Fate/Laoch Gan Finsceal

Chapter 1: Innocent Hero

FATE/LAOCH GAN FINSCEAL

"Hero Without Legend"

Chapter 1: Innocent Hero

"Heed my words. My will creates your body, and your sword creates my destiny. If you heed the Grail's call and obey my will and reason, then answer my summoning! I hereby swear that I shall be all the good in the world, that I shall defeat all evil in the world. You seven heavens, clad in the three great words of power, come forth from the circle of binding. Guardian of the Scales!"

Fujimaru Ritsuka chanted the words for a summoning ritual to call upon a new Servant. The bluish magic circle beneath her feet shone bright, then numerous dots swirled around so quickly that it resembled a solid circle of light. Three more rings encompassed the area, then converged in a brilliant flash. She closed her eyes tightly and waited for the right time to open them. The new person who emerged from the magic field was bound to the Command Spell etched upon her hand, and would function as a Servant in missions to correct Singularities in humanity's timeline.

Ritsuka had long since ceased to be surprised by the kinds of Servants who emerged. Their personalities, classes, and abilities were as varied as there were humans on the planet. The Servant who stood before her was a female at around seven or eight years old. Despite her young age, her firm brown eyes demonstrated maturity beyond her years, yet also a cute precociousness that inspired her to explore the world around her. She had short purple hair tied into a low ponytail, and she wore a white shawl and skirt over a breastplate and mint green tights that covered her whole body. She had heavy leather gloves and boots on, and she carried a leaf-bladed polearm that was taller than she was.

"Lancer-class Servant, ready to fight for you, Master," the girl announced her arrival.

"A Lancer this time, hm?" Ritsuka murmured. "What's your True Name?"

"It's..." The child looked unusually apprehensive, then looked away in shame. "I apologize. For certain reasons, I cannot say who I am."

"What are you talking about?" Mash Kyrielight, Ritsuka's partner and a Demi-Servant, objected. "If Ritsuka doesn't know who you are, how is she supposed to give you proper orders in combat?"

"I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience..."

A man in traditional doctor's attire had witnessed the summoning and approached the unidentified Lancer. He leaned over her to examine if anything was wrong, then said, "It looks like we have our work cut out with this one."

"What do you mean, Dr. Roman?" Mash asked.

"She certainly has a Saint Graph, but the details surrounding her True Name are heavily concealed by a threefold geas. Even if we had a Ruler-class Servant utilizing True Name Discernment, the chances of her name being given to them is 50/50. No, I'd wager that the geasa actually constitute her identity in the first place - that she has to hide any indentifying factors, or else she will break the vows of her geas and be subjected to a curse."

"So there's no way to remove them?"

"No. To remove the geasa from this Heroic Spirit would be equivalent to taking away Excalibur from King Arthur, or nullifying Medusa's ability to turn people into stone."

"Who would do such a thing to her?" Ritsuka wondered, glancing over at Lancer as she quietly listened to their conversation. "There has to be a way to get around this."

"Well..." Roman scratched his chin. "If we understood the nature of the conditions she is restricted by, we could start to draw some reasonable conclusions about which Hidden Attribute she belongs to, and then narrow it down from there."