When Arturia awoke, she was in the arms of a large but skinny man in a skintight dark suit, the said man scurrying through the terrain like a fox toward the large volume of mana they had been feeling. Medea was following close behind, hovering a few feet off the ground, while Tsuda made his own way on foot.
The Assassin noticed, and put her on her feet, much to Medea's protest. She hadn't yet finished her spell, purple strings of light still stitching up Arturia's wound. The latter however, felt she had suffered enough embarrassment from being carried around like a hapless princess while the other Servants slaved away.
The King of Knights stopped herself from swaying on her feet, ignoring the lightheadedness from losing so much blood. Her natural healing kicked in, she should be able to last at least til they'd carried out the mission. Any less would be a disgrace to the honorable name she'd cultivated over the years.
"You can not continue on like this, King of Knights," the magus reprimanded, pulling Arturia out of her thoughts. Saber was white as a ghost, even if some color had begun to return to her cheeks, she looked like she had been sucked dry by some creature of the night.
Her words, however, only spurred more anger in the little king, who gripped the hilt of Excalibur so tight she was shaking.
"Do you think me so weak?"
Arturia had suffered far, far worse. Many a war had left her wounded. Gilgamesh, even, had left her so in tatters she could barely recover even as a Servant. To think she'd been felled by such a tiny weapon was degrading enough, and here Medea was, discouraging her from the fight.
The magus flinched, and her lip quivered just enough for Arturia to notice. The knight turned away, her ears burning. In her moment of ire, she'd forgotten that Medea had quite literally saved her life, if the closing shoulder wound was any indication.
"I must apologize milady, I did not mean to speak so harshly."
The frown on the Greek told Arturia of her frustration, and the magus merely hovered past her and the Big Assassin.
"You're one of Zhavia's..."
"Not many of us have names, King of Knights," Big Assassin replied.
The assassin answered her question before she could ask it. "I do not know her whereabouts, she sent me to you to deliver a warning about one of the enemies we encountered, but, by the time I got here the poison had nearly gotten to your brain."
Though Arturia could see nothing behind his white mask, she was sure he was raising a skeptic eyebrow.
"It is nothing short of a miracle that you can still stand. Serenity's poison should have ended your life. I can only attribute that to your superior healing and that mage's efforts," the Assassin continued, his voice faltering near the end.
"Is something the matter?" asked Saber, following his lead through the dry landscape.
The masked man was silent for a while, and he stopped abruptly, touching the pads of his fingers to the dusty ground beneath them. He exhaled once, sharply enough to stop the other servants in their tracks.
"You are aware, that I am but a part of a whole, yes?" he asked. Saber nodded. The assassin turned back to the ground and flared his mana once again to make sure. His frown deepened.
"I fear that my 'whole' is no longer as big as it once was. I can no longer feel some of the other me's."
Green eyes widened. Suddenly, very suddenly, finishing this mission became more than just a task. The servants quickened their pace, urgency fueling every step.
…
Zhavia untucked herself from under the burly brute's bicep as he landed a distance away. King Hassan was closing in on them like a starving beast, but the hero jumped away once again with her in tow.
Heracles.
The Greek had arrived just in time. she could feel a warm line of blood running down her neck, but the wound barely got past the skin. A second later, and she'd have been dead. She'd lost all hope of continuing to live on in such an interesting era, only for her life to be saved last minute.
She shoved away what pride she had and whispered a single word of thanks, an uncharacteristic gesture for her, as the hero surged forward to meet her assailant.
The metallic clanging of swords rung in the air as the two clashed, one with unwavering strength, the other with the stubbornness of a boulder. With a cut of his sword Heracles took his leg, but with an upward slash, Hassan struck the hero's arm. They continued in a series of bouts, neither getting the upper hand on the other for long.
"It's useless."
Zayd landed beside her quietly, his left arm bleeding out like he's severed a tendon.
"Everyone knows the original specializes in frontal attacks," he continued, feeling the remaining third of his personalities silently gather behind him. They all brandished their knives, angered at the one who'd taken forty of their lives.
"Zhavia."
It was Big Assassin, with the other servants in tow. They had survived Serenity's poison after all. The King of Knights, who looked sickly in the daylight, raised her sword toward the battle before them, but the female assassin rested her fingers on Excalibur's blade, and gently pushed it down.
"Stand back, little king," she said, drawing a sinister curved blade from midair, "This fight is personal."
With an earth-shattering cry, the assassins leapt toward their foe, closing the distance between them in seconds. Heracles immediately retreated, the sheer swarm of black figures cutting across his vision made it much too difficult to fight.
King Hassan met their onslaught with fury, swinging his sword to cut down the bodies that threw themselves at him, but every slash of his blade, he was met with three more...four more, til a decisive needle to a tendon forced the first assassin to drop the sword. One strike to Hassan's heel, the next, a kick to the stomach to topple him. The third was his eyes, the fourth, his biceps, the fifth was Zayd, shoving his dagger into the man's stomach over and over and over. The assassin's didn't stop, not even when the assassin's body had stopped all movement, not even when the body began to melt into black tar, no. They would finish, one wound for every personality he'd slain.
Arturia turned away.
"The seal...is that way, archon."
A single, short sigh escaped her lips accompanied by the almost imperceptible droop of her shoulders. Heracles, now with a mind clear of mad enhancement, realized for the first time how small the King of Knights was, standing barely up to his chest. She was smaller even, than the similarly blonde captain he sailed with on the Argo, and yet forging ahead of them, he could sense her burden was far heavier.
He could barely remember what it was like to face Arturia Pendragon, but looking at her now it was hard to believe this was truly the Arthur of legend that had defeated him. Such a young girl, she was.
The seal was larger than it had been last Heracles left it, now blocking out the noontime sun with the stormy black clouds that gathered behind it. The suffocating aura it emanated reminded Saber of the gargantuan monster Caster had summoned into the river. Around it, the air seemed to thin, the arid ground devoid of all life, as if the cursed thing had sucked it dry.
"Did Jason not trust you as the strongest on the ship? Why then is this seal still here?" asked the magus.
Heracles looked at her with contempt. "I certainly do not deserve criticism from you, witch."
Kojiro Tsuda flinched at the nickname and took a precautionary glance at Medea. She was fuming, and from the sudden spike of mana in the air, he could tell it wouldn't be much longer til she blew a fuse.
"What did you call me?" she interrogated, voice cracking in her anger.
"Heracles," Saber interjected, eyes begging the bulky legend to explain. This was no time for squabbles. She expected heroes such as them to be beyond that.
"It heals just as fast as I can destroy it, I'm afraid," he obliged, sending side glances over to the witch as he did.
Of course. This really was just like the battle on the riverbank, the exception being the need to sacrifice Gae Buidhe. Her left arm, though impeded by the wound on her shoulder, was fit enough to sustain a blast of sufficient magnitude.
Ignoring Medea's voice telling her to stop, Arturia raised her arms, unintentionally tearing her wound open once again. Excalibur shone brilliantly above her head, drops of golden light collecting into the holy sword.
She closed her eyes and called upon the will of fallen heroes, of knights, of kings, of all those who sought victory, feeling their cries echo across the land.
She bowed her head as if in prayer, speaking a verse she hasn't said in years.
Sheathed in the breath of stars
A torrent of shining life
Zayd finally stood from the remains of the original assassin, seeing flecks of gold rising from the fallen forms of his brothers and sisters, floating toward the figure of the knight king.
This light is the hope of the planet
The proof of life that illuminates the Earth
Tsuda turned around, his fingers reaching for the tiny gold dots only for them to swivel from his fingers. The dry landscape that surrounded them looked as if it were engulfed by swarms upon swarms of fireflies.
The Sword of Promised Victory
Even Medea's ire was quelled as she shared a glance with the Greek Hero she'd come to despise on the Argo, for the golden glow that bathed them both was far too beautiful to ignore. Beautiful enough to stop the remaining personalities of the hundred-faced one in their tracks, beautiful enough for Zhavia to shed a second tear.
Arturia's opened her eyes with resolve.
Excalibur!
Blinding beams of light exploded from Excalibur's tip, seeming to grow in magnitude as it shot to the seal. The force was enough to blow the Servants back, forcing them to shield themselves as the blast wrought destruction on the land before it. In the blink of an eye, the beam cut through the seal, the light growing to engulf the unknown red letters in the sky.
The King of Knights steadied herself as she fell back. The seal closed in on itself, vacuuming itself out of existence as the last of Excalibur's light faded away. And finally, finally the battle was over.
Heracles looked to where the lake of black mud once was. All that was left was molten sand from where Saber stood, all the way to where the red seal had floated. Something told the hero it would remain like that, that the land would never truly heal.
At the corner of his eye he saw the woman he had saved earlier, picking up what looked to be the masks of the other assassins that perished before he came. He took out the mask he stored away, the one from the head he retrieved from the mud, and looked into the hollows where the eyes should have been. Who, he wondered, was the one who wore this? Another Assassin, one nearly as tall as he was, held out a hand, where he placed the mask.
Big Assassin similarly looked it in the eyes, and uttered a silent prayer in Arabic, for the personality who once loved music and hypnotism.
"To think, I had never seen that before. How lucky I must be," said Kojiro Tsuda, offering the panting King of Knights his shoulder. "Come, now. It's far too hot out for us to be here."
Saber only nodded, sparing one last look to the clear sky where the seal once was.
One down.
...
The trip back was exhausting.
It was nearly forty degrees out, so hot that the air conditioning barely seemed to work in their little van rental. Heracles was wordlessly manning the vehicle, Arturia was leaning her head against the window in the passenger seat, the rest sat silently in the back.
Once, Arturia swore she saw a drop of her sweat evaporate on the dashboard upon contact, and the sticky sound of the leather rippling under her legs only made the ride more uncomfortable. But no matter what she felt, she couldn't compare her discomfort to the loss the assassin's must have been feeling.
She looked to the side mirror, where she saw Zhavia, Zayd, and the Big Assassin sitting in the back seat, the latter having joined them in the trip back instead of dismissing himself like the other manifestations did. Each of them were holding a handful of skull masks in varying shapes and sizes, but it was clear to Saber that there were some masks missing. Perhaps that was why the Big Assassin had joined the usual pair, for...comfort.
Their similar features didn't disclose any feelings, just as how they were trained, but to Arturia, they looked like they were collecting themselves. Or, what remained of themselves.
In front of the three sat the former master and servant, each leaning on opposing windows. Of them, it was Tsuda who looked worse for wear. Although all the servants had phased back to their civilian attire, and his covered most of his skin, she could tell by the way he sat that he was avoiding putting weight on his left side, perhaps where he had been cut. Medea caught her gaze, but just as quickly looked out the window.
And then there was Heracles, who hunched over the steering wheel refusing to let her take over the drive. He, out of everyone, looked like he suffered the least, the pink scars on his body being the only indication the hero was ever in a fight, and they too, were fading.
Arturia tried to book them their flights back home, but only available trips were the following day. The Tohsaka credit line incurred a few hundred dollars more in order to get them a sufficient number of hotel rooms on the same floor for the night. Heracles went off to return their rental while the rest of the Servants checked into their rooms, ready to retire.
The soft pitter-patter of water on her skin finally allowed Arturia's muscles to relax themselves. For a moment, she just stood there and watched the little droplets flow from her tangled blonde locks to her chest, and to her toes, and allowed herself to breathe.
It was an ugly sound, raspy and labored, telling her she sustained far more injury than she would have liked, and the internal wounds were taking much, much longer to heal. The stinging sensation in her shoulder was similarly hard to ignore, and she brought her fingers to the wound to inspect the damage. Bits of blood were washing down the drain as she ran her fingers over the glowing purple stitches Medea still maintained, but she would soon have to stitch the wound back up herself to allow it to heal naturally. She hissed in pain as the soap got into the wound, but it was a necessary step to clean it. It was far too deep a gash to carelessly heal with magecraft, doing so would tire her so much she'd be out for a day. Especially since now they were back in the open and Kiritsugu's limiter halved their strength once again.
Kiritsugu…
Arturia grit her teeth at the thought of her Master. The bastard neglected to give them the specifics of the mission. Had they known they'd be facing foes as strong as Servants, perhaps they wouldn't have been so caught off guard right at the beginning. Perhaps they could have destroyed the seal earlier. Perhaps, they wouldn't have been floundering about like they did. Now, she was down an arm, the Hundred-faced Hassan was down by around a third of themself, and the rest were left recuperating from injuries they wouldn't have sustained had they only known.
Every inch of her demanded she give the man a piece of her mind, but damn if it didn't feel like he was blocking their connection. If they met in her sleep, oh, to slap some sense into him would be a wonderful dream.
Arturia mechanically washed her hair with the hotel shampoo, and haphazardly tried to comb through it with her fingers as she applied the conditioner. The motions were rather robotic however, her mind was far too preoccupied thinking of different ways to reprimand the magus killer.
The bathroom door swung open and banged the wall, making Arturia jump. Her roommate stood in the doorway, eyebrows crossed, carrying what looked like a bundle of clothes and the medical kit they requested from the front desk.
"I did knock."
The magus threw her the garments and instructed her to just put on the underwear and come out. Arturia sighed, turned the knobs of the shower-tub.
Medea sat patiently on the end of her bed, threading the surgical needles with suture expertly, like she'd had to do it in the past. She looked up briefly to direct Saber to sit beside her, which she did, clad in loose lounge pants and the underwear Medea had given her.
The King of Knights moved away as the magus began to pour a green liquid on her wound.
"It is merely my own form of antiseptic. A precaution. I believe it's sheer luck your wound isn't infected already, what with how many times you tore it open today," she explained, this time applying the solution with no restraint. "I may not be a witch, but pharmacology has never been a stranger to me."
Saber stifled a groan as the liquid spilled on the wound, hissing as it eliminated that which would have made the laceration far more troublesome. Medea immediately started repairing the deeper parts of the cut, having approved of this era's "leave-in" sutures.
Arturia, for the first time, observed her bluish purple eyes, a rather unnatural color. They were far too splendid to belong to an ordinary human. Right now, however, their beauty was marred by a growing sense of irritation, which Arturia knew was directed at her.
"You did not have to take that knife for me, King of Knights," She said, having stitched in the first layer. She looped the thread into a know carefully and reached for the scissors.
"Do you believe you are not worthy of protection, Medea?" asked Arturia, handing her the tool with her good arm. Medea took one look at Arturia's expression and sighed.
"I believe in my own strength. You and I have crossed each other in the Grail War. You know my legend...what I am capable of," the magus elaborated, as she worked on stitching the deeper damaged tissues together.
Of course Arturia knew. How could she forget? As much as she hated to admit it, had Gilgamesh not chosen to interfere, the Grail War would have taken a vastly different turn. But, it wasn't skill that Arturia was concerned with, no.
"Did you perhaps want something in return?" Medea asked, pausing in her work to meet Arturia's gaze. The knight's eyes only looked back at her with a strange softness. How badly could this mage have been used to think such things?
"Has it ever crossed your mind that I wanted to?" Arturia asked.
Medea froze just before the needle touched the severed tissue. She met Arturia's green eyes once more, then went back to work on her shoulder.
"I see. I forgot it was possible for people to think the way you do, King of Knights," Medea replied, moving to the final set of stitches on the skin's surface. She figured she might reinforce these stitches with another type of suture, perhaps the nylon one.
Arturia let a small smile slip past her defenses. She couldn't help it, not with Medea's lips curling into such a soft, happy expression. Perhaps it was too early to tell, but the King of Knights was looking forward to cultivating a friendship.
...
"Tsuda."
"Pleasant morning to you as well, lioness," the man said, teasingly, "How was your sleep?"
The woman brought her hand up in front of her, palm down, and tilted it from side to side. The gesture elicited a chuckle from the Japanese legend, rich and in deep baritone.
"Well, unlike you, I much preferred that bed to the pavement beneath the shrine gate," the irregular Servant replied. Saber cocked an eyebrow, to which he chuckled once more and explained.
"Medea was not the most generous of Masters. Her hospitality, or lack thereof, is one of the many reasons we never got along, bound to each other as we were," he voiced, combing his fingers through the hair he let loose over his right shoulder.
It was true. He held a lasting dislike for the magus, blaming her for his pitiful status as a Servant with no name, one that was unfit for any sort of motivation. A pointless existence, without any use for the Grail should he be given the chance to win it, and so limited he couldn't leave the temple.
"She seems to have taken a liking to you, however," he continued, granting her a small smile at the corner of his lip. Warm, dry air blew at his hair, tossing several indigo strands to dance in the wind. Although Kojirou Tsuda was supposed to be an approximation of the legendary swordsman, she began to think he had a bit of an ethereal air to him that was more than human, especially with his similarly indigo eyes and the rather sculpted oriental face he possessed.
"I was," he said with a slanted smile, "hoping you would join me this morning, and it seems whatever gods are up there listened." He tore his gaze from the horizon to look at the little lioness, and took every moment to burn her image to his memory. After all, he knew what her answer would be.
"Why, pray tell?"
Sasaki took a breath and looked back to the horizon, where far and wide it was rosy, tanned desert, dotted with houses of shapes he'd never seen before. It was a culture he hadn't known before, rich and colorful. Their temples looked vastly different, all seeming to face toward the rising sun. Sure, the heat was brutal, but the season was soon to change.
"I want to stay. Here, in this desert place. For a while before I move on and explore." he said. The statement was something Arturia didn't expect, and Kojirou took her widened eyes with amusement. "I was hoping you would like to stay as well."
The woman's eyes widened. She opened her mouth to reply but hesitated. What was she to say to that? What did he mean?
"Worry not, I know you will refuse," he said, waving his hands in front of himself to placate her. Tsuda knew Arturia was never going to say yes. She had left so many things behind, like her beloved Master and...friends. Kojirou supposed the golden prick and that Irish brunette were her friends. Still, he did feel just a slight amount of jealousy.
He could see her green eyes lingering on his face as he looked down to the streets beneath them. The town was starting to wake. He estimated he had but a few moments of privacy with the king before they would be off to enjoy the hotel breakfast with the others.
"But, it was worth a shot." Kojirou paused. Contemplated. Was it perhaps better to end the conversation here?
"I have not lived for very long, but the majority of my existence I spent cursing Caster, waiting on those steps for some sort of meaning to come to me. And at last, there was you," he stated, and in a sudden surge of confidence, he allowed himself to sweep stray strands of golden hair from her face and over her shoulder.
"Maybe I've said it before, but those few minutes clashing swords with you... I'd never before felt so alive," he expressed. The glint in his eyes told Saber of his honesty, that he truly believed in what he had been saying. She found herself breathless.
"These few weeks, I've been holding on to that high," he said, moving to rest his palm lightly on her shoulder. His eyes bore into hers. Looking at them was like staring down into the sea, deep and blue, with so many mysteries beneath the surface. "But now that you've given me a name, I believe I should be searching for my own meaning to life. My purpose."
His fingers glided down from her shoulder to her arm til they finally left her to rest on his chest, right on top of his heart.
"I take it you approve of the name I wrote down for you, Tsuda," she said, finally finding the words to speak.
His smile was brilliant, even more so than the now rising sun. "No other name would feel just as right."
Kojirou Tsuda joined them for breakfast at the hotel restaurant, sitting across from Arturia, but he left as soon as they finished, following some of the other Assassin personalities who had too, chosen to stay. He waved once at Arturia, and then they were all gone with the wind.
Zhavia would explain to them later on just how incredibly autonomous the remaining personalities were. Even if she, Zayd, and the large man that had aided Saber had chosen to return, the others could sustain themselves.
The flight back was silent. Even during the hour they spent holed up in the airport of some foreign country, the Servants found themselves at a loss for what to talk about. Zhavia did choose to spend those sixty minutes beside the King of Knights though, leaning on her (for strength, Arturia thought) gently, where their shoulders touched. Medea even brought them both some assam tea.
It was late in the evening when they finally landed in Fuyuki. Less people were roaming about and several queues were closed since only one or two people filtered through the gate at a time. That made things so much easier for the servants to dissipate, promising to meet at the Emiya's in a few days to discuss. The three Hassans disappeared in a blink of an eye and Heracles leapt off into the night.
She and Medea stood at the entrance. Arturia was about to offer to escort her home, but a small black sedan rolled up before she could. Out of the driver's seat, stepped the familiar figure of Soichirou Kuzuki.
"Remember the rune I etched into your hand?" Medea said as she waved at her lover.
Saber nodded. To be honest, she'd nearly forgotten about it.
"If you ever need me, call for me. I will respond," Medea said, and bid her goodbye.
Saber watched the magus wrap her hands around Kuzuki in a brief but tender embrace. Though the man initially seemed cold, the knight saw him dip his head just a bit to kiss the top of her head.
A sad smile graced the knight king's features. A quick glance at the phone Kay gave her told her neither he nor Shirou had read her message yet. She wrapped her arms around herself loosely and squeezed.
Around her, the world continued on in its leisurely pace. A family to her right was boarding a minivan, the kids piling into the backseat, yawning, while the mother shared a kiss with the father in the driver's seat. A woman linked hands with a man sitting on a motorbike, and swung her leg over the side. In the background of it all she could hear the low, unmistakable hum if Fuyuki City, a few stray car horns honking in the distance.
Taxis were scarce this time of night. The apartment wasn't too far, if she wanted to she could walk it, but she wondered if it would fare her better to just hail a cab.
She could smell the petrichor before she heard the soft pitter-patter of the rain on the pavement, and looked up to see the dark clouds covering up the light of the moon. The signs said the rain would probably not let up any time soon. Waiting would be pointless.
The woman sighed and checked her phone one last time. Nothing. Arturia turned in the direction of the apartment building. She braced herself for the cold wetness that she'd have to bear til she got home, but it never came.
"Good evening, my king," a low voice mumbled, prompting Arturia to look back at the man behind her. She'd recognize that voice anywhere.
Several feet away, a figure grit his teeth and disappeared undetected into the night.
EYYYYY What's up everyone?
I hope you enjoyed the first ever battle the servants faced :) and trust me there's a LOT more to come. Leave a review to tell me what you think.
-akampana
