* Higurashi – Gallery of Madness
* Umineko – Terminal Entrance
* The House in Fata Morgana – The Crack of Dawn
* Higurashi – Gallery of Madness
Long before Leo ever reached Neo Helios, Maui had passed by there as well. In fact, she had climbed back on the Ark before the Black Faction could even disembark from the floating temple; she didn't have the time to wait for them and ask for answers.
"I need to find those two as soon as possible..."
How tall of a task was that? The City was sprawling in front of her in all its magnitude; from a bird's view, it didn't seem that huge, certainely less than London. From the ground however, it was hard to believe this place had been made with convenience in mind. Ladylee and Laurent were somewhere inside of there – that was, if they had ever gotten onto the Ark. Maui had no guarantee of the latter and thus the first thing she did was to check for herself: she moved to the other side of the ship faster than the wind. She could have done so faster if she had gone underwater instead, but all of the danger was up here on the Ark.
Of course, she had also tried to contact Ladylee mentally, but to no avail. The little girl did have some troubles communicating that way, so Maui wouldn't have been surprised if no answer had come. But as a matter of fact, there had been a reply from the other side – instead of words, what she had heard had been moans and sobs, or at least what sounded like them. It was arguably worse than receiving no answer at all and Maui's panic was at an all-time high.
"If at least I could contact Laurent..."
On her journey across the white ship, she came across some oddities; for exemple, she had spotted an army of insects moving toward an unknown objective. The sound of battles was resounding all around her but she ignored it. As much as it pained her, she disregarded her teammates who might need her help and kept on her way. Once she had reached the other end of the Ark though, she found nothing in particular. It was a dizzying distance from the railing down to the sea; even by squinting she couldn't spot anything other than water.
She tried contacting Ladylee a second time, only to be met with the same reply as before.
There was only one thing left to do.
"LILLLLLLYYYYYYYYYY! LAUREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNT!" Scream at the top of her lungs.
Anyone could hear her that way, including her enemies. They could come in droves if they wanted to, she didn't care as long as her two Masters could know she was here. She had left them with Leo and Galahad, so if either of these two heard Maui it was just as well. After shouting their names, she quieted down and opened her ears wide but only the echos of her own voice and the howling of the wind answered.
She wasn't going to let that discourage her however. She began walking around while screaming their names. Thankfully, the narrowness of the streets made her voice resound all the better and let it reach even farther.
Eventually, she finally heard something back: Bzzz.
Something was buzzing. She couldn't really call it a familiar sound, but it was worth investigating. The fact that this was a very persistent noise gave her hope that it was indeed answering to her desperate calls.
After following it for a short moment, she came upon the sight of a strange creature ressembling a huge dragonfly with a needle instead of a head. It was making small leaps while flapping its wings as fast as it could but it looked too weak to actually take flight. When she approached it, the creature started bouncing away. It looked like it wanted to be followed.
(Could be a trap... but...)
Maui was led to a house among many with the same look and followed the dragonfly inside.
"...!"
And what she saw made her heart stop.
There, cut up into five or six pieces, laid Laurent.
His limbs were scattered around haphazardly while his head was placed upright on the floor. The scene was eerily clean as well: there was no trace of blood except for a small trail leading up to the decapitated head.
Her whole body felt like it was on fire.
If not her flesh, then her mind at the very least had turned into a pyre burning with ire. Her thoughts immediatly turned toward whomever was responsible for this and what she would be doing to them. Less than an hour ago, he has still been breathing... and he had been with Ladylee. The little girl wasn't here, but if her butler had been reduced to this state then it was easy to imagine that Maui might find her remains in another house.
At this thought, the fire raging inside of her doubled in intensity.
She had been ready to act on this feeling and go on a rampage outside, even if it meant sinking the Ark with her bare hands.
Fortunately, something quenched her fury before she could set out to do that.
Namely, Laurent's head blinked at her.
"..."
"..."
The adolescent boy made a pained expression and opened his mouth, but the only thing that came out was air. Maui's heart jumped in her chest and she almost fell backward from the surprise. Thankfully, her curiosity and intense relief were stronger: she ran over to the poor boy's head and grabbed it.
"L-Laurent, are you still here...?!"
"... ... ... ..." Laurent flapped his mouth desperately, but no matter how much he wanted to talk he didn't seem able to.
He couldn't talk...
(Of course he can't, he doesn't have lungs!)
It came back to her now – this was something Laurent had mentioned in the past, the ability to separate his own body. In truth, this was the first time Maui was seeing it with her own eyes, and considering the circumstances she was not in the mood to laugh about it. At any rate though, she looked around for the shoulders his neck was meant to be attached to. Now that she looked at it again, his body was divided too neatly in pieces; a dismemberment would have made much more of a mess.
She easily found his chest and pelvis in a corner of the room.
It was hard to tell whether she was handling a corpse or a still living being, and the confusion alone was enough to make her feel sick.
Anyhow, she put his head back on the designated area. But was that enough to reattach it? Unsure as to what she was supposed to do next, Maui simply held it in place and waited. This approached turned out to be successful, as the line around his neck started to close and fade away slowly. When it was completely gone Laurent began coughing violently.
"I'm...! I... I'm still alive...?"
"Are you?!" It was hard to tell who was most confused between the two of them. "What happened to you?! What happened to Lily?! Why did you turn into a puzzle?! What happened to Lily?! Who did that to you?! What happened to Lily?!"
While bombarding him with question, the fisherman fetched the rest of Laurent's body and brought them back to the limbless boy laying down helplessly. He had trouble following up with her however: his eyes were following her movement but his face was in a daze. When she stopped rapid-firing her questions, all he could do was blink.
"... ... ... ...I ran away." And he said something at last.
"You were attacked? What about Saber and the other boy?!"
"We... no..." Laurent winced and held his head with his only hand. "We split up from them and hid. Then, I left Milady alone to find my arm and..."
Maui wanted to scream at the mere idea of leaving the little girl on her own at a time like this, but shaking Laurent up right now wasn't going to accomplish anything.
"...That's when I was attacked. I thought I was going to die, but... when everything turned upside down, I detached all of my body..." Now that he had two arms and one leg again, Laurent looked at his hands with empty eyes.
"What were you thinking, turning into pieces like this?! How can you run away like this?"
"I... I panicked... I think... I think I hoped at least one part of me would survive." He explained. "Even with that, I don't think I would have made it. He... that huge man, I think he went somewhere else when the ship started shaking."
"..."
Maui didn't know how to feel. She was only hearing his story in fragments, so she had no reason to assume it was his own fault. Still, hearing about it made her want to pinch his ear; but most of all, she was angry at herself.
She should have been there.
"What happened to Lily? Where did you leave her?" But now that one of her Masters was safe, she needed to find the other. "I tried talking to her, but I'm only getting weird reactions."
"She..." Laurent's body was fully back together. He staggered back to his feet while looking around. "This is where I left her. I'm sure it was in this place... but she wasn't here when I came back. When I remove my head, I have trouble thinking and I can't even put myself back together, so I ended up stuck here..."
"So it really was a dumb thing to do." Maui sighed.
If Laurent believed this was the place where he and Ladylee had hidden, she would trust him on that fact, despite his limited reasoning abilities. After all, if the little girl had been around, she would have heard Maui calling her name. The first thing the Servant could think of was that Ladylee could have been kidnapped, but something about that scenario didn't check out. In the first place, what would anyone gain from holding her hostage? It was easier to kill her than to use her as leverage against Maui.
Moreover, if she had only been kidnapped, it didn't explain why she wasn't answering normally.
The other possible scenario was...
"She can't have walked away on her, right...?" Maui muttered to herself. "Why would you do something like that, Lily?"
"Um... what... happened to my clothes, exactly?" Laurent examined the rags he was wearing, and he started shivering. "It's super cold here..."
"You tell me, I found you the way you are now." With his coat, shirt and even his pants in this shape, the boy really looks like he had been savagely torn apart.
"Ah... I was in a hurry to run away, so I must have done that when my arms and legs changed..."
Admittedly, Maui would be interested to see his disembodied head grow tiny legs and start sprinting. But now wasn't the time to entertain such thoughts, and unfortunately for Laurent she didn't any have spare clothes to lend him. Right now they had to think of a way to find Ladylee as soon as possible; a small girl had no business walking around such a dangerous place on her own. Unfortunately, if she refused mental calls, Maui could only keep doing as she had done before and scream her lungs off.
But if she hadn't minded attracting enemies before, it was a different story now that Laurent was with her.
"It's not like I can ask you to hide." She crossed her arms while the adolescent boy looked at her with confusion. "You're not leaving my side, alright? Not even a little bit or you're gonna get lost again."
"I wasn't lost..."
"I can't take my eyes off the two of you for even a minute, I swear~!" She seized her Master before he could get ideas and took it upon her to carry him under her arm. "Now, we're going where Lily is, even if I don't know where that is~!"
With that objective in mind, she stepped outside. At that time, she noticed the strange hustle going on through the City: the swarm she had spotted earlier had come all the way over to this side. She didn't have to care about them though, since she could simply take to the air.
On the other hand...
"Is she in the middle of this...?" Maui had a hard time believing that these automata were friendly. She could tell whether Lily was alive or not, but she had now way of knowing if she weren't hurt or unconscious.
"No... she's not here..."
"...! Did you find her?!"
"No, but..." Laurent was holding his head between his hands. "It might sound weird, but I think I can tell where she is... vaguely... or not... I've been feeling strange for a while..."
"Weird or not, I'll take it!" She held the teenager in front of her like a cat. Or, considering his role, like a dog. "Which way do I go?!"
"... ... ..." Laurent hesitated for a moment, before pointing somewhere at their left. "She's in that direction."
And Maui took off. Laurent's indications were vague for sure and he changed his mind several times. Even so the fisherman raced, shouting the little girl's name from time to time.
"Hey, Archer..."
Suddenly, while pointing in a new direction, Laurent called out to her weakly.
"What do you think... will happen to Milady if I disappear...?"
Chapter LXXV: Alter Anima
* Umineko – Terminal Entrance
One might wonder why Naraku Saten and Evangeline Golodiaïev had come out of hiding and were now roaming the streets of the City.
To be perfectly honest, Naraku's reason was not exactly logical. He wouldn't call himself a person of action, but simply waiting when stakes were that high felt uncomfortable. Another way to look at it was that he had been bored. He did not possess any particular combat skill which would let him declare with confidence that he would hunt down their assaillants and get rid of them. Yet even so, he had come out here of his own volution.
On the other hand, he had no idea why Evangeline was accompanying him. Perhaps she shared his feeling on the matter, or maybe she simply didn't want to be all alone. Looking at it another way, both of their lives were directly threatened. An argument could be made that there were two kinds of response to such a situation: passivity – hiding – and agressivity – fighting back. Both Naraku and Evangeline were people who preferred eliminating the threat when they could instead of praying it went away.
Anyhow, the two of them had ended up wandering side by side throughout the network of serpentine streets. It wasn't exactly a good position to be in but they were not entirely blind either: the first thing Evangeline had done had been to cast a detection Bounded Field around them.
"So you really can use magecraft." Naraku adjusted his glasses.
"Isn't it obvious? I'm a real Golden Cabal magus." She replied indifferently. "You should be more worried about yourself. Do you even have a weapon?"
"Naturally. If it's something like a wild beast, I think I can stand my own. I had to hide in the mountains for a few years in the past. Within that time span, I mastered English."
"What does that have to do with anything?" She raised an eyebrow. "And how would living alone on a mountain help you learn a language?"
"The only books I had were in English."
"Well, I don't really care. Anyway, we're up against humans with intellect here, not animals."
"Oh, but animals are very intelligent. Bears and boars were a problem of course, but I also had to deal with monkeys." He adjusted his glasses before noticing Evangeline was giving him a strange look. "Is something the matter?"
"Why are you keeping broken glasses? They'll keep sliding down like that."
"I'm aware; it's almost harder to see with them than without. But they are my last memento from my family. I broke them when I tripped up and smashed my face against a rock, but they can still stand on my nose so I keep them."
"You're a lot tougher than you look..."
It wasn't as though there was a lot of sentimental value behind them anyway. Everything he had brought with him when leaving Japan was a part of him now, so he held onto them to maintain who he was.
There was no heartwarming story behind these glasses, it was simply all he had to remind him of his father. The latter was still alive, probably, but he had been on death row ever since Naraku's childhood. He had always claimed he had been wrongfully incriminated and Naraku believed him; that was what had awakened his interest for law and justice in the first place. Maybe that, a long time ago, he had held onto the ideal that he could become a lawyer and save his father, if that were even possible.
He honestly couldn't remember well now, just as he couldn't remember his father's face. And anyway, he had ended up being wrongfully accused of a crime too; in Japan you were guilty until proven otherwise. Even if he had managed to win the case made against him, it would have been hard to make a career with that label forever stuck on him.
All of that was a life he had left behind.
"Even though the amount of people has tripled, this place is silent as ever." Naraku noted.
"The only way it wouldn't be is if we kidnapped an entire metropolis." Evangeline sighed. "And it might be like that for a while. I'm sure that man would be able to tell use where our enemies are, but of course he decided to disappear without warning anyone."
"I wonder what he might be up to." He mused, unaware that the answer would come in the next few seconds.
For indeed, Naraku and Evangeline were dumbfounded when holes began appearing in the ground all around them and the mechanical swarm emerged from within the confines of the Ark. In the blink of an eye, they were surrounded on all sides by insects of bronze and iron.
The automata didn't seem to pay them any mind however.
"W-what is that nonsense again?!" Evangeline was still walking alongside him, but she was casting nervous glances around her. "Have these things always been inside there...?"
"Since they aren't attacking us, it must mean this is Mr. Pedilefey's doing."
"Of course he's the one responsible for this! He's the only one here with such bad taste!" She grumbled. "And aren't you a bit too quick to say they won't attack us?!"
"That might be true. Well, it is how it is. We have always been at his mercy, in a way. Actually, this situation might not be too bad." Saying so, Naraku stepped toward to Evangeline and bent closer to her ear. "With all the ruckus those things are making, he probably can't hear us."
"...!" Evangeline's eyes widened. "What do you mean by that...?"
"It was Caster who suggested it: if Mr. Pedilefey can tell where anyone is on the Ark, then wouldn't it make sense if he could hear us as well?"
The swarm was making such a clamor simply by moving that the two could only hear each other by raising their voices. That way, whether they were in the walls, the floor or even the automata, the noise was drowning Ivan's 'ears'. If someone on board wanted to say something behind his back, this situation was ideal.
"I have a question for you, Miss Golodiaïev. You're not forced to answer, of course. I'm simply curious: if, just like you said, Mr. Pedilefey turned his ressources against us, what would do?"
"..." Evangeline was squinting at him. She wasn't hesitating as much as she was on her guards. "You can already guess, can't you? If he tries anything funny against me, he's my enemy as much as the Red or Black Faction."
"I expected as much. I simply wanted to make sure." He adjusted his glasses. "Honestly, I'm not sure how many of us would react the same as you. Miss Angelene is... not in any position to take a decision. Chris will not react before his Servant does, but who knows who he will side with. And finally, I can't for the life of me get a read on Mr. Arco."
"You... what are you scheming?" She glarred at him with distrust. "Are you trying to rise up against him?"
"Not quite." He denied it categorically. "We've already made it clear to him that we don't trust him, so it's not as if I need to recruit anyone against him."
"Then what else could it mean? What does it matter to you how I'll react then?"
"My apologies, it seems I've created a misunderstanding." He adjusted his glasses. "All I care about is justice. I'm simply wondering who will have to fill up that role."
"...?"
From the look on her face, he hadn't cleared up her confusion at all. Unfortunately, he had missed his opportunity to do so: he had though earlier that some strange noise had mixed in with the mechanical cacophony. And as his eyes strayed toward the rows of buildings surrounding them on both sides, he noticed the reason for it – at that moment, he caught sight of Ewald Wachhund aiming a gun at Evangeline.
He acted without thinking.
"Watch out." As he said that calmly, he pushed her aside and took her place as Ewald's target.
He didn't have the time to regret or approve his action: there was a loud bang and, the next thing Naraku knew, his shoulder felt as though it was on fire.
Yet, for some reason he didn't recoil in pain or fear. He didn't even feel the slightest bit of panic or tension, even though it was his first time being shot. He had been beaten, cut and even tortured in the past, but this pain was even more intense than all of those times, as though his shoulder had been churned up from the inside.
Should he be happy or disatisfied with it? It wasn't only pain. Even things which he had taken for granted, such as enthusiasm or anger, felt like a fleeting memory to him.
Everything had turned bleak ever since he had lost NARAKU.
In any case, one reason why he had actually stepped into harm's way was because he didn't mind it. And that was because he had planned on getting wounded from the beginning, one way or the other.
"Retribution will come." Staring at the man who had just shot him, the Japanese teenager spoke thus.
He didn't know whether Ewald could hear him, but that part didn't matter: those words were merely the trigger for the activation of the spell.
A shadow emerged from Ewald Wachhund and overpowered him. Without the freelance magus being able to fight back, he received a wound on his shoulder that was similar to the one Naraku had suffered. But it wouldn't stop there – this wasn't a spell to reflect damage.
It was a curse.
To be honest, Naraku himself didn't understand the intricacies of it because of his inexperience with thaumaturgy in general. After all, he was no magus and until this day, he had been as harmless as the next person. Certainely, he could use a weapon a bit better than the average human, but he was still hopelessly weak in the midst of the Holy Grail War. It had mostly been for this reason that he had sought Aleister Crowley's help; he had wanted a way to fight.
And Aleister had certainely been able to fulfill his request, albeit not in a way Naraku had expected.
It wasn't as though he had any particular talent for magecraft, so he wouldn't be able to improvise himself a magus in just a few days. That was why he had been made to tap into the power he already had instead: his Origin. After all, awakening the latter produced changes of great magnitude within more than the soul. By coming into contact with the root of their existence, one was able to access a power that was unlike any other.
But the day Ivan Pedilefey had revealed his Origin to Naraku, the latter had received no such power.
It had merely awakened the memories from his past lives and had driven him insane. Even after Ivan had gone out of his way to separate these memories from him, Naraku wasn't the same person for sure, but even so he wouldn't call that a power. He would never have imagined how to use it to fight without Aleister's guidance.
At the end of the day, what was NARAKU?
He was an almagation of memories. They had been turned into a second personality of his, and he even managed to manifest his own emotions. But even so, it wasn't necessary to think of him as a person – rather, NARAKU was a feeling.
Hatred.
Bitterness.
Betrayal.
Wrath.
Regret.
Grudges from many different people across many different eras had manifested within Naraku and had threatened to overwrite him. They were emotions even stronger than he could ever be; resentment given shape. Now then, since all of that grievance had been merged into NARAKU, it could be said that the latter was a proper vessel to use them. Since his was an existence that cursed all of humanity, there was no more fitting essence for him than to become a genuine curse.
That idea actually wasn't too different from the concept of a vengeful spirit. There were several stories in his homeland about calling upon such ghosts to curse humans, so that image was already carved into Naraku's mind. Thus, even though he didn't understand much about thaumaturgy, this power felt natural to him.
In order to select a target for the curse, he had to get hurt by them first; but he didn't mind that condition.
However...
"███████████"
Ewald spoke words in a language Naraku didn't understand, but the meaning of them still carried across. Had he figured out the nature of NARAKU? Even though it was the first time Naraku got to try out this new ability, he was already faced with someone who knew how to deal with it – or at least that was his first impression, but the next second NARAKU managed to knock Ewald out cold before anything could happen.
Once that was done though, the shadow vanished from Ewald's body.
(Can I only keep it up for a certain time? Or do I need the target to be conscious?)
He was still figuring out the rules the curse operated by. He did indeed feel as though NARAKU had returned to him, although he couldn't feel his 'presence' in the same way as before. Ever since he had turned his other personality into a vessel, the two of them had been 'disconnected', so to speak. It was very ironic in truth: he had not been a part of him originally, and yet now that he was gone there was hole left in Naraku's chest. He had to wonder if NARAKU's hate had been the one thing that had kept him going.
"Ah, they're running away." There were two other persons present aside from Ewald, and they dragged the latter away from the edge of the building to disappear together. "Should we go after them? This is my first time hunting people down."
"Is there something wrong with your brain?!" Evangeline stomped up to him with her brows furrowed.
When he had pushed her away, he had accidentally sent her into the swarm of automata. While he had been busy casting his curse on Ewald, she had been busy getting out of there in the first place. But to his surprise, that wasn't quite the reason behind her comment:
"Are you thinking of going after someone in your state?" She pointed at his shoulder. "Even if you don't care about pain, you're going to bleed out at this rate!"
"I've never learnt how to treat a bullet wound, unfortunately." Naraku knew of to take care of minor wounds, but removing the bullet and tending to his injury without being able to use his arm was simply impossible. "Besides, if we don't go now they might escape us."
"I know; do you think I want to go up against them with someone who could lose consciousness at any moment?!" She dusted her robe and asked him to stand still. "We can't chase them until I've done something about your wound. They even have a Servant with them!"
"Hmm... I wonder if my ability would work even if I were killed..." Naraku mused. "Ah, by the way, didn't you cast a detection spell earlier? Has it malfunctioned?"
"No, it worked too well. How am I supposed to tell enemies apart with that around us?!" She gestured toward the swarm. "It's a movement detector, nor a life radar!"
While she complained on and on, Evangeline began casting another spell.
"First are the Pillars supporting the Gates of the Temple... The circle has been prepared and the Altar stands in the center..."
This was a different Bounded Field. A bubble envelopped Evangeline and Naraku and spread around them in a perfect circle before turning invisible. Naraku felt a tingling sensation in his shoulder and, without anyone touching it, the bullet removed itself from his shoulder and fell to the ground.
"What kind of spell is this?"
"I've created a ritual space. A place where disciples can join and share their strength; I'm giving you some of my own vitality."
"Oh? Am I considered a disciple...?"
"According to Master Theorion." Evangeline grumbled. "You call it a curse, but the ability he taught you is similar to Thelema... or so he said. I don't really care either way; it should be fine now, so let's go already!"
Naraku could practically move his arm normally now.
"This is very convenient, although... a Servant, is it? How are we going to take care of this?" If they chose to run away, perhaps it was a very weak Heroic Spirit whom even a human could take on.
"Can't you call your Servant here?" Evangeline asked impatiently. "His fortress isn't even in the sky anymore."
"Rider doesn't like being told to do anything, unfortunately." Nor did he like being interrupted, so Naraku had learned a long time ago that these was no real Master-Servant relationship between them. "Rather, wouldn't Caster be more likely to help us."
"If Master Therion wanted to be here, he would be." She replied, but it was clear from her grimace that she was just as unhappy with that fact. "Nothing can ever be simple, can it...?"
They would have to improvise, since for any reason neither of them felt like backing down.
As they walked, Naraku noticed the shadow floating around them, although he was the only one.
Find the sinners
Deliver justice
(...It's a depressing justice you and I have pledge ourselves to.)
The lack of encounter was something everyone on the Ark was experiencing.
Even ten or twenty minutes after separating from the rest of the Black Faction, Hatsuyo and Lancer of Red were still wandering aimlessly. They had nowhere to go in particular, they were simply waiting: since it wasn't as though they could find their opponents, they would wait to be found instead. That no one had come for them yet was suspicious, however. Even if Neo Helios had appeared all of sudden, they had expected to meet a lot more resistance than this.
"That's what happens when ya try to hold a castle with too few men, I guess." Lancer sighed. "Or maybe they already killed each others? What if we're too late to the party?!"
"..."
Well, it was really annoying.
Hatsuyo had only come here for one thing, to fight. That she would somehow be left to wait was completely inane. It was even more upsetting since she couldn't do anything about it either. And the cherry on top was...
"I highly doubt it. The battle has barely started as far as we can tell; if they could die this easily, this War would have been over a long time ago." Odysseus replied seriously to Lancer's antics. "The most logical conclusion is that the enemy is as overwhelmed as we are. This Ark is strangely made for a headquarters; a lot of effort was put into its size and sturdiness, but none into efficiency."
"No one asked for yer analysis!" Lancer barked.
"Indeed, no one has. I made it of my own volution." The bowman scoffed.
Honestly, Hatsuyo wished she could be left alone. Lancer was fine, but having to deal with Odysseus and Elena following them was not. She was doing her best to ignore them in general, with little success of course. Even if she didn't talk or look at them, she could still feel them following behind. Elena was as silent as Hatsuyo was, but that wasn't surprising either – she couldn't remember a single time when the two of them had talked seriously, let alone casually.
"Can't ya see yer an eyesore here? It's annoyin' having mosquitoes flyin' around us!"
"Being faced with superior number would be disastrous, so travelling in pairs is unavoidable." Odysseys shrugged. "Aside from me and my Master, I doubt anyone else would have wanted to stay alone with you. Our presence is mutually beneficial."
"Yer the last one we'd like to be with though!"
The two Servants were the only ones talking, and talk they did. Their back-and-forth was enough fill the awkward silence that would have weighted over their heads otherwise, but whether it was a preferable alternative was up in the air.
"Oi, look, my Master's all upset because of ya...!" Lancer pointed an accusating finger at Odysseus.
"I'm afraid I cannot tell the different from usual."
"Yer lyin'! Ye lie as naturally as ye breath!"
"Frankly, so much animosity astounds me." Odysseus shook his head with a sigh. "If there is someone who will not betray you, it has to be me. I have too much to lose if you lost trust in me."
"Can't lose something ya never had." Lancer clicked his tongue. "We're off the golden boat, so now there's no one eavesdroppin' on ya. Ya can do anything ya want now, includin' stabbin' everyone in the back!"
While hissing at the bowman, Lancer approached Hatsuyo and whispered to her.
"Are you alright, Master? Yer makin' an awful face right now."
"Head hurts." She grumbled under her breath.
"Again? As expected, 'em fools are... Or is it because of the yakitori I made? It's because it was all burnt, ain't it?!"
"..."
Some time ago, for some reason Lancer wanted to make yakitori. Hatsuyo hadn't been against the idea at all, but somehow that guy came back with a whole live chicken. They had ended up having to start a fire on the roof of Neo Helios despite all the wind and trying to cook with it. But the thing was, Lancer wasn't a cook and neither was Hatsuyo. The yakitori had been pretty terrible as a result, although she still ate it. This experience had convinced her that badly prepared comfort food was ten times worse than plain bad food.
That being said, the one responsible for burning it was her, not him.
And at any rate, it had nothing to do with her headache. After all these years, she had gotten used to having a splitting pain drilling her skull but that didn't make it any more comfortable. On the contrary, throughout the past week the pain had grown to an all-time worse. She couldn't tell the reason why; all she could do was grit her teeth.
She wished someone would come already so she could think about something else.
She wanted to get all of this over as soon as she could.
"I wonder who we'll find first..." Lancer mused out loud. "Out of all the White bastards, I only met that one guy with his flyin' toy. But if it's one of the Red, what d'we do...? I'd like to fight it out with Archer or Saber, but..."
"..."
That didn't matter.
Hatsuyo had made no significant bond with those people. They were as good as strangers to her, as usual.
...
...
It didn't matter who it was, she had to do this. If she didn't, she would never get any other chance, most likely.
She couldn't take it for much longer.
"..."
If only someone could show up right now.
Fshh–!
Fortunately, the heavens decided to answer her prayer at last – all of sudden, Odysseus had summoned his bow and fired an arrow at something the rest of them had not seen. Hatsuyo hadn't heard anyone approaching, so she had to wonder how he had managed to spot them. In any case, Odysseus' senses hadn't betrayed him: a few seconds later, an unknown object was hurled in their direction.
Hatsuyo's sword had been bared from the beginning, but she quickly realized that this was no attack – the unidentified object was the very same arrow that had just been fired. Its tip was covered in blood.
* Fata Morgana – The Crack of Dawn
The following instant, a figure blurred past Hatsuyo and Lancer to charge at Odysseus – there was a golden flash. The bowman lept back to avoid the sword swung at him and, in the process, fired a couple more arrows at the sudden aggressor. Both projectiles were swiftly deflected by the assaillants who turned out to be a tall man clad in golden armour.
Hatsuyo had tried to follow this exchange but her eyes hadn't gotten used to their mind-numbing speed yet. She could move at an absurdly high speed herself, but that didn't mean her senses would instantly keep up; she had never fought against someone who could be faster than her. And yet, the part of her brain geared toward fighting had already calculated that she would have to increase her speed at least twofolds if she wanted to match this new opponent.
However, she couldn't make those adjustments in a snap; and she certainely couldn't afford to stand idly by until it was done: after his surprise attack on Odysseus had failed, Savrance Arco turned toward her and, without wasting a second, charged at her blade first. She stepped back in time thanks to her instincts but Savrance was faster still and closed in on her.
The reason why she had fallen back wasn't merely to avoid him though – it gave Lancer a window of opportunity to step in and slash away at Savrance's throat. But instead of slowing down, the golden warrior redirected his momentum to parrying the spear and pushing Lancer away.
"Fall back, Master!" Lancer warned Hatsuyo, even though she had already put some distance between them. "This guy has more in store than he lets on!"
"What do you mean...?" Hatsuyo was confused. Savrance had managed to disperse them in a matter of seconds with his excessive aggressivity, so she didn't understand the meaning of his words.
Even though Lancer and Savrance were standing close, Odysseus fired more arrows from a distance. While the spearman could evade projectiles as naturally as he breathed, Savrance couldn't avoid them all because of his opponent. But even though no less than three arrows had been lodged in his back, he showed no sign of slowing down.
Lancer was ultimately the most agile of the two; after a couple clashes which only lasted a few seconds each, he had left many gashes on the spots which weren't covered by Savrance's armour. Nonetheless, the latter protected the golden warrior from any significant injuries.
And on their third clash, electricity seemed to run through Savrance's body all the way to his weapon.
When sword and spear clashed, the current was transmitted through the metal and Lancer was struck by lightning.
"Hnng–!" Lancer's Magic Resistance wasn't enough to absorb it and he was blasted away.
But now it was Hatsuyo's turn.
Her body should have reached the power it needed to hold up – she took a single step and in an instant, she reached sonic speed. Gold was an excellent conductor for electricity, so if that was what Savrance's armour was made of it could be dangerous to even come in contact with it. She didn't think she could slice through it anyway, so she aimed for his head instead.
But as she moved to do just that, she realized that this was entirely part of his plan: if any other area than his head couldn't be touched, then that was the only part he needed to defend. And sure enough, even though she had approached from his blind spot Savrance immediatly moved to block her katana. If she clashed swords with him, then she would probably suffer the same outcome as Lancer; whether she would be shocked or electrocuted was unknown, but Hatsuyo wanted neither.
So before they could cross blades, she jumped.
"...!"
As she lept over Savrance's massive frame, she swung her sword a second time. She managed to leave a gash on his neck and his head, and even though her katana touched his sword and a bit of his armour she felt practically nothing.
While she landed on the other side of him, Savrance brought his hand to his bloody neck.
"Electricity can't do as much damage if I'm not grounded." She said.
She was pretty sure she had sliced his carotid, so this was a fatal wound one way or the other. At the very least, it had certainely calmed him down – but it was far from the effect she had hoped for. Savrance brought his dirtied hand to his mouth and proceeded to drink and lick the blood off it. Even though only more blood would pour out of his neck at an even faster pace, he repeated this action again. As he did, his teeth appeared to Hatsuyo as though they were becoming sharper and sharper.
"What are you?" She asked, but she should have been on her guard instead: she was still within his reach.
Lancer swooped in and managed to snatch her away before the golden sword could hack her in half.
"I dunno what he is, but at least he ain't a Servant like us." The spearman informed her. "But if he's still standin' after this, he ain't no human either."
"Leuchtkäfer!" Elena shouted.
The temperature around them rose drastically and there was a flash of light as blue flames poured toward Savrance. The range of her spell was so wide that Lancer had to jump further away while cursing. Even from this distance Hatsuyo could feel how hot this fire was; anything that stood in its path would melt or be burnt to a crisp without a doubt.
Yet, when the vampire's silhouetter was drowned by the flames, instead of consuming him it swirled around his body and decreased in size. As though they were being absorbed. And once they completely dissipated, it became evident it was more than just an impression. The golden armour was sizzling hot and the vampire's face was covered in blisters, but he was otherwise perfectly fine. Even those burns vanished just as his wounds had.
"He's one who has forsaken the path of mortality. There are a few among magi who decide to become Dead Apostles if it means they can continue their research." Elena said, unfazed that her attack had so little effect. "We're in the shade right now, but if we go under the light of the sun, you'll see his skin fume."
"He's already fumin' because of the crap ya pulled!" Lancer shouted. "A little heads-up is common curtesy, ya know!?"
"Then what, he's immortal?" Hatsuyo asked sourly.
"On the contrary." Elena clicked her tongue. "He might not die easily from wounds but he's fighting to keep his body functioning. And even if that wasn't the case, he's not a threat – no matter how strong he is, he can't match up against a Servant, let alone two."
"I would still advise caution, Master." Odysseus had his bow drawn and aimed at Savrance; he would fire at the slightest sign of movement. "He is no mere human-turned—undead. The strength he's displayed and the Mystery overflowing from him are not of this era. He might be as ancient as myself; it is better to consider him on the same level as us."
"..."
At the moment, Savrance was surrounded. The place he had decided to attack them in was one of the main streets of the City; it was wide enough for them to be spread out, but still restrictive enough that there was no hole in his opponent's formation. Lancer and Hatsuyo were barring the path ahead of him. Odysseus and Elena stood as a distance but could easily attack him without moving an inch.
"... All of you who stand before me." He broke his silence to address them. "If I allow you to get through me, your intention is to massacre the inhabitants of this cradle, is it not?"
"That's what the Holy Grail War is about, right?" Hatsuyo replied rhetorically.
"...In that case..." Savrance bent over and reached out toward the ground. "Though I despise needless bloodshed, I cannot allow you to pursue."
"Spare me the sophistry." Elena said. "You're a being who exists to feed on humans."
But next to her, Odysseus was much more alert. Worried as to what trick the vampire was trying to pull, he unleashed an arrow which pierced through Savrance's hand. But that did not seem to disturb him in the least; with his index finger, he touched the floor.
"That is true... my nature is that of one who takes and consume." The air around the group became strange – Hatsuyo felt traction, as though something was pulling her toward Savrance. "If that is the power I am meant to take on, then so be it – Dominor."
No, it was a much more disturbing feeling than that: it was as if bits of her body were being ripped out. She remembered what had happened to Elena's blue flames earlier and wondered if the same thing would occur here. However, it was only a feeling; her body was intact as far as she could see.
But that was only for her.
As it turned out, this impression was very real for Lancer and for Odysseus. Hatsuyo's Servant was simply disappearing bits by bits – his flesh wasn't being torn away, but instead was gradually turning into golden particles.
"That bastard...!" Lancer grabbed Hatsuyo's arm and proceeded to hurl her as far away from Savrance as possible. "That guy can absorb magical energy!"
So that's how it was.
Hatsuyo was finally connecting all the dots in her head. That went to explain why Savrance had the confidence to take on all four of them regardless of their indivudual strengths – if he could drain mana regardless of what form ot took, then he was a natural weapon against Servants. However, his range was limited: Odysseus's body was fading away at a slower pace than Lancer's, most likely due to being farther away.
"Lancer, come here."
After sticking the landing perfectly, Hatsuyo used a Command Seal to transport her Servant next to her. On their side, Elena and Odysseus had come to the same conclusion and had retreated further back.
Savrance's body brimmed with magical energy and, after he stopped draining magical energy from his surrounding, he cast a massive wave of thunder in all directions around him. In a mere few seconds, he had once again become the one pressuring them – Lancer had no choice but to take his Master to the rooftop of the City.
With this, Savrance had accomplished yet another thing: he had separated the two Master-Servant pairs from one another; they were forced to take their distance and couldn't surround him anymore. This posed less of a problem for Odysseus who had no need to get close, however Savrance had shown that normal wounds were meaningless to him.
Incidentally, it also mean that the vampire's opponents were spread out. In the end, the ones he decided to go after were Lancer and Hatsuyo.
"Kh, I hate to run away before an enemy, but..." Lancer was faster all around than Savrance, so staying out of his range wasn't an issue; but only if they didn't want to win.
"Lancer, put me down." Hatsuyo ordered. "I'll do it."
"Waaait a minute, my lord." Lancer smiled bitterly. "I know it riles up yer blood, but I can't just drop ya off–"
"You said that I can't fight Servants, but this one's not a Servant." She replied dryly. "It means I can fight."
"I said wait a minute...!"
But in the meantime, something no one here could have predicted happened: a hole opened in the roof.
Something jumped out of it to land between them and Savrance.
It was a strange sight to behold: at first glance, it seemed like the newcomer was a man-sized statue representing an angel. However, that was only true of its general shape: it was better described as an absolute mess of objects cluttered together into a humanoid figure. The base was a genuine statue that looked like one of those terracotta warriors, but it was barely recognizable with so many weapons and miscellaneous artefacts sticking out of it.
"What is the meaning of this...?" Even Savrance was looking at it with astonishment.
But the mysterious golem was not paying attention to him: it turned its head toward Lancer and Hatsuyo and, as soon as it had detected them, it went on the assault. Whether he wanted to or not, the spearman was forced to let go of his Master and take on this new opponent.
This was something he could well enough take care of on his own – as soon as her feet touched the roof, Hatsuyo darted around the golem and honed in on her designated target.
"...!"
Savrance was still recovering from his confusion while taking in new surprises: there was a loud noise toward where Odysseus and Elena were supposed to be; there, a massive frame like that of a giant ox was wrecking havoc.
All that mattered to Hatsuyo, however, was the target right in front of her.
"Don't look away!" She aimed a bold thrust at Savrance's head which the vampire guarded clumsily. "Your opponent here is me."
Thank you for reading.
Now that I look at it, this chapters definitely shows off the Masters more than the Servants for once. Since it's a Holy Grail War, they unfortunately don't often get the chance to show off what they can do.
~Legends Storyteller