[OPEN] Well, look what the cat dragged in.

[canofworms]

Characters: Kariya Matou [AU4] & ALL THE PEOPLE
Setting: Dorms, Various Floors, Choose Your Own Adventure
Format: Any!
Summary: +1 flailing bug magus. Does it count if 'he' is already here?
Warnings: Fate/BUGS


This man, wherever you meet him, may look just the littlest bit familiar. Maybe it's in the hair, or the slightly gloomy look on his face, or even the rumpled turtleneck he's wearing.

Not many will recognize him as the Matou he is, though, unless he has his insect familiars out. His hair and eye (the working one) are a deep purple, and the prana rolling off him in warning waves is no longer a hallmark of the clan.

Now who could this be?



[Dormitory Floor: Room 1-16]

[Hey, folks, you may or may not have an extra body in here. Don't worry, it's wiggling and quite lively.

Click.

If not for the minor commotion of him going through his trunk, you probably wouldn't notice he's here; his clothes and hair are dark enough that he gets lost in the shadows quite easily. The slant of his shoulders is wary. There's a metallic glint in his hands.

Nothing to see here: just a magus loading a handgun.

(Unless that's a nice bulky camera in his hands, but in that case he's just taking a picture of the wall. So productive!)]



[F1: Cafeteria]

[New arrivals season! There are like a million of them here making faces at their oatmeal. You could probably fill an album with the variety. Maybe decorate each floor of the Tower with a different expression of disgust.

This guy would make a pretty boring picture, though, since he's sitting there with absolutely no trace of feeling on his face as he mechanically brings the spoon to his mouth. In fact, his eyes are closed.

Is he sleep-eating or just trying to find a safe space away from the mush??]



[F20: Outside]

[It's fairly chilly out here, but the thin shadow of a man standing about halfway up the ramp, carelessly at the very edge, doesn't seem to notice. He's strangely silhouetted, staring expressionlessly over the edge.

If you come in close enough, you'll realize that those strange irregularities and bumps in his figure are actually countless large, skeletal, demon-eyed insects perched on his shoulders and arms, crawling clumsily in their attempt to keep their foothold in the wind.

Every now and then, he'll raise a hand, and one or two of them will obediently go walking off into the air. They go plummeting downwards until not a trace is left, and leave him looking a little more frustrated each time.

In the meantime, that shadow in the fog behind him may or may not be something sneaking up on him. Or your eyes are just playing tricks on you.]



[F??: Choose Your Own Adventure]

[Any floor, any time, any bug flavor!

There's a rather surly-looking guy pacing up and down the place, muttering angrily to himself and occasionally raising a hand to swat at the two Blade Wing Worms buzzing along behind him whenever they hover in too close.

It's a little hard to tell whether the familiars are actually worried about their master or just trying to get close enough to chomp on his hair.]

If you're not going to make yourselves useful, go chew on each other or something. I don't care.

Comments

[canofworms]

I... can't say we crossed paths. It's normal for Masters, isn't it?

[Fighting Servants by moonlight, familiar-enabled stalking by daylight, you know the drill, right.]

But you make it sound like the two of us are subject to Second Magic, too.

[fionnuisce]

Ordinarily, I suppose so.

[He adjusted the sunglasses on his head and crossed his arms, looking at Kariya in slight confusion.]

You haven't noticed already? Of course we are. To start with, I spoke to another 'Matou Kariya' just the other day. Not to mention the other version of myself.

I bet I was Rider's Master in your war, wasn't I?

[canofworms]

Ordinarily?

[There's plenty of confusion to go around. He raises an eyebrow and pointedly pauses his spoon.]

You forget I've just arrived. I don't have your references. [A beat.] But yes, you commanded Rider in 'my' War. What happened in yours?

[fionnuisce]

Fair enough; if you want, I can try to give you the basics.

[As he took a small notebook from his pocket and turned through pages of chickenscratch handwriting, Waver continued calmly.]

My Servant was Lancer--Diarmuid, rather. He's around here as well, though not the exact one I knew. If you need help in this place, you could do worse than him. And as for you...I didn't even realize you'd been involved in the Fourth War until recently. I doubt you want to know what happened.

[A shrug.]

As for this place, what do you want to know first?

[canofworms]

[Kariya blinks at the little notebook and finds himself smiling. He used to have one just like it, a lifetime ago.]

... That's not a bad idea.

[He quiets down as he listens; files away for later the part of that Fourth War that Waver obviously doesn't want to talk about. There are more important things for the moment.]

Ah, I've met Lancer -- both of them. At least Second Magic and the Servant system are a little similar. [He's still not entirely sure of his footing when it comes to the Servants, and there's likely to only be more of them; he doesn't know what it is that's connecting this Tower and Fuyuki, but somehow both Holy Grail Wars have managed to be represented here.]

Where to begin... The exit? [He shakes his head, a little rueful.] What's the point of this place?

[fionnuisce]

I have decent ideas once in a while.

[He actually smirked a little at that, amused.]

Asking about the exit's a little pointless for now, and I haven't been able to pin down any specific reasoning for certain. [He turned another page, glancing over his own notes as he explained.]

Four administrators are in control of this place. Riki is in charge of records of some sort, Jason is some insane doctor who enjoys experimenting on us. Zo is apparently a child responsible for the specific act of bringing us here, and Ruana's apparently some monster of a woman completely incapable of human emotions.

[canofworms]

At least they have names. [It's his only reaction for a long moment as he mulls things over; he's only been in the tower a little while, but it's enough to get a feel for how hard it is to get a feel for it. It's not unlike the feeling of trying to learn magic deliberately and on his own for the first time, ten years late.]

Do you have details on the experiments? Details seem hard to come by here.

[fionnuisce]

According to what I've been told, they seem to rotate control of the tower. Ruana's month in October apparently led to murderous Halloween costumes that killed the wearer and then led them to murder others.

[Waver himself didn't even know how he read that with a straight face.]

One month of Jason's involved people coming down with a number of illnesses. Hallucinations, schizophrenia, and the like. In January, Riki aged people's minds and bodies so it would appear they'd been trapped here for varying ridiculous lengths of time.

[He glanced up from the notebook again, fully knowing how insane he sounded.]

We're dealing with some serious shit, Kariya. Measuring it by our world's terms, there's True Magic all over the place at the very least.

[canofworms]

[His smile is a little vague, but that may be because he just started eating his oatmeal again, or because he's deep in thought.]

Mm, there's a lot our world's terms don't quite measure up to, I think.

[He seems to wake up a little after that, eyes coming back to rest on the other magus as he digs his spoon in again.]

Like the way they recycle. [A little sardonically, though there's a hard edge to his voice.] That and their little tower must be what lets them flaunt their power any way they want.

[fionnuisce]

Don't get me started on that; the logistics alone make my head hurt, never mind the consequences. I can't even begin to imagine where they could have gotten the powers to do things like this.

[canofworms]

Don't hurt yourself. I'm sure that's another thing they want.

[It is largely sincere, even though he's talking to his bowl.]

Honestly, the 'logistics' don't interest me. I want to find an exit. Failing an exit, I want to find a way to take this tower apart. [It's stated flatly, without room for argument.] I have a War to return to.

[fionnuisce]

You're not the only one. Places to go, things to dismantle, students to fail, you know how it-...

...Wait a minute. You came here straight from the war?

[canofworms]

The Fifth War of the Holy Grail, yes.

[You could probably fill the Tower from top to bottom with the amount of bitterness in that sentence fragment. Oops.]

And unless the Grail activated as early as the War did, there's no way that world is gone.

[fionnuisce]

....what the hell do you mean, 'the Fifth.'

[If not, you could fill the rest with the amount of 'oh shit' in that not-quite-a-question.]

[canofworms]

[He stares at Waver for a long moment, and then lets out a breath that's almost a laugh.]

That would be the one after the Fourth, Waver Velvet.

[fionnuisce]

Wh--why the hell is it this early, and what the hell's your world's version of me doing screwing around instead of stopping it?!

[canofworms]

[He stares for a lot longer that time.

There are implications and more implications in that outburst that he's almost afraid to parse. Good thing he's already had his own minor outburst; he can step back a little.]

I don't know why. I-- [was too much of a failure to see it coming, and too new of a magus to stop it in time] --didn't have time for that, once it started.

[He takes a deep breath. Stepping back.]

As for your other question-- [he doesn't know that, either, go him] I haven't seen you in ten years.

[fionnuisce]

Goddammit.

[Waver regained his composure quickly, pressing a hand to his head and muttering under his breath.]

I wonder if that could be some kind of universal constant...I'll have to check a hell of a lot of things when I get back. Maybe there's still a little extra time I can work with...ah, hell, I'll think of something.

[He looked back at Kariya, calm but completely serious.]

Tell me about your version of the Fourth War.

[canofworms]

[While Waver's muttering under his breath for the world to hear, Kariya's holding his. He's also methodically and carefully crushing that rising hope in his chest back down, because Waver Velvet is a survivor of the Fourth War, but Waver Velvet is also a trained magus and a titled man.

Kariya only trusts as far as the other party might stand from the wall they back him into. It's a big 'might'.]

... I was the master of Berserker. The Three Great Families all participated, along with a few wild cards. [A slightly amused glance across the table.] Caster was a bit of a nuisance for a while. I finished the War, and--

[By the time that extremely truncated account trails off his voice has gone completely flat, and he's looking down at the table again, posture very still. The end of the War isn't something he usually talks about.]

[fionnuisce]

...and the Grail wasn't what you thought, was it?

[He leaned forward slightly, all other thought completely discarded. Even if in another world, if someone could just confirm it without any doubt whatsoever...]

[canofworms]

[He draws in a sharp breath and looks up, but can't detect anything other than seriousness looking back at him.]

... No. I don't think it was what anyone expected. The same thing happened in your War?

[Of course, he's failed to specify what that thing is, but he's still caught between caution and hope and that is not conducive to coherence.]

[fionnuisce]

I don't think it was, no. I only saw the results from a distance, so as it stands now I have no way to be sure.

Might as well address the proverbial elephant in the room and stop dancing around words: I think it's been corrupted.

[canofworms]

... Fuyuki burned. That was the result.

[He finally speaks those words aloud, doesn't know why he had so much difficulty getting them out, since everyone who was in Fuyuki at the time -- who wasn't reduced to cinders -- would have seen how the War ended.

Second Magic. Some things don't change, of course.

He laughs because he doesn't quite know what else to do.]

'Been' corrupted? It wasn't corrupted from the beginning? I've never heard of the Grail granting a miracle.

[fionnuisce]

...now that you mention it, neither have I. I'd thought maybe something went wrong during the Fourth, but it makes more sense if it was ruined from the start.

[canofworms]

[He should be more wary. He should be more careful with what he says. But neither the Grail nor the Mage's Association are here, the Second Magic has made fool enough of him, and the tiny hope stirred up in the course of their conversation hasn't allowed itself to be turned away.

At this point, the words end up just tumbling out.]

The amount of evil in that Grail... it seeks disaster. It feeds on human darkness and misery. It could never come close to a miracle. [As with his account of the War, the evaluation is dull and drained of emotion.] The Holy Grail War was a lie from the beginning.

[That's what he truly believes -- the betrayed belief of someone who fought to the bitter end for something that was never there.]