Disclaimer: I do not own the Fate franchise it belongs to Kinoko Nasu and Type-Moon.

This Cannot End Well

Chapter 10

Sakura carefully placed the catatonic Rin against a wall, and draped her longcoat over her sister's trembling body. Then she stepped back, and tilting her head, looked to the distance. The mansion was barely holding together as it was, but in the distance, she could hear gunfire, the thunder of plasma displacing air, and with her reinforced ears, Little Rin's giggling as she played cat and mouse with the Matou gunships.

"If it weren't for the bounded fields around this place, we'd have the British military on us already." Sakura glumly thought. "And once we get out of here, they'll be on this place like maggots on rotting meat."

Sakura sighed at the unfortunate parallels between that idiom and the enemies they were facing. Already, she could sense more Matou approaching, including one that seemed…strangely familiar. Then she blinked, before her eyes widened in suspicion. "No…it can't be…" she thought. "…they brought along…"

The thought trailed off as Sakura glanced at Rin worriedly. "…did they bring 'me' along?" she whispered.

Then she blinked, and narrowed her eyes. "If it's a fight they want, then it's a fight they'll get." She murmured, once again the cold and ruthless magus known as the Murderer Blue. Kneeling down, she pressed a hand against the ground, while crushing a silver cylinder filled with iron filings. "Skript: Wind."

A pulse of magical energy flew out in all directions, and then Sakura was getting up. Gesturing, she pulled out five daggers from Imaginary Numbers Space, and then threw them through Imaginary Numbers Space, allowing the daggers to plant themselves into the ground, the walls, and even the ceiling around them. Then she pulled out more cylinders from Imaginary Numbers Space, and crushed them between her fingers. "Skript," she said in German, as powdered iron floated in the air around her. "Unterbauch."

Then she crossed her arms, waiting for the enemy to come to her. She didn't have to wait long. Already, she could hear uneven footsteps rushing in her direction, along with the sound of heavy, labored breathing. Then a flabby hand grasped the edges of a hole in the wall to her right, before another hideously-fat and pig-like man was heaving his way through. As with his previous counterpart, he was mostly naked, but for a pair of suspenders and very tightly-fit shorts.

This one, though, wore a hood over his face, with ringed eye and mouth holes. How he was even able to breath through his nose – if he even could – was beyond Sakura, and she had no interest in finding out.

The man didn't even get the chance to speak. Instead, he let out a piggish squeal, his spiked club falling to the ground with a thud as the iron in the air simply tore him apart. His skin was flayed off in strips, his flesh sliced and diced clean off his bones, those same bones polished white with ligaments and tendons neatly carved away. Blood and flesh splattered on the ground, the man's bones disappearing into Imaginary Numbers Space, a novel souvenir for Murderer Blue.

Then Sakura's eyes were going wide, as a violet blur flew at her. She stepped into a stance…

…and then staggered back with a cry of pain, as blood stained her vest and the blouse beneath it. Sakura blinked, and gritting her teeth, kicked the would-be assassin away before pulling the bloody dagger from her guts.

"…no…" Rin breathed from where she was huddled against the wall. "…no…no…no…not again…not again…"

"…Matou freaks…" Sakura breathed, hand clutching the bloody wound in her belly, and knowing it had perforated her intestines. She had to deal with this quick, before blood poisoning and infection could set in. "…so that's how you managed to get past the Edelfelt bounded fields…that's what happened to the Luvia from Nagato's timeline…you sick bastards…"

Two more pig-men laughed at her words, all the while running their hands possessively – lewdly – over Luvia's body, the now-violet-haired and violet-eyed woman wearing what could only be described as…

…something, a prostitute would wear. Made from leather with iron spikes, it barely preserved her modesty at all, so much so that she might as well not have worn anything at all.

"She broke so quickly too." One of the pig-men snorted. "It was a bit disappointing. Sakura-chan cried and begged for three days before she learned. This one broke in only half a night."

"Sasuke wonders how long you would last..." The other pig-man began, only to break off at a murmur from Luvia.

"…want it…" she said softly, starting to shake, her eyes wild and hungry. "…I want it…"

The pig-men squealed and turned away from Rin and Sakura, molesting and taunting Luvia. Sakura took this chance to look at Rin, who was shaking and holding her head. Her PTSD was running its course, rage spent leaving only…anguish? Regret? Fear?

It didn't matter.

Sakura would finish this fight.

"I shall avenge you, cousin." Sakura said, holding out her hands, and drawing blood and flesh towards her. "And I will free you from this…torment."

The pig-men laughed and turned back to her, but their laughter died as they saw Sakura stand in the middle of a maelstrom of blood and flesh. Already, reality was buckling, turning porous and allowing demons previously-summoned to just ignore such physical constants as distance and time to arrive at their summoner's side in an instant. They screamed, and halting the crest worms that were beginning to pour out of the ruins and shadows by the hundreds, their animal instincts warning them of what lay ahead.

"…want it…I want it…" Luvia madly chanted, falling to her knees, oblivious to what her cousin was doing as she frantically pawed at one of the pig-men next to her, in much the same way an addict would at a bag of narcotics just out of reach. "…I want it! P-p-p-p-p…"

The demons placed their hands on Sakura, her injury simply disappearing as if it never existed. "Cage them." She said, and the demons threw back their heads to howl again, exposing faces that were only fang-filled mouths. Temperatures plummeted to below zero in an instant, killing the worms by flash-freezing them.

The pig-men blubbered in outrage…

…then silence, as beams shimmered through the air, sucking heat and energy from their courses into the demons' maws. Water in the air flash-froze, leaving Luvia and the pig-men encased in ice. "The men are yours." Sakura said. "But Luvia is mine."

"…Sakura…" Rin whispered as the demons howled and flew forward, latching onto the pig-men prisons. "…Sakura…what are you…"

Then she clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide in horror as the ice broke, and the demons…

…the demons entered the pig-men's bodies, filling the ether with screaming and nothing but pure anguish and despair. At the same time, their bodies just seemed to melt, flesh flowing like molten wax, bone twisting and growing and even budding off like wet clay on a potter's wheel.

"Huh…so that's what a…extreme, case of demonic possession looks like." Sakura clinically observed, fully in her persona of the Murderer Blue. "Anyway…moving on…"

Murderer Blue clicked her tongue at the Jewelcraft Inhibitors still active on the battlefield, and instead pulled out a katana from Imaginary Numbers Space. "…I'm sorry, Luvia." She apologized, as she drew her sword, and raised it to stab at the other Luvia, as she lay panting and sweating like an addict in withdrawal on the ground.

"NO!" Rin shouted, running forward to restrain her sister.

Sakura blinked, looked at Rin, and blinked again, Murderer Blue receding to leave only Sakura behind. "If you have a better idea, I'm all ears." She said.

Rin looked away, pain and guilt on her face. "…she's been defiled," she said after a moment. "But she doesn't need to die. She can…start over. Find a new way to live. My…my sister…your other self did it…can't this Luvia do the same?"

Sakura stared at Rin for a moment, and then sighing, lowered her sword. "She deserves a chance, yes." She said, before wincing. "My Luvia is not going to like this."

"…I don't like it." Rin said after another moment. "Do you?"

"No." Sakura said, but anything else she could say was cut off by a massive impact that had the ground shaking, and causing another third of the mansion to collapse. "What the hell was that?"

"We have to get out of here." Rin said, looking around her as the adrenaline caused her PTSD to recede. "This place is falling apart, and could collapse on us any moment."

Sakura glanced at Rin, and then placing a hand against her face, gave her what she needed to know. "Get…take this Luvia and get out of here." She said. "I'll meet up with Tom, and deal with…whatever this is before we go too."

Rin briefly hesitated, and then nodding, picked up the shaking Luvia and hurried away. Sakura stared after them until they were gone, and then turned to the distance where she could hear the whine of powerful engines of some kind.

"YOU AMERICAN DOG! I'LL KILL YOU! THEN I'M GONNA KILL THOSE TOHSAKA WHORES! THEN ALL YOUR FRIENDS! YOUR FAMILIES! AND YOUR DOG TOO!"

"Stupid Matou." Tom grouched mentally as he hid behind cover, replacing the half-melted barrel assembly of his plasma gatling gun. "Stupid time traveling cheating bullshit. That's the only reason he's got all those stupid toys, and those stupid toys are the only way he's even able to cause this much trouble."

The American magus peered around cover, watching as the towering, bipedal mech – Tom refused to call it a robot, considering it was piloted, while robots weren't (supposed to be) – lumbering through the ruins. It was heavily armored, and even featured an energy shield of all things.

Well, it used to have an energy shield, at least until Tom knocked it out with his plasma gatling gun. That had caused Shinji to go berserk…

…well, more like throw a tantrum – which he still was – but that was beside the point.

"COME ON OUT, YOU LITTLE RAT!" Shinji screamed, a 20 mm Vulcan cannon screaming as he sprayed their surroundings with APHE rounds. Then he raised his mech's other arm, this one featuring a short-barreled 105 mm rifle. It would do little for the weapon's range and accuracy – quite the opposite, in fact – but up close and personal it wouldn't matter.

The rifle fired with a loud boom, followed by another boom as the HE shell ripped up more of the mansion.

"WHAT'S WRONG? CHICKEN?" Shinji screamed. "THAT'S RIGHT! YOU'RE ALL TALK! OTHERWISE YOU'D COME OUT AND FACE ME LIKE A REAL MAN! BUT, NO, YOU WON'T! YOU'RE A CHICKEN! YELLOW!"

"…someone's been watching too many cowboy movies." Tom dully whispered to himself. "That, or just Hollywood in general. Seriously, who talks like that these days?"

Sighing, Tom sank back behind cover. He spent a few moments catching his breath, and then leaping out, opened fire on full auto. Plasma rounds hissed and burned against composite armor plating, but it held up better than most people would expect.

"COWARD!" Shinji screamed, struggling to bring his lumbering mech and its forward-facing weapons around. "SHOOTING FROM THE BACK…COWARD!"

Tom ignored his taunts, continuing to fire until Shinji was just about to bring his guns to bear. Then he was running even as Shinji opened fire with a 40 mm cannon, followed by the paired 20 mm Vulcan cannon.

"THAT'S RIGHT!" Shinji taunted. "RUN, RAT, RUN! WHEN I CATCH YOU…!"

A quantum singularity opened up next to the mech, and tore off one of its arms. "BITCH!" Shinji screamed. "THAT SPELL…SAKURA TOHSAKA! YOU LITTLE WHORE…! I…!"

"…will bitch and scream like the whiny little prick and spoiled brat you are." Sakura taunted as she landed on top of his mech. Then she paused, as she looked down and through the crystal canopy. "Wow…so that's what you look like now?"

Words failed Shinji, the young man just screaming his head off while flailing his mech around to get Sakura off. Somehow, Sakura stayed on, looking down through the canopy with a…unreadable expression on her face. Was it pity? Amusement? Bemusement?

Unsurprising, really, considering the state of Shinji's injuries. His hair had all been burned off, along with the outer layer of his skin. In time, it'd scar over and turn…well, close to normal in coloring, but for now, he was red as a lobster. His lips and eyelids had all been burned off as well, and while his nose was intact, judging from the information on his displays – thank God for standard measures internationally, as while Sakura couldn't read Cyrillic, she could infer what the dials and other gauges could be about – he needed a hyper-oxygenated environment to breathe without mechanical assistance.

Also unsurprising, considering how…damaging, jet fuel could be to soft tissues once inhaled. Add to that getting caught in a fire of such…well…

"Hadron Formation," Sakura cast. "Erebus and Nyx."

Another quantum singularity opened up, and tore the last arm off before imploding. Shinji screamed…

…which turned to cries of panic as Sakura drew her sword and stabbed down. She didn't hit him, not that she was even aiming at him in the first place. No, all she needed was to pop the bubble he needed to stay in, and that was enough.

Pure oxygen leaked out with a sharp hiss, and then pulling her sword out, Sakura jumped off, to land behind the mech. Holding her sword two-handed, Sakura swung horizontally, and cut the mech down at the knees.

Metal and ceramic shrieked as the reinforced katana tore them apart, and with a crash, the mech fell on its back like a turtle. "Not so tough now, are you?" Sakura taunted, tapping her sword against the canopy.

"…not fair…" Shinji wheezed, struggling to breath. "…it's not fair…"

Sakura clicked her tongue. "There, you see, that sums up everything wrong about your family." She said. "You're parasites. You're all like the worms that make up what passes for your family's crest, to say nothing of that walking disease that started your upstart family. All you can do is crawl after your betters. Grasp at our achievements. Try to…butt into, the limelight we've won for ourselves. And when you can't, you whine about how unfair it is, until scraps are thrown your way. But of course it isn't enough. It will never be enough. And you know it. So you force yourselves on others. You paint them in your colors. You degrade and humiliate them, so you can feel better about yourselves. With people on their knees before you, you can finally pretend you've become something. But at the end of the day, you're still worms. Parasites. And that is all you will ever be, no matter how much your victims kiss your feet."

Sakura shook her head. "You're pathetic." She said.

"…I…" Shinji began, only to break off in a fit of coughing. Then he wheezed, struggling to breathe, wet and shallow, like a fish out of water or an amphibian drying up, unable to force enough air into his lungs through his ruined throat.

Sakura sniffed, and slowly walked around the downed mech, stepping on the corpse of a fallen Matou soldier of fortune along the way. Then finding what she was looking for, she sheathed her sword, and returned it to Imaginary Numbers Space.

Metal and ceramic screamed and crumpled as Sakura took hold telekinetically, and with a rending motion, Sakura tore off the armor plating around the engine sections. Then she smiled, because there they were, a pair of tanks marked with O2: oxygen. Pure, undiluted, and most importantly, very flammable.

"Care to do the honors?" she asked, turning her head to look at Tom.

Tom didn't reply at first, instead lighting a cigarette, and taking a deep breath, blew out a thin stream of smoke. "Nah," he said. "After that speech of yours, I think you should be the one to kill him."

"Alright then."

"Please…" Shinji begged. "…I…I don't…I don't want to die…I…"

"Seriously, dude?" Tom asked. "Do you know how many people died because of you? Both here and in our home timeline? How many people might still die here from the beehive you've kicked over internationally with your antics? And you've got the nerve to ask for mercy? You're a sick bastard, you know that?"

"I…"

"Come on, Tom." Sakura said, tugging at his arm. "Let's get some distance between us and here. Those tanks are pure oxygen. They'll make for very big blasts."

"Yeah, let's go." Tom agreed, and fell into step next to Sakura as they left.

"PLEASE!" Shinji screamed before coughing out blood. He frantically pounded at his canopy, pressed and jammed his controls, to no avail with the multitude of failures, malfunctions, short circuits, and simple damage and destruction done to his machine. "I…I don't want to die…Sakura…we grew up together…we went to school together…I was a very good brother to you! Don't do this!"

"I've never had a brother." Sakura said. "And I have absolutely no idea what you're on if you think you were ever a good brother to my counterpart."

"SAKURA…PLEASE…!"

"Goodbye, Shinji Matou. I hope hell is to your liking."

Sakura pointed a finger and fired a series of Finn shots. They ruptured the tanks, causing oxygen to explosively leak out, only to be ignited by the sparking of ruined electricals.

The resulting explosion tore down what was left of the mansion, destroyed the mech, and killed Shinji. "If he survives that, I call bullshit." Tom deadpanned as he peered out from their foxhole. Elemental magic: what a wonderful thing (unless it was just made by using alteration on the ground, of course).

"Well, like I said, they're worms and parasites." Sakura remarked next to him. "Don't you people have a saying about worms being the only animals able to survive a nuclear war?"

"Actually it's cockroaches being the only animals – aside from scorpions – able to survive a nuclear war, but I see your point." Tom said with a sigh. "Well…I guess that's over and done. Now, to go and face the music."

"…this is going to be one hell of a mess."

"No kidding."

A/N

Well, now you know how the Matou got past the Edelfelt bounded fields. They'd wormed the Luvia from Nagato's timeline, and used her as a…pet, in more ways than one.

Unfortunately for them, Murderer Blue is more than they can handle. Likewise for Jeweled Sword Blue, but the latter has PTSD that causes her performance to go from berserk rage to crippling guilt.

Yes, Shinji survived getting a JoJo beatdown from Rin…only to get blown up (again) in this chapter. Surely he must be dead for good now, right? All I'll say is…cockroaches.