Saber tilts her head, as a predator might when it needs to take in extra sensory information to process a situation. She blinks, also like a predator but this time in the manner of one invited to a tea party. Silence is her only master for the better part of a minute. She shares a long and weary look with Lancer before her body folds into an energy-conserving hunch.

The people of this new world were unimaginably strange. The surest sign that the gods were all dead was that none of the innocents living here now had the single slightest clue of how things used to be. They couldn't possibly understand that and still be as they are.

"You can increase your mana supply by winning a battle against a specific worthy," she says through a clenched jaw, "I do not need to understand the politics of the matter. Very well. I advise that we move swiftly in that case, and advance this plan to a point where it cannot be easily unwound. If we are slow to act my Master will surely attempt to cut it off; she will have a poem prepared about the wrongness of grasping for power and then no doubt will burn a Command Seal compelling me to insist you live like beggars. Not that I am bitter."

Her scowl is, somehow, even toothier than her smile. Row after row of razor teeth show themselves as she works her jaw, but the aggression dissolves into a sigh. It is impossible to remain worked up in this state. Not about anything other than her target, and with it so far removed it's like her heart has been sealed inside a wooden box. 

"I assume, however, there are severe penalties for losing this ritual combat? You prioritized an alliance over securing your personal power: this tells me it was beyond your reach without my involvement, right of title or no. In that case we must be sure of ourselves before we proceed, even with our need for haste."

Saber's body hunches even lower, striking the animal pose she fought and hunted with when she first arrived, holding her shattered sword in front of her like a battle-chipped claw. There is a flash of a smirk, only for an instant, before it is once again swallowed by the cold calculation engine of the Valkyrie. 

"Come at me, little shieldmaiden. Princess though you are, I would test your mettle here. Fight as if you mean to kill me. When you fail we will be able to discuss what tactics and aid will properly secure your victory."