OverMaster's Little Crummy Corner of Sub-Par Writing

[OverMaster]

The Cooking Order.

Negi had no idea whether the maids could sit at the masters' table and eat with them only whenever he visited. He wanted to believe the best from everyone, so he assumed they usually did, but he also was aware Chisame and Asuna were of the opinion Ayaka only allowed them to do so whenever she wanted to boast of her generosity to him, so there was that. All in all, he tried not to think too much about it as he sat down and Fubuki began serving them, taking her own seat at the end.

"There's a different flavor to it today, Iinchou," Konoka observed, having come today with Asuna, Chisame and Negi. "You had a different cook this time, didn't you?"

"Well, yes, as you'll see, Siesta-san hurt her wrist last week and won't be able to cook for a while," Ayaka admitted while Siesta sheepishly raised a bandaged hand.

"Oh," Asuna blinked. "Then, who...? Fubuki-san?"

The lead maid shook her head. "No, Hime-sama, my duties are those of coordinating and directing the staff. I don't do cooking myself."

"Ah, Roberta-san then," Negi said.

Roberta looked down. "I am the manor's chief security enforcer, but I don't know how to cook."

"... Taeko-san?" Chisame guessed, arching an eyebrow.

The big breasted maid with glasses denied it bashfully. "N-No! I can't cook very well either, I... well, my duties here are... basically, I... I help at anything I can, and Fabiola-chan..."

"I clean up after Taeko-san," Fabiola-san dryly said.

"Ahhh, but then, who... Iinchou?" Konoka directed a mildly perplexed glare at the blonde.

Ayaka rasped uneasily, and then the other, much smaller blonde at the table coughed not so delicately into a fist.

Chisame, Negi, Asuna and Konoka all turned eyes on Mizore.

Ayaka's half-sister shrugged with some annoyed pout. "Soon after arriving here, I learned this is a swim or sink world. To be specific, the first time the floater was unavailable and I contracted food poisoning."

"Okay, but Roberta-san made up for it when she made you vomit all she'd cooked and saved your life, didn't she?!" the upset Ayaka protested.

Roberta said nothing, while the floater in question kept on subtly rubbing her bandaged hand.

By the way, the answer goes as such: most of the time none of the Yukihiros were at home, thus the maids had the table all to themselves.

 

[OverMaster]

Pervert.

"Hey, Boss," the janitor entered Perry's office. "Kent left his clothes in the storage room again!"

Perry White sighed, looking away from his computer. "Well, it can't be helped. I know that bothers you, Jed, but--"

The janitor slapped a blue suit and pants on Mr. White's desk. "Damn right it bothers me, Boss! You may turn a blind eye, but I'm done with this! I can't have a freak running around the building naked, not with my Shelly, my poor girl, now working at Reception, what if--"

Perry shook his head. "I don't think Clark's going to head into the lobby bare ass naked, Jed..."

"F'r God's sake, Boss, creep's been doing this to us for ten years now! I don't know how he keeps ducking every other camera in the building, but if you'd only put one in that room already then you could fire him!"

"But he's my best reporter, Jed, I'm not going to fire him just because of some harmless weird habit, as long as no one sees him and sues the paper. And if that hasn't happened yet, it's not going to happen now, is it?"

"Well, this time I'm not going to give him a choice!" Jed protested, clutching the clothes against his chest. "I'm keeping this, and if the streaker freak wants them back, he's gonna have to show himself to me!"

Clark Kent entered the office in an identical blue suit and pants. "Chief, sorry to disturb you, but have you found-- Oh gee, thank you, Mr. Williams, you found my spares!"

"Your... spares?" the janitor blinked.

Kent nodded dumbly, blushing and looking down. "Sorry, I don't like to talk about this, but... usually, I bring some spare clothes to the job in the event of a supervillain attack that should, ah, rip my clothes into a state of... you know. Since it'd be too embarrassing to put them in the office where anyone could see them, I just leave them at the storage--"

"Goodammnit, you really bring spares just in the event a villain strips you naked?!" the janitor gasped. "What kind of--!"

Perry puffed on his cigar. "Jed, how many times a month are we attacked by supervillains, again?"

"Yeah, but they never strip us naked! What's this, Gotham?! Sheesh!" the man slammed the clothes on Kent's hands. "Shoulda accepted that offer of the Baxter Building, should've--" he was muttering while storming out.

Perry looked at Clark then. "Son."

"Y-Yes, Chief?"

"Don't take this personally, but... were you ever stripped by any supervillains, back when you were a boy? We have a support program, you know, covering for any kind of--"

"Oh, no, no, Chief. We had supervillain attacks every week too, but luckily Superboy always rescued me..."

 

[OverMaster]

Slug It Out.

"Hey," Rick asks me as I work. "This is why they call you Sluggo, right?"

"Nah," I say as I keep swinging my bat the wiseguy's legs, just loud enough as to be heard over his cries. "They already called me that since I wuz a kid."

We are done soon enough; I leave the message with the whimpering wiseguy again and leave him in the pool of his own piss and tears. Rick leaves his spot at the door and we leave the building, heading for the car.

"So... Big Joe put you in this line of work just 'cuz that was your nickname?"

"That's right," I grunt while turning the car on. "You know how he is."

"And... why did they call you that to begin with?"

"'Cuz I slugged my way thru life, dat's why. Shut up."

Rick does that, and I think back of Nancy.

Sweet Nancy, and the prissy fuck who took her from me. Fucking Rollo.

Eh. It's better this way.

The comic strip had to end at some point.

 

[OverMaster]

What if Diarmuid were the Sarcastic Type?

He began shouting while wildly pacing across the place, bleeding off his eyes and mouth.

"The Holy Grail! The object of your desires, the thing you would do anything for! There's no low any of you wouldn't sink to for it! Well, I damn hope you are happy with the Holy Grail! May it unleash nothing but blisses upon your heads! Oh yes, I'm sure it'll make you contented, with no drawbacks whatsoever! Because that's so totally what you deserve! Never mind my satisfaction, what's that when compared to yours, right?! Go ahead, enjoy your victory and Heaven forbid anything bad from ever soiling its glory...!"

Saber stared at him evenly. "Lancer. Some dignity, please..."

He stopped long enough to snort a big thick wad of blood while disappearing. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! I got carried away by my own grief, I shouldn't have... THAT WAS SARCASM TOO, BY THE WAY!" he managed to finish before fully vanishing.

----

"Oh, so that's why you keep telling me how excellent a Master I am and how glad you are with my ideas and how easy it is to work with me," Shirou deadpanned. "Thank you, that was very helpful..."

Saber nodded. "I learned from the best."

 

[OverMaster]

Workaround Ways.

Benienma put her chopsticks down, impressed. "That's... amazing! This is much less toxic than usual, pyo! How did you do it?!"

Osakabehime fidgeted around. "W-Well, you'll see... since the normal way only backfired, I just asked Semiramis-sama to teach me how to prepare poison..."

 

[OverMaster]

The Great Indoors.

"What I like the best?" Osakabehime wondered aloud, taking a hand to her cheek. "Ah! Obviously, that's being inside, where you're always so safe and warm..."

"Oh, I agree so much...!" Ganesha cooed, blushing at the idea. "Being inside all day, locked safely away from all worries, never exposed to the bothers of the outside world... There's no way anything better than that can ever exist!"

Bathory and Louis XVII stared at them in horror.

"I don't know how people this perverse can exist," she entrusted him.

"Mais oui," he said. "Thinking about it, it would look like they are the real monsters of the whole lot of us..."

 

[OverMaster]

Strange Bedfellows.

Mashu sighed, sitting up naked on the bed. "Okay," she said at last. "That was a bad decision. But let's not make it worse, so we'll have to take three points in consideration."

"Aahhhhh," said the man on the bed, his eyes nailed on the ceiling.

"First and foremost," she said, holding a finger up. "Sempai never must learn about this."

"Aaaaaahhhh," the traumatized man groaned, in a tone she chose interpreting as agreement.

"Second," she added, blushing a little. "I'll admit that... we might finally have found something you're good for after all..."

"Ah!" he whimpered, in a way that betrayed his handsome, heroic frame and strong build.

"And third," she shouted, spinning back towads him and pointing at him, "this doesn't count as incest, you hear me?!"

"Ooooohhhhh!" he lamented, shielding his eyes with a forearm.

"Oh, for the love of--! Did you turn into your Berserker self or something while I wasn't looking?!"

 

[OverMaster]

Hard Math.

Darkseid grinned cruelly. "At last!" he shouted to the minions gathered around him, under the starkly red Apokolips sky. "I have found the Anti-Life Equation! It's mine now, it reads... it reads...!"

His eyes went over the piece of paper he was holding, and then he evaporated into nothingness, much to the gaping horror of his followers. A split moment later so did the paper as it was fluttering down to the ground.

After several moments of shared shock, Desaad turned to Granny Goodness. "Well," he said. "It was the Anti-Life Equation alright."

 

[OverMaster]

The Drowning Days.

"So," Grodd asked him during lunch break at the Hall of Doom. "If you really are from the human Pre-history... what did you do during the Great Flood of Noah?"

Vandal Savage remained silent for a moment then.

Standing on the bottom of the ocean that had once been fertile lands, the man held onto the large rock, the only thing weighing him down so the turbulent waters wouldn't keep swatting him across for days anymore.

He wondered when would it stop, and whether it would come to happen before he begged for death, for a release from his full lungs and impaired underwater vision. But even he could not fight against this. He only could keep on waiting, and hoping...

Savage finally snapped out of it, and frowned at the mockingly smirking gorilla. "Don't be ridiculous. There never was a Biblical 'Great Flood' and you know it, being a... man... of science!"

And he took a long, noisy sip from his steaming cup of coffee.

 

[OverMaster]

In Sheep's (Lack of) Clothes.

For their sixteenth birthday, Kuromaru showed up as...

"A-a-A BOY?!" Kirie gasped as Shinobu took a hand to her own mouth, Mizore blinked in puzzlement, and Karin squinted suspiciously. "What gives, Kuromaru, I-I thought you-- and Touta--!"

"Well, yeah, about that," the boy in tight blue jeans that made sure to display his bulging crotch fittingly, and a semi-buttoned shirt that showed much of his hard pecs, rubbed the back of his neck and hewed, "I guess my mind wasn't all that much into ever becoming a girl, you'll see, and--"

"But- but- but.... all those times you bathed with us!" Kirie choked, blushing like a beet.

Kuromaru paused, then finally admitted, "That, perhaps, was exactly the thing changing my mind into becoming a--"

"PERVERT!" Kirie cried, leaping up to kick him in the face.

Isana sipped from her drink. "I knew it."

"Yeah," Honoka nodded, also watching on as the chaos unfolded in the party hall. "Nobody can fool us when it comes to that kind of thing." She glanced aside at Touta and added in a low voice, "That was nice of you, Oniichan, playing along the whole time just so he--"

Touta shrugged and took another spoonful of cake. "What can I say? It was his youth that will never come back for the rest of eternity. I really hope he enjoyed all those baths..."

Isana scratched her head. "Why not to just become a lesbian, though? That's the best of both worlds..."

 

[OverMaster]

Fate/Stay Night, Fate EXTRA, Fate Extella, Fate Hollow Ataraxia, Fate Grand Order, Fate Zero, Fate Kaleid Prisma Illya, Fate Apocrypha, Fate Prototype, Fate Requiem, Fate Strange/Fake and Fate Type/Redline are the creation and intellectual properties of Type-Moon and Nasu Kinoko.

---

"I'm sorry, Sempai," Tohsaka Sakura said, standing on Emiya Shirou's doorstep as soon as he went over to open it. She held a bread toaster between them, wisps of smoke still coming out of it. "But... Neesan stuck her hand in again."

The red haired young man blinked, then took the toaster, studying it carefully. "Geez, Tohsaka needs to start taking it easy when it comes to sandwiches. She didn't lose any fingers this time, did she?"

"Errrr... no," the purple haired girl said, shrugging. Technically she wasn't lying, she thought, they had managed to replace the missing pointer with a magical prosthesis after all. "Um, she'd like to know when-"

"I think it can be ready by Wednesday," Shirou estimated. "It doesn't look too bad, it might even be-"

A whole flank of the toaster creaked, fell off, and dropped on the living room's floor with a metallic clang.

"On second thought," Shirou said after a moment, "maybe you'd better come by Friday..."

---

Fate: Time and Punishment.

---

Based on an original screenplay by Greg Daniels and Dan Mc Grath.

---

It was a duel for the ages.

A battle of the titans.

A clash between two of history's greatest.

Old rivals pitted against each other yet again in a never ending conflict.

Shirou's ability to fix devices versus Rin's capacity to destroy them.

"Come on, come on," the student muttered feverishly in his workshop, late at night, sweaty after long hours of nonstop activity. Hunchbacked over his greatest challenge yet, oil stains all over his clothes, he pushed himself beyond the limits of his Reinforcing just to keep up with the damage brought by Tohsaka upon this poor, long suffering utensil. "I won't lose you yet!"

For a Hero of Justice, there is no small battle as long as it can make a woman happy, a household better fed, loafes of bread crispier and tastier. If Shirou wanted to prove himself he never could let Sakura down. No matter what. Puzzling as the damage caused by Rin could be, he hadn't lost a patient to her yet, and by golly, he wouldn't be starting tonight!
It probably was, he realized, a downgrade when compared to the fights his father had with that of the sisters, but still, a man had to do what a man had to do.

Still, he couldn't help but sighing wearily to himself by this point. Running a hand through his hair, he frowned at the pieces set before him on his work table. "She did a bad number on it this time, though! Let me see..." He ran his fingers across the pieces, synchronizing to the broken machine, analyzing the parts and the whole alike. "I think... this might just work!" he grinned, eyes glinting in golden as he started working again, fitting and screwing and applying mana with nearly obsessive effort. And lo, in no time from there, he was done.

He held the toaster before himself carefully, since already he'd experienced two disappointments, failed attempts to restart the poor thing only to be forced to start all over. However, this time he was fairly sure he'd done it. "Now let's just see, whether you're still toasted or not..." he hummed, pulling a soft, white leaf of sandwich from the bag by his side, and carefully sliding it in. He turned the toaster in and leaned closer, squinting to examine it with great care. "Come on, I know you can do it, don't you let me- Aaaaaaahhhh!" he had to yell, pulling back as electricity began crackling all over the toaster, then jumping out of it to shock him. "Ahhh, no, not like this, I wanted to die fighting terroriiiiiists...!"

Desperately, Shirou put his hands back on the toaster to turn it off, but then both of them- Shirou and Toaster, not both of Emiya's hands- disappeared at once, in a huge blue bolt of lightning.

---

"Where am I?!" Shirou screamed, tumbling down a strange place he'd never seen before, a manner of colorful tunnel with no apparent upside and downside, no certain left and right, a confusing Nowhere going in all directions at once. "What is this?! Is this hell?!"

There was no floor anywhere in sight, and he appeared to be floating, pulled along by an invisible force he couldn't fight. All he could do was keeping on holding onto the toaster, which thankfully wasn't shocking him anymore, instead drafting a pleasant fragance of fresh toasts. As he went by like this, Shirou noticed several clocks and watches of all sizes and sorts flying all around him, as if spun around by an overwhelming tornado.

"Somebody help me!" Shirou shouted, kicking around. "Anyone, please! I am- Oh, forget it, a true Hero must save himself!" he decided, trying to make sense of the strange situation he was in. "Calm down, Emiya, try to keep a clear mind on this. Maybe you're only having a death hallucination, that's all..."

He thought about it. "No, no, that's not right. People die when they are killed, after all. The forces of magic must have taken me somewhere else, to another plane of reality! Hey, maybe I'm in the Root now! Or is this... Second Magic?" he doubted. "That is what it was, right? Time travel, or travel between realities, which one? I wish Dad had ever explained..."

He heard something roar over his head, and lifted his gaze to see a white DeLorean flying by past him, soon disappearing into the featureless distance of this maddening non-place or whatever it was. "Okay, so maybe I'm hallucinating after all. Either that, or I have become the first non-Brazilian to travel across time."

A small white dog wearing glasses passed by him much closer than the car had, wagging a fore leg. "No, no, Shirou, you are the second non Brazilian to achieve that. Please keep your facts straight," the animal spoke.

The young, little ginger boy floating shortly behind the dog smiled. "You tell 'im, Mr. Peabody!"

"Shut up, Sherman," the dog told him, right before both of them were pulled up and out of sight, for parts unknown.

Shirou blinked. "Okay... Now that was strange..."

And then, all of a sudden, he found himself dropping on his butt on green grass, a clear blue sky now stretching over his head once again.

 

[Unilateral]

Me: I want [Jack and Annie].
OverMaster: We have [Jack and Annie] at home.
Home: [Peabody and Sherman]

 

[OverMaster]

"Okay, this is much better, I guess," Shirou gave a sigh, wandering across the seemingly endless green prairie he'd been abandoned onto. Only a few trees scattered here and there in the distance gave some variety to the landscape, and only the chirping of passing birds gave any sound to the surroundings. "If I'm truly lost in time or something, at least I'm not in the age of dinosaurs. That's got to count for something, right?"

After more than half a hour of marching aimlessly and stopping briefly under each tree's shade to gather his thoughts as best as possible, Shirou heard a rumbling of hooves in the distance. Smiling to himself, he looked in the direction of the incoming animals, only to gasp in awe at the sight of a small number of horseback Medieval knights galloping towards him.

Real, living and breathing armored knights of yore, the Legendary Heroes of song and epic! That, or he'd been taken to some North American Renaissance Fair. Either way, these people were his best shot of getting back home right now, so he waved his arms up, still holding the toaster in a hand. "Hey, everyone...! Sorry to disturb, I think I've lost my way...!"

The knights came to a halt before Shirou, the small figure at the lead staring down at him with a cold scowl. Shirou blinked curiously at the sight of this person. It was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, with a delicate and fair face that was nonetheless icy and devoid of feelings. Her eyes were large, round and light green, and her hair a pale shade of golden blonde, pulled back into a small bun. She wore a long dress of regal blue cloth, along with a metal chestplate and armored gauntlets and boots. The reins of her gigantic horse firmly held in her hands, and on her waist the sturdy sheath of a large sword, perhaps too big for her petite size.

"Hark, stranger!" she addressed him in a foreign language, bathed from behind by the direct sunlight giving her an even more regal appearance, with a calm and aloof voice. "What are you doing in the wilderness, so far from any village? State your business and place of residence."

"Geh…!" Shirou stuttered, too shocked to say anything else. "What...?"

A very large man in white armor with a very large sword spoke from the next horse. "My Liege, he clearly cannot understand you. I think he might be a foreign spy..."

"N-No, of course I can understand you!" Shirou gasped, waving his hands before himself. "You're talking English, after all! The universal language! I pay attention in Negi-sensei's classes, after all!"

That plot hindrance all too conveniently sorted out, the beautiful woman in blue kept on speaking. "In that case, you don't have an excuse for your hesitation. What is it about us that troubles you so?"

Shirou blinked. "Um, perhaps you couldn't hear me before, but I'm lost, completely stranded away from home. I don't even know how I got here, I only can suspect this toaster may have something to do with it..."

A knight in a white and red armor concealing their whole figure, armed with a similarly red and white blade, leaned ahead with piqued curiosity. "What manner of sorcery is this?" the stranger asked, voice echoing within a horned helmet obscuring their every feature. "Speak, peasant! What is the purpose of this contraption?!"

"Ah... It toastes bread? If it still works?" Shirou replied dubiously, daring to press on the toaster's handle, and causing the well done leaf of bread spring up, with a pleasant musical sound. "Whaddya know, it does! Well, Sakura will be happy!"

The young woman in blue sniffed, then reached down and snatched the bread away from Shirou, hastily putting it in her mouth and happily wolfing it down.

The knights gathered around her all tensed in their armors, making them clang as they rattled in shock. "Your Majesty!" a knight with no helmet on and showing a handsome face topped by golden short hair protested. "What if that is poisoned?! We can't just trust any stranger with unknown accents we happen to find along our way!"

"This was delicious," the young lady approved, delicately wiping tiny crumbs off her lips with two fingers. "Tell me, boy, would you happen to have more of these on your person?"

"Ah, no, sorry, I left the rest of the bag back at home," Shirou said. "How do you do? I'm Emiya Shirou, and you would be...?"

"I am Arthur, King of Bretons," the woman proudly said, chin high with the poise befitting a royal. "I am the Master of these lands, and these my men, the Knights of the Round."

Shirou blinked again, now looking at three of the other knights, namely a busty short haired person in all too skimpy black armor and carrying a masive shield dwarfing her on size on her back, what had to be a cute girl wearing armor a size or two too big for her and wielding a titanic jousting lance, and a pigtailed blonde in white breastplate and matching short skirt, her left arm a giant of a piece of machinery more fitting some anime mecha than a girl that short and frail looking. "... your men... I see..." he trailed off.

King Arthur sighed in exasperation. "A foreigner no doubt... We should stop by here while we question him regardless, O Knights. Galahad's mount is looking like it wants to fall over again and probably needs a rest."

"I keep telling you we should just put the shield in a car and pull it along the way!" the knight with horns protested. "This poor animal...!"

 

[OverMaster]

"We are looking for the Holy Grail, the most important of all treasures under the sun," King Arthur explained solemnly as they all sat in a wide circle on the grass. Not that it was easy for the Knight with Horns, stuck in that sharp looking monstrosity. All in all the King had to have it the easiest, which Shirou supposed was logical since she was the king. "The Cup that held the blood of the Lord, currently held hostage by the faithless. With that purpose, I have set out with Sir Lancelot..."

"Aye," the tall man in white armor and sporting purple hair raised his hand.

"... Sir Gawain..."

The blonde man also raised his hand with a smile. "Always in the service of Camelot and our king!"

"... Sir Galahad..."

The girl in the black armor that was more like a black onepiece swimsuit with boots and gauntlets shyly raised her hand. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"... Sir Bedivere..."

"Right here!" the pigtailed girl raised her humongous metallic arm, somehow not collapsing under its weight.

"... Sir Agravain..."

A brooding, pale skinned man with black hair wearing sinister black armor muttered "Perhaps we shouldn't be giving our names to this outsider, My Lord..."

"Let even our enemies know our names so they can fear us from our actions," Arthur lectured. "Then there's Sir Mordred..."

"Yo. I mean, hail Britannia and the ever lasting crown!" said the horned knight, ignoring the sudden stare of shock Shirou was giving them at the recognition of their name.

"... Sir Gareth..."

The girl in the ill fitting armor smiled, struggling to keep her helmet in place, blond strands of hair brushing down on her face from around the corners of the visor. "Greetings, young sir!"

"... and last but never the least, the pride of our numbers, bravest of us all, Sir Robin," Arthur said, bowing along the others towards a dumbly smiling man with long, curly hair, beard and moustache.

Four minstrels appeared suddenly behind this man, singing loudly, "Bravely bold Sir Robin, brought forth from Camelot. He was not afraid to die. For brave Sir Robin, he was not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways. Pray, pray, pray, pray, Sir Robin. He was not in the least scared to be mashed into a pole or to have his eyes stuck out and his elbows broken. To have his kneecaps split and his body burned away. And his limbs all hacked and mangled. Brave Sir Robin, his head smashed in and his heart cut out and his liver removed and his bowels flattened and-"

Sir Robin waved a hand up. "That's enough music for now!"

Shirou blinked a few times as the minstrels walked away. "Where... where did they come from...?"

"Secret of their trade," Arthur said. "Now, Emiya Shirou, where are you from?"

"Japan."

"Where is that?" Agravain asked.

"Across the ocean, past the far East of Asia," Shirou swung a hand up towards the Orient, the knights' eyes following in fascination. "It's a land of, uh, lascivous fox demons, brave samurai warriors living and dying for their blade, and karaoke bars and pachinko machines."

"What are karaoke and pachinko? Are they things to eat?" Arthur asked with a perfectly straight face.

"Not exactly..." Shirou said. "In a karaoke, you can just go and sing all night long, provided you pay your stay and-"

"We have those too, we call them taverns," Lancelot said as all other Knights nodded.

"Of course you would know everything about that..." Galahad muttered under her breath.

Shirou sweatdropped. "And pachinko machines are these games of random designed to take your money away for the mob, but that's okay because everyone knows, and as long as the money's given willingly and everyone's having a good time, no harm done..."

"Your country sure sounds stupid," Sir Mordred bluntly told him.

"Hey!" an offended Shirou snapped. "We have the best police and health systems in the world!"

"I doubt that," Arthur said. "Our punitive head cutting system is second to none, and our doctors are the best this world have to offer. They... wash their hands!"

"Under our King, we went from being a country where everyone but the king was covered in shit to only have fifty percent of the population covered in shit," Gawain said with brimming pride.

Arthur nodded with great profundity. "My dream is for a Britain where nobody is ever covered in shit unless that is their fetish. They have called me a dreaming madman, but I know it can be done..."

Every knight in the group turned adoring eyes to her as she looked at the skies, the sunlight framing her even more majestically now.

Shirou stared on, dumbfounded. "I... I see! Wait, but where are Sir Kay, Sir Palamedes, Sir Bors, Sir Balin, Sir Tristan, Sir Percival and Sir Ywain?"

"Ah, so you do know about us," Lancelot said accusingly. "Well, someone had to stay and look after Camelot in our absence, from all the vile foreigners sending spies to our lands, wouldn't you think so, young gentleman from Japan...?"

Galahad frowned and slapped him in the back of the head. "You're a foreigner yourself!"

"Galahad," Arthur said. "Lancelot does have a point. Shirou's story is weak and doesn't hold well on its own. So we are to take him as our prisoner of war."

"Aren't we going to just behead him?" Mordred visibly blinked from within the mysteries of the helmet.

"No," the king denied. "He is to cook our bread into this toasted delicacy so we will taste something decent for a chance. Gawain, you are thusly promoted to... Lead Scout, let us say."

Gawain looked greatly rattled and heartbroken. "I'm not the cook anymore?! What did I ever do, Sire?!"

Lancelot glanced aside and sighed discreetly. "On the other hand, perhaps the stranger can stay after all. Even if he attempts to poison us, he couldn't do any worse than Gawain."

"If you liked French cuisine so much you could have stayed back there...!" Gawain pointed a finger at him.

"Brother, no...!" Gareth said.

Shirou just sat perfectly still there, at these heroes of epic and song from yore. And internally weeped a little.

 

[OverMaster]

"Oh, so the shield doesn't get a car, but the prisoner does!" Sir Mordred complained, while the Knights kept on riding southward, with Shirou stuck in a small car pulled along by Arthur's horse.

"It's a mere matter of humanity," the King said, spurring her stallion down the endless prairie.

"But, the horse...!" Mordred insisted, pointing at Galahad's poor animal of choice, panting under the weight of the collossal shield. This is how we can see how inhuman Arthur had become in her role as the Perfect King, since Wart's heart would have broken at such a sight.

Now they had arrived upon a river, where two knights were dueling on a bridge with giant longswords. One was dressed in green armor, and the other in black.

The Knights stopped to watch the fight. Shirou took a hand to his stomach. "Oh, thank you, God..."

The two knights on the bridge promptly went on to attempting to maul each other in many various ways and with many different tools of medieval weaponry. Finally, when the green warrior was charging the black one with a battle axe, the black knight threw his sword straight through the eye slit in the green knight's helmet.

"Oh, good one!" Lancelot said. "Eight points!"

"It's worth naught but a seven," Gawain disdainously said.

"Six point thirty five, I would say," Arthur coldly stated.

Shirou pointed up and gagged. "Are you seriously going to let them kill each other?!"

"Well, you go stop them then," Lancelot said.

Shirou began getting up from the car, but Mordred knocked him in the head with a gauntlet and back down into it.

The green knight was now falling to the ground, bleeding copiously. The black knight stepped ahead, pulling his bloodstained sword out of the helmet. Arthur, with a mild arching of an eyebrow, dismounted and walked onto the bridge, addressing the victor.

"You fight with the strength of many men, sir knight," she congratulated him. "What is your name?"

"Black Knight," he said.

"So I see. That is a good name. Precise. I am Arthur, king of the Bretons."

"So what?"

"I seek the finest and the bravest knights in the land to join me at my court at Camelot. You have proved yourself worthy. Will you join me?"

Shirou blinked a few times. "Is that all it takes?!" he asked Mordred, bewildered.

"Shut up, don't question his decisions, fool!" Mordred just punched him back down again.

"Nay," the Black Knight said. "Camelot is a silly place."

Arthur shook her head. "You make me sad. So be it! Come forth, men!"

Before the riders could approach, however, the Black Knight held a hand up and bellowed, "NONE SHALL PASS!"

"What?" Arthur paused.

"NONE SHALL PASS!" he repeated himself.

"I have no quarrel with you, good sir knight, but I must cross this bridge," she argued. "The Holy Grail is on the other side after all."

"THEN YOU SHALL DIE!"

Arthur scowled deeply. "I command you, as king of the Bretons, to stand aside!"

"I MOVE FOR NO MAN!"

"Um," Shirou pointed out from below, "but she is a--!"

This time it was Agravain who punched him down. Mordred thanked him with a nod.

And so, Arthur and the Black Knight began battling, with the former, relatively unencumbered by armor, having no difficulties dodging the heavier but much slower strikes of her adversary. Only every so often their swords would encounter each other, clanging together in a way that resounded all through the landscape.

Shirou looked at the Knights of the Round. "Aren't you, um, going to put a stop to this? What's the point? They might kill each other, it doesn't have to be this way..."

"This is the King's battle to fight," Gawain observed stoically. "We couldn't call ourselves his men were we to interrupt a duel one on one."

"Besides, whenever Sin Lancelot fights he brutally breaks everything around him, and we really need that bridge standing," Galahad quietly added.

Lancelot looked wounded. "It's more a fifty-fifty thing...!"

Finally, Arthur dodged a really close strike, enough as to step aside, find a close quarters opening, and cleanly cut the Black Knight's left arm off with her sword. Blood spurted in a geyser from the Knight's open shoulder, creeping the hell out of Shirou.

"Now stand aside, worthy adversary!" Arthur warned after stepping back.

Far from being intimidated, the Black Knight growled, undaunted. "'Tis but a scratch!"

"A scratch? Your arm's off!" she protested.

"No, it isn't!" he claimed.

Angrily, she pointed down at the arm on the bridge's floor and demanded, "What's that, then?"

Her enemy looked at it for a moment and gruffly said after a reluctant pause: "I've had worse!"

"You liar!" Arthur said.

"Come on, you pansy!" he challenged her again.

With a grunt of fury, Arthur charged ahead once again, swinging in full force and slicing off the Knight's other arm. "Look, you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left!" she pointed out then.

"Just a flesh wound!" the Black Knight replied, blood flowing out of his stumps in all directions.

With a rough sigh of exasperation, Arthur struck yet again, this time cutting the Knight's left leg and leaving him awkwardly tittering on one booted foot, spraying blood everywhere.

This seemed to really anger the Black Knight now. "Right! I'll do you for that!"

"You'll do what?!" a fully disbelieving Arthur cried. "What are you going to do, bleed on me!?"

"I'm invincible!"

"You're a loony," Arthur sneered, shaking her head before waving her sword one last time, now chopping the final limb left, so the Black Knight's armored torso dropped on the floor with a loud clang. Exhaling in faint dismay, she walked past him towards her destination, even though the dismembered Knight kept on shouting furiously at her.

"Ooh, ooh, I see, running away, eh? YOU YELLOW BASTARD! Come back here and take what's coming to you! I'll bite your legs off!" As the rest of the Round Table crossed the bridge, pulling the car with Shirou in it along, he still kept on threatening. "You too, bunch of girls, literal girls! Grrrr! Pffft! You don't stand a chance as long as I am--"

Without glancing at him, Mordred punted the torso off the bridge and into the water below.

"That," Shirou said, "was a little bit extreme, I think."

"La la la la, I cannot hear or understand what you say in your perverse alien language..." Mordred sing-sang.

 

[OverMaster]

Many were the adventures and travails of A Japanese Hero of Justice Wannabe in King Arthur's (Traveling) Court over the next few days, and it would be folly to try and chronicle them all. Suffice to say for now, at some point the Knights decided to split in teams to better look for the Grail, and during the pulling of the straws Shirou was chosen to depart with Sir Lancelot.

Neither was particularly contented with this, but least of all King Arthur, who would now have to do without Shirou's delicious bonfire cooking and his toasted bread. However, even the King could not oppose the decree of the straws, and so Lancelot and Shirou and his car traveled the mountains alone for days, until reaching a most dangerous place.

A fair maiden bowed to Lancelot and Emiya at the front halls of this greatly ominous palace. "Welcome, gentle sir Knight, and youthful sir Squire. Welcome to the Castle Anthrax!"

"The Castle Anthrax?" Lancelot replied dubiously.

"That doesn't seem to be a very healthy name," Shirou said.

She nodded demurely. "Yes, it's not a very good name, is it? Oh, but we are nice, and we will attend to your every, every need."

"Oh," the just as beautiful young lady standing next to her told them, "I am afraid our life must seem very dull and quiet compared to yours. We are but eight-score young blonds and brunettes, all between sixteen and nineteen and a half, cut off in this castle with no one to protect us. Oooh, it is a lonely life: Bathing, dressing, undressing, making exciting underwear. We are just not used to handsome knights or boyish squires."

"You must spank her well, and after you are done with her, you may deal with her as you like, and then spank me," a third lovely maiden said, bowing her head respectfully.

Several young nuns appeared arount the maidens, excitedly saying, "And me. And me too. And me!"

"Yes," the third maiden nodded firmly. "Yes, you must give us all a good spanking. And after the spanking, the oral sex."

"The oral... what...?" Shirou swallowed hard.

Lancelot blinked. "Well... I could stay a bit longer..."

Then, valiantly and with great flashiness, the Knight of the Shield broke in through the window, heroically grabbed the stunned older warrior and the hapless foreigner, and heroically ran away with them, out the castle's entrance.

"I'm glad, I was in the nick of time. You were in great peril!" Galahad said while running.

"I don't think I was..." Lancelot muttered under his breath.

" Yes, you were. You were in terrible peril!" Galahad insisted.

" Look," he told her, "let me go back in there and face the peril."

"No, it's far too perilous!"

"Look, it's my duty as a knight to sample as much peril as I can," he reminded her.

"I think," Shirou said in an extremely quiet voice, "I shouldn't be running from the peril either..."

"No, we've got to find the Holy Grail. Come on!" she said, pulling along rather more strongly now.

"Oh, will you let us have just a little bit of peril!?" Lancelot complained.

"No. It's unhealthy!"

"I bet you're gay," he grouched.

"I'm a woman!" she growled.

"Oh, that's right, I keep on forgetting..."

 

[OverMaster]

And so, finally, after so many more trials and tribulations, King Arthur, her loyal Knights, and the man with the toaster had reached the cavern where the Holy Grail itself was hosted. They had lost brave Sir Robin, his minstrels whom they had to eat, and poor, unfortunate Sir Not Appearing in This Fanfic, but after facing the three tests of the Cave, they had finally reached the depths of the most sacred chamber.

With wide, starry eyes more fitting a child than a King, Arthur reached over to touch the Grail, glowing in precious golden at the end of the room. "It's so beautiful..." she whispered in reverence.

"W-Wait!" Bedivere said, holding her hand back before she could make contact. "What if it's dangerous?"

"A knight doesn't run away from peril," Arthur reminded her.

Lancelot glared at Galahad. "I told you so!"

Galahad threw her hands up. "I regret nothing!"

"But Sire, you know the stories about the Grail!" Bedivere insisted. "Only those without any darkness in their hearts can touch the Grail and survive!"

Gawain gasped, scandalized. "Bedivere! Are you implying our sovereign, the Perfect King, could have anything but light in his heart?!"

Mordred took a fist to their mouth and coughed something that rhymed with 'Hip of Pay Bay.'

"Th-That was a necessary deed for the survival of the kingdom!" Gawain growled, frustrated. "There's no evil in the King's heart whatsoever!"

Bedivere pouted, then produced a pair of scissors out of her giant gauntlet arm and held them around the King's ahoge.

The other Knights grew all stiff in terror, while Shirou only blinked without understanding. "No! In the name of all that is holy, don't do that!" Agravain all but begged.

Bedivere sighed. "Sire," she told Arthur, "while I don't doubt the nobility of your intentions, there is only one of us who could obtain the Grail. Galahad the Pure!" she pointed at Galahad, who just blinked a few times, now as confused as Shirou. "Yes, the only one of us who could sit on the Siege Perilous and live!"

"W-Wait, are you saying that's the reason you always leave that chair for me?" the girl in the black mini-armor asked. "Because it would kill anyone else? Did you even think, the first time I sat there, that I could--?"

"Bedivere," Arthur interrupted her, addressing the twin tailed Knight. "As the second oldest serving of my men, I respect your opinion and wisdom above that of all others. I'm sorry I was blinded by the allure of the Grail. You are correct, of course, that is why you are the intellect of our operation, even if you thought witches were made of wood..."

"... wait," Lancelot took pause. "They aren't?!"

Arthur bowed her head to Galahad. "Claim the Grail in the name of Christianity, Sir Galahad. Now I see that is the task you were born for."

"I don't know, Sire, maybe the officially designed Head Scout should do it!" an offended Galahad argued, pointing at Gawain.

Gawain whistled, looking aside and dragging a foot around. "I never had anyone addressing me as 'the Pure', that is for certain..."

Galahad stopped herself from further arguing, staring all around, and examining the faces of all others. Shirou felt sympathy for her then, and began, "Um, you know, maybe you don't have to do this if you really don't want to..."

Galahad sighed. "No. No, it's okay. Fine. I'll do it..."

As she began walking towards the blessed cup, a tiny Kiritsugu angel popped up on Shirou's right shoulder. "Don't let it come to pass, my son. How can you stand aside while a lady sacrifices herself?"

Another tiny Kiritsugu angel appeared on Shirou's left shoulder. "No, Shirou, you cannot change the course of history. Galahad is meant to fulfill her fate as a hero, much the way you are to meet yours. Now, what you should do is stop doubting and denounce Mordred's treachery to King Arthur..."

"Hey!" the first Kiritsugu angel shouted. "That counts as changing history, too! Do you have any idea what could that do to our present day?! How many lives you could be endangering?!"

The second angel pointed a gun at him. "And how many lives will be lost if you just let this asshole betray his country, you damned idiot?! Stop putting unheroic ideas in my son's mind!"

"YOUR son?! He is MY son!"

"Don't fight, don't fight!" Shirou sighed, shaking them both off his shoulders as the Knight of the Shield reached up to cup her hands around the Grail. "Um, Galahad-san! There's something you should know... about Mo-san!"

Mordred spun around to look at him, surprised. "What do I have to do with anything of this?!"

Shirou took a hand to his face and groaned. "I mean, come to think about it, it should be about Lancelot... or about the Queen, I suppose... or about... Argh, I don't know anything anymore!"

Lancelot scowled down at him. "Have you just implied anything at all about the Queen, son...?"

Then Galahad touched the Grail itself. And the whole room was bathed in a blinding, all encompassing flash of white light. Shirou's toaster began buzzing madly on its own volition, even as the light subsided just as fast and black, oozing tendrils began flowing out of the cup, causing Galahad to drop it with a cry of disgust. The Grail shattered on the stone floor and its contents spilled everywhere, growing and expanding, and absolute, evil blackness towering over them all, with an evil laugh coming out of nowhere and everywhere at once...

"Oh, so Sir Galahad the Pure wasn't so pure after all," Agravain deadpanned. "What a shock, how could we ever have expected anything like this from the illegitimate child of a man-whore..."

"Hey, there's no need to go around calling names now!" Lancelot said, unsheating his weapon along Gawain and Gareth. "You know, either way, this brings too many disturbing theological implications I'm not sure I want to think about..."

Gareth shrugged. "Eh, let's just agree it was a phony relic and we'll sleep better. I told you we shouldn't have trusted an enchanter calling himself 'Tim'..."

"Y-Your Majesty!" Shirou yelled at Arthur. "Please, just run away!" he yelled at her. "England depends on you, you still can escape…!"

"England, what's that? You are speaking nonsense, Shirou. Calm down, everyone. Have faith," she said, lifting her sword and aiming it squarely at the unnamable things sprouting and expanding from that Grail.

Galahad gulped, stepping before all the others to shield them with her oversized, well, shield. "Take cover, all of you!" she shouted. "And block your ears too! This is going to hurt...!"

The tendrils of living darkness shook and rumbled, and then roared, drowning Arthur's words as she shouted them. Shirou, wide eyed, could see the extensions being shot downwards, flying towards them, and then Gareth drew him violently into the protective embrace, pressing him against herself, whispering an apology, just as he heard the King's final exclamation, somehow managing to rise over the rumbling and the toaster's mad buzzing. Her blade finally attained all of its golden glory, with a blinding burst of light that flew upwards, vaporizing the incoming tentacles in its blazing wake, and zooming past them and directly into the main mass of the blasphemous things.

"EXCALIBUR!"

Shirou managed to blink yet, truly astonished as he glanced over Gareth's shoulder and Galahad's shield. "Oh," he quietly said. "On the plus side, this isn't such a bad dea—"

And then everything around him blew up.

 

[OverMaster]

Emiya Shirou woke up with a start, on his back on the floor of his workshop, and with a broken toaster on his chest.

He jolted up to a sitting position and looked around the room, dawn's early light filtering through the window and delicately bathing the surroundings. "Oh... Oh, thank goodness, it was all a dream," he told himself. "It's a horrible cliche, but I can live with that."

He dusted himself off while standing up, setting the shattered toaster back on the work table. "I'll have to buy Sakura a spare and apologize," he told himself. "That's not so bad, it's funny how now I can see a lot of things with more perspective."

Whistling, he walked back into the house, pulled his shirt off, and marched towards the bathroom. "Man, I smell as if I'd really spent weeks without touching any soap," he yawned, pulling his pants down and shaking his head. "I wonder if--"

Then he heard someone else's voice, right in the bathroom, with him.

"Goddammit that liar! You never can count on him for anything!"

Shirou froze in place and saw a discarded suit of armor set on the floor by the toilet. A long pair of sharp honors protuded from the whole, attached to a helmet, and Shirou's forehead began pearling itself with copious droplets of sweat. Slow and reluctantly, his eyes wandered to the shower stall, its curtains wide open, and a buck naked young woman with blond hair facing away from him, struggling with the shower handle.

"Was it pulling, or pushing? Fuck, neither works!" she was grumbling to herself, Shirou's eyes nailed on her firm, perky bare posterior. "But if a moron like Lancelot could figure it out, so can I... Laaaaancelooooot!" she shouted. "Did you pull, or push?! No fucking water is coming out at all, asshole, you lied!"

She heard a loud thumping sound, and looked back to see Shirou, in nothing but his underwear, fainted on the bathroom's floor, his eyes turned into spirals and some blood leaking out of his nose.

The girl called out again. "Forget it, Lancelot! Shirou woke up already, I'll make him tell me!"

----

To be Continued?

 

[OverMaster]

Fate/Stay Night, Fate EXTRA, Fate Extella, Fate Hollow Ataraxia, Fate Grand Order, Fate Zero, Fate Kaleid Prisma Illya, Fate Apocrypha, Fate Prototype, Fate Requiem, Fate Strange/Fake and Fate Type/Redline are the creation and intellectual properties of Type-Moon and Nasu Kinoko.

---

Arthur took another hot meat bun to her mouth and palated it in length and thoroughly before swallowing it.

"It is good to see this era has so many delicious things to savor," she flatly told Shirou over the breakfast table. "It makes me glad humanity has endured this far. There are definite hopes for you."

Shirou sighed. "Well, yeah, tell that to the people in Africa and South America. How do you plan to make it back home, then? I mean, not that your presence bothers me, but... you would do well to return to your kingdom, since-"

"Britannia needs me, I am well aware," Arthur said before he could finish the sentence. "But you shouldn't be asking us that, since of all people you should be the one taking us there, the way you made it to my domains in the first place."

"But, I told you, I don't even know how I did that!" the redhead protested. "The toaster's kinda broken beyond repair now, and-!"

"I am sure you can fix it if you try hard enough?" Mordred gently suggested, not so gently pressing the edge of her blade against Shirou's throat. She had put the armor back on before leaving the bath, as if she didn't want the others to see her without it, which made sense for Shirou considering what he knew of Mordred legend, plus the fact she never took the armor off during the crusade, as far as he could tell. No wonder she'd been so desperate to shower after all of that.

"I can't if you chop my head off first!" Shirou reminded her, upon which Mordred pulled the blade back reluctantly. "Listen, don't you guys have an uber mage who is supposed to take care of things like these whenever the kingdom is in danger? Merlin? Everyone knows Merlin, he's more popular than any of you except the King..."

"He is?!" Mordred gasped. "Why that little piece of--!"

"It certainly seems somewhat unfair that he should leave a print this large on posterity, given the manner of person he was," Gawain mused, pouring himself another cup of coffee, a beverage on which he seemed to have taken an interest in the short time he'd been there.

"You people have something against Merlin?" Shirou wondered. "That's weird, from all the movies and books I'd have thought he was fairly beloved by all of you."

"What's a movie?" Gareth asked.

"Merlin is... or was, even though I am fairly certain he should live even now... a complicated sort of person," Arthur told Shirou. "I cannot say, in a good conscience, that he ever did anything that wouldn't be helpful to the cause of Camelot. And yet one could not be blamed if one happened to despise the methods he resorted to for such ends."

"Such as?" Shirou asked.

Nobody answered him at all, until Galahad simply said in a flat tone, "You don't want to know. Could you please get back to working on your bread cooking device so we can return to our duties, Sir?"

"I'd love to, but..." Shirou looked at his wristwatch. "Fujimura-sensei, my teacher, must be about to drop by for breakfast, and I have to think of an excuse for her before doing anything else. I don't think any of you wants to be seen in this day and age, so..."

"Oh, you must be quite wealthy yourself if you have an educator!" Gareth gasped in admiration. "Why didn't you ever tell us before, Sir Shirou?"

"Well, it's obvious he is wealthy and privileged, he does have an ice making magical box and a magical singing box after all," Bedivere reasoned.

"... those are an icebox and a radio respectively, and everyone has those nowadays," Shirou said.

The Knights stared at him in collective wide eyed astonishment.

Shirou facepalmed. "Everyone's supposed to attend school classes too, by the way. And I'm going to need a really good excuse for skipping them today, too."

"Would losing a few fingers do the trick?" Mordred offered, presenting her sword.

"Do you think losing fingers will help me fix the toaster at all?!" Shirou growled, growing seriously impatient with her.

"I'm just making a honest suggestion, you don't have to take it that way!"

Someone rang at the door. "Shirouuuuu! That coffee smells really good, you'd better brewed a lot this morning...!"

"What's that awful sounding language conveyed through such a sexy voice?" Lancelot perked up.

"It's... Japanese," Shirou groaned.

"Damn it!" Mordred swore. "It's even more stupid sounding than I'd imagined it!"

Gareth frowned and slapped the back of her head.

---

Fate: Time and Punishment.

---

Based on an original screenplay by Greg Daniels and Dan Mc Grath.

---

 

[OverMaster]

"I might have to take the day off today," Shirou told Fujimura Taiga over breakfast.

The short haired woman blinked. "And why is that?"

"Well, I'm not feeling all that well, and..."

"Ohmigosh!" she reached over the table to touch his forehead immediately. "You must feel like you're dying! For you to be complaining about feeling ill...!"

"Please, Fuji-nee!" he asked, pulling back while trying not to be rough. "I know you and your grandfather have been looking after me since Dad died, and I'm very thankful to you, but sometimes you worry way too much!"

"You know I can't help it, left to your own devices you'll just self destruct!" Taiga began digging back on her breakfast. "And you've been acting too weird this morning! You look as if you hadn't slept for days! Is it because of today's test? I know Kuzuki can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but..."

Shirou facepalmed. "Oh, no, that's right, Kuzuki-sensei's test! I'd forgotten with everything that happened! No way he'll let me off the hook..."

Taiga tried to smile. "I can try talking to him so he'll spare you this once. But you'll owe me!"

"That'd be really nice from you, Fuji-nee," he nodded. "Thank you."

"Of course," she continued, "I'll have to tell Caren-chan to come over and take a good look at you. You can't go around abusing your health just because you're still young and strong, you know."

"Th-There's no need," Shirou gulped, somehow feeling the eyes of the Knights and their King from the next room, behind the closed courtains. "Look, if you're that worried, I'll just go to Kitami-sensei's clinic and ask for a checkup, all right?"

"I wouldn't trust that quack to look at my ingrown toenail, Shirou, and you shouldn't either," Taiga chastised him. "Besides, she's evil. I can tell. You are hiding something from me, aren't you? You always were bad with lies..."

"I'm not hiding absolutely anything!" eeped the boy currently hiding the Knights of the Round Table in his house. "I'm fine, really, just a bit tired!"

"Okay, if you're sure," Taiga shrugged. "But then, without a medical certificate, I can't talk Kuzuki out of not flunking you. Kiritsugu wouldn't like that, Shirou."

"Oh, brother..."

---

"He left us! I can't believe he abandoned us!" Mordred growled, pacing back and forth across the living room. "After we stressed the importance of his obligation to us, and the importance of keeping his neck in one piece, so much! That man is a clod! And insane!"

"It's just until this evening," Lancelot said, resting on the couch and flipping through a super interesting magazine he'd found under Shirou's bed, earning him a constant quiet glare from Galahad. "A few extra hours here won't make much of a difference."

"You can't even read that thing, it is in Japanese," Galahad coldly accused. "Are you going to argue you read it for the articles?"

"No, no, they are actually helping our learning of this language," Gawain piously said, likewise reading from another such magazine in a sofa, wearing a spare set of Shirou's pants and shirt. "See? Several of these articles have helpful headlines in English."

Gareth looked over his shoulder. "'Kimiko, Sexy Angel of Ringerie'?" she read aloud. "This isn't even correctly written!"

"It's their culture and we must respect it," Gawain shrugged.

Agravain stomped over and snatched the magazine from his hands. "What a shameful display! What will our Liege think of you? We mustn't contaminate ourselves with this place's seedy customs!"

"I agree," Galahad said, moving towards one of Emiya Kiritsugu's old book shelves. "If you really want to read something, why don't we check on history books? Sir Shirou has some of them written in English, and..."

"No," Arthur commanded from where she sat eating from a large bag of Cheesy Poofs. "Hold yourself back, Galahad! Remember Shirou's wise advice, we shouldn't read on anything dealing with human history! There is a chance we might alter the course of events, contradicting the intended path of human evolution."

"Yes, yes, of course, you are absolutely correct," Agravain bowed his head to her. "Our interaction with this world must be kept to a minimum. Should fortune smile upon us, the boy will soon deliver us back to Camelot and we well forget these incidents ever came to be..."

Someone rang at the front door.

"Ignore it!" Agravain gasped, his head snapping in that direction.

"Emiya-kun, it's me, Tohsaka!" a voice said in Japanese. "I just came for my toaster before going to school!"

"Whoever that person is, whatever she is saying, just stay perfectly silent and she'll go away!" Agravain urged the knights, a finger on his lips.

"Emiya-kun?" the voice asked. "Who's that there?"

"She knows we are here," Arthur said with absolute applomb. "She has just heard you, Agravain."

Agravain looked, if anything, even paler than usual. Bedivere, instead, cocked her head aside curiously. "How do you know, Sire? You don't even know the language."

Arthur pointed at her ahoge. "King-Sense."

"Is that a a thing that actually exists?!" said a bewildered Mordred.

"Of course it is, that is why she is the King," Agravain replied. "Very well, then, Lancelot, you go deal with it. Make sure nobody ever finds the body."

Lancelot rolled his eyes, heading for the door while the other Knights pulled back into the room behind. "Honestly, you go wild a few times killing everyone in sight and people start taking you for their go-to murderous lunatic," he regretted before opening the door with his best charming smile. "Good morning, Miss, I'm sorry, but Mister Shirou left several minutes ago."

The very beautiful dark haired girl with twintails in a school uniform blinked at this handsome, tall gentleman she'd never seen before. "Oh! I see. That..." she cleared her throat and began speaking in accented but otherwise perfect English, which surprised Lancelot pleasantly. "That's something I should've expected, he often leaves early after all. Sorry, I'm Tohsaka Rin, the neighbor. My sister gave a toaster to Emiya-kun so she'd fix it, but we're already too indebted to him over favors of this type, so, um, I was wondering if I couldn't just take it back home and call a technician. Emiya-kun doesn't have to worry, we've bothered him too much of late, and..."

"Oh, a toaster?" Lancelot massaged his chin thoughtfully. "Yes, yes, I think I have heard Mister Shirou talking about that, indeed..."

"Excuse me, could I ask who are you?" Tohsaka Rin inquired.

"I am... an old associate of Mister Shirou's late father," Lancelot said as quickly as he could.

"Just dispatch her now! Now!" Agravain hissed from two rooms away.

Rin blinked. "Is there someone else in the house?"

"N-No! No!" Lancelot tried to laugh. "It's just, ah, the magical box with images and sound!"

"... the television, you mean?" Rin asked, stunned of meeting someone with even less knowledge on technology than her.

"Yes, that, of course... the television," the ladykiller forced an uneasy smile. "I was watching it with my dear daughter, um, Matthew."

"Matthew's a boy's name," Rin pointed out.

"Y-Yes, of course, it's just I raised her as a boy, sort of, I didn't know any other way," Lancelot began rubbing the back of his head vigorously while Rin squinted. "Actually, her name isn't even that, it's... ah... Mash!"

"You never raised me!" Galahad growled from her hiding place despite Bedivere and Gareth's attempts to keep her quiet.

Rin looked in the direction of the shout, then glared evenly at Lancelot, who looked like he was swallowing nails now.

She extended a hand forward. "My toaster, if you would please."

 

[Darkenning]

No index?

 

[OverMaster]

Added now. Thanks for the reminder.

I wanted to write as much as I could today since I'm not sure I'll be able to write much or at all tomorrow.

 

[Simonbob]

...... I can only wonder why they have horses.

Where are their coconuts? (No, not those ones!)

 

[wellis]

Shirou managed to blink yet, truly astonished as he glanced over Gareth's shoulder and Galahad's shield. "Oh," he quietly said. "On the plus side, this isn't such a bad dea—"

And then everything around him blew up.

Click to shrink...

Wbat did Shirou see here OverMaster?

 

[OverMaster]

"Here it is," Lancelot sighed, showing Rin the wrecked remains of her toaster on Shirou's work table. "As you can see, it's not like you could take it home right now..."

Rin frowned, taking the pieces in her hands. "I don't know, it still looks salvageable to me. I'll just take it home quickly, then head to school already. I have a test today, you know."

Lancelot gritted his teeth. "Are you sure that's what you want to do, Miss? Perhaps you should at least wait until Mister Shirou is back...?"

"Nah, I'm fine like this," she said, chewing on her lower lip while trying to punch the sides of the toaster in place so the contents wouldn't spill everywhere. "Tell him we'll reward him regardless, maybe pay his lunch for the rest of the--"

"Eeeexcuse me, please!" a girl hurried into the workshop then, wearing one of Shirou's old shirts over her lack of pants, her feet bare. Rin raised an eyebrow at this very unusual sight in Emiya's residence. "Um, I'm sorry!" the short haired girl rasped, her cheeks red. "B-But I don't think you should be taking this away yet, ma'am!"

"I beg your pardon?" Rin asked, still absently fidgeting with the thing, somehow making the skin on the back of Lancelot's neck crawl. "I don't think we've even been introduced to each other, Miss...?"

"Matthew, what are you doing here?" Lancelot asked the newcomer. "I thought we'd agreed I would handle this."

"You said it yourself, my name is Mash...!" she hissed. "And what we'd agreed is, we wouldn't let anyone touch anything until Mister Shirou came back!"

"That's fine, Emiya-kun and I are good friends," Rin shrugged casually, forcefully clicking the sides in place and applying pressure with her fingers. "Nice to meet you, Mash-san, my name's Tohsaka Rin. Might I ask why you aren't wearing pants?"

"Oh, don't worry, she's got a leotard underneath. See?" Lancelot asked, reaching over to flip the bottom of Shirou's shirt up, and revealing the black onepiece Galahad usually wore under her armor. "I raised someone known as 'The Pure', after all, there's no reason to think ill--"

"YOU NEVER RAISED ME!" Galahad reminded him, cheeks red as beets as she swung a fist on his head brutally, making the mighty warrior stagger ahead, stunned.

Rin sweatdropped. "Ah-ha-ha," she laughed stiffly, "so that's what I missed this whole time I was an orphan... Well, sorry, but I'm late as it is, so I'll just take my property away and won't bother you anymore..."

"N-No! Please reconsider!" Mash gasped, standing on the workshop's doorstep with her arms in a cross position, and Lancelot still reeling from the blow.

Rin scowled. "Mash-san, this isn't funny anymore! I'm warning you, I know martial arts!"

"I don't want to fight either!" Mash cried. "It's just, please trust me on this, it's highly important you leave that object here until we are gone!"

"We are just that desperate for good bread," Lancelt groaned, rubbing the large bump on his head. "Our cook is just terrible."

Rin growled, slamming the toaster back on the table. "What's the problem with you guys, are you drunk?! This is just a vulgar toaster, why so much drama over it?! But fine, if you're going to be so anal about it keep it forever for all I care! We aren't that short on money, we--" She glanced back at the toaster she still had a hand on, feeling it tremble under her fingers. "Is it working again? Well! Maybe I'm good with these things after all!"

Then it shot a massive beam of light upwards, engulfing the whole workshop.

"Merde," Lancelot said before being swallowed by the light.

".. why me?!" Galahad managed to sob before disappearing.

Rin began panicking. "Ah! What's this?! No, no, I really can't miss on that test, Kuzuki-sensei will kill meeeeee!"

And then she was gone as well.

One moment after, Gareth, Agravain, Gawain and Mordred all peeked carefully into the now empty workshop.

Gawain looked down at Gareth. "I told you, I should have come instead."

"You would have made it even worse than this, I'm sure!" she told her older brother. "You can be trusted with anything but pretty girls!"

Agravain looked back towards the house and called out, "Your Majesty...! I don't think you're going to like this!"

 

[OverMaster]

"What... what was all of that?!" Rin gagged as soon as she regained her full senses, setting the broken toaster aside and putting herself on her hands and knees on the beach. "Clocks everywhere, what the hell! And why did that naked guy look just like Arnold Schwarzenegger?!"

"I don't know who's that," Lancelot said, helping her back to her feet as Galahad dusted herself off, "but I'm afraid you have just learned our secret. Indeed, we are not a normal Britannian set of loving father and daughter."

"Oh, yes, like I couldn't have told you that already!" Rin yelled.

The man placed a hand on his chest. "Instead, I am Lancelot du Lac, ever loyal Knight of the Round Table in humble service of the Church and our noble King Arthur. And this is my son, I mean daughter, Galahad the Pure."

Galahad sighed. "I'm sorry we have to meet under these circumstances, Miss Rin."

Rin blinked. "Okaaaayyy... Emiya-kun was always helping everyone no matter what, after all. I suppose it was just a matter of time before he decided to host the deranged and delusional." She looked around, at this deserted beach of pale sands, under a harsh windy sky. The sea brought salty fragances from the distance, and the sun was mostly cloaked behind gray clouds. "Where in the world did you bring me?!"

"Actually, it's more like when in the world you brought us, Miss Rin," Galahad patiently said. "Since you are this toaster's owner, I suppose we should ask you where did you happen to buy it in the first place?"

Rin looked at her. "What does that have to do with anything? If you really must know, it was a gift from my tutor, a priest from the Catholic Church. Why do you ask?"

"Please tell this most holy man, if you ever see him again, to go get himself cooked, Miss Rin," Galahad replied patiently, before she and Lancelot would turn their eyes up, towards a large rock formation overlooking the coast. A man stood on it, tall and wearing a traditional light purple umanori hakama and kimono, light purple tabi and black geta with purple haori and tekkou, and sporting his hair in a very long ponytail flowing behind him in the wind. A classic Japanese sword attached to his back, he stared into the ocean with sharp, cold eyes like those of a vigilant hawk. "Thankfully we aren't alone, that man might be able to help if Sir Lancelot doesn't skewer him first..."

"I don't go around skewering anyone I meet just because they have swords on them!" her father protested. "Especially if I don't have my sword with me, as is the case now!"

The stranger looked down, then shouted in Japanese, "Ah! You have arrived to witness the duel, haven't you? Such a bother... but I suppose I should not mind as long as you don't stand in the way?"

"What is he saying?" Lancelot asked Rin. "Can you understand him?"

Rin blinked. "Um, yes, it's archaic Japanese, but... You don't know the language, do you? Great!" she sighed, then called to the man, "Listen, please, we don't know anything about any duel! We've just lost our way from home and need to get back soon, I have a pending test! Can you please direct us to the nearest bus stop?!"

"I'm afraid I don't understand the exact nature of your query," the suave, handsome stranger said, pointing at the sea, "but I promise providing you with any possible help should I survive this encounter. Behold, someone sails with the intent of challenging me. Soon our blades shall taste blood before night falls."

Rin paused, then put a hand above her eyes and stared into the horizon, managing to see a small wooden boat, with someone in it towing towards the shore. "Are you sure that's a challenger?!" she shouted at the ponytailed man. "What if it's the survivor of a shipwreck?! That boat's a mess, and that person's clearly drunk!"

"Oh, you have a good eye!" the man congratulated her. Lancelot and Galahad were just sharing puzzled looks and shrugs of shoulders. "However, it would appear mine is sharper, as I can see the most fine blades that person is holding. No, this is a warrior, looking for a chance to test their skill against mine. So be it, then!" he suddenly gave a gigantic leap down, and much to Rin's gasping awe, he landed smoothly on his feet next to them, still smiling at the sea. "This is good. The thrill of combat is the only thing left for me in life."

"Is it?" Rin gulped, having a creeping, strange feeling of dread. "What... What is your name, good sir?"

"My name?" he echoed. "Names are meaningless for one such as I, a fleeting presence without a true purpose. I was born nobody, and as such shall die. I only ask from the gods to be given some satisfaction in the brief time within. But should you really know, you may call me Sasaki."

"S-S-Sasaki Kojiro?!" Rin gagged, backing away.

The man chuckled and shrugged. "I have been called that, as well. Who is Sasaki Kojiro? Three others have I met, demanding from me the rights to a name I never asked for. Three of them I slayed myself, all for the rights over a name not my own. So I imagine I have earned the name, even if I have no use for it. Should this be another Sasaki Kojiro?" he wondered aloud as the boat touched the coastline, and out jumped an extremely beautiful woman with pale gray hair, two katanas secured around her shapely body. "Another of many, or is it another, a different manner of challenge? It matters not. Tell your foreigners to step back, Ojou-sama. There is no saying how much destruction this battle might wreck..."

The woman with gray hair waved erratically at the small group from the edge of the sea, burped, staggered a few steps ahead, and then fell flat on her face, stumbling on wobbling alcoholized legs and shouting a mangled "Kuso...!"

Rin, Kojiro, Lancelot and Galahad all sweatdropped. "On second thought..." Kojiro said.

 

[OverMaster]

The young woman woke up a few hours later, when the sun was almost setting down. She sat up on the sand, finding Rin, Kojiro, Lancelot and Galahad all sitting around her and regarding her curiously.

"Ugh..." she took a hand to her head and winced. "What a hangover! I knew it was a bad idea, drinking all the way here, but what else could I possibly do to pass the time?"

Rin blinked. "What the hell, this just can't be true. Now you'll tell me you're Miyamoto Musashi?!"

"I won't tell you if you don't want me to," Musashi groaned, running a hand through her own hair over and over. "It's not even my real name anyway."

"Oh, for the love of--!" Rin said. "Doesn't anyone go by their real names anymore?!"

Musashi ignored her, gaze lingering over all of them until fixed on the ponytail man. "Are you Kojiro?"

"Who can tell?" Kojiro began musing philosophically. "The esence of a--"

"He is!" Rin cut him short, making the proud swordsman pout a little petulantly. Then she told Musashi, "Listen, now, I don't know what kind of roleplay are you engaging here, but what I do know is I couldn't have traveled through time, because only one man in the world could do that, so you're going to tell me what these people couldn't, namely where we are, and why it's not Ganryujima Island!"

The gorgeous lady just gave her a blank stare, then laughed, "Oh, this is good! Whatever you have been drinking, I want some! It's much more potent than my stuff!"

"I've never been drunk in my life!" Rin grew furious. "I'm completely serious, I-- I--!"

"I heard you were here and came to challenge you, Kojiro-san!" Musahi smiled, getting all the way up just as Sasaki also did, smiling faintly at her. "You are my big ticket to actual fame! Prepare yourself, it's nothing personal but I'm going to take your life today!"

Lancelot seemed pleased. "Oh, now this language, I can understand."

"Is this fight absolutely necessary?" Galahad groaned. "Battling for sport is fine as long as it's done through a proper joust with rules, but..."

"What are these gaijin saying, and why are there gaijin here in the first place?" Musashi asked curiously as she and Kojiro assumed battle stances before each other, taking some distance from them.

"I have no idea myself, they arrived shortly before you," Kojiro admitted, preparing his katana. "Are you sure you wish to fight right now? Have you fully recovered yet?"

"I fight at my best while wasted!" she boasted. "Don't get easy on me just because I'm a woman!"

"I'm not a gentleman, but an assassin with no heart," Kojiro waxed in. "I won't even shed a tear over your corpse."

"Nice!" she said, and then lunged ahead, Kojiro easily dodging the first strike by parrying aside. Sand was blown in all directions from the mere burst of air from her blade's swing, and then he countered with his own thrust, one she jumped over with grace that amazed Lancelot and Galahad. Even Rin was fairly impressed, her heart beating faster. "Not bad, no, not bad at all! Psyche!"

"Psyc-- What?!" Kojiro said, turning back just as Musashi grabbed a handful of the blown sand and threw it on his eyes, blinding him long enough as for her to kick him in the face, pushing him back. "Uwaaa!"

Rin, Galahad and Lancelot sweatdropped again. "I'm glad our King isn't here right now," Galahad said. "She'd surely hate seeing this..."

Kojiro, however, did not seem disappointed over this, quickly rubbing the sand off his eyes with the back of a fist. "Yes, this is the manner of strategy men from this era have abandoned!" he gushed with enthusiasm. "The pragmatic treachery of a true murderer, the return to the roots of battle! It only makes for a sweeter victory for the more refined--"

"You talk too much, old man!" Musashi yelled, lunging again and almost cutting through his right flank, only for him to move out of the way right in time. Their next strikes came together, swords clashing against each other with a deafening clang, and all the othree three could do was staring on with amazement. They moved fast, dancing together, well matched move by move, faster than Rin's eye could follow properly. She honestly had no idea which one of them could win, history books be damned...

They were locked in a tense standstill now, pushing against each other, muscles bulging and covered on fine sweat, teeth bared and grinding. The ground rumbled under them, as if threatening to crack at any moment now, and despite herself, Rin leaned ahead with Lancelot and Galahad, mouths open, eyes gleaming in morbid expectation, a primal emotion Rin had never felt before, that of--

Then, with her free hand at the time, Musashi strained herself to reach down, felt around across the wreckage of an old abandoned fishing boat, grabbed a rotten plank of wood, and slammed it down on Kojiro's head.

Rin, Lancelot and Galahad had their eyes reduced to dots, and there was a sickening crack as Kojiro's eyes went blank and his mouth slack.

Sasaki Kojiro... DEFEATED.

And he slumped to the sand, limp and lifeless.

Musahi, solemnly, sheathed her katanas back. "Like a swallow's flight, all life is fleeting, all-- Hey, that reminds me! I didn't get to see the Swallow Cutting Strike! I was robbed!" she lamented, suddenly losing all of her dramatic composure. "It was over before I knew it, it was like a really bad fuc--"

Rin gasped and pointed, despite Galahad's attempt to pull her back with them. "Oh my God! You have just killed Kojiro! You aren't human!"

Musashi blinked at her. "Um... Yes, I did? That's what I came to do, isn't it? He knew too, you can't complain I--"

"Get aside!" Rin pushed her out of the way, kneeling next to the dead man and pulling a pair of gems out of her sleeves.

"Well, you're welcome!" Musashi huffed, rubbing herself on an arm. She looked at Lancelot and Galahad. "Kids nowadays, huh? I blame manga scrolls, they don't prepare them for life's harsh realities..."

A tiny Tokiomi angel appeared on Rin's right shoulder, stirring a classy glass of wine. "Rin, don't," he said. "You cannot possibly change human history like this. A mage's path is one of death, and loss of human life is meaningless next to the pursuit of the Root. How will you reach the Root if you change and alter human history? Besides, our traditions don't include saving the lives of mundanes, and... you aren't listening again, are you."

"Remember, Rin!" the pristine Chibi Sakura Angel on her other shoulder urged her in a chirp. "All human life is sacred no matter what!"

"Unless it's a Matou's, I know, Sakura!" Rin said, pressing a gem against the swordsman's chest and applying her magic upon it. "I know I'm going to regret this idiocy, damn my stupid soft heart...!"

Musashi was taking a jar of liquor out of her boat, then pouring two cups for Lancelot and Galahad. "Sake? It's always a nice custom for funerals, after all."

Lancelot sniffed the cup and smiled at Galahad. "We have a lot to learn from this culture," he told her before downing the drink.

 

[OverMaster]

"You let her take it!" Shirou ranted, pacing back and forth across the workshop, moving his hands around. "You of all people had every reason to stop her from doing it, and you still let her!"

"It's Lancelot's fault. It always is," Agravain and Gawain deadpanned as one, folding their arms.

"You're too unfair to him," Gareth tried to reason. "It was her property after all, did we have the right to keep it for ourselves?"

"Of course we did, we laid hands on it long before she was born," Mordred reasoned. "That's all the priority rights we need!"

"Technically Gareth is correct," Arthur said, pensively leaning on Excalibur. "And yet..."

"W-Well, yeah, but Justice is a delicate balance, it doesn't always have to be obey to-- I think--" Shirou rubbed the bridge of his nose and moaned. "Never mind that, what can we do now?! How are we even supposed to know where in time are they?"

"Knowing Lancelot, he must be back in Camelot making eyes at the Queen," Mordred muttered to herself.

"What was that?" Arthur asked.

"Nothiiiing!"

"But other than that, how was your day, Sir Shirou?" Bedivere asked.

"Bad, I think Kuzuki-sensei flunked me, that test was way too difficult," Shirou said, taking a chair and plopping down on it. "Maybe if I start flipping through every history book and see what's changed I'll know what Tohsaka did, and where to look for her."

"Shirou, I think you overestimate the chances for them to alter the past in a meaningful way," Arthur opined. "Most points in history across the world belong to trivial moments that ultimately make no difference. Everyday routine experienced by average people. History changing moments are few and apart of each other. What are the chances they landed in the middle of one of them, instead of one of so many irrelevant times in irrelevant places?"

"Right, that, or history is pre-determined already, so whatever change Lancelot and Galahad were to make, they have caused it already," Bedivere lectured, raising a metallic pointer finger. "History has not collapsed on us yet, so they obviously haven't changed the course of events in a meaningful way... I think." She looked at Shirou. "This is YOUR age after all, do you feel it any different than how it used to be?"

"Yes, I have a killer headache that I never had before," Shirou lamented before someone rang at his front door. He stood back and began dragging his steps there. "You guys stay here and shout if anything else happens, I'll try to be back as soon as I can."

It was Sakura at the doorstep, looking about to cry and keeping her hands together. "S-Sempai?" she asked. "Neesan didn't show up at classes today, and she's not back home yet. I'm so worried, leaving like this without a note isn't like her! Haven't you seen her?"

"Uh... no, I can't say I have of late," he sighed, telling himself he wasn't lying, strictly speaking. "Don't worry, Sakura, I'm sure she'll back soon enough."

"B-But, she never has a cellphone on her so I can't contact her, and she has so many enemies!" Sakura took a thumb to her mouth and chewed on it nervously. "Shinji-sempai, Luvia-sempai, Eri-sempai, Tenjouin-sempai, Negi-sensei's ermine, Evangeline-san, the Riddler, Issei-sempai, Kimura-sensei, Yukihiro-san, Kitami-sensei, the garbage collector..."

"The Riddler?" Shirou blinked. "When-- Never mind, Sakura, Issei isn't the kind to ever actually hurt your sister, and otherwise, well, she can take good care of herself, can't she? Now listen, I'll go look for her so you're at ease, but in the meanwhile, I want you to sit still at home and wait for her, odds are she'll make it back before I find her anywhere. Right? Can you do that, please?"

She nodded, stifling a sob. "Thank you, Sempai..."

That rather pressing matter dealt with for the moment, Shirou returned to the Knights of the Round with a sigh. "It was Sakura, Tohsaka's sister. She's desperate over her absence, and I promised I'd help finding her."

Gawain nodded seriously. "A promise to a lady must never go unfulfilled. We will help you however we can."

"Even if it also means helping Lancelot," Mordred reassured, earning a glare from Gareth.

"Cannot you just find another domestic appliance and perform upon it whatever you did to this young lady's, Shirou?" the King suggested. "Perhaps it is not the artifact itself but you. Don't you happen to own a magical toaster of your own?"

"I do!" he said. "I mean, it's not magical, but... do you really think that could ever work? What are the odds?"

"There's not much else we can do for the time being, is it?" Bedivere asked back.

"Okay, but..." Shirou began rolling his sleeves up. "I'm not all that sure of what I was doing back then, it was late and I was getting sleepy..."

"JUST GO LOOK FOR THE BLOODY THING ALREADY, YE SODDING WANKER!" Mordred exploded, reaching for her sword's sheath.

Shirou gasped and bolted for his kitchen.

 

[OverMaster]

They sat around a bonfire under the full moon now, with Rin acting as the interpreter between the Japanese and Breton swordsmen, a task that had already burdened her with a killer of a headache.

"I see, so I was supposed to die today," Kojiro said indifferently, enjoying another sip of liquor. "Well, then, special added thanks for bringing me back, Rin-dono. Sake certainly seems sweeter after returning to life."

"It is?" Musashi blinked. "I want to try it too, then! Kojiro-san, skewer me so Rin-chan can revive me!"

"Don't call me 'Rin-chan'!" Rin growled. "Ahhhh, this is so bad! I just changed Japanese history in a drastic way, who knows what will happen now?!"

"Those two are awfully friendly around each other after one killed the other, aren't they?" an impressed Galahad asked her father.

"Aye," he said. "I'm sure that if we ever started killing each other, that would be the downfall of Camelot for sure."

"Don't be stupid, why would we ever start killing each other anyway? That's just ridiculous..."

"But, what's the problem, Rin-chan?" Musashi winked. "If I leave the island and say Kojiro-san died today, well, who's going to contradict me? You? It's not like there are any other witnesses around today..."

Rin took pause. "You know... you're right! Wow, you are the writer of The Book of Five Rings indeed! That's very clever, all Sasaki-sama has to do now is leaving to make a new life for himself, under a different identity!"

"I'm not too sure I want to do that..." Kojiro confessed.

"C'mon, you said that wasn't even your real name!" Musashi chided him. "What, would you be happier if I just killed you again?"

"You are welcome to try if you wish so, now I am wise to your tricks," Sasaki said with great dignity, "but although I have nothing rooting me anywhere, not even the identity of Kojiro, how could I possibly reinvent myself? What is there for me after Kojiro? Should I even bother to invent a new lie for myself to live?"

"Why don't you rename yourself Tachibana Ukyo?" Musashi suggested. "That's a cool name to have!"

"It's not, and where did you get it from?!"

Rin groaned, grabbing the toaster again and rattling it. "I'm sure you can work the details out on your own. I just want to go back home already! How did it take you to Japan, Galahad-san? You mentioned something about a corrupted Holy Grail, didn't you?" she asked, shifting back to English.

"That's the thingamabob that brought you and the gaijin here, isn't it?" Musashi took the toaster from Rin's hands, easily. "If it's something that can make you travel across time and space, maybe I can get it to work! You know what? When I was little, a sage told my father I would one day travel across the worlds and sail along the gulfs of time itself... I don't remember much else, Father had the poor bastard gutted out, Father was a nasty piece of work, but..."

"H-Hey, give that back!" Rin tried to yank it from her. "I'm not sure you can be trusted with something you don't understand!"

Musashi tried to laugh it off. "Hey, you just said I'm smart enough as to write a famous book! Are you always this edgy, Rin-chan? You'll get old and wrinkly soon!"

"Don't get funny with me, gimme!" Rin pulled back on the toaster, only for Musashi to frown and pull back. "It's mine! Even if you were Oda Nobunaga I still wouldn't let go of what's rightfully mine!"

"Why are you fighting? Don't fight, don't fight, please!" Galahad asked. "You are going to--!"

Musashi gave a small yelp, as she felt something strange flowing out of her and onto the strange contraption. "Ow! Is, is this supposed to be shocking you?!"

"Shock, what do you-- Aaaaahhh!" Rin cried, as the jolt went through to her. "Look at what you've just done now, who knows what else--!"

The toaster seemed to explode, then, and the whole world collapsed from the inside out, or something, in a white ball of all-ranging cold heat or something.

You know what I mean. These indescriptible things of great cosmic wonder that none of us has ever experienced get difficult and repetitive to elaborate on after a while.

 

[OverMaster]

"How much longer?" Mordred asked, looking over Shirou's shoulder.

"How could I possibly know?" Shirou asked back, screwing the toaster open again for yet another try. "This is the first time I actively try to turn an ordinary toaster into a time machine! Replicating a miracle when you have no idea how you did it the first time isn't easy! Who do you think I am, Chao Lingshen?"

"Who is Chao Lingshen?" asked Gareth.

"Possibly a mage of this day," Gawain sighed. "Regardless, Sir Shirou, you should have told us before that you were a mage yourself and used magic on that thing. That might have saved us a lot of misunderstandings!"

"I tell you I'm not much of a mage!" Shirou grunted. "I'm as inept as they come!"

"Yes. Yes, we can tell," Agravain said soberly.

"Don't be too hard on yourself," Arthur said from where she sat on tall stool, consciously picked so she'd feel herself taller than the others, while munching on a sandwich of lettuce and mayonnaise. "You might have failed to turn this one into a pantemporal transport device yet, Shirou, but the bread comes out even more delicious each time."

"There's no higher praise from the King than praise related to food," Bedivere bowed her head towards Shirou, and the other Knights followed her example.

Shirou exhaled and pressed another button again.

Then Tohsaka, Lancelot, Galahad, and two other people crashed through the ceiling and fell on them.

In the house next door, Tohsaka Sakura stopped sobbing to herself while looking at a portrait of herself and Rin as children, her own hair already purple and her smile still shaky and slightly haunted. She looked out the window carefully, towards Sempai's house, and paid attention to the shrill screams.

"Aaaahhhh! E-Emiya-kun! G-Get your face out of th-there, NOW!"

"What the hell, you brought even more people from somewhere else! Are you morons collecting us now?! And what kind of crap swords are these, they look like toys!"

"Rin-chan? What is this horned monstrosity, and why is it looking at my katanas like that?!"

"It was a perfectly good sandwich and you just ruined it, LAAAAANCELOOOT!"

Sakura stared on, completely dumbfounded out of her mind, and then simply stuck herself back in her bed, pulling the covers over her head.

---

To be Continued?