Chapter 158
"Sorry, can't let you do that to my cute apprentice~"
Shirou, who had watched wide-eyed as the boggart ate Saber, despite the fact that she should have survived, blinked as the body dissolved in a flurry of flower petals, slipping out of its mouth easily like a pack of butterflies as the boggart chomped on air, the petals veering shy of its maw and gliding off to the side to reform further away on the ground into the shape of Saber's body. The injuries on her body were still there, but she seemed to be sleeping peacefully, the look on her face loose and unguarded.
Standing next to her, clad in white robes and holding a staff similar to what Shirou had seen Caster use, was a man with flamboyant white hair. A white hood covered his head, with a pink sash keeping his hood tied, and sapphire threads below the sash holding the hood together. A golden sash tied into three loops sat above his midriff, and his loose black pants billowed in the wind, though there weren't any in the cave they were in.
"I've only started teaching her directly recently, but it would be a shame to lose her so early. So, would you be so kind as to return her to me?"
The man's tone was lighthearted, and his face sported a faint grin as he spoke, but the magical energy gathering in his staff was no joke. A small orb of prismatic radiance was starting to form at the tip of his staff, the colors hurting Shirou's eyes when he looked at it.
The boggart could only grunt, but the unveiled threat of mana gathering in the staff, as well as the inhumaneness of the newcomer threw it off balance, the boggart unable to help but feel cowed by the man, or the thing pretending to be a man.
With the orb growing larger by the second, and a slowly gathering storm of mana surrounding the white man that the boggart could easily sense, it backed off warily, shuffling back to the wall opposite the two. There was no sense in losing its life here against an unknown opponent, no matter how much it coveted Sabers blood and the plentiful energy running through it. At the rate this was going, the boggart would be obliterated without a trace if it tried to challenge the man.
"Good boy~"
The boggart felt patronized, but it refrained from acting, simply letting the cloaked figure pass by it while Saber was carried on his shoulders. Upon reaching the blocked entrance, Shirou could hear something vaguely along the lines of 'what a pain'. Drawing out a sword from beneath his cloak, he stabbed it into the ground, and a line of golden light zigzagged from the blade along the ground towards the rubble.
A bright flash blinded Shirou, and a moment later after he opened his eyes, the pile of rubble was mostly gone, vaporized into thin air. While he blinked the spots out of his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things, the man returned the sword underneath his cloak, walking out of the cave casually, while the boggart stood there waiting for him to leave.
It was slightly surreal to see the ferocious boggart that had been a hair's breadth away from eating Saber suddenly acting so docile and meek. It hunched over, hands scraping against the ground, watching the cloaked man and Saber enter the tunnel leading to the outside, waiting for the veritable storm of mana and the scent of flowers to leave its senses before it dared to move again. Taking one last look at the cowed boggart, Shirou left the cave as well, walking into the tunnel before he lost sight of the strange man's cloak, flapping as he walked.
The tunnel was generally a one-way trip for any normal people who stumbled into the cave that it led to, but the man carrying Saber was no ordinary person.
"The four winds carry the blossoms across-ack"
He stopped chanting midway, his face twisting into a grimace as he nursed his tongue, tasting blood in his mouth, though it was tinged with sweetness along with the metallic iron that filled his mouth. He really needed to stop biting his tongue at inopportune moments while chanting. Opening his mouth, a petal blew onto his tongue from nowhere, laying itself over the small bite marks and covering them, a cool sense of relief tingling from his tongue as the wounds closed themselves.
Breathing in, he started to chant again.
"The four winds carry the blossoms across the endless sea, an eternal journey seeking the final abode."
Unlike his flashy display earlier, this time only smattering of petals floated down onto the ground, laying a trail of pink on the floor of the tunnel, standing out against the dull brown dirt. Taking one step at a time, the man went through the tunnel while following the trail, with Shirou following behind him.
Despite Saber's inability to reach outside the tunnel, the man was easily able to get outside in what felt like less than a minute. Shirou was surprised to see the tunnel quickly brighten, and then the pale moonlight was once again visible through the opening of the tunnel, the smell of leaves and wood drifting into the tunnel with a soft breeze, carrying the sounds of the forest with it.
Standing in front of the tunnel, was the same man in white.
Bit by bit, the man in white's clothes flaked off into petals, the process speeding up until he became a mass of pink petals that swirled off into the forest, riding the wind all the way. Saber, who was resting on his shoulder all this time, fell to the ground, only for a bed of flowers to suddenly sprout for the dirt and catch her, the soft stalks bending as the petals cushioned her fall. The man who had been waiting at the entrance all this time knelt next to her, his hand reaching out from beneath the cloak and pinching her cheeks, tugging them this way and that as her expressions darkened from the contact, turning into a mild frown even as she continued to sleep peacefully.
The baby fat on her face had yet to fade due to her age, still retaining the roundness that most children had. As such, the man enjoyed himself for a while by pulling her face into different directions, making strange faces that he would also be able to use as blackmail to leverage her in the future. On the side, Shirou couldn't reconcile this Saber being played with the serious Saber who had fought for him, a large gap in their ability and experience, as well as the innocent naivety this younger Saber showed.
"You've been naughty, running away from home like that. Serves you right to get caught by a boggart and turned naked. Oh well, I suppose this will be a good lesson for you in the future to avoid going off like that in secret. If I weren't watching you from the start, you would have been pleasantly resting in the beast's stomach while getting yourself digested merrily."
Sighing, he shook his head, the white hair on his head bouncing as he did so.
"Seeing you defenseless like this makes me want to prank you even more, but I suppose running through the forest naked and then almost being eaten will have to be enough entertainment for me. For now, let's get you away from here."
Standing up, he tilted his staff towards her, and the flowers rose from the ground, a floating bed of petals that supported Saber as she lay on it, a floral mattress that promised sweet dreams for her as she dozed fitfully on it. In fact, the man's magecraft was actually keeping her asleep as well, since it was more troublesome for him if she was awake.
Laying there in peace, she floated behind the man in white as he walked into the forest, back turned to the tunnel they came from. Shirou walked beside them, wondering who on Earth this person was. Could he be…?
Below their feet, the boggart grumbled as it shapeshifted back into its smaller, humanoid form, glaring at the ceiling as the Magus of Flowers stepped away from the vicinity of it's home.