Chaotic Fate

Disclaimer: The characters and setting of Ranma 1/2 belong to Rumiko Takahashi. Fate/Stay-Night is a product of Kinoko Nasu, and Type-Moon. I am merely playing with their creations and not making any money in doing so.

Author's Notes: I'm alive and more importantly still writing; rejoice! I am sorry that it's taken me this long to get this chapter out and can promise that the next chapter won't take as long. Some story relevant author's notes at the bottom, but for now enjoy the story.

Ch. 3: "I'll be the best student you've ever had!"

All that met their wild charge however was that same kid that started all this, standing there holding a piece of rolled-up metal that had some ki in it, probably to make it harder. Now that Ranma got a good look at the kid Ranma realized that they were probably around the same age.

"W-Who are you? Why are you chasing me?" the kid asked with only a slight quaver in his voice while brandishing his improvised weapon.

"Hey, sorry 'bout your door, but we thought Spearer, er that guy in blue with the spear who was chasing after you, was in here 'bout ta kill ya."

Ranma stepped forward and Saber moved back and took a position where she could watch the outside, apparently willing to let Ranma handle the situation now that it was obvious that there was no real danger. "Anyways I'm Ranma Saotome of the Saotome school of Anything Goes martial arts and that's Saber, she's apparently my Servant or familiar or something, still not sure what that's all about." Saber for some reason seemed unhappy with Ranma's introduction; shooting one of her glares at him but not offering any comments leaving Ranma rather confused about what he did wrong. After all if she didn't want to be called Saber she should have called herself something else, right?

"A familiar… then that means you're a mage?" the kid mumbled to himself before suddenly shouting "Wait, this Spearer is still chasing me?! And how do you know about that?"

"Well of course I know he was chasing you; I was watching the fight too and saw him running after you." Ranma explained. "You should be fine now. I caught up with him and kicked his ass." As Ranma began to boast he felt Saber glaring at him again. "Er, that is I gave him a pretty good beating so he shouldn't be bothering anybody for a while." Ranma finished with a weak chuckle while scratching the back of his head.

"In that case I'm in your debt; I can't die before I realize my dream. Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Shirou Emiya and this is my house; please make yourselves at home." As Shirou was speaking he finally turned on the lights revealing that he had red hair and brown eyes. Of course it also revealed just how cut up Ranma was. "You should have said you were injured! Wait just a second while I get a first aid kit." Shirou promptly rushed out of the room before Ranma could respond.

"Well he seems like a nice enough guy, if a bit excitable." Ranma mused to himself.

"Ranma, you must exercise greater caution. You should not have revealed that I was a Servant." Saber interrupted his musings, at last revealing just why she was unhappy with his introduction.

"Why not? Does it have something ta do with this secret war or something?" Ranma asked, wondering why she expected him to know about these sorts of things when she knew he didn't have a clue what was going on, but then again everybody else did that to him as well so he shouldn't be so surprised.

"Indeed. This war must be kept secret, which means that all aspects of it must be hidden from outsiders." Saber promptly responded.

"Well he's already a part of it right? I mean Spearer's going ta try and kill him regardless of what I tell him. Besides he might know something. He seemed ta recognize what a Servant or familiar is and he can use his Ki so he's not some random dude off the street." Ranma replied, wondering if he would actually get to argue his side for once without it devolving into yelling, name calling, or an outright brawl like it usually did.

Before they could continue their argument Shirou returned with a first-aid kit and some bandages. Ranma didn't bother with the smaller cuts knowing that they'd be healed within the hour, but he did bandage up the larger cut on his arm.

"I overheard a bit of your conversation and I want to know what's going on and why people are trying to kill me." Shirou spoke up while Ranma was busy. "Does this have anything to do with the recent gas spills and murders?"

"That's what I'm here ta find out." Ranma responded when it was obvious that Saber wasn't going to say anything.

"What?" Shirou asked "Did the Mage's Association send you to investigate?"

"Don't know anything about a Mage's Association" Ranma responded. "The old coots on the city council hired me ta find and deal with whatever was causing the 'gas spills' and murdering people. I don't have a clue what's going on, just that there's some sort of secret war happening. Saber was going to explain it to me, but so far we've been too busy looking out for you to go over it."

"Well, why don't you do that now while I make the tea and snacks?" Shirou suggested, causing Ranma's and surprisingly Saber's stomachs to growl. Saber looked mortified for a brief second before regaining her composure and staring them both down, daring them to comment on it.

"That works for me." Ranma stated before turning to Saber and continuing "That way you can pretend that he can't hear you or something."

"I am opposed to this" Saber stated outright as she frowned at Ranma. "Since it appears he is already aware of magic it is not required that he be killed or otherwise silenced. However, that is no excuse to involve him in any way. Explain why I should reveal secrets about this war to an outsider."

"Well I think he deserves ta know why somebody's trying ta kill him. I know that it always pisses me off when people try ta kill me without explaining what I did ta them." Ranma started, drawing rather focused stares from the other two at his casual mention that people have tried to kill him before. "The more he knows the less likely it is that he'll do something stupid and get himself killed. Other than that like I said before he seems ta know something about this magic stuff that people keep mentioning, so he might know something useful, or at least be able ta help me understand whatever it is you're talking about."

"Very well." Saber sighed and shook her head before continuing. "I still believe this to be a poor decision, but you do have legitimate reasons for including him and I will honor that." At that Ranma couldn't help but jerk in surprise; not being used to people giving his opinions much weight.

"To begin I will explain the basics of this War. It is called the Holy Grail War and it is fought to claim possession of the Holy Grail and its ability to grant any wish."

Saber's explanation had already managed to grab Ranma's attention and he couldn't help but interrupt. "So this Grail can grant any wish right? So it can cure curses?"

"That is well within its power, yes. It is good that you apparently have a reason to seek the Holy Grail; after your earlier performance I was worried that you wouldn't take this seriously and end up dying before we could claim the Grail." Saber responded quickly, although Ranma was a little miffed that it looked like she was happy he was cursed. "The war is fought between seven Masters and their Servants with the last to survive being awarded the Holy Grail."

Shirou suddenly interrupted from the kitchen where he was still working on the refreshments. "Do you really have to kill everybody else to get the Grail? To have to kill 12 other people just to get your wish, I can't think of any wish worth that."

"Yeah, I mean I want ta get cured, but not if it means I gotta kill other people." Ranma was quick to agree with Shirou as it looked like Saber was about to snap at Shirou.

"There are certainly wishes for which 12 lives would be a cheap price to pay." Saber heatedly began. "If your convictions and beliefs are so shallow that you're not willing to kill for them then I pity you."

"Hey! A martial artist protects people he doesn't kill em!"

"Hey! I believe in saving people, not killing them!"

Both Ranma and Shirou took offense to that comment and were quick to let Saber know. After shouting at her in stereo they both followed it up with rather impressive glares.

Saber for her part looked a little shocked at the response she provoked and took a second to compose herself before she responded. "I'm sorry, I misspoke. I did not mean to insult your beliefs, but that you should be willing to do what is necessary to fulfill those beliefs." As she said this she bowed to them before continuing without waiting for a response. "We can discuss this is more detail later. For now let us return to our original discussion. In answer to your question you do not need to kill the Masters, although it is the easiest and best strategy to do so and I will explain why shortly. It is necessary to kill the Servants however. You should not view it as killing though as Servants aren't alive. Rather they are the spirits of legendary heroes brought into the world by the Holy Grail to fight for it. To kill them would just remove them from the War and send them back to the Throne of Heroes."

Ranma felt a bit better about the War now, after all if they're already dead no need to worry about killing them so he could go all out against them. "So Servants are spirits, huh? No need to hold back in that case. One thing though; I've dealt with spirits and ghosts before, but from what I've seen you guys ain't the same. I mean all the spirits I've come across have to possess something ta be able to do much and I can tell that you ain't."

"As I said the Holy Grail summons the Servants and provides a vessel for them. This is why each Servant is a different class, such as Lancer and Saber; with heroes being summoned to fill the class that suits them best." Saber looked a bit happier as she responded. Ranma figured it was 'cause he wasn't going on about not killing the Servants, although something about how she talked about them was a bit weird. "This means that if you know the class of the Servant you will also have a rough idea of their capabilities. The different classes are Saber, Lancer, Archer, Rider, Caster, Assassin, and Berserker. We can go over each class in more depth at a later time, for now we should make sure you understand the general situation you are in."

Before she could continue Shirou finally returned from the kitchen with some tea and sandwiches and set them down on the table. Ranma immediately jumped on them and had scarfed down half a sandwich before Shirou could even sit down.

"Um, help yourselves." Shirou stuttered out in shock at just how fast Ranma could eat.

Amazingly enough Ranma was able to disengage from the food long enough to beckon Saber over. "Why don't you get rid of that armor and join us? The food's great!" With that done he dove back in eager to fill that bottomless pit that is his stomach.

Saber resisted the temptation for a few seconds (and likely would have resisted for much longer if she hadn't realized that if she didn't act quickly Ranma would eat all the food) before she finally dispelled her armor and sat down, grabbing a sandwich and a cup of tea.

Ranma was surprised at just how fast Saber was going through her food; she was almost keeping up with him! Even more impressive was how she was able to make it look dignified and dainty instead of imitating a vacuum cleaner like he did. If he could pick up her technique he would finally be able to eat at those fancy restaurants without getting thrown out for making a scene (at least due to his eating habits). With that thought Ranma proceeded to slow down, slightly, in his inhalation of the sandwiches to better observe just how she did it. Unfortunately she almost immediately stopped eating on feeling his gaze.

"Yes, is there something wrong? You're staring rather intensely at me all of a sudden." Saber questioned with a slight tilt of her head and a little frown. With the lack of armor and a crumb on her cheek she looked surprisingly and ridiculously cute causing Shirou to jerk in surprise. Ranma was made of tougher stuff though and only choked on his sandwich.

"Cough, cough. Nah, nothing's wrong Saber. I was just watching ya eat." Ranma explained.

"Watching me eat, why?" From Saber's expression Ranma could tell that while she was still confused about what he was doin, if he didn't provide a good explanation soon there was a chance, very small of course, that she might snap and attack him, as that's how Akane would look sometimes right before she'd belt him with that hammer of hers.

Ranma was thus quick to expand on his explanation, complete with flailing arms. "I was just trying ta figure out how you could pack so much food away without looking like a slob, that's all. I definitely wasn't staring at you cause you looked cute or anything crazy like that!" Ranma's mouth started working faster and faster as Saber's face darkened as his explanation went on until his mouth had completely detached from his brain.

Shirou was quick to rescue Ranma though, helpful guy that he is, although he wasn't suicidal enough to agree that she had looked quite cute as right now she definitely looked like a vengeful spirit. "Ah Ranma, do you mean you want figure out how she could look so elegant while eating so quickly?"

Yes, Ranma decided that Shirou was a real life saver, and also much better at this whole talking thing than him seeing as Saber no longer looked homicidal and just looked like she wanted to brain him. "Yeah that's what I meant. Sorry I'm not so good at this whole speaking politely thing; I'm more used ta insults and stuff." Ranma started babbling again although it looked like Saber actually accepted his apology and had stopped glaring at him.

"Apology accepted. I'm interested in why you're more used to insults than 'polite conversation' as you put it, but I'm more interested in why you care so much about my eating habits." Saber interrupted him, confirming that she was no longer liable to slice his head off.

"So I could do the same of course." Ranma happily replied, amazed that he managed to clear everything up for once.

"You were watching me to learn how to eat elegantly?" Saber still sounded rather confused and Shirou was also looking at him pretty weirdly.

"I don't know 'bout elegantly but yeah basically; If I could figure out how you eat then I could do the same, or something similar, and finally manage ta eat as fast as I want without pissing off the people around me and getting kicked out of restaurants. I would be able to bring the Saotome All-You-Can-Eat style to a new level!" Ranma finished his explanation with a flourish, specifically a flourish of half of a sandwich that Ranma proceeded to cram in his mouth and devour.

Saber and Shirou looked a bit stunned at the explanation, glancing at each other and back at Ranma like they thought he might be insane. Shirou found his voice first. "Well I can see why you would want to be able to eat like Saber if that's how you normally eat; I just thought that you were really hungry or something."

"Yes, I agree. Ranma I would be happy to instruct you in proper eating habits at a later time" Saber added once she had recovered. "I had thought that you were just hungry and overcome by the quality of the food."

"Thanks Saber. I'll be the best student you've ever had!" Ranma replied, surprised that Saber was willing to pass on her style so easily. "I have ta agree with you about the food; these are some amazing sandwiches and that tea was also really good. Thanks Shirou, they really hit the spot."

"Yes this was quite good, much better than I was expecting so thank you Shirou." Saber also expressed her gratitude, bowing slightly to Shirou with Ranma quickly copying her as he had forgot to earlier.

"Ah, it was the least I could do; you saved my life after all. I'm just glad you liked it." Shirou replied bowing to both of them as well.

"Now that we are all more relaxed we should return to our previous discussion of the Grail War" Saber finally said after the sandwiches were all gone and they were just sitting and sipping their tea.

"That's sounds like a good idea. Let's see we had covered the reason for the War and a bit about the Servants so I guess the Masters are the next thing to talk about?" Shirou asked

"Hey Saber, that reminds me; how did you figure out I was a Master so quickly?" Ranma added, hoping that there was some easy way to spot other Masters.

"Ranma, you have some marks on your right hand; those are known as command spells and are both the symbol and source of your status as a Master. They not only mark you as a Master but also allow you to issue three absolute orders to your Servant. You have already used one of those orders to stop me from coming to your aid in the fight against Lancer." Saber looked eerily calm while explaining how Ranma could strip away her free will, only wincing very slightly at the end.

"Hey, you're the one who wouldn't listen when I told you I had it!" Ranma shot back, unable to stop himself from sticking his foot in his mouth.

"It is a servant's duty to protect their master, even from themselves. I thought that you were delirious from blood loss and so…"

"Don't give me that. I only lost a little blood from that scratch." Ranma couldn't stop himself from interrupting at the perceived insult to his ability to lose large quantities of blood.

"The summoning array that I came from was formed from your blood."

"Like I said, barely any blood."

"You- you're serious aren't you? You really do consider that to be an insignificant amount of blood loss."

Seeing that exchange had finally slowed down a bit after Saber's stunned question Shirou jumped in. "Maybe we should get back on topic; it's getting pretty late after all."

"Shirou is correct. We will discuss your actions in detail later." Saber said this last bit with yet another impressive glare before continuing in a much calmer voice. "Command spells can be used for more than just imposing your will on your Servant. They can also be used to bend reality to allow a Servant to accomplish something normally beyond them. For example you could use a command spell to summon me to your side regardless of the distance between us. Another example is if you ordered me to 'kill my opponent' I would receive massive boost to my next attack and it would take a miracle for that opponent to survive. Finally as should be obvious if you use all of your command spells you would no longer be a Master and the bond between us would be broken and if you continue to use them to step on my pride I would then kill you." Saber said all of this in a calm, even voice as if she really was just explaining the mechanics of how the command spells worked, and not issuing a death threat.

"Woah, don't go getting pissed at me for accidentally using one of these command spells, I mean I had no idea that I could even do that." Ranma couldn't help but blurt out. Even if he did feel bad about taking away her free will he wasn't just going to sit there and let her scold him.

"That is why I informed you about how they worked, so that there would be no future accidents." Saber replied almost sweetly at the perfect set-up Ranma had given her.

"Urg, fine whatever." Ranma groused. "I wasn't planning on using them anyways. I've had people pull that sort of shit on me enough times that I want nothing ta do with it. I suppose since you know so much 'bout them that it's up ta you ta tell me when ta use them."

Saber and Shirou couldn't help but gape at the casual dismissal of the command spells and the sheer audacity in telling a Servant that it was responsible for the spells used to command it.

"You're serious aren't you; you really have no intention of using the command spells any more, even if I were to oppose your will again?" Saber asked sounding extremely skeptical.

"Of course I wouldn't use them. I've had enough love potions, funky pressure points, and other random magical potions and artifacts that I'm not 'bout to go around pulling that sort of crap on other people. When we don't agree with each other we'll just argue or fight it out."

"I find that I can't help but believe you." Saber commented with a wondering shake of her head. "While I am relieved that you will treat the command spells with the proper caution and respect they deserve I am quite worried about the rest of what you said. That you have been subject to that level of magical control and so frequently is extremely troubling, but something that can be addressed later. Of immediate concern is your proposed method for solving disputes."

"I don't get what's wrong with it." Ranma complained annoyed that she was arguing with him over how they should argue with each other. "We both tell each other how we think something should go and then try to convince the other one that we're right. If that don't work then we fight it out and the person who wins gets ta do it their way. Seems pretty simple ta me."

"I suppose that is as sophisticated a method as I could expect from you and not entirely without merit. Do you really think you could best me however?" Saber asked with a slight smirk.

"Not saying it would be easy or nothing, but yeah I could totally take ya." Ranma couldn't help but rise to meet the perceived challenge.

"Oh, you're so confident. I assure you that I am much more powerful than Spearer- I mean Lancer!" Saber stuttered out the last and immediately flushed in embarrassment at her slip.

"Its official now; there is no Lancer, only Spearer!" Ranma couldn't help but crow over Saber's slip. And yeah I know ya are, but that doesn't do you much good when ya can't kill or seriously hurt me now does it?"

Saber's continued flush and the addition of a slight twitch in her eye seemed a pretty good indication that Ranma was onto something, but before she could respond Shirou cut in.

"Um, as interesting as this is, aren't we getting off topic? Maybe we should let Saber finish explaining what's going on first?"

"Sure, I want ta get this over with myself, how 'bout you Saber?" Ranma was glad that he had Shirou there to keep things moving.

"I agree, we can discuss our differences another time, it is more important for you to know what you are getting involved in." Saber responded with the quite dignity that seemed to be her normal state, apparently completely in control of herself once again.

"As powerful as the command spells are, they aren't the only reason that Servants serve Masters despite being vastly more powerful and often prideful beings. One reason is that the easiest way for a Servant to recover mana is through the link to its Master. The most important reason however is that without a bond with a Master, a Servant will disappear from this world in a matter of hours. This is why eliminating the Masters is the quickest and easiest way to win." Saber finished her explanation with a slight grimace, so Ranma figured that she wasn't too thrilled with that method.

"I'm not going ta go around killing other Masters so that plan's out; besides if the Servants stick around for hours afterwards we'd probably end up fighting them anyways." Ranma was quick to start pointing out what was wrong with that plan in the hope that she would stop trying to convince him to kill people; unfortunately she seemed unwilling to drop it without a fight as she immediately countered his point.

"A Servant that lost its master will likely attempt to find another Master so that it can continue to fight in the War rather than attempt to fight us."

"That doesn't matter. We're not going to kill the other Masters and that's final." Ranma finally had enough and put his foot down, but before he got carried away and started ranting about her trying to force him to kill he remembered something that he needed to ask Saber. "Hey, earlier you said that the easiest way for Servants to get ki is to take it from their Masters like yer doing ta me right now, right?"

"I said mana not ki, but yes that is correct."

"We're going ta need to go over this whole ki and mana thing later before it gets really confusing." Ranma pondered aloud as he really didn't feel up to having an in-depth discussion of meta-physics and energy manipulation this late at night, or ever really.

While Ranma was pondering that and trying to remember where he was going with his question Shirou started to collect the sandwich platter and tea cups. As he started to take them back to the kitchen he tripped over the first-aid kit and ended up launching everything at Ranma, including the now cold tea that was in the tea cups.

"What I wanted ta ask ya-" Just then Ranma noticed the incoming missiles and quickly grabbed all of them out of the air and had everything perfectly placed back on the platter almost instantly as his waitressing instincts took over.

"Hey Shirou you OK?" Ranma asked but for some reason Shirou wasn't responding and instead just staring open-mouthed at Ranma. Ranma shrugged and figured that they must have pretty tame restaurants around here for him to be that shocked by the display; conveniently missing the way Shirou reacted to said shrug.

"I'll just take these inta the kitchen for ya, alright?" With that Ranma went into the kitchen and left Saber and Shirou to stare at each other in shock before he reappeared and started heading back to his seat.

"R-Ranma would you please explain what just happened" Saber finally managed to choke out as Ranma sat back down.

"Huh, all I did was grab some stuff outta the air, 'course getting it all on the platter with everything in the proper place without any rattling or nothing is a bit higher level, but it's still a pretty basic skill of Anything-goes Waitressing." Ranma explained a bit confused about why Saber was so shaken as she hadn't seemed the type to get rattled by something like that. "Why're you so shocked, I pulled off stuff a lot more impressive against Spearer earlier."

"That wasn't what I was referring to. You do know that you turned into a female correct? If Shirou didn't look so shocked I might have believed that he cast a spell on you but that since that doesn't seem to be the case hopefully you can explain what happened." Saber finally wound down after spitting all that out. Ranma made a mental note that Saber tended to ramble when shocked as she got ready to explain Jusenkyo.

"Remember when I said I was cursed? Well this is what I was talking 'bout, although now that I think 'bout it I should try to get all my curses cured." Ranma mused before continuing her explanation. "Anyway, yeah I turn into a girl when I'm splashed with cold water and turn back inta a guy with hot water. I got it from Jusenkyo, which is a training ground filled with cursed springs that will curse whoever falls inta them to change inta the form of whatever drowned in that spring. I fell inta the spring of drowned girl while my pops fell inta the spring of drowned panda."

"Ah, that is undoubtedly a most aggravating and unfortunate curse." Saber said with a sympathetic wince and oddly understanding look on her face.

Ranma was only too happy to air her complaints about the curse to a sympathetic ear and quickly launched into his own rant. "Yeah you said it. I mean it's bad enough to turn inta a girl after being told all my life 'bout how I was to be a man among men and junk, but the curse also turned me inta a water magnet so I get splashed all the time. Not only that but I always seem ta get turned inta a girl or back inta a guy at the worst possible moment. The damn curse causes so many misunderstanding, causes people ta treat me like a freak or a pervert, attracts all sorts of attention I don't want, and makes me weaker. All of that on top being turned inta a girl! I've tried ta cure it at least a dozen times, but it never seems ta work out so I really hope this all powerful cup or whatever can finally do the job." Ranma with a sigh and sat back down; having stood up and paced during her impassioned rant.

Noticing the slightly shell-shocked expressions on their faces, well extremely shell-shocked on Shirou, she quickly apologized for the rant. "Sorry 'bout that; the stupid curse screwed up my life even more than normal recently so I'm a bit touchy 'bout it still." Ranma explained sheepishly while scratching at the base of her pigtail and remembering that damned failed wedding and how she was still dealing with the fallout from it.

"Ah, no its good to get that sort of stuff off of your chest" Shirou finally said after finding his voice; although he lost it again when his little speech drew his attention to what Ranma would much rather have off her chest.

"You have my sympathies; that sounds even worse than I had expected." Saber chimed in, still with that same understanding look on her face. "I will be honored to work with you to claim the Grail and cure your curse. I am curious though, what other curses are you afflicted by?"

"Ah, thanks; I'm glad ta have yer help." Ranma mumbled, hoping that was a proper response while wishing that her pops had bothered to teach her how to deal with people who weren't out to kill or maim her. "I ain't entirely sure what other curses I got on me right now. I get cursed at least once a month so it's hard ta keep track. The last one had me talking like a pirate for a week."

"Talk like a pirate? Why? Who would use a curse like that?" Shirou asked bemusedly.

"Well, Gos was trying ta raise the ghost of Dread Pirate Rogers ta torment me, but he flubbed the spell and instead I got semi-possessed by the ghost of Rogers' parrot. Not much in the way of torment, but blurting out random pirate talk was annoying. Anyways, I think I got rid of all the other curses on me, but I ain't positive so better to be safe and just ask ta cure all my curses right?"

"A good idea." Saber replied a bit faintly. "It sounds as if you live a very eventful and dangerous life" Saber continued after she recovered from her shock. "I would be very interested in hearing more at a later time, but for now we should return to our previous discussion so that we can finish it gets too late."

"Oh, right! Let's see I think I had a question for ya before I got splashed, now what was it?" Ranma started racking her brain, but before he could remember what it was Shirou interrupted him.

"Do you think you could change back before we continue? It's kind of distracting…" Shirou trailed off embarrassed.

"Oops, I forgot all 'bout that. Thanks fer the reminder Shirou."

With that Ranma quickly stood and went into the kitchen to get some hot water. Since she figured Saber and Shirou would want to see him change he just filled a cup with hot water and grabbed a towel before heading back out. Once he had their attention he quickly upended the cup over himself and nearly chuckled at their looks when they saw him change from a small well-developed red-head to his much larger male form.

After sitting down he started up the discussion once more. "Well I remembered what I wanted ta ask ya Saber." After seeing her motion for him to continue he did just that. "What're the other ways for Servants ta get ki or mana or whatever?"

"Servants can forcibly drain mana from people, often killing them in the process. In fact this is the quickest way for a servant to build up their mana reserves so we can expect several Servants to do this, regardless of how much mana they are receiving from their Masters. It is a despicable, dishonorable act and you would have to use a command spell to force me to perform such an act." Saber explained in voice that was completely dead and devoid of feeling, which did more to impress on Ranma just how opposed she was to such acts than her words did.

He was thus quick to assure her that nothing of the sort would ever happen. "Woah, nobody's going to be draining anybody on my watch, so calm down already."

Saber winced slightly for some reason at that before responding. "I apologize for forming hasty and faulty assumptions of you. I should have remembered how adamantly opposed you were to killing and realized that you had a different reason for asking your question."

With that she gave a slight bow of her head towards Ranma.

"Wait, so you thought that I was askin' cause I was looking fer a way to give you a power up?" Ranma questioned before deciding to just move on to the real reason he had asked the question. "I was askin' cause I'm tryin' ta figure out if these Servants are the ones behind the murders and 'gas leaks' that put people in comas."

"It is highly likely that a Servant or more likely Servants are behind these cases, especially if they started occurring in the past week or two. As the War has yet to truly start they are likely to commit even worse atrocities as the War continues." Saber confirmed his suspicions with a serious look on her face.

"Well then our first priority is to find and stop the ones behind them as soon as possible. That fine with you?" Ranma asked Saber.

"Yes. The quicker we can stop them the better." Saber agreed almost instantly.

After that exchange Shirou looked at Ranma with fire burning in his eyes before practically begging him. "Ranma, you said that you're here to stop whoever's doing this right? Then please let me help you. I can't just sit idly by while innocents are being killed." Ranma was impressed by just how determined Shirou was; before he had seemed like a nice, easy-going kid, but now he was deadly serious and looked like he was going to go out and kick those Servants' asses all by himself.

"Well, this is way bigger and nastier than I thought it would be, so I suppose I could use all the help I can get, but what exactly can you do? You said you're a mage or something so I suppose you have some sweet spells or maybe some potions that could help, right?" As loathe as Ranma was to admit that he might need help he figured that things were serious enough that he had to bite the bullet this time. His decision had nothing to do with how delicious those sandwiches were and wanting to find out how good a real meal would be, nope that didn't factor in at all.

"Ah, well I'm actually sort of a failure of a mage." Shirou admitted, looking down at the table with a flush on his face. "My father only taught me some of the basics and didn't pass down his mage crest to me."

"Mage crest?" Ranma was quick to enquire, figuring that if the other Masters were mages then he really needed to know more about them.

"You don't know what a mage crest is?" Shirou looked shocked; apparently he still thought that Ranma was a mage as well.

"Nope, I'm a martial artist, not a mage and most of the magic I've run across is from potions and magic artifacts, not some spell-slinger, so I know jack-all 'bout mages." Neither Shirou nor Saber looked particularly happy about that, probably 'cause that meant yet more explanations would be needed and Ranma figured they were as sick of those as he was.

"Well a Magic crest is essentially a repository of all a clan's magical knowledge that is inscribed on the heir's body. The mage is then able to use any spell in the crest simply by activating it instead of having to learn and perform the spell themselves." Shirou explained quickly.

"So what yer sayin' is that you can't actually do much." Ranma stated, getting back to Shirou's original explanation. "Then what about that metal pipe? You did something ta it when we first got here."

"That was Reinforcement. Basically I can use my magic to fix impurities in objects and strengthen them. It's also possible to use reinforcement on yourself, but I'm nowhere good enough to do that yet." Shirou admitted with a small shrug. "The only other magic I can do is Projection. That's where I use my magic to create a copy of an object, but I'm barely able to actually make anything and fail most times I try." Shirou finished with a grimace, but Ranma noted that the fire was still burning strong in his eyes.

"Saber? What do you think?" Ranma figured that Saber would know best just how useful Shirou's skills would be in the War; although Ranma thought they sounded pretty pathetic.

"Useless." There was no pity or scorn in her voice; instead it was the calm steady voice of an expert stating a simple fact. "A Servant could kill him instantly and any competent Master would have all the skills he has and many more besides. In a battle he would be nothing but a liability."

Rather than shrink down from the brutal critique Shirou weathered it with nothing more than a wince and a grimace before he leapt right back into the fray. "Even if I can't fight then there must be other things I can do to help. I can't turn away as long as there's some way for me to help." Shirou pleaded with an almost pained look on his face.

"Well what'd you have in mind?"

Shirou had to pause and actually think at that, but quickly came up with something. "Well, I know the town, so I could help you search for what you're looking for?"

"That won't be necessary; I am familiar with the town and you coming with us on patrol would just end with you in a battle." Saber was again quick to shut Shirou down.

"Wait, how do you know the town? I thought you were a legendary hero from the past?" Ranma asked. Saber actually winced at that so Ranma figured that he was onto something.

"That is something that we can discuss later. It is too complicated to get into right now."

"Alright; it's not like we haven't put off a lot of more important things already."

While all this was going on Shirou just sat there with his face scrunched up, thinking hard. Just as Ranma was finishing his reply Shirou began speaking again, too caught up in his new thought to notice that Ranma was still speaking. "Even if I can't patrol with you I can still be on the lookout for anything unusual and let you know if I find anything. I mean those Servants I saw were fighting at my school and I think the Master was wearing the school uniform. Not only that but you could use my house as your base and I'd be happy to cook meals for you."

"Hell yeah- I mean that sounds like a pretty good plan. This place would make a much better base than the crappy hotel room I'm in right now; I don't think I could even fit Saber in there at all." Ranma was of course enthused to get a proper place to stay and good food, but then he remembered that he still had to convince Saber to go along with it, as she looked like she still disapproved of the whole idea. "Hey, Shirou d'ya think you could leave us alone fer a bit while we talk it over? And I won't let you eavesdrop this time."

"That's fine. I'll just go to the storehouse in the back and see if I have any glass to replace the door with. Just come get me when you're done." Shirou then stood up and left, leaving Ranma and Saber alone.

"I am opposed to this." Saber started right up once they were sure that Shirou was gone. "We have no way of knowing how trustworthy this Emiya is. We have no true need of the help he can provide. Finally, by having him help us in such a way we would be putting him right back into the danger that you saved him from not two hours ago." Saber didn't look particularly angry as she said this, but instead just very stubborn and slightly exasperated.

"Oy Saber, remember what I said earlier? My 'base' right now is a tiny hotel room in a seedy inn. On top of that I only have enough money ta afford instant food and there's no way that'll give me enough energy ta fight a bunch of legendary heroes or whatever." Ranma couldn't help grimacing at the mere thought; as well as at remembering how those cheapskates on the city council would only cover his hotel room and not his food and refused to pay him anything until he finished the job. "Anyways, he seems pretty trustworthy ta me. I mean he hasn't tried ta kill or even hit me once. Hell he hasn't even gotten pissed off at me at all!"

As Ranma finished he noticed that Saber was once again looking at him strangely, probably over what he had just said, but hey he couldn't help it if everybody he knew was crazy.

"I am beginning to dread hearing about your life if that is how you measure how trustworthy somebody is." Saber shook her head as she said this before she continued. "I was referring more to whether we could trust him to keep our secrets not if he would try to kill us."

"Fine, we won't start telling him all our deep, dark secrets alright?" Ranma was getting a bit tired of how Saber just wouldn't let it drop; although it was better than the yelling matches he normally got into with people, those usually ended in a fight or a mallet.

"Very well, I suppose you have addressed my two main concerns with this course of action, but what about his safety? Surely we could find another source of food and lodgings that wouldn't put an innocent at risk."

"Sure, I could come up with something if I had ta, but I'd really rather not if I could avoid it. Besides I am trying ta keep Shirou safe, that's why I want him helping us."

"That doesn't make sense. How would helping us put him at less risk?"

"Did ya see his eyes and how he acted? That guy's got some serious fire in him and he's not goin' ta just drop this and do nothing now that he knows a bit about what's goin' on. If we don't let him help us he'd probably go on patrols by himself or something." Ranma hoped that Saber bought this crap; after all he wasn't going to give up on Shirou's cooking, but this was the last semi-believable reason he had left. If this didn't work then the only thing left would be to have Shirou cook a mouth-watering feast to tempt her.

"He did seem very determined" Saber mused on this for a bit before giving a short nod. "Very well, I will support this course of action, even if I think that it is likely to invite more problems than it will solve."

"Awesome! You're the best Saber." Ranma couldn't help but shout in joy and beam at Saber at the thought of all the delicious food that was sure to come. "Well, we should go tell Shirou the good news right now so let's just head out to the storehouse now."

"Yes! It's all about the delicious food!" Ranma couldn't help but whisper in victory as he headed toward the shed.

"Indeed" Saber muttered from behind, apparently her hearing was better than Ranma expected. She then froze and flushed red when Ranma turned around after catching what she said. They both stared at each other for a few seconds before Saber walked past Ranma, leaning close to whisper to him. "This never happened; is that understood?" Ranma nodded numbly, wisely choosing to keep his mouth shut. With that done they both headed to find Shirou.

Author's Notes:

Sorry for the lack of action this chapter, but I had to stick all that exposition in there somewhere. Hopefully the comedic breaks were enough to keep you awake. Now that I'm done apologizing let's get started talking about what I was trying to accomplish so that you can tell me how I did. My main goal this chapter was to cover as much of the set-up and explanations as I could while still keeping the chapter fast-paced and interesting. Should I continue to try and spice up future exposition scenes like I did here or should I just get it out as quickly as possible? My other major goal was to get Shirou involved in the story and keep him involved. Did I make it believable, or did it come across as forced (by me, not Ranma's taste buds)? On a related note did I do a good job portraying Shirou, or did he come across as being OOC? My final question has to do with Ranma. I tried to make his speech very rough and informal, did this help make him sound more like Ranma, or just annoy you?

As a special bonus for those of you who read this far I present Chapter 4 "Berserker!" Sneak Preview:

Our heroes venture out into the night to visit a haunting church, what will they learn there? A devastating new opponent appears! Can our heroes work together to overcome this threat? Finally what horrors are brewing in the Emiya house? Be prepared, as the next chapter might answer some of these questions.