Chapter 20

"ORAA!"

*VUON*

The crimson blade swung at both of them, a crescent arc aimed at bisecting both shadows. The European acted first, intercepting the sword for both of them with a solid block using mana burst, digging her feet in to completely absorb all the kinetic energy. Berserker was trapped into a deadlock, but as time dragged on, she was bound to win it.

The other servant disappeared from her spot without a sound, reappearing next to Berserker while swinging her sword. Golden slashes multiplied unceasingly until they formed a radiant black beam that pierced the air towards Berserker. Berserker released her cloak at that instant, using it to hide her from the Japanese shadow, the cloak fluttering slightly in the air as it was held in place by her telekinesis. At the same time, she manifested a glowing arc of lightning that grew to the radiance of a floodlight in a flash and then exploded, blinding the shadow locking blades with Berserker. The shadow lost her focus, and Berserker batted aside her blade while evading the beam from the Japanese shadow, the black beam cutting through the cloak but missing her entirely.

Instead of retreating, she pressed forwards, not giving the shorter shadow a chance to rest. Lightning burst forth from her hand, homing in on her opponent and circulating throughout her entire body, locking her in place for a moment as all her muscles seized. While her body was rigid, Berserker reached her and grabbed her around the waist, continuously applying high voltage shocks to keep her stunned. Despite her comrades' capture, the Japanese shadow didn't falter, rushing forward with blades at the ready. The odachi whistled through the air with it's speed, cleanly cutting through the snow that drifted in the air.

On the sides, Illya wondered why Berserker constantly kept moving, even while expending the energy to carry the enemy around and electrocute her constantly. She also saw several patches of snow around the edges of the court-yard being disturbed, forming into tightly packed globes, unnoticed by the combatants.

She raised Necrocalibur with one hand to block her swing, and they proceeded to exchange dozens of blows in the span of seconds, boundless speed versus a shadowless blade. The sound of their blades colliding in that short amount of time melded into a single harmonious note that rang across the court-yard. Snow drifting down from the sky was blown away by the wind generated from each collision, almost like an invisible dome was around the two of them.

As they were dueling, the dozen or so snow globes flew from the ground, half towards the Japanese servant, half towards the motionless shadow in the center. The Japanese servant instantly got to work decimating the globes, most of them instantly turning into specks of snow that drifted away with the wind. Meanwhile, several tall pillars of red flame sprang up around the other shadow, melting the balls of snow and the snow around the courtyard immediately, even evaporating them into steam that rose into the air, quickly becoming ice crystals when they left the area near the fire.

Berserker took the second of opening to charge straight towards the figure in the middle, breaking away from the Japanese servant that had been constantly hounding her. The pillars of flame blocked the middle shadow's line of sight, letting Berserker get within three meter of her. But the instant the pillars faded and Berserker's pale face appeared, instead of readying her polearm to intercept her attack, the shadow manifested countless iron stakes and pillars of flame around Berserker, completely blocking her off and trapping her in cage of iron and fire, guaranteed to roast and pierce her.

The stakes of malice and flames of hatred reached towards, eager to consume her body in their quest for vengeance. But Berserker didn't falter, her momentum not slowing down in the slightest as she continued charging towards the shadow. The moment she reached the pillar of flame and iron stakes blocking her path, she unceremoniously chucked the shadow she had been carrying earlier into their path, blocking the iron stakes as they pierced her body and the flame pillar that had manifested from below. Using her body as a stepping stone, she jumped straight through to show up right in the shadow's face.

*SHAAA*

The polearm she held lit up with flames as it swung towards Berserker, the fabric wrapped around it near the tip not burning up despite the heat. Berserker parried it with her own blade, the lightsaber running past the length of the polearm as sparks flew from it, allowing her right in front of the shadow. Raising her leg, she delivered a swift and vicious kick downwards to the shadows solar plexus, sending her straight into the snowy ground ass-first. She sat down with a *whump*, breaking straight through the tiles and sinking into a hole, looking comical with her legs and upper body pointing upwards and folded together, while her butt and torso remained deep in the crater.

*Fwish*

With nary a sound, the odachi descended towards Berserker's neck. With a single look backwards, she positioned her saberstaff so that it would divert the blade towards the ground instead of her neck, the blade sliding towards the ground along the lightsaber.

Then in a flash, it suddenly reversed directions and swung upwards from the ground, surprising Berserker and forcing her to twist around to block it again. She was promptly placed into an awkward position, as several small stakes rose from the ground towards her back, forcing her to lean to the right in an effort to avoid having her spine pierced. The odachi that had been blocked broke off, and the swung downwards from above this time, the shadow making a heavy swing with both hands in a blow that was composed of equal measures of brute strength and finesse.

Berserker, unable to leverage properly with one foot on the ground, was forced to bear the brunt of the blow while holding her saberstaff sideways to stall it's approach. Sadly, without solid footing, she was unable to properly hold it back, the odachi sinking low enough to cut her shoulder, while the stakes behind her nicked her sides. She fell to the ground bleeding from multiple injuries, while the Japanese shadow stood above her.

Wasting no time, the shadow took the odachi and pierced downwards, aiming for her spiritual core. At the same time, the other shadow rushed forward with her polearm, aiming to pierce her head and dispel her chances of escaping.

Left with no choice, Berserker threw her Necrocalibur at the charging servant, the spinning blade a deadly buzzsaw cutting through the air as it hummed. Grabbing the stakes that had missed her, she pulled them out of the snow and used them to block the odachi, channeling lightning through the stakes and conducting them through the stakes, the odachi and into the shadow's body. The moment she was hit, Berserker shot upwards like spring with a headbutt towards her chin, sending her head snapping backwards with a satisfying *crack*.

She turned around while the Japanese shadow was disoriented to face the shadow with a polearm, who had deflected her Necrocalibur and was rapidly approaching.

*BANG*

A jet of black mana pushed the shadow's body to extreme speeds as it flew across the courtyard towards Berserker, the charred skin and bleeding holes throughout its body not hindering it at all. Berserker's eyes widened in surprise as the longsword became enveloped in a massive jet of corrupted black energy, the huge blade of energy crashing down on her from the skies.

Until the saberstaff spinning like a boomerang from behind sliced through her neck and cut her head clean off, her body instantly cutting off the mana burst as it tumbled into the snow and rolled several meters before stopping, the longsword back to it's normal form.

Even before the body started dissolving into ether, Berserker pulled the saberstaff back into her hands while dodging the stakes and flames from the shadow, who was now emitting a palpable air of rage, actually heating up the area it was standing in and making the tiles crack from the heat. The Japanese shadow had also recovered by this point and was on the move, blinking between the fires and stakes to get closer and closer.

The court-yard was by now completely ruined, numerous stakes bashing apart the tiles and cracking the ground, while pillars of flame burnt the ground into black charcoal, searing the land dry and turning the snow into steam. Craters littered the formerly uniformly flat land, while trenches scarred it from the blades of each combatant, a veritable warzone. Illya was untouched, but her consciousness was quickly fading, her body half-slumped onto a comfortable pile of snow as her breaths turned shallower, the cold seeking to numb her body even as it raged with heat from the output of her magical circuits. A few more minutes was the most she could manage at this point, until her body went haywire from the stress.

Berserker was clipped in the side by an iron stake, one of her legs singed by pillars of flame, and the final straw came when the Japanese shadow caught up to her. The odachi sat poised in her hands, a deadly length of steel two meters long, "Rengoku-ken". Berserker dug one foot into the tiles, grinding them to dust as her foot sank slightly into the ground, spinning to block the sword heading towards her back. The two swords clashed, stopping Berserker in a deadlock with the shadow. Unlike a few moments before, Berserker was slowly being pushed back by the shadow. Despite her higher rank of strength than the shadow, the rapidly depleting supply of mana from her Master and her completely emptied reserves used up while fighting the wolves was coming back to bite her. Her movements had been slowing down throughout the course of the fight, her strength diminishing gradually.

Unable to break away, she stood rooted in place as several iron stakes rose from the ground to skewer her legs, locking her in place. Blood ran down in rivulets, blood flowing from her earlier wounds on her side and mixing with the crimson liquid from the newer wounds, forming a pool around her feet. Flames started gathering beneath her, causing the blood to boil and steam. The Japanese servant didn't budge an inch, her blade remaining locked with Berserker as the shadowy face stared at her impassively.

*ZSHIN*

"GAAAH!"

The flames fueled by hatred and vengeance rose up from the ground, swallowing everything in its path. All that was left was a massive scorch mark on the ground, and the crumbling remains of the iron stakes.

The final shadow looked down in shock at the hole in her chest, blood flowing out of the black mist to land on the frozen ground, steaming as it hit the tiles. Collapsing to her knees, the fake avenger returned to the Throne, taking her regrets and vengeance with her.

Lying on the ground, missing two legs, badly charred and a huge slash wound diagonally running from her left shoulder all the way to her waist, was Berserker. Illya lay unconscious on the snow near the forest edge, slumped over with a pile of snow as her pillow.

A few moments of peace reigned in the courtyard, the only sound the whistling of the wind as the blizzard that had slowly been abating through the fight drew to a close. Then the great doors opened, releasing several maids, two of them familiar faces, and a golem.

Rushing over to Illya, Leysritt gently took her in her arms and carried her back into the castle for treatment, Sella escorting her from behind. The other maids carried away Berserker to a magic circle for her to recuperate from her grievous wounds.

"Hmmmm, to think the shadow servants would be bested by a proper Servant with so little energy, perhaps it would only be worth employing them as guards in our ancestral grounds." Jubstacheit looked at the ruined courtyard as he thought of the results.

Taking snippets of Berserker's bodily material as catalysts had proven successful, and with his centuries of trial and error experimenting, he was able to summon shadow servants with a modified version of the actual Grail system. They were however, much weaker than proper Servants, without a proper Noble Phantasm to boot, or even a coherent mind. He also had to sacrifice multiple homunculi for a single shadow Servant as mana batteries, so they weren't very cost-efficient. Still, they were much stronger than your average familiar, and he had no doubt he could find some use for them in the future.

"Still, who would've expected Berserker to cut off her own legs to escape the trap, letting the flames kill the other servant while she threw her sword at the final servant as she let her guard down. Truly, a terrifying resolve to witness."

She had suffered heavy burns, a deep slash as the Japanese shadow tried to stop her escape, and last but not least lost both legs while escaping. She would likely be out of commission for a while, but it was a promising sign of the lengths she would go to for victory.

Taking one more moment to look at the ruined courtyard, he soon turned around and went back into the castle, the great doors shutting behind him as snow fell from the sky lazily, a far cry from the furious blizzard earlier.