I Will Kill (Battle)

(Taro of the Shinsengumi)

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There was no need to say anything as the three of them stacked up against the enemy's front door. It would be generous to say that they were at a disadvantage against any regularly-summoned Servant, but the odds had never stopped them before.

(We're here on official business!)

Working in unison, they broke down the door, quickly spreading apart as they made entry to avoid being pinned by the defenders... who were not in evidence. Hmm. He could tell that something was up. "Azuka, cover the door. Raji, with me."

Everyone nodded briefly before moving. Despite the relatively enclosed nature of this battlefield, only their swords could be relied upon to actually threaten Servants, due to the latter's significant statistical advantages. Taro scanned the interior quickly, thankful that the Grail's information on the modern world, fragmentary as it was for them, made determining the various features simple.

He noted a small intersection of sorts between the "living room", kitchen, and a corridor. The second had low cover in the form of a chest-high counter but the corridor could hold any number of threats waiting to ambush someone walking past carelessly.

There wasn't much actual space in the structure that the enemy could be hiding in. Taro quickly gestured towards the kitchen. While he would check the corridor, Raji would cover him, from the right, against anything from said kitchen.

The two silently moved forward. Taro's left hand gripped his sword about halfway down the blade, for better control if he was attacked at knife ran- !

Raji, a couple steps behind, stepped to the right as Taro retreated from the polearm that had come scything down just in front of him. While avoiding the loss of his arm was partially thanks to his Agility, much greater than when mortal, it was more due to a combination of his slow careful advance and the enemy's over-eagerness to spring their ambush.

Due to the lack of space, his opponent was not able to cut horizontally, but critically, the corner they had been relying on prevented them from chasing him in turn, as they had to clear it bodily in order to be able to reach him, even though their weapon probably had greater range.

That said, greater range and one-hit kill potential is a terrible combination to come up against. The two Shinsengumi pressed themselves against the wall, now using the corner to their own tactical advantage.

Releasing the grip of his sword for a moment, Taro made a quick circling motion. A single enemy could not take out both of them at once, if they rushed him around the corner as he attempted to get around it. At worst he would simply fall back down the corridor, but that would leave the swordsmen with the momentum.

He listened carefully, the very soft sound of motion giving away the enemy's location, and hesitation. Or they were repositioning... likely to the side of the corridor opposite the corner. Of course. That would maximize their range against someone coming around the corner.

However, if so, they should have immediately done so. It was now or never!

Taro darted forward, his sword held forwards, pointed diagonally downwards right to left, to best intercept a vertical or horizontal cut. Here it comes!

The odd forward-curving weapon came at him from a lower angle than expected, about waist-height. Turning into it, Taro bent his knees to lower himself for a more stable block and bind, trusting Raji to make use of the opening to get in with his blade.

Crash! Crack! Splatter.

He had perfectly intercepted the cut with the portion of his weapon that lay between his hands. But the fearsome cutting power of his opponent's polearm broke through, shattering the sword and slicing into his left arm, likely to the bone.

This was no naginata, or other bladed polearm, rather now that he could see his wounder fully, it resembled a two-handed sword, except for the curvature. Though the blade was embedded in Taro's arm, the actual end of the weapon was somewhere behind his back. If he simply pulls back, it will probably cut me in half easily!

Letting go his weapon, which dropped to the ground, Taro grabbed hold of the blade in front of him, practically throwing his weight into it, necessary since he had only one hand to use, compared to his opponent's two. Ironically, this action actually reduced the danger of being sliced into two pieces. Stepping around his comrade, Raji went straight in without hesitation.

Taro's senses were, if anything, brought into even sharper focus by his pain as everything happened at once. The tension from the sword in him disappeared as its short cloaked wielder abandoned it. But... too late, since Raji was on top of them in the small space, his sword running through them all the way down its length as he practically stumbled into them.

Though Taro couldn't see it, Medusa had thrown three of her throwing knives and hit Raji, but at the cost of being able to move out of the way of his headlong charge. She staggered back, wrenching the Shinsengumi's sword out of his hands as she fell to the ground.

Time slowed down as a number of halberdiers appeared from one of the rooms, just a little behind the battle, and moved to cover their fallen comrade. For his side, Azuka was probably moving up, but he wouldn't be able to make it in time.

As trained, Raji went for his sidearm, but that isn't going to do it.

"Raji, catch!"

Zeroing in on his broken sword, Taro inelegantly kicked it over his fellow, who caught it out of the air. The halberdiers were already in formation, and the enemy Servant was trying to pick herself up. Now wholly unexpected, even after been thrust through since skills like (Battle Continuation) existed among Servants.

Raji pounced on Medusa, wielding the broken sword he held like a brutal heavy knife. Even as the halberds skewered him, he hacked away at his target's neck with a ferocity not unbefitting a Berserker.

Azuka, coming up on this scene, tried to pull his leader back, but Taro simply shook his head. Even if he had been fit to fight, there was only one sword between the two of them, but more importantly, the halberd-wielders had made the same tactical mistake the Servant had. Raji was currently occupying all of them by virtue of catching their weapons with his body.

"Go."

Understanding immediately, Azuka let go and charged in without missing a beat.

l

(Sasaku)

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She wasn't sure what to make of the fact that the enemy swordsman seemed to be hitting with less force than she herself could. Granted, she had a Noble Phantasm sword, and his might not be at that level, but she wouldn't have missed someone swinging with as much Strength as, perhaps, the schoolgirl Servant using the umbrella.

While she had thought about retreating back into the Emiya estate once Illya told her that Medusa had been taken down, the cracked ashen ground she had charged out over had suddenly given way to the grass covering one of the open areas that existed in the residential district. She couldn't be sure where they currently were in the neighborhood. Kuro must have successfully taken down Archer. Good news on the whole, but retreating was now much more difficult.

The girl opposite Sasaku paused suddenly, forcing her partner to take up the slack. "Master's in danger!" she hissed suddenly, clearly considering abandoning the fight.

"Damn you, fox! Do you want to get shot in the back!" he lost his cool demeanor, though more in terms of words but not posture. Almost as though to punctuate this, they had to intercept spears being shot by Sasaku in an attempt to cover her own retreat, without making it too obvious.

"Says the useless one," she snapped back with a flick of her tail, throwing her parasol at Sasaku as though it were a javelin. The latter considered counter-shooting it with spears, but decided not to risk it, using her sword to deflect the projectile instead, since it was a Noble Phantasm.

Making a fist despite the distance between them, Tamamo rushed forward, kicking off the ground to soar upwards in the sky. Framed by the stormy night, she smoothly adjusted her stance to one that kept her right heel pointed forward as she began to descend like a lightning bolt.

A drop kick? For her to even discard her weapon, it must be a special technique of hers. Damnit, if that's the case...!

Rather than a block or parry, Sasaku raised her borrowed sword to aim its point directly at the quickly growing cross-section of the approaching Tamamo. Bending her elbow ever so slightly to better absorb the recoil, she fed - forced rather - magical energy into the sword, driving it smoothly towards its limit.

"Show me now the skill with which you were constructed, (Caladbolg)!"

Rather than the expected explosion, the glowing sword instead appeared to collapse in on itself, extending forward a needle-fine concentrated attack that blazed a path towards the enemy Caster.

If she had been able to see through the light and sparks coming off her own attack, Sasaku might have noticed Tamamo's faint smile as her mirror, ever at the ready, slid smoothly in between the two of them.

The beam struck the mirror.

Despite Tamamo's thoughtful ploy of angling it to encourage deflection, the beam was not exactly coherent, only concentrated, and when thus disrupted, essentially exploded against her defense. The forward-moving shockwave largely dissipated itself to either side of Tamamo, while the backward-propagating portion destabilized the rest of Sasaku's attack before impact, further reducing its effectiveness.

"..."

Since she was now both disarmed and unable to tell the status of the threat posed by Tamamo, Sasaku flung herself to the side just in case. Fortunately so as Tamamo slammed through where she had been standing with a great crash.

Making use of the fact that she was effectively now behind Tamamo, Sasaku went for her knife and jumped on her rival. Reaching out, Tamamo seized Sasaku by the throat with her left arm, as her right was pierced.

There was a brief pause as Sasaku pulled her weapon free. Tamamo slammed her knee into the other's chest, but as Sasaku staggered back, she in turn shot several spears into Tamamo point blank. The mirror came up to defend its owner.

"Set."

Shing. Shing. Shing.

In that instant, the two Casters were pierced by multiple Black Keys each which had come in from the side, unnoticed.

"Amakusa, you..."

Discarding his coat, Amakusa took out more of the Black Keys which had come with his Saint Graph. Rather than gloat or otherwise respond, he reserved his words for the critical ritual he had been summoned to perform on the heretic. And as they said, the more the merrier.

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"I will kill, I will let live."

It was to be a night of judgement.

"I will harm and heal..."

The guilty must be purified.

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Notes:

Kuro has a lot more control over modifying/using her Caladbolgs. Sasaku attempts a "Broken Phantasm" by causing a collapse with only one way for all the energy to go, forward. This is somewhat different from Kuro doing so as it wouldn't have the degree of accuracy that an Archer has when making ranged attacks (Sasaku is doing this practically point-blank).