Entry 19: Greetings from Team Harway

 I can now access my Status screen. 

 

The student council room is different from other classrooms. It has a luxuriant rug spread out, and it’s kind of like a meeting room. In this wooden building’s anachronistic atmosphere are a boy in a black school uniform, a young man wrapped in a coat, and another young man wearing white armor. The boy in the black uniform…that’s Leo. He’s wearing a different uniform, but we’ve been classmates this whole time, there’s no way I’d have forgotten him. But, the other two, I feel like this is my first time seeing them…and not my first time seeing them. My memories are ambiguous, so it may mean I was acquainted with them during the Holy Grail War.

Leo :: Oh, she’s here, she’s here! All right you two, one, two — Goooood morning!

…um?

Leo :: Ah. Come on, both of you, like we practiced. I told you, our morning greeting should be cheerful and energetic, student-like, and dumb sounding, almost to the extent that they doubt our brain functioning.

[The two men look at each other. Then they look back at Leo.]

Leo :: We’ll try again, then. One, two, three…Good morning, Kishinami!

Man in armor :: G-good morning.

[He says that in English. Putting it in another foreign language  would be weird, since he’s Gawain, Leo’s Servant from Fate/Extra.]

Man in coat :: Good…morning.

[And hi there Leo’s brother Julius.]

Leo :: —. [That represents a small laugh.]

With that smile on his face, Leo is wordlessly compelling me to do something. Maybe I have to give that embarrassing greeting as well…?

[>] Good morning!
> ……
> Is something wrong?

Leo :: Yes. That was perfect. It had the appropriate tension for a student with a bright outlook on life. Yes, yes, indeed you live up to all my expectations, Hakuno. Rough and…mabu!

Man in armor :: …Julius. This may be an awkward question to ask, but, what is “mabu”?

Man in coat :: …it is a technical Japanese term, expressing deep affection, and the meaning changes depending on whether it refers to a man or a woman. Where did he pick up such a word…

[Sorry, I couldn’t figure out how to translate that word so it would make any sense at all. Like I have gone through several different web pages of people trying to figure out what it means and its history and have found a lot of different answers concerning attractive girls, delinquents, pimps, and friends one doesn’t always get along with…and moreover I can’t think of anything similarly mystifying in English.]

– what is happening here? Leo seems to be doing some kind of skit with the two young men. The Leo I knew…who was my classmate…didn’t have quite such an amiable personality.

Leo :: …hmph. From the look of you, you remember me. That will be all of my pranks, then. Be at ease. I’m the same calm and collected Leo you’re familiar with. …it’s too bad though, if you’d forgotten me I could have taken the opportunity to completely change my character…

…I wonder if I should point out that that statement itself is quite different from my previous impression of Leo…?

Leo :: Then, to start again. We have been waiting for you, Hakuno Kishinami. It is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Leonard Bistario Harway. You may think it’s a bit late to be making self introductions, but this is the first time we’ve met in this school. Brother, Gawain. Introduce yourselves.

 

Julius :: …Julius. Currently acting as Leo’s support.

Gawain :: I am Gawain, a Servant. …ah. My lord is presently finding an outlet for the innocence appropriate to his age. Therefore, I ask you to look upon his small caprices magnanimously. I sincerely hope you will be tolerant.

It sounds from what Leo said that the one called Julius is his brother. They don’t look at all alike, maybe they’re half-siblings? Julius seems like a Master, but I don’t see his Servant anywhere. There’s no sign of a Servant with him, and I don’t feel any of the peculiar pressure that comes from a Master from Julius himself. …Even if Julius’s Servant had the skill “Perfect Vanishment,” it shouldn’t be enough to conceal Julius’s own status. I don’t know why, but he seems to be a Master who has lost his Servant.

[Note: that is a hypothetical skill, not Presence Concealment or Julius’s Assassin’s peculiar self-concealment skill. Also, no Li Shuwen :(]

On the other hand, Gawain is obviously Leo’s Servant. His class is Saber, and among the Servants summoned for this Grail War his abilities are top-class. …for some reason I can remember all that off hand.

[Sakura suddenly materializes next to Hakuno!]

Sakura :: Excuse me. I’ve completed a full scan of the building. No undiscovered Masters remain in this school.

The girl from the infirmary — Sakura, enters the student meeting room. Leo nods in acknowledgement of her statement, then turns back to me. That’s the Leo B. Harway I remember. The strongest Master, accompanied by the strongest Servant. Even without memory of the Holy Grail War, that fact hasn’t disappeared.

Leo :: …Given the circumstances, I thought those girls would be around somewhere, but if they’re not we’ll have to give it up. Hakuno Kishinami. There’s no one I can ask this of but you. Can you participate in the old school…no, the far side of the moon escape operation?

The far side of the moon escape operation…? Wait. Hold up a minute. I haven’t been able to follow all these new developments. What happened to the school that was swallowed by the black noise? Why have I lost my memories? Where are we? I need to at least understand those three things before I make any choices or decisions…!

Leo :: Oh. I see Sakura didn’t fill you in. Then shall I explain it for you?

Sakura :: Yes, please. It’s all speculation, so it’s hard for an AI like me to explain.

Leo :: Indeed. AIs cannot convey any information to Masters that has not been confirmed as fact, according to the Moon Cell’s regulations. Now, Hakuno. Your questions?

[>] About the school swallowed by darkness
> About my amnesia
> About where we are

I ask about the school swallowed by darkness. The place where until just recently, Leo — Leo and Shinji and I were classmates. After that sudden announcement, everyone in the school was swallowed up by darkness and disappeared, I explain.

Leo :: …we were in school together…That would be the extended preliminaries? Strange…it was different for me. I can just vaguely remember, but in my case we were attacked by black slime in the middle the Holy Grail War, and when I came to I was here. Perhaps I had already passed the preliminaries when the school was attacked, and therefore had already made it out of the school building. Sakura. Is it all right if I explain the preliminaries system?

Sakura :: I don’t think there’s a problem with that. After all, we’re outside the system, and Miss Kishinami has passed the preliminary round.

Leo :: Then I’ll go ahead. The Holy Grail War has a preliminary selection round as well as the main selection rounds. The wizards who gain access to the moon from the earth first are deprived of their memories, and given false identities. Our assigned roles were those of completely normal students in the 2000s. You remember that, I assume.

…! I see…so that feeling of being thrown out of the “world” was because I believed that the role the Moon Cell assigned me was my “present occupation.”

Leo :: Only those wizards who realized that those roles were incorrect and reclaimed their true identities were able to claim Servants and become Masters. Given that you have contracted a Servant, Hakuno, it would be strange for you not to have passed the preliminaries. Therefore, you should have been attacked by that unknown darkness during the main selection rounds, as I was. You don’t remember that?

I don’t. All I remember is everyday life in that school, just like the “preliminary selection,” and then falling to the bottom of that darkness, and the Servant who reached out to me.

Sakura :: Um…isn’t it all right, Leo? You woke up at once after you fell here, but Miss Kishinami slept for a long time, so…While she was in the comatose state, what you called the “unknown darkness” had her soul in its grasp the whole time. So, it could be that while she was afflicted with that long nightmare, her memories of the main selection rounds were completely erased…swallowed? It’s highly possible that the preliminary round she describes was not the real preliminaries, but rather a fabricated preliminary round made by mixing her dreams and past events.

…a fabricated preliminary round…? So then, Shinji, and Leo, all of it was a dream…? Or no, is it just that the characters’ personal info was copied from previously existing memories and the scene where the school is swallowed that were a dream? Even still, there was that fall at the end. The chill of that empty darkness, that couldn’t have been a dream –

Sakura :: …that must be the cause. You were captured by a monster during the Holy Grail War, and have been held inside this whole time. The blackness you saw in your dream, that would be…the inside of the monster than swallowed you…something like that.

The inside of a monster…? That joyless place that went on forever? This is the virtual sea. It might be that I was consumed by some other creature, but…this just gets more and more repulsive. A monster holding that darkness captured all of us…

[We now loop back to Leo’s offer to answer my questions – the other questions and whatever exposition may accompany them next time]

Unchanged from original translation: https://tsukinoura.wordpress.com/2013/07/04/entry-19-greetings-from-team-harway/. Please support the original translator.