal and cracks his neck. There’s a murderous glare in his one visible eye. “Think you can keep up with me, old man, or do you need a nap? You look like you are slowing down!”

Saber roars as he jumps to attack them again, but Lancer leaps out of the way just in time. When the dust begins to clear, May spots a large crater in the ground where he was just standing, Saber breathing heavily and an ominous black fog surrounding his sword. The air seems to pulse with heat around it. Lancer takes one look at the sword and then Saber’s face before running away at near full speed, leaving May to gasp and cover her face.

“Where to?” Lancer asks casually, like there isn’t another Servant chasing after them with murderous intent.

“They are two and a half miles Southeast!” May manages to say. Lancer quickly changes his direction, kicking off the side of a building into an ally with Saber hot on their tail. She is certain that she can feel the heat from the man’s Noble Phantasm every time he gets close to them. “I told you to catch his attention, not anger him!”

“Well, it worked, did it not?” Lancer replies with another laugh. How he doesn’t sound out of breath while he bounds around the city is beyond her. He kicks off the side of two buildings to reach the top with ease, managing to dodge a few swipes from Saber in the process.

May doesn’t get the chance to respond. All she is able to do is scream Lancer’s name as he leaps off the building to the next rooftop, leaving them to sail at least a hundred feet in the air.

*

By the time the sensation hits Ed, it’s already too late. He lets out a curse and slams on the breaks of his bike so violently that he careens over the handlebars and crashes into the grass, rolling around until coming to a stop by a tree. It’s a good thing he fell though; if he hadn’t he would’ve likely crashed into the Servant who blew past him.

“Edward!” Winry shouts worriedly, leaping off her bike much more gracefully and rushing over to him. He’s already pushing himself into a sitting position by the time she reaches him, crouching to help him up.

“You should invest in a helmet if you’re so clumsy,” Lancer points out cheekily.

Ed swivels his head up to glare at him, but it does little to deter him. Sitting coolly in the tree on a large branch, Lancer dangles his legs, propping his elbows on his thighs and resting his chin in his hands. Standing behind him on a slightly higher branch is a young girl, her hands protectively gripping his shoulders. She kind of looks like his little sister, although her eyes are much bigger. Ed chokes on a retort when he realizes that the little girl is actually a mage. She’s Lancer’s Master, the young one that he was talking about back at the school.

“Have you finally come to fight?” Winry demands.

Lancer bobs his head. “Not exactly.”

The sound of something slicing through the air interrupts them. Both Ed and Winry are left gawking when they see that Lancer actually caught one of Archer’s arrows with his bare hand. His Master startles and nearly tumbles backwards, but he grabs hold of her wrist and pulls her back to him without even looking away from the arrow. Ed didn’t even see the arrow or realize that Archer was ready to attack and yet Lancer managed to snag it out of the air before it struck him like he was catching a falling leaf. A slight grimace crosses his face as the arrow begins to burn in his hands and he lets it drop to the ground.

“I warned you, Lancer!” Archer calls out as she appears from her hiding place. She’s wearing her armor, a brilliant white and red, and holding the bow out in front of her. Another arrow is knocked in place, though she hasn’t drawn back on the string entirely yet. It’s pointed right at his heart.

“Only one Servant again,” Lancer hums. “How disappointing.” He glances back at the young girl, who is starting at Archer with wide eyes. She most likely has realized who Archer is from the intricately detailed bow glowing in her hands. It’s always dizzying at first to see history turned on its end. “Do you sense anything?”

The girl tears her gaze away from Riza and then closed her eyes, an intense look of concentration falling over her face. She goes incredibly still, to the point where it looks like she isn’t even breathing. Ed shoots Archer a troubled glance when he feels something pulse around him. It’s almost like… It’s like a thousand tiny feelers testing the air just centimeters from his body so that his hair stands on edge. That’s the only way that he can describe it.

“The woman is the girl’s Servant,” the little Master suddenly announces, eyes still closed.

Winry tenses up at having been called out, her grip on his arm tightening. He can tell from her intense gaze that she is feeling the same prickling sensation as him. If Archer is feeling it as well, she doesn’t indicate it. He wonders if she would be capable of shooting the other Master. Sometimes it’s easier to go after the Master than the Servant, as a Servant can’t last long in the material world without being connected to a Master. Truth be told, Ed doesn’t know if he is capable of ordering Caster to take the other Master out, not when she’s even younger than Al, and he’s secretly afraid to find out if Caster would oblige without the use of a command seal.

“And the boy’s?” Lancer questions.

Ed scoffs and folds his arms across his chest. Not even he can sense his own Servant whenever Caster doesn’t want him to, so it’s absurd to think that this little girl could even--

She slowly raises her arm and points ninety degrees to her left. There is no wavering in her finger or hesitancy on her face, just a sheet of focus and willpower. Ed still can’t feel Caster and the man is hiding in his spiritual form, but Ed somehow knows in his heart that this tiny, little mage has found Caster out when no one else can. Ed thinks he can feel a spark of irritation in his mind coming through his bond with Caster.

The girl opens her eyes, exhaustion evident on her face, and she leans against her Servant’s back, like she’s barely able to stand on her feet. Breaking through all of Caster’s defenses and spells just to find him must have been a mental and magical work out. “Lancer…”

“I know,” Lancer sighs, putting a hand on her shoulder to steady her and then getting to his feet. “We’ve wasted too much time here.”

“Too much time?” Ed asks. “You just got here!” Pushing Winry away from him a little, he clambers to his feet and points an accusing finger up at them. “Are you going to fight us or not?”

“Oh, no, not me,” Lancer replies.

Ed furrows his brow. “What in the hell are you going on about?”

Carefully picking up his Master so that she can wrap her arms around his neck, Lancer gives him a serious look. It’s nothing like the silly grins that he’s been wearing for both of their encounters. “I did tell you that there was another Servant in the area, did I not?”

At first, Ed is too busy wondering what Lancer’s deal is and then it hits him like a punch in his chest. Even though it’s stupid and Caster will get mad at him for doing so, Ed turns his back on Lancer, throwing his arms out to cast whatever protective spell he can think of, and screams, “Saber!”

It’s too late though. It’s much too late. And Lancer and his Master are already gone before an older man with an eyepatch and black-glowing sword bears down on Winry.

*

The blowback from Saber’s sword connecting with the protective shield lying inches over Winry’s head is strong enough to knock both Masters to the ground and throw Saber at least ten feet away. Riza manages to stay upright, but she is forced to grip her bow tighter and dig her feet into the ground. Roy is already glaring in determination when he appears in his physical form, hand held at the ready. He barely had enough time to protect Winry after Edward’s warning, but there isn’t a hint of panic on his face. Despite the fact that she was shoved down, he knows that she isn’t hurt.

“You’ve come to the wrong neighborhood,” Roy greets as he walks towards the other Servant, “and under false pretenses, I might add.”

As Saber pulls himself to his feet, he assess the situation quickly with one very cold eye, glancing at Riza briefly before returning his attention to Roy. Despite the fact that a melee weapon typically means very little against Roy and his magic, he can somehow tell that nothing will deter Saber. That strange sword is concerning too. The magic surrounding it reminds him of something. This is a man that will murder anyone who stands in his way without a second thought. He must have crossed Lancer in a terrible way for Lancer to despise him so much. After all, what better way to get rid of trash than to have someone else take it out for you?

“I didn’t take Lancer to be conniving enough for a trap,” Saber says in a flat voice. It doesn’t have the mania and desire for bloodshed that Berserker’s voice carries or the cheekiness and arrogance of Lancer’s. There is nothing there except for anger, which flashes in his one visible eye. It’s not a hot anger though. It’s cold, so very distant. He could die in this War and perhaps not even blink. This War is it for him. “Nor was I aware that Lancer was working with partners.”

Roy holds out both of his hands in a shrugging gesture. “I wasn’t informed of it either.”

Very slowly, Saber moves to the side and Roy follows suit, so that they’re circling one another, never once looking away from each other. Roy stops moving when he is standing in front of Edward and Winry. Riza is to his right, ready to loose an arrow at a moment’s notice. Despite the fact that he is outnumbered and clearly outclassed, even considering his sizeable strength, Saber doesn’t blink or seem concerned. In fact, it very much looks like Saber is not planning on attacking but rather waiting.

But waiting for what?

The answer to Roy’s question comes quickly enough. A black town car pulls up to the side, almost running over Edward’s bike. The man that comes out fixes his glasses, but then comes to a halt when he spots Roy. A toothy grin splits onto the man’s face, a single gold-tooth gleaming in the light of a lamp post. “What an extraordinary find! We have been searching high and low for you, Caster, and Lancer led us right to you!”

Indignation is the only thing that Roy feels in this moment. This entire War, he’s been incredibly careful keeping himself hidden, even going so far as to hide his presence from Edward, and yet in a matter of a minutes, some girl that barely came up to his waist was able to pinpoint his location and now this lunatic Master knew what he looked like. Better to be rid of them tonight then. He should’ve known that Saber would be a problem sooner than later.

“How very courteous of him,” Roy responds dryly, though there is more edge to his words than he would’ve liked.

“Father is very eager to meet you,” the gold-toothed man assures him.

Roy watches them warily. By all means, this Master should be ordering his Servant to attack them and it sounds like he’s ready to invite Roy to dinner. And who is this Father person? It doesn’t sound like the man is his actual father. For some reason, the name stirs something in the back of Roy’s mind, but he can’t place it, like the magic casted upon Saber’s sword. All of these things add up to something that Roy neither understands nor likes.

“I’m afraid I can’t say the same,” Roy says. “I hate meeting new people.”

When the unnamed Master takes a step towards Roy, a bullet penetrates the ground at the man’s feet, stopping him cold. He blinks up in surprise, as if shocked to find that they aren’t alone, until his eyes focus on Riza. It takes an incredible amount of willpower not to grit his teeth at the way the man looks at Riza. Not like she’s something to be strangely cherished like Berserker looked at her, but like she is nothing more than a tool to be used. Other mages looked at her like that before in their time. They never saw her as a person and definitely not a woman. Very few mages did of Old Guard members.

“Not another step closer,” Riza informs the man. She’s back to using a handgun again, hiding her bow. She is capable of wielding any long-range weapon, though she is the most proficient with her special bow, but it does give her identity away very easily. That bow is a part of her soul in so many ways. Keeping it hidden is the best way to protect her identity and inadvertently his as well.

“A Servant protecting another?” the gold-toothed man muses. His eyes flick over to Edward, who is standing up again in a prepared fighting stance. He’s fast and one of the strongest mages Roy has ever met, but he’s not as good as Roy. This man isn’t imposing or feel strong, but he’s seems like the kind of person that has a few tricks up his sleeves and none of them pleasant. “With Caster, one has to wonder who the true Master is here.”

“The one with the Command Seals, asshole!” Edward exclaims, furiously waving the back of his palm at the man. Roy’s lip twitches at the sight of those marks. His Master is undoubtedly a good person, better than Roy has ever been, but power like that can corrupt even those with the purest of hearts. He doesn’t like the idea of his magic being under the control of someone else. He doesn’t like being under control of anyone.

The other Master catches the slight change in Roy’s demeanor and chuckles lowly. The sound disconcerts Edward, causing him to squirm uncomfortably and jerk his head from the man to Roy a few times, like he’s the butt of a joke that he doesn’t understand. And in a way, that’s the truth. Roy definitely doesn’t like the way this man seems to understand things that he shouldn’t. It’s irritating to be called out like that.

“I would be careful of your Servant, if I were you, boy,” the Master says once he stops chuckling. “The Caster class is known for manipulating even their own Masters for their selfish goals.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Edward snaps, “but I already know he’s a manipulative bastard.”

Something isn’t right. Surely this Master knows that Saber is outclassed right now. With both the Archer and Caster class standing right in front of him, there is no way that Saber could win. Even though Roy can sense that Saber outranks Riza, his Master’s mana is average compared to Winry’s. It’s like he peaked at Edward’s age and never grew any further in his power. And yet the man is standing before them talking casually while his Servant stands silently in the background. What are they doing?

Roy thinks of Lancer. He picked a fight with Saber and then brought him here. Why? To lure Roy out into the open. Lancer and his Master didn’t come out to fight tonight, but to see who they were up against and perhaps use another Servant to eliminate the other. They deliberately hung around until Saber caught up with them. They wasted time. Just as Saber did before while waiting for his Master to show up. Waiting. Egging Roy on with words and keeping his attention. No, keeping him distracted.

All of their eyes are on the blank-faced Saber and his grinning Master.

They fell for it again.

“Get back!” Roy shouts as he takes a step away and lifts up a hand.

He doesn’t look back before he snaps his fingers together and a wall of fire bursts in between them. However, he lets out a strangled grunt of surprise when Saber appears, leaping through the flames and pointing his sword right at Roy’s heart. He manages to dive out of the way, not nearly as graceful as Lancer, and shoot off a flame at Saber. Frustratingly, the man dodges it with ease and Roy is left to scramble out of the way again. Physical fights with actual weapons has never been his forte. Roy staggers backwards as he jumps to dodge every swish of the blade, but lets out a shout when he trips over his own feet. Before Saber can stab down at Roy, a bullet hits the sword and knocks it right out of his hands.

Riza does not relent after one gunshot and looks perturbed at having his the man’s sword instead of his actual swordhand. She shoots again and again with Saber missing the bullets by a hairinch every time as he rushes towards her. He can’t focus on Roy when he has to watch Riza at his back. Right as Saber reaches her, she leaps into the air, using the man’s own shoulders to catapult herself further into the air before twisting around and shooting at him with two guns. One manages to clip him in the arm, but he’s up in the air like it was little more than a graze. When he grabs Riza by the ankle and throws her forcibly into the ground, Roy feels like he’s choking on his own breath.

The white hot anger that slides over him is almost smothering. Before he’s even to his feet, he snaps his fingers and a dome of fire surrounds Riza, forcing Saber to alter his course. The dome lifts up to turn into a wall of fire and Roy snaps both his fingers so that it rushes toward Saber and explodes right when it reaches him. It misses him for the most part, but his white button up shirt and pants are singed. He snatches up his sword and moves to rush at Roy again, but this time he’s prepared. He puts up a proper magic shield, leaping back every time Saber pushes forward, but his sword clashes against the magical barrier every time.

“Pathetic!” Roy laughs. “Let’s see what that sword is really capable of!”

He whips out another spell, this time focusing on the other Servant’s weapon itself. The problem with using magic strengthened weapons is that Roy is capable of reading that magic and manipulating it to see himself. With the right spell, he can turn Saber’s own Noble Phantasm against him. However, when he goes to do so, twisting the magic around, an unexpected reaction occurs and the magic surrounding the weapon actually repels his, causing an explosion that blows Roy and Saber away from each other.

Roy shoots up and stares in utter confusion. Something like that has never happened to him. He’s always been able to turn someone’s magic against them and into his own. He’s one of the most powerful mages in all of history and at this core his specialty has always been manipulation, be of the fire element or magic itself. The only time magic repels is when it comes against itself, a replica, and there is no one with Roy’s skill. No one in this day and age can match him, certainly not Saber’s Master.

Letting off another explosion of fire to keep Saber back, Roy moves to get to his feet, but something slick and sharp wraps around his neck and drags him back to the ground, smacking his head painfully into the ground. What feels like rope crawls over his body and holds him down, but when he manages to move his head, all he can see are tiny black tendrils snaking around him. This isn’t the work of Saber. The man doesn’t have a lick of magical abilities in him. Before he can even panic though, Saber leaps out of the smoke. His sword shimmers black in his hand and suddenly there are two twin swords, thinner than before.

Roy doesn’t know what happens first: his screaming or Saber’s swords piercing his hands.

It’s the worst physical pain that Roy has ever felt in his life. It’s nothing compared to how he felt when he watched Riza bleed out before him, but being stabbed is never comfortable. Saber leans over him, his swords digging further into the ground under Roy’s hands, that same cold expression on his face. Roy tries not to scream out in pain again, but clenches his jaw as sweat drips down his face and tears prick at his eyes.

“I was hoping you would come quietly,” a boy’s voice sighs, “but you’ve proven very stubborn.”

Out of all the things in the world, a young, dark-haired boy in a school uniform stepping up to his side is not one of them. He looks pitifully harmless, like the kind of child would get tossed aside like a rag doll by a bully at school, but those dark eyes of his are sharper than Saber’s swords. Shadows flicker around him like waves, some small and some large. Roy realizes with a start that he is being held down by this boy’s shadows.

“Assassin,” Roy seethes through gritted teeth.

The boy Servant leans down, hands folded behind his back, and sneers. “I’ve waited a long time for this, Caster. No more hiding though. It’s time you fulfill your duties for your proper Master and not some child. We’ll take you to Father now.”

Roy tries to steady his breathing, but it’s difficult to do through the pain of Saber’s piercing swords and the shadow rope cutting around his neck. His proper Master? His Master, difficult and obnoxious as he may be sometimes, is Edward. Roy would’ve prefered not to have one at all, but as long as Edward holds his Command Seals, then Roy is his Servant, not some stupid Father person. He struggles against his bonds, cringing whenever his hands move against the blades, only to freeze when he looks to the side.

Held tight by Assassin’s shadow bonds, Riza dangers in the air, completely immobile and unable to fight back. It’s like when Berserker’s Master held Winry captive. It’s like… Roy’s eyes widen as his heart races wildly. No, it’s like when they were first alive. Riza was held against her will then too, a knife to her throat, used to manipulate Roy. He let her die then. Assassin’s shadows slither over her until one cuts into her cheek when she jerks her head. Ice fills Roy’s veins and he goes very cold. He can’t let her die again.

He said no before. He has to say yes now. If she dies because of him again, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. Not even those Command Seals could stop him from destroying everything left in this War.

“You’ll be compliant now, won’t you, Flame Alchemist?” Assassin says, an almost sweet smile on his face, as he watches Roy lock gazes with Riza. She’s giving him the same look as before, but he can’t accept it now. It is not their War. It is Edward’s and Winry’s. He can be selfish this time. “I’ll be kind and let her live. I won’t even hurt your pathetic excuse of a false Master after the transition is complete if you don’t fight.”

Roy rolls his eyes back over to Assassin. “Transition?”

“There is only one true Master in the Holy Grail War,” Assassin proclaims. The gold-toothed Master standing behind him doesn’t even flinch at the insult, just keeps on grinning like a mad scientist. “He’s waiting for you.”

“Don’t touch him!” Edward screams from his bonds. “You and your Master stay the hell away from him!”

A grunt of pain escapes him when one of Assassin’s shadows smack him hard in the gut and Edward falls to his knees, gasping for air. Roy starts at the action, as if he can do anything to help his Master, but Assassin’s grip on him is tight. His heart thuds horribly in his chest. Not only is Riza’s life in peril but so is Edward’s. He was so focused on Riza that he nearly forgot about the kid. But with Edward’s life literally being dangled in front of him, Roy is forced to come to grips with just how much he cares about his Master. He may not like answering to someone, but he would rather be summoned as Edward’s Servant a thousand times before bowing down to a man like this Father.

And that is why Roy has to say yes. For all his strength and power, he is so weak in the end.

Roy closes his eyes, swallows the lump in his throat, and nods his head.

“See?” Assassin says smugly as he stands up straight. “Not that difficult of a decision.”

“Don’t you do it,” Edward growls through the pain. “A man capable of doing this will use you - and not for good.”

Roy imagines that Riza would’ve been saying the same thing if she wasn’t being choked by Assassin’s shadows. She looks as if she’s struggling to breathe as it is as her fingers twitch and her body trembles. He can’t let her die. He did it to her once; he can’t do it twice. He isn’t strong enough. To go through it again, to let it happen again, to survive after again, to not break again. He can’t. She’ll have to find it in her to forgive him somehow. She’ll have to be strong enough to kill him if this Father does turn Roy into the monster that he’s so afraid of becoming. He has faith in her to do that.

“I won’t let you take him!” Edward rages once more, clamoring to his feet with the help of the tree despite the shadows wrapped around him. He and Winry don’t have as many on them as Roy and Riza, as if Assassin is either stretched to his limit with his shadows or doesn’t consider the two young Masters a serious threat. “He’s my Servant and I won’t let you have twist him into something he isn’t!”

Assassin huffs in irritation. “Foolish child.” He flicks a hand dismissively and begins to walk away. “Saber, do something about him, will you?”

“No!” Roy roars, his voice a strangled mixture of fear, anger, and pain as Saber pulls the swords out of his palms. He still can’t move because of Assassin’s shadows, but he struggles as much as he can all the same, stuck watching in horror as Saber advances on a fighting Edward. “You swore that you’d let him live!”

“You know as well as I do that a living Master, even one without a Servant, is a threat,” Assassin replies without stopping. “Besides, you have enough mana to last more than a few days without a Master to tether you here.”

He can’t let Edward die. He has to protect Edward. It’s his duty - it’s his job - to protect Edward. No, it’s more than that. It’s who he is. As much as he loathes the concept of being tied to another, he doesn’t want that bond to break. Edward is the only living person to know exactly what Roy did in the Mage Wars and not look at him with fear or disgust. He’s a boy with extraordinary talent and gifted mind, a kind if not prickly heart, and a soul too pure to be stuck with someone as tainted as Roy. He has so many hopes for the future that are tied to this War. He has Alphonse waiting for him. Just the mental picture of Alphonse alone in his wheelchair is enough to nearly stop Roy’s breathing altogether.

It’s impossible for him to move though, so he does the one thing he can do. Focusing through the pain and the fear, Roy filters some of his mana out of him and into Edward.

It’s excruciatingly painful, worse than being stabbed and pinned to the ground, considering that his living depends on Edward’s mana. Being his Servant, Roy is stuck relying on Edward’s mana to keep him anchored to the physical world. Edward gives him mana to live and fight. It does not go in the opposite direction. Giving mana back to Edward in a sense is literally killing Roy. Screams are ripped out of him, but he doesn’t stop, not even when Assassin starts yelling, Winry starts crying out, and Riza is allowed enough air to call to him.

And then Edward is screaming with him as Roy’s mana and magic floods into him. It’s more power than he’s used to since Heroic Spirits are on another level entirely compared to Masters, even more so because Roy and Edward are both mages. Roy can’t fight though, his hands severely injured and trapped, but Edward can. With one last push of mana, Edward is able to clap his hands together and the shadows wrapped around him burst into nothing. The action causes Assassin to stumble, as if he was physically hit. Edward reacts quickly, shooting a blast of magic into Saber’s chest and knocking him back, and then slams his hands down so that the entire ground trembles. It feels like an earthquake, but then a red lightening bolt of magic zips towards him and Riza and slices through Assassin’s bonds holding them captive.

While Riza collapses to the ground, Roy rolls over and tries to get to his feet, but putting any pressure on his hands causing him to stagger. Assassin takes one step towards him, but then Riza lets an arrow fly and one of his shadows just barely manages to deflect the shot. When she shoots and he knocks it aside again, the arrow flies wild and stabs the gold-toothed Master in the thigh. Once at Roy’s side, she helps him to his feet as Edward and now Winry fire magic potshots at the others.

“Mustang is mine! You hear me?” Edward yells at the retreating figures. “Tell your Master that! Mustang is mine !”

Saber fades into his spiritual form while Assassin fades into the darkness. The gold-toothed Master drives away in his car, no doubt with Saber inside. Once the car fades out of sight, a strange silence drifts over the four of them, their eyes still locked on the distance, only their panting and heavy breathing heard.

When Roy looks over to Edward, the boy turns to face him, face white as a ghost, and he collapses suddenly, causing Roy’s heart to leap into his throat. Winry is at his side quickly, checking his pulse and smoothing back his hair. Walking is quite painful, but it’s his hands that are hurt, not his legs. He’s just weak from transferring his mana like that, just as Edward is weak from it. Riza limps at his side, but keeps a lookout for them as Roy gets on his knees and holds a hand over Edward, blood from the stab wound dripping on him.

The kid’s face is covered in sweat and he’s mumbling under his breath, completely incoherent and out of it, but it at least lets Roy know that Edward is alive and kicking. His body is just exhausted from being overloaded with so much mana and letting out so much powerful magic all at once. Roy sighs and sits back as Winry pulls Edward closer to her, letting his head rest in her lap.

“Is he going to be okay?” Winry asks quietly. “I didn’t even know Servants could transfer mana to their Masters.”

“He just needs to rest,” Roy replies, ignoring her last statement. It should be impossible. But Roy is a different sort of Servant, is he not? He closes his eyes and takes deep breaths. With Edward being so exhausted of energy, it’s taking everything Roy has in him not to pass out or dissolve into his incorporeal form now.

Winry bites her lip. “He’s not the only one. Your hands…”

“I’ll be fine,” Roy tells her.

“We need to go,” Riza says, eyes still alert as she scans the area. Roy doesn’t even know if he can stand up, much less walk, but he tries to push through it. Sinking his arms underneath Edward’s limp body, he moves to his feet, cradling the boy against his chest, but almost stumbles right back to the ground. Only Riza and Winry grabbing him keep him from doing so. Riza looks him in the eyes. “I’ve got this.”

“Riza--”

“I’ve got this,” she repeats gently, one of her hands on his.

Roy slowly nods his head and transfers Edward into Riza’s arms. It’s a little difficult for her at first, but she manages his weight just fine. After all, she’s a Heroic Spirit capable of fighting mythical, overpowered legends; she can carry an unconscious teenage boy back home. Knowing full well that he doesn’t have the strength to go on at the moment without draining Edward further, Roy slips into his incorporeal form and drifts sluggishly as they walk, leaving the bikes behind.

He’s too tired to think about anything beyond the fact that he almost lost the two most important people to him. Too tired to think about Edward being important to him might mean. Too tired to think about why Assassin, Saber, and Saber’s Master were so intent on taking Roy to Assassin’s Master. The true Master. False Master. Transitions. It’s too much to think about right now.

But come morning, Roy is not likely to respond kindly to having Riza’s or Edward’s lives threatened. Someone will pay for this and he has every intentions of finding this Father character and delivering the bill personally.

Chapter Text

Considering that he’s a Heroic Spirit and a legend in the flesh, Roy likes to think that he’s extraordinarily strong even outside of his magic, but he still hisses in pain as Riza wraps his hands. She pauses for a moment, giving him an apologetic look, before gently continuing. Cleaning the wounds was painful enough and it isn’t like any sort of pain medication will do much good. All he can do is sit on the cross-legged ground as Riza sits on her knees before him and does her best to patch him up. Alphonse hangs around the background, waiting his turn, but his eyes keep drifting in the direction of her big brother’s bedroom.

Just as she’s finishing up on his left hand, a sharp stabbing pain runs up his arm and he jerks his hand away, the action causing him even more pain. It throbs from the holes in his hands, making it almost impossible for him to even move his fingers, and he inhales thinly through his nose in order to keep from making any other noise.

“I’m sorry,” Riza says quickly.

“Not your fault,” Roy mumbles, cradling his damaged hand weakly against his chest. The other sits limply on his leg, already bleeding through the first bandage. He’ll have to go through this all over again soon, but hopefully it won’t be so bad the second time around. God, he hates being this weak. He can’t even take care of himself. But his hands are a weapon in a sense and he can’t operate fully being injured like this. Saber knew just what to do in order to incapacitate him; he just hadn’t planned on Roy finding a way around it.

Roy’s magic isn’t the only tricky thing about him; he knows that a clever mind can be just as dangerous.

After giving his hand back to her, Riza finishes wrapping it up. She holds his hand in his, her thumb carefully swiping over the knuckles of his fingers and looking down at it with a type of intensity that lets him know she feels guilty for allowing him to get hurt. He wishes he could take her hand in his, squeeze it reassuringly, but he can’t. Instead, he’s forced to take a deep breath to draw her attention and then he smiles at her, even through the pain. It’s absolutely monstrous, but he refuses to show just how weak he is anymore than he already has.

“You’re always hurting your hands,” Alphonse grumbles as he rolls forward into the room. So far, he has been surprisingly quiet ever since his first outburst of fear and concern over Edward when Riza carried him inside. After fretting over Edward and doing what he could for his brother, he waited silently outside of the room as Riza patched Roy up, but Roy could tell that the boy was itching to say something.

Riza stands up and steps out of the way. When Roy goes to stand up as well, Alphonse waves a hand at him to stay sitting down. Healing magic does tend to take the strength out of the people it’s performed on and with the severity of the stab wounds, it’s likely that he might collapse if he’s on his feet. Roy grits his teeth at Alphonse’s assumption, but knows that he’s in the right. Roy knows a good amount of healing spells and all of them are taxing on the body. Healing isn’t meant to be done on one’s self though; it can be lethal. All of which means that Roy is stuck relying on a mage that isn’t even old enough to smoke.

As a low green light glows over his hands, Roy tries to breathe deeply and slowly. He can feel the way Alphonse’s magic gently glides over the wounds under the bandages, how it prickles at his skin, and probes at the damage done. A sudden gasp slips out of him once the magic takes hold and biting cold washes over him, like his hands are dumped into a bucket of freezing water, causing him to jerk ramrod straight and tense up. Alphonse’s eyes are shut tight as he grips Roy by the wrist, keeping him from pulling away, and sweat is beading his face by the time the light dims and his body goes slack in his wheelchair as his magic fades from him.

Despite everything, Roy is trembling as he takes his hands back. When he goes to pull at the bandages, Alphonse shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says tiredly. “The wounds were really bad, probably something to do with whatever magic is on Saber’s sword. Another day or two and one more session, and you should be fine.”

“So I’m stuck like this for now?” Roy asks, holding up his bandaged hands. He doesn’t want to say it, but he feels weak and vulnerable, almost just as defenseless as he felt when Saber was piercing him to the ground.

Alphonse dodges his eyes and looks down at his immobile feet. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do better.”

Guilt strikes at Roy’s heart. Alphonse is good at making Roy feel like that even when Edward is doing his best to drive him crazy. He’s secretly grateful that out of the two Elric boys, it’s Edward who is his Master. Roy stands up and puts a wounded hand on Alphonse’s shoulder. At least he can move it now without wanting to groan in pain or flinch horribly. It’s just a dull throb now, one that he can block out if he focuses, and he can move his fingers again. That’s more than enough for now.

“No, you did well,” Roy tells him. “Counteracting a Servant’s magic is no small thing.” It’s not exactly a thank you and it’s not the most direct of compliments, but Alphonse beams regardless as a light blush crosses his face. “Now go see your brother, but try not to wake him. He needs to sleep.”

Alphonse nods his head and rolls out of the room, his wheelchair squeaking where it needs a bit of work. Once he’s out of the sight, Roy walks to the door, but then slinks against the threshold. It was taking every ounce of strength he had left in him to not drop to his knees as he spoke with Alphonse. He might not be as powerful as his brother since Edward inherited the family magic crests, but he’s strong in his own right and healing magic is no joke. Considering the wound, healing magic could make even the strongest of men pass out afterwards.

Riza puts one hand on his arm and one at his other elbow, so that she’s standing behind him and he can lean back against her. He breathes in her familiar scent, which somehow hasn’t changed since their first lifetime, except with the addition of gunpowder. A smile crosses his face. He kind of likes that. It’s new but all her. “You need to rest as well,” she points out.

“How’s your ankle?” Roy asks, peering back at her.

“It’s fine,” Riza tells him, which he knows damn well is a lie. She’s still limping, although she did her best to hide it from the younger Elric.

“You should’ve had Alphonse look at it,” Roy says.

Stubborn as always, Riza shakes her head. “Alphonse was exhausted after tending to your words. I would not run him ragged like that. Besides, it’ll be fine in the morning. Winry barely used any of her mana, so I only need a night to recover.” She was like that before in their time, refusing medical attention until everyone else was taken care of, to the point where she passed out once. Even so, she was forced to wait on him since she could only be examined in private, lest others find out that she was a woman. How long did she bleed in public for him?

Dutiful and protective, despite not being his guard anymore, Riza helps him to the spare bedroom he uses, the one adjacent to hers. He can’t help but cringe whenever he puts any weight on his hands or moves his fingers, but it’s more than he could do just minutes ago. It’s fairly embarrassing needing help with something as simple as moving his bedsheets around, but with Edward completely out of commision, Roy is terribly weak. He should slip back into his incorporeal form, but he’s too stubborn. At any rate, he can’t afford to do so, not with them in such a vulnerable position.

After briefly sliding her fingers through his hair, Riza smiles at him and then moves to leave, but Roy stops her cold with a simple, “Stay.” The smile vanishes from her face, replaced by a blush. He wants more than anything to grip her hand and pull her to him, but when he moves his fingers, pain throbs dully up his arm. Roy looks up at her with a lopsided grin. “It’s not like we have to worry about anyone catching us.”

Riza’s blush somehow deepens. “Winry and Edward-”

“Asleep and unconscious,” Roy points out. He tries to play it cool, even though his heart is drumming wildly. There are plenty of excuses he could perhaps use, but at the end of the day, he just wants her close. He wants to hear her heart beat reassuringly next to his; he wants to feel her warmth radiate over him.

“It’s not appropriate,” Riza mumbles, even as she wanders back over to him.

“I promise not to make any unseemly moves on you,” Roy teases, waving a bandaged hand in the air.

When Riza rolls her eyes at him, fully aware that he couldn’t grope her even if he wanted to, he knows that he’s won. It’s not a hard-fought battle, considering that she clearly wants to be with him. There were so few times when they were allowed the simple comfort of sleeping next to one another. In this world, they’ve been given a small chance to make up for that, even if they’re in the middle of a war. He might be teasing and grinning on the outside, but on the inside, he feels jittery and off-kilter. He needs her and he’s greedy enough to ask it of her.

Scooting over to give her room, Riza slips into the bed next to him, at first careful to not touch him, but then he rolls onto his side towards her and their bodies touch under the blankets. It’s innocent, but she still jolts and electricity runs up his spine. He would love nothing more than to pull her closer to him and press into her, but he recognizes that she needs time to adjust. Her heart jumps erratically as she struggles to breathe steadily, only stilling when he lays a useless hand on her hip to calm her down. She grabs a fistful of his shirt as he presses his forehead against hers and closes his eyes.

It’s both not enough and too much at the same time, but also exactly what he needs.

“I almost lost you again,” Roy whispers hoarsely.

“But you didn’t,” Riza tells him. “I don’t want to ever see you give up like that again.”

“Are you mad?”

“A little,” Riza admits. When Roy opens his eyes, she’s looking at him directly. “But I was mostly scared.” He gives her a questioning look, furrowing his brow and frowning. “Edward is a good person, but if you were under the control of a man with a Servant like Assassin…”

There’s no telling what Roy would be capable of doing with a man like Assassin’s Master. Flashes of the end of the Mage Wars comes roaring back to him, like the screams of the dying never left him and the flames are licking at his back. He could perform such astonishing and horrific feats at the behest of such a Master. He could break the world again. It would be so easy to do. Would he fight it, forcing his Master to use his command seals, or would he go along with it, knowing deep down a monster lies inside of him? He likes to think that he would fight, but there’s no telling what a man driven to such dark power is capable of.

Roy knows that all too well. He sees that man every time he looks into a mirror.

*

May is light as a feather as Ling lays her down in her cot. It’s such a little thing for such a small person. She held on for as long as she could while watching the fight between the four other Servants, holding tightly onto the magical barrier she constructed around them, but the second it was over, she nearly passed out. The extreme use of her mana was enough to exhaust him, but she had just enough to keep him steady. She has more, he knows, but it’s still blocked behind her own insecurities.

Ling gazes down at his Master as she sleeps. He never would’ve guessed that someone as fragile-looking as May Chang would one day order him around in a war and yet here he is,willing to die for her. It’s almost disgusting. He is supposed to be one of the proudest rulers there is in history, so ready to belittle anyone beneath him, and yet this unseeming girl disarms him completely.

Without warning, May turns on her side, reaching out to grasp one of his hands. She’s quicker than he expected due to her exhaustion. “Lancer.” He freezes as she holds onto him, a troubled look on her sleepy face. “Did you see them?”

“Yes, I did,” Ling answers, barely breathing.

“They were scary,” May mumbles, eyes blinking until finally they close, “like monsters.”

Ling gently pries May’s fingers from his hand and lays it on the bed next to her. She brings her hands to her face, curling in on herself, as she drifts off to sleep. He can’t help but stare down at her, his sharp gaze catching the Command Seals on the back of her hand marking him as hers. Looking at her now, she seems like little more than a child whose only concerns are her friends and eating sweets. She is a child though, far from her home, family, and friends. He wonders if her parents know where she even is - if she told them that she was leaving for a War, if she even said goodbye. For some reason, he doubts she did.

It would have been too painful and she would want to spare her parents that pain. She’s such a kind soul.

After pulling a thin blanket over her shoulders, Ling moves to the side of the room, sliding open the window so that he can sit on the sill and gaze outside. The motel room is dingy at best, but it was all that she could afford. It’s nothing compared to the palace bedroom that he’d once slept in, but the stars are the same, he thinks. He likes to pick them out; it helps center himself. When he was younger, in his own time, he would say that he owned all the stars that he could see. Everything his eyes touched was his.

A humorless grin crosses his face. He was terribly greedy as a ruler, but he was caring as well. The people of his country were his, too, and he would do everything in his power to protect them. After all, who is a king without his people? A tyrant. Ling glances back at May. Who is a Servant without his Master?

A monster, he thinks. It would be so easy to become a monster.

*

Ever since the Flame Alchemist had found out her true gender, Riza was filled with nerves. Sure, he had given her clothes back (after a lot of cheeky teasing that had set her blushing and hiding under the water), but he hadn’t outright promised that he wouldn’t tell anyone her secret. Her lie. Was it truly lying though? No one had asked her outright if she was a man or woman and they hadn’t bothered to ask her to remove her helmet when she had fought in order to gain a position on the Flame Alchemist’s Old Guard.

It had been three days and nothing had changed. Still, she could help but feel like all eyes were on her whenever she walked through camp. She could’ve sworn that people were whispering about her as she passed, but no one said anything to her. It was as if her greatest secret hadn’t been found out days before. Not even Mustang seemed to look at her differently. His eyes would pass over her as she silently stood in the back of the tent while battle plans were cooked up or he would smile at her pleasantly if they passed each other in the camp.

Part of her wondered if maybe she’d dreamed up the whole thing - Mustang coming out of the clearing as she was quickly drying off. His befuddled gasp, “You’re a woman!” and her terrified yelp before she tumbled back into the pond. Could it be that she had just hoped that he would find her and see her for who she truly was?

Riza scowled at herself as she ducked into her tent. She had never acted like some silly lovestruck girl before and she wasn’t about to do it now in the middle of a war.

It had taken a lot of dedication and work to hide her gender, especially now that she was the leader of Mustang’s Old Guard. Anyone could walk in on her at any moment, so she had implemented rules and structure to keep her secret safe. Besides Mustang, only two other people knew her gender and she used their help to keep it a secret.

Her dearest friend, Rebecca, was torn between helpful and bitter that she could not be of more service. Women weren’t allowed to fight, even if they were excellent with a weapon, and Rebecca had more talent with a sword than most men. It had taken some convincing to allow her to be Riza’s assistant of sorts, but it was a relief to have another woman so close to her. And then there was Havoc, her second in command to Mustang’s Guard. Jovial and nonchalant as he appeared, he acted as a go-between to Riza and older soldiers, keeping her secret close to the vest even as he pretended to play it loose.

Without them, Riza knew that she never would’ve kept it a secret for so long - and now it could all be ruined because she’d desperately wanted to take advantage of clean water.

Lost in thought as she took her armor off, Riza did not hear the noise outside of her tent before it was too late. She spun around, a knife in hand, uncaring for a moment that she was vulnerable and open, but only found the man she was entrusted to protect, Roy Mustang, standing before her.

Rebecca ducked inside, face red and lips twisted into a frown. “I’m so sorry! He just barrelled right past me and said he knew everything and I-”

“You’ve got quite the little network going on behind everyone’s backs,” Mustang interrupted. Both his face and voice were unreadable. She couldn’t see his eyes well, not with a crack of light shining in from behind him. “Is there anyone else I should know about?”

Rebecca tensed at that, as if reading between the lines. Mustang appeared to not know about Havoc, which was good. She would never forgive herself if she ruined another man’s life for her own selfish reasons. Hiding such things behind the mages could get them in severe trouble. If anyone got the idea that they were spies, it would mean death. As the lead mage, it was Mustang’s job to deal with spies in the camp. Death by fire. How ironic.

Mustang flicked a wrist and flame burst to life in the lantern on her small writing desk. It was also an order. Biting her lip, Rebecca slipped out of the tent, much quieter than when she came in. No doubt she would be running off to find Havoc to warn him. Riza never looked away from Mustang and he didn’t look away from her. He was so much more serious than when he’d been laughing days ago. Maybe the passing time had made him realize how serious her grievance was. He may have been different from all the other mages, but he was still a mage.

With a tilt of his head, his entire demeanor changed and the air around them seemed to lighten. “Is it painful?” When Riza blinked at him in confusion, Mustang took a step forward - and she took a step back. She was not afraid of him - she swore that she wasn’t, not even after all that she had seen him do - but it had been a long time since any man had looked at her like he was now. Like a woman. It was unsettling. He pointed at her chest without a hint of shame. “Is it painful?”

Riza looked down at herself and realized what he was talking about: the chest binding. She went to great lengths to hide her gender and the gods had seen it fit to bless her with a chest that was very recognizable as a woman’s. The armor was capable of hiding most of it, but with everything else that went underneath it, she was forced to bind her chest tightly every day. She owed a lot to Rebecca with helping her so much.

“Sometimes,” Riza admitted warily.

“It looks like it makes it difficult to breathe,” Mustang pointed out.

You make it difficult to breathe, Riza thought. Especially with the way he was looking at her right now. His gaze wasn’t filled with lust like she feared it might. Back before she had slipped away to join the Old Guard, she had done work around her father’s place and did errands in his stead while he was wrapped up in his research. Men had plenty leered at her then, commenting on the old dresses that seemed to do little to hide her. But Mustang looked at her with a sense of curiosity, like he was the first to lay his eyes upon something glorious.

That intense gaze set her blushing just thinking about it.

“Are you going to tell my secret?” Riza blurted, unable to hold it in any longer.

Mustang practically flinched, as if she’d slapped him. “Why would I do that?”

“Because women are not allowed to fight and I lied, sir,” Riza said.

“It is curious that a soldier so honorable would be so underhanded as well,” Mustang mused. Then, he shrugged his shoulders, as if he was merely describing a painting. “But you’re a better soldier than most. I’d be an idiot to leave my back open without you to guard it. Woman or man - it means naught to me.”

She couldn’t understand his flippancy. Any other mage would’ve sent her running days ago, cursing her as she left. Why she hadn’t left immediately was still a mystery, but she could not just abandon her station. She was meant to protect this man. She’d known that he would be something the day she first saw him. A young man, barely more than a boy, being tutored by her father in a castle so much grander than their ramshackled house. Truth be told, it wasn’t much of a castle, but she had spent so many days getting lost in it while he studied under her father.

Riza wondered if Mustang remembered her or if she had just been a ghost in his peripheral. He had been so absorbed by his studies; he probably couldn’t recall the little, blonde-haired girl that sometimes accompanied his teacher and brought them tea. She was younger than him and not nearly so outgoing.

“You won’t tell anyone?”

Mustang shook his head. “Not if you promise to be more open with me. It must be lonely living like this.” He was not wrong about that. She loved Rebecca dearly and Havoc had become like a protective brother, but sometimes she couldn’t help but miss a normal life. There was no way she would’ve become some simple farmwife or handmaiden, but she’d isolated herself almost completely here. “I think I can understand what it’s like. A mage’s path is a lonely one’s as well. We’ve burdened ourselves quite a bit with our dreams, haven’t we?”

“It’s worth it,” Riza told him.

“Perhaps, for now, we can dream together,” Mustang said, holding out a hand. Riza looked from his outstretched hand to his face. He looked so open and earnest, so good and kind. He had very hopeful eyes, ones that dreamed of a better future. She took his hand, but instead of shaking it, they merely stood there like that staring at each other. It felt like all the air was sucked out of the tent. “Call me Roy in private, please.” He gave her that lopsided smile of his that set her heart racing. “And what can I call you?”

Riza tried to breathe again, but she couldn’t. How long had it been since anyone had called her by her name? Not even Rebecca or Havoc did it, out of caution. “Riza. My name is Riza.” And she smiled.

*

Roy wakes up with a start, his hands throbbing painfully underneath the bandages, but when he grips them, he finds that he’s holding onto something. A soft form lies against him, breathing gently, and Roy stills as he finds Riza sleeping next to him. He has his arms wrapped around her. She’s so larger than life sometimes that he forgets how small she is. Tucked against him her face turned towards him and a balled up hand on his chest, she looks more like a mere sleeping woman than a Heroic Spirit of the Holy Grail War.

Selfish as he is, Roy allows himself a few seconds in the early morning light to believe just that.

It has been a long time since he hasn’t dreamed of something that involves fire. He’s so used to waking up to choking on the smoke of his sins. For a moment though, he can’t decide which dreams are worse: the fire or her smiles. Hate and hope are tied so closely together that sometimes he can’t tell the difference. It doesn’t matter which they are; both scare him. And he’s so loathed to admit that anything scares him.

When Riza stirs in his arms, Roy looks down at her, willing his heart to slow down. She mumbles something that sounds dangerously close to his name and then slowly opens her eyes, blinking a few times in the light. He smiles down at her and even risks pressing a light kiss to her forehead. “You slept in later than me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen.”

“You’re warm,” Riza points out in a sleep-rough voice.

“Occupational hazard.” Always one to push the limit, Roy slides a hand up her back. He can only feel with his fingertips, the rest of his hands covered in bandages, but it’s enough to drag a gasp out of her as he nuzzles into her hair. It’s so long. He wants to run his fingers through it. Damn Saber and his bloody swords.

Riza puts a hand to his chest. “Roy, the kids-”

“Probably still asleep,” Roy rumbles as he presses a few more kisses to her cheek.

“I thought you weren’t going to grope me,” Riza points out as she reaches a hand up to take hold of one of his damaged hands.

Roy gives her a suggestive smirk. “Who said I was going to use my hands?”

Just as a blush creeps all over Riza’s face and Roy thinks about sneaking in an actual real kiss on the lips, the door to the bedroom bursts open. While Riza tenses up and jerks away from him, like she’s ready for a fight, Roy sighs in aggravation and flops back down on his back. She might not be able to sense the others as well, but he knew that his Master was clambering around the house. He hoped the kid would walk on by the spare bedroom, but it appears as if he has other ideas.

“You!” Ed shouts, stumbling into the room and almost falling on his face. Only Winry grabbing him by the arm last minute and holding him up saves him. He shakes her away though, staggering to the side until he smacks a hand against the threshold and drags himself up. He’s still standing a bit lopsided and his gaze wavers as he tries to focus. “What did you-?”

And then he notices that Roy is not alone in his bed and practically shrieks.

“I’m so sorry,” Winry babbles from behind as she tries to Ed out of the room. “Al and I tried to convince him to stay in bed - he’s still recovering - but he wouldn’t listen-”

“You’re not at fault, Winry,” Roy says over Ed’s incoherent, childish sputters. He sits up in the bed, noting that Riza has the blanket pulled all the way up to her neck even though she’s completely covered. A leftover habit of when she was hiding as a woman in a war camp, he thinks. “My Master is stubborn to death if nothing else.”

Finally, Ed manages an actual sentence: “You’re sleeping with Archer!”

“Well, yes, sleeping is what typically happens in a bed,” Roy responds dryly. Ed clamps his mouth shut and glowers at him like such a child. Roy is suddenly reminded of just how young his Master is. He wonders if the boy has even had his first kiss. He glances at Winry, the way he holds himself away from her even when she touches him or tries to help him. Probably not. Too busy with his head lost in loss, magic, and the Holy Grail. It’s almost sad. “And it’s what you should be doing right now. Exhausting yourself further won’t help anything. In fact, it’ll make things worse. I need your mana to recuperate. You standing there is making me tired.”

As if unable to deny it any further, Ed’s legs give out and he slumps down the wall, Winry’s featherlight touches on him the entire time. Riza pulls herself out of the bed, causing Roy to groan, but he follows her quickly enough. It is his Master, after all, that is pushing himself further than his limits - and it’s Roy’s fault that he’s like this. Granted, it was to save their lives, but he must accept the consequences. Riza would accept nothing less. That and he had thought Ed wouldn’t be conscious until the afternoon. The kid is chock full of surprises.

“What did you do to me?” Ed huffs as he sits there, sweat beading his face. He’s pale, but not nearly as much as he was the night before.

Roy brushes Riza and Winry aside and hovers a hand over Ed, a few inches from his heaving chest. He can’t do much right now - Al is a better healer than he is, truth be told - but Roy’s experience counts for more right now.  “I transferred some of my mana and od into you last night.”

“Idiot!’ Ed exclaims, but it’s weak and he’s panting from the effort. “That could’ve killed you.”

“And Saber would’ve easily killed you if I hadn’t, maybe even Winry as well,” Roy says placidly, putting a hand on Ed’s shoulder to keep him from standing up again. He doesn’t need to do so though; his words seem to weigh so heavily on Ed that he can’t stand up. “Besides, I have enough mana to survive days without you. I can spare it.” Ed rolls his eyes at Roy’s confidence, but says nothing. He knows it’s true. “On the other hand, your magic circuits are highly developed for your age, but you’re still young. The flood of my mana essentially short-circuited you.”

Ed’s breathing slowly starts to steady as he stares up at Roy. It’s the first time they have ever maintained eye contact for so long. Either Roy will do something to make Ed look away or Roy will turn away from him. Ed’s golden eyes seem to shimmer in the morning glow. “They were going to take you away from me.”

“I couldn’t let that happen; if some short, annoying brat is going to control me, I’d rather it be someone I know and can manipulate already.” When Roy grins at him, it feels weak and he hopes to everything that none of them can tell. He feels Riza shift next to him though and knows that she at least caught him. He doesn’t look at her; he cannot handle the look he knows is on her face right now.

“Who the hell is this Father guy and what’s so special about him that makes him a ‘true Master’?” Ed demands, though he knows that Roy doesn’t have the answers. None of them do and now that it’s morning it grates on Roy. He doesn’t like it when he doesn’t know all of the pieces of the board.

“I don’t know,” Roy admits, “but I’d very much like to meet him.”

“And kick his ass,” Ed grumbles. “You’re my Caster.”

Roy stands up and watches as Winry and Riza help Ed to his feet. My Caster, not my Servant. He doesn’t know if the two women catch it or if Ed even noticed it himself, but he decides not to say anything. Ed is so touchy, maybe because of his age, maybe because he’s had to be an adult when most people are kids. God knows Roy was busy running around a castle causing mayhem in between his alchemy studies at Ed’s age.

They’re able to goad Ed back into bed, Al rolling behind them with a nervous air, but before they close the door, Ed makes a childish grabby hand movement, like he’s too tired to do anything else. Sighing, Roy makes his way over to Ed’s bed and leans down so that Ed doesn’t have to exert himself too much. Honestly, Ed’s exhaustion is taxing on him and he feels to urge to disappear into his spiritual form.

“You’re getting too attached,” Ed tells him in a quiet but firm voice. It’s almost accusatory.

Roy sneers, unable to stop himself. “As are you.” The way he looks at Winry sometimes is all too obvious. Anyone with half a brain would be able to look at them and know that something was going on between them, even if the two were too young to recognize it themselves.

“I won’t lose this War,” Ed says and somehow he doesn’t seem weak despite lying in bed.

“I know.” And Roy does know. This boy, his Master, is filled with determination to the brim. He would go to the ends of the earth to win the Holy Grail War. Roy stands up and flicks the light off before shutting the door. He just doesn’t know if Ed will like what he sees once he’s there.

*

“I will admit that I was…not expecting this,” Father proclaims as he sits in his chair. He looks comfortable, like he doesn’t have a care in the world, but the truth is that he’s ready to strike at any moment. He knows for a fact that his company feels the same way. It would be a fool to underestimate who he is facing right now and he is no fool. Still, he swirls the red wine in his glass and gazes at the fireplace crackling to his left. It’s a chilly, fall night.

Olivier Armstrong smiles at him and it’s all icicles and frost. He can’t imagine that she has ever given a warm smile in her life, not even when she was a child. The cold suits her. “Call it a fortuitous event.”

“The Armstrong line is not known for its partnerships,” Father points out.

When Olivier laughs, it’s not filled with warmth either. It’s callous and cold, a promise of the harsh winter that will come after the War. “My ancestors have preferred to bulldoze through the War, do we not?”

“Which begs the question,” Father says as he sets his wine glass down. “What are you doing here?”

“Seeking a partnership,” Olivier answers without a hint of irony and then primly sips on her wine.

Father quirks an eyebrow. So far, neither of them have produced their Servants. He knows for a fact that Rider is her Servant, but he doesn’t know whether she has guessed his Servant’s class yet or not. She briefly mentioned that she found Archer, but said nothing else. For all he knows, she’s completely in the dark about the rest of the Servants, considering that she hasn’t appeared in the game nearly as much as everyone else so far. But then he catches the sharp glint in her chilly blue eyes and he knows that a single assumption might kill him.

“And if I say that I already have a partner?” Father asks.

Olivier shrugs her shoulder. “There’s always the chance of a vacancy.” She sets her glass down and leans forward, her body filled with intent and danger. “And do you really think that gold-toothed fool can compare to me, even with Saber at his side?”

No, Assassin sighs from his hiding spot in the shadows, I think not.

Father smiles pleasantly. Olivier leans back in her seat and props an ankle on her knee. She’s the first person to find this place on her own and leave of her own accord. It’s the beginning of a new partnership, Father thinks.

Chapter Text

The next few days are spent maddeningly in recuperation. Roy has been injured before, during his time as the Flame Alchemist in the Mage Wars, but nothing to this extreme. Just when he thinks his hands might be getting better, they throb painfully and leave him gritting his teeth to the point that he worries they might turn to dust. The fact that Riza heals quickly and is in peak condition by the end of the first day frustrates him even more. He hates this lagging behind and can tell that she’s protecting him in his time of weakness, just as she did all those years ago.

Roy tries not to growl furiously, but he can’t stop himself from flopping back down on the couch. The bandages on his hands are lighter now, so that he can flex his fingers and pick things up again, but blood still seeps out at random periods. Whatever Saber’s cursed swords did to him is still causing problems, like the dark magic was somehow able to seep into his blood and poison him.

It pisses him off, which in turn does nothing to help the mood of everyone in the house.

Winry is on edge, teetering around the house quietly, apologies on her tongue whenever she does something that she perceives as even the smallest of slights or inconveniences against him. In turn, Riza has become almost wary of him, keeping an eye on him almost as much as her own Master. He wants to tell her that he’s fine - maybe even make a joke or attempt to kiss her - but none of the right words come out of his mouth. Alphonse is upset, most with himself, seeing himself as a failure for not being able to heal Roy right away, no matter what Roy tries to tell him. He’s never been good at comforting and he feels clumsy at any attempt.

Then there’s Ed, who is a ball of anger. The first day, he was too weak to do much of anything save sleep and it caused Roy to be drained as well. By day two, he had enough energy to stomp around the house before having to devour everything in sight so that the two of them wouldn’t pass out. Under normal circumstances, Roy could survive on his own mana for days, but after transferring some of his to Ed in order to escape, his well was effectively drained.

Roy did not like relying on other people to survive.

By the time day three rolls around, Roy and Ed are at each other’s throats. There’s no buffer between them, no space, nothing to distract either of them from their failures. Their first real confrontation with other Servants and Master, not including their encounter with Berserker, and they utterly blew it. Roy isn’t about to delude himself and Ed is too determined not to lose this War.

There is nothing anyone else in the house can do to calm them down. Riza is just as angry at herself for having not protected Winry, going so far as to deeming herself not worthy enough, which Winry had to soothe over. The fact that Roy’s wounds aren’t healing properly cause Al to titter worriedly and get upset with himself and has left Ed scowling at Roy like it’s his fault. Pinako was probably going to beat them all silly at this point.

Al pokes his head into the living room, a hesitant expression on his pinched face. “Dinner’s ready if you’re hungry…”

Roy is most definitely hungry. The healing process demands that he eat more food than normal to keep up his strength. However, he also doesn’t want to be around people either. Riza would probably say that he is acting like a child, so he drags himself off the couch and slinks into dining area.

And then, right when he moves to sit down, everyone tensely quiet, Roy feels a cold chill run down his spine. It’s the kind of chill that runs all the way down his toes and almost has him shaking. He’s still admittedly weak enough for it to cause him to stagger and grab the back of his chair to steady himself. Ed blinks at him, a confused and unsure look on his face, and Roy knows that his young Master felt the same cold rush, though he doesn’t understand what it means.

Riza puts a gentle hand on his arm. He can feel the heat of her touch through his shirt, but it does nothing to warm him. “Roy?” She doesn’t feel it - can’t feel it. Though she was brought back to life through magic, she’s not a mage. She would be able to sense another Servant, but this is no work of a Servant.

Heavy, thick waves of dread wash over Roy, both making his blood sing and his chest ache. There is a Master somewhere out there - and whoever they are is drawing upon almost every ounce of magic in them to perform something terrible and incredible. Ed plops down, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He doesn’t know either; he’s too young.

Very dark magic is at play, the kind that used to whisper so temptingly in Roy’s ear at night, and it is downright calling to him. He wants it, can practically taste it. How can he possibly explain that to Riza - or even Ed?

*

May bolts upright in her bed, gasping for air and clutching her chest like her heart might burst right out. Ling is at her side in a flash, his twin swords in his hands, but hesitates when he doesn’t see any immediate threats. His Master’s big, dark eyes are wide and strangely dilated and she seems to swallow down air like she’s drowning.

Ling allows the swords to dissipate and bends down to her level next to the bed. “What is it?”

“Magic,” May tells him in a delicate whimper, grasping the blanket and pulling it closer to her, like it might protect her somehow. The blanket is not her shield, however; he is. “Dark, dark magic. I can feel it…pulsating in the air.” She’s still struggling to breathe steadily. Ling knows nothing about magic save for the fact that his Master is stronger than she looks and it brought him back to give him enhanced skills and power. Perhaps it is choking her somehow. “It is filled with so much evil; I feel as if I can barely move.”

Standing upright, Ling moves to the window to peer outside, but nothing looks out of the ordinary. As far as he can see, it’s just another night. What does May see that he cannot? What does she feel? He know what he feels: useless. It is not a pleasant feeling. He clenches the window sill. Just because it is dark outside does not mean that it is empty. Darkness can hide a lot of things, as he saw a few days ago.

“Is it Assassin?” he asks. She shakes her head mutely. “Caster?”

“No, it is…” May shivers, despite hiding halfway under the covers now. “It is not a Servant.” When she finally turns her gaze to him, there is horror in her eyes. “It is a Master.”

The Servants are supposed to be the soldiers in this War, but the Masters can be just as dangerous. Ling can’t help that but think of what May would be capable of if she did not have a block - what wonders she could accomplish or horrors she could unleash. She is too pure of heart for the latter, though it appears as if another Master in the game is not. It’s not Caster’s Master - that boy is too self-righteous - and Archer’s Master is too kind-hearted. Saber’s Master was unhinged, but did not seem powerful enough to bring such a strong reaction from May.

“Oh, Ling…” His little Master drops the blanket so that she can cover her face with her hands. He notices the way her hands tremble. It is not fear, however, that shakes her. It’s the magic itself, weaving its way down to her core. He wonders if maybe it’ll burrow a little deeper and be able to somehow open that barrier, but judging from May’s reaction, it would probably do more damage than good.

Ling rubs the back of his neck. Monsters, he can handle. Servants, he can fight. He will do everything in his power to protect May. But magic? It’s out of his field. He had mages under his command and at his call during his days of ruling, but not a single drop of magic in his blood. Every inch of him is screaming to lock the doors, blind the windows, and keep his Master under lock and key - but he knows in his soul that May will not settle for that. Not only is she too pure of heart to leave this matter unattended, but she is too passionate, too empathetic. Whatever that other Master is doing out there is tearing her own soul apart.

Bending down to her level again, Ling lays a gentle hand on her shoulder. “What would you have me do?”

“We have to stop them,” May tells him, her voice so shaky and muffled that he barely understands her at first. When she pulls her hands away, there are tears slipping down her cheeks, but there is also fire in her eyes. He likes that fire, but recognizes it as a little dangerous too. “We have to end this. They are killing people, Ling. It is not right. Magic should not be abused like this. We have to stop them.”

Why did such a young girl believe that so much responsibility for the world rests on her shoulder? One would think she is the ruler of a kingdom and he is merely, well, a servant.

*

“Get back here!” Ed yells as Mustang walks out of the door, his robes melodramatically trailing behind him as they always seems to do when he’s not in modern clothes. His Servant predictably doesn’t listen, even with Ed standing in the doorway with his fists clenched at his side. Stupid Mustang. The man never listens to him, like he thinks Ed is just a child and doesn’t know what he’s doing. “Caster!”

But Mustang doesn’t stop and Ed seethes. Ever since that moment right before dinner when a strange cold chill swept through Ed’s body, Mustang changed completely in demeanor. He went from moody and put out to hard and distant. Ed couldn’t get the Heroic Spirit to talk with him no matter what he tried. He hates it when Mustang shuts him out like that. It puts him off-balance and pisses him off.

Even worse, Mustang wouldn’t even explain himself to Hawkeye, which Ed knows infuriated her. Hawkeye stands behind him next to Winry, arms folded across her chest and she stares dagger at Mustang’s back. Winry squirms on her feet. No doubt she felt something too, but unlike him, she seems ready to follow Mustang. Only Hawkeye’s reluctance is holding her back.

“Caster!” Ed shouts again, but he receives no response.

Why does Mustang have to be so impossible, so stubborn, so closed off? The man is acting like a bastard all over again, the way he sometimes did before Hawkeye and Winry joined them. He’s keeping them all out. It drives Ed completely mad. Part of him wants to take a magic pot shot at Mustang and another part of him wants to chase after him. Mustang should be listening to him. Ed is the Master! Mustang is the Servant! Mustang is Ed’s Caster and he’s supposed to obey him.

Growing furiously, Ed lifts up his right hand, the one bearing his Command Seals. He’ll make Mustang listen to him. Independent and difficult as he may be, Mustang won’t be able to ignore one of those, no matter how strong of a mage he is. He’s still a Servant in the Holy Grail War in the end.

Before Ed can do or say anything though, Mustang halts and turns his head slightly to look at Ed. There is nothing in his dark eyes except a frightening dispassion. “Go ahead. Waste a Command Seal if you want.” His voice is flat and hard at the same time, like an arrowhead. Ed locks eyes with him, unable to look away. His breathing is heavy while Mustang remains completely cool. “I won’t be held responsible for the guilt you will feel later.”

“You’re not strong enough,” Ed points out, though he’s loathed to admit it. Neither is he. Not for what they felt. Now that he’s focusing on the source of magic vibrating in the night air, he knows that. Before Saber and Assassin’s attack, Ed would’ve been rearing to jump into this battle, but he can tell that Mustang hasn’t fully healed from whatever Saber’s swords did to him and he hasn’t recovered from what Mustang did to him. His magic circuits still fire at random times and cause him to jerk and gasp when he least expects it.

They’re not ready. This could kill them and ruin their chances in the Holy Grail War. Ed hates thinking it, hates the idea of putting his own selfish desires over what his heart tells him, but…

“I know,” Mustang admits, his voice quiet. The distance between them almost takes the words away, but Ed hears them and his heart drops. Mustang knows full well that this might kill him - take away his chance to win the Grail, take away Ed’s, and rip him away from Hawkeye - and yet he’s determined to go anyways.

The man is a bastard, but maybe he’s not as selfish as Ed always believed.

Ed drops his hand and his entire body deflates as he stares down Mustang. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but he thinks that he sees Mustang visibly relax. “It’s that bad, huh.”

Mustang nods his head. “There’s a reason I was labeled a Heroic Spirit by the Holy Grail - it was my duty to hunt down mages that performed the dark arts during my time - and this…” He takes a deep, shuddering breath, but it doesn’t look like an unpleasant reaction to Ed. It’s almost as if the same dark magic that Mustang is determined to defeat is threatening to overwhelm him. “This is every mage’s nightmare. I’d rather die than let this go ignored - and I know you, Edward Elric. It will eat you away if you do the same thing.”

It’s not fair that Mustang is able to call him out like that; it’s not fair that he’s right. Ed doesn’t know exactly what is going on except that it’s bad, really bad. He’s never felt magic like this before, crackling in the air like dry bones. It left Al pale and shaky once he started to feel it, like it’s making him physically sick. The magic must be against the very being of Al’s healing magic, which leaves only room for horror. Ed can’t let that go as much as he wants to. It’s not in him to sit things out; it’s not in him to let people suffer when he can do something about it.

“It’s our responsibility as Masters in the Holy Grail War to keep this battle between us,” Winry says.

Ed peers back at them and watches Hawkeye close her eyes and sigh deeply. Likely she knows a losing fight when she sees one. She does not fight it, not like Ed. There is a burst of light and Hawkeye’s modern clothes are replaced with her battle armor. Winry takes one of her metal covered hands, her own bare one looking so small, and squeezes reassuringly. All Ed gets is a steady gaze from Mustang when he turns back to look at him. Somehow, Ed thinks for the first time, it’s enough.

After taking a breath, Ed walks back into the house and snatches his red hoodie. He’s tugging it over his head by the time he walks out. “Well I can’t let you go alone. Who knows what stupid thing you’ll do.” He jams his hands into his pockets and stomps towards the older mage, glaring with as much heat as he can muster. “Besides, you need my mana to survive.”

A smirk quirks onto Mustang’s face. “That’s my boy.”

Ed scowls as he passes by. “Your Master - that’s your Master.”

The smirk only mages to grow. Mustang isn’t even trying to hold it back. “Of course. That’s what I meant.”

But there isn’t any smugness in the smirk, not like usual. It’s hiding something instead, something a lot like fear, which Ed hasn’t seen in Mustang’s eyes before, not even the night when Assassin nearly killed them. Ed doesn’t want to admit that he’s keeping his hands in his pockets to hide the fact that they’re shaking.

We’re going to eliminate another Servant, Ed tells himself. That’s the point of this War.

Then why does it feel like he’s walking towards the ends of the earth instead?

*

Riza drives because, as it turns out, neither Ed nor Winry are old enough and Roy doesn’t want to expend the strength gripping the wheel. During the ride, Roy does his best to explain how the magic feels, omitting a few certain details that he deems unecessary, but it’s clear that the two other mages in the car don’t need more explanations. Instead of a Servant out of control this time, it’s a Master, and he can tell that they both feel obligated to do something about it. Ed stares out of the window, determination in his eyes, while Winry looks down at her hands in her lap, like her own magic might whisper words of comfort.

Roy doesn’t have the heart to tell her that where they’re going there will be no comfort. He knows what the dark arts can do to corrupt a person’s soul. This Master is long gone. Roy erased mages from history with his flame alchemy for lesser crimes than what this one is doing. He’s not too old to fall victim to mercy. He glances at Ed out of the corner of his eyes. He hopes Ed is ready to truly see what his Servant is capable of, even if he isn’t at his full strength right now.

To his right, he senses Riza’s concern. She hasn’t voiced her worries out loud, but he knew the moment her eyes flicked to his hands when he asked her to drive that she had them. Riza is excellent at keeping quiet; it is a talent that drove him mad sometimes back in their days. He used to be desperate for her to be completely open with him, so hypocritical when he struggles even now to do the same. Now he hopes that she won’t say anything. If she comments on his weakness, his resolve might break a little.

So weak, Flame Alchemist, Roy thinks snidely. How do you expect to compare to this modern mage when a few words can wound you?

But no, Roy is the strongest mage in history. He was the most powerful in his time and he’ll be damned if he isn’t the strongest in this one. All the Masters be damned, including whoever that Father figure is - Roy is the one that all mages should respect. He is the peak, the one mages look up to in both awe and fear. Roy is fire. Life. Death. He is Caster, the embodiment of magic in a Heroic Spirit, and he was reborn to destroy.

“We’re close,” Riza announces, no doubt able to pinpoint the Servant in the area now. It’s hard to ignore. Whoever the Servant is, their power is absolutely immense, too strong to be normal. No, whatever their Master is doing has enabled their Servant’s strength to be boosted. Stronger than Roy even, and he knew without having met all of them that he was the strongest Servant in this War.

The murders committed by Berserker and his Master comes to Roy’s mind. The bodies of the victims were left to rot as total husks, all their life source sucked right out of them. Sure, the murders were done to gain Riza’s attention due to Berserker’s mad obsession with her, but amplified in all the right, horrible ways with a mob of people, even if they aren’t magically inclined, a Servant can leap levels. It’s what Roy would do if he was a Master - and had no regard for the laws of magic. If given the option to drain someone with magical circuits as strong as someone like Ed, things would be disastrous.

Roy turns in his seat to regard the two young Masters in the back. “When we get there, I need you to-”

He’s cut off abruptly when Riza jerks hard on the steering wheel and takes a sharp left turn, just narrowly missing a beam of light that slices through the air and asphalt of the road. The turn nearly causes the car to topple on its side, the right side wheels rearing off the ground as they continuing speeding forward. Roy swears as he grabs a handle while Ed and Winry scream, Ed toppling on top of Winry. Only Riza is silent, face hard as stone, as she is able to gain control of the car and slams the breaks, spinning them around the face where they just came from. The damage is astounding. The road is practically obliterated, pieces of asphalt and concrete torn to shreds.

“What in the hell was that?” Ed demands, his voice high pitch and close to cracking as he pulls himself awkwardly off of Winry.

“I believe we nearly drove head on into a Noble Phantasm,” Roy answers dryly.

“But whose?” Winry asks. “That wasn’t Assassin. It was too bright.”

“I think,” Roy replies as he points ahead at a dark figure dancing on top of a building ahead, “we’re about to find out.” He opens the passenger door and coolly gets out while the two Masters glance at each other, then pokes his head back inside when neither of them move. “I’d get out if I were you, unless you like being sitting ducks.”

While Ed and Winry scramble out of the car, Riza gets out and then walks around to stand at his side. He peers at her out of the corner of his eyes while she examines the terrain. She’s back in her armor again. It’s somewhat disjointing to stand next to her like this, in the clothes of their old times, but in this new era. On one hand, it looks as if nothing has changed, but on the other, everything is different. It’s like the both of them could fall through the sands of time and still find each other. It’s both comforting and terrifying.

In which of those lifetimes will he be good enough for her?

“Oh, Riza!” a voice croons cheerfully into the night. “I’m waiting for you!”

In response, Riza scowls and her golden bow shimmers into existence in her left hand. Roy tries not to react, but his hands clench into fists involuntarily. Berserker. He knew it. The stench of this dark magic has Berserker’s Master written all over it. The park that they’re standing in front of seems quiet and innocuous, but Roy can tell from the electricity in the air that nothing but horrors lie past the trees. It’s the same park he, Ed, and Alphonse were walking through when he first felt Riza’s presence in the city and now it’s been desecrated.

When Roy moves a hand in front of Ed, fully planning to tell him to stay back, the younger mage slaps his hand down and causes Roy to jerk his head to glare at him. “Don’t you even thinking about telling me to hide. You’re not going in there without me.”

For a moment, Roy briefly considers tying the kid up with a bit of magic. It would be easy, as Ed is unsuspecting and doesn’t know some of the tricks that Roy does, but then he feels the way the ground seems to vibrate under his feet, how the air crackles, the thick smog of magic threatening to smother him. And he knows - he can’t do this alone. He’s not strong enough. It grates on his nerves, but he has to admit it to himself if he’s going to win. Despite the distance, he can sense Berserker’s strength and it’s overwhelming, not to mention the other mage in the area. He and Riza cannot do this alone and that makes Roy feel like burning the entire place to the ground.

Riza seems to understand this too, a grim look on her face and an irritated flash in her eyes. Winry steps up beside her, fists clenched at her sides and ready, even though she is most likely scared. But the young girl is braver and tougher than she looks, as Roy knows. She has to be in order to have summoned Riza as her Servant.

Without a word, Riza goes first, walking into the park. There is a distinct, dark purple shimmer in the air as she passes through a magical barrier that was placed around the area. Ed and Winry follow, both of them shivering as they step into the park, with Roy following behind them. He doesn’t even blink, not even when all the air feels like it’s sucked out from his lungs the moment his foot hits the ground on the other side. The air tastes metallic and rotten yet almost cloyingly sweet at the same time. It causes Ed to gag briefly and Winry to rub her head.

Riza and Roy connect eyes with each other: they are all too familiar with the smell of death.

“I missed you, my dear!” Berserker’s voice rings through the trees. The four of them carefully make their ways down the path towards the center, all of them at the ready to fire at a moment’s notice, but everything looks so normal, except for the fact that it’s deathly empty of all life, including animals. It’s practically silent except for their breathing and leaves crunching under their feet, but Roy swears he can hear a low humming. “I wasn’t strong enough for you yet, you see, but I am, oh I am!” His laugh echoes around them. “Not even Caster matches me! He can’t take you away from me now!”

“What is it with this creep?” Ed grumbles under his breath and Roy feels a flash of appreciation for the kid. “He needs to get a grip. This obsession is ridiculous.”

“What’s obsession if not knowing exactly what you want and striving to take it?” a humorous voice asks from behind.

Roy barely has enough time to set up a shield protecting Ed before a red blast of magic hits him. As the magical shield sputters in defense, keeping him safe, Ed crouches to the ground. Riza grabs Winry and throws her behind them, but is forced to block a shot of magic with her bow instead of firing back in return. It knocks her off balance, throwing her back into a large tree trunk.

“Riza!” Winry shouts and runs to her. By the time Winry reaches her, Riza is already at her feet, not looking as if she was just thrown ten feet.

A man in a white suit steps out from behind a tree, looking remarkably calm. There is an amused smile on his thin face. He looks immaculate, but Roy can see blood on a mage’s hands from a mile away. A dark aura burns like fire around him, just out of the field of vision, as if Roy can see it one second and then it’s gone the next. He’s focused on Ed as the boy stands up straight, looking ready to fight with more with his fists than magic, in an unsettling way that has Roy’s skin crawling.

“Go,” Roy orders, not tearing his eyes away from the other Master. “I’ve got this.”

The man’s bares his teeth in a much more gruesome grin as he turns his eyes from Ed to Roy. “Are you sure?”

Ed takes a step forward. “Caster-”

“I said, go!” Roy snaps. “Take care of Berserker. One Servant alone won’t be able to take him down now.”

To be honest, Roy doesn’t know if he can take Berserker’s Master on his own, not in this condition, but he refuses to think otherwise. Maybe it’s a downfall of his pride or arrogance, but Roy knows that he’s stronger than this mage. He can sense the man’s strength, boosted as he is by whatever he’s done, but it doesn’t matter. Roy has years on him and knowledge beyond anyone’s capabilities.

More importantly though, he needs both Ed and Winry to be completely out of this mage’s reach. If he gets a drop of either of their mana, it would be game over. They’re too strong and too young. This mage could use Roy’s own Master against him, like a weapon, and Roy won’t allow that. He remembers the threat that this Master made on the first night they crossed paths all too well and the look in his eyes as he gazed Ed, like he could eat him.

Despite the fact that Ed is the one that should be making orders and Roy the one that listens, Ed backs down for once. It’s a miracle in Roy’s book, but maybe the kid understands the seriousness in the situation or he really wants to knock Berserker off for all that he’s done. Though he certainly doesn’t like it, an irritated and pained scowl on his face, Ed steps back, casts a glare one more time, and then starts jogging in the direction of Berserker with Riza in the lead.

She doesn’t look back at him. She has faith. More than Roy at least. He hopes beyond hope that she has enough in her to defeat Berserker or at least hold him off. Things are different, so very different.

“Well, he listens well,” the other Master says once they’re alone.

“Sometimes,” Roy replies coolly, though he feels anything but that. Never let the enemy know how you feel.

“I’m being rude. I feel like I should introduce myself since I already know who you are, Flame Alchemist. Your flame magic is a name in itself, after all.” The man sounds so polished and formal, reminding Roy of other mages he dealt with after declaring his specialty. Polite yet with a hint of snideness. It annoyed him them and it annoys him now. “You can call me Kimblee.”

“A name isn’t necessary.”

Kimblee nods his head. “True. I wonder how many of your victims during the Mage Wars were nameless to you.”

“Thousands.”

It used to cause Roy to toss and turn in his cot at night, before Riza died. Was what he was doing truly good when his magic ended so many lives? Was their deaths worth it in the end? It didn’t matter so much after Riza’s death, but then, a lot of things had lost their color after that. No doubt she would tell him that wasn’t an excuse for his behavior, but he realized that little had changed. People still died, only he felt less. He wonders if he will feel the same conflicted feelings now during this War when he kills.

Kimblee holds out his hands, almost like a sign of surrender, though Roy knows it’s no such thing. It’s more like a beckoning than anything else. “Then tell me, Caster, what’s the difference between you and me? You killed many people using magic in order to become the victor of your war; I’m doing the same for mine.”

“Your use of dark magic is atrocious,” Roy tells him, a furious sneer on his face, even if what Kimblee is saying rings of truth. He’s glad that neither Ed nor Riza are around to hear this. It would’ve broken Riza’s heart and shaken Ed. Roy isn’t sure why, but the idea of that little shrimp of a Master being more than disappointed in him, horrified even, bothers him. What does Ed matter anyways? He’s just some kid whose thumb Roy needs to figure how to get out from under. “We’re nothing alike.”

“Both of our magic killed people in the end,” Kimble points out. “At least I made better use of my victims. I used every last drop of them to further myself in the war. What did you do? Use their corpses for tinder?”

“Enough!” Roy roars, snapping his fingers and causing a ball of fire to shoot directly at Kimblee. He blocks it with a shield, though it still manages to push him a few inches back. Roy doesn’t give him time to do anything. He advances quickly on the other mage, snapping repeatedly so that fireball after fireball attacks him. Every time, Kimblee is pushed back further, forced to strengthen his shield instead of attack. “Do you know exactly how I got into the Mage Wars? I hunted down men like you, mages who twisted magic into something evil and desperate. I found them, hiding in the deepest, darkest holes, and I put an end to them.”

Kimblee pushes back on his shield, but the explosions don’t stop coming. From behind it, sweat begins to dampen his face and he grits his teeth. “How moral and righteous of you! And now you’re going to kill me? For what: breaking the rules of magic?”

“I killed mages who abused magic to commit less atrocities than you. I killed mages who did worse. At the end of the day, you’re nothing and you will be nothing after I’m done with you! I’m going to burn the magic circuits right out of you!”

Every jerk of his arm is sharper than the last, every explosion hotter and wilder, until Roy feels like he can only see red. It’s in his flames, his eyes, Berserker’s knives, Saber’s twin swords. the blood of all the dead bodies lying at both of their feet, Ed’s when it was revealed Assassin’s shadows cut him, Al’s staining the car after the crash that paralyzed him happened, Riza’s flowing like a river on the floor… Red is everywhere and it’s blinding.

Just when Kimblee’s shield is about to give in, he lets go of it completely and ducks out of the way. He barely misses the flames that shoot over his head and is able to pop off a few quick shots that Roy knocks out of the way with a flick of his wrist. “Why do you hate this side of magic so much, Caster? Did some dark mage kill your parents when you were a child?”

“It’s an affront,” Roy tells him coldly. “It’s evil.”

“I don’t think you believe that. I don’t think you believe that at all.” Kimblee stands up straight, hands at the ready, but he doesn’t do anything yet. He strained under the heat of Roy’s flames, but he’s not tired and he’s barely used any magic despite the shield. Meanwhile, Roy is breathing heavily and his hands started to throb halfway through the assault. “I think it scares you - the temptation of power, the promise of strength. You were said to be the strongest mage in history, but you knew the truth, didn’t you? You were only a fraction of what you could’ve been. Even the weakest of mages that used dark magic could match some of the strongest mages that didn’t. You wanted that. You wanted to be the most powerful, but true power scared you. It still does.”

Roy scoffs. “You’re an idiot if you believe that.”

“You’re ignorant if you don’t,” Kimblee counters. “Why haven’t you tried to break your bond with your Master yet? Strong as his magic circuits are, he’s just a kid. Separated from him, with the right magic, you could be the fiercest force in the Holy Grail War. He’s holding you back. He’s got you on a leash and you’re still willing to sit, stay, and fetch whenever he says. Has he even had to use a Command Seal on you yet?”

Though he doesn’t want to admit it, Kimblee hits a nerve. Roy doesn’t react, standing very still and keeping his face in the same angry expression, but he feels like a knife twists in his chest. He was so determined to somehow break from Ed before. The Command Seals are a constant threat hanging over his head and yet despite all of their arguments none of them have been used. Was he so quick to forget his desire to be on his own the moment Riza stepped back into his life? Is he content with being under control because it keeps him in balance? He can’t lose himself the way he did before as long as he is Ed’s Servant. Is he purposely keeping himself tied down so that he doesn’t gain too much power and abuse it again?

“Are you promising me freedom?” Roy questions. “Is that what you gave to Berserker to make him so loyal to you? Did you let him off the leash?”

Kimblee waves a hand in the air, showing off his unique Command Seals, except only one remains. “No, Berserker is still tied to me. I’m quite fond of him and our working relationship proved more beneficial if we stayed together. He needs me to become stronger and I need him to remain in the War. I did throw two away as a show of faith.” He shrugs his shoulders. “I wouldn’t be a good Master to you though. I think you need a Master that will make you feel free, that will understand you, that will let you guide your own destiny. That kid? He doesn’t know what he wants. He’s not ready to understand what magic is truly about, not like you or me.”

“And what’s it about?”

“It’s about giving in!” Kimblee exclaims excitedly. “It’s about accepting who we are! Only then do we become more powerful than ever? We don’t control the magic. It controls us! You let that happen and it will take you wherever you want to go.”

This man is beyond gone. There’s no helping him, only ridding of him. Roy saw this before. Magic can so easily corrupt the mind if one isn’t careful. It only makes twisted sense that a mage like Kimblee was able to summon a Servant like Berserker, but it’s no less horrifying that something as steeped in magic like the Holy Grail would allow someone like this to enter the War. Shouldn’t it ward away evil like this?

Roy shakes his head. “You’re using magic and this War as excuses to cover up your evil. That’s absurd.”

“Absurd? Tell me, Mustang, how did you end the Mage Wars so quickly after years of fighting?” Kimblee asks, like he’s posturing some sort of theological question in class. It causes Roy to jerk back and close in on himself. He told Ed that he’d broke the world; he didn’t tell Ed how. “Because the records I’ve seen at the Clock Tower, the one’s your little Master hasn’t been privy to yet, show a very steep and sudden escalation of your magic, one that can’t be achieved by…moral means.” Kimblee smiles again, but there’s no warmth in it, no kindness. It reminds Roy a lot of many of his smiles. “I should thank you, really. It’s thank to you that I was given the idea to boost my own magic and my Servant’s mana.”

He didn’t… Roy closes his eyes. His hands throb even worse and it’s almost like the dark magic from Saber’s swords that poisoned him is crawling through the veins of his arms to his heart, freezing him like ice. He feels both cold and hot. He remembers…

*

Cold nights where there was a never end to the darkness. No amount of screams or pleading could beckon him to leave his tent. No amount of death or suffering could awaken him from whatever woken slumber he was in. It was all dark in the end, even during the day. Time moved both fast and slow. Nothing mattered. It was as if he had died along with her. Better perhaps, if he had, but he couldn’t muster the energy to do much beyond think about what had been taken from the world.

There was no magic in the world that could bring her back. It didn’t matter how strong he was in the end. He was just as weak as everyone else.

His next most trusted guard, Havoc, shaking him and shouting, “We need you! She would be devastated to see you in this state! We’re dying out there!  You’re stronger than this!”

Him, looking at his pale reflection blankly in a dirty mirror. The shadows under his dark eyes saying, No, you’re not. You’re weak, pathetic, useless. His heart beating so slow that it was almost like it wasn’t beating at all. His eyes used to shine so brightly, like they were filled with all the knowledge of magic in the world. He used to think that he was capable of anything - as long as she was at his side.

He blinked. His mind whispering, But you could be strong. You could be strong again; you could be more powerful than anyone or anything. And it was such a soothing whisper. He needed to hear her voice answer one of his questions, even if it was only in his head, to remind him of what he was doing - but he only heard himself, telling him what he wanted to hear. You could end this. You could end all of this.

When he caught sight of his reflection again, it was like he wasn’t even there. He didn’t see himself in the mirror; he saw someone else, someone that he didn’t recognize, someone that looked like him but wasn’t him. He looked down at his hands and felt like they were someone else’s hands. Dark shadows danced from the corners of his eyes, there but not there, like faint whispers of the night, pulling him forward and into them.

For the first time in days, he staggered out of his tent.

And when his fires rose higher than ever before, no amount of screams or pleading could stop him. No amount of death or suffering was enough to wake him from the nightmare that became his magic. Time didn’t matter. It was like his magic broke it. Just as quickly as the Mage Wars had begun - over what, he could no longer remember - the wars came to a burning, crashing end.

But the light never came back, no matter how bright the flames were.

*

Roy opens his eyes, struggling to breathe. By all means, Kimblee should’ve killed him the moment Roy let his guard down, but he didn’t. There is an almost gleeful look in the man’s eyes. He’s enjoying this, taking pleasure in mentally torturing Roy. Every second that Roy hesitates, every moment he’s forced to reconcile with his past, is a delicious bite of pain for Kimblee. The Master is worse than the Servant. At least Berserker is mad. Kimblee is just doing this for fun.

“I know what you’re telling yourself,” Kimblee says, nodding in a sympathetic matter. It’s completely false, of course. Roy doubts the man has ever been sympathetic towards anyone in his life. “You think you can win the Holy Grail and ask for a second chance, a second life, with the woman you love.” Kimblee tilts his head in a curious manner. “But is that truly what you desire? When you’re faced with that wish-granting relic, do you think that will be what it shows you in the darkness of your heart?”

Yes, his mind practically screams. It’s what he’s wanted ever since he was materialized in the Holy Grail War and told of what would happen should he win. Selfish as he is, he wants another life with her. He knows that he cannot go back and change the past, no matter how much he wishes he could; he knows that he can’t erase the bad parts of himself from history, only wait for time to slowly make it fade away. He wants her. Roy will never proclaim to be selfless - that has always been one of her strongest traits and part of why he loves her so much - but he didn’t ask to be a part of this War. He can ask for that.

“Or do you even think you’re deserving of that anymore?” Kimblee asks and it strikes Roy right in the gut.

All his insecurities and fears come roaring back to him, the ones Riza told him to get over, but he can’t. They’re the same fears that fueled some of his worst and best decisions in the past. Does he deserve her? She would’ve killed him for doing what he’d done had she still been alive - but he wouldn’t have done those things if she hadn’t died. Would he? Had he been capable of those things all along - and just used her death as an excuse to open himself to more power than he was capable of wielding on his own? Just as Kimblee has done now.

“I think you know the answer to that,” Kimblee tells him. “Give in to it. I know you can feel it burning in your blood. You’ve tasted it once. That kind of power is sweeter  than anything else in the world. Everything is so much more alive.”

“No,” Roy finally says, “everything felt dead. It was death.” He brings his eyes back to Kimblee. “I was death.”

After tearing the bandages off his hands, he lets them drop to the ground. There is still blood stains on them that he ignores. Roy glares determinedly and lifts a hand, refusing to let it shake. Kimblee growls in frustration and plants his feet in position.

That’s when the real fight begins. Roy feels very, very much alive so close to death.

Chapter Text

Riza runs ahead of them, throwing caution to the wind. She can't be for certain how long Roy can last fighting against Berserker’s Master on his own in his condition, especially when she has a nasty feeling that the other Mage will know how to dig under Roy's skin. Roy is made of stone, but he can easily be hurt if the person turns him against himself. She knows this all too well.

She needs to get back to him as soon as possible. Even though she is in this War for Winry, she cannot bear the idea of not fighting by Roy's side. She doesn't feel complete without him, like she's missing a piece of herself. She didn't even recognize that until the first night they fought together. Of course, she can’t admit this out loud. It sounds too much like a weakness and she knows Edward won’t be happy about it, but it’s the truth.

“Where is that monster?” Edward growls as they pause to look around.

The park isn’t that big, but it’s daunting at night, as if the dark magic surrounding Berserker and his Master have corrupted the place. Everywhere they turn, it looks as if demons might pop out of the shadows. It looks like it was a nightmare dreamed into reality. She waves a hand at the two Masters to stay close to one another while she walks ahead of them, an arrow at the ready in her bow. She feels as taut as the string, like she might rupture at any given moment.

“Do you think he went back to give his Master support?” Winry asks.

At the mention of Berserker’s Master, Edward’s head turns and his eyes lock in the direction of his own Servant, who is battling the other mage. The connection between Edward and Roy is strong, whether they realize it or not. He doesn’t even need to think in order to know where Roy is. A sudden explosion of fire erupts above the treeline, causing Winry to bite her lip and Edward to grit his teeth, but the boy says nothing. He did as Roy told him and there is no time to regret it now that they are hunting another Servant.

That’s what Riza feels the most. She doesn’t have time for this childish yet deadly game. She needs to end… whatever this is with Berserker now.

“I’m disappointed, Berserker!” Riza calls out as she peers through the darkness of the trees. “I thought you would want to fight face-to-face with me instead of playing this hide-and-seek game.” Despite the horrified and confused expressions respectively on Winry’s and Edward’s faces, Riza continues on. She only gets silence from the trees, but she knows he’s there, listening, simmering, eager to show her up. “A real man wouldn’t do this to me. I thought you were different!”

He’s not a real man, of course - he’s a monster parading as Heroic Spirit serving in the Holy Grail War - but he has the ego of one. That she can count on.

A loud crash comes from behind and Riza barely rolls out of the way when Berserker crashes down where she was standing just moments ago, his butcher blade larger than ever before. It cracks through the concrete, causing the street to quake, but she gains her balance with ease and aims at him. However, she stops short of gasping when she catches sight of him.

Berserker is… He’s not what he used to be. Before, he was shorter than her, though squatter and muscular. Now, he is a behemoth, nearly twice her height, snarling through the nose of his mask. His eyes, the same glowing red, are twice as bright and wide, like he can’t close them for all the energy soaring through him. He can wrap one of his hands around her body easily and break her bones just by squeezing.

Edward’s exclamation of, “Holy shit,” is an understatement.

“Do you like what you see?” Berserker asks as he stands up straight and turns to face her. At least his voice is the same, but it sounds at odd with his image now. He shifts his hefty cleaver to his other hand as he stares her down, rage and want mixing with one another until she can’t tell the difference. The stench of his madness is almost overwhelming, rolling off of him in powerful waves that make her grind her teeth. “Who’s a real man now? I don’t see your precious Flame Alchemist anywhere to save you.”

“Berserker,” Riza breathes as she plants a foot back behind her, strengthening her stance as best as she can, “what did your Master do to you?”

“What did he do to me?” Berserker cackles and raises his arms in the air. Moonlight beams off of the metal of his weapon while his muscles flex in what looks like a painful, horrible way. “You mean what did he give me! Endless strength, mana to last me for days, life! I can feel the power and magic flowing through me. It’s…” He shudders in pleasure. “It’s exquisite. If only you could feel it too, my dear, but oh” - he all but giggles - “I can show you. You can feel the power through me.”

The way he says it to her, so lovingly, so madly, it sounds extremely horrific.

In another world, she would try to reason with him, but she knows that would be useless. There is no reasoning with a monstrous madman like Berserker; he’s beyond any logic or empathy. There is only one way to stop Berserker - and that is to put an end to him. She has to kill him. There is the no other way. Riza takes a deep breath and lets the knowledge seep in and embolden her. She can still feel the power of the Command Seal that Winry used on her the first time she and Berserker clashed. She didn’t defeat Berserker then.

She will do what she can to destroy him now.

Berserker lets out a yell and charges towards her, sword held high, his feet thundering against the pavement, but Riza stands her ground even as the world seems to tremble around her. Winry shrieks as Riza steps to the side at the last second, the heavy blade blowing past her by inches so hard that the air blows around her. When it collides with the ground, it sticks and she uses the sword as a stair, stepping onto it like the sharp edges are nothing and spinning to slam her bow into the side of Berserker’s head hard enough to make it snap back. He jerks the cleaver up at the same time that she leaps high into the air and releases two arrows, one that he manages to block, the other which grazes his face, piercing through the metal mask like it’s water and lodging into the ground.

In a matter of seconds, she’s back on the ground as Berserker stumbles backwards and roars in anger and pain, holding the side of his face as black blood spurts out. Even that is corrupted by the dark magic that his Master has imbued him with. She doesn’t give him time to recover or a second to pity him, firing off more bright arrows that appear out of thin air whenever she raises her hand to the string. He spins the sword wildly, deflecting the shots, but she rushes him while he defends himself, vaulting over him and then focusing her energy to deliver an impossibly harsh kick to his back that sends him flying into the trees, breaking them with his weight.

Edward whoops in glee, but Riza grits her teeth as she prepares herself for another onslaught. He’s young. He doesn’t see it yet, but she knows the truth. Berserker is clumsy with such unfamiliar power, but he’s much stronger than her. One solid blow could be the end of her and she knows it.

It’s not enough. She’s not enough. To be honest, she doesn’t know if Roy would be in his current state after what Saber did to him.

“So feisty!” Berserker exclaims as he crawls out of the broken trees. “I like it.”

“Are you sure?” Riza asks coolly. “You don’t seem too pleased.”

Berserker chuckles as he hefts his blade over his shoulder. “My dear, I wouldn’t be pleased if this was easy. I like it when a girl puts up a fight. And you” - he tilts his head towards her - “I knew you would be my biggest challenge.”

Every word wafts over her like slime, making her want to shudder in discomfort. She hates everything that he says and wants more than anything for him to stop, but she knows that he won’t. This is part of his game. He enjoys the taunting, the degrading, the fearmongering. It’s a part of him as much as his blade is, as his Master is. He’s not broken or out of touch; it just is who he is. He feels no guilt. That is what makes him terrifying.

Roy thinks that he himself is a monster, but Riza knows a monster when she sees one. He is nothing like Berserker or his dark mage of a Master.

“But you should know by now,” Berserker adds with a laugh as he brings his cleaver up. “Size isn’t everything!”

He slashes the cleaver in front of him, too far from her for her to even bother moving, but then a black shadow slices through the air towards her. There’s no time for her to move, so she’s forced to block it with her bow, hoping against hope that it won’t shatter. The blow is tremendous, tossing her at least ten feet back and creating such a heavy shockwave that it knocks Winry and Edward off their feet. Her hands and wrists ache from withstanding the hit, but while the bow vibrates in her grip, it’s still intact, shimmering in defiance.

If that black shadow hit her, she isn’t so sure that she’d be as well off as her bow.

Berserker doesn’t give her any time to recover, bearing down on her as he creates another black shadow with his weapon. All she can do is lift her bow again in defense, but the shock of both the shadow and his blade is enough to cause her to buckle and she cries out as her knee slams hard enough into the ground to break the concrete.

“Riza!” Winry shouts, leaping forward to help, but Riza grits her teeth and shakes her head, causing her Master to stop short. Her blue eyes are wide, filled with mixture of ferocity and fear. She’s willing to jump in, even if it means throwing herself in the line of danger, but the idea of Berserker coming in close contact with Winry burns Riza to her core. She won’t allow this monster to get anywhere near her. Luckily, Edward has enough sense to drag Winry back, but even he looks ready to fight, despite his Servant not being the one involved.

Roy.

The flames rising in the dark behind her. They’re far away, but Riza can feel the heat if she pictures the fire strong enough. Explosions echo around them even now, some big enough to shake the ground below them despite the distance. They give her comfort. If there’s still fire, then he’s still alive.

Berserker moves to deliver a powerful kick, but Riza bends and pulls her bow down, throwing him off balance and giving her enough time to roll to the side. She slides away from him, on one knee, and takes aim again just as he lets off another shadow. This time, she’s ready for him though and fires off a round of arrows in rapid succession. The first arrow, instead of disintegrating when the shadow hits it, explodes in a fiery burst of light, actually cutting through the shadow like it’s solid and allowing the three other arrows to shoot forward unimpeached. They pierce Berserker in between his armor right where his arm connects with his body.

The howl of pain that echoes into the air drowns out the clanging sound his sword makes when it hits the ground. He rips the arrows out, his hand sizzling as they burn him, and blood pours out of the wounds, hot and unforgiving. Worse though is the way his arm dangles limply at his side, his fingers twitching with effort. It’s not entirely useless, she knows, but it’ll be impossible for him to pick up his over-sized weapon now with his dominant hand. The moment he realizes it, he bellows furiously once more.

How do you like me now? Riza thinks harshly, but she doesn’t say it out loud. She’s not like Roy, who uses words to get into the heads of his competition, or Berserker, who enjoys getting underneath his victim’s skins. She doesn’t need to speak her thoughts for people to know them; she uses her arrows.

“Oh, you’re good,” Berserker growls, “better than good!”

“I wouldn’t be a very good legend if I wasn’t,” Riza points out as she stands up straight.

Picking up his weapon with his left hand, Berserker swings it casually in a circle like a fan, as if testing it, and then glances back at her. “But are they?”

The slash of his sword is ugly and short, but it sends another shadowy blast out of it, not towards Riza, but in Winry and Edward’s direction. They duck in time, Edward dragging Winry to the ground, and shadow passes over their heads, slicing through the trees behind them. Riza screams wordlessly as she rushes forward and lets off another volley of arrows, not thinking straight, all of which he blocks, but just barely.

When the next shadow rockets towards them, Winry casts a large defensive shield, very similar to the one Roy cast over her to defend her from Saber’s surprise attack a few nights ago, but when the shadow collides with hers, it doesn’t hold nearly as well. Both magical shield and shadow explode in a mess of smoke and sparks and the two Masters are sent sprawling. All Riza can see is black, hopeless and terrible.

Before Berserker can attack them again, she lets off another arrow, lower this time, so that it digs deep into the meat of his calf. This arrow is different though, as a rope appears attached to the shaft and leads to her hand. As Berserker staggers at the pain, Riza uses her momentum to slide through his legs, twisting the rope around him, and jerks as hard as she can, bringing the monster of a Servant down. He lands with a heavy thud, shaking the ground and causing leaves to fall from the trees.

But it only seems to enrage him further. He roars, more beast than man at this point, and grabs the rope, not even bothering with the arrow still piercing him, and rips it towards him. Not expecting the reaction, Riza did not let go of the rope attached to her arrow in time, and pitches forward. She digs the heel of one of her feet into the ground to try to gain balance, but tears through the concrete before losing it. He snatches her bow in one hand and grasps her body in a firm grip with other, trapping one of her arms at her side, and slams her into the ground, knocking the wind out of her chest as her head bounces against the ground.

Her vision blurs for a moment, but when it comes back, Berserker is leaning over her, smoke coming out of the nostrils of his mask as he breathes, his red eyes glowing manically. She can smell the blood on him, so powerful that it makes her gag. This is death at its worst. It reminds her of the battlefields during the Mage Wars after Roy was put on the frontlines. Though the mask hides his face, she knows that he’s leering down at her, so close to her face that she turns her head away involuntarily. Her bow lies far from her reach, having been tossed aside like it is nothing. Every time she wiggles in his grasp, he only squeezes harder and she gasps in an attempt to breathe.

“I’ve wanted to hold you since the moment I saw you,” Berserker tells her in a fevered whisper.

She only growls furiously in response. This is not holding. She thinks of waking up in Roy’s arms at Ed’s house, just a few days ago -- the warmth of his body, the gentleness of his touch, the comforting sound of his beating heart next to hers. That was holding. Something so delicate and intimate yet stronger than anything in the world. This is a twisted abomination, a reflection of what Berserker truly is.

Berserker chuckles. “Oh, my dear, what is an archer without her bow?”

“An arrow,” Riza snarls, “straight and true.”

As if a reaction to her words, a golden arrow of light materializes in her free hand and she jams it hard and deep into one of the eye sockets of Berserker’s mask. There’s a terrible sizzling sound as steam spills out from arrowed the embedded arrow and he yowls, letting go of her and stumbling backwards as he attempt to jerk it out. She gasps, sucking in air greedily, and tries to scramble in the direction of her bow, but he sweeps out a hand wildly and nearly takes her out by accident.

Blocked from retrieving her bow, she moves to stand in front of Winry and Edward, protecting them, when Berserker pulls out the arrow and throws it into the trees. Blood spills out of the socket, staining his mask with black streaks. Two more arrows appear in her hands and she spins them around, wielding them like daggers. The two Masters also take fighting positions, even if they are terrified of fighting a very furious and deranged Servant.

“I will enjoy cutting you in half!” Berserker exclaims, picking his weapon up with his good hand, the one that held her down.

Riza readies herself, even as her ribs ache horribly in protest. At least two of them are broken, possibly three, snapped in Berserker’s crushing grip. But she won’t give up and neither will Winry or Edward. They can’t. If they do, all is lost. It is her sacred duty to put down monsters like Berserker, not just to protect and serve her Master in this War. What kind of Heroic Spirit would she be if she lost sight of what made her one in the first place? No, she will fight until there is nothing left in her and then she will fight more.

“If he pins me down again, run,” Riza tells the two children behind her. Because that’s what they are. Yes, they are mages in their own right and they are Masters in the Holy Grail War, but they are children and this is her fight to bear, win or lose.

Edward scoffs. “Like hell--”

“You cannot win the War if you are dead!” Riza snaps, not looking back at either of them. “Do not argue with me!”

Despite the fact that Edward’s natural reaction to everything is to argue, he does not speak a word and she knows that he will heed her words. Winry is burning silently behind her, determined to fight until the end. And this very well could be for the two of them. Riza is weak. She’s injured and left with only her bones to fight with. Still, she’s not afraid.

Some might say that she is born to die in battle.

And then, somewhere above them, five daggers pierce the ground in a perfect circle surrounding Berserker, each knife standing up straight, the hilts pointing home to the sky. Before anyone can process what is happening, blue lightning crackles around Berserker, connecting with the daggers, before shooting up and electrocuting the large Servant in a brilliant fashion. Riza has to throw an arm over her eyes to shield herself from the light, only catching glimpses of Berserker twitching violently until the light dies down and he collapses to his knees, smoking and charred like a piece of meat.

“Wow, that looked extraordinarily painful!” a familiar voice cheers from the side.

Riza blinks in shock when she recognizes Lancer of all people, lazily swinging a sword with one hand while he leans against the other, its tip gleaming against the concrete. His Master, looking so small next to him, has both of her hands raised, five daggers carefully held between her fingers in each of them. She threw the knives. They came for her.

No, they came for Berserker and his Master. However little and young she is, more so than Ed and Winry, she’s an incredibly powerful mage, strong enough to find Roy through all his tricks. She too must’ve felt whatever Berserker’s Master was doing and couldn’t ignore it.

“You have lousy timing!” Edward yells, his face already getting red with aggravation. Lancer really knows how to get under his skin.

Indeed, the other Servant looks positively gleeful when he responds, “I don’t know. It looks like excellent timing to me.” He cocks his head towards Berserker, who is trying to pull himself to his feet, somehow swelling up even further through his pain and rage. “Nasty fellow, isn’t he?”

“What are you doing here, Lancer?” Riza demands. She can’t fight them both. While Berserker is clearly more injured than her, she doesn’t know what his Master might’ve done to him. It looks as if the more pain he’s in, the bigger he gets, his anger causing him to get stronger. He will burn out faster like this, but not before he crushes her like a bug if he gets a hold of her. Meanwhile, Lancer is fresh, uninjured, and has a Master that seems quite capable in battle herself. Riza knows terrible odds when she sees them.

Lancer shrugs. “It was rude of me to ambush you like that with Saber. I wasn’t expecting Assassin to show up too.” That can’t be it. Another explosion behind them, this one with flames rising high and close enough for them to feel the heat, drags his Master’s attention away and she zeroes in on them like they’re a target. “And a few people aren’t playing by the rules. It’s time to take out the trash, don’t you think?”

“Finish Berserker,” his Master orders, her voice high and childish. It’s a stark contrast with the intense look on her face. This is a child that has seen and been through more than most three times her age. “I will deal with the mage.”

“Not on my watch,” Edward growls, stepping forward.

The little girl fixes him with a sharp, reprimanding look that causes him to actually halt and blink. “I am not about to fight Caster on my own, you short-minded idiot.”

Edward sputters. “Who are you  calling short?”

“That’s what you take offense to?” Winry mutters.

“Pleasant, isn’t she?” Lancer says cheekily.

To the side, Berserker begins to huff as he straightens up. His clothes tear as his muscles bulge out, dark veins twisting like veins up his ashy skin. The arm that he damaged seems to be working again as he picks up his large cleaver with both hands, either because of the mana of so many innocent victims coursing through him or because of the adrenaline. He has handled pain far better than expected, almost ignoring every wound after it is inflicted. What did his Master do to him?

“Lancer,” his Master says warningly, and that’s all she has to say.

The Servant nods his head and kicks the flat of the sword he was leaning on. It spins in the air before he catches it and crashes the hilts of each of his swords together. There is a flurry of sparks and then he pulls, revealing a dual-edged lance in his hands instead of two separate blades. He twirls it in a whirlwind circle before it snaps into place in one hand and he crouches down in a pounce. “Are you ready to end this, Archer?”

Riza hasn’t fought alongside anyone except for Roy in a long time, but for a brief moment, Lancer reminds her of Havoc, one of the two people in the camp to know her secret during the Mage Wars, probably the only man she ever trusted before Roy. Laughing and joking one minute, serious and deadly in the next. She can work with that.

For the first time in this war, Riza smiles, but there is no warmth in it. “With pleasure.”

When Berserker raises his weapon and charges towards Lancer, the smaller Servant leaps gracefully out of the way. As Lancer seemingly taunts Berserker, filled with so much more speed and agility than Berserker and Riza combined, Riza takes the opportunity to snatch up her bow again. The second it’s in her hands, she feels a pleasant hum vibrate her, as if the bow is as happy as her to be reunited. She catches a glimpse of Lancer’s little Master tearing through the woods towards Roy and Berserker’s Master and then Edward’s hesitation.

“Go,” Riza tells him.

Edward frowns. “But he said--”

“Never mind what he said,” Riza interrupts him, far gentler than what the situation calls for. It’s what Edward needs though -- reassurance yet firmness. He’s a mage, but he’s younger than he realizes. Even Roy was hesitant at his age, despite his obvious strength and natural talents. “You’re the Master, are you not?”

Her words go through Edward like a shock to the system. He jerks upright and a hardened expression falls over his face. He takes a breath and follows after the girl while Winry stays behind with her. Yes, he is the Master and Roy is the Servant. She knows how much Roy hates that -- how he hates to be under the control of anyone that isn’t himself -- but it’s the truth. He must accept it if he’s going to win this War. Riza did so immediately, but then, she has always been good at following.

Now that it’s two against one, the fight changes drastically. Even with Berserker amped up by his Master’s dark magic and the stolen mana and od from their victims, he’s hurt and acting out impulsively. Lancer remains uninjured and bolstered by his Master. He’s simply too quick for Berserker to even come close. It looks to Riza as if the young-looking Servant is actually toying with Berserker, spinning around him, knicking him here and there with his blades, leaping over him, all with a small but serious smile on his face.

With him distracted by Lancer, Riza is able to take aim and her arrows dig in the back of his knees, causing him to buckle once more. Berserker swings out wildly, narrowly missing Lancer who dodges it, but Riza can tell he could’ve moved faster if he wanted to. He’s playing . It’s a different sort of playing than Berserker’s madness. It’s taunting and cold. Lancer knows that he’s better and wants Berserker to know it too, wants to drive him further into his insanity. It makes him even more reckless and prone to stupid mistakes in the fight.

“Come on now!” Lancer taunts. “Show me that heroic spirit of yours!”

Berserker is beyond words now, merely bellowing like a beast, and slashes his weapon in the air. The black shadow is larger than before, racing towards them with a vicious speed. Riza ducks under it while Lancer leaps over it and lands gracefully on a tree branch.

“Now that’s more like it!” he exclaims. Another black shadow cuts the tree he’s perched in down, but he jumps from the branch and actually lands on Berserker’s shoulders before vaulting off and slicing his lance up so that the blade cuts a line up Berserker’s back.

Just when Riza thinks that Berserker is close to being done, bent over his sword on his knees, something foul and dark ripples in the air around them, causing both Lancer and her to pull back. It’s… She doesn’t know how to describe it, except that everything in the air feels wrong, slightly out of order. If she was a mage, she might be able to describe it better, but neither she nor Lancer know much about magic. That’s Roy’s area of expertise. Winry, for all her talents, is still learning.

Black shadows burst out of Berserker’s back, at first flailing around like tentacles, reminding her of Assassin’s shadows. They’re not the same though, not as solid or controllable. It’s ugly and wrong. When he stands up though, there is a bright light surrounding his weapon and Riza’s breath hitches in her chest. It’s the same light that nearly took them out in the car. Can he pull off a Noble Phantasm again in this state so soon? It doesn’t matter; they can’t risk it.

Berserker leaps high in the hair, the black shadows now flapping like shapeless wings, raising his cleaver up high above his head. Lancer digs his feet in and bursts forward in a blur, jumping up in the air so suddenly that it forms a perfect ninety degree angle. The two Servants rise in the air, Berserker’s weapon glowing brightly, a horrible contrast to the darkness surrounding him, and the skin on Lancer’s arms and skins turning a coal black.

Riza doesn’t give out a warning. She raises her bow, aims true, and shoots. The arrow shoots off like a rocket into the dark sky, speeding towards them in a deadly line, light streaking behind it. Right before it hits Lancer, he snatches it out of the air with his bare hand without looking, just as he did the last time they met. He smiles grimly just as Berserker begins to bring his weapon down and jams it through Berserker’s chest. The arrow, imbued with magic, pierces through the metal like it’s cloth.

Lancer kicks off of Berserker as the other Servant drops his weapon uselessly and struggles to pull the arrow out of his chest. It does no good. When the two land, Lancer on his feet and Berserker on his back, the aftershock of the crash is so powerful that it nearly blows Riza off balance. Luckily, she positioned herself in front of Winry so that Riza herself takes most of the blow and the two of them stay on their feet. Berserker claws at his chest, but the arrow sinks in further. Light begins to peek out from the weeping wounds on his body until he is heaving, his body jerking and twitching in an ugly manner.

Turning quickly, Riza throws her arms around Winry, pulling the young girl into her chest and using her body as a shield. The light burns Berserker from the inside out until all the darkness surrounding him is eaten away and he lets out a pained, almost frightened cry the second before light explodes out of his body, turning the world white for a moment. It burns hot, but not painfully so, not to Riza at least. It’s her light, after all, that burned every last bit of corruption out of his body and destroyed him.

When the light dies down, Riza slowly lets go of Winry and surveys the area. There is nothing left of Berserker except for the shimmering remains of his spirit dissolving in the air. Lancer scratches the back of his head as he examines the area with a hint of curiosity, his lance propped up at his side. His skin, she notes, is back to normal, his fingers back to normal. Her arrow didn’t burn him this time when his skin was changed. That’s both peculiar and dangerous.

“I would’ve killed for some fireworks like that back in my day,” Lancer says thoughtfully.

However, before Riza can think to thank him or return to Roy, the ground begins to shake again. This time, it’s more like an earthquake. All of them throw out their hands to balance themselves, though Lancer seems to ride the rumble easily. When stone walls begin to erupt around them though, trapping them, even he looks wary and ready to take flight. Winry runs to one of the walls, pressing her hands against it, but pulls her hands back and shakes her head.

A woman steps out of the shadows, the same Master that threatened them at the temple where the Holy Grail would be summoned. It feels like a lifetime ago, but it couldn’t have been two weeks. So much has happened since then. Riza feels like another person; she feels centuries older. More tired, as well. She remembers the size and strength of the cold woman’s Servant; he hadn’t needed to be bolstered by dark magic to get there.

“I wouldn’t bother,” she says callously. “I strengthened those walls myself. They’re impenetrable.”

Lancer considers them for a second, looking decidedly unimpressed, but his hands twitch as he folds his arms across his chest. That’s when Riza realizes it: he’s not looking at the wall itself, but in the direction of his Master, who he is blocked off from. Everyone else is with their Masters. They’re all protective of their Masters, as they are their Servants, but Lancer seems especially so with his. She’s so young and innocent-looking.

“Thank you for getting rid of Berserker,” the woman tells them, not sounding a bit gracious. “I’ve never liked dealing with the trash myself.” She snaps her fingers and her Servant appears, his bare, muscled chest almost sparkling in the moonlight. This causes Lancer to raise an eyebrow finally. “But it’s time to thin the competition. Rider!”

The large man slams his fists together, his stone gloves sparking, and flexes his muscles. It’s a show, both strange and intimidating. He’s built not unlike Berserker was when corrupted with magic, but this is all Rider. One direct hit from him would knock any of them out. In her weakened state, Riza knows that she won’t be able to take him on; her best bet is to escape, but she can’t leave Winry behind either.

“If I were you, Lancer,” the woman says, “I would return to your Master. Who knows what might happen to her while pinned against Caster and Berserker’s Master? They’re both murderers.”

She smiles, the kind of smile that says she knows she’s right. It’s probably what Lancer is thinking right now. The Flame Alchemist was not known for his kindness during the Mage Wars; he was known for ridding himself of any obstacle that stood in his way of victory. Lancer’s little Master is one of those obstacles now. And Riza is one of Lancer’s. She’s wounded. Having helped her take care of Berserker, whatever debt he may have felt towards her was now paid in full. He could leave Riza to be cast down and it would be of no harm to him or his conscience.

This was War. There could only be one victor.

In the end, Lancer doesn’t have to make a decision. A loud explosion rocks them, Riza once again using her body to shield Winry as rocks pelt her. The woman throws up a shield, somewhat carelessly, but it defends her well as Rider knocks any debris aside with his fists. Lancer dodges the bits of stone flying towards him.

When Riza looks up, she has to refrain from gasping. There is Roy, dust settling around him, standing in a hole she knows he created in the wall. That’s not what causes her heart to leap in her throat. Blood slicks the side of his face, along with sweat and dirt, and there are cuts in his robes. Even worse is the cold look in his eyes. She knows, somehow, that he gave up a part of himself to get here. He was hurt before they came to this battle. She can only imagine what pain has been inflicted upon him now.

Edward stands behind him, looking both fierce and somewhat dazed. He remains uninjured, but there is a strangely unsettled look in his golden eyes. It doesn’t fit his normal, steadfast demeanor. Lancer’s little Master darts in between them and rushes to Lancer’s side. It almost looks as if he stops himself from picking her up, but instead moves to stand slightly in front of her. He lets her briefly touch his wrist and stills himself.

“Impenetrable, you say?” Lancer queries, cocky even now.

Roy gazes at the wall dispassionately, even more unimpressed than Lancer. “Amature magic, at best.”

Rider’s Master snarls like a wolf. “You’re weak, Caster. I could kill you myself.”

“And you’re alone,” Roy counters. Even now, Riza wants to join his side, but she keeps herself in front of Winry as Roy steps forward. Edward does not follow him, but instead returns to Winry and Riza. It makes Roy look like a man fighting an army by himself.

“Oh?” the woman says. “You think so?”

“Assassin is a terrible ally,” Roy tells her. “You’re partners now, but only until you’re no longer useful.”

Out of nowhere - no, out of shadows that appear in thin air, a trick of the eyes - Assassin appears. He looks comically small standing next to Rider, nothing more than a mere schoolboy. He’s the same height as Lancer’s Master, but somehow manages to look even more childish than her. His eyes though -- those are not the eyes of a child. They’re the eyes of a cold-blooded killer.

“The same could be said of you,” Assassin points out in his boyish voice. He smiles, a child’s smile, a murderer’s smile. It’s jarring. “How long before you tire of the boy, hm?”

Edward stiffens, but says nothing. Neither does Roy for that matter. He doesn’t react at all, which speaks volumes to her. She knows what that means and it’s an uncomfortable thought. He’s been thinking of how to get out. The leash tugging on his collar, the Command signals on Edward’s hands, must burn and itch. It’s too dangerous though. A untethered Servant could do serious damage on the world, even someone like Roy whose intentions are good. Were good.

“Berserker has been defeated,” Assassin notes. “Where is his Master? They can still be a problem in this War, even without a Servant.”

“Dead,” is all Roy says in a flat voice and a cold chill runs down Riza’s spine. That is not the voice of the man she fell in love with. Is this who he became after she died? Was it a part of him all along and she was just blind to it?

Assassin chuckles, but there is a pleased look on his face. It’s what he would’ve done. Best take a Master out of the equation completely. There is something else to it though. “You’re progressing along nicely, Caster, faster than I expected. Father will be happy.”

“Spare me with bullshit about your Master,” Roy snaps. “I’ve got a Master already; I don’t need another.”

“Do you really think you’re in the position to fight this?” Rider’s Master questions.

“Yes,” Roy says in a quiet, dangerous tone. There’s a fire in his eyes now, one that Riza doesn’t recognize. It’s feverish, manic, vaguely reminding her of Berserker, which catches her off guard. What is this? “I could kill you. I could end you all right now.”

A sharp look passes between Assassin and Rider’s Master. It almost looks like they’re wary. Roy ended the Mage Wars. Roy broke the enemy single-handedly. How? If he was strong enough to do it then, why didn’t he do it before when she was alive? What did he do? What did he become?

I have plenty of blood on my hands as it is, the memory of Roy’s voice whispers in her mind. A little more won’t hurt.

Rider steps forward first. “Flame Alchemist--”

Roy cuts him off with a fireball, which Rider actually punches, the flames dissipating around him. “I am tired!” Another fireball. “I am sick of this!” And then another and another, each one stronger than the last, until Rider can no longer uses his fists and is forced to bring up a wall shielding him, which causes Roy to snarl and make an ugly cut his hand in the air in front of him. A line of fire, so precise and thin like a knife, cuts the stone wall in half like it’s nothing. “I don’t care who you are. You know who I am and I will end this!”

She sees it happen before it does. The scene plays out in her mind in a flash, but it feels like a lifetime, like it’s already happened. And it has. But centuries ago, back in their time. Roy, at the end of things, lost in darkness, rage curling around him and allowing nothing else in, terrifying and incredible and awful. He ended things then and he will end things now. Brought back into the world by the Holy Grail, who knows what he is capable of? Who knows of how powerful he actually is?

He will end this, just as he says, but the price is too much.

Fire swirls around them, licking the air hungrily, lashing out at them. All of the other Servants prepare their defenses. Shadows twist around Assassin, but they’re almost burned out by the light of Roy’s flames. Rider’s Master shields herself as Rider stands in front of her. Black skin creeps up over Lancer’s body until he is completely covered, even his face, making him look like a creature; he bends over his Master and wraps his arms around her, shielding her with his body and leaving himself entirely exposed.

The flames are too much for Riza even. She can barely see in the flames, barely stand the heat of them. It feels like she’s cooking in her armor. All she can see is Roy, looking terrible and beautiful. This is him. This is his magic. It’s a thing of wonder but also of terror.

Fire is death as much as it is life and he is fire.

Tears pricking her eyes, whether because of the brightness and heat of the flames or something else, Riza raises her bow and aims an arrow -- but not at the enemy. Instead, she points it directly at Roy, at the man she loves, but it’s not him. This isn’t him. It can’t be. “Stop!” she shouts. She will shoot him. She has that right -- she has always had that right since he first appointed her the Captain of the Old Guard. If he was to ever lose control, she was to put him down. She doesn’t want to - every fiber in her screams against it and for the first time she trembles while taking aim - but she will. For him. “Roy, STOP!”

It’s only a second, but when Roy doesn’t look back at her, she knows. Her heart shatters.

He won’t stop.

Please, something in her begs as she stares at him through tears, but the word won’t come out. The flames burn it away. Please.

“Caster!” Edward screams from behind. He’s lost in the fire, standing somewhere in the middle between Riza and Roy. “Stand down!” For a moment, the fires flicker and Riza can see. Roy is still focused on Assassin and Rider, but his jaw tightens as he tries to ignore Edward. “I said, stand DOWN!” Even now, Roy won’t look at him, but his rigid body begins to shake as he fights. Sweat beads across Edward’s face, but he doesn’t stop. He raises a hand, the Command Signals glowing against his skin. “I am your Master, and you will listen to me, Caster !”

A gush of air explodes around them. Riza can’t tell if it’s from the Command Signal or from Roy that causes the flames to be blown out, but they disappear in the wind. Roy gasps like it’s been ages since he last breathed and collapses to his knees, bleeding hands clutched to his chest. He doubles over, nearly toppling, but manages to hold himself up, trembling with effort. Riza remembers the feeling of a Command Signal being used on her; it was strange and overpowering, but it hadn’t been painful. Then again, she did not fight it like Roy did.

When she looks around, Riza is relieved to find that Assassin, Rider, and his Master are all gone. Likely, they left as soon as the flames vanished, deciding to make an attempt another time. Riza isn’t certain why. They are practically defenseless now. Perhaps, whatever schemes they concocted for Roy, they can not use him broken like this in such a way. To be honest, Riza doesn’t know what to think of him now. She isn’t afraid of him -- she could never be -- but this is… This is painfully visceral.

All of them are standing silently in shock, even Lancer, who slowly returns to normal with the exception of his hands. Edward is huffing and glaring as furiously as Roy’s flames, a look of contempt covering his face. Winry likely doesn’t know what to say. She’s been so hopeful this entire time. To see Roy like this, a Heroic Spirit on their side, is very unsettling.

Without warning, Lancer’s Master strides towards Roy -- and then slaps him across his face.

Everyone jerks in response. Edward jumps, the contempt leaving immediately, while Winry squeaks and Lancer actually chokes. He rushes forward, ready to sweep her out of Roy’s reach, but she holds out a hand and stops him cold. Roy blinks in surprise, his gaze meandering until it finally settles on the girl’s face and the realization that a child hit him washes over him.

“ You ,” the little Master seethes, simmering with disappointment, “you know better than this. You are better than this! I did not grow up hearing stories of the Flame Alchemist’s magic to see a man who is not worthy of wielding his own power.” She doesn’t strike him again, but her words are like a slap in the face. Roy actually recoils. In a way, this young mage reminds Riza of back when Roy was her father’s apprentice and learning magic. It feels as if she’s scolding him like a teacher would. “You would sink to their level? You would throw yourself into the pit?”

Roy rubs his face with a shaky hand, accidentally smearing blood across it. “I…”

“Do you know what is in that darkness?” she demands and then throws her hands in the air. “Nothing! There is nothing! If you go there, even if you win this War, the Holy Grail will only see darkness and will give you nothing in return. It can only give you what you are made of! Is that what you want?”

He scowls at her, looking more like himself, boyish even with his years on her. “No, it’s not.”

“Then act like the mage I was told you are,” she tells him, voice filled with disgust, before turning away from him and stomping back over to Lancer’s side. Her Servant looks torn between horror and amusement. Edward looks plain perplexed.

Gathering his Master in his arm, Lancer tips his lance to them. “I’ll, ah, leave you to discuss things.” Instead of using the hole that Roy created earlier, he scales up the wall with ease. Impenetrable or not by anyone besides Roy, Lancer was never in fear of being trapped by the walls Rider created. They weren’t closed off at the top.

Riza turns back to Roy, more hesitant than she has ever felt towards him. Edward won’t go anywhere closer to him. She can see the two mages closing themselves off from one another and it hurts her soul. Edward turns and stomps away while Roy sighs and hangs his head, his entire body going limp in defeat. After nodding to Winry, she watches her Master follow after Edward and then Riza tentatively makes her way towards Roy.

She almost shot him, she recalls dizzily. She almost killed him.

When she reaches him, Riza hesitates, but then reaches out to put a hand on Roy’s shoulder. Immediately, he leans into her touch, turning his head so that his cheek presses against her. He’s warmer than ever before, like his fire was burning him from the inside as her arrow had done to Berserker. His hands clench into fists on his thighs as he tries to steady his breathing, like he wants to cry but refuses to do so. She wishes he would. It’s not healthy to hold everything in, as he has done for all his life. It comes out in the worst of ways.

“I thought I lost you,” Riza tells him.

“You did,” Roy sighs, “for a moment.”

It hurts them both for him to admit such a thing. It’s a weakness. She doesn’t want to admit that Roy is capable of losing himself, as he’s always been so strong in her eyes, but with power as great as his, it’s all too tempting to let the magic take over. It has a lure of its own that she has never understood or felt. As strong of a mage as he is, it’s only worse for him. Magic takes its toll on the users in different ways. She wishes she could help him. She thought she could before, but now… Now she isn’t so sure. Maybe the Holy Grail twisted them in some way, took their greatest strengths and weaknesses and transformed them into something else, as they were made stronger.

“Maybe it’s a good thing then -- to have a Master,” Roy says. “Maybe I need to be leashed.”

“Not leashed,” Riza says gently, bending down to his level, “tethered.”

Roy opens his eyes and peers at her blearily. “It used to be you.”

“This War has changed many things,” Riza replies. Her hand slides down from his shoulder to his hands. She can tell it hurts him to grasp her hand, but he does so anyways. She ignores the heat of his wet blood coating her palm. “But I can still be that to you. Perhaps you just need more. We’re not really human, are we?”

“No,” Roy says, “we aren’t.”

Not monsters, but not human either. They are something else. Heroic Spirits. Legends in the flesh. It’s surreal to think of it so plainly. And they thought they could live normally in the moments in between.

“What do we do now?” Roy asks her.

“We go home,” Riza answers. It’s not nearly a good enough response, but it’s all she has. Every inch of her body aches, mind and soul alike. She needs to rest. Roy looks fit to topple over. She’s not sure how long he can manage before returning into his incorporeal state.

Still, he nods his head and gets to his feet without much help from her. Maybe his exhaustion is more mental than physical, although his body is certainly wounded enough. The two of them walk through the park in silence, their arms around each other as they help one another move forward. With each step, Riza can’t help but feel all the sharp pains in her body.

By the time they make it back to the car, Winry and Edward are already inside, sitting on opposite sides and not looking at one another. The sight cuts Riza slightly. She helps Roy inside and gets in herself. The car ride is surreal in itself after everything they went through. It’s jarringly normal. Tense silence permeates the car, but Riza is too tired to do anything else but focus on the road. She thinks of Alphonse waiting for their return and how he’ll get into a frenzy over their injuries.

Home. When did the little house begin to feel like that to her? When was the last time she ever felt it?

The lights are off in the house when they pull into the driveway. All of them are battered from the fight, broken and bone tired. It’s dark and Riza has just enough awareness in her to keep a lookout as they shuffle inside. Roy nearly stumbles when he walks through the doorway, but catches himself with Winry’s help. He pulls away from her quickly after a sharp look from Edward and then waits for Riza to come inside.

“Al?” Edward calls out. So normal, so simple. To fight in war and then come home right after. It doesn’t feel right. She never got to return home during the Mage Wars. She died before that could happen -- before she could make a place feel like home with Roy, as he promised they would. “Al, we’re back!”

“Sh, he could be asleep,” Winry hisses, nudging him in the side.

“Al is a worrywort,” Ed snaps, but without any heat. He’s too tired. “He wouldn’t just fall asleep.” He moves around the house, flicking on lights, and calls out again. “Al!”

No response. It’s eerily quiet. The only sound in the house comes from then. Despite her exhaustion, Riza feels an uneasiness building inside of her again. They all begin to search the house in earnest now, feet dragging, voices calling out for the younger Elric, but there is nothing but themselves. It’s too late for him to have gone out and it was too dangerous besides. The house was the safest place to stay due to all the protective enchantments surrounding it.

Riza steps outside into the backyard the moment Edward freezes. He’s standing unnaturally still, like he’s ready to pitch forward over a cliff even though he’s standing on flat ground. The small garden that Alphonse tends to carefully is in front of him. His face is milky white and his eyes are wide with fear. She’s never seen him look so openly afraid before, not even when Roy almost lost control just an hour ago. When Riza reaches him, she sees what stopped Edward cold and her mind comes to a screeching halt.

Alphonse’s wheelchair, turned over and still, trampling the garden.

Having noticed their absence from inside the house, Roy walks up to them. “What are you--?” He also freezes when he spots the wheelchair. Winry gasps, having appeared after him, and presses both of her hands to her mouth. It’s one thing to know that innocent people are being involved in the War; it’s another to know that specific person, to care for them, to love them.

Besides this War, Alphonse is all that Edward has.

Slowly, Roy bends down and picks up a piece of paper that Riza didn’t notice lying on the wheelchair. She was too busy staring at the object. It looks wrong unoccupied by Alphonse, like it doesn’t belong. Whatever is on the paper causes Roy’s eyes to narrow and he nearly burns it in his hands. Instead he thrusts it out in disgust and she takes it from him, watching as he stalks away to the corner under a tree, one hand worrying at the bottom of his face as the other clenches and unclenches in barely checked rage.

Riza glances down at the paper and feels her blood turn to ice in her veins.

Return what is mine and I will return what is yours.

It doesn’t take a genius to immediately who this note is from and what it means. A ransom note from Assassin’s mysterious Master, Father: Roy in exchange for Alphonse.

Edward snatches the paper out of her hands, staring down at it like it will tell him exactly where Alphonse is. When Winry moves to comfort him, he shrugs away from her, throws the note to the ground, and storms inside. It’s his brother. Edward thought he would do anything to win this War, but allow his brother to come to harm or be sacrificed…

It’s too much. This War asks too much of them all.

Riza glances at Roy. She thought she knew what he was capable of. She isn’t so sure after tonight. Winry takes her hand and Riza looks down at her, trying to appear reassuring but knowing that nothing she can say or do right now will be of use. The helpless look on Winry’s face almost causes her to buckle. She thinks of how she almost shot Roy, how she helped kill Berserker, of the empty wheelchair. She isn’t sure of what she’s capable of anymore.

Chapter Text

The second Mustang walks into the house, Ed bears down on him. He doesn’t think, doesn’t even realize what he’s doing, until he’s right in front of Mustang. The indifferent expression on the Servant’s face only infuriates him more. Why isn’t Mustang more concerned? More upset? More furious? Honestly, there are so many conflicting emotions and thoughts flying through Ed’s mind that he can’t get any words out and all Mustang stares down at him, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Underneath his cold eyes are dark circles, indicating just what Mustang has gone through tonight, but Ed doesn’t give a damn. He himself feels like he’s been through the ringer, almost just as exhausted as he’d felt the day after he’d come to when Mustang had shared his mana with him. Ed doesn’t care. There is only one thing on his mind right now: Al. Everything else takes a back seat to his little brother.

I’ll save you, Al. I promise.

None of this is worth it without his brother. None of it means a damn thing at all.

Without saying anything, Mustang sweeps past him and heads towards the bedrooms. A powerful rage builds inside of Ed, filling him to the brim, and he rounds on him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To bed,” Mustang replies without stopping. There is nothing in his voice. No emotion, no inflection. Nothing.

It sends Ed reeling, nearly knocking him off his feet. “To bed ? That’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

There is absolutely nothing in Mustang’s voice. Ed doesn’t even know how that’s possible, especially right now, but there’s nothing and he doesn’t know what to do. His brother is gone. They’re in the middle of a war. He witnessed a Holy Spirit almost lose everything in him that made him good. Ed clenches and unclenches his fist. He wants to fight someone, but the only person in front of him in a mage stronger than him, even though they’ve both been significantly weakened after tonight.

“Al is gone,” Ed snaps.

At this, Mustang pauses, but he doesn’t turn around to face Ed. “I know.” Again, flat tone, completely emotionless. It nearly sends Ed into a fit.

“He’s been kidnapped .”

Mustang rears on him and finally there is heat in his eyes. It both relieves Ed and startles him into taking a step back from how hot it is. “I know .”

Ed flaps his arms uselessly in the air. “We can’t just--”

“Can’t just what?” The finality in Mustang’s voice is shocking, but it’s no longer cold. He takes a step closer and Ed, despite himself, takes another step back. It pisses him off. “What would you have me do? What do you need from me? What do you want?”

Ed knows what he wants. I want my brother back! But he can’t get the words out of his mouth. His throat constricts and he bites his tongue, glaring furiously at Mustang. It doesn’t matter. The older mage knows exactly what Ed wants, despite his bitter silence. He can feel his desires dragging them both down into a dark abyss, the same one that Mustang had been in earlier at the park. Ed knows -- he knows -- that he can’t fall victim to it, but it’s hard. Alphonse is gone . He wants his little brother back desperately.

“I want my brother,” Ed says. he knows it sounds so pitiful -- he knows that he sounds weak -- but he can’t help it. It’s the truth. It’s the barest bones of him. He can’t fight in this War without his brother at home. He can’t sacrifice parts of himself without it meaning anything.

The way Mustang peers at him, down the bridge of his nose, like he’s somehow superior to all of this, both infuriates Ed and makes him feel weak at the same time. He can see it now. The Flame Alchemist. The man in the Mage Wars that could silence the enemy with a single look. Ed never wanted to admit it before, but after tonight, he can see just exactly why so many history textbooks noted that people feared this man. He could silence people with a single look, make them gasp with a raise of his hand, cause them to quiver with a twist of his lips.

Ed doesn’t want to admit it, but the truth is this: maybe he raised up a monster for this War.

“What do you want me to do?” Mustang repeats, quieter this time.

“I want--” Ed runs his fingers through his hair and then pulls at it. “I want you to do something .”

“What?” Mustang demands, bearing down on him. “What is it that you want me to do?”

Ed knows. His mind flickers back to the park. Mustang. Horrible, fierce, terrifying, cold. He was ready to destroy everything. He could have obliterated Assassin, Rider, and Rider’s Master if Ed had let him. If Ed hadn’t used one of his Command Seals. His hand feels a little empty now, especially with the weight of his brother’s disappearance sitting on his shoulders.

“I can get you your brother back,” Mustang tells him flatly, “but it will be at a cost I don’t think you can pay.” His words cause a fire to burn in Ed, but it dies down the second he realizes that Mustang is right. For however much of a bastard that this man is, he knows what he’s talking about. After all, he’s been in the position of bargaining his soul before, hasn’t he? “I’m tired. I’m broken.” He waves his still-bandaged hands in the air. “We’re both running low on mana.”

Ed’s hands slid from his hair to his face. “I know, I know.”

“But I can do what you want,” Mustang continues, his voice low yet feverous. Desperate even. He wants to fight. He wants to throw caution to the wind -- he wants to find Al -- but he can’t. Not without Ed’s permission, not without a lack of control. “I can still fight. But you stopped me before. Are you so willing to break that now?”

What would it feel like to allow Caster to just let loose? Could Ed bear that weight as well? Mustang seems willing to do it, but then, he’s buried himself with his sins. Ed doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if he can do that and he feels ashamed. It’s what Al would want and yet Ed still feels like he’s letting him down. How much do morals mean in the end when it comes to a War like this?

And yet Ed bites his lip and he says nothing.

Mustang takes a breath and steps back. “I didn’t think so.” He sounds almost relieved. Ed hates him for it. Mustang moves to walk away and then pauses again. “There is another option.”

Ed turns his head away, shame filling him even further. “No.”

“Are you sure?” Mustang asks, eyeing him out of the corner of his eyes.

“No,” Ed repeats, closing his eyes, willing Al to forgive him from wherever he is. “I can’t.”

At least Mustang doesn’t say anything scathing this time. Ed doesn’t know if he would be able to handle it. This is his little brother. He should be able to give up anything for him -- do anything for him -- and yet here he is, hesitating over the simplest of things. He stands there, silent and defeated, as Mustang spares him one last glance and then disappears down the hallway. Only when the older mage is gone does Ed’s head drop against his chest.

Probably sensing him falling into despair -- she’s so intuned with the emotions in the air -- Winry steps over to him and lays a hand on his arm. “Ed…”

But he doesn’t want her comfort. He doesn’t want her pity or her grief. He wants to find his brother and he can’t. He’s too weak. He has the strongest Servant in the Holy Grail War and neither of them are strong enough to save an innocent boy. He brought this on them. Al warned him, but Ed refused to listen. He wanted to be in the Holy Grail War -- he would be in the War -- and now the consequences were upon them and Al was the one to take the brunt of them.

Ed smacks her hand away and jerks his head up to glare at him. “Where’s your granny, huh? She was supposed to be here! She was supposed to watch over him while we were gone!”

“I--” Winry blinks, tears in her eyes, visibly upset over the whole thing. “She just got back. He sent her to the store. He wanted herbs to help--”

“She should have stayed!” Ed shouts. “Instead she left him alone and they took him!”

Winry stumbles backwards away from him, stung by his words, but instead of yelling back at him like she always did before, she bites a trembling lip and stares at him with wide, wet eyes. Guilt seeps further into his bones. He’s looking back at her, willing her to yell at him, remind him of why he’s in a Master in this War, tell him that they’ll get him back -- they’ll save his brother -- point out that he’s being stupid and a jerk. But she doesn’t say anything. Instead she wipes her eyes and leaves the room.

The emptiness and silence nearly swallows him whole. All Ed wants to do is scream, but he can’t even do that, not with how hollow he feels.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. They are supposed to be together. This is Ed’s fight, not Al’s. Why did they drag him into this? It isn’t right.

And yet Ed can’t just give up Caster either. It’s the simplest and easiest solution, but he can’t do it. He won’t. Maybe he’s more selfish than he realized. Maybe he isn’t as good as he thought.

Return what is mine and I’ll return what is yours.

Ed collapses against a wall and sinks to the ground, pulling his legs up against his chest and burying his face in his hands. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know if there’s anything he can do. Mustang was right. They’re both broken and tired and he feels like he’s falling into a hole that he can’t crawl out of.

(He wishes his mom was here.)

*

Olivier can’t help but eye the door to the basement out of the corner of her eyes. This castle is huge and old, a relic in itself, hidden away in the forest so that it’s lost in time. The spells surrounding it have kept it out of the prying eyes of enemies and bystanders for centuries, turning it into a myth. Father does not look like an incredibly old man, but she has a feeling that he has been around for a lot longer than he looks. This place has been his fortress for a long time.

She isn’t surprised that a place like this has a dungeon below, but it does make her wary. She must be careful now that she’s in the belly of the beast or there’s a chance that she too will be shackled. She would not put it past Father. Just because they’re partners now does not mean that she trusts him in the slightest. This is a War. There can only be one winner. If he thinks turning on her will give him an advantage, he’ll do it, just as he knows the same of her, no matter what she has done to prove her commitment to their partnership.

“Olivier…”

She tries not to groan when she hears her Servant calling her name from behind her. Despite telling him not to materialize unless he was needed, without the use of a Command Seal, he could ignore her order if he wanted. For the most part, he listens to her well and she hasn’t had to use one while ordering him, but he’s grown restless since they arrived at the castle. He doesn’t like it here or maybe it has to do with Assassin. The little boy turned Servant is very unsettling.

“What do you want, Rider?” Olivier demands, turning her gaze away from the door and onto him.

Rider looks very uneasy. It’s a strange look on a man as tall and muscular as him. Someone like him looks as if they shouldn’t be afraid or bothered by anything, but Rider is...emotional. It’s driven her up a wall more times than she can count on both hands. She did not expect him to be so open with how he feels all the time. Had he never been told to keep things to himself? She stabbed him the time he tried to hug her.

When he doesn’t say anything, just continues to gaze at her and squirm in an uncomfortable manner, Olivier snaps, “Well?”

“I do not agree with this,” Rider finally says.

Olivier huffs and turns away from him. “You said that before and my response is still the same. I don’t care.”

“This isn’t right,” Rider continues.

“There is no right or wrong here,” Olivier points out. “This is war . We do what we must to win.”

“But he’s a child!” Rider explodes, looking ready to cry. She really might use a Command Seal on him if he bursts into tears. “He’s an innocent bystander and has nothing to do with this!”

“Oh, he’s involved,” Olivier counters. “Living under a roof with two Masters and Servants. He even admitted to helping his brother perform the summoning ritual and using his own magic to counteract Saber’s attack on Caster.” She waved a dismissive hand in the air. “I’d hardly call that the actions of a bystander.”

“He’s a child,” Rider repeats, quieter this time but no less emotional.

When she peers at him out of the corner of her eyes, she can see just how distraught he is, trembling under the weight of what they’d done. He had promised to fight to the death for her in this war -- he had promised to take on whatever impossible task to win -- but he was not meant for subterfuge or cold, underhanded tactics. It had devastated him to stay out of the horrific mess that Berserker was causing, his heart so pure and good, but it was pointless to get involved when it had nothing to do with them.

“People are dying!” Rider cried out.

“That’s what people do in war,” Olivier told him.

She’s not quite sure he’s forgiven her for that. Ever since then, he has been more distant with her, staying in his incorporeal form most of the time when she doesn’t need him. It put her in a foul mood. Strange, him giving her exactly what she wanted and then her feeling like something was wrong. Like there was something missing. She squashed that feeling as quickly as it rose inside of her. She can’t afford to be soft. She knew when the Command Signals appeared on her hand that a part of her would be lost. She was willing to give it up.

She refuses to admit that hole that is left in its place stings.

“Having second doubts, Rider?”

The shadows in the corner seem to shimmer before a young boy appears. Assassin. Olivier does her best not to make a move, but Rider noticeably stiffens, causing a smirk to stretch across other Servant’s face. It should be impossible for someone that appears so innocent to look so demented and yet he does it with ease. She doesn’t look at him directly on, but keeps an eye on him.

“My Master and I are committed to this War,” Rider replies firmly, though it’s not much of an answer. Honestly, it’s almost comical to see the two of them standing next to each other. Olivier knows how large Rider is, but he’s downright monstrous-looking when compared to Assassin. However, the two of them know just how deadly this small Servant is. He truly is a monster. Even Berserker was just playing at one compared to Assassin. What was this boy in his old life?

The smirk slides away from Assassin’s face, replaced with a careless one as he shrugs and walks further into the light of the room. “No need to be ashamed, Rider,” he says. “The Holy Grail War isn’t for everyone, even some Heroic Spirits that are summoned.”

“Are you saying that we aren’t good enough?” Olivier questions, still not looking at him right on. There is only a slight edge in her tone, not the full force that she’s used to giving. She knows that there is a delicate balance when it comes to dealing with Assassin. He’s not sensitive like Rider, but he remembers everything and is completely callous in his retributions. The gold-toothed Master stays far away from him these days, though none of them know why.

“Of course not,” Assassin replies almost innocently. “I’m saying that you might be too good.” He jumps on top of the table instead of one of the chairs, his feet swinging in the air. Like an actual child. He’s good at this -- it’s very disarming -- but she knows better than to trust him with even a millimeter. “The Holy Grail is not some pure and lovely artifact though. It digs into the very soul of a person in order to give them what they want and it knows what it wants as well.” When he smiles again, it’s not childlike; it’s cold and sharp. “And people are very rarely good. The Holy Grail is like that in a way.”

Rider frowns. “So the Holy Grail is not good?”

“No, but it’s not bad either,” Assassin says, “and that can cause...issues for some people. What a person imagines they want might not be the same thing when it comes to reality.” He turns his dark eyes on Olivier and only then does she look at him directly. “Why do you want to win the War?”

Olivier folds her arms across her chest and leans back in her seat. “Well, if what you’re saying is true, then I suppose I’ll only find out when I win and the Holy Grail shows me.”

Instead of getting mad, Assassin laughs and kicks his feet in the air. “Very good!” He peers up at Rider, an amused gleam in his eyes. Still, they manage to look cold. “And what about you? I suppose you think to do good. Protect the innocent, bring peace, stop wars, save the world, and the like. All you heroes are the same.” Before Rider can even protest, Assassin waves a finger in the air and slowly points it towards the basement door. “Hard to be a good person when you’re doing things in the dark.”

“I did not kidnap the boy,” Rider grumbles, looking away in shame. Weak.

Assassin tsks. “Do not fool yourself. You knew the plan and you helped anyways. You’re complicit.” The amused look dies in his eyes as they sharpen into a glare. It makes Rider grunt in discomfort. “You would be wise not to act as if you’re better because you are ‘good’. As far as the Holy Grail would be concerned, you are just as bad as me. It is best that you learn that and accept it if you do win or what you get might not be what you wanted.”

The two Servants fall into an uncomfortable silence. She can tell that Rider wants to leave but to vanish would admit some sort of defeat and he won’t do it. And so they sit, waiting on Father to return from the basement, all eyes on the door. Olivier clenches her hands into fists. They will do whatever it takes to win. She swore it, even if it means doing unsavory things, even if it means losing herself if only for a moment. After all, if Assassin is right, then even the younger Elric boy downstairs is no innocent and it shouldn’t bother her.

This is War and she will not lose.

*

Ling knows that something is wrong when he catches May nudging her food around the bowl with disinterest. She’s staring down at the rice, but he can tell that she’s not really seeing it. There’s a lost look in his eyes that he’s very familiar with. Despite the fact that she should be starving, her mind is elsewhere. This last battle took a lot out of them, so that even a day later they’re recovering. For some, it meant sleeping for half a day; for them, it meant a lot of eating.

But she’s not the slightest bit interested.

Pushing his own empty bowl to the side, Ling leans down over the table and lays his chin on his crossed arms, peering at her with open, curious eyes. “You going to eat that?”

May starts and glances up at him. “What?” When his eyes flicker to the bowl, she looks down at it, as if seeing it for the first time even though she was gazing at it moments ago. He knows that she thinks he’s food-obsessed (which, to be fair, he is), but usually that gets on her nerves and perks her up. “Oh, no, I don’t think so.” She shoves it over to him without a second thought and looks back at the view of the city through the window.

Now he knows something is really wrong.

Instead of devouring the food, Ling straightens up and pushes it back to her. “You’re distracted.”

May makes a noncommittal sound, but doesn’t look back at him. She seems...sad. He doesn’t like it -- and he definitely doesn’t like the way he doesn’t like it. Caring about how someone feels has never been a strong point of his and he certainly wasn’t planning on being concerned over a little girl and yet here he is, openly worrying over the fact that she isn’t eating.

Hell, when did he become so soft? Lan Fan would’ve been stunned and asked him if he was feeling well.

He used to be good at hiding how he felt. Now it feels like his concern is bursting at the seams. His mind falls back to last night when Caster nearly let loose with all his strength. Nothing could penetrate or hurt him through his Noble Phantasm, but even he could still feel the extraordinary heat of Caster’s flames. It made him feel like a clay pot in a fiery stove as he covered May with his entire body.

Though Ling didn’t say a word, it was the first actual moment he felt afraid in this War. Even during and after his first fight with Saber and his attack on May, he didn’t feel fear like that. It wasn’t a cold chill; it was a hot flash of fear that shocked him to his core. He was afraid -- and it was for a little girl that was his Master. When did that happen? The fact that she can very well die if he does not protect her sat in his mind all night and day, causing him to feel paranoid and twitchy.

He definitely doesn’t like this.

The old him, before he came an emperor, would’ve called him weak. He’s not sure what it makes him now that he’s no longer truly human. It’s ironic that he has achieved one of the very things he sought out for when he was alive -- ultimate magical power beyond any human’s dreams -- and it isn’t even the most important thing to him anymore. He doesn’t even think about it much. This War is very confusing.

“Ling,” May says, still not looking at him, “you’re a hero, right?”

Not really knowing where she’s going or how to be serious, Ling perks up. “Well, that’s what they call me in the history books, don’t they? Although regular heroes aren’t this good-looking.” He knows that he’s deflecting and he knows that’s not what she means, but he also knows that she’s upset about something. He just wants her to smile or laugh. She’s so young; she deserves that, not all this death and fighting.

Feeling anxious over someone not smiling is annoying in itself.

May looks down at her hands, which she’s pulled into her lap. “Servants are also called Heroic Spirits. They’re people who have accomplished incredible feats, sometimes beyond the imagination, but…” There is such a sad look on her face. It’s more pitiful than anything else. It hits him when he sees her eyes: she’s heartbroken. He hasn’t seen that expression in a long time. “How can someone like Berserker be called a Heroic Spirit? It’s not right. How can you be put in the same category as Assassin, who is made of pure darkness, or a monster like Saber?”

“Ah.” Ling leans back in his seat and scratches the back of his head. “Heroic Spirits are Servants, but not all Servants are Heroic Spirits.”

“That doesn’t many any sense and you know it,” May shoots back, giving him a flat look.

“Do you doubt that I’m a hero?” Ling asks, not in the least bit hurt.

May startles. “No, of course not!” He doesn’t remind her that she asked him just moments ago. He believes her. A lot has been on her mind. This Holy Grail War is not for the faint of heart, but she has seen a lot that has made her question things that she never thought of before. “It’s just that…”

“Heroes aren’t always pure of heart,” Ling tells her as gently as he can. “They were human once and we all make mistakes and have our flaws. Even Heroic Spirits are made up of both light and dark parts.”

“But what about evil?” May questions. “You felt Assassin. It was like…” She shivers involuntarily. “It wasn’t like Berserker where you could feel how terrible he was. It was like there was nothing there -- nothing but darkness.”

Ling frowns and rubs his chin. “That was troublesome.”

Curling in on herself, May pulls her feet onto the chair and against her chest, wrapping her arms around them and hiding the bottom of her face on top of her knees. “I’m scared.”

He knows how hard it is for to admit that. She’s so young and yet she’s been through so much, more than she’ll ever be able to tell him. He sees it now.  This little mage has been fighting her entire life and likely always will -- unless she wins this War. So much is weighing down on her. It’s no wonder she has a block on her magic. She’s been struggling since day one. If he could just find a way to unlock that door for her, if he could figure out what she needed without the bloody Holy Grail…

“You shouldn’t be,” he tells her instead. “I’m here to protect you, aren’t I?”

“I trust you to protect me from the others,” May says, tilting her head down so that she can hide her eyes. It’s to keep him from seeing the tears that are building up in them, but he doesn’t comment on it. “But what about from myself? I’m scared that I’ll have to lose a part of myself to win this War. I’m scared that I’ll have to do something truly awful -- let or force you to do something terrible -- in order to make it.” She sniffs, stifling a cry. “Does that make me weak?”

“I think,” Ling replies, “it takes a strong person to choose a path that allows them to stay true to themselves, even if it doesn’t give them what they want.”

May lifts her head up and peers at him. “What would you do?”

Ling shakes his head and grins. “Don’t ask me. I’ll do almost anything for food.”

A small smile finds its way onto her face before she looks out the window. The grin on his face falls away. Of course, many textbooks noted on how powerful his greed was during his rise to emperor and how it only became worse afterwards. He doesn’t want to admit to some of the things he did that the history books didn’t remember. The idea of May’s vision of him being tainted shames him too much. Does that make him weak?

*

Riza finds Roy outside standing where they found Alphonse’s abandoned wheelchair the night before. He’s still and quiet, as he has been since his fight with Edward. A part of her is almost afraid to reach out to him, like he might snap at her like a wild animal if she gets too close. She can tell by the set of his shoulders that despite his careless demeanor he’s a volcano ready to blow. Edward might not be able to read Roy, but Riza can see right through his act.

It hurts her to see him this way, but she knows that there’s nothing she can do for either of them.

Neither one of them showed much of their faces throughout the day. Edward left the house and Roy… She’s not quite sure where he went. She wants to think that he followed Edward in his incorporeal form to keep an eye on him, especially after Alphonse’s kidnapping, but the rift between them is so painfully raw that he might’ve just put a tracker on him. Roy either followed him or stayed in his room all day, only appearing to get food. By the time Edward came back, dragging his feet in exhaustion, he could do little more than shuffle off to bed.

Both of them were acting like sullen children, but that was all they could do. Winry has been fretting over them all day. Edward brushed her off when he left that morning, not out of anger but pain. He’s not one to accept pity even though it’s actually comfort. Someone that is used to doing everything on their own has difficulty deciphering the difference between the two. Roy has been the same way for as long as she’s known him.

“Should we do something?” Winry asked her during dinner.

It shames Riza even now to admit to shaking her head. There’s nothing they can do. They could go on their own and try to find Alphonse, but Riza knows that they’re outmatched alone. As desperate as she is to bring Alphonse home safe and sound, doing anything will only get the both of them killed or captured as more bait. Whoever this Father is, Assassin’s Master, is a mage far greater than any of them can imagine. She knows without ever meeting him that only Roy will be able to compare to him and he’s still thoroughly worn down by the fight at the park.

When she finds him staring at the garden, his hands are in his pocket and she knows it’s to keep them from shaking. He hasn’t fully recovered from whatever Saber’s Noble Phantasm did to him.

“You should be resting,” Riza tells him once she’s standing at his side.

“I’m not tired,” Roy replies, though she knows it’s not true. What he really means is that he can’t sleep; his mind won’t let him. He’s always been restless, but he’s much worse when he feels guilty.

Riza looks at him, carefully examining him. There’s nothing to be seen on his face yet it tells a story nonetheless. He would be embarrassed to know that she can still read him so well. “We’ll get Alphonse back.”

Roy turns to face her with a blank look in his eyes. “Will we?”

“Of course,” Riza responds firmly. “You can’t think like that.”

“It’s all I can think about,” Roy says, looking down at the trodden garden. “I should have seen it coming after Assassin’s first attack. We got lazy. We became too relaxed. We came back here every time, expecting to rest, expecting nothing -- to be left alone -- when we’re at our most vulnerable here, even with the defenses.” He scowls. “We’re weak. In war, there is no safety, no place where we are untouched. I’d forgotten.”

“It’s not just on you,” Riza points out.

“It is on me!” Roy snaps.

He’s not mad at her -- he’s mad at himself -- so she doesn’t blink or falter at the fire in his eyes. He’s so angry when he’s ashamed. There’s little that can fix it. She wishes that she could, but there’s nothing she can do. She’s worthless here. Words of comfort have always meant so little to him. They’re just flowery lies. Still, she can’t help herself. She wants to believe that there is more that they can do.

“I was an idiot,” Roy says. “I thought it could be different this time -- that I could be different.”

Riza frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I thought...maybe…” He closes his eyes and takes a breath. “Maybe I could do some good. Maybe I could leave behind something great instead of bringing nothing but horror.” When he opens his eyes, he looks down at his hands, palms up. The bandages need fixed. She can tell that he did them himself and it was a clumsy attempt. What did Saber do to him? “But I cause nothing but pain in the end. Maybe I’m only capable of destruction.”

It’s his self-loathing again, piling down on him, and Riza feels both upset and frustrated by this. How can a man so incredible hate himself so much at times? A part of her wants to soothe him, as always, while another part of her wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. They don’t have the time for this -- and yet, there is nothing else they can do right now either. It’s a terrible situation. Immobile and recuperating, too weak to fight back yet.

She forgot how helpless war could feel.

Instead of fighting him on this, Riza puts a hand on his arm, forcing him to look at her. “Fire isn’t only meant for destruction. It gives life too and brings light in dark times.”

“I don’t know if I can do that anymore,” Roy says hopelessly.

“Well, I know you can,” Riza tells him. “You weren’t given this gift only to cause ruin and you weren’t brought back in this War to only bring suffering. That’s not who you are.”

A small smile appears on Roy’s face. It’s filled with misery and yet she can see a sliver of hope in it. He wants to believe her -- he wants to be all the things she thinks he is -- but no one ever mentions how hard you have to fight in order to be what you want. She knows that there is darkness in his heart -- that is something she can no longer avoid, especially after what happened with Berserker and his Master -- but she has seen the light in it too and it is so blinding when he accepts it himself.

“I still brought this on them,” Roy sighs. “If not for me…”

“Did you summon yourself into this War?” Riza questions. “You cannot blame yourself for the actions of others. All you can do is react and do something about them. All this self-pity… It will do nothing but drown you.”

“What can we do though? Is there anything we can do?” Roy stares up at the few stars that can be seen in between the clouds drifting through the night sky. “I’m not finding many options.”

“We’ll figure something out. You’ll figure something out.” Riza smiles at him. “I trust you still.”

When Roy chuckles, there’s little humor in it, but she tries to take comfort in the response anyways. “I’m glad someone does.” He turns to face her, a softer expression on his face. It puts her at ease -- and then she tenses up again when he raises a hand to take a strand of her hair behind her ear and cup the side of her face. “Get some rest, Riza. We’re going to need it.”

Her heart aches, but she nods her head and walks back inside, her cheek burning from where he’d touched her. It’s going to be another long night, but she feels a little lighter.

*

The moon is high in the sky, almost full, casting an unearthly glow over the silent castle through the open space of trees surrounding it. One might call it beautiful as long as they didn’t know the evil lurking inside of it. Out of all the places he’s been, this castle feels like home the most to him. Strange since the concept of home felt so foreign to him before, but he can at least say this place doesn’t disagree with him. The shadows are practically molded to him, every nook and cranny like a space carved out just for him.

It’s perhaps for this reason why his Master fighting to take control of another Servant doesn’t bother him as much as it should. Honestly, not being enough for his Master should wound his pride, but he’s not about to let a man’s greedy whims get the best of him. Even if Father is one of the strongest mages that he’s ever seen, he’s still nothing but a man. They all have their weaknesses. He knows that Father would be the same way with any other Heroic Spirit. The problem does not lie with him.

Assassin knows that he is a power to be feared and reckoned with. It took Archer and Lancer combined to take out Berserker. He would have ended it much longer before had he cared an inch.

Everyone in the castle is resting with the exception of the Servants, but Assassin is alone like he prefers. When he was called to fight in the Holy Grail War, he did not expect to have a Master that was so open to working with others, especially considering the type of man he was. He wanted it all and was not willing to share, something that the other two Masters did not seem to realize yet or concern themselves with. They should. Father’s greed was all-consuming and fatal.

The other Servants know better at least. Saber doesn’t care. Winning isn’t as important to him so much as the fight itself, which makes him easier to predict. Rider is another matter. He’s not meant for this place -- he’s much too good -- but his Master is made of a colder metal. The imbalance makes Assassin feel wary. Despite the Command Signals, there’s always a chance that Rider could go off course at the worst moment. Even a slight deviation during a tense time could cause problems.

Father doesn’t seem to think it’s an issue, but Assassin has seen many men fall because of arrogance and he knows better than to dismiss Rider’s Master. She’s absolutely brutal. Then again, she doesn’t appear to be one for partnerships either, which makes him question her motives. He’ll have to keep a close eye on them. For now, he will work with them for as long as Father deems it necessary, but he’ll be pleased to rid himself of them when the time comes.

The quiet left by nuisances’  absences is always so pleasant.

And then the feeling hits him -- a resounding beat in his head and a thump in his chest, enough to stop him in his tracks. For a few seconds, all he can do is stand still in shock at the top of one of the castle towers. Whatever peace he had is shattered. Because he knows within a second that he’s no longer alone and this… This is power that he has only felt twice before. It’s a little dimmer, but still there, simmering from below.

Assassin jerks around on his feet and vanishes from the tower into the darkness in a flash, only to reappear at the top of the stairs in front of the castle. He can barely stop his eyes from widening in surprise.

There, standing coolly at the foot of the stairs with his hands in his pockets, is Caster.

“It took you long enough to realize I was here,” Caster greets, his voice infuriatingly calm, almost amused.

Assassin seethes. He still hasn’t figured out a way around Caster hiding himself from everyone. It shouldn’t be possible, not from him, and yet it is. “I’m surprised. I thought you’d still be too weak to fight.”

Caster shrugs his shoulders. “Oh, I am, hence why I’m not here to fight.”

Suspicious, very suspicious. “Where’s that little Master of yours? Planning some sort of sneak attack using yourself as bait? I’m disappointed.”

“He’s not here,” Caster replies and this time there is a sharp edge to his voice. He looks cool as can be, but if Assassin peers at him carefully, there’s something hard underneath the exterior.

It strikes Assassin suddenly and he can’t stop himself from widening his eyes. In fact, he almost laughs, but he’s too surprised. “He doesn’t know you’re here, does he?” When Caster doesn’t respond, it’s all but confirmed. Assassin does laugh -- a child’s laugh, seemingly innocent. He knows what he looks like and it’s never bothered him. He rather enjoys being underestimated. “You’re a terrible Servant, Caster.”

“I’ve never been good at following orders,” Caster says. “Your Master should know that it wouldn’t be any different for him.”

“He knows how to make a stubborn dog heel,” Assassin replies with a smile.

Caster tilts his head curiously. “Like you?”

Assassin holds out his hands. “Not everyone requires a leash in order to know how to obey.”

A bark of laughter tumbles out of Caster. “You’re worse at obeying than me. Tell me, how many times have you slit the throat or stabbed the back of the person that was supposedly controlling you?”

“Eh, it works in my favor this time,” Assassin replies carelessly. Which is true. Assassin does not like being controlled and he never has -- men very rarely know how to wield power when they have it -- but Father knows what he is doing for the most part. It’s been almost pleasant to work under someone like him.

And when it no longer isn’t and Father is a loose end, he’ll cut that off too, just as he has always done. It makes things much easier in the end.

“Well, aren’t you going to invite me inside?” Caster asks. “Or did I get through all your defenses for nothing?”

“What do you want, Caster?” Assassin demands.

“To have a little chat, mage to mage,” Caster answers. “I miss being around someone on my level.”

“Tiring of the pipsqueak?”

Caster grins, but doesn’t give a response. Ah, it doesn’t matter anyways. Father knew that Caster would begin to grow restless under the control of someone as weak as the Elric boy. He’s a strong mage, for sure, but so young and inexperienced and good, much too good. Caster needs someone that will understand him on the deepest, darkest level, just as Father did with him. It’s good to be appreciated, but even better to be known and Caster has been hiding his true self even from himself.

Stepping aside, Assassin holds out a hand towards the door and Caster starts up the stairs, an unspoken truce built between them without either one of them speaking. Assassin won’t attack Caster unless Father orders it and Caster seems to know this, even though Caster is weak and could be taken out easily right now. It wouldn’t be nearly as fun if he did it that way.

Besides, Assassin knows how to be patient. All he has to do is wait in the dark.

Chapter Text

It takes Ed over two hours after waking to realize that Mustang is gone. He thought his Servant was just skulking somewhere in his incorporeal form to avoid any confrontation. Even after a night’s rest, they’re both far too weak to go toe to toe with a Master and Servant as strong as Assassin. It’s a testament to how good of a mage Mustang is to hide his disappearance for so long and yet it still infuriates Ed more than anything else.

His Servant abandoned him. Caster left him.

Ed stares down at his Command Seals. He could order Caster to return to the house immediately, but it feels petty and pointless, a waste of a very valuable commodity in this War. Perhaps he just needed out of the house and knew that talking with Ed about it would only cause a battle between them. Staying home is causing Ed to go stir crazy and it has only been one day. Every time he passes Al’s room, he stops to stare at the door, recounting the last time he saw his little brother and thinking about all the things he could’ve done differently. It’s beginning to drive him mad.

But somehow he knows that Caster didn’t just go out for a long walk. His suspicions are confirmed when Winry tells him that the defensive spells around the house are set at an all-time high to the point that they’re practically on the offensive. No, Caster left with something specific in mind. A destination. Intent.

That can only mean one thing: he went to see this Father character on his own.

“You don’t think Mustang betrayed you, do you?” Winry asks, eyes wide with anxiety. She casts a glance towards Hawkeye, who is staring out the window with an unreadable expression. Ed doesn’t need to be able to read her face though to know how she feels. It doesn’t matter if Mustang betrayed Ed or not. Mustang’s leaving feels like a betrayal to her. After all, it’s one thing for him to have hid it from Ed, but quite another to lie to her as well. She’s hurt and not showing it.

Ed is just pissed.

“He’s a piss poor excuse of a person,” Ed replies scathingly. To her credit, Hawkeye doesn’t look over at them, doesn’t even flinch. Maybe her train of thought isn’t that far off at the moment. She looks more like a statue than a person right now. Maybe she’s made more of steel than he originally believed. “I should’ve known better than to trust him.”

“He’s your Servant,” Winry points out.

“Do you think that matters to a man like Caster?” Ed counters.

He can’t help but think of Assassin’s question: How long before you tire of the boy, hm? Caster didn’t answer and Ed knew what his silence meant. He wanted out. He did not want to be tied down to some child mage. He probably thought Ed weak -- thought Ed was holding him back. It makes Ed clench his fists and want to punch something. He’s so tired of people questioning his strength and commitment because of his age. The Holy Grail chose him for a reason, damnit.

He refuses to feel pain over Caster’s desire to be free of him. They never should’ve gotten as friendly as they did. This is not a friendship or a partnership. Ed is the Master; Caster is the Servant. That’s that. They’re not like Winry and Hawkeye, whose relationship radiates warmth and comfort. It would be simple to remind Caster of that by using another Command Seal, but he doesn’t want to waste one. The fact that they’re still on the back of his hand means something. Caster might be gone, but he’s still Ed’s to use in this War.

*

Olivier doesn’t know what sort of game Caster is playing, but it is a dangerous one. Stupid as well, considering that he’s out here all on his own. It’s an affront, really, a Servant running his own gambit outside of his own Master during this Holy Grail War. He’s a means to an end, a tool, and yet he’s acting as if he is completely separate from the mage that brought him back into this realm. Edward Elric may be a child, but he is a Master in his own right and he is due the respect of his Servant as such.

To see Caster here now, lounging casually back in a chair across from her, an idle smirk on his face and a pompous air surrounding him, is not only a slight against the Elric boy but against all Masters in this War. There are no Command Seals on the back of his hands. He is not the ruler or in control. He is meant to be ordered and told what to do.

His lone presence is an act of defiance, a proclamation of his own war. It says, I am my own Master.

It is a foolish one. Caster has no idea who he is messing with. This...Father character is a mage more formidable than anyone she has ever encountered. She knows that there is no end to his greed and no line that he will not cross to get what he wants. Given the chance, Father will make Caster know what exactly he is. As much as she loathes this idiot, she knows that Caster in the hands of that man would be horrific.

She thinks of Caster the night before, half-mad with rage and fire yet so utterly cold. Olivier has never feared any man nor death, but that kind of monster is unnerving. Elric is a good Master for Caster. Father will only twist him even further.

Does Caster know? Does he care? Maybe it’s what he wants. He’s tired of being on a tight leash. Father will put him on one surely, but perhaps if he thinks it’s loose enough, he’ll take it.

A dangerous tightrope of a game indeed.

“No Rider?” Caster queries, like he’s an old friend of hers.

“He’s not needed at the moment,” Olivier responds flatly.

His slight smirk broadens. “Are you so confident in your abilities?” He rolls his shoulders, relaxing his body even further in the plush chair. “Alone in a room with a Servant without your own. You may be a powerful mage, but Servants are granted powers beyond mortals.”

“I can still kill you,” Olivier snaps.

“Of course,” Caster replies, his voice light as air.

He says nothing else, but she can hear a second part to his words. She could kill him, yes -- she has the ability and the strength -- but not before he could kill her. He is stronger than her and both of them know it. Magic runs through both of their veins, but he is practically a living embodiment of it now. If the legends about the Flame Alchemist are even half true, then who knows what he’s capable of now.

She thinks she knows. The world does not need that kind of power to exist.

Just who and what did Elric raise for his War? And what did Father want with him so badly?

The door behind them opens and Olivier turns her head to see Father step into the room, Assassin coming in behind him without making a sound. It galls her that she does not know the other Master’s true name, nor his Servant’s. Both have been lost in time. All she knows is that Father extraordinarily powerful and much older than he appears. He’s been alive for a very long time, which is unusual for a mage that has participated in more than one Holy Grail War.

Caster’s expression doesn’t change at all. He looks at Father with disinterest, like he’s bored with everyone in the room and this War. She thinks about that power bubbling underneath him again. If he was so inclined, he could probably wipe out everyone in this room. She wonders what’s holding back. If she had that kind of power, she would not hesitate to use it to win this War. Is the Command that Elric used the other night still swaying over him or is it something else?

Hesitation can be fatal, something that he cannot afford now. Tensions lays thick in the room, almost as dense and smothering as the incense burning on the table.

Father smiles in a, well, fatherly manner and holds out his hands. “You came to me on your own.”

“You took something that is mine,” Caster replies in a flat voice, clearly not swayed by Father’s demeanor. It’s a false one. Despite his name, Father does not a single parental bone in his body. He’s a completely cold man, void of nearly any emotion except the desire to win.

Still, Father’s smile does not falter. “The crippled boy? He’s barely anything, half a mage unable to fully be one without the family crests. I did not take you for sentimental, Caster.”

“It’s more a matter of principle,” Caster says. “You taking him says that I wasn’t strong enough to keep him safe. It makes me look weak. I have to rectify that.”

“Are you going to fight me?” Father questions. Behind him, Assassin sits down cross-legged on a pillow, like a child waiting to be read a story, and watches Caster with rapt attention, his eyes never once moving. It’s unsettling. Rider hates being in the room with the other Servant, but she refuses to budge. “Have your hands fully healed?”

Caster holds his hands up and only then does she noticed that they’re bandaged. He gazes down at them with mild irritation. “A funny thing, Saber’s Noble Phantasm. I didn’t notice the effects until that night. They’re enchanted as well, aren’t they?”

“Not only are they cursed to cause wounds to never seal, but they’re able to take on extra spellwork,” Father points out. “I made something specifically for you.”

“How generous,” Caster responds dryly.

“Its curse can only be lifted by his decision or his death.”

A cold grin splits across Caster’s face, his teeth bared like a wolf. “Where is he? I’d love to chat with him.”

“Away on an errand, I’m afraid,” Father replies without a care.

On his little cushion, Assassin playfully sways side-to-side. “You’re not the only one in this War. He’s off to get rid of the little Master.”

Did he mean the Elric boy? The Rockbell girl? Or Lancer’s surprisingly young Master? It seems as if this War is being run by children and it’s frustrating.

Whoever Assassin means doesn’t matter. It dents Caster’s armor. The grin doesn’t leave Caster’s face, but his eyes dart to the other Servant. Ice cold. Only men who have killed many people are capable of a look like this. All the books say that the Flame Alchemist was a hero in the Mage Wars. He almost single-handedly ended them. But no man that strong can accomplish so much and only be filled with good. No man can end a war without bloodshed. Even the best intentions can be paved with a bloody path and even the best men and women can leave those trails behind them.

For the first time, Olivier feels the weight of her decision to join Father and what she has done. It’s heavy and painful, but she bears it as she does everything else. She knew that she would have to get her hands dirty in this War; she can only hope that what she gains in the end will be worth it, if not balance things out.

“I want to see him,” Caster says in a final tone.

“Do you not trust us that the young half-mage is alive and well?” Father asks, as if genuinely hurt. She doesn’t think anything can hurt him beyond a sword through the heart.

“I don’t trust anyone.”

Assassin harrumphs -- a “tch” slipping out of his mouth -- but there is a hint of a smug look on his face. Caster ignores him this time. It doesn’t matter. Olivier knows that he’s lying. They all do. He may not trust them and he may not even trust his own Master, but there is one person in the history books that the Flame Alchemist trusted and she’s in this War as well.

The Hawk’s Eye. How incredible it was to find out that the famed archer was a woman .

“Now” -- Caster stands up -- “or I leave.”

“You think you’re capable of just walking out the door?” Assassin laughs.

“I simply walked in, did I not?” Caster counters.

The two Servants glare at one another, the room filling with rage and something else that Olivier can’t quite grasp. Darkness? She feels something awful and sick emitting from Assassin, while Caster radiates pure anger. Without his Master to temper him, she’s uncertain what he’ll do.

“Enough,” Father declares, his voice cutting through the tension like a sword. “I will take you to the boy.”

All at once, the energy vanishes from the room, like a blip on the radar, and the two Servants turn to face him, both of them void of whatever they were filled with before. Olivier is grateful that Rider is not here, though he was loathe to leave her alone. He can not hide his feelings like they do.

Father snaps his fingers and the other door, wooden and old, creaks open behind them likes the jaws of a demon and everyone in the room moves to look into it. There is nothing but darkness on the inside. Everything that seeps out from it causes Olivier to cringe on the inside. If she was a weaker person, she might have even screamed. It’s just a dungeon, but she knows that there is nothing but horror down there.

And a child. A child that she and Rider helped kidnap.

It will be worth it. The Holy Grail will be worth it all. And in the end, she will see to it that Father pays. That will have to be enough.

*

Al has never felt so weak in his life. It’s the magic. Something in these shackles on his wrists is sucking the energy out of him. Maybe his magic too? All he knows is that he couldn’t perform a single spell if it meant his life. Perhaps it does mean that, but the one time he tried to muster something to break free a pain so terrible seared through his veins. This is dark magic, terrible, awful, and it shouldn’t exist but it does.

He thinks of his father, his face so vague nowadays that he can only remember the man’s golden hair and eyes. Like Ed’s. He thinks his father wore glasses too -- he can’t remember exactly -- but he pictures them anyways. His father’s voice, deep and thoughtful, and his hand ruffling Al’s hair.

“Magic should only be used for good,” his father telling him and Ed. “Any other kind is not truly magic.”

Then what is it?

Darkness. Pain. That’s what it is. It’s an atrocity, a twisted affront to what it proclaims to be.

Al tries to shrink away from it, but there is nothing he can do. This terrible magic surrounds him, binds him, stifles him. He can do nothing but breathe it in and hope that it will pass through him. He stays quiet and still, more out of preservation than fear. His brother will find him. He’s never lacked faith in Ed, though his brother has much more hesitations about himself than he will admit.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been hidden away in this dungeon, but when light suddenly pierces the room, he’s forced to blink and look away. It burns his eyes, as if riding him of any lingering darkness. It’s so bright that he can barely hear the steps echoing on the stairs, but he forces himself to pay attention to every detail. Multiple people are coming down to see him.

No matter what, he can’t fight the fear that shoots through him now. He hides it as best as he can, but he has a habit of wearing his heart on his sleeve. Ed has always hid his fear with anger. Why can’t he be stronger like his big brother?

“You shackled his ankles?” an incredulous voice demands. It’s loud after being left in silence for so long, causing Al to wince. When he opens his eyes though, he’s stunned to see that it is Mustang peering at him through the bars of the cage, his eyes dark and intense like two black pools of ink. There is fury in those eyes too, not toward Al but at his captors.

An older man behind him, still partially hidden in shadows, replies, “We could not be too careful.”

“There is precaution and there is paranoia,” Mustang says in a cold voice that makes Al want to shiver, “and then there is cruelty.”

The entire time he has spoken, he’s not taken his eyes away Al. Every word that Al wants to say is stopped up in his throat, halted alone by the look in Mustang’s eyes. He doesn’t know what’s happening ( Where’s Brother? ), but he can’t get the words to come out of his mouth. Something tells him to stay silent, as he has been since he was taken by Rider and his Master. The old man, presumably another Master, came down to speak with him, but Al said nothing then either.

This may not be his War, but Al knows better than to presume that he will come out of this untouched.

“He’s not been harmed,” the old man, Assassin’s Master by default, declares.

Mustang says nothing in reply, just simply stares at Al.

Finally, Al works up the courage to talk. “Where is my brother?”

“Not here,” Mustang says in a simple but not unkind voice.

“Why?”

Here, Mustang’s lips quirk into a slight grin. It’s not a happy one nor proud. “I didn’t want him here.”

The statement hits Al like a train. Mustang...didn’t want Ed here? To save Al? Why not? Because it is too dangerous? Because it’s not his fault? Because...because Mustang does not like him? Al was wary of the Caster class. It was one thing to raise a Servant for this War, but another to raise a Servant that is like their own. Mages are peculiar and singular folk. They do not like being controlled. Ed is a testament to that fact. Al knew that having a mage under Ed’s control would be like trying to control fire.

Neither one of them knew that it would be so literal.

“I’m sorry,” Mustang suddenly says and Al is blown away again. He’s never seen the Heroic Spirit so open before. He is truly and deeply sorry. The pain on his face is almost too much to bear.

“It’s not your fault,” Al insists. “We knew that there would be dangers in this War.”

“He only entered it for you and I…” Mustang sighs. “I failed him. I failed you both.”

Al shakes his head. “You didn’t--”

Mustang reaches out through the bars and Al instinctively clasps his hands in his own as best as he can. The shackles limit his movement, but it’s enough. The shadows behind him seem to move, but then the older Master raises a hand and they stop. Mustang doesn’t react at all. He presses his forehead against the bars, breathes, and grasps his hands tighter.

“You were kind to me when many were too afraid to be so,” Mustang tells him.

Al knows that he’s not talking about now. The books on the Flame Alchemist are clear that people respected and feared him. It left little room for people to treat him as human. He isn’t one now -- he’s a Servant, a Heroic Spirit -- but Al could only see him as a man. The kind that teased his brother, that loved Hawkeye more than he could ever admit out loud, that grew temperamental when bested, and that was as protective as a parent.

“Your brother will never forgive me,” Mustang says, “but I would be grateful if you could tell him that I didn’t want it to end this way.”

Confusion flitters through Al for a brief moment, but he doesn’t have time to question it. While his brows are still furrowed, the shackles around his wrists and ankles glow white and then shatter. The light is so bright that it catches everyone off guard. The explosion of his shackles causes Al to fall backwards onto the bench, but then he is forced to cover his face as the wall next to him explodes.

“Assassin!” the old Master commands.

But then Mustang shouts something and there is a loud crackle and a resounding boom, a gust of wind knocking all of them back. When Al finally magages to open his eyes, a piercing cry fills the air, a red light glowing in front of him. Al’s eyes widen. No, it’s not a red light, but a phoenix. An actual phoenix made of red and gold -- made of fire -- beating its wings before him, It radiates fire, but when it nudges Al with its beak, he feels nothing but a gentle warmth.

“Go!” Mustang yells.

The phoenix moves to help Al clamber onto its back. All he can do is grasp onto its fiery feathers, unable to move his legs despite his brain’s desperate attempt to get them to work, but the phoenix does most of the work to help him, its body sliding under his. With one hand holding onto the phoenix, Al lets go and holds out a hand to Mustang, who reaches out to him--

And then the old Master digs a knife in Mustang’s back and he screams something terrible. The phoenix shrieks in protest, its light beating away the shadowy tendrils that try to wrap themselves around it. Mustang’s hand jerks away to press against the floor as he falls to his knees.

“Caster!” Al shouts desperate.

Mustang, gritting his teeth, sweating, and shaking, throws up a hand and roars, “GO!” and then the phoenix is rising, its wings beating furiously. Al has to wraps his arms around its neck to keep from falling off as it flies up into the sky, the cool air rushing against Al’s face. It almost knocks to breath out of him, the cold air a stark contrast of the hot body underneath him. He leans down and presses his face against the hot feathers as tears spill down his face, causing steam to appear whenever they land on the phoenix’s body.

Al chances a look back. There is a castle in the middle of a forest, growing darker as they fly away from it. He can no longer see the ground in which they burst from or the people inside. There is no time to feel any sort of relief though. Another roar echoes in the night, some sort of beast, and a zigzagging lightning strike shoots out of the sky, nearly hitting them, before piercing the ground.

What Al sees causes him to gasp, turn back to the phoenix that is carrying him, and cry out, “Faster!”

The phoenix shrieks hauntingly in response and dives down to accelerate, leaving a trail of fire behind it and Al to pray that it is faster that Rider.

*

The moment the knife digs into Mustang’s back, miles away, a lifetime away, in a quiet if not tense home, Ed drops a bowl of soup and collapses to the ground, screaming bloody murder.

Winry startles and knocks a glass of water over before rushing over to his side and shouting, “Riza! Grandma!” She falls to her knees next to him and places her hands on him, only to find that he’s hot. No, more than hot -- he’s practically on fire, like he’s burning up from the inside. This kind of heat can kill a person.

Heat. Fire. Caster.

It’s Caster. But why? What?

“Edward!” Winry shouts pleadingly. He doesn’t respond, only keeps screaming in pain like he’s being ripped at the seams or burned alive, maybe both. “Edward!”

As Riza and Pinako rush into the room, Winry thinks of every healing spell she can remember. Healing spells are a specialty in her family, have been for many generations. Her grandma taught her father and he made a life out of it alongside being a doctor and then she taught her granddaughter. Winry knows that she’s particularly adept at healing magic. Al knows more and would be better than her if he had magic family crests like she did.

It’s not enough.

“What’s wrong?” Riza demands, crouching down next to them.

“I don’t know,” Winry says in a panic. “He was just walking towards the kitchen and then he dropped and started screaming--”

Edward’s whole body convulses as he tears at his own chest with his fingers, hard enough to rip cloth and even tear into his skin, as if he’s trying to dig something out of him. Riza grabs his wrists to keep him from doing any more damage to himself, but he fights against her with unnatural strength. He’s no match for a Heroic Spirit, but he doesn’t stop trying as he kicks and flails wildly and screams incoherently. Winry’s sitting in a puddle of soup, but doesn’t even notice as she stares at him in horror.

“What’s wrong with him?” she cries. “What’s happening?”

Pinako stiffens when she sees something. “His Command Seals--”

Like it’s nothing, though Edward is jerking as hard as he can to escape her grip, Riza turns his hand over so that they can see the back of his hand. Winry gasps. They’re fading, as if slowly being erased. It’s not the simple fade that happens when a Command is used. No, they’re being scrubbed off, forcibly taken away from him.

“What’s Mustang doing?” Winry asks. “Why?”

Riza shakes her hand. “It’s not Roy’s doing.”

“How do you know that?” Winry questions. “He wanted out and we all know it. He left.”

The expression on Riza’s face, as she gazes down at Edward while he’s being ripped apart, leaves no room for arguing. “He wouldn’t do this if it meant causing Edward this much pain.” She sounds so firm in her conviction that Winry doesn’t even try. Instead she bites her lip and looks back at Edward. His face is contorted into something awful as tears stream down his face. “This is someone else’s doing. Someone that doesn’t care about hurting another to get what they want.”

It clicks in Winry’s head. “Father. The person who took Al.” She glances back at Riza. “But if this is his work, then Mustang must have gone to him. Do you think he made the deal for Al?”

This time, Riza doesn’t look so certain. “I don’t know.” She shakes her head again. “No, no, he wouldn’t. That would be like giving up and accepting defeat. He would never join someone that hurt Alphonse.”

“Not willingly perhaps,” Pinako points out.

The moment Winry and Riza turn to look at her, questions on their tongues, Edward goes silent and deathly still.

*

It’s pain unlike any other. Roy thought being stabbed by Saber’s twin Noble Phantasm swords had been painful, but that was nothing compared to this. The knife in his back is small all things considered, but sharp pains lance through his entire body. It’s cold, so cold, like his veins are turning into ice. He can’t stand up -- can barely hold himself up on his hands and knees -- and whatever dark magic in the knife tries to flatten him to the ground.

At first, he tries not to scream. And then he feels a resounding pain in his chest, an echo of someone else’s hurt, and there is an explosion of hurt in his head so strong that his vision doubles and he falls over onto his side. Screams echo through the chambers of the broken prison and he only barely registers that they are his own.

Most of the pain is his. Some of it is not.

Edward. It’s Edward’s.

Roy’s fingers dig so deep into his own palms that he draws blood. Some small part of his mind, a part that is used to pain and terror, tries to come up with some sort of blood spell that will get him out of this, but the rest of him feels like it’s being plunged into icy water and he can barely breathe, much less move his hands. His whole body begins to shake and the knife goes in deeper, relentless, unforgiving, demanding.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” a voice says somewhere around him. “I asked nicely.”

There is nothing nice about this. It feels as if he’s being torn away from his soul or it’s being ripped out of him. It feels like he’s being separated from his life, coming undone one stitch at a time. He bites his tongue to stop himself from screaming more, but only causes it to bleed, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth and spilling onto the stone floor.

“It is time you learned who your true Master is,” the voice tells him, “and win me this War.”

Roy tries to protest, shake his head, fight back, anything, but the ice freezes his tongue and a wave of foreign mana and magic overwhelms him. It’s different from Edward’s, whose mana is a beam of light. This is smothering, like a fog, and his vision darkens even as the pain refuses to let him go.

“If the boy is lucky, he’ll be dead before we find him. We can’t have any loose ends.” The words are terrible, but already Roy can feel the influence of this new mana demanding to be listened to. Not exactly a Command Seal, but close, like the words of a Master. “First, of course, we will have to disaway with Archer. Unfortunate, but necessary for our cause and to put out any remaining resistance you might consider.”

“No!” Roy manages to scream hoarsely.

The knife digs in impossibly deeper and seems to whisper, You are mine now.

No, he is Edward’s Servant. He is--

*

“Is he okay?” Winry asks from the doorway. After Edward stopped moving, Riza and Pinako rushed him to his bedroom and locked her out. Pinako was more equipped to handle the situation and Winry started to fly into a panic. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know if there was anything she could do.

Pinako sighs. “He’s breathing. Unconscious, but alive.”

Winry bites her lip. “His Command Seals…”

Both Riza and Pinako look away from her without answering, but Winry catches a glimpse of his hand lying on top of his barely moving chest. His bare hand. The two remaining Command Seals and smudged out third one that marked him as a Master in the Holy Grail War are gone, like they were never there in the first place.

“I don’t understand,” Winry says. “I thought you said the Holy Grail picks the Masters. It chose him.”

“I’ve heard tale of a weapon,” Pinako explains quietly. She takes her pipe out of her pocket and lights it up, but instead of taking a drag from it, she lets it hang in front of her as if she’s already forgotten it. “A dagger with the ability to break the bond between Servant and Master and transfer the Command Seals to another Master. This can be done willingly between Masters to no pain of the one giving them up, but severing the pact using the dagger by force would be devastating.”

Riza says nothing, her face perfectly blank, while Winry is unable to think of anything. She shivers at the thought of being severed from Riza. It’s not just because they’ve grown close. Their bond is warm, comforting, protective. She knows that she is safe as long as Riza is around.

“I didn’t think it was real,” Pinako continues. “I thought it was just a rumor.”

“Father wanted Roy -- he wanted Caster.” Riza looks out the window. “He must have somehow found this weapon and used Alphonse in an attempt to lure Roy out or convince Edward to give him up.”

Outside, the sun has started to stain the sky, pinks and yellows bleeding into the world, all reminding Winry of life, of hope, of goodness. It is dark in Ed’s room, the curtains pulled closed and the lights turned off, but he is ghostly pale. He would look dead if not for the fact that his chest is barely rising and falling.

“What do we do?” Winry asks. She can’t leave Edward behind, but she’ll be damned if she does nothing.

Before Riza can respond, she stiffens and steps closer to the window, her hands slamming down against the sill and her gaze hardening. She’s locked onto something that neither Winry nor Pinako can see yet. Riza’s knuckles turn white as her expression intensifies into hardened steel.

“Riza?” Winry queries.

There is an explosion of light and magic and then Riza is back in her armor. It’s absolutely glorious, glowing in the pale sunrise light. Her stunning bow of gold is held tight in her left hand. And her wearing it now can only mean one thing: a fight is imminent. There isn’t a question of what they can do or where they need to go. The battle is coming to them.

“Stay inside,” Riza orders flatly.

“But--”

Riza turns around and puts a hand on Winry’s shoulder. “I need you to do this for me. It’s hard for me to fight to my full extent when you’re so close to the battle. Stay inside, please.”

Winry wants to ask more questions, but instead she nods her head tightly. She knows that Riza is right. Her Heroic Spirit has been holding back. She’s stronger than she looks. Part of it has been their strategy -- to come off as weaker than they truly are until later on in the War -- but now is no time to be weak. Besides, with Ed completely unconscious, someone needs to stay inside and protect him. She and Pinako can do that while Riza takes care of whatever is coming.

With one more nod of her head, Riza runs down the hallway to the front door. Winry looks back out the window. A black speck has appeared in the rising sun, but as she squints to get a better look, she realizing that it is getting larger. It’s coming closer. And it’s heading directly for them.

*

“Wake up,” a voice commands and Roy’s eyes snap open.

Pain shoots through his entire body, but when he tries to move to figure out where it exactly it’s coming from, he finds that he can’t move at all. He’s lying flat on his back, the cold stone floor confirming that he is still in the dark prison that once confined Alphonse. He knows instinctively that if he can’t even move, he won’t be able to use magic, but he tries anyways.

And he is rewarded with the very unpleasant and horrible feeling of an invisible icicle being stabbed in his chest.

He gasps for air and his brain screams for his body to flail and fight, but it won’t move. He’s being held down by invisible threads of magic. He can still sense it at least, but being able to feel it and not do anything about it is also worst than the pain. Panic almost crowds out everything else in his mind, even rage. It has been a very long time since he has felt like this. Not since Riza’s throat was slashed in front of him and he was forced to watch her bleed out in front of him. Except this time he can’t scream.

“Still fighting it, I see,” the voice sighs in disappointment.

Roy’s eyes jerk over and lands on Father, Assassin’s Master. Disgust rolls inside of Roy -- he can practically smell the stench of the other mage’s magic coming off of him in waves, so much worse than that of Berserker’s now dead Master. This magic is old and smells like volcanic ash and something rotten, like death. He doubts that the man knows this, but he also knows that Father wouldn’t care if he did.

Winning this War isn’t enough for him. He wants it all. He wants to crush everything and everyone in his wake. Even Roy is just a neck for him to step on. He’s not as strong as Roy, of course, which is why he has to bury Roy under every chain imaginable.

“You must be in incredible pain,” Father says. “It will stop once you accept me as your Master.”

“Never,” Roy growls through gritted teeth.

“Then you will know more pain than you have ever felt before,” Father tells him, as if he’s just told Roy some unfortunate but not awful news.

Roy laughs, his voice echoing off the dark chamber walls. He laughs even as pain shoots like lightning through his body. He laughs as he feels he’s being plunged into ice again. He laughs as the icy knife digs around in his chest, like it’s cutting him off from life. He laughs as he feels like he’s dying.

More pain than he has ever felt? More than he has already known?

This Master knows nothing. He doesn’t know pain.

Roy swears through the horror that he’ll enlighten the other mage. He’ll sear that knowledge into his body and mind.

Chapter Text

Ling wakes up almost a second too late. He just barely manages to jump up and throw himself over his Master’s sleeping form before she is stabbed in the middle by Saber’s sword. However, because he was so focused on saving her, he didn’t haven’t the time to form his own Noble Phantasm over his skin to save himself. The sword pierces him in his side, going all the way through and into the bed.

For a brief moment, May’s eyes fly wide open and stare at into his, just only inches away. There is pure terror in those eyes and rage swells up in his own. This is the only place she has felt safe in years. He was able to pry out the truth of her homelife: how she lived in poverty near a border devastated by constant war, how even as the lowest daughter of her country’s emperor she was subjected to abuse and assassination attempts, how as that daughter her family sought to use her.

With him here now, with her Servant guarding her, she could sleep soundly.

And of course Saber had to ruin that.

When Saber jerks his sword out, growling in displeasure at having missed his intended target, Ling’s blood spills over the bed and blanket covering May. In the time it takes for Saber to retrieve his weapon, the ultimate shield covers Ling’s skin and he is able to twist around and wrap his hand around the sword.

“Too slow,” Ling snarls as he jerks on the sword and throws it and Saber with it through the window. The glass and wood shatters, falling to the ground, while Saber is more agile. He lands on his feet as glass rains down upon and around him and slices a piece of wood in half with the sharp edge of his sword before it can hit him. Ling jumps onto the broken window sill and glares down at him as his two swords appear in his hands.

“Ling?” May queries from behind him.

“Stay back,” Ling tells her. He can’t afford to have any distractions during this fight. Saber didn’t come here just to win -- he came here to kill -- and Ling isn’t about to let that happen.

With that, the fight is on. Saber rushes up to him in a flash, quicker than the blink of an eye, and Ling parries him as he leaps from the window and over him, landing on the ground. Saber is quick to change course without even stopping, jumping over the window and pushing off the side of the building so hard that the bricks under his feet crack. Ling could’ve ran, but he meets Saber’s attack head on instead.

Their swords become a blur as they slash, stab, and dodge one another. Saber is a better swordsman, as his title in this War suggests, forcing Ling on the defensive for most of their fight, but whenever he’s struck, Saber’s sword only scrapes against his ultimate shield. Despite being a Noble Phantasm, he can’t cut through Ling’s own and it begins to infuriate Saber.

A terrible grins cuts across Ling’s face. “Having fun yet?”

Saber doesn’t respond. He slashes hard at Ling, who is unable to dodge him in time, but he can only cut through Ling’s shirt, the sword scraping along his chest and causing sparks to fly as its sharp edge connects with his hardened skin. Ling takes advantage of Saber’s momentum and close proximity, slashing at him with his fingers turned claws instead of one of his swords. Unlike Saber, Ling’s attack connects with skin and blood spurts out of his arm from the gashes that Ling made.

Instead of swinging at him again, Saber kicks out and Ling, having grown used to not worrying about swords, is thrown at least thirty feet down a dead end alley until his back slams into the wall. It knocks the air out of his lungs and he is busy gasping for breath when Saber appears through the dust, his eyes glowing red and a black fog hanging over his swords.

Ling barely manages to duck and roll out of the way of Saber’s swords, which pierce the wall so forcefully that the brick explodes and rains down upon them. Holy hell, the Servant is fast in an ungodly manner.

“Why are you doing this?” Ling questions. “Did your Master command you to hunt down a little girl or do you enjoy it?”

Saber stands up ramrod straight, glaring furiously, like a statue made of ice. There is nothing but cold hatred emanating from him. Ling can sense things like that. He could always read people, but his abilities have been heightened as a Heroic Spirit. It is the kind of hate that can make a person shiver on a cold night when you feel that glare land on you. Luckily, Ling is made of harder stuff and so is May.

“A child,” Saber finally speaks, his voice filled with contempt. “You would listen to her? Were you not an emperor of half the world in your time? Have you fallen so low?”

“Have you?” Ling counters. “Taking orders from a man beneath your station -- a man who is clearly under the thumb of someone else?” He laughs, caustic and filled with no warmth. “It’s pathetic.”

They circle one another, the anger and hatred bubbling in the air between them. Ever since the moment they first ran into each other and fought, Ling has felt only disdain towards the other Servant. He’s not like Berserker, who was mad and depraved, or Assassin, who is pure darkness. No, Saber is something almost worst. He acts as if he is above the rest of humanity when he is one of them. He’s more of a sword, a weapon. It doesn’t fill him with joy but with purpose.

He’s no leader, no king, no emperor. He doesn’t care about the people below him.

“I will kill you and her,” Saber tells him, getting into a proper sword stance.

Ling drops his swords. He doesn’t need them. “ You will not touch her .”

*

Raising her bow, an arrow in the notch, Riza is ready for war. Even from this distance, where the black form against the sun is barely more than a speck, she knows that she could hit her target. She had impeccable aim when she was a mere human; as a Servant in this Holy Grail War, she is capable of unimaginable feats. She draws the arrow back, aims directly at the target, and--

She doesn’t let loose. Her eyes widen and she nearly drops the bow and arrow when she realizes just what exactly she is seeing. No, not what -- who. It’s Alphonse.

Impossibly, it’s him, clinging onto the neck of a firebird. She recognizes it as a phoenix and instinctively knows that it is Roy’s. He did this. Somehow, some way, he was not only able to find Alphonse, but save him. It’s an incredible sight, one that has Riza smiling, but then she realizes something was wrong and her heart sinks in her chest. It isn’t what she sees that bothers her; it’s what she doesn’t see. There is only one person riding the phoenix.

Where is Roy?

Even though she was told to stay back, Winry peeks her head out the window, probably having seen Riza’s strange behavior. “Riza, what is it?”

“Alphonse!” Riza calls back. “It’s Alphonse!”

Before Winry can rush outside in excitement, Riza holds out a hand to stop her. Something isn’t right. She can feel it in the air. The phoenix is close now, close enough to be seen by even Winry, but Riza isn’t about to be passive in this. She takes aim again and quickly releases an arrow. Winry chokes back a scream as the arrow flies directly at Alphonse and the phoenix, but then cuts herself off when the arrow flies past them and curves downward toward the ground in an arch. It’s impossible to see from here, but she knows that her arrow connects with something when it hits, light exploding above the houses.

“What are you doing?” Winry demands.

Riza’s heart is pounding as she notches another arrow. “He’s not alone.”

Winry pales. “Another Servant? It’s not Mustang?”

No, it’s not. It’s someone else and that someone is not on their side. She can see Alphonse’s frantic face now as he looks back at whoever is behind him. Stones shoot up at him like rockets and the phoenix twists out of the way just in time to avoid being hit, but Alphonse slips, unable to grip the bird’s body with his legs, and loses his hold around the its neck. His body is limp as it falls through the air. This time, Winry doesn’t hold back her scream as Riza runs at breakneck speed, hoping against hope that she can reach him. If not…

She doesn’t think about that possibility. She doesn’t have the time.

*

They have to get the fight out of the inner city. The number one rule of the Holy Grail War is that civilians aren’t to be involved. If they are, the church that runs the War will have to get involved -- unless the witnesses are silenced. The problem is that Ling is more careful about what he’s doing while Saber doesn’t care. He’ll kill anyone that stands in his way, including innocent bystanders, and May won’t tolerate that of Ling. He will either be expected to intervene or, even worse, she will do something about it.

His little Master has far too big of a heart. Why did she have to join this War? She’s too compassionate, too kind, too loving. She does not have the ability to allow her soul to be condemned in order to win. He won’t let it besides.

Ling slashes at Saber’s middle, missing by mere millimeters, and is then forced to black flip out of the way of a counterattack. He doesn’t even have time to recover before he has to duck and roll out of the way of another vicious swing from Saber’s sword, which cuts a street lamp pole in half. The metal comes crashing down, which Ling deftly leaps away from, but then Saber manages to kick one of the sparking wires his way. He’s unable to dodge it and the snapped electricity wire connects with his leg, shooting thousands of volts through his body.

He’s never been hit by something like this and his body spasms violently as heat scores through his body. His ultimate shield works against him, making him like a conduit for the electricity, and he’s blown off his feet. He skids across the ground, gasping for breath when he stops, and actually smoking a little. If he had been human, it would’ve killed him. As it stands, it only pisses him off that something so pathetically human actually managed to hurt him.

By the time he realizes that he’s grasping at actual skin on his leg instead of his shield, it’s too late.

Saber is upon him and he pierces Ling’s leg with one of his swords. The scream that tears out of Ling’s throat sounds more like an animal’s, so high and loud. He bats Saber’s other sword away with his hand, still encased in his shield, and kicks out with his free leg, hitting Saber’s jaw and sending him flying to the side. He grasps the sword with his hands and pulls as hard as he can, yowling as it goes through his skin. Blood bursts out of the wound once the sword is free and the shield goes over it again.

It looks as if he was never struck, but Ling can feel it -- the throbbing pain, the tear in his muscles, the damage. As a Heroic Spirit, he will heal quickly, but he still needs that time for it to heal. Still, he ignores the pain as he stands up fully and sharpens his claws. Anger boils in his blood. He’s furious at getting caught off guard, furious that he let Saber hit him, furious that Saber found them.

This was May’s only safe place and now it’s gone.

I’m going to tear Saber apart limb by limb.

*

Riza speeds through the streets, little more than a blur, and then jumps, one foot connecting with a wall to push off so that she can land on the roof of another building. Without stopping, she leaps from that roof to another until she is leaping houses in bounds. She barely breathes as she runs and keeps her eyes on the prize. With one last burst, she uses a chimney as a stand and jumps long and hard. With near perfect timing (or perhaps at the last second), Alphonse lands in her arms midair, solid weight but little more than a sack of flour for her. He gasps in shock, no doubt her armor still painful to land on, but it’s better than the ground.

When she lands, her feet skid on the street and they slide nearly ten feet before coming to a stop. Alphonse has his arms wrapped around her neck, his normally neat blonde hair windblown, his cheeks red and wet. However, what she notices the most is that his whole upper body is shaking. He must be exhausted, his muscles tense from holding on so tightly to the phoenix.

There is a piercing cry from above and Riza looks up just in time to see the phoenix shimmer and vanish into the sunrise, its purpose complete now that Alphonse is in safe hands.

“I d-didn’t think--” Alphonse’s voice is as shaky as he is. “He was f-fading and I-- Mustang, he--”

“Later,” Riza tells him, even if it’s not what she wishes. She wants to know everything -- she’s desperate to know, if she’s being honest -- but she doesn’t have the time and it’s not her place to know. As much as it pains her, Roy is not her true concern. Her sole focus needs to be on Winry, her place in the Holy Grail War, and the battle ahead. Because she knows one is coming. She can feel it. “Who’s chasing you?”

“Rider,” Alphonse replies. “He’s not super fast, considering, but what he lacks in speed, he… He makes up for it.”

A grim frown cuts across Riza’s face. She can’t fight Rider here, not with Alphonse in her arms and unable to escape on his own, but she doesn’t want to lead Rider to the house either. She has little choice in the matter. Her first priority is to get Alphonse to safety. Then she can lure the other Servant to safer grounds. It’s the only way.

A terrifying roar from behind causes Alphonse to jump in her arms. Riza doesn’t bother to look back, not wanting to waste the time, and instead rushes back to the house at breakneck speed. She can hear trees breaking and falling behind her as whatever Rider is on crashes through them, far too close for comfort. He might not be fast, but he’s certainly quicker than she is on foot.

It takes too much energy for her to reach the house whereas Rider has saved his for the fight, but she knows where she’s going and that gives her a small advantage. When the house comes into view, she sees Winry standing in the doorway, waving a hand, but then the girl freezes, eyes wide with shock, as she sees whatever is behind Riza. Still, even then, she doesn’t look back. Because she knows something that Rider and his Master don’t. Riza is able to cross the line of defensive spells without any issues. Rider will not have the same luck.

She spins around so quick that dust blows up around her heels. What bursts out into the clearing has her tensing in surprise and even Alphonse gasps. Out of all the things Riza was expecting to be chasing them, Rider sitting upon a massive armored polar bear is not one of them.

The beast is beautiful, its armor gleaming in the moonlight and carved with spells that match Rider’s metal gauntlets, its white fur shining like snow. If she didn’t notice the sharp teeth and deadly claws sticking out of its large paws, she might have even loved it. When the bear comes to a stop, it lets out a mighty roar that makes the trees around them tremble.

Atop of the polar bear sits Rider in glowing silver armor that matches the bear’s. “Archer!” he booms. “Hand over the boy and I will spare you this once!”

“If you want him,” Riza responds, “come and claim him!”

Rider guffaws mightily and then sets his bear to charge forward. Despite the ground shaking underneath her feet and the large monster of a beast roaring ferociously, Riza stands her ground. The second Rider’s beast touches the edge of the defensive spells, a nasty red shock of magic explodes, electrocuting both Servant and animal. The two of them roar as one, frozen on the spot as the spell finishes its assault.

“Take him,” Riza urges Winry and Pinako as she hands Alphonse over to them. Winry gives her a worried look before she turns around and they carry him back into the house. By the time Riza returns her attention back to Rider, the spell is over and he is left smoldering in its wake. Roy had strengthened them alongside of Pinako last night to go on the offensive should someone unwanted cross. He must have done it knowing that he was going to leave them to find Alphonse on his own.

Where is he? She tries not to think about it -- she can’t waste getting distracted -- but it’s hard. Roy wouldn’t have let someone chase after Alphonse… Unless he isn’t capable of fighting back. Was he captured while freeing Alphonse? Was he killed or injured?

No, she can’t think about it, not with Rider’s bear slowly standing up again.

Rider works his jaw. “Very clever, Archer, but such a thing cannot keep us down.”

Snapping the reigns, Rider forces the bear to charge forward. It roars again as it runs, smoke still coming off of its now patchy fur. Riza runs directly at it, despite the animal being massive. Right before it can take a bite out of her or swipe one of its large paws, she drops to her knees and bends backwards, sliding underneath the bear’s stomach between its legs. She’s so close that its soft fur brushes against her face before she’s free and jumps back into a standing position. The bear, strong as it may be, is too large and cumbersome to turn around quickly, which she takes advantage of.

When she pulls an arrow back, it turns from looking normal to glowing until it is white hot and then she lets loose, a beam of light cutting through the air instead of an arrow. Rider tries to block it from hitting his bear, using one of his metal gauntlets as a shield, but then the light hits him, it splinters around him into a hundred thinner beams of light, like sparks hitting the ground, and pierces both the bear and Rider’s legs. Unlike arrows, the strings of light don’t stay stuck, but they burn something terrible.

Rider pounds his chest repeatedly, as if beating the pain out of him, and then leaps off his bear. When his feet hit the concrete, he creates a crater and a shockwave blows through the air. He fondly places a hand on the bear’s snout, as if telling it that it has done a good job, and then turns back to face her, raising his fists and bending his legs into a fighting stance.

Riza knocks another arrow back. She can’t fight Rider head on, so she’ll have to be creative. One hit will send her reeling. So she can’t let him get a single hit in.

*

Ling was exhausted, but he was not going to give up.

After finding out his weak spot with electricity, Saber has done his best to exploit it more throughout their fight and Ling has done what he can to avoid it. All in all, he is hit two more times, a fact that burns through him also hotter than the electricity itself. He manages to get a few more digs into Saber as well. The two of them are left breathing heavily, glowering, and bleeding as the dust settles around them.

“Tired, old man?” Ling taunts. He’s bleeding from a cut on his cheek, the other wounds hidden underneath his hardened charcoal-colored skin, while blood drips down Saber’s wrist and hand to fall on the ground. His torn up shirt is no longer simply white, red blossoming all over his chest and arm from the blood leaking out of the gashes Ling gave him.

Saber doesn’t give in to the taunts, staring back with those dead angry eyes of his. When he lifts his swords up to make an “x” in front of himself, the two twin blades begin to glow a furious black and purple aura, reminding Ling of a bruise and a gaping hole. Saber throws them back and the fog explodes all around him, covering his body as if engulfing him in flames, his eyes shining red like a demon’s.

And then he’s suddenly there, right in front of Ling, in less than a blink of the eye. Ling throws his arms up to block the swords, which slam down on his forearms so hard that the concrete shatters underneath his feet. The next swing he leaps away from, but Saber flies at him in a flurry that he’s not even a blur. It’s like he’s not even there at all, even though Ling can feel every scrape of his swords against his shield. It’s impossible to dodge him an Ling is forced to jump back every time. Sparks fly and metal sings. It’s like Saber is trying to hack away at Ling’s skin. Ling makes the mistake of trying to grab for one of the swords to stop the insanely fast onslaught and is met with another kick to his chest.

The power is way more than before. Ling is tossed backwards, his body rolling around the ground like a ragdoll. He digs his claws into the concrete to stop himself, rock and dirt flinging all around him. The kick was so hard that it knocked the air out of him and he bends over trying to catch his breath. It’s only for a second -- he has to release the shield to properly breathe -- but it’s a second too much. Saber is on him again with that impossible speed and Ling leaps backwards, but one of the sword slices through his shirt and grazes his skin.

It’s a pitiful wound, little more than a papercut, but it drops Ling cold.

Blood spurts out of his mouth as he collapses onto his knees, one hand pressing against the ground to hold him up while the other wraps around his waist. There’s barely any blood to tell of the wound, but Ling can feel the dark magic seeping into his veins through the cut and it burns something fierce. He curls in on himself and lets out a scream, as if it might bring him relief, but it just hurts more.

Saber’s swords must be cursed. He tries to think of something -- tries to get his body to move -- but his mind dizzy and scattered from the pain. Eyes focused on the ground, Ling watches as the tip of Saber’s other sword scrapes across the ground, the sound toe-curling. When he tries to move, he coughs up blood again and curses under his breath. Damnit, damnit, this can’t be happening. He can’t do this. He can’t fail.

“Pathetic,” Saber condemns with a sneer.

Ling growls. No, no, he can’t die. This can’t be the end. He clenches a fist over the wound, his claws tearing into his shirt, and he wills his body to get up. His mind screams at him to fight. He can’t die. If he dies, then May will be thrown from the Holy Grail War. No, worse, if he dies -- if he dies -- Saber will kill her. The second Ling fades from this world, Saber will hunt her down and brutally end her life.

Damnit, May, I--

“Ling!” she shouts from somewhere.

He pounds a fist on the ground as Saber raises his sword. “Run! Get out of here!”

“No!” she cries out, her voice closer now. She’s running towards them. Ling closes his eyes and grits his teeth so that he doesn’t groan. No, no, she needs to leave. She needs to escape. She needs to live. What kind of Heroic Spirit is he that he can’t protect a little girl? What kind of emperor had he been?

“Her blood is on your hands too,” Saber tells him without any emotion in his voice.

“May, go now!”

And then Ling feels her hand on her back, so small, so clean, and the sword is falling and he body is on fire and May screams, “STOP!”

The explosion swallows the whole block, bathing them in a light so bright that it’s devoid of any color, and sends Saber flying back like a bomb landed at his feet. May’s magic washes over them so overwhelmingly that it’s like he’s drowning in it. He doesn’t know how it doesn’t knock him flat on his stomach, except it’s like her hand touching him is keeping him locked in position on his hand and knees.

Then he feels the magic burrowing into him, tiny little slivers of light digging into the wounds. Ice chases away the fire in his veins, sliding through his blood, until it feels like he’s glowing too, white like a star despite the black of his Noble Phantasm. The air is too rich, like it’s filled with pure oxygen, and when he breathes in deeply, he lets out a scream. It’s too much -- it’s way too much -- her magic and mana flooding him until there is nothing left.

As suddenly as it happened, it ends, the light of her magic winking out as if turned off and the darkness of the night hangs over them.

When Ling stands, he’s stunned at how he feels. His whole body is healed, not a single scar remaining. He feels great -- better than great. He feels like he can go another ten rounds with Saber without getting tired. He’s never felt so alive in his life, like he’s riding the high of magic and can’t come down. His eyes fall to May standing slightly in front of him to his left. She’s standing there limply, eyes blinking in confusion until she finally looks up to him.

Ling grins at her. “I knew you were holding out on me.”

“I…” May looks around. Saber is nowhere to be found, although one of his swords lies in pieces a few meters from them. “What happened?”

“You saved my life,” Ling tells her.

She shined like a star, more precious than anything he had taken or been given in his lifetime as an emperor of half the world. This is power. This is strength. It is something that someone like Saber or his Master will never be able to understand. Ling is not even half close to deserving it.

For a moment, May stares up at him, mouth parted and eyes wide, and then she blinks and exhaustion rushes into her eyes. She staggers and then topples over, but Ling catches her with ease. Once more, he thinks of how light she is in his arms. He hauls her up and holds her against him with one arm, holding his other out with his fingers curled into claws, but there is no Saber to be seen. He knows that she didn’t kill the other Servant, but it appears as if he left them alone.

Ling takes a deep breath, but he doesn’t let his guard down. He has to find them a new place to lay low. May lays limply in his arm, breathing quietly against his shoulder. It crosses his mind that he has never had anyone put their faith in him so implicitly, but what he thinks about more is the way she threw herself in front of him. This tiny girl, this innocent, was ready to risk her life for his.

It reminds him painfully of a girl he used to know. Her near-constantly serious face. Her pure determination. Her reckless abandon to jump in the way of a poisoned dagger to save his life. Ling slumps against a wall despite not being tired. He can’t let that happen again. He won’t. Enough people have died for him. Now it is his turn to protect.

*

Rider looks particularly frustrated with the current status of their fight. No matter how many times he comes charging at Riza, she manages to dodge him, sliding out of the range of his fists and kicks at the last second. So far, she has managed to avoid him, jumping out of the way to take petty shots at him. While he’s been able to block most of them, a few arrows stick out of him from vulnerable spaces in between his armor. He acts like they aren’t even there, not showing a single sign of wearing down.

Still, they can’t keep this up forever. He might not be tired, but Riza can feel herself getting slower. Winry can supply her with only so much mana. Rider appears to have much more stamina than her, but then his Master is a full-grown mage. Riza doesn’t begrudge Winry for this; she only thinks that it isn’t fair that the Holy Grail would choose a child for its war.

Rider stomps on the ground hard, sending slabs of concrete in the air, and then punches them so that they fly in her direction. There isn’t time to dodge these, so Riza jumps up, her feet landing on the slabs mid-air, so that she leaps onto them like stairs until she launches herself higher in the air over Rider’s head. As she flips over, she lets off three more arrows while upside down and then twists and lands so that she’s facing him again, another arrow ready to be let loose.

“They’re children, Rider!” Riza exclaims, hoping that she can appeal to him. Despite his burly nature and the fact that he and his Master had a hand in kidnapping Alphonse, she doesn’t see the same cruelty in him as she has in Assassin or Saber. His Master might be cold-hearted in order to win, but Rider clearly is not. He has too much passion. Even his simple fondness for his massive polar bear gave him away.

Even though Rider doesn’t respond out loud, when he turns around to face her again, she can see the anguish in his bright blue eyes. He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to be doing this. It’s not an honorable fight. He would enjoy it then -- a fight for glory, for honor -- but this is not that. He’s here to retrieve a child. He’s here under the orders of darkness and it is killing him.

Riza wonders if his Master used a Command Seal on him to come here or if he was here to prove to his Master that he didn’t need one. Either way, Riza knew that he would not be fighting her right now under these terrible circumstances if it was up to him.

“You don’t have to do this,” Riza said, barely louder than a whisper.

“I must!” Rider shouts defiantly, but it sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself than her. “I must do as my Master says! That is my role in this war. I will not fail her!”

“By kidnapping a child? By hurting him?” Riza demands. “I saw the bruises on his wrists and ankles.” At this, Rider flinches. Perhaps he doesn’t know the extent of what had been done to Alphonse and she won’t until she is able to speak with him. Still, she saw the markings on his skin and her stomach rolls just thinking about it. “What kind of hero does that make you?”

Rider falters, his fists falling ever so slightly.

“Do you want to win this War?” Riza asks.

“Of course!” Rider looks aghast that she is even questioning him.

“At what cost?” Riza questions. “Are you prepared to stain your soul with the blood of the innocent in order to win that precious Holy Grail for your Master?”

Rider shakes his head. “That’s not… I’m not…” His face is pale. “When we win, I will see to it that all innocents are protected. I will keep them safe.”

Thoughts that she long kept to herself come rising to the surface. She has been thinking them for a while until now it consumes her. “Rider,” she asks, very serious, “how can an omnipotent object be capable of such good when it forces us to do this?” When he blinks at her, seemingly confused, she presses on. “It forces us to kill. All Servants but one must die in order for the Holy Grail to be taken and no doubt many Masters will die in the process. And I learned in my lifetime that nothing and no one that demands blood as payment is truly good.”

There is a moment when Rider lifts his fists up and shakes his head when Riza is certain that she failed to get through to him. But then his eyes, while still in her direction, go far away and she knows that she has won this battle. Slowly his hands drop, shame marking his face, and his shoulders slump in defeat -- not by her, but by his own heart. She knows he must think himself weak, but having a good heart is not a bad thing.

“You must get the children out of here,” Rider tells her hoarsely.

Riza lowers her bow and the arrow she had in place vanishes into thin air. “I will.”

“My Master will not be pleased,” Rider continues. “She will use a Command Seal on me and no words of wisdom and compassion will stop me then.”

“I understand.”

Rider turns, but then hesitates. “The boy… I meant him no harm. I did what I could to protect him, but Assassin and his Master are cold beings. They feel nothing but darkness. They must be destroyed.”

Riza nods her head. It is not up to him. As of right now, his Master aligns herself with them and so must he. Still, there is one more thing she must ask of him before he goes. She takes a step forward and then stops. “Caster--?” She can’t bring herself to ask the question. Is he alive? Is he okay? They would know if Roy was killed, wouldn’t they? But no, the Command Seals were ripped away from Ed…

“I’m sorry,” Rider says without looking back at her. “Assassin’s Master took him. I doubt he will be the man that you remember when you see him next.” He glances back at Riza, sorrow in his eyes. “I would put an arrow in his heart to ease his suffering quickly, if I were you.”

He vanishes into his incorporeal form, shimmering lights in the night sky, leaving Riza alone with her thoughts. Her bow dissolves in her hand. Roy is gone. She doesn’t want to believe it -- she can’t believe it -- yet she doesn’t know what else to think or do. How could this happen? How had she not known what he would do? She forgot how so willing Roy was to throw himself into the fire.

“Should I stray from the path of the light, you have my permission to end my life.”

An arrow to the heart. Three times she has aimed her bow at him in this War. If she has to do it again… Riza closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She doesn’t know. She knows what she must do, but she doesn’t know if she can. Gods help if Winry needs to use a Command Seal on her again. But she doesn’t know.

Chapter Text

They spend the next hour rushing around the house, packing up whatever they deem necessary. Edward is particularly moody about it, mumbling his complaints under his breath. Riza knows that he doesn’t understand the necessity to leave, but they do. This house is a death trap waiting to happen. If Roy comes back under the spell of Father, he can turn all his defensive spells back on them. They can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous.

“Can you defeat him?” Winry asked after Riza explained the situation.

Riza didn’t give her an answer then and she doesn’t have one now. It’s not really a matter if she can or not at this point. If it comes to it, she doesn’t have much of a choice. Roy will either force her hand or he’ll be able to hold himself back. If he can’t do the latter, she will be forced to fight him and even kill him if she finds the opportunity. If she doesn’t defeat him, then he will defeat her – it’s that simple – and it’s something Riza can’t allow.

Does she have the ability to defeat Roy? She’s honestly not sure. He’s in a class of his own.

Nonetheless, he’d given her permission to end his life should it be necessary to stop him. If he’s lost control to a Master with terrible intentions, then it will be necessary to at least try. There can only be one Servant remaining in the end for the Holy Grail to work anyways. They’ve both deluded themselves into thinking this could end in any other way than good. Maybe the Holy Grail could bring the other person back, but would it be the same? Would it really be her or him or just the instrument’s impression of them?

“Are you ready?” Riza asks.

Edward shoves a bun in his mouth and attempts to speak around it, but all Riza can gather is that he thinks this is stupid or something like that. Still, he slings a backpack over his shoulders and nods his head.

“Where are we going?” Winry asks while they pile into the car.

“We just need to find a place to lay low,” Riza explains, starting the car. It’s mostly futile. Roy and Assassin will be able to find her most likely, but at least they could make it on their turf. There are too many traps lying in wait here at the house that are far above any of their levels as mages. She knew that Ed didn’t like to be reminded that he wasn’t as strong as Roy, but it was the truth. “A hotel or something.”

Alphonse has been silent since being reunited with Edward. It was all smiles and hugs at first, but now he’s staring out the car window, a glazed look about his eyes. With the exception of Rider’s brief words, none of them know what happened while Alphonse was with Father. The marks on his wrists and ankles let them know that he was imprisoned and not kindly either, but that’s the extent of it. He offers them no details and pretends as if everything is okay, like doing that will make it go away.

What kind of monster would do that to an innocent child? She can’t picture Roy under the thumb of a man like that. He would rage against it.

Pinako finds them a motel on the outskirts of town where they can hole up. There isn’t a lot surrounding it, so that when the fight comes to them – because it will – there will be less in the way of collateral damage and Riza will be able to go all out. There can be no holding back, not if Roy is the one she has to fight. The rooms are nothing to get excited about, but she’s slept on dirt grounds with no tent, so it’s the least her problems. She keeps guard outside by the car as the other four get settled. The two rooms are joined by a door, which they leave open for now.

It’s a quiet night right now. Despite the nervous energy and thick tension radiating from everyone, no one says a word. Even though there’s so much to talk about, none of them know what to say. There isn’t anything they can say that will make this better. They’re not for sure who they’re running from, if Roy is no longer on their side, and what’s going to happen. Edward doesn’t even know if he’s a part of the Holy Grail War or not, which leaves him in a confused and angry fog as he storms about.

Winry teeters anxiously in the doorway of hers and Pinako’s room.  “We can set up some defensive spells that will at least alert us to a Servant’s or Master’s presence, but…”

“That won’t matter for shit if it’s Caster,” Edward snaps. “He can bypass them easily without any of us knowing.” A frown cuts across his face as he stares off into the distance. He doesn’t look defeated by any means, despite losing his Command Seals, but there’s an edge to him now that wasn’t there before. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s lost his place. She idly wonders if that was how Roy felt after he lost her. “I couldn’t even tell he was nearby when he was–”

He bites his tongue before he can continue. When he was Caster’s Master. He isn’t anymore. Or maybe he can be once again if they break whatever spell Father put over Roy. None of them know. Pinako’s knowledge has extended as far as it can and Rider’s information only confirmed their fears but gave them nothing they didn’t already know. They are flying in the dark and Riza truly hates it.

“What are we going to do?” Winry asks in a quiet voice. She wraps her arms around herself and looks up into the night sky as a gentle breeze blows through the air.

“We wait,” Riza simply replies.

“We fight,” Ed growls.

We try not to die.

*

“You disobeyed a direct order!” Olivier roars. “You let them go with barely a fight!”

“I fought honorably!” Rider counters, the first time he has ever said anything against her.

Olivier’s blood boils and she whips out her sword, a family heirloom that was charmed centuries ago to inflict wounds that bleed every few days. Rider does not flinch when she points the gleaming tip of her weapon an inch away from his neck. He knows that she won’t purposely hurt him, seeing as how it might make him weaker in any upcoming battles, but she is tempted.

“Disobey me like that again,” Olivier warns, “and I will force you to do something you truly regret.”

He thinks he regrets what he did now? This is war. She will make him feel all kinds of regret. It’s not a matter of punishment either. It just is what it is. She came into the Holy Grail War with the understanding and acceptance that she would be forced to give up a part of herself and he will have to do the same. The path to victory is not always paved with good deeds or even intentions.

She knows that Rider hates being involved in the Elric boy’s kidnapping. She knows that he hates being mixed up with Father, Assassin, Saber, and his loony Master. She even knows that he might even hate her being his Master. None of that matters. She doesn’t care what Rider hates and she doesn’t give a damn about his regret. It does nothing for them in this war. His compassion is a weakness that she wishes she could carve out of him.

Curse the Holy Grail for giving her this pathetic whelp to work with. Caster is little better with his arrogance, but at least he is powerful and willing to go the distance.

At the thought of the other Servant in the basement, Olivier’s thoughts turn dark. She sheathes her sword and turns away from Rider, too furious to look at him. It’s like he’s staying in his corporeal form just to anger her further because his presence is doing nothing but make matters worse between them. It’s punishment. She hopes he understands that hers will be much worser. She needs him strong for this though.

They didn’t want Father to get a hold of Caster. It’s the last thing they need. As much as she loathes the other mage, Caster’s strength is undeniable and the last person they need to control him is Father. The dagger he used to steal Edward Elric’s Command Seals is locked away in a safe. No doubt there are many magical traps lurking about to protect it from thieves. It’s a conundrum that needs to be solved fast. If she was able to somehow get Caster on her side, she’d be unstoppable.

Of course then she would have to deal with two difficult Servants that would want to fight her on every decision. It’s enough to make Olivier want to stab something.

Not to mention that she knows Father has every intention of stabbing her and Rider in the back the second they are seen as being no longer useful. She’s an exceptional mage, but there is something off about Father that has her hackles rising. He doesn’t just use magic; it’s like he bends magic to his will. It’s unnatural. He is not a mage that should exist. There will able be dark mages out there, as long as their are good ones, but it’s as if Father is dark magic. He needs to be take out not just to ensure her victory in this war, but also because it is the right thing to do. At least that’s one thing Rider can agree on her with.

She would stab him while he is sleeping if she didn’t know Assassin would be there to stop it. He’s a sneaky, little bastard. Even though he looks to be no more than an innocent child, she can feel that his malice knows no bounds. He knows that he is a stronger than most and he lords it over them like a black fog.

“Rider,” Olivier prompts. Even without looking back at him, she knows that his eyes are on her. “The next time you cross paths with Archer, you will kill her. Do you understand me?”

If he doesn’t like her words, he doesn’t show it. Rider simply replies, “Of course,” in his deep voice like thunder.

Olivier turns to face him and catches his eyes. “And you will eliminate hers and Caster’s former Masters as well. Even with their Servants out of the War, Masters are dangerous foes.” Rider’s eyes widen, his nostrils flare, and a look of indignation crosses his face, but she ignores them all, giving him such a furious glare that he almost backs down physically. “They are not children anymore. They’re our enemies. You will do as you’re told and take them out.”

If she has to use two of her Command Seals, then so be it. Her Servant will listen to her, whether he likes it or not. It will be easier if he did so she doesn’t have to waste them, but she almost relishes the power that will come over her when she does. Rider has been so stubborn up until now, but the fact that he completely disobeyed her when retreated from Archer has angered her beyond repair. She won’t have any mercy with her enemies and she won’t have any for him either.

That’s just the way war is.

*

Considering that he doesn’t know this city well and May is unconscious, it takes some time for Ling to figure out where to go. It’s more or less by accident that he finds himself at a motel on the outskirts of town. They need to stay away from where it’s busy. The motel is on the opposite side of the city from the forest where he first battled Saber is and also is cheap. Judging from the money he found in May’s wallet, it’s still almost too expensive, but he’s able to figure it out without resorting to stealing.

Good gods, Ling was once the wealthiest emperor in the entire world and now he’s been reduced to considering pickpocketing innocent civilians. He almost tailspins into melodramatics, but stops himself.

He would pay them back later, after they win the War, but he highly doubts that May would be pleased with him doing such things. Still, if it comes to either that or starving on the streets, he’ll stoop that low. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe, even if it’s just finding a roof to put over her head and warm food in her belly. He’s her Servant, after all.

Also, he’s really hungry. May flooded him with her mana when she unlocked whatever was holding her magic back, but now he’s beginning to feel the strains of his fight with Saber and wandering around the city with his unconscious Master in his arms.

Getting a room at the motel is kind of awkward. May dealt with those things before while he drifted around the area in his incorporeal form. Now he’s stuck pretending that he’s some regular mortal in the modern world. It doesn’t help that he’s carrying an unconscious girl around in his arms. He highly doubts that he’ll be able to just stroll in and get a room. Still, he can’t just set her down somewhere outside.

Ling is clever if nothing else. He grabbed a blanket along with her meager belongings (all of which fit into a single backpack) from their old hotel room. After shifting her in his arms so that the side of her face is resting on his shoulder and one arm is slug around his neck, he puts the blanket over her. It looks like she’s just fallen asleep, which she kind of has. Knocked unconscious by unleashing an insane amount of magical power and mana – same difference.

“Hi!” Ling greets the night clerk in a quiet whisper.

The woman blinks at him in surprise, noticing the young girl sleeping in his arms. “How can I help you?” She matches him in volume immediately.

“My little sister and I are in the city to meet our father, but she tuckered out,” Ling explains. “I thought it would be best if we just stopped here.”

It was similar to the lie May told the other people at their old hotel. They were half siblings coming to the city to meet their father. They look like each other just enough for the lie to pass. Ling can play the big brother role when necessary. It is easy with May. Although he’ll never say it out loud, it’s like she makes him want to be a brother. He had siblings back when he was fighting to become emperor in his own life, but he was forced to kill them or be killed in a series of many assassination attempts.

“Oh, of course!” the woman says happily. “You’re such a sweet big brother.” She types away at the computer as she searches for a room. This isn’t the best place – certainly not one fit for a princess and the former emperor of half the world – and the woman is wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but she’s suddenly as kind as a clerk at a four star hotel. Some people are still good. “My brothers were never so nice.”

Ling gives her a winning smile. He knows how charming he can be. After getting the details of a room, he digs the appropriate amount of money out of May’s wallet. It’s cheaper than their old place at least. There’s not much left in that wallet though. He’s uncertain what they will do next, but they can figure that out when she wakes up. It is difficult to believe that he is willingly waiting to talk things over with a little girl when he never listened to anyone before, but it feels right.

The room is dingy and dim even after turning on a light, but it will make do. He lays her down on the bed farthest from the window and then takes a deep breath as he stands up straight. She looks peaceful, her face soft and flush with youth, her mouth open as she lightly snores. He’s still too wired from all the mana she gave him and what he really wants is something to eat, so he snags more money and slips out of the room to find a vending machine.

Right when Ling is trying to decide on what he wants to eat and if he should just break into it and get whatever he wants, someone shouts, “What are you doing here!”

Not afraid in the slightest, Ling turns his head to the side and sees Caster’s young Master gawking at him, clutching a container of ice like he might be able to use it as a weapon. Completely uninterested, Ling returns to examining his options in the vending machine. “What does it look like? I’m getting something eat.”

“I mean, here! At this motel!”

“Whatever it is people do at these places.”

Edward gawks at him and asks, “So…you’re not…looking for a fight?”

Ling huffs and finally chose something. “Does it look like I am?” Honestly, he can go for one right now. He has the energy and the strength. Of course, he doesn’t really fancy a fight with Caster, especially not when May is still out of commission, but Edward doesn’t need to know that. He takes his food and turns around to face the other Master. He’s got a few years on May, but hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet apparently. “You might as well bring Caster out. He can’t hide from my Master.”

A strange looks flitters across Edward’s face. It’s like he can’t decide between anger, discomfort, or something else that Ling doesn’t recognize. Fear maybe?

It gives Ling pause and he narrows his eyes. “If you’re not looking for a fight then, what are you doing all the way out here?” This seems like a reasonable question, despite the ridiculousness of a situation. Edward is a Master to another Servant that will try to kill Ling if he isn’t already – they’re enemies in a very powerful and dangerous war over a wish granting object – and here they are having a conversation by a vending machine.

Archer appears out of thin air behind Edward, laying a hand on his shoulder. That’s curious. Shouldn’t Caster be the one defending him? There is a hard expression on her face, but she’s not in her armor and she doesn’t have her magical bow. “What are you doing here, Lancer?”

Again with the same question? Ling just wants to eat, maybe watch a little television like a regular person, and relax while May gets some rest. That’s all he wants, truth be told. He doesn’t want to fight, but he will. It would be more fun than answering the same question over and over again. “Do you expect my Master to stay on the streets?” He points a finger at them. “Your presence is the unusual one. I know you’re not based in this part of the city.” Casually munching on his food, he eyes them carefully. “Are you hiding?”

That’s technically what he and May are doing here. He chose this place because it was out of the way and he didn’t think any of the other Masters or Servants would come looking for them here. The fact that two other Masters and Servants were here caught him off guard, but maybe they’re here because of the same reason. What are the odds that all of them would end up here? It’s one hell of a coincidence. If so, all Ling can do is stay calm and keep a fight from starting out. As much as he would love to fight them, he can’t do it while May is in such a vulnerable position.

When neither Archer nor Edward respond to him, Ling straightens up in surprise and exclaims, “Oh, you are! How interesting.” His eyes leave Archer and rest on Edward. He’s clutching that ice bucket against his chest like it will protect him somehow. Only when Ling notices the back of Edward’s hands does he stop cold. “Your Command Seals.”

“It’s nothing,” Edward snaps hastily, scowling at him and hiding one of his hands in his pockets. The sight of their bareness can’t be unseen though. The Command Seals that mark a Master in the Holy Grail War aren’t smudged after being used; they’re completely gone, as if they hadn’t been there in the first place. It throws Ling completely off and now he’s the one gawking at them.

“We will ignore your presence for this one night, Lancer,” Archer warns him, “but if you are not gone by the morning, I will end you.”

“Alright, alright,” Ling replies, holding up a hand. “Don’t get all worked up.”

What is going on? It is more than clear to him now that they are in hiding. Somewhere in this building Archer’s Master is probably sleeping. But where is Caster? What happened to Edward’s Command Seals? Did the marks completely vanish after being used up? If he did do that, then what had they gone through in the days since he saw them last?

*

Assassin peers closely at Caster. “How is he holding up?”

“It is nearly over with,” Father confirms.

His Master is confident, but Assassin is less certain. Caster has been fighting the command transfer from the beginning to the point where they thought it was going to kill him instead. He acted like he would rather die than allow Father to take over the role of his Master. Caster’s horrible screams had echoed throughout the castle, sounding as if they were being physically ripped from him, until he would pass out from the pain. Whenever he came to, it would happen all over again, though weaker with each round that passed.

Currently, Caster is chained up to a wall, having been heaved up into the position by Rider, hanging limply from the magic dampening manacles around his wrists. They digs into his skin, rivulets of blood to streak down his forearms and stain the sleeves of his shirt. Sweat drips from his pale face and stains his shirt. He looks terribly ill, like he’s been trying to sweat out a fever, and weak, as if he can’t possibly stay on standing his feet if they take the shackles off.

“He looks pathetic,” Assassin decides. He gives his Master an unimpressed glance. “Are you certain you’re going to be able to use him after this?”

“He’s not connected to my mana yet,” Father explains, examining Caster like he might a map. “He’s using the last bit of his own energy to fight it, but he’s at an end. He’ll have no choice but to give in or die.”

How unpleasant. “And if he chooses death?”

“Then that’s one less Servant we have to worry about,” Father answers simply. Honestly, Assassin won’t mind that outcome. Even if the magic dagger does completely sever Caster from the Elric boy and transfers his bond over to Father, Assassin will not be able to trust Caster. If there is one Servant class that is trickier than him and more likely to turn on a Master, it is that one. Plus, Assassin just doesn’t like Caster. Him dying is an outcome that he prefers.

Father steps towards Caster and waves a hand over his face. The magic must be a shock to Caster, who is being slowly drained of it, as his eyes snap open and he jerks hard in his shackles. It doesn’t phase Father at all; he merely stands just out of Caster’s reach and watches the mage with a critical eye.

“You…” Caster rasps, his throat most likely raw from screaming.

“Rise and shine, Caster,” Assassin greets in a pleasant tone. Caster’s dark eyes shift over to him. Normally, he will hide what he’s thinking, but after days of mental and magical torture, he lacks the ability to hide his thoughts. A faint snarl curls onto his face, but he is too exhausted to do little more. He sags in his chains again, letting them hold him up, his knees bent and his feet barely doing any work.

“How are you feeling?” Father asks, like a parent might a child.

Caster closes his eyes and takes a shaky breath. “Been better.” The last few times they checked on him, he tried to resist, fight back, jerk away, anything. This time he does none of those things. Besides being startled awake, he is almost placid by comparison. Assassin doesn’t know if it was a lack of will or energy.

“Are you ready to accept your true fate?” Father uses the same tone. It has a strange effect of making him appear kinder than he is when Assassin knows that there’s a kind bone in the man’s body. It’s not a bad thing. Assassin doesn’t have any in him either. He didn’t in life and he doesn’t now as a Servant. For all the horrific stories about the Flame Alchemist though, he is a kind man in his heart. It’s a weakness, one that Father seeks to exploit.

Unlike before, when Caster would snarl back a response, this time, he doesn’t respond right away. His tired eyes flicker from Servant to Master, only a little heat in them. He’s worn down, but more importantly, he’s not putting up near as much of a fight anymore. He might still be struggling against it by not giving a proper answer, but it’s as good as one. Father seems pleased, allowing a small smile to appear on his face as he straightens up.

“You’re very close,” he says. “I knew you would give in.”

Caster’s gaze falls to the ground as he begins to breathe steadily. It’s a look of defeat and shame. For all his strength and magic, it is impossible to ignore the call of the Holy Grail War. The bond between a Master and their Servant is too strong to ignore, especially when it has been forced upon a Servant. Assassin knows that it isn’t just the Command Seals that now adorn Father’s other hand that bind Caster to him. He’s been weaving some powerful magic over the other mage, bending Caster to his will, molding his mind to match Father’s own desires. It’s very dark stuff.

Assassin bets it was the kind of magic that even the Flame Alchemist stayed away from in the Mage Wars. He probably killed mages for using such magic, no doubt, and now it was being used on him.

After deciding that Caster needs to suffer a little longer before unleashing him, Father and Assassin make their way back up the stairs from the cells. It stung to lose the younger Elric boy, but they gained a much better weapon and bargaining chip with Caster. Surely he was aware of that when he showed up on their castle steps the other night. The fact that Rider could not retrieve the boy was another slight, but it was no matter. They have Archer spooked. It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens when the Hawk’s Eye sees her beloved Flame Alchemist again.

“It’s almost time,” Father decides as he sits down in a luxurious chair in front of the hearth.

“Do you think Rider and his Master are prepared?” Assassin asks.

Father waves a dismissive hand. “It makes no matter if they are or not. The second Archer is taken out, we will kill them as well.”

The two have come in handy, but both of them know that Rider and Armstrong aren’t necessary in order to defeat the rest of the Servants. Once their purpose is served, Assassin and Saber can take out that huge emotional piss pot of a Servant and his arrogant Master. They’ll have to take Lancer out afterwards, which Assassin knows that Saber is itching for. He’s still infuriated over his last defeat, hellbent on killing Lancer’s little Master even more. Assassin likes Saber well enough, but it’ll be nice when they can chuck him in the bin as well.

If his thoughts sound cold, it’s because they are. He’s never known to feel anything but that and it serves him well in the Holy Grail War.

“What if Caster is able to break free?” Assassin asks.

“He won’t,” Father replies with utter confidence.

Assassin isn’t so sure, but he doesn’t question his Master again. He’ll just have to keep an eye out. If worse comes to worse and Caster is able to snap out of it or Father is forced to use all his Command Seals, then it will be up to his original Servant to take Caster out. Assassin smiles to himself. He’s definitely looking forward to that.

*

When the sun rises in the morning, Riza feels as if she can’t breathe, so she sets to walking around the motel. It’s a beautiful morning, only a few fluffy clouds in the sky. Being on the outskirts of town means that there are more trees and greenery, something that she takes comfort in, even when the backdrop is a dingy motel. For a moment, she can pretend that everything is fine.

Roy will come back. He has to come back.

As far as she can tell, Lancer is gone, but there’s always the chance that his Master is hiding them. She remembers how the young mage was able to pinpoint Roy’s location when he was hiding in his incorporeal form when no one else was capable of it, not even his own Master. She’s a strong, little thing, no matter how innocent she looks. She sensed how strong Lancer was last night as well, radiating power that far exceeded what she felt during their last encounter. It is concerning, but there’s nothing to be done about it right now.

Pulling her loose hair from her right side to her left to hold it in a side ponytail, Riza lets out a sigh and turns back around the head back to Winry’s room.

And then there is Roy, standing five feet in front of her, greeting, “There you are, Riza.”

Riza’s first instinct is to run towards him. It is always her first instinct. She can’t imagine a world in which she doesn’t go to him. He’s a part of her as much as she is a part of him. Her heart swells. He’s here. He’s back. He’s came to her. Her mind doesn’t question how, not when he’s right before her eyes, not when he’s close enough to touch with just a few steps.

Her second thought stills her though. She’s not just Riza or even the Hawk’s Eye. She’s a Servant in the Holy Grail War – and so is he.

“Roy?” she calls out softly.

There’s something wrong with his eyes. When she really looks at him, it’s the first thing she notices. They’re very focused on her, but there’s no light in them. His face is more than blank. It’s like there’s nothing there at all. As if he’s been entirely wiped clean.  Even the way he holds himself, hands in his pockets but arms limp, like someone would look like if they were trying to imitate his lackadaisical attitude.

It looks like Roy, but it isn’t him. She doesn’t know who this is at all.

Riza takes a step back and he takes a step forward.

A smile twitches onto his face. It looks wrong. “What’s wrong?” His voice is wrong.

“Where have you been, Roy?” she asks him, keeping her distance from him.

“I got caught up with Father, but I managed to escape,” he tells her. “I went back to the house, but you all were gone. It took some time to finding you.”

Not long enough apparently. It’s not enough of an explanation. Roy certainly looks like he’s been through a ringer now that she looks at him. He’s disheveled and tired-looking, as if he’d spent days struggling against the torture many mages were subjected to before the Mage Wars. His movements are halting. All of it makes her wary. He wouldn’t just show up here unannounced. Something is seriously off.

“Where’s Edward?” Roy asks casually, but there is intent underlining the two words.

“He’s not here,” Riza lies, though she knows that he’ll be able to see through it.

Roy furrows his brow. “Now why would you say that? I ought to know where my Master is.”

His tone almost freezes the blood in Riza’s veins. It’s so cold. She clenches her hands at her side and turns away from him, ready to materialize her bow and arrows in less than a second. “Then where is Father?” This time, it’s Roy that halts. He rears back and blinks at her. “We know about the weapon that transfers the bond between Masters. I saw Edward’s Command Seals vanish. It was like they were ripped out of his soul. It hurt him. It almost killed him.”

A cold, disinterested look comes over Roy’s face and he says, “Pity it didn’t. Would’ve saved me the trouble and would’ve been less painful.”

Her heart clenches in her chest and the bow appears in her hands as she raises them, an arrow already notched and ready to be let loose. She aims it directly at Roy’s heart. He doesn’t flinch – barely even reacts – as if it is exactly how he believed she would react. He knew that she would point an arrow at him. There’s not a hint of shock or hurt.

“Are you going to shoot me this time?” Roy questions her. He tilts his head, eyeing her so coldly. “This is how many times you’ve pointed an arrow at me? You couldn’t let loose then. I doubt you can now.”

He smirks, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. She knows instinctively that this was what he was after her death. This was who he became. This is the monster he allowed to take control once she was gone. There were glimpses of it before her death, peeking out when something particularly awful happened. She thinks of the village they came across, completely destroyed, and the bodies of children gathered in a church. When they caught the dark mages responsible for it, Roy spared none of them. There was no mercy in him then, but he wasn’t cruel either. He didn’t prolong their deaths as those mages had done to the innocents they killed.

This Roy is different. Maybe he won’t take pleasure in killing, but he won’t make it quick either.

Before Riza can prove him wrong though, she hears movement behind her and she rolls out of the way just before Rider slams his heavy fists into the ground where she was standing. It’s so strong that he breaks the concrete, his two fists creating creators. She pops back onto her feet, aiming again. It might appear like she’s still aiming at Roy, but he doesn’t know the extent of her Noble Phantasm. Rider, who has seen it in action, is more hesitant, but there is an intensity in his bright blue eyes that she knows comes from a Command Seal being used on him.

“Really, Riza, it would be easier to just tell me where Edward is,” Roy says, holding out his hands palms up, like he’s being merciful. “We’ll make yours and Winry’s deaths quick. I would rather spare you the pain.”

“You’re going to kill us?” Riza asks.

“It’s the Holy Grail War and I am a Servant in it,” Roy replies. “That’s what we were brought here to do.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Besides, once we win, I can use the Holy Grail to bring you back. What does it matter who I win it with? Edward? Father? Either way, I get what I want.”

Riza shakes her head. “That’s not what I want.” Roy drops his hands to his side and narrows his eyes. “If you think like that, don’t you dare bring me back because that is not the man I love and I won’t stay with you.” He stares back at her, as if not quite sure he’s hearing her right. What did Father do to him? “You do this now and I will never forgive you.”

“We’ll see what you say after I bring you back,” Roy says. “I’ll make you understand.”

And then he snaps his fingers and fire roars to life.