39

038 - Morning Rituals

Illyasviel von Einzbern.

"Illya-sama, please wake up."

I'm shaken from the land of dreams by something I haven't heard in some time, but my body is conditioned to answer by waking up as quickly and efficiently as possible: Sella's morning call.

Instincts buried and rusty by not having been used since I started waking up by myself years ago kick into gear as I do my best to unbury myself from the pile of cushions I'm lying under, feet kicking to help me sit up in the most expeditious way as my brain is flooded by adrenaline and other natural stimulants to get me sharp and receptive as fast as physically possible.

Lest I face the nagging.

"Good morning, Sella." Half-forgotten habits from the not-so distant past provide the right answers while my mind is still rebooting. "What's today's… Ouch!"

That's when the consequences of last night decide to rear their ugly head. And with that I mean a severe headache, a disorienting dizziness and my stomach's constant and unrelenting attempts to climb up my throat. So this is a hangover. I don't like it.

"And this is why I warned you against alcohol, Illya-sama." Sella huffs disapprovingly. "I really wish you had listened to my advice."

"I was negotiating with a potential ally!" I vehemently protest. Which is definitely not the same as pouting. "Some drinking was unavoidable."

"As Illya-sama says." She replies in a tone that very much means the complete opposite. "I hope this alliance was worth the consequences."

"Consequences? Please! I'm perfectly fine!" I wave her off, doing my absolute best not to show how appealing a stomach transplant and a drill through my forehead sound right about now. "I'm only still sitting because there are two Servants wrapped around me."

And wasn't it a surprise to find Archer here. Not that the cute childish Servant doesn't feel nice to cuddle with, but I would've thought she'd be with Rin. Is she supposed to be keeping an eye on me or something?

"As expected of the Einzbern." Sella agrees again, using her strange evil maid wiles to make sure I know she's being sarcastic without ever really altering her tone of voice. "I'm glad to know I won't be having to mix a hangover cure for Illya-sama, after all."

"A hangover cu– Is that a thing that exists?" I catch myself before breaking down and confessing the truth to beg for her mercy, but it's a real close thing. "Uh, I- I mean… Sella? What are you even doing here?"

"Your 'new ally' was polite enough to notify us of your decision to remain here." The 'unlike you, who recklessly made such a decision without so much as leaving a word' is left unsaid, but can clearly be read in her eyes. "Of course, we couldn't really know whether Tohsaka-san's claims were the truth or a play until we saw you safe and hale this morning, it has been… some tense hours."

I wince at that.

"Please tell me Liz didn't try to kick the front door open and hold Rin at Halberd-point."

"No, she didn't." I sigh in relief. "Because I ran after her to talk her down. She was already leaving the mansion, halberd in hand, by the time I finished reading through Tohsaka-san's notice."

"Yeah, that… That sounds like Liz."

"She's in the kitchen, by the way. I'm sure she could use some reassurance that you're okay."

I really should go there and give her a hug, right? Or rather, let her give me a hug and silently fuss all over me and examine every inch of my body to make sure there's no wound or mark or a hair out of place while I patiently wait for her to reassure herself because I don't have the heart to snap at her no matter how annoying she gets and maybe it feels kinda nice to feel her hands all over my bare skin like that and–

… I'm too hungover to feel horny and that's something I don't appreciate.

"Can't she bring my breakfast here instead?" I whine instead of voicing my thoughts. "I'm horribly hungov– I mean..."

"I'll be on the lower floor too, Illya-sama." She continues mercilessly, not dignifying my admittedly pitiful attempts at manipulation with acknowledgement. "Please come find us if you need anything."

As the bedroom door closes behind Sella and a dismayed whine leaves my lips, I hear a snort coming from behind. Turning around, I find Berserker fully awake, lazily sprawled on the bed and looking at me with an amused glint in her yellow eyes.

"Et tu, Berserker?"

Ignoring the utterly unhelpful attitude of my Servant, I gather all my pitiful strength, unsteady focus and deflated pride to get Archer's arms off me and get up to prepare for the day. I think the bathroom was to the left? Somehow, I manage to stand up without overbalancing and falling on my face instead, but I probably should grab on to something for stability.

Damn, I don't even have the presence of mind to shake my hips as I leave the room to try and fluster Berserker. No matter how fun yesterday was, being hungover sucks.

After a shower, a change of clothes and some breakfast with soft food and tea -red tea, with two spoons of sugar, like civilized people- I'm still feeling like someone soaked me on formaldehyde and then wrung me like a rag, but I'm at least functional.

Rin has apparently left for school hours ago, which leaves her house pretty much under my care. Within reason, of course. The Geas Contract keeps me from trying to investigate her Workshop, even through indirect means. Not that I'm stupid enough to brave whatever defenses she's left on her workshop, anyway.

The same contract also keeps me from abusing her trust with things like vandalizing or incurring on unnecessary expenses, even petty things like being intentionally untidy. I'm way ahead of her though,I have maids!

… Speaking of which, Liz is lying on the couch reading a magazine.

"Leysritt!" Sella reprimands her as soon as she sees what she's doing. "Don't just laze around like that! What about your chores?"

"Already done." Is the laconic response. "Smaller house, I love it."

For a moment I'm expecting Sella to find an excuse to put Liz to work anyway, but then she sneaks a glance in my direction and leaves with a huff instead. I can't help a smile at that. Deep, deep inside, where the sun never shines and you need a submarine to reach, Sella is actually a big softie.

I turn my attention back to the Contract I signed yesterday. I made sure not to get actually drunk until after we were done with the signing, but it never hurts to take a second glance and make sure Rin didn't sneak anything past me after all. Or even better, to find a loophole I can use against her.

Unfortunately, it seems like Rin has crossed all her 't's and dotted all her 'i's. In fact, it's a bit suspicious how competent she is in the field of written contracts. Like she'd been recently brushing off the theory and relevant skills.

… Didn't she say something about preparing a contract for Onii-chan? I'm pretty sure there was something like that , but last night is a bit blurry.

"Stupid stupidly good alcohol." I mutter distractedly.

"Hungover Illya is grumpy." Liz points outs amusedly.

"But what a hell of a way to get drunk for the first time, eh?." I defend myself. "On expensive grand reserve stuff that's been saved up for years."

I take a moment to remember yesterday night in detail for the first time. The desperate request, the ruthless negotiations, the alcohol -it was brandy- burning down my throat. Rin's face when it was her turn to drink, getting more and more comfortable as I got used to the beverage…

The way Berserker got surprisingly clingy while we were there and how warm she felt beside me...

My poorly hidden attempts at flirting with Rin while practically giving her a strip-tease...

Opening up to the head of a rival family and straight out enemy and confessing my innermost hopes, dreams, fears and worries...

I slowly put the papers I was reading back into the table, raise my hands to cover my face and let out a long, soul-deep, keening whine of embarrassment. What the hell did I do yesterday!?

"As expected of the Einzbern."

"Is that sarcasm?"

"Yeah, I'm laughing at Sella."

"Hey!" Comes the protest from the upper floor, where Sella is doing Akasha knows what.

Liz and I trade looks and dissolve into a fit of giggling. Truly, a frightening maid to know we are dissing her from so far away.

At some point while I'm still trying to get a grip of my sudden and unmeasurable embarrassment and repress all memories of yesterday night, Liz gets up to use the toilet and comes back with a small green phial full of a fuzzy and glowing liquid. Trusting Liz with my life in spite of her faults, I down it without question.

The hangover disappears. When I look at her askance, Liz winks at me and makes a shushing motion and points towards the upper floor where Sella is still busy. She smuggled a hungover cure for me. Truly, she's the superior maid.

Feeling a lot better and more or less done looking over the contract, I get up to take a look at the bounded fields around the property outside the house proper to see about making some additions of my own.

I can't really do any of the fun stuff because it would interfere with Rin's own defenses and that goes against the contract, no matter how obviously superior the Einzbern defenses are to anything that requires jewels of all things to function could ever aspire to be.

I can still set up some sentries at the very least, and probably a couple intent-based curses. With a couple of centuries to develop, they might even evolve into a proper genius loci, but we unfortunately can't afford to wait that long.

Before I can get to work though, Berserker materializes beside me, sniffing around as she eyes the surroundings twitchily.

"What's wrong, Berserker?" I ask worriedly. It can't be Assassin again, can it? Not out here in public in the middle of the day. "Someone you know?"

She growls a single word. "Medea."

I must admit, that single word does a good job at single-handedly making my day worse.

Medea of Colchis

"Medea." Comes the deep and snarling, but still recognizable voice of my dear friend.

"Looks like sweet Atalanta still remembers me." I can't help a fond smile as I remember my times with her and the rest of the Argonauts. In spite of… everything, those were happy days I can't bring myself to cast off. "My, my… what a naughty girl. She never told me she could smell out magecraft."

Our next meeting will almost inevitably go poorly, but Servants or not, enemies or not, Mad Enhancement or not… She's still my dear friend. Hopefully we don't have to solve our differences by killing each other.

… Another thing to trust Master with, I guess.

Back to the situation at hand, I can't very well leave the Rin girl's home unsupervised, but I can at least pull back a bit if my oversight is going to make Atalanta uncomfortable. My feelers probably got too close after what I learnt this morning anyway. As incompetent as modern magi are, even they will catch on something wrong if I'm too blatant and it would be extremely embarrassing to explain Master how I got caught because I got too cocky.

No, I very much prefer to be the one Master explains that to, not the other way around.

Now, back to the problem at hand… Angra Mainyu's influence has really made a mess of the original setup of Greater Grail, compounding to the difficulty of interpreting an already complex ritual, but it has some upsides.

The corruption doesn't act as a coordinated whole, but as a mass of independent and only vaguely related influences. Every drop, every curse, influences a small part of the whole, simply picking the worst out of the options they can reach. That usually amounts to the difference between a 'yes' and a 'no', a '0' or a '1'.

It's a fascinating phenomenon. A countless amount of relatively weak curses, all the distilled malice and spite of an untold amount of nameless individuals hating the world and everything on it. They wish only for the eternal suffering of everything capable of such and, failing that, the death of all life.

Master claims that the individuals composing the mass of curses are capable of going beyond that if manifested as Servants, but it's frankly hard to picture this pool of distilled malice ever becoming anything else.

At the very least, their single-minded nature makes them, as a whole, predictable.

It still takes me longer than I would've liked to isolate the part of the ritual in charge of that Master called 'The Apocrypha Failsafe'. Modern magi, I swear. Where do they get those names from?

'Master?' I call through our bond.'I have located what you wanted.'

'Already? You are the best, Princess' I feel my cheeks warm at the praise. I should be inured to blatant flattery like this, but Master always seems to know how to say things to make me feel weak on the knees. 'What can you tell me?'

'The failsafe itself is inactive Master, the Curses have completely eroded that part of the ritual.'

'And the Curses themselves? Could the failsafe be activated through them?

'It's not something I have contemplated, Master. Let me take another look.' I roll my eyes at Master's paranoia, but indulge him anyway. 'Huh.'

'Huh? I don't like how that 'huh' sounds!''

'I stand corrected, Master.' I explain, frowning at what a second glance through the system reveals. How did I miss this the first time around? 'There isa chance that the Mud itself can act as a pseudo-system to execute a corrupted version of the failsafe.'

'That's… Exactly the kind of thing it would do if given the chance, yes. And not something we want to deal with.' Master comments with a sigh. 'What are our options? I know the Mud is particularly resistant to Servants...'

'It just makes the thing a bit more contrived, Master.' I answer easily. 'There is no such thing as magic immunity, I should have a solution whipped up by tonight.'

I eye the thing in front of me again, going through the ways I can indirectly affect it to serve my purposes. If I can't beat it into submission with my magecraft, I'll just use my magecraft to create something that can beat it into submission for me instead. This is personal now.