Realm's Armory
(A while before Rider and Shinji reach the Emiya house)
(Shirou)
His Servant's last preparations were quite inscrutable to him. Sasaku started off by singing a line of something in a language he didn't recognize, then waved her hand, and then said something in Japanese before waving her hand again. She did this several more times, and it was only after a while that he heard something which clued him in.
"Realm's Armory: Volley" At the end of this she snapped her fingers instead of the hand motion, then paused.
Ah, it's a type of chant used in magecraft rituals he thought to himself, remembering that she had actually used some sort of chant in their earlier 'fight' against Rider, when using her ((Thousand Layered Shields)) spell.
Listening a bit more carefully the second time around, he made out the song thanks to her own translation:
The day my people joined hands to labor together,
Such means multiplied the fruits of their efforts.
The kept secrets were divided up among them,
Fragments of knowledge were their inheritance.
The skill of one craftman became the wealth of many.
The earth, the forest, the mountain, the sea, the sun,
All such brought forth their plenty, to feed my people.
Burning fire, heated forge, sturdy anvil, crashing hammer,
Forge among us for us the greatest of Realms.
Realm's Armory: Volley
Although it sounded more like a song for working in the farm or forge, the last line made it clear that it was part of an attack. Just the sound of it and what he had seen before suggested something along the lines of throwing a lot of her spears. Well, it had come up before.
"Sasaku," her Master asked after listening for a while. "Can I learn that chant from you?"
"It won't do anything for you," she replied after a while, "As it isn't asking the world to do something, or aligning oneself to perform a mystery by magecraft. It's actually informing the World that I am about to use items from my Armory. You can't access it, so there's literally no point, unless you like singing. It isn't a good song though."
"Can't you already do that though? I saw you throwing spears at Rider." Though Sasaku nodded her head, she also frowned at the memory.
"This is an attempt to stack as many modifiers or adjust as many tradeoffs as possible to make it useful. The biggest problem is the minimum range, which is unfortunately large for speeds useful at attacking Servants." She thought for a moment before ticking off the points on her slim fingers.
"By making use of the properties of the Realm (one), using this to make it easier for the World to recognize what I've brought out (two), and in fact burning magical energy in order to hasten the process (three), I should be able to get around this problem. Also of course... a cheap shot (four)."
"No chance of negotiations, huh?"
"Who ever comes, whenever they come, will either be Kuro or Rider. I am definitely not letting Kuro step anywhere close to me, and as for Rider, well they already attacked us first."
Shirou thought for a moment before shrugging. "War's war, I guess. You're sure this will work?"
"The people who've seen me before won't expect the differences, so I should hope so."
"We can't just stay here under siege," he commented.
"Very much so," Sasaku agreed cheerfully. "But right now we have the home advantage and potentially surprise they or anyone else watching thinks we're low-hanging fruit-" She stopped abruptly.
"Ok, get back to my room," she said. "Seems like our visitors are Rider and..."
"Is it her Master?" They hadn't seen who it was during the earlier battle, but as Sasaku said, the Bounded Field around the house was at once not particularly obvious but also stood out to anyone searching for unusual magecraft that might be expected of a Caster Servant.
Or able to follow the trail of magical energy left behind.
"Yes," she replied hesitantly a moment later. "Probably. Now move before they get closer."
(Sasaku)
She had stopped short of mentioning that the Master was Matou Shinji. Better to pretend that I didn't know. After all, while extending the Realm somewhat did allow for finer detection, it was silly to forget that one could also simply scry on themselves, which was what she had been doing the whole time.
Pressing her back against the wall of the kitchen, she first double-checked that Shirou was safely out of the line of fire, back in her room.
Earlier, she had roughly gauged the distance by checking how long it took sound to travel down the corridor and return to her - less than a second for the round trip. With the house's structure fully analysed earlier, matching projectile trajectories to what she could scry on the exterior was not a problem.
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Armory Pre-loading Section:
First: 25 Soliferrum, square pattern
Second: 49 Soliferrum, square pattern
Third: 49 Soliferrum, square pattern
Fourth: 49 Soliferrum, square pattern
Fifth: 49 Soliferrum, square pattern
Sixth: 49 Dory, square pattern
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Hmm... Rider seems to be expecting a surprise attack.
The last volley was there in order to shoot the human Master, though if possible taking a magus alive would be... handy. Though, if Rider managed to avoid or worse yet absorb five volleys, that might be the only way out.
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Missile speed, one-hundred-ten percent the speed of sound.
Aim point, just a little in front of Rider's center of mass. Angle of attack set.
Rider glanced over her shoulder at Shinji. Neither of them knew it, but as the latter was standing behind and to the side, he was actually in line behind Rider from where Sasaku was standing.
It's a pity but that's how things shake out. Well, if they've taken Rin prisoner she'd probably be even better. A nice thought. The Servant reached out towards the doorbell.
((Realm's Armory: Volley)) Sasaku snapped her fingers.
The sound from her fingers was outpaced by the blurred green shimmers that shot forth. A short distance before they would have passed through the front door and wall of the house they resolved into iron spears that instead smashed through the structure.
As far as Sasaku knew, once she began the attack, the information of "magical energy has been used" should reach Rider at around the speed of light. Rider had indeed started to move, but not as fast as Sasaku had expected. As a result, instead of having her whole upper body taken apart by the spears and shrapnel, only the left part was hit instead.
Maybe she realized it was a purely physical attack, as Rider immediately entered spirit form, making further attacks of the sort pointless. Stepping out of the blown-apart front of the Emiya house, Sasaku noticed two things immediately. First, the sprawled out, and handless, Matou Shinji was definitely not a magus. Second, there was something utilizing magical energy as he shouted for Rider to help him.
Not on my watch!
With the speed available to even a low Agility Servant, she made it over to him in the blink of an eye, thrusting her sword-point into the small object that his left hand was awkwardly reaching into his right pocket for. There was a flash as magical energy was released upon the item's destruction, followed by flames racing down blade to burn what was left.
(Shinji)
Flinching, Shinji rolled away, but at his face came up again, he saw Sasaku calmly following him with her weapon raised up again. It was obvious to both of them that she was going to thrust it downwards into his body.
Normally the sight of a tattered and bloody woman holding a long and equally bloody dagger was the sort of thing someone saw right before they died in a serial killer horror movie. But to Shinji, the form of Rider appearing behind Sasaku, as her weapon's point elegantly descended upon, and buried itself into, the other Servant's neck was like meeting one's own goddess of salvation.
Sasaku turned around, the motion itself wrenching the weapon's wet handle from Rider's hands. As her attacker came into sight though, so did her eyes. Medusa's uncovered Mystic Eyes of Petrification, ((Cybele)).
With the Grail's energy holding her together, Rider had staked it all on this one form of attack. Even though a Caster would likely have a high enough rank in Mana to avoid the worst of the Cybele's effects, Rider was fortunate in that Sasaku didn't have as much Mana as a typical Caster. As a result, while avoiding the full petrification, she was nevertheless immediately knocked out as the effects disrupted her brain's ability to function.
It was much like the joke about the 'Potion of Anti-Petrification.' Sasaku's skill which allowed her to remove such effects was not usable if she was unconscious or otherwise unable to perform the act of will to activate it.
Gripping his right arm, and trying to not give into the pain coming from what was left of the missing hand, Shinji nevertheless could taste victory as Shirou's dismayed shout came from the direction of the ruined house.
(Rider)
"Sasaku, stop her!" came the voice of Caster's Master from somewhere behind the two of them. Medusa's mind was on other matters as she greedily stooped over to drink from the fountain of Sasaku's prana-rich blood. Fortunately the girl's blood had not turned to stone or otherwise hardened...
Wait.
The boy hadn't actually said Sasaku but... There was another set of steps, that was approaching much faster than the speaker's!
Medusa jerked around, her good right arm holding Sasaku in front of her and in between the advancing figure as a human shield. Servant shield, rather.
When she saw the long blade held by the appearing Servant, Rider could only groan, her and Sasaku's blood dripping from her painfully cut lips. Don't tell me Emiya was actually playing off another ally and Tohsaka?
Taking out a fresh dagger, she brought it up to her now-hostage's neck before pausing. Ally or not, that Servant could simply run us both through.
Medusa decided to run for it.
Whoever the other's Master was, there was still a chance that Emiya might interfere. According to Sakura, he was rather soft-hearted. Shinji's Command Spell had been to help him, and she had. Since his ((Book of False Attendant)) was destroyed, something which actually she had hoped would happen, there was nothing to keep her from running back to the Matou house as soon as possible.
At least each bit of time allowed her to absorb more prana from the blood she had taken in.
"Sakura, the plan failed. I'm returning now."
(Shinji)
Rider's ex-Master watched as the Servant ran for it with her captive. The swordsman took after her, but Shirou quickly shouted, "Don't chase her. We don't know if Kuro is around."
The War sure has turned into a free-for-all he thought dully as, for the third time that night, he found himself looking down sharp steel.
"Grab him and let's get back inside," Shirou ordered the new Servant while following his own words and jogging back inside. "He might know something useful. And I can give first aid..."
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(A short distance away)
Kuro was glad that she had followed her instinct. While she had noticed Sasaku and Shirou's sudden departure, causing what was left of the former's defensive spell to simply disappear, she didn't really blame them for retreating.
In fact, had Rin been able to, she might have done the same, seeing that Rider didn't smash though Rho Aias only because she decided to save on the mana cost and switch to hand-to-hand.
There wasn't any solid evidence, but... when they had showed up in the morning, she noticed that nothing of what was laid out had been cooked by Shirou. He was understandably upset, of course, but what really got her was Sasaku's usual obedient and subdued self.
It was like she didn't care. No one just wouldn't care.
And her gut had been proved right, if she had walked up to ask for help tracking down Rin, doubtless she would be the one who got taken apart by that attack. And probably even if she approached by some other angle.
When she saw Rider take down Sasaku, for a moment it looked like a clean mutual kill. There was a chance, until that swordsman appeared on the field. Rider ran for it and the new Servant began to give chase.
"We don't know if Kuro is around," is what Shirou had said while stopping him.
They were expecting her.
After some thought, she realized that if Rider's Master was Shinji, that meant Rider was probably retreating to the Matou household. As things stood, Rider was definitely in a worse state than she was, so perhaps there was no need to get aid in order to break Rin free.
Kuro began to make for home. It was time to ransack Rin's stash of gems for a little extra mana.
She'll understand.
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Notes:
Now this is just getting messy.
Sasaku's mana level would probably work out to a rank somewhere between C and B. If she was at full capacity then she might have had enough resistance such that she could use ((Higher Law)) to remove the petrification before it built up to excessive levels. However, due to earlier mana use she couldn't, so between that, being quite close and taking the full brunt of it, and taken by surprise, mean that while Rider was also in a pretty bad state, ((Cybele)) was stronger.
Apparently for Medusa to use her eyes does require quite a lot of mana expenditure, so not something as efficient as say ((Gae Bolg)) or Sasaku's spear throwing.