Chapter Two: Of Diving in Too Deep And Possibly the Complications
In the distance were two sets of footsteps, if you could even call them that. For the sake of his grip on reality, Robin went with footsteps.
One set was clearly humanoid. Their rhythm was heavy, lacking the fluidity of someone who knew what they were doing. Had this been centuries ago, Robin would have pegged that person as an easy target; some noble-turned-wannabe-commander who clawed their way through the ranks with power instead of experience. Given that those footsteps belonged to Sanson? At least Robin's instincts hadn't dulled with time.
The other set moved with a disquieting pattern, sounding like military hardware dragged through a swamp. But, at the same time, not like that. Reversed, somehow? Like the mud was stepping onto the wooden wagon and not the other way around. Trying to calculate the creature's movements based on the sounds made Robin's head hurt.
Then, both footsteps stopped. Robin picked up his pace.
The Archer's cloak was tailored to make him a shadow in the forest. Comparably, being untrackable in the halls of Chaldea was relatively simple. Less changes in light to accommodate and no twig snaps to silence. Neither party would notice his approach.
Sanson's breathing gave away his position. It was ragged from the sprint, with an exhaustion that sounded more emotional than physical. Robin almost overshot the narrow side hallway the other man was standing in. The Archer's cloak hood slipped off as his feet quickly pivoted, bringing him to an abrupt stop.
The incomplete screech from Robin's boots snapped Sanson's attention to the end of the hallway. The Assassin swung his shoulders and feet into a defensive position. His broadsword was now gripped tightly in both hands, pale eyes peering over the collar of his trench coat.
"Of course it's you," Sanson sighed. His upper body and face relaxed, the sword lowering. The Assassin didn't look much worse for wear, Robin concluded. Stressed, sure, but he didn't have a scratch on him.
The choice of words, though, knocked the wind out of Robin. The Archer mumbled something about being caught off-guard, not even considering exactly what he said. Sanson acted as if he didn't notice.
The hallway wasn't remarkable. Large metal cabinets lined one of the walls. Each one had a small plastic panel on the front, similar to the door locks around Chaldea, although Robin didn't have the faintest idea what was stored inside. Tiny lights across the front of the cabinets looked like a sky of red and green stars. They did little to actually light up the hallway; dark shadows painted the many corners, but there wasn't any space for a monster of that size to go.
"I want to say it's gone," Sanson said as Robin walked past him. "I don't know if that's true."
"It's obviously not here anymore." Robin shrugged.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness instantly; there weren't any signs of a battle, much in the same way he didn't hear one either. The hall was clean, with no traces of blood or that strange blue ickor.
"You got a closer look," Robin said, looking back towards Sanson. "Did you recognize it? Maybe from one of those weird medical books that normal people aren't supposed to read."
"I don't think I know what it is, but..." Sanson shook his head, then stared down at his hands still clinging to the sword. "It acted like it couldn't see me."
Alright, the existential breakdown express had arrived right on time.
"Let's go with 'No'. Where did it go?" Robin asked. He stepped carefully back towards the end of the hallway. Depending on where the monster went, they could use this alcove as a base of operations.
"Go?" Sanson paused for a moment, as if to consider how to explain what happened. "It slipped into the corner that the scrub dispenser makes with the wall." He gestured towards one of the cabinets. That must be what they were.
Robin grimaced. Slipped into the corner? He pulled up his cloak, vanishing from the hallway, and slowly padded up to the cabinet. There wasn't anything particularly special about the look of the corner. It was definitely a space where flat surfaces came together. He carefully reached out to the wall and knocked it. Solid. No strange smells or sounds. Definitely no tracks, not that Robin was expecting any. Nothing was left of the creature.
"I don't get it," Robin said, pulling back the hood again so Sanson could hear him. "It's like it melted into the shadows."
Sanson huffed. Robin could hear the faint click of metal against tile. Without looking, he could sense that Sanson was resting his sword on the ground. It was a subconscious gesture of concentration rather than anything else, Robin figured. The existential crisis must have passed for the moment. In solidarity, Robin kicked at the corner the creature ran away into.
"Could it have an ability like your Noble Phantasm? Or a spirit form?" Sanson suggested. Out of the corner of Robin's eye, he could see Sanson pointing at his cloak.
"Eh?" Robin glared harder at the corner. "Like that thing was a servant. I doubt the Throne records dreck like that. More importantly, we'd be able to touch it if it was camouflaged. It's not like I actually disappear when I do it." He crouched down and waved his hand deep in the corner. He didn't touch anything unseen.
"I see your point." There was a rustle of fabric as Sanson adjusted his coat. "This seems to be your field of expertise. What do we do now?"
Wait. Since when did that stubborn Frenchman defer to him? Robin could feel heat unexpectedly rushing to his face. He kept looking away to hide it.
It had been completely different on the mission. The two of them butted heads from the moment their feet touched ground in the pseudo singularity. Fujimaru refused to pair them together for any recon work. Only Mata Hari had been bold enough to force them to cooperate.
As the days rolled on, it was increasingly clear someone or something was putting the team in their crosshairs. That changed things. It had been a mistake to entertain growing closer to others, Robin decided, but that was the position he found himself in.
Their enemies came for Mata Hari first. The evening of her execution featured heavily in Robin's nightmares. Sanson didn't handle it much better. As Robin plotted to destroy the gallows, he could hear the other man's voice yelling over the rising winds, pleading to the Witchfinder General's sense of humanity to stop the execution. They both failed.
In the chaos that followed, Sanson decided to play double agent without telling the rest of the team. And then...
"Are you alright?"
Sanson's voice cut through the memories and Robin was back in Chaldea. Back in this stupid hallway looking for a dumbass monster that outwitted both of them.
Robin lifted his head and rested his hands on his hips, idly fiddling with the small pouches on his belt. They could talk about the past later.
He dodged Sanson's direct question: "I'd start with poisons, but I've got no idea what that thing is, let alone what's gonna hurt it. You?"
"What do I look like, a veterinarian?" Sanson said. There was a brightness to his voice that Robin wasn't expecting. It had been a joke, even if it was a weird one.
Robin offered a grin as he looked over at Sanson. "That would leave us with subter-"
White hot pain ripped into Robin's right shoulder. Instinctually, he reached up to grasp at it. Something was holding the shoulder firmly in place. He couldn't move to escape. His eyes locked with Sanson, who stared back in horror.
The monster was definitely behind him.
The tiny bit of Robin's focus that wasn't shattered reminded him that he was more durable now than as a human. The stab wound would hurt like hell, but wouldn't necessarily kill him.
Then he remembered the strange blue liquid the creature had spat out earlier.
"Don't flinch."
In his haze of pain, Robin hadn't seen Sanson approach. The man's voice lacked the warmth it just held. The broadsword swung behind Robin's back silently and the grip on his shoulder released. His knees buckled; only a honed reflex to brace himself prevented him from rolling forward.
"Damn it!" Robin cursed, tapping the sticky tube now protruding from his shoulder.
Sanson stood between Robin and the monster. It stood, reemerged, partway out of the corner. Black mist poured from invisible tears in reality, flowing down onto the floor and out into the main corridor. The creature's strange tongue was missing. The fresh wound in its mouth spurted out blue pus as the creature grunted.
"Can you walk?" Sanson asked without turning. He effortlessly adjusted his sword in his hands, blocking off more of the creature's path.
"Running away is a lot more appropriate," Robin snarked back, despite the pain it caused.
The monster lunged forward, a long limb spilling between Sanson's legs and reaching out for Robin. Sanson quickly brought his sword down on the creeping tendril before it could strike. A sharp whistle trailed as the blade cut through the air. The monster didn't react until the blade connected with flesh, gurgling and folding the limb back into the darkness.
On a hunch, Robin flipped up the hood of his cloak over his head. Any focus that the monster had snapped. Its head recoiled into the mist.
"We need you to get to an infirmary," Sanson said, wasting no time. He didn't bother waiting for Robin to reply. "Down the main hallway, four doors on the left. Keep the hood up. Lock the door behind you. I'll make sure it doesn't follow."
There shouldn't have been anything particularly eerie about Chaldea's medical facilities. Robin normally didn't hold strong opinions on them other than making it a point to stay the hell away. The best fight was one that was over before it started, after all.
If the abandoned equipment elsewhere in Chaldea raised questions, the equipment around and in the infirmary raised concerns. It was centuries beyond what Robin encountered in life, not that he had ever been a man of medicine. Actually, it had been the opposite. As such, there wasn't a hope to intuitively know what half this stuff was.
Robin hadn't bothered to switch on the lights. The devices hanging off of the walls especially gave him pause: unexpected shapes, tubes and wires dangled in places he expected a monster to burst through. He adjusted his cloak carefully, making sure to not knock around the tube still jammed in his shoulder. The cloth still covered him. Nothing should be following. Hopefully.
A beep and click from the lock made Robin freeze in place, eyes on the doorway. Cold moonlight from outside spilled in as the panel slid open.
Correction: one someone should have been following.
"Why is it so dark? I need to see," Sanson said as he stepped into the infirmary. His sword was gone again. Robin wanted to imagine that it was currently jammed somewhere in the creature's body, but odds were Sanson had just dematerialized it.
Robin took a big step back as Sanson fiddled with the room's control panel. The infirmary lights flickered to life and made Robin squint. After testing to make sure the door was locked again, Sanson grabbed a cart full of what Robin would best describe as "assorted medical things" and pushed it in front of the door. It was on wheels and moved fluidly; it wouldn't serve as much of a barrier, but at least Sanson was putting some thought into their situation.
"I need you on the examination table," Sanson ordered. He pulled a handful of small packages off of the cart and dropped them on a metal tray. "Keep the cloak on for now. We'll be on a time limit once you take it off."
If keeping the cloak on wasn't central to staying alive, Robin would have popped the hood off to make some quip about the blunt directions. Not that Sanson had much of a sense of humour. Except, maybe he did? There was that strange exchange right before the ambush.
The table was more like a really uncomfortable couch than what a table should be, Robin decided: thinly padded with no arms or back. Sanson approached with a tray of supplies. He had removed his coat and pulled on a pair of gloves while Robin wasn't paying attention. There was a perplexed look on his face as he looked at the table. It probably just dawned on him that he wouldn't be able to tell where his patient was sitting. If the mess they were in wasn't so dire, this would have been hilarious.
Sanson closed his eyes and sighed. "Could you move out of the way when I put this down?"
Robin slid out of the way of the tray. Its contents didn't make any more sense close up. There must have been some logic in putting metal tools into these packages, but Robin didn't have the slightest idea why. Sanson ripped open one, popping it at the edges and squinting at the contents.
"I need to remove the..." Sanson paused, struggling to find the right word and eventually settling on the obvious one: "...tongue before we do anything else. You'll need to shift your hood to the side so I can reach it. And so I can see it, obviously."
That would start the time limit Sanson hinted at earlier, Robin figured. This wasn't his preferred strategy. Ideally, they would have retreated to somewhere more secure than an infirmary.
Not like they had a choice. Robin rolled the hood over as much as he could, cancelling his camouflage in the process.
"Have I mentioned how humiliating this is?" Robin asked, looking away at whatever was going to happen to his shoulder next. "The poisoner being poisoned. It's worse than those plays we had to act out."
"If it makes you feel any better, it's not poison," Sanson stated.
Great. Death would still be coming for them, only just from the other side of the door instead of coursing through his veins. If that was the only break they had at the moment, Robin would take it.
He could feel something shift in the wound. Robin clenched his eyes closed. He knew what would happen next; he had pulled out plenty of arrows over a lifetime.
"Technically, it's venom and not poison if it's injected," Sanson added, then pulled.
"Fuc-" Robin's rage was cut off by the sudden jolt of pain as the appendage was ripped out his back. His breathing slowly calmed down as his body readjusted to the change. "What the hell was that about?"
"I think it successfully worked as a distraction." There was a damp metallic clang as Sanson dropped the tongue and whatever tool he used into the metal tray. "We can bandage the wound and stabilize the arm. You'll need more treatment later, but it'll get you back up again for now."
Forget any earlier whimsical thoughts about this man, Robin thought to himself. To hell with him and his sense of humor.
"What about the, uh, venom?" Robin asked, then winced as the wound was quickly cleaned and bandaged. It didn't hurt as much as it did right after the attack, but he knew that dull ache wasn't going to fade for a while.
"I don't know. That's the 'more treatment' part," Sanson explained, securing down the ends of the bandages. "There's not a lot of research about servants and toxins. We're disposable in the greater scheme of things. You probably know more than the experts here."
Robin frowned and glared at the floor; there was a lot to take apart in that statement. Behind him, he could hear Sanson stepping over to the sink.
"If the venom was meant for a human, maybe it's not strong enough to harm a servant?" Sanson raised his voice over the sound of the running water. At least there was an attempt to sound reassuring this time. "Do you feel any shortness of breath? Numbness in the extremities?"
"Nothing remarkable," Robin said. He flexed his left arm. It still worked fine. That was promising.
Still, Sanson's voice of words about the monster earlier nagged at him: "I don't think I know what it is, but..." They only had so long before the creature would presumably attack again.
"Are you sure you don't know anything about that hell-beast?" Robin called out, making sure Sanson could hear him clearly.
Sanson didn't immediately reply. Robin looked over at the other man. He was leaning on the edge of the sink, the water still running. There was no knee-jerk defensive reaction like when Robin asked him about the mission. Small victories.
"The more I dwell on it, the more strange it seems," Sanson reflected. He turned the tap off with a paper towel. "I feel like I should know what it is but I don't know how I came to that conclusion."
"Then what the hell is it?" Robin asked. That could be the break they needed. They wouldn't survive another battle if it played out like the last one.
Sanson pulled his coat back on and adjusted the sleeves. "Again, I couldn't tell you properly. I've been calling it a 'Thief-Taker' in my mind."
Robin glowered. He could put together how Sanson came to that name. "That's especially not funny."
"Time-Thief-Taker, then."
"Whatever. Let's make a break for it and find our Master." Robin carefully adjusted his cloak over his shoulders and slid off of the examination table. His legs seemed to be working. Maybe a side trip would shake out more of Sanson's memories. "A quick First Aid or Cure-All spell should solve any problems with my arm. Then we take care of Nightmare-Fuel back there."
Sanson took several long strides towards the door and blocked Robin's path. Robin narrowed his eyes. Whatever Sanson had in presence, Robin knew he could more than match in speed and strength.
Predictably, Sanson took the opening play. He spoke in a firm voice: "We can't do that."
"Why not?" Robin took a step towards Sanson and leaned forward, intentionally trying to provoke him more.
"Time-Thief-Taker. It's just a theory that I have."
Robin blinked.
Sanson over-explaining his thoughts on the monster wasn't the next move Robin expected. He was anticipating some bullshit about not fighting with an injury and a potential poisoning. Being the brave hero and making a final stand wasn't high on Robin's priorities.
"Spit it out, scholar." Robin interrupted before the other man could ramble more.
"You rayshifted. I haven't in this body. It's attacking you, not me. It cannot get deeper into Chaldea," Sanson explained in a brisk, intense tone, as if to drive home his point.
Robin's heart stopped. This was bad.
He took a sharp breath and nodded. "We have to stop it before it finds anyone else."
No more details were needed. If the Time-Thief-Taker targeted prey who meddled in time and space, that made their Master the most obvious target. Even if it didn't find Fujimaru, the body count as the monster toured Chaldea could be unthinkable.
On the surface, killing the Time-Thief-Taker as soon as possible seemed like the safest answer. In practice, it was going to be anything but. Idly considering their options, Robin tried to move his right arm. The shoulder throbbed. He grabbed it with his left arm without thinking. That was going to be a problem.
"I recommend not doing that again," Sanson muttered under his breath.
"I believe the modern expression I'm looking for is 'bite me'," Robin hissed.
"Why is your first instinct to-" Sanson snapped back.
The door creaked, ending the argument before it could go further. Faintly, from the other side, what sounded like a fluid-filled sack smacked against the wall. Their weak fortifications held for the moment.
They had run out of time.
"Subterfuge. We need to stop it before it knows what's happening," Robin proclaimed. "We still might be able to work that angle. It doesn't seem to see you. I can hide from it. We can use that."
"But you're a better Assassin than me," Sanson admitted. "The condemned came to me, not the other way around."
That made sense, Robin considered. When called upon to fight the undead in the pseudo singularity, Sanson's technique was to anchor his feet in front of the approaching horde and hold them back while the rest of the team unleashed all manner of hell. It had been effective enough against waves of monsters. It lacked the finesse that would help them now.
"If I can't poison it or use my right arm, that leaves us with only a few options," Robin speculated, gesturing at his injured arm. "We need to think outside of the box."
"Fair." Sanson sighed. "What are you considering?"
"It slips in and out of tight corners," Robin theorized. "We could lure it into a long hallway and try to stop it from reaching any corners with three walls. Preferably, a hallway narrow enough so it can't turn around."
"There's some narrow hallways that cut across between offices," Sanson proposed. "The medical rooms are never used in the middle of the night unless it's an emergency. They should be empty."
"I like that idea," Robin nodded. He fancied himself more a scout than a leader, but positive feedback couldn't hurt their chances. "I'll pull my cloak up, make a break for it, then reveal myself and lure it on a merry chase through the halls."
"Alright, that gets it into a position," Sanson said. "Then what?"
"Once we have it trapped, you use your Noble Phantasm. You know, the French-sounding one," Robin concluded.
The dismissiveness was an act. Robin knew the Noble Phantasm's True Name. Further, he knew what those words meant. He had even yelled them once at Fujimaru to prove a point.
It wasn't his greatest moment.
"There's a complication," Sanson rebutted, his voice low.
Second thoughts? At a time like this? As the pounding at the door grew louder?
Robin took a guess at the problem: "We can beg forgiveness for using it later. We are the overnight security team, remember? We don't know how to poison it, so we need to do something else. Most things don't live through getting their heads chopped off."
Sanson scowled at Robin's reply. "How much faith do you have in your actions?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Robin stammered. It seemed out of character for Sanson to make a threat. That said, it was hard to read it as anything but.
"My French-sounding Noble Phantasm is stronger against those who feel guilty," Sanson explained. "I'm not sure how that works against a creature not of this world. We can certainly try, but it might not do anything to the Time-Thief-Taker."
"Then why bring up my self confidence?" The logic still didn't check out.
"If it doesn't recognize the Time-Thief-Taker as something it should attack, I don't know what happens."
Sanson couldn't maintain eye contact as he rattled through his thoughts. Robin realized, in that moment, the fear wrapped up in Sanson's voice.
Robin walked over to Sanson and squeezed the other man's shoulder. Sanson lifted his head slightly, just enough to exchange a glance with Robin.
"I trust you not to kill me," Robin reassured him with a smile.