Manaka Sajyou skipped along up the stairs that lead to Ryuudou temple. To a bystander she would have looked like your average carefree child if not for to important considerations. Firstly the ground that she walked over was scorched and cracked with temperatures well over one hundred degrees. Anything to the west of the Mion had been obliterated by the two monsters that had fought barely ten minutes ago. An ordinary human, let alone a child, would have been burnt to death by the residual heat from the collision. The fact that this girl was able to live, even thrive, in this environment would instantly tip off any casual observer.
The second thing that would have informed anybody watching that she was not somebody to mess with would be the two people following behind her. Or at least they looked like people to a person that had never stepped foot in the moonlight world. To anybody who could sense prana in any capacity they lit up the night, outshining even the molten patches on the ground. One looked like a little girl with an appearance easily two or three years younger than the one she followed. A scar across her eye and the sheathed knives that hung around the back of her waist gave her a dangerous look that undermined her natural cuteness. She was garbed in a dangerously immoral outfit that wantonly displayed pale flesh and contrasted with her childish gait.
The other follower could not have been more different then his counterpart. Instead of fair skin his skin was far more tanned. Instead of being short, he stood nearly six feet tall. Instead of a childish demeanour, his eyes showed great wisdom and every movement of his was reserved and calculated. However in colour they were near identical as both of them wore black, although the man's garb was no longer pure black due to the blood that was constantly dripping from the corpse he held in his hand.
"Please don't drop that Karna," the young magus said turning to him as she skipped, only surface-level joy displayed in her eyes. "He's actually a very vital part of the next step." She halted as something occurred to her. "Or should I say it? Do corpses have gender?" she asked the two servants before the smile instantly dropped from her face and she doubled over clutching her head in pain. Despite the agony written on her face she remained silent throughout the whole ordeal and the two servants had no choice but to watch impotently as they were unable to affect anything. Karna despite his outwardly cold appearance clutched and unclutched his fists helplessly and the young girl ran up to her master hugging her and trying to comfort her.
"Thank you Jack," Manaka said after a moment. "I'm okay," she tried to comfort the younger girl. "It's just a bit of negative feedback." Her smile crawled back onto her face although it was noticeably dimmer. "I don't know why you're so angry," she said. "You're the one who wanted to actually kill him. No I don't understand how I'm being disrespectful," she spoke back boldly although there was a notable element of fear beneath her apparent calmness.
"Why do we need it," Jack replied, obviously referring to the corpse and Manaka clutched her head in pain again.
"Ah, Jack better not refer to the corpse disrespectfully," she said rubbing her forehead. "Or I'll have to give you a spanking."
Jack nodded quickly before she tilted her head as if waiting for an answer to her prior question.
"You remember the grail that we need," she said causing the other two servants to nod immediately. "It's very, very cursed. Don't get me wrong," she continued reaching down to pat Jack's head watching the young girl. "We're still going to use it to accomplish our goals, but some minor preparation needs to be done before we can fully activate it. To that end we need some help of our friend here," she said pointing to the corpse and very firmly dragging Jack's hand away when she tried to touch it.
"A false god has made its home in the grail," she further explained her point. "Even an imitation of a god would be hard to overcome at the best of times, but the fact that this god is composed of countless curses makes it an essentially impossible task. I'm not going to explain the theory to you," she said looking at Jack's face. "But basically it is nearly impossible to overpower a curse as the essence of a curse is in the subversion of something else. If you try to overpower it then the curse will just end up corrupting your power and making it its own. To overcome a curse you require some form of purifying energy. The problem is that this energy is nearly impossible to get nowadays."
Manaka pouted in a manner that would have been considered cute if it weren't for the environment. "I think I could possibly have overcome it with my skills," she said. "But if it were to overwhelm me that would be the end for me. Otherwise the only thing that would be able to get rid of the curse would be some legendary holy item or at least half of the entire church's exorcist's working hard for a few months. That's where he comes in," Manaka said gesturing to the corpse that was held by Karna. "He may look really average and not special at all, but that body contained the soul of Enki for seventeen years," Manaka said with a smile that was only half-fake. "Enki was basically the first god of exorcists. The body should have absorbed his essence for those seventeen years and turned into a natural purifier. If I had more time I would have used his body to craft some purifying mystic code instead," she said, wincing as she faced instant retaliation for Tiamat.
"He was truly a god," Karna said speaking up for the first time as he evaluated the dead body in his hands. "It was a worthy death for a god."
"Ambushed by us after defeating the killer of humanity and his vampiric mistress," Manaka stated. "By the way is there a reason why you aren't wearing your armour."
"My apologies," Karna said bowing his head slightly with remorse. "I know you put forth a lot of energy to retrieve it, but ever since I have taken it back it has not fitted correctly to me. I would rather not wear it unnecessarily due to that reason."
"That's fine by me," Manaka said although there was a noticeable pout on her face. "Jack you must not touch that," she said once again preventing Jack from touching the dead body. "You might then accidentally get purified and then who is going to help me finish the ritual."
Jack seriously nodded at her words and turned away from the body, sticking close to her and the two increased their pace swiftly coming to the cave mouth that marked the entrance to the location of the greater grail. Countless advanced bounded fields locked onto her presence as she approached before swiftly detecting the unique taste of her prana and relaxing and letting her and her companions through.
She had spent many days inside the cave laying protection magic in anticipation of the completion of the ritual. Her knowledge of magecraft was almost unparalleled in the world. In fact it could be said to be even more unparalleled as of half an hour ago when she managed to kill of one of her major competitors for that title. She snickered to herself but the genuine joy and pride faded quickly to be replaced by a hollow imitation. Striding through the caves she ignored the various automated defences that twinkled in hostility before quieting down. In a few minutes she arrived at the grail and she felt a bit of concern as she saw the bubbling tar like prana from the grail.
Even with all of her knowledge and power the grail still felt extremely oppressive. While she wouldn't be allowed to die if she touched the black ooze, she had the feeling that it would be unpleasant for her, more unpleasant then living her life with Tiamat inside her head anyway. Mentally comparing the contents of the cup from before their excursion to its current level she quickly came to the conclusion that they had noticeably increased in quantity. This wasn't unexpected however as a lot of servants had met their end tonight. Honestly if she hadn't personally expanded the capacity of the grail then the tool would have already overflowed by now spelling doom for Fuyuki, or more doom at least, she thought contemplating the hell that lay just outside.
"Is it lower than it should have been?" Manaka asked mentally tallying the servants that had been killed tonight.
"The grail was not built to hold the soul of a god," the authoritative voice made itself known in her head. Spoken in an unspeakable language and yet perfectly understood the very words seared themselves into the soul of Manaka.
"Throw him in," she said speaking to Karna. To his credit the hero hesitated for only a moment before chucking the corpse into the centre of the grail. The reaction was immediate and violent to the extent that it even shocked Manaka. As soon as the body touched the dark prana the contents of the grail started to sizzle and burn. Manaka whistled, Jack watched with open eyes and even Karna gave a nod of acknowledgement as the black liquid started to bubble and flow trying to leap out of the coffin. It was incredible to watch a mass of curses and prana try to escape like a deer in a lion cage but ultimately its meagre resistance amounted to nothing in the the end the black ooze burnt up and was replaced by shining gold prana as the corpse dissolved into the tainted energy and purified it.
"Excuse me master," Karna spoke up unusually as he stared at the sight of the now shining grail. "But couldn't his presence in the grail upset the ritual."
"I've checked him for magecraft and his soul has long departed his body," Manaka said somewhat callously. "The only danger right now is his friends that might arrive," she said before immediately moving to the side of the grail. "I'm sorry to trouble you," she continued while smiling somewhat ruefully. "But I'm going to have to ask the both of you to halt them for a bit. The grail's fully charged but seeing as we just killed the closest thing to the wish granting entity and the complexity of the wish it may take some time before I can get it properly working. I'm going to ask you to stall them for about thirty minutes. Think of it as holding out for enforcements."
"Is there no possibility we can win," Karna asked flatly.
"Almost none," Manaka replied cheerfully. "I'll try help if I can but I might be slightly busy on my own," she said while scribing down various incantations on the surface of the grail. "Don't worry though," she said cheerfully. "Once I complete the ritual there is no chance of victory for them. Then we can just lay back and enjoy the rewards."
An explosion rocked the cavern and Manaka felt the surge of prana from the trap at the entrance. "Go quickly," she said urging them on although such encouragement was no longer needed at this stage.
Karna nodded stoically, turning and leaving immediately to the source of commotion and Jack ran up to Manaka giving her a hug before she followed the Hero of Charity.
Manaka's hands continued moving, as they left the room performing complex alterations to the grail as she initiated dozens of different rituals at the same time, using the impossibly large amount of shining gold prana as a source for the changes she wished to enact. Tears started to run down her eyes as she continued working; never ceasing for a second as if her body was not under control of her mind.
"Yes, just a few more minutes," she croaked out as her face became increasingly wet. "Then we'll all get our rewards."
Author Note: Sorry for the almost unforgivably short chapter. Just trying to get back into the swing of things. I'll try to make them longer for the final stretch.