The King of the Grail's Fate (Fate/Nasuverse)

Chapter XLIII: Evaluation

The hologram disappears with an anticlimatic zip noise. Harrison leaned back against the couch his mind reeling. "W-what, ah I, so many masters," is all he can get out as the gravity of the situation begins to sink in. "Don't worry Righter we can take them all right Salter," Jalter says as she takes a heroic pose on the cushions of the couch. Salter takes this moment to plop down next to Harrison, Harrison and Salter are both unaware but the intense mana connection they share allows for strong emotions like the panic Harrison is feeling to transfer over relatively smoothly. "I don't think it's that Jalter, I think he is more concerned by the amount of master roped up in this holy grail war," Salter says as she leans her head against Harrison's shoulder closing her eyes. Harrison sighed trying to suppress his growing anxiety, "Yeah something along those lines," he said his voice still shaking. 

"Well do you think maybe talking to the other masters would do you any good," Jalter asked as she looked towards the common room door. "Thinking it's best to get ahead while we still can, I wonder if they have the records on our preliminaries if you could call them that," Harrison said as he pushed himself off the couch his broken bones almost completely healed. "Alright let us go, but Jalter remember to stay in spirit form. Salter also if possible I think it would be ideal to pretend as if you were your own Master/unrelated servant the fewer people who know about us the better. I feel that this is more a war of information than anything," Harrison says. "Yeah yeah I got it no fun for me right," Jalter responds as she starts to return to spirit form. Salter just nods before her form flashes white as she changes into her casual clothes, "I'll exit the room around five minutes after you Righter," she says reaching for the door. As his form crosses through the barrier of blinding white light he throws a thumbs up to Salter and flashes her a smile. Though Harrison doesn't see the faint hints of blush that worm across Salter's face at his actions.

As Harrison steps out into the common area it was absolutely giant, the room seemed to spread onward with no end. It was a large bar-like atmosphere with tables, billiards tables, darts, and well, bars strewn about every couple hundred feet or so. Not only this but as Harrison looked behind him it seemed the door he had stepped through disappeared. That's when a voice he didn't expect wormed its way in his head, "Well Righter I don't think we are in Kansas anymore, hehe get it," Jalter's voice rang out in his head. "So I guess we can use telepathy when you are in your spirit form that's convenient," Harrison thought at her presence as if he didn't know masters and servants typically shared a different form of communication like this. "Did you happen to see where the door we stepped through went," he asked. The feelings of negative were sent his way from Jalter before she spoke up again, "I do see a whole bunch of doors along the wall behind us, and if you were really that nervous about it I am sure you could always ask the woman behind the bar." 

"The woman at the bar," Harrison said aloud as he looked to the closet bar and nearly jumped out of his skin somehow missing the woman staring directly at him, or at least that's what he assumed as the sunglasses she wore obscured her irises. "Well for the first master to make it down here you sure look like you could use some help, what could I get for you," the woman asked. Harrison looked at the woman, and he realized she is more similar to a statue than a person, every feature of hers seems to be carved from stone perfectly proportioned and purposeful. She has blonde hair that was an orange color and was braided so that it runs down to her lower back, and she wore sunglasses that are as dark as night itself, though he could feel her eyes behind the frames that seemed to be judge him. As Harrison walked up to the bar she flashed him a warm smile and extended a hand, "You can call me Angel... Harrison," she said through her eyes flashing a mysterious blazing red piercing through even the sunglasses when she said his name. "Thank you," Harrison says hesitantly taking her hand.

"Great so, I believe to answer your questions, the door you walked through is only a temporary gate, Masters are transported randomly throughout the common area each time they exit their room to keep positions anonymous and unpredictable, so to get back you simply have to think of your room and mime as if you walked through a door. As for the doors along the walls, those are private viewing areas in which one can review previous battles, and before you ask the prelims were not recorded so no spoilers you will have to at least wait until the first round ends to see anything," seemingly as she began speaking more and more masters began to join them in the common area and started milling about. "A-are you a mind reader," Harrison asked bluntly. The woman laughed and blushed slightly, "Oh no nothing like that but thank you, anyway I suggest you socialize a bit H.R before the matching results are put out," she says once again seemingly able to pull information she shouldn't know out of nowhere like the nickname only friends of Harrison used. He quickly glanced over his shoulder to observe the incoming masters and servants. Yet when he turned back she was replaced by a totally different bartender who seemed to be handling the orders of some other individual.

Harrison didn't get much time to really question as Jalter yelled, "WATCH OUT!" A man who easily had 100 pounds on Harrison shoulder checked him into the metal bar which slammed into his hip bone causing a weird sensation of pain to shoot up along his body. "Oh my bad didn't see you over there pipsqueak," the man said with a demeaning grin. "Jalter I don't think this is going to end well," Harrison thought as he straightened.