Returning home Albert goes to the bathroom and starts the bath.
"Huff!! Huff!! Huff!! Ugh…" Albert's body was very sore. "You… You traveled past Mach 8 ugh!" Albert's legs were weak, and his body wanted to vomit out its contents.
"You are a lot more durable then I had thought master." Lancelot said sitting down and opening the box. "Master you don't mind if I eat this bone do you?"
"Do whatever you want with it. Ugh… I'm… I'm going to take a bath and then go to sleep." He gets up and walks to the bathroom. "We will discuss this whole situation tomorrow alright."
"Very well master!" she said happy as she holds the bone and bites into it. "Crunch!!"
Albert removed his clothes and immediately got into the bath.
"Ahh…"
The water was as cold as ice, his back and front where sore beyond belief. Mirko's kick was devastating for a normal person but for one of Albert's origins it was nothing a good night sleep can't fix.
"Fuuu…" He leans his head against the tub and kicks his feet him. "Mirko… Haa…" He then looks at his right hand. "…A weird mark."
Clack!
The door to the bathroom opened.
"Master those are Command Seals." Lancelot answered standing before him with a quarter eaten bone.
"…What are you doing?" Albert said glancing at Lancelot.
"I am taking a bath with my master? Is it not obvious?"
Albert looks at her up and down. She was still fully decked in blue armor. Personally Albert liked woman with a bit more meat on them and Lancelot looked very much like a child.
"…How old are you?"
"I am 4.6 billion—"
"I am not buying it." He shakes his head. "You are not fucking 4.6 billion years old."
"Fine. I am old enough to drink in your home country master!"
"So 21? You don't look like someone in their 20s."
"I am a 'dragon' species fairy." she said in quotations. "So I age far slower than a lot of people."
"Why is dragon in quotation marks!? I thought you were a little human!?"
"It does not matter, master! If I have need of a mana transfer it will be no big deal!" she said confidently.
"…I do not know what you mean under the context of 'mana transfer' but… Yeah I am… not trained to—" Albert stops and things on the things he did to blackmail his targets. "…Never mind."
"Hmm… So can I not join you in your bath master?"
"Sure go on but you know it's ice cold right?"
"___" Lancelot takes a step back and closed the door. "Enjoy your bath master!"
"So while you are here Lancelot can you tell me what exactly are you and this Command Seal is?"
"Of course."
Lancelot explained what she is and what the Command Seals are and their whole purpose. She also clarified what she is after he left the bath.
"So you are a Servant, a person who was summoned back to life who was someone remarkable to have been engraved in the annals of history to fight for The Holy Grail huh?" Albert said getting out of the bath and dries himself off.
"Yes. But I should clarify it is not thee Holy Grail but a I guess you can call it a massive collection of mana that can be used however you wish. By the wat Master your body is very well trained."
She admired how well developed his body was. He didn't have a shirt on just some shorts with a towel around his neck.
"Thank you so how far can the wish go? Can one conquer the universe? Become a god?"
"Yes but the way it does it will be the easiest and most possible way of doing it. So if you were to wish to be a god among men the grail could just send you to another world with a weapon of massive destruction. Or simply give you utter control of every human on the planet."
"Hmm. And how many are participating in this war?"
"Seven when counting you. Seven masters and seven servants. Only one paring can remain to acquire the grail. It's seven masters and servants counting us as well."
"Right, Saber, Lancer, Archer, Rider, Castor, Assassin, and Berserker. We need to fight and kill 12 people huh?"
"Or simply their servant."
This was massive for Albert. The biggest thing he ever came across, a whole new world opened up to him and there was a chance those who give him orders do not know. But this left Albert with a situation he never thought he found himself in. He has a choice to make. Tell his superiors or not and make a wish for himself.
'This is my chance… my only chance to possibly break from my chains and—'
Immediately that thought stopped dead in its track.
'No. I should tell them.'
Memories quickly resurfaced of him in a lab.
'What was I thinking? I need to follow orders and inform my superiors.'
They begin to replay through his mind like film. One frame after another his loyalty and duty are ingrained into him.
"___" Albert stared out into space, frozen.
'I can't go against them. I am their tool, their weapon. I am whatever they want me to be.'
Be it a weapon or a dirty whore they used him to get what they want, and he delivered. He dressed as a young girl to get dirt on a far right politician, CEO's, any one of influence just to blackmailed them. He once had to stay in a porta-potty for two weeks to assassinate a rising public figure on the left. He committed genocides in the middle east just for his government to blame it on some Arabic group for them to invade so they can give their citizens cheaper gas prices.
He is their slave, their loyal and unwavering dog born, cultivated, designed, to make their bottom line all the more profitable.
Hundreds of years of research for the best of humanity, the highest their species could achieve, divulged into a disgusting, apathetic, murdering hound.
'I… I need to inform—'
"Master!!"
"Huh?"
Lancelot broke Albert out of his funk.
"Master are you alright!? Your eyes were as dull as dirty water!"
Lancelot's face, even when still wearing a visor he could tell she was worried about him.
"I'm… sorry. But I don't think I can do the Holy Grail War."
Lancelot looked into his eyes and a familiar feeling came up inside her.
"Master… Is someone using you?"
Lancelot didn't expect an answer.
"Yes."
She knew why she was summoned now. Two people who are nothing but tools. She isn't gonna let this keep going.
"Mmmm!!" Her cheeks puffed up in anger. "Master!!" She floated up and grabbed his cheeks. "You are not a weapon! You are you! It does not matter if they brought you up if they do not truly love you!"
"Ugh!?" His head began to hurt. Albert grabbed his head in pain. "Agh! My head!! Fuck!!" He felt as if his head is being ripped apart.
An act of compassion for his own wellbeing, something so trivial gave this child a glimpse at a life for himself.
"!?"
Lancelot noticed a magical energy around his head.
'Magic!? How long was he under its effects!?'
Because Lancelot contracting with Albert, she grants Albert resistance to magic. A bond forged no longer then a hour has undid an insurance on this natural born homunculus from the world's greatest power. The bondage they placed on Albert has finally been loosened and soon enough broken.
"I'm… tired." He then collapsed onto the floor.
"Master!!!"
He broke out into a fever, and everything went dark.
"Huff!! Huff!!" Lancelot was worrying greatly as she saw her master suddenly go unconscious.
She got Albert and put him into bed.
'He has a fever!'
Lancelot quickly looked around his apartment to only find pain relief medicine and his school ID along with instructions.
"Hmm…" She looked to see a small piece of the bone she was eating. "I ate enough." She touched her stomach, and she could feel herself getting stronger.
She gets the remaining bone left and puts it in her mouth. She chews it up and mixed it with her saliva. She opened Albert's mouth and pours it in like a mother bird feeding her young.
Gulp!
Lancelot waited a bit before she heard cracks.
"Eh?"
She looked at Albert to see his body jolt and move.
"Oh damn—Crack!!" Lancelot looked to see her arm break and snap. "Ahh!! Dammit!!"
More and more of their bodies snap and break then fix themselves. The pain made her want to fall unconscious, but she is fighting that feeling with everything she had but…
"I… I can't… pass…"
Thud~
Eventually even Lancelot passed out from the pain of all of her bones breaking and fixing themselves. And in Lancelot and Albert's slumber they dreamt of one another.
The strings has loosed on this juvenile and their partner. The world steps ever more closer to calamity.
[Contract has been fully established! Synchronizing host with Servant!]
[Ding! Status updated! Magic Circuits unlocked! Body has been greatly improved with a Bone of Albion! Servant Link detected—Influence added! Bone of Albion has developed into Albion's Skeleton! Magic Circuits developed into Dragon Heart!]
[Alert! Host has far more skills than Servant! Finding compatible skill! Compatible skills found! Synched!]
[Ding! Skill, Regeneration, has increased in rank!]
[Status updating! Servant improving!]
[Conditions not yet met! Candidate status will remain!]