"Daddy, tell us a story." Emmy demanded while I tucked her and Kunou into bed for the night.
The step sisters had hit it off immediately and been inseparable since I brought the foxes to Heaven, and Yasaka had proven a fine step mother for the girl and the other kids I had that I care about. She smiled and held my hand as we sat on the edge of the bed and I begun a fine tale for my nine year old daughters.
"Ahem… I descended upon the people of Fuyuki City in a flash of radiant light and the to chorus of the angelic choir…
I arrived in a cathedral built into the Einzbern Castle to the shaking forms of Kiritsugu 'The Mage Killer' Emiya and his wife Irisviel von Einzbern, who held the sheath of my sword to her chest.
"Hahahaha!" I laughed as Kiritsugu collapsed under the mana tole of manifesting me, "Well I never expected to run into my in-laws at all. Not with both of you dead in the near future."
"In… laws?" Irisviel knelt beside her husband as he clenched a hand over his chest.
"The strain is too much to bear." I sighed as I observed my beautiful phrik armor with its magical King Arthur sapphire and gold reskin and dismissed it, leaving me in a knee length high collared gambeson layered in rich samite.
Kiritsugu immediately gasped in relief at the dismissing of my powerful Noble Phantasm armor, but was left incredibly weak, incapable of exertion rather than on the cusp of a mana deprivation coma. I grunted and walked over to the pair, taking a hand from them each and running a finger across it to draw their blood.
"What… what are you… doing?" Kiritusugu panted.
"You are too weak to sustain my summoning." I told him, "As you are you can only fuel me for nine seconds in all out combat should I start drawing on your energy. So I will amend our contract and allow your wife to also bear the mana cost. This will also anchor her to me so that as long as I live, she will not be consumed by the Grail."
"How can this be?" Iriesviel gasped.
"I was given the knowledge of all magecraft in my life." I smiled, "This is just a simple thing."
Finishing the short ritual, I felt the uplifting effect of Irisviel's significantly greater mana reserves bolstering my fighting prowess, her artificial body carrying enough mana to exponentially increase my fighting time at full power.
In the end, I still arrive at the same problem Karna suffers, Invulnerability is simply hell on upkeep costs, and my skills and stats make me a very costly servant to begin with. Looks like I will be relying on footwork and flexibility for most of my defense in this Grail War.
HOLY SHIT.
My head spun and my stomach churned. Did I become one of those fags that doesn't were armor because it 'slows me down' or 'limits my movement'. I contemplated running myself through on Excalibur then and there, but only the knowledge that it was mana upkeep divesting me of my super sweet armor stayed my hand.
Guess what really is going to slow you down or limit your movement, asswipes. A fucking sword in your guts, or an arm and leg hacked off because your lazy ass couldn't be bothered to do the strength and conditioning required to put some metal between you and the people trying to slice you up.
Irisviel brought me out of my funk by asking me a question, "Are you really married to our daughter? Our eight year old daughter?"
"She's seventy eight right now where I came from, and we have three kids and four grand kids." I told my mother-in-law.
"So you are from the future?" Kiritsugu questioned after recovering a little, "How is that possible? We should have summoned King Arthur."
"You used Avalon as the catalyst. I own Avalon currently, so I am the most likely person to be summoned with its use." I grinned at my father-in-law, "Fortunately I can't be summoned to compete in a Grail War more than once, so I never have to win the Fifth War again."
"You already won the Fifth Grail War?" Irisviel inquired, "Then Illyasviel achieved Heaven's Feel?"
"Yeah." I smiled at the Homunculus, "But in this timeline I will win the war for the both of you. Just sit back and relax, I will handle everything myself and this world's Illya will grow up with her parents watching over her."
So wholesome. That's what I am all about. Psyche. Ain't no way am I gonna let Kiri fuck with my battles and post fight snack time. Even with Iris taking on the majority of the load, Kiritsugu would have to be completely suicidal to try any of his bullshit.
Always the realist, Kiritsugu agreed by nodding his head.
"Now who wants to murder Jubstacheit for torturing my girl?" I grinned as I put my golden sword over my shoulder and sauntered off, "Just kidding. No one is going to stop me from taking vengeance for my Illysaviel."
As I swaggered out of the cathedral I whistled a tune while following my Instincts. Approaching my target I stopped and smiled.
"You who! Jubstabitch!" I hacked open the door between us and put my face through the opening I made, "It's Johnny!"
The old golem backed away from the door and summoned up his combat homunculi for me to carve up, covering me in their artificial blood before I closed in on the man.
Jubstacheit didn't cry, he didn't whimper, he didn't panic, and he didn't beg. Really takes the fun out of it, but I managed to rouse the will to put my sword in his guts and jerk it around like a dentist giving his intestines their bi-annual cleaning.
With my speed it was only a matter of minutes to completely sweep the castle of Einzberns besides Irisviel and Illya who I brought back to her parents. Then I gathered all the bodies to use as reagents in a little alchemy of my own. When my ritual completed, I was greeted with the sight of three perfect Homunculi with three brand new magic crests emblazoned on their left arms.
The three women were identical at six feet in height each, and built with athletic bodies capable of low end servant physicality and top tier magus potential, each possessing a great number of high quality magic circuits.
Quite handy for shunting my mana costs to if I don't say so myself. I led the trio back to Kiritsugu and Irisviel and the child Illya, introducing the newest von Einzberns to the now oldest member of the family.
"Mother, Father. These are Annalyse, Bryanne, and Catheryn. We'll perform the ritual again, giving me five sources instead of two and freeing you all up to operate with minimum loss in performance." I grinned while still covered in the blood of this artificial magus family, "And thank you for not using a command seal to stop me. With this our victory is assured."
One ritual later, our party of seven was ready for the trip to Fuyuki City and the Fourth Holy Grail War.
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Servant: Dio (Saber)
Parameters
Strength: A+ (50 Holy Grail War Imposed Limit)
Endurance: A++ (50 Holy Grail War Imposed Limit)
Agility: A (50 Holy Grail War Imposed Limit)
Mana: C (37)
Luck: A (50 Holy Grail War Imposed Limit)
Skills
Divinity: A
Mana Resistance: A
Mana Burst: A
Instinct: A
Mind's Eye (Fake): B
Battle Continuation: EX
Thick Skin: C (Nullifies Strike and Projectile Damage C rank and Below)
Blood Rage: A (Upon Entering Battle can temporarily +Strength and ++Endurance, becoming incapable of feeling pain and regenerating rapidly at the cost of massively increased prana consumption)
Noble Phantasms
Cannibal King: EX (Servants do not dematerialize upon death, allowing Dio to consume them to pilfer 10% of their true stats and possibly take Skills and Noble Phantasms. Upon Master kill, the servant quickly loses energy until left as a normal human performance wise. No longer capable of breaking imposed stat cap.)
Phrik Armor: A (Reduces all damage by 90%)
Excalibur: A++