Honestly, I thought that locating Saber would have been the hard part. But no, that actually turned out to be fairly easy; just follow the lightning. No… the hard part was actually trying to reach him! I had no idea how the fight was going between him and Rider, but every time I started to feel like I was close, the lightning flaring up in the night sky seemed to magically end up further and further away.

I was not built for this much running, damnit!

The damage to the surroundings was quite the sight to take in though. Granted, it wasn't like Berserker's destruction. There were no demolished buildings, and the road wasn't ripped apart. But some patches were scorched. Others were cracked. Lawns had clear indications of having been trampled, both by man and beast. Stood to reason, then, that Rider was mounted. No wonder their fight seemed to be moving away from me so fast…

Overall, the situation looked pretty bad. No way Saber was ok with leaving his master on his own, especially on a night like tonight. So, if the battle was moving further and further away from us, it could only mean Saber was the one on the defensive. The one being pushed back. How I was going to get us to loop back around and bait Rider into the path of Berserker was a mystery.

…Especially since I actually had no sense of direction as to Lancer and Berserker's fight. Hopefully, Sortiara realized that fighting Berserker was stupid and was trying to just string him along a wild goose chase, keeping the collateral to a minimum. Of course, if she happened to run in the opposite direction of us, then it was bad, but… well, it is what it is at this point. No plan survives contact with the enemy, after all.

It helped that I had the layout of the city memorized. Dipping down every shortcut I could, progress was slow, but it was progress. The distance between myself and Saber was closing. Just a bit more, and…

Clang! Clang! Ching Clang!

The sound of swords clashing was beginning to ring out over the rest of the night's noise. The fighting was close, perhaps even just around the corner of the next intersection.

Finally, I can take a breath-

Kra-Boom!

The moment I turned the corner, my senses were blitzed by a powerful flash of purple light. Black spots dances in my vision as I turned away, blinking rapidly in order to try and clear my sight. A coughing fit immediately followed as a wave of dust, dirt and God knows what rolled over me.

Ching! Clang! Clang!

I was nearly swept off my feet as I felt a gust rush past me. While I struggled to regain my balance, that rushing force did wonders in clearing the dust cloud. When I finally could see properly again, I was shocked. Saber and Rider were going at it, yes, but Saber was actually the one on the offensive, pushing Rider down the street.

Clang! Clang Clang!

Purple sparks and jolts of lighting shot out into the night as Saber and Rider's blades repeatedly collided. Maybe I was just crazy, but Saber seemed far faster than I ever remember seeing him move before. That, and his swordplay seemed far more… refined? …Probably not the best way to put it, but it was the first word that came to mind. So, this was what Saber was capable of when going all out…

That said, Rider was certainly no slouch. Despite the quick moves and lighting coming out of Saber, Rider was managing to maintain a defense, at least for the moment. Sure, he was being pushed down the street by Saber, but it wasn't like Saber was actually landing blows on him. For the most part, Rider was able to parry the strikes coming his way, even though he only had a single blade to Saber's two. As for the few strikes he couldn't deal with himself, well… I see why Rider was always mounted, because damn, his horse had mad hops; trotting and leaping around, managing to keep both itself and its rider safe from harm.

Clang! Ching Clang! Clank Ching Ching!

"Saber!"

Even shouting as loud as I could manage, I wasn't certain he would be able to hear me. He was busy, focused on his battle with Rider. Even if my shout was audible through the noise, he might have been so focus on the battle at hand he wouldn't even register my words. Not like I was going to approach… that… either. It was a beautiful sight to behold, what little I could of it, but I'd been immolated once recently by fire; no desire to experience the lightning version, especially by accident.

It was fortunate then, that in some way, Saber must have registered my presence. The next time Rider's horse had to jump backwards to dodge, Saber stabbed both his swords into the ground and leapt backwards.

Kra- Boom!

Twin bolts of purple lightning shot down from the heavens, striking the hilts of the swords. The light was near blinding, and the sound rang and echoed in my ears. The blast ripped the road apart as if it were made of paper; large chunks of concrete were sent flying through the air. Along with the debris, Saber's swords were also sent flying, scattering in the air. I thought for sure he'd just lost his blades with that flashy display, but Saber simply raised his hands and, like magic, his swords altered their trajectories mid flight, returning to his grasp.

Time felt as if it were standing still as my eyes drank in that display of power.

Woah… That was amaz-

"Which way" the commanding voice of Saber, along with his sharp pull on my arm as he practically dragged me back into a run, snapped me back to the present.

"Not entirely sure yet" I shouted back, shaking my arm free from his grip. "Going to have to play it by ear and hope!"

"Fleeing from the battlefield, Saber" the imposing shout from Rider rang out as the sound of hoofs started to gain dominance over the other sounds of the night. "Here I thought those of the knight classes were supposed to be honorable!"

"There is no honor in throwing one's life away needlessly!"

Clang! Clang! Ching Cla- Zzzzzap!

"Jesus Christ" I couldn't help but shout in alarm as a stray jolt of lightning shot out wildly from Saber's blades, clearing my head by mere centimeters.

"Keep running" Saber commanded, strain evident in his voice as he fended off Rider's assault, forcing Rider back once again.

"What do you think I'm doing?!"

"Too slow!"

"Well sue me for only being- Here, this way!"

Only giving the bare minimum of attention to my surroundings in order to not trip over something, I focused on the map of the city I had pulled up in my mind.

Lancer confronted Berserker here, and we were about here… So, if we take… this route…

…In theory, we should eventually come across them…

Yeah, and if the starts fucking aligned…

Simply too many variables to consider, but this was our best shot at a rendezvous as quickly as possible. Up and left. Just keep going up and to the left…

Having the general route confirmed, focus shifted from the mind map to the sounds ringing out in the night. Filter out the background noise, search only for the sounds of distant servant battle, adjust course depending on direction of sound… In other, gaming terms: sound whoring. Not something I usually had to deal with, considering I played as a strategist, but a skill I developed over time nonetheless. Hopefully, it would be good enough…

Clang! Clang Clang! Ching! Clang Ching!

"This way" I shouted to be heard over the clashing of blades, bolting across the street without bothering to look.

Man, thank God there weren't any cars out and about! That was stupidly reckless!

"Taking orders from him now, Saber?!"

Clang! Ching Cla- Zzzzzap!

"Is that how it appears to you, Rider?! I did not think you could be deceived so easily!"

"The only deceptive thing is your class!"

Clang! Clang! Ching Clang!

"Your methods and techniques are unbecoming of the Saber class! Who taught you to fight?! Your wife?!"

"Have you met his wife, Rider" I couldn't help but lose my focus for a moment and break out into laughter after hearing Rider. "That's a complement!"

Zzzzzap!

"Can you not discuss her now, of all times?!"

A/N

So, this fight, in its entirety, is going to be told from multiple perspectives (they are currently split into mini-battles as of now, so perhaps that was to be a given). Because I don't like the idea of having shifting perspectives within the same part (hence why I already had the Chapter and Fragment thing going) the individual parts will most likely be smaller than normal, but I should, in theory, be able to put one out every 2-3 days (at least, that's the hope) xD

As to one question I got asking me what IP stands for, it just stands for intellectual property. So, whenever I say FATE IP or whatever, I'm saying FATE intellectual property. …Basically, I'm just saying FATE, but with more words... Don't worry about it, it's not really all that important!

It has also been brought to my attention that this work (or fic) has just about reached 200K words. Or has, maybe, idk... I don't look at the word count on here because it includes things like the author notes, and my Word document I'm typing this in says 172K words. Either way though, holy shit... I did not think this would be that many words! Actually insane when I start to try and process it...

As for the story being slow with no servant deaths thus far... I mean, I suppose so? In terms of word count, I've never tried looking up the stats for each of the three routes of the original FATE visual novel, in terms of length or word count. I recall from reading them myself that they were fairly long before the servants started dropping (maybe an exception for the Heaven's Feel route; think that route had a 'faster' start and a really 'dead' middle, if I'm recalling correctly...). Regardless, I'm no expert on the FATE IP, nor am I, by any means, an expert writer, so I can't really comment on that. If anything, I'd have thought the fact it's been near 8 months (again, holy shit...) since I started posting this thing would have been the 'slow' part.

I promise, death is coming soon. Real soon, and more than just for servants. But if the pacing (or is it the lack thereof...? I don't really know) has turned you off or disappointed you... well, I can't really say I'm sorry? I stand by what I've written, and the pacing of the narrative, so I won't apologize for it. But I understand if it's not enjoyable for people (hell, the fact anyone finds my writing enjoyable still shocks me to this day) and you decide to drop and forget all about it.

Personally, I've always thought of FATE Zero as the pinnacle of FATE as a whole, and it focused a lot more on the characters than the flashy, anime battles (not to say it didn't have those, of course), so perhaps that's why I decided to do the story in this way? I can't say I honestly put much thought into such a question; I just started writing and, well... poof! Here we are xD

So yeah, hard to believe this has gotten this far, but to everyone still around, I hope you're enjoying the story overall!

…See y'all in the next post o7