Shirou overlooked the city of Fuyuki from his position atop one of the many skyscrapers that dotted the landscape. While the tower provided good vision of the city he was not using it as a vantage point unlike his companion. To the left sat his servant and friend Ishtar. Despite his resurgent memories it felt weird calling her Inanna again. Inanna was the name of the girl that had he had entertained when he was young with so much potential; the girl who he had mentored and taught and helped her wherever he could. Ishtar was the name of the woman who had grown and seized her domains of fertility and war, a proud and yet playful being who had easily been one of the strongest gods in all of Babylonia at the time of her death.
She eyed the city with sharp eyesight that would have shamed many heroes of the Archer class. Her hand lay upon her bow and Shirou knew that she waited eagerly for the opportunity to snipe any enemies that dared show their faces. However her prodigious eyes paled in comparison to the method that Shirou himself used. Using one of his oldest techniques (he refused to call it [Poseidon's eye] anymore after actually remembering the prick) he ran infinitesimal amounts of prana through the moisture in the air picking up on all his targets.
What he saw was alarming; in a few seconds of using the technique he had identified the location of every single ally and enemy on the field. Of all of those only Sumire, Arcueid, Narbareck and Primate Murder managed to detect his magic and he managed to discern the identity of the remaining servants and master pairs. That was not the thing that disturbed him however.
The amount of dead in the streets and buildings was enormous. Legions of them sat dormant or patrolled the streets only to be cut down by church forces or increase their numbers. Taking into the account the rather high chance that a person killed would die without becoming a dead, a grim picture for Fuyuki was formed.
"Over one percent," Shirou thought with a muted twinge of horror. "While the number may not sound large when it was phrased in that manner in a city the size of Fuyuki that figure amounted to over fifteen thousand lives lost already. Shirou got the sick feeling that the numbers in his classrooms would be reduced after the war and he wondered how many of the familiar faces that he had seen every day were crawling the streets or lying in their final sleep.
Shirou turned his thoughts away from that appalling revelation and forcibly converted his disgust and fear into pure determination as he mentally tallied the strengths of each group. The fact that the Dead Apostle Ancestors had such a short period of time in which to enact the ritual allowed his team to control the location for the confrontations. To that end he had revealed the location of two of the remaining grails that the Ancestors would have already likely been aware of due to whichever method they used to track down the other three. The third one was far better protected than the other five and would almost certainly be the last one to be attacked.
The two teams consisted of Arcueid and Shiki on one team and Rin, Gawain, Bazett and Nine on the other. Despite the second team containing double the amount of members Shirou still believed that the first team was stronger overall. Satsuki had returned to the park to finally settle the score with her master and as both Satsuki and Sumire usually followed Shirou's policy of not letting an opponent escape three times the pseudo-god was reasonably certain this would be their final showdown.
A bland and decidedly default ringtone broke the silence of the night and Shirou checked the caller ID before he put his cell to his ear. "Hello Rin," he said.
"I'm afraid it's not the young miss," the voice of Nine announced the owner of the phone. "Unfortunately she managed to change the operating language to French and thus I had to take over the operation of the phone."
"Comment est ton Français," Shirou inquired with somewhat rusty French.
"I cannot speak a word," Nine admitted. "We've run into a few problems but the beast of Gaia has not arrived yet."
The sounds of fighting echoed from the speaker startling Shirou. "Wait a minute are you actually fighting while talking on the phone. That's even worse than driving Nine," Shirou said seriously. "Put the phone down and kill that bastard."
"At once Master," Nine said and Shirou heard the distinctive bleeping noise of a disconnection.
Shirou shook his head and turned to his servant who was watching him with a twinge of amusement in her eyes. "I love that guy but sometimes he's a bit too much," Shirou said with barely concealed hilarity. "They're fighting Heracles," he said seriously with only a moment's concentration. "As well as Ozymandias, they're outmatched."
"I can go assist them and you can keep an eye out for the larger group," Ishtar immediately volunteered. "We need at least one of us to deal with Achilles."
"No," Shirou rejected immediately. "I'm keeping an eye on their progress. We have time to thin out the herd. He instantly grabbed the arm of the Mesopotamian goddess and teleported into the grail chamber. Instantly upon entering the room he was forced to clap his hands together summoning a sphere of ice around him. The combined output of the attacks that impacted the sphere almost shattered it; but with a slight gesture and a small portion of prana the surrounding ice molecules reconfigured themselves into a form not found in earth and the temperature of the ice particles decreased even further until an impossible barrier was formed around the two. However Shirou didn't allow the attacks to continue. Scanning the room at a much closer range he realised that there were instead five opponents in a confrontation with their four allies.
Channelling more prana he fragmented the ice sphere into numerous pieces and then fired them at all the enemies while redirecting the last of the incoming attacks with streams of water. A quick gesture to his servant and Ishtar moved over to secure his allies position while hefaced off against his adversaries. Scanning the room he noted that all the blocks of ice were either dodged, redirected or just ignored he and quickly analysed the foes. "Heracles, Ozymandias, Trhvmn, Gransurg and Leonardo da Vinci," Shirou said put loud; his eyes widening at the last name as he wondered as to when the painter/inventor had taken up crossdressing.
"Shirou Inke," Trhvmn Ortenrosse said to the magician and Shirou wondered idly how he knew his name. "Sumire told us about you," the seventeenth Dead Apostle Ancestor said answering his unspoken question. "It was a rather spectacular surprise attack you performed on me the last time I think it is far past time that I repaid you it."
"I also wish to face down the man that managed to destroy my blessing from the gods," Heracles replied. "I was blinded by my wrath last time and I didn't get to properly respond.
"He killed my favourite cat," Ozymandias said shrugging.
"Have I affronted either of you," Shirou said turning towards the duo of Leonardo and Blackmore.
Gransurg Blackmore didn't respond and Leonardo chuckled and shook her head. "No you haven't offended me," the artist said with a melodic voice. "Also we're not really with them. We just have the location to the grails and they followed us."
"All the grails?" Shirou asked but the Caster servant merely smiled and chose not to reply. Shirou shook his head silently prioritising the death of the Black Wing lord and his servant. "The completion of the so-called Aylesbury ritual," he said after a moment. "Is there any way that I could convince you to give up and try another time. Aren't there any better things you could be doing now?"
"I'm truly sorry but this could be the greatest chance for the completion of the ritual we will ever receive," the White Wing Lord said politely. "Even though I have reservations about my remaining compatriots and our chance of success I'm afraid I will not shrink from my purpose." He pulled down his sleeves revealing four command seals. "Neither will my servants."
"At least one of you has absconded," Shirou said to himself. "Was it was Van-Fem who left."
"That was quite an accurate guess," Trhvmn replied. "What gave it away?"
"The twenty four surrounding golems," Shirou stated gesturing at the constructs of steel and wires that he had ignored until now. "That seems like his kind of thing from what I've heard of him. Maybe I'll pay a visit to his party boat once this thing blows over."
"Are you just going to keep talking," Gransurg Blackmoore ended his silence with a voice that sounded partially synthetic. "Not only are you blathering on about the most pointless of topics, but you are deliberately ignoring me. You seem intelligent and I would normally enjoy conversing with you under normal circumstances but every second I waste here is another second that the ritual is not being completed so forgive me if I'm eager to proceed."
Shirou nodded at that. "I also try to avoid long conversations with those I'm going to kill," he said instantly raising his hands and unleashed the abyss to crush his opponents. Ever since he had regained his memories he had started to dislike the name of his trump card. [Amessunu Istenis] referred to a line in the poem Enuma Elish which described the mingling of Abzu and Tiamat, two gods who could go fuck themselves. Not to mention that the whole poem was a bunch of apologetics bullshit.
The abyss coalesced around his four opponents creating a place in which no human could survive, unfortunately for Shirou his opponents were not was forced to almost drop the attack immediately as hundreds of arrows peppered his former position. Shirou stepped back his hands a blur as he deflected dozens of forceful arrows with his bare hands using [time alter].
A flicker in his peripheral vision and he fell to the ground to avoid a clawed hand that would have decapitated him where he stood. Gransurg Blackmoor, his mind supplied as to the identity of his attacker, he didn't remember him having so many mechanical parts. Suddenly his arm swung down creating a sonic boom at the same instant as it impacted Enki. That was Enki the pair of golden swords gifted to him by Gilgamesh, not the god. Shirou was fine and he immediately swivelled his legs attempting to knock the birdlike Dead Apostle off his feet. Gransurg expertly jumped over his strike but Shirou had no more time to follow up with the attack as he had stayed in the space for too long and he was forced to teleport to avoid another hail of arrows shot from the greatest hero of all time. Teleporting above the sixteenth Dead Apostle Ancestor he struck down with a kick that impacted against hard metal and caused the vampire to stumble briefly in midair and land gracefully on all fours.
Regrettably Shirou was now in the air and relatively exposed and he was forced to summon a wall of ice to defend himself from the onslaught of arrows. The wall lasted barely a second as multiple arrows passed through it and Shirou felt one of them pierce his leg. The poison did nothing but it still hurt and slowed him down for a moment and he was unable to react when a metallic foot impacted against his spine booting him towards the Greek Demigod.
He sensed the onrush on arrows and focused his everything into defence against the onslaught. Solid ice coalesced around his body and he pushed the concept of [unbreakable] to form makeshift armour that shrugged off the various impacts he felt as he soared through the air. Resting in the ice he sped pushed his [time alter] to its maximum strength taking advantage of the fact that it was far easier to do when he remained still.
Peering through the ice he quickly evaluated how the fights were going and rapidly came to the conclusion that they were losing overall. Ishtar was fighting against Ozymandias with all her strength killing multiple sphinxes while also engaging the enemy rider, deflecting his blasts of light with her own light arrows. Rin and Gawain were fighting a losing battle against the artistic Caster who had apparently mastered magecraft if his eyes were not deceiving him. Nine was going up against Trhvmn and while the seventeenth Dead Apostle Ancestor had yet to land a decisive blow on Shirou's slippery servant he clearly outclassed Nine before his servant activated his final form. Shirou's two opponents watched and waited for him to drop his defences and the golems still stood there taking no action.
The situation was beyond dire, the odds of everybody surviving were minor and everything was going exactly to plan. Snapping his fingers within the ice he activated the trap he kept in each of the aquifers in case he was forced into combat in that location. Immediately water began to pour into the room at a rate hundreds of gallons per second causing the water level to rapidly rise. Secondly he reformed the water forming it into the giant suit of armour that he employed to such great effect at the end of his fight with Enkidu. Standing up straight in the middle of the fifteen foot giant composed of ice he extended his arms and prepared to kill.
xxx
Rin Tohsaka fired multiple Gandr shots that to her dismay were blocked by shimmering shields that automatically appeared. Gawain moved forward but each and every attack was further blocked by the shields and her answering attacks easily tracked down and pierced his armour forcing the magus to pour more of her prana to heal him.
A simple command and her servant released his Noble Phantasm causing a wave of golden light that raced towards her opponent. Rin watched in horror as the glowing beam simply reversed direction upon colliding with the enemy servant and reflected back upon them. Barely showing any of the panic that she felt she summoned up an ancient piece of defensive magic that she had acquired from one of Zelretche's books. A seven pronged magic circle formed in the air and smoothly transitioned into a three dimensional glowing green shield with seven layers. When the reflected emission from Excalibur Galatine encountered each layer the output diminished until the final product was cut in half by her servant's sword.
"Okay we are not using that again," Rin said to her servant as she discarded a pair of empty gems. Suddenly there battle was cut short as the unmistakable sound of rushing water rang through the underground room. The young magus chanced a glance at Shirou who was now surrounded by what seemed to be some ice-mecha thing and was advancing on his two opponents and looked back to the rising water level.
Sighing briefly she activated the spell that he had shared with her earlier that would allow her to breather underwater. Honestly it was slightly embarrassing that both she and her servant were having trouble with one enemy when everybody else was fighting against at least one or more. Unfortunately she could think of no way to beat her opponent. Da Vinci, as Shirou had named her, was a far superior magus with access to prana reserves even exceeding her own. In addition her magecraft was somehow able to bypass Gawain's B-ranked magic resistance.
Rin took a deep breath as she looked at the placid smile of her opponent. She hadn't pressed the advantage but had responded with overwhelming levels of power whenever she was forced to defend.
"You're not attacking again," Da Vinci said her voice not losing in clarity even as the water level rose above her head. "Have you given up? If you do not want to continue then I will join with my master in attacking the magician," she said as she glanced sideways at the three monsters battling it out.
Shirou was fighting against the Greek demigod at speeds that she could barely track and his armour was repeatedly being shattered by the forces of the hero's punches before freezing and mending itself. At the same time Gransurg Blackmoore was cutting through swathes of armour moving in such a swift manner that she could only perceive for a split second before he disappeared again. Rin found herself pausing for a moment as Shirou teleported the whole ice structure in such a manner that Heracles was kicked with the full force of the multi-ton creation causing him to slide back. At the same time he quickly moved one of his hands and sent a whirlpool that sent the Dead Apostle Ancestor causing him to go flying back into the walls of the room.
"This environment really isn't favourable for Dead Apostles," Leonardo said her voice travelling clearly through the water. "But servants can handle it just fine and the modifications that I put into my masters body should allow him to still function properly. It was such a terrible weakness I couldn't help but remove it," she paused and then almost as an afterthought continued, "no matter how much I wanted to leave it in."
"You're holding back," Rin said feeling almost physical pain as her pride shattered.
"I am," the enemy Caster said. "I am Leonardo da Vinci an omnipotent genius. While you can easily be called a genius due to the qualities of your spells, I am the one person who was heralded as an unrivalled genius in anything that he pursued. Is it not natural that I would have no rival in magecraft?"
Rin's thoughts raced ahead as she tried to comprehend how to deal with this servant. She played over the fight in her head. She had tried gandr shots but the curse had proved ineffective. Streams of fire had been cut short by jets of water and wind had been blocked by rising mountains of earth. One thing had however stuck within her mind. Each and every incantation she used was modern or some ancestor of magecraft. Rin had even recognized a few of the spells that she had used although she had never seen them performed with even a fraction of the skill. The young magus gritted her teeth as she realized that she would never be able to surprise her with any of her numerous spells and that she would be able to counter anything that she threw at her.
Gawain stood by her side stoically his guard never dropping. If it wasn't so serious she would have felt quite bad for her servant. His stats were good but he kept running into incredibly strong servants or servants that could counter him. Leonardo da Vinci seemed to be able to ignore his magic resistance and he couldn't even close on her position without being forced back by the precise retaliation. It was unfortunate because if he could just get in her range he would most likely be able to win instantly due to the disparity in their physical abilities.
A sudden idea struck the young magus and she grinned as hope ignited once more in her breast. Gems dropped into her open hands and she flooded her circuits with prana.
"Be ready," she said to Gawain and then she opened fire.
Shirou had always thought of Rin as a glass cannon and what happened next would not have changed his mind. As an average one Rin could theoretically use all five elements and she quickly put that theory into practice as all spells of earth water and wind powered through the water. Not a single spell got through as they were all expertly countered, but that was fine as Rin didn't really expect any to land. She upped her output even as she knew that the opposing caster was simply more efficient and had a much larger mana pool. She felt her gems dip a bit lower and she drained the last dregs of prana from her jewels reinforcing herself even as she created an explosion.
The explosion rippled through the water causing a massive wave of noise and light that blinded and deafened her temporarily but Rin knew that it would have never damaged the either her or the enemy servant. Still that wasn't what she intended and Rin put the second part of her plan into motion. Using the sound and light as a distraction she channelled a huge quantity of prana into her second command seal and instructed Gawain to teleport.
While she didn't mention the exact location she was thinking it which combined with Gawain's own desires caused the fight to be over pretty soon. The first sight that she saw once the whiteness had receded was that of Da Vinci being impaled from behind through her chest. The smile stayed on her face even as she dissolved into mana.
Suddenly another explosion happened nearby and Rin turned to see half of the room encased in ice. Heracles and Gransurg were frozen and working free of the ice but there was no trace of Shirou.
Author Note: This chapter took me far too long and I'm not altogether happy with it. Oh well I'll try to be quicker about it in future.
serialkeller: It's a bit more severe than annoyed. Enki basically split his essence (Kinda Voldemort like now that I think of it) and forced it into the shape of the Sword of Rupture. Even worse is that he killed Ishtar after he created it. Even Enki hates himself for doing that, try imagine what EA feels about him.
SentinalSlice: Generally people with the most experience tend to panic less. Shirou can be so nonchalant because he's been through all kinds of shit already and Enki has been through even more.
As always please read and review.