The Underworld.
You know, recently, well, over the last couple of hours, which is how long it took me to put the demons-Pillars to sleep, I once again realized a couple of important things that I thought I knew, but apparently didn't fully understand during my entire time in this world...
Human life was far from peaceful.
No matter how intelligent, strong, beautiful, powerful, magnificent, stunning, charming, mature, and wise a person was, danger was always present in their life, and... Although, no. Perhaps 'danger' wasn't the most appropriate word...
Cataclysm. Disaster. Fate.
These three words perfectly described what was present in the life of absolutely every person.
It was like a lurking hunter, a perfect predator whose presence the victim was always aware of, perhaps even knew, but was never quite ready to escape or fight back...
More precisely, this was how a perfectly normal, skilled predator behaved, but in this case we were talking about the 'perfect' predator.
The perfect predator, he... built up tension. He created a sense of danger even when he was not near his prey. One thought, one mention, and that was enough for the victim to begin to experience animal fear on a subconscious level. The reason for this was that the perfect predator could always reach its prey, no matter how deep it buried itself or how far it fled into a parallel world.
And the victim did not consider all of the above as a 'possibility' or 'probability', but as a constant. It was something where such concepts did not exist in principle. And the most important thing was that death was the best thing the victim could hope for after offending the perfect predator and drawing its attention.
What was the point of all this background? Well...
- "How can I put it..." I began, almost in a whisper so as not to wake the children. "Like Morga..."
- "Don't you dare mention the name of that cursed witch in my presence, Romani," Goetia interrupted me, also in a whisper, with undisguised anger, shame, and hatred.
Now Goetia and I were sitting side by side at his long, almost six-meter table, watching closely to make sure that none of the demon Pillars woke up, which would have triggered a chain reaction among the rest.
In those two hours, we had gone from enemies to allies, brothers in arms, back to back, holding back the onslaught of a multimillion-strong army. Our muscles ached, our eyes were like bottomless pits, and our minds craved silence and calm.
Why did I help him in the first place?
Something inside me made me feel compassion for him, and later I realized that it was my humanity. After all, we were, to some extent, real brothers, and I even offered him my coffee, which we were now enjoying together. As for Morgan...
A woman... Oh, I apologize. A fairy with the rank of 'Great Mother', that is, a fairy born in the inner sea of the planet, like Vivian herself, the Lady of the Lake, could be extremely cruel. Vindictive, capricious, and vengeful. That was Morgan le Fay. However, she was like any other fairy of Nasuverse.
She had no moral framework or any other such nonsense invented by humans for humans. If she was hurt, you could be sure that she would respond in such a way that the offender would wish for their own death... which almost happened to Goetia.
It is also noteworthy that as a fairy of the rank of 'Great Mother', she wields magic that is not bound to humanity in any way. The demons of Nasuverse, of which Goetia was a member, were originally spirits created by Solomon from the sixth imaginary element — a force that responds to the desires of humanity and is called upon to fulfill them.
That is, Goetia could not, in principle, oppose Morgan, unless it was a matter of brute force. The magic of fairies was extremely versatile, without any restraining factors, while the demons of the Pillars and Goetia, on the contrary, had their needs, abilities, and thinking directly limited by the human mind.
It was like two parallel lines, one of which was a normal straight line, and the other was like a tree with multiple branches reaching all the way back to the first line. And yes, I was also unable to do anything about it for the same reasons.
- "Okay," I sighed, deciding to break the silence. "Where are those female demons you sent to me? As far as I remember, Morg... well, she brought them too."
- "They have the day off," Goetia replied after a short pause and a sip of coffee.
- "Huh?"
- "They work six days a week on the Pillars so that I can devote my time to the affairs of the Underworld."
- "Oh, but today is Sunday," I nodded, and, between us, silence hung again. "Well... how are you?"
- "…tolerable. It was much worse at first," he replied with stately composure. "Why are you here? I'm grateful for your help, but I need to get back to business. At least while I still have time."
- "Oh, I completely forgot about that," I sighed and thought for a moment. "Can you provide support to the Sitri clan? We've resolved the issue, and everyone is staying where they are."
- "It will be quick," Goetia nodded. "Anything else?"
- "You know about the attack on the Underworld that is supposed to happen in the canon, right?"
- "Attack?" He raised an eyebrow, his expression serious. "Who and when?"
- "Rizevim, but when? I don't know."
- "The Blood of the Fallen, you mean..." Goetia muttered thoughtfully.
- "Yes, and in our case, she'll probably be much better prepared than in the canon," I said. "The color of her soul has changed due to her use of the Grail's Sephiroth, and even I don't know what she'll come up with."
- "I see... I'll take countermeasures," he nodded to himself. "Is that all?"
- "I guess so," I sighed and got up from my chair, then created a small mug of coffee and placed it on the table in front of him. "This is a bottomless mug of coffee that I drink myself.
I suppose you'll need it, considering... the circumstances.
- "Fine," agreed Goetia.
- "In that case, I'm going home. If you need help, let me know," I nodded, and a magic circle lit up beneath me. "As I understand it, there's no point in asking her to cancel her spells?"
- "We both know the answer to that question," Goetia replied with an expression of cold anger on his face.
- "I suppose so," I agreed, and when the teleportation circle was about to take me away, I suddenly stopped, because a thought came to my mind.
- "What's the matter?" Goetia asked.
- "How about taking a break today? I think it's been a while since we've all gotten together. A beach episode, so to speak. There's something else, but I'll tell you about that later."
The idea came to me spontaneously, but today was the perfect day for it. Why? Well, tonight in Kuoh there was a decent festival, typical for Japan: lots of stalls with various foods, themed contests and performances, fireworks, and other attractions.
Funnily enough, the city authorities added this festival to the official calendar of events relatively recently, about five years ago, to give residents another opportunity to have fun and students and schoolchildren to enjoy their summer vacation with friends. What nice people run this city, you might think, but there's just one thing...
The city was actually owned and run by demons in the form of Sirzechs and Serafall, two crazy sis-cons, while Rias was obsessed with Japanese otaku culture and Sona was obsessed with studying and following the rules.
In any case, today was the perfect day for a getaway. Heh.
- "Are you blind or..."
- "I'll be waiting for you tonight at eleven," I interrupted him immediately. "And if you don't come on your own, I'll bring you here by force."
- "Are you listening to me?"
- "That's all, see you tonight," I said quickly and left for home.
Well, now I need to talk about this with the Servants. They happened to be home.
-0-
The Emiya Residence.
- "All right, I have an announcement," I began, gathering all the residents of the house in the living room, except for Griselda and Irina, who, according to Rea-chan, had gone to Issei, as well as Arthur and Le Fay, who were currently busy with Vali.
Morgan, Gabriel, Gabi, and Tia were also absent, as they were still in Kyoto, although it was still worth telling them about my plans, but I would do that later.
- "What's gone into that sick head of yours this time?" asked Archer.
- "Yes," agreed Artoria. "Something tells me this isn't going to end well."
- "Yeah," added Mo-chan. "Our Master sucks."
- "Sir Mordred, he's still our Master," Lancelot shook his head.
- "Exactly! The Master's ideas are often quite amusing!" Merlin nodded.
- "That's exactly what these nerds are afraid of," said Runeas.
- "We are Servants," Enkidu said with a smile. "So it's our duty."
- "That doesn't make sense to the king, Enkidu," Gil said, turning up his nose. "But I'm still curious what you're thinking, you mongrel."
- "Come on, let's give the Master a chance," Medusa giggled.
- "Wow, what support from my beloved Servants. My heart is about to burst from all this love," I rolled my eyes, because only the Assassins, Hercules, Elaine, and Rea-chan hadn't said anything.
- "That would be nice," added Archer.
- "You're asking for it, Queen Shirou," I grinned, and he immediately fell silent. "In any case, we're all taking the evening off together."
- "But..."
- "Precisely because it's your day off, we're all spending it together," I interrupted Mo-chan.
- "The king can't..."
- "The king should spend time with his people, shouldn't he, Gil-kun?" I interrupted Gil, and he fell silent and clicked his tongue in agreement with my words. "That's great. Let's go out tonight, don't be late."
And when the servants began to disperse, I smiled, because no one said that the rest would be without incident, did they?
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