Aftermath (3)

"Allow me to make one thing perfectly clear. If you are not up to par with my level of ability, then you will die. I do not intend to lower myself to accommodate the likes of a Vampire, regardless of what either the Kaleidoscope or Director dictates. Is that understood, Apostle?"

"Perfectly."

Shirou's bland reply seemed to placate the Queen of the Clocktower, the Magus calmly striding to the opposite end of the arena she had lead him to, located at some unknown depth of the institution.

"You do realize she's being 100% serious, right? Barthomeloi wouldn't know the meaning of restraint if it came up and smacked her in the face. If you don't bring anything less than your best she's absolutely going to slaughter you."

Placidly meeting the gaze of none other than Aoko Aozaki Shirou mildly replied, "I'm aware of her reputation, Blue. And I don't intend to underestimate her either."

"Well, if you say so...just remember that the Queen has hunted Ancestors solo before and come out on top, I don't want to be the one to tell your little girlfriend that you died while on my watch, she looked ready to rip the Kaleidoscope's head off and eat it when she saw that he'd called in Barthomeloi to practice with you."

Feeling an unusual surge of curiosity the Apostle asked, "How did the Wizard Marshall manage to convince his counterpart to do this? I was under the impression she despised him."

"Oh make no mistake, she hates the Old Man of Jewels a great deal more than she hates your run of the mill Ancestor...but knowing Zelretch it's probably for the best that we don't ask those kinds of questions. He probably took a picture of her while in the shower and threatened to spread it to the rest of the Clocktower if she didn't do this."

Shirou blinked, tilting his head in a motion the redheaded Magician found positively adorable as he remarked, "I was under the impression that he was merely joking when he said he did those kinds of things."

"Never assume what Zelretch is or is not joking about. Heads up, kiddo. I think you're about to start the most recent fight for your life."

Shirou turned his attention to Barthomeloi, the woman taking up position at the opposite end of the arena with a stoic expression, Aozaki patting him on the back as she muttered, "I'll try to intervene if things get out of hand."

"And just how will you do that? I doubt she'll appreciate any interruptions."

"Simple. I'll blow you up, you reform and in the meantime I try to talk down a homicidal Magus with enough personal strength to rip apart a Vampire coven all on her own."

"...That doesn't sound like a very good plan."

Shirou's neutral response had the Blue rolling her eyes, tone dry as she retorted, "Well if you have a better idea I'm all ears."

Ignoring her request Shirou instead asked, "Not that I don't appreciate your presence here, but shouldn't you be helping Illya master her True Magic?"

"I'll get to that once Zelretch has finished his long-winded seminar, don't worry. Besides..."

A smirk adorned the confidant woman's features, tone playful as she stated, "I'm very curious about the strength of the man who, according to rumor, was able to defeat none other than one of Humanity's oldest and strongest Heroic Spirits."

Shirou was about to inquire further when Barthomeloi called out, "Begin!" and Aozaki quickly cleared out.

For Shirou he simply turned to face the Queen of the Clocktower, a distance of almost thirty meters separating them as the duo stared the other down, neither making so much as a single move-

-and Shirou threw himself to the side with a smooth and controlled motion, the spot he had been standing upon a moment prior exploding into a storm of rubble and dust.

Wind magecraft, and a simple application of it as well. Compressing a portion of the atmosphere and then forcing it in a direction at dangerous levels of force, enough to crack the reinforced floor of the dueling arena they were in. No doubt if he'd been caught in the assault he would resemble something along the lines of mulched meat.

She had done it chantless, too.

Even as he'd dodged instinct had flung a deluge of Traced broadswords at the opposing Magus with the force of fired arrows, lethal points aimed to pierce both limbs and organs alike.

Not that they had any appreciable success, a haze of wind surrounding Barthomeloi and causing the swords to slide around her body before impacting the floor behind her.

Both combatants took a moment to size each other up, a small smile pulling at Shirou's lips, the display of emotion surprising him. He had figured such reactions were a thing of his past, only common when around Caren, Sakura and most recently Illya.

This time it was an invisible scythe of slicing air, only discernible through its whistling howl as the Ancestor leapt high into the air, avoiding the strike that would have no doubt left him in two pieces.

Yet again chantless.

"Ah. That's why."

He knew the reason for his smile.

What Barthomeloi had done was very much in the same vein as his own brand of magecraft. Taking a simple concept or art and near perfecting it to the point where it became all but unique in application.

He with his Origin and Alignment of 'Sword', allowing the ability to Trace weaponry of all makes and abilities.

And her, with simple Wind Magecraft that had become so intrinsic and powerful that chantless invocations of the ability resulted in attacks that could crush an assailant in the blink of an eye.

And Shirou had no doubt he was going to see a great deal more abilities as their bout progressed.

...He believed he was actually feeling a bit excited.

A clutch of Black Keys manifested in his fingers, arms whirling downwards at speeds he would have only been able to match as a Human with excessive Reinforcement, air whistling as the steel flew towards Barthomeloi at speeds he calculated sufficient enough to pierce her protective wall of wind, based off of what happened with his previous swords.

Except instead of striking true they were swung in a tight arc before rocketing back in his direction at even swifter speeds, Barthomeloi not moving an inch the entire time.

Shirou was already in motion.

The Keys were dismissed a hairsbreadth before they pierced his skull, legs pumping in powerful strides that closed on the Queen with blinding swiftness.

Except he found himself rebuffed by a powerful tidal wave of kinetic force that caused a percussive BOOM to echo across the arena, Lorelei holding out an arm as Shirou spat out a glob of blood that had resulted from the attack, his lip bitten through during the surprise attack.

"Interesting. She can manifest a natural barrier of wind that nullifies projectiles and also create a far more obvious shield that can force even an Apostle backwards."

It was a simple yet brilliant strategy, considering the natural limitations of a Human. While there were many methods for them to match the reaction speed and strength of Moonlit World denizens, they were artificial and at a baseline level Humans were simply far more fragile than the Supernatural and nothing would ever change that fact.

Thus, she had devised a method that did a great deal in nullifying most of those advantages. A shield that automatically countered fast-moving projectiles and a chantless spell that kept close combatants at an arm's length.

...And this was all during their warmup.

"Time Alter: Double Accel."

Shirou's perception of outside time slowed by half, Barthomeloi moving at a reduced pace as he yet again formed a collection of swords...but these ones were by no means standard blades, being Hava ka Jhonka Mystic Codes that were surrounded by their own rotating currents of air that would ideally nullify Lorelei's own.

Except the Magus seemed to immediately recognize the threat posed by the weapons, a volley of compressed air blades impacting the volley of Traced swords and diverting their course enough that they missed their initial target, biting deeply into the floors and walls surrounding the Queen of the Clocktower.

Shirou's eyes narrowed as more of those very same air projectiles manifested at Lorelei's side in wavers of force similar to the King of Knight's Invisible Air, a technique mirroring his own method of sword manifestation.

An equal number of Hava ka Jhonka swords met the onslaught of compressed air projectiles, sparks flying and metal shattering as the opposing forces tore themselves apart.

Shirou was already moving to close the distance between them, his legs pushing his body at a breakneck pace towards the Queen, wave of crushing force being prepped to yet again push him back-

"Time Alter: Triple Accel."

-and this time he outstripped the defensive wall, disrupting Barthomeloi's timing and thrusting a Traced épée at her throat.

There was nothing wrong with the woman's reflexes, however. A hasty whirl to the side moved her body out of the path of the blade and only suffered a superficial scratch that slowly bled, Shirou slamming his feet into the ground and bringing his forward momentum to a halt as he spun on a dime, eager to take advantage of the brief window he had bought himself with the use of Time Alter magecraft.

Except all he found was the austere looking woman swinging a riding crop at the ground with impressive force, the end of the tool striking the floor-

-and his head promptly exploded, body impacting the far side of the room hard enough that his innards burst, crushed remains falling to the ground in a bloody pulp.

It took a second for that level of damage to be repaired, Shirou marveling at the destructive power the woman wielded as his form reknit itself from scratch.

Yet another inspired strategy, taking the noise produced by her 'weapon' and increasing its potency by magnitudes through the use of her magecraft, creating a shockwave of noise and pressure sufficient enough to pulverize a Dead Apostle.

He regained his feet and nodded appreciatively at the destruction the woman had caused, meters of arena surrounding her in a perfect circle looking as if it had suffered a direct hit from an artillery strike, the ceiling and walls obviously stressed if the occasional fracture in their structure was any indication.

"Hey, you want to give a girl some warning next time?!"

Both combatants ignored the Blue's annoyed shout as she tried in vain to slap the dust out of her hair.

"You're quite the dangerous fighter."

Lorelei didn't make any outward comment to Shirou's observation, instead lightly racing the dripping injury on her skin with a gloved hand, staring at the dollop of blood coating the material as if it was some foreign alien species.

The next words that came out of her mouth sounded as if they were causing the Magus physical agony.

"As are you. The Kaleidoscope was correct in his assessment of your skill."

The pair relaxed a fraction, wordlessly agreeing that their current match was at a standstill as Shirou observed, "I find it interesting that you and I perform similar mystery with our respective crafts. Taking a seemingly innocuous or specific aspect and perfecting it to a level that borders on Magic."

…

Whatever the Apostle expected the reaction to his words to be, it wasn't a deafening silence, the Blue quietly muttering, "Oh you really should not have said that..."

Confused as to what sort of social transgression he might have made Shirou looked to Barthomeloi for answers-

-and was suddenly very, very afraid as a girlish giggle that spoke of both humor and infuriated insanity graced his ears.

The Queen of the Clocktower slowly reached within one of her pockets, pulling out a gleaming gauntlet that she pulled tight over her right hand, Shirou instinctively observing the Mystic Code...and felt his blood freeze as the history and purpose of the gleaming artifact was made clear to him. It wasn't a weapon...it was a shield.

"My family's craft is being compared to that of a filthy Vampire's? Oh dear, is this what the commoner's refer to as humor? It seems there's a great deal of truth to the statement 'comedy is subjective'."

Her laughter was instantly quelled, madness and lust to kill dancing within her eyes as perfect teeth were bared.

"Because I'm not laughing."

Her arm was flung wide, armored fingers curling as if to grasp an invisible sword.

"Rip and burn, Starblade."

The simple Aria barely had time to leave Lorelei's lips before Shirou's teeth began to ache, a deep and irritating buzz rattling his bones as the air around the Queen began to shiver, gathering at the base of her gauntlet before the buzz seamlessly worked itself up towards a shriek, sparks flying from the continuously compressed wind.

Shirou could only watch with morbid fascination as flames began to lick the edge of the Mystic Code, ambient temperature sharply rising within the arena as a shriek turned into a roar, the air itself burning as the writhing mass of unstoppable energy finished coalescing within her grasp, a meter and a half long and blazing with blue flame, the ground melting or bursting into ash and sparks as the chaotic magecraft came too close to it.

And through it all the Queen of the Clocktower glowered at him with a predatory grin, magic circuits glowing almost as brightly as her blade, completely unaffected by a spell that absolutely would have turned her into a charred mess within an eyeblink, if not a fast expanding cloud of dust or gas.

Shirou would label it incredibly impressive, were he not on the receiving end of what was no doubt going to be a lethal assault.

To compress and rotate winds so perfectly that they heated the air to several hundred degrees centigrade, all while ensuring that she herself remained untouched...she really did deserve her title of Queen of the Clocktower.

Precious few forms of mystery could stand up to an assault like that for more than a few seconds before expiring.

"Die, you filthy Vampire!"

Leaping forward with athletic agility the Magus swung the blade in a wide arc that would incinerate Shirou where he stood, the Apostle hesitating as his mind sped through what options were available to him.

Time Alter would be useless, unless he was planning on using it to run away. And he couldn't just stand there and allow himself to be hit, otherwise he would be stuck in a constant loop of regenerating only to be burnt away...and he wasn't prepared to test his durability against an assault of this caliber.

Really, there was only one defensive option he had that could feasibly stand up to this manner of assault without failing.

"Avalon!"

The golden scabbard burst into existence, its gleaming radiance meeting the leading edge of Barthomeloi's swing-

-and her eyes bulged as she found her assault stopped dead in its tracks, annihilating heat frozen in place by Avalon's perfect defense, Shirou holding aloft the Noble Phantasm with narrowed eyes.

Lorelei wasn't deterred in the slightest, snarling as she leaned into the blow, trying her damndest to breach into the land of the Fae through sheer persistence and Shirou belatedly realized he might have shot himself in the foot.

While Lorelei's technique was obviously mana intensive, if her pulsating magic circuits were any indication, so was Avalon...and despite being an Apostle he still only had his circuits that he was born with and the ones available from Kiritsugu's family crest, nowhere near enough output to keep up with the demands of Avalon for long.

And he had annulled his contract with Illya so that she could spare all of her energy for keeping the three Servants manifested, he was on his own with this one.

…

Against a Magus who was famed for having utterly absurd levels of prana and circuits of the highest quality.

"This...may be an issue."

Seconds turned into almost a minute, the pair glaring as they stove against the other, sweat slowly beading their forms as the room burned around them, bits of ceiling collapsing into contrails of flame and smoke as Avalon's radiance began to wane, a victorious grin spreading across Barthomeloi's face-

-that turned into a scream of thwarted rage as Shirou repurposed a collection of nerves into temporary magic circuits, ignoring the pain in order to keep up with the increased demand of holding the Noble Phantasm in place.

Yet another minute passed, their respective opponent barely visible through the roiling smoke, embers and glow of clashing techniques before finally giving way with a flash of light, the conclusion to the duel coinciding with the roof overhead collapsing with a titanic roar, buying the pair beneath a storm of rubble.

Aoko Aozaki wasn't a woman given to fretting over things. She knew what she wanted to do and would then go to do it if she decided it was worth doing.

But as she stood outside the entrance to the arena, hearing the thunder of conflicting mystery that seemed a hairsbreadth away from bringing down the whole Clocktower on their heads she had to wonder if maybe Kischur had really thought this one through.

Sure, she knew better than most that the majority of his actions only looked insane on the outside-there was always an undercurrent of wizened logic to his madness-but this time she was starting to wonder if he'd spent a bit too long in the Kaleidoscope.

Putting an Ancestor and Barthomeloi in the same room with instructions to beat the shit out of each other had been a bit of a head turner, but Aoko had figured that's why she was chaperoning them, to make sure things didn't get too out of hand.

What the old bastard had neglected to mention was that the Emiya kid was cut from the same cloth as Barthomeloi, a Magus who's talents were almost exclusively geared towards direct combat and unstoppable destruction.

…

The redhead had tapped out right around the time the Queen of the Clocktower had whipped out the Starblade, tapping her foot impatiently against the outside wall as more and more of the room beyond sounded like it was being thrashed to pieces by an angry Dragon.

"Honestly, if they keep this up the whole institution is going to need a remodel."

She was just thankful that, so far, no other Magi had been curious enough to start asking questions she didn't feel like answering.

One look at a True Magician leaning up against the entrance to a room that was leaking smoke and undergoing what resembled a miniature war and they did the smart thing, walking away as swiftly as pride allowed without a backwards glance.

"I'm going to count to ten and if they're not done by then I-"

BOOM!

The floor beneath Aoko bucked upwards, momentarily throwing her off balance before she managed to catch herself, eyes widening as she both felt and heard the arena collapse on itself, uncountable tons of material and masonry crashing downwards.

"Ahhhhhhhh crap."

Yanking the heavy doors open the Blue promptly wheezed, fanning a hand in front of her face as a tidal wave of smoke, dust and other molten debris introduced themselves to her lungs without so much as a first date, the commotion finally settling down as whatever collapse the two had caused finished its work.

Grimacing in annoyance she raised a hand towards the choked entryway, preparing to blast a hole through the rubble-

-and blinked as a foot smashed through the pile with a loud crash of pulverized building material, two figures staggering through the impromptu tunnel, one being carried by the other.

...They looked like they had seen better days.

Both Emiya and Lorelei were caked in ash and soot, the material clumping in damp balls across their skin and clothes since they had been caked in sweat from the excessive use of their magic circuits, a shirt hastily tied over the Queen's face to protect from smoke inhalation while the Apostle was currently in the process of coughing out copious amounts of filthy air that was more solid than it was gas.

"...So who won?"

"Draw," Shirou rasped, "Our abilities failed at the same time. And then the ceiling collapsed. Barely managed to get us out of the epicenter."

Lorelei's hand shakily ripped the shirt off of her head-Aoko amusedly noting that it was none other than the Ancestor's article of clothing, leaving him bare chested-before her eyes bored into the back of Shirou's head.

"This is not over, Vampire."

"...You're welcome."

Whether it was intentional or not the male's bland words seemed to cause the Magus a minor aneurysm, at the blatant and undeniable fact that she may very well have had her life saved by an Apostle.

Her. Lorelei Barthomeloi.

Aoko wished she had a camera handy.

"So are we going to keep going or is the training over?"

Aoko snickered, slapping the young man on the shoulder-knocking loose a cloud of crap that vaguely resembled a Human body-before cheerfully announcing, "Nope, I think you're all set~! Head on back to the others and get cleaned up, I'll take care of things here."

Nodding in acquiescence Shirou jolted slightly as Barthomeloi all but pushed off of him, shakily regaining her feet before straightening her spine with an imperious motion...that was somewhat undercut by the coating of dust and ash.

"Here, Vampire. Consider your life spared at the moment, a token of my gratitude, however brief it may be."

Holding out his shirt for him to take Shirou stared at Lorelei with an inscrutable expression, eventually shrugging before accepting the article, using it to clear off his face and chest of the worst bits of offending filth.

Aoko smirked, noticing that he had a very sculpted figure that clearly saw quite a bit of action...and felt her eyes widen as she wasn't the only one ogling the Apostle.

So was Lorelei.

"Oh HELL no. Nooooo way is the Queen of the Clocktower finally seeing a guy she might like and it's a VAMPIRE. Kischur is going to have a field day with this..."

"I'll see the both of you later. Thank you for the spar, Lady Barthomeloi. And for not killing me."

"Yes, it's a masseter of pecs. A matter of pride, I mean!"

The Blue doubled over in a vain attempt at controlling her laughter, Shirou giving the woman a strange look before striding away, the few Magus that had gathered to watch the commotion stepping aside with wary expressions.

The sound of frantic chewing managed to catch Aoko's attention, Barthomeloi obsessively gnawing at her fingernails with furious mutters of, "Impossible, a Vampire as a husband?! Ridiculous! But his genes and abilities...the gestation of a child in my womb formed from two such bloodlines would be the pinnacle of what a Barthomeloi could be! But I would have to accept a Vampire as part of the clan and that will not stand! Perhaps I could deceive him into laying with me, slaughter him and then raise the child as a proper Barthomeloi? Hmm...well perhaps I would keep him as a slave, just to make sure...yes, that would be an acceptable compromise without risking the family's honor-"

Aoko rolled her eyes, grabbing the back of the woman's collar before dragging her off, remarking, "Keep those fantasies under control, crazy. Let's get you checked out in case you ingested something toxic or molten."

The Blue shook her head, silently wishing her newest associate luck.

A Lorelei Barthomeloi out on a different kind of 'Apostle Hunt' was quite the mental image.

And yet again we find ourselves with me spitballing at what, exactly, Barthomeloi can do.

Thankfully I have decades of movie, anime, book and comic inspiration to draw from and can create bullshit out of thin air, lol.