Chapter 180
The night's chill kept most of Miyama Town's residents at home, not to mention the news of people disappearing at night lending a healthy dose of motivation to stay indoors. In the silent streets, a twin tailed girl in a red coat was running, her breath coming out in white fog. Despite her slender build, she was running faster than most people would have guessed, the azure glow peeking out from beneath the cuffs of her coat giving a hint as to how she was running at such speeds.
Nevertheless, it was far from enough to match the dark shadow soaring through the air. In a matter of seconds, it had managed to catch up to Rin and leave her in the dust, despite leaving the safehouse later than her.
With her white hair tucked underneath the tall cossack fur hat, she raised a mitten covered hand to peer at their destination that was steadily growing larger as they approached it.
I wonder how Shirou is faring over there~
Seeing him again brought a thin smile to her lips, her hair twitching lightly in anticipation of running him through with the blades of thread.
Berserker ignored the ticklish sensation on her chest as she focused on the massive mana signature practically erupting on the top of Mount Ryuudou, a surefire sign of a strong enemy. If Assassin wasn't answering to her Master's summons, something was up with her, and Gray had managed to provide a rough location in Miyama Town. When the sudden beacon of mana went up at Ryuudou Temple, they had instantly dispatched Rin, with Illya going of her own accord.
Illya didn't say it, but she knew that Berserker would want to see how Assassin was doing with her own eyes, so she ordered her Servant to take her there, and Berserker gladly obliged her.
They arrived at the foot of the stairs much earlier than Rin, whose Servant was currently in spirit form to conserve energy for the fights they were expecting. After losing the gems in the mansion, she was much more conservative about mana management. Still, with her own reinforcement, she made good time, taking less than fifteen minutes to reach there, though she had to run non-stop while maintaining the reinforcement.
By the time she did so, could feel the shockwaves reverberating through the ground, transmitting to the foot of the hill all the way from the top of the stairs where two titans clashed.
When Berserker and Illya first stepped through the torii gate at the foot of the stairs, nothing happened. Illya followed behind Berserker as she took point, climbing the stairs one by one as they focused their gaze on the top of the stairs, the natural choke point where one would expect any enemy to hold. When nothing occurred after walking three quarters up the stairs, they sped up and dashed into the temple itself.
The moment their faces peeked over the final step leading to the main entrance, a hot blast whipped at their faces, like a surge of humid air from a tropical cyclone. The Mystery and mana flowing out in equal amounts was staggering for a modern mage, and for a moment an inkling of hesitation entered Illya's heart. The sense of trepidation was compounded by the fact that the presence emitting this seemed to be climbing in quantity, the amount of mana suffusing the air possibly being able to reach the Age of Gods where it was poisonous to a modern human. When that happened, even the environment of the temple was bound to change, attracting lesser Phantasmal Beasts and other magical beings, while nature itself would adapt to the flow and evolve accordingly.
Then Berserker moved ahead of her, and despite her small frame, it felt like the oppressive atmosphere ahead of Illya was dampened, the Servant serving as a shield that staved off the worst of it. Her small hands curled into fists, the fine white threads of hair serving as her bird familiars took shape, resisting the pressure of foreign mana pressing in on them.
"Ecchan, find the enemy and destroy them."
Without looking back, Berserker nodded, and then charged in, leaping clear of the rooftops and then dropping out of sight behind it into the temple proper.
Illya's ruby eyes followed her Servant as she vanished, then she went through the cratered courtyard, speed walking as fast as her feet would allow as she went to track down the Masters who were supposed to be occupying the temple as their base. Four Engel Ritter, the wire birds, flew off in four different directions to scour the area, looking for clues as to Shirou and Kuzuki's location.
Avenger stared down at Shirou's body, burnt to a crisp after the explosion that threw her off of him. It was horrifying to look at, a corpse so heavily maimed and twisted that it no longer resembled a human being. Charred black skin covered his hands where his false Rhongomyniad had been held, his chest, neck and face sporting fiery crimson skin and discoloration characteristic of burn marks. The Circuits hadn't suffered a meltdown, a miracle in itself, but his body had sustained burns all the same, parts of his body that still had unburnt skin feverish to the touch, an angry red to the eye. His muscles had stiffened into the holding position when he had Rhongomyniad in his hands, so it was like his hands were reaching up to the sky. Missing one ear, part of his right hand and his right leg, he looked like a war veteran that had suffered multiple amputations, and considering his memories of the fire, one could say that his mentality was close to a veteran.
He was dead. Staring down at the body, Avenger, who had little more than a blackened mark on her shoulder, with a small hole that oozed minute amounts of blood, decided that he was most likely, deceased. After all that effort, he could only put a scratch on her, and that was it. He had failed.
Leaving his body alone, she searched for her next target, the Caster hiding somewhere nearby and her Master. Saber was connected to Shirou, so unless she established a new contract immediately, most likely with Kuzuki, there was little chance she would live through the night without a Master. Hence, finding Kuzuki was the most high-priority target, being a possible replacement for Saber's Master as well as being Caster's Master already.
The only problem was where they were hiding. She could feel their presence close by, her innate instincts alert to the fact that there were Artorias nearby, but the Bounded Field and natural formation of ley lines muddled things, and her own growing presence was obscuring their exact location as well. Something in her heart whispered to her, and she listened. Blood flowed in her veins, a thick susurration of mud drowning out everything. Her heart beat loudly, a dull drumming shaking the corners of her mind. A red flash shocked her vision, her nose flaring as the veins in her eyes stood out. Placing a hand on her chest, she sank to her knees, each muscle in her body stiffening as she choked, something in her throat rising, burning the lining of her esophagus like acid. Retching, thick tar drooled from her lips, a glob of it falling and splashing on the grass, sizzling fiercely as it killed the green blades. Convulsing once, then twice, hate flooded into her soul, the heat seizing her body as her vision grew red, bloodlust making her gnash her teeth together as her mouth twisted into a painful rictus of a scowl. Unnoticed by her, more tar leaked out of her nose, ears and eyes, her eyes turning red as the red veins on her body throbbed, pulsing with light as the light in her eyes faded, only to be replaced by something else. Swooping down out of the sky, a black haze enveloped her, shrouding her body as she was consumed by the grainy smoke, hidden from the world. Meanwhile, a steadily spreading pool of black tar reached out from the cloud of smoke, smearing the ground in darkness. The edges reached Shirou's motionless body, the liquid seeping into his skin and open wounds as the pool expanded past him. Soon, the entire inner temple had a film of black tar covering the ground, reflecting nothing, a mysterious liquid that had an unholy stench worse than the city sewers. In the midst of it all, the cloud of dark particles gilded and fluttered around the shadow of Avenger's figure within, the feminine outline changing into something else, something more.
As if on cue, Berserker arrived at the exact moment the cloud dispersed. Landing on the rooftop that had survived most of the battle, save for a few holes and a broken corner, she peered down at the inner courtyard, the floor completely dark. In the middle, kneeling with her knees submerged in the muddy liquid, was the source of the massive disturbance that Berserker sensed.
Now, she was clad in a complete set of armour, not at all different from what she usually wore as a Saber. The oversized shoulder pauldrons, breastplate with a similar design as her father's, the two horns of her unactivated helmet resting on her shoulders, the large sheets of armor acting like a faux-dress at her sides with the added utility of protection, in form it was basically the same as her usual appearance. The only difference was that it was completely black, the metal sheets dyed until it no longer held a trace of the marble white color it held before. All that was left was varying shades of black, with loincloth in the middle being the most strikingly dark. Red veins ran up from the edges of her armour, the red and black forming irregular patterns that decorated her entire form.
From the black mud, a hilt rose out of the muck covering the floor of the courtyard, the pommel a match for her current appearance. Without a single drop of the tar clinging to it, a darkened Clarent appeared from the mud, with Avenger grasping it in her hands once it appeared up to the middle of the blade from the mud. Standing up, she pulled it out easily, the blade sliding out with no resistance. The fae script on the sword had disappeared, and blazing red lines were now scorched onto the surface, forming sigils of unknown origin.
Berserker stared at the mud floor, deciding that it was probably in her best interests to stay away from it. Standing tall on the rooftop, she shouted at Avenger.
"Where is Assassin?"
Surprisingly, Avenger answered her unlike before, but the vibration in her voice surprised her, as if there were multiple layers to the voice, a harsh dissonance that nobody would fail to notice.
"Berserker, is it? I suppose you'll be a good test subject for this body."
A rush of air tore past Berserker, stripping the tiles of the rooftop with sheer force. The origin of the sudden gale of wind appeared in front of Berserker, Clarent held vertically with both hands on the hilt, the tip pointed at Berserker like she was going to thrust it, the hilt above her right shoulder.
"As for Assassin, she's dead. I killer her."
The rooftop promptly exploded into smithereens after those words, caused by pure physical violence.
With one thrust, she obliterated the entire rooftop that she adn Berserker were standing on, bolts of crimson lightning accompanying the thrust as what looked like an invisible cylinder of air created by her thrust shot forward, destroying a large area in front of Avenger. The ruined courtyard received another additional hole that ran far deeper than the rest, a pit that was able to fit a trailer truck within.
Berserker stared down at the carnage from high up in the air, having jumped just in time to keep herself from being struck. She sighed, seeing a powerful opponent like that appear in front of her. While she enjoyed battles as much as the next person, chilling in the kotatsu and eating sweets was much more preferable to her. Along with that, reading manga and going to the arcade were also pastimes she had recently been enjoying in Japan after she and Illya came here a month before the date of the Holy Grail War.
Still, she couldn't let her Master down, and whoever said they killed MHX was in for a beating from her, whether it was true or not. Her eyes narrowing, she pulled out a jar from within her inner pockets of the coat she was wearing and emptied the contents into her mouth. Swallowing the paste into her body, she felt the Altreactor start up as the Alternium crystals absorbed the sugar and broke it down into energy that was the equivalent of nuclear fusion. A flash of light enveloped her as she shifted into her battle dress with her glasses gone, the S*th Lord-like apparel that made her seem like a final boss appearing. It was actually quite similar to Avenger's appearance in some ways, and she was a bit put-off by that. Well, it was one more reason to defeat her. Anyone possessing the same alter characteristic like her in this story was an enemy. This story was only big enough for one of them.
Flashing amber, her eyes lit up as she plunged from the skies, Necrocalibur in her hands with both blades activated as she fired a veritable storm of crimson lightning down at Avenger.
Instead of standing her ground, Avenger charged straight into the lightning to meet Berserker head on. Raising Clarent above her head, she generated her own cage of lightning around herself, repelling the jagged bolts as red clashed against red, her lightning against Berserker's.
Berserker paid no mind to it, setting her focus on her telekinesis while maintaining the lightning bombardment. As the two of them got closer, she gripped Avenger and pulled while simultaneously pushing herself downwards. Grabbing the tendrils of lightning spiralling out of her body, she focused the mana into the tip of her lightsaber. Feeling the inevitable clash coming, Avenger did the same.
When the two of them met each other in the air, their blades collided and released all the energy they had been storing up. The skies lit up like fireworks as an explosion occurred mid-air, an expanding globe of energy that quickly lost steam and vanished.
Berserker was surprised as she felt an immense amount of energy cut past her, shearing off part of her vambrace as she felt the heat and crackling energy barely miss her.
At the same time, Avenger felt part of her right horn crack off as she barely deflected the blow meant of her heart, Berserker's body that had been spinning ever since she started dropping down turning her into a human drill that was nigh impossible to block. The tip of the horn fell off and dropped to the ground, the drill piercing the air right above her head.
A palpable sensation of air expelled from the blow slammed the two of them in their chests, forcing them apart. Taking the chance a smidge faster than Avenger, bolts of power lanced from Berserker's fingers and struck Avenger in the chest. The electricity leapt from plate to plate, dancing around the metal armor covering Avenger's body, but instead of immobilizing her as Berserker hoped it would, it simply added fuel to the fire. Pale eyes locked onto Berserker, the two gazing into each other's eyes, one calm and placid, the other turning red with blood vessels.
As if mocking Berserker's efforts, Avenger pushed through the red mana and grabbed the hand that was throwing the 'Alter Lightning'. Ignoring the energy coursing through her body and scorching the flesh on the closest point of contact, she gripped Berserker's hand with five fingers interlocking hers like a lover and squeezed. Berserker, unable to move away in time as the gauntlet locked palms with her, felt the bones in her hands give a worrying series of creaking sounds as pain lanced through her left arm. Seeing that the lightning was doing nothing to deter the Servant, she switched tactics.
Streaks of scarlet light lit up the air as the lightsaber hissed through the air, each blow matched by Avenger with the black Clarent. In her left hand, a ball of kinetic energy gathered filled with pulsing ruby lightning that she released after it was charged, blowing off Avenger's palm with an added shock. With her other hand free, she held Necrocalibur's hilt with both hands and spun, the dual blades tracing circles in the air with swings that could easily cleave apart the temple buildings below.
Faced with such pressure, Avenger stood her ground. While the two of them fell back to the ground, Berserker made a seamless flow of attacks with her saberstaff that Avenger not only repelled, but countered as well, her attacks jabbing at any opening ferociously. Berserker could sense her brute strength clumping the air itself into physical projectiles with each thrust, easily on par with her own. If it had been Saber in place of Berserker, her sword would have been knocked out of her hands trying to parry these blows. As it was, Berserker twisted and turned in the air, her legs flipping easily with seemingly no limit as she used the momentum to dodge, performing Olympic-level acrobatics with the lightsaber weaving a web of light around her body, lightning fast thrusts accompanied with actual lightning accompanying it, maroon and crimson crossing against each other. Straight lines of blazing heat cut across black steel, the fiery sigils untouched by the fierce clashes of the two blades. The constant hum of the emitter dipped and rose in pitch as Berserker slashed, the two blades connecting producing a high-pitched screeching noise that drilled into the ears.
In the blink of an eye, they were already meters away from crashing into the ruined temple overlooking the even more ruined outer courtyard. Bending her back and setting her legs vertical to the ground, Avenger crushed the tatami floor beneath her feet, her armoured legs going clean through the floor as she braced herself against the solid ground. Stabbing Clarent into the ground behind her at an angle deeply, she gritted her teeth, the veins on her temple standing out.
Berserker's eyes caught the movement and adjusted for the coming strike. Shifting the saberstaff into a single blade, placing both hands securely on the hilt, one near the emitter and and one near the other end.
An earsplitting roar issued forth as Avenger cut the ground, using the resistance against the blade to create an even greater blow than she would have made otherwise. The entire building shook as the Clarent pierced through the tatami, wood and dirt beneath, creating a massive gash in the ground that was disproportionately larger than the actual amount of space it had moved through. A trail of carmine followed the tip of her blade, a howling blade of energy wreathed in dark lightning. The black bolt of energy crackled around Avenger's body, wrapping her in a cage of forbidding lightning that wrecked the rest of the building, turning it into a pile of debris around her.
A blade of immense force reached for Berserker as she fell, but she was prepared. Bringing down the single-bladed lightsaber over her head, the force of her fall and her own strength was enough to fight back, sending Clarent veering off to the side. A nudge of telekinesis helped displace the blow to make it easier to parry, allowing Berserker to get in close after swiftly sliding past the blade like it was air, the uneven debris doing nothing to hinder her as she blurred into a invisible step that landed her right next to Avenger.
Mordred chopped downwards and then started swinging with broad strokes, destroying the surroundings with rough strokes that devastated the land. In a flash, wood and stone was ripped into the air, obscuring the two of them within an upraised cloud of debris. Within the gaps that could be seen within, red flashes and streaks could be glimpsed, fiery sigils against a bar of plasma.
A loud explosion occurred in the middle, blowing everything to the side in a circular radius. The swords couldn't be seen, melding into a world of red with splashes of black surrounding the two. Constant humming, hissing and screeches between the two formed a discordant symphony of combat. After-images from both of them accumulated until there was barely a hint of the real body anywhere left, the moonlight unable to pierce the canopy of deadly strokes they had created with their swords.
As the battle raged on outside near the courtyard, Illya passed through the temple and found Shirou lying face up amidst the black muck covering the inner courtyard. Her familiars glided over the mysterious mud, the homunculus staying some distance away from the mud as she tried to touch the fallen Master. The dove of thread dissolved and became individual lines above Shirou, the white hair falling onto his body and wrapping around him. The moment it touched his mud-stained body though, she grimaced and cut her connection with the familiar. It instantly fell limp, the gossamer threads falling onto his chest in a bundle of thread.
Eyeing the mud warily, she commanded other two familiars hovering near her shoulder to advance, staying a healthy distance away from the ground. Flapping their wings soundlessly, they descended on him and instead of touching him, unravelled to form a glowing white circle above him, with sigils and runes inscribed out of white thread. A soft white light enveloped Shirou's body as it lifted off the ground without a hitch, mud spilling from his clothes as he was carried by the magic circle acting as a transporter, levitating him out of the mud and to the far edges where Illya was waiting.
Visualizing purity, the mud leaked from every pore, a pool of thick black liquid gathering around his body as it was expelled from his skin, all the tar clinging to his wounds and injuries gradually clearing off, revealing the red skin, blood and exposed muscle tissue beneath. Illya had seen some gruesome things with the abandoned homunculi back at her mansion, and after nightmare of a training exercise with Ecchan, Emiya's condition was nothing to her. She was more surprised that she could still see his chest rise and fall, despite missing a leg and half a hand, with severe burns and overused Circuits.
Well, she needed him alive to exact revenge on him, so he couldn't die here. Putting aside whatever he was using to stay alive, first aid was urgently required. Her familiars crafted a circle beneath his body, a close facsimile of the one her mother had used during her final moments as the Grail vessel in the shed that Shirou used. A few minor differences were made to accommodate to emphasize recovery, and then the threads entered his body, making their way through the flesh to tie his body back together, both in a literal and metaphorical sense.
Reattaching limbs was beyond her, but she could at least stem the blood at the stump. The injuries were mended, closing the gaps in his skin and muscle tissue as parts were stitched together with fine thread, the stitching so fine that it was almost like a single white line without any separation. Stimulating his recovery with the massive amount of mana available to her, she probed his body in the meantime, the threads doubling as magical probes to detect the irregularities in his body.
She frowned as she searched, strange readings appearing and disappearing as she scanned through him. The presence of a strange artifact, possibly the one helping to keep him alive, something familiar that she felt like she'd seen before. And then there was something else, a grimy taint latched onto him, strangely also possibly the reason that he was alive. Instead of bleeding to death earlier, the combined efforts of the mud and the artifact had sealed the wounds at the deepest level below the surface, preventing his body from completely breaking down and ceasing activity.
A stray piece of stone was blasted aside by another familiar, the bird swatting aside the stray flecks that could easily puncture her fragile body. Raising her head, the sight of her Servant fighting against Avenger was enough to convince her to back off, taking Emiya's body along with her.
While the two retreated to a safe distance, the battle between the two Servants raged on with no signs of ending. It was a stalemate that neither could break easily unless they started using their full strength, and even then it was uncertain whether they could trump the other. Avenger seemed to be getting faster and stronger as time passed, her blade a chopping the air wildly in a manner that belied the skill used to blow through Berserkers more nuanced strikes, Necrocalibur whirling and spinning like a top at times, lunging forward with the tip like a spear at others. The blades on either side freely activated and deactivated between strikes, lulling Avenger into feints and uncertainty as time dragged on, earning the Servant some blood dripping from her body, but the armor was hardy enough to prevent serious injuries. Berserker herself had suffered little aside from the hand that Avenger had managed to grip earlier, but she knew that if time dragged on too much, she might be getting the short end of the stick judging from how Avenger seemed to be moving more and more smoothly as time passed.
"Is this all you've got?"
Taunting her in the middle of their duel, Avenger bared her teeth and pressed the attack, going into a series of aggressive swings that further obliterated the surroundings, pressuring Berserker to back away and dodge instead of blocking outright. Bending her body past the blade, she used her flexibility to her advantage as she performed a series of rolls, flips and cartwheels that brought her away from the deadly edge of Clarent and behind Avenger. It didn't take long for Avenger to swing around, but by the time she did so, pieces ranging from fist sized to barely larger than a fingernail were drifting into her eyes, Berserker kicking the ground to send a spray of wood and stone debris at her face. While Avenger didn't blink, the helmet resting on her shoulders finally closing up to protect her eyes and covering her entire head, Berserker dashed to the side, hugging the ground all the while.
Spying red flashes from the side, Avenger reacted and charged straight into it, trusting the armor to shield her against the worst of it while the sword descended from above in a earth-shattering downward stroke. Clarent passed through the air and slammed into the ground, and then she heard a growl of machinery behind her. With a start, she turned around, but before she could do so she felt something grinding against her shoulder, shaking her body and vibrating strongly as the armor was broken and chewed to dust under the constant attack of sawing teeth.
Using telekinesis to bend the lightning to make it seem like it came from elsewhere, it was easy to make Avenger fall for it, with what Berserker had observed from their combat earlier. The Servant was extremely responsive to feints of any sort, and while her speed allowed her to compensate for that, it proved that she was easy to catch off her guard with some tricks.
In moments, Berserker had kicked Avenger into the air as she tried to grab the chainsaw and wrench it off, blood trailing from her body as it rose into the air, a scarlet thread attached to the mutilated shoulder. There was nothing Avenger could do as Berserker jumped up, the chainsaw roaring hungrily as it slammed into the underside of her thigh, thrashing about as it's teeth bit down on the metal and shredded the armour. The shriek of metal stung as Avenger leaned over to grapple with Berserker, but the smaller Servant was already using Avenger's body as a foothold in the air to drag the chainsaw across her body, stepping on her knee, advancing forward onto her breastplate and then using her head as a launchpad to leap off, the chainsaw travelling across her body all the while, bolts of lightning leaping off the sawteeth to engulf the armor in crackling energy.
In the blink of an eye, Avenger's armor was ruined, a split running from her groin to the shoulder, her chin sporting a bloody rift that had a slight gap in the middle, allowing something white to peek through. If Avenger hadn't tilted her head back in time and arrested her forward leaning momentum, the rift would be splitting her face, if not her entire head.
Falling back to the ground with a thunderous crash, sending dust flying up into the air, Berserker landed some distance away on both feet, the chainsaw folding back into a lightsaber as the glowing red teeth on the chain reformed into the length of a lightsaber blade, the main body shrinking and elongating into a hilt that fit Berserker's hand perfectly. Before it had even finished reforming fully,
Berserker had already started sprinting at the cloud of dust covering Avenger's landing point, splitting the saberstaff into two in her hands and letting them dig into the ground as they melted the stone and set fire to wood, creating two molten orange lines leading to Avenger. Diving in, the humming of the lightsabers rapidly shifted as the bars of red started swinging and spinning, the crackle of dust being consumed by plasma a constant whine.
Hefting Clarent into her hands, she punched the ground and flipped her body to the side, narrowly dodging the lightsaber that plunged through the ground she had been resting on moments ago. The next bar of plasma fell on her immediately, but she blocked with Clarent, pushing back and buying enough time for her to roll out of range as the other blade came back to cut the ground. Standing up, she hurled a piece of stone with her free hand at Avenger, the projectile cutting across Berserker's shoulder as she leaned to the side, then Avenger was on top of Berserker. Single-handedly swinging her sword with abandon, the swings still packed enough force to cause Berserker to stumble as she blocked the first blow, the fist that followed up catching her ear as she failed to move fast enough. Her kick was blocked by Avenger, the lightsaber rushing upwards in a diagonal slash keeping Avenger from stepping forward and striking another blow, but Avenger charged from her position into a shoulder tackle that clipped Berserker's side and sent her spinning as she lost her balance. Digging the lightsabers into the ground to prevent her body from further spiralling out of control, she dashed to the side to avoid the black sword spinning towards her, hurled hard enough to smash into the ground up to the guard, with red lightning accompanying it's brief journey.
Diving out of the way as Avenger tried to bodily tackle her again, the series of precise and deadly thrusts were all dodged by Avenger like she was unwounded, dancing around the red rods even as blood leaked from the ruined armor. A rudimentary roundhouse kick to Berserker's wrist ensured that she took a step back, and that was all Avenger needed to retrieve that sword she had thrown earlier. A surge of mana could be detected as Berserker suddenly felt sweat prickle her back, Clarent becoming enveloped in a sheath of darkness tinged with bloody red. Lifting it up in the air above her head, she shouted.
"Clarent Blood Arthur!"
It was clear that it wasn't a full activation of the Noble Phantasm, but it was enough to knock back Berserker and send her flying as the pillar of black light aimed at the sky descended after Avenger brought down the sword. A path of destruction wider than a truck laid waste to the ground as it carved a wide but shallow ditch while blowing back Berserker all the way to the inner courtyard, punching her through several walls with ease.
Wincing, Berserker stood up as she clutched her tender sides, her left receiving the brunt of the blow as she twisted her body even in the midst of being attacked to minimize the force she'd take while blocking it. Considering that she wasn't dead, she had been successful, but it didn't bode well for her that Avenger was using her Noble Phantasm now. If it came down to it, she'd have to get serious and use her trump card too, but she'd rather it not come down to that. Trump cards were best revealed in the final fights of a story after all.
"Hn!"
Lifting both swords, she took the leaping blow from Avenger headon, challenging the Servant's strength with her own as she vied for dominance, Clarent's black edge pushing down on two plasma blades. In the end, using her legs that were sinking into the ground, she managed to slash both blades outwards in a cross shape to push off Avenger and make some space.
It was then that she noticed the black mud covering the ground of the inner courtyard, oozing slowly as it spread across the ground in minuscule increments. A wave of nausea ran over Berserker as she stared at it, but then she refocused on Avenger as the Servant charged over wildly, a grating roar issuing from her throat.
Instead of charging directly at Berserker as she'd expected, Avenger used the run to build up momentum as she leaped into the sky far above Berserker, the helmet still disassembled around her as the black glow Berserker had witnessed earlier surrounded her sword once more.
"Clarent Blood Arthur!"
A beam of solid darkness descended from the sky, bathing the surroundings in crimson as it pierced the ground the sprawling pool of mud. In a flash, a deep canyon was formed. The mud boiled and evaporated, hissing away into the air in the face of the unstoppable blast of energy. The void pillar of black enveloped Berserker as it expanded, the red glow consuming the surroundings as well as the Servant until the area around it couldn't be seen clearly through the strong light. Long tendrils of jagged electricity wrapped around the Noble Phantasm, a cage of lightning around a core not unlike that of Berserker's lightsaber.
The pillar persisted for a few seconds, then it slowly shrank in size, the lightning bolts growing smaller and smaller, before it completely vanished. The light faded away, letting the darkness of the night reclaim the temple as the darkness of the crack became apparent, shrouded deeply in shadows to the point where the bottom wasn't visible.
Landing on the ground with a crunch, the stones shattering beneath her, looking down to survey her own handiwork. Her pale yellow eyes tried to pick up details that could indicate Berserker's survival, but it was too dark even for her own vision to see through anything. A gentle night wind blew, rustling the loose threads of her hair as she peered down, amber eyes giving off a faint glow at night. After a few moments of looking, she raised her head, the armor on her body melting into slick black liquid that sunk into her skin as it disappeared, leaving her in the clothes she wore under it. She proceeded to calmly jump into the hole, plunging into the darkness below as she swiftly vanished into the deep shadows obscuring the bottom.
Deep in the earth, far below the mountain housing the temple, the fissure in the ground created by Avenger's altered Noble Phantasm lead deep into the ground, stretching all the way to a massive cavern concealed far below the temple grounds. It's existence was only known to the founders of the Holy Grail War ritual, the presence of a massive magic circle hundreds of meters wide, housing the main core of the ritual that was known as the Greater Grail. Lines, glyphs, runes and symbols were inscribed over the ground like a the scribbles of a kindergarten child to the untrained eye, a mass of squiggles and lines that intersected and aligned randomly, but if viewed all the way from the top, it turned into one cohesive image that revealed a highly intricate magic circle which came close to magecraft from the Age of the Gods. At the very center of this entire assembly stood a massive stone pillar, a hairline thin crack around near the base, as if the pillar had been made by placing one stone on top of the other, the two fitting seamlessly together. Dark spots and dried reddish brown liquid could be seen on the edges of the base, traces of the past that had endured until the present.
At the moment, there was only one occupant in the cavern, her arm braced against the wall of the cavern as she grunted and pushed with effort. With a resounding crack that echoed across the empty space, her dislocated arm slid back into its socket, no longer bent at an unnatural angle behind her back. A trickle of sweat dripped from her forehead to the ground, but that was the only reaction her body gave.
Kneeling on the ground, she fished around in the tight pockets of her suit, her hand coming out with a small lump wrapped with oil paper. Unwrapping the package, she stuffed the black ball of paste into her mouth, chewing a bit before swallowing. She felt her body warm up again as the energy was broken down, mana circulating through her veins as her physical strength was restored to a degree. The fight earlier had taken more out of her than she'd originally thought. While she had been able to hold her own against Avenger without too much difficulty, Avenger had hit hard. She had spent a lot of effort to match her, and taking Noble Phantasms to the face was guaranteed to drain her strength, if she was using pure skill to defend against it.
However, it was also quite amazing that she only suffered a dislocated arm as the only major injury. Her body was littered with scratches and cuts, but nothing as serious as her arm, and that was only because she had used it to parry the blast from Avenger at the very end, which was also the reason for her falling down into the cavern in the first place. Stretching her arms and legs, she felt nothing wrong with her body.
Looking up, she could see the gap in the ceiling that she had fallen through, a relatively small gap in the ceiling that barely stretched more than a tenth of the diameter of the cavern. It was more than enough for a person to jump in though, and she knew Avenger would follow her inside. She didn't feel like a person who would leave the job half-done. She looked around the cavern, searching for something she could use when Avenger arrived, then she noticed it. Her eyes widening, she turned and started running.
When Avenger landed on the ground, instead of kicking sand and dust, a massive splash of tar was created, dredges of thick liquid rising in spouts around her as ripples spread from her feet in the immense pool of sludge covering the entire cavern's floor. Red shadows seemed to ripple under the liquid surface, a sinister undercurrent beneath the waves that rocked the liquid even without a single hint of wind.
However, there was no sign of Berserker anywhere.
In the vast space of the cavern, all she could see was the mud covering the ground, and the pillar in the middle of it all. There was nothing else in there she could see that resembled Berserker at all. The cavern was too big for her to have run anywhere fast, and with no entrance in sight, it was hard to imagine that she could escape so quickly when she jumped in so soon. Where on earth could she be then? Did she have something like an invisibility skill that allowed her to hide from sight? Even if that was true, the mud should have caught her presence a long time ago.
A prickle on her nape fired her instincts, her neck whipping up as she craned her head to look at the ceiling of the cavern.
There on the rock surface, using two lightsabers as makeshift picks to stab into the rock and climb, body dangling freely in the air, was Berserker.
The moment Avenger laid eyes on Berserker, the Servant looked down as well, catching sight of Avenger gazing up at her. For a moment, the two of them stared at each other in silence.
Then Berserker kicked her legs forcefully and deactivated the blades, her body swinging forward with the momentum, spinning and rolling through the air as she performed several flips to conserve her momentum and propel her forwards. Behind her, the ceiling exploded in a shower of dust and rock shrapnel as large spears of solidified mud smashed into it, easily breaking the stone ceiling.
Before she fell too far from the ceiling, she stabbed her lightsabers back into the granite and used the hilt of the lightsaber as a fulcrum to keep swinging herself upwards, going from the left to right like monkey bars with the lightsabers in both hands. All the while, a constant bombardment of attacks rose up to intercept her from below, tall pillars of darkness that were large enough to crush trucks punching the stone cavern's ceiling, each dodge becoming increasingly riskier as Berserker inevitably slowed down, until she changed tactics.
Flipping herself mid-air, her feet touched the ceiling, allowing her to kick off against the uneven surface and propel herself forwards with maximum speed towards the crack. It was still some distance away, but she dug her blades of plasma into the rock as she ran upside down on the ceiling, the lightsabers slowing her down just enough so she could kick against the surface to move forward and maintain a straight line on the ceiling. With her hair and hood blown backward by the wind, she raced forward ahead of the constant hammering of giant spikes behind her, dark torrents of mud shooting upwards to join the solid constructs in the merciless assault. The cavern trembled under the wrathful blows, cracks appearing and dust falling from the ceiling as it shook over and over from repeated hammering. In the cavernous space, the blows echoed like explosions, a continuous series of fireworks overlapping over each other that rocked Berserker's eardrums.
Picking up speed, she ran as fast as she could across the rocky surface, a black blur zipping between the attacks the mud was throwing up at her, using the lightsabers to twist and turn as she navigated her way to the only exit available to her, never once letting the mud touch her, not even a drop. The plasma blades shone brilliantly against the mud, two beacons of red light that lit the way forward as she dashed on the ceiling to the crack.
The black filling the crack met her eyes as she flitted past the final pillar smashing into the ceiling in front of her, mud streaming from the ground all the way to the ceiling, liquid that defied physics as it connected into several lines that pooled around the opening and filled it in.
Without missing a beat, Berserker released her hold on the ceiling, punching the ceiling with two fists to free fall onto the mud as a barrage of mud pillars formed an impenetrable wall around the crack, aiming to crush Berserker when she slowed to a stop in front of the sealed exit.
Instead, she fell down as the mud missed by a mile, gathering spiritual power into her body as the Altreactor powered up, a visible aura built up around her, her skin faintly glowing, the pale eyes turning bright as a circle of crimson electricity lined the iris, burning deeply in her pupils. Streams of lightning formed from the sole of her left boot as she plunged down, rocketing so fast nothing could catch her a javelin of crimson energy was created by her body, her arms raised straight above her head, hair swirling with the currents of air buffeting her at the extreme speeds she was going.
In a flash, the mud was vaporized in a twenty meter radius around her, a globe of light blinding the entire cavern, casting shadows of the mud pillars that had attacked Berserker on the walls. Avenger had to avert her eyes, her body slowing down while she was in the middle of charging at Berserker. When she opened her eyes again, Berserker was crouching, eyes closed and head lowered as if praying, her two hands crossed on either side with the two lightsabers bright and humming. The mud came flowing back into the vacuum she had made, the Holy Grail system below her feet protected by the numerous enchantments that had been layered on top of it. Mere seconds away from the mud sweeping up to her ankles, she leaped.
A blast of air was expunged from the blast zone as she shot into the air faster than a bullet, Avenger unable to accelerate in time to catch up to her. Thousands of mud pillars criss-crossed in front of her, blocking the path forward as they formed a thick wall of solid black constructs like tree branches in the canopy of a rainforest, the sight of the ceiling obscured behind all the black lines. A single line of white light tinged with ruby red could be seen, a thin thread no thicker than a hair connecting from Berserker's starting jump point to the ceiling where the crack resided, and then it expanded in the blink of an eye, the obstructing pillars all shattering simultaneously from top to bottom, turning back to liquid. A ripple of air in the shape of a pillar blasted outwards, the boom of a sonic speed reaching Avenger's ears in a deafening assault on her ears. This time, the cavern didn't just shake, chunks of stone bigger than a car fell from the ceiling as cracks split the walls. A massive wall of mud covered Avenger, shielding her against the falling debris as she waited for it to cease.
When it was all over, the wall collapsed into liquid, splashing back onto the ocean covering the entire cavern floor, the liquid seeping off Avenger's body as she stared up at the ceiling.
Far above her, the hole in the ceiling she had made with her Noble Phantasm had expanded. It was the width of an oil tanker now, big enough to dimly see the moon through the haze of dust floating in the hole, and stretching from four points evenly positioned around the perimeter of the hole, was two massive slash marks stretched across the cavern ceiling.