Chapter 9

In the fleeting moments between silence and brewing chaos, Shirou saw a vision focused on Caster.

Just like now, Caster was surrounded by a crowd and looked upon with eyes that regarded him beyond the status of a mortal. Everywhere, eyes would follow him, the desperate, the damned, and the grieving. Beyond sentiment, the one at the center of it all never cared for praise or recognition. Rather, he continued with his practice no matter the patient that came his way.

He performed miracles, curing the incurable.

He mended wounds thought to be fatal.

He ventured into lands of plague and destitution to treat those abandoned.

In the end, that perseverance led to a single result:

A defiance of the natural order, and retaliatory strike of lightning that rendered all efforts moot.

The sun did not shine on that day. Not until a new constellation joined the heavenly bodies of the night sky.

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Asclepius, a man elevated to the title of God of Medicine.

He who was worshiped and enshrined in a divine cult.

'…Yet he who had never cared for it.'

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Was it a fate, bound to repeat?

The vision ended in Shirou's eyes almost as soon as it began, but the initial scene itself did not fade.

It was simply replaced with something more chaotic.

"- Hey, wait you!"

A crowd surrounded Caster, barring his path with a desperate zeal that threatened mutiny at the slightest misstep. Agitation fuelled by suffocating hope charged the air, and drew the aspiration of the grieving upon Caster in full.

An unseen pressure was emitted from the eyes; a concept like obligation. If one, and one alone, is granted power or a skill that could benefit society, what right did he or she have to covet it for himself?

A woman found herself standing in front of Caster. Dried blood, bruises, and white dust covered her body from a building that had collapsed over her family. She was the only survivor, her features hollowed and listless. Her eyes, though unfocused, stared at Caster with a blank intensity that was magnified by everyone else who had the same eyes.

'M-My daughter.'

'M-My son.'

'M-My friend.'

'M-My husband.'

'M-My wife.'

Words that were unsaid, yet implicitly understood from those who cradled bodies in their arms, or carried the agonizing and haggard appearance of loss.

Caster paused in his tracks, silently taking in the sight of the crowd, but saying nothing in wake of the raw emotions poured over him. The silence carried more weight than words.

Caster neither buckled nor caved, but looked back with an expression all too used to this atmosphere. In his life, and even in his death, people were always the same.

Caster inwardly sighed, and readied to defend himself.

Stifled by the silence and inaction, it was inevitable when the desperate reached out, their hands like claws, their grips steadfast, never to let go. They would sooner die than give up the only light they could see in darkness, and Caster was that light.

One moment Rider was held in Thetis's arms, and in the next, he stood up and appeared in front of Caster like a stalwart wall against the reaching crowd.

"Back off." Rider said, expression clouded by awkwardness and sympathy, but he was impelled to action regardless.

As the one who brought all this attention to Caster, Rider could not sit out and just watch. Unfortunately, he never considered how he who had benefited from Caster should not have been the one to advocate reason. It only emphasized the difference between him and them.

"Is this your intent, Thetis?" The crowd ignored Rider and rounded on Thetis behind him, much to Rider's stupor. "Monopoly?!"

Thetis's eyes widened as she let out a gasp when the attention focused on her.

She winced, not knowing what to say when she had already benefited from Caster while others had not. She hugged Peleus close as the crowd's agitation heightened, but the animosity directed at Thetis, though done in grief, was no doubt spurring Rider's fury.

Rider's expression was gradually tightening, restraint waning.

Iris, among all, could see that best. She moved beside Thetis, displaying an awkward solidarity as the two former affiliates of Orario's past powers entered the limelight. All in a bid to placate.

Rider took in a breath, but his features lost all friendliness and compassion.

Iris gave warning gestures to the crowd, but the desperate did not care.

Rider was someone they could not hope to pressure, but it was not the same for the head of his 'Familia,' who was wearing her emotions on a sleeve. She was no hardened warrior, or even in a state to effectively wield her authorities in the lower world.

- She was culpable.

"Look at us in the eyes, Thetis!" The people pleaded, their desperation and misery so blatantly clear. "People have died, and only you receive grace?!"

Thetis flinched.

Rider snapped.

"Bastards! Would you like to join them?!" Rider snarled, embers of his fury lingering within his eyes as he flared his magic energy into an intolerable pressure.

The crowd's knees buckled. Primarily composed of non-adventurers and city folk, many fell to the dirt in terror, and were hard pressed to stand back on their feet. It was like gravity had doubled, the force gradually crushing with the added divine nature of a demi-god's aura.

"Achilles, no!" Thetis grew appalled, her voice shaking Rider out of his stupor and returning reason, but the frustration did not easily abate.

He gnashed his teeth.

"I'm the one you're talking with, so leave her out of it!" Rider reeled in his magic energy and gave his final ultimatum, his tone hardening as he summoned his spear. "That is my only warning."

"…"

Barehanded, Rider had dismantled the monster running rampant through Orario. Armed, there was no telling what he could do if pushed over the edge.

Spectators, especially the higher-level ones who hoped the crowd could garner sympathy from Caster, had no choice but to intervene at the sudden turn of events.

"Alright everyone, calm down." Riveria tried to mediate, pushing her bangs down to hide the flickering emotions in her eyes. It was a lie to say she was unaffected, but a Familia captain must keep their composure among all else. "We have to be civil-"

"As if your Familia are any better! Look at her!"

A man pointed to someone from the Loki Familia who had quietly and stubbornly made her way to stand in front of Caster.

Tiona's attention was fixated on Caster. Her pupils were dilated, and a hand was subconsciously over her weapon.

Any fool could see that she would be one of many who would not agree to Caster's departure. Not after what they had just seen.

You see, emotion was a cloudy thing. Sunny on the best of days, and an irrational storm at the worst.

Tiona had watched her sister and Captain die and was still in denial of it. During that, a solution presented itself that she could not just let go. Even if that meant grabbing at the knees and clawing at the ankles.

Riveria's composure gradually crumbled away.

The wrong words could turn Tiona into an enemy at a moment's notice, and that didn't just go for her. It went for everyone who'd lost someone close, including Riveria herself.

Already, Riveria realized she lost the right to speak when her own intentions were steepled with ulterior motives…

A voice pierced through the tension.

"You all talk as if my services are free?" Caster finally spoke, shifting his gaze from left to right and watching as everyone continued to focus on him. "But that's not for you to decide, is it?"

It was like cold water was splashed over everyone's faces, yet Caster was being purely logical both for his character, and as a physician.

Caster was not in a rush. It was unrealistic for him to just go around Orario and cast his Noble Phantasm upon all the deceased. It was doable, but he lacked the proper facilities and tools to maintain proper treatment, and no doctor undergoes an operation without a degree of certainty. The dead can be raised, but in a vegetative state unable to eat or drink, his staff was what maintained their health.

His staff was exclusive, and although his Master could mitigate the problem of numbers, Caster could not maintain numerous copies of his staff working in tandem.

Nevertheless, Caster had already thought things out.

"I take appointments, but for now, this will be all," he said, nodding at Rider who tacitly understood.

The crowd would never let them go, so it was better to just not give them the choice.

In a flash of magic energy, Rider's chariot appeared, a strong wind blowing back the crowd.

Tiona stubbornly grounded herself in front of Caster by stabbing her Urga into the ground, but the pressure still swept her feet from under her. Only Riveria maintained her footing, but her mind was too rattled to act in time.

Rider swiped Thetis, Peleus, and Rider into his chariot, and rode it into the skies where they hovered above the stunned crowd.

"Where do we find you?!" Riveria yelled, having gathered her thoughts and processed Caster's words.

"You will know," Caster replied offhandedly.

"That doesn't fucking tell us anything!" Bete growled, while Tiona looked like she was judging if she could use the destroyed buildings as a spring board to reach the flying chariot.

She couldn't.

Rider was too skilled a charioteer to let her.

Meanwhile, Caster hummed, knowing he had already said what he had wanted to say. His research to perfect his elixir required various samples to further his study, so he was certain to keep his word. However, he was prudent enough to realize that if he left now, nothing would stop the crowd from issuing a manhunt for him.

Troublesome.

Caster frowned, but suddenly grew enlightened as the sigils of Apollo still lingered over him.

He thus employed an age-old strategy, an adage that had always withstood the test of time.

The objective of the weary is not on the side of the majority, but to avoid finding oneself as the joke of controversy.

-If controversy finds you, you make it find someone else.

Unwittingly, Caster finally acknowledged Apollo's presence in the crowd and nodded at him for a good second before gesturing Rider to withdraw in a burst of speed. Rider and his chariot, and everyone in it vanished at the blink of an eye across the horizon.

None had missed Caster's actions as he fell under intense scrutiny. Added with Caster's 'Falna,' a perfect picture was painted.

Everyone turned towards Apollo with unconcealed expectations.

'Sheep shit.'

Apollo's face gradually became cramped.

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Easing away from the agitated crowd, Shirou, Archer, and Hestia were making their way back to the abandoned church with their heads lowered. It would be where Rider would eventually land his chariot anyway, and the three knew this. Rider had only ridden his chariot off into the horizon to throw off anyone trying to follow him. In fact, with Rider's speed it wouldn't be a surprise if he returned sooner than them.

From behind Archer at the lead, Shirou let out a small breath he didn't know he'd been holding while opening and closing his hands.

In the end, he hadn't intervened with Caster.

There had been no need to garner attention on himself just yet when his existence was the most vulnerable to scrutiny, but that reasoning wasn't fooling him.

It was all in hindsight. At the time, he'd fully intended on acting as he wasn't one to just watch his allies in duress, but was it because they shared a connection as Master and Servant, or was it due to Rider's sense of duty?

Rider had responded to Shirou's intent, and acted first. This was likely for the best.

Rider's presence at that moment was effectively the strongest deterrence as he'd established his capabilities by tearing a monster apart bare-handed. The wrath he'd displayed might as well have been Berserker's Mad Enhancement with the extent his fury charged the air.

In contrast, Shirou would have looked like a nameless adventurer without the influence to hold the crowd at bay. Inevitably, without a show of force, he wouldn't have been able to sway anyone. Hence, Rider had been the best choice.

Shirou had to remind himself that he couldn't be as impulsive as before. Maturity breeds wisdom, and even Arturia had grown out of her naïve tendencies of youth. He wasn't at her level of composure yet, but it didn't mean he couldn't try to better himself and emulate it.

If not Arturia, then Archer who maintained a level head and carried the demeanor of a legendary hero.

"It's clear up ahead," Archer said from the front, making sure there was no one that would care to spot them before proceeding ahead. "Keep your heads low and follow me."

From behind, Hestia was pursing her lips. She kept staring at Shirou and Archer, but ultimately lost focus when Bell was involved.

Bell had been Hestia's main objective, and now that he was safe and trailing behind her, she was admittedly relieved, but in the end, her vigilance only heightened at the additional tag-along.

Now hear her out.

Bestia knew- hehe, Bestia. She'd remember that one.

Hestia shook her head from dumb thoughts. She knew she had many questions both personal and as a Goddess regarding the events that transpired today, but somehow all of that was taking a back seat from the forefront of her mind.

It wasn't just Hestia, Shirou, and Archer retreating from the crowd.

'Why was some waitress from the Hostess of Fertility sticking to her Bell?'

Hestia's expression flickered with annoyance while shooting messy glares behind her. Bell was following with Syr in hand, escorting her back to the Hostess of Fertility which fortunately hadn't been damaged in the chaos.

Indeed.

Hestia pursed her lips and pouted with puffed cheeks filled with hot air ready to burst.

What was undoubtedly taking precedence in Hestia's mind was the presence of the hussy cozying up to her Bell…and Bell not shooing her off!

Hestia's priorities were as straight as they could possibly be, if not straighter.

Syr grew awkward under the attention, a hand nervously scratching at her cheek while focusing her gaze on Bell.

"Uhm, am I being a burden?" Syr muttered.

"No," / "Yes!"

Bell said one thing, Hestia said another, the two meeting eyes and Hestia huffing, daring him to fight her on this.

Bell was the one who agreed to escort Syr back to her inn, certainly not Hestia, Shirou, or Archer. Therefore, as far as Hestia was concerned, that Syr girl was an unwelcome competition for Bell's attention. Good riddance.

Bell made a face, not knowing how he should account for his Goddess's bluntness. Syr was a kind girl, helpful, and charming. She even consoled him when he was down from being unable to enter the dungeon without a Falna.

"Now, Hestia, just hear me out," Bell wet his lips.

"No." Hestia would hear none of it, petulantly blocking her ears with her hands and focusing ahead of her.

"Hestia." Bell ran up to his Goddess and clasped his hands to plead. "Please?"

"I said no!"

"But it's on the way," Bell murmured, shoulders drooping and features downcast. He slowed his pace and lagged somewhat behind, causing a stubborn Hestia to finally face him.

"Ack," she staggered at Bell's pitiful eyes, but spewed fire from her mouth in the same instance.

Syr kept gripping onto Bell's sleeve, expression naively innocent which infuriated Hesita more.

Shirou had the vaguest sense of deja-vu while he and Archer served as silent witnesses to the scene, but wisely they stayed out of it.

Shirou kept close to Archer with his best impression of a poker face. If a circle of inevitability dictated that only a single protagonist must endure the middle ground between bickering women, this time it would not be him.

Memories of Rin and Luvia abounded, both the fond and the shuddering.

"If I'm causing problems, I can leave," Syr offered hesitantly.

For Hestia, that was the preferable option, but something annoying called a conscience was impeding her response. Like Bell had said, the Hostess of Fertility was on the way. Moreover, just because the monsters had been dealt with didn't mean that a few smaller ones couldn't be hiding in the rubble.

"Damn it. This must be one of those vile schemes Aphrodite warned me of." Hestia bit down on her lower lip, but in the end relented with a single condition. "Fine. You can come, but you must stay a foot away from Bell at all times! In fact-"

Hestia took Bell's hand into her own and worked herself in between the both of them. The world was suddenly back in order, but Syr's expression looked annoyed.

"There." Hestia beamed even as Shirou and Archer sighed from up ahead.

The regal image of a noble Hestia in their minds was gradually crumbling.

"Thank you for your generosity, Goddess." Syr bowed her head politely, and didn't waste time arguing over the arrangement.

Rather, Bell's offhand embarrassment at Hestia for putting Syr through the ropes for no reason was rather endearing to her.

On the way, Syr stayed true to Hestia's arrangements only because her subtle gaze couldn't help but be drawn to Shirou and Archer in the lead. Traces of divinity were flickering in her eyes, her thoughts abounded by question after question that took away from the irritation of Babel Tower's collapse.

"The Hostess of Fertility should be up ahead," Archer eventually stated after several minutes of walking.

Archer rose up to his full height and waved towards Mia Grand and the other waitresses behind her. They were standing anxiously in front of the inn, likely waiting for Syr's return.

Mia Grand and the others looked relieved upon sighting Syr in the distance, and Syr knew this was her cue to part.

However, Syr took a moment longer than need be to return to Mia Grand and her worried coworkers. It wasn't long enough to be suspicious, but it was long enough for a couple thoughts to come to her mind as Archer led everyone away.

If Bell had been a fixation, the odd way Syr had looked at Shirou and the others bordered on an obsession.

"Syr! Thank goodness you're safe."

Mia Grand's shout snapped Syr out of her daze. She shook her head and answered, running to her fellow coworkers.

"I'm fine everyone! Bell protected me!"

A contemplative smile graced Syr's lips.

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In a gale of wind and a burst of verdant light, Rider parked his chariot near the abandoned church and helped disembark his passengers. He led Thetis and Peleus to take refuge inside the church before he stopped Caster on his way back to the medical ward on the second floor.

Caster raised a brow, but Rider showed no hesitation.

"Sorry, I was hasty!" Rider apologized. His sincerity was conveyed in the firmness of his expression and the willingness to lower himself after committing a mistake.

Caster could have expected nothing less from Peleus's son, but this honour was something a doctor didn't need.

"Raise your head." Caster grunted, trying to do away with trivialities in order to resume his studies. Besides, there was one undeniable truth regarding Rider. "You're a warrior."

Rider snorted.

It was a compliment, but coming from Caster, it gave the impression of an insult on the lines of 'brute,' or 'muscle head.'

Regardless, Rider simply accepted. He'd lost his cool, and that meant his reasoning had indeed waned.

He beat a hand over his armor and swore a trustworthy vow. "You can count on my name. I'll surely return the favor."

Caster nodded, and Rider left, likely to check up on Thetis and Peleus.

In the meantime, Caster continued into his medical ward where an impatient pair of eyes were the first to greet him. All day they had been staring up at an empty white ceiling with nothing else to see that could distract the mind from wandering.

The only company came from the soft breathing of others who should have been dead, but were saved from even damnation.

It was still all too surreal that the eyes never closed for sleep.

Blinking was the most they did because of irrational fear that if they were closed for too long, they'd find out everything was just a dream.

"Hmm, do I need to prescribe eye drops?" Caster mused to himself, the pair of eyes twitching when Caster literally approached and poured saline solution onto the pupils.

Blinking back tears from the sting, the owner of the eyes, a certain woman resigned herself to her fate.

She supposed she should say thank you as the saline solution relieved an itch she couldn't hope to reach, but what use was it if she couldn't move her mouth?

Caster moved onto other work, leaving only the woman's gratitude in her mind.

If only she could talk, at least the time would pass faster, but she was stuck in a vegetative state. The irony of the situation was not lost on her, but she found entertainment in quietly observing Caster work.

There was an almost soothing yet meticulous nature to it that naturally drew the woman in. If nothing else, Caster was earnest in his duty as a doctor and his research to pursue medicine. It was a setting in which he shined his best, his sunken eyes alive with passion, and complexion ruddy.

When not staring at him observing a reaction of liquids in a decanter-like vial and jotting down notes, the woman would be stuck staring at his soft features for hours. It was to the point she felt confident enough to state the number of eyelashes he had, or that he had a habit of frowning whenever an experiment turned out poorly.

…To think a day like this would come for a woman like her nearly made the woman chuckle in cynicism, only to realize that she couldn't.

Given her situation, she should have just let this go, but this feeling of being trapped in her own body was starting to take its toll on her.

She'd seen Caster get accosted by Rider before disappearing to who knows where for a couple hours before returning. Judging from all the noise she'd been hearing, the woman surmised that something substantial must have happened outside the medical ward. Curiosity was killing her, but Caster wasn't the type to babble about unnecessary things.

He wasn't one to talk during the midst of his work, and often, he lost himself in his research.

Time began to tick away, and without a clock, the woman could only base the passage of time on intuition, the lighting from the sun, and the movement of shadows.

The lack of sunlight, and the fact that Caster lit a lamp meant it was approaching the evening, meaning that several hours should have passed.

"Sleep," Caster suddenly muttered in the tranquil din before the woman realized he was addressing her.

Even talking with her, his back was facing her while he scribbled over several pages of notes he'd documented for the day. The sound of rustling paper and the dabbing of an ink pen echoed as the backdrop.

The woman blinked, and Caster took that as a sign asking for elaboration.

"Insomnia should not be one of your symptoms." Caster said, piling his notes into a stack which he organized to the side. "The body is not meant to remain awake longer than it should. Extreme cases may lead to impaired judgment and light-headedness."

The woman blinked again.

Caster sighed. "Shall I concoct a sleeping potion?"

The woman blinked rapidly in protest.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Caster grumbled about uncooperative patients not knowing what was good for them.

Eyeing Caster cautiously, the woman was ready to stop herself from swallowing if Caster tried to force feed her a sleeping potion. Her observations revealed Caster would really do such a thing if it was for a patient's benefit. After all, she'd already been subject to his brand of doctoring.

Ever vigilant, the woman was the first to sense an intruder in the medical ward. Vegetative state or not, the woman had been one the highest leveled adventure's in Orario, and her senses were not dull.

Caster, in contrast, was a doctor before all else. Lost in his research and in the boundary of his own territory creation, his guard wasn't even up to begin with. Not with Rider and the others acting as the first line of defense.

The woman's pupils dilated and she began to blink rapidly in warning, relieved when Caster took the hint and-

Caster, that fucker, gave her more eyedrops!

'Behind you! Fool, behind you!'

Inwardly hissing, it wasn't until Caster found a knife under his neck that he realized what the woman had been trying to convey to him.

"Don't move."

Caster sighed, his gaze arbitrarily making eye contact with none other than Ryuu Lion outside of her maid-outfit, and in a rogue's attire. Hunter trousers were worn on her legs while straps held a green cloak and half mask over her face.

"If this is your way of drawing a doctor's attention, then it's fatally flawed." Caster muttered, annoyed. He raised his hand towards the knife at his neck, but paused as Ryuu pressed the blade over his skin.

"I said don't move!" Ryuu warned, expression icy the moment she entered the medical ward and laid eyes on the occupants within.

Silently, she'd moved to subdue Caster before all else.

Her breathing was erratic as her gaze focused on one part of the ward where Caster had laid down the Astrea Familia members.

Caster leisurely raised his hands to show there was nothing in them, but Ryuu was nonetheless nervous with the simple fact that Rider was likely nearby and could appear at a moment's notice.

She had to be quick among all else. She could apologize later.

Ryuu had a script in mind, but Caster was clearly treading outside of it.

She scowled.

"The fact that you're here in my medical ward means that someone let you in despite knowing I'd be annoyed." Caster was acting at his own pace. "But the fact that my spell wards didn't go off is a point in your favor. They only detect hostility."

Ryuu knit her brows, before shaking her head and tightening her grip over her dagger.

"No one let me in!" She insisted.

Caster ignored her as if certain of his deductions.

"Rider? No, it can't be. He's still feeling guilty. Then Archer, or the Master?" Caster mused.

"I said no one let me in!"

Ryuu snarled at the feeling of being belittled.

Caster furrowed his brows in thought as he fell into a conundrum. "Hmm, but neither are inconsiderate people."

Therefore, the question becomes what could compel his allies to forego action despite Caster's expense?

"S-Sorry!"

Bell rushed in, and Ryuu's frigid features reddened in mortified alarm as she was caught red handed.

"Ms. Ryuu, what are you doing?! You said you were just checking!"

Bell stiffly bowed his head and Caster suddenly found his validation.

"Ah, that would do it."

His aunt, Hestia, was a pushover for Bell; and Bell was the one who suggested housing everyone. None of his allies would be able to intervene.

One does not bite the hand that feeds you, but it says nothing for the owner of that hand.

In short-

Caster deadpanned.

"I'm living with simpletons."

There was utterly no tension in the tone.

Meanwhile, Ryuu stared hard at her dagger to make sure it wasn't blunt.