<pride, 0.1> fate/x AU-3H

< pride 0.1 >

It was silent there on the place she waited, while she knew outside of the dark boundary is a flame that will engulf her very being. She can only see things straight, the darkness has been her friend for so long, and she couldn’t see anything else but darkness. It was a huge, spacious room of unknown and incomplete origin - the only knowledge she have is that she is alone but not trapped, and there is ‘flame’ outside.

The light will then bless the room, before it momentary went to silent once again, rushing footsteps are but outside, never reaching this room she is in.

When the sound of footsteps stopped, all she would hear is muted silence, as a feeling of something stabbing her heart will deliver her to see complete whiteness.

There’s no need to be a genius to know that this recollection is incomplete - yet, it feels so real. The pain is real. It should be something of the past. It might be an effect of the current running thread of Mana. It might be just an anomaly. It might be-

.

“—You’ve arrived, Professor.”

The car stopped with a gentle shook. Leonie’s voice rendered her awake from her strange but frequent dream. Beyond the window, the sight of bustling airport is present. People are coming and going through the entrance with their own baggage, sometimes empty-handed.

Leonie was patient to wait until she stifled a yawn, still blinking furiously while trying to regain her own consciousness.

“Sleep well?” the orange-haired driver asked from a glance of rear view mirror. Byleth response was to ruffle her wild blue hair. “You’re always sleeping nowadays when I picked you up, is the Clock Tower working you dry?”

“You can say that,” Byleth managed another yawn. She rummaged to her handbag for her phone. The time is 3 PM, her flight would be in an hour. “Ever since they said that the discovery of Grail is real at Remire, no one has been taking it easy.”

The last Holy Grail War, the record said, was five years ago, the moment Byleth lost her father Jeralt. By the time, since the Grail was discovered and disappeared at Remote City Remire of Adrestian Prefecture of Fodlan, every magi are frantic for searching the omnipotent relic. Following her father’s death, Byleth inherited most of Eisner’s Clan wealth, and moving out from her past teaching post in the Garreg Mach’s branch of Mage’s Association Institute to the main base of Clock Tower.

Managing her father’s legacy was quite an arduous task, but Byleth got her father’s old assistants to help. Alois and Leonie might be busy with their own task as an integral part of Mage’s Association, but they are always there if Byleth needed help. Leonie, for example, she’d take Byleth to ride everywhere, acting as a so-called chauffeur of sort and always saying that ‘Jeralt did the same, especially when he got a lot of meeting’.

“So you’ll be back to Remire after all these years, huh?” Leonie’s fingers drummed on the stirring wheel. Her black gloves are striking to her slack white shirt and pants, almost feel out of place. “Alois said that your old home might be burned down already after that incident.”

The Great Fire of Remire, also the place where the last battle of that Holy Grail took place – no more curious magus shouldn’t be hovering around the area anymore as the Church already sealed the perimeter, so Byleth confirmed by the report notes.

The Grail rumor being a truth sure has piqued every magus’ interest, in and out Fodlan. But then, the ones who can investigate the area thoroughly are the ones from The Church of Sothis and handful chosen agents from Mage’s Association. Even Byleth, one of ranked Professor and esteemed ranked magus known there in the Clock Tower, didn’t know the list of these special agents’ names. She would only know later that a strange ley line of concentrated Mana has blanketed through the regions of Fodlan, with Remire being the epicenter of the anomaly. Whether it is really ‘Grail’ that stirred up the disturbance, it is highly classified.

Then again, the Holy Grail choose its participant – not the members of Church, not the High Court of Magi. If the ‘Command Seal’ supposed to appear on someone who brought the Hero Relic to the ground, then they /are/ the chosen ones for the next Holy Grail.

Byleth checked the bottom of the bag of a sealed box she found at the time when she ventured her death father’s office for the first time in Clock Tower. The box is made of solid ebony, with a size close to a small handbook, coated with layers of Thaumaturgy that only Byleth can break. The enclosed letter not far from the box told Byleth that the box contained ‘the relic’ he couldn’t use, but ‘he knew’ that Byleth will be able to make use of it.

“I won’t be in Remire too long if the Grail is not there. Though, maybe I can prolong my stay and relax in some beach huts. I heard the Adrestian Sea is beautiful in this time of the year.”

“Planning for a vacation now? You sure are unfair, Professor.” Leonie grinned.

“I’m kidding,” though her expression hardly changed, just a fraction of smile.

Her eyes wandered outside once again. She zipped her bag then made her exit.

The pursue of the Grail, inheriting Eisner Clan’s mage craft, continuing her work as a Professor in the field of thaumaturgy—she has come so far. All that’s left is to prove whether she could seek the Grail for answers, if and only if the Holy Grail really existed.


-


The flight from Derdriu took her one and an half hours, and she arrived just in time before the sun is setting. The Remote City Remire happened to be half an hour trip with the airport taxi, so Byleth wasted no time in idling for little inspection around the area and bolted to her destination.

Not all parts of Remire City is ruined by the aforementioned Great Fire, as the fire consumed one third of the city. Although, as the inhabitants are afraid of the impending curse the place might hold, they only left the last one third to inhabit, while the central part of the city remained empty as a border between the burned field and the still-lively residential areas.

Byleth slipped past the crowd and made her way to the central without too much people seeing or watching her, then she ran through the forest until she reached the ash-colored ground.

Once, she remembered that this plain was full of flowers and shrubs, even nominated as one of green tourism attraction because how vast the field of view is, with a suitable climate to grow many kinds of plants. Byleth looked down to the ash-colored tall grass, trying to pick it up only for it to dissolve and fly by the wind. Her father once even built one of several broken greenhouses there and the attraction business and plant studies there just keep on growing – until everything disappeared to the fire of War.

She didn’t feel anything weird when she arrived there, her chest is simply tight by the weight of nostalgia.

Her father’s greenhouse, Hound of Eisner, is not that far from this area. Despite the state of decay, the greenhouse shouldn’t be hard to find. It’s the one and only dome-shaped greenhouse located near the lake, after all.


-


The plank and entrance door was broken because of age, but Byleth didn’t mind per se. The weeds has overgrown over the years, destroying the window along with some plant parasites. The state of the greenhouse is awful in Byleth’s standard, though there is no time to revitalize such place.

Byleth stopped to look up at the remaining half of dome-shaped roof above her. The sky remained the same, Remire is always on its warmest by the time of twilight. There, at times her father would urge her to go fish by the nearby lake, thinking as if it is their own property. No one banned fishing on the lake anyway.

Remire. Byleth repeated the name again inside her mind. Their stay there might be as short as Byleth’s childhood days before she is aware of her own mage craft, then everything has gone awry before she realized it. The blue-haired professor took out the box, seeing the engraved crest of her family there.

The heaviness in her heart increased, just as she took out the box and the memories of her father kept on flooding.

She couldn’t feel the Holy Grail. / There’s no answer there. / She is merely visiting her past. / There is no hint of a Grail. / She felt no Command Spell is forming. / Her pursue over these years are useless.

Byleth, however, unable to bask in the memoir of her father even longer as she caught a presence of magic getting closer.

There was a voice of screeching object replacing the silence of the dusk, not far from where Byleth is standing. She had scanned the area from first to second and find no one else should be there except for her, or she made a miscalculation and someone indeed followed her from the face of the town.

“I smell the stench of that woman,” Byleth tried to heighten her senses using her Magic Circuit, yet what echoed for her is merely voices. Heavy, blood-thirsty voice.

Byleth held her breath as a force as fast as an arrow made its entrance right before she stood. She barely dodged the eye of the spear, the sharp armament flung by the nick of her skin, deflated her personal magic barrier to crisp.

She knew this amount of terror. Her opponent is not an ordinary magus. The strength level, the power, it’s-

In a blink of an eye, the spear that once missed its target flung back to the rightful owner, a One-eyed Husk who’s now easily strangle her neck. The blade of the lance rested just before her heart now, and she couldn’t fathom any way to break free.

An eye full of hatred. Malice. Madness. The huge figure exuded in anger and wishes to destroy. The being before her is undoubtedly a Servant of a Master, and ‘he’ was one step close to kill Byleth.

“Feisty,” the voice growled. “Just like that woman alright.”

Just as the spear easily went through her magic field, the spear thrust to her skin, crushed her bones and nicked her heart.

.
.
.

[“Wake up, Master.”]

She is still breathing.

She is able to inhale. Exhale. Everything is normal.

The stab on her chest is but a dream.

The spiral of her past is real. The sadness she felt for not be able to find her answer is real. The death of her father is real. Her crumbling world is real.

The light, is also real.

Another figure stood before her, shielding away the incoming spear with a might of something Byleth can say as an axe, pulsating axe of unknown shape and origin. It was like a fangs of a dragon, big and overwhelming, then again Byleth cannot exactly conjure the right shape. The red cape flicked with flames powered the present frigid gloom belonged the owner of the Spear. Byleth simply there as a spectator as she fell to her knees, but the clash of words is commencing. The movement, the transition in a speed of light is too inhuman, yet Byleth is able to witness how the tides are gradually turning.

Her savior, an ashen white-haired woman with a crown of horn, danced on par with the lance user, all in while her chest continued to burn in each and every passing second.

The tip of that lance made its way to her chest, ruining her coat, leaving a mark similar to the lines of wings on its wake. Three-pronged mark of a proof as a Master.

The Grail has welcomed her. The Servant before her is—

“Saber! I order for you to flee!”

The command was immediate, as though it has been all over inside her head. ‘Saber’ and ‘order’ – one order cost her one Spell. Byleth didn’t mind the cost. She needed to go. Every of her being demanded her to pull back. She is slowly losing it.

The red-caped Saber pulled her Master from her daze, and dashed before the owner of the Spear is able to intercept them.


= = = = =


CONFIDENTIAL - SERVANT STATUS

CLASS: SABER. THE FIRST ORDER, PRIDE
TRUE NAME: ################
STRENGTH: D | ENDURANCE: D | AGILITY: C | MANA: B | LUCK: A

CLASS SKILL
MAGIC RESISTANCE: B
RIDING: B

PERSONAL SKILL
MILITARY TACTICS: B
CHARISMA: B
IMPERIAL LINEAGE: EX

NOBLE PHANTASM: ####### ######
Rank: A > C | Type: Anti-Army