Chapter 22: What Has Happened?

Chapter 22: What Has Happened?

"Huh?" Rin turned to look at Julius, who had suddenly cursed at nothing.

"It's nothing, I was remembering something." He was quick to cover up his slip, though he was still just as surprised.

Because it had never been discussed in the book, he was unaware of most of the Door pathway's Acting Method.

'Could it be because we influenced the world we went to a lot?' Julius wondered internally since things like influencing fate or interacting with powerful entities were normally a way to speed up the digestion of the potion. 'This is good, it speeds up my plans greatly.'

Just before they could ring the bell the door was flung open.

"Master!" Saber exclaimed.

She wore casual clothes, though she still gave off the same tomboyish feeling as always. Shirou and Emiya came up behind her a moment later and were shocked to see their state.

Of course, all this time they had both not only fought but also been walking through what was essentially a massive fire. Her clothes were covered in ashes and Julius's was even slightly torn from his battle with Saber Alter.

"Where the hell have you two been?" Archer asked them in an irritated voice. "Suddenly we felt that Abraham was using his Reality Marble and the next moment we completely lost connection. Although we tried to contact you, you did not respond."

Rin sighed.

"It's hard to explain, let me at least take a bath before I tell you anything." Without further ado, she entered the mansion.

"She hasn't changed a bit..." Archer looked at his Master as if she was a hopeless case.

"Well, that's good in a way." Shirou smiled and they all went to the main hall.

"How long have we been gone?" Julius asked, this was important since he didn't know how advanced the war was.

They all fell silent and looked at each other.

"You disappeared over a month ago, quite a lot has happened." Archer was the first to respond.

Julius was stunned. 'What is this comically large time distortion?' He thought wryly.

"Hasn't that time passed for you?" Shirou questioned since it seemed absurd to him that something like that could happen.

"KYAAAAH!" A scream came from upstairs, alerting them.

"Tohsaka?" Julius quickly spread his detection field throughout the mansion and realized what had happened. "I see, the Einzbern girl has woken up."

The three of them widened their eyes.

"I see, I knew I forgot something. I apologize, Master." Artoria rose and bowed.

"No, it's okay, I should have noticed earlier." Julius dismissed her apology. "Has it been a long time since she woke up?"

Archer nodded. "Two weeks ago. She's been living here ever since."

Julius wondered if he should go upstairs to make sure the two girls didn't start fighting.

"I don't think you need to worry, she seems like a different person from the one we first met." Shirou smiled kindly and Saber tensed you slightly, which didn't go unnoticed by either Archer or Julius.

'So Shirou's Harem Main Character powers are already on, huh?' He internally mocked his future disciple while Archer looked at the boy with some pity.

Very fast footsteps were heard going down the stairs and everyone saw Rin with wet hair and looking like she wanted to kill someone.

"Archer..." She murmured.

"Yes, Master?" The Servant acted nonchalantly as if he didn't understand why the girl was angry.

"Don't you think it would have been a good idea to mention to me that an enemy magus was walking freely through my house?"

Archer smirked confidently.

"That would have prevented me from hearing your screams, Master, it's not funny." He answered her.

A vein stood out on the girl's forehead, but she was interrupted by Illya, who came up behind her.

"Oh, it's Julius!" The homunculus greeted him with great enthusiasm. Surprisingly, she didn't seem to resent him for the outcome of their battle.

"Illyasviel von Einzbern, it seems you have recovered quite well." Julius smiled.

The little girl, who was actually older than Shirou, giggled and jumped into the air before landing on top of the latter.

"Ugh." The boy lost all the air he had in his lungs.

"You, little..." Saber stood up, prepared to fight to the death.

At that moment, Julius decided to save the student from him. "Shirou, we haven't eaten in a while. Could you cook us something?"

Both girls' eyes sparkled with little stars and they let go of the poor boy, who gave the magus a look of deep gratitude.

"Sure, I'll go prepare dinner, wait here."

He disappeared into the kitchen, and Rin sat on the couch, wanting to know what had happened while they were gone.

"Well, first we'll tell you where we've been all this month, although it's only been two days for us." Julius began to tell how due to an accident in a ritual they were both dragged to another world.

They didn't stop to explain details, but they did explain everything about the Shadow Servants, Chaldea, and Artoria Alter, which puzzled Saber.

"To think that there is a world where I became corrupted to this extent..." For some reason, she seemed ashamed of her counterpart's actions.

Julius then told them about his hypothesis about the time distortion between worlds, which also affected the connection they had as Master and Servant.

"However, it seems that the mana sustaining worked properly. We knew you were alive due to this reason." Archer informed them, to which Saber nodded in agreement. "In fact, we were even able to fight."

This information surprised both Masters.

"So who was it? Caster or Assassin?" Rin asked.

Archer once again smirked.

"Who do you take us for? Of course, we're done with both of them." He revealed as he settled back on the couch.

Julius nodded, as he expected this.

"As I anticipated, Assassin and Caster worked together, right?"

Illya stopped drooling as she thought about dinner for a moment upon hearing this. "Wait, how could you know something like that without meeting them?"

Julius casually pointed up and simply said a word. "Astromancy."

The girl pouted upon hearing this. "What a cheater..."

"We are literally in a war." Julius justified himself, though even he found it hard to see this situation as a real war.

"Well anyway Saber defeated Assassin and I managed to defeat Caster, the Master died shortly after." Archer stressed.

'I see, so officially we only have Lancer and Kirei left, although other issues are pending.' Julius organized in his mind everything they had to do before going for the Grail.

"Okay, so now that we've caught up we need to plan our next move." Julius held up three fingers. "At the moment, we have three things left to do: the Matou, the priest with Lancer, and the King of Heroes."

Saber clenched her hands at the memory of Gilgamesh.

"I'll take care of Lancer." Archer announced. "I have an unfinished battle with him that I don't want to leave like this."

They all agreed.

"We should save Gilgamesh for last, the rest of us will take care of rescuing Tohsaka's sister and killing Zouken Matou." The magus declared. "That old man is very slippery, so we will need as many people as possible to get him down completely."

When he finished speaking, Shirou entered with huge plates of food. "Have I missed something?"

Back then, Archer remembered something.

"By the way, the person who finished off the Caster Master was the boy."

Rin was puzzled and glanced sideways at the aproned redhead with a gentle smile.

Julius, on the other hand, was not surprised.

"I see, that means that he has finally awakened his powers."

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As I promised, here you have a longer chapter. Also, I think I'm done with all the plot until the end of the war, and I think it makes sense (maybe not since I'm not an expert on Type Moon).