Fate/Infinity Shuffle: Reshuffled
Chapter 21 – Ace-to-Five:
The tallest skyscraper in the city had a clear view of the mountain range. A perfect view for an Archer to strike from afar.
Hakuno and Jinako stood at its rooftop, eyes set on the mountain where the battle in the parallel dimension was still taking place in.
"You think they've left already?"
"Kiritsugu and Kirei are good at their job. I'd be surprised if they hadn't." Hakuno let out a sigh, rubbing his temple. "I feel weird, having to ask for help like this."
Jinako puffed out one cheek. "Stop being stubborn about that."
"But it's annoying." Hakuno's expression saddened a little. "And doesn't that make me annoying?"
With a frown, Jinako pulled on his cheek.
"Ow, ow! It hurts more in real life than in anime!"
"Doesn't matter!" Jinako admitted to herself that part of her was just pulling on his cheek out of curiosity, wanting to copy moments she had seen from various shows. "It's in matters like these where you have to rely on others the most, so it's totally okay to ask for help."
After she let go of his cheek, even making a snapping sound upon impact, Hakuno rubbed the hurt area. "Yeah, yeah… I suppose you're right, but I'm not sure if that will make me feel better."
"And that's to be expected." Jinako crossed her arms and put on a smug look, shutting her eyes and everything. "Guess that means I'll just have to make you feel better on my own. Honestly, you're hopeless without me, aren't you?"
Hakuno could tell from the tone it was merely a joke, so he decided to roll with it. "Me? Hopeless without you? Someone's become a bit mightier since getting here."
"Oh? And is that a bad thing?" Jinako cracked open one of her eyes to glance at her boyfriend.
"Not at all. But I'd like to see if that's all talk."
"You have your doubts?"
"Let's see!"
In a quick motion, Hakuno pulled Jinako to him, holding her forearms with a strong enough grasp to draw her to him, but not so much that would feel forceful or trapping. A red blush suddenly appeared across the girl's face as Hakuno's was mere inches away.
She clamped her eyes shut in a mixture of embarrassment and anticipation, nervousness showering through her body… only to feel nothing touch her lips. "…Eh?" She opened them again, finding Hakuno wearing the goofiest grin she had ever seen.
"Where did all your might go?"
Jinako threw a friendly glare at Hakuno before suddenly tip-toeing, making her lips collide into his without his notice.
"H-Hey!"
"That was for teasing me."
"…Well, if it makes you feel better, I'm definitely in a better mood." Hakuno admitted with a laugh and a slight blush. Jinako wanted to stay mad, but couldn't help but crack a smile.
"Oh! Rankers, I never thought I'd see the day in person!"
Much to their surprise though, they weren't alone. The teasing voice made the presence of a third party known, and suddenly the two teenagers were blushing for entirely different reasons.
"!" The two immediately stepped away from each other and turned to the person they had called for.
"H-H-Hey. Sorry to ask you for help."
"It's okay, Hakuno. If you had to ask for the help of an EX Ranker, it has to be serious, isn't that right?" The EX Ranker made their way to the edge of the building while drawing an Archer Class Card.
"Getting out?" Akane didn't like the sound of that. "So basically run away, huh?"
"I suggest you put your pride aside for two seconds and remember that this isn't the Class Card Game we're talking about. If he asked for it, then we're doing it." Kiritsugu explained while getting back into the car's driver seat.
"Let's go, Akane." Kuroko didn't question it. He quickly leapt over the car's front, sliding over it in order to get onto the other side.
"H-Hey! Grr… Fine." Akane decided to not be unreasonable and follow suit, moving to the back of the car and taking a seat while Kuroko put on the seat belt.
Kotomine Shirou joined his adoptive brother on the motorcycle. "Is this the restaurant's bike?"
"I was in the middle of a delivery."
"Watch out. We might lose one of our six customers." Shirou joked, earning him a slight chuckle from Kirei.
"Loyalty isn't broken so easily."
"Allow me!" Chloe slid into the Car, sitting on Kuroko's lap, much to his confusion.
"Why are you-?!"
"There's only so much space."
Leo, Mizuki, and Isemi sat on the backseats, struggling for space.
"These armours are too bulky!" Mizuki pointed out, earning her a look from all the knights around her. "…I'm not in armour, you can't say I'm using double standards!"
And just like that, both Kirei and Kiritsugu started their vehicles' engines again and speeded away, fleeing from the area.
"Hey! Come back here!" Mary gave chase to the motorbike and the crowded car, floating close to the ground. Her speed seemed to match that of the car.
"Uncle Kiritsugu, what is Hakuno planning?" Chloe asked, curious regarding what the Ranker had planned.
"I'm not sure myself."
Akane barked. "Then why don't we simply Transport out of here?!"
"According to him, if we decide to simply Transport back, the target might escape."
"Target?" Mizuki turned around, spotting the approaching Foreigner. "So what's the plan, exactly?"
"Making sure we don't lose her in the meantime." Kiritsugu turned the wheel accordingly to the road. Kirei was slightly in front of him since his vehicle was faster than the crowded car.
"She seems to be catching up!" Kuroko pointed out, evidence being reflected on the rear-view mirror. The little girl with tentacles attached was getting closer and closer.
"I'm aware." Kiritsugu answered, remaining stoic while turning the wheel again.
Bvvvvt-bvvvt.
"Hm?" Chloe looked at Kiritugu's phone resting on the holder attached to the dashboard and read the received message.
"Uncle, Hakuno told you to Transport now!"
"Transport." The two vehicles and their passengers were suddenly transported to their original dimension, which confused Mary, enough for her to stop and look around.
"Where did they…?" She turned to the city and the very next moment…
"Almost…" The EX-Ranker Player held the bow with the right hand, the left pulling the arrow on the string, as waves of green and yellow circled the area they stood on. The accuracy was perfect thanks to a certain Skill in their kit. What took time to do wasn't aiming. That had been done the moment the shooting stance had been taken. Tracking wasn't necessary either.
What took time was the charging of the attack.
A single word. A single arrow. A Noble Phantasm.
The fired arrow could've flown across the sky from dawn till sunset, or from dusk till the sunrise, as the only star visible in the vast sky.
Strangely enough, this Noble Phantasm was not a product of slaughter, but rather an end to conflicts.
And it would end this conflict for now.
The string was released, and the name was spoken.
Did it take one second? Less? More? It was hard to tell.
Mary saw, for a split second, the arrow surrounded in pure light, as if it were some sort of meteorite, directed to the spot right between her eyes.
"Eh?"
Contact.
Saying the resulting explosion was large would be an understatement. Given the conditions, it could've destroyed an entire fortress. Perhaps even decimated the mountain Mary was standing on.
The explosion swallowed the mountain range, and it took several minutes for Mary to actually react.
Her body had been mangled from the attack, but it slowly pulled itself back together, returning to her original form and acting as nothing had happened. In fact, the only reason this attack worked was due to Mary's sheer surprise. It wasn't as remarkable as Taiyou's Vasavi Shakti, but it stalled Mary long enough to let the others escape while also confirming a few things overall to the Rankers.
She hadn't been able to breathe until a few minutes after the explosion subsided, where she finally managed to open her eyes in a bit of a scare.
"W-W-What was that…?"
If she had been in any of her previous Ascensions, the damage would've been greater, even if not by much. But the scare from being caught in a massive explosion like that?
The fear would've been much greater.
"W-Well… I'll just go have fun with Teddy. Those bullies can go away. Teddy? Where are you?" The plush doll would take a little longer to come back.
And as such, the little girl was left alone to her own accord.
"Phew!" Mizuki exited the car alongside everybody, as Kirei and Shirou got off the bike. "We're finally safe…"
"You're welcome!" Chloe said, hands on hips. "If uncle Kiritsugu hadn't done anything, we would've become octopus food."
Mizuki suddenly realized her rudeness and immediately bowed to the smoker. "A-Ah! S-Sorry, mister…?" She didn't want to treat him for his first name. She was silently for the family one.
The man put on a simple smile that didn't show the hostility he had before. "Emiya. Emiya Kiritsugu."
The answer made Mizuki spring up in sheer surprise. "Emiya?! M-Mister, are you Emiya Shirou's father?"
"Hm? You know my son?"
"He's my classmate!" Mizuki was astounded to not only have met Emiya Shirou's father, but also the fact that he was a Player as well. "Mister, if you don't mind me asking, is Shirou a Player?"
"No." A simple answer followed by a puff of smoke out of his mouth. "Neither of my kids has a Card or is a Player. I didn't want my niece here to be a Player either, but she just had to get a Card all by herself."
"Hey! That was unnecessary. I'm as good a Player as you are, aren't I?"
"I don't see how that's relevant."
But before anyone else could participate in the conversation, Kirei's phone started ringing for a video call. After telling everyone that it was from Hakuno, they fell silent. He accepted the call without turning on the camera since it would be too crowded an image, but all of them were able to see Hakuno on the screen after Kirei placed the phone down on the bike's seat.
'Can everybody hear me?'
"Yeah." Akane confirmed.
'Okay. Kuroko, your idea would've worked. A composite team specific to defeat an opponent is a great strategy. The problem was that we misjudged something.'
"And What would that be?" Shirou wondered.
'The fact that the girl known as Abigail Williams, the Card Mary has installed, has a Skill that I didn't understand at first. But now, I realize it's a Skill that can probably make her unbeatable. While it may be a little early to say, I believe understand what the Class 'Foreigner' is.'
"Skill?" Isemi wondered.
"Do tell." Kirei crossed his arms.
'The Skill that puzzled me the most was 'Existence Outside the Domain'. I couldn't understand it until I put the pieces together. Are all of you aware who H.P. Lovecraft is?"
Some had a vague idea, but many shook their heads to the side.
Hakuno didn't mind explaining. 'A writer in the genre of Cosmic Horror. He is most famous for the creation of the Cthulhu Mythos, and the wide pantheon of deities. I'm not going to explain everything, but I think his stories of fiction had more truth to them than we all thought.'
"Huh? What do you mean?" Akane raised an eyebrow.
'His Gods had the concept of being dimensions and realities above, or rather, outside of ours. I believe a Foreigner is a person possessed, or acting as a vessel, by an Outer God. Abigail Williams is the link of that God to the human World.'
"What? Why? How does that work?" Chloe asked, not exactly convinced. "that sounds a bit too farfetched, even for something related to the Class Cards."
'I admit, I'm not sure myself. But 'Existence Outside the Domain' is simple: our rules do not apply to them. That's why, despite being a God and possessing Divinity, something like 'Vasavi Shakti' won't defeat it. That's also why exterior attacks don't seem to have as much of an effect most of the time. The girl is being protected by the God. And she also seems to be able to bypass something like Leo's immunity, at least to an extent. to the God inside her.'
"So, wait, brute strength won't cut it? And we don't have a clue to what might beat her?" Chloe didn't like where this was going.
'In theory… yeah.'
"You know that that thing was beating our butts like we were flies, right?" Chloe crossed her arms. "You're essentially saying that nothing we do will work. Is that it?"
Mizuki asked the one-million-dollar question. "Wait, then what do we do?"
And Hakuno hesitated to answer. But he had to be honest with them.
'…I don't know.'
After a minute of silence from both sides, the video call ended.
Night eventually came about.
The call with Hakuno ended on a rather somber note. The words 'I don't know' are something no one would like to hear in a situation like that.
Everybody went their separate ways home. Well, not the students. The students returned to their respective schools and informed their teams about the events. Of course, while Mizuki didn't like the state of things either, she couldn't help but tell Sayuri and Lizzie how exciting it was to meet multiple A Rankers. Also, the odd meeting of Shirou's father.
Upon getting home, Mizuki moved to the bedroom with a heavy doubt in mind: what could she do to help? She was more than aware that this wasn't exactly her place to choose, but at the same time, she had this feeling that she shouldn't just stand around and do nothing.
Everybody probably thought the same. 'I want to help, but there's probably no way.'
So, she decided to confer with someone that could be able to offer insight.
…
After three minutes, Mizuki opened her eyes, finding herself inside Shiki's room as expected. And as per usual, the Assassin sat on the bed, knife in hand, twirling it between her fingers.
"Good evening." The teenager bowed.
"Yo. What brings you here this time around?"
"It's, umm, complicated…" Mizuki admitted, scratching a cheek with a finger, looking off to the side, attempting to find a way to explain the situation without sounding odd.
"I don't offer love advice."
"It's not that." Mizuki chuckled awkwardly. "There's someone with a dangerous Card and she hurt a bunch of Players. The problem is that her Card has an advantage over everything else, in a way. It's essentially a God from a dimension above ours. So we can't do much to beat her. The rules don't apply to her."
"Hmm…" Shiki absorbed the information and thought for a few seconds. "So Mystic Eyes of Death Perception aren't useful in this situation. Heh. I never thought I'd see the day."
"Shiki, this is serious…"
"I know. But not even I with a katana would be able to do much."
"Hm? You with a katana?"
"Yes. I'm trained in sword combat as well. To be honest, I would be much stronger with a sword than with a knife."
"How much stronger?"
"Hmm…" Shiki looked aside, with a hand over her chin, trying to think of a comparison easy enough to use. "You know when a hero clears through a group of two hundred minions with only a few attacks before proceeding?" Mizuki nodded. She was familiar with such an image. "If I with a katana am the hero, then I with a knife would be a single minion."
"WHAT?!" Mizuki jumped back, astounded by the information. She went as far as hitting the back wall of the room.
"Aren't Sabers supposed to be stronger than Assassins?" Shiki laughed at the girl's reaction. One could confuse it with mocking, but it was honestly funny. "Regardless, that's a tough situation."
"Is there anything you think I can do?"
"The best I can tell you is that, using me, you can 'kill' anything. However, if something can't be brought to an end, just do it to something else."
"Something else…." Mizuki didn't know what to do with that information.
"If the solution isn't A, then do B. It's as simple as that."
"I see…" She didn't know what to think of it but decided to be polite. "Thank you, Shiki."
Jinako slowly woke up from a nap she took on the futon in the middle of Hakuno's room. The sound of hitting keys at high speed ended up disturbing her.
"Hmm…?"
"Oh!" Hakuno turned from his desk chair to the other Ranker. "Did I wake you up?"
"Yeah, but it's fine… Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to sleep much at night." She rubbed her eyes after sitting up, letting out a yawn after speaking. She turned to her boyfriend and removed one of the rubbing hands, allowing her to see him, even if slightly unfocused due to not having her glasses on. "What are you doing?"
"Oh. I'm… searching for something."
"What is it?" She stood up in order to look at his computer screen. "Players that may be able to damage her?"
"Actually, no." Hakuno admitted, leaning back to give space to Jinako to look at the laptop's screen. "After she tanked a Vasavi Shakti, I don't think anything we know will be able to just beat her. What I'm searching for is something that has been bothering me."
"What?"
"Mary has been going around in the parallel dimension for more than two weeks."
"And what's so odd about that? While you're Installed, you don't need food or water, so that's not the problem." Jinako suddenly had a tangent thought pop into her hand. "Though how one survives without snacks is a good question."
It even made Hakuno laugh a little. "That's a good question, yeah. But the point is…" He glanced at the screen again. "How come she's not reported missing?"
"Hm?"
"I've been looking through the list of missing kids in the country. It started just with the city, but since I couldn't find her here, I expanded the search."
"You mean whoever Mary's parents are, they still haven't reported her missing?"
"That's what it should mean." Hakuno scratched his head. "But that doesn't make sense."
"Why not?"
"We might not know much about her, but she's a pretty happy kid overall, at least when she's not being hurt. Wouldn't that mean she has a pretty happy life? It's hard to have something like that if your parents are negligent enough to the point of not reporting their own daughter missing."
"That's a way to look at it, yeah." Jinako thought for a moment. "Maybe she's from another country and came here after obtaining the Card?"
"That would be the first time we heard of someone getting a Card in any country outside of Japan. It's not impossible, but this would be the first we've heard of something like that." Hakuno kept thinking. There had to be a way to make sense of the girl's situation. "We don't even have a surname, which makes things that much harder."
Jinako was entranced by the mystery as well now. It reminded her of mystery novels, to an extent. She made a suggestion after adjusting her glasses. "Maybe we're asking the wrong question."
"What do you mean?"
"Maybe instead of asking 'why isn't that girl reported missing', let's instead ask 'in what circumstances would a kid not be considered missing while still be somewhere far away from her parents?'."
"Vacation?"
"She's probably eight years old, so that's not likely." Jinako shot down the first answer. "Kidnapped from another country and brought to Japan?"
"You think? Doesn't seem to match her… happiness. I know she seems to be lonely, since she gets all excited when she gets to 'play' with Players, and her only friend seems to be the teddy bear, but I think she would say something like wanting to go back home."
Jinako kept thinking for a moment and came up with a theory. A rather crazy one, in her opinion. If that were the case, she had no idea how it was possible, or how someone would be able to do it, or even figure out that it was possible. But it was worth exploring the possibility.
"Hey, Hakuno?"
"Hm?"
"What do you consider a 'child'?"
"What to do, what to do?" It was getting late, but Mary had no such thing as a bedtime. She could stay awake as long as she wanted. "Hey, Teddy… do you have any idea of what we could do? Maybe play a game?" She twirled a couple of times with short hops every now and then, as she tried to come up with something they could do for entertainment. "Hmm… Ah! I know! But no one's there yet… And I don't have any school notebooks or pens… That can wait then! I'm a good kid, after all." She held out her teddy bear, looking at it with bright eyes reflecting the moonlight and a wide smile of pure glee. "Teddy! Tomorrow, let's go shopping! And the day after, let's go to school! With a backpack and everything we need! I haven't been there for so long! It'll be so much fun!"
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