"EXCALIBER!"
Too fast!
The hurricane from the sword's blade as if it cut straight through the dimension blazed, generating a blinding white light Fallen barely managed to look away from.
There was no wind, just raw power slamming squarely into its target, obliterating everything in its path.
The bright burst of white lasted only a few seconds before everything fell into near darkness again. It was minutes later that the witnesses of the event could make out the dull orange of twilight in the sky.
The cracked and broken ground split both ways to the north, where entire trees were destroyed and nearby ones left alight in flame.
Still, impossibly, there was a silhouette in the dark of the dust.
"It's not possible!" Saber panted, eyes widening in spite of the dirty quality of the air. Behind her, her master fell to her knees, clutching her chest in agony of the loss of mana in the strike against the opponent.
"Master!" a young voice coughed. The voice was followed by a distinct thud of weight falling against the packed earth. "Are you hurt?"
The young boy, already a prodigy in his age as a powerful magi remained silent. Abruptly, he began crying, sobbing loudly, unashamed as his servant began hushing him, not in disgrace, but in love. Motherly love.
The dust cleared to reveal the servant kneeling at his eye level, and an impossible sight of jet black wings protruding from her back. Damaged as it was from protecting the two from the blast, it was halfway around the sobbing mess that was the boy dressed in servant garb.
"Shush, Nicholas," the servant cooed, stroking at his dust covered face. She'd hoped that calling to him with his given name instead of master would urge him to listen to her words which he had ignored to seeing her broken wings. He quietened as she brushed his tears away gently. "Now, I need you to do something for me, alright?"
Hesitating, he nodded. Talking is good, right? If she is talking, she is fine, right? He thought, almost desperately.
His servant could hear it as clear as it as if he spoke them out loud.
The wave of sorrow almost overwhelmed her.
I don't want to do this again! She mentally sobbed as she looked down, unable to meet the boy's eyes.
"What do you need, Miss Fallen?" he urged, anxious to help the woman – to him – who had protected him for the past month.
The youthful and light voice steeled her resolve.
"I need you to stop giving me your mana," She said, staring into his eyes. "I need you to cut all magical ties with me."
"What?" the boy reflexively said, then stark realisation dawned in his dark eyes. "You'll die! You'll fade away!" Though young, he had read enough to know that mana was essentially the lifeblood of all servants summoned from the other realm; without it, the woman before him cannot recover from her injuries. And cannot sustain existence.
"Nicholas, you will die if you keep giving me mana like you are doing now," she tried again, already seeing the helplessness surface every pore on the boy's body. "Stop, please," she tried to force the warmth she feel emanating from the boy's side of the astral bond away; severing the link. "Just do it for me. I promise you, I won't die, I won't leave your side," she prodded, lying in a ditch attempt. It would hurt him, but he would recover from it eventually, she reasoned, almost unwillingly speaking the words. After all, he recreated the philosopher's stone in the future.
The struggle was evident in the boy's darting eyes. "You promise?"
"I promise,"
Slowly, but surely, the warmth seeped from the servant's chest, flowing away to an unknown source.
"Thank you, Nicholas," she smiled, hugging him tightly around his shoulders. One last thing.
"Saber and your master," she called out, turning around to face the pair now standing across the field sideways. "My master will withdraw from the Holy War. I need your word to allow him peace in the rest of the course of this war."
The two woman, one clothed in medieval armour with an, oddly enough, dress beneath, and the master behind her dressed in a noble folk gown regarded the barely of age woman with the child, looking more like a mother embracing her child after years separated. They did not look like combatants in the Holy War, sans the servant's ebony black wings.
The noble replied, "You have my word. The boy shall also be raised in my care should other masters seek to destroy him."
"You too have my word," Saber repeated.
The servant nodded her thanks, coughing again, this time to a torrent of liquid ruby she could not swallow back in time. Blood flowed almost freely down her chin.
"No! You promised!" The boy's small hands grabbed at her face, forcing her to face him. He squeezed his eyes shut; concentrating on pushing his mana into her body but the servant felt no warmth in her core, just a void that was neither hot nor cold. Once the bond began deteriorating, she knew it would take more mana than the boy was capable of wielding to forge. It was impossible.
"Sorry," she murmured, her downcast gaze settled on the boy's wet face. Oh dear, he is crying again, she slowly wiped a knuckle on his cheek. She could feel the heaviness settling in; the moment of death.
She had only experienced it twice before, but it was horrifying enough to recognise itself. She let her eyelids sink in preparation for the inevitable, letting her forehead touch the boy's, exhaling a sigh, content to see the one she wanted to protect before she went. Then she fluttered away little by little, turning into dust in the evening breeze.
A/N:
Yes, for those of you who guessed it, Nicholas is really Nicholas Flamel, as a kid. And I was actually sort of aiming for Rin's ancestor for the master of Saber. I guess the attempt was pretty...half-*ssed... :(
Yikes, the entire thing is very rough, especially with some holes I think here and there =( Sorry, I am about half asleep right now... (1:18am local time XO ) Will redo if I have the time to do it.
I don't own Fate/Stay Night.