Fate/first order derivative
Part I.8

⇒ continue: iteration 16, day 4, early night

Why, hello, Mr. Adrenaline! All at once dozens of voices and thoughts swamp my mind, because holy shit we are so fucked. And all I can think about is what the shit do I do and Shirou doesn't know what to do either he's just standing there staring and there's no way out and oh dear God we're so boned and I really really don't wanna find out what it feels like to get torn apart by Beserker's bare hands...

⇒ go left

I guess that it's moments like this that you find out who you really are. Because out of all that tumult, here's what I do -

I take a deep breath. I look the murder child right in her big red eyes. And I say - well, okay, shriek: "FLIBBERTIGIBBET FORTY-TWO BAG OF PETUNIAS."

She blinks and tilts her head. "Ex... excuse me?"

"Those are TERRIBLE LAST WORDS RUN," I scream.

With that I grab Shirou's arm and drag him with me over the path's railing and into the woods.

⇒ if you can't beat them confuse them
⇒ not bad

Except it isn't going to work for long because I hear Beserker roar and then we're running for our lives down a steep hillside slope through the thick woods. I can barely see anything. I nearly stumble or twist my ankle half a dozen times. Then, suddenly, we're at the bottom of the hill, and to my shock Beserker isn't right on top of us.

⇒ check on shirou

I lost my grip on Emiya's arm in the process of running. Through some miracle, though, he winds up right next to me as we emerge from the woods, looking utterly confused. "Why - who was -" he starts.

"Beserker," I mumble. "We are so dead."

⇒ speaking of death

I hear a sound overhead and look up. Out of the treetops fly a pair of white glowing transparent birds. They immediately zero in on us. Wonderful.

"Move!" I start running again just as the the birds - I swear to God - start shooting frigging laser beams down at us. Okay, they can't be actual lasers because I can see the pulses and we even have time to dodge them and oh hey there's the school. As in, our high school. We're actually pretty close to the back wall.

⇒ fancy that
⇒ take shelter

We manage to scramble over the fence just as the birds swing around for another attack run, then take cover beneath the eaves of the maintenance shed.

"Did we lose them?" Shirou mutters as we pause for breath.

I shake my head. No way in hell is that simple.

⇒ call for help

I glance over at Shirou's hand. Right, the tattoos! Except they're not tattoos. You know what I mean. "Hey," I mutter, still gasping for breath. "Call Saber."

"Huh?"

"You can summon her here with one of those thingies, right? So call her."

He hesitates. "I dunno..."

"What don't you know about?!" I whisper. "They're gonna be here any second! Why would you -" I see the expression on his face. "Oh, for fuck's sake - what, is this a pride thing?! Is this the whole Batman stoic-badass I-work-alone bullshit?"

"I don't like having other people fight my battles, okay?!" he retorts.

"Do you have a plan for this situation? This shit we're in right now?!"

"No!"

"Then you're not the goddamn Batman yet!" I hiss. "Call Saber call her right now!"

"All right, all right!" He holds up the hand with the Command Seals on it. "Saber - come here!"

A vortex of light appears next to us as the mark on his hand glows. Saber materializes at the center of it, clad in her armor. Not quite your standard magical girl transformation montage, but close enough. She opens her eyes. "What is thy bidding, my -"

That's when Beserker grabs her by the neck and flings her through the wall of the gym twenty meters away.

I can only stare in shock as he leaps after her. When did he - how the fuck can something that big possibly be that quiet?! "SABER!" Shirou yells.

I hear a giggle above us. "Took you long enough, Shirou." I look up to see one of the white bird things sitting on the eaves, looking down at us. The von Einzbern girl's voice seems to be coming out of it. "You're lucky I need Saber dead, too. No sense risking Caster trying something cute with her, after all."

"What the hell is that thing?" I mutter.

"It's a familiar, I think," Shirou whispers back. "They're, like... these puppet things mages can work through."

"If it wasn't for that, I'd have already collected you." The bird's eyes start to glow. "Speaking of which..."

I start to run just as it vaporizes the wall we were standing next to. "This way!" Shirou shouts. He leads me through the back garden and around the side of the main building, into the central schoolyard.

He stops once we turn the corner. "You keep running," he says. "Get to Tohsaka's if you can. Her house isn't far from here."

"What about you?" I ask.

"I'm going to go help Saber."

"Against that?!" I stare at him. "How?!"

"Dunno. I have to try." He turns and runs towards the gym.

I watch him go. Damn it... I run away towards the front of the school.

⇒ don't be inspired by that or anything

I make it to the parking lot in front before guilt sets in. What the hell am I doing? Aren't I the one who gets to start over again? But... what the hell can I even do here?! I've got nothing aside from my -

Oh. I pull out my cell phone and dial emergency services.

⇒ try again chief

It just gives me a bewildered beep. TOWER NOT FOUND, the display reads. NO SIGNAL. Oh, bullshit! I've made dozens of calls from this exact spot or close enough before! Why would - oh. This must be magic shit. Hexes to keep the police from getting involved in Servant battles, something like that. Dammit.

I hear something like an explosion. A column of golden light stretches up to the sky above the roof of the administration building.

⇒ what was that

I don't know! Something good, something bad? If my cell phone doesn't work, what else can I even do here?!

"Good. You're still here." Saber lands next to me, having leapt over the roof of the administration building. She looks like... well, the way you'd expect someone slammed through a concrete wall and then beaten on by a three-meter-tall muscle tumor to look.

Shirou looks even worse, though. She bridal-carries him in her arms. He seems barely conscious. He's got a hole straight through his chest, and everything below his right knee is a bloody mess.

"Here." She practically drops him onto me. "Get him to Rin's. I've done what I can, but Beserker's already regenerating. We need Archer."

I try to prop Shirou up next to me. We can probably move slowly, step by step, but the way that he's bleeding... "Saber, there's no way we can make it all the way to Tohsaka's. I need -" I shut up as I notice her eyes scan the parking lot.


⇒ skip forward

Maybe ten or twenty minutes later, I'm driving the golf cart the school janitors use to haul mulch around like a maniac through the town streets, Shirou slumped over in the seat next to me. No clue how Saber managed to start it up without the keys. She just touched the wheel and it came to life. Magic. Magic shit everywhere.

It's still pretty slow going - golf cart, remember - so I've decided to pass the time by cursing out Shirou for being a dumbass. "How the shit did you expect that to end, anyway? I told you, didn't I? Archer, Saber and Rin working together could barely manage a draw with that thing! The fuck did you think you'd accomplish?!"

"Sorry..."

Are you supposed to keep dying people talking? I can't remember. They used an argument to survive torture that one time on Firefly, so I'm just going with it. "Don't sorry me! You know what Batman does?! Batman plans, all right?! Batman prepares. He knows when to run so he can come back and kick the villain's ass in the second act!"

"S'not Batman..."

"Well, fucking obviously!" I take a sharp left turn. Lucky thing the streets around here are so deserted at night.

"If a man... is not unattached to life... he will be of no use whatsoever."

"Huh?" I pause. Actually, that sounds kind of familiar. Where have I heard that before?

So that's when the front passenger side tire explodes.

"Shit!" I swerve. All that accomplishes, though, is sending us straight into someone's mailbox at top speed. Which isn't much 'cause golf cart. But something must've broken because I hear the engine die. "Shit."

⇒ how far to rin's place

So close. We're barely a block away. I get up and pull Shirou out of the cart. We hobble off down the street, his arm braced over my shoulders.

Then we stop. Because four of those frigging bird things are hovering in the air in front of us.

The kid's voice giggles again. "Seriously? Did you really think I was just going to let you run away?" Oh, you've got to be kidding me.

⇒ keep her talking

"Look!" I yell. "Just what the hell is it with you and Shirou anyway?! Why do you know his name?!"

"Let's just say... he took something that was mine." There's an edge in her voice now. I obviously touched a nerve.

"How?! He says he's never met you before!"

"I'm not required to explain myself to a mere rando," she snaps. "You've performed adequately as a retainer, but your obligation ends here. Give me Shirou or die."

Let's try a different tact. "Uh..." I eye the birds. "How?"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean... those things probably can't lift him, right?" I wave vaguely towards the golf cart. "And you just totaled our ride, so..."

"Um." This seems to give her pause. I may have just stumbled across mage Kryptonite: practical thinking.

⇒ rocks and glass houses dude

Speaking of impractical, Shirou keeps struggling like he's trying to say something. Probably wants to give himself up heroically or some crap. Looks like that wound in his chest isn't doing him any favors when he's standing up, though.

"Oh, of course." The kid sounds like she just remembered her keys have been right in front of her the whole time. "Silly me. How could I forget - it's not like I need all of him."

One of the birds morphs into a long, very sharp-looking sword. "Uh..." I stare. "Wait, what..."

Three birds - including the sword - blow up in mid-air.

"ONE HUNDRED PERCENT MAXIMUM NO CHILL!" Rin shouts triumphantly. Oh thank God.

⇒ cue the calvary

I'd like to nominate that catchphrase for the most beautiful sound in the history of ever, please. The last bird dives out of the way. Archer easily picks it off.

Rin strides towards us. "Where's Baeber?"

"Uh - at the school," I say. "With Beserker." If she's still alive, anyway...

"Archer - go back up Saber!" Rin orders.

"You sure about that?" Archer eyes the four additional birds now arcing over a nearby row of houses towards us.

"Positive. Now move!" Archer vanishes. Rin looks at me. "You - get Shirou inside! I'll handle this."

"Yes, ma'am." No arguing with that look in her eyes. Kinda reminds me of my mom on laundry day. I pull Shirou down the street as she turns and cracks her knuckles.

"Compassion from a Tohsaka?" the little girl's voice says as the birds close in. "Will wonders never cease."

"Can it!" Rin shouts. I hear that distinctive pew pew noise her magic missile thing makes.

We finally reach Rin's front door. I turn back to see her taking cover behind this huge glowing gem floating in midair as the two remaining birds fire down at her.

"Now listen up, you little demon!" Rin yells. "I know you're around here somewhere! Under the terms of the ancient contract between the Tohsaka and von Einzbern families, I hereby ban you from this estate! Our ancestors agreed that we'd never attack each other's houses, not even during Grail Wars, remember? So get off my front lawn, bitch!"

"Mmh, yeah," the little girl's voice says. "Here's the thing about that, Rin..."

I see a flash of white out of the corner of my eye. Before I can even think of reacting, it's over.

"... that wasn't so much a contract as it was an informal agreement."

The green gem dissolves into sparks. Rin stands in the street, the point of the white sword sticking out of her chest. She tries to speak, but nothing comes out. She falls to her knees, blood soaking into her red jacket. All I can do is stare and watch, frozen.

"And so ends the Tohsaka line. What a disappointment," the von Einzbern girl says dreamily. "Given the long history between our families, though, I will give you this much... a proper sendoff, worthy of a mage." There's the sound of a finger snap.

The blade stabbed through Rin's back explodes. The fireball consumes the width of the street. When the smoke clears, there's nothing left. Just a crater and a few scraps of ash.

That... that really just happened. Didn't it.

⇒ get inside

Too late. "There." One of the birds alights onto the front gate. "Scattered amid the dirt, right where she belongs. As for you gentlemen... consider yourselves lucky. There's some charms on the actual house that I can't break through right now. Not without Beserker, anyway.

"But rest assured, Shirou... I will be back to collect what's left of you. Just as soon as my Servant's finished tearing yours into tiny, greasy little chunks. Ta ta!"

The bird flies off into the night.


⇒ skip forward
⇒ handle the damage

"Why?"

I look up from trying to bandage up Shirou's foot, a task complicated by the fact that I have no fucking clue what I'm doing. "Why what?"

Shirou stares out into space. "Why didn't you just hand me over?"

"Uh..." The question catches me off guard. We're in the entrance hall of Rin's house, just beyond the door. She must've known we were coming somehow. Even left out a first aid kit for us. "I... I dunno. Kind of seemed like she had it in for you, man."

Shirou's eyes are - shit. They're just dead. Empty. "I shouldn't have run from her. I should never have let you talk me into it."

"Well... what else were we supposed to do?"

"Die."

"And the hell would that have done?!"

"Doesn't matter." He shrugs. "Rin would still be alive. That's the important thing."

I have no idea what to say to that. "Dude..."

"Just leave me alone." He shuts his eyes. "I'm sick of your voice."

Well... I've put tape and gauze around everything that seems to be actively bleeding. I get up and leave him slumped over on the chair by the front door.

Time to deal with my own impending breakdown, I guess. Joy. It's all okay, I tell myself over and over. She'll be fine. Any moment now, the loop will reset. I'll go back. She'll be fine, and none of this'll have happened. Any minute now. Annny minute.

Wait. What time is it?

I pull my cell phone out of my pocket. The front reads 12:06 AM.

⇒ welcome to tuesday


AUTHOR'S NOTES

More tomorrow-ish.