The reaction of Berserkers master was less than stellar. Rather than indulging in such an excellent meal, and was simply playing around with his food. Moping about like this wouldn't do anything for either of them. There was a pretty grave difference between getting depressed about something, and being rustled up. Berserker preferred the later for a multitude of reasons. Her expression became far more neutral in response to his now negative mood. A very minor frown formed on her face, though it truly was not significant.

It wasn't like Berserker was dissapointed in her Master. However, sometimes both a praise and rebuke were necessary at the same time. Her Masters reaction may have been disappointing, but that quickly changed.

Maurius' depression began to evaporate before her very eyes. Her Masters words became increasingly bold and spirited. As if synchronized, her expression became steadily more pleased and poised in tandem. Whatever temporary ill mood had existed was certainly dispelled. Berserker closed her eyes, and then-

"Well said, Master." There was both amusement and a more than positive appraisal contained within those words. It was a simple response, but more than genuine.

With reflexes and speed befitting a Servant, the blonde woman stood up from her chair in a flash. It was a more than excitable thing to do, and it completely contrasted how she was acting previously. Not content to simply talk across the table, Berserker leaned forward as far as she possibly could.

Berserkers gaze seemed to bore through her Master, and it was as if his heart was laid out bare for survey. Thankfully, it seemed that his partner had not judged him wanting. The mad-servants next words were full of genuine fire and passion. She seemed more than pumped up about her Masters earnest response, no matter his previous lethargy.

"Indeed! A charged commander is quite the boon. You have blessed me twice now, Master." Berserker stopped leaning over the table. There was quite the smirk on her face, and she radiated self assurance.

"As long as you understand that victory is most important, then it will be trivial to conduct you toward it. Our opponents are too feeble to stand against me at any rate. We can only hope that their exits will make this war interesting for the both of us."

"Well..." Angelina took a sip of her tea, thinking Saber's question over carefully. If she was completely honest with herself, she hadn't really thought too much about the Church and their current ownership of the Grail. Not that it hadn't been on her mind, she just wasn't the kind of person to think too many steps ahead, she liked to take things one step at a time.

"It's true that the Church claims 'ownership' of the Grail as of right now, however...if they really own it so to speak, then a Grail War wouldn't have started at all would it? The Grail clearly doesn't think the Church has any right to it." At least, that's how Angelina saw it. The Grail had chosen her and six others to be masters, so it obviously 'wanted' them to try and claim it.

"To be honest, I'd be fine with the Church keeping the Grail if it meant this war didn't have to happen in the first place, but there's no stopping the Grail War, no matter what the Church does about it." Angelina adjusted how she sat on her chair, it was clear she was a bit tired.

"But, when I think about it, perhaps the Church being in possession of it can work in our favor...the Church is powerful, perhaps too powerful for any one master to simply snatch the Grail away from them. That might give the other masters enough incentive to at least consider teaming up, and I'd prefer that over fighting them. We just need to find another master who seems reasonable enough to..." It was then there was a knock on the door, a man's muffled voice said something in Italian about a delivery.

"Ah! The pizza is here...one sec..." Angelina got up and opened the door, she quickly paid the man and thanked him before taking the pizza and closing the door behind her. She brought the pizza box over to the table and set it down.

"How are you with sausage...I probably should of asked first but that's the topping on the pizza..." She opened the box to let Saber get a good look at the pizza in all its glory.

@XmasForJuan

"I see, so you are more concerned about the conflict brought about by the Grail rather than claiming it for yourself. In other words, even if you were to accept the Church as its rightful owner, the fact remains that others would not share your judgment and participate in this War regardless", Saber stated as she made sure of her Master's motive.

That being said, neither her Master's opinions nor her own would have normally mattered to her, as only the command 'to fight' would have been sufficient to command her to do battle. But Angelina was neither a warrior nor a commander, so Saber had to make sure that she was aware of what it meant to participate in an unjust battle. To be perfectly honest, Saber was still not completely convinced of her Master's mental fortitude, but decided that it would be for the best to let her experience the conflict to come for herself first and watch over her. Whether she would persist in her desire to fight or decide to spare herself from the conflict, Saber was obliged to follow her Master's will.

"Although I agree that this is a battle we cannot win by ourselves. For any organization to safeguard an artifact as powerful as the Grail and manage to keep it secure... that alone speaks volumes of their competence. Even the priests of my time wielded considerable power. To form a united front until the Grail can, at the very least, be secured would be most ideal, but communicating this desire may be a problem if the others do not believe our aid to be necessary. Although my abilities would be most compatible with the other Knight Classes or even Assassin, it would be hard to negotiate alliances when this War has been structured to allow for only a single victor..."

Before Saber could fall into deep though however, Angelina seemed to react to the arrival of their earlier placed delivery, "That was fast."

Letting her handle the transaction due to her own lingering unfamiliarity with this time period, Angelina eventually presented her with the sight of their dinner, a circular wheat-based dish topped with a number of ingredients, though the main star seemed to be what her Master called 'sausage'. The pizza was overall a messy blend of various intense smells that piqued Saber's interest, she herself being more used to the simpler cuisines of rice and whatever local vegetables and meats were available to them during any given time of the year. In other words, she was wholly unused to hearty and heavy dishes like the one currently presented before her. While she was naturally curious and interested in this foreign flavor, she didn't know quite where to start as her Master either forgot to or intentionally didn't set the table for their meal. Were they meant to eat it with their hands then? Not that she hadn't done so readily in the past, but the consumption of Onigiri was almost exclusively restricted to the field. Although now that she thought about it, the crust of the circular dish did seem curiously unspoiled by the red sauce, the dish itself being evenly cut into eight identical wedges, but wouldn't pulling out one cause the tip of the edge to dip and spill its contents on the ground?

"..."

Realizing that she had been silent for too long, Saber instead offered her Master to indulge in her meal first so that she may observe and follow her lead.

For now they had covered the most important topics and affirmed their contract as Master and Servant, so they could allow themselves a few hours of rest. While Saber would have preferred to familiarize herself with the streets of the foreign land she found herself in, neither did she want to needlessly burden her Master on the very day of her summoning. While it wasn't ideal, it was a compromise she would have to make.

Piedra y el archiduque de contratos como cimientos.
Ante el Ancestro Salvador,
Levante un muro contra la caída del viento,
Cerrando las cuatro puertas cardinales.

As he chanted, Ricardo allowed his magical energy to flow within himself and the space he had created.

Que el camino de tres bifurcaciones que se extiende hasta la Corona gire.
Llena. Llena. Llena. Llena. Llena.
Llénate cinco veces hasta hacerte añicos.

It was not a complex ritual. Far from it, in fact. It was simple enough that it could be reproduced by complete amateurs, if they just so happened to be called upon.

Yo declaro,
Tu cuerpo me servirá.
Mi destino será tu espada.
Sométete al llamado del Santo Grial.
Si te sometes a esta voluntad y esta razón…

The true summoning was brought about by the grail itself, while the magus simply provided an anchor for the spirit to materialize in this day and age. Such had been the system set in place by the three founding families of the Grail Wars in the Far East, and though it was still unclear how this ritual had found its way to Rome, there had been reason to believe the process remained the same for this iteration.

When some of the energy that had been circulating was syphoned away from his space, he knew he had his proof.

¡Responde!
¡Un juramento será hecho aquí!
Alcanzaré todas las virtudes del Paraíso.
Y dominaré todos los males del Infierno.
Séptimo cielo acogido por tres palabras de poder,
Preséntate ante mí desde el anillo de cadenas,
¡Protector del balance!

Just as he reached the incantation’s end, a gale erupted from the center of the circle, blowing out the candles and plunging the room into darkness.

Save for a faint glow in front of him.

Ricardo gave a cough as he breathed in the kicked up dust, but forced himself to lower the arm he had raised to reflexively cover his eyes.

His gaze immediately fell on the room’s other occupant. His breath fled him.

The young woman who stood over the summoning circle was suffused by a fading, otherworldly glow, as if to emphasize the special nature of her existence. A melancholic expression flitted across her features as she examined something in her hand — the catalyst that had been used to summon her. So focused was he in his scrutiny that her soft words barely reached him.

And then, as he had envisioned at the beginning of the ritual, the spirit swung a pale gaze at him. It was under the weight of steely eyes that he realized that the woman before him was every bit as dangerous as she was beautiful. Like a long knife wrapped in fine silks, perhaps she was made even more striking by the implied threat.

So this is how it feels to stand before a hero of mankind.

The woman—Assassin—spoke the words of contract, and that was enough to break him out of his reverie.

“Yes,” he proclaimed boldly. “My name is Ricardo Alcazar, and I am your Master for this War.”

“Then it is finalized, my Master...” Assassin said, feeling the contract between them solidify and bind them together as the surging energy crystalised the relationship between a Master and a Servant. Ricardo felt heat over his right hand, as though the words had awakened the Command Seals etched over it. He could feel that a path had now opened between them, and that his energy was flowing into her.

“Lets see to it that we do our best, shall we?” Giving a smile over to him, it was a small one that understated her graceful presence yet had its own delightful statements about her nature.

And then, as though giving close to a scene in the theater, the glow finally died, leaving the two in the dark. Yet that small gesture remained in his mind like the afterimage of a lightning bolt.

In spite of himself, Ricardo grinned as he began to step back down the path that lead to the circle. The sound of his shoes kicking the occasional knick knack out of the way made his position clear even in the poor lighting. In another situation, he may have considered it remarkable that in the midst of that wind, the candle fire had not caught onto the nearby cloth, but as it stood, he could think of little else but the other presence in the room.

“Nonetheless, I’m afraid this was a mistake after all. Perhaps if you had worn a skull mask or dark robes, but as it stands…” The switch clicked, and light filled the room. “A dark basement is much too dreary a place to converse with a Heroic Spirit, never mind a joven doncella. Please, follow me upstairs.”

She gave a small laugh in response to her master’s remarks. “Yes, perhaps this would have been the correct scenery if I had been one under the typical selection of my class. However, this should be suitable for a variety of other purposes if need be,” she said, casually giving a slight nod of her head in response to his invitation.

“Perhaps so, but for the time being… ah. It nearly slipped my mind.” He had barely taken two steps before he paused, swiveling to face her with a charming smile, encouraged by her amiability. “May I be so bold as to ask your name?”

With a cadence matching Ricardo’s, she was unsurprised by his sudden movement, holding a comfortable distance of a step or two between their individual climbs as if moving at the same pace of each other. She held her attention on him as she continued herself. “No need to worry Master, it wouldn’t be right to just introduce yourself without offering the same from myself,” she said with an equally charming and pleasant gaze.

“As you may have assumed, you can call me ‘Assassin’ in front of others, but my true name is—”

Seeing how Saber looked rather clueless on how to proceed, Angelina took the initiative and quickly grabbed two plates from the pantry. There wasn't a meal that could be much less formal than pizza, so Angelina casually grabbed two slices of pizza and put them on her plate, then proceeded to put another two pieces on the other plate and hand that one to Saber.

With that Angelina sat down again and picked up one of the pieces off her plate and took a bite in order to show Saber how to eat it. I never thought the first thing I'd be doing with my servant is teaching them how to eat pizza...

The earlier talk forgotten for the moment, Angelina waited eagerly to what Saber thought of the pizza. She waited for her to take a bite...

Following her Master's example, Saber mimicked Angelina's mannerisms and took her first bite of the offered meal.

She could feel a pair of blue eyes curiously studying her reaction, so it was inevitable that she would have to share with her host her opinion of the dish, though it appeared to be a surprisingly challenging task. Saber's delicate nose was assaulted by the strong smells long before the intense flavors had a chance to overwhelm her senses, her eyebrows furrowing in response to the sensation that wasn't particularly unpleasant. It was foreign and unfamiliar, but not bad. Even considering the reserved bite she took from one of her two slices, it took her a while to properly chew and savor the taste due to the crisp dough that remained slightly soft and chewy on the inside, as well as the accompaniment of stringy cheese and thickly sliced sausage. It wasn't that Saber had never eaten meat before, the occasional feast on local game and seasonal seafood wasn't uncommon, but the cuisine of her homeland was marked by much simpler flavors than these. In comparison, this pizza was a messy explosion of heavy flavors that lingered on one's tongue long after one had finished sampling them.

Was it good then? Saber decided to give voice to her thoughts after releasing that her Master's expectant gaze had yet to cease.

"It is good, I think? If I had to describe it I would say it was a particularly hearty dish, though it may take some time yet before I get used to the strong flavors of this Era. Please, don't let met stop you from enjoying your meal", Saber urged her Master who had seemingly been waiting for her reaction.

Nevertheless, Saber continued to indulge herself with small calculated bites, the sensation of a filled stomach, even if unnecessary, pleasant enough to soften her expression with satisfied warmth. Somewhere along the line she may have forgotten that she was a Servant meant to fight a bloody War, and that Angelina was her Master meant to wield her in battle. To her own detriment, the comforting presence of her Master was one that had somehow turned a Warrior of the Saber Class into an utterly docile familiar.