I got several review that indicated that they liked the idea of Shirou staying as a technician. And that is the draw of this story. But I also really like the idea of Shirou being able to go to North America, Camelot, and Babylonia too (to be fair, those weren't out when I started writing this story). So, I think I'll set up a divergence point, with two routes, true and false. This chapter will continue with the second, Shirou becoming a Master which will become a sequel, Working with a French Maid or French Maid Order (name undecided). Meanwhile the True Route will be published side by side until this arc is over.

Checklist 20False: Testing is Mandatory

False Route

"Whew." Shirou wiped the sweat off his brow as he examined the repairs to the wall of the central room.

When he had hit Lev with Caliburn, most of the attack had gone into the Singularity of Fuyuki. However, when Lev had closed the portal, it had taken Shirou a second to cut off the energy flowing into Caliburn.

A second's worth of energy that had been turned into Caliburn's ray of light now impacting the wall behind the portal. Yeah, Shirou had done a fair bit of damage to Chaldea's center. Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasms could do a lot of damage to walls. Who would have guessed.

"At least that was easier than fixing up after the bomb," Tom stretched, his thickly corded shoulders popping as he stretched. The repairs weren't done yet but at least the damaged sections were removed and the replacement parts ready to be set in. "More concentrated damage rather than spread everywhere."

"Sorry for the trouble," Shirou apologized. "I figured that it would be easier to replace the walls than it would be to replace the Director."

"It was a good call. Easier to replace the wall than the head of the Animuspheres," Tom shrugged before glaring. "But don't think that this will make up for what happened to Roch."

"Again, I never met Roch," Shirou sighed.

"Hey Shirou, report to the testing station," Roman's voice interrupted their conversation as the communicator chimed on. "Da Vinci's plan is green to go so your shift on repairs is over."

"Okay," Shirou responded into his communicator.

"Plan, huh?" Tom raised a bushy eyebrow. "Something going on?"

"Finding a way to keep Olga fed and supplied," Shirou responded as he packed up his toolkit. "I don't have the reserves to keep the Reality Marble open for long so we're hoping that we can find alternatives to power the Mystery. Otherwise, we'll have problems keeping Olga alive."

"Ah," Tom nodded before turning back towards the replacement panels and preparing to pick one up. "Good luck then. If we have to replace the director too after all this, I don't know if Chaldea will stay intact."

Shirou nodded. Chaldea was one of the best groups he had found. Sure, they had some dark sides, but who didn't? And while they did restrain themselves from interfering unless the entirety of humanity was at stake, his boss had no problems with letting him go off on his own during his time off to save people as long as he didn't do so under their name and gave regular reports on information he uncovered. At least, he had had no problems when he was alive.

But who knows what will happen in the future. With Chaldea being gutted as badly as this, the very existence of the organization was at risk. But at the same time, the discovery of more Singularities meant that Chaldea couldn't be permitted to dissolve. There wasn't anyone else who could address that problem. But at the same time, Chaldea wasn't in any condition to handle a Singularity, much less the several they had found.

Well, nothing for it but to deal with it as the problems came. First problem being keeping Olga alive and the second problem being getting back in communication with the outside world.

Shirou frowned as he thought about the communication equipment he had examined. There had been nothing wrong with them. Well, the more mechanical pieces at least. He had no clue about the magecraft based communication devices.

Maybe the problem wasn't on their end? But if so, then how did every single piece of equipment fail on the same day? What had Lev done? It couldn't be coincidence that it happened at the same time as Lev's attack.

But that wasn't his problem right now. Right now, the thing he had to worry about was being tested again for Rayshift and Master affinity.

Shirou finished packing up, nodded at Tom who was straining to pick up the panel on his own but managing, and headed towards the large doors.

"Let's see," Da Vinci muttered to herself as she puttered around in the tester's station while Shirou waited inside the full body scanning machine. It looked like an MRI, only with the Chaldea logo on it and longer. "Modifications are adjusted, baseline is streamlined, ooh, let's fix that decimal, and program looks good to go. Don't need any special devices it looks like but with Unlimited Blade Works and the director inside, the superficial won't be enough…"

Shirou waited patiently.

"Wait, that would pick up indications of Noble Phantasms and mistake them as a link to a Heroic Spirit… Well, would that work?" Da Vinci mused as she did the final check-over. "Probably but let's double down on the test. One with and one without. Why not do both? I am the Ultimate Genius! No reason to limit myself."

"Ha ha," Shirou gave a dry laugh. "Didn't that logic result in Olga being unable to leave my Reality Marble?"

"All right, double the pain input," Da Vinci muttered.

"Can we do without that?" Shirou asked in faint alarm.

"Then don't be so mocking!" Da Vinci scolded before huffing. "Honestly, it's like you don't appreciate art!"

"I don't recall passing my college art class," Shirou responded.

"You never went to college," Da Vinci pointed out before Shirou could say it himself. "And your art teacher would have been inferior to me if you had."

Shirou paused at that. She had a valid point.

"Way to show your arrogance," He responded with instead.

"It's not arrogance if every bit of it is justly deserved," Da Vinci's voice was full of satisfaction and smugness.

"Except for the humility," Shirou muttered.

"I will have you know that I am humble!" Da Vinci's voice was strident and then paused. "When I want to be."

"And when was the last time you wanted to be?" Shirou asked with a twitch of the lips. It was somewhat boring just sitting here. He wanted to fidget but he didn't know if it would affect the test results.

"Oh, sometime when I was alive," Da Vinci replied flippantly. "I don't really remember the details. I think it was a lost bet with a Russian acquaintance. Okay, the semi-colons are in the right spot and the code is ready to run."

"Anything I need to know?" Shirou was not too nervous as the machine's internals started to whirl.

"Don't do any magecraft, don't open your circuits, try not to use nerve circuits-" Da Vinci began giving instructions.

"I don't do that anymore!" Shirou protested. "It was a misunderstanding from when I was young!"

"And don't do anything with your Reality Marble either," Da Vinci rolled on, ignoring his protests. "I managed to get it to work from the inside as well so that the ongoing Rayshift doesn't throw off the results either. Instead, we can examine your Rayshift and Master affinity from inside the Reality Marble as well as externally. Oh, I should send a message to the command room about that so they don't worry about the piggyback onto Ritsuka's and Mash's Rayshift. But it would be like a simultaneous internal and external probe so despite the complications, the reading should be rather accurate. Ooh, I wonder what we'll learn from this!"

"I feel like a lab rat," Shirou called out before the noise of the machine rose to the level of an engine and continued to grow louder.

"I don't use poison on lab rats," Da Vinci called back, not that Shirou could hear her anymore. "Don't worry, any rat poisoning will be completely accidental."

Him not hearing her was probably good for his sense of worry.

"And now I wait for the test results," Da Vinci sighed and slumped in her chair, puffing out a cheek. "40 minutes, give or take 2 minutes and 18.4 seconds of waiting. I don't want to get bored! Okay, what else do I have to do today? Hmm, which manual was I rewriting again?"

"Da Vinci!" Roman greeted happily as he put down the paperwork that was on his desk. "Here to save me from the bureaucracy?"

"Only for a moment," Da Vinci poked a hole in Roman's hopes and dreams of an early escape. "Unfortunately, stemming the flood of paperwork is a miracle in and of itself. Now, increasing your efficiency by telling you to do this document before that one is definitely within my capabilities."

Roman followed the Caster's pointing finger and dug frantically through the documents on his desk before comparing the two side by side.

"Yes, that definitely would make this one easier," he muttered as he laid the first on top of the second. "But you probably have something for me. Is there a new problem? Or did we finally manage to make contact with someone?"

"Unfortunately, no, our communications are still silent," Da Vinci said as she took a seat near Roman's. "But I did manage to finish analyzing Shirou's Rayshift and Master compatibility results."

"Great!" Roman said, a look of relief on his face before it got swept away with worry. "Or are you here to tell me that we can't make Shirou a Master? Because that would make a cramp in things if he couldn't be."

"Of course he is capable of being a Master!" Da Vinci berated. "He fought in a Holy Grail War! Those results were never in question. No, the only thing that was questionable was his Rayshift affinity, but even that paled when confronted by my genius."

She flicked on her communicator screen and sent the pop-up screen straight to Roman.

"As you can see," Da Vinci began as Roman started reading the lines and charts on the screen. "Shirou's normal test data is almost confusing if you don't know what you are doing such as the researchers who administered this test first. But being the marvelous genius that I am, it is as simple as a child's puzzle to me."

Da Vinci preened, waiting for praise. Regrettably, Roman was too focused to notice.

"Good, good," Roman muttered half-heartedly as his mind and eyes bent to on the chart, following the curves and lines. "So this chart is the raw…"

Suddenly the desk flew into Roman's stomach from the sudden force of a kick.

"OWW!" Roman's head and torso slammed down into his desk. He glanced up at Da Vinci's pouting face and wheezed as the papers on his desk scattered across the floor. "What was that for?"

"Oh, sorry, I must have been bored from the silence of my deserved praises," Da Vinci said icily as she turned her face away.

"I did say it was good!" Roman protested as he tried to straighten up from having the wind knocked out of him.

"You were speaking of the raw data!" Da Vinci cried. "A monkey could have gotten that!"

"Well," Roman sputtered as his defense was shot down. "It was interesting! I had only once seen a spiritual analysis of a person to have a curve like that and hers was very and distinctly different. Hers was more understandable, for one."

"What is impressive is how I was able to turn that raw data into something that could be evaluated by the standard requisites for Rayshifting!" Da Vinci stabbed forward into the hologram of charts. "The analyzer's method of testing was warped by the weight and significance of Shirou's Reality Marble into producing those curves. It should have been straight lines but due to his Reality Marble having its own inherent heavy pull of Mystery, when we set the machine to probe his soul, the rays got slightly pulled in. That resulted in the stagger of data points which is those swirls you were so admiring of!"

"Uh," Roman's mouth hung open.

Da Vinci huffed in obvious disappointment.

"Just look at the second chart," Leonardo sighed in resignation, moping at the lack of well-deserved adoration. Roman had gotten to know the Caster well enough that he could discern what expression was what emotion. Sometimes. The Mona Lisa was really hard to read. "That is what happens when I adjusted for the Reality Marble having an inverse exponential effect on spiritual particles when they approached the part of Shirou's soul where his Reality Marble is."

Roman looked at the line chart and felt his heart lift at the much neater diagram. "Oh, that is much better!" he cried.

"Yes, isn't it?" Da Vinci said with an air of smugness. "My genius was able to rapidly figure out how to deal with Shirou's triple affinity of Reality Marble, Origin, and Element. It was like seeing through a polarized lens but if you could get past all the swords, then it was an almost normal soul behind it. And with a bit of work, I was able to figure out what was hidden by the heavy polarization of sword as well as how to flatten out the inverse exponential effect."

"No idea what you are saying, but it sounds amazing," Roman agreed readily as he compared the nice lines and data points to the orange line that was the standard requirements to qualify for a Rayshift. "Hey, this says—"

"Yes," Da Vinci said, a smile breaking out on her own face. "Shirou Emiya, if at times barely by a point, surpasses the requirements for being Rayshifted."

"It'll be a close thing," Roman pointed to a few categories where the line for Chaldea's mandated minimum standards intersected Shirou Emiya's data points. "Every one of the 48 Masters have better results than this. I think some rejects had better results than this."

"I know," Da Vinci agreed with a nod. "Frankly, for Rayshifting, Shirou Emiya almost straddles the line. It'll be hazardous to him if we do it and I think Olga would rather put him on standby and send him back to working as a technician, but…"

"But we lost 46 Masters and Mash is an active Demi-Servant while we still have a few Singularities to deal with," Roman said grimly. "We don't have better options anymore and having even a sub-par option is better than nothing."

Da Vinci nodded, the cheer vanishing off of her face, but not the Mona Lisa's mysterious smile.

"However, the decision to have him Rayshift into a Singularity is the Director's and not my responsibility. But maybe the news of improvement would help her," Roman said with a relieved smile. While he had a bunch of responsibilities, this was one he would gladly kick up the chain. A thought occurred to him, causing him to frown in worry. "What about Olga? Would she be affected by a Rayshift?"

"She shouldn't be," Da Vinci shrugged indicating that she didn't think it would affect Olga. "Unlimited Blade Works, the name of his Reality Marble, acts similar to a forge-armory combination. Well, it is more comparable to a certain Barrier Noble Phantasm than an armory, but it fits to infinitely more weapons than that scabbard does, so armory is a better term. Anyway, as long as she stays inside away from the stuff inside that could kill her, she should be safe from anything that doesn't damage or destroy Shirou's soul. We will want to assign some extra care to affirming Shirou's soul in a Rayshift but that is workable."

"Good," Roman sighed in relief as he slumped against his chair, tension draining out of him. "I don't want this job. Olga can have it."

A soft hand landed on his shoulder. Roman looked up to see Da Vinci looking at him with a soft look of sympathy.

"You're doing fine, Roman," she said not unkindly as she patted him. "You are no genius, you are not even as bright as Olga is and she is no genius either, but you put over 100% of yourself into this. That is more than we can ask of you. Now, just make sure you don't burn yourself out and don't take too many of those drugs, and we'll get through this alive."

"Thanks Da Vinci," Roman sighed, closing his eyes. The dark circles underneath were obvious right now but he would have to cover them up soon to keep morale up.

All the same, he wondered what Da Vinci was lying about. He knew the Caster Servant well enough to know when she was hiding something. But he trusted her. Da Vinci wouldn't do anything too horrible even if she felt that he shouldn't know about it.

And with the recent breach into Chaldea and Lev's unexpected betrayal, maybe some surprises could prove to be advantageous in saving humanity.

Leonardo da Vinci heard the door behind him close and he made a sharp turn to lean against the wall. Letting go of his Breathing and Walking technique, he breathed like he had ran a mile a minute, and not with his Servant physical abilities. Sometimes, the genius artist just wanted to feel nervous.

That had been close.

Roman suspected that he had done something that he, the great Da Vinci, hadn't told Roman but the already stretched to his limits man had been willing to let it slide.

The thought sparking action, Da Vinci brought up Shirou's results. The real results, not the edited one that he had shown Roman. In truth, there wasn't that much different. Just multiple categories that fell below the minimum requirements instead of matching or going above. If he had shown Roman this data, Roman would have refused to let Shirou Rayshift.

And he would have been right to do so. Shirou's soul could be warped or lost or destroyed in the Rayshift. But Leonardo was choosing to make a gamble.

What he feared was that from Lev Lainur using the name of Flauros, that the gamble was a necessity. There were few beings that Leonardo da Vinci looked up to and would acknowledge as his superior. The self-introduction of Flauros hinted at that one of those beings were their enemy.

Now he could be wrong and it was just a bluff. He honestly didn't know enough to say. Argh, why couldn't have Shirou let Flauros monologue longer!

But if his suspicions were true, then Leonardo would need to start thinking of how to face someone superior to himself rather than the usual facing someone with lesser and inferior talents. And as grudging as he was to admit it, he wasn't suitable to defeating someone that was better than him. As such, the only reasonable thing to do was to outsource and find someone else, similar to how you hired someone else to go and mine the marble for a statue. Pick someone who could do things that he couldn't or didn't have the time for.

And as grudgingly as Leonardo would have to admit, Shirou was capable of things that he could not do. Shirou was simply better suited to war than the Caster was. Shirou had better combat experience and an ability to nigh-instantly produce the right weapons that would take Leonardo minutes to match. And in the middle of battle, minutes spent on constructing the right tool was a timeframe that equated to dying. Not that Shirou's only brand of magecraft was superior to Leonardo's talents, Shirou just had some cheats and a lot more practice in the needed fields. Leonardo was better still as he could do things other than tools of war! And he would like to see Shirou make a flying sword that could even remotely compare to any of his own flying machines.

And, Leonardo straightened his female body up before walking away from Roman's office, if Roman got to pick a champion for a Grand Order, then Leonardo da Vinci could too!

Besides, Emiya's luck couldn't be that bad, right? He means, what was the worst that can possibly happen?

Besides the complete extinction of humanity, of course. The probability of that happening was looking mighty high, if unconfirmed. There was still a chance that Chaldea and its Antarctic mountain had been plucked up and thrown into a parallel timeline, or that they were isolated from the Human Order by a Bounded Field or half a dozen alternatives.

This would be easier if he had more data to work with!

Shirou was getting off-duty, stretching his arms as he was tired. Even with the long break where he just lay there, bored, and let the machine scan him, he still put in a nice 12+ hours of work of work.

Beep. Beep.

Shirou's comm went off and Shirou glanced up at the communicator on his wrist. It was ringing, indicative of a message.

"This is Shirou Emiya," Shirou answered as he tapped the communicator to indicate he wasn't dealing with anything requiring his full attention.

"Shirou," Roman's voice replied from the few inch high hologram his communicator was projecting. "We've analyzed your spiritual readings."

"Great," Shirou glanced at the time. Hmm, that had only been an hour or two ago. "What were the results?"

"Did Da Vinci not tell you?" Roman asked in slight surprise.

"No, she wanted to run an in-depth analysis first," Shirou recalled. "To double check some stuff if I remember right."

"Ah, well, I can see why," Roman shifted and some shuffling sounds came through the transmission. "It turns out that you are fully qualified to be a Master!"

"Really?" Shirou blinked before sighing in relief. That was better news than the last time he had taken the test and it had declared the results to be incomprehensible. "That's actually good news. I was worried I might not be qualified to be a technician and would lose my job here."

"Really? Wait, this is you being sarcastic again, isn't it." Roman narrowed his eyes.

"What gave it away?" Shirou asked in slight amusement but tacked on after Roman didn't look all that assured. "Don't worry about it, Roman. I'm glad to hear that I can be of help."

"Well, that's good because I'm pretty sure that Olga will want something to show her bosses that we are already recovering and improving," Roman's hologram visibly relaxed. "And having a new Master recruit would help show that."

"Wait, we won't be dealing with the rumored Singularities?" Shirou frowned. He had heard talk about the new Singularities, plural.

"We'll be scouting them for now but resolving them with only the three of you?" Roman shook his head. "Too risky. I want at least a full team now that we know that someone is involved in creating them."

"Okay," Shirou nodded. "Understandable."

If Lev could deploy to a Singularity, that was proof enough that the other Singularities could possibly be guarded by their creators and their allies.

"But, that will have to wait for a bit," Roman continued. "We first need to get Olga's permission and then give you Command Seals. The simplest way to do that would be to have you registered to FATE with a Servant but we'll need Olga's permission for that anyway."

"Wait, you want me to summon a Servant?" Shirou blinked in surprise. Da Vinci had only suggested giving him a Command Seal to power the Bounded Field, nothing about summoning a Servant.

"Yeah, thinking about security, summoning a Servant that Lev wouldn't know about is about the biggest surprise we can prepare if Lev does lead a direct attack on us," Roman informed Shirou. "Lev designed SHEBA, which is acting as a crucial part of our security system. I wouldn't be surprised if he already knows all of our defenses inside and out. And as he knows about Da Vinci, he could possibly predict what defenses she could help assist with. But another Servant? He wouldn't know who to expect, at least at first."

"I see," Shirou nodded in agreement. Surprise was the worst thing to encounter on the battlefield. In the event of an invasion of Chaldea, being able to spring a surprise upon an enemy with unknown extents of allies would be the best they could hope for. "I have an idea of who to summon."

"You have a catalyst?" Roman asked in curiosity.

"I should think I should be able to manage," Shirou said drily.

Ritsuka was getting really bored when the call came in. An unchanging Reality Marble sounded exciting until you had spent a few days inside. And Olga was just sleeping after she came out of her coma.

"Hey, Ritsuka, Mash, Director!" Roman cheered happily after the comm bleeped twice. Ritsuka was getting used to the lack of hologram whenever Roman wanted to talk to them here. "Good news! We finished analyzing Shirou's spiritual patterns."

"Okay?" Ritsuka wondered what that was supposed to mean before the recollection of the end of the last conversation came back. "Wait, is this about Shirou being a Master?"

Mash sat up, pulling her attention away from the textbook, and inclined her head to her own communicator. "Will he be able to be use the Command Seals and Rayshift?"

"Yes, to both!" Roman cheered. "He is definitely capable of being a Master, nothing to the extent of Ritsuka who seems almost uniquely specialized for it and his Rayshifting ability almost fails but he passes the minimum requirements. We will have to extra careful when affirming his existence but it is doable."

"So, he will be handling the other Singularities?" Ritsuka asked.

"Pretty sure he can help the pair of you with investigating and solving the Singularities, at least until we can get the other Masters to a dedicated care facility and back up and running," Roman stated. "Oh, um, unless you wanted to be removed from the Masters?"

"Hmm," Ritsuka put a fist under his chin as he pondered. Did he want to stop? The last Singularity had nearly killed him a dozen times over and he had woken up screaming the night before the Rayshift, from a nightmare where Berserker had pulled his body apart into two pieces in one jerk.

Did he want to continue? No, he really didn't. He didn't want to risk his life. He didn't want to stare in horror as Mash nearly died again and again trying to keep him alive from whatever Servant was trying to kill them.

But at the same time, was there a choice? If Chaldea failed, all of humanity would die. He didn't want to die.

"Mash?" he turned to the person who had protected him. "What do you think?"

"M-Me?" Mash stammered in surprise. "You are asking me?"

She sounded like she was shocked. Like she hadn't even considered if her opinion would be sought for.

"Well yeah," Ritsuka blinked. "I mean, you know a lot more than me. You call me Senpai, but really, you are the real Senpai here."

"That's not true!" Mash instantly protested. "I only know a little. Barely anything at all."

"I don't know," Ritsuka shook his head. "You could at least follow along with Olga's explanations. I barely was able to understand any of it and that was after you helped explain. Also, I wasn't any good."

"You were!" Mash leaned forward, frowning. "Without you, I would be dead, Senpai."

"Oh," Ritsuka's memory flashed back to that time in the burning and bombed central room. Of how weak Mash had been, the pool of blood next to her as her lower body was crushed by the ceiling wreckage. "But I couldn't even help you."

"If you hadn't been there, I wouldn't have become a Demi-Servant," Mash shook her head. "A Servant needs a Master, Senpai. You are my Master and I will follow your decisions."

"But what should I decide?" Ritsuka asked. "To be honest, I don't want to go into another dangerous Singularity again. But humanity will die if nobody goes. And you actually know what we need to do to take care of a Singularity."

"Dr. Roman and Olga both know better than I do," Mash demurred. "And to be honest, Olga was right. You need training."

"So we can have Shirou take care of it while I train then?" He asked hopefully. If he could help and not have to risk dying, that would be ideal!

"Well," Mash looked away. "I don't think Shirou knows either. I mean, he's a technician, right?"

"Correct," Roman's voice affirmed. "He's been running around repairing things and helping get things back to normal. He knows more than Ritsuka here but he would need training as well. Training on how to investigate and fix Singularities instead of pipes or whatever. And time is ticking down so I'm not sure how much time we can afford to spend on training before we deal with the next Singularity. We already suspect there are more Singularities than just the 3 new ones we can detect."

"So, he isn't well suited either?" Ritsuka felt his heart start to sink. Would he have to face death again so soon?

"He does have combat experience and experience on dealing with problems," Roman admitted. "He's traveled the world a fair bit. But at the same time, he's not used to working with others and Singularities are different than handling a terrorist crisis or a Dead Apostle. We are looking for things different from how they are supposed to be, not rooting out people in hiding. It's like, he's used to putting out house fires and we're looking at a hostage situation with the future as the hostage. A firefighting approach might end up with some VIP to history dead. The situations are similar but a little different, you know? And we really can't afford an unrecoverable mistake right now."

"I can see that," Ritsuka grudgingly nodded. He started to muster up his courage. He would need to be brave. He had to overcome this fear and dread.

"You don't have to, you know," Roman hasted to assure him. "We can always put you on a reserve team like Olga originally planned, give you training, and just send Shirou in alone. But to be honest, I would like to send in a team rather than just you and Mash or Shirou alone. "

"Wait, if I don't go, Shirou would have to go in alone?" Ritsuka asked in alarm.

"Mash is your Servant, Ritsuka," Roman reminded. "If she goes to a Singularity without you, she won't be able to use her Servant abilities nearly as well. She'll be weaker too and that is if she decides to go. We could also use her back here. We have more work than we have workers right now."

"So in other words, unless we can get more people to help, either me and Mash or Shirou or all three of us have to deal with the Singularities." Ritsuka summarized.

"Yes, Senpai," Mash agreed. "At least until we can scrape up some replacements from the Mage's Association or heal the lesser injured Masters, you and Ritsuka are Chaldea's only Masters."

"Well, to be technically honest," Roman butted in. "We need to get Olga's permission first for Shirou to be a Master. Without it, TRIMEGISTUS won't let him Rayshift or give him Command Seals."

"Alright," Ritsuka nodded firmly, his courage keeping him from looking down too far at the metaphorical canyon of gibbering terror. "I'll do it."

"Thank you," Roman sighed. "Honestly, knowing that you and Mash are willing to continue on is relieving. You are our most experienced Masters, even A-Team hasn't done an actual Singularity, only practices and simulations of one."

"Really?" Ritsuka was thrown off. Everyone, even the legendary A-Team, was unexperienced?

"Yes, Senpai," Mash agreed. "We trained and prepared extensively but this was the first time we actually dealt with a real Singularity."

"Huh," Ritsuka rocked back on his haunches to think about it. How did he, the guy who arrived just hours before the briefing, end up being the most experienced Master around? Well, excluding Mash.

"But doing it all by yourself is too much. We have teams to handle them for a reason," Roman determined. "So, if we can use Shirou, we will. The best option is that we get more Masters from the Mages Association, but they won't be eager to send us more after we almost lost the current batch. Having a team already acting to investigate a Singularity would help motivate them to action, I think. I wish Olga was here to deal with these Clock Tower politics. I don't have a clue who the players are and what they want."

"Then let's wake her up," Ritsuka suggested.

"Oh yeah, that's why I called you," Roman recalled. "Yes, please wake her up. We really need her."

"Director," Ritsuka got up, patting his pants off before walking over to Olga's snoozing body and shook her shoulder. "Hey, Director. Please wake up."

"Mmmm," Olga groaned and rolled over onto her side away from him, obviously trying to stay asleep.

"Director, you need to wake up now," Ritsuka repeated, shaking again.

"Mmm." Olga grunted, ducking her chin down into her collar bone.

"Let me try, Senpai," Mash offered. Walking over and crouching down over the wishing-to-be-insensate Olga, she cleared her throat. "Director, if you won't wake up, you will die again."

"Hey!" Ritsuka objected. "She won't die from not waking up."

"But if she doesn't wake up, then we won't be able to keep the Rayshift going," Mash pointed out reasonably. "Which will lead her to starving to death as a Singularities could take days to resolve. Days in which we won't be here, giving her food and water."

"It took us less than a day last time," Ritsuka recalled. "We can Rayshift in and take care of it and then return back here, right?"

"Actually, we have pinpointed two Singularities. One is the entire region of the Roman Empire and the other is France," Roman informed. "They are both much, much larger than Singularity F. Unless you Rayshift right on top of the source of the Singularity, either will take you weeks to search."

"Oh," Ritsuka was taken aback. "So these are really big ones?"

"Singularities come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, Senpai," Mash taught. "They are stains upon history after all. Some stains are big, others are small. Singularity F was really small which made it hard for LAPLACE to initially find. But the benefit was that it was quick to search. Even if the source of the Singularity had been small and well hidden, no one anticipated spending over any longer than a week to find it with A team backed up by everyone else."

"Oh," Ritsuka nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. A trade-off of size and speed. Harder to find small but quicker to deal with-"

"Just shut up!" Olga sat up, glaring at them. "I'm trying to sleep here and your incessant babbling and disturbances are getting beyond annoying!"

"Um, sorry," Mash apologized, shrinking in on herself.

"Good." Olga plopped back down and planted her elbow over her eyes to block out the light.

"Err," Ritsuka was taken aback. Olga was certainly grumpy. More than she had been in the Singularity.

"Well, while you are awake and before you can fall back to sleep," Roman spoke up. "We need some assistance from you."

"Oh really?" Olga sarcastically commented. "What could I possibly do here? Do you want uselessness?"

"You're not useless," Roman protested. "You are director of Chaldea and no one can fill your shoes."

"That's a lie and we both know it," Olga harshly spoke. "I failed to fill my father's and humanity will die due to me."

"No, more like you are the leader of your own Chaldea and he was the leader of his. The Chaldeas are different and I can't help but like your Chaldea," Roman disagreed. "And unlike him, you actually resolved a Singularity."

"And humanity is in even greater danger now," Olga harshly spoke. "Because I failed to realize Lev was my enemy. I handed my enemy my complete trust and he used it to destroy Chaldea."

"We are still here," Roman pointed out, trying for an air of optimism. "That gives us a fighting chance at least. It's not impossible to recover from this, I think."

"But it won't be those who deserve to see it," Olga harshly spoke. "Everyone who poured in their efforts, their time, all of my employees, excluding you Romani who lazed about, will not be here to see the culmination of our efforts, our sacrifices. And that is only if we manage to save humanity before the end of 2018, and in our present state, it will take us years to rebuild and gather people to replace who we lost! If we can!"

"Well, maybe," Roman couldn't contest Olga's pessimistic estimate. "But is there anyone else who can? We are the only ones with the technology to Rayshift and there isn't another way to resolve the Singularity. Not as reliably at least."

"A mangled, devastated, ravaged Chaldea is Humanity's best hope? Then we'll fail and there won't even be the records around to prove it! We have only slightly more than a year left to find and resolve it. With almost no personnel to do it with." Olga shouted, lifting her elbow up to glare. "This the end of the road. And even if I could do anything here, which I can't, it wouldn't affect the outside world. I'm stuck, inside a Reality Marble, until humanity dies and Shirou's soul leaves the world! I don't even know if my ghost would separate from him after his death or if I will be absorbed into Shirou's soul and nothing will remain of me!"

The shout took Ritsuka back. Was things really that bad? Well, he could imagine that for Olga it was. It seemed like she might not even have an afterlife, or as close to an afterlife as magi believed they could have. And since she had died, thoughts about the afterlife were natural for her to have…

"But we have to try."

Ritsuka was surprised to realize that the voice was his own.

"Ritsuka's right," Roman jumped in to agree. "Even if it is hopeless and we are more likely to all fail and die or even be replaced and someone else does it, it doesn't change the fact that if we don't try, there will be even less of a chance of humanity having a future. We currently are not up to the challenge but if we don't at least give our best effort, then it will never be done. We don't have a choice but to do what we can."

"I won't stop you from wasting your time," Olga covered her face again.

"Well, speaking of time, we really need to get onto the purpose of our call. We need your permission for this, Olga," Roman pressed on. "We can't do it without you. You are the only one who can allow Shirou to be a Master."

"Get a move on, Romani," Olga intoned dully.

"Ok!" Roman stammered before clearing his throat. "Now, moving on, let's summarize… According to Da Vinci's results of measuring Shirou's spiritual response, Shirou has a moderately high Master affinity and a minimal Rayshift affinity. Literally, minimal. He just barely reaches the threshold for allowing Rayshifts in the quantum confirmation category, phantasmal rejection, and chronological frequency category as well as a few others. But all in all, he does qualify to Rayshift, though I strongly recommend exerting extra effort in confirmation in the Command Center."

"So even the technician can Rayshift," Olga muttered darkly as an envious look flashed across her face.

"To be honest, if we still had the 48 Masters, I would say deny his application," Romani sighed. "But as even the lightest wounded of the 46 we put into cryopreservation will take weeks to recover in dedicated medical facilities, we aren't in position to reject any help. So I think, we should make Shirou Emiya into a Master and have him summon a Servant, ensuring that he gets Command Seals."

"If you have already decided, what do you need me for?" Olga asked rhetorically. "Go and do what you think is best and don't bring Chaldea down with you."

"Thank you Olga," Roman's voice held a strong element of relief in it. "Once that is done, we'll be able to get supplies to you on a regular basis too so that'll be a load off the generators. Generating and assigning a Command Seal will be much cheaper than keeping a Rayshift going."

"And our budget will be quite important when we are dismantled for failing the First Order and all humanity dies," Olga sarcastically commented.

"We'll probably stay intact, maybe, I hope," Roman's voice grew more doubtful as he spoke on. "Well, at least humanity will be saved?"

"If it will be," Olga turned over, away from Ritsuka.

"Oh, I almost forgot! I need to mention that I was hoping to have Ritsuka, Mash and Shirou start scouting the smaller of the Singularities we found, it only has a distortion value of C+ compared to the other's B+." Roman reported in a hurry. "I think it will look better for the U.N. and the Association if we can say that we are still working at resolving the problem…"

"Um, Dr. Roman?" Mash hesitantly spoke up.

"What is it Mash?" Roman asked in slight concern.

"She's plugging her ear," Mash informed him.

"I don't think she wants to listen," Ritsuka agreed. Olga had childishly put her finger in her ear to block out Roman's voice.

"Oh. I see…" Roman sounded taken aback. "Well, in that case, we better have you two start preparing for the end of the Rayshift. Hopefully she'll be in a better mood when we have Shirou manifest his Reality Marble and confirm that we can keep it running well enough."

"Yes doctor," Mash obeyed, standing up and brushing off her pants. "Come on, Senpai. Let's pack up and clean up."

"Okay, I'll pull out the IV then," Ritsuka moved over to Olga to get started.

"Oh, and Mash, Ritsuka? Thank you," Roman gratefully expressed. "I would have been a lot more worried if you hadn't been there for Olga for this past while."

"No problem," Ritsuka shrugged. "It was a much easier Rayshift than Singularity F."

"Heh," Roman chuckled. "Ain't that the truth. Still, thank you, all three of you, for your work in that. Both in the Singularity and here. It would have been a lot worse if you hadn't been around."

This was the False Route. As you can tell after reading both, the difference between the two was the simple decision to tell a lie or not.

Such a powerful thing, what a single lie can do.