AN: Phew! What a way to finish a quarter! After three weeks of absolute madness, I bring to you all the next chapter of Fate/Stay Bleach! These chapters just seem to get longer and longer, don't they? As always, I'm always eager to hear everyone's thoughts, so please review or PM me with thoughts, questions and ideas.
I'd like to quickly thank everyone who reviewed, encouraged, or just simply favorited my first story. Everyone who's offered advice, asked questions and all that, thank you.
Lastly, I do not own BLEACH or Fate/Stay Night. I'm just borrowing them for an improbable but enjoyable story.
Of Souls and Swords: Part II
"What the hell is that thing?" Ichigo breathed as the beast's thunderous roar blew away the dust its arrival had created. The monstrous creature was human, or might have been at one point long ago, but now the… thing before him was twisted, warped into a grotesque mockery of its former shape. It wouldn't be too far off to think of the behemoth as Yammy's long-lost little brother. Heavily muscled yet balanced by his tall frame, there was no doubt this monster was agile as well as strong. The giant's skin looked to be made out of brownish lead, two dull, black metallic protrusions sweeping backwards from his elbows like rocky crags, furthering the inhuman impression. The monster's hair was as black as pitch and shaggy, falling behind his snarling face, one eye the molten gold of a forge's heart while the other blazed like a crimson star. Despite creating a crater on impact and standing at the bottom of it, the thing was still taller than Ichigo himself, making it almost as immense as Sajin Komamura. Though not quite as much of a giant as the captain or the Cero Espada, the sense of overwhelming, unreasoning rage the Servant exuded made the air thick and heavy, making him more intimidating by leagues. The titan only wore black bracers, heavy anklets and an armored skirt or kilt that encircled his waist.
'This is Berserker? Holy damn!' Ichigo backpedalled to a safer distance as the giant stepped out from the crater, easily hefting a massive stone axe-club roughly the size of Zangetsu like it was a mere feather. No underlying motivations shone through the giant's mismatched eyes, only madness and killing intent, a depthless fury promising slaughter to all who crossed its path.
Far from breaking beneath Berserker's stare like lesser beings, Ichigo stood firm, a veteran of worse monsters, including ones that hid behind less imposing facades. Far greater enemies had faced him, and he had stood victorious time and time again. This would be no different. Shock gave way to his neutral expression, an almost bored scowl.
A high, childish voice cut through the still air. "You'd better call your Servant, Onii-san! …Otherwise… Berserker will simply crush you!" Ilya giggled gleefully, as though this were nothing more than a schoolyard game. Her eyes, however, mimicked her Servant in their unreasoning anger. She wanted Ichigo's corpse shredded in a haze of crimson, and her Servant was more than ready to oblige her desire to paint the park with his blood.
Ichigo pulled out Kon's pill from his pocket and tossed it into his mouth without as much as a twinge of fear touching his face. As soon as he swallowed, his soul was freed from his body, battle-ready. To any normal person, it simply looked like Ichigo staggered and then changed his expression from an irritated scowl to sheer terror once he laid eyes on Berserker's massive, snarling form.
"PLEASE tell me you don't want me to fight that thing," Kon whimpered at the looming form of the titan as it advanced methodically, its eyes shifting quickly between Ichigo's soul form and his suddenly cowering body. Some tiny part of its expression hinted at confusion. A small glimmer reminded him that the soul should not be able to separate and maintain form while the body lived, but the giant didn't really care one way or the other. Reason was an alien concept to Berserker, the only driving impulse to smash them both into a bloody slurry.
"Kon, run. Retreat. Get the hell out of here as fast as you can. Rider, cover him until it's safe," Ichigo ordered, his tone leaving no room for argument as the cloth around Zangetsu unfurled and retracted like a serpent under its own power the moment his fingers closed around the grip. Not bothering to wait for a response, he hefted the cleaver over his shoulder.
He was so intent on Berserker that he didn't notice Illyasviel look square at him, the fury giving way to confusion. 'What just happened? Onii-san… split in two?'
From her hidden position, Rider's eyes widened at her Master's command. 'That's… insanity,' Was Ichigo completely out of his mind? That Servant obviously outclassed her in terms of raw power by several orders of magnitude! Was Ichigo actually intending to fight Berserker, a Heroic Spirit in a league of his own, alone?
She almost choked on her own tongue when he leveled his sword in a ready stance. He really intended to fight, and surely die beneath Berserker's overwhelming fury. She didn't dare reveal herself, but this was one order she couldn't obey. Something stopped her from moving, as if telling her that staying was the best course of action. Ichigo hadn't used a Command Spell, but this intuition rooted her in place, though she couldn't reason out why she suddenly felt that way.
Kon only hesitated for a moment before frantically tearing off, his inhumanly enhanced leg strength letting him leap up to the nearest roof, landing a few yards from the conflicted Servant. Her position and the angle he had of her out on the roof was, to Kon, almost obscenely sexy, prompting a tiny trickle of blood to come out of his nose before the gravity of the situation reasserted itself, forcing the lecherous soul to flatten himself against the roof and crawl up beside Rider, his toes digging in for a leap if necessary.
"Man, why does Ichigo always gotta do this kinda thing?" he complained quietly. He really wanted to run, but if something happened, he didn't want to be caught by another Servant or a Hollow, or worse, both. Turning to Rider in a bid for conversation to ease the tension, his words dropped back into his throat at her expression.
Rider's face was mostly still, but only because so many emotions were at war on it, each trying to tug her expression in a different direction. Even without seeing her eyes behind that blindfold of hers, he could easily see the grim line her mouth had set itself into, and the way her entire body tensed and relaxed, as though fighting with itself between moving and staying still. If she were holding her weapons, she likely would be squeezing them hard enough to leave finger impressions. She occasionally bit her lip and released it, while her breathing was deep and shaky, betraying more emotions than she ever seemed to show before. She looked angry, scared, confused, concerned, disbelieving, and much more besides all hammered together into an incomprehensible mess. Awed and now even more tense, Kon opted to keep his mouth shut for once, turning back to the field where it seemed like hours had gone by with the two warriors sizing each other up, despite only seconds passing.
Rider remained silent and unsure of herself, watching the black-clad teen intensely for any sign he needed help or extraction.
Down at street level, Berserker had paused briefly after Ichigo separated from his body, but now with nothing to distract or confuse the mad destroyer, it charged with speed far greater than his size should permit, his massive bulk pounding the grassy field like war drums. Berserker's swing came down in a massive arc, tearing through the air in a roar. Ichigo sidestepped the attack easily, his eyes never leaving the destroyer's own.
What he didn't sidestep was the massive shockwave following the attack that shredded a line in the street beneath him, startling the Soul Reaper long enough for Berserker to bring his weapon around in an equally fast sweep meant to obliterate his skull. Ichigo's sharply honed reflexes saved him, and he flash-stepped out of the way, pulling back and gave the creature a wary look: even though Berserker missed, the car parked off to the side of the park, nearly 15 meters outside the Servant's swing arc, lost the top of its cabin, sheared roughly by an unseen force.
'Damn! He's swinging so fast that he's generating sonic booms with every attack?' Ichigo's mind raced in time with his body as he moved back into strike range. This kind of attack reminded him of another foe with a similar level of raw power: Kenpachi Zaraki could sunder buildings with lazy swings simply from the combination of air pressure and his own spiritual pressure. In his current Shikai state, such a one-two blow wasn't something he could take, despite being so much tougher than a normal human. One clean shot from that would likely shatter his spine through his body, assuming that the attack didn't remove his organs in the pass. He could easily take it in his Bankai state, not to mention slash Berserker to pieces in the time it took to say "Tensa Zangetsu," but a part of him loathed the idea of using it here. He was fighting a legend, and his pride and honor made him feel that using the ultimate Soul Reaper technique didn't seem very fair, especially given that he had no clue how the link between him and Rider would react to the massive increase in power.
Berserker's eyes locked back on him, the red eye blazing savagely with unrestrained madness while his teeth were bared in an animalistic grimace. The giant's weapon quickly whipped upwards for another monstrous strike, eager to taste the smaller boy's blood. The gap between them was gone in an instant, the man-beast's howl rending the quiet night as viciously as the weapon bearing down on his enemy. Widening his stance, Ichigo swung Zangetsu up to meet the axe-club as it descended, the two weapons smashing into each other with a thunderous "BOOM!"
A shockwave of displaced air as sharp as a sword was met and nullified by a surge of spiritual pressure exploding through a Soul Reaper and his zanpakutou striking in harmony.
"Impossible" was the word of the day in the minds of both Berserker's Master and Rider, and rightfully so. By all rights, that blow should have ended the fight; Berserker's attack should have shattered the cleaver, its wielder rent into halves by forces beyond humanity's pinnacle.
Ichigo lived and breathed the impossible, as he proved by matching power with power, countering the blow with one of his own. There was no special move, no secret skill, just raw, inhuman power delivered through an equally mighty weapon. The display was mind-boggling. For Rider, who had already seen the tiniest hints of her Master's true skill, any expectations she had about his power were utterly destroyed the way a war hammer shatters stained glass.
A human couldn't match a Servant. They were legends, empowered by their stories and the awe of humanity towards them and what they represented. Even the mightiest human would logically fall before such a thing. However, the display of power he just used drove the point home: Ichigo wasn't just a human; he was a Soul Reaper, a warrior guarding the souls of man from evils beyond the grave. She knew next to nothing about what lay after death, but Ichigo did, and he fought against masked monstrosities from there without so much as batting an eyelash. The act of meeting Berserker's sword had looked almost comically easy, and Ichigo's expression showed no fear, no strain, as though he planned to do this all night.
The explanation Rukia had given along with the testimony of Ichigo's friends was suddenly woefully lacking. How much more was there to being a Soul Reaper? What level of power and authority did they possess? Why did they need to have such power? She realized that if she was to truly understand her Master and his power, she would need to experience it through her eyes, see it firsthand rather than rely on the testimony of others to form her judgments.
Berserker is incapable of being surprised; only angered further by the enemy before him that refused to die. He swung his massive weapon again, only to have the attack disrupted by an equally powerful counter-swing from Ichigo, again turning the killing air behind the swing away. The force of their blows is channeled outward, shredding the ground around the two fighters in a series of arcing scars. The behemoth slammed his weapon into the cleaver once more, applying constant pressure to power through his smaller foe's guard and grind him to mulch.
Ichigo dug his feet in and held firm, not giving an inch beneath the Servant's ridiculous strength. The ground would likely give before his knees did. The Soul Reaper almost broke into a grin when he heard Illyasviel start yelling at him indignantly. "No fair! How can you stop Berserker's sword? You can't do that; you're cheating! Cheater!"
He didn't bother replying, focused as he was on the lead-skinned force of destruction in front of him. A small part of him, though, was caught off guard that the Master could see him even through that. While he personally didn't budge, the ground beneath his feet was another matter, which cracked and buckled from the tremendous pressure transferring through the Soul Reaper's feet. Their balance disrupted, Ichigo and Berserker both staggered slightly. The nimbler Soul Reaper recovered first, taking advantage of the momentary distraction to jump over the giant's head, Zangetsu howling through the air as he brought it down on the over-extended Servant's head.
The advantage was fleeting, Berserker proving to be far from helpless. In a stunning display of strength and instinctive combat prowess, Berserker swung one bowling ball-sized fist and backhanded the descending blade forcefully enough to send Ichigo spinning away. He landed easily enough, but Berserker was once more up and charging by the time his feet touched the ground, swinging at the comparatively puny swordsman with the fury of a cyclone. The spectators winced at the sound of their thunderous attacks, each collision of spiritual steel and mystically reinforced stone gouging the park's tended grounds like a demolition crew, leaving nothing untouched around them.
Covering his ears in distress, Kon could barely keep his eyes open with the raging winds whipping outward. "This is nuts! Completely and utterly NUTS! How the hell can this War thingy be a secret with all this racket? The police are gonna be here soon and make things really hard for us," he yelped as another blast of displaced air slashed roughly through a swing set, toppling the metal frame. While he wasn't really concerned for Ichigo's safety, the teen being so stupidly powerful and all that, but this kind of battle was way over his head. Kon was created to cover for a Soul Reaper purifying minor Hollows, not idiots plowing headfirst into walking disasters with that much murderous intent!
It took nearly all of Rider's impressive willpower to even momentarily tear her eyes away from the impossible battle down below, and the entirety of her restraint not to leap into the fray despite her Master appearing to have everything under control… so far. She slowly tilted her head up slightly, her hair flowing about her briefly as another shockwave rippled through her locks. "That young Master is clever. This area is surrounded by a Boundary Field: sound cannot escape the designated area, and I have a suspicion she will remove collateral damage with magecraft later."
The mod soul blinked and glanced around for what Rider had picked up on. "Freaky… Yipe!" Kon nearly lost his balance when a particularly savage shockwave roared through the air, feeling almost as solid as a brick wall against him.
Pulling away from another diagonal slash from the monstrous warrior, the Soul Reaper decided to wrap this fight up in one attack. "Is that all you got? Don't you know any other tricks other than swinging that slab of concrete?" Ichigo taunted his opponent with a confident smirk. The giant had no technique, not that he needed it. Hell, this guy was like Kenpachi in that respect.
Predictably, Berserker didn't respond save with a lion-like roar that carried enough force to blow Ichigo's hair back despite the six-meter gap between them. "Okay, so you can also belch out a hell of a stink," he muttered once the sound died away. The war veteran's expression pulled into a grin, a slightly feral glint in it. "I've got you all figured out, buddy: all power, no brains or style. Just a pile of muscles," he confidently declared while his whole body erupted in a raw display of spiritual pressure, a violent storm at his command. "I don't care who you were; a guy like you won't beat me. Let's finish this," he finished lowly, his grin fading into a determined frown.
As though agreeing with the desire to end the fight, Berserker thundered forward, his club raised for another devastating blow. Seeing his single-minded choice, Ichigo hefted his sword overhead like an executioner, the blade seeming to shudder in anticipation of its own accord. The spectators had no time to gape when a torrent of blue fire surrounded the cleaver blade, a low howl filling the air around it in a call for his foe's blood. The mad destroyer bellowed another challenge at his seemingly unconcerned opponent, an unstoppable avalanche bent only on his enemy's total destruction.
A sudden smirk from Ichigo was the only warning before he unleashed Hell. "Getsuga… TENSHOU!" he roared, his cleaver crashing down before him.
The world seemed to explode into daylight from this simple action. Berserker's war cry was stopped the moment the arc of light left the boy's blade, a crescent of roaring destruction slamming into the Servant's form and obscuring him behind a wall of energy that made it impossible to see into the park. If Berserker's charge was an avalanche, then Ichigo's attack was a tsunami that swallowed it up and washed it away. His Master cried out to her Servant, but it was barely audible over the raging howl of the attack that ground everything in its path to nothingness. Kon shielded himself as best he could, while Rider simply shut her eyes while her mind raced. 'Is this… what it means to be a Soul Reaper? This… is my Master's true strength? What exactly are Soul Reapers?'
When the light finally died away, the young Master of Berserker could scarcely believe the sight before her. "B-Berserker!" she screamed in horror at the sight of her mighty warrior's mangled frame.
Though he had somehow managed to put his arms up in a defense, both limbs were slashed and burned clear to the bone, his massive muscles barely sufficient to maintain his grip on the axe-club which, remarkably, looked only slightly scuffed. A pair of shallow trenches carved into the ground at his feet indicated that the force of the blow was enough to push him back several meters. An angry, red line of cooked meat ran along the length of his body where his arms failed to cover and the rest of his hulking form was blackened and sizzling, like he had been dropped through reentry from orbit. 'He… he forced Berserker to defend?' she wordlessly gulped at the display of raw power.
Berserker slowly pulled his arms apart, growling while the wounds repaired themselves, the scarred and scorched flesh falling away in flakes as fresh skin and muscle took its place. At the sight of her restored Servant, Illyasviel visibly relaxed before turning her attentions onto the orange-haired menace. "A good try, samurai Onii-chan, but it'll take more than that to beat Berserker! He's the stronge-"
To her surprise, Ichigo smirked again in what looked almost like bemusement, neither shocked nor afraid. "So he's as tough as he looks, huh? Guess that means I can stop playing around." A frighteningly cold look reflected in his eyes as he resumed his stance and built his power up until a glow suffused his entire body. In seconds, the light around him exploded into blue-white fire that tore away the concrete beneath his feet. The intensity of his spiritual pressure expanded in a crushing wave, the air seeming to ripple like rain around him. "Now, why don't we try that again?"
But before the battle could continue, both sides stopped cold as a wave of spiritual power washed over them from somewhere deep in Miyama. It was subtle, but extremely powerful, unfamiliar to Ichigo despite having a wide experience with reading various energy signatures. Then, the energy seemed to collapse, condensing on itself until he lost track due to his own dismal skills in the field of sensing. "What the-?" Ichigo muttered, the battle stopping for a second before Berserker took another step forward, another roar building in his throat like distant thunder rolling towards him.
While not sensing it in the same manner Ichigo did, Ilya was fully aware of what the surge of mana meant:
The last Servant had been summoned.
She wanted to peruse her library later on what kind of entity this samurai teen might be after she scouted the competition, anyway. She would need to consult her familiars to find the Servants again, but for now, it was time to break off this fight. "Well, it looks like we'll need to finish this later, Onii-san. Berserker! We're leaving!"
The giant paused for a moment, his expression returning to a cold glare bereft of his usual snarling fury. Instead of obeying his Master though, he stomped forward, his club lifting to attack as his teeth once more exposed themselves in his furious grimace. He growled again. There would be no stopping until this one was dead. It had hurt him. He would KILL this enemy. Nothing less would satisfy his rage.
Ichigo turned his attention back to the lead-skinned titan and once more prepared his attack, the aura of blue-white flame returning in a wild surge. "Still want to go? Hah! I'm game!" he challenged with a grin. Berserker's throaty howl shook the air in response. There was nothing left to be said.
Ilya couldn't believe it. It was inconceivable: was Berserker actually defying her? Was the swordsman that much of a challenge or that much of a threat? Frowning irritably, Illyasviel enforced her will on the Servant before it became unruly. "Berserker, I order you to cover our retreat and fall back!" the girl declared clearly, a flicker of red light shining through her white mitten. Berserker's red eye blazed brighter for an instant as he ground to a halt, as though conflicted by her words, fighting against some compulsion mightily. A moment later, his expression contorted into a frustrated snarl. Before Ichigo could make heads or tails of it, the giant smashed the ground with his club, sundering the concrete and sending up a massive cloud of debris, a slab of the material sent towards the swordsman as a parting shot.
Ichigo sliced through the stone and then blew away the dust with a minute burst of spiritual pressure, but his enemy was long gone. The big guy was much faster than he looked on his feet as well as with a blade. "Tch. Alright, come on out, you two. They're gone for now," he called with an obviously annoyed edge to his tone. As much as it galled him to acknowledge it, a part of Ichigo had reveled in the fight like his Hollow had told him what seemed like a lifetime ago. A part of him had fun in the struggle against a legend and clearly winning. Now, that same part of him felt robbed of a satisfying conclusion.
Both Rider and Kon jumped over the empty space into the decimated park, Ichigo pulling out his deputy pass from inside his shihakushou's folds.
"Ichigo… just what manner of spirits are Soul Reapers?" Rider bluntly asked, gaining a perplexed expression from the teen and the mod soul occupying his body. Ichigo was so surprised, that he didn't kick the soul candy from his body like he planned.
"Uh, I don't think I understand your question…"
"Are you a kind of Wraith? A Divine Spirit? An Elemental, or some form of Counter Guardian? What kind of entity are you, to hold so much power?" she almost demanded.
The hybrid soul shrugged, genuinely confused. What kinds of classifications were those, anyway? Was she comparing him to angels or those old folk tales about genies and things like that? And what the heck was a Counter Guardian, anyway? Kon scratched his head, a habit of Ichigo's, but it didn't look right the way Kon did it. "Never thought about it that way. Any ideas, Ichigo?"
Lifting his eyes skyward in thought, Ichigo shook his head, still clearly perplexed. "Rukia might know, seeing as she's the official one between the two of us; I'm technically just a severely overpowered deputy."
"I have never seen any soul fight a foe of that Berserker's level equally prior to this. Whoever he was, his abilities far outclass my own under normal circumstances," Rider explained, her voice more grave and serious than he had ever heard.
"If he's the worst we have to worry about, then this War will be a cinch. But if it really bugs you, we can talk to Rukia when we get back. Speaking of which…" Ichigo compromised while lifting his badge.
Seeing the item, Kon started to whine. "Aw, come on, Ichigo! I just-" his cries were silenced as the badge tapped Ichigo's chest, sending the pill into the street. Rider quickly caught the body and lowered it to the ground, allowing Ichigo to slip in easily. The teen, now able to move his body, picked up the little green pill and the lion plushy under his coat. He popped the pill into the toy's mouth and waited for the mod soul to regain control of his designated body. "I'm really getting sick of that," Kon growled, even as he latched onto the Soul Reaper's coat.
"Let's head back for now. The book should have updated on what exactly Berserker used to endure that attack of yours," Rider suggested. Whatever Ichigo was capable of, anything able to resist it was far more dangerous than he apparently realized.
Then again, she still had no idea on how powerful Ichigo truly was. So far, despite his youth, he had taken on two Servants evenly, heedless of their power, like he knew exactly how to handle them. As if rising to answer, flashes of last night's dream appeared in her mind's eye. Images of running from a man-shaped demon with spiked hair that fought with all the madness and overwhelming might of a Berserker. 'So you have faced an enemy like Berserker before… you didn't fear him because you knew what to do from experience…'
The enigma that was her Master deepened further as a few sentences from the first night replayed through her mind. "When he left his body and fought Lancer, what did his sword look like: cleaver or katana?" Ishida had asked, and supposedly, the cleaver was the weaker of the two forms.
"Had he used Bankai, he would be ten times stronger and at least that much faster," Rukia had said.
'That attack wasn't your full strength at all, was it? Just what are you capable of, Ichigo?' she silently asked.
Her ponderings were interrupted when Ichigo spoke up to both of his companions. "All right, all right, let's get moving before someone sees the damage. This will make for an interesting news story in the morning," he muttered as he headed back towards the bright lights of the Shinto district.
Part of Shirou's mind, while grateful for the knightly woman's timely rescue, was aggravated that he needed to be saved twice in the same day. The rest of him was totally entranced by the woman standing over him. Her sudden appearance combined with her unparalleled beauty floored him, leaving him unable to say a thing.
When she spoke, her firm voice was both clear and commanding, demanding the boy's attention as forcefully as a monarch. "Servant Saber, reporting in answer to your summons," she declared.
"Huh…? Mas…ter?" Shirou managed to repeat her earlier words, utterly at a loss. Despite the sheer insanity of the situation, he knew intuitively that this small, beautiful girl was the same as the man outside. She was far more than her delicate appearance suggested; a superhuman.
"Please give me an order, Master," she spoke again, triggering a flash of sudden pain from Shirou's left hand, like a branding iron against his otherwise chilled skin. Still prone, the boy hunched over with his eyes squeezing shut, gripping his hand on instinct. Opening one eye, he gaped at the glowing red symbol on the back of his hand. A stylized diamond brand pulsed faintly there. This was apparently a signal to the woman, who nodded, more to herself than the boy. "From this time forth, my sword shall be with you, and your fate shall be with me," she vowed solemnly, placing an armored fist over her heart in a warrior's salute. "Now, our contract is complete."
Understandably, the amateur magus gaped at the words, their gravity not lost to him. "C-contract? What are you saying?" He knew exactly what she was implying, but it seemed so unreal that he wanted to deny what his own ears had just told him.
In lieu of a response, Saber turned away with all the grace of a noblewoman, shifting her sharp gaze out of the shed where the lance-wielding murderer waited for the inevitable clash. Wordlessly, she leapt out of the room, leaving her new Master struck dumb as his mind failed to keep up with the rapidly shifting events. Her lack of hesitation or even apparent caution was sufficient to jar Shirou into moving and he picked himself off of the floor, temporarily pushing aside the pain of his battered, aching body as he staggered through the door into the yard. He couldn't comprehend the girl, a tiny thing smaller than himself, taking on the spearman and having a prayer.
Shirou opened his mouth to cry out to her, to scream for her to stop before she got herself killed, but no sound came out. His expression shifted to shock and awe as his eyes relayed a sight that made little sense to him. "Wha… what is she?" he finally managed to choke out as the petite armored girl clashed with her enemy, the sparks of their blades the only illumination in the backyard as the moon once more hid itself behind the clouds. Even with just those flickers, Shirou could make out a seemingly impossible battle. Saber's weapon was completely invisible in her grip. Even when sparks exploded into existence, not even so much as a flicker of an outline appeared. Even though she appeared to hold no weapon, every thrust and swipe from the crimson blade was parried masterfully with the unseen thing in her hands, driving the killer back with each exchange.
As impossible as it looked, Saber was clearly and cleanly winning against her larger foe.
Lancer's thoughts were pretty close to paralleling the young magus. 'Damn! She's freaking tiny, yet here she is, overpowering a man like me! Who the hell is she? Hits almost like Berry-brow, but is almost as quick as that succubus of his!' he analyzed between exchanges, a particularly savage blow nearly knocking him off balance, the impact only just diffused by his spear. It was like every swing ended with an explosion of dynamite! If he was using anything but a Noble Phantasm, he had no doubts that the heavy blows he was receiving would have shattered his weapon like glass. Realization on the phenomenon hit him with another explosion of light and sound. 'Mana? She's burning mana to empower her swings? This is getting ridiculous!' he mentally hissed even as his entire body strained to handle the invisible weapon the little lady hammered at him with. At this range, she held too strong of an advantage, especially since he had no idea what she was using for her weapon, making it impossible to form an appropriate defense. "You damn coward! Quit hiding your weapon!" he snarled as the yard flickered into view from another explosive release of magic.
Saber remained silent, only slamming into his weapon with her invisible one more furiously, as if telling him to shut up and fight. Lancer hissed in frustration, his motions becoming jerky as he couldn't react to an unseen weapon nearly as efficiently as a typical blade. That said, Lancer wasn't the Knight of the Spear for nothing, and he continued to defend against the typhoon of blows with the skill the title signified, using the minutest motions of her arms and legs to foresee her attacks.
A twitch from her right shoulder mid-swing alerted him to a feint, which he responded to with a spin of the spear around his waist to bring the weapon into position on his opposite side where the real blow arced towards.
Her left leg dug in, signaling an advancing power swing which he met with one of his own.
However, no openings presented themselves to the blue-clad marauder as the woman proved utterly relentless, beating down on his defenses like a battering ram. Finally, the girl stepped inside Lancer's guard, her sword high to deliver a killing strike. "Don't underestimate me, you idiot!" he bellowed, kicking back at inhuman speed to escape the attack. It was obvious that was meant to be the finisher, as an explosion of dust and dirt follows the swing, tearing the ground asunder. Compared to before where every blow was carefully measured and was launched for maximum effect with minimal risk, that one was a simple attack, easily dodged despite the earlier battery of blows straining the marauder's body to its limit. With her invisible weapon stuck in the ground, Saber left herself wide open for Lancer's countercharge, which he literally jumped at with his crimson blade blazing towards her.
To Shirou and Lancer's shock, the entire action was a feint, as Saber spun her whole body with her weapon still in the ground, lashing upward towards him with her entire weight behind it as the weapon was easily torn free.
"Crap!" Lancer could barely shift to a defense before the clever attack sent him sailing. Righting himself, Lancer landed softly on the grass at the far side of the yard nearly 30 yards away, thoroughly peeved. The girl across from him didn't exactly look happy about it either, both sides obviously wanting their previous attack to finish the matter.
Lancer shifted his stance into one Shirou recognized. It was his sure-kill stance, one that seeing again silenced Shirou's breathing, like an icy claw had crushed his larynx. "You know, this'll be the second to I've offered this to a clueless Master's Servant, but what do you say we call it quits here for the night? You get to bring the resident moron up to speed and we can meet up next time with our full strength."
"I decline. There is no 'next time' for Servants on the battlefield," Saber declared boldly.
Lancer grinned savagely at her courage. "I was hoping you'd say that. Judging by what I've seen, you're likely using a sword, and I've been wanting to test myself for once. Lo and behold, you show up, the most outstanding of the Servant classes: the Saber!" Immediately following his excited explanation, the air chilled unnaturally and a barely-contained anticipation appeared in his crimson eyes. "I'll take that heart of yours here and now!"
The girl narrowed her eyes, wary of the maelstrom of magical energy coalescing into the tip of his red death-dealer. Shifting her body so that her left shoulder faced Lancer in her favorite stance, she waited for the explosive motion that would signal the attack. When he shot forward, Saber barely had time to marvel at the speed before the gap between them vanished. As she lifted her blade in an overhead counterattack, she wondered why he had aimed the attack so low, almost to her feet.
"Gae… BOLG!"
In that instant, before Shirou or Saber could even react, the air around the weapon seemed to warp and stretch, the red spear making a clear bee-line for Saber's heart. More bizarrely, their eyes could plainly see that the spear changed course, but didn't actually change in size or shape, only that it was in her heart no matter which impossible direction it had to go, physics be damned. Regardless of the impossibility, Saber was momentarily spitted on Lancer's weapon with the sickening crunch of breaking bone and punctured steel before he ripped the barbed weapon free. Under normal circumstances, this attack killed any victim; the actual attack was a mere formality to show the result that was already decided: a destroyed heart.
Apparently nobody told Saber that. Instead of dropping lifelessly to the ground, the knightly woman landed somewhat stiffly on her feet, clutching her bleeding chest, but far from dead. She staggered slightly, her breathing ragged as blood ran along her silver armor in thin rivers. "A curse? No, a reversal of causality!" she analyzed through a haze of pain.
Genuine, unconcealed exasperation overcame the spearman's confident expression. "Oh, come ON! You dodged my Gae Bolg? That makes the third time using it didn't go as planned!" Lancer groused. Where the hell was all his luck?
"Gae Bolg! If that is your weapon… so that's who you are!" Saber glared knowingly at the spearman, whose expression darkened further.
The normally fierce Servant clucked his tongue in annoyance, his spear lowering as he straightened himself. "So you figured it out already, huh? Dammit! I need a break; I must be getting sloppy." Turning away, Lancer stalked to the edge of the yard, his gait stiff from frustration, not to mention a dull ache in his right leg flaring up from trying to take all of those magically enforced blows. "Normally I'd kill you for knowing my identity, but my Master is a real coward: he's calling me back because you dodged my lance."
Saber, despite the obvious pain and the profuse bleeding, took a step forward. "Are you running away, even after calling me a coward?"
"A Master's orders take priority, as much as it makes me want to puke in this case. However, if you really want to die, come and get me," he taunted, a brief sense of déjà vu hitting him as he said it before he leapt over the high fence and into the night.
"Wait, Lancer!" Saber called, attempting to pursue. Unfortunately for her, her strength faltered, bringing her to one knee for a moment.
Seeing the little warrior woman stumble in pain, Shirou ran over, unsure what he could do despite his desire to help pushing aside his shock at the insanity of the situation. Worse, the sight of this beautiful girl, clad like a knight, fighting in his place clashed with his beliefs, causing the boy to grit his teeth almost painfully before finding his voice. "He-hey! Are you alright?"
Saber glanced at him slightly from the corner of her eye, taking a few shaky breaths to steady herself before standing back up, her face once more set into an unreadable mask.
Her Master could only gape in a mix of confusion and some relief. The woman's armor was once more pristine, her posture giving no hints of the crippling pain she had obviously been in a few seconds ago. 'Am I going insane? I saw her get run through completely, and now she's fine? Is this sorcery?' he vaguely recalled his father mentioning the impossible miracles the few with that pinnacle of power were capable of. "Who… are you?" he managed to choke out, his guard raised to the impossible being meeting his gaze.
The woman raised a golden eyebrow very slightly. "What do you mean? I am the Servant Saber. The Command Mantra on your hand is proof enough that you summoned me," she replied softly.
Shirou's voice suddenly seemed useless, only able to repeat her words like a parrot. "The Servant Saber?"
"Yes. Please call me Saber," her polite voice was gentle, peaceful like a spring wind as she responded calmly and concisely.
"…Strange name," Shirou muttered as he furiously beat down his blush at the intensity of her stare. Something about this girl made it extremely difficult to think straight, even though she wasn't really doing anything to warrant that reaction. Taking a moment to compose himself, Shirou finally recalled his manners and introduced himself. "Shirou. I'm Shirou Emiya, and this is my home." Immediately after he spoke, Shirou wanted to smack himself. Everything he said around this "Saber" girl made him sound more and more like an idiot. Another moment of silence passed, Saber patiently watching him without as much as a twitch. Finally, Shirou calmed his utterly shattered nerves enough to get his mind back on a relevant topic. "Actually, let me start over. I wanted to ask you…" and again, his tongue failed him.
Fortunately Saber was able to foresee his line of inquiry. "I know; you are not a formal Master, correct? There is no need to be cautious, Master, as I will not betray you so long as the contract between us remains."
Sure, Shirou could comprehend each individual word, but strung together, they made a ridiculous statement that he was not able to fully process. "Uh… listen, my name is not 'Master…'"
Saber's expression remained respectfully neutral as she nodded slightly. "Very well, then I shall call you Shirou. Yes, I like that much better." The poor boy almost fell over as the woman's voice drilled into his brain, the hormones in it giddily fizzing through him. She was starting out awfully familiar by calling him by his first name already without even a suffix, making the redhead squirm beneath her piercing gaze.
His mind shifted gears as a sharp spike of pain jolted through his left hand, as though someone reapplied the branding iron with the lovely addition of a razor edge along the design glowing there. "What the… hell is this?"
"Those would be your Command Spells, Shirou. So long as you have them, you have my absolute obedience three times. Do not be reckless with them," she answered without really giving him any information that he could grasp. Before he could ask for more detail, her demeanor shifted, her voice becoming laced with ice as she gazed out beyond the wall. "Shirou, heal my wounds, quickly."
"Huh?"
"Two enemies are approaching."
On the opposite side of the stone wall surrounding the Emiya estate, Rin berated her incredible naiveté earlier tonight. Rescuing Shirou Emiya from certain death, though an amazing feat from the standpoint of a magus, did absolutely nothing to actually solve the problem. A Servant wasn't a being that relied on just the five senses, even though they were more gifted in those areas than a mere human. They were far greater than that, often with additional skills on top of being able to see spirits. As such, Lancer wouldn't quit chasing the witness if there was even a hint that he survived the encounter. Three hours had passed since she had performed her little miracle, so it was extremely likely that even the most laid-back of Servants would have picked up on it by now and started to act.
It didn't take long to reach the house, the stone wall leading to a Japanese-style gate just up ahead. She might not have been particularly close with the guy she saved… okay, she barely spoke more than five full sentences with him since they met, but she knew the location of his home from another acquaintance that visited more frequently. Immediately upon arrival, her Command Spell throbbed in her right hand. "He's here: the Servant from before!" Rin breathed, white puffs echoing her words. The night air is much colder up on the hill than down in the city and the icy dread running laps up and down her spine only made it feel worse. Lancer was going to kill that guy again, who had no clue about any of this. "I'll just have to jump in and beat him. I'll think of the next part after-"
Her words are cut off by a blinding white light and a howling gale shooting outward from within the estate, casting all else into blackness for a few seconds. Rin could still sense it through the confusion: Lancer had been suddenly overmatched by an even greater presence that materialized within that house "No way..."
As if in confirmation of her thoughts, a lithe figure in blue shot over the high stone fence, his crimson spear standing out against the night in sharp relief. However, his pace was not the leisurely gait of one who had fulfilled his duty with no further concerns. Rather, he was taking off at top speed in the general direction of the bridge.
He was retreating.
With Archer just behind her, Rin closed the remaining distance between her and the house Lancer had fled from with greater care than before. The young magus's mind was a whirlwind of confusion, knowing that Lancer should have had no trouble with a mere high school boy, especially one that would have already been exhausted from the earlier events of tonight. "Archer, would this be one of those hypothetical scenarios of yours?"
"Nope. It would make seven, though. All the Masters are now accounted for, Rin," the red knight replied with the same blasé tone of a weatherman.
Her ponderings completely shattered when a second figure vaulted the wall, landing before the pair with a metallic "thunk." Archer jumped to the defense, but in her dazed state, his Master hesitated. That hesitation quite nearly cost Rin her life, a rush of wind accelerating toward her neck.
A rough shove that sent her stumbling onto her backside jolted her mind back to the matter at hand. The first thing that she processed was the blood; Archer's blood had scattered across the pavement; the price for saving his Master was the blade meant for her. Though by no means lethal thanks to his inhuman speed and skill, the shallow gash that opened across his chest and stomach would still slow Archer too much to have a prayer against another Servant in a straight battle.
"Archer, disappear!" Rin commanded sharply, another Command Seal consumed for her trouble. Her Servant faded into nothingness, an untouchable ghost until he was strong enough to fight again. The same killing wind that nearly lopped off Rin's head passed uselessly through the space Archer's neck once occupied, signaling how close her words cut it from having her Servant decapitated. The attacking Servant didn't even take a second before it resumed the attack, shifting its target to Rin, who scowled in reply as she plucked a single gem from her overcoat's pocket. "Don't underestimate me!"
Rin's jewels all contained magic harvested from her own blood over time, their structure able to store vast amounts of potential energy without the need to prepare spells from her own magic stores. The gem she selected, a topaz that had been serving this purpose for seventeen years, had enough wind-based magical power within it to level a house even without the direction of a formal spell. With a snap of the wrist, the gem exploded into a cyclone that screamed forward to swallow her enemy like an invisible serpent. Though she wasn't arrogant enough to believe such a parlor trick would defeat a Servant, Rin only needed time to escape, and the wind would at bare minimum slow the enemy down.
Of course even that proved pointless. The raging wind, a force powerful enough to pick up and toss cars like children's toys, simply died the moment it reached the Servant. Rin's expression fell in horror at the revelation: absolutely nothing a mere human magus like herself could accomplish would break through this Servant's magical resistance. It was already known that even the weakest of Servants outstripped a human in physical contests, so that, combined with her foe's magic resistance, meant that there was nothing she could do. From her position still prone on the ground, she looked up almost ruefully at the figure that stood over her. In that moment, the chilly winter wind blows aside the clouds, unveiling her death with the light of the full moon.
Death was apparently quite pretty.
"That magic was splendid, magus," the young woman complimented with her bell-like voice. To Rin however, her beautiful face, form, and voice all drove the point even further of the magnitude of the gap between them. It was almost nightmarish, especially with the way she held out her unseen blade, undoubtedly a sword, to her throat with neither malice nor pity. "However, this is your end, Master of Archer."
Rin almost wanted to laugh at that. She understood her position well enough, but the irony of the situation was too much. Her killer, this small girl with the power to crush two Servants back-to-back and shrug off her magic with ease, was the very card she had so desperately wanted for herself. Even though she had no proof other than her instincts, she still adored the woman towering over her. That would be her only regret, as strange as it seemed. After all, her enemy was the strongest; her figure was just so heartless, so infinitely valiant, and so beautiful. She was going to be cut down… by the Saber.
"SABER! STOP!" a male voice screamed, jolting Rin from her introspection, and freezing Saber's sword arm. Behind the silver-armored knight, a weary and very confused Shirou Emiya panted for breath, his eyes wide and frantic. The boy had barely made it to save the second person, but wasn't swift enough for the man in red, and regardless of the reasons, he couldn't condone the killing of a defenseless person. More to the point, Shirou couldn't stand the thought of anyone, regardless of circumstance, dying in his presence unless they were truly beyond redemption.
On top of that, Saber had completely and effortlessly overpowered both opponents despite her hidden injuries, even cutting off an immense spell that rivaled the strongest of his adoptive father's intervention magics with absolutely no effort. This wasn't a fair struggle, and he had no reason to believe that the two out here had meant any harm. The idea of Saber killing the very human foe at her feet was too much, so he demanded a halt. "Don't. I don't want you to kill her," he managed to say, a remarkable amount of authority reaching his tone.
Saber's sword didn't move. "Why? She is Archer's Master, and thus an enemy that we must kill," his knightly Servant replied matter-of-factly.
"How do I know that? I don't know anything! Even if you call me Master, I need to understand what's going on first!" he reasoned desperately.
Saber's piercing emerald eyes glared at him, measuring his words silently.
Shirou somehow managed to meet her cool stare with a fiery glare of his own. "Look, we started off in the wrong order. I don't understand a thing right now, but I'm willing to hear you out if you just talk, so please… this is enough."
Another moment of uneasy silence passed before the noble knight spoke flatly. "You can't be suggesting that we don't hurt people unnecessarily, can you? Are you that naïve? I can't obey such an order; an enemy is someone that you must defeat. Stop me with a Command Spell if you insist on the unreasonable."
And in a moment of panicked stupidity, Shirou stuck his foot in his mouth with his next words. "I'm talking about you! A girl shouldn't be swinging a sword around like that, especially if you're already hurt! Well, I don't know if it's a sword at all, but the point remains; you're a girl, so you can't!"
The incredulous, mute look he received from the blond Servant stretched out into an uncomfortable silence, the wind the only sound until Rin finally found her voice, having been too stupefied by the conversation going on as if she wasn't even there. She wasn't used to being ignored, especially since it was her life in the balance. "So, am I going to be let up or not?" she said with a very slight mocking tone to her question.
The shift in attention broke the stalemate, and Saber's eyes locked back on to Rin's. "Surrender. As long as you are an enemy, I will not lower my sword."
Rin's smug smirk belied her nervous tension. "Even if your Master says to lower it? Wow, even the Saber would betray her Master," she quipped.
Saber's jaw clenched at the sting to her honor, but she finally relented, lowering her sword and visibly relaxing. Her fists closed, revealing that neither hand held her mystery blade.
Now free to do so, Rin stood up and brushed her back clear of the dust, sulking at the situation. As she glanced up at the two, a priceless look of stunned recognition settled on Shirou's face, his mouth opened in a slight "o" with wide eyes. "Good evening, Emiya-kun," she greeted with a wide smile, as if she was the victor of this meeting, and in a little way, she felt that she was.
"T-Tohsaka?" he choked out weakly. Shirou's painfully long night looked to be getting longer, and part of him just wanted to fall into bed, sleep, and see if this insanity would be willing to wait for him until the morning, or better yet, vanish entirely. On top of that, his little crush, the school idol, was a magus? The thought made his head spin as much as Saber's presence did. "W-wait, you're a…?"
"Yep, a magus, the same as you from the looks of things. That's one less thing to worry about hiding then, right? How about we talk inside? You said you didn't understand anything, right Emiya-kun?"
As she walked towards the front door like she owned the place, Shirou caught up to her. "H-hold on a second!"
Rin gave him a calculating look. "There's a lot to discuss, so we're doing it inside. You said you're confused and that's perfectly fine, but right now, just accept it and run with it. You'll get yourself killed one day if you aren't willing to do that much at times like these."
The cold stare from her crystal blue eyes completely shocked the poor magus-in-training into silence. The image he had of the Rin Tohsaka from school was utterly crushed. She was so much more… intense and fiery than the perpetually calm, collected and seemingly perfect woman he and the rest of his school, aside from the Student Council president, idolized and respected. Almost robotically, he followed after her with Saber a pace behind him. He just knew that he wouldn't be getting much sleep tonight of the gnawing pit in his stomach was any indication.
Due to his nerves, he discounted the roughly man-shaped haze hovering behind Tohsaka as his imagination.
"Yo, we're back," Ichigo announced blandly as he took off his coat, Kon dropping out of it to leap onto one of the couches. Rider's mouth was very slightly downturned, the only outward sign of her deepening thoughts.
Kon landed almost on top of Rukia, who was sprawled across the couch in her gigai, her hand obviously having received Orihime's ministrations. "Welcome back, you two," the Kuchiki greeted before focusing her indigo eyes on Ichigo. "I sensed your spiritual pressure spike: what happened?"
Kon slid down to her feet at the far end of the couch. "Ichigo went and played hero again."
The deputy's scowl deepened, but didn't deny anything. "I ran into another Master and Servant pair. A little girl about Yuzu and Karin's age named Ilya von something-or-other. Her Servant was the Berserker," Ichigo explained as he headed over to the coffee table and picked up the book the priest gave him. Flipping it open, he was somewhat startled by the sudden completeness of the data within its pages on Berserker. The giant's face in as close to a neutral expression as he could likely give sat like a photo in the upper right corner, along with a series of letter ranks beside physical statistics. "Take a look. Ugly bastard, but really strong and quicker than he looks," he showed his first Soul Reaper friend the page and Rukia scanned it while she pulled herself upright.
"Master: Illyasviel von Einzbern… Berserker class… What else can you tell me?" Rukia glanced at the two.
Having taken a seat where Rukia had been laying, the lavender-haired Servant looked at Ichigo for a second before replying in his stead. "When Ichigo used an energy attack against him, Berserker repaired the damage completely in a matter of seconds. Also, every swing carried a shockwave that Ichigo had to directly counter to minimize damage."
Ichigo shrugged. "A half-powered Getsuga Tenshou did some harm, but it would probably take a full-powered version to get him to stay down. Shikai, of course."
"Of course."
The sheer indifference from Rukia to the amount of power Ichigo used was startling to Rider, almost making her topple from her position. 'That first attack was only half strength?'
"Kurosaki-kun, Rider-san! You're back!" the bubbly voice of Orihime interrupted the three, obviously getting ready for bed. "Your hand okay, Rukia-chan?"
"Never better, Inoue-san. Thanks again," Rukia smiled, holding up her healed hand and wiggling the fingers painlessly.
"Yo, Inoue. Where're the others?" Ichigo casually greeted.
Leaning over the back of the couch to see the book in Rukia's hands, Orihime smiled at her hero. "Tatsuki-chan and Chad-kun already went to bed, and Uryu's busy prepping some Ginto outside."
Rider glanced at Orihime out of the corner of her eye as she pretended to focus on the pages dedicated to Berserker. The auburn-haired teen was another matter that needed addressing, though that would come later. Right now, she needed to figure out how to word her burning questions.
Nodding in understanding, Rukia looked up towards the shield maiden and widened her hold on the book to show her more. "We were just going over Ichigo and Rider's new enemy."
"Oh…" Orihime disliked the idea of combat as always, now even more staunchly against violence ever since her capture, but she understood somewhat painfully that there were others who didn't, and wouldn't, share her view. Grimmjow and Nnoitra were proof of that. She fought down a yawn and looked over the other three's shoulders at Berserker's portrait. She shuddered at the image. If he shaved his head and put a lower jawbone on his chin… "He looks a lot like… Yammy…"
"I thought so too. But his Master has him on a short leash, at least. When she ordered a retreat, she used a Command Spell rather than let him finish his fight with me."
"Anything about the Master you think is worth mentioning?" Rukia asked.
"Yeah. For one, she was practically albino, so she'll stick out in a crowd. Two, she could see me, and three, and this is just weird, when I got close to her, her spiritual pressure was completely different from anyone I've ever met."
"What do you mean, Kurosaki-kun?"
Ichigo glanced up towards the ceiling as he wracked his brain for an effective description. "It was like… like she was made of raw spirit energy. I couldn't get a fix on it, but it was like someone bottled up a huge amount of power into her body and trapped it without letting an ounce of it flow out of her like it would you or me. It wasn't actively suppressed either, just compressed like my Bankai in some odd way."
Rukia wrote all of this down. "Hmmm… maybe the Twelfth Division has an idea."
"Just make it perfectly clear that Kurotsuchi's NOT allowed to come here."
"Agreed."
And yet another question was added to Rider's ever-growing list.
Flipping to the next page, the group found a description of Berserker's Noble Phantasm, though its true title was unknown. "What do we have here? 'God Hand: A blessing (curse?) bestowed by the gods that grants immortality. By turning the body into a robust armor, any attack not exceeding B-rank is completely negated,'" Rukia read aloud, utterly lost by the ranking system's seemingly arbitrary designation.
Ichigo smirked. "Guess that makes Zangetsu an A-rank."
"So it would seem," Rider conceded.
Rukia's expression hardened as she finished her perusal. "There's more, and it doesn't look good: 'It is able to learn about a move that penetrated it and grow a resistance to that attack. In addition, God Hand grants eleven instantaneous resurrections, meaning that Berserker must be slain twelve times to be eliminated.'"
"What? That's ridiculous! That means you need twelve completely different lethal attacks? What kind of Servant has a chance against that?"
"Combined with his personal skills allowing him to keep fighting with anything less than a lethal wound without penalty, Berserker is easily the most powerful Servant, but after seeing your power I doubt even he would be able to survive a fight at your peak, Ichigo."
"Getsuga Tenshou is Zangetsu's only attack other than its cutting edge. If Berserker's gained a resistance to it, I would need to behead him over and over again. And if he develops a resistance to that…" Ichigo groused, his mood already soured by the shortened fight from earlier.
"Do not confuse resistance with immunity. You said it yourself; the 'Getsuga Tenshou' that you nearly killed him with was at half strength. If your Bankai is as strong as you all made it sound, then use that attack with enough power to kill him several times over at once. Overwhelm his defenses with raw power," Rider pointed out.
Ichigo's tension drained noticeably. "Guess that'll be the plan, then. It's weird fighting these guys; nothing at all like going after an arrancar."
Even with her vast patience, Rider had hit her limit. She was not appreciating being left in the dark about all of these terms, especially after tonight's display shaking the foundations of her belief in her Master's limits.
In hindsight, there wasn't exactly much of a foundation to begin with.
"Ichigo, Rukia. I have some things I want to ask you."
The other four, counting Kon, looked at her, caught off guard by her suddenly sharp tone. Orihime tilted her head. "What's on your mind, Rider-san?"
"Soul Reapers. You told me about their duties, but now I need more answers."
Rukia could swear that there was an angry red glow coming from behind Rider's blindfold, but kept her mind on business. "I'll answer what I can."
"What exactly are Soul Reapers? I'm not asking about what your role is in the world, but what kind of spirit are you?"
Rukia's brows knitted together in thought. That was a strange question, indeed. "I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. A Soul Reaper is normally a dead human's soul with greater than normal spiritual power trained in the Soul Society to harness it. Ichigo is an exception, being alive still."
"Yes, he mentioned something to that effect earlier. What did you mean?"
Ichigo stood back up and walked into the kitchen, speaking slightly louder while he fixed himself a glass of orange juice. "It's complicated, but the short version starts about nine months ago. I've always been able to see ghosts and spirits, so I was apparently a full-course meal to Hollows even before I got my powers. My family was attacked by a Hollow looking for me, and Rukia saved me but was nearly killed by it. In order to save everyone there, I needed to borrow her powers, which she lent me. She lost them temporarily, so I learned the ins and outs while she recovered. Since then, I've been through a lot and developed my own power as a result." The slight emphasis on "a lot" signified that he wasn't exactly willing to elaborate at the moment.
Rider let it slide; it was late, after all. "So this power can be transferred between people?"
"It's considered taboo, and it involves the lender stabbing you in the heart with their zanpakutou, so it's nowhere near common. One mistake and I would have died, and Rukia and the rest of my family would be close behind. Being eaten by a Hollow pretty much destroys your soul until the Hollow's purified by a Soul Reaper, which lets you pass on." Ichigo explained as he sat back in an open recliner, sipping his drink slowly.
Rider almost shuddered at the idea before moving on to the next topic. "This… Soul Society; what is it? I don't believe I've ever heard that term used to describe the afterlife."
"Wholes that pass on visit this realm to rest peacefully for an indefinite length of time until they 'die' and return to the cycle of reincarnation. It is similar in many ways to the Living World from long ago, but unless you have spirit energy you won't feel hungry, and aging is slowed in proportion to your spiritual pressure. The oldest captains are easily a few thousand years old, but look to still be in their prime in human terms."
"The old man in charge really looks over the hill, but he's so insanely strong that he's still considered their best by far," Ichigo added, recalling the Captain-General's ridiculous ability in all areas of Soul Reaper combat.
Rukia smacked the deputy's arm with an aggravated frown, eliciting a startled squawk from him. "Speak of Captain-General Yamamoto with respect, Ichigo! Anyway, if a person starts needing food, they are taken to the Seireitei, the Court of Pure Souls, to harness their power before it becomes dangerous to themselves and others. We really don't categorize ourselves aside from our ranks within our squads."
"…I see… There is no rhyme or reason to who has the requisite spirit energy?"
"With the exception of the noble families, who all carry spirit energy through their lineage, no. Ichigo has no nobility in him, and look how he turned out."
Rider's posture shifted as she tried to make heads or tails of the description. Her understanding placed Soul Reapers somewhere between Elementals that the world's will and man brought into being for the task of protecting souls, and Guardian Spirits that human desires conjured from the souls of the dead for that same reason. That said, the power Ichigo displayed tonight far outstripped all but the highest class of spirits, the Divine. On top of that, they were far from formless entities, but more like some kind of military force. "So there is a realm within Akasha for souls awaiting reincarnation, and you are a part of it?"
"Akasha?" The other souls stared blankly at the woman, no recognition reaching their eyes.
Rider let off the slightest of sighs, but opted not to lose track of the point in a tangent at the moment. "We'll discuss that later. For now, I also want to know: what kind of powers do you wield? Ichigo's strength matched that of a Heroic Spirit who had an enhancement to already immense strength, and both of you know that speed technique. Are you capable of the same?"
Shaking her head, Rukia explained, "Ichigo is far and away the strongest and fastest of us here, but my area of expertise lies more in kido than zanjutsu. Essentially, I would be considered a Caster, using the Servant terminology."
"Can your sword also produce destructive energy like Ichigo's?"
"No; every zanpakutou is unique to its wielder, and is a reflection of their fighting spirit. Mine is elementally aligned with ice and snow, rather than raw destructive power."
Rider nodded, her mask concealing a thoughtful expression. "I'm sorry if I seemed rude, but I needed to understand what made a human able to stand against a legendary hero: it normally should be impossible."
"Well, if it's one thing Ichigo's good at, it's breaking the rules." As she said this, Rukia gave the boy a slightly playful smile.
"I don't know whether to take that as an insult or a compliment coming from you, midget," he muttered with a slight tinge of amusement. Gulping down the last of his drink, he waved a hand to his friends as he made his way to his room. "Anyway, it's late. We should probably get some sleep. We still got a lot of work to do. G'night."
Descending from Shinto's church in a slight daze, Shirou went over what he had learned, his mood dour at the implications of it all. First, Rin had explained exactly what the mark on his hand entailed, as well as the kind of insanely powerful entity Saber actually was. Then he was dragged all the way to the church at the far end of Shinto to meet the mediator, Kirei Kotomine, and formally register him as a Master. While Shirou did get the big questions answered as well as learn a huge amount, the whole experience made the redhead nearly vomit.
While getting away from that priest and seeing Saber had removed the painfully heavy feeling from his shoulders, he still felt shaken to the core. Somehow he, an amateur magus in the extreme, had been selected for an insane "game" where he was essentially given a legendary hero as a weapon to fight and kill six other magi and/or their heroic Servants over a wish-granting Holy Grail! Worse, backing out ceased being an option the moment the priest dropped the bomb: the fire that robbed him of his birth family and brought a vision of hell to his young eyes was the result of the previous war, when someone unworthy touched the Grail. What kind of hero runs away when innocent lives are at risk? No, he had to fight to prevent another tragedy. With his agreement, the fifth Holy Grail War was officially underway.
Still, the worst part was the way the priest's parting words plagued his thoughts endlessly.
"Rejoice, young man," he had said, an almost manic light appearing in his eyes. "For your wish will finally come true!"When he had questioned this, Shirou felt something in him break at the answer. "To become a hero of justice, there must be an absolute evil for you to stop. Ironic. To wish to save someone… is also to wish for a villain to put someone in danger to begin with. Good luck, young Emiya."
As much as Shirou wanted to deny the grim-looking man's words, the truth within them made it impossible to just disregard. A hero is someone who saves others, which implies a crisis, and a hero of justice must have an enemy, a villain to dispense justice to. 'Has my ego been guiding my dream for so long? Did I really think I could be a hero of justice like Tou-san without an enemy to overcome?' His movements were stiff and mindless as he reached the streets at the edge of Shinto's suburban stretch. Rin had remained silent the entire way, leaving him to stew in his thoughts. Circumstance and her words back at his house had made it abundantly clear that once they parted ways, they would be enemies.
In a bid to alleviate this depressing train of thought, he turned to Rin. "Tohsaka, is your Servant alright?"
"Huh? Oh yeah, Archer's fine. He managed to avoid the worst of Saber's attack at the last moment, so he should be as good as new within a day."
Shirou noted that the hazy patch beside Rin had continued to follow her, even out here. Again, he shrugged it off. Since Archer was astralized, he would be completely invisible, so there was no way he could see him. He briefly wondered if he needed some sleep or eye medication more. "I'm relieved. Even if we have to be enemies, it makes me feel better knowing you'll be able to defend yourself with his help."
Rin gave him a slightly bemused look. She couldn't fault him for being concerned, considering he just had his whole world practically blown to bits within the last three hours or so. He simply couldn't start thinking about her as an enemy at the drop of a hat.
Saber continued to follow the pair silently, her armored form covered by a massive yellow rain poncho more suitable for covering a motorcycle than a person. In the heat of the moment, it was the best Shirou could scrounge to cover her up, seeing as she stood out horribly in her combat gear. Seeing as how she was a complete enigma, Shirou wasn't sure how to start a conversation with her. He found himself wracking his brain for something to talk about to either one of them. Saber's demeanor and no-nonsense attitude meant that he couldn't really come up with anything, but Rin…
Struck with another thought that beat back his anxieties, Shirou glanced over to the raven-haired magus. "Oh yeah, Tohsaka. Since you know that priest, does he know your Servant?"
"He shouldn't; I haven't told him anything other than that I have one."
"Okay. It looked like you two got along somewhat in there, so I had to wonder."
"You need glasses, then. I don't trust that weasel as far as I can throw him. He's a sneaking cheat who joined the Magic Association without quitting the Church. He'd sell me out in a heartbeat." Rin's brows then knitted together as she turned to look at Shirou more seriously. "Emiya-kun, I think it's only fair to warn you that you should be extremely careful with Saber's identity. Don't tell anyone, even if you trust them."
"Huh? Her identity?"
"Simply put, who your Servant was in their past life. If you know that much, you can easily figure out their strengths and weaknesses. Although, now that I think about it, it might be better if you don't know it at all."
"Why? If I know all that, I can plan for her strengths and minimize her weaknesses."
"Yeah, that might be true, but you can't keep a secret."
Shirou scowled at the more powerful mage at that. "Hey, I can keep a secret. I kept the fact I'm a magus from everyone, haven't I?"
"Oh, really? Are you hiding something else from me, then?" Immediately, Shirou's face reddened as he was reminded rather abruptly of his secret crush on the girl beside him… or at least, the mask she showed at school. She took one look at his expression and sighed theatrically. "Exactly my point. You don't have to say anything at all when you show it on your face like that."
Saber finally spoke, her clear tone cutting away any retorts Shirou might have tried. "I am inclined to agree with Rin Tohsaka on this point, Shirou. Your honesty is admirable, but it makes it easy for someone with the right methods to learn any secrets you may have."
Shirou huffed slightly at being double-teamed like that, but turned away to cool his head. The trio silently crossed the bridge into Miyama, quietly enjoying what would likely be the last night of peace before they began fighting for their lives. Finally, they reached the intersection that led to their respective districts. "Well, this is where we part. I've paid my debt, and starting tomorrow, we'll be enemies. If I help you anymore, I'd start getting too attached, so goodnight, Emiya-kun."
Shirou gave her a wistful half-smile. While she was wildly different from what he had come to admire from school, revealing an unapproachable, short-tempered, snide and sarcastic girl, Rin was still a fundamentally good person underneath all that. Even though she took a huge risk and nearly lost her Servant, she still took the time to explain things to him, making sure he fully understood his options. That went beyond simply repaying a debt: it was genuine, fair support of someone out of his element. "Thank you, Tohsaka. You really are a good person. I know it's kinda dumb to say it, but I'd rather not be enemies with you. I like people like you."
For the first time since Saber had let her stand, Rin was utterly speechless. Obviously she didn't expect to be given such a heartfelt thank you after all of the revelations were done. People like Shirou were too gentle and kind to be involved in this sort of madness, but here he was, thanking her like she had treated him to dinner or something. Brushing one of her pigtails behind her shoulder, she looked away slightly. She was secretly very glad it was too dark to easily make out the blush she was likely sporting. "J-just run to the church if your Servant gets killed. At least that way you'll survive."
Shirou nodded, even though he had a gut feeling that if Saber died, he would be right there behind her, making it a moot point. With their awkward goodbyes exchanged, Rin turned to head up towards the Western-style buildings, the opposite direction from Shirou's Japanese estate.
She didn't make it ten feet before she stopped cold. "Tohsaka?" Shirou followed her gaze just as a short, burning pain throbbed through his left hand.
"Are you two finished?" a young voice called out sweetly from higher up the hill. There, at the top, two figures were slowly illuminated by the moon as the wind blew away the veil of clouds. One was a little girl, clad in purple and gazing at them through crimson eyes. Though he had only seen her once before, Shirou easily remembered her from a few days prior, where she had given him a suddenly not-so-cryptic warning.
Behind her, another, inhumanly massive figure loomed grimly, a powerful creature parodying a man's shape, stone-still. Even while it stood peaceably there, the massive Servant (for what else could it possibly be?), nearly made Shirou's vision blur from the aura of death that filled the air.
"Berserker…" the raven-haired girl mumbled, fear tingeing her tone.
"Good evening, Onii-chan. We meet again," she innocently giggled with a soft smile like the moon overhead. The contrast between her demeanor and the circumstance sent chills down the magi's spines, effectively locking them in place.
While the killing intent behind the monster's mere presence effectively crushed Shirou's resolve to even move, Rin had the presence of mind to analyze the situation. The results weren't exactly promising. "Crap… he's way out of our league."
The girl's smile faded into an almost disheartened frown. "Phoo. Your Servant's not coming out to play? I was hoping I'd kill you both right now at their peak," she said with an equally unhappy tone. Then, in an almost contradictory act of politeness before the inevitable murder spree, she curtsied formally. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Rin. I am Ilya. Illyasviel von Einzbern, if you prefer."
Rin almost gagged at her luck. Running into that monster, who was under the command of the Einzberns? It really didn't get much worse than this, she thought. Her mind racing for a plan, she barely heard the little girl's next sentence. "Now, I'll kill you all." The way she spoke those words was disgustingly pure, almost like she didn't understand them. "Go ahead, Berserker," she sang happily.
No further encouragement was needed, and the massive form of Berserker flew into battle with a silent leap. His massive strength meant that he covered the distance into the fray instantly, his axe-club high overhead for one massive blow. Saber tore off the raincoat and closed her gauntlet around her invisible sword even as she rushed to face the monster. "Shirou, stay back!" she ordered sharply.
The two Servants met at nearly the same instant, Berserker's weapon descending with the fury and speed of a meteor, Saber's own blade rising to meet it. Their attacks collided in a small explosion of displaced air, Saber almost matching her enemy's strength for the first exchange. Her expression twisted slightly, pained from the impact despite the successful parry. Berserker's whirlwind of destruction didn't let up for an instant, and the small blonde barely found herself able to defend against the second swing, the resulting collision of steel and stone pushing her back in a stiff slide. The sheer power behind the blow had nearly sent her airborne, and it became disturbingly apparent as the gray titan charged after her that the mighty Saber was overmatched.
Badly.
