SentinalSlice: Except Artoria is trying to assume her femininity... because of Shirou.
The Four Generals Demons
"Trace One!"
With a hand gesture, Emiya Shirou Traced Archer's Black Bow.
Compared to the Servant, his Tracing abilities were still limited. He could not create arrows capable of self-replicating (Projection-Injection), nor even modify a sword out of his Reality Marble to make an arrow.
But the comparison with his older version - as unfavorable as it may seem- missed the point... Shirou was still an ordinary human, made of flesh and blood, not a Heroic Spirit incarnate in a body made of prana.
If you had to compare Shirou to someone, you had to compare him to another bowman... and given the situation, it was easy. Several thousand archers fought on the battlefield of Lake Biwa. In both armies, soldiers dressed in lacquered bamboo armor and wearing conical helmets were shooting arrows one meter long with the yumi bow, this bow of more than 2.10 meters, so typically Japanese.
The projectiles were so numerous that the dense clouds that they formed obscured the sky, crossing over the confused melee that saw the levies of Ashigaru, the samurais, the Shikomes (ape-men), and the Sōheil (monk-soldiers) clashing violently.
It seemed impossible for a single bowman to change the course of a battle...
But the key word of this sentence was 'seemed'. For Shirou was no ordinary bowman.
As he held out the other hand, a first arrow was formed. He placed it effortlessly on the rope of his Black Bow and released the rope. There was like a small explosion and a veil of dust rose around Shirou as the projectile crossed the sound wall. Even before the first arrow fell, Shirou had already Traced a second...
His Strengthened muscles gave him incredible power. The first arrow fell at the other end of the battlefield and pierced the shoulder of a captain who assembled the Buntokapi's cavalry to restart the attack. Snatched from his horse, the officer rolled into the dust. However, despite the shock, the man was alive. It wasn't a fluke, because Shirou's shots were as accurate as they were powerful. The former Master had voluntarily spared the man.
The second shot hit a banner-bearer who urged the soldiers around him to fight without backing away.
The third shot hit a military music player who was preparing to order a reserve unit to advance towards the Tennō army.
A fourth shot hit a courier on horseback who would communicate a withdrawal order to a unit that was too exposed.
An army was a gigantic organism, finally very fragile. To function properly, orders had to go down a hierarchical ladder from the general to the simple soldier, while the reports that allowed the general to get an idea of the situation had to go up that same hierarchical chain. And Shirou's arrows struck precisely at the joints of this powerful body, targeting those who gave or transmitted orders.
Chaos spread to the enemy ranks as Shirou's arrows continued to rain. Not a single shot missed its target, striking high-ranking officers or banner-bearers from one end of the battlefield to the other. But he did not cause any death... which was worse in a way. For the soldiers rushed to drag their wounded leaders aside, desperately calling for healers... While the death of their leaders could have strengthened their fighting ardor, these multiple dereliction of duty further weakened Buntokapi's army. Without orders, an army was nothing more than a gathering of men plagued by confusion. As Socrates said: "A crowd is no more an army, than a pile of building materials is a house."
Yes, a single bowman could change the course of a battle...
—if he was a monster like Emiya Shirou.
To the right of the battlefield, the Buntokapi cavalry had been shaken by a counter-attack by the Tennō army. Caught between the infantry and the loyalist cavalry, the rebel troops were in a delicate situation. However, the arrival of a monstrous demon with the appearance of a praying mantis had reversed the tide of the battle.
High as a five-story building, the abomination was incredibly nimble and responsible. The two chitinous swords that replaced the monster's hands slashed the horsemen around, as it ran, striding five meters to catch the frightened humans and slice them in half.
Suddenly, as it was about to strike another opponent, its attack was repelled by a fighter who had just jumped in order to come between the demon and its designated victim.
The demon covered with blood uttered an interrogative cry "Kriiiiiii?!" while slamming its mandibles with anger. Its black and inexpressive eyes turned to its opponent...
She was a little woman with blond hair gathered in a braid wrapped around her neck. She wore a blue gown clutched with gold, under white armor decorated with a vegetal motif on the breastplate. She seemed unarmed but the air swirled along an invisible object she held in her hand.
Her eyes reduced to two thin slits, Saber looked around her... horses, men cut into pieces... pools of blood. The anger overwhelmed her.
Firmly brandishing the Sword of the Wind King, she challenged the demon:
"I have already met beings like thou. Thou who spread the smell of sulfur around, O spawn of the endless pits of hell... As the victor of thou brothers, I stand before thou. The demons I have vanquished have disappeared forever. Come if thou dare or obey thou very nature, thou who tyrannize the weak, and who crawl at the feet of the mighty one, go back into the infernal limbo that has begotten thou!"
"Kriiii!"
The demon's vocabulary was limited, but this did not prevent its anger from being understood by all. A chitinous sword fell at the place where the female knight had stood, lifting up a large piece of earth to send it to the sky.
The Servant of the Sword leaped, escaping the attack.
Around the demon and the King of Knights, the fighting had stopped. The mouth wide open, samurai, and foot soldiers of the two sides had forgotten their hostility to watch the clash with amazement.
Saber did not stand still for a single moment, twirling around the immense monster, striking, dodging, leaping back, going forward, and jumping to hit the head or the top of the bust, running around the monster legs...
In spite of its power and speed, the mantis could not touch the Heroic Spirit. Its attacks severed fuzzy afterimages while Saber had already jumped away and counterattacked.
The Sword of the Wind King was invisible, but in its path, the air was charged with bluish prana. Each time the sword of wind touched the demon, the evil energy that animated it and the prana exuded by the Noble Phantasm came into conflict, creating flurries of sparks and light explosions.
Each time, the demon cried out of pain and retreated while his chitin armor was split by a new slash from which flowed greenish pus.
Saber clearly dominated the confrontation. Except that... the monster suffered only superficial scratches. The sword of the Servant hardly pierced the thick armor of the horrible demonic mantis. And the scratches caused by the Sword of the Wind King closed in seconds. The monster was self-healing!
The fight could go on forever.
And this was not good news, because on the other side of the battlefield a demon with the appearance of a bronze statue was making carnage among the soldiers of the Tennō. Although the arrival of Saber had prevented the praying mantis from continuing its ravages and avoided the defeat of the loyalists, the battle remained undecided and murderous.
Saber jumped back and dissipated the air scabbard that surrounded Excalibur. The steel blade and the crescent-shaped guard appeared in a whirlwind of air. She concentrated, but...
Suddenly a whirlwind of violet energy appeared a few meters away. A strange character emerged, dressed as a samurai he rode a giant toad. He attacked the very moment he appeared, casting a spell which took the form of an irregular net formed of knotwork of sticky matter.
Saber's reflexes and her fighting instinct allowed her to dodge the Magic Net.
Saber had an innate sense of tactics. Her instinct always dictated the best approach in any fight.
She was up against three opponents.
The demon Mantis was fast, powerful, and very resistant.
The samurai-like demon was a Magus using True Magic. The demon toad he used as his mount was quick and agile, he attacked with a tongue capable of enveloping an enemy in a flash, even at a distance of ten meters, and swallowing it in an instant.
Individually, none of them were able to defeat her.
Unfortunately, they used to fight together and their cooperation made them particularly dangerous.
First, she had to eliminate the spell caster. It was both the most dangerous adversary and the least able to fight her in close combat, and therefore the one that she could win the fastest.
Avoiding several attacks from the demon Mantis, Saber jumped back to avoid the toad's tongue. The demon samurai reached out and cast a spell. Confident in his protection against magic, Artoria did not make an effort to dodge this third attack. Indeed, the fire projectile disappeared by striking a spherical force field that had materialized around the female knight.
She took advantage of the stupefaction of her enemy to rush on him.
Her acceleration was breathtaking. Nevertheless, the croaking demon frog managed to jump to the shelter.
Saber pursued the monster, but at that moment the demon samurai murmured an incantation.
An explosion temporarily blinded Saber and caused her to lose her hearing. It was not an attack spell, but a means of disorienting an adversary... and even a Servant was vulnerable when suffering a sudden sensory deprivation.
For the first time since the beginning of the fight, the mantis attacks connected.
The force of the blow projected Saber at a distance of about ten meters, she bounced three times before hitting a tree that broke under the impact.
Saber straightened herself by leaning on his sword stuck in the ground. Her face was a mask of icy anger. Blood flowed from her hair, covering her forehead and part of her cheek.
Suddenly, her gaze widened with incomprehension, while around her the grass disappeared to be replaced by something that resembled a large puddle of crude oil.
Instinctively, Artoria wanted to remove the hand she had placed on the ground, but she was completely stuck! Her palm lifted only a few centimeters, held on the ground by tentacles of sticky matter. Despite her superhuman strength, Saber was stuck in the right knee, left hand, left foot, and Excalibur's point pressed into the ground.
The Demon Mantis rushed towards her with its two swords raised, ready to cut her into pieces!
But Saber wasn't fighting alone...
The praying mantis staggered, screaming in pain as two arrows made of translucent prana pierced its eyes and dozens of other projectiles sprang up to its flank and chest.
Shirou was already sending another salvo to the demon samurai.
Unfortunately, his ridiculous mount jumped from a distance and the arrows crashed into the ground without being able to hit their target.
Concentrated, Emiya Shirou reacts only with a brief pout of dissatisfaction. Already, he aimed for the place where the toad had fallen back, sending evens more arrows. This time again, he could not hit it, the toad demon must've had excellent reflexes or a supernatural sense of danger. Nevertheless, the main thing was to keep the mount and its rider busy, so that Saber could take care of the giant praying mantis.
Saber did not waste the opportunity provided by Shirou.
She concentrated. Her Magic Resistance was an innate skill, which triggered automatically, protecting her from attack. The problem was that the spell that held her (Carpet of Adhesion) inflicted no damage and had not been recognized as aggression. However, by circulating faster the mana produced by her Dragon Core, Saber could increase her natural resistance to magic.
There was a sort of explosion of light and electric shocks enveloped Artoria Pendragon.
The next moment, she was leaping forward.
The demon mantis was able to regenerate its wounds. Of course, it had lost its sight because of Shirou's strike, but it would not last very long.
As its wounds closed, Artoria planted Excalibur in its chest. The monster staggered for a brief moment and then screamed as it attacked the teen-like knight with its twin chitinous swords.
Artoria replied with a long cry, forcing her sword deeper into the wound. A golden aura manifested itself around her... luminous... dazzling...
The instant after a beam of light rivaling the sun came out of the devil's back, leaping towards the sky he forced all those who were watching to close their eyes and turn away.
Artoria was panting, and her hands were shaking slightly.
Although she now has Rin for Master, an activation of her Noble Phantasm, even limited, remained exhausting.
By reflex, she had jumped back, expecting the demon to collapse, after all, Saber had just given it a mortal blow. Or rather a supposed mortal blow because... the monster was still standing in spite of the streams of foul pus flowing from its wound (a hole as high as a man) opened in its chest.
Obviously, this demon was resistant... very resistant, even.
Was she to activate her Noble Phantasm a second time... at full power?
Before Saber could make a decision, a whirlwind of violet energy enveloped the mantis. An instant later, it had disappeared.
The corner of Saber's mouth tightened as her eyes narrowed in anger, this coward had fled!
Hearing the sounds of explosions coming from the other side of the battlefield, she shook her head. There were three other major demons left and they were slaughtering brave soldiers. It was not the time to rest.
Moreover, something told her that she would meet again the praying mantis on her way.
Although Saber's intervention reversed the course of the battle on the right-wing, the situation continued to deteriorate on the left-wing.
Indeed, the mounted archers of the Tennō army had been decimated by an even more terrifying monster than the praying mantis.
Though smaller, its appearance was that of a bronze statue tall like two men. Standing on goat paws, the bronze statue had the muscular torso of an athlete. The head was human and bearded, clad. But the eyes were nothing but empty sockets, filled with terrifying golden energy.
As it was running into the ranks of the loyalist infantry, fire literally came out of its eyes. Golden fireballs exploded among the defenders, leaving burnt bodies in the middle of smoking craters.
The archers kept shooting at the demon, but their projectiles ricocheted, unable to pierce its bronze skin.
As for the samurai brave enough - or desperate enough- to risk themselves hand-to-hand, it crushed them with a flick.
In its wake thousands of Shikomes advanced. Usually, the ape-men were not particularly courageous. But, guided by a leader as powerful as he was invincible, they rushed savagely forward, cutting to pieces the legalistic soldiers, already shaken by the assault of the bronze colossus.
In fact, the army of the Tennō had almost reached the point where panic would cause the widespread flight of all soldiers. Faced with an invincible enemy, it was suicidal to continue the fight. Already, the resistance of the defenders collapsed as the first men dropped their weapons to start running.
Shirou had of course noted the presence of the bronze demon and shot arrow after arrow at the colossus... however, neither the number nor the accuracy of the shots caused any damage.
The monster seemed as tough as Berserker.
Running across the battlefield, Saber dodged from a good group of soldiers who were facing Shikomes to land ten meters away... just in front of the bronze colossus.
Artoria Pendragon did not stand still for a single moment, she was already leaping. Waltzing with her sword, her skirts swirling around her, she struck the monster's leg... and dodged its fist by jumping back.
As the demon turned around with a heavy tread to face this new adversary, Saber resumed the same game she had just practiced with the praying mantis. Jumping around the enemy, in front of it at a moment, passing behind, then left, and then right. Never motionless, she harassed the animated statue.
In her hands, Excalibur radiated golden light. The Noble Phantasm painlessly inflicted deep wounds... although the bronze statue neither bleeds nor feels pain.
The fight was largely in her favor. Although this demon was far more dangerous than the praying mantis, its wounds did not regenerate and it was much slower.
Nevertheless, just then, the demon samurai reappeared on the battlefield. Still, on the back of his toad mount, he teleported himself behind Saber.
The demon-toad opened its mouth to capture Artoria... but croaked with pain as an arrow made of prana pierced its tongue...
Shirou was already sending another volley of arrows, which forced the giant amphibian to leap away from Artoria.
Confident in the vigilance of her partner, Saber had continued to fight the bronze demon without worrying about the reappearance of the demon-toad. Stopping for a moment next to the immense animated statue, she violently struck a cut in the left leg. Throughout the fight, the female knight had focused on this notch, enlarging it conscientiously. All her other attacks were mere diversions.
And the limb was detached, cleanly cut by the last attack.
As the bronze demon collapsed, Artoria leaped back holding Excalibur in front of her. She observed the enemy with caution, having learned from experience that it was unwise to run into an adversary who seemed defeated. After all, luring an enemy with apparent weakness was a classic maneuver... moreover, attacking an enemy on the ground was not conduct worthy of a Knight of the Round.
But the bronze demon didn't move.
In fact, the golden flames had disappeared in its eyes sockets.
While Saber was still hesitating about what to do, the demon-toad reappeared.
On its back, the samurai demon bent down to touch the bronze giant, and... a whirlwind of violet energy enveloped the three of them. The next minute, they were gone... leaving only the leg cut by Excalibur as a souvenir.
The defeat of the bronze colossus had decided the course of the battle.
On the right-wing, the cavalry of Lord Buntokapi was already in disarray and the artillery of General Ashitaka was now concentrating on the center of the rebel formation. Attacked from the front and flank, the infantry formations collapsed completely.
As the assault on the left-wing had slowed down after the general demons fled, the loyalist infantry stopped backing away. All of a sudden, the dynamics of the fight had changed. It was the Shikomes' turn to be in trouble. As Saber led the counter-attack, panic spread among the ranks of the ape-men. The sword of the female knight cut lives by the dozens, breaking the most determined attacks, sowing terror...
And then the Buntokapi's army eventually broke... all the survivors began running for their lives.
There were groups of isolated enemies here and there who resisted and the battle continued almost an hour before these resistance pockets were cleaned.
But, for the most part, the remainder of the confrontation was limited to pursuing the troops in disarray.
Deprived of orders - their leaders being wounded, dead, or fleeing - many soldiers surrendered. This was exceptional. Japanese warriors were known to fight to the death. It must be said that many soldiers of the army of Lord Buntokapi had doubts. Fighting alongside onis and demons against the Tennō? The idea had indeed something to disturb them. Since their childhood, they were told that the Tennō was the son of the gods. Even the disappearance of the sacred treasure could not so easily erase an entire life of conditioning.
Three hundred kilometers further north, Tohsaka Rin and Archer had just entered the country of the onis, heading towards Oniraku, the citadel of Ikaru Ō.
In fact, the duo was moving forward painfully. The first obstacle they had to overcome was their ignorance of the geography of this region of Japan. Of course, Rin took the precaution of taking maps of the area they were going to cross. After all, to get to your destination, you just had to follow the main roads... except that in the last five hundred years a lot had happened.
At the end of the twenty-first century, asphalt had been replaced by a non-polluting and unalterable material for road construction. In spite of the passage of the centuries, this covering had largely survived even though it had cracked and had been raised by the roots of the trees that had grown on the aisles. Metal slides and roads signs were lying on the ground. There was almost nothing left of the rest areas and motorway tolls, but the works of the landscaping of the territory: hills' leveling, surviving tunnels, ruins of bridges were visible from afar.
However, the opening of the Rifts had not been an ordinary catastrophe. Whole portions of Japan had been sent to other dimensions, replaced by alien landscapes...
After two days following an old highway half-erased by the vegetation, Rin and EMIYA found themselves facing a real natural wall, a cliff that stretched from horizon to horizon. Either the earthquakes that had shaken Japan four hundred years earlier had lifted the ground... or it was a fragment of another world that had replaced this part of the ground.
Anyway, Archer carefully studied the cliff wall. It was practically a smooth wall, almost without grip. He could have climbed it, he was a Servant after all. But with Rin in his arms, it could be dangerous. A fall of the equivalent of a forty-story building was deadly even for a Magus.
He argued to get around the obstacle even if it meant wasting time. On reflection, Rin agreed. She hadn't spent the entire Grail War yelling at Shirou because of the unnecessary risks he took to do the same thing now.
They followed the natural wall eastward for a day. Then, finally, Archer discovered a river that had made its way through the obstacle. Of course, the river in question did not appear on any map, but they followed its bank to the northeast.
Towards evening, they discovered the rest of a bridge collapsed in the course of the river.
The loose stones of what had been the deck of the bridge formed a kind of dam surrounded by frothy water. At this place the river was shallow and waves testified to the presence of stone that was outcropping.
After a brief discussion, Rin and Archer agreed that this was the right place to cross the river as it grew from its tributaries as one drew closer to the sea.
As Archer first engaged himself, two creatures came out of the water. They looked like monkeys, but their skin was green and scaly. Their head was curiously flared and flat, forming a kind of funnel filled with water. As for their hands, they were finished by real claws.
"Kappas" murmured Archer.
"Dangerous?"
"Not for a Servant," he replied with an arrogant smirk. "Nevertheless, they are territorial and aggressive."
Tohsaka watched the two creatures for a moment. They showed teeth and made threatening gestures, yet they had not yet attacked. In fact, they were trying to intimidate them.
"Rin?"
"No need to risk a fight."
Archer nodded. They retreated without a sudden gesture and returned to the bank.
"What about now?"
Rin shrugged her shoulders.
"We go along the river."