#singularity f

Section 9: The Dark Cave

Eva does not like being in a cave. She isn’t particularly claustrophobic or anything, but between the tiredness, the anxiety, and her injuries, she just really doesn’t feel like hiking through a cave to fight evil servants. (Something she would normally be very up for doing.)

Panics just about as much as Olga when Archer shows up, and does her best to dash behind Mash, hiding her limp. Sadly, the grail mud has corrupted him way too much for her to even try to guess who he might’ve been beforehand. If they’re going to fight, they’re going to have to go in mostly blind as to how powerful he is - the exception being anything Caster already knows.

Now that Mash has her phantasm, Eva’s actually regained some confidence in giving orders during fights. While she was struggling before, during their fight with Archer, she manages to stay behind Mash most of the time and call out her orders confidently!

It takes a while, but they eventually manage to take down Archer after taking hit after hit after hit. Eva’s very grateful that Mash is a Shielder, because she’s pretty uniquely equipped to have drawn-out fights against long-range attackers like this.

Going into her fight with Saber, she’s actually really confident that she’s going to be able to win, so long as she has Mash tanking blows and Caster attacking. One might say she’s actually just a bit too confident…

Section 10: Facing the Greater Grail

Stopping right before the grail, Eva still doesn’t have any doubts, and honestly, kinda wants to just rush in there and get stuff done. Caster’s affirmations that that’s the right attitude only spur her on.

But she gets tricked into resting again beforehand. (“Oh, I guess I should let everyone else rest,” she tells herself because she must justify every break as something other than giving herself a break.)

She’s not that surprised to learn about how her magic circuits are being stressed - she’d pretty much identified that issue already herself. Despite this being an obvious chance to mention that ankle injury she’s been neglecting… She’s actually forgotten it’s there at the moment. She’s so hyped up for this last fight that she can’t feel it at all, and is just naturally shifting her weight off of it when she needs to. 

She’s never going to turn down tea, though! She actually puts a worrying amount of honey in hers - enough to make the others stare in concern. (“It’s fine, I’m just trying to keep my energy up and all that!” “Senpai, the tea already has caffeine in it.” “...I like honey?”) She doesn’t admit it to herself, but she really needed this break. By the time they’re all done and have packed things up, the lingering bits of anxiety, regret, and fear are gone, leaving only her determination to finish things.

That said… Olga I’m glad you finally acknowledged her but couldn’t you have saved it for after the final battle? All of this praise is really going to her head. And she needs it. But she also needs to go into this remembering she isn’t going to automatically win… It’s good though, that she’s had this chance to regain her wits and laugh a bit at Olga’s tsundere-ness. 

Those skeletons that show up? Bold of you to think she doesn’t know how to deal with them by now. *cue fight sound effects*

Section 11: Grand Order

Eva is astonished by the sheer size of the Greater Grail when she first sees it. She’d read about it in correspondence to Holy Grail Wars back during her research, but no amount of reading can prepare you for seeing something like that in person. She’s snapped out of it, though, when Saber notices their group.

Upon learning that Saber’s strength is mostly in her magical output, Eva’s confidence is bolstered once again. She may be trash when it comes to physical capability, but she knows magic. If Saber’s attacks are powered by magic, there’s a chance that they won’t even have to take her down the normal way. Maybe there’s a way to find a loophole in how her magic works! That would certainly be more efficient. 

It was very wrong for her to be as confident as she was going into this fight. Things start off pretty well initially, with Mash guarding against each and every strike. But there’s a big difference this time. Saber’s large attacks may be magical, and long-range, but she’s also bombarding them with lots of close-ranged physical blows. While the shield is still somewhat effective, it quickly becomes too heavy for Mash to easily move to block every strike.

As soon as Saber gets her first hit in, everything goes downhill. She’s through their defenses now, and starts forgoing attacking Mash in favor of taking out Caster, their offence. Luckily, with a bit of a magic assist from Eva, Mash manages to get back on her feet and draw Saber’s attention again when she bashes her with the shield.

Mash manages to hold out for longer before getting hit this time, but eventually, her defense is broken yet again. Eva starts reciting a healing spell again, but Saber catches her this time, rushing towards her in an attempt to take out the Master. Eva just barely manages to dodge her, tripping over her own legs, and further spraining her ankle. She tries to get back up and keep running, but she finds she can’t put any weight on her right foot now, not without pain too great for even the adrenaline to get rid of.

But just as Saber’s about to get in that final hit, Mash rushes in out of nowhere, blocking the sword with only one hand on her shield, the other compressing the gash she’s got on her side. Saber pulls back, preparing to unleash her Noble Phantasm, while Eva desperately rushes through the healing spell to get Mash back to full capacity. She manages to finish just as it fires, with Mash activating her own phantasm on instinct before they’re obliterated. The beam reflects off the shield, weakened, but some of the attack still hits Saber. 

As Saber dies, Eva is dragged up to standing by Mash, who then lets her hold onto part of her shield as a temporary crutch. But before Saber truly fades away, Eva does her best to remember two things: Firstly, that Saber unintentionally held back against Mash at the end of the fight, implying that something fishy is up. Perhaps there’s a connection between the king and the servant Mash fused with? Secondly, she notes that Saber refers to Caster as Ireland’s Child of Light, which, combined with the previous mentions of him also being a Lancer, is more than enough for Eva to commit to memory that that’s definitely Cú Chulainn.

Eva’s annoyed with how injured her leg is, and how that’s mostly her fault, but she’s very satisfied with the fact that they won, and is grinning like a madwoman… Up until she notices Olga spacing out. She’s still riding that high from winning, but doubt is slowly starting to creep in. This can’t be the end. Something’s not right.

And so, when she hears Lev’s voice and sees him step out in front of the grail, instead of pure dread - though you better bet she’s feeling dread - her reaction is more of just a long sigh accompanied by a facepalm. She’s tired, injured, and hyped up right now. Nothing makes sense anyways so you know what, sure, Lev is a bad guy now.

She limps behind Mash again, cringing whenever she has to step on her injured leg. And then Olga runs up to Lev. And the dread gets worse. 

Eva isn’t at all confused by learning that Olga’s actually dead, even as she stands there in front of them - magically, it makes perfect sense. But she can’t help feeling sad, and guilty. The reality of everything is just now starting to fully hit her, with the adrenaline slowly draining away. Hundreds of people died in that explosion back at Chaldea. Including the woman standing in front of her. And she couldn’t do anything to stop it. She didn’t cause those deaths, but she also didn’t save a single person. And now, all that dread is mixing with the weight of those deaths, and the stress is starting to build, and the pain in her leg seems so much more prevalent now, and she can’t stop herself from breathing faster, and faster, and faster-

And then it all seems to stop. She stops breathing. She stops blinking. She stops moving. All she can feel is her heartbeat and the sharp pain shooting up her leg, as she looks on in horror as any hope she might have had of Olga surviving is erased forever, accompanied by cries of how this woman - someone with issues scarily similar to the ones that Eva’s subconscious knows she has - will never be good enough, how she’s never been properly acknowledged…

Mash has to snap her out of it, placing a firm hand on Eva’s shoulder. She starts breathing. She starts blinking. But she’s still frozen, stuck in a state somewhere in between being in the moment and the abyss of her own anxiety.

She doesn’t register most of what Lev says, only clinging onto two things. They’re all probably gonna die right now. And a name. Flauros. Something in her memory begs for her to think just a second longer, that she knows something about that name - but her mind’s not operating correctly right now, and before she can remember what it means, the panic takes over once again. They're all going to die right now.

As the cavern begins to collapse, Eva is frozen again, her mind full of panic and replays of Olga’s screams and the thought that she’s about to die without having accomplished anything and the nagging feeling that if she could just think she’d figure all of this out rather quickly. And within a few seconds, it’s too much, and her vision starts to cloud, the last thing she registers before passing out being Mash yelling and grabbing her by the waist in desperation.

By the time she wakes up in Chaldea, the panic seems to have mostly subsided, in favor of confusion. Her leg has a boot on it now, and she can remember enough to know that she injured it. And something in the back of her mind keeps telling her that there’s one detail she needs to remember, that it’ll make things make sense… But she just can’t.

In her haze, she doesn’t even really question Da Vinci’s presence - she’s just glad that she seems to be alive. And while the vague reminders that she’s got a lot of responsibility now begin to drag in that all too familiar stress… She just needs to get to the command room. Maybe someone there can remember whatever it is that she’s forgotten. Maybe she can figure out what the hell happened back in the cave after Olga-

Nope. She’s not gonna think about that.

She spends most of the briefing Roman gives her in denial. There’s no way she managed to actually save Mash back there. There’s no way that all of humanity is dead for all time. There’s no way that if it is, she’d ever be able to save it. But when she’s asked if she’ll do it… 

She says she will. Because that’s the only thing to say. Because she can’t let these few people that seem to believe in her down. All of the guilt and stress and need to remember is still in her system, but she can pretend it isn’t there. For their sake. She’ll become a Master and “save humanity.” If it’s the last thing she does.

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Section 1: Burning City

Goes into a mild panic when Mash accidentally says she’s going to kill her if she doesn’t wake up. This panic is further escalated when she does get up and finds that they’re in the middle of a burning city, surrounded by monsters. Forget waking up in a hallway this is so much worse.

Does her best to direct Mash in fending off all the skeletons, but is a lot more unsure of herself and anxious than she was in the simulator. There’s a lot of only just barely calling stuff out in time and glancing behind herself out of fear. They manage to defeat the immediate threat, but Eva still feels jumpy and far from safe. The sheer amount of fire isn’t helping things either. I mean, they just left a destructive fire to be thrown into… A destructive fire. Not the outcome she was hoping for. 

Starts to calm down a little bit when Roman manages to reach them through the comms system, and then promptly goes back to containing her anxiety attack when it's mentioned that there was a possibility she could have “lost her existence” during that rayshift. What if that happens on the way back? Can they even get back? Are they stranded in a random burning city?

The panic remains a constant in the back of her mind, never really leaving… But she does get a bit of relief when it’s revealed that Mash is now a demi-servant. She’s absolutely fascinated by how that could have happened - in all her research, she’s never heard of anything like what just happened to Mash. Of course, her second immediate instinct is to try to discern what servant Mash fused with. She doesn’t really know anything at the moment, only having the information that they were male and probably had a giant shield. But it’s better than nothing.

“Try not to worry,” says Roman. I don’t blame him for not knowing but worrying is half of what Eva does so I think that she’s gonna keep worrying regardless. Even if there’s nothing to worry about she’s gonna worry. She could worry about whether or not she’s gonna accidentally kill herself with her own pencil… 

She feels a bit worried when she hears that Mash is going to be relying on her magical energy feed since well… As far as she knows it’s not really enough to support a servant. But she’s just not gonna mention that and continue hoping that she makes it out of here alive. After all, Mash wasn’t a servant before. Surely that means she won’t vanish if Eva starts running out of energy, right?

When Roman cuts out due to the unstable power, she takes a deep breath, forces the anxiety as far away from the surface as she can, and switches to focusing on the goal. They’ve gotta get to the leyline, and for now they shouldn’t worry about anything other than that. Just take it one step at a time. 

She’s actually increasingly grateful that Fou ended up rayshifting with them, having a cute furball around gets rid of at least a tiny bit of all the stress she’s feeling. She’s just gotta make sure it doesn’t attack her face when she tries to pet it. She also finds Fou hilarious in just how much it makes fun of everyone, which might actually be a better stress outlet than just petting it.

Section 2: To the Spirit Meridian

On the way to the leyline, her mind is moving a million miles an hour between trying to figure out what servant Mash is, to trying to explain the abnormal mana density, to theorizing how one could even create a singularity.

When they rush over to find Olga Marie her initial reaction is to sigh (well, as much as she can while trying not to inhale too much smoke). But after a few seconds she figures that she might be able to get back on the director’s good side if she proves herself here. 

She tries to cut in with an explanation when Olga questions why the demi-servant experiment was only just now successful, but just ends up drawing attention to herself and getting yelled at.

Doesn’t appreciate being reminded again how she’s a crappy mage who shouldn’t be able to contract servants… Her immediate reaction is to launch into a lecture about why she’s more capable than her magic circuits would make her seem, but Mash cuts her off by saying she forced the contract. She didn’t know that before, and is honestly a little disappointed that this was forced instead of a natural thing that happened. But she’s a master nonetheless, and so she’s just gonna try to prove that she’s a good one no matter the circumstances.

The number of times Olga tries to repeat things to her that she already understands is astounding, but she sits through it each and every time because she knows it’s better to put up with it than to keep getting on her bad side by acting like a smart ass. (She has to hold back laughter when Olga doesn’t realize she’s actually standing on the Leyline point. How could she not have realized that? The mana in the air is obviously denser.)

Yet another panic surge when she hears that the remaining staff is less than 20 people. They might actually be trapped with no way to get back if the staff is that small. Can they even operate the rayshift tech properly? Luckily she gets some relief from hearing that the other Masters can be easily cryopreserved instead of dying. She wishes they could be more easily revived, but she’d rather they survive like that than just kick the bucket.

She might not be a fan of Olga Marie - heck, Olga Marie might be a major contributing factor to increasing stress levels - but she can get behind the fact that she wants to deal with the situation as quickly and efficiently as possible and get back to Chaldea.

Section 3: Investigate the Bridge

She’s so grateful every time monsters attack and cut Olga off though. Seriously. She doesn’t need to be lectured this many times in one day. She’s doing her dang job. Save unnecessary exposition for… When you aren’t in a burning city? 

It doesn’t help that Olga is pretty much completely useless whenever they are attacked. The most she can do is point out the enemy and scream. At least Eva is trying to support Mash and hinder enemies with magecraft. Olga is just… Olga.

Of course, when she finds out that she’s acting like that because she’s equally as stressed as Eva, Eva is pretty sympathetic. She definitely knows what it’s like to feel emotionally stretched and constantly anxious from work. From then on out, she basically never fights back against any verbal abuse she’s getting from Olga, because she knows where it’s coming from, and knows that if she returns that attitude, it’ll probably make things worse for all of them.

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Section 4: Investigate the Port Ruin

Eva is initially in a really good mood after learning that they’re basically stuck in the middle of a Grail War gone wrong. After all, that means there should be some people around, and more likely than people, servants. After just a few seconds she realizes that whoever is alive is probably a hostile servant, and that excitement promptly becomes terror.

The child makes sure to thank Mash after pretty much every fight, because really, why wouldn’t you thank the person doing most of the heavy lifting in terms of killing things. She figures she’d be dead if it weren’t for Mash so she’s gonna show that gratitude as much as possible.

Eva is now screaming only internally whenever she has to listen to lectures on magic she understands. Not even a quip. I mean, maybe there are advantages to pretending to be totally clueless? Who knows at this point.

She’s really tested when Olga says she’s fired as soon as they get back. She didn’t do anything to deserve getting fired! If anything, what she’s done so far should prove that that’s one of the worst possible options. Most of the staff is dead, they need as many people as they can get! Why the hell would you fire someone that’s proven they’re at least a bit capable?! She actually starts to yell back at one, but manages to stop herself before she does any real damage. She just cuts herself off with “the smoke must be getting to my head” or something like that.

Section 5: Investigate the Church Ruin

Eva gets tricked into resting for 10 seconds by justifying the break as checking up on Mash but then nope, no breaks here, more skeletons!

The skeletons aren’t an issue at this point but when a shadow servant shows up it’s all downhill from there. Olga’s no help, as expected, which is a bad thing in a fight like that. Mash gets pretty beat up, and Eva herself is positive that she must have sprained her ankle, but doesn’t mention it. Yay pretending you’re not wounded! (Not.)

When a second signal shows up just afterwards, the group knows they need to get the hell out of dodge. Eva runs away just a bit slower than the other two, trying to ignore the slight limp she’s got now as much as possible. She gets yelled at by Olga because she’s slow, but she takes it and just does her best to run faster while avoiding all of the flaming debris that’s littering… Well, everywhere. 

Section 6: Shadow Servant

And… There’s already another servant attack! She’s actually getting into the rhythm of fighting by now, and luckily, the running seems to have covered up the pain from her sprained ankle with pure adrenaline. She’s not even worried about proving her worth or anything right now. She just wants to stay alive. 

By the time a second one shows up she starts to worry a bit more than before, and her orders start to falter. But she ain’t going down yet. She can tell by now that these definitely aren’t ordinary servants, in part because of their physical appearance, but mostly because of their lack of any real thoughts. They act more like animals and servants, with their desire to just kill them, and so Eva actually manages to put aside any gripes she would have had about killing them, figuring that if they were normal servants at any point, they’re dead already.

The pain in her ankle starts to come back around when Mash gets injured, and with it, she notices just how hard she’s breathing, and the panic starts to resurface. When Caster shows up, she’s actually fully prepared for it to be another enemy, but this time, she’s lucky enough for it to be someone who isn’t a skeleton or a crazed, grail-infected maniac.

For just a moment, she’s ready to give into all of her panic, thinking she’s safe, before realizing that the fight isn’t actually over yet. Now that she’s let even a little panic back into the forefront of her mind, the fact that she doesn’t really know what she’s doing is on full display. Her reaction time to everything is delayed, meaning that Mash has to forgo attacking in favor of shielding her several times. Let’s be honest: If Caster hadn’t showed up, Eva probably would have died just now. 

By the time the fight is fully over, Eva’s all but collapsed on the ground. She’s mumbling answers to anything directed at her, doing all that she can to prevent crying, and trying to get weight off of her ankle as much as possible. She refuses to make eye contact with anyone, and any confidence that she had that she might be a capable Master is basically gone at this point. By the time Roman’s done explaining the situation to Caster, she’s managed to definitely prevent herself from crying, but her injury seems to be hurting more and more each minute, and she’s trying to keep her breath under control.

Some relief is given when she learns that defeating Saber is a possible way to resolve things, until she remembers that she couldn’t defeat any of the servants that Saber had already killed. Cue more panic, and her breath getting shakier than before. She’s dreading the next time someone tries to talk to her.

Of course, more skeletons show up before anyone does, which might have been worse. She managed to call out orders, but instead of her shouts sounding confident like they were initially, now they just sound desperate, and like she’s trying not to let her voice break in the middle of each word. She doesn’t notice that Olga’s glaring at her for showing weakness like this during the fight, but she sure does afterwards, and it does not help.

More than welcomes Caster calling out the fact that Olga doesn’t actually have the aptitude to be a Master, but at the same time isn’t sure how she feels about being responsible for another servant. She was scared enough about how Mash would fair under her command… And well, Mash has already gotten injured quite a few times. And she’s only a demi-servant. Does she even have enough mana to handle this arrangement?

Well she doesn’t exactly have a choice, so she’s gonna just go with it for now and keep concealing her emotions! Now all they’ve got to do is… Kill 3 servants and somehow deal with a corrupted grail. Yup. Just gotta get through that. And then, maybe, just maybe, she won’t get fired and can pull herself together for a few seconds.

Section 8: Mash’s Training

Surprisingly, Eva is genuinely glad that Mash hasn’t yet figured out how to use her Noble Phantasm. Right now, she’s unsure if she could even support a servant using one.

But as soon as everyone starts talking about it, she’s not going to just stay quiet, since it is an important matter. While everyone else seems to agree that it’s odd Mash can’t use it, Eva actually thinks that it’s perfectly reasonable. After all, Mash has no idea who she fused with, so she can’t very well figure out the True Name of the phantasm, or even have a clue what it’s meant to do. She also points out that everyone seems to think it’s her shield, when in reality, Noble Phantasms are only a servant’s main weapon maybe half of the time.

The others are actually surprised that she’d know enough to bring up those points, particularly Olga Marie. The director actually seems a bit annoyed that Eva managed to point that out, but she didn’t. Regardless, the team decides that it won’t hurt to try to figure it out for now, since they do have Caster with them. If they don’t figure it out, they’ll just worry about it some other time, maybe check Chaldea’s summoning records to narrow down the possibilities as to what servant Mash fused with.

What she doesn’t mention to the group is her other theory for why Mash can’t use her Noble Phantasm, and the one she thinks is more likely to be correct, that being that as a Master, she isn’t giving Mash enough mana to allow the use of a Noble Phantasm. She’s really hoping that doesn’t turn out to be the case, because she doesn’t need any more reasons to think she’s bad at this job.

Why did you draw the runes on Olga, Caster? Why not on the shield or something? We don’t want more of Olga whining in this house! (Better be damn glad Eva’s empathetic or else she probably would have tried to leave Olga to the skeletons at least once by now.)

…And then Caster decides to just go and say he’s gonna kill her. Fantabulous! Now everyone is panicking! Eva’s only bit of solace comes from the thought that maybe she actually can apply theory this one time and use a command seal if things get out of hand. At least. She hopes so. If not then… She’s dead. And that would be a serious issue.

Thankfully, Mash does manage to get her Phantasm working! Eva feels a little lightheaded afterwards, but she’s actually laughing and smiling again. It worked! She isn’t failing! She considered passing off that sprain that’s still bugging her as a consequence of this fight, but decides against it. After all, it hasn’t hindered her too badly so far…

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