"I need to get out. How can a school meeting last this long?!"

Lancer lays her arm on the desk, using it as a stand to keep her head up. She's been called out by the other teachers a few times and each answer she gave was to redirect the fact that she has no clue about how Shirou's school works. While the grail usually gives Servants basic knowledge of the world, it didn't gave her knowledge about Shirou's school. At all.

She glances at the clock. A few hours so far. What kind of meeting takes this long?! She taps her pencil on the desk in order to relive her boredom. She would rather just mess around with students, especially Shirou Emiya, than deal with this. The budget? She has no clue on what to allocate the budget on. Changes to the school time? She would rather have changes to allow students to not only be well rested, but also pay attention to class. Her view seems to be a minority compared to everyone else, so she thought it wasn't worth arguing over. There are many more things she can go on about, but she didn't care.

"But how can I get out of this meeting, even if only for a few minutes? I need to check up on him… Wait, I think I got it."

Lancer raises her hand. She sat down in her exact spot for a while now, even during breaks. She didn't felt the need to get up during breaks. Plus, it was getting annoying having students constantly try to hit on her. While a small part of her does enjoy the attention, hearing what students say about other teachers, not just her, disgusts her a bit. As much as she likes to tease Shirou...these other students have no shame at all.

"Yes?"

The leader says to Lancer. Everyone in the room turns their head to her. While they weren't suspicious of her, they do find that a new teacher like her a bit strange. First, she's been here for only a few days, and yet her students seems to be well behaved. Secondly, they weren't even sure why she has to be here in the meeting in the first place, when she's merely subbing.

"...Can I use the bathroom?"

"Sure. Don't take too long."

"Thank you."

Lancer stands up and leaves the room. The room went back to chatter after she left. Lancer walks out, enters the teacher's bathroom and locks the door. She turns on the sink, and splashes her face with some water.

"Being a teacher is harder than I thought…"

Even though she enjoys being here, there are some things she wishes were simpler.

As I continue talking to Rin, Lancer opens the door. I can feel something's wrong with her. I wonder what is it?

"Hey. Sorry for leaving your house earlier than usual, Emiya. There was a meeting at school I had to attend."

"Is it over?" I reply to her.

"Ahahaha. No. It felt like it wasn't going to end anytime soon."

Lancer holds my shoulders with both of her hands. She shakes my whole body vigorously. Even though she's not using even one percent of her strength, I can feel the difference in power between us.

"I… I don't know what they're talking about! What to do about the budget, changes to the school. It's just… I didn't think meetings would be this boring. I don't know what to say!"

She lays her head on my chest while still gripping my shoulders. I can't tell if she was being serious or not, but it sure does sound like she's losing it. While I don't fully understand Lancer's history… I do know from what she told me, she's a teacher. Is keeping up this facade harder than I thought it'd be?

"You're messing up my shirt, Lancer. Also, aren't you overreacting?"

"No. It was horrible. Really horrible. Please help me…"

Just how bad was this meeting that it drove Lancer to this!?

"You did your best holding out at least, right?"

I'm not really sure what to say. So I said some words to try and calm her down. There's not much I can really do in this situation.

"Yeah, I did. Thanks. I missed being by your side, you know. Hehehe. ~"

"...What?"

"Ahem."

Rin gets us back on track.

"Anyways. Archer's currently in battle right now. According to him, Assassin and Rider are on the rooftop."

"I see. It's a shame I can't fight right now. Anything else I should know?"

"There's another master at this school, possibly two. But we're only aware of one of them, Shinji."

"Shinji?"

"We'll tell you who he is later. For now, you should just relax."

Lancer lets out an audible sigh.

"Is Archer okay though? I thought he was still injured? He shouldn't really be fighting right now..."

"Currently he's teaming up with Assassin to take on Rider. He should be fine."

"If you say so..."

Lancer glances at the time.

"I better head back soon."

Lancer looks at me.

"If my mood doesn't get any better by the time we get home, I'm taking it on you. Bye!"

She waves at me before leaving the room. For the sake of my sanity, I sure hope she gets better.

Lancer shuts the door behind her. Luckily, there aren't anyone around her, so coming in and out of the classroom wouldn't create suspicion.

"Two masters here, huh. I wonder who's the other one…"

So her instincts was right, school wasn't a safe haven. She's disappointed that's the case, but not surprised. She knows that masters can be anywhere. However, there was something that's been on her mind since the first night.

Archer.

"I haven't met all the servants yet but…"

She's suspicious of him. To her, Servants like Berserker and Caster seems straightforward, at least for now. But she can't get a read of him at all no matter what she tries. He doesn't get along with Shirou, even though they're in a temporary alliance. And she's not even sure what his identity is.

"Those swords he used…"

Those were definitely from Asia. So perhaps he's from Asia? But she's not aware of anyone that would fit his description. Not only that: she felt something weird about those swords...

"Eh?"

Lancer bumps into someone. It wasn't a student but instead it was-

"Kuzuki?"

She bumped into Kuzuki Souichirou, the World History teacher.

"..."

He ignores Lancer and walks past her. His expression didn't changed at all.

"Perhaps he's the second master? But I don't feel any magical energy with him…."

Something about him seems off to Lancer. But she can't put her finger on it...

Assassin knocks Rider's weapon away from his face. Rider flies backwards to avoid her swing. From a normal perspective, these two would just be blurs. But they're not normal beings, these are Heroic Spirits. Their strength is much greater than the average human.

Archer blocks Rider's charge towards him, and swings in response. Rider merely blocks the attack, before she gives him a kick aiming at Archer's head. Aware of the kick, he crouches to avoid it as Assassin tries to backstab Rider. Rider turns around to parry the attack and steps forward to strike him. Assassin backsteps out of her range, avoiding her strike.

"This is no use. Rider is simply too fast. Is there any I can get a hit in?"

In an instant, Archer's bow appears in his hand. Instead of focusing his power on a single strong shot, he fires a couple of small, rapid fire arrows at Rider. With her swift speed however, Rider avoids the arrows while continuing to attack Assassin.

"This isn't good either. Though maybe if Assassin and I attacked at the same time…"

Archer steps to the side as Rider flies towards him. He dispels his bow and his twin swords appears again. He clashes with Rider's nail. He pushes her nail to the side and takes aim at her neck. Rider dodges the swing and leaps backwards. Assassin, seizing this opportunity, closes the distance with his knife in hand, throwing thrust attacks. Sensing this danger, Rider swiftly dodges all his knife thrusts before kicking him away. In this moment of respite, she relapses back into a defensive stance. Archer decides to take this moment to glance at Assassin. Without exchanging any words, they both know what to do to break her guard.

Assassin closes the distance between Rider and swings. Rider knocks his arm away with her right nail, and swings with her left. It's a lethal strike for Assassin.

...Or it would have, if it wasn't for Archer throwing one of his blades at her.

"What?!"

She instead deflects the blade out of the air as Archer dashes towards her, slicing diagonally from her right shoulder down to her hip. Rider leaps back to avoid, as Assassin thrusts his knife towards her. With two servants simultaneously attacking her at once, Rider must focus her attention on both. If she makes even one mistake…

A sword flies behind Rider. With her focus on the two servants, she can't move her body fast enough to avoid it. The sword strikes her back. She gives a swift kick, which forces back both servants. With this distance between them, she has a short time to recover.

"That worked for now, but she won't fall for it a second time."

Archer raises his sword to block Rider's next action. Assassin meanwhile run towards her to try and finish her off. But Rider was faster than Assassin. All he could see was a purple blur as Rider maneuvers around him. She quickly circles around Archer as Assassin gave chase.

"Just what is Rider doing…"

Archer keeps his guard up. If he attacks, then she could attack, so it's better for him in his mind, to wait for Rider first-

"?!"

It's too late. Circling Archer was a distraction. Rider strikes Archer. He tried to avoid this attack, but she was faster. He takes a kick towards his stomach and his body launches towards the fence. His back hit the wall. Some broken bones...This will take a while to heal. With a final attack, he throws both his swords at Rider but she dodges both of them with ease.

Assassin follows Rider to the end of the roof. As she grabs Shinji, Assassin takes a swing at her, but missed. Rider hops downwards, fleeing the area. Assassin decides to not follow her. Assassin walks towards Archer. Without anymore threats, he dispels his knife.

"That kid turned out to be a master…" Assassin says to himself.

Archer stands up. He feels some pain from that kick, but it's nothing too major.

"Thanks for the help. While we're not enemies this time… I can't guarantee our next meeting would turn out as friendly as this one." Assassin says to Archer.

A few steps later and Assassin disappears from Archer's sight.

"I'm getting careless…" Archer thought to himself.

Archer returns to the room where Rin and I are in.

"Archer? What happened to you?!"

Rin runs up to him. Archer took some injuries, especially around his stomach. Part of his clothes are torn, but it should be fixed if we wait.

"Rider managed to escaped. As I said before, there's another servant at this school as well, but he doesn't seem to be of any concern. At least not now."

"Another servant? You mean Assassin?"

"Yeah. I'm not aware of any other servant that can be here besides Assassin. We need to keep an eye on Shinji though. I wasn't sure what he was doing on the rooftop."

"Is that it?" I ask Archer. He gives me a nod. Though I feel like I'm forgetting something…I take a glance at the clock and that's when I remembered: I promised to meet up with Issei.

"Sorry Rin, but I have to go. I forgot I have to meet with Issei!"

"Emiya-kun-"

I dashed through the door. Running through the hallways I finally made it.

"Sorry Issei." I halt to catch my breath.

"You're late."

"I had something to do. Anyways, you said to see you at lunch, right? Do you need any help on something?"

"Yes. I could use some help on things…"

School ends for the day. Lancer switches her clothes to get out of her disguise. After waiting till everyone leaves school, all three of us head towards my home. We decided to wait till we're there to discuss more of our plans. Once we entered, we all sat down.

"I think we should continue to keep an eye out on other students at school."

"I agree Lancer."

Rin replies back to her.

"Luckily no one else was there or else they'd be hurt. However… it's troublesome that there's another student at the school who's also a master. As their actions show, civilian casualties is the least of their concerns."

I feel uneasy at that thought…

"That's why I'll keep coming to school with you two. Who knows when they'll strike?"

"I just hope we can stop other students from dying if that's the case…"

I speak up. Lancer pats my shoulder to reassure me.

"Don't worry Emiya, we'll make sure there's no one that dies there."

She gives me a small smile. Lancer seems very supportive of me…

"Thanks Lancer. I appreciate it. Still… I can't believe Shinji is a master."

"Didn't you said earlier you'll tell me more about him?"

"There's not much to say. We were friends. I still consider him a friend, but it seems like he doesn't see me as one."

"That's a shame...Especially since Shinji is a master now."

Yeah. Shinji, Just why did you decide to be a master?

"Anyways-Is that all for today?"

Rin asks the both of us.

"I don't have anything else to say." Lancer replies back to her.

"Me neither." I say as well.

"I guess that's it. Let's go home, Archer."

Rin stands up and leaves the house. With her gone, the only people left are Lancer and I.

"Be prepared, Emiya. I'll be starting our training for today soon."

I mentally sigh. While this training is useful, she's been pretty harsh on me ever since she found out I use to make fake magic circuits. But at least I'm getting better at magic thanks to her.

"Now then."

She crosses her arms. We're both standing in the dojo.

"Before I start our next lesson, try projection again. My mood is better now, so don't expect anything too harsh."

I give her a nod. My concerns from earlier are solved. At least she's not going to start something too difficult right now. I take a deep breath. I start the process to create a magic circuit-

Wack!

"Ow…"

"Look. I told you to stop doing that and try using your natural magic circuits. They've been dormant for years, but the more you use them, the easier magecraft would be for you."

This is going to take a while to get used to.

"Trace, on."

A firing hammer goes down in my head. I can feel the circuits flare up in my body as I attempt to project Lancer's spear again.

"Guh…"

Trying to project this thing is tough. I hand the spear to Lancer as she closely examines it.

"Hmm. From the outside, it can pass over for the real thing. However…"

With little effort, she breaks the spear with both hands.

"Your projection times are still too long, and the quality is still not to par. I want you to keep practicing projection in order to cut down on the casting times while also improving the quality of them."

"Alright…"

"Forgive me for the lack of things I'm able to teach you. With your…unique elemental affinity and origin, my usual plans of teaching someone gets thrown out and I'd have to think of different ways to help you out."

"It's okay. I appreciate the effort you're going through for me."

"Thanks, Emiya. It means a lot to someone like me. Though perhaps you'd like someone else who's much younger than I am to teach. Perhaps Rin?"

"Wait what-"

"I'm kidding. If you want though, maybe I could talk to her and have you be taught by her as well?"

"I'll consider it."

"I'll talk to her to see if there's anything she can teach that I don't know next time. Anyways, enough talk. I'll keep an eye on you as you practice projection."

Deciding to take a seat in the middle of the dojo, I follow her and continue to practice my projections in front of her.

After a few hours, I can definitely say that I've been improving at a fast pace thanks to her. I wonder though, if I'd be at this level if I had a different teacher…

"Emiya?"

Lancer calls out to me. She must've seen me space out a bit.

"Oh, sorry about that. Was thinking about other things."

"Such as?"

"I was just thinking what if I had someone else teach me magecraft… how things might be different."

"Mmm…"

She put her right index finger underneath her chin. Just what's she thinking?

"So you're thinking about girls?"

"That not-What made you think that?!"

"The only person that comes to my mind who could teach you would be perhaps Rin. Am I not wrong?"

"That's-"

"See? Well, I guess Caster is a possibility too, if we ever get along with that servant...But perhaps you-"

"Nope."

I know exactly what she'll say.

"Hmph."

"Anyways…"

Time to change topics.

"...I was also thinking what if I summoned someone else? Would they go through the same efforts as you?"

Lancer's putting a lot of effort into teaching me magic, including helping me fix my issues regarding magic circuits.

"Would you like my honest opinion?"

Um. This is starting to scare me… But I am curious. I can't back down now.

"Sure…?"

"They'd probably wish for a different master after seeing how you 'create' magic circuits. I have never seen anyone done that at all."

...Ow.

"...But. I think they might change their minds after seeing how much effort you put into doing things. I know that I appreciate the effort you're putting, even if you're essentially starting from scratch with your natural circuits."

Despite my issues, she enjoys my effort, huh.

"Thanks, Lancer."

"No problem. You're a student of mine, so treating you with respect is something that I should do."

As the night continues, I feel like that I'll be able to make Lancer proud once I get projection down.

How did it turned out like this?

She was supposed to be summoned by a competent master, yet somehow her master was killed by Caster. She managed to get away, but there's no telling how much time is left till she disappears.

It all started when they were scouting.

Saber and her master looked around Fuyuki, till Caster showed up while they were at the graveyard. This wasn't their first time they met. Last night they've met, and Saber managed to push him back. This time though, Caster ended up becoming more aggressive in their second encounter. Despite his name, Caster was able to fight Saber on par, at least for a while. During their fight though, Caster wasn't targeting for her.

He was targeting her master.

Caster managed to set the area to flames through inscribing runes on the ground while they fought. She tried to save her master, but was too late. Her master caught on fire, and told her to get away as they wouldn't be able to survive.

She needs to find someone. Someone to form a contract with. As she lost her previous master, she lacks a way to stay in the world, thus the only options that are left for her are to either find a new master, or give up and disappear.

"Anyone here…?"

As if her wish came true, a man in a dark suit bumps into her as she's roaming the night, slowly fading away. From a glance, he looks much different from Saber. While Saber looks more regal with her armor, this looks to be just an ordinary man. Saber can't just dismiss him, as she's not sure how long till she disappears. It was worth a shot.

After all, she has experience in this type of war, as she took part in the previous one.

"?"

"Can you form a contract with me…?"

A/N: Wow, I should stop promising things I can't keep. Sorry for the extremely late update. Truth be told, I was winging the earlier chapters and encountered writers block and real life made me too busy. I was planning on doing a chapter every two weeks, but that plan failed when the last few chapters took a hit in quality, so I don't think I'll do something like that again. Took a while, but I finally figured out what to do for this story from start to finish. May or may not turn out exactly as I envision it as it's up for changes, but we'll see what goes. Can't guarantee any update schedule or such, but I'll try to at least finish this story and make it to the end. I'm also planning to go back and ninja edit a lot of my mistakes in the previous chapters, but not really sure when I'll do that. I'll most likely prioritize the updates, then maybe go back and fix them.

Lots of things happened in Fate/Grand Order since my last update, but I don't know if I'll implement much, if any, things from that series for this story, especially since it was difficult to think of a good plotline for the rest of the story that has pretty much little FGO elements. I placed this as as crossover in the first place since I wasn't sure if I should place it as just a Fate/stay night story, or as a crossover, so I figured I should place it in the crossover section since even though she's mentioned throughout the Fate series, she didn't really appeared till FGO as far as I know, though I could be wrong. Though not going to lie though, it's pretty tough writing the story as fun as it is, so apologies if it's not up to par. Anyways, I think this is it for my author notes for now.