Chapter 30: Visions of Death

Saber's sabatons rattled as she rushed forward. Her holy sword shone a dazzling gold light as she swung it upwards. The blade slammed ferociously against Lancer's Gáe Dearg, spilling out a trickle of sparks as the heat emitted by the blade ate away at the demonic spear's shaft.

The corner of Lancer's mouth curved upwards. He swung Gáe Buidhe with his left hand, aiming straight for Saber's neck. The spear's yellow tip gleamed with its cruel curse of mortality.

Saber, gritting her teeth, took a step back, using the momentum from the swing of Lancer's Gáe Dearg to move back. She narrowly dodged the edge of Gáe Buidhe's swing and then slashed at Lancer's outstretched left arm.

But Saber's attack was only met with another timely block from Lancer's Gáe Dearg. Saber exerted force into her arm, trying to muscle through with mana burst, but it was futile. With the muscles of her left hand permanently injured, she couldn't muster any strength no matter how much magical energy she infused into her arms.

Seeing the obvious struggle on Saber's face after her swing was met with resistance, Lancer didn't miss his opportunity. He jabbed Gáe Buidhe right into Saber's elegant face. It was only thanks to the King of Knight's superhuman reflexes that Lancer's spear merely grazed her right cheek instead of crushing through her skull.

Saber winced in pain. She exerted more force into her arms and then drew back, pivoting on Lancer's Gáe Dearg. This was the second time she drew back but this time she placed considerably more distance between her and Lancer.

She felt the warmth of her lifeblood leak down the side of her face. The wound closed up in a second, but she could still feel the persistent sting of the cut. Saber narrowed her eyes warily. She was reminded of the severity of Lancer's Gáe Buidhe.

Saber took a moment to analyze her situation. The grave injury she sustained on her left arm from her previous fight with Lancer was coming back to haunt her. Without the full use of both her arms, she couldn't place any weight into her swing, and she couldn't use her Excalibur to full effect.

Up against a dual-wielding enemy like Lancer, Saber was at a clear disadvantage with only one arm at full strength. Whereas previously at the docks, she could more or less keep up with Lancer's swift two-pronged attacks by relying on her power and bulk, she now had difficulty just shirking off one of Lancer's spear while his other spear would cut her down.

Sweat began to run down Saber's face, washing away the bloodstain on her cheek. If she was going to triumph tonight, then she would have to resort less confrontational tactics.

"What's the matter, Saber? Where's your usual confidence as the King of Knights?" Lancer teased. He flashed a devilish grin as he spun his spears in open provocation.

The flurry of red and yellow spears gave Saber the impression as if Lancer were spinning a pair of deadly roses releasing trail of flower petals. But she didn't have the time to admire the aesthetics of Lancer's weapons, not when they were eager to claim her life.

Lancer charged at Saber, running like a beast. He crossed his spears and swung them together. An almost feral grin spread across his face.

Saber widened her eyes. She saw a vision of her own death, a vivid image of her head sent flying as she was decapitated by crisscross of Lancer's spears.

She set aside any qualms she had to the back of her mind and let her Instinct Skill guide her. She mustered strength into her sword and weaving a sheath of air around her sword, she propelled herself forward with a burst of air. She used the momentum to swing Excalibur upwards.

Three blades clashed. Sparks flew as Saber and Lancer's weapons were raised high into the air by Saber's upward swing.

There was a fraction of a section where both Saber and Lancer's arms were caught in the air. Saber narrowed her eyes. She summoned forth another gust of wind from her holy sword and used it to swing her sword back down before Lancer could move his spears.

Lancer gritted his teeth. Blood erupted out of his left breast as he narrowly avoided losing his arm altogether by stepping back at the last minute. His left arm fell limp at his side, swaying powerlessly in the wind. He had left Gáe Buidhe behind when he evaded Saber's attack, so he was only left with Gáe Dearg in his right hand.

Saber could not afford to let this opening slip by. She propelled herself forward with another gust of wind and used that force to supplement the lack of strength in her left arm. She swung Excalibur hard at Lancer's defenseless left side.

But Lancer blocked her strike with Gáe Dearg. He cracked a cocky grin in spite of the pain on his left side. With only the strength of his one arm, he expertly manipulated Gáe Dearg to counter every single one of Saber's succeeding slashes.

The courtyard erupted in a chaotic frenzy. The snow-white flowers planted around them shook as Excalibur clashed against Gáe Dearg again and again. Saber refused to lose her momentum and continuously attacked, swinging her holy sword left and right like a madwoman.

However, Lancer was not one to be undone. He kept up with Saber's relentless strikes from every direction using only his one spear and one good arm. It was a difficult task given the spear's length, but he somehow persevered as he waited patiently for his left arm to heal.

Lancer could feel his Master's fiancé's magical energy flow into him, steadily stitching his wound back together. Sweat began to trickle down the side of his face. The healing process was slow given the severity of his wound.

Come on… Come on…

Lancer relied heavily on his Mind's Eye (True) skill to predict Saber's actions. It was the years of discipline and training baked into his bones that saved him and provided him the ample time to patch himself back together. But every skill had its limits, and he couldn't keep it up forever.

There!

Saber released a breath of air as she pushed back Lancer's right spear hand clear away from his body and swung her sword back, ready to deal a finishing blow through Lancer's chest.

But just as Excalibur was about to cleave through Lancer's neck, Lancer's eyes widened.

Come!

Lancer opened his left hand and willed for Gáe Buidhe to return to his side. The yellow spear shot up, sliding into the palm of his hands smoothly. So, before Saber could cut him down, he raised the shaft of Gáe Buidhe to stop Saber's sword.

Excalibur was raised high into the air and Lancer planted a kick firmly into Saber's stomach, launching her away from him. Saber rolled onto the floor expertly, managing to upright herself and land on her feet.

Once again, the two Servants were at a distance from each other. Saber assumed a ready stance. She eyed Lancer's left arm. The wound she had inflicted had healed entirely. Lancer looked immaculate, as if she had never damaged him. On the other hand, Saber still felt phantom stings from her left arm and right cheek.

It was annoying to say the least. Lancer possessed a means to inflict a damage that could never be healed with his left spear, whereas all the damage she could dish out would be healed in a matter of time. If she couldn't clinch a victory quick enough, Lancer would surely wear her down eventually.

If she were at her full strength, Saber possessed equal if not superior combat ability compared to Lancer. But in her injured state, she was on the losing side of the battle.

Lancer jumped towards Saber, spinning in the air. He swung Gáe Buidhe down which Saber parried with her Excalibur. But he didn't stop there and continued by swinging down Gáe Dearg. Saber again blocked Lancer's spear with her sword, but Lancer's attack would not stop.

He turned around and brought back Gáe Buidhe to slash at Excalibur. Saber had to refocus her strength to repel the yellow spear, but then Lancer would just continue his assault with his red spear.

And so, the new tide of the battle went, Lancer attacked relentlessly, alternating between his two spears, spinning in mad frenzy like a top. Saber, with gritted teeth and bated breath, repelled all of Lancer's attacks, but each time, she took a step back. She was being steadily pushed back to the edge of the courtyard.

Then, just as the monotony of the battle began to wear on Saber, Lancer changed things up. He swung Gáe Buidhe low, aiming for Saber's feet.

And Saber, instead of just stepping back, jumped at the very last second and planted her feet firmly on Gáe Buidhe, cementing its blade into the ground.

Lancer's eyes widened as he watched Saber run up shaft of his spear. He panicked and swung Gáe Dearg to shake her off. But before his spear could reach her, the sole of Saber's sabaton brushed the side of his face.

Lancer could feel the skin on his face be peeled off as Saber used his shoulders as a stepping-stone to launch herself up into the air. She then used bursts of compressed air from her sword to adjust her position in the air and land on her feet a clear distance away from Lancer. Her face beamed with pride as she locked eyes with Lancer.

The Celtic knight couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it. He popped his neck, making a cracking noise. He nursed his cheek gingerly as he reassessed the danger Saber posed.

In the moment Saber had slammed her foot down on Gáe Buidhe, Lancer had a vision of his death. He saw the vivid image of his head being launched cleanly up into the air as one kick from Saber's foot beheaded him. Only his Mind's Eye (True) Skill had saved him, with Lancer just barely managing to tilt his head to the side and only suffered a light bruising from Saber's kick.

His neck still hurt like hell though. So, Lancer couldn't shake his head too much as he regarded Saber with renewed vigor.

"As expected of the King of Knights, you're quite light on your feet, Saber," Lancer praised sincerely, wiping the sweat off his chin.

Saber huffed out a haughty breath. "And as expected of a knight of your caliber, Lancer, you're quick with your spears," she returned with her own praise.

The scales of the battle may be tipped in Lancer's favor. But in the heated frenzy of battle, either side still had a shot of winning. In duel between legendary knights, the ultimate victor would come down to whoever landed the finishing blow first, by pure skill or by sheer luck.

As Saber and Lancer eyed each other carefully, they felt the ground beneath them shake. Off in the distance, they heard the rumble of gunfire and explosives. The battle between their Masters must have been intensifying.

So, as their Servants, neither Saber nor Lancer could slack off. The two knights returned to their duel. Their weapons clashed more violently than ever.

A tired sigh escaped Kayneth's lips. His eyes drooped down to observe the wanton destruction spread about him. What was once pristine marble flooring was now reduced to rubble in a perfect circle around Kayneth's person. Only the singular spot where Kayneth stood remained utterly immaculate, with nary a crack in place.

And that makes five now…

Kayneth had now counted five explosions since his initial intrusion into the Einzbern's castle. All of the explosions thus far had been rigged to go off the second Kayneth set off some invisible piano wires. Once the strings were plucked, the world around Kayneth would be consumed in a fiery hell of shrapnel and C4.

The Clock Tower Lord stood impassively in the middle of a devastated hallway. The novelty of the experience had quickly expired after the third explosion. The already dismal expression on his face sank even further.

Kayneth clicked his tongue. He hadn't come here in the dead of night for a fight quite like this. When he invaded the sanctum of the Einzberns he expected to find something at least worth a fraction of his own sanctum. He figured if the Einzberns had the audacity to destroy Kayneth's workshop, then they should at least return the favor by giving him the pleasure of trashing their own prized workshop. It was only fair.

But what was this farce?

Kayneth glared daggers at the luxuriously decorated halls of the Einzbern Castle. Aside from the bounded field and magical defenses in the woods, Kayneth had not detected a single trace of defensive magecraft. Instead, he was only greeted by rotating CCTV cameras and a hallway covered in landmines.

The Einzberns were more keen on blowing up their own mansion to smithereens than they were on setting up a halfway respectable workshop fit for a long-line of Magus Family such as themselves.

This fact alone irked Kayneth to high heaven. He hadn't traveled halfway across the world to abase himself to the means of the mundane.

"Ire: Sanctio!"

With his hands folded behind his back, Kayneth ordered his mystic code, Volumen Hydrargyrum. The amorphous blob of liquid mercury giggled vigorously before a web of tentacles jetted out of its main body. The strands of mercury spread about the hall quickly, sticking to all the surfaces and then snaking through every keyhole and crevice it could find.

Tired of playing into the hands of bombs, Kayneth simply activated his mystic code's search command. Volumen Hydrargyrum would now scour the castle for any signs of life. As it was in principle a mass of mercury without eyes, it would rely on its sensitive sense of touch to detect slight vibrations and temperature changes in the air.

After a few seconds, Volumen Hydrargyrum wriggled violently. All of its tentacles, save for one strand, shot back into the main body in a hurry. The sole remaining strand vibrated steadily, pointing out a clear path through the castle halls.

A cold smile crept up Kayneth's lips. He followed the trail marked by the line of mercury running on the wall. Volumen Hydrargyrum wormed on the floor, shadowing him.

As Kayneth turned on a corner, he saw the unmistakable glint of a sting of piano wire. He chuckled darkly and stepped over it. He completely avoided triggering the bomb it was connected to and was about to walk off with his head held high when he felt the sliver of cold slide against his neck.

Kayneth's eyes widened, and he stopped utterly. He glanced down. He noticed the sharp glint of a steel wire now tinted red by his own blood. A tiny nick opened on his pale neck.

"You lowly–"

Before Kayneth could finish his slur, an explosion rocked his world. In an instant, his vision was obscured by a silver mirror. Volumen Hydrargyrum's automatic defense activated and Kayneth was protected from the explosive burst of energy by an impregnable wall of mercury.

As the floor beneath him shook, Kayneth had a clear view of himself on the reflective surface of Volumen Hydrargyrum. The few specks of red dotting Kayneth's neck stared at him, taunting him for missing the second wire obscured by the first.

Kayneth grinded his teeth. His shoulders shook in fury. He healed up his wound in a hurry, until there was no proof that the flaw on his neck ever existed. His stomach turned at the mere thought that he, a noble of the highest pedigree, had fallen for the lowliest of tricks.

"How dare you!" Kayneth growled under his breath.

The wall of mercury around Kayneth receded back into the shape of a blob. The danger had passed and the space around Kayneth was once again thrashed silly. But Kayneth no longer kept his bored composure. His eyes seethed with silent fury.

He returned to tracing the path laid out by Volumen Hydrargyrum. No more bombs stood in his way this time. His heavy, unhurried steps stopped at an empty dining hall. A long dining table was centered in the room. There was not a soul in sight.

But Kayneth's face just twisted into a wicked smile. His eyes focused on the line of mercury crawling up the corner of the room, climbing up to the room directly above him.

"Scalp!"

Kayneth ordered Volumen Hydrargyrum to cut open a path. The blob of mercury pushed aside the table at the center of the room and produced a pair of sharp sickles. The paper thin blades of mercury concentrated the dense weight of mercury into a small surface area and cut a circular hole on the ceiling of the room.

The sound of a cement flooring being cut rang in Kayneth's ears, along with the crack of something wooden, probably a table on the floor above.

Kayneth smiled gracefully. A portion of his anger was quelled, and he stepped onto Volumen Hydrargyrum. The amorphous mass of mercury read his mind and produced four tentacles to climb up to the floor above. It then raised itself to elevate Kayneth up through the hole and onto the floor above.

"Found you. Dirty rat," Kayneth smugly declared, folding his arms in front of his chest. His eyes narrowed sharply at the Einzbern magus.

It's a man? Where's that damned homunculus in white?

Kayneth was surprised to find a man in a suit instead of the woman in white he'd seen at the docks. But before he could make sense of it, his thoughts were interrupted by the sudden spray of bullets aimed his way.

Emiya Kiritsugu's body had moved before he even realized it.

When he'd seen the dining table be cut into pieces by an unseen enemy from below, his hand had already reached for the Calico M950 submachine gun strapped to his shoulder. His finger gingerly tapped at the selector near the trigger, making sure the gun was set to automatic fire.

Once Kiritsugu had locked eyes with Kayneth, he had a clear shot. He didn't stop to think about the scornful words coming out of the other man's mouth and pulled the trigger. His fingers wrapped tightly around the gun's handle as he emptied half a magazine's worth of bullet right to Kayneth's disgruntled face.

The deafening noise of gunfire filled Kiritsugu's eardrums. But years of experience on the job had molded him into a cold killing-machine unfazed by even the loudest of explosions. His steely eyes kept staring ahead, observing how his target responded to his initial attack.

Just as he'd done in the CCTV footage Kiritsugu had seen before, Kayneth simply stood still. His entire person was shielded behind a thick wall of liquid mercury. The shower of bullets Kiritsugu freely fired merely bounced off the mercurial wall before falling to the floor helplessly.

In a matter of seconds, at least a dozen bullets littered the floor below Kayneth, but the man himself was still completely unharmed.

Kiritsugu squinted. He noted the speed of Volumen Hydrargyrum's automated defense up close. Seeing the futility of wasting any more bullets, he took his finger off the trigger. The frown on his face tightened.

"Heh," Kayneth scoffed, unimpressed with the rabble the Einzbern had hired for the Holy Grail War. "Scalp!" he ordered.

Two silvery tentacles briskly shot up from Volumen Hydrargyrum and zeroed in on Kiritsugu's position. In a second, he'd be cut into ribbons. Kayneth already raised a smile in triumph. His face beamed at the prospect of meting out punishment to the rats that dirtied his Holy Grail War.

However, just as the silvery arms of death began to embrace Kiritsugu, he internalized four simple words into his head, and he overturned the laws of the world.

Time Alter: Double Accel!

Immediately, the world about Kiritsugu stagnated. His mind and body accelerated at a rate far beyond that of his external environment. What once were speedy serpents of death were reduced to dull worms moving at a snail's pace.

Kiritsugu stepped aside from the path of Volumen Hydrargyrum's whips and dashed away to safety. He circled around Kayneth and his blob of mercury and jumped down the hole Kayneth had created. He landed on his two feet on the floor below and he heard a popping sound in his head.

The world returned to its normal speed and Kiritsugu continued running. He heard a distinct crushing sound behind him, but he didn't bother to look behind. He focused all his energy on putting as much distance between him and Kayneth as possible.

As he sped through the halls, Kiritsugu's body ached. His muscles were sore, and his bones cried out in pain. His heart ran faster than his legs and he nursed a budding headache.

It was the negative feedback from using Time Alter. Kiritsugu's spell casted an internal Reality Marble over his person, allowing him to manipulate the relative flow of time between his internal and external realities. It allowed him to defy the natural order of the world, but at the risk of destroying his body.

Kiritsugu's body was only human. It wasn't built to move at death-defying speeds. It was only natural that he would putting a heavy burden on himself whenever he overreached past his limits.

After he turned a sharp corner, Kiritsugu stopped to catch his breath. His stamina had already been drained as far as he could risk it. He also didn't want to put too much distance between him and Kayneth, not when he had the other Master right where he wanted.

As Kiritsugu wrestled to keep his breathing steady, he heard a soft buzzing noise approach him. His eyes widened at the thin strand of mercury crawling on the wall to his right. The thing had no eyes, so there was no way for it to visibly see him. But Kiritsugu had seen how it worked once before. He'd seen the same strand of mercury right before the table had been destroyed and Kayneth attacked from the floor below.

It was definitely an automatic sensory function. If it couldn't see him, it could probably sense him from sound or touch.

Time Alter: Triple Stagnate!

Kiritsugu activated his Reality Marble again. This time instead of accelerating his body, he decelerated it. He slowed down his body to such a low speed that it wouldn't give off any detectable signs of life. Whether it was the sound of his heart beating, the vibrations from his breathing or the body temperature radiating off his body, every function in his body was slowed to a halt.

Beads of sweat slowly formed on Kiritsugu's face. An excruciating grimace twisted on his lips. He felt the cold embrace of death wrap itself around him once more. Slowing his bodily functions to a halt was essentially the same as shutting them down entirely. He was dancing on the thin line between life and death.

The risk with Stagnate was even greater than that of Accel. The pain was on another level. Kiritsugu closed his eyes shut. He felt his life be slowly squeezed out of him as he waited for the strand of mercury to leave.

Shit… Come on… already… Get… the hell… out of here…

Just as Kiritsugu's heart was about to give into the pain, he heard the buzzing noise of the mercury strand grow faint. He opened his eyes and saw the strand crawl away, returning to its main body.

Thank God…

Once he was sure the mercury strand had left completely, Kiritsugu relaxed, releasing the spell on his body. He released a quiet sigh of relief and patted his heart. He felt its erratic beating and steadied himself.

He placed a hand over his coat pocket, feeling the second he had tucked away. He was presently standing in a blind spot in an intersection Kayneth would most definitely cross. It was perfect position to lie in wait.

Kiritsugu only needed to wait for his prey to walk into his trap. Then it would be checkmate.

In the wee hours of the night, the shops of downtown Shinto were still abuzz with business. Nightclubs and bars lit up the darkness with their glaring neon lights. Drunk salarymen and rowdy drinking parties assured there was never a dull corner in sight. The powerful stench of alcohol filled the streets, promising the vapid highs of pleasure to any fool with a wallet.

Traversing through this merry street of drunken release was one blond-haired man. He wore an expensive white jacket with a fur-lined collar over a simple black V-neck and jeans. A pair of opulent gold earrings and an exotic necklace adorned his distinguished body. He definitely looked the part of someone out for a drunken good time.

But unlike the plastered masses with their flushed faces and unkempt appearances, this man held nothing but disdain in his face. His beasty red eyes prowled the streets, searching for anything worth this attention. But the longer he looked, the colder his expression came to be.

He was the Oldest King of Humanity, the King of Heroes, Gilgamesh. And now, summoned in this era, he was also Archer, the indisputable strongest Servant in the Holy Grail War.

But unlike the other Servants in the Holy Grail War who were in the middle of their respective fights tonight, Archer was simply out on a stroll through the city. He didn't deign to dirty his hands by fighting the other Heroic Spirits, not until the riffraff had been eliminated at least.

What Archer was most concerned about right now was assessing the worth of humanity in this era. He'd answered Tokiomi's summons and graced this period with his presence, but he had yet to ascertain whether this generation of human civilization was worth anything.

As the Oldest King in human history, Archer had been blessed with a pair of all-seeing eyes. He'd seen the past, present and future of humanity. So, for someone with such an overarching perspective, the tiny blip of "now", here in 1994 of Fuyuki, was about as significant as a grain of sand in a desert.

What Archer would consider valuable went beyond simple goodness or beauty. He only valued the rarest and most precious of treasures, the kind that, building on the previous analogy, would make this one particular grain of sand completely special with respect to every other grain of sand in a desert.

And unfortunately, Archer was unimpressed. He noted that humanity had indeed made great strides in technology over the years, but the bulk of their live still remained the same. Humanity could still be surmised as a collection of dull, empty, needlessly cruel, and hateful existences.

Archer walked outside one particular bar. He was just on his way to another part of town when his eyes passed by a woman walking out of a bar. His blood red eyes gazed dispassionately at the flushed face of an office lady getting out of an office drinking party. He watched as the woman turned down all of her male colleagues advances and invitations to accompany her back home.

Archer didn't know the woman's name, but the instant he'd laid his eyes on her, he knew everything there was to know about her. What kind of person she was, the kind of life she lived in, the emotions she kept secret in her heart, all of this was laid bare for Archer to see with just a glance.

This was the effect of Archer's passive Noble Phantasm, Sha Naqba Imuru: The Omniscient Omnipotent Star. It was a clairvoyance skill that Gilgamesh alone possessed. It was a degree of clairvoyance on the level of omniscience so powerful that it qualified Gilgamesh to be summoned as the Grand Caster.

But it was also partly due to this skill that Archer didn't measure worth the same way humans did.

A perfect example of this was the case of the woman Archer had just glanced at. In the moment he'd seen through her, he learned that she would not live through tonight.

No matter what, that woman leaving the bar would die tonight. Archer had already foreseen her death. So, nothing short of divine intervention could save that woman's life.

But would Archer intervene? Of course not.

Archer moved on, continuing his path towards another part of Shinto. His mind already devoid of any thought of the woman he just saw.

It was a cruel reality. But if Archer stopped to intervene in every mongrel's life just to preserve their mortal existence a little longer, then he would have lost his mind long ago. The path to Archer's kingship had been decided long ago when he decided to do away with his façade of kindness.

There would be those who would call him cruel or a tyrant, but Archer didn't care. Mongrels would never understand his position, so he needn't concern himself with theirs.

Archer marched on, exploring the rest of Shinto. His solitary figure casted a lonely shadow that was lost in the darkness of night.

Author's Note:

Merry Christmas!

Too late? It should still be Christmas somewhere, on some part of the Earth. I really wanted to get this out by Christmas Eve, but I just couldn't. I was busy with other academic stuff and I had a small fever last night. I'll probably regret releasing this chapter without a third or fourth read, but I just want to get this out as soon as possible, like a small gift from me to you all on this most eventful of days.

Anyway, again, in my rush to get this out by the holiday, I was very light on the editing. Hopefully, the chapter is readable, the typos aren't so glaring and the overall quality is passing (lol). I'll improve the quality with later edits.

Later edits will probably just be more supplements of dialogue, especially in the first scene with Saber and Lancer. The overall plot of the chapters would probably remain the same. Hopefully my rendition of the events of Fate/Zero were bearable. Fights are straightforward so I had a really easy time with the chapter title this time. Thank God for that, at least.

As always, if you're feeling generous and can afford the trouble, would you buy me a cup of coffee please? (ko-fi dot com slash dhaturas).

Hope all of you had a happy holiday!

Thank you for reading!