The Priest.
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Disclaimer: No monetary gain is made from this.
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The paper was thin to the touch, the directions upon it scribbled hastily and near illegible. I took one last look upon the chicken scratches before discarding it from my hand and retrieving my luggage with my singular, left arm moving quickly amongst the surprisingly large amount of people that were bustling in and out of the railway station. As an Executor for the last decade of my life and the many trips I had taken upon trains, seeing such a large crowd in a station was odd, especially in the middle of work week.
Judging from the large amounts of luggage that many folks carried I had no doubt that most were either about to take very long vacations or moving out of the city outright. I could see no harm in the situation however, since if an executor as famed as Father Garterbelt had called for aid to handle the apparitions of malevolent souls that flocked to the city due to the sheer sheet that separated it from the realms of spirits, I would most certainly encourage the masses to vacate the city as soon as they possibly could.
As soon as I reached the entrance of the train station, my exit, I immediately spotted the young man in a green jumpsuit and headphones that held aloft a sign declaring:
Father Kotomine.
In bold, red letters was the name of the man who raised me, taught me, acted as my father and ripped off my right arm with an unmistakable gleam of happiness nearly eleven years ago. It was my own name, of course, and it was registered in every government database known to man as such due to my lack of attention whilst I filled out the singular form that would be encoded and encrypted into every database known to man. As such I was to carry the name of the man who was only happy when he caused suffering unto others alongside my own till I die.
I made my way towards him, schooling my features into the morbid and serious features that was expected of a Church executor. If the boy was surprised at my lack of limb due to the useless sleeve on my right side he did not show it upon his features. The only hesitation I saw, augmented heavily with my training regarding how to deal with the civilian populace, was the slightest tensing of his neck muscles. Taking into account the training that I clearly saw as he carefully crafted his features into a wide smile beneath his near-orange, russet bangs I could haphazardly label him as the steadily growing population of rebellious teenagers running away from their lives of extravagance in favor of the sedentary lifestyle of the sheep that had made their fathers rich.
"Father Kotomine, I am here to guide you to the church." He stated in English within the Japanese town. Despite the simplicity of the phrase I was suitably impressed of the teenager's attempt to speak to me in the near-universal language instead of immediately divining I was able to speak Japanese due to my name. "I welcome you to this humble cit-"
"No need to speak to me in English, my child." I stated warmly with the slightest of smiles I could offer. This boy was most certainly sharp in how to deal with superiors, closing the topic of his upbringing by an enterprising entrepreneur to a satisfying correct conclusion to my deductive abilities. "I have yet to forget how to speak my homeland's language after all these years."
He was dumbfounded the merest of moments before the fake smile split into a smaller, slightly truer smile.
We exchanged a few more pleasantries, him only politely inquiring about my missing arm once which I responded with the polite statement that the man who had done it had found peace in the end. He offered to carry my luggage in the odd silence that followed, which I gratefully accepted merely to see his eyes widen beneath his bangs laboriously widen as he attempted to hold the forty pound steel briefcase that held most of my equipment. The slight tingling of happiness at his discomfort was noticeably subdued, and I regarded that with high spirits. Living with the man who bred me to essentially to cause grief in another man for so many years had skewed my happiness towards the misery of others as it did to him. As I child it was the only way I knew to gain happiness outside the grey walls and Spartan designs of where I lived.
The difficulty of suppressing the instinct to harm for my own happiness had been titanic the first years after his death, but decades from that point I could happily admit that I did not do it any more than a sadistic child.
We passed the entrance of an alleyway for the briefest of seconds, and my companion finally caught up with a laborious heave.
A faint growling was steadily emanating from the darkness of the alley, I did not believe in the slightest that it was some sort of wild animal as no scent came from the wind.
"Is something wrong, Kotomine-sama?" Brief, the boy's name, asked nervously.
I ignored him, looking upward and settling my gaze upon the church spire four blocks away. He would most certainly here the exorcism no matter how fast he ran.
"Put your auditory machine on." I stated in a tone that would broker no objection, the brittle noise that was my voice with the tone immediately had him capitulate to my demands. Once the machine was properly placed, I gave him a nod and motioned for him to hand my briefcase.
I swiftly opened the case and pulled out the weapon supplied by the church for the numerous exorcisms that was predicted by Father Garterbelt. Holy steel, twice bathed in fire burning from the eternal flame from a dragons heart, inscribed with seventy-seven litanies of each prophet and a grain of wood from the crucifix He had died upon at its center, the metallic grey bullets at the tip of the Fifty Caliber shell was surrounded by grains of a chemical composition made in conjunction with the alchemists of Atlas to propel the work of blessed art to speeds of near relativistic speeds and cross the span of a mile the moment ordinary fifty caliber bullets were halfway through the barrel of their respective cannons.
There were many places I could appropriate clothing and toiletries, so the entire briefcase was filled by the rounds within that were optimized into cones to not waste space.
To the boy beside me it must have seen as if he was looking upon enough bullets to wage a small war.
I quickly unbuttoned my vestment until I was able to withdraw the delivery system for the weapon, that was harnessed against my side.
The weapon was called Trinity, as it had a barrel for each aspect of God.
I had only loaded the final shell when the pitiful soul struck. More of a fragment of a hate filled consciousness the wisp was circular in mass and charged at the boy. I saw no shadow at its feet, symbolizing its incorpeal form or a way to stop its attack from endangering the boy. Despite the near-superhuman levels of my body I would be unable to save the boy simply because a bullet that was issued from the mouth of the weapon in my hand would burn off his extremities from the residual heat or flash fry his lungs.
Just as the spirit's maw was about to engulf the boy a blur of white, pink and black blurred and encapsulated him and landed by my side.
"What you waiting for fool?" Issued from the man standing by my side yet looking the other direction, his sharp eyes, button nose and massive afro easily marking him as my fellow priest. Clad in ceremonial vestments of white and pink that following words brought a smile to my face. "Waste that motherfucker."
I began to recite the litanies to activate the weapon, a second more than enough to say it all.
I pulled back the hammer, mechanisms instantly doing the same to the other three.
"O pitiful shadow lost in the darkness; You born of the hatred of those between Heaven and Hell!"
I lined up the three silver barrels of Trinity towards the advancing, maddened spirit that grew disproportionately as dozens of others joined it as its rage drew them like moths. The first litany activating a singular line of scripture upon the weapon to stop the round within from destroying the barrel utterly. The same runes were placed upon the ark by Noah himself.
"May the thunderous power of these holy weapons strike true; Let these mighty weapons made for your destruction guide you to peace!"
The second verse of the litany sparked the second line of scripture that encircled the three fastened barrels, the runes engraved upon David upon the three river stones he had used to slay Goliath to ensure that the shot will strike the enemy.
"Shattering your loathsome impurity with these divine weapons; These warheads shall strike you down with righteous anger and great vengeance!"
The three barrels lit up as the runes within generated the sonic waves that the Israelites used in their trumpets to bring down the walls of Jericho as commanded by Joshua, the man chosen by Moses to lead them to the land of milk and honey. The continuous blast stopped the advance of the furious conglomeration of evil spirits in its tracks, its incorpeal form useless against raw energy. It was only a secondary feature of the holy runes though… its main function was to prevent the weapon from igniting the atmosphere.
"Repent, Motherfucker!"
I pulled the trigger, and three hammers slammed into chambers to issue forth the holy warheads, the few molecules that had hastily returned into the vacuum quickly turning into a trail of blue plasma that lingered behind the divine, spiraling shells.
The bullets sank into the red yellow and black creature and for the briefest of moments Shirou Kotomine heard the words "O SHI-" before the warheads exploded within and disintegrated the beast without so much as a trace of it left.
A dozen coins hit the ground, swiftly gathered by the black priest with a smug impression upon his features, I unloaded the spent cartridges from the weapon just as an unusual smile crossed his lips and swiftly slapped my on the back after dropping the coins into the dazed Brief's hands.
"You and me, kid." The famous priest stated, "We'll be going a long ways together."
….
Panty Stockings and Garterbelt X Fate/Stay night.