Author's Note
It's been too long since I updated this fanfic. I must apologize, especially if you have been waiting for this a long time! Things have been going really at breakneck speed for me right after publishing Chapter 2. I finally get to sit down and write again after a long time, and I find that I have gotten pretty rusty. I honestly don't see things slowing down for me for quite a while more. My startup has been taking up a lot of my time, and it will continue to do so for quite a while more. Once things are running smoothly, I'll definitely get back to work on this to see it all to the end. Till then, please enjoy Chapter 3!
Chapter 3
Mikhel van de Wolff tossed around the makeshift cushion he was lying on. He was relatively bored and restless ever since he fled to the old forest together with Caster. In light of this, he stared out the window of the former Einzbern castle toward the twilight sky.
Mikhel and Caster was somehow able to stumble upon the former Einzbern castle in their search for a safe haven for Caster to set up her new workshop. Seeing as to how the uninhabited castle was protected by the Einzbern's Bounded Field, Caster was more than satisfied with the location.
Of course, getting past the Bounded Field was a cakewalk for a powerful magus like Morgan le Fay. On top of that, even if the Bounded Field was forcibly broken through, there was nobody within the castle who would respond to the event or to come out and confront them.
Mikhel turned away from the window and got up. After a moment of lazily stretching himself, he put on some clothes and he left the room.
He was still slightly groggy after spending the night with Caster. The two had hardly slept, so it was rather understandable that he was this tired. Caster, however, was nowhere to be found in the mansion. Considering how much prana Mikhel gave to Caster the night before, it wouldn't have been a surprise that Caster was up and about after spending the night with him.
As he approached the main hallway by the front entrance, the front door swung open. Caster waltzed into the mansion, looking cheery.
"You look happy, Caster."
"Oho? I am, indeed," Caster chirped. As she walked further into the mansion, Mikhel could see that she was followed closely by a group of men and boys. The youngest of them all looked very much like a high schooler, while the oldest of them all hardly looked like he was above the age of thirty. What bothered Mikhel apart from the fact that they are all men, was that these men were all trodding along behind Caster as if in a trance.
"Wh-wha-what are these people doing here?" Mikhel demanded.
"Worry not, Master. These are now our personal guard," Caster replied. "I would like to ensure that the two of us are properly protected from the other participants of the War, and that we have enough power to strike back at them."
"But… I am quite a capable fighter myself, am I not?" Mikhel asked nervously.
Caster looked at Mikhel momentarily and walked towards him, running her hand along his face. "I am concerned about your well-being, Master. If possible, I'd like to see to it that you receive nothing more than a scratch on this precious body of mine," she replied as her hands continued caressing Mikhel's body, drifting ever lower.
Mikhel exhaled slowly as he began to give in to his base desires, his hand beginning to return Caster's gentle caresses. "Surely you do not wish for me to be sitting around here while you are out there, risking your own life and limb too?"
"I do not wish to be out there too, but I have to continue going out there to recruit more soldiers to our cause," Caster replied.
"Mikhel's arms tightened around Caster, pulling her closer to him. "Isn't there another way to amass an army rather than by yourself?"
Caster was suddenly hit with a realisation and pulled away, breaking the mood between the two. "Master! You truly are a man well worth my match! I should have done this from the beginning!"
"Wh-what?"
"Master, please permit me to go out just one more time. I will not need to go out on my own to recruit more soldiers after this one trip," Caster said, smiling to herself. "I promise that the returns we get from this one trip would be well worth the time we are momentarily separated again."
Bram craned his neck to scour the city below him, searching for signs of Matou Zouken's vampires.
"I thought it would have become a full-blown problem by now, but I don't see anything out of the ordinary," Bree commented telepathically. She was at ground level, attempting to search the alleys and roads.
"These vampires could be in hiding since it's still day," Bram replied. "But you're right, though. It should have become a full-blown problem."
"There is also the report that the Church is aware of Caster's activities," Bree replied. "It seems that she has been busy recruiting men to join her cause, whatever that is."
"Knowing her methods, she isn't recruiting," Bram replied in an irksome manner. "Seducing would be more appropriate to describe what she would be doing!"
"Master! We have a big problem!" Bree exclaimed. "It's Matou Zouken's vampires!
"Where are you now?" Bram called out.
"I just got to the tallest building in the city, not too far from the bridge," Bree replied in haste. "Please get here quickly! There is only so much I can do to hold them off!"
"What?" Bram exclaimed silently. "Rider! We must hurry!"
"Understood, boy," Rider replied, urging his horse into a full gallop. The hooves of Othar rent the air, triggering a distortion in the balance of the air's electrical charges. Lightning flashed from these distortions, arching toward the nearest object that held an opposing electrical charge.
As Rider and Bram approached the Center Building of Fuyuki City, they were briefly stunned at the sight that befell them.
The streets below them were clogged with abandoned cars and there were numerous flashing lights belonging to the emergency response teams summoned to the scene. There was also a very large crowd emerging from within the building. The physical conditions of these people needed no explanation - these were all humans who were killed by Matou Zouken's worms and subsequently turned into vampires.
From behind the Center Building, away in the distance, was a convoy of military trucks attempting to enter the area via the clogged roadways.
"What a disaster…" Bram whispered.
"You have not seen anything yet, boy!" Rider growled. Unsheathing his sword, Rider spurred his horse downward towards the large gathering of vampires. "I will not let such abominations to survive!"
Viola struggled to her feet once the pain in her abdomen subsided. She heard the telepathic conversation between Bree and Bram and was able to ascertain the degree of trouble that they were in.
"B.. Berserker.. Let's go."
"Oho, where do you think you're going?"
"What!?" Viola exclaimed, turning around in a flash.
The figure standing behind her, a good distance away from Berserker, was unmistakable. After all, nobody could have forgotten her silver hair and her azure eyes which gave a sly stare to anyone who was willing to challenge her.
"Caster… you traitor!" Viola growled.
"Oh, please…" Caster began.
"Silence! I will not hear of anything from the likes of you!" Viola interrupted angrily. "Berserker! Crush her now!"
"Uuuu… UUUAAAAAAAGGHH!"
Berserker charged forward at pace, shredding the ground on which he stepped. Due to the sheer force of his footfall and with every subsequent push to propel him forward, his feet ripped grass and tiles apart, leaving a messy pothole behind. Berserker continued to charge forward at Caster and he raised his fists as he approached her.
"Now, now.. Don't be hasty, shall we?" Caster cooed, quickly tracing a pattern in the air before her. A surge of silvery energy pulsated from the pattern and quickly expanded before Caster, stopping Berserker's incoming fists.
"Rrrgh!?" Berserker grunted. He continued his attempt to land a hit on Caster, but his fists were continually stopped by the barrier that Caster erected. Caster sighed and traced another pattern in the air, its energy forming something that looked like magical cords which bound Berserker and kept him in one place despite his struggles.
"Your Servant is surely a very strong one, Master of Berserker," Caster said, smiling at Viola. "It's a shame that your own Master is fighting for a lost cause."
"Better than your misguided cause," Viola smiled slyly.
"Oh my," Caster gasped. "I don't suppose you realise that you're nothing but fodder for Rider and his Master, do you now?"
"Why do I care? It's not like I desire anything else but the Grail's preservation!" Viola replied.
"Surely you're more than just a lackey now, aren't you?" Caster asked. "As far as I'm aware, there should be a wish of yours hidden deep down somewhere, which the Grail could provide.. don't you think?"
"I don't have any other desires apart from the Grail's preservation!"
"Surely there is something that drives you to preserve the Grail, right?" Caster asked again. "Otherwise, you wouldn't have cared about it at all…"
"Ugh…" Viola grunted. "It.. it's of no matter to a traitor like you!
"Fu fu fu…" Caster giggled, covering her lips with the palm of her hand. "If it's of no matter, I suppose you don't mind if I take your Servant for myself now, don't you?"
Viola took a step back, gritting her teeth. "I'll never give Berserker up to the likes of you!"
"I never said anything about you giving Berserker to me," Caster replied coldly, her smile disappearing as she traced a new pattern in the air. "I had other plans when I first came back to this city, but now that a better prey appeared before me, I shall not leave this opportunity to waste."
"Berserker! Return to me!" Viola screamed. Considering how Berserker was bound, she might have to sacrifice her last Command Seal to set him free from those bonds.
However, Berserker did not respond to her command at all. There was an eerie silence as she stared at a motionless Berserker.
A sharp pain in her right arm grabbed Viola's attention and she quickly looked down at her hand…
… Only to find a bloodied stump from the wrist upwards…
Viola let out a bloodcurdling scream as she slumped to the ground. She could not look away from her bloodied stump as she continued to scream at it.
"Now, now…" Caster cooed, as she reached out to take Viola's severed hand from the tentacle that brought it to her. "I did you a favour by cauterizing your wound. I could have let you bleed to death, but I suppose that you could still make yourself useful now, don't you think? I could take Berserker for myself and form a contract with him, or you can follow me and retain your contract with Berserker."
Viola's eyes were soaked with tears, but it did not prevent her anger from being easily visible by Caster when Viola stared at her.
"It's your choice, really. Do you want to retain your contract with Berserker, or do you want to discard your contract with him?"
Caren Hortensia sighed as she placed both sheets of paper on her study table. Burying her head in her hands, she let out a little groan before standing up again.
"It's going to be a very complicated thing, these orders," Ciel said, leaning on her Seventh Holy Scripture. "The Association has mobilised many of their magi to contain and control the flow of information outside of Fuyuki City, and to ensure that the existence of magi, the Association and the Grail War remains a secret."
Caren narrowed her eyes as Ciel continued.
"Likewise, the Church has also mobilised Executioners as well as myself, a member of the Burial Agency, to assist in the cleanup of this disaster. Of course, we are also committed to ensuring that the existence of our kind remains a secret."
"How exactly is it possible to ensure that our organisations and this Grail War remains a secret?" Caren asked, appearing nonplussed upon hearing Ciel's statement.
"What else can we do?" Ciel replied, unperturbed by the question. "The usual, of course. Memory Reprogramming, gag orders… you know what we usually do. Just that we have to do it on a very large scale.
"This… this… I c-can't even begin to describe how absurd the situation is," Caren stammered.
Ciel said nothing in reply to Caren's words. Instead, she spun quickly around and walked out of the room, her weapon in tow. "Emiya Shiro is still alive, I assume?"
"Ah… Yes, I believe he still is," Caren replied.
"Good. This is nostalgic," Ciel answered quietly as she walked away.
"I already told you, master's granddaughter is inside the cave here!" Assassin groaned.
Shiro paid no heed to Assassin's complaints as he alighted from his motorcycle and untied Assassin's legs from the back seat. Shiro was somehow able to avoid suspicion largely due to the chaos caused by Matou Zouken's vampires, as more people in the city were beginning to be devoured now that the sun was beginning to set.
"You might as well just kill me and get it over and done with!"
"Shut up, Assassin," Shiro demanded. "I will end your life, but certainly not in a a way you expected me to do earlier." Thrusting Assassin before Shiro at an arm's length, Shiro began navigating the cave beneath Mount Enzou in search of Sakura.
"Ha. Hahahaha.. I see…" Assassin groaned again as he laughed. "I'm merely fodder for any traps set by my Master, no?"
"It's more than what you deserve," Shiro replied sternly.
"Really now, there is no trap here. Master only had his granddaughter moved here very recently," Assassin insisted.
"Trusting you or Matou Zouken is just asking to be stabbed at the back," Shiro muttered. "Shut up and walk!"
Before long, Shiro and Assassin arrived at the entrance to a large cavern which seemed to be at least thirty feet high and as large as a baseball field. Massive amounts of prana could be felt from within the cave walls and underneath the cave floor.
And there, in the middle of the cavern, laid Sakura.
"Sakura!" Shiro exclaimed. Dragging Assassin along with him, Shiro made his way to Sakura, holding Assassin at arms length as he knelt down to examine her limp form. Shiro breathed a sigh of relief when he ascertained that Sakura was still alive thanks to the regular rise and fall of her body as she breathed.
"Shiro! Where are you?"
Rin's voice could be heard coming from the passage that Shiro was in earlier. Shiro dropped Assassin and called out to Rin. Within moments, Saber and Rin arrived at Shiro's side.
"So Assassin brought you here?" Rin quizzed.
"He was merely fodder for me while I was in here. You know, just in case there were traps lying around here," Shiro replied matter-of-factly.
"I told you there was none," Assassin grumbled.
"I'm disappointed, Assassin," Shiro replied angrily. "Killing you myself is much too dissatisfying, but you probably deserve a better death, then."
Almost immediately, a traced blade appeared above Assassin and plunged into Assassin's head, killing him immediately.
What happened after that caught the attention of Shiro, Rin, and Saber.
As Assassin's body dissolved, his essence began circulating around the cave before it rose up through the ceiling of the cave. The cave began rumbling very slightly, but nevertheless, the rumbling couldn't be ignored by the three.
"Come on, we have to take Sakura out of here," Rin urged. "We will have to come back here to deal with what's beneath this cavern later!"
"Not until after we deal with Shinji and the vampires," Shiro replied, sounding irritated.
"There seems to be no end to this!" Bree exclaimed.
The vampire infestation seemed to have spread over a wide area during the night, and the vampires took shelter at the Center Building in the city when day began to break. Now that the sun had set, the vampires had begun to pour out of the building and dispersed, causing a major outbreak. Just how such a catastrophic event claiming thousands of lives escaped the attention of the city inhabitants as well as the attention of the secular media for essentially the whole day boggled the mind, to say the least.
Nonetheless, that which has happened, has happened. Bree, along with Bram and Rider entered the fray and has been trying for the past five minutes to destroy the vampires. The trouble with doing so wasn't so much as why they were incapable of unleashing a powerful attack to decimate the vampire numbers, but more of why they were not allowed to do so.
To make matters worse, Viola was nowhere to be found, and any attempt to locate her or establish any form of communication with her was met with an eerie lack of a response.
"Sir Bram, what of Viola?" Bree urged.
"I don't know!" Bram replied sharply. "We don't have the luxury of trying to locate her right now!"
"I'm afraid something must have happened to her when she went after Matou Zouken!" Bree responded worryingly.
"She is in a better position to do so because she has Berserker with her!" Bram answered. "Right now, we have to stop this infestation from spreading. The Association would never accept such an event happening at such a large scale!"
"Indeed you are right, Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri…"
Both Bram and Bree turned around, startled by the oddly familiar voice that spoke behind them.
"B-B-Bartomeloi Lorelai!?" Bram exclaimed.
"Is this the first time you laid your eyes on me?" Lorelai sighed, as she motioned for the members of her Chelon Canticle Brigade standing behind her to deal with the vampires while she took care of business. "It's understood, though. Nobody has ever seen me set foot outside of the Clock Tower for a while now."
"What are you doing here?" Bram demanded.
"Same reason why many of the top magi from the Association is here, as well as the Executioners of the Church and one member of the Burial Agency," Lorelai replied coolly. "We have an infestation to clean up."
"Surely a clean-up operation such as this doesn't require your direct participation?" Bram asked, casting a sideways glance at Lorelai.
"You know more than anyone else here how much I detest these creatures," Lorelai replied."Besides that, things are not that simple at such a scale," Lorelai continued. "Officially, I am here to oversee the task of keeping everybody quiet about the existence of the Grail War."
"Has the existence of the War and the Association been found out?" Bree wondered aloud.
"Who knows," Lorelai answered quietly. "The Association Director doesn't wish for the Grail to be brought back, however."
"What!?" Bram asked, surprised by Lorelai's statement.
"The Director has decided that the existence of the Association to non-magi does not justify the reasoning that the Grail should have been brought back," Lorelai explained.
"What exactly… do you mean?" Bram urged.
Lorelai exhaled sharply. "The Grail is no longer desired by the Association, to put it bluntly. Your feud with Lord El-Melloi II is to cease immediately!"
"What about the other magi who wanted to bring this back in the first place?" Bram demanded again.
"They changed their mind. In fact, if you wish to speak to them directly, they are here in Fuyuki City, dealing with the infestation."
Bram was struck speechless at the realisation that everything he has done up to this point was for nothing. Fuming, he called for Rider and Bree to leave with him.
"You're giving up just like that?" Bree asked.
"There is no way I will give this up," Bram grumbled. "They can do without the Grail, but I will still win this War and gain the opportunity to right this wrong!"
"Considering the scale of the Association's mobilisation, it seems that things have turned rather serious," Lord El-Melloi II muttered.
"There is that, and there is still the other matter of destroying the Grail," Luvia continued. "I wonder if Shero and Miss Gorilla found Matou Zouken already."
"Leave it to them to find Matou Zouken," Lord El-Melloi II replied. "We really have to locate-"
"Hey, it seems that the kid already found this Sakura girl," Archer interrupted as he leapt down from this vantage point. "I caught sight of them coming out of a cave at the mountain not too far from here."
"It seems that Emiya Shiro beat us to it," Lord El-Melloi II answered. "All is well, then. Now all of us can get down to stopping the infestation and Caster, and we can destroy the Grail that's hidden deep within Mount Enzou."
"Lord El-Melloi II," Rin's voice was heard telepathically. "We found Sakura. There's no need to search for her anymore."
"I heard about that from Archer," Lord El-Melloi II replied. "What about Matou Zouken?"
"There's no sign of him anywhere, even from within his mansion," Rin replied. Konig-san and Berserker was in there earlier and got attacked by Assassin, so I assume that he wasn't there for a while or that something happened in there."
"Very well," Lord El-Melloi II replied. "We'll proceed to the Matou residence and take a look there."
"We'll leave Sakura with Taiga first, and we'll join up with you after that," Rin replied.
"Who's… Taiga?" Lord El-Melloi II asked, puzzled by the sudden mention of someone he had no prior contact with.
"Ah, well… It's too long of a story," Rin replied hastily. "Shiro will fill you in on that afterwards."