Chapter 126
Assassin watched as Berserker took out Saber in a daring gambit, then proceeded to take out Caster so quickly it could barely be called a fight. Though Assassin was supposed to be the one who had a universal advantage in this war, Berserker was plenty strong enough to hold her own against any other Servant in the war, and she knew it well. After all, she had clashed with her friend on numerous occasions.
Still, she couldn't help but feel something was off as well after Caster fell just from sudden attack. While she hadn't seen Caster fight during their battle on the steps of Ryuudou Temple, what with her being busy sealing the Rhongomyniad that Gray wielded which was running amok, she was still quite sure she at least wouldn't go down in one hit like that. Keeping her eyes peeled, she looked around, wondering if there was something she or Berserker missed.
Abruptly, she felt a prickling sensation running down her back, like a series of static electricity rubbing against her skin, except slightly more painful.
Whipping around, Assassin swung her sword downwards, the ground rippling with a watery mossy green circle under her feet. Her blade met a brilliant cerulean bolt of light, physical substance grinding against her blade as it was deviated from its course towards Assassin's body towards the ceiling.
It was merely the first of six, as the rest of the projectiles rose out of the newly textured ground, a portal of sorts, flinging themselves out at lightning speed that even a Servant would be hard-pressed to match. Without a chance to properly react, Assassin was speared and slashed, her body nailed to the ceiling as she only successfully parried the first one and dodged the second. The rest lifted her up onto the ceiling with their sheer velocity despite their lack of mass, and they pinned her in place, all of them in non-fatal areas, though they still hurt like hell.
Assassin's face contorted in pain as the blood started flowing down the spears keeping her in place, the crimson liquid hugging the crystalline surface of the weapons and sliding past the ridges and contours until it reached the razor sharp point, then fell onto the ground.
Berserker slashed Caster's head clean off the moment it happened, the lightsaber passing cleanly through her neck, but the moment she felt it go through like air, the illusion broke. No longer was Caster in front of her, with all that was there being a bunch of severed flower stems to provide texture when she slashed Caster's arms and disarmed her.
Berserker maintained her calm turning to face Assassin's side of the hallway as she estimated where Caster was right now. Caster was currently hidden from her sight, using some sort of spell to cloak herself, but she was sure that Caster was somewhere around Assassin and Gray. It was after all, much easier to win when you had meatshields that the enemy couldn't attack.
Of course, Caster wouldn't use such methods, but she was sure that Berserker would at least come over to protect the two once she directly attacked them, and was banking on that to lure her over.
Slowly, Berserker advanced towards the two, wary of any sudden attacks from the hidden Caster. So far, there were no further actions after she pinned Assassin to the wall, but there was always the possibility something would happen to make her move.
Assassin groaned on the ceiling, having dematerialized her sword as she braced her body to free herself. There was one spear stuck in her shoulder, one running through her shin and going out the back of her calf, a third one cutting past her waist to pin her jacket to the wall and a final one somehow accurate enough to nail her hand to the ceiling.
Her right hand was free, but considering how deeply the spears were embedded into her body, there was no way to pull them free. It was probably easiest to simply dematerialize at this point instead of physically getting them out. Turning her head to look at Berserker, she winked at her long time partner and friend.
Caster, waiting for Berserker to step into the zone she had laid out, didn't notice Assassin's signal, so she was unprepared for Berserker's sudden burst of speed as she exploded into action, her legs cracking the ground to send her whole body rocketing forward like a human missile. Panicking, she stabbed her staff into the floor, pumping mana as a blue line zig zagged across the floor from her staff to the various capsules of mana embedded in the floor, using just enough of her illusion magecraft to hide them from sight. When the last capsule finally connected with the fiery azure line, the capsules exploded. A spectacular display of sapphire energy lit up the hallways like detonating fireworks, covering Berserker and hiding her from sight.
For a moment, Caster dared to hope that her plan had succeeded, the preplaced mines taking out Berserker as intended.
Then a black blur burst through the end of the tunnel filled with blue mana from the explosions, the mana dissipating in its wake as Berserker corkscrewed through the air, her lightsaber as the tip while her entire body crackled with electricity, her own mana coating her body to ward off the explosions. She didn't stop flying until she collided with Caster, who had raised her staff to defend herself against the bullet of a Servant that had flown out too fast for her to react in any other way.
Caster was sent flying back, past the slumped Gray, still unconscious, and landed on her back on the hard concrete floor. The dagger of shrouding secrecy, Carnwennan, broke with a spectacular crack on the back of her belt, and the world morphed from the blurry, dull hues of grey and white that Caster saw while cloaked into the regular colorful scenery she was used to, though there was still plenty of grey on the walls, floor and ceiling. At this point, she finally noticed that Assassin had dematerialized, escaping her trap and allowing Berserker to aim straight for Caster.
Assassin had guessed that Caster had probably set up some kind of trap if she was still remaining hidden, so she decided to remove herself from the equation and let Berserker know that she could dash forward to save Gray once she dematerialized. Of course, there was no way a wink could convey all of this, but Berserker could roughly tell what she was thinking, after being together for so long. It was something along the lines of "I'm beat, so I'm leaving everything to you now!". Despite being enemies, they still trusted each other deeply.
Berserker instantly raced to meet Caster once she appeared, dashing past Grey without a pause. After seeing Caster use Assassin as the lure and not doing anything to Gray, she could guess that Caster probably wouldn't do anything to Gray, so she didn't have to secure the Master and escape. Defeating Caster now would be much more efficient, instead of being chased around by Caster who could have a myriad array of abilities to make it that much more difficult. Instead, judging by what she'd seen so far, it was definitely possible for Berserker to defeat Caster, though she hadn't gotten out unscathed from the trap.
Her clothes were heavily singed, and she could feel burns all over her body, as well as the physical trauma from the explosions that had transmitted intense vibrations into her skin, flesh and bones, injuring her internal organs such as her heart, lungs and most importantly, her brain. Right now, she felt like there was a splitting headache going on, and her early use of psychokinesis against Saber earlier wasn't helping.
Regardless, if Caster had no more tricks up her sleeve, she was going to be guaranteed to win. At this point, no matter what she did, she wouldn't be able to escape fast enough.
"This is the star of omens…"
A stream of lightning escaped her fingertips, arcing towards Caster before Berserker arrived as a way to keep her preoccupied. However, instead of blocking, dodging or parrying it, Caster actually ran towards it with her fist facing the lightning, like she was punching it. Berserker's eyes widened in disbelief, surprised that someone would actually punch it with their naked fists, not to mention someone more inclined to magecraft than the martial arts like Caster. Perhaps she had an ability that absorbed or blocked lightning?
But no, she could tell by the pain on Caster's face that she was definitely feeling it. She was barely holding in her screams of pain as she was doing so, her eyes strangely reflective until Berserker realized it was because of unshed tears swimming in them, but even so she toughed it out and held on, her fist held out in front of her to take the lightning. As she advanced, Berserker felt mana gather around Caster, the levels of energy she was drawing on spiking.
A moment later, she found out why.
When she was barely a feet away from Caster, the fist opened, causing the red lightning from Berserker to connect with the mana capsules that the fist was hiding, the glossy surface a dull red now when compared with the usual blue ones that she had used earlier for the explosion. The moment the red lightning made contact with them, the mana capsules exploded into a veritable storm of lightning, just like Berserker's own, but with more force concentrated into one massive storm of lightning encircling both Caster and Berserker.
Far down the hallway, Shirou and Kuzuki both saw the two enveloped in a cage of crackling energy, their bodies obscured by lines and lines of electricity.
This time, Caster did scream, and so did Berserker, though Berserker's was noticeably less high pitched and loud than Caster's. She naturally had a resistance to her own abilities, the lightning coursing through her amounting to a heavy beating, while for Caster it was like being stabbed with millions of needles all over her body, even with the blessings of Vivian and the staff Chastiefol protecting her body. At best, it mitigated the damage from becoming serious, but even so by the time the storm ended, she was sure to be heavily injured.
They both fell to the ground and collapsed after the storm ended, ending up in a similar state to Saber a short while earlier when she was defeated by Berserker herself. With difficulty, Berserker managed to suppress the pain and push herself back up, getting her spasming muscles back under control one by one as she forcefully twisted her uncooperative body to look at Caster.
Only to be shocked by the fact that was she already on her feet, with a huge sword pointed straight at her, the sword almost as tall as Caster, and wider than her waist, a thick, short blade attached to a long hilt that ended in a extravagant pommel that was actually wider than the blade itself. The pommel looked just like the tip of her staff, a fan of white stone now plated with gold, with a sapphire crystal locked in branches of azure mineral. The entire thing was glowing with energy, humming dangerously as it grew brighter and brighter.
"Fire, Marmyados-"