"For a humanoid to move on the surface of the water requires a minimum speed of eighty kilometres per hour," Shirou had said to Satsuki as he effortlessly stood on the surface of the pool in his backyard. "Furthermore the motion has to be consistent," he continued. "If you slow or stop for even a moment you will begin to sink beneath the waves and then you will be forced to expend more energy to stay on the surface."
These words flashed through Satsuki's mind as she turned to avoid another one of the umpteen creatures and stretching out her hand she instantly bisected it without slowing down for a moment. Her hands were adorned with crystalline gloves that cut through armour and flesh alike with minimal resistance. There was a manageable drain on prana where the flesh met crystal and Satsuki frowned as she tried to regulate the needs of her new gauntlets with those of her body. Reaching that all-important balance she dashed forward causing streams of water to jet out behind her as she headed towards her opponent at speeds surpassing that of sound.
Sumire merely raised her hand and Satsuki found her entire body instantly bisected vertically as some of the air in front of her became as hard as steel. There was a feeling of vertigo as her brain was divided cleanly into two pieces and she couldn't think for the moment before her regeneration kicked in and the two halves fused together.
That momentary delay had caused her to slow down and she felt the waters drag her underneath. She shifted her body slightly adapting to the aquatic region and raised her hands just in time to prevent a punch from Sumire from caving in her chest area. Instead the Dead Apostles Ancestor's hands were shattered when they impacted against the impossibly tough gloves that she now wore. Satsuki tried to capitalise on her injury but she found herself dragged down by the water and thrown deep into the ocean. She hit the rocky depths of the sea floor instantly and flooded the depths with primordial soup from her Reality Marble killing the dozens of creatures that surrounded her and providing some defence against the almighty power of Sumire's Marble Phantasm.
She didn't have any time to catch her breath as in the next second the ground rose up in an attempt to bury her underneath and she was forced to move. Darting up from the depths she felt the air grow colder and she was forced to shift her biology until her blood was boiling to melt the ice that was forming around her. She almost reached the surface when she was forced to swerve to avoid another one of Sumire's attacks. The crafty ancestor deliberately avoided her arms and legs and instead Satsuki felt her leg beneath the knee disappear as Sumire slashed it off with a single swipe of her claws. Biting her tongue in pain Satsuki swivelled changing her vocal chords and tried to replicate the sonic attack that she had cribbed from one of the many oceanic species that she had killed previously.
The attack was successful and she watched without any real hope as Sumire retreated from the vicious soundwaves. Bursting out of the water she circled the surface waiting for the Ancestor's next move. Winged creatures dove with wicked teeth and claw to strip flesh from her bone and she idly destroyed them while reinforcing her eyes to pick up any movement from beneath the oceans.
Her vigilance paid off and she swerved from her course as the water exploded in front of her. She dodged back but both her arms were severed by a single kick from Sumire and she had to quickly reattach them before her crystal gauntlets were lost. She ducked under Sumire's lunge and tried to drive her fist through the older woman's spine but she was unsuccessful as Sumire with no apparent means of locomotion launched herself into the air evading Satsuki.
Sumire remained standing upright in the air watching Satsuki with an odd look upon her face. Satsuki meanwhile grew huge scaled wings on her back and modified her bones and muscular structure. Sumire was weaker out of water and this might be the break she needed to gain the advantage. "Caster," she said as her wings flapped causing her to slowly ascend into the air. "How is my story looking?"
"An author who parades an incomplete story should be cut up and fed to the animals so that their body can be of some use to the world," the extremely rude words of her servant arose from the servant who sat on a nearby outcrop of rock in the ocean.
"What should happen to an author who changes his work to pander to the fans," Satsuki asked as her wings beat faster and faster. She looked up and noticed that the water above had turned stormy and the crystalline tentacles had arisen from the depths.
"They forfeit all rights to be called an author," Hans Christian Anderson espoused. "I would rather boil myself alive than write a subpar story."
"Yeah," Satsuki said with a tinge of regret in her voice. She lunged forward beating her wings and she was met halfway by the underwater vampire that had taught her everything she knew. They clashed and Satsuki came to the realisation that she was both stronger and faster than Sumire and that she also had no way of beating her. Any punch, any kick was dodged before she even started attacking and each one of Sumire's responses was expertly timed and left her body in shambles, bypassing her tough skin and bones and forcing her to regenerate multiple times.
"So this is the difference that skill makes," Satsuki said with a nostalgic grin as she exchanged blows with Sumire.
"Don't feel so down Satsu," Sumire said smiling back. "I've done a lot in a thousand years," she dived down to avoid a lung of the crystalline tentacle as she did so. "I've fought and killed far stronger. That's the kind of experience you can't get in four years of training."
"Is that so," Satsuki said turning to block one of the otherworldly crystals. Her gloves clashed with the crystal of the beast and she let the momentum of the swing carry her towards Sumire. "I just wanted to surpass you on my own merits," Satsuki said shaking her head. "Do you know my servants special ability?"
"I don't actually," Sumire said. "I did see him manifest that cute mermaid's tale a few nights ago but that didn't seem like his trump card."
"Correct," Satsuki said. "His true Noble Phantasm allows him to write a person's story, creating coincidences that allow a person to grow into their ideal form," she said as she jokingly flexed her muscles. "In other words, if there was a believable way for me to win I would have already won."
Sumire frowned and the two of them moved apart to dodge another of the tentacles that split the sea and sky apart as it lunged. Up above the ocean bubbled away as a hideous crustaceanic face appeared with multiple compound eyes that leered at the two of them.
"I'm sorry Sumi," Satsuki said. "My greatest desire was to surpass you but some things right now are more important than my desires." She looked down at her servant who was still scratching away at his book. "Caster, I would love to say it was a pleasure working with you but I would be lying. With my last command seal I command you "Write my victory"." Prana rolled off Satsuki as she overpowered the effects of her last command seal and suddenly she was filled with a feeling of certainty.
"Very well Master," Anderson said furiously writing away at his book. "I suppose sacrificing the author for a victory won't be such a bad story. It will provide a nice twist to the reader and end on a cliffhanger which makes them contemplate the ultimate effects of the exchange." Even as he spoke parts of his body had begun to flake off and Satsuki could feel his prana dwindling.
She flapped her wings rocketing at her former mentor and extended her hands lashing out with the deadly crystals. Sumire expertly judged the trajectory and instantly evaded the attack letting the sharpened claws fly past her shoulder as she lashed out with a brutal kick that punctured through…
Sumire stumbled back her face contorted in a grimace of pain. Disbelief entered her eyes as she laid her eyes on the stump of her left arm. For an infinitesimal moment the two opponents stared at each other as they both saw a miss turn into a hit and then Satuski went on the offensive. A swipe of her hand barely missed the Dead Apostle…
Her gauntlet cut deep into Sumire's stomach causing an explosion of body fluids and she stepped back only for a clawed hand to rip through her thro…
The hand missed her and she struck back only to get knocked away into the path of a crystal tentacle that tore her…
She dodged the tentacle and flapped her wings against the appendage to launch herself at the Dead Apostle Ancestor. Sumire saw her coming and bleeding profusely she dropped down into the ocean. Satsuki made to follow her when she felt a sharp pain in her head…
Satsuki swivelled her head watching as a powerful jet of water shot out from the ocean clipping her ear and sandpapering a portion of her skull. She tucked in her wings and dove down driving a hand into the sternum of her mentor. The blow connected solidly and Sumire was run through and left hanging on the arm of her apprentice. Only now did Satsuki manage to get a good look at her injuries and it was a horrific sight. The arm that had been severed had not healed and Satsuki could see the nauseating sight of Sumires shredded organs. Nothing was fixing itself; the curse of restoration was not healing her.
"Type Mercury rejects healing derived from the world," Sumire exposited and Satsuki could hear the agony in her quiet voice. "You got me good," she said smiling. Around her Satsuki watched as the world seemed to shiver. "I'm sorry," Sumire said. "You and Shirou have made me so happy."
"Don't speak," Satsuki said gingerly withdrawing her arm and immediately regretting it as she took in the sight of crushed vertebrae and shredded lungs.
"I love you," Sumire said pressing on. "These last few years I've finally remembered how it felt to be happy. I was alone for so long," she said and there was a slight trace of bitterness in her voice that immediately faded. She paused and then opened her mouth to make some last comment or piece of advice but then smiled and with that last smile her body crumbled into ash.
"As she stared up at her beloved protégé she thought about the many pieces of advice that she could bestow upon her, advice acquired over her exceptionally long lifetime. Alternately she thought about saying some of the things that she had never mentioned to her, like the fact that she considered her to be a daughter, but decided not to trouble her. Lastly she considered wishing her Satsu a long and happy life but then staring at her disciple holding her defeated body she knew that she came to the realisation that she wouldn't need any wishes or luck to go far. Having come to that realisation Sumire smiled at one of the few people that mattered to her as she succumbed to the blackness."
Hans Christian Anderson closed the book with a resounding snap. "It's pitiable writing," he said. "But I'm afraid I lack the currency of minutes and hours to create an appropriate death scene," he said as his voice faded and his body continued to dissolve.
"I thought it was nice," Satsuki said choking on the words as she turned towards her fading servant.
"Good," Caster said. "It's yours now." He tossed her the book and she expertly caught it. "Try to write a satisfying conclusion to the war," he said before completely fading away into dust.
Satsuki stared at the book as she dropped to the ground while the ocean beneath her faded. Slowly walking forward she was unsurprised to find tears flowing freely from her eyes and she could no longer stem them anymore than she could turn off the sun. Her emotions felt numb, muted as if they existed separate from her body and miles away.
She breathed in the cool air of the night as she stood alone beneath the moon and just waited for the world to stop spinning. It didn't and she collapsed to her knees as her legs lost the ability to keep her up. Her head was screaming and her heart was racing but her nerves felt to numb to respond. She almost managed to get her body under control when a crack shattered the silence of the night.
From the empty air countless crystalline tentacles emerge and Satsuki was reminded of the very real threat that these remnants of Mercury possessed. She stumbled but managed to get up and she raised her empty hands in a defensive stance. More and more of the beast emerged and Satsuki swallowed as she took in the size of it. It must have been at a minimum fifty metres in height and the reach of its tentacles far surpassed its elevation and she wondered how something of that size could actually exist. An idle part of her mind was wondering how she could obtain some DNA from it but she shut out that part quickly.
Taking a deep breath she let her crystalline claws draw more of her prana and she managed to avoid the first of the crystalline tentacles that whipped out destroying swathes of the park. She flew up in the flapping her scaly wings and trying in vain to find some form of weak spot which would allow her to topple this behemoth. A prickle down her neck was the only warning she got as she twisted her body to block the rapidly approaching tentacle with her gloves.
The pain was almost unbearable and she felt one of her arms wrench out of its socket as her body bounced along the ground gouging out a trench with her face. Spitting loose a tooth she shakily got to her knees, the ringing in her ears fading into the sound of approaching footsteps.
"Praying to Gaia?" a feminine voice inquired and Satsuki looked up to the sight of a pair of black and white eyes. Even if she hadn't met the woman before she had heard enough second hand accounts from Shirou.
"Narbareck," she identified the woman in front of her. Blinking she scrambled to her feet. "Be careful," she said facing the writhing crystalline monstrosity. "That thing was made…"
She didn't have the chance to say anything more as in an instant the creature that had seemed an insurmountable challenge had all but disintegrated before her eyes leaving nothing but small pieces of smouldering flesh that proved her parasite theory. Turning her head back towards the head of the burial squad she noticed for the first time that she was holding a rifle in her left hand that she was currently lowering.
"A relic owned by the church," she answered Satsuki's unanswered question. "It was created by Atlas and stored for the purpose of providing a viable counter to Type-class enemies."
"Right," said Satsuki awkwardly not knowing how to continue the conversation with the stranger.
"There is no need to pretend to be interested," she said. "I'm just going to rest for a moment and then I have to get back to laying the dead to rest."
"How bad is it?" Satsuki asked, dreading the answer.
A flicker of emotion showed in Narbareck's eyes before it disappeared. "Horribly," she said. "Apparently the Aylesbury ritual was not a binary thing. Even though it hasn't been completed the dead are being driven out in force."
"There are a lot of dead in Fuyuki," Satsuki said commiserating with the head of the burial squad.
"No," she said rejecting Satsuki's presence. "Outside of the ancestors and those with them there are no other vampires inside Fuyuki." She smiled at Satsuki's eyes rising but it quickly faded. "There are over forty thousand piles of ash that were not there earlier in the evening. I just returned from helping the American army route out some of the vampires attacking their country."
Satsuki's eyes were wide at the sheer information contained within those few sentences. She opened her mouth to demand clarification when she was disrupted by the sound of a haunting piano. To her surprise Narbareck reached flicked open a phone that was not in her hand a second ago. Holding up a finger to indicate quiet the head of the burial squad listened to the voice on the other side of the phone.
"I understand," she said. Putting down the phone Satsuki watched as the phone disappeared from her fingers and only now noticed that the gun she was previously holding was also not there. "I have to go to Moscow," she said to the other woman. "Please do your best to stop this ritual before my job gets any more challenging."
"Wait," Satsuki said reaching out her arm to stop her from leaving without answering any more of her questions. She was forestalled from phrasing any of the questions when an explosion lit up the night with such intensity that it momentarily felt like noon.
"You should probably get that," Narbareck said and in the next breath she was gone.
"I probably should," Satsuki said to herself despite wanting nothing more than to curl up and go to sleep. She turned around and almost tripped over something in the grass. Reaching down to pick up the object she felt sadness well within her breast again as she stared at Caster's book that must have fallen out of her hands sometime during the excitement.
Her eyes were dry as she read the last paragraph again and her heart was gripped with an intense feeling of determination. "I'll get through this," she promised herself. "And I'll make sure you're remembered Sumire. I'll make sure nobody ever forgets any of us."
Author Note: Anybody recognize Narbareck's weapon?
snowyassass1n: Yes. Pretty much.
SentinalSlice: Emiya Achilles Heracles Ishtar Shiki Gawain Karna
hyperomegasonic26: Yes