- Chapter 3 -


Author's Notes

This chapter took me way longer to finish than I expected, and writer's block definitely didn't help out either. Anyways, this chapter is heavy on action and subversions... So yeah hope you guys enjoy :)


Leonardo Aurum surveyed the battlefield from complete safety atop the cargo cranes.

The eighth richest man in the world had a distinct obsession for all things gold, even his last name Aurum was Latin for gold. His brilliant blonde hair whipped around in the wind, his sapphire eyes bright with fanaticism, his gold cloak and gold rings complemented the scarlet Command Seals at the back of his right hand - a winged serpent devouring its own tail.

His exploits as the most accomplished alchemist since the Einzberns led many from the Mage's Association to dub him King Midas II. While King Midas of the legend was cursed with uncontrollable transmutation, his modern incarnate had complete control over his golden touch. With the guidance of the Mage's Association and Lord Auteur, young Leonardo had the inner workings of his magecraft distilled down to a science.

As a token of reciprocation, Leonardo fed a significant portion of his criminally bottomless capital back to Lord Auteur, proving once and for all that steel wins battles but gold wins wars. They were winning the civil war by simply buying out the opposition - flooding them with so much material wealth that they no longer had the motivation nor felt it reasonable to continue to be embroiled in some stupid war. His summoning of Scáthach into the Lancer class put the final nail in the coffin that accelerated the demise of Lord El-Melloi II's faction during the last days of the civil war.

Leonardo turned his head and spoke to the boy in a kabuki mask behind him.

"Maggot," remarked Leonardo. "Lancer is taking too long. Send Rider in to finish the job."

Ryuuzaki cursed under his breath. He hated being called 'Maggot', but then again, no sane person would. His fingers curled, ready to snap together to trigger his Mystic Code but he lost all sensation in his right hand - Leonardo had transmuted his hand into pure gold. The alchemist had taken steps to ensure that the boy toed the line under his command.

Ryuuzaki sighed and give the signal to his Servant. The knight in shining dragon armour nodded and vanished in flourish of silver starlight. Once satisfied, Leonardo crushed a shimmering emerald in his palm into dust, lifting the curse on Ryuuzaki and returning the boy the ability to flex his fingers.

"What is that I hear from you, Maggot?" smirked Leonardo.

"I-It's nothing Sir," replied Ryuuzaki, avoiding Leonardo's gaze.

"I hope that's true, lowborn scum... For your sister's sake," said Leonardo, his sapphire eyes burned with sadistic pleasure. "How many more fingernails do you thi - "

"We will have the Grail tonight Sir," interrupted Ryuuzaki, desperate to change the conversation. "Everything will go as planned by Lord Auteur - "

Leonardo threw his head back and laughed, a sadistic cackle that made Ryuuzaki's pale skin crawl.

"Nonono, we're going to do something different tonight," said Leonardo and his lips curled. "Rider will use his Noble Phantasm to eradicate our enemies tonight - "

"Sir, for our safety, for everyone's safety, I cannot allow tha - "

Leonardo's face contorted in anger and the aristocrat lashed out with unbridled rage. From the depths of his jacket he drew a golden dagger and pressed it into Ryuuzaki's throat.

"Then you have outlived your usefulness," declared Leonardo.

"But Rider hasn't," reminded Ryuuzaki. The dagger drew a sliver of blood as it rubbed against his Adam's apple when he spoke. "And like it or not, I am his Master."

"I was hoping you'll say that," smiled Leonardo. "We shall see... We shall see..."

The alchemist spun dagger around his fingers and stowed it back into the depths of his gold cloak.

"Tonight I will bear witness to the power of the wicked dragon," declared Leonardo, gloating over the battlefield once again. "And they shall burn."


"Kanshou... and Bakuya!"

Shirou instantaneously recognized the twin swords that pulverized his projections - Kanshou and Bakuya.

This girl... was she also a practioner of projection magecraft? But with Shirou's affinity with swords as his origin coupled with his years of practice with projecting Kanshou and Bakuya, it was unlikely his projection of a sword would be destroyed that easily by another projection. No... There was a simpler explanation. The twin swords in his opponent's hands had a sparkle in their workmanship that his own projections were fatally lacking.

"The originals...?"

The girl ignored his question and lunged at Shirou.

"Trace... On!"

Once again, his projection shattered upon making contact with their doppelganger.

From their second exchange, Shirou started to comprehend the flaw in his creations. His swords were merely the projections of a projection. Archer had encountered the original blades sometime in his lifetime, but Shirou had yet to do the same. He could almost hear Archer's mocking voice ringing inside his head. Catch up to me? In your dreams, you worthless copycat. That's what you are Emiya Shirou... a copy of a copy.

With only one sword left in hand, Shirou was forced to retreat into the cover of the warehouse. There was more to this girl besides simply possessing Kanshou and Bakuya. She fought with supernatural strength and agility magnitudes stronger than any Magi simply enhancing their limbs with mana, reminiscent of Souichirou Kuzuki who had his fighting prowess augmented by Medea, Caster of the Fifth Holy Grail War.

Shirou stared at the Command Seals at the back of his hand. With the power of a Command Seal he could summon Saber to defend him, but to be forced to expend a Command Seal this early into the Grail War... He stared at the girl approaching him and then back at the Command Seals, he had to make a decision.

He focused his thoughts onto the Command Seals and called out -

"There's no need to call for Saber, Emiya Shirou," said the girl. "You're not my enemy, I'm not here to kill you."

The girl stowed Kanshou and Bakuya behind her back, raising both palms up so that Shirou could see she meant no harm.

"My name's Crystal, I'm Caster's Master," said the girl. "Sorry for what I did out there. It was the only way I could get you in here without getting my head blown off by that gun-toting psycho up there."

So she was Caster's Master, thought Shirou. On one hand he was proud that his assessment was spot-on, but on the other was suspicious why she chose to make contact with him now instead of responding to the Church's summons.

"You're... Caster's Master? Why didn't you just meet us at the Church?" said Shirou.

"Because I don't trust the White Reaper," shrugged Crystal. "Or the Church."

"And I'm supposed to trust.. you?"

"Has she told you her name? Her real name." said Crystal, ignoring Shirou's question.

The pronoun game. Though Shirou could only assume that Crystal was referring to Allison.

"Not yet," confessed Shirou. "At least I don't think that's her real name."

"Do you know what's her wish from the Grail?" added Crystal.

Crystal had just opened an enormous can of worms, and she was absolutely right. Allison had not once mentioned what was the wish she wanted from the Greater Grail, neither had it ever occurred to Shirou that he needed to clarify it with her, but it never stopped him from trusting her.

"No she hasn't. But - "

"Why do you trust her? She could have squeezed the trigger and blown a hole in your face from up there you idiot," sighed Crystal, burying her face in her palm.

"Look, I spent a night at her place. She has had every chance to kill me - "

"That fast?" smirked Crystal, shooting Shirou a suggestive look with an eyebrow raised.

"No, it's not what you thi - "

"Listen here, my wish is simple. It's nothing. I'm in this Grail War to kill Lancer's Master. For that, I need your help. And Saber's too. You help me with that, the Grail is all your's. I'll even throw in these." explained Crystal.

She held out one of the two swords so that Shirou could see them.

"The original Kanshou and Bakuya."


"Fuck!" cursed Allison, ramming her fists into the concrete.

The chalice's position was known to all Masters and Servants at the harbour tonight. Which meant that her plan to stall the other Servants so that Assassin could search the cargoes went out the window.

"You really should have chosen a better place to camp out," came an annoyingly arrogant voice behind her. "Choosing this position to observe the best vantage points... How predictable."

Allison wheeled around and saw a man in a white Taoist robe, leaning against the concrete wall leisurely fanning himself with a flamboyant hand fan made from white crane feathers that matched his robes.

From his mana signature, Allison could immediately tell he was a Servant. The moment she laid eyes on the Servant, her Clairvoyance as a Master revealed his parameters. This Servant had E ranks across the board, except for his Luck at A+ and his Mana that sat at an absurdly high rank of EX. Only one Servant class had their parameters distributed like this...

"Caster is here. Shirou, run!" commanded Allison over the comms.

Allison dropped the Remington 700 and pulled out her SBR AR-15.

Time Alter: Vorhersage Zwei!

Time froze and Allison saw two seconds into the future. The blue projections that formed her Reality Marble showed that Caster would stand deathly still. Was this some kind of trick?

She burnt through a whole thirty minutes of her lifespan, altering time repeatedly just to see a total of three minutes into the future, but no matter what she did, the projections were always the same. Caster had no intention of doing anything. Perhaps he was talking, but the Reality Marble could only predict sensory input from her eyes.

Allison squeezed the trigger and fired five suppressed shots at Caster. Caster flicked his fan lazily and the resulting wind blew the bullet projectiles completely off their trajectory, blowing holes in the concrete but missing Caster entirely. Exhausted from her extended usage of Innate Time Control, Allison fell to her knees panting.

"Don't burn yourself out sweetheart," taunted Caster. "Not everything is about you. I'm actually here for Berserker. Would be a pity if - "

"SHUT UP!"

With lightning quick speed, the White Reaper threw a Black Key at Caster. Guided by her knowledge of the future, the Black Key soared through the air and hit its mark, piercing the space between Caster's eyes as he was monologuing. The Heroic Spirit of Sorcery burst into incandescent blue flames. Squinting her scarlet eyes to examine the flames, Allison realized that 'Caster' was nothing more than an enchanted straw man.

Allison tried to swear, but she collapsed onto the ground, shaking uncontrollably. Trying to stabilize her hand, Allison reached into her jacket pocket and withdrew an auto-injector filled with glowing green liquid. She rammed it into her thigh and felt the green fluid rush through her veins. Slowly she began to regain control of her arms, her legs and then her body.

Dull, blood-red miasma gathered as Assassin materialized.

"Master, are you oka - "

"It's becoming more frequent. How long am I left with?" asked Allison, gasping for air.

"Depends on how liberal you are with using Time Alter. Based on your current usage, I'll say you have about six days left." reported Assassin.

"Let's get this fucking Grail then. The more time I have to work with, the better - "

The ground trembled and the stairway to the roof was suddenly violently torn apart. Allison turned her head to see the monstrosity that now stood in its place.

Two men stood before her. One was a man in a black suit and top hat with angry red glyphs at the back of his palm, she immediately recognized as Bertrand Paulsen. The other was an unnaturally tall and heavily muscled man with tanned, copper skin dressed in regal, emerald green armour.

"Fuck..." cursed Allison for the second time.

Her scarlet eyes scanned the floor for the Remington 700. The key to making it out alive lay with one of five .30-06 Springfield cartridges she chambered into the bolt-action sniper. Both Allison and Assassin were on the same page, they called out to each other in unison -

The Origin Bullet.

"Kill her..." ordered Bertrand Paulsen. "Berserker!"

The Mad Warrior let out an earthshaking primal roar and thundered straight towards Allison.


"Shirou!" yelled Saber.

Her Master was under assault by a girl with short, flame-coloured hair and they both disappeared into the warehouse. Saber tried to follow her Master into the warehouse, but a streaking black comet, packing the force of an artillery blast struck the ground ahead where Saber would have been.

A second comet whizzed through the sky, this time the arrow was headed straight towards Saber's head and she was forced to deflect it with her katana. Tracing the trajectory of the attacks to its source, she saw a muscular Servant with his face covered in a black shroud lined with gold trim watching the battlefield from his perch atop the peak of a container crane.

"Archer..." mouthed Saber in anger.

Silver starlight shimmered in the air as Saber's third opponent materialized behind her - Rider. A knight in silver dragon scale armour with tanned skin and bleached hair. In his right hand, his black cruciform sword was drawn and ready, the Heroic Spirit of the Mount approached her cautiously with abated breath, showing immense respect for his opponent. Everything had gone exactly as Allison had predicted. Saber would have to hold her own, outnumbered three against one.

Lancer slowly closed in on Saber armed with both her crimson spears. The smile on her face was replaced by one filled with sorrow. She too was not pleased that their duel had to be interrupted by both Archer and Rider. Saber could tell from her expression that her pride as a Heroic Spirit was wounded and Scáthach, the Queen of the Land of Shadows had lost all semblance of respect for her own Master.

"Saber... I know this isn't fair for you," began Lancer. "But we have our orders. I just want you to know... There is no dishonour going out like this. I wish things could have been different, but they aren't - "

"Pffffft...!" spat Saber. "Cut to the chase, Shishou."

"Sigh, all I want to say is... I wish you the best of luck, Musashi." said Lancer.

"Hehh, better watch that pretty face of your's eh, Shishou," chuckled Saber, the flames on her katanas burned brighter. "I would cry if you scarred my favourite thing about you!"

Saber wasn't going to let herself get boxed in by Lancer and Rider then slowly bombarded to death by Archer. She was going to make the first move. If she was going out, it would be on her own terms. With a powerful burst of mana she launched herself at Lancer with both katanas.

Sparks erupted as Saber and Lancer crossed weapons for the hundredth time. Saber quickly recognized that as long as she kept close proximity to Lancer, she was accomplishing two things. First, she was taking away Lancer's advantage with the longer reach on both her spears, but more importantly Saber was also forcing Archer to cease his fire to avoid fratricide.

Up against the full wrath of the Fifth Form of Niten Ichi-Ryuu, Saber could feel that Lancer was ever so slightly having trouble adjusting to Saber's sudden change in fighting form, such that her lances were coming in with less confidence and even some semblance of confusion with her strikes. That lapse in combat prowess was all Saber needed to get back into the driver's seat, aggressively dictating the flow of the duel by constantly going on the offensive. She understood what was at stake, she understood every second she spent fighting was another second not defending her Master. She had to deal with Lancer and Rider as quickly as possible so that she could get to Shirou. Her reputation as the greatest Samurai in Japan depended on it.

But then Saber also had Rider to contend with.

The dragon knight's footwork was markedly less agile than Lancer's, but his blows with the greatsword were more powerful, and by extension more dangerous. Rider's attacks knocked the breath from Saber's lungs every time their swords so much as made any contact with each other, any one successful strike from his sword would easily tear her fragile torso open from shoulder to hip and end her run to attain the Holy Grail.

Throughout their exchange, Saber noticed that Rider had at least two chances to cut her down from behind while she was pre-occupied with Lancer, but he chose not to. Saber deduced that this Heroic Spirit's honour as a knight held him back ever so slightly, preventing him from attacking his opponents from behind. Saber wasn't a knight, she wasn't bound by such frivolous chivalry. As such she was going to fully capitalize on Rider's mistaken ideals to tear her way back to Shirou.

Mana rushed through her body as she darted forward to exchange blows with Lancer, deliberately exposing her unguarded back towards Rider, who hesitated once again to go in for the kill. Detecting the immense surge of magical energy, Lancer quickly disengaged and distanced herself from Saber, but Rider had decided to commit to an attack with his cruciform greatsword.

Saber's lips curled, her plan was working.

She dug her feet firmly into the ground and wheeled around to meet Rider's sword. As she did so, the Heroic Spirit of the Sword called out her Noble Phantasm.

"I place my trust in Tenjin of the Tenmen Shrine, Deity of Absolute Freedom, Niou Kurikara, Shotenshou! I draw my blade... Ishana Daitenshou!"

For a moment, time itself seemed to freeze. Amidst the brilliant burst of mana Saber was emitting, the massive silhouette of a four-armed giant loomed behind Saber as she ran her blade through Rider four times with incredible speed and strength. She struck twice with each of her katanas, and then twice again with each of her wakizashis. An even brighter burst of mana ignited and she held up her katana high with both hands preparing herself for the fifth strike, but Saber noticed something was wrong.

The four strikes from her A-ranked Noble Phantasm should have easily torn through any Servant's flesh or at the very least resulted in some serious damage to their Spirit Core. But Rider was merely thrown five meters away from Saber where stood his ground firmly without sustaining so much as a nosebleed.

Saber's eyes widened in disbelief. Pulling out her Noble Phantasm was her ace in the hole, it was all or nothing. With Lancer disengaging from her lock and Rider thrown so far back from her Noble Phantasm and then Saber committing so heavily into her fifth strike, she knew there was no avoiding the attack that came next.

A shower of shimmering black comets blotted out the silver moonlight as a thousand arrows traced a graceful but deadly arc over the sky and rained down onto the battlefield.

- 0 - 0 - 0 -

Archer's arrows detonated upon contact, kicking up mounds of dirt and rubble. Saber tried to dodge and slash blindly, but she knew eventually she would be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of arrows. Amidst the fog, she started to notice something rather peculiar at the corner of her eye.

A bearded man dressed in a white Taoist robe slowly appeared before her in the fog. From the immense amount of mana the man was emitting, Saber could tell he was a Servant. This Servant was the perfect amalgamation of confidence, intellect and even an air of mysticism. Audaciously sitting with his legs crossed while sipping his smoking hot tea by an ornate, oriental tea table fashioned from oak, this man must either be the smartest man in the room or a complete, irrational idiot. The man fanned himself leisurely with his flamboyant handheld fan made out of crane feathers, completely oblivious to the endless shower of arrows that seemed to magically avoid him.

"Well come on darling, it's a tea party don't just stand there," smiled the Servant. "Oh, where are my manners. I'm Caster by the way."

Saber eyed Caster and his tea table with suspicion. Was this some kind of elaborate scheme? Was the tea laced with poison? Afterall, Caster did look like a schemer. But seeing as her only other option was a terrible and painful death by arrows, she sat herself down but refused to take a sip of tea.

"Is all this..." began Saber, pointing at her surroundings as she spoke.

"Safe?" finished Caster. "Yeah of course it's safe. It's my Noble Phantasm, darling. Let's just say it's an immunity to arrows."

The explosions ceased and the fog began to lift slowly, revealing to Lancer, Rider and Archer that the arrows had done absolutely nothing.

"You haven't touched your tea, darling," chuckled Caster. "Our Masters have come to a truce - "

"But we haven't," growled Saber.

"Better to make a friend than a foe right now wouldn't you say so?" smiled Caster, surveying all four Servants around him. "If you change your mind, just finish that cup of tea."

Caster leapt to his feet. With a simple flick of his fan, an excess of a hundred black arrows levitated off the ground. Upon another flick, the hundred arrow heads spun around to face their target - Archer.

"Tsk tsk. You disappoint me, Archer," taunted Caster. "Is that how the strongest Servant in the Sixth Holy Grail War fights?"

A third flick of his fan and the hundred arrows launched themselves back towards their origin, but Archer simply dissipated in a shimmer of black starlight. The arrows, with their target lost, simply fell like twigs to the ground with a dull clatter. Archer's Master had forcefully recalled his Servant with the power of a Command Seal.

"Enough games! Lancer, Rider. Finish this senseless battle. Use your Noble Phantasms!" boomed a voice enhanced by magecraft.

Rider growled as he flared up with red energy, raising his greatsword high into the air with his shivering hands, trying desperately to resist the power of a Command Seal, but to no avail.

Saber turned to face Lancer, who was also engulfed by a similar angry red energy. From what Shirou had warned her, Gáe Bolg - The Spear that Pierces with Death, was the Noble Phantasm of Scáthach capable of reversing cause and effect, a fatal strike to the heart was guaranteed as long it's true name was called. Ways to avoid such a deadly attack did exist, but it hinged on a Servant's Luck stat. With her Luck at B, Saber wasn't prepared to gamble her life on the roll of a dice. She picked up the tea cup and drank it all in a single gulp, sealing her truce with Caster.

Caster smiled and called out the name of his Noble Phantasm.

"Fog of War - The Fleet of Endless Strawmen!"

A thousand copies of Saber materialized on the battlefield with a flick of Caster's fan in a shimmer of dazzling white starlight. Lancer's scarlet eyes darted around in confusion, unable to zero in on her true target.

Though they were all worthless strawman copies of Saber, the only way Lancer would be able to tell them apart was to destroy them with Gáe Bolg one strawman at a time. Caster had devised the perfect deterrence to the most deadly Anti-Unit Noble Phantasm, Gáe Bolg - by giving Lancer a thousand units to choose from. Saber was thoroughly impressed, though she had a feeling that Caster deliberately chose such a flamboyant solution to display his love for flair and style points.

Lancer broke into a sprint and then leapt high into the air, arching her right arm that held her demonic spear backwards as if drawing a bow and using her left arm to guide her aim. Gáe Bolg began to surge with an intense spiral of swirling red energy as mana coursed through both Lancer and her spear.

No, thought Saber. She was missing out on something. The legend of Gáe Bolg didn't simply entail it as an Anti-Unit spear. Gáe Bolg's true strength as a Noble Phantasm was as a throwing weapon, realizing it's full potential as an Anti-Army attack - The Soaring Spear that Strikes with Death. Scáthach had no interest in wasting time by taking out the strawmen one by one, she was going to eliminate all of them at once.

"Gáe... Bolg!" yelled Lancer as she threw her spear to ground with all her might.

The spear distorted time itself as it hurtled through the air, visible to the naked eye only as a red blur. A single cursed spear that erupted into multiple barbed spearheads raining death down on Saber below.

There was only one thing Saber could to do. Saber shut her eyes and cleared her mind.


Time Alter: Vorhersage Drei!

Time froze and Allison traded thirty seconds of her lifespan to see three seconds into the future. Her arterioles started to rend themselves apart from her extended usage of time alteration and the White Reaper could feel herself bleeding from every other inch of her body.

Even with knowledge of the future, she only barely managed to roll out of Berserker's warpath. But the result of such an ad hoc maneuver, she ended up putting more distance between herself and the Remington 700.

Assassin darted around Berserker, slashing the emerald-armoured general with his enchanted M9 bayonet, trying to draw his attention away from Allison. Each slash should have been a fatally crippling blow, severing and then binding the victim's Magic Circuits by actualizing his Origin. But Berserker simply had no Magic Circuits for Assassin exploit. Every deep gash made by Assassin's Phantasm Punishment - Mystery Bisection was instantaneously healed not by his Master's magecraft, but by Berserker's own innate healing factor. Though it was not usual for Servants in the Berserker class to possess some form of regeneration, this Berserker's healing factor was so powerful and rapid that Assassin concluded it could only be his Noble Phantasm. This Berserker was a Heroic Spirit with legendary healing anecdotes.

Master, Phantasm Punishment isn't working on Berserker. This guy is insanely powerful but he's got no Magic Circuits.

What?! Then going for the Origin Bullet would be pointless too -

No. Just because Berserker is immune to my attacks, doesn't mean that his Master is too. To maintain such a powerful Servant like Berserker...

His Master must be expending a large amount of mana.

Exactly. Good to know you're keeping up. I'll try to hold Berserker away from you for as long as I can.

Allison made a beeline for the Remington 700. But just to ensure her route would be safe, she activated Time Alter once again. Time froze and Allison saw two seconds into future, but the projections were horribly distorted. Allison's Reality Marble showed her projections based on her visual acuity, now that it was impaired by the blood in her eyes, the future became near impossible to see through the distortion. Even then, Allison could make out that a gaping black hole awaited her where the Remington 700 was lying. She needed to make a decision.

There was a flourish of green starlight as Berserker summoned his weapon - a gargantuan golden halberd adorned with a pair of intertwining green dragons. Even with reasoning impaired by Mad Enhancement, this Berserker retained an astonishing level of intuition, he understood what was at stake. The Mad Warrior threw the halberd at the Remington 700 with such strength that it caved in a large portion of the roof and Allison was forced to dive into the crevasse after the Remington 700.

- 0 - 0 - 0 -

"Fuck!" cursed Allison as she held up the remains of the bolt-action sniper rifle.

The rifle was reduced to a collection of walnut splinters held together by twisted metal tubings. The bullets in its 5-round internal magazine were jammed, those that weren't were effectively empty bullet shells as they had gunpowder leaking from its casing. More blood from her ruined arterioles on her forehead further obscured her vision - Time Alter was no longer an option.

The ground trembled as Berserker leapt into view, but Assassin was nowhere to be found. How foolish she must been to have thought that Assassin, the weakest of the seven Servant classes would be able to hold up against Berserker, who was arguably the strongest of the seven -

Master...!

Assassin?! Where the hell are yo -

I need you to stay right where you are. There, that's perfect. Bait him in. I've got something that might just work.

What? Where the hell are you?

Not anywhere near. You need to call me in.

Calling Assassin in from afar meant only one thing.

Allison raised her right hand so that she could see the red glyphs carved into the back of her palm. The symbol of a Master - three claims to absolute obedience a Master had over their Servants. She focused her thoughts onto the glyphs and spoke the words:

"I order you by the power of a Command Seal. Come... Assassin!"

The first of three rose petals glowed and then vanished from the back of her palm.

A blinding burst of red light illuminated the hallway and the Heroic Spirit of Assassination materialized before Allison. In his hands, Assassin held a massive black spear - no, judging from the fletching at tail end of the weapon she realized it wasn't a spear but an arrow so large it could have been a spear or the bolt from a ballista.

Assassin let the bandages around his face fall to the ground so that he could speak the words clearly:

"Time Alter: Square Accel!"

Assassin's mastery over Innate Time Control was more powerful than Allison's by an order of magnitude, after all it had been the life's work of the Emiya family. By accelerating the flow of time in his body by an exponential rate of four, Assassin was capable of moving faster than the speed of sound. Assassin broke the sound barrier, clearing the distance to Berserker in an instant and plunged the arrow deep into the Mad Warrior's shoulder.

The arrow dealt more damage than Assassin's enchanted dagger could ever hope to achieve. Berserker roared and started to thrash about in blind rage, forcing Assassin into evasive maneuvers to return to his Master.

Whatever the arrow was, it was capable of piercing Berserker's hide and severing his flesh down to the bone, but that wasn't all. Berserker's incredible healing factor Noble Phantasm immediately began regeneration to mend the wound. But as soon as the virgin flesh made contact with the arrowhead, a hissing sound issued from the wound and the newly minted muscles fell apart like melted cheese. Berserker let out one final primal roar and vanished in a flourish of emerald starlight.

"The arrow... That was poison on the tip?" murmured Allison, wiping the blood from her eyes. "A Heroic Spirit with a legend of healing, but also a terrible weakness to poison."

"And a powerful Archer with a legend of using poisoned arrowheads," croaked Assassin, lowering his hood. "We may have just figured out the identities of Berserker and Archer."


Saber slowly opened her eyes and grinned at Lancer.

It worked. She emerged completely unscathed from the attack. She knew of only one way to deal with Gáe Bolg and she took it. The Personal Skill of Miyamoto Musashi - Nothingness. The ultimate mental state that any swordsman could attain. Drawing from the concept of Suigetsu of the Yagyuu Shinkage-ryu, one that had attained nothingness is therefore invincible, allowing Saber to take the full brunt of Gáe Bolg's attack head-on.

However, since her body was only a provisional existence granted by the Greater Grail, she could only use this ability once for the entire duration of the Grail War. Saber had hoped to save such a powerful negation till later in the Grail War, but decided on the fly that Scáthach was a worthy enough an opponent for it to be used.

"Gotta try harder, Shishou!" shouted Saber, resting her katana lazily across her shoulder once again.

"You're one tough opponent, Saber. I'll give you that," praised Lancer. Her smile had returned once again to her face.

The sickening sound of blade against flesh interrupted Saber and Lancer's banter.

Rider ran his cruciform sword violently through his chest. The dragon knight growled in pain as his boiling blood burst from the gaping wound with the force of an erupting geyser. As the burning hot blood drained from his veins, Rider seemed to lose the tan-colouring of his skin, becoming increasingly pale.

Amidst what Saber could only assume was excruciating pain, she could make out the dragon knight mouthing his plea:

"Run..." muttered Rider.

A bolt of ghastly green lightning came from the heavens and struck the pool of hot, boiling blood. The resounding thunder that followed had an uncanny resemblance to the thunderous roar of a dragon. Rider's blood began to bubble and swirl as though it had a life of its own. A massive three-fingered claw emerged from the depths of Rider's blood and anchored themselves deep into the concrete floor. Whatever monstrosity the dragon knight had called forth with blood magic was clawing itself out from the depths of the swirling nether.

An ugly black snout protruded from the darkness, followed by a great horned face with a pair of wicked, gleaming green eyes. The beast had a long, serpentine neck and a massive body covered by malicious spines and gleaming black scales thicker than any cuirass forged by men.

A dragon.

From snout to tail, Saber judged that the dragon was over 130 meters in length. The dragon let out an ear-splitting triumphant roar and unfurled its immensely extensive wings, dark as ebony with a wingspan as large as the length of the dragon itself.

Fafnir glared down at the puny, bite-sized Heroic Spirits that littered the ground at his clawed feet. The wicked dragon parted his jaws to reveal not only the rows of serrated teeth that were sharp as swords, but the ghastly green glow of dragon fire brewing in the depths of the dragon's belly.


Author's Notes

As always, thanks for reading my work.

There are a few things I want to talk about. First is Caster. I'm pretty sure most of you guessed, and you would be right that he is Zhuge Liang from Romance of the Three Kingdoms. For those of you who are familiar with Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang borrowing 100,000 arrows with a fleet of strawboats while sipping tea is one of his biggest exploits and this isn't one of Type-Moon El-Melloi Zhuge Liang's Noble Phantasm so I don't think Type-Moon did the best job in adapting Zhuge Liang's most famous legends.

Next is Fafnir. Yes, he's in this and I think the foreshadowing was quite literal back in Chapter 2. Anyways, all I can say without spoiling the fic moving forward is that the contract between Rider and the twins is not normal. I always picture my fic adapted into a Fate series anime, and having a dragon in it is very cinematic and he is going to cause a lot of problems.

*Edit* The Rupture: I don't think that's really a problem because (1) Saber never completed the fifth strike with her Noble Phantasm, so it wouldn't have been a true A-ranked attack, (2) Type-Moon states that "All A-rank attacks are effectively reduced to E-rank attacks", but Siegfried as Rider and not Saber has a slightly more powerful, more specialized version of the Armour of Fafnir in this fic. I apologize if I've never made it clear enough for you guys in my writing. Thanks The Rupture for pointing it out anyways :)

Fafnir's size. He is 130 meters, 426 ft in length with an equally large wingspan. It's important to point out that other than his colour scheme he shares no other visual similarity to the Type-Moon Fafnir, rather I based him on Smaug from Peter Jackson's The Desolation of Smaug. I find it poetic how J.R.R Tolkien drew inspiration from Fafnir to create Smaug in The Hobbit, and in this fic I base Fafnir's appearance on Smaug. The circle is now complete.

Finally I want to talk about Shirou. Yes, Crystal is telling the truth, those are the original Kanshou and Bakuya, but this is not necessarily how Archer EMIYA came across the swords in his lifetime. Since this is an UBW sequel, this will be an AU of future events after UBW and will tie up some of the plot points we already know from the TV-series of UBW which I draw my limited Nasu knowledge of. I don't think I can say any more than that without spoiling Shirou's arc moving forward.

Hope you guys have enjoyed reading this fic so far :)