[Fate/ninth heaven] re:Birth; One day III [route II, day 1]

[feral-phoenix.livejournal.com]

Masterlist and readme are here.

One day III   …I awaken slowly.   The bedroom that was silent only a few moments before is now filled with the swelling strings of a piece of classical music.   “—”   To be honest, the sound itself is rather low-fidelity and occasionally filled with static.   This radio alarm clock is easy to understand and set up, but the cost of that is the low quality of the sound itself.   I could buy something that could produce better sound, but these days the technology in these clocks is getting more sophisticated.   As a magus, I train so far outside of technology that I tend to be leery of it.   …Well, more honestly, I don’t want to buy something and then find out that I have trouble working it.   I can admit to myself that I would rather deal with the low-fidelity sound of the classical music than needlessly injure my own pride.   I lie still in bed and listen to Bach until the piece changes.   …This next one is a Vivaldi piece, I believe.   I sigh with my eyes closed and complain to no one in particular about how only the most popular of composers tend to make it onto the radio these days.   Would it really hurt the people at the radio station to play some Franck at this time of morning? Goodness knows I’d love to be awakened by his Symphony in D Minor one of these days…   Thinking things like that, I push myself up leisurely and wake up slowly.   I’ve always hated being awakened by loud rings or buzzes, but the radio alarm clock just turns on the radio, as the name implies, and I can get used to thinking gradually while listening to the music.   Now that I’m more awake, I turn the alarm off and go to wash my face and change clothes.   Once I’m downstairs, I make myself a cup of Earl Grey tea and a few slices of toast.   There are other leftover things in the refrigerator that I can heat up if I get too hungry between now and lunch.   I am the sole resident of this grand house.   As I began to display signs of the Command Spell, my family bought this place for me, and now I live here in the Western-style district of Miyama in Fuyuki City, Japan.   Aside from the jet lag, I didn’t have too many problems adapting to the change in environment.   I contacted the Tohsaka and Fujimura families, introduced myself, and was given a run-down of all the different parts of the city.   …Incidentally, I don’t actually have a job here.   I’m not expected to stay in Fuyuki forever, but all the same, I’m here for the Holy Grail War.   Our family funds ensured that I have more than enough money to stay about a hundred times as long as I have to without being in any kind of financial duress.   After breakfast, I head into my study.   Despite the emptiness of the rest of the house, this place alone is rather messy.   It’s not a very large room, but the far end is occupied by my desk and the walls to the left and right of the entrance are invisible behind the tall bookshelves.   Learning is important for everyone, especially magi, but I like books.   Once I settled in here, I spent most of my time in this room with the books I brought along with me and others that I bought in stores down in Shinto.   I still do.   Literature is always important, but right now it’s going to be the main defense against anything that I have to face.   …Because the Holy Grail War is not just fought between magi, but between Servants.   …Between heroes.   I don’t know very much about heroic spirits or mythology compared to other subjects, so I’ve taken this opportunity to fill in the holes in my knowledge.   It’s easy to get lost in the pages of books, and I only snap out of my reverie when I realize that I’m hungry or something like that.   …Or.   Because of the sound of the doorbell being rung insistently.   I set aside the volume on the ancient Greek heroes I had been looking through with a sigh.   Honestly, there’s only one person who would come to bother me here.   And I dislike having to deal with her.   But the doorbell won’t stop ringing.   And my pride won’t allow me to ignore her invasion in hopes that she might get discouraged and go away.   —So.   “—What is it you want?”   She folds her arms and scowls at me.   “Hmph. Can’t you come up with a better welcome for a guest who’s here to see you?”   This woman with long hair and an unpleasant look on her face is my cousin.   To be precise, she’s more like a cousin several times removed, but at the moment that is neither here nor there.   Her name is Rosary Esmeralda.   …The Esmeralda family is another branch of the house of Valois.   Every branch of the family is filled with powerful magi, and we’re all rival families in a manner of speaking.   Valois Verlaine was a great archmagus, poet, and scholar.   He helped to revolutionize magic in France and a lot of his precepts are still in practice in the Magic Association today.   He’s nowhere near as famous as sorcerers like Zelretch as he was only an ordinary magus, but the magic he performed was still quite extraordinary.   We are told that Valois came very close to reaching the Origin at the end of his life, but failed and died unfulfilled.   As his descendants, we must carry on his research and complete what he could not.   …That’s why the different branches of the family are rivals.   Each branch is attempting to become the head family of Verlaine.   …Incidentally, the name Verlaine itself has died out completely, but that doesn’t matter very much to each of the houses.   The Branthèse and Esmeralda families are the ones with the most power and the most knowledge, and Rosary is their heir.   …And for that reason, Rosary is my rival.   We’ve been set to compete since we were small children, and told by our families—in my case, by my grandparents—that “that child is the enemy”.   Always, our achievements were held over each other’s heads.   We had a lot of pressure put upon us by our forebears, to sum it up.   We’ve fought several times, both in arguments and with magic.   …The latest incident has been over which of the two of us would receive the Command Spell and be chosen for the sixth Grail War.   We weren’t expecting the Grail War to come so soon after the last one, but as the cycles have been shortening gradually, the signs began to appear recently and I was chosen.   Despite my “victory”, Rosary followed me to Japan.   …I believe she intends to find some way to “punish” me for stealing her glory.   Well, it wasn’t like I did it on purpose.   The Great Holy Grail that sleeps within the earth of Fuyuki is the one that makes the decision in the end, but you try telling Rosary that it isn’t my fault and see where it gets you.   Rosary is stubborn.   She’s already out of the race, but she hasn’t given up yet—it’s that kind of thing.   …Well.   I can understand how she feels, but it’s exasperating.   If she were the one that was chosen, I wouldn’t be harassing her now.   Because even if it couldn’t be me, a victory by someone in the family would be better than a victory by some other Master.   Something tells me that Rosary doesn’t agree with that line of thinking, though.   “—So?   “I came all this way to visit you, and you can’t even make me some tea?”   …I sigh.   Don’t argue back, just obey and try to avoid the conflict as long as possible.   These are the rules for surviving Rosary’s visits, and so I put the kettle on.   “I know you don’t like Earl Grey, but my only tea other than that is in bags.”   She makes a more dissatisfied face than before, but goes ahead and chooses sweet orange tea.   I get out a bottle of honey before she can start complaining more.   Rosary likes her tea very sweet.   I can’t put honey in tea, and the most I can stand in mine is milk.   …I make enough for two and hand Rosary her tea before I go back to fix my own.   She spends the whole time glaring at me, or rather at my hand.   Her glare is so intense that it feels like it’s ripping my clothes and peeling back my skin.   The red mark that gives me the right to a Command Spell, essentially my proof of being a Master, runs over my right arm, down to the back of my hand.   There’s nothing that I can say to make her feel better, in the end.   Maybe it’s soft of me to want to soothe my rival’s feelings, but even so.   I don’t think Rosary has ever really hated me until I defeated her in the “race” for the Command Spell.   “Still no Servant yet?”   Rosary asks this boredly and drinks her tea, glowering around as if I’m hiding one in a cupboard or something idiotic like that.   “—Of course not.   “Like I told you yesterday, I won’t be summoning my Servant until tomorrow.”   Tomorrow in the afternoon, my magical energy will be at its peak, which will help me pour all my strength into reaching and summoning the Servant that will be my partner.   There’s more work that I’ll have to do today and tomorrow before then, though.   “Stupid.   “You’re going to wind up with something bad and shame the family with an attitude like that.”   Rosary insults me with mixed sadism and arrogance.   …I really wish that she would hurry up and head out, as the only way she stays happy is by insulting me.   This is irritating.   As a matter of fact, I already know that I won’t be summoning a weak Servant.   It’s not as though I’m about to tell her that, though.   After eating some of my food and drinking more of my tea, Rosary takes her leave.   It’s a wonder that she even manages to take off her shoes before entering a building, the way that she always acts.   …There’s nothing I can do about it, though.   All I can do is let her be and hope that she’ll return the favor someday.   …Still.   Without Rosary here, the house feels empty.   …It’s a feeling I’ve gotten used to.   I kind of wish that tomorrow was already here.   That way, I could summon my Servant and the house wouldn’t be empty aside from me anymore.   I go into the basement and make a few additions to the glyph.   After that, there’s dinner to make.   I’m only cooking for myself, so I do it absentmindedly.   In the end it’s not anything that means very much if I’m the only one to partake of the food.   After dinner is over, I spend some time calming down.   I steady my breathing and calm my mind.   This will help me sleep, and I need all the rest I can get for tomorrow.   Today is the last peaceful day I will have.   I know this.   After I summon my Servant tomorrow, there is no turning back.   Once the starting bell rings, then I will always be at the point of kill or be killed.   …It’s a little sad.   …Before I finally go to bed.   I check on the “treasure” I was given before I left for Japan.   While summoning a Servant, the best policy is to use an artifact to call a specific Servant that you want.   Like a bone or a piece of their armor, something like that—a priceless treasure that can’t be given modern value.   This artifact will draw that Servant to you.   It was something that my grandparents gave me.   This ancient silver tiara.   I will use it as a catalyst to cross time and call to the Throne, and have Saber, the most powerful of all the Servant classes, answer me.   …They say that Saber has the best general statistics of any Servant and remained to the final battle in every Grail War except the fifth, and this tiara belonged to a powerful hero of the past who only responds to the class of Saber.   …Tomorrow.   Tomorrow is when the curtains will raise on our battle—