"Ugh, this stupid forest," I grumble as i aggressively swatting some random branch out of my face to make my way through this place.
And then my legs catches on yet another hidden root, making me stumble forward and flail my arms just to keep me from falling.
Walking around a dark mountain in the middle of the night is such a pain especially the bugs and mosquitoes is really annoying.
I've been wandering in circles for a while trying to find Caster and those kids, since this is supposed to be where he should be showing up in the anime.
I keep rubbing my head and stressing out over whether I somehow screwed up the timeline really bad or just got the location wrong.
Getting so completely lost in overthinking the plot, I stop paying attention to where I'm even walking.
That is until my foot suddenly slams into something heavy that clinks with a hard, metallic sound.
"Whoa-!" I yelp, losing my footing completely and slamming face-first into the ground, scraping my chin on the rough dirt.
"Ouch... what the hell?" I groan, spitting out gross dead leaves.
I push myself up onto my hands and knees and glare over my shoulder, fully ready to complain about whatever rock or log just tripped me.
Instead, I just completely freeze because it's obviously not a rock at all.
It is an actual armored leg belonging to someone lying still in the dark.
I scramble backward in pure panic as my eyes adjust to the shadows, taking in the silver armor and that familiar blue dress before my brain finally reboots.
"Wait what?" I'm just literally tripped over Saber.
She's completely knocked out, and she isn't even alone because sprawled out in the dirt right next to her is Lancer in his bright teal bodysuit.
It took me a few minutes to calm down because it's not every day you stumble across Servants like Saber and Lancer just lying unconscious on the ground like this.
So i grab a nearby branch and snap it into a makeshift poking stick.
Poke poke poke.
I use the stick to carefully poke Saber's face since that's the only place on her body that's not protected by her thick armor.
"Hello? Saber? Are you okay?" I whispered while poking her a few more times, but she still didn't wake up at all like she's in some kind of deep sleep.
And then I switched my focus to Lancer and poke his side, but just like Saber he didn't even respond to the poke at all.
"Well this is weird, why are both of them even here?" I mutter to myself. "Did Caster do this? But that shouldn't happen because both Saber and Lancer are stronger than Caster, so it's definitely something else."
In the anime even just one of them can handle Caster no problem, so there is no way both of them would lose against him at the exact same time.
"Let's see," I sigh while closing my eyes and activating my Mystic Eyes to see what's wrong with them.
I open my eyes as the world shifts and the familiar jagged lines of death spread across my vision to reveal something actually kind of interesting about Saber.
Because she is a Servant she has fewer lines on her body compared to a normal person, and while her silver armor is made from magical energy I can still see the lines on it, but there are definitely fewer lines on the armor compared to her bare face.
But the craziest part is her sword since it's not hiding behind Saber's invisible air now her Excalibur is fully revealed and without a single line of death on it.
Well it's normal as Excalibur is a Divine Construct and the sword that is the crystallization of humanity's wishes, meaning as long as humanity and hope exist Excalibur will never truly die so naturally my eyes can't see a concept of death on it at all.
Lancer is different though since he seems to have way more lines spiderwebbing across his body compared to Saber, and even his spears have distinct lines running down their shafts since they can actually be killed.
I scan both of them carefully, but I'm not looking at their lines or something as I'm trying to find other lines.
I am specifically searching for the lines of whatever magecraft or curse is actually making them unconscious so I can just cut the spell and wake them up.
But no matter how hard I look I can't find any foreign lines or traces of magic attached to either of them.
Whatever knocked them out didn't leave a single lingering spell or curse that my eyes can find... But that's impossible as Lady Ava told me that my eyes definitely should be able to see everything that has an "end" on them.
"So it's not magecraft that knocked them out? Is it physical force?" I murmured to myself.
"Maybe if I shake them harder they'll wake up" I mutter to myself, deciding to just run through every physical method I can think of.
First I grab their shoulders and shake them as hard as I can, but neither of them even twitch.
Then I try slapping their cheeks over and over again, but all that does is make my own palms hurt from hitting their stupidly durable Servant bodies.
I even try pinching their noses shut so they can't breathe, but then I remember they're literal spirits who don't actually need oxygen to survive, meaning all I'm doing is awkwardly stalling their magical energy cycle for absolutely no reason.
"Hahhh... hahhh..." I pant, dropping back onto the dirt. In the end, none of my brilliant methods work and it just leaves me completely exhausted.
"Oh man, what is actually wrong with them?" I groan.
But right as I say that, Saber's silver armor suddenly shatters into glowing blue motes of light and completely dissipates.
Since she's been unconscious for a few minutes now, her body must have stopped actively supplying the prana needed to keep the metal materialized.
The glowing light fades, leaving Saber lying in the dirt wearing that familiar black formal suit she usually wears around Irisviel during the day.
I stare at her for a second before a sudden, horrifying realization hits me like a truck.
"...Wait a minute. Isn't tonight the night Lancer's Master almost gets killed by Kiritsugu? And Lancer is supposed to save him right before Kiritsugu finishes the job?!"
This is bad.
Even though I don't really like Lancer and his drama, his character is actually not that bad.
He just wants to become an honorable knight this time around instead of repeating the mistakes from his past life.
The real problem with the Lancer drama is Kayneth's fiancée, Sola-Ui. She's the one who betrays her own fiancé, steals his Command Spells, and even threatens to kill Kayneth if he doesn't hand them over.
Meanwhile Lancer is just an innocent bystander who doesn't even know what's going on until the very end.
At the very least, I want to give him the chance to have his proud fight against Saber properly, without Kiritsugu interrupting and ruining it.
So how do I wake them up before it's too late? Everything I did so far hasn't worked, and they are still completely out cold.
"Think, think, think!" I mutter to myself, frantically tapping the side of my head as I try to run through multiple plans.
Slapping them didn't work.
Suffocating them didn't work.
Using normal human methods to them is completely useless.
"Wait, that's it!" A Servant's body isn't like a human body, they don't have real flesh and blood, their bodies are just made of Ether to simulate flesh, generated entirely by the prana coming from their Spiritual Cores.
If whatever knocked them out basically stalled or paralyzed those cores, then normal physical methods will never wake them up. I need to hit them with a magical defibrillator.
I just need to jumpstart their bodies by pushing a massive, foreign surge of my own Od into their systems to force their prana cycle to reboot.
Quickly dropping to my knees right between them in the dirt, I place my left hand flat against Saber's chest and my right hand directly over Lancer's.
Taking a breath, I close my eyes and let my magic circuits flare to life, preparing to pour my Od directly into both of their bodies.
Taking a breath, I close my eyes and let my magic circuits flare to life, trying to pour my Od directly into both of their bodies.
At first, I try to feed my energy into them slowly and carefully, letting my Od just gently trickle into their Spiritual Cores.
But after a few seconds, I quickly realize that taking it slow like this is going to take way too long.
If I wait for this gentle pace to wake them up, Kayneth is definitely going to get a bullet to the spine before Lancer even opens his eyes.
"Screw it," I mutter.
Instead of holding back, I open the floodgates of my magic circuits and just blast a massive, heavy burst of my Od straight into both of them at the exact same time.
By flooding them with my energy, I forcefully make their Spiritual Cores move much faster and become incredibly dense, forcefully restarting their bodies and waking them up.
The reaction is instantaneous. The sheer volume of foreign Od causes both Saber and Lancer's bodies to violently jolt in shock.
Their eyes snap open in unison. Driven by pure combat instinct, they immediately shoot up from the ground, their heads whipping around as they instantly go on high guard to scan the dark trees.
But because my hands are still pressed flat against their chests when they suddenly launch themselves upward, the physical force of two Servants springing to their feet completely throws off my balance.
I get violently pushed backward, yelping as I fall hard right onto my ass in the dirt.
"Ack!" I groan. My butt hurts from hitting the ground so hard, and the back of my head is throbbing from bouncing against the dirt.
It seems both of them heard my yelp, because they immediately snap their attention away from the dark forest and look down at me sitting on the ground.
"A child?" both of them say at the exact same time, their voices filled with pure disbelief.
"Can you two help me stand up first before being surprised that a child is here?!" I yell at them, raising both of my hands up so they can pull me up.
Both of them look at each other, their faces filled with completely confused expressions.
But Saber is the first one to act, stepping forward and reaching down toward me.
She grabs my right hand and pulls me... Wait, what?!
"Ahhhhhh!" I scream at the top of my lungs.
The problem is she pulls me way too hard. Instead of just helping me to my feet, she completely misjudges her own strength and yanks me with so much force that I get launched straight up into the air.
I guess my massive burst of Od really did overcharge their bodies, because I get thrown completely past the canopy, flying even higher than the trees surrounding us!
"Saber!" Lancer screams in an absolute panic, seeing me suddenly flying pretty high into the night sky.
Thankfully, Lancer immediately bends his knees and jumps up after me, managing to securely catch me in his arms mid-air.
But there is another massive problem. Lancer also completely misjudged his own newly supercharged strength, meaning he jumped using way too much power.
Instead of starting to fall back down to the ground, now the two of us are shooting even higher into the sky!
---
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A few moments later, after we finally crash back down and safely land on the ground...
"What's going on? My body... It feels so light, and the prana flowing through me is completely different..." Saber mutters, slowly clenching and unclenching both of her hands.
"Mine too. What exactly is going on here?" Lancer asks, looking just as confused as he checks his own hands.
"I think i should be the one asking what's going on with you two," I say to them while dusting off my clothes. "I found you both just lying unconscious in the dirt, so I woke you up by using my Od to forcefully restart your bodies."
"We were unconscious?" Saber murmurs like she doesn't believe a word I just said. She looks over at Lancer.
Lancer looks right back at her. "What's the last thing you remember, Saber?"
"We were fighting each other," Saber answers immediately.
"Yes, but she said we were completely unconscious and she had to wake us up."
"How did we get knocked unconscious in the first place? Did we somehow manage to land a mutual strike on each other?" Saber frowns, trying to think about what exactly happened to them.
Well, I have absolutely no idea what's going on in their heads right now, so all I can do is just stand here and let them figure out their own stuff.
'Wait, speaking of unconscious, shouldn't Kayneth be dying right about now?'
The exact moment that thought crosses my mind, Lancer's expression completely changes as his head suddenly snaps toward another direction. He must have just felt the connection to his Master dropping.
"My apologies, Saber, and you, uhhh..." Lancer hesitates, clearly wanting to say my name but realizing I never actually introduced myself in the first place.
"I'm Reina," I tell him.
"I see. Reina, I don't know what exactly happened, but I thank you for waking me up. However, I must go! Saber, we will finish our duel later!"
And then he just... vanishes. I honestly don't know if he jumped or ran, because he just disappears in an absolute blur, creating a massive burst of wind from how insanely fast and strong his movements are now.
Thankfully, I manage to dive and hug Saber's leg so I don't get blown away by the sudden shockwave.
"Lancer?!" Saber gasps. "And that direction... Don't tell me!"
The direction Lancer just bolted toward is exactly where the Einzbern castle is, meaning he's definitely rushing there to support his Master.
'Okay, I should really let go of Saber's leg right now so I don't get dragged along into that mess,' I think to myself.
My goal completely failed anyway. I can't find Caster or the missing children anywhere in this stupid forest, and I still have no idea where that bug guy is hiding.
This whole Root connection thing is so confusing i really don't know how to make it work properly sometimes I get the exact information I want, and sometimes I just get absolutely nothing.
"Huh?"
But right before I can let go of her leg, Saber suddenly reaches down and tightly grabs the back of my collar.
"Hold on tight, child!" she commands.
"Wait, what?! What are you doing?!"
But before I can even finish my sentence, my entire vision just blurs. I don't even know how to explain it—it's like getting strapped to a rocket.
I'm being dragged along at such a ridiculously fast speed that if I hadn't instinctively flared my magic circuits to cast Reinforcement on my entire body,
my small body would have probably gotten completely wrecked by the sheer force of the wind!
Not even ten seconds pass and we finally stop. But because of that, my head is so dizzy I immediately let go of Saber's leg and stumble away from her toward the corner of the room.
"Bleeeeghhh..." My stomach feels like it's spinning in a washing machine, and my head is pounding from the sudden, ridiculous movement.
I spend a couple of minutes just hunched over in the corner, trying not to throw up my own internal organs, before I suddenly feel something cold and metallic pressing directly against the back of my head.
"Who are you?" I hear Kiritsugu's voice, completely cold and filled with heavy suspicion. I don't even need to look to know the thing touching my head is the barrel of his gun.
"Damn... Fuck my life..." I groan, not even having the energy to panic properly.
"Kiritsugu, what are you doing?! Lower your weapon, she is just a child!" Saber yells, immediately stepping forward to defend me. She absolutely hates the idea of children getting involved in warfare, so seeing her Master point a gun at one completely enrages her.
"A child who just happened to appear in the middle of the mountain in the dead of night during a Holy Grail War?" Kiritsugu replies, his tone completely flat and unyielding.
The gun against my head doesn't move an inch. "Don't be naive, Saber. This is a battlefield. She could be an illusion, a familiar, or a trap set by another Master."
"She is the one who saved me and Lancer! If it wasn't for her waking us up, I would still be lying unconscious in the forest!" Saber argues back, her knightly pride completely rejecting the idea of threatening the person who just helped her.
"That changes nothing," Kiritsugu states coldly, his eyes narrowing. "I am your Master. You will stand down and let me interrogate this anomaly."
While they keep arguing back and forth over my head, I just kneel there wiping my mouth, finally piecing together what I missed.
It seems that while I was busy puking my guts out for the last couple of minutes, the whole Lancer and Kayneth situation already wrapped up.
Lancer must have arrived just in time, grabbed his bleeding Master, and escaped while Saber was busy explaining things to Kiritsugu.
Their intense argument is suddenly interrupted by the sound of footsteps rushing toward us.
"Kiritsugu, is everything—" Irisviel's voice calls out as she runs into the hall, with Maiya closely following right behind her.
But the moment Irisviel's ruby-red eyes land on me an eight-year-old girl sitting on the floor with a gun pointed at her head her entire demeanor completely shifts.
"Kiritsugu Emiya!" Irisviel gasps in pure horror.
As a mother who had to leave her own little daughter behind, her maternal instincts instantly override everything else. "Put that gun down right this instant! What on earth are you doing to that poor little girl?!"