Chapter 44: The Battle For Helsinki
(Day 11 of the 6th Grail War)
The journey to Helsinki took Aasaa's team an hour. They made landfall at a different spot, as the devastation at the harbour yesterday made it inaccessible. Civilian transport ships lined the shores of Helsinki, ready to carry the fleeing populace to the islands or even to the neighbouring countries for safety. All around them, people shed fearful tears, calling out for their loved ones. Disaster relief personnel and Finnish soldiers charged with the evacuation of civilians bore burdened faces, as they tended to the frightened masses. Providing adequate first aid, food, shelter, and necessities posed mounting challenges for them. The long queues meant some had to wait for over a day.
That coward is willing to threaten an entire city's population to achieve his goals. Every time I think he has reached the peak of depravity, he proves me wrong.
Shirou, Rin, Misa and Gordafarid separated from the group to meet with magi scattered across Helsinki. They contacted the survivors of the disciplinary force sent after Sircolia, and other magi sent to Helsinki to cover up the destruction. A total of 54 magi gathered at the meeting point in the north-west region of Helsinki. They knew Genghis Khan based himself in Sipoonkorpi, at the north-eastern border of Helsinki, and readied themselves to face the advancing armies.
Travelling towards the front-line, Aasaa's feet trudged past the partially burnt remains of a child's stuffed animal. He took a moment to look at it, reflecting on how no one, child or soldier, was spared from war. He turned and grimaced at the hills of wreckage and ruin, buildings devoured by fire and smoke. Bodies littered the ground that was mangled with craters and cracks. Guy Fawkes' devastation looked insignificant compared to what stood before them now. Before them lay the grim display of Genghis Khan's full power, the wrath of a man who had lost all patience. To drive them out, he had used his empire, his greatest and most treasured possession. With it, he once brought nations to their knees. In death, the empire returned to him, as a collective Noble Phantasm. What hope did they have against the rolling tide of iron-wrought destruction?
Aasaa and Hou Yi began the fight against Genghis Khan. From a skyscraper, Hou Yi began his golden barrage. Every shot by Hou Yi found their way to their opponents' vitals. Explosions rocked the enemy positions, leaving dead Mongolian warriors in the wake of the golden fire. Hou Yi fired away with vigour. His eyes glinted with the rush of battle, as he sought to put up his best performance yet.
I have never seen Hou Yi this motivated. It's time for me to join in.
Aasaa projected two swords in his hands and prepared to descend to the ground level to fight.
"Master, stay here. You won't make much of a difference in the chaos below."
"I have to fight them. The Finnish soldiers need all the help they can get." Aasaa walked towards the staircase that would lead to the ground level.
"Our enemy is not weak. If you die, I will follow soon after and there will be no-one to save them."
Aasaa tried to continue walking down the stairs. He would not allow himself to sit idly by while people around him fought and died. He had not reached halfway down the first flight when a hand gripped his shoulder.
"Don't stop me Hou Yi. You can fight just fine from up here but I can't. I must go down to help them," Aasaa said, preparing to struggle free.
"Master, I'm going down with you. We fight them together."
Aasaa projected swords one after another as he chopped and slashed at any Mongolian warrior who approached him. Hou Yi danced around the battlefield, leaving arrows in the chest and neck of his enemies as he went. Aasaa combined a freezing gemstone with his projected sword. He used it to freeze his enemies as he fought. When the gemstone ran out of magic, he replaced it with another.
"Hou Yi, catch," said Aasaa as a Mongolian cavalry jumped on Hou Yi to pin him down. He tossed Hou Yi a gemstone.
Hou Yi received it and threw it at the enemy's face. A small explosion blasted him off and into a nearby building, creating a hole as he flew through. He did not emerge.
"Thank you, Master. Let me repay you," Hou Yi said as a particularly powerful warrior locked blades with Aasaa. With a lightning-fast draw, the warrior's chest became a pincushion for Hou Yi's arrows.
Aasaa slid under another foe, driving a sword into him. Aasaa's sword stabbed through him, through the warrior did not die. He drove his pike down towards Aasaa as he lay on the floor. Aasaa closed his eyes, reinforcing his clothes to brace for impact. It did not come. The pike stopped dead, as its wielder took a shot to the head, the golden arrow tip sticking through the back of his skull.
Aasaa got up, projecting 19 swords around him. They formed a sphere of blades around him. With a roar of courage, he sent them out towards the enemy. Each one found their mark, and each enemy fell to the ground.
Hou Yi noticed cavalry rushing towards his Master. He fired arrows at the abandoned buildings to their side, sending debris tumbling over them, forcing them to break formation. The survivors, pinned by rubble and stumbling in confusion, found arrows in their vitals.
Aasaa charged at another wave, golden arrows firing overhead. He clashed his sword with a warrior who wielded an axe. His sword cracked, and he projected another one to drive through the axe-wielder's throat. Aasaa projected another sword and flung it forwards, skewering three in a row.
"These two are friendly, though supernatural as well. Avoid them and advance!" came an order from the commander of the Finnish soldiers stationed there.
Roughly a hundred Finnish soldiers flanked past Aasaa and Hou Yi, firing at the Mongolian warriors. The Finnish army switched to the offensive, as a machine gun position suppressed the Mongolian advance. Several grenades sealed their advantage, as the Mongolian warriors fled in disarray.
Aasaa and Hou Yi left the area, certain the Finnish soldiers here had the situation under control.
"Sir, who are those two people?" A soldier asked his commander.
"We will never know. But one thing is for sure. They are heroes and they are on our side."
Aasaa and Hou Yi arrived at a road junction, the site of a merciless struggle between the Finnish army and the Mongolian warriors. They fought from fortified positions on opposite ends of the junction, engaging in a deadly exchange of bullets and arrows. The sight of the heinous deeds committed by the Mongolians on this battlefield sent a gush of bitter heat flowing through Aasaa's veins. He quivered, swords locked in his hands, desperate to punish them for their dastardly deed. The Mongolian army had put before them a row of captured civilians. The Finnish army only fired hesitantly and sporadically as a result, at sections with no civilians.
Aasaa and Hou Yi circled around the Mongolian front line. Hou Yi drew his bow and released. 9 explosions at 9 key locations of the Mongolian front-line flashed before his eyes. In an instant, they broke the Mongolian army's advantage. Aasaa unleashed a flurry of swords, along with a group of eye golems created by his tigers-eye gemstones, each lidless eye hurling streams of singeing energy at their foes. In support of his Master, Hou Yi shot 4 enemies dead, while Aasaa slammed his weapon into the fifth.
"1 shot, 4 kills. Keep up Master." His self-assured smile all but confirmed he ruled the battlefield, as another salvo of arrows left his bow and found their marks.
The Finnish army made their advance, some of them provided cover fire while the others freed the civilians. Aasaa and Hou Yi held the line for them, slaughtering dozens of the enemy.
"I am Kadan, grandson of Genghis Khan! You are my opponent," an imposing Mongolian warrior mounted on a black horse rode up to challenge them. His cape flowed behind him, blood-red. His immaculate armour glinted from the light of fires strewn across the wrecked junction. It had elements of gold, silver and red.
Grenades bombarded his position, though he did not flinch. He ordered his horse to charge at Aasaa and Hou Yi. Hou Yi fired a stream of golden arrows at him as he approached. Kadan responded by dodging to the left, and throwing a spear at them.
Aasaa projected a sword to deflect the spear. Kadan leaped off his horse and engaged him, now using a polearm, his second weapon.
Hou Yi fired at Kadan, whose armour absorbed the explosive impact. His momentum unaffected, he lunged at Aasaa, and drove his polearm into the ground.
Aasaa observed the mean figure speeding towards him. He dodged under him, and tried to cut him with a sword. Kadan plunged the polearm at Aasaa, forcing him to abort the attack and move out of its way. Aasaa lost his sword in the frantic evasion and instead reached into his pocket for a gemstone.
Aasaa used a freezing gemstone to encase his legs in ice. He then looped behind him and stabbed him with a newly-projected sword. The sword broke against his radiant armour. Aasaa looked at his sword's mangled edge with disbelief.
Kadan swung around, using his polearm's reach to make up for his lack of mobility. Aasaa parried, the clashing of their weapons pierced the air with shrill ringing. Kadan proved too strong, as his strike knocked Aasaa off his feet.
"Fear the mark of the Golden Crow. Piercer Of Nine Suns," Hou Yi said, firing 9 Anti-Unit level attacks so as not to hurt his Master by accident.
Kadan's armour resisted the attacks, though one arrow found his exposed forehead and killed him. He slumped over, blood pouring from his head as he faded into mana.
"Thank you, Hou Yi. I owe you one," Aasaa said.
"Only the best for my Master."
The Finnish commander thanked them for their help. He asked them to explain the Mongolian warriors, seeing that Aasaa and Hou Yi knew what they were doing.
Aasaa did so. "Anyone who is mounted on a horse, or has that kind of armour," Aasaa said, pointing at the armour of a fallen Mongolian warrior near him, "is bad." He gestured to himself now. "Anyone else, not wearing that, is good. We are magi, and we are here to help you."
"Alright. We will try to avoid anyone not wearing that kind of armour. Thank you. You saved 46 civilians and thus we can trust you." the commander said.
Aasaa left the battlefield with Hou Yi. The chance to prove himself as a hero lay inches from his grasp. This was the essence of what he set out to do. Success standing before him, sword in hand, and Hou Yi by his side, he said, "Let's go somewhere else, and do that again."
"I thought you'll never ask."
Aasaa and Hou Yi continued to aid at various battles across the north-eastern section of Helsinki. Everywhere they went, they rescued innocents and dwindled their enemies. They pressed the advantage and hampered Genghis Khan's assault. Aasaa rose above the flames of war as an unstoppable machine. He and his Servant fought like a singular entity, covering for each other as they ploughed through Genghis Khan's army. The praise and admiration of those they saved filled Aasaa's heart with a burning desire to continue, even as his muscles began to ache with exhaustion. Lifelong training with Projection and sword-fighting under Shirou had its limits, yet Aasaa held them back with pure grit and verve.
While fighting at another battlefield, this one a 2-lane road sandwiched by rows of multi-storey buildings, Aasaa found the air saturated with a hungering bloodlust. Genghis Khan rode atop his horse to join the fight. Elite members of his cavalry and archer units flanked him, their weapons drawn and thirsting for the rush of battle. Behind him, several trebuchets ground and heaved. Gears, beams and ropes churned away with primitive lethality, sending debris and ice blocks smashing down on Finland's defenders. They scattered, as Genghis Khan's army brought their wrath to bear. Tendrils of paranoia crawled through Aasaa's mind, his breath grew thin and ragged as his fingernails dug into his palms. His numerous victories, once worn like proud badges on his chest, now paled before Genghis Khan's carnage.
"You have given me so much trouble. In the span of a day, you have ruined my advance. Killing you will not be enough. I will kill a hundred hundreds for every one of my warriors you have brought down."
Genghis Khan raised his scimitar, as his horse picked up speed. The cruel edge of the weapon glowed with red energy. His Noble Phantasm summoned to kill. "Sole Ruler Of The Plains!"
Hou Yi tried to aim a shot at him. He failed to pay attention to a flying boulder of debris hurled by a trebuchet. The boulder smashed into the building beside him, crushing the weakened structure. A shower of bricks fell on him, and he went under a mound of rubble. Aasaa coughed as dust filled his lungs. He projected a shield to absorb Genghis Khan's Noble Phantasm, which sent him flying. An unmitigated impact would have been lethal, as even with the shield, Aasaa smashed into the ground a few meters away, wincing in agony as he placed his hand over his wounds. Bruises and cuts crippled him as he checked to see if anything was broken. Genghis Khan pressed the attack, before an untimely interruption in the form of a tank shell hit him squarely in the chest. A flash of orange engulfed him, transitioning into thick black smoke as the shell exploded in a blossom of fire. He emerged unscathed, causing the Finnish soldiers to retreat in fear.
"That's not possible," one of them said.
"Flail Of God." Genghis Khan raised his flail, and smashed it into the tank. The tank collapsed into little more than scrap metal, each piece mangled and torn. The crew inside survived, unharmed, due to the nature of the Noble Phantasm. Genghis Khan disposed of them with a few strokes of his scimitar.
"Aasaa, these men died for your cowardice and failure, because you refuse to face me."
"Says the one who buried me at the earliest opportunity," Hou Yi said, responding to Genghis Khan with an Anti-Fortress Piercer Of Nine Suns. "You only pick on the weak."
Aasaa ducked, out of the blast range of Hou Yi's Noble Phantasm. He had got sufficiently far away, as Hou Yi focused the damage on Genghis Khan as much as possible.
When the golden fire cleared, Genghis Khan lay on the ground, bereft of his horse. His armour appeared ruffled, though in no way compromised. He got up, and steadied himself, ready to resume the fight.
"Master, not even that can keep him down. We must flee," Hou Yi said.
"Quickly then, take me out of here." Aasaa then became aware of how cold the air had got. A sky of coal hung above them. Temperatures below zero were expected during the night. However, this chill went far beyond that. His breath crystallized as he spoke.
"Rise, defenders of Suomi, the fight is not over just yet," said a man standing on the rooftop. He wore a white parka, his mask now covered in a white mask. His trusty rifle waited in his arms, its mana-disrupting rounds the bane of his foes. Simo Häyhä, the White Death, turned to his old friend. "Hou Yi, you owe me one."