Circling the Wagons
"Unfortunately I am not familiar with either the Contender or Calico," Caster was frowning, deep in thought as Shirou and his group returned home.
"What's that about? Cats?" asked Medusa with some interest.
"Sadly no, firearms." Illya replied, looking up as Kuro, last in, closed the door behind them.
The Archer caught on immediately. "Nine millimeter, automatic, roller-delayed blowback. High-capacity helical magazines. One of Father's favorites."
"Helical? Really, didn't humans mostly give up on that design by now?" Sasaku looked up as Kuro placed something in front of her. "Huh?"
"Calico." The weapon wasn't the main thing on her mind though. "I checked the distances you wanted, there's no problem."
The Caster touched a finger to the weapon momentarily before picking it up. "Do Archers magically get to ignore wind effects even for indirect fire?"
"Do you know how much films have told modern people you can practically snipe with indirect arrow trajectories? I think I can hit a church."
"Well, it is larger than a barn," Rin quipped, prompting a chuckle from Saber. She had been sitting next to Sasaku, with him opposite her. Illya was across from the Caster.
"Can you explain what is going on?" Shirou looked warily at the Servant handling the gun. Though it was clearly a Projection, that made it, if anything, more dangerous than one of mundane manufacture.
"It's unloaded," she reassured him. "With respect to your questions to Saber, I was wondering if any of the homunculi happened to know the use of modern weaponry. However, Einzbern training curricula don't seem to include it."
"That's because they have ones more powerful than most magi," Rin explained. "Not saying that your idea was bad, just understand that most families, especially older ones, don't feel a need for alternatives to magecraft."
"And yet Father's personal killcount of magecraft-users with bullets and explosives is probably some sort of record," Illya shrugged before glancing at Kuro. "Well yours would have been even higher since there was no Fourth Grail War and he continued, er, working."
"Yes. Though I don't understand; bullets can't harm Heroic Spirits."
Putting down some of the groceries that she had picked up on the way back, Sakura turned back to join everyone at the table. "Right, but after those 'upgrades' to her spears, I'm guessing that bullets made by a Caster and then improved with Reinforcement and appropriate runes would. But you're thinking more of combating human magi."
"Good guess. Runes of banishing, or perhaps to pierce magecrafts, I don't know what exactly Father used though. Kuro, do you know?"
"Sorry, no."
After dinner, the group returned to preparations for the next day's (likely) battle, turning their attentions to a rough map of the Emiya estate.
Sasaku drew a fingertip down the corridor joining the courtyard to the living room area, which had various bedrooms and store rooms coming off it. "With the walls Reinforced, these two main chokepoints remain," she explained, pointing out first the rather weak courtyard access door. "Saber will be best in this open area, while this end of the corridor should be perfect for Rider."
"And Kuro on top?" Rider asked. "If we're even that means someone could be ganged up on by three enemies."
"While the walls will prevent even Spirit Form-ing through she can just teleport. The enemies will at best be able to gang up on one of the two of you, at which point the other and Kuro will go around or above and get them in rear."
"That's still three-on-three." Saber pointed out reasonably enough. "It isn't as though Servants, of all people, would suffer from shock or awe at being flanked.
"Kuro has exploding sword-arrows, and can get them in the back. But if they've indeed been lured into this Realm, then you'll also be fighting with whatever strengthening magecrafts I can give you."
"It's party buffs, isn't it?" Kuro bounced excitedly. "You need to buff up everyone before tackling the raid dungeon."
"Um. Yes." Rin couldn't help but grin at the rather weak reply that Kuro recieved.
"In any case, leaving aside the bedrooms next to the kitchen (Shirou's) and living room, as well as those storage rooms facing the courtyard, and those facing towards the church leaves my room and the one next to it. The Masters, except Illya, and I will be in the first, and she with her eight maids will be in the second one as our reserves.
"I like how no one seems to mind that my home is going to get wrecked," Shirou half-objected, more to lay it out than anything else. "It's your idea, I am going to make you repair it, Caster."
"If that comes to pass I will consider it a delightful task," she replied soberly. He simply nodded.
"Yes, it seems this World loves its special cases," Sasaku nodded to Illya while passing a sealed letter to Sakura as the latter got up to follow Shirou, who was apparently turning in early since the maids were already on the cleanup.
"A lot comes down to knowing which ones apply and how to gain an advantage. But we're not really doing that here," her current Master said.
"Enough of all that speculating, shouldn't you get some practice while we can?" Seeing an opportunity, Kuro jumped in.
"Hmm... I suppose so," Caster accepted the large sword that Kuro held out for her. "Thanks, I should at least be able to take on another Caster with this."
Saber shrugged as the three servants (and Illya, and Rin) went out to the courtyard. "I'd say your chances are probably rather good, since you actually know how to use that. Unless said Caster is someone like, who was that again?"
"Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus?" Kuro replied. "It would be bad to meet someone like him, though if they were summoned I think Kojirou would probably be their opponent."
"Leysritt, Sella, come along, would you? And take your halberd."
"Aww, I wanted to have a go," Kuro pouted.
"Let's not pretend that she'd have a chance at anything besides being played around with by you," Rin poked Kuro's shoulder.
"Oh, she's not that terrible," Kojirou corrected her. "Just really outclassed stats-wise by Knight classes."
"That's basically saying the same thing." Standing in the middle of the courtyard, Sasaku raised the sword, taking a point-down stance with both hands above her head, experimentally making a few cuts with a little footwork. "Actually Kuro, the balance on this is about perfect. I knew you could pull it off."
"Hoh, well I didn't want to blow my own horn too much," she grinned.
"Right. You two attack her at the same time," Illya directed the pair who were standing side-by-side facing her Servant. With the barest of nods each in acknowledgment, they sprang into action.
Lunging forward directly, Leysritt thrust the point of her halberd forward, but it was caught by a defensive cut from Sasaku's weapon. The homunculus immediately reversed course, bringing her weapon back and shortening the grip as her opponent tried, and failed, to close in past the point.
"Hmph!" Switching to a sweeping motion, the halberd was aimed towards the weak of the defending sword, in order to either catch it in the complex head or perhaps sweep it aside to create an opening for a punishing reverse cut.
Ducking while otherwise maintaining the same high-handed posture, Sasaku rotated her weapon, lowering the grip end while the point came up, leaving the whole thing momentarily parallel to the ground as she thrust toward, aiming to snipe Leysritt's forward hand.
Rotating her halberd about its shaft, the homunculus caught the advancing point with the moving flat of her axe blade, deflecting it enough to allow a quick withdrawal, hands untouched.
At this point, Sella who had simply been moving around to Sasaku's flank began shooting several Gandr in order to provide some cover, and forestall another closing action by the Servant. However, the magical bullets simply ran into a number of daggers which appeared, were struck, absorbed or deflected the magical energy, and then disappeared.
The two attackers made brief eye contact before pressing forward. Deciding to concentrate on a single, more powerful spell, Sella tried to reposition outside of Sasaku's line of sight. In order to get the full use of her weapon's range, Leysritt moved both her hands towards the end, more like one of Lu Bu's stances that he used to set up for wide sweeps, though in this case she wanted to also use the polearm's unbalanced weight distribution as a second advantage.
Given that her opponent was shorter than her and had just previously ducked to further exploit this difference in height, she opted for a roughly waist level sweeping cut, this time using her waist for greater power in the cross.
Seeing the attack coming, Sasaku changed to an awkward single-handed grip, freeing her left hand as the weapon curved in towards her. Pulling a spear out from the Armory into her hand, she drove the point into the ground such that the shaft caught the incoming blow. The weapon, however, was unable to withstand the impact and was neatly sliced through, much to the surprise of the onlookers.
Leysritt's halberd caught its target in a perfect bind, taking the sword along on its journey. At this moment, Sella shot a concentrated fireball at Sasaku, who had just been disarmed. Like before, several daggers interposed themselves, but the flames were not a solid object, and simply passed through and around them.
A sudden blast of wind blew out from where Caster stood in Sella's direction sending the gathered flames scattering into a large shower that seemed to explode for no reason, sending blinding sparks and smoke out in every direction. The homunculus raised a hand, sending a jet of flame right towards the last location of her target, but stumbled and fell as Sasaku, coming in low with a slide-kick, took her off her feet.
Before she could rise, a long shimmering green dagger was pressed against her throat. "You're out."
Rolling off her fallen opponent, Sasaku blew more sparks in Leysritt's direction while returning to her fallen weapon now that the halberd-wielder had rushed over to her friend. The sword simply jumped up as though possessed, as its owner took hold of it in the same point-down stance as before.
"Aah," Rin commented at this point. "She was actually waiting for Sella to circle her, since that meant the two of them couldn't support one another as easily."
"I apologize," Sella said, joining the observers. "It seems she has much better peripheral awareness than expected."
Kuro shook her head. "She actually has extra-sensory perception inside this Realm. It's likely she was hoping you would try to catch her off-guard, like Rin thinks."
"Well, magi and Casters are usually stronger inside their Bounded Fields," Illya said in a neutral tone. "But Leysritt should be stronger than a Servant with low Strength rating, right?"
"Most likely," Saber agreed. "However, you'll notice that Caster seems to be baiting her attacks out. And- oh that's unfair."
Leysritt had moved on the attack, but didn't notice several spears lying on the ground in front of Sasaku, who kicked them into her path, abandoning her sword for the second time so far in favor of pouncing with the dagger. However, in a surprising reversal, Leysritt, back on the ground, swept Sasaku's legs out from under her.
Caster went flying, dagger still held point down. Rather than try to avoid, the homunculus whipped a leg back around hitting the weapon arm as the two collided. Discarding the dagger, Sasaku tried to grapple Leysritt, but the latter elbowed her sharply in the chin before slamming the Servant into the ground. There was a moment of silence as the two rolled away from one another and got to their feet.
At first Illya thought the exchange was mostly a draw, until noticing that the Caster happened to be standing on her opponent's halberd. A moment later, Sasaku's sword flew up into her hands.
"Leysritt did well on the ground, but letting go of her when they were both disarmed wasn't ideal when she can pick up or take out weapons at will," Sella summed up their thoughts.
"Well, it isn't just a matter of brute statistics, otherwise Berserkers would be unbeatable," Illya agreed. "But it's really more that you two don't have the equivalent of Skills on the level of a Servant. That's would probably still have made the difference even if you had a bit more strength or speed."
"You hardly used the sword," Kuro groused as Leysritt raised her empty hands, ending the impromptu match.
"And took an impressive body-slam," Saber added with a chuckle. "Did Lu Bu also teach them wrestling?"
"Well, let me think about what he covered in the time we had..."
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