Bare white feet barely sank into the puddles of molten ground beneath her as Arcueid Brunestud sprinted through the ruined land that was called Fuyuki. Her shoes had accidentally been destroyed when a moment of distraction caused her to step into a stream of magma and instantly melted. Behind her the other three followed in their mad dash towards the last seen location of the other battle. Arcueid had been satisfied when they had managed to bring down Strout without any severe losses. If Strout didn't have that damned sword she would have been able to kill him herself. As it was she had to rely on Satsuki's curse resistance and her heart had almost stopped when she saw the blade that she so despised nearly cleave her friend in half. In that instant she felt like tearing apart the world in order to finish off the murderer in front of her.
In the end she had held herself back and to her joy Satsuki had recovered and even received a power-up of some sort from absorbing the curses in the blade. Still even with her power-up Strout had put up a fight in the last few minutes of the battle. Steadily accumulating wounds until his body was barely holding together, his body rampaged around forcing all four of them to try and put him down, a task that took way too long for her liking. In the end only a few seconds after they killed him they noticed that the two monsters had stopped fighting.
Seeing the sudden disappearance of both of the forces of nature she had immediately charged towards the last location of the battle as an ominous feeling grew inside her heart. She went as the crow flies, trampling through pools of lava that sizzled under the constant oppressive rain and smashing through the few remaining structures if it would get her a second's advantage. Travelling like that she soon arrived at the last location that she had seen the two beasts duke it out. She started scanning the area with little success and then she vaguely noted that the other three had arrived behind her and she took a moment to make sure that the environment around them was still survivable. While Heracles was a servant and thus had a body that could handle adverse conditions and Satsuki had the ability to alter her biology to better adapt; Shirou's sister, despite all her power, was still human and thus lacked the ability to survive in this severe climate.
That taken care of; she leapt into the air, easily reaching a hundred metres and scanned the former battlefield for any signs of life. Worms gnawed in her heart until she caught a glimpse of something a short distance away and she abandoned her natural falling speed, instead choosing to kick off the air propelling her body like a falling star to that location. Cracking the blackened ground as she landed; she immediately rushed to the torn and blackened flesh that lay upon the ground like a coat of bloody moss. She let out an involuntary sigh of relief as she recognized the feel of the mystery to be that of a foe she tangled with many times before.
"So you got him Shirou," she said quietly to herself. The worry when she saw the bull disappear after Primate Murder had caused all sorts of dark rationalisations to scream through her brain. "What if Primate Murder had shrunk because Ishtar could no longer maintain the Bull? How could Shirou fight off the Beast of Gaia then? What if he was being picked off by the wolf monster as he lay there drained of prana?" These and many more thoughts squirmed up from the dark corners of her mind and she relaxed slightly before she resumed her search for her friends and lovers. Less than twenty metres away she found the perfectly preserved body of her 'sister' Altrouge Brunestud. Not a mark lay upon her body and Arcueid realized with some surprise that Shirou must have utilised the fourth directly on her, something he usually refused to do.
"He won," she said feeling the weight that the Dead Apostle Ancestors vanishing. With the death of Altrouge and her pet all of their enemies had either died or run. The constant tension of having to contend against those monsters had placed a heavy strain on her during this past week. Hah, she couldn't even believe it was only about a week since the grail war started. Every night so far had been constant high level fights to the death and Arcueid hadn't even realized how exhausted she was until now that it was over.
But this was no time to relax and so Arcueid set off to look for Shirou ignoring the gasps of those behind her she extended her senses to the surrounding landscape trying to sense any signs of prana expenditure. In retrospect that was quite a stupid idea she thought a second after she tried. The ground was absolutely soaked in mana and mystery and even more exotic energies as a result of the clash between the two titans. Honestly this was the most mana filled environment she had ever encountered; the whole town seemed to be brimming with the stuff. She was about to give up and look somewhere else when she felt something in the back of her mind. Whipping her head towards a spot several feet away she focused on the place that contained the most powerful, ancient mystery she had ever felt, and she had stood within a reasonable distance of Type Mercury in the past.
Water lay among the cracked ground in huge quantities forming puddles of such a size she was honestly surprised she hadn't seen them before. She frowned at the thought, the air of the town of Fuyuki, at least this side, was over one hundred degrees Celsius. Any normal water would have long boiled away and yet there was not even a sign of steam from this water. Touching it she brought some of the cool water to her lips and tasted salt. Her eyes hardened as she realised that there was only one saltwater deity in the whole of Fuyuki. Frantically she began to scour the land for any sign of Shirou and Ishtar. Despite her rushing it took her an agonizingly long few seconds for her to see it. The red pool.
Barely visible in the early hours of the morning when the sun had yet to peek over the horizon it filled up a room-sized crater in the ground. The smell was immensely familiar to Arcueid, although it was no longer accompanied by the manic desire. Arcueid sprinted towards the pool, kneeling down and stopped for a moment. This blood almost certainly was Shirou's. Well either that or somebody grabbed a bunch of people and bled them out in some sacrificial ritual. Honestly this alone wasn't enough to kill him. Her friend had a couple of years ago confided to her that it would require him to lose a literal lake's worth of blood before he bled out. The advantage of having an ocean inside him he said.
Still the sight was extremely worrying and so Arcueid dove into the pool. The crater opened up slightly as she went down and Arcueid couldn't help but despair as she passed twenty metres before coming to the end. She made a sweep of the rocky ground her despair abating only slightly when she realised there was no body. That was the end of the good news however.
Arcueid surfaced from the red pool to see her friend, Shirou's sister and the servant they acquired watching her. Satsuki had grown some vents or gills or something that constantly spewed cold air and Shirou's sister was standing a calculated distance away so that she could survive the environment.
"What's the news," Satsuki said smiling almost sinisterly despite the serious situation and Arcueid got the feeling that her latest power up may have messed her up a bit.
Arcueid solemnly brought out the two things that she had acquired; a golden sword with a crack down the middle and the handle for a revolver. Both unquestionably belonged to Shirou.
"There was no body," she said with some faint hope colouring her voice.
"Servants don't leave behind a body though," Satsuki replied that damnable smile finally fading from her face.
"Yeah," Arcueid replied as her heart constricted once more. She had grown very close to Ishtar in the short time that she knew her; she didn't think it was possible to sleep with somebody and not grow close, but Shirou was still her number one priority, followed closely by his servant she admitted.
"There are slight marks of blood leading away from the pool," Heracles spoke up his deep voice breaking Arcueid's contemplations. He was a short distance away crouched over inspecting the floor. Straightening out to his full height he turned towards Arcueid again. "His body was probably carried away."
"Then if they carried him away he's most likely still alive," Aoko said urgently. "We need to hunt down them and get him back."
"Wait," Arcueid said cutting off Shirou's sister. While she wanted nothing more than to get Shirou back right now, it was far too dangerous to go running in recklessly against a goddess. Right now without Shirou Arcueid had to keep the rest of the team together and stop them from throwing their lives away. "We need to have a plan."
"Well spoken," an unfamiliar voice made itself known and Arcueid whirled to see two new figures standing there. Neither of them was unfamiliar to the True Ancestor. The shorter one stood at five and a half metres with black hair and a womanly figure. Her delicate features were entirely offset by the bruises all over her exposed skin, the bloody bandages covering the left side of her face and her missing right arm. Narbareck the head of the burial squad and a firm favourite for the strongest human in the world looked like she had gotten six shades of shit kicked out of her.
The taller of the two was instantly familiar to Arcueid although she hadn't seen him for a long time. Standing over six feet tall and well-muscled despite his apparent age the Second magician's very presence demanded respect from all of those present. Red eyes signalled that despite his grey hair he had many years still left. Kishcur Zelretch Schweinorg could truly be called the most powerful vampire on the Earth not counting those honorary ones such as Type Mercury and the late Primate Murder. And yet despite having no wounds upon him his presence was diminished and there were traces of fatigue on his face.
"Grandfather," Arcueid responded with some surprise upon seeing the man that had helped her so much in her younger years. "You're here," she finished not knowing what to say. Questions about his presence, requests for assistance and concern about his state of being warred within her mind and she was only able to speak those words. Still he seemed able to understand her thoughts and he smiled faintly.
"Barely here," he said with some resignation. "This world had become an otherworld, a world for which destruction is inevitable. Cut off from the Great Tree Known As Time…" Zelretch looked as if he was going to go into more detail and then stopped shaking his head. "All the parallel dimensions are disappearing," he admitted. "This world has diverged so much that even the effects of the counterforce are disappearing from this world. Soon I will have to leave this world or lose my ability to use the Second. Even now my magic is weakening as we speak."
"What?" Arcueid said and she wasn't alone in saying it. She had felt a ray of hope upon seeing her honorary grandfather but that ray of hope was rapidly being covered up by black clouds.
"You didn't look weakened back in London," Narbareck piped back.
"That was not a situation where I could afford to hold back, Zelretch admitted wryly. "Gazamy broke free," he admitted upon seeing the curious looks of the four who had been in Fuyuki. "Half of London is basically gone," he continued with a look of pain on his face. "I was too slow to save them. At least the Clocktower won't come after you after all this," he said slightly gloomily.
"Wait, he wasn't an Ancestor," Aoko the only knowledgeable person piped up.
"Nope, just apparently very good at picking his time," Narbareck said. "The church is having its own problems with Stanrobe Calhin and yet they still asked me to come here. Do you know why?"
"We're wasting time," Satsuki pointed out cutting across any explanation that she would have given. "We need to rescue Shirou and every second we spend here chatting delays that goal."
Zelretch correctly read the situation and nodded immediately. "Take us to the location of the Greater Grail," he commanded the one eyed girl next to him, and his power and influence clearly showed when the proud Narbareck who didn't even belong to the same faction didn't deny him. For an instant her remaining eye glowed black and then the three of them found themselves standing in a wooded area just outside a cave mouth.
"Forced teleportation," Arcueid muttered to herself. Looking around she noticed that all four of them had been teleported as well and involuntarily shivered. The ability to teleport a True Ancestor without her permission bypassing her protection against magecraft was truly formidable. She gave an appreciative glance towards the raven haired girl; she truly could be called the strongest in the world. With her on their side rescuing Shirou would be that much easier.
Zelretch didn't pause at all, instead walking to the cave mouth. As soon as he approached he was forced to sidestep a bolt of purple light that narrowly missed him, flying past his head and causing and exploding over the derelict streets. He twisted his hand and Arcueid's fine senses detected waves of finely tuned prana leaving his hand and travelling into the tunnel. The waves impacted upon something invisible and intangible and Arcueid felt a brief surge of prana before the unseen formation collapsed.
"That bounded field is remarkably well made," Zelretch remarked. "Even I didn't notice it until a few seconds ago."
"It managed to block my teleportation," Narbareck explained. "Personally I think the ability to casually deactivate somebodies well-made bounded field from a distance on the fly is far more terrifying," Narbareck said casually. "We sure could have used you during the war."
Zelretch grimaced even as he continued to send out more carefully shaped waves of prana. "As to why I can disable these fields I can tell you that before this war I could claim that there were only three others with my level of knowledge in magecraft. So far one has died during the war, one has been trapped away for a long time and the other one has designed us these delightful traps. As for why I didn't help out during the war; I'm not omniscient, the barriers around this dimension were getting strange so I spent time investigating them and missed this. I'm not perfect."
"Grandfather can't I just go ahead," Arcueid piped up slightly dissatisfied with the time taken. "This magecraft shouldn't be able to harm me."
"No," Zelretch said shaking his head. "Most of them wouldn't be able to hurt you but hidden among them are definitely those who can. If you were to dash forward you would soon be entangled in curses and likely incapacitated. Damn this is too slow," he said to himself. "The level of mana around us is steadily rising. We don't have too much time." At this stage he had advanced nearly two dozen metres but the immense density of the traps hindered their speed.
A sudden flash in the darkness of the cave was their only warning and Zelretch reacted instantly. An opaque shield of green covered in strange runes srang up in front of the Wizard Marshall and Arcueid watched as multiple cracks splintered out from a single point with a sound like thunder. No break was given as in the next second that single point was joined by eight others. However even a shield thrown up by the Second Magician had its limits and in the next second a tenth impact shattered the shield like glass.
An arrow of flame pierced through the wall of green and Arcueid could feel the air start to combust from the intense heat, comparable to that of the bull being summoned, if contained in a far smaller area. Zelretch didn't move and in the next second with a flash of white light the arrow was gone and an explosion high in the atmosphere indicated the arrows likely destination.
"I'm not in the best condition either Schweinorg," Narbareck said although her voice betrayed no signs of fatigue. "Controlling space is hard at the best of times, let alone now."
"I am perfectly capable of redirecting those arrows myself," Zelretch responded calmly. "I'm not dead yet and I don't need you to treat me as if I am," he continued lowering his voice to a whisper that Arcueid barely oberheard it.
Those words immediately set off alarms in Arcueid's head piercing through her worry of Shirou. "Grandfather is expecting to die," the thought passed through her mind and refused to leave.
"That's the guy that Shirou told us about," Satsuki said pointing into the darkness of the cave where a faint figure could be made out. "Hey are you going to continue skulking in the cave or are you going to come out."
A glint of another notched arrow was the only reply and the collective frowned. The tunnel limited movement, making it impossible to flank the archer and combined with the multitude of bounded fields a true killing zone was created.
"He's stalling," Arcueid said out loud.
Narbareck turned to her and gave her a look that implied a lot about her belief in Arcueid's mental capacity. "Obviously," she said after a moment. "And the concentration of mana is rising every second we waste here."
"You still can't teleport us directly to the grail?" Zelretch questioned but it was clear from his tone of voice that he already knew the answer.
"The bounded field disrupting my teleportation has not dissipated," Narbareck replied back instantly.
"Then there is no easy way to do it," Zelretch said. "In less than half an hour the levels of mana will have reached the level present in the age of the gods and Tiamat will be able to manifest."
"Wait how did you know that?" Satsuki piped up. She didn't know that Zelretch was aware of the situation with Tiamat.
"Shirou phoned me and I emailed Zelretch," Narbareck said with a glare silencing her.
"Can't we collapse the mountain?" she asked directly not wanting to waste any more time.
"Without any access to the second Magic, I'm afraid it is impossible for me," Zelretch said. "The bounded fields protecting the grail are old and strong, not to mention that they may have a hostage."
"So the only way to get to the grail is to battle through the cave fighting the archer and coping with the effects of the bounded fields under a time limit," Arcueid clarified feeling impatience in her heart.
A nod was her only reply and thus Arcueid didn't wait anymore darting forward through the cave, Satsuki only a few steps behind her. Dozens of fiery arrows with the power to destroy a city block were fired without rest. She stomped her foot and the cave warped closing to cover her from the approaching light, but then she felt a rebound and the cave refused to move any further distorting back and leaving her exposed to the arrows of fire. Moving her arms Arcueid created miniature tornadoes around her hands in an attempt to reflect the arrows, unfortunately Arcueid's Marble Phantasm which could easily reflect missiles proved insufficient in these circumstances where there was no place to deflect them to.
An explosion in the relatively narrow corridor blinded everyone momentarily and when the spots cleared from their eyes Arcueid stood their mostly unharmed with her flesh only slightly seared. Satsuki had dodged behind her at the last moment, using the True Ancestors superior body as protection against the force of the fiery explosion. However that wasn't entirely why the two held refusing to advance. A wall of smoky mist engulfed the corridor obscuring their adversary and surrounding them preventing the few from even seeing each other. Arcueid clicked her fingers trying to blow the smog away with a gust of wind but it resisted, remaining there stubbornly despite her encouragement.
"It's acidic," Satsuki said her voice steady, almost bored, despite the dangerous situation. "Unfortunately acidic mist is equivalent to Shirou getting warmed up for a spar. Arcueid there's another servant in here; it seems to be a small kid."
"How can you tell?" Arcueid asked curiously. The mist seemed to warp her senses, turning the straight cavern into something almost eldritch in layout. She couldn't even see her friend, let alone any hidden enemies. The mist was lit up with fire and she stepped forward facing the arrows head on preventing any of them from hitting the more vulnerable members of their group. She felt a familiar hand on her shoulder and her friends voice whispered in her ear, even as she put her body on the line against fiery death.
"I have sonar," Satsuki explained causing Arcueid's head to whip towards her direction in amazement, or at least the direction she thought she was in. "I'm going to try and hunt down that mini-servant. Can you distract him for me?"
"Fucking how," Arcueid said, the pressure causing her to slip into Shirou's vocabulary. "I can't even see him."
"What is the exact location of the Archer," Narbareck said, her voice carrying clearly through the otherwise muffling nature of the fog.
"Twenty three metres at a bearing of 330 degrees," Satsuki responded after a moment of thought.
"Make it two," Zelretch said his voice barely recognizable through the fog.
Suddenly a sound of impact and a massive surge of prana made itself known to the True Ancestor even through the nigh impenetrable fog. At the same moment she could feel the floor she stood on shatter slightly and heard a crack of displaced air as Satsuki moved past her and into the mist. The next few minutes were harrowing as Arcueid countered the seconds while occasionally blocking incoming fire arrows and even one of Heracles arrows. The unseen dance of death continued until it was stopped by a sickening crack that rang out unhindered by the swiftly fading mist.
Satsuki stood there and her hands held the form of a tiny girl in some severely inappropriate clothes that was swiftly fading into golden prana. Her neck was bent at an awkward angle and the light in her eyes quickly faded. Suddenly Satsuki had to turn, throwing up her arms to block a hail of flame that scorched her clothes, burned her flesh and even torched her bones. The Archer paid heavily for this and Arcueid moved forward to assist as she Heracles abandoned the bow and smashing his fists down into the body of Karna. While each blow didn't seem to be able to finish him off, the combined weight of his punches drove the opponent down to the floor and he forcibly kept him there and unable to get off any arrows. Or at least that was the plan.
"Bramastra Kundala," he choked out through a mountain of blood and in the next second the world was bathed in a fiery hell. The massive explosion caused the cave to collapse and Arcueid put on the speed even running into the fireball in order to avoid the falling rocks. The white light grew blinding once again and Arcueid forced her eyes open even as they burnt and regenerated in order to dodge the collapsing space. The explosion was over within seconds, although it felt like an age and when it cleared there was only dust and darkness.
"Is everybody okay," Zelretch said as he snapped his fingers and a ball of light formed above his hand and illuminated the darkness of the cavern. He looked slightly worn out but there were no obvious wounds on his body and he was frantically dismantling the bounded fields
"He got away," Heracles said with frustration in his voice. "But I'm unharmed."
"I'm a bit bloody," Arcueid said lamenting the damage done to her nice clean shirt. "But nothing a quick breather won't fix. Where are the others?"
"That Satsuki girl was buried beneath the rubble," Zelretch said not bothering to slow down. "Aoko and Narbareck are stuck on the other side."
"Can they not teleport across?" Heracles asked as he walked next to the oldest of the group. "It worked well on me beforehand."
"If they could then they would have done it already," Zelretch said picking up speed as he dismantled the bounded field with unparalleled speed. "I'm not intimately familiar with the mechanics of her method of teleportation but she may require line of sight or she may be too exhausted for further teleportation."
"It's actually the last one," Aoko said as she appeared next to them in that very moment. "She said that's her last one and she's done."
Zelretch shrugged and was about to speak when a rustling from the passage occupied his attention. His gaze grew firm and he summoned another ball of light to his hand and threw it into the darkness. From the inky depths of the cave crawled a monster. It was akin to a centaur, it had the upper half of a man, but everything from the waist down instead of being horse like, it was like a scorpion. Its bottom half was black in colour and it stood two metres in height. As they watched it was joined by a second and then a third and then more and more crawled into the light until the passage was swarming with them.
"Phantasmal beasts," Zelretch said as he continued to dismantle the field. "Don't let me stop you from wiping them out.
"I'll go ahead then," Aoko said stepping forward and incanted a swift chant, her circuits hummed in intensity and a dozen magic bullets smashed into the creature knocking it back a few paces. She frowned and then a second barrage smashed into the creature destroying the head. "Their upper bodies are weaker," she said as the remainder charged enraged at the death of their comrade.
Arcueid took her advice and stepped forward to meet the rush of the oncoming scorpion men. Tails whipped forward at supersonic speed and she barely managed to dodge the unfamiliar movements. She focused on one and launched a punch at his chest. Its body was like steel, but Arcueid's fists had long surpassed a force that could be described by humans and the creature let out a sickening wet gasp as it died. Out of the corner of her eye she was able to see Heracles launch wave after wave of arrows that tore into the bodies of the phantasmal beasts. To her right Aoko fired plenty of magic bullets into the creatures thinning out the herd. Whenever they reached her she would launch a kick or two, retreat and then fire off more and more magic bullets.
After only a couple of minutes they had exhausted their reserves and Arcueid could take a breath as she withdrew her hand from the chest cavity of the last of the scorpion man and dropped the heart in her hand unceremoniously on the floor. The bodies of the creatures littered the floor and Arcueid could count about three dozen of them in total.
"Fodder," Heracles spoke up saying what was on everybody's thoughts. "They were nothing but a momentary distraction."
Arcueid nodded in agreement and opened her mouth to say something when she was cut off. Mana surged around them catapulting into heights that she had scarcely felt before. The sheer volume of it was astonishing and unlike when it was used in a spell there was no purpose, no focus no use for the mana. Arcueid felt as if she was a fish that had lived on land all her life and now was thrown for the first time into the water. The sheer level of mana rose until it reached a crescendo and then it underwent a qualitative change, from mana into something else.
"True Ether," Zelretch said and his countenance grew dark. "All the bounded fields have broken down, they no longer care." Arcueid watched as he clenched and unclenched his fists and then he exhaled. "Well let's go pay the piper."
"We can still win," Aoko said and there was steel in her voice.
"We need to rescue Shirou," Arcueid said. "He'll have some way of winning. He always has in the past."
Zelretch laughed and then he relaxed. "My magic has gone," he admitted. "This world has become a lostbelt, a point of ultimate divergence from any other possible outcome. I'm not going to explain it right now, but rest assured that I'm as committed to this dimension as possible. Come on granddaughter," he said patting Arcueid's head as he used to do long ago. "Let's see it through to the end."
Aoko nodded her determination and Heracles started to walk in forward through the now defenceless cave. Infuriatingly it was less than thirty metres until they came to the opening of the cave illuminated by golden light. If they had reached the spot just a minute or two ago they could have probably finished it. If it wasn't for the scorpions they would have reached the grail was the bitter thought that ran through all their heads.
A young blonde girl sat cross-legged with her eyes closed on the ground in front of the grail and all four instinctively realised that she was the last master. The Archer that gave them so much trouble in the way in stood their upright next to her but he made no move to attack them. There was no sign of Shirou, despite how much Arcueid frantically looked.
"Where is Shirou?" she yelled at the pair at the top of her voice, but neither responded. "Where is he?" she repeated stalking forward.
"Hold," the girl said speaking words that she could understand in a language that she couldn't comprehend. Instantly Arcueid found that she was unable to make a single movement. "Enki's avatar has been destroyed," she finished and Arcueid found herself knowing that what she said was true.
"I'll kill you," Arcueid screamed out, instantly enraged, and yet she was powerless to move a muscle. She could feel herself going mad, but she still could not slip into bloodlust and for the first time ever she cursed her clear-headedness.
She could only watch as horns burst from the head of the little girl causing blood to drip from the forehead. Her eyes opened and turned from blue to rose red and she brought her hands to the top of her head and in elegant yet horrifying movement ripped the skin off her body. Like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon a beautiful woman emerged from the blood and flesh of a forsaken girl.
But Arcueid was seeing any of this. Her rage dissipated and for the first time in a long time she cried. "Shirou," she said while standing in front of the rebirth of a goddess. "Shirou I'm so sorry."
xxx
Far away to the extent that distance could not even be measured a teenager's room sat. There was nothing particularly unusual about it. It was decorated in shades of ocean blue and had a variety of board games and a single TV. A cat's bowl sat next to a bookshelf containing various esoteric subjects and a phone was charging on the bed stand. Speaking of the bed stand; it was made of reddish wood and was, rather appropriately, next to a bed. The bed was King sized with brown covers and had only one occupant.
Red eyes snapped open and the occupant woke up.
Author Note: Today it's been a year since I've started writing White Ink. Can you believe at one point I believed I would be finished in February/March. How's that for schedule slip. Anyway this story was originally formed when I asked myself, "Hey if Gilgamesh hates the gods, why did he name his ultimate weapon after them?" And now I'm 250 000 words later.
So I'm nearly finished. Hopefully before Christmas if the schedule slip isn't too bad. So now I think would be the best time to ask for a favor. Can you tell me what you liked and hated about the story so I can improve any later stories I write. I mean you stuck with it for far too many chapters so there must be at least something good about it. Unless you're just skipping to the end right now and are very confused.