A Familiar Saber

The shed was filled with a brilliant flash of life that left Shirou blinking away bright spots from his vision. He squinted, trying to relieve himself of his discomfort, but when he looked out, he could still only see shining light. After a few moments, the light did not fade away, and Shirou turned his head away instead, finding it much easier to see.

A petite woman stood before him. Clad in a long blue dress, and fitted over with gauntlets, a chest plate and an armoured skirt over the top, she looked very much like a lady knight, though she had relieved herself of a degree of the heavy set plates of armour, likely in favour of increased mobility. Her armour was polished to such a sheen that it was reflecting the barest motes of light, making her seem to almost look like she was still shining. Her emerald green eyes were firm, and locked on him, while her hands were held in front of her, seemingly rested on something that wasn't there. Her overall physique was slender and modest, the skin that was visible seemed soft and well cared for, and her hair was half tamed into a bob in the back, with a single strand sticking out from the front.

For all of that, Shirou couldn't help but think of her as cute. The fact was clearly smaller than him by about half a foot probably helped. Still, despite her posture, she seemed delicate, like a painted doll in how perfect she was. There was no way a normal woman could ever come close to looking like her.

Her mouth moved, but whatever she said he didn't hear her, instead his eyes remained fixed on her face, watching as her glossy lips moved, her smooth features shifting as her mouth moved. She was beautiful.

"Hmm? What?" He finally managed to croak out.

The woman looked exasperated for a moment, slouching and hanging her head just a little, before retaking her initial pose and again fixing him with her firmest stare. "I ask of you. Are you my Master?"

"Yes?" There really wasn't anything to say in this kind of situation. He could wonder what they hell was going on, but when a woman was asking you to be their Master, then there is very little to do but nod and go along with it.

"Excellent. As your Saber servant I pledge to defend your life with my own until the day I fall or the Grail is in our hands. Now, let us discuss our plans for the oncoming war." She paused to take a look around at the insides of his shed. "Or perhaps we should move elsewhere first? This seems a poor place for plotting anything."

Shirou rubbed the back of his head embarrassed. His shed was definitely not the sort of place you should be hosting guests.

In short order he was leading the woman across the yard and into his house, and from there through into the kitchen and adjoined sitting room. He set the kettle on, and with that done, joined the servant kneeling at the table on one of the cushions, who had removed her armour for comfort, and was now dressed only in the azure blue dress underneath. "So Master." The woman began as he sat down across from her. "I expect you already had some sort of plan in mind. If you would be so kind as to share it, I will do my best to inform you of my capabilities, and advise on how they could be adjusted to better play to my strengths."

"I'm sorry, but what do you mean? What am I supposed to have a plan for? What is going on?"

"Do-do you not know?" She blinked at him incredulously. Acting quickly she reached across the table and seized his injured hand, removing the makeshift bandage he had used on himself, and unveiling the bloody pattern on the back of his hand. The pattern throbbed lightly with red light, and Shirou became aware that he wasn't just looking at some random blood spatter. This was something magical, almost like a tattoo. How long had that been there? "These are your command seals. They act as undeniable proof that you are a Master partaking in the Holy Grail War, a war fought between 7 Masters such as yourself, as well as 7 Servants who they summon to fight for them, with the ultimate goal of acquiring the Holy Grail and any one wish that they each desire."

That was a nice chunk of exposition, but Shirou got the feeling he was lacking some sort of important context that would actually make it make sense. So they were fighting for a wish? "Any wish?" The servant nodded resolutely. Okay, now Shirou was becoming concerned. There was a war going on under his nose, fought between 7 people who probably had no compunctions about innocents getting hurt or other collateral damage. That could go very badly very fast. "And what are servants? You said you are a Saber, what does that mean?"

The emerald eyed woman opened her mouth to answer, but then suddenly stiffened, her hair standing on end for a moment. Immediately she jumped up to her feet, springing back from the table and her hands coming together in mid air to grasp ahold of something that wasn't actually there as far as he could tell. "Master, get Back! An enemy servant has infiltrated the property!"

He heard a loud squeak from through one of the paper walls, and he saw a shadow vanish from behind the thin separating wall. Saber seemed about ready to bound forwards straight through the wall when the door was slammed open and Rin Tohsaka revealed herself, her hands held up in front of her and frantically waving from side to side. "Nononononono! I'm friendly! Friendly!"

Saber didn't seem to care. He had to step in. "Saber no!"

The servant turned to look at him like he was insane. "She is an enemy servant and she has already broken into your home and base of operations. To let her live would be the peak of unwise decisions."

"She didn't break into anywhere. I brought her here."

"You did?" The girl questioned, wiping the sweat from her brow as Saber seemed to finally relent for now, though she remained tense and ready for battle. "I was wondering how I got here. And how I'm still alive right now, I distinctly remember not having a heart in my chest." Rin looked down, fingers coming up to probe the large hole in her brassiere that left one her pert and perky nipples sticking through, out into the open air. "I guess I have you to thank for that?" She said as her gaze moved back over to him, her crimson red eyes incredibly piercing and sinister.

"That other woman actually. She healed you. I just brought you back here to rest."

"Probably for the best that you did." She said as she wandered into the room, pointedly moving to sit at the end of the table, so she was sat next to neither of the other two. "She's still not woken up yet. Weak Mortal mind and all. She'll need the rest somewhere safe." The girl that Shirou was beginning to become increasingly suspicious wasn't actually his classmate made clear to look directly at Saber in time with those last few words. "Though I do have to question how you managed to get Lancer to heal me? She was the one who almost killed me!"

"I told her it would be normal for her to do whatever I say, and then I told her to heal you." There didn't seem to be any reason to lie. Neither would it benefit him nor would it hurt him, the Normality Earrings would see to that after all.

"Huh. That makes sense." She said, stroking her chin a little with one finger. "It would be pretty normal for her to do that."

"What are you?" Saber interjected rudely, her glare at Rin, or her doppelganger as the case may be, was so piercing it could penetrate Panzer Maus armour. The two humans, or was it only one, blinked at her in confusion.

"Isn't it obvious? I am servant Archer!"

"And your Master is completely fine with you just being here, in an enemies' base, completely at out mercy?" Saber shook her head in obvious disbelief. "And regardless, that was not what I meant."

"Well she's not really in any state to complain right now." Rin tried to dodge the question, but Saber's back straightened out even more, leaving even her petite frame beginning to look down on Rin, who was slouching forwards onto the table. "I mean it. She's still recoving from having a spear shoved through her heart, so I'm in here alone right now."

"You mean to say that you and your Master are sharing the same body?" Saber asked acqusingly. Shirou really didn't have much of a clue what the hell was happening right now, so he thought it better to just stay back and let things happen on there own, and only get involved if they started escalating beyond words.

"Yep. Not really sure how it happened though. Apparently either the two of us are super compatible, or she fucked up the summoning ritual, but I wasn't summoned into a proper class container. Instead my Master somehow summoned me into her own body. Now the two of us live in here together. Most of the time she gets to be the one in control, while I take control when she calls on enough of my power. And we can steal control from each other if we really want to, but so far we've just sort of let it work out this way."

"So you are a rogue servant then? One without a Master?"

"Technically I suppose. But really we're out own Master."

"Impossible. The servant system does not work that way. You cannot act as your own anchor, it is a paradox. You're existance will tear itself apart. At the absolute best you should be completely overwriting her soul and mind. A Heroic Spirit's soul is so far beyond a normal human's that she should be either supressed or incinerated completely."

"So let me get this straight." Shirou interjected, finally finding his voice in this conversation that had so quickly been hijacked by the two bickering servants. "Rin somehow became one of these Servant things, and they are supposed to have Masters, and she doesn't have one, which could be a problem? Wouldn't it be normal for her to just go find a Master then?"

Uh Oh. He just said the word. He hadn't even meant to, he'd just been speaking like usually and it had just came out. The word was just another word in his vocabulary right now. He would need to start blacklisting it from everyday use soon or he might start causing way more problems than he solved.

Before his eyes he could see the cogs turning inside the self proclaimed Archer Servants brain as she processed what he'd said. She turned her face towards him, her eyes scanning up and down him and his more than usually exposed form, thanks to how much of his uniform had been cannibalised for use mopping up blood in the last few hours. She looked like she was appraising him, her eyes scouring every inch and slight crevice of his muscled form. She nibbled on the inside of her lip. Finally with a nod, she stood up from the table, turned towards Shirou and planted her hands on her hips with a great harrumph, her exposed tit jiggling lightly.

"I approve of you, Shirou. If a Master is what I need to find, then I shall not settle for anything less than that, and why go elsewhere when such a good option is right before me."

"What?" Saber asked, entirely perplexed by this sudden event. "No! You cannot just claim my Master as your own!"

"I am a Goddess!" The Archer proclaimed, her eyes flashing to bright and glowing gold for a moment. "I already own the Heavens and the Earth. Don't think of it as me claiming him, and just me taking him off the shelf. He was mine already, its just I'm paying attention now." Without further ado, she walked over to Shirou, taking his hand bearing his command seals in her own, and leaning down to plant a chaste kiss on the markings.

Shirou felt his soul ripple from the contact, and a light suckling sensation begin to throb through him, something clearly beyond just the physical occuring from that brief contact. But even just speaking physcially, her kiss sent an incredibly pleasurable shiver up his arm and then down his spine, sending his crotch tingling and his dick stirring.

The Command Seals changed from Red to Gold, then glowed even brighter, before expanding, branching out over his hand back towards his wrist, the design of the tattoo becoming far more elaborate. Finally, the golden light ebbed away, leaving the newly expanded pattern to transform back to the Red it had been before.

Rin struck a pose, a very erotic pose, right in front of him, and brought her left hand up to her hand, where she began to sexily lick over her fingers. "Servant Archer is now yours. I, Ishtar, Goddess of Beauty and Governer of Venus, now tie myself to you. I hope you can keep up, Master~~"

Shirou just stared in confusion, his mouth dropping open, and words spilling out before he could catch himself. "Is it normal for all servants to be super cute and super sexy women?"

"Why yes. Yes it is." Ishtar replied, sliding her hands down over her curves before him, Saber shaking in silent rage in Shirou's peripheries.

Oh god. He couldn't stop himself. And should he? His normality powers could work on whatever these Servant things were, and one was claiming to be a goddess. Could he stop this war from happening before it properly started? And what about beyond that? Was he being selfish by saying he wouldn't use them to save people because it would be 'cheating'? Would using these earrings to their fullest extent be better for everyone?