Bazett looked like she had one million arms from how fast she was punching. A sea demon was full of holes from all the blows that went clean through its body. It didn't even resemble anything living as it plopped onto the ground. The living Scáthach chopped several demons into small cubes using twin Gáe Bolgs. The duo had been fighting on Mount Enzo for a little while now, waiting for the OK to teleport and face their opponent.
Their opponent. Scáthach Alter. Bazett's Scáthach. The magus was both dreading having to face her stolen lover, and yet also anxious to do so. Bazett didn't want to see how the Grail's corruption had influenced Scáthach, but the enforcer was also desperate to set Scáthach free so they could live happily ever after. Would they be able to achieve such an ending? Was it even possible? Bazett and the living Scáthach had a plan, partly thanks to Assassin who provided them with the Mystic Code necessary for it, but there was no guarantee. There never was in life.
"Bazett, Scáthach, it's time. Teleport." Kirei's voice echoed in Bazett and Scáthach's minds.
The suited magus swallowed her worries and doubts as the living Scáthach activated a rune that shined green. Bazett and Scáthach were warped to a thick forest, both of them in their combat stances.
Scáthach Alter was there. She wore dark armor that left her front exposed in a way that would have made Bazett blush under different circumstances. Instead Bazett felt sad and relieved. Sad that the love of her life looked so different, and relieved that she still resembled her old self.
"Of course you're the ones to fight me. I'm not interested in you two, though. I already know I can best you both at once and it won't be a challenge. I'll kill you both and then find Heracles. Hopefully I'll be able to challenge King Arthur too." Scáthach Alter didn't even spare more than a passing glance for Bazett and the living Scáthach. The slave of the Grail was too busy looking around to pinpoint her location relative to Mount Enzo. She didn't even have her spear raised, she just stood straight with her muscles loose.
"You're underestimating me? You and I are the same." The living Scáthach said.
"My history has forged me into a far greater warrior than you. We both became isolated in the Land of Shadows, guarding it from Divine Spirits. While you treated such conflicts as pleasant distractions, I lived for them. I grew so starving for battle that I forsook our decision to avoid influencing the modern world. One time when a Divine Spirit invaded, I slew them and used the entryway they created to escape our dead queendom. I abandoned the Land of Shadows, embraced our love of combat, and became a hunter of gods." Scáthach Alter raised her spear and gained some enthusiasm in her voice as it rasped like a hound's. "My life became dedicated to combating any and all divinities I could find. I never rested and pushed my limits until I eventually broke through them. You reached the halfway point to becoming a Divine Spirit, but I fully became one. The only reason I can be summoned is by possessing a weaker, non-deified version of myself as a form of mock Pseudo-Servant. I am everything you could have been if you embraced your desires."
"You say you embrace your desires, but what about your love for Bazett?"
"Her?" Scáthach snickered and looked Bazett in the eye. "As if I ever truly loved her. She was an amusing distraction while I was still prohibiting myself from being who I truly am. Is there anyone who could earnestly love a dull woman whose defining trait is her ineptitude? On a whim I decided not to bat her away when she latched onto me like a dog. Don't overthink it."
The living Scáthach turned to look at Bazett. Both queens were anticipating Bazett's reaction. They assumed she would break down from hearing such cruelties from the woman she loved. At the very least they expected Bazett to be sad or to shed a tear.
"Are you expecting something?" Bazett was unaffected. "I know that isn't you saying those things, Scáthach. It's the Grail's pollution. You sacrificed your life for me, that's why you got corrupted in the first place. I know you love me the same way I love you. When we explored each other's bodies that night, when you told me I was worthy of love and that included my own love, those weren't lies said flippantly. Those were genuine expressions of what you wanted for me. You can retroactively dismiss those things all you want, I know we're in love. I know I'm worthy of your love, and you're worthy of mine."
The living Scáthach smiled and the Altered one rolled her eyes.
"Believe whatever you want, I'm going to impale you on my spear in a second anyway." Scáthach Alter finally got ready to battle.
"You'll try." The living Scáthach took the initiative and lunged at her Altered counterpart. It took only the first clash of their weapons to see how different they were. The living queen was poised and minimalistic in her every motion while the Blackened divinity was overbearing as she made use of every muscle in her body to draw out the maximum amount of power she was physically capable of. It was a wise monarch who was dedicated to the fostering of others versus a maddened huntress who's instincts remained sharp as they lusted for battle. The Berserker thrust her spear so many times that the afterimages left in each attack's wake blended together to create the illusion of a red briar. The living Scáthach opted to dodge rather than block given she could never match the sheer power of her counterpart. She twirled her spears to counterattack, but Scáthach Alter knocked the attacks off course with the back of her free fist. The Berserker grabbed the living Scáthach's spear while charging her Gáe Bolg with red energy and stabbing forward with it. The living queen released the spear her opponent held and jumped out of the way of both the Berserker's spear and the beam of energy it released that felled several dozen trees. Both Scáthachs summoned more spears around them that they fired at each other. Gáe Bolgs crashed into Gáe Bolgs and rebounded, flying in wild directions while obliterating any plants or stones that were unlucky enough to be in the way. The spears all returned to the control of the Scáthachs and telekinetically fought. Some attacked whatever Scáthach was their enemy while other spears played defense against the incoming polearms. It was a war of weapons without warriors to wield them, the floating Gáe Bolgs striking and blocking each other while raging around the forest. The bodiless Noble Phantasms duked it out and the Scáthachs returned to their close range engagement, each using only a single spear.
Scáthach Alter was stronger in every meaningful respect. She was stronger, faster, more skilled. The living Scáthach needed help or she'd quickly die. Bazett used Reduced Earth to immediately join the fray. A couple of the floating Gáe Bolgs belonging to Alter shot at Bazett's back like missiles to prevent her from interrupting the one-on-one battle between the Scáthachs, but Bazett knocked them away with two reverse punches. The enforcer's hands ached from the outermost layers of skin to the center of their bones just from those two impacts, but Bazett didn't care. Fire runes ignited not only her fists and feet with flame, but even her suit. Her entire body gained a thin layer of flame around it that made it look like her body was a conflagration molded into a human shape. Even her hair looked like a ball of fire. Bazett's lightspeed fists forced Scáthach Alter to block them as the magus threw out every martial arts technique she knew. The living Scáthach joined in with her own offensive that include various elemental Mana Bursts infused into her spear along with plenty of spells from fire and death runes, to Baptism Sacraments boosted with High-speed Incantation and runes, to curses and illusions. Scáthach Alter countered this barrage with one of her own, her spear attacks and spells being more than enough to match both her opponents. The Blackened Servant wasn't just holding her own, but she was dominating. Her parameters kept rising as she started using her own collage of skills that seemed to extend beyond what even the regular Scáthach was capable of using. She was using skills that were likely considered exclusive to individual Servants. The Altered queen's body kept changing in small ways from her physique becoming more or less bulky, to her even gaining an extra pair of arms and a set of wings, all these new appendages being covered in the same dark armor Scáthach Alter was wearing. At one point her eyes changed into Mystic Eyes and both the living Scáthach and Bazett began having parts of their body petrified. Her eyes changed again and Bazett's Instinct told her to dodge to the side. She did so, as did the living Scáthach, and it was a wise decision as everything that was within Scáthach's Alter's range of vision was twisted along with the fabric of space itself. Everything distorted in a way that felt more akin to a Noble Phantasm than a skill given the power on display.
It was without a doubt that Scáthach Alter possessed a skill like Wisdom of Dún Scáith, but not limited to skills possessed by more than one or two Servants. Berserker was using the kind of exclusive skills that often defined the power sets of Servants. There was no way Scáthach Alter could copy any skill without limits, as demonstrated by the Berserker's eyes returning to normal and her extra appendages shrunk away. She couldn't copy these skills for long and, given how sporadically they were used, it was likely that Scáthach Alter couldn't use them intentionally. She just instinctively used random skills that were beneficial to her in a given moment. It was a lottery.
As the flying red spears continued to battle around the trio, Scáthach Alter ran at her former allies once more. Both Bazett and Scáthach were covered in wounds that were unable to heal while the Berserker only had a few small ones that didn't hinder her in any noticeable way. The fight needed to change its tempo or a worst case scenario was guaranteed.
The blazing bodied Bazett shot jets of fire from her back along with using Reduced Earth to rocket towards Scáthach Alter as fast as she could. As soon as she was close, Bazett found that the tip of Berserker's spear was already right in her face, nanometers away from stabbing into her eyes and then her brain. Alter had predicted what Bazett would do. A normal person would try to dodge on impulse, but that would end in failure and thus death. Instead, Bazett did what she did when she first met Scáthach and they sparred. The magus grabbed the spear with both hands. She couldn't stop it, but by using every ounce of her strength, she was able to delay it long enough for her to kick her legs off the ground and point the bottoms of her feet towards Scáthach Alter. Fire shot out from Bazett's shoes right into Berserker's face. It didn't do any significant damage, nor was it intended to. The propulsion caused Bazett to move with the motion of Scáthach Alter's spear which prevented her from getting stabbed into it, and it meant that both the enforcer's flames and Berserker's thrust were moving the two of them in the same direction. Bazett and Scáthach Alter went flying off past numerous downed trees and deep into another part of the forest that remained intact for the moment.
Bazett pushed off the spear and flew away from Scáthach Alter who regrew wings to pursue. The Berserker was interrupted when she fell into Bazett's trap. In the days before the final battle, Bazett and the living Scáthach covered the forest in runes that they poured as much of their magical energy into as they could. Scáthach was even able to link them to the local Leyline to give them even more power before hiding the runes so they couldn't be detected. Each of these rune traps could be activated with just a thought from Bazett or the living Scáthach, and Scáthach Alter was currently right above one.
A freezing wave rose up from the ground around the Berserker and froze not only her, but the trees, dirt, and even the air to create a giant frozen block the size of a proper glacier. The frigid mass shattered with a mere flex of Scáthach Alter's muscles, only for Bazett to fly in like a burning meteor and dive kick the Berserker. The Blackened queen was still defrosting and thus was too slow to avoid the heel that slammed into her gut and knocked her into the ground so hard that it looked like a small nuke went off from all the debris that was tossed upward on impact. Scáthach Alter hadn't just been kicked to any old stop in the forest, but right on top of another rune trap that created an eruption of flame that also resembled a nuclear detonation as heat and wind expanded outward and flattened a large portion of the forest. Scáthach Alter stood on soil that was burning orange, her body being scorched a bit and certainly fazed, but not too much. It was then that a deluge of water rose up from a second rune in the ground while a second infused that flood with a death curse. Scáthach Alter was pushed across the forest by the wave of water while the curse ate away at her Saint Graph, but she then accessed multiple aquatic skills that let her quickly gain her bearings and take control of the water itself. She redirected it all at an approaching Bazett, but the magus countered by firing off multiple Fragarachs, the non-counter version, which she had amplified with multiple runes so they were far more durable and had an aura of flame around them. The flaming beams shot into the flood and evaporated a path straight through it which Bazett flew through to avoid the cursed liquid. The Fragarachs targeted Scáthach Alter, but she just destroyed the projectiles with a few swings of her Gáe Bolg.
"You think a handful of traps are enough to stop me?" Scáthach Alter willed a mountain sized golem hand to rise out of the ground through numerology, the limb attempting to slap the earth and Bazett with it.
"As if that would ever be enough to beat you! The woman I love isn't so weak!" Bazett tapped into a nearby rune trap and, instead of springing it, absorbed the magical energy it had built up and formed a connection to the linked Leyline. Bazett's power increased so much that her previous might seemed infantile in comparison. Her flames intensified and turned blue-white as she got a constant feed of energy from the mana that streamed through the land. Bazett jumped at the great hand and punched its palm, the golem construct melting away before Bazett made a beeline for Scáthach Alter and performed another dive kick. "Ansuz-Eihwaz!"
The Berserker blocked the kick with her spear, but the force of the blow drove both her and Bazett into the ground, the magus' flames causing the area to melt into a sparkling white liquid. Bazett got onto her feet and began punching with greater speed and power than ever, Scáthach Alter reciprocating by summoning a second Gáe Bolg and stabbing repeatedly with both spears. Bazett dodged as best she could, but she still ended up with a multitude of lacerations from grazing blows. Meanwhile, Scáthach Alter wasn't even bothering to dodge Bazett's punches, letting her body instinctively use numerous defensive skills to mitigate the damage of each blazing strike.
"Even after training with both me and my counterpart, even after gaining all that extra mana from that rune and the Leyline, you're still so weak!" Scáthach Alter took a step forward despite the constant blows from Bazett. "You really think I'd ever care about someone as weak as you?"
"If you don't care, then why do you keep insisting on this point!" Bazett, against all odds, took a forward step as well. "Why are you so eager to convince me you don't care, or are you trying to convince yourself?"
"Do you think you're being clever with that little comment?" Scáthach Alter raised a spear and swung it down, Bazett narrowly avoiding getting sliced in half. The land split into a canyon wide enough to fit a skyscraper lying on its side and was long enough that it stretched into the perimeter of multiple distant cities. It would probably become a new Japanese monument. Bazett stood at the crevice's rim, but the Berserker swung their spear at her side. The enforcer raised an arm to block the polearm, but the hit still cracked the bones all throughout the limb and pushed Bazett into the trench. "You overthink everything! I always hated that about you!"
Bazett stopped her fall with more fire from her feet, but Scáthach Alter flew after her with two sets of draconic wings. The magus tried to fly away, but the Berserker was right on her tail, catching up in mere moments and grabbing her by the leg before tossing Bazett at the wall of the canyon. The stone began to melt from Bazett's heat as her head was grabbed by the Alter Servant. The magus' face was scraped across the side of the crevice as the Berserker flew at top speed, taking the magus with her. As all of the rock and dirt that Bazett was dragged across melted into a burning waterfall, the magus managed to wrap her hand around one of the fingers holding her head in place. Bazett yanked using as much strength as she could, breaking the finger backwards which loosened Scáthach Alter's grip enough for the enforcer to slip her head free and fly away, the Berserker in hot pursuit. Thankfully, Alter accessed a different skill that provided her with different wings, ones that didn't provide the same speed. The main weaknesses of Scáthach Alter's endless supply of skills was that they were temporary, involuntary, and inconsistent.
Bazett felt the raw skin on her face, blood seeping out and vaporizing from her own heat. Her head was pounding and there were probably half a dozen cracks in her skull. Her every motion made the cuts all over her body stretch and open further. She wanted to throw up. She kept thinking about how nice it would feel to just go to sleep and die. She couldn't, she had to save the love of her life. Just imagining Scáthach's face was enough for Bazett to ignore the pain and become even more energized than before.
Something appeared in the corner of Bazett's eye. She changed direction towards the landmark she spotted and landed in front of it. Scáthach Alter landed as well. The two combatants stood in front of the Edelfelt mansion where they once stayed. Despite having just been engaged in combat, they both stopped.
"Do you remember when I first summoned you?" Bazett studied every nostalgic brick of the house, letting her guard down despite her opponent being right across from her. Scáthach Alter wasn't taking the opportunity to attack, she just looked at the mansion too. "I was so nervous. I was meeting the mentor of my idol. You were so beautiful and intelligent and collected. You attacked me and all thoughts left my head as I just tried to survive. Then you acknowledged me, but then doubled back and trivialized our connection, only to then say we should go out into town. You're so cute when you get flustered like that."
"I wasn't flustered." Scáthach Alter said which made Bazett chuckle. "I just felt bad when you started moping."
"So you did care about me. You said you just considered me a distraction, but you didn't like seeing me sad. You wanted me to be happy."
"I won't tolerate these slights."
"They aren't slights." Bazett chuckled more. "You're just as ambivalent as always."
"Meanwhile, you've changed into an impudent little neophyte."
"I suppose I have changed a touch, and it's thanks to you. It was you who taught me the necessity of loving myself before I could ever love another. That's why I'm doing my best to appreciate my strengths and accept my weaknesses, it's all so I can love you the way you deserve to be loved."
"…"
"…"
"Maybe I did care about you." Scáthach Alter's declaration made Bazett turn to look at her, but the Berserker just kept staring at the mansion. "I denied our history, incredulous at who I was and what we had. I did love you. You made me feel fulfilled in a way I had never known throughout all my centuries."
"I'm glad to have made you happy. It's what I want more than anything."
"But I don't need you to make me happy anymore." Gáe Bolg was thrust at the mansion and the entire structure was blown to pieces. "Now you're just in the way of my happiness."
"Scáthach." Bazett watched the ignoble end to the one location she had formed a special connection to, the place she and Scáthach met.
The Berserker let go of her spear and kicked it skyward, the polearm ascending above the clouds. Scáthach Alter then jumped so hard that the ground exploded and she reached just above her red weapon, the starry sky at her back. The draconic foot of the Blackened Servant caught the spear between its toes. The leg pulled back. This was the usage of Gáe Bolg that was spoken of in legend. The implement of impalement was covered in so much raging red energy that the space around it visibly distorted before it had even been thrown.
There was no way that Bazett could run far enough to escape the blast radius. The magus pulled out multiple rune covered rocks and threw them in different directions, the stones creating a cube shaped barrier around Bazett that could withstand most Noble Phantasms. It wouldn't be enough to stop the attack that was about to come, so Bazett began funneling all the magical energy she had gotten from the precharged rune trap and all the mana she was getting from the leyline into the barrier. Her flames went from a radiant blue-white back to a common red and in exchange the cube became a rampart that could stop all but the absolute strongest Noble Phantasms.
"Gáe Bolg Alternative!" Scáthach Alter kicked forward and released her spear, the weapon looking like a single red sparkle in the sky before it suddenly split into thousands of copies that each held the same power as the original. These were the thorns that Gáe Bolg was said to create when thrown with the toes, a briar of unfailing spikes. As soon as the first spears of the downpour made contact with the ground, myriad explosions filled the forest in a scene that resembled a carpet bombing. The woods became a deathscape that rejected life, cursed power erasing plants and animals without prejudice or regard. The barrier around Bazett struggled to keep out the destructive force that was coming from all directions but below. Small cracks formed in the cube. Bazett swallowed spit as she fed as much energy into the shield as she possibly could without causing her Magic Circuits to surge and burn out. The cracks kept growing larger and made contact with each other. An interconnected web of faults in the barrier formed. It felt like the defense would collapse at any moment. Bazett ignored how close she was to the death that was just micrometers away from her, separated by only a single barrier. She just kept on fueling the shield, her mind focused. More cracks. More. Yet more still.
The cube crumbled. Bazett's defense was gone.
A pause.
Bazett had braced herself, but found that nothing came to kill her. The explosions had ended. Gáe Bolg Alternative had completed its activation a moment before the barrier broke.
Looking around, Bazett found that the entire forest was now a wasteland full of craters from the spherical detonations. All the rune traps that had been placed around had been destroyed. That meant no more traps and no way to siphon magical energy for a power boost.
Dust was kicked up as Scáthach Alter landed. Her leg was mangled, not from falling so far, but from kicking her spear with her maximum strength. The limb quickly healed itself as Gáe Bolg Alternative flew back into the queen's hand.
"That was a nice warmup. Now to start fighting for real."
"You just used such an intensive Noble Phantasm and yet you can just jump right back into the fight?" Bazett's whole body was shaking from the strain it was under.
"With the Holy Grail as my benefactor, I could fire off Gáe Bolg Alternative over and over and I'd still have the fuel to keep fighting."
"For someone who likes a challenge, you sure seem to like giving yourself an unfair advantage." Bazett's arms felt like they were being pulled down given how hard it was to keep them raised in a boxing stance.
"You aren't my challenge. The true challenge I'm waiting for is that which will come once the World is flooded in curses. The new humanity and whatever other species rise from the mud will be the ones to provide me with the entertainment I seek." Scáthach Alter ambled over to Bazett. "You're just an ant that's standing in my path."
"You've become cr-" Bazett was interrupted by a hand wrapping around her throat.
Gáe Bolg Alternative was pointed at Bazett's chest. The magus tried to remove the hand from her neck, but she wasn't strong enough. The spear pulled back in preparation to penetrate Bazett's chest and then her heart.
It was at this point that it was clear Scáthach Alter had forgotten someone. She wasn't fighting just Bazett, but thanks to a mix of Disengage and Information Erasure, the Berserker was unable to focus on her other enemy.
A spear drove through flesh and organs.
Scáthach Alter spat up blood as a Gáe Bolg stabbed through her gut from behind. The living Scáthach had snuck up on her Blackened counterpart thanks to using Presence Concealment, Sphere Boundary(Extreme), and Espionage in tandem. The Berserker was sewn into space by Gáe Bolg Alternative, preventing her from moving.
Now that Scáthach Alter was immobilized, it was time to save her.
Bazett released herself from the Berserker's grasp and pulled a golden dagger out from inside her suit jacket. It was Erosion, or rather a projection of it created by Assassin given that the original was lost in the chaos when Assassin attacked the Pendragons as they tried to leave Fuyuki. The knife had the power to separate the Mind and Soul from the Body. In the case of a Heroic Spirit, it would separate their Saint Graph and Spirit Core from the Body. The Graph and Core could then be directed wherever Bazett wished, such as into the living Scáthach. Using runes, the two Scáthachs, given they were fundamentally almost identical, could be fused mentally and spiritually into one being with the memories and personality of both of them. This would separate the Servant Scáthach from the will of the Grail that was manipulating the Altered manifestation of the queen. Such a procedure was only possible thanks to the Servant Scáthach drawing a rune on herself right before she was dissolved by the mud of the Grail that let her preserve a portion of her own free will. It was that free will that was causing Scáthach Alter to hold back while fighting Bazett rather than kill her immediately. This free will was also necessary because when the Servant Scáthach was absorbed into the living Scáthach, some of the Grails' pollution would remain to try and reestablish a connection and corrupt them. Having not only the living Scáthach's will, but some of the Servant Scáthach's will meant they had a better chance at beating back the Grail's influence than they would otherwise. That fight would also be made easier thanks to the living Scáthach being a flesh and blood person and thus more resistant to the Grail's mud than a Spiritual Body.
Erosion was thrust towards Scáthach Alter's chest. Just a single wound was needed. Once that golden blade entered the Berserker's skin, Bazett's role would be over.
"Curruid Coinchenn!"
The bonds of sewn space that held Scáthach Alter in place were torn asunder as she gained new armor that amplified her strength to awe inspiring new levels. A beastly helmet with a red blade for a horn wrapped around the queen's head while her arms were sealed in large claws. Both arms swung, one at the living Scáthach, the other at Bazett. One hit was death. No defense could stop it.
Bazett and the living Scáthach shot flames from their feet to fly away, used Accel Turn, and hoped their Pioneer of the Stars skills would keep them alive. Normally in moments like these, everything would slow down for Bazett as if time had nearly halted. That's what happened when Scáthach Alter used Gáe Bolg Alternative. Not this time. It was all over so fast that even saying it happened in an instant didn't capture the brevity of the moment.
Two legs were soaring through the air, removed from their host. They were Bazett's. The magus couldn't tell up from down as she was blown away from the slash.
Bazett regained her bearings only to see the armored Scáthach approaching, claw already approaching again to break down the magus into her base atoms. The other Scáthach appeared behind the Berserker, having avoided the blades of Curruid.
The living Scáthach didn't try to attack the Berserker, that wouldn't stop her, so instead she threw her spear at Bazett. The weapon's point stabbed into the side of Bazett's suit and dragged her away from Scáthach Alter, the magus narrowly dodging the Alter's claws.
The two Scáthach engaged each other, the Alter on the offensive while the living queen focused all her efforts on evasion. Each dodge was by the smallest of margins, the living Scáthach only being able to delay how long it would be until she was disemboweled by her Blackened doppelganger.
Bazett and the spear carrying her landed far away from the two queens. The magus watched the battle while thinking of how she could end this fight immediately. That armor was certainly Scáthach Alter's trump card, which meant Bazett could use Fragarach to kill the Berserker. It would also bring back Bazett's legs given Fragarach would reverse time to before the armor was activated.
There was no way Bazett could do that. It would kill Scáthach, the woman the magus adored. Scáthach Alter knew that, which was why she didn't hesitate to use her armor.
Unable to help, Bazett gathered her flames into one of her palms and pressed it into each of the stumps where her legs once were. The wounds cauterized as the magus sifted through every idea that popped into her head about how to help the living Scáthach. Distract Alter with projectiles? No, Bazett was too weak to even be worth dodging the attacks of at this point. Strike the ground to shake it and throw Alter off balance? No, she wouldn't be thrown off with a little quake. Threaten to kill herself to play to whatever affection Alter still feels for Bazett and distract her? No, Alter's made it clear that she's ready to kill Bazett so she wouldn't care. Each ideation was more desperate and illogical than the last. Nothing, there was nothing Bazett could do to help. The living Scáthach was going to die and the Altered Scáthach would forever be trapped in her new accursed existence. Bazett was helpless, useless, and worthless. She just had to win this one fight, that was all the magus had to do. Hit Scáthach Alter with Erosion. That was all she needed to do and she still managed to screw up. The fire around Bazett's body fizzled out and she was left to wallow in her own incompetence. She was so weak and stupid and didn't deserve all the love and help she had received.
Stop. Bazett was relapsing. She couldn't get distracted with hating herself. Scáthach loved her, even Scáthach Alter admitted it. Bazett was considered worthy of love by the wisest woman she had ever known. Bazett was worthy. She was. After bringing happiness to Scáthach's life, the life of a woman who had suffered the horror of solitude for centuries, how could Bazett not be someone worthy of affection? To say otherwise would be to diminish the suffering of Scáthach, to say that alleviating her pain was not something praiseworthy or meaningful. There was nothing Bazett could imagine that was more important than making sure Scáthach was happy. Well, there was one thing she could think of, and that was saving Scáthach from the Grail. No more doubt. No more panic. She just needed to keep calm and show why she had earned Scáthach's love.
And just like that, Bazett had a good idea.
"Get ready to use Matrix Wodan as soon as you're free to do so." Bazett telepathically told the living Scáthach. "Aim it at teleport spot 6."
"Got it."
Bazett drew multiple runes and a fireball launched at the Berserker. It wasn't weak, but it was far from anything remarkable by the standards of a Servant. It looked like nothing more than a pathetic attempt by Bazett to try and help despite being all but completely out of commission. It was such a miserable display that Scáthach didn't bother trying to dodge or block the fireball.
The flames did nothing to Scáthach Alter when they made contact, but what did do something was the green rune hidden within the fire, its appearance and magical energy disguised by the veil of flame.
Scáthach's Alter's instinct acquired skills that should have provided the Berserker with the ability to foresee Bazett's trick, but perhaps Alter got unlucky when it came to what abilities she got that time. The other possibility was that the Berserker did realize something was amiss, but the part of her that was the old Scáthach's will forced her to ignore the deception.
The Berserker disappeared in a flash of green, teleported to the nearest teleportation seal the alliance ended up not using for their plan. The living Scáthach immediately got to work writing out eighteen Primordial Runes, the original symbols of Odin's Authority. The runes shot upward into the sky and formed a great ring. The crests began to revolve until they blurred together into a ring of white light. In the middle of that ring appeared a name written in runes. "The All-Father." It was a seal that acted as the culmination and focal point for the chief deity of the Norse, possessor of many names. A light would soon shine down, a focal point of Odin's dominion over war, magic, and death, as if the god himself had shapeshifted into an attack. This was an Anti-Fortress A-Rank Noble Phantasm-level spell, more than powerful enough to kill Scáthach Alter, and if she survived then she would have her parameters ranked down, all her buffs made null and void, and constantly active Noble Phantasms like her Curruid Coinchenn would be temporarily disabled. There was no way she would be fast enough to escape the attack radius and she couldn't defend with rune barriers since the spell the living Scáthach was using was the personification of Odin's power over the runes he created. The Curruid armor provided great strength, but not the necessary area of effect to block or clash with an Anti-Fortress tier offensive. Scathach Alter likely had access to the Gate of Skye, but that couldn't be activated fast enough to react in time. There was only one thing the Berserker could use to counter the power of Odin.
"Ochd Deug Odin!"
The All-Father's sigil became a spear so large it was more accurate to call it a pillar or column, a shaft of mana and death curses molded into the shape of Gungnir the precursor to Gáe Bolg. At the same time, a red spear ascended before splitting into myriad copies. It was Scáthach Alter's Gáe Bolg Alternative again.
Right as Bazett could see Alter's Noble Phantasm, she pointed another teleportation rune at herself and fired. A flicker of green and now Bazett was in the middle of a wooded area next to a small cliff, the magus sitting right in front of Scáthach Alter whose leg was still extended and torn up from kicking her spear skyward. She had shed Curruid Coinchenn, her armor apparently not allowing her to use Gáe Bolg Alternative when active. The queen was focused on Ochd Deug Odin and disheveled from having to hurriedly use a counter-attack, leaving unready for Bazett's sudden appearance.
The lone magic spear met the salvo of red spears, an explosion resulting that filled the area with blinding light that washed away nearly all visibility. Bazett didn't need to see, she knew she just had to stab forward. Erosion in a reverse grip, the enforcer thrust the knife for Scáthach Alter's chest. Bazett wasn't sure how close she was to her target, how long it would take to reach her, if anything had gotten in her way. She didn't falter. She let the anxieties that once held her back fall by the wayside, this time for good. The light began to fade as a storm of wind blew through. A vague shape became visible in the dying light. It was moving, approaching. Bazett saw Scáthach's chest, but she also saw Scáthach's hand.
Scáthach Alter caught Bazett's wrist before she could stab the queen's chest, the blade half an inch away from the goal. The light died away and the air stilled.
"Once again, you're a failure." The Berserker looked down at the magus who didn't even have legs to stand on.
"No I'm not." Bazett responded with pride.
Erosion began to morph. Bazett, instead of letting her mind drift to loathing at her failure, immediately remembered something she learned about Erosion when Assassin gave it to her. It had more than one form.
The dagger grew into a sword, the blade extending and penetrating Scáthach Alter's chest and coming out her back.
"You did it." Scáthach Alter said. "I-"
Bazett didn't let Scáthach Alter finish that thought, grabbing the sword with her free arm and ripping it out of the Berserker's chest. Out of the wound flowed not blood, but a light with creeping blotches of darkness within it. It was Scáthach's Saint Graph, as well as her Mind. As light tried to float away, more curses reached out of the Berserker's chest to pull back Scáthach's essence, but in teleported the living Scáthach using the same method Bazett did. She had already drawn all the runes necessary to transfer the Saint Graph into herself, the seals flying through the air and into the light. The Saint Graph and Mind were pulled away from the curses and into the living Scáthach. The spiritual shell that was the body of the Berserker dissipated into magical energy.
The living Scáthach fell backward onto the grass. Her face was a pained wince as the two Scáthachs became one while trying to combat the remaining influence of the Grail. It was all a matter of will now. Either the Scáthachs would unify into a single individual and expunge the Grail's mud for good, or the curses would corrupt them and take control.
Bazett crawled over to the downed Scáthach as the queen occasionally spasmed. There was nothing that the magus could do to help, and yet she needed to stay at her lover's side. She needed to be close to her while she was under such duress. Propped up on her hands, Bazett looked down at the pained face of her beloved, praying that she would be okay.
The Moon hung high, its light passing between the leaves of the surrounding trees. The pinhole effect created little crescents that covered Scáthach's body as she squirmed. Such a phenomenon might prove a distraction to others who were forced to wait, but Bazett barely noticed them as her attention was only on Scáthach. Every jitter of the queen's body made Bazett's heart stop for a moment. The magus kept visualizing Scáthach's body calming down and her eyes opening, the queen back to her old self. Bazett kept imagining it as if she could will such an occurrence into reality. Her perception of time dilated as she kept on imagining her desired future, her locus of control so strong that she thought even fate might bend to her singular want.
Oh how Bazett wished to see what was happening in Scáthach's head. What it was like inside the queen's Mind and Soul was an arcanum beyond Bazett's ability to solve. She just had to wait. Despite logically understanding that, it didn't ease Bazett's heart. Why was time so slow? Why was the future not guaranteed? Why wouldn't Scáthach just open her eyes already?
"Scáthach! You can do this! No amount of curses can beat you! I know it! You're the strongest person in the world! I believe in you! I love you! Wake up so we can leave this city and live together! We can live wherever you want! We can go to your home country of Scotland, or we could go to Ireland, or anywhere! I'll get a job and we can live normal lives! Peaceful lives! As long as I'm with you, nothing else matters! I don't need my legs! I don't need my arms! I don't need anything but you, so please just open your eyes! Let me hear your voice! Let me know you're okay!" Bazett was crying. She clamped her eyelids shut as her tears dripped onto Scáthach's face.
Bazett felt a gloved hand touch her cheek and she opened her eyes.
"I'm sorry I kept you waiting." Scáthach said with a smile. Her eyes were open and there wasn't a hint of the Grail's influence remaining.
"Scáthach, is it really you?" Bazett's crying intensified and it made it hard to see.
"It is. The Servant and living versions of myself successfully fused and the corruption's gone. I remember everything."
"Good." Bazett grabbed Scáthach and hugged her tight, the magus falling on top of the queen. "I missed you so much."
"I missed you too." Scáthach hugged back. They stayed like that for a moment before the queen grabbed Bazett's head and lifted it over to her own. They kissed. Bazett never felt so at peace. The relief that her beloved was back made this moment the sweetest in all her life. She could feel every vibration that passed through her and Scáthach's bodies as they were connected. It was as if they had become one, as if they were finally whole after a lifetime of being incomplete.
Their lips inevitably had to separate, but the connection between them remained unbreakable.
"I love you." Bazett said.
"I love you too." Scáthach said.
"I love you."
"I love you too." Scáthach giggled.
"I love you."
"You don't have to keep repeating it."
"Yes I do."
"Why?"
"Because saying it once isn't enough. I love you too much for just three words to get it all across."
"You're adorable when you get all sincere like this." Scáthach pet Bazett's head.
"Aren't I always sincere?"
"And that's why you're always adorable. Let me sit up." Bazett got off of Scáthach and the queen helped her sit. Scáthach looked at where Bazett's legs should have been. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For cutting off your legs, and for giving you all those cuts, and for saying so many cruel things to you." Scáthach touched the tip of her fingers to what remained of one of Bazett's legs, drawing a rune on it to help it heal. "I don't think I'll be able to grant you new legs."
"I said before I don't need my legs, and don't apologize. Everything bad you did was because of the Grail. If it weren't for the rune you drew on yourself before the mud got you, then you wouldn't have been able to hold back. I would've been slaughtered, so I should be thanking you."
"I still feel guilty." Scáthach drew a second rune on what was left of Bazett's other leg.
"Don't. You told me that I have to love myself and to stop beating myself up over everything. You should practice what you preach." Bazett grasped Scáthach's hand.
"You're such a pedant sometimes." Scáthach's smile returned and she ran her hand through her hair like she always did when she was embarrassed. "You're right I suppose. Let's leave the past where it is and focus on the present."
"That sounds like a good idea." Bazett smiled as well. "The most pressing matter right now is the Grail. I can't fight anymore for obvious reasons. Can you?"
"No. I have the same magical energy the living Scáthach did before the fusion, which wasn't much after having so much of it drained in the fight. I'm also mentally and spiritually exhausted from beating back the Grail's attempts to take me over. I could theoretically fight, but I doubt I could even handle repelling those tentacle monsters for very long while in this condition. I'd just be a liability."
"I suppose our part in this is complete then."
"I suppose."
"I'll let Kirei know we defeated you and we can't keep fighting."
"I suppose you did defeat me, but it sounds funny when you say it that way."
Bazett telepathically contacted the priest and summarized the situation.
"Understood, good work. That's three of the enemy Servants dealt with. You've done more than enough, you can both rest now. Also, congratulations on being reunited." Kirei was brisk but kind as always.
"Kirei's up to date. What should we do?"
"We should get somewhere safe in the city." Scáthach stood up and stretched her limbs before crouching down and grabbing Bazett and lifting her into a princess carry. "Let's go."
"Let's." Normally something like this would cause Bazett's skin to match her hair in redness out of embarrassment. Instead she just leaned her head on Scáthach's shoulder and enjoyed the touch of the woman she loved. Their fight was over and while the war was far from done, Bazett didn't concern herself with that. All she was thinking about was how happy she was and what her future with Scáthach would be like. "I love you, Scáthach."
"I love you too, Bazett"