It was a banquet of the dead.
That was how Illya viewed the incoming hostiles that swarmed them from the upheaved graves that were lying still but minutes ago. Filled to the brim with mana, these transformed corpses were remodeled into a likeness bearing the mark of vampirism while still being animated decay. Necrotic energies gave them life and now they hungered for blood within anything of close reach; more specifically, those that their master has ordered them to consume.
"Here they come!" Rin cried out, already in her posture to let loose a string of spells. The ghouls moved swiftly, against the natural inclination of their decrepit bodies, hunched forward and dashing low to the earth. Firing a salvo of Gandr, the burgundy hued orbs moved with rapid excess rather than pinpoint accuracy due to the haste of her targets. Striking a few, she caused two to stumble in their tracks, disarming another and taking off the head of another.
Archer, in the meantime, had his own method. Without being heard, he crossed his arms and curled his hands back to be beside his head and manifesting four crimson dagger-like hilts in a flourish of mana. Jumping up into the air, he spun around like a top, letting loose the blades of singing steel that struck true in the immediate approaching wave of undead servants in key pressure points that caused them to collapse. Wailing out in horrific shrieks, Rin and Illya could see the Black Keys that were embedded into the eroding creatures, dying or pinned to the earth by the Projections EMIYA used.
"Careful," Archer warned, summoning more of the holy weapons in between his fingers, brandishing the blades in a discharge of mana in readiness as more approached them from the graveyard. "These creatures are a lot sturdier than standard ghouls. My Black Keys won't kill them unless I hit their head, but it will stun them long enough for you to fillet them."
"No need to fret, Archer," Illya gestured with a hand, unseen string twining around a charging ghoul around its appendages and neck with metal grinding on flesh sounds. Curling her fingers into a ballsed up fist, the limbs contorted into irregular angles, the head spinning backwards until finally a gruesome snap was heard. Tossing her wrist to the side, the arms, legs and head were torn off in a necrotic pile of limbs onto the hillside. "As long as we have the high ground, and maintain this formation, we have nothing to worry about."
Rin looked like she was about to say something before firing another volley of Gandr towards leaping ghouls. Combined with the speed and accuracy of Archer's thrown Black Keys, they too went down with fair ease, pinning them to the ground and allowing dismemberment to be a nonissue. What was troubling her was that the sheer total number didn't match what was sent up their way.
Or the amount sent to attack the fear-ridden Shirou Emiya locked at the base of the hill.
Illya could tell that it was taking up Saber's attention from the dangerous Heroic Spirit and to his army of walking dead minions. Thankfully her prowess with a blade and adept footwork enabled her to easily lop off arms, deflect claws and teeth from her multiple opponents. Swerving and ducking, she made sure to keep in mind of her master's condition and to ensure none that went after him would get the chance to get close. Dicing up what felt like a dozen, she stood erect and regained her senses.
All the while Vlad the Impaler clapped slowly with broad, sardonic sweeps of his spindly fingers and broad palms.
"Very good, Saber! As expected of the most advantageous Class of the Four Knight Servants," He complimented, finishing the final clap with a visible rub of enticement. His teeth spread sinisterly, complementing the glow of crimson from his eyes as the mist-filled air shifted around his person. "Keeping in mind the safety of your master, making sure you keep a meaningful distance from me and watching for the unpredictable maneuvers of my servants all without breaking a sweat. Truly the marvel of the Supreme Servant!"
"Enough flattery, Berserker," Artoria replied, raising her invisible blade up by its Invisible Air mantle towards him pointedly. "If you truly intend to do battle, don't send these puppets of flesh. Fight me without involving the others, one on one."
"How noble, Saber. Just what I'd expect of a knight of such valor," Berserker replied with a mocking manner, bowing to her with an arm wrapped over his dress-shirt's front. Smiling downward, he'd angle his eyes to look up at her as the blonde swordsman's eyes widened. "Unfortunately for you, I've abandoned my honor when I was summoned in this manner."
A simultaneous surprise attack happened all at once from all points at the battlefield. What was once pinned bodies of rotten, mutated flesh contorted in place and rapidly writhed on the ground. Saber twisted on her heel, seeing some bodies angle up and gratuitously eject razor edged points from mouths, eyes and odd parts of their anatomy. In a bloody discharge of black outlined crimson light came a horde of stakes, aiming with far more precision and guidance than that of Shinji's Body Barb trap.
On top of the hill, Archer didn't even think as his Eye of the Mind informed him of the action before Saber had moved. Letting loose the Black Keys towards the bodies readying their payload, he quickly summoned his own pair of iconic swords and threw one in an expert cycling arc while rushing to Illya's side. Grasping the smaller girl by the collar he yanked her up past protest and began parrying the harrying slew of stakes while his thrown sword deflected ones sent near Rin's front that she wasn't able to avoid via quick dash backwards near the trunk of a tree and firing of Gandr at those that escaped.
At the same time, Saber had made her choice on how to handle the underhanded assault.
Casting aside her own preservation, she dashed all the way to Shirou, slashing and parrying stakes along the way. Some were shattered and made pings off her armor, the less plated areas received lacerations including her cheek and surface side of her left neck. Reaching him in what her master would believe was an instant, she turned around and released a mighty gust of Invisible Air to buffet the rest of the stakes, shredding the ground prone corpses and uprooting the soil with the gravestones all the way to Berserker.
Much to her surprise, his arm thrust through the torrent of magical wind and bisected through it without harm.
"A concealing magical wind, hm?" Berserker inquired, raising his hand to inspect it, as if one was to admire the texture of one's nails and shape of their fingers. "Such tripe to one who had mastered the elements in the past," Grinning, he clenched his fingers and unfurled them with a chilling song of grated bone imitating brandished metal. The sinking feeling in his stomach was made as the visage of a killer twisted on the Servant's face as his left hand had created curved knives out of what was human finger nails turned claws.
A single swipe and Saber's Instincts told her to evade but her back was to the red-haired teenager, still stiff from the trauma he was inflicted with. Staying her ground, she curved the weapon as a rushing crack in the air rammed straight towards her-
-cracking the shape of her armor, cutting flesh and bypassing the protective weave of wind sheathing her holy sword. Blood spewed out from her shoulder and armored chest, the golden shine marked with the etching of a long cut that was made through space past the air and into the soil around her in perfect definition. Grimacing, she refocused her Invisible Air around her weapon and kept up a guarded stance.
Just as Berserker evaporated like a mirage before her eyes. Eyes widened palpably, reacting on Instinct-guided reflex towards the phantom that lanced his hand out like a spear towards her sword. The strength of his clawed digits was enough to produce a horrid sounding concussion in the space between her and her opponent, blasting the soil apart and severing it between them. She stumbled back, her heels grinding across the earth in a bid to regain her composure as Vlad's ever-present grin stretched to nightmarish proportions.
"Come on, Saber!" He crowed out, shifting from view and transporting himself in an instant before the swordsman's eyes with another thrust of his left arm that she narrowly deflected with her magical blade. In the shower of sparks and brief exposure of incandescent golden intricacy beyond the veil of the pseudo-Bounded Field, his free hand grabbed her face around her mouth and nostrils so only her eyes dilated with fury and fright; mostly the latter in how easily he did so to her. "I'm not even trying here! Is your Master really that worthless that you can't give me a good fight?"
"O' Wind," She began to utter beneath his palm, the vortex of contorting magical energy twisting before his sparking claws. "ERUPT!"
With a grinding push, Saber let loose a blast of Invisible Air that separated the pair of Servants. The blonde swordsman flew out, feet catching the top of a grave stone and surfed across the earth beneath its slicing soil the marker rode upon. The vampire on the other hand flew back with dexterous grace, twisting around in the air before disappearing in a flash of black fog and scattered into the layers of mist covering the graveyard. Wounds began to quickly heal on Saber, armor itself knitting back together at a slower pace than she'd like but was still a progress that her master hadn't seen before.
A cackling filled the air as Dracula's presence vanished from all those present's senses. Grotesque churning sounds were made as stakes flew out from the mist, forcing Saber to deflect and react to the discharge of projectiles. Her wind-wrapped sword parried each pointed edge, sparks flying and mana-infused material shattered or was sent flying out as the number went from several to several dozen in under ten seconds. In the midst of her parrying the barrage of ranged attacks, the ground around her feet was disturbed and her eyes widened as hands reached out to grab her by the boots.
"W-What?!" She queried out, swinging her blade around in an arc to dismember the appendages below. The sudden sense of dread returned too late as a large spindly hand swooped around and grabbed the blade with only the slightest of cuts to the palm that held it through sheer strength. Flesh and cloth formed out of black fog, revealing her enemy as he smiled demonically at the caught Servant. His mouth parted, strings of saliva connecting rows of teeth as pronounced fangs were poised to strike her vulnerable, blood-stained neck.
The sound of whistling arrows interrupted the prince of darkness before he could commit the deed. A strong pull followed by a ruthless kick to her abdomen produced lungfuls of air and internal bile to spew from the Heroic Spirit. Bits of plate mail and cloth were showered into the air with the fluids and oxygen, her body spiraling away through taller tablets of stone and splintering some trees outlining the premises of the foreign resting place. He himself vanished into the onyx dust moments before the Black Keys' turned arrows could reach their mark, causing the not-too-distant Archer to cluck his tongue with annoyance.
"So," A buzzing sound in accordance to the deep, threatening voice breached the space just behind EMIYA. "Do you want to dance as well, Archer of Red?"
Dark skin paled beyond conception. Sweat formed across his brow and vivid eyes contracted in the size of dots. Images of a brutal slaughter have always haunted EMIYA but it was never in this manner and never by this Servant in this setting. So in reflex honed through a multitude of fathomless failures and fights he's been in, Archer reacted in the means that'd produce the least harmful results to himself or his Master.
Crouching down, he'd launch himself forward and up into the air in a throttling leap, causing Berserker's outreaching hand to clench at fabric and tear a shallow groove through the outermost layer of the Anti-Magecraft cloth covering his back. Twisting around in the air, he summoned his black bow, fastening a slew of Black Keys into thin bolts. Releasing them in a manner akin to a rapid-fire machine gun, Shirou would look up with startled admiration at the efficiency of the unknown Servant's slew of attacks that his eyes somehow could track.
Without gesture, decaying remains of flesh and ash around the ground shot out stakes in reply, clashing with the salvo of arrows in a field of sparks and shattering materials. Turning to look at Illya, he'd step towards her, only to find his legs entwined up to his waist and followed up with his arms in the dangerous mana infused wire. Red eyes glowed and a guttural, deep laugh echoed from his chest as he jeered with a toothy smile at the petite girl.
"This is a splendid Magecraft, little Master. But," He snarled after laughing, flexing his muscles and snapping the wires through physical effort, dusting himself off with a palm much to Illya's irritation. "Such magic has no effect on me."
Swinging her hands around, she let loose more strings that acted as bladed whips, her attempt to push him back on the strength of the cords. Doing nothing more than sting the durable Spirit, her own summon landed back on the ground and bolted back towards her side, Projection already at work by his hands curved behind his back. To her periphery and Dracula's own sight, it looked as if a pair of angelic wings sprouted from his back with the opposing dyes of onyx and alabaster. On his arrival, Berserker turned around and caught Kanshou through a firm grip, earning a spout of blood from his palm to splatter over the face of the scaled sword; the other was thrown at the Servant, deflected with a clawed swing of his left hand, sending it spinning awry.
"Honestly, is this the best effort you possess?" He asked sardonically, his hand gripping tightly along the mass of the weapon, fingers digging deep into the Reinforced etchings of its enhanced material. The sound of the white blade caught his attention, causing him to turn to look over his shoulder and witness the blade spinning around in a razor arc that cut through branches like butter and dig grooves deep into the trunks of the forest's glade. Looking back at Archer -whom was already summoning another Bakuya in its original state in his free hand- he grinned savagely at him.
Twisting around, he'd throw him head over heels into the ground with a loud crash, smashing him with enough force to bruise his ribs in the impact and shove the air out of his lungs. Looking ahead at the spinning blade, he merely stepped back, allowing the spinning blade to impale the earth before his feet. Pocketing his hands in his coat, he looked over to where the brown haired girl was and found his brows furrowed. She wasn't just gone, her presence had been concealed.
"Is this Magecraft? Or is this her Servant's doing?" He pondered under his breath.
His senses pricked up the moment Illya generated a sizable burst of her Prana into several forms. Looking back at her, he was pleasantly surprised to see the Storch Ritters flying, small intangible strings connected to knots around her fingers to indicate her control over them. This was definitely stronger than mere mana-infused threads; his senses informed him each of the avian familiars came a distinct presence each of them had the presence of a Magus in sheer Prana output. Unleashing a hail of Zelle -luminous bolts of white light outlined by an azure aura of mana- Berserker dispersed into mist, streaking through the swift attacks and approaching her at a lightning pace. Bending them around through will, she stopped an arm from spearing through her head through a crisscross barrier of two wire-woven blades -Degen- that pinned his right appendage. It was such a close call that the sight of blood dribbling from her forehead, from his middle claw's prick, revealed how close to death she had come.
"Now," She commanded, her body lighting up with her ominous Command Seals, the presence of which made even Berserker's eyes widen with shock. The sound of the bow's twang! made the vampire transform back into mist, narrowly avoiding a hail of Black Key arrows, fired in rapid succession that made the creature twist and shift in shape around the air away from the now commanded Servant.
Running out of patience, Vlad reformed in the air, swinging his claws around in several motions to eviscerate the copies of holy weapons. The pressure was great enough that Archer had received a few lacerations amidst his reflexive backward leap from his mid-range strikes by his claws. Without even skipping a beat, he raced across the sky in a blur, swiping at Projection crafted weapons and smashing them with little thought to Archer's next move. Shards rained down, forcing the observing Shirou to leap out of the way to avoid being struck by the shrapnel, just in time to see Saber taking up a reverse grip of her Invisible Air blade aimed behind her by her left hip.
"BERSERKER!" Saber's voice howled within the wake of an exploding jetstream of cycling Invisible Air currents, a ray of gold shining in a glimmer that made Shirou's eyes widen at the sight of the weapon's hidden nature. Arcing through the air like a missile, he lacked the capacity to track her momentum as she tore through the atmosphere of the undead graveyard. In the motion of his head turning to look at her source of climactic impact, he'd witness a shower of gore followed up with maimed and severed body parts.
But to his and the Servant's dismay, it was a rising shield of meat made out of the other summoned ghouls. One even managed to pin the invisible blade halfway through its chest, snarling loudly as a stake ebbed from its mouth towards her. Grunting, she twisted her weapon from its grasp in a flash of light and deflected the bolt with ease before severing its head from nasal cavity and temples across. With blood staining her armor and linen, she looked over at Berserker who held Archer by his head up into the air, the latter of which had done virtually no damage to the vampire and had received his own deep cut wounds on his arms and chest.
Clucking her tongue, she bent her knees and charged forward to stab him, only to be bodily bludgeoned by EMIYA as her enemy twisted around in a motion faster than she could recoil from. It sent her smashing into a tree at the shoulder, causing her to cry out, narrowly avoiding a follow-up claw stroke that snapped it into pieces with ease. Spinning on her heel she rapidly swung and thrust her blade at her foe, visibly contorting in frustration as the Impaler easily deflected or avoided her attacks with nothing but claws and his bare hands.
As if to demonstrate the gap between them, Dracula grabbed her sword, ignoring the shallow cut it made into the palm of his flesh. Thrusting his arm like a spear, Saber's eyes widened and she took a step back before an eviscerating sensation took over her. Armor was shattered, plating flying out with wads of ichor stained linen, her midsection thrust all the way through out the back. A grotesque gurgling sound was made from her throat before she hurled out burgundy colored liquid over his sleeve, bringing out a depraved smile from the vampire.
"N-No!" Came out a strangled cry from Shirou, finding his nerve in the middle of this horrific sight.
"Much as I'd enjoy dining on your veins, Saber, this fight has all but drawn to the most satisfying of endings," Berserker declared with a guttural chuckle. Rending his arm from her midsection in another spray of gore, he pulled his leg back and kicked her armored breastplate with a smashing impact that sounded akin to flattening of tin foil. As the agape Servant's eyes widened, her mouth spewing out more red colored spit, she was propelled from an explosive pop of air pressure and sent careening from the top of the hill into a disheveled part of earth, showering it with flotsam and clods as she was buried in her own faux grave.
Nearby the red-haired master, Berserker raised his hand and began calling upon the blood of the fallen ghouls, their lifeblood spiraling out like tendrils of pulsing liquid mana that left their shriveling husks decaying into piles of sinew and ash. Clenching it in hand, larger stake equal to the size of a spear was held in his grip, pulsing with energy. "My Master said to avoid leaving too many witnesses and to kill any Masters of worth in my domain. Farewell, Saber!"
His words rang out as he pulled his arm back before throwing it at the barely moving Servant. His eyes widened at sudden movement to intercept. It wasn't the white haired Einzbern Magus who looked on with a complex mask of emotions that lacked complete sincerity. Nor it was Archer, whom was struggling to stand from his own sustained injuries, thanks to the aforementioned girl's unique Command Spells. With no sign of the absent Mage girl's presence since that moment earlier, he saw with shock as the cowardly red-haired boy leaped in the stake's path; impaling him through the chest in a shower of blood and innards.
Choking on his own vomit and bile, Illya's eyes looked over at the man who gripped the weapon and kept himself from falling backwards onto his downed Servant. Despite the substantial weapon stuck within him, Shirou's shaky gaze looked up, a look contorting from the pain he felt to impotent rage aimed squarely up at Berserker. Pulling the stake slowly out, he let out an animalistic snarl before it was fully withdrawn, leaving him to fall onto the tainted earth and begin to ebb his own blood in abundance onto the soil.
"S-S-Shirou!" Saber cried out, dragging herself out with effort to crawl up out of the hole she was in towards his location. Her armored hands reached out, feeling for her master's body. As she drew up to his position, she looked on with horror as Berserker swung his hand around, projecting dozens of stakes from the dead wood surrounding the graveyard. Crawling up over his body, Saber concentrated on healing herself as quickly as she could while holding her Invisible Air sword up with both hands. The worst of the injuries dealt couldn't be given anymore than supplemental covering and stopping the bleeding, prioritizing on keeping her master from being killed while he was immovable. "Well! What are you waiting for, Berserker?! Won't you strike me down as you intended?!"
He didn't respond, instead taking a moment to observe the status of Archer behind him before a sudden pulse of his Bounded Field was penetrated. Glaring he looked over to the source and saw something that made him scowl harder. A cloaked figure in an obscuring teal outlined black cloth with the soft texture of silk retaining the effect that made its enemies unable to sense its identity nor its Prana. By the way it hovered high into the sky, he knew exactly whom he was dealing with.
"You sure know how to interrupt a good time, Caster," Berserker intoned with a growl, his voice augmented once again through mist-swirled graveyard that was his domain. "Do you want to test my patience or are you here simply to watch?"
The figure didn't respond vocally, simply pointing a gloved hand upwards.
Raising a brow, he entertained this game and looked up. Eyes dilated and his mouth was agape, following by the audible gasp by Illya and the nervous expression shared by EMIYA and Saber. Up in the sky was a firmament of water, shaped into large appendage resembling a giant arm-attached hand. With a pointed gesture of an index finger, the watery limb surged downward with the driving force of a jet liner, forcing everyone around to be called into action.
"Archer-!" Illya began to say, shortly before she was scooped into the injured but still functional arms of her Servant as he decisively throttled himself to the nearest tree and leaped away.
Saber on the other hand gingerly lifted Shirou in a bridal style, running with as much speed as her wounded form could manage. Looking back over her shoulder, she'd see the telltale shimmer of one Rin Tohsaka at a marginally safe distance before rushing away. She observed through her periphery as the vampire let loose a storm of stakes from the eroding earth and trees, all deflected by a sigil of red she couldn't make out from this distance. And in an instant, the watery limb crashed into the graveyard with a thunderclap of force, the velocity of which flattened the treeline and washed away the necrotic decay and its mist-layered soil along with the assumed target.
It was at this point, that Shirou had finally ceased consciousness as the rest of the events of the battle stopped registering altogether.
Flames.
Everything was on fire. This was how his dreams usually ended up when he felt an omen or he hadn't been punished enough in his day-to-day existence. The outline of a child, covered in soot and blood, trudging through a molten street where the sounds of screams, begging for rescue, would be unending in his ears. Small hands reached up to block them out, he himself choking out rasping whimpers and cries for his own parents, before he'd forget them entirely. Falling to the ground, he'd eventually be buried by a collapsing wall, all but forgetting a significant sight above the wall of embers and smoke that covered this part of Fuyuki City.
It was like a hole in the sky, swirling with a haunting glow, ebbed with an ominous presence that left its mark forever on the mind of Shirou Emiya. In this bizarre out of body experience, the should-be-dying teenager looked up with a faraway stare, mesmerized and terrified by the spectacle of what was before his gaze. This black hole that sucked away everything he knew and left him empty, alone, save for the one who gave him a purpose of living. But, in finding out what he did about his father, even if chastely, did it all really matter? What was he supposed to do right that Kiritsugu Emiya did wrong?
As he questioned this, a warmth filled him, unnaturally swelling up and around him from his stomach up to his throat.
"Shirou? Shirou?"
A voice called out to him, urging his dream-self to turn to look over his shoulder, blinded by a brilliant starlight of gold filled with an azure horizon. Wincing, he instinctively raised a hand out to shield his sight from it-
-only to feel himself grasp a soft hand. Still waking from his stupor, he blearily opened his eyes, revealing the image of the gorgeous woman draped in a blue dress with blonde hair adorned in a blue-tied, embroidered bun. Deep emerald eyes stared into his hazel orbs, bringing him more clarity and dawning realization. His face began to warm rapidly and his mouth began to dryly part, eyes dilating while he heard her voice in the present once more.
"Shirou-"
"S-S-S-SABER?!" Shirou recoiled in a comical roll of bed-sheet and landed with a thunk on the floor of what he remembered was one of the spare rooms. Observing from his point of view, this was a futon with a spare cushion, the sight of its cleaned fabric meant it was changed out while the stains of blood was partially etched into the framework of the flooring that led to the open sliding door to the outside; the outside of his home in the Emiya Estate.
"You shouldn't move so erratically," The Servant chastised sternly, her soft eyes hardening into a scowl -a far cry change from her usual stoic self, almost making her look cute to his perspective- still seated on her legs amidst her very much old-style dress from whatever era she hails from, clenched hands resting on the lap of her dress' skirt. "That stake Berserker sent you was intentionally made to kill me. If you hadn't unintentionally led it to a less than immediately lethal area of your body, you wouldn't have recovered as miraculously as you did."
"The stake?" He blinked, almost forgetting exactly the moment that left him near dead. Furrowing his brow, he remembered freezing up and unable to involve himself in any meaningful way while everybody else showed their cool or skill in fighting such a dangerous foe. She was hurt badly by...Berserker? As if forgetting himself, he lurched forward and gestured to his Servant with gobsmacked concern. "Wait, about you! You got hurt a lot worse than me!"
"Don't fret, Shirou," The blonde woman sighed, calming a bit as she explained to him with a bit more composure than a moment ago. "I have an innate healing ability. Even though his attacks were severe, I was able to heal the worst of it within an hour. The wound Lancer dealt with me probably won't go away until he's slain, so that in of itself is a true hindrance if nothing else is."
"Then...did you heal me?" Shirou balked, trying to figure out the oddity of his survival. Looking down, he saw he was shirtless -adding to his embarrassment- and his sculpted body honed by years at the Archery Range along with exercises of various sorts, kept him in shape. His bandages looked clean, changed out from the outline of traces of what was leftover blood that hadn't been completely removed from his skin. The rest was completely untouched; as if the injury hadn't been dealt to him in the first place.
"Those are your powers, Shirou," Saber answered bluntly, cocking her head questioningly to the side. "Didn't you know you possess an extraordinary healing factor?"
"I've...never healed from a scrape or a bump to the head any quicker than the last guy," He admitted, poking at his abdomen curiously, peeking at the muscle-intoned chest with wonderment. "Naw, there's no way I should've done this even naturally."
"Then perhaps this is the result of our bond, and our pact has had an intrinsic difference to your own power?" She theorized, shrugging as she stood herself upward. "Whatever the case is, try not to be so brazen. Getting yourself killed will render me unable to acquire mana and then I won't be able to maintain physical form any longer."
"Oh...uh, I guess I forgot that part," Shirou mumbled lamely, looking to the floor with a dumbfound stare. "I just, snapped. I didn't think about it, I just knew I had to do something. I couldn't just let it end, not like that."
Saber's eyes briefly widened before returning to its natural shape. Closing them, she sighed, walking up and flicking his forehead, ushering him out of his stupor with a grimacing blink of his own bewildered sockets. Putting her hands on her hips, she nodded to him, "Don't do it again, Shirou, and we'll move on past this. Come on; everyone else has been awaiting your recovery."
"Wait," Shirou stopped short, finding himself making a weird face as Saber walked away without him around the corner of the Estate's courtyard. "Who's everyone else?"
Illya was fuming. Everything about last night was a disaster. From the point of laying out a path of insistence to subtly convince the foolish redheaded stepchild of her late father to surrender his Servant to a more capable Master and take refuge in the church with the priest. It should've been obvious, right? But no, his stubbornness rivaled her own, a trait she had unfortunately found out and underestimated during her time mingling here at his home. The sour look on her face was so intense, her Servant was glad he wasn't around to see her and readily used his excuse to recover from his injuries from the night prior to ensure no more awkward silences would lapse between them.
Taiga Fujima was absent as this was a Saturday, and only a select few people were going to be at the school. Perhaps some Captains of Clubs or members of the Faculty, but she was more than likely going to make a stop there at some point during the day before she did anything else a single woman like herself did for fun. Sakura Matou was suspiciously absent, though she didn't care; her Prana was even weaker than Shirou's when she had investigated her. She'd be surprised if she even had a Magical Circuit to begin with.
Rin Tohsaka was the only one who remained here over night. Despite heavy insistence from herself, the strong-willed elitist just didn't budge. It infuriated her how powerless she felt with a damaged Heroic Spirit and no one to conveniently lend their aid to her. She knew that this girl was a problem from the moment she tried to acquire that catalyst for the grandest of Servants; now, with it evident that she has Caster, she wasn't sure just how much more dangerous her nemesis was...
Upon hearing the footsteps of Saber entering the dining room, Illya turned her head from thought while Rin sipped tea comfortably across from her at the ground-table. Joining them at the opposite side of the gathering place, the blonde Servant had the perfect straightforward view of a shirt-adorned, befuddled Shirou entering the room. While Saber had none of the sternness she showcased earlier -taking care to simply stare ahead with that serious expression she always had- Illya resumed her spiteful glare while Rin looked condescendingly at him. The pair's expressions were more than enough to make up for Saber's leniency, earning a grimace from the approaching boy.
"Are you guys going to tell me I screwed up too?" He muttered out.
"Oh yes," Rin thinly stared back, earning a crawl up his spine as her words -while composed- were laced with an icy kind of venom. "We're going to tell you in eloquent detail just how badly you acted in such a time and place."
"While it's not my place to be redundant, Shirou, I think you were being incredibly thick-headed," Illya countered with her own hot look piercing his eyes from her pair of vibrant red orbs. "You were in the middle of an obvious trap, that all those present could tell. We even offered a solution to check for the trap -which did exist- and you reacted like an erratic monkey!"
"M-Monkey?" Shirou winced, sitting down at the table hesitantly as he continued to receive verbal thrashings.
"Yes. A big stupid monkey named Shirou!" Illya puffed up her cheeks petulantly, lips pouting and an unintentionally cute look adorned her face despite the harshness of her words. "You should be ashamed of yourself! Bad Shirou, Bad!"
"H-Hey! You can't just say things like that?!" The red-haired teenager raised his hands up defensively. "Come on, you saw what was happening. He wasn't even dead, what was I supposed to do-"
A dawning crossed him that immediately transferred to his face. He had been so wrapped up in what happened afterwards that he forgot that someone's life had been taken away. Murdered. Right in front of his eyes. His hands lowered, limply falling onto his lap while his eyes lowered with his brow to look down at the table, unable to speak as his face paled.
"Shinji. I...couldn't save him," He mouthed out, unable to see the pained expression on Rin's face nor the look of confusion of Illya. "I...was helpless. That monster just laughed at me and I couldn't move. I was so close to dying myself that I didn't know how to react. I just...the one time I could do something, I couldn't stop myself. Seeing Saber, lying there; I didn't want to go through with that all over again!"
The daunting silence crossed the table, some of the young women exchanging glances as if knowing this was a difficult time for him. Saber didn't show as much emotion, steeling herself better than even the usually reserved Rin or the confused Illya.
"As much as I don't like it, we can't make news of his death right now," Rin proffered, earning a wary look from the slumped boy sitting at an angle across from her. "Not only is there too much going on that'd unfasten at revealing our hand, but there are still enemies we've yet to identify. Berserker is a threat on his own, and based on the Boundary Field placed on the school, it seems to be the work of him; that or his Master is more than probably involved."
"Truth be told, I'm a bit more worried about Sakura," Shirou spoke up, getting a look from Illya that was far more interested than earlier. Looking up, he looked between the three women past his slowly regaining countenance. "Did you see her at all this morning? She said she...wanted to talk to me last night."
"Unfortunately no," Saber readily answered, Rin furrowed her brow and looking down with contemplation. Only casting a second's glance at her biting her lip and holding her chin, the Servant continued to inquire of her master. "Do you think Sakura was worried for her brother?"
"Possibly. It's not like her to skip our morning ritual though," He replied with a lame shrug. "She's such a creature of habit that I forget what it's like for her not to show up."
"She's probably just taking it easy then," Illya offered, showing a more enthusiastic smile that almost startled the redhead with how dismal the atmosphere was. "She's been so spacey as of late that I'm sure she's just been tired with how the new year's been going. Perhaps you should check in on her later tonight? I'm sure she'll be right as rain by then!"
"Yeah," Shirou nodded with acknowledgement, grinning readily after hearing these words. "I think that's a good idea."
Speaking of the day, Shirou furrowed his brow and looked more serious than before.
Looking over to Rin, he asked her straightforward, "Tohsaka, are we going to be doing this now, or are we still okay?"
Surprise was the first expression crossing her face. Then, a slight blush worked its way across her face as she looked to the side as she answered warily, "Truth be told I'm a bit more concerned with Berserker. As it stands, he's our biggest enemy in this Grail War. Even discounting how skilled of a challenge Lancer is, he seems to have us beat in every category leaps and bounds. Even my Servant doesn't have a specialty in dealing with Vlad the Impaler and she took him off guard enough for him to retreat."
"He does seem a bit too clear-headed to be a Berserker," Saber confessed, a look of concern crossing over her emerald gems for eyes as she looked carefully between Rin, Illya and then finally at her master. "Madness Enhancement is what usually makes a Berserker different from other Servants. The higher the rank of this skill has, the far stronger it makes the Heroic Spirit, at a cost. In the highest level, it could make them unrivaled in strength, endurance and more, but makes them inconsolable and incapable of even speech. Yet, it seems there's an exception to his case."
"Perhaps it's because his Legend ties closely to his other identity, and that neither of them were incapable of using reasoning, strategy and logic despite being heralded as demons or nightmares in both contexts?" Illya offered, earning a startled look from Saber at her mature prompting. Gesturing dismissively, the white haired girl sighed before looking to Rin bluntly. "It hardly matters why he can ignore standard defects. The fact of the matter is that Berserker was able to fight off three Servants without taking hardly a substantial injury or losing much stamina. He's arguably the strongest Servant in this war and we can't let him roam free with such monstrous impulses and underhanded tactics."
"So, we're all in agreement then?" Rin asked plainly, looking around to Shirou, Saber and Illya. "Until our matter with Berserker is finished, we remain in a truce."
"That's fair, I suppose," Illya accepted with a simple nod.
"Yeah, I agree," Shirou nodded seriously, looking across at Saber whom nods back at Rin with acknowledgement.
Exhaling aloud, Rin stands up from the table, leaving her empty teacup on the saucer over the table, "Good. I suggest if we're going to get anything done, we should hurry and do it now. Apart from the usual norm of no fighting taking place in Daylight, vampires are notoriously wary of the Sun's rays so we should be safe if we at least walk carefully in town."
"Right," Shirou replied with understanding, rising up to his feet along with Saber across from him. "I guess I should check how the school is after that scuffle from the night before. It must be a mess after my near-death encounter."
"Don't worry about that," Rin dismissed with ease.
"Uh, why do you say that?" He inquired with confusion.
"Just trust me on that," She winked at him facetiously, earning a scrunched up frown from the redhead. "I have my ways, Shirou Emiya. Trust me on that."
As she escorted herself to the door, Illya looked up at Shirou guardedly and murmured aloud to him a warning, "Don't trust her, Shirou. She's got something in store for you that isn't selfless so watch yourself when it comes to being alone with that girl."
"She doesn't seem that bad," He dismissed with a smile, bending down and ruffling her head much to her chagrin. "You gotta trust me sometimes, Illya."
"If I did, I'd probably be dead."
"Ow, way to hit me low," He retorted from the dry retort she had.
Leaving her alone, he knew she needed rest -as did her Servant- from the battle that happened. With Saber being in an eager mind to move today, Shirou got properly dressed and gave her something resembling normal clothes. It was some old uniform of Taiga's, resembling a school dress that possessed a blue skirt and a white blouse fastened by a blue tie at the collar. Complementing it with a blue hair-tie that put her hair-bun into a shoulder length ponytail.
He wore a dark colored jacket with white outlines, a new white tee, fresh pair of jeans and his slightly dirtied shoes from the night prior. While it wasn't the best looking, it fitted for their outdoor adventure. Leaving the home, he couldn't quite place a nagging feeling he was forgetting something important. This was only enhanced as he walked down the street with Saber, arm's length apart in an even space, that he thought he felt something look at him intently. Turning to look up at the looming mansion of the Matou Estate, he swore he saw someone peering through the glass of the upper story window. Staring back, he saw nothing and heard nothing but the brush of wind bringing a chill across his skin for its season.
Dismissing it, he didn't see a pale hand, pressing longingly against the glass surface of the window and looking at his back as it walked in sync with Saber down the street. Just until it was out of sight, it pressed a bit harder and harder still, till the pane cracked under the buckling pressure. A ghostly sigh and the hand retreated with its owner, back into the thick shadows of the home's interior.
A/N: And like that, the 4th Chapter is finally finished! I'm sorry I didn't get this out as quickly as the other three, but I really wanted to end the fight with Vlad properly. Starting off with ripe action and wonderful momentum, I wanted to do the battle justice from the moment he legitimately raised a finger to fight any of them. If there's one thing clear I like to make, it's that Berserker is, like in the other routes, THE biggest threat in the presence of all other Servants and Masters accordingly.
The relationship between Illya tenses while Rin softens a bit and Saber bonds a bit with Shirou. That is something I liked emphasizing here. Just because this story is fixated around Illya, the relationship of these other characters are pretty important for how our dense redhead takes actions in stride. And just like before, Illya is the voice that Shirou listens to and appreciates the most out of all those in his personal company, just showing further just how much control she has over his mood and passive actions.
Hope you liked how this chapter went down and I look forward to your comments on it! See you all on the next update!