Chapter 318: Mess Up? (2)
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Singularities of Fate/Grand Order.
In 2016, humanity went extinct—leaving behind only a research lab located on a snowy mountain. That was Chaldea.
As the last remaining humans, the people of this lab wished to resurrect humanity by stopping the scheme of the fake King of Mages, Solomon.
Solomon had placed Seven Holy Grails in seven different parallel worlds, these worlds were called Seven Singularities.
The Time zone in these different worlds was a lot different compared to 2016. Such as one was going through in the era of Babylon, while another was in a modern world.
But all Singularities had one thing in common. These worlds were destined to be destroyed, they were historical points that were destined to fall into ruin.
The Grails sent by Solomon were to collect the world's energy when it finally perished, to later be collected by Solomon. If all Seven Grails were collected by Solomon, then he would win and humanity would be extinct for real.
In 2016, on December 31st, the research lab titled Chaldea decided to send a group of teens to these other timelines, these other worlds, to collect the Grails for themselves and put a stop to Solomon's schemes, therefore saving humanity in this main timeline.
However, due to an internal betrayal by one of the main staff of Chaldea, the entire facility was nearly destroyed. As a result, the group of teens was frozen in stasis.
Only two girls from this program remained safe. Fujimaru Ritsuka, the last Master of Humanity, and her to-be Servant Mash Kyrielight remained amongst the group of teens. The remaining members of Chaldea managed to repair the facility and keep it going to then send these two teens across the Singularities.
Before now, they had visited Five of these singularities, and a few hours ago Chaldea had sent them to the 6th Singularity.
"Therefore, we were supposed to be in Jerusalem, located in the Kingdom of Judah," said Da Vinci while rolling her finger in her hair. "But here we are in Uruk, Babylon, which was said to be the 7th Singularity. Unless Chaldea made a blunder, which I doubt they did since I was there to oversee things, then I think it's your use of the Grail that made things this way."
Da Vinci was standing in the hall before the throne, with Fujimaru and Mash beside her, and she was talking while addressing 'King Gilgamesh' who sat on his throne. The new King sat there with a contemplative look on his face while Siduri was by his side.
While the King contemplated, Fujimaru whispered to Da Vinci. "Wait so, if he already used the Holy Grail, then…"
"Then why is this Singularity still ongoing? It should have perished by now." Mash finished her Master's question.
"There is another Grail," Da Vinci said. "Since this Singularity mixed with the Sixth one, the Sixth Grail should be in this world as well. Also, I doubt the Grail he used was the same one Solomon sent here. Gilgamesh always had a Grail with him every time he appeared as a Servant across history. That Grail was his personal one, which means this world has at least two more Grails."
"Ah." Both Fujimaru and Mash exclaimed softly, blinking in surprise. They once again realized why this person was called the Universal Genius.
Soon, the King sighed and looked at Da Vinci. "This makes things problematic. I was planning to deal with the Three Goddess Alliance first, but if the problems of Sixth Singularity are here too—meaning the crazy Lion King and his Knights of the Round Table—then I have to take care of them first."
Da Vinci blinked. "You have already thought of solutions? Did you wish for the Grail to have your Future Sight empowered?"
"Let's go with yes, but actually no. I can't use my Future Sight powers anymore as that'd only result in a bad ending." The King said. "In any case, it's nearly midnight. You mongrels- ugh- you guys go and sleep. Let's talk about this in the morning."
The King corrected himself, groaning all of a sudden, and kept continuing to act weird. Siduri saw these too, and quickly took the guests away to not disturb the King.
* * *
Neji tapped his finger on his temple while his elbow rested on the armrest of his throne.
Sun was rising behind him, as there was a huge window behind the throne, and he could see light come from the front of the room too as another gigantic window was carved there.
Neji has been up all night, as he didn't need to sleep. He spent all his time contemplating how to fix this scenario.
King Arthur—or in this case his female version, Artoria—had to be taken care of first. The Seventh Singularity's end will happen two months later, but the Sixth should end in just a few weeks. But since both singularly are currently in this same world, the end of Sixth would erase the entire world from reality, and that would affect Babylon too.
Problem was, Neji didn't have the power to stop Artoria. He was too weak. Even in the anime, this Artoria was never defeated, she was too strong.
"Loli. Don't you think it would be a simple problem to solve if I could open a portal to my heaven and bring Rumi here like you said I would be able to?"
Turned out, he couldn't do that either because of this damn debuff.
As this was the umpteenth complaint he had made to her since coming here, Loli Luck didn't even reply this time.
Basking in the silence, realizing he was mad for no real reason, Neji sighed. "...Alright, I am sorry. I will stop blaming you."
["Thank you very much. I am sorry too. For being sealed and therefore not knowing you'd end up like this."]
"...Sorry."
["No, no, it's fine. It's not your fault that I had my powers sealed, was it?"]
"...."
["There, we are even now. Now stop complaining like a little bitch and think of a way. You came out on top against 300 Gods as a Mortal, this is nothing compared to that."]
"...Right. Thanks." Neji recalled when he had a curse a lot worse than this little thing. If he could beat three hundred gods in that state, this was kids' play.
Neji only had one regret though.
"But shit, I didn't even say goodbye to the girls. Rumi and Kurai will be mad."
[Master,] It was Sisty who spoke. [I can connect a 'Stream' for them, it should be possible with my power as the heaven spirit. You should be able to talk to them like this. Do you want me to?]
"...Sure. That'll do the work."
* * *
•"I was wondering: where the hell did he go? Worried that you might have been kidnapped by some Ōtsutsuki. But look here, turns out you just left without me." Rumi said, her arms crossed as she gave him a dry look.•
Rumi had cut her hair short, and was hiding her horns with Transformation Jutsu. She was wearing gym shorts and a sports bra and looked quite different than before.
[Image Here]
"It seems so." Neji had nothing else to say.
•"...Say for real, are you just making things up to not take me with you? It's unbelievable that you got nerfed again. You didn't take me because I'll be a hindrance to you hitting on girls, right?"•
"That's just accusing." Neji shrugged as if he was innocent. "Oh right, where's Kurai?"
Rumi was standing in front of the virtual camera, and in the background, Neji could see the other girls spread around the living room as they were chatting. Little Kaguya and Kurama were there as well, but no Kurai could be seen.
Abruptly, from behind Rumi, a little girl came running and pushed her face against the projection. Hanabi smiled widely.
•"Hey, Neji-nii, how are you?! This new look suits you." Hanabi told the truth while her arms were holding Kurai on her head. "Don't worry about Kurai, she is with me!"•
•"Hey, Papa! Where are you now? Why did you leave without me?" Kurai asked, not looking very pleased.•
"Ah, I am in Babylon, role-playing as Gilgamesh," Neji replied truthfully, his words seemingly stunning Kurai.
•"B-Babylon?! That's where the original Nergal is from, isn't it? I always wanted to go there! Hey, summon me beside you! I wanna see how that place is!"• Kurai looked very excited; excitement that died soon after when Neji once again explained his weak debuff. •"Ugh, useless! I will complain to mommy when we meet, that you abandoned me and left me with this annoying bunch!"•
•"Huh? Annoying?! What do you mean, Kurai? Even though I have been treating you so well?!"• Hanabi asked Kurai in shock. Unfortunately, this little girl didn't know the universal truth that cats find nothing worth their time, even if people treat them like royalty.
Kurai and Hanabi began going against each other, fading in the background, while a bulb went inside Neji's head. He just remembered something.
Neji looked at Rumi again and said, "Right, Rumi. Kurai just reminded me about the 'Self-Summon' feature that a Familiar can use to reach her Master. That's the same technique she used to reach me on the Moon back then."
•"Ahh, right, I remember."•
"Sadly, as I am in another universe, she needs to gather chakra. A lot of it. So much so that it should take a few entire days to use that technique. I am not sure, but I think if you keep in physical contact with her when the Summon just happens, you should be able to teleport with her." Neji said slowly, instructing her what to do, while Rumi shrugged her shoulders.
•"Ehh, sure. I don't know if that impatient kitty of yours would spend days gathering mana. But sure, I will tell her you talked about this particular way."• Rumi suddenly smirked annoyingly. •"By the way, let me see you get bitches while your life's on the line. Suits you right."•
"Right. Fuck you too."
•"Yeah, later, when we meet next time. Bye, in the meantime you are gone I will go train these weakling girls."• Rumi waved her hand,
"I will get busy too, it seems I have to hire Three Goddesses to fight for me." Neji waved his hand, and with that the hologram screen vanished from the air. "Farewell."
* * *
Neji called for the Chaldea team and as it was morning they soon came to greet him with Siduri by their side.
"My King, are you alright now?" Siduri asked, a stone tablet in her hand. She looked and was worried for him, Neji could feel it. "I have told everyone to not come here as it might disturb you, a lot of official work is on hold because of that."
As the country was in danger, on the verge of being destroyed, a thousand work needed to be reviewed by the king. People started to see the king in the early morning to tell him about their problems, but today none had come yet. Thanks to Siduri.
"Thank you for doing so, it certainly would have soured my mood further if someone came before now," Neji said, taking in a breath. "But yes, I can safely say I am well now. Thank you for worrying, Siduri."
Siduri looked extremely uncomfortable at being 'thanked' by none other than the King himself. They'd known each other for ages, and this was the first time such a thing had happened, and so casually too.
Siduri looked at her king with suspicion filling her eyes before she sighed. "Right, my king. I think we should talk about this 'change' of yours after finishing this talk."
"Sure. Anyhow, you girls from Chaldea." Neji looked at the three girls from another world. "Allow me to start with— yes, I am aware of you and your small group. Sadly, as you have heard, my Grail has been used, so no point in asking me that. However, I do believe there is another Grail, two even, in this world. Ones sent by the King of Mages, since the one I used belonged to myself."
The three girls nodded at that, with only the red-haired Fujimaru looking somewhat nervous. They seemed to want to speak, but Neji spoke faster.
"Don't interrupt me before I am finished. Allow me to give you a brief of the current Uruk," Neji started. "An alliance has been formed between the Three Goddesses, and two of them don't even belong to this timeline. They were summoned by Solomon's Grail, I believe. The three of them share the goal of destroying humanity, and since Uruk and the cities around it are the last remaining humans in this world, they're after us."
"Gorgon, Quetzalcoatl, and Ereshkigal." Neji continued. "They're the three goddesses. As it seems, I won't be ready before two months to fight these girls. So I have come to form another plan. We are going to hire other goddesses to fight these three. Namely, Ishtar and Jaguar. With these two's help, we would defeat the goddesses, only by one, and then bring them to our side. Except for Gorgon."
"Huh?" Mash blinked. "I understand Ishtar and this Jaguar, but why would the other two come to our side? How does it benefit us to have them on our side, too?"
"Well..." Neji sighed as he held back from telling her that he had warned her to not interrupt when he was talking. "Two of the three goddesses aren't our real enemies. Only Gorgon is. She will give birth to Tiamat, who is the real danger and our real enemy."
The Creator Goddess, Tiamat, was their real enemy.
"Anyhow, let me say the plan once again. We first hire the two goddesses who aren't a part of the alliance. Then we hire two of the goddesses who are part of the alliance. Only after that do we fight Gorgon, and therefore Tiamat on the same day." Neji said. "However, we are going to keep Gorgon on the side for now. For now, we just gather the goddesses under my wing, and then we go to Jerusalem to finish the Lion King in one swoop."
That was the plan, and knowing that it went well in the anime, there was no doubt it would go well this time too—more so, since Neji was around.
Neji stood up from his throne, and his body seemed to split in two—and one of them stood up while another kept sitting. Thanks to the use of his Minor Omnipresence.
The four girls in the room looked stunned and blinked as one of the Neji approached them. "I will stay here, and another I will go with Chaldea to hire our first goddess. Ishtar, the Goddess of Lust."
"Uh–"
"Another I," Neji started as smoke puffed to his side and a Wood-Clone came to exist. "Will go to Jerusalem to check what state it's currently in. Let's not waste a second."
Siduri's head turned from one Neji to another, her eyes spinning, while the confused Chaldea began to follow one of the Neji without any question.
Indeed, it was time for Neji to get busy, for he didn't have the luxury to waste another two months in this world.
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