AN: looking for a beta

Valentine stooped over the leaking body. He had shot only once and that had been enough. A hand, an invisible hand, clasped him on the shoulder for a moment, but only a moment. The faint rustling of grass was heard as Spy, invisible to the world, walked off abandoning his corpse to continue his mission of gathering information on the rest of the participants in the War. All had gone according to plan.

The corpse was disturbingly accurate, and Valentine thought to himself of removing the balaclava to see Spy's true face, but decided against it. His ally deserved at least that much respect. Instead, Valentine took from his pocket a folded flag and spread it over the corpse like a great red, white, and blue funeral pall.

"Dirty Deeds." Valentine called upon his Stand turned Noble Phantasm and took the flag back up and folded it neatly. The body was gone.

"Is it done, Archer? Can we proceed?" The voice of his Master sounded in his head. Tokiomi was back at the manor, but communication through the Master-Servant bond made such issues such as distance trivial.

"Feel free. I think I'll take this moment to explore the city. Use a Command Spell if you need me." Valentine cut the conversation short and walked across the field onto a well trodden dirt path that meandered through a small forest. He was feeling pensive, wanting, needing to go over the events that had led to his final end. Through the trees and their black green leaves he could see the light of the city. It was an uncommon feeling for the former President, but the fact that the world had changed so much during his time spent dead made him feel small; even with the Grail supplying him with information on the modern world.

"The lights," he declared aloud, "we never had so many lights." The stars were barely visible. "Man has traded the brilliance of the night heavens for their own stars, here on earth. Infinitely closer and smaller and weaker." He wasn't sure if he liked it or not, lightbulbs had been around during Valentine's presidency, but they hadn't been so ubiquitous, nor had they been found in so many rainbows of colors.

"Try not to reveal too much, Archer. It is still early on in the War." Tokiomi's voice called from a secret recess of the mind and Archer took note, sending back a feeling, not a sound or word, but a feeling of understanding. Valentine continued to walk through the forest and thought about visiting the oceanside despite the late hour. He had died near the Atlantic last time, buried in sand and forced to suffocate again and again until Joestar had shot him for the final, terrifying time. It was a strange desire to live out the end of his life, but one that he felt was necessary.

Looking back on it all, walking through the dark and lonely forest with only the hum of insects and the starkness of the sky to accompany him, Valentine felt regret. He had done so much wrong in the name of patriotism. During life, Archer had been certain, so certain that what he had done, everything he had done was the right thing. For the greater good. The Corpse had chosen him after all. God had given him blessing to wage a Holy War on the world… a Mandate of Heaven. Legitimacy not only from the will of the people, but from the creator of the world and all its inhabitants.

He had lost. Cruel lead had torn holes in his body. A common, vulgar death at the hands of a cripple… The country had loved him. God had loved him. But he had died all the same. Not this time. This time he would have the Grail. He would have the Corpse. And, for God and country, he would be victorious.

But before that, he would mourn himself. He would go to the ocean and mourn his own passing and think and learn from the mistakes of yesteryear. Then would come war.

War came with a crash of steel and spatter of blood. Saber ducked the blade and felt the wind whistle and brush her hair from its careful coif. The backstream of air that followed the slash knocked her from her crouch, sending the King of Knights tumbling backwards and flinging sand into the air. Berserker roared and the world seemed to quake. It was a low and guttural sound, beastial and unrestrained. He didn't sound human.

"Lancer! Now!" She yelled at her temporary ally as she lunged forward, invisible sword breaking through Berserker's flimsy guard. She scored a deep hit to the monster's stomach, cutting through the sickly yellow apron and into the beast's stomach causing blood to gush and the ill green and blue of intestine to show. Saber smiled with grim satisfaction and twitched her body to the side to get out of Berserker's range.

Lancer on the other side stabbed with Gae Buidhe directly through Berserker's spine, a lethal blow even without considering the curse of the Noble Phantasm. Was it over that quickly? Berserker had been physically stronger than both Lancer and Saber, but the lumbering, unthinking Servant had been quickly defeated. 'Serves him right for interrupting our duel,' thought Lancer. He put a greaved foot to Berserker's broad back and braced himself, pulling the cursed spear slowly, slowly, until it stopped.

"Watch out!" Saber called out too late. She dashed forward again, hoping to injure Berserker's hand but the giant knife that the mad Servant held was swung haphazardly in her direction, each swing with such force that even her magical armour would crumple like foil. Berserker's other hand had latched itself to the spearhead. His grip was strong and stable even with the cursed blade cutting into the finger bones. The wound on Berserker's stomach went ignored even though every shift of the body caused his innards to slowly spill out. With a tremendous jerking motion, Berserker pulled Lancer's Noble Phantasm to the side, ripping through even more of his own flesh, crushing ribs and lungs and not even inconveniencing the Servant until it was clear of the body. The Pyramid Head, as Saber took to calling it, hadn't even flinched as it nearly ripped itself in half. Even with a destroyed spine it was capable of moving.

Berserker turned, and swung the huge knife so fast that it howled a song of gore and promises of hurt. Lancer barely made it in time, forced to drop his Noble Phantasm in favor of survival. The strike was messy and violent and when it came to close the arc of wind that it had carved split the sea for a good distance.

"Regret?" For the first time Berserker spoke, or Saber thought that Berserker spoke, his face was hidden underneath the iron mask. The voice was high and happy and everything that Berserker was not. "Do you regret something?"

Lancer materialized his other spear, the magic eating Gae Daerg and charged Pyramid Head with a roar, intent on getting his other Noble Phantasm back. The monster didn't even attempt to dodge as Lancer closed the distance. The long spear carved through the pectoral at such an angle that heart must have been obliterated.

"He's dead." Lancer panted. "He must be dead. Even a Servant can't survive after that much damage."

The great hacking blade rose and fell again, but this time Lancer was able to pull both of his spears free from their fleshy tomb with a yelp of surprise.

Lancer and Saber both backpedaled and took defensive positions. Berserker seemed indifferent to the blood he was losing and he made a moaning noise that echoed through his rusted metal helmet and sent spine chilling noise down the spines of everyone on the beach.

"Just watch for now, Lancer."

"What sort of monster are you? How did you come to be summoned in this War? The Throne of Heroes isn't fit for a brute such as yourself." Arturia felt the beginning of worry in the back of her mind. At this rate she would be forced to used her Noble Phantasm… "Answer if you can!"

Pyramid Head turned to her and bobbed its head up and down as if it understood. It took one step, then another towards the King of Knights before running. It seemed as if the distance between knight and butcher hadn't existed at all, for Berserker just appeared in front of Arturia, sword pointed straight down in a stabbing motion. The knight spun to dodge and counterattacked, her riposte carving muscle from Berserker's brawny arms.

"Saber! Use your Noble Phantasm! Get rid of that thing!" Her Master's voice rang in her mind and for once, she couldn't help but agree with the Magus. Magic surged through her body as she leapt back, dozens of meters to reveal Excalibur and took aim…

Pyramid Head was behind her before she could even start the call of her attack. A clumsy punch with all the force of a speeding train rocked her forward while she was in mid dodge, skipping like a stone over the dunes of sand before she finally came to a rest in knee deep seawater.

"Saber!" Irisviel gasped and took a step forward before being rejected by a wave of Saber's hand.

"Stay back, Iri. It's dangerous." Arturia stood with a wince. She was winded, and felt her spine shifting as she stood as proudly as she could. "It's faster than me…" she realized, "it's faster than I could ever have imagined…" Her left arm was damaged, likely the elbow had been shattered by the trainwreck blow. It would heal with time, but there was no way she would be able to fight with this sort of injury. Pain clouded her mind with every heartbeat, growing stronger and stronger. Excalibur was out of her reach for the moment, she would have to fight the old-fashioned way.

On the beach, Pyramid Head summited a low sand dune and dipped a brutal hand into its stomach wound, finally scooping the intestines in its hands to push back—

Saber had thought too quickly. Berserker took a firm hold of the greasy snakes that made up his organs and pulled instead of pushing them back in. He pulled and they unraveled, uncoiled like a spool of thread and in the back of her mind she heard Iri vomit and the smell. Berserker brought the long mass of gore to his encased head and smeared it all over the pyramid shaped helmet. Warpaint.

"What sort of brute are you…" She raised her sword again, one handed, and sloshed through the shallows, back to shore, ready to fight. She would never lose to a monster like this, never.

Something behind Valentine landed, or rather, crashed heavily. The impact had broken the side mirrors of cars and had sent the late night denizens of the city scrambling in panic. There was only a booming laughter and the voice of a young man scolding, terrified.

"Calm down boy! No one was injured, and the damage seems minimal. Surely repairing these modern chariots is no huge expense?" The Servant, Valentine immediately recognized, a huge man with red hair wore a sturdy leather armor and a great, fur lined cloak.

Valentine fingered the pistol in his pocket. It wouldn't do anything but annoy a Servant, but it seemed that the Master was here as well…

"Rider! You don't— We don't even have any money to pay these people back! And what do you think they're going to think when they see a chariot fall out of the sky? You flew us off a building!" The shorter one was a black haired youth of perhaps 17 who sounded rather nasally.

"I can reimburse them when I conquer the world. As for your second concern, I don't see why a King must hide from his subjects. I must be visible so that I may set an example for my subjects." The giant seemed dismissive of his Master's concerns and turned to Valentine, the only person on the street who hadn't fled the disastrous arrival. "Ah! I see you must be a Servant then! I am Iskander of Macedonia, Rider class. A pleasure to meet you."

Valentine was surprised. The first Servant he had met other than Spy was a legend. Iskander, Alexander, Alexandros; the conqueror went by many names. Here was a man who had been embedded in all the cultures of the world as a unmatched general and warrior.

"Funny Valentine. 23rd President of the United States of America. For this War, I am of the Archer class." He gave a slight nod of the head in recognition and respect. Archer had decided not to care much for secrecy. None of the other Servants would be able to gain any knowledge of his abilities with from his identity anyways.

"Well met, President Valentine! I'll have you know I am very interested in the United States… specifically their armed forces." Rider gave an exuberant smile. "This boy here," the hulking Servant shoved his Master in front of himself, causing the boy to stumble and nearly fall, "this is the newest conscript to my army, Waver Velvet!" The boy turned to the Servant and said something that Valentine couldn't hear, likely about revealing identities so easily.

"What business do you have with me? If you're looking for a fight, I'm not interested at the moment. It's far too early in the War to be making enemies."

Rider laughed, a low rumbling sound like thunder at a distance. "No, nothing like that…" Rider looked genuinely happy, a stark contrast to the worried boy next to him. "The Holy Grail War is just the beginning of my ambition. I wish to collect loyal followers to join my army and help me conquer the world! Even you, Archer, thought we may be opposed for now, think of after the War. I extend to you an open invitation to join me on my conquest. You seem a reasonable type, surely you understand what sort of opportunity this is?"

"Rider! You can't just go around—" Waver protested before a large hand swatted him lightly over the head.

"Hush, Waver. Let him respond. There's no need for fighting when diplomacy can get the job done." Rider's expression was serious enough to make the boy flinch and retreat behind the chariot. Iskander turned to Valentine and asked once more.

To join and become an underling was out of the question, even if it was Iskander the Great who would be commanding him; Valentine's pride wouldn't allow that. For the Former President of the United States to work under a foreigner… that would be a great shame. But allying with Rider would be a great help to Valentine's plans. It could help him win the Holy Grail War and would expand his resources for after…

"Rider," Valentine began with a clear tone, addressing the redhead as an equal. "For you I have nothing but the highest respect. But realize that during my life, I was elected as President. My countrymen chose me to rule over them. I cannot so easily give up their trust, even if the men who voted for me are now dust. I have a responsibility to my country. The best I can offer is a tentative alliance." Archer tugged a glove off and walked forward toward Waver and Rider. "My goals for the moment can be acquired otherwise. The Holy Grail is only a convenience for me, for I can achieve my true desire isn't necessarily tied to a wish. I see no reason to aid you in winning this War so long as you agree to help me afterwards." It was a huge concession that Valentine was making, but he was already plotting on leading America into a new era of prosperity, allying with Rider now would likely translate into huge benefits for Valentine down the road, provided of course that one of them win the Holy Grail War.

"Striking an alliance with a man such as you would be an honor. I will not yet ask you what your goals are, but the issue remains of your Master then. What are his motivations?" Iskander strode forward and shook Valentine's hand, ignoring Waver's quiet protests otherwise.

"Some sort of shortsighted selfishness, no doubt. Supposedly he is quite powerful a Magus, but it matters not. Once his Command Spells are used up, his usefulness will come to an end. In terms of my well-being, I am not tied to him in any way. There lies an alternate source of mana that I use to keep my soul grounded to this Earth."

In the distance, in the direction of the moon and sea, both hidden behind the concrete husks of buildings, came faint screeches of steel and battle. All three, Waver, Archer, and Rider turned to wonder and the battle lust came upon the King of Conquerors. The unmistakable weight of magic was emanating from the source of the noise.

"Then, the first action we will take as allies, will be to investigate this matter…"

Uryuu stood still for a moment while the demon he had summoned several days ago applied several drops of a mysterious potion to the base of neck, the inside of the wrists, behind the earlobes, and finally to the fragile back of the knee. For a moment he felt some sort of magic working, the daubs of liquid that had been used to wet the pulse points of his body quickly cooled, dried, and became unnoticeable. Only a faint smell remained, something so faint and light that Uryuu could scarce believe that it existed. After a moment he was convinced that he had been imagining that mysterious smell, and forgot about it.

"It's perfume." The sallow faced man said. He had called himself Jean Baptiste-Grenouille, but the French was unpronounceable to Uryuu, Caster was what the serial killer called his new friend. "Vinegar, cat's shit, salt, dirt, some piss. Cheese. This is the base of the perfume, the core, secret smell that you'll hide behind layers of fragrance. Add the base to rectified alcohol. Then put in some essence absolue. Jonquil. Orange blossom. Stock. Then you have perfume."

"But why? Why perfume?" The orange haired man shrugged his jacket back on and frowned, confused. He didn't understand that smell was the invisible hand by which miracles moved in the world… but Caster did. The Servant had been God for a short while, before rejecting his immortality. His perfection.

Caster hesitated for a bit because he did not know what to say. Grenouille had never been never one for words. Seven years, a third of his life, had been spent in voluntary solitude, afterall. Living off of snakes and bats and worms and moss. Collecting dew to drink and licking stones for moisture. Spending nearly twenty hours a day in complete and utter darkness, nestled nearly a hundred meters underground in a hole where no living thing had been before him. Words were not his strong suit. After seven years of self-imposed exile, it had taken Caster a month to learn to speak again. And now, after nearly three hundred years… even magic couldn't tell him what to say. How to explain the colors of the world to a blind man? That was Grenouille's dilemma; his Master didn't have the nose that Caster did, even dogs and sharks couldn't compare. Uryuu Ryuunosuke would never be able to understand the world of scent that Grenouille lived in…

"It's hard to explain. And I'm not good with words. Just know that when you're wearing this perfume, people won't remember you. You'll smell good, like flowers and oranges, but under that smell, the base layer of vinegar and salt and shit is the smell of a human being. Not a specific human being, but of all human beings. The doorman won't remember us."

Uryuu found it hard to believe, but accepted it anyways. According to the notes that his parents had left behind Caster was some sort of demon, so anything was possible. The two of them walked for a little while and entered a luxury apartment complex. The two of them looked out of place. Caster's blue frock coat and smart leather shoes were at the height of fashion three centuries ago. Uryuu just looked poor.

But it didn't matter. The man sitting at the reception desk didn't even look up from his magazine as Servant and Master walked past. The inhabitants of the building, what few of them they had been outside at this hour didn't even turn their heads. It was like they were invisible, or rather, it was as if they had become so bland and generic that they couldn't even be distinguished as individuals. They were more like mannikins than human beings. Uryuu snapped a finger at a passing woman and while she was surprised for one fleeting second, she carried on as if nothing happened.

"This is pretty freaky, Caster. Why don't they notice us?"

Grenouille found himself soundless as he sought to put his craft into words. He had never explained his perfumery to anyone.

"I don't really know myself. It just works."

Uryuu seemed to take that answer happily. The serial killer put his hands behind his head and chortled. "Well, this stuff is useful. Like really useful. It would make doing my art so much easier."

"Thanks, I guess." Grenouille had stopped to sniff the air. The smell of so many people… layered everyday as they went about their lives. The stale scent of dinner that had been eaten just hours before. The smell of sex and tobacco and human beings, of filth and the futile attempts by which people attempted to clean the filth. The mess might have been gone, but to Grenouille's nose, the history of the apartment complex was laid bare. A murder had happened here several years ago, he could still smell the blood and the gunpowder, the flesh of the victim, a man, had been slightly cooked around the area where the hot bullet had entered and stayed. Affairs and secret trysts, hidden by the treacherous couples by air freshener and repeated cleanings and washings. Grenouille knew them all. It was as if he had been present for the very act of adultery, as if he had watched the men and women draw their disgusting bodies close together, stinking of heat and sweat and body.

"This was the room right? Number 602?" Uryuu pointed to a door and stepped back. "Can you open it? I don't have anything to break the lock with, and since we're doing this in an apartment, too much noise might wake the neighbors."

Grenouille stepped forward and twisted the doorknob. Even though he had been summoned as Caster, and was physically weak compared to other Servants, he was miles above any ordinary human or even Magi. The lock held for a moment before breaking with a small crack that seemed deafening in the silence of the hallway. Strange as it might sound, Grenouille did not smell anyone waking up. The smell of a sleeping human and one that has just awoken due to a bump in the night is different. Raw fear colors the latter.

"Take care of the parents as quickly as you can. They're on the left most room. Next to the bathroom, the one that's at the end of the hallway leading from the far side of the kitchen; that's where the girl is."

Uryuu bumbled through the house, tripping over shoes and other such obstacles that he could see. Caster, on the other hand, had no such trouble. He trusted his nose more than his eyes and knew where everything in the house was. The trash can in the kitchen was full of fishbones and an empty carton of vanilla ice cream. The shoes were neatly ordered in two rows. He knew where everything was, how everything was, simply by sniffing the air. The printer in the living room, next to two computers, a laptop and a desktop was running low on in. The desktop was two years older than the laptop. The bathroom had last been used three hours ago… and so on. Caster closed the door behind him and reached into the air. A cloth knapsack materialized with a flash of blue and he took out his supplies.

A small olive wood club. A container of animal lard; beef tallow and fat from lamb and pig. A clean linen blanket. Scissors. He stepped gently in the direction of the girl's room, careful not to make a sound. The door opened slowly, softly as Grenouille could manage, in order to kill all noise; he hated noise for his process was largely a noiseless one. The girl slept on the floor, as many Japanese people did. She was pretty, maybe fifteen years old. Hair black, straight, almost like a solid curtain of curry combed velvet instead of individual hairs. Classically beautiful. Soft lips, cute nose, eyebrows overly thick, but this did not detract from her beauty. A series of placards and framed certificates and trophies hanging or leaning against the wall, awards for kendo and martial arts and for winning various academic competitions, declared her to be Satsuki Kiryuin. But Grenouille couldn't read Japanese, and if he could, he wouldn't have cared. He didn't care about the small pictures on the desk showing the girl staring sternly, or spending time with her friends, or at the beach, smiling with a book in her hand and hat on her head. Grenouille didn't care about any of this. He raised the club and struck. The dull thump of the wood to the back of her head caused him to recoil as if he had been the one that was hit rather than the girl. He hated that part, not because he had to kill the girl, but because of the noise. Soon the girl ceased to breathe and the only sounds Grenouille could hear were the beat of his heart and the gurgling deaths of the adults in the other bedroom.

Silently he opened his knapsack, bringing out his thin cotton blanket and vessel of lard. Sweeping his gangly arms he cleared a space for himself to work. He began the laborious process of greasing the cloth. Reaching over, he shifted some of the blankets that had been covering the girl, exposing her body that shone pink and healthy so soon after death. She was only wearing a light slip of clothing and nothing more. Grenouille stripped her with methodological movements, nothing sexual or erotic on his mind at all. There was only the scent of the girl, quickly fading, and his only lust was to own the smell, to bottle it up forever and ever. He would have the scent, yes he would. Using the sharp, clever scissors, he sheared as much hair as he could from the girl's head and placed the raven tresses to the side with reverence, as if he was handling an artifact of unimagined value. The razor came next, and with the help of canned shaving cream, something his Master had informed him of one morning when it had been noticed that Grenouille's beard was growing in too heavily, Grenouille shaved the girl's body.

His hands quivered as he painted the thin blanket he had brought. Methodically he went over every inch, once, twice, and then again. Lavishing thick globs of tallow where he thought the blanket would touch the most fragrant parts of the girl's body: the secret place between her legs, the undersides of her arms, the smooth slopes of the throat. Soon his deed was done and he called his companion into the room.

"Uryuu. I'm ready." Even Caster's hushed tone carried in the silence and soon enough, Uryuu Ryuunosuke was standing outside the door, just about to open it. "But don't come in if your hands are bloody. If you smell too heavily, you can't be in here. Not even if you wash up."

The admonishment drew a sigh from Uryuu and the door opened just a peek, allowing only an eye to be seen through the minute opening he had made. "Is this good? I'd really like to watch, especially if she's anything like she looks like in the pictures I saw in the hallway." Uryuu wolf-whistled, from what he could see of the girl, she was quite the looker, even without her hair… especially in the moonlight, all shining and still with that pink glow of vitality. Uryuu shivered, too bad the girl was dead. She looked like she would be fun…

"This is the most important part, Uryuu. The blanket is greased and we wrap it around the girl." Caster demonstrated with an air of artistry about him that Uryuu would never have expected from the ugly man. "Once she's wrapped we wait until morning. Then we'll take a knife and scrape off the tallow. It's soft and runny at the beginning because her body temperature is still high, but if we wait long enough, it'll harden. The human body has an average temperature of about 37 degrees Celsius. Tallow melts at about the same."

"What'll we do with the tallow? Like, I get that this is your thing, just like the stuff I did to her parents is my thing, but what's the point?" Uryuu asked. He tried to be as polite as he could because he respected Caster as a fellow artisan.

It took a while for Grenouille to find the words, but they came spewing out once he found the inspiration.

"Point… the tallow absorbs her smell. Satsuki Kiryuin is a human being just like you are, and when the tallow absorbs her smell, she'll live forever. Once I get the essence absolue from the lard, I can make perfume from it. If I just used her scent, the perfume would be just like her, understand?"

"Not really… this is my first time and everything. Could you show me? You have a lot of cool perfumes and stuff, like, I didn't know guys were so into perfume, but that's totally fine if you are." He opened the door just a tad wider as he caught a glass flacon and balled up handkerchief that Caster threw.

"This isn't a girl, but you should be able to guess what it used to be once you smell it." Grenouille sat back on his haunches, an uncomfortable position, but he didn't care. "Put a couple drops to the handkerchief and wave it around. Don't smell directly from the flacon."

Uryuu obeyed and put a single drop of the golden brown liquid to the cloth and wafted the smell from it to his nose. Instinctively his eyes closed and he entered a new world… A meadow of wildflowers; cosmos and asters and narcissuses. He was in Austria, under the loud blue sky and the warmth of the entire world shining just for him. It was like smoke, the smell of the flowers circled him and saturated his lungs with the colors of life and passions of existence. Never before had he been so content! Such color, and intensity… Uryuu ran in tottering lunges, skipping and tripping and laughing in exuberance, a child finding that he had the power to walk, just like the other humans around him. A warm feeling, a powerful feeling.

He awoke only when the back of his head hit the wall behind him. Uryuu had fainted from pleasure. The perfume in his hand, seemed to take on a new meaning as he stared at it, remembered the field of flowers and warmth of the sun as if he had been there just seconds ago. This was worth it's weight it gold. This was true art. Beauty. Scent. His arms trembled from the weight of the flacon, it was as if the whole universe had been stoppered into the small cut-glass container. He was holding the world in his hands.

"That's not a very good one. One of my earlier works, before learning the enfleurage, you see. I was still a baby back then." Caster smiled, a rare thing, and not a very pretty thing. "But it's still miles better than anything you'd find in stores. The rest of 'em are hacks. They don't know smells like I do. No one does." Uryuu knew that was a statement of fact rather than a boast or exaggeration.

"So you're going to make perfume out of Ms. Kiryuin there? And it'll smell better than what I have here?"

"Last time I did this, it was twenty-five girls. All of them 'pretty'. All of them at the peak of their lives… if I had harvested them a day later they wouldn't have been worth it. Twenty-five girls, Uryuu; and the perfume I made from them would have let me rule the world."

By now Uryuu had taken more sniffs from the handkerchief, dampening the cloth every so often to get the full strength of the marvelous odor. He was a convert now and would listen to all that Grenouille had to say. There was no doubt in Uryuu's mind that Caster could do what he was claiming to do.

"What about this time then? Are we gonna get twenty-four more girls? I'll help next time! I really want to smell this 'ultimate cool' perfume that you're talking about." Uryuu was excited even as he rubbed the slight bump on the back of his head that had risen from his fainting spell.

Grenouille remembered the hot summer day, the day that he had been sentenced to die. Thousands of people had been watching and each and everyone one of them had condemned him to the cruelest fate. It had taken one drop back then. One drop of the bottled God that he had concocted over the course of two years. One drop of perfume to send the world into a frenzied orgy. That one drop had taught them all to love. They, the stupid, backwards people of the town of Grasse, even the nobles with their Enlightenment thoughts and the clergy with their haughtiness, they had all degenerated into the purest love they had ever felt in their lives. The old man had lain with the virgin. The priest with the whore. The baker with the seamstress and butcher all at once. Love. Disgusting, human love; that's what Grenouille had bottled.

"Twenty-four more."

While murder was taking place, Kiritsugu Emiya had taken his post on an lonely rooftop. The night was growing older and the sterile concrete, rough to the touch, was cooling slowly. It was a calm night and the clouds were few. He took a deep breath of the slightly salted air, the smell of gulls and ocean spray blew in from the sea.

"Maiya," he spoke in only the quietest tones. His assistant was somewhere to his side, out of his field of view. The two had been monitoring the fight between Saber and Berserker through the scopes of their rifles, scanning the horizon and every dark corner to find the Master of the enemy Servant. The battle would likely end with Saber's defeat. Kiritsugu had thought he had done quite well in summoning Saber, which of course, was considered the strongest class of Servant; but it seemed that even she could not compete with Berserker. "Do you see anything yet?"

A minute passed with no answer but Kiritsugu was loath to take his eye from the scope. Any minute now he would see something… someone and he'd take the shot and the war would come one step closer to ending.

"Maiya, is there something wrong?" He queried. There came a garbled noise and the response made Kiritsugu freeze.

"Tell him. Tell him what's wrong." It was a man that was speaking. Soft spoken, a heavy French accent. His voice was like death itself. "Speak up." But Maiya said nothing. Not even nothing. Kiritsugu couldn't even hear her breathing. "And of course you know this already; but there is a gun pointed at you. And at this distance there isn't even the slightest possibility of me missing."

Kiritsugu nodded slowly, recognizing the threat. He hadn't expected someone to catch onto them this early in the War, his intentions had been to hide in the shadows and covertly remove Master's from a distance, using Saber as a distraction and lure for the enemy Servants to busy themselves with.

"I don't suppose you'd tell me who you are?" Kiritsugu spoke evenly and betrayed no fear or hesitation. Losing Maiya at this point would be a detriment, but at the end of the day she was a tool, a useful tool but a tool nonetheless. She understood that their relationship wasn't even that of teacher and student. She was a friend, an irreplaceable friend, but everyone loses their friends at some point… there was a knife in Maiya's mouth. A long, slender model, burnished and dusted in a way so that it would not gleam even in the moonlight. He could tell by the handle length, a finely carved wooden piece, that the blade was long, the point must have reached part way down her throat, the tonsils must had rested lightly on the surface of the blade, just thin enough so that the edges would rub, but not cut the inside of the mouth unless the hand holding it so desired.

The gunman was so inconspicuous that it had the opposite effect; dressed in a plain, boring suit and a balaclava on to cover his face. The assailant seemed more like a white collar bank robber than an assassin… Assassin? The idea sprang into Kiritsugu's head and stuck. It had been announced that Assassin had been killed just hours before, but it seemed that it had been a farce. No one other than a Servant could have crept behind both Maiya and Kiritsugu, both trained killers, so easily. A gun pointed at Kiritsugu and a knife stuck down Maiya's throat, her face angled upwards so that the full length could be pushed down. He could expend a Command Spell to call Saber to assist them, but he was reluctant to do so. Iri was with Saber after all, and if the Servant was called back to protect him, Iri would almost certainly be killed.

"You seem to be somewhat intelligent, certainly more proactive than my Master, who is currently in hiding. And judging by that stupid expression on your face, you have surmised that I am the Assassin class Servant. Perhaps you can guess to why I am here?" Assassin sounded generous, almost patronizing.

"To kill us? It's almost obvious. Why else would you be here, threatening my assistant and myself?"

The Servant chuckled and slowly pulled the knife from Maiya's mouth, so gentle and careful not to cut her. The knife was moistened with saliva and hard phlegm, the way that the mouth with start to drown when you cannot breath correctly. She started to heave. How long had that knife been in her mouth before Kiritsugu had noticed not all was well?

Assassin wiped the saliva from the blade on Maiya's shoulder. "I don't know whether I should be disgusted or impressed. The blade on Your Eternal Reward is nearly eight inches in length, and she managed to take all of it in her throat. How lewd." He pushed his hostage forward with a gentle motion of his hand. "Perhaps that's simply a compliment to your masculinity, Kiritsugu Emiya." The Servant reached for something on the inside of his suit jacket, and pulled out a single polaroid photograph. "I have more of these."

With a flick of the wrist the picture fluttered in the breeze and landed in front of the kneeling Magus. His shame. His preemptive betrayal of his wife. Adultery. Him and Maiya in the hotel room. The beast with two backs. Sex. Guilt.

"How do you have this." Kiritsugu was stuttering now. If Assassin had decided to show this to Irisviel, it would have broken her heart… "How did you get this photograph?" He yelled uncharacteristically. He loved his wife, but he hated the fact that at the close of the War she would have to die… he hated the fact that he would be the one to kill her. Judas betraying Jesus. Iri hadn't done anything wrong besides falling in love.

"It is my business to know things that I should not know. It would be more accurate to call me 'Spy' than Assassin. Consider this blackmail. Your Servant is quite powerful if she has survived against Berserker this long, and you are the infamous Magus killer. Take a back seat. Relax a little. Don't be in such a hurry to end everything." Assassin lit a cigarette and turned away, ignoring the fact that both Kiritsugu and Maiya were drawing their firearms. Then, before they could shoot, he looked at his wrist as if to check the time, and disappeared.

Lancer had long since fled the battlefield, ordered back to wherever his Master had been hiding. That had left Saber alone to deal with the Pyramid Head, the Servant Berserker. The gore splattered monster was certainly a formidable foe, only Saber's Instinct and Power Burst allowed her to keep ahead of the mad Servant's brutal cleaves and stabs. But even with her mana flooding into her body, making her abnormally strong, Arturia's bones screamed every time her blade met the dirty steel of her opponent. Her arms trembled with the weight of her sword but she fought on, defeat now meant that she wouldn't get to make her wish… and it was likely that the monster she was fighting against would hunt Irisviel down. Beasts had no sense of honor.

Gritting her teeth, Saber ducked a wild backhanded swing and dove through Berserker's non-existent guard, scoring a massive hit to the towering man's side. She felt her blade cut through cords of muscle so deep that the wound left organs clearly visible. And other Servant would have been crippled by such a wound.

Berserker soldiered on and swung again and again, his blade carried such force that hills of sand dozens of meters away were blown away by the massive amount of air being displaced by the great knife. It would mean death to be hit even once.

"Saber. Get Iri and regroup at the manor. Don't let Berserker follow. Either defeat him or find some other way to escape him." Kiritsugu's voice echoed in Arturia's head and she nearly missed dodging a stab from Berserker's polearm.

It wasn't in her nature to run from a fight, certainly she would not have run from a duel against Lancer; but at this point, dirtied by blood that had sprayed from wounds not her own and tired from the rigours of battle against the indefatigable Berserker, it seemed wise to flee. Subconsciously she had stopped thinking Pyramid Head to be human and instead had placed him on the level of a rabid dog. Dangerous, but not worthy of any respect or convention.

She jumped high, and instead of using her sword, she put a foot to the rusted helmet that Pyramid Head wore and kicked, expending a huge amount of mana in a single burst, knocking Berserker back far into the ocean.

'I really hope he can't swim…' Saber found herself thinking. But already the waves were breaking, water was churning and she knew that while Berserker was probably injured, maybe concussed, the Servant would ignore them.

"Irisviel, we need to leave! Berserker will be here soon and—" Saber's voice caught in her throat. She felt the new magic in the air. She could smell the terror. A chariot had appeared, fallen from the sky, kicking up towering columns and clouds of sand. Through the strange, thick fog of sand she made out three figures exiting the chariot. They were near where Irisviel was hiding. The magic meant that another Servant was here.

With Berserker wading back to shore and the mysterious figures in front of her, threatening the girl she had been charged with protecting, and dare she say friend; Saber knew she would fight once more.

AN: Wow, another chapter. How cool. Servants that have been summoned are as follows:

Arturia Pendragon (Fate Series) as Saber

Iskander of Macedonia (Fate Series) as Rider

Diarmuid Ua Duibhne (Fate Series) as Lancer

Funny Valentine (JJBA) as Archer

Spy (Team Fortress 2) as Assassin

Pyramid Head (Silent Hill) as Berserker

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Perfume) as Caster

Since all seven have been introduced in some way, I'll start doing stat pages for them starting with Grenouille, since I think he's probably the one that people would be least familiar with. They'll probably be very lengthy so please, bear with me.

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille

Class: Caster

Master: Uryuu Ryuunosuke

Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Height: 170 cm

Weight: 55 kg

STR: E

CON: C

AGI: D

MGI: E (B)

LCK: A

Noble Phantasm: EX

Biography

Grenouille was born on July 17th, 1738 in a Parisian fish market under the hot summer sun. His mother left him to die, but was caught and executed. His time at the orphanage was uneventful save for the fact that the children attempted to strangle him when he got there for no apparent reason. He found that his sense of smell was supernaturally powerful. At a young age the orphanage sold Grenouille to work for a tannery. He was later sold again to work for a perfumer once the perfumer discovered Grenouille power of smell which allowed him to make the most glorious perfumes. Not once in his life did anyone show Grenouille any affection or respect. They simply used him for their own profit, and instinctively they knew that he was a monster in human skin. In Paris, Grenouille discovered that young girls had the greatest smell of all.

Once Grenouille became an adult, he left the perfumery having learned all he could there and traveled to a mountain to be alone. For seven years he stayed in a cave, eating rats and lizards and licking moisture from rocks to stay alive. In his cave he sorted all the scents he had ever smelled, but he found one thing lacking. He didn't have a smell of his own.

Grenouille found that because he did not have a smell of his own, people were naturally afraid of him, since every other human being has a smell; a human without a smell must be some sort of monster. He set out to create a smell for himself; this would be the ultimate perfume. He left his cave and traveled to a small town. There he killed young girls and stole their scents using techniques he had learned from his new master. When the perfume was finished, he was caught for the murder of twenty-five girls and sentenced to death.

At the execution he revealed his new perfume. The perfume made him God, for with it he had the power to control what people loved. After all, it was made from beautiful young women whom the world had cherished so deeply. Despite his accomplishment, and despite the fact that even with less than a water bottle full of the perfume rule the world as not a king, but a God; Grenouille felt empty. The people loved the perfume and they loved him only because he wore the perfume. He still had no scent, no soul.

He traveled back to Paris, to the place of his birth, and in the crowded marketplace, he dumped the perfume over himself. The people around him gathered and loved him so much that they just had to take a bite.

Tactics

Grenouille has mastered the art of perfumery and has total control over smells. Now that he is a Servant and because he has magic, the perfumes he creates have a much more powerful effect. Because his physical ability is very low compared to the other Servants, he used the tactic of hiding and making perfumes to aid his hiding as he harvests materials for his Ultimate god-perfume.

Class Skills

Territory Creation: B

Grenouille never knew how to use magic in his life, although his perfumes have amazing effects without it. As Caster, Grenouille can create a Territory where his magical ability rises to (B) rank. Making perfumes in the territory makes them much more effective.

Tool Creation: D

Grenouille can create any tool he needs to create a perfume so long as he is in his Territory.

Personal

Smell of Teen Spirit: A

Grenouille's sense of smell was already unsurpassed during his lifetime. He once ate a sausage, and seven years later, he smelled it on the clothes that he had worn while eating said sausage. As Caster, he can now smell at a much greater range to the point that even hundreds of kilometers away he can tell exactly what an individual is doing just by how their scent is moving and what it is interacting with.

Perfumery: C

It is no real form of magic, but Grenouille learned from master perfumers during his lifetime so he knows all the conventions and science behind perfumes. By using this simple science, his supernatural sense of smell allows him to create the perfect scents.

Noble Phantasm

Parfum: A

His perfumes are varied and can fill all types of purposes. Grenouille primarily makes scents to mask his own presence, which works similarly to Assassin's Presence Concealment, and to inspire emotions in his enemy. Because perfumes are not magic, they will not be affected by magical resistance or armors.

Bottled Love: EX

It is because beautiful people smell good that the people around them are so attracted. Grenouille, by killing girls at the height of their beauty, the peak of puberty; he bottles a smell that controls the emotion of love. This is a power that only God should have. Bottled Love will be completed when Grenouille kills and bottles twenty-five girls of specific quality. Killing and bottling twenty-five girls would take Grenouille two years normally, but because he can now use magic to speed up the process, it can be completed in twenty days.