Bonding Hooray!

"Isn't creating a black hole in Rivezim's bedroom overkill?"

"Nonsense. No death is too good for that thing."

I sense a strong grudge in her despite her cheery smile. The dark side of the force is strong in this one. But remember Asia, you still need the high ground. Anyway.

"Sounds cool. But we'll still need time to prepare, train together and organize our missions."

"Oh! Of course! Team synergy is essential."

With that, Asia Argento was not advocating immediate 'Exterminatus' upon the underworld to kill Rivezim.

"Is he that bad?" Lily asked curiously.

"He is! But he dies like a wimp when you corner him, oh the irony…"

Asia reminiscences on something pleasant… I turn to Archer, who was darting away from the two blondes.

"Girls are scary, aren't they?" I said to him.

He stared at me before moving away from me, as well. I think he took that as a threat somehow, but I couldn't have been that threatening! He's overreacting!

"Uuuoohhh… kill me now…"

Whoops.

"Oh, no! Lancer is hurt! Don't worry. I'll heal you right up."

Asia started using her Noble Phantasm, Twilight Healing: Temporal Reversion, to heal Lancer.

"Alright then, let's see here… everyone gets an iPhone! Being in constant communication with both mundane and magical means is a necessity. Ah, Saint George, you get something extra! And Cursed Arm, since you'll be sneaking around a lot, you'll need these."

I hand my Rider a Camera and my Assassin, a voice recorder. One was for recreational purposes, and the other was for work-related activities.

They liked their extra gifts quite a bit.

"Cu Chulainn… I've got this excellent suit you can go around town in. Have fun with some women and do Irish things or whatever. Keep an ear out. And try not to start fights."

"I can't say I like the last part, but eh, having some fun is alright."

"Emiya-senpai will be training Lily and me."

"Wait, I am?"

"Yes. There's no one else that knows the best style for Lily, and you're the only one that can hold back while teaching me how to use these."

I flicked out a pair of Black Keys with my hands and held it like Wolverine.

"Ah! I'll be in Emiya-senpai's care then! I look forward to completing my training." Lily was happy to train with the Archer.

EMIYA, however, seemed a bit lost in thought before agreeing without much fuss.

"Berserker, you um… huh, I think I need some Enerloop batteries."

"Hold on! I'll get it for you instead!"

The blue Lancer shouted all of a sudden and went running out of the mansion.

Aww…

"Asia? Could you do some Caster things and reinforce this place?"

The blonde witch nodded eagerly.

"Leave it to me! Ah, but I need verbal permission first. Some spells and charms of mine require that. Let me draft out some phrases and…"

After agreeing to all of them (which were very reasonable), Asia went ahead and started layering all sorts of magic before moving onto creating some boundary fields and barriers.

"We're near Kuou, which means the Maou's personally hired guards would routinely check the town's barrier for any supernatural beings' entry. It certainly isn't infallible. Fallen Angels can sneak in easily, and certain magicians can erase the records from the lodestones located around the town. If Mister Cursed Arm is free to assist me, we should be able to create a backdoor in the system for our use before sundown."

When it came to Kuou and this world's mechanics, Asia Argento knew what she was doing. She enchanted a few dirks and programmed them to transfer a modification spell to the lodestones. EMIYA returned quickly, and we got some training in before dinner time, which was handled by EMIYA, of course.

It was the most delicious meal I had in ages.

From then on, the kitchen was EMIYA's territory, although Asia wanted to cook sometimes as well to give EMIYA a break.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's been three days of a more peaceful and slow routine where everyone slowly learned more about each other.

"And when they withdrew, Merlin whistled loudly, and the cat leaped out of the cave! It was like a wild hungry demonic beast! It ran towards me and twisted its way out of my spear's way before snapping it in two with its teeth!"

Lily is regaling her encounter with a demonic cat, mostly because it was her turn to telling some of her heroic deeds. Everyone takes turns in this sort of thing.

"It lunged for my throat and it was only my instincts that saved my life that day. It was a hard and bloody battle. I had almost been torn in half but-"

At any rate, after a long battle, Artoria Pendragon emerged victorious over the demonic cat, and the mountain in which she fought the beast was named "The Mountain of the Cat" from then on.

"A splendid battle indeed. Demon possessed animals were certainly troublesome in any age and country."

George remarked while praising Lily.

"Man. Killer rabbits and cats in England… you should have seen the Demonic Boars back in my time."

Cu Chulainn quickly talked about how Diarmuid got killed by it. Eventually, it turns out that the same Demonic Boar had gone to Camelot at some point too.

Now it was Cursed Arm Hassan's turn, who started telling a story about teaming up with Saladin and Richard the Lionheart in freeing Jerusalem from powerful Dead Apostles.

After that, it was Asia's turn.

"Well, it happened like this. Everything was working... mostly fine, but then Indra had this great idea of taking his army to challenge Shiva. So it turned into a huge massive war that was extremely hard to keep track of. Everyone got dragged into it and… a lot of people died."

She seemed to be remembering someone for a while before continuing on.

"Now, both Shiva and Indra can read everyone's minds and predict the future, so it was mostly a stalemate for quite a while-"

Hmm?

"Wait, then how are they not the dominant force again if they can do all that?"

"Indra is benevolent most of the time, but its just that he's a war junkie. Shiva just likes causing destruction, but he's also a protector of the world. Because of this, they've been fine with the status quo for a long while."

"Wait, does that mean he's accounting for our actions Path to Victory style?"

"I don't know what that is, but… Gudako, you're kind of like a singularity for some reason and we're all shielded from future sight. As for myself, in my lifetime I had to rely on several layers of fairy spells to stay out of their plans."

"Huh… weird. So what did you do in the war?"

"I only came in at the end of the war. I… I hadn't taken aside, but when a devil I knew had died there I just, wanted the fighting to stop."

"O-oh… Asia…"

"It's fine. I made peace with it and I know he's alive right now. So I'm alright. Ah, where was I? Ah right! I snuck out of the time axis and popped in the middle of the fight. I just threw my hand forward and um, somehow got lucky and impaled both Indra and Shiva on my spell? Yeah, the fighting stopped after that."

"... Hey, your Luck stat is C you know? I don't think it was really Luck."

"Um, I did chain cast hundreds of spells to catch their attention until I could blindside them. Ehehe…"

The blonde Holy Maiden Witch shyly mentioned it like it was no big deal.

"It would be nice if all wars could be stopped by just defeating the leader of each side."

Archer remarked, drawing attention away from her with his words that gave off a wistful feeling.

"Mmm! I'm glad that it ended well!" Lily spoke cheerfully.

"Well, it's not like I expected mages to fight a whole war. Although, damn, you make me wish I was there fighting."

Cu Chulainn seemed to be dreaming about a battle between gods.

"You fought bravely against those pagan gods. I am glad that the war was resolved quickly. I have no love for battle, but it seems that power is the law of this world."

Saint George didn't particularly agree with Ireland's Child of Light.

"I don't think I did anything that special… if I entered the war earlier then it may have been for the best…but thank you for your praise, Saint George."

This Asia seems to be more of a nominal Christian, that said, quite a lot of her values still originate from the faith.

"Did you regret your part in it then?"

Cursed Arm Hassan asked I had a feeling he was more concerned about how she thought about her accomplishments considering his own history of being an unremarkable Hassan.

Asia shook her head.

"No. Rather than regret, I felt remorse. But anyway, I like the part that came after the war. Since it was a huge war, magic was pretty much revealed and my group had a big role in making magic mainstream. A good amount of resource problems were solved with magic so the world was overall a better place."

"Eh? So it's like some magical utopia in your world?"

"Haha, with the number of people wanting to destroy the world on a yearly basis I can't really call it one."

Asia Argento laughs, seemingly finding her world to be a crazy place in hindsight.

"Well, at least you have no regrets on your path."

EMIYA seemed relieved that when Asia finally decided to share a bit more about her world and her origins, it turned out she was fine with the path she had taken.

"If it's about the path I chose to help people then yes, I have no regrets whatsoever. I like seeing people smile. It makes me sad when others are sad so that's why I started on the path of magic I guess. If I can save others and make life better for them, then I'll be happy too. Ah, people like Rivezim and Diodora are exceptions but the point still stands."

EMIYA had a complicated expression on his face, even as he smiled I could feel that he was a bit pained from what he was hearing. Whether it was because of her ideals or his own, it wasn't something that I could discern at the moment.

"Heh, it looks like little miss had everything work out for her in the end, eh?" The E-Rank Luck Lancer was happy for her.

"Ah, but my love life was completely non-existent. If I had any regrets, it was living for so long and dying a virgin."

"EH?! You're not living your life correctly!"

As a Celtic hero that pretty much-fucked everything in his way, the blue Lancer seemed to take some offense to that.

"It can't be helped! Aside from my all-female group, I had no one past the friend stage! I didn't even have that many friends. Most of them were admirers and business partners and waaaAH!"

Suddenly Asia started crying in a comically cute manner. I rushed to comfort her with pats on the back, Lily followed suit.

Oh no, Asia Argento fell victim to the Yunyun syndrome. Too much power and success do things to one's social life it seems…

"Lancer you bastard! Why are you making girls cry!"

EMIYA quickly turned on Lancer, with Berserker backing him up by standing behind the cursed spear hero.

"Damn it all!"

… And so, we had a very peaceful dinner gathering once more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was bath time, and for me, that meant sharing a large bath with the other girls. Lily, Asia and I were the only girls thus far. What happened to my Fate harem?

Oh wait, I'm a girl now.

I should be happy about this but I'm kind of sore after this afternoon's training now that I finally have begun soaking in the nice hot water.

Lily starts squeezing parts of my left arm.

"Wow, even though you've gotten so strong your skin is still so soft."

Lily remarked, making me blush a little.

"That's because of the Steel Training Craft Essence. It kind of worked like the Tenacity CE, except that it quickly helps me reach Kotomine Kirei levels of strength without the muscles. I kind of wish it was all of my hard work but somehow, the results are accelerated."

I brushed off the compliment, even if I did train consistently with Lily and EMIYA (sometimes Asia helps out too), I always felt like they could get more done without me there.

EMIYA was quickly getting Lily up to original Blue Saber levels of skills with his tutelage, as for myself, he was showing me the proper way of using Black Keys by tracing out the Black Keys used by Kirei.

After the second day of training, Cu Chulainn finished customizing both Mystic Codes with Runes.

It turns out that the Mystic Codes generated by the smartphone was more like cosmetic equipment rather than actual equipment with spells that made it a Mystic Code.

As such, it allowed the Lancer with Rune Magic at B Rank to inscribe Runes upon both articles of clothing without impeding the spells I could cast with them.

No matter which clothing I swap to now, I basically had amped-up Bazett-like Runic clothes set. The best part was that it was done by an Age of Gods Magus, allowing me to actually fight around D-Rank in all states based on the Servant scale after all the accelerated muscle training I did with the CE's.

I still got my ass handed to me by both GARcher and Lily.

"If it doesn't involve sacrificing innocents and hurting others I don't think it really matters HOW to power is gained."

Asia poked my side, which was still girlishly soft despite my actual freakish strength that was comparable to Kirei at his prime.

Ouch.

"During the year after I got myself excommunicated, I found that gaining power quickly was the necessity for people not wanting to be left behind by a changing world order. That's why you shouldn't play down any quick gains of power."

Honestly, she sounded a bit like an older sister kindly telling a younger sister to be proud of her accomplishments. I was very touched by their concern. And also, I felt a little bad that it was a very bad idea to tell them that I was a guy until recently.

"I know that but… to think this came about because I had to make do with my crappy luck… if I just summoned Solomon we would be wiping the floor with everyone already."

"EH?! You can summon THAT Solomon! I know! If we pray hard together, I'm sure he'll answer our calls!"

Asia starts being a fangirl, not knowing what kind of guy a certain Dr. Romantic is when he's at his most relaxed. If I summoned David then she'll definitely be even more disillusioned.

Then again, God had a preference for taking society's rejects and molding them into great men. David wasn't favored as the youngest son in a tribe that wasn't prominent until he became king. Most of the Apostles were not "teachers of the law" and were rejected by the then established religious leaders, they were mainly artisans that shouldn't have been articulate enough to even teach others, yet, they did.

I'm sure this Asia would understand… and if she sees David's skill that sublimes his surrender to God into a form of Protection, I think she wouldn't take it too badly.

"Haha, maybe if we collect a catalyst and do some weird dance. Uhuhu… I can already see over 9000 Quartz gone in a vain attempt…"

And then I'm dead inside again.

"Fujimura! Snap out of it!"

Lily started shaking the salt out of me.

"Ah, my bad. Oh, right! Asia was busy in Kuou today, right? So, you were protecting your younger self-right?"

"Mmhmm! Yeah. I had to go grab Diodora and erase all evidence of his existence outside of town, but yeah, I made sure that my younger self met someone that informed her about the change in circumstances."

Right.

Issei Hyoudou went and saw Azazel first, getting his side of the story and learning about the devil's Ponzi scheme of a society. I mean, it isn't that bad for some people, but considering a good amount of devils are… well, devils. Even Issei was thoughtful about his choices when he realized he could pretty much get a harem if he was independent or with the Fallen Angels as well.

His Sacred Gear was then awakened with help from Azazel before Issei went to meet with Rias and co. the day after.

Right now, Issei seemed to be contemplating his options. On our end, we were also thinking about how should we handle Issei, who tends to have a strong "fate" according to Asia (and my meta-knowledge).

"So Azazel sent Issei as his messenger to meet with Asia Argento of this world, then?"

I asked, getting a smile from my Caster servant.

"Yes, it seems that Azazel smoothed some things out with Issei's parents and would be paying Ise to take care of Asia. Personally, I think it kills two birds with one stone. He'll still have both of them on friendly terms while keeping Kokabiel in the dark about his failed plans for a while longer. That will let him continue his own Sacred Gear research as Ise would be more than happy to help when a cute girl gets to stay with him AND he gets some extra pocket money from Azazel to do so. I also think that Azazel is placing Asia outside of the main Grigori headquarters for her safety while gambling on Ise's protective nature in leading him to seek power for her sake."

Asia summarizes her thoughts on the matter, covering quite a few angles of the situation.

"Wow! Fallen angels are really cunning… Uuuh, kingdom politics is going to be like this, isn't it? Thinking about so many factors…"

Lily still seemed more motivated than ever to continue learning more.

"I see… I can see where he's coming from certainly… so was it nice, Asia?"

I asked, grinning from ear to ear.

"Huh? What was nice?" She was obviously what I was implying.

"Seeing the boy you loved once again?"

Her face lit up like Rudolph's red nose.

"H-how did you know?"

"You called him by his nickname, "Ise" instead of Hyoudou-san. A devil you "knew"-"

I made the air quotes sign,

"-died in a war and spurred you into action. The fact that you were smiling a lot when you saw Azazel pretty much helping you ship Issei with yourself?"

As I continued, Asia started sinking deeper into the water to hide her embarrassment.

"Kyaa! This is love, isn't it? I mean, a love that transcends time. This is too pure for me." Lily's words continued to sink Asia until she couldn't be seen.

Well, except for her floating blonde hair.

Anyways, we lifted her up before she drowned herself.

"I-it really wasn't like that. We were on different paths so we couldn't have made it work."

"Hmm…" "That's sad…"

I hummed out loud as Lily looked disappointed.

"So tell me, what made you fall in love with him?"

When I asked that question, her face lit up with fondness.

"Hmm, I don't want to tell~"

Lily and I both pouted.

"But… I can say that I was… ready to just give up back then. Still… he told me that no matter what doubts I had with what I was doing, he believed in me. He said, in his exact words, that 'There's nothing wrong with wanting to help people. Screw those assholes, they're in the wrong. If you believe what you're doing is right, then there's no way you can be anything but right!'"

Ah… so it was like that huh?

The smile that Asia had on her was infectious, and before I knew it, we were back to happily chatting about all sorts of things.

Man… harem protagonists sure are something, huh?