AN: Hey everyone, I have the next chapter here. I was busy with school work, so I couldn't write as much as I normally could. This chapter starts to hint at a few of the Grand Order fighters, show off some new moves, and introduce one of my favorite assassin servants. This chapter does have a little time jump, but all that happened in-between was training and searching. Hope you enjoy this chapter, let me know what you thought or if you have any suggestions, and have a nice day.

Chapter 53 – Heating Up

Two weeks later.

Cinder

On top the Garden of the Einzbern mansion, Cinder sparred with Chloe. Both held a short sword in each of their hands, the blades grinding against one another. In the distance, Iri was watching them while sitting at the table.

Suddenly, Cinder pushed Chole back, launching the red mantle girl into the air. However, Chloe grinned as she repositioned herself. She then tossed her two blades at Cinder, which curved as the spun through the air. Chloe then traces two more short swords and tossed them as well. Cinder prepared to intercept all four projectiles. In the process, she realized she took her eyes off Chloe. At that moment, Chloe got behind Cinder, already in mid-swing with two more blades.

Just before any of the hits could collide with her body, Cinder's eyes glowed a fiery yellow. Before Chloe could react, she noticed Cinder's swords radiating a similar glow. The black-haired archer then slashed at the four blades in front her, but her sword when through them without any resistance. Chloe watched as her traced weapons shattered, but to her shocked, they then turned to dust. She then tried to block Cinder's horizontal slash. Chloe let go of her blades as she jumped away, leaving them to the same fate as her other four. As she landed back on the ground, she saw Cinder casually standing, the dust of the weapons glowing as they radiated near her body.

"Cool, you learned how to Overedge your swords," Chloe said before had a slight chuckle in her next statement, "Or should I say, you learned how to Overcook them."

"Call it what you will," Cinder responded with a smile, "It is a power I find to be very useful in combat."

"No kidding," Chloe responded as she made two more replacement blades, assuming a fighting stance, "Now then, round two." She said with a smirk, Cinder responding in kind.

Iri smiled as she watched the two sparring. However, she heard someone open the door to the rooftop garden. It was Archer carrying a tray of tea and sandwich to the group, his apron on instead of his red mantle, "Thank you Shirou," Iri said as he placed the tray on the table, sitting next to her,

"Tell me, has my father contacted you recently?" Archer said with her eyes slightly filling with worry, "It has been a while since he left."

"He has, it is a searching mission that is taking him a while to find his target." Iri responded with a slight grin, "Next time he contacts me, I will let him know you are worried about him."

"I was not worried, just irritated." Archer corrected, "Before he left, he told the headmaster I was his recommendation me for Grand Order."

"As he has done for the past couple of years," Iri said as she grabbed a sandwich, "And will you reject his recommendation, like the other years."

"Of course," Archer said with his mother sighing, however, she noticed her son smiled slightly, "Besides, this year I can do something more to help people. You see, about a month ago, that fishing town was attacked by Grimm, leaving it in bad shape. They have been rebuilding ever since, but it has been slow and meant the people cannot go and see the tournament." He then turned back to her, "The headmaster said that if you are not participating in The Grand Order this year, you can volunteer to help repair the town on the same day."

"I see, that is a good reason, but still an excuse." Iri said with Archer having a perturbed look on his face, "It also means you will miss Cinder's moment in the Grand Order."

"What, who is recommending her?" Archer responded with Iri smiling as she closed her eyes, "Oh, that's why you have been training her in your free time." He said with her nodding, causing him to sigh as he reached for a sandwich, "And if you two do win, what are your wishes?" he said before taking a bite of his snack.

"I'll not sure what Cinder wants yet," Iri responded, "But my wish will be that you marry her." Suddenly, Archer coughed, choking on his sandwich, "Shirou, remember to chew."

Once he recovered he turned to his mother in a panic, "Are you insane!" he responded, "You can't wish for something like that from the school." He said with her smiling, "…Can you?"

"They can officiate the wedding, have it in the church." Iri responded, "I have thought a lot about this."

"Have you talked with Cinder about this?" Archer responded, "Or father, Illya, and Chloe!?"

"Nope," Iri replied, causing Archer to have a look of disbelief, "I want this to be a surprise, so don't tell anyone."

"Why are you doing this!?" Archer responded back as he closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I just want you to be happy, Shirou." Iri said with a sincere smile, causing Archer to open his eyes, "And your happy when you're with her, aren't you?" She said with him going silent for a second as he lowered his hand, "Regardless, this is all contingent on her winning. But I have faith in her, do you?"

"…The tea is cold." Archer said as he picked up the tray, "I'll make a new pot."

"But, we didn't try the tea yet," Iri said but Archer was already walking away with the tray. As he closed the door behind him, she smiled, "…Just as shy as his father."

In the distance, Cinder and Chloe paused their fight to look over at Iri, "I wonder what that was about?" Cinder asked with Chloe shrugging.

Pyrrha.

In the plans outside the academy, Karna sparred with Pyrrha. The two clashed with their spears while Vlad watched from afar, "That is enough ground combat." The blond lancer declared, "Take to the air." After his claim, Pyrrha tired a horizontal slash. Karna jumped to dodge, shrouding himself in a red aura, and ascended high in the sky.

Pyrrha looked up at him and grinned. Her Gae Akuno radiated a black aura that surrounded her body, concentrating on the armor on her body. The red-haired warrior then jumped to meet Karna in the sky, resuming her clashing of weapons in mid-air now.

"Good Pyrrha, you have mastered this ability with your polarity." Vlad said as he looked up at them, "Now, show me another."

"Yes sir," Pyrrha said as she pushed Karna away with a slash of her spear. As Karna recovered, he looked to see Pyrrha pointed up with her Gae Akuno. A ball of black energy gathered at the spearhead as the gems in her weapon glowed, "Gae Milo: Blast!" She declared as she pointed at the pale lancer, unleashing a beam of black aura.

Karna held his lance in a blocking stance, causing the black beam to redirect off it. The beam the headed back down towards Vlad, colliding with the ground only a few feet from his body. While the impact created a mild explosion, he simply grinned as he looked up at his students, "Pyrrha! Karna!" Vlad shouted up to them, "We are running out of time for our lesson today. I am giving you permission, use your Noble Phantasms."

Both student lancers nodded before turning to each other from meters away, "If that is your command." Karna said before he closed his eyes as his body began to radiate fire. As he opened them, the fire erupted from his back into multiple pillars in a circle. His golden armor exploded off his body, his radiance rivaling the sun above him.

Pyrrha closed her eyes as well as she let go of her weapon. However, her lance did not fall as it was between her palms. The Gae Akuno began to spin on its axis as it radiated a black aura darker than the others before. The aura expanded around Pyrrha, but this time as a confluently moving spherical magnetic field.

Karna then reeled back his spear arm as heat gathered at the tip, "Vasavi Shakti." He said before thrusting his spear forward, unleashing a devastating beam of fire.

At that moment, Pyrrha opened her eyes and declared, "Gae Milo: Barrier!" The spherical barrier she made quickly compressed, forming an oblong shape. It was as if a massive wave of black magnetic energy was expanding in all directions as it collapsed in on itself. The two attacks collided with each other, each struggling for dominance. After a few seconds without either gaining ground over the other, the attacks detonated into a massive explosion.

As the explosion ran through the area, Vlad smiled as felt the shockwave pass over his body. He looked up at the smoke over the blast, seeing both of his students descending back to the ground, "Excellent." Vlad said as he walked over to them, "Both of you are ready for Grand Order tomorrow."

"I have told you before, I do not wish to enter." Karna responded as he recalled his weapon, "Due to the event's structure, I am unable to fight my brother in a round." He said in a deadpan voice as Pyrrha had an uneasy smile.

Vlad cleared his throat before he continued, "Regardless, you were not the I was going to recommend this year." He said to Karna before looking to the red-haired warrior, "Pyrrha Nikos, it will be announced later tonight, but I wanted to tell you that you are my recommendation for this year's Grand Order."

"Thank you," Pyrrha said as she made a slight bow. She then looked up at him, her eyes full of determination, "I promise, I won't lose."

"I would expect nothing less," Vlad said before he turned around, "This training session is over, get some rest before the event tonight." He said before walking away.

Karna then turned to see Pyrrha smiling as she looked at her weapon, "Congratulations." He said to her with a slight smile forming on his face, "You have done a lot to get to this point."

"I didn't think it was possible," Pyrrha responded, "But, I haven't worked this hard since I first started training to become a huntress. Back then, I thought I hit my limit and didn't think it was possible to get stronger." She then looked back Karna, a cheerful smile on her face, "Now, I don't have any limits, just my goal." Pyrrha's expression then changed to one of a looked of focus, "To be undefeated."

"…I see," Karna responded as he smiled. He then turned and started walking, "There is a recipe for Chapati bread I have been meaning to try out. It could give you the stamina for tomorrow to remain undefeated." He said as she giggled, following him. Suddenly, she lightly punched him in the right arm, causing him to have a look of confusion, "What was that for, our match was over?"

"Yes, but I can tell you were holding back with your Noble Phantasm back there," Pyrrha responded.

"If I had used my full power, it could have incinerated a quarter of the kingdom." Karna responded, "Your magnetic field does repel the heatwaves from harming you, but it could have destroyed the land in the process if I had used my full power." he then looked at his body, "But it still cost me my armor to attack at that level." He then turned back to Pyrrha, "You must be careful of your surroundings."

"Okay, I will remember for next time," Pyrrha said as they walked. After a few seconds, she felt something grip her left hand. upon looking down, she saw that it was Karna holding it. When she looked up at him, his face was still deadpan, but Pyrrha smiled as she looked forward, "Thank you, for helping get this far."

Kirei

At the far end of the kingdom of Apocrypha, inside a navy-blue car, Bazett drove down an empty dirt road as Kirei was reading from a bible in the adjacent seat. The professional huntress had a somewhat scowled expression as she drove, leading to the head of the church to sigh, "I understand your frustration." He said upon closing the bible, "It has been a month with no evidence of these humanoid Grimm at the location Kiritsugu discovered."

"Yes, the towns that say they have spotted them, they now said the sighting stopped just before we got there." Bazett added on, "Something is wrong."

"Perhaps they are congregating at our next stop." Kirei said with a smirk, "After all, this is the last stop for us."

"If they were, I would anticipate a very hostile reaction," Bazett responded.

"Well, that is why I choose you on this mission," Kirei said with a wider smirk as the car stopped, "For your…technique with a situation that could become hostile." As the two opened the doors and exited, the looked upon their location. It was an abandoned town, one that looks to have been that way for over half a decade, "This is it."

"I heard about this town." Bazett said as she reached in the back seat, pulling to a cylindrical container with a strap, "It was the one where a large explosion left the whole area uninhabited. The team sent to investigate lost a member in the process."

"Yes, but what is more notable is that this spot would be the first sighting of the humanoid Grimm." The head of the church responded, "On that mission, the King of Knight fought one of a more primitive form than the other's spotted recently." He held his hands behind his back as he walked into the town, "And it was after that event that the sighting becomes more apparent."

Bazett followed as she shouldered the cylindrical container by the strap. As they walked through the area, the looked at the destroyed homes, crumbling from the passage of time. She then looked at the ground, seeing black stains in the dry dirt. Eventually, they made their way to the center of the town noticing two large craters. One was a massive empty pit, the other was a type of an adjacent channel that ran for a quarter mile to the outside of the town, "So that is where Arturia used her Noble Phantasm." Bazett said out loud as she looked at the channel. She then looked at the pit, "This must have been the origin of the explosion."

"Yes," Kirei said as he examined the pit, "It was noted in her report she saw many Grimm here, digging and eating the soil. It was theorized the runoff from the explosion made a sort of nutrient for Grimm. But for people like us, it was the equivalent of salting the land." He continued to examine the pit, "No more Grimm seems to be in the crater, they must have starved to death after being unable to climb out." Suddenly, the head of the Church had his vision focus on something inside the crater. It was a pile of near the far-off edge. While their shape looked humanoid, their skin seemed to match that of the color of a Grimm. He turned to Bazett, who had also just seen it.

The two then nodded before jumping into the pit, sliding on the wall on their way down. Upon landing, they walked over to the pile of corpses, clearly seeing them as the Humanoid Grimms, "Well, we found them." Bazett spoke up as she estimated the number she saw in nearing a hundred, noticing the bodies start to evaporate like normal Grimm do, but at a slower rate, "From the looks of it, this is about the number of what was reported." She said as Kirei knelt to examine one of the bodies.

"I saw an image of this one before," Kirei said as he looked at a female Humanoid Grimm with long purple hair. The corpse laid on its back with its clothes tattered and the mask on its face cracked, Kirei slowly tried to remove the mask, but he did not expect it to actually come off. As it did, he saw the face of a dead woman, her eyes closed with a look of torment on her face, "Her expression, she did not have a peaceful death." He then placed the mask to her side as he explained her body. Upon feeling her right forearm, he noticed something odd. As he lifted it, his eyes widened as he noticed the flesh was unsupported by the bone. With each move, he hard the sound of small cracking in the corpse's arm.

"The bones are completely shattered." Bazett commented as she looked at the corpse, "Even if she was alive, this is a type of wound that would never heal. Even I would not be willing to inflict this much damage to a body." She then had a look of anger fill her eyes as she clenched her fists, "Whoever did this was merciless."

Suddenly, Bazett heard something cutting through the air. As she turned to it, her eyes widened as she saw a silver kunai heading for her face. Before she could react, Kirei threw one of his black keys, intercepting the kunai in midair. As the weapons fell to the ground, the head of the church looked to where the kunai was thrown. He quickly spotted someone at the corner of the top of the pit vanishing, "There!" he said as he ran towards the wall of the pit, running up the side of it. Bazett followed suit, leaping out of the pit.

The two exited the crater at the same time, quickly scanning the area. In the corner of Kirei's eye, she saw someone run into an alleyway. Followed with Bazett a few steps behind as they went into the alleyway. After running through for about a minute, they reached a dead-end. Kirei and Bazett looked over to see where the person went. The head of the church noticed a manhole cover on the ground. He knelt down to examine it as Bazett looked to him.

As he lifted the manhole cover, he heard a different metallic sound. Suddenly, he realized where he forgot to look up at the fire escape shafts. Upon turning his head, he saw the attacker. It was a young girl with greyish skin and purple hair. The bone-like mask on her face was the same design as the one he saw earlier. She wore a black, skintight, sleeves attire what vertical showed off her midsection and exposed back. The girl reached out her hand in an attempt to grab Kirei, who knew he could not evade in time.

Suddenly, he noticed a blue light emanating from behind him. He glanced to see Bazett glowing as she dropped the cylindrical container. In her right hand was a palm-sized metal ball. She tossed it in the air as she clutched her fist. Bazett then punched the metal ball, causing a glyph in the shape of an arrowhead pointing at the attacker. Faster than it could if it had been shot out of a cannon, the metal ball collided with the young girl. While it just grazed her hip, it was enough to push her out of her path to Kirei. The girl slammed into the brick wall as the metal ball tore right through it, making a perfectly spherical hole. When the girl fell the ground, the mask fell off and rolled to Kirei side.

"That makes us even," Bazett said as she adjusted her gloves. Kirei smirked as he let go of the manhole cover. He then picked up the bone-like mask and looked at it. Bazett examined it as well before they both looked to the girl. She was still living in pain as she glared up at them her purple eyes.

"You must be one of these humanoid Grimm." Kirei said before looking at the mask, "But from what we just discovered, you are the last humanoid Grimm."

"My name is Serenity." The humanoid Grimm girl responded as she tried to get up. However, she fell back to the ground in pain, "You two…did you kill the others."

"No," Kirei responded, "We had just arrived and saw the carnage." He then closed his eyes and slightly bowed his head, "I am sorry for your loss, we did not mean you any ill will."

"We were on a mission to communicate with your kind." Bazett added on, "We had been searching for one of you for the last month."

"In the last month, we have been slaughtered by two individuals. hunting us down before we could learn of their motives or appearance." Serenity responded, "We fled to this town for safety, but …it did not work." She then looked at the two in a slightly calmer expression, "You two…really aren't the two that killed my kind."

"As Bazett said, our goal was to communicate with your people, not to kill." He said as he handed her the mask back, "We only fought back in defense of ourselves."

Serenity looked at the mask for a second before accepting it, "Thank you… and…I'm sorry." She said before putting her mask back on.

"I understand, it can be hard to trust someone in your in this situation." Kirei smiled as he stood up, "Now, it people are trying to kill you. It would be best if took you back to the academy for your own safety."

"A would agree," Bazett commented, "We should leave now to attract less attention to the area." She then looked to see Kirei reach out his hand to Serenity, but she had a look of panic as she stared at it, "Is something the matter?"

Serenity then looked up at Kirei as she picked herself up, "You cannot touch me." She said in a serious voice, "If you or anyone does, they will instantly die from a deadly poison on my skin."

"…I see," Kirei said as he remembered her last attack, retracting his hand, "I will talk with the research team at the academy about a potential cure." He said with Serenity's eyes lighting up behind her mask, "For now, let us focus on getting there first." He said before walking away and out of the alleyway. Serenity followed as Bazett looked at her scroll to look at a miniature map of the area.

"If we were to drive through the night, we would be able to return by late afternoon tomorrow." Bazett said before she closed the scroll, "That means we will miss The Grand Order this year."

"Pity," Kirei said as he walked, a smirk on his face, "I do wonder what became of those transfer students in our absences."

The three then made their way back to the car, with Bazett opening the opening the backseat door for Serenity. The young girl nodded in thanks before entering the car. Bazett took her seat as the drive as Kirei was about to enter. However, he quickly turned back to the town, scanning in silence before entering the car. After a few seconds, the car drove off into the distance.

However, hiding the shadows was a middle-aged man who glared at the car. He sipped from a flask before turning to someone behind him, "We'll follow them until the time is right." the man said in a gruff voice to another person. This person was completely black in the shadows, but still radiated a dark aura outlining his disheveled hair, red eyes, and the sinister smile that grew on his face.

AN: There you go, a lot went down this chapter. You see Cinder now has a very deadly move in her arsenal, not quite a reality marble yet, but still strong. You see Archer is a bit more recovered now from last we saw him but is a little take back it his mother's intentions. Pyrrha can now use her polarity skill to float, fire beams, and create an expansive magnetic field for blocking attacks. (her weapon is Gae Akuno, but Gae Milo is how she declares the attacks she makes with them). Karna shows his stubborn, yet soft side this chapter with Pyrrha as well. The next chapter will be a while to put out but should be longer as I go through who gets put into what round for Grand Order, the rules, and some fun with the formal event as well. And finally, we return to Kirei and Bazett after on their quest for the Humanoid Grimm, finding the last one alive in Serenity. And as they leave, you see they are going to be followed by two people everyone thought were dead. (in case some misunderstands, the guy with the flask is not Qrow). That is all for now, thanks for reading, and hope to see you in the next chapter.