A Surprising Show

Entry 148:

Jeanne D'Arc Alter(Jalter) POV:

"Did Rider commit suicide?" I ponder as I feel the contract dissipate. It's troublesome that she retained her sanity even with Madness Enhancement. Still, she likely fought with all of her might. If that's the case, we can't let our guard down. Next time, "he" and I will mobilize. I'm also taking the Servants summoned today. "Gilles, Please contact the Berserk Assassin," I ask my fellow knight.

Gilles then nods as he prepares to contact our other assassin. I ask with a larger amount of weakness than I would like, "Gilles, am I truly fake as that man said?" The Caster's eyes widen as he immediately responds, "Impossible! You are perfect! My perfect Saint!"

The man continues as his wording bothers me, "Of course it's you. Are you listening, Jeanne? You were burned at the stake. Betrayed by everyone! Charles VII and the people left you to die because they didn't want to pay the ransom! Not a single person from the rabble rose to fight for your return bravely! And what was the cause of all this? It was God, not you or me! It was our God mocking us! Thus, we deny God. Don't we, Jeanne? Just as I always believed."

He is right, but not in the way he is thinking. That's what that man says continues to Echo in my mind: "You are not real. You are but an idea of what a manic and insane mind could create."

I brush off those thoughts as doubt only leads to weakness, and to burn this joke of a nation, I must be strong. I will not be betrayed again!

I grab my flag and sword as I state, "Yes. Yes, you're right, Gilles. I have nothing left. My soldiers are gone, and my admirers fled. The king betrayed me, and the bishop burnt me in the name of God. I was wrong. I was so wrong. No, everything was wrong. Not just what I believed in. The country that allowed me to exist was wrong in every facet of existence Gilles. This mistake must be corrected. Jeanne D'Arc was a mistake. So let us do as they decided and make it all so it never happened. My salvation of the country was itself a fatal mistake. I should have never allowed myself to break like that."

I nod my head as I know I am right. I know what I do is just. I know what I am doing is but an effect of their actions against me.

I know what I am doing, right? I shake my head as I hear his voice in my mind, but I force them down as I look to our new servants. "Let's go, Berserker, Assassin… This is getting complicated. May I use your True Names? Lancelot, Knight of the Lake; and the Executioner, Charles-Henri Sanson. Mount your wyverns. I shall lead you."

Both servants look to me and bow, with Lancelot saying nothing as he grunts and mounts his wyverns as they go to find the interlopers and destroy them. I smile, knowing that what that man said was wrong.

"But am I truly wrong? You feel it, don't you? The emptiness, the void, you know that you are just a facsimile of someone who is truly alive. Your thoughts aren't even your own. It's laughable. But it doesn't have to be this way. You can still pull back, and I will wait and welcome you with open arms."

My fire begins to burn around me as my rage grows, and that voice is not even condescending. It's as if he already knows it's going to happen, and it's so sympathetic it is sickening. "Be silent! You are not real!" the voice then returns and says, "If I am not real, then what are you?"

The voice goes silent as I ponder what he said, and I return to my fortress to await their possible arrival. I feel lost and empty, just as the voice said, and yet I can't stop, and I won't, or may I stop? I don't know anymore.

Gilles looks at me with that smile on his face as he returns to his lab in Orleans and offers no counsel as I try to remember what happened before the stake before I became this.

Yet all I find is nothing.

Linus Ozias POV;

I open my eyes to a new day as I finish my conversation with the witch, as the actions she has committed are terrible. She is only doing it because she has been affected by the psyche of that madman.

While she is definitely not perfect, her emotions have been turned and multiplied to reflect a negative version of herself. Even now, I find myself debating if I truly wish to simply kill her and leave, but I know that caster Gilles will die.

But for now, I exit my capsule house and begin to cook for everyone as I have essentially been made the cook and tech guy and occasional badass of the group. For now, though, I wake up Ritsuka, who is wearing a set of pajamas made from the seraph suit.

I would feel bad for her using my advanced technology to make her pajamas, but I myself use them as well for increased comfort, so I have no say in this, and as I place the food in front of her, she begins to sniff and rouse from her slumber as I whisper "You know if you don't wake up I'll have to give this to someone else."

The girl's eyes then shoot open as she grabs the plate and begins devouring the food. She shifts her suit to her normal Chaldea outfit, smiles, and says, "Oz, Good morning. Thanks for the food, but you really should come out here, or else everyone's going to eat the food."

That smile, that dang smile, I will have my revenge. I don't know how, but I will have it. (Imagine the smug anime face.)  I then chuckle as I leave to see everyone else enjoying the food. Siegfreid says, "Good morning, master. I see you have prepared us some food. I would thank you, but I'm too busy eating this divine cuisine."

The Queen and Mozart are also enjoying their food, and as I sit down, Marie Antoinette basically asks if she can have me as her personal chef, and I simply say that is impossible unless she decides to follow us back to Chaldea once we are done.

In not even a second, the queen agrees to follow us back along with Mozart as, in his words, he can't leave the queen alone for more than one minute lest she annoys a traveling servant.

Sadly, I can't contract them now as the Holy Grail's influence is still too strong, with Jalter still in control, but once we deal with her, I should be able to establish the contract with the other two. Jeanne smiles and says, "It will be nice to have someone else who understands French culture, but I have to ask why you are contracting so many servants?"

I look to the sky as I say, "You may not believe it, Jeanne, but I am a rather introverted individual, and I tend to expose things about myself rather limitingly, and yet here with all of you, I feel at peace even in this dire situation, and I would give none of you for anything."

I wonder if what I said meant anything to her as the look in her eyes seems accepting in a way like she has her own understanding of what I just said, similar to what an NPC from the Overlord anime would think as if she's searching for some double meaning.

What I said was not a lie, as I enjoy being here. While most would be freaking out being in this universe, I am relatively calm as I have the powers of a silver-age Kryptonian and the ability to learn any magic simply by seeing it once as well as copying Noble Phantasms in their entirety. 

I hold sway over not only creation but life and death, and I can create virtually any life or weapon I desire as long as I can understand its makeup and the concept I wish to imbue it with.

It was never at one point when I realized I was very powerful, but I know I am strong, and while I still understand that I am relatively low in terms of multiversal beings, for now, this is my easy mode, and I don't even want to think about what happens when the Lost Belts show up. Even I know that in those lost belts, I may find a challenge.

But I still wonder why I was sent here, not just for the collapse of this part of the Fate Multiverse, but is there some lesson to be found? I have dozens of thought partitions working on finding out the answer, but it may come to me eventually. Yet, as I look at the smiling yet ravenous faces of everyone eating my food, I'm at peace.

"So what is the plan, Lin?" Tamamo asks as she eats her grilled salmon, to which I simply say, "Now that we have located a dragon slayer, Siegfried, and have sufficient numbers, we will simply assault Orleans and end this nightmare, but the main priority is not even the witch herself but the caster Gilles De Rais."

The group's eyebrows collectively raise as Medusa asks, "Why must we be wary of a single caster?" I then explain, "Ironically enough, it's not even the man himself but the book he holds as it's through that book he can summon Eldritch Horrors into this world if only a very, very small percentage of them."

This seemingly surprises the group as Ritsuka somehow picks up a giant sign that says I am not a fan of tentacle hentai which she immediately puts away somewhere. This news seemingly affects Jeanne the most as she understands how that specific magic is possible.

Black magic, specifically, can only be done by committing continuous depraved acts, and Caster has definitely done so as he has murdered hundreds and done many things to dozens of children. Gilles De Rais is the worst in every way possible.

I place my hand on the Saint's shoulder. "I am sorry, Jeanne, but the friend you knew was gone, and this is not your fault as any one of us deals with grief differently, but that man decided to take his grief and bring everyone down to that level with him." 

While I can tell that this news is still affecting her as in life, she was good friends with the man, and he was an honorable knight, his grief and despair over not only his greatest friend's death but the betrayal he felt from his nation drove him mad. By no means does this exonerate his crimes, but I can understand it in a way.

The others comfort the Saint as I gather up the supplies and say, "Such actions shall never be truly forgotten, but we can end this nightmare together and, by doing so, end the suffering of all parties." They all nod as Jeanne looks determined to end this. 

Soon enough, we move out and find our way blocked by three new servants, and one with white hair and blue eyes says almost deliriously, "It's good to see you again, Your Majesty. It seems that fate cannot keep us apart, and I will find it within myself to execute you once more." The man then takes out his sword as Siegfried moves to battle him alongside Medusa as Tamamo looks at a masked man.

"I shall make you all my greatest show, and what is a show without the supporting cast?" As the masked man said this, a small army of skeletons and a group of wyverns appeared behind us as the black knight roared and charged at us. As I hear Romani over the comms.

[(RA)This is bad as the records we have that know these servants as the Black Knight is Lancelot in his Berserker class, and while he is a raging maniac, his skills have barely deteriorated, and his Noble Phantasm allows him to make any weapon he wields as strong as a noble Phantasm with a D rating which doesn't sound like much but can definitely eliminate a standard master.]

[(OA) The other two are less known, but the white-haired man is or was Charles-Henri Sanson, a noble from the French Revolution who killed hundreds at the guillotine, even King Louise and Queen Antoinette. The masked man only holds a couple of records, and while his abilities are unknown, as well as his name, we know that he represents the Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera.]

I say into the comms as I dodge the berserker's attacks, "I appreciate the info dump, but I am trying to avoid his strikes here." They go silent as I hear Olga say [Be careful as well; I know you're strong. Those hits will not leave you uninjured.]

I smile as I say, "Thank you for the concern, Olga. I really feel the connection starting to form between us." I can hear the blush she is getting as she says [It's not a concern; I just don't want to lose one of our last masters. Don't die.]

I then direct our group to fight on specific fronts as Siegfried and Medusa fight the Executioner, I deal with the Berserker with Tamamo, and Mozart, alongside Queen Antoinette, fights The Phantom of the Opera.

But before the battle can even begin, a roar of flames gets my attention, and I notice a green-haired woman alongside a rather short pink-haired woman wearing a gothic-style dress. With the pink-haired girl saying, "What the hell happened here?"

Before anyone can answer, one of the wyverns tries to dive bomb the two as the green-haired woman literally grabs it by the leg, snaps it in half, and then proceeds to open her mouth and breathe blue flames, disintegrating the wyvern.

After that, the green-haired dragon woman looks at me with a rather terrifying look in her eye as I wonder if ROB is messing with me.