Chapter 11: Agony Touch
The sun was completely gone now and nothing but darkness and dim street lights accompanied Hisashi as he walked home. He continued to seethe with rage and hatred, most of it directed towards Verner after their earlier confrontation.
"Who the hell does he think he is?" grunted Hisashi, talking to himself, "What makes him so goddamn important that he can just boss Imizviel around!"
With a growl he lashed out at the nearest lamp post, kicking it repeatedly as if it were a punching bag. He kicked and kicked until his lungs were out of breath and his shins bruised. He did not know why, but everything seemed to be against him today. First it was the senseless murders in the city, then it was Archer's coldness and now Verner's haughtiness. Today was not his day.
Hundreds of thoughts spiraled out of control in his head. Thoughts of pain, inferiority, anger, hatred, sorrow. Thoughts that when bundled together would cause even the most hardy of men to break down in tears. Hisashi's breathing became rapid and in an instant he roared incoherently into the night sky.
"What an angry boy we have here." Chills were felt all throughout Hisashi's body. He knew that voice. It was a voice he recognized all too well. He turned around and before him was a man in a midnight black dress suit. His hair was a pearl white and recognizable glasses were perched on top of his eyes. It was Taro Tanaka.
"Y...You!" said Hisashi with a stutter. He could feel the sweat drip down from his neck all the way down to the small of his back. He was afraid, very afraid.
"So you recognize me, I'm flattered." With a wave of his hand, Berserker appeared directly behind Tanaka, as if he appeared out of thin air. The samurai who had once been white was now painted with blood, giving his armor a deep crimson color. It did not take much thought for Hisashi to find out where that blood came from.
"It was you!" In an instant Hisashi's fears turned into pure anger. It was Tanaka and Berserker who had killed all those people. It was their fault those thirteen lives had been cut short. It was they who had performed such a horrific injustice.
"What are you talking about?" Tanaka had a more psychotic demeanor than usual. His glasses were cracked and Hisashi could make out that his pupils were unbelievably small. It was as if he were on a very powerful drug.
"You were the one who killed all those people in the office building. All thirteen people are dead because of you!"
"Guilty!" said Tanaka, raising his hand in a flamboyant fashion. "Indeed it was I! What are you going to do about it? Hm? Cry like a baby? Or fight like man?"
"I'm going to do more than that," said Hisashi, his fist's clenched and shaking. "I'm going to kill you!"
He wasn't thinking things through. Any sane man would have thought twice before rushing towards a Master and Servant pair like that but something within Hisashi compelled him to go forward. It was not passion, it was not a sense of justice. It was hatred. Not towards Tanaka. Towards himself.
Berserker disappeared like a phantom, and in an instant a sharp pain could be felt in Hisashi's gut. Berserker had punched him in the stomach. The impact made a loud cracking sound and to Hisashi it was like getting hit by a sedan going forty miles per hour. He flew backwards like a rag doll, loudly connecting with the hard pavement. His elbows and knees were scratched by the cement and a small stream of blood ebbed down his lips.
"Look at you!" said Tanaka, his laughter subsided and was replaced by a sinister, cold tone, "You think you owe something to those people? To those expendable civil servants?" Tanaka began to chuckle, laughing at his own statement. "You have no idea. I saved them. That's what I did."
"Saved them?" asked Hisashi, coughing up more blood, "How could you have possibly saved them?"
"I used to be one of them," said Tanaka flatly. "I used to be nothing more than a little worker bee, buzzing around the hive, mindless. Life was nothing but the same thing over and over again. It was always, Tanaka-san do this, Tanaka-san do that." A smile came across his face, but it was not one of madness, but one of sorrow. Hisashi looked into his eyes and could see a drastic change, they became more relaxed, more calm. "Home was no different. I would come back to an ungrateful wife. One who nagged on and on...that is, until Berserker helped me shut her up. Berserker was the best thing to ever happen to my life. This Grail War, everything! Yes, I saved them. Saved them from a miserable life filled with nothing but disappointment!"
Hisashi pushed himself back up. Tanaka was insane. He had to stop him. No matter what the cost. He had to fight.
"Still want more?" asked Tanaka with a smile, "You sure are a glutton for punishment." Berserker rushed towards Hisashi again and landed a powerful blow to his stomach, flinging him backwards and face down into the pavement. Tanaka only laughed harder.
Hisashi tried to get up once more, but the pain was unbearable. He felt like his insides were nothing but mush, a churned up goop that could come pouring out of his mouth at any moment.
"Look at you!" said Tanaka, "You're pathetic! No, you're less than pathetic. You're worthless! Useless even! What purpose do you serve in this war? None!"
"I know," said Hisashi through his clenched teeth. However, the faint whisper was unheard by Tanaka and the madman continued his drawn out insult.
"Aren't you the son of the famous Emiya Shirou and Rin? And yet look at you! You can't even cast the most basic of spells! What a disgrace!"
"I know." Another unheard whisper. Hisashi's body began to surge with pain, but it was not from his beating. He was funneling prana through his body. A dangerous act for not only him, but for others around him. But at the moment, he could care less about the people around him.
"Where did they find you? Some kind of magus orphanage? I doubt that. They would find at least something of value in those places. No, I know where they found you. The gutter, along with the rest of the trash! In fact that's what you are. You are not a Master, not a magus, you're just trash!"
"I know!" In an instant the surrounding fifteen feet around Hisashi erupted in a vibrant crimson light. The intensity nearly blinded Tanaka and the sheer force generated caused the concrete beneath them all to shatter like glass and the Master and Servant to be launched backwards like paper bags in a hurricane.
Hisashi's body began to form rips. Blood poured out from the gruesome gaps and muscle tissue could be made out underneath. Hisashi was in an unspeakable amount of pain. But he didn't care. He would show Tanaka just how useless he really was.
"Wh...what...the hell was that?" stuttered Tanaka. His pride had turned into sheer terror. His glasses were snapped in half by the explosion and a large cut was visible on his forehead.
"It's a little something I was born with. My parent's haven't given it a proper name but I think I'll come up with one on the spot, right here, right now." Hisashi stood confident in the middle of the desolate crater that he had just created. "I think I'll call it, the agony touch. Because it hurts like a bitch."
"Kill him Berserker!" yelled Tanaka. Berserker rose from the rubble and charged towards Hisashi once again, his blade drawn and ready to taste his blood.
Hisashi met this with a counter charge, funneling mana into his left arm. He may not be able to use magic properly, but he knew full well how to channel it. After all, he learned from the best.
As Berserker raised his sword above his head, Hisashi rammed his palm into Berserker's chest, causing the Servant to be engulfed in a cacophonous, crimson explosion.
Hisashi fell to his knees, his left arm throbbing with pain and drenched in blood. It was almost entirely unrecognizable and virtually no skin was left upon it. Tears streamed down his face, the pain was too much. But he had to keep going. It was the only thing he could do. The only thing he could ever do.
Berserker's bloodied body crashed into the concrete almost twenty five feet away from Hisashi. His armor was completely destroyed and all that could be seen was a frail man with a horribly scarred face. Then suddenly, he laughed. It was no ordinary laugh, but a bloodcurdling, hollow laugh.
"What's so damn funny?" yelled Hisashi, his voice giving off a sense of exhaustion.
Berserker rose from the debris, though Hisashi's eyes blurred, he could make out that the Servant was covered with horrible injuries, mostly from his attack.
"This is the first time I have felt this much pain," Berserker's body tingled, as if he were getting some sick sexual pleasure from his own injuries. "Keep going!" In an instant Berserker lunged towards Hisashi, his body moved faster than the eye could see and before Hisashi could even react, the scarred samurai was right in front of him.
Berserker then grabbed Hisashi by the throat and began to yell loudly, "Do it! Do it again! I demand it!"
"You want it so bad?" Hisashi raised his bloodied left arm and placed it upon Berserker's face, "Then have it you sick son of a bitch!" He charged his left arm with mana once again, and the crimson light was the last thing he saw before blacking out.
Berserker was left standing in the middle of a crater, his scarred body was nothing more than muscle tissue. He smiled widely as he tossed the knocked out boy to the ground. He gazed at the boy's left arm, or what was left of it. It was nothing but a twisted mass of flesh, as if the boy's entire arm had been put into a grinder. Berserker could not help but give a small chuckle.
"Finish him Berserker!" ordered Tanaka.
Berserker lifted his blade high above his head, prepared to finish the boy off with a single stroke. However, he could not help but feel regret. This boy had allowed him to experience true pain, and now he would have to kill him. Such a waste.
"Stop right there," spoke a familiar voice. From the darkness emerged a girl that Berserker knew all too well. The one that had bested him a few days ago. The raven haired ninja, Archer.
"Archer," said Berserker, "Good to see you again."
"Silence," responded Archer coldly. Her sapphire eyes gazed upon her horribly wounded Master and in a split second she drew her blade. The black blade then quickly swirled in darkness and in it's stead were eight, pitch black shurikens. She threw them into Berserker, who flailed his blade wildly in an attempt to deflect them. But they were much too fast and the sharp shurikens pierced through him and out the other side of his body. Afterward, as if they had a mind of their own, they flew back into Archer's hands. But they did not seem to stop the skinned samurai.
Berserker's mouth widened into a grin, the distorted, veined remnants of his face made it a horrendous sight to see. He lifted his blade high above his head and a faint voice was heard. Archer herself did not recognize the voice, but she knew deep down inside, it was something pure evil.
"Kill. Maim. Butcher. Destroy. Impale. Slice. Dismember. Again and Again."
The blood around them spun into the air like a vile, disgusting tornado. The crimson droplets spun around and around and without warning, stopped in midair.
"Feed," said Berserker. And instantaneously, the blood dived into his silver blade. The same phrase could be heard uttering from the blade once more.
"Kill. Maim. Butcher. Destroy. Impale. Slice. Dismember. Again and Again."
A glorious white light then emanated from the tip of the skinned samurai's katana. Archer herself shielded her eyes from the intensity and the white light shone throughout the dark street, blocking everything from view.
In a matter of minutes the glow subsided and Archer looked up to see that the skinned samurai was gone and instead replaced by someone different. Someone who looked nothing like the warrior she fought earlier.
There, standing before her, was a handsome man. His hair was a bright red and it flowed over his shoulders and to his waist. He looked to be in his early twenties and he wore a bright, blood red kimono. In his hand was the silver katana, it's brilliance so great that it would appear pure white to those gazing upon it.
The handsome man breathed the night air in deeply, as if reveling in it. "A beautiful night to die, is it not Archer?"
"It is you who will be dying. Muramasa Sengo."
