A/N: Heyy! Just to let you guys know, I listened to a bunch of playlists from anime soundtracks and osts while writing this, so maybe it would be cool to listen to some while reading, hmm? If you want lol. Especially the Fate/Zero and Stay night (2014-2015) ost. Anyway, enjoy!
Silver shoots an arrow for the tentacle around Saber's neck and Lancer throws his spears to those grabbing her arms and legs. The Servants go next to her, all of them in battle stances back-to-back.
"Saber, I thought you could take these on your own," Lancer teases and gives her a small wink.
"Calm down, it's not like she is scratched up like us," Silver laughs, referring to the blood stained all over each other.
"Why are you guys here?" Saber wonders in confusion, not necessarily anger.
"To aid you of course," Silver looks back while shooting an arrow at an incoming tentacle.
She notices some small corpses of children. Her mind immediately went back to the time she saved the young boy, Shirou, if she remembered his name correctly. Right there, she has an idea that Caster's Master is the orange haired man soaked in blood the night of her summoning.
"We have business to finish anyway," Diarmuid reminds the King of Britain, interfering Aerith's thoughts.
"Who are you?! How dare you disrupt us!" Caster's disgusting voice hisses through the air. He creates an opening in the fortress to show his whole figure and angered features. Their attention on him and the two new Servants grimace at the sight. Silver takes note of the book in his wrinkled fingers.
"I would love to talk, Caster. But I can not allow you to humiliate Saber any further," Silver says and turns her body facing him. "Your serial killer Master will be done if you don't retreat." His face fills with worry and surprise. As much as Silver doesn't want to kill mortals, she feels true revulsion towards Caster's Master, even in that one night she met him.
"It will be my lance that will take Saber's life. Such actions towards any Servant is a complete insult, you fiend!" Lancer's anger clear in his voice, brows furrowed and the red spear pointing for the screaming devil-mage.
"No... No, no, no, no! No! My vessel brought that woman back! She is mine. Every last drop of blood, pound of flesh, inch of skin all belongs to me! No one can take her away from my love!" the mad Servant yelling all of these things, angering the King of Knights further.
"Your 'love' for her doesn't concern me in any way, Caster," Aerith harshly says. "What does concern me, however, is that you would try to mortify a fellow king like a toy and cause suffering to the young!" She looks back at him infuriated. She knows Saber wouldn't be responsible for the demise of these children, judging by her loyalty as a knight and pure hatred for Caster written on her face.
The mage growls deepens his breathing. He finds the features on Silver could also resemble his beloved Jeanne, and yet the lurking immortality in her presence sickens him. The bright face very attractive to anyone, but he can sense the madness and devil inside. Furthermore, she would have the audacity to bring up his Master by threatening him. How dare she?!
Looking at them fighting their way through his monsters, he knows their actions are unavailing. At the moment, he wants them to suffer with the struggle of fighting these beasts. Especially the Eighth Servant he wants dead. If she can get through the monsters today, the next time will certainly be worse.
While Caster has these murderous thoughts jumping in his head, the three Servants continue to fight. It must have been more than two hundred times they have taken out the monsters.
"It baffles me how we haven't made any progress in fighting them," Silver begins. "with three different approaches as well."
"We can't just continuously kill these minions if they will just return within seconds," Saber states, wiping the sweat from under her blonde bangs.
"King of Knights, what have you gathered about these things before we arrived?" the spear-man asks, all of them returning back-to-back.
"He is the Heroic Spirit 'Gilles de Rais'. The spell-book he holds is his Noble Phantasm, the action that revives the monsters and is summoning them. He murdered all these children before I arrived here," she informs them and feels the shivers spread through her body from the memory of the innocent faces she couldn't rescue.
"So that means," Aerith starts, fighting off a monster and killing it, followed by its resurrection.
"We have to destroy it," Diarmuid finishes her sentence and looks at his fine Gae Dearg.
"Our only obstacles are these creatures and the stronghold around him," Arturia says, cutting through three of his monsters.
As they all think of a way to get to the book and destroy it, or cancel its mana, they continue their strikes. Silver, materializing more arrows, has an idea shining in her head. Her beautiful face lightens up as she processes the thought.
"I have a suggestion," she offers, earning their attention. "Lancer's red spear cancels out mana. If I can fly high enough and shoot an arrow empowered with strong magic to take down that fort, he can make his assault. The dilemma would be the monsters in our way."
"I may have lost my left arm, but I can still create a path for him to go through without getting affected, and taking down the tentacles for that instant. As long as he can run with the wind." Saber's words emphasized with certainty and pride. Her hands clench the handle of her holy sword with determination. Lancer chuckles at her last remark and Silver nods.
"That sounds great to me. We would make a good team after all," Aerith lifts an eyebrow.
"This wouldn't be an alliance, is it?" Saber asks.
"Don't get the wrong idea, Saber. We still have to eliminate the angel here." Lancer tilts his head towards Silver, who chuckles with a roll of her eyes. "However, that can wait another day."
"For tonight, we shall all be under a truce, I suppose. Are you with me?" Silver offers, cocking an eyebrow and smirking.
The gallant knights nod and say in unison, "Yes" with assertive grins.
"Perfect," the King of the Sky grins while taking out an incoming monster.
"Bastards! You think you can come here and fool around with your petty tricks! I will send you all to the flames of Hell!" They almost forgot he stood there. Caster closes the fortress, powering it more and summons more demonic beasts.
"He still talks," Lancer mutters with a smirk, cutting through three monsters at once. Silver chuckles and Saber grins, slicing clean through the tentacles going for her.
"Right, let us end this," Saber says. Lancer raises his spear, charging the right amount of mana to affect Caster's trump card. With that affirmation, Silver flaps her brilliant wings to get high off the ground, above the tallest trees in the forest.
"On my mark, our one chance!" she shouts, taking the arrow in her hand and adjusting it for Caster. The mana flowing through her veins and she closes her eyes for concentration.
"Are you finished with your final wishes? Then why don't you fall, like the pedals on a dying flower? Surely you all know what it is like," Caster laughs, covering his large eyes with with hand from the laughter. "How mortifying! You will tremble and suffocate to these villains! The true despair for any warrior. Let that beautiful face twist in dear agony for me, Jeanne!" Even more monsters come for them. The two knights wait for Silver's mark.
"Saber..." The electricity charging in the silver arrow, so much that small lightning bolts emit from its core, not hurting the angel one bit. She opens her eyes, finding the knights below her all set, she pulls back the thick string of her glorious bow. Blue and purple bolts of lightning fill the sky for the whole city to watch. "Now! Finish this!"
"Strike Air!" the young, blonde Servant cries.
The arrow goes flying for the Servant. Saber's sword has golden wind swirling and she thrusts it forward, the monsters corrupt under her attack, creating the path. Lancer starts running in it, taking out any tentacles the King of Knights may have missed. As he starts running, the arrow makes contact with the fort of Caster and it explodes completely. The chunks of flesh flying everywhere, almost hitting Lancer.
"H-how is this-!" Caster's shocked expression appears from the shadows, making eye contact with the spear-man.
"It is time! Pierce it, Gae Dearg!" the valiant knight shouts and thrusts his ruby weapon right to the spell-book.
The monsters drop dead, their blood soaking the floor as if creating a river. The book has a giant rip through it. The mana has ceased flowing, due to the blow, and Caster's jaw dangles from their actions. Saber glares at him and Lancer faces him.
"Damn you..." Gilles de Rais curses and throws his head back in pure anger. "Damn you, damn you, damn you! Damn you all to Hell!"
"Did you like that?" Lancer twirls his spear with a smirk on his face. "Had Saber gained use of her other arm, the situation wouldn't change much," he remarks and points the tip of the scarlet spear for the blue Servant's head.
"Prepare yourself," the King of Knights advances, having Caster face her. "... To die."
Silver lands swiftly and points an arrow for Caster's head. The bow ready, perfect stance, and an arrogant grin curled on her full lips. Bluebeard looks at the three knights cornering him, his teeth clenched and eyebrows furrowed in madness.
With his gaze and attention on Caster, Lancer suddenly feels a sense of alarm. This alarm involving his Master, his lord. The amber eyes widen, as if from terror, and his muscles tense up. He has to get to his Master, his sole thought right now as the three circle Bluebeard.
Aerith notices his alarmed expression and a frown appears on her face. The detection field she had set among the forest shows her that not only is Lancer's Master in danger, but the homunculus Master of Saber as well. She remembers her promise to both of them to keep the two knights' duel continuing, so she must warn them of the hazard.
As both of them fret from the others in the forest, Caster takes the chance to flee from them, even though his spell-book self-healed itself. Saber tries to get him, but it's too late. A shroud of red fog bursts around them, and Caster's presence vanishes from the woodland. Saber curses under her breath, and notices the state of the other two Heroic Spirits before her.
"Is something-" she begins to ask.
"You Masters are in peril," the mortal of the sky interrupts her. Arturia's emerald orbs widen as she thinks of either Irisviel or Kiritsugu, more concern for the Einzbern rather than the mage-killer. "Go to their side immediately if either of you want to remain fighting in this war."
Arturia doesn't know if she should completely trust her, but the look in her light sapphire irises say it all. Along with the terrified look in the golden eyes of Diarmuid and his nod. She knows that if her "Master" is at risk, it would be Irisviel, seeing as how Kiritsugu would most likely be responsible for the danger of Lancer's Master at the castle.
"Lancer," Saber looks at him seriously. "Your Master is in jeopardy from my Master. Return to the castle and go save your lord."
He is shocked with her instruction, no words come up his throat. She would put her Master in danger by allowing Lancer to go to him, it is bewildering to him. However, he smiles and thanks them both for their kindness, disappearing in thin air. The women nod to one another.
"My thanks, King of Legends," Saber shows her appreciation and runs in the shadows of the night forest. Silver's bow dematerializes and she changes into her goddess light-blue dress with slits on the sides on her upper-thighs and her long hair loose from the braid.
In all honesty, Aerith is glad that they will save their Masters. Both of them are formidable and worthy opponents she wishes to fight again. She is already amused with her battle with Lancer, and she wishes to continue it.
The other opponents in this war, she also thinks they are noble to fight. Berserker, Archer, Rider, Assassin, and even Caster. It may not seem like it to the other Servants, but she finds that if they have the beautiful desire to achieve victory in the Holy Grail War, they are more than righteous of participating. She concludes that they all have their separate beliefs for this war, which is enough proof of their virtue.
"No matter what type of person they are - good or bad - nothing will stop them from winning their own war with their past. They all have the will to fight and survive, their approaches are just different. It goes for anyone else." Her words leave her lips and she takes a deep breath, looking around her at all the lying corpses.
She may hate Caster for committing this crime, but she still respects his wish to have the woman he loved back. Of course, the way he treats Saber is unrealistic, but his wish for Jeanne D'Arc is his alone and no one can take it from him. Unless, he gets eliminated from the Heaven's Feel.
But there is always one thing she asks everyone she confronts on the battlefield. This question floats in her mind as well. It's as if she interrogates others to see if she can find her own answer.
"Rivals," she speaks as if one stands before her. "Who do you fight for? Is it the people of your past you wish to avenge? A loved one? Your own true self as a warrior? Or even the stranger that granted you this second chance of redemption? No."
These questions have been stuck in her head from the day she picked up a weapon. She wants to know if the Servants participate in this war for a certain person or people. But her inquiry of the mages that summoned them in this war should never be a response for any of them.
"No! Why would they shed blood for these humans? They didn't give us another chance and a blessing to live once more. They cursed us into life again! How could they not realize that we Heroic Spirits are being played for fools?! This Holy Grail isn't being granted to us, it is possessing our souls."
This analysis aggravates her. Silver can understand why they would want to fight for their lord, like Lancer, since they couldn't save the one in the past. But the Masters are not to be thanked for making them relive the Hell they went through in their first life. That is what she believes in the most about this war.
"What ever we are, fate has cursed us once again. All we can do is fight for an escape."
With all of this concluded, Aerith must keep the questions in mind. Looking around her in the pool of blood and dead bodies, she sees it as a sign.
She walks up to the bodies and starts to pick them up, placing them in files lying one their backs. It hurts to clean up the bodies, but it is worse to let them rot on the ground.
With every weapon she has, she starts digging holes. Making sure the size fits the children, she holds back her tears. The only child she saved was Shirou, although leaving an X shaped scar on his arm. It pains her that this is what the war brings. Despair and suffering.
Completing the graves, she finally makes tombstones out of the rocks around her and carves them with her daggers. No clue what to write on them, she makes them for the separate bodies without words engraved. Instead, she creates a giant stone with the writing to warn any contributors in the Heaven's Feel.
"The Heaven's Feel, or otherwise the Holy Grail War. You chose to fight, then accept the consequences for those around you. This is the reality to expect."
Aerith stands up from the stone and gazes upon the graveyard before her. It truly is sickening how the war can bring suffering depending on the Heroic Spirits. Even then, there will be those who die and those who survive the Purgatory come true.
She kneels down, intertwine her fingers together and closes her eyes. Wishing for less violence and hurt for others, she prays for a sign of hope. The wind gusting past her and ruffling her features on her white wings.
Opening her eyes, the silver full moon appears before her. She stands up and takes her leave. there must be another place to rest instead of this forest. It is impossible to obtain sleep when lying on the ground that marks the war. She looks back at the graves reflecting the moonlight. Her wings spread, and she flies off into the city of Fuyuki.
"All our souls are bound together by the string of a nameless evil."
A/N
So how did you like this chapter, eh? Put your thoughts in the comments and vote if you like!
I will try to update every Sunday since it's SUMMER! So stay tuned! Byee!