AN: Thanks to the anonymous reviewer who encouraged me to keep writing. It means much.

There's a rape scene in this chapter. It's fairly graphic so I'll put a warning in case you want to skip it.

Grenouille was in a good mood. Not only had he made huge advances in the ancient art of perfumery, but his Master had introduced a most marvelous invention: the spray bottle. They had found several of these plastic miracles in a closet of the beach house along with all types of chemicals and cleaning products that Caster had never seen before. These new compounds had been incorporated into his perfumes, and had bottled into the spritzers.

He had three of the sprays with him at the moment, each one holding a little less than half a gallon of perfume, each one enough to last decades. The bottles were a blank, boring yellowish plastic and virtually indistinguishable, but that didn't matter. Caster could tell the bottles apart by scent. In one he had bottled the scent of fire. A mixture of bleach and melted sulfur of the highest purity, wood ashes and the black, burnt crusts of cooked meats. The next was his ever present perfume of hiding, and in the final nondescript bottle was a black mass of crushed ants dissolving in a soup of chlorine and alcohol. Today would be the night to test his new perfumes, to test his new method of delivery, and perhaps to kill that scentless girl...

In the height of evening, on a cloudy autumn night, quite chilly as the breeze blew, Grenouille sat atop one of those tall business building with his feet dangling off the ledge. Across from him was an even taller building, this one a hotel bearing the name of 'Hyatt', vomiting a flood of confused tourists and professionals. From what Caster could make out, they had been evacuated due to a terrorist threat of some sort. The stink of terror and sweat rose from the crowd like a noxious gas and Grenouille savored it, knowing that at his command it would grow even stronger.

He stood, excited and flushed, and waved his arms about as if he was conducting an orchestra of some sort; a symphony of smell instead of noise. With a flourish and a extravagant bow he reached to his belt and pulled the first bottle free. Four. Five. Six times he pulled the trigger releasing misty clouds of perfume into the air, falling, falling, falling slowly, spreading in the wind and spiraling upwards then downwards until finally…

The people below began to scream and dance about. They were burning, the droplets of perfume that had fallen on them had turned into burning. Not through mundane fire in the way that human beings know it, but a sort of epistemological, metaphysical burn. Grenouille, with his preternatural sense of smell, knew the perfume to be perfume; but the human torches below had only their faith. They believed the perfume, the fire made scent, and they could know it as nothing but the burning flames of perdition. Instead of oxygen, it was the collective belief of the crowd that was the fuel for the fire. So convinced they were of their deaths, men and women began to char and blacken in the intense heat of the flames that were not really there.

The asphalt began to boil and the yellow road paint twisted and warped into the thick, oozing tar. Glass storefronts and car windows began to droop. Floating on this most callous ocean breeze, the perfume wafted into the minds of the evacuees and they believed themselves to be in Hell. Men and women thought they were burning to death so they did. Then, in the background, the hotel blew up and Grenouille saw that it was good.

He decided then and he would go and hunt for the scentless one.

Somehow, the scent of cleaning products and sulfur were overpowering the stench of burning flesh and melting rubber. There were rainbow clouds of paint, metallic dust, and fervent clouds of embers rising from the crowd-turned-funeral pyre in spiralling patterns brought on by the convection of the air. It was a nauseating mixture, but Kiritsugu couldn't afford to vomit now.

He hadn't planned on the intervention of a third party; almost certainly the Servant Caster, if the magical fire was anything to go by. There wasn't supposed to be any victims; only Kayneth and his Servant were meant to be caught in the explosion, but it seemed that their warning the civilians had only led them to another end. Kiritsugu had seen the remnants of a hundred battlefields and yet none were so terrible a sight as this.

'God, the fire!' He screamed to himself as right in front of him, a body, rolling on the ground, screaming for help and hair burning like hot wires, shuddered and ceased to thrash. Almost certainly dead. 'Fire, the worst way to die.' So hot that the ground caught aflame, cars were bursting as the heat got to their fuel tanks, bits of heated metal and concrete shrapnel killed any who weren't already burning to death. And it would not stop. Even after the bodies were eaten through and there was nothing left but ash, the fire would spread to the earth below the ground, even the ashes would burn. The road, now mainly a liquid, bubbled away and the Magus Killer looked on in horror as the bald concrete and sand underneath the blacktop was revealed only for that too to begin to burn.

Hand shaking, he pulled out his phone and began to dial, then redial as his shaking hands, greasy with human fat and soot smeared the screen and slipped to press the wrong keys. He dropped the phone and cursed. He had meant to call… someone, he couldn't think straight and decided to leave.

"That's disgusting." Kirei grimaced as he watched his Servant take another drink of his wine. A burnt up cigarette butt floated in the red drink like a buoy.

"It builds character," Spy sounded amused as he took an additional swig of the foul brew and caught Kirei's expression. "I didn't think you'd be one to care so much about tastes, Master." Spy put the half empty glass on the table, and in a familiar movement, produced a manila folder, obviously full of more information.

"There's a difference between…" Kirei's voice trailed and halted for a moment before he continued. "What is this?"

"Corpses."

"Yes, but why are they so pertinent?"

Spy stood and played with his knife. Strangely, there was an expression of nostalgia and distaste on his strangely expressive, masked face.

"Caster burned a hundred fourteen people alive tonight. These are the police photographs that I managed to find." The smell of burning had been everywhere that night, but Spy found it almost enjoyable. In his past life, the one dubbed 'Pyro' had been similarly inclined to acts of arson. Yes… Pyro might have been insane, but weren't they all? Killers all of them, Pyro had just preferred to do it with flames…

"This may jeopardize the War." Kirei looked wholly unconcerned about the matter, and passed the folder and its pictures back to Spy. "Have you informed my father?"

"His orders were that the War be put on hold until Caster was removed. The one to end the magician will get an additional Command Spell."

Kirei said nothing.

"How do you feel about this? One hundred fourteen people burned or melted or fused with the pavement. I was there and with every breath, you could feel the ashes tickling your throat… ashes that used to be human. What will be our course of action?"

"Earlier when we spoke, you said it was alright to find pleasure in the suffering of others. Why would you say something like that? It goes against every conventional wisdom taught to us, every moral standard put in place by society."

"You," Spy pointed at Kirei with his knife, not in anger but in amusement. "You go against every conventional wisdom. I have spent my life as a spy. It is my business to know things that should not be known. The first time I laid eyes on you, I realized that you do not care, that your life is a lie and the people around you simply nuisances or sources of entertainment when they suffer. Don't evade the question, and do not lie. How do you feel, and what will we do."

Speaking his true mind was unfamiliar, so Kirei spoke with a slight falter. "I… I am happy."

"That those innocents burnt to death?"

Kirei spoke more confidently now, as if speaking aloud would confirm his innermost thoughts. "Yes. I am happy that the died. That they suffered."

"Good. Honesty is good. And now?" Spy's voice rose and the Priest's followed.

"We win this War."

"You." There was much vehemence to Saber's voice. It cut through the night fog, sharper than any sword. In the distance was a familiar figure. Short, still taller than Saber, but unlike before, the man stood straight, instead of being stooped over. "You're Caster? The boy from that car ride?"

An almost imperceptible nod of the head came. And Saber readied her sword. The letter from the Overseer of the Holy Grail War had said that focus was to be on removing Caster, and that he had killed over a hundred people just hours ago… It seemed impossible that this man would even be capable of murder on that scale. Caster, Grenouille he had said his name was, was too small, too normal to seem capable. But Irisviel had sensed another Servant on the grounds, and this small man was the only one there.

"Why are you here?"

"Where's the girl?" Caster's voice was too large for his body, almost like a frog croak. "The girl from before, where is she?" He sounded nervous, almost like a teenager asking their crush out for the first time. "I must… I must see her!" He declared.

"My Master is not of your concern," Saber said dismissively. "You die tonight, Caster. I cannot allow an enemy and murderer to live. You've come here of your own accord, so I assume that you've made peace with God and are ready to die…" She leapt forward, sword swinging in an overhead arc and made to cleave Caster in two. It was a near thing, but Caster dodged at the last moment. His expression turning frenetic. Unlike other spell casters Saber had known of, Caster did not seem to be carrying a wand or catalyst of some sort, just three bottles attached to his belt.

"Where is she?" Caster's voice came pleading and desperate. He clumsily ducked a sword thrust and had a near miss with Saber's backswing. He didn't want to kill the blonde before learning of the scentless girl's location; after all, he couldn't track someone with no smell. He was about to ask again, but Saber's invisible sword caught him on the leg, effectively gimping him. Grabbing to his leg and hobbling, trying to make distance between the King of Knights and himself, Caster pulled a bottle from his leg.

"You have no business with her, worm." Saber strode forward, confident and strong. Caster really was the weakest Servant, no combat abilities whatsoever, he would almost be able to pass for human if it wasn't for the mana that Saber sensed in him. "Make peace with God, even a murderer deserves that much courtesy."

He had died before, and had no intention of doing so again. In a manic craze, Grenouille flipped onto his back and pointed the spray bottle at Saber in an almost threatening gesture. Like a gun, except pathetic.

"S-stay back," he stuttered, "you won't like this, I promise you won't. Just tell me where she is—" Saber's invisible sword was embedded into the ground next to his neck, cutting his sentence off.

"You're in no position to ask for anything. Accept your fate and may your burn in Hell as you did so many others." Her eyes were stones and as she hefted her blade to execute, Caster sprayed the bottle. The black mist traveled the short distance between the two almost instantly, and Saber dropped her sword and clawed at her face.

Ants! All at once the insects appeared. Hundreds, thousands of the bugs crawled and bit. Her eyes had been open, staring directly into Caster's dead, emotionless orbs, when her face had taken the brunt of the spray. She blinked and felt the little fuckers crawling underneath her eyebrows biting, cutting with their sharp mandibles. She hardly noticed Caster stand back up and spray her again, this time on her armor. The ants crept in through the cracks of her armor, the small links of her chainmail, and began to eat at her flesh. Spray into her nose. Mouth. Eyes. Ears. Make sure they get to the genitals, hidden though they are by cloth and metal…

She couldn't see or smell or hear anything. The taste was of vinegar and the feel was fire. Huge and black, the ants were almost a full centimeter in length and they were everywhere, eating everything. It was like they set up hives in her clothes and undergarments and every single inch was food for them. She was being eaten alive. Little tunnels were being carved from her own flesh and blood.

She couldn't scream. Her mouth was full and throat swollen with bugs.

"Please don't move."

In another part of the forest, Maiya's body, prone on the ground, began to speak.

"Please don't move, Irisviel." Maiya, poor Maiya with a trio of Black Keys stuck in her chest, spoke and it seemed to the homunculus that the world froze. Maiya was conscious? The wound hadn't fatal?

"I'll be right there, Maiya, just… try and stay alive." Irisviel had no real advice to give to the dying girl, but had to fill the silence with something. In front of her was the enemy, Kirei Kotomine, bound to the tree by her alchemic strings. Even though the homunculus had never killed before, she knew that this was the time to do it. "I'll deal with Kotomine and I'll be right over to heal you."

"Irisviel… it hurts so much, Irisviel… Just please come help me." Maiya's voice was strained and hoarse with effort, she sounded near death. "It hurts. It hurts so much." Guilt filled the silver haired woman. Maiya had gotten injured while defending her from Kotomine…

Irisviel shot a baleful look at her prisoner and turned to her injured ally. "I'll be right there! Don't worry about a thing!" But when Iri turned, Maiya was standing. And she had a gun. And she fired. Once. Twice. Three times and Irisviel fell to the ground, leaking from her chest. It looked almost as if a flower had bloomed, one of those huge rafflesia blossoms, huge and red and stinking.

The black haired mercenary lit a cigarette and walked forward, stepping callously over Irisviel's bleeding body and towards the bound priest who was now smiling. She swatted at the hilts seemingly embedded in her chest and they fell right off. They had been replica Black Keys, glued down with simple paste to make it seem as if she had been impaled through the chest. An intravenous bag filled with blood, pilfered from the hospital's blood bank, had been stuffed under her clothes to make the fake wound seem all the more real.

"That was good acting, Master." A screen of smoke and red static covered Maiya's body for a moment before Spy familiar mask and suit came into view. "Some very impressive stuff." The Servant lazily deployed his balisong and cut the threads binding Kirei and the man stepped back to bring the blood back to his limbs. "I told you, that would be more fun than just simple murder."

Kirei took a cigarette and light from his Servant and began to smoke. His father would likely disapprove, but it was fun, absurdly fun to smoke after having accomplished something. "Yes… it was fun, wasn't it?" The priest prodded at the homunculus with a black key and flipped her over using his foot. "Shame I didn't catch the look of surprise on her face, I bet that would have been glorious."

Irisviel's face was a cratered mess. Spy had shot three times and each one had entered and exited the head. It was like flowers blooming, Kirei thought, especially in the fog addled moonlight, the blood glistened like a living thing, warm and erotic.

The two men left the forest.

Grenouille had been quite close to victory before the spear pierced his hand. He had pulled the fire perfume from his belt and was readying to spray it straight into his opponents face, but a distraction had come. It was a red affair, with all the blood and the spear's own color. Grenouille would have been pinned to the ground by the strike but he managed to tug himself free, breaking his hand completely and leaving the entire middle section, phalanges and carpal, pulled free. Had he been anyone else, he would have screamed. Instead he merely stumbled backwards and stared at his hand and missing finger. He stare carried no anger, no annoyance, only discomfort that his bottle had been ripped from his hand and was steadily leaking onto the ground…

"Who are you?" Caster asked, watching his blood drip from his ruined hand. Like the rest of his body, Grenouille could smell no odor to his blood save the salt and copper and iron, his own scent was missing as it always had been.

The man, a handsome fellow with rough hair teased backwards, carried two spears. One gold and the other red and gleaming at the tip with Caster's blood. The spearman grinned with anticipation and stepped forward, over the sundered spray bottle now leaking perfume everywhere. It was only a matter of time now… Grenouille could smell that the man had stepped into the perfume, tracking the smell of fire with him with every movement.

"I am the Servant Lancer. You must be the infamous Caster. Seems incredible that you be able to disable Saber to this degree, but I guess you've been summoned for a reason; your magical power must be quite strong to be able to fight the King of Knights."

Grenouille shook his head in the negative and in the back of his mind he knew that his escape was all but ensure as long as he stalled for a while. The fire perfume was slowly pooling and spreading along the dirt and broken twigs and dead leaves of the forest floor. It wasn't meant to be used that way; perfumes had to be smelled in small quantities so that the volatile oils and alcohols could evaporate more quickly and turn to clouds of scent. But nearly half a liter of perfume had been spilled, it would take time for the smell to reach the weak noses of the other Servants, but when it did…

"There's no magic here. Only perfume. It's an art." The moment was close now, Grenouille smelled the scent growing stronger as Lancer moved closer. The Servant's motions had disturbed the almost still puddle, knocking droplets of the perfume into the air and hastening the process. Grenouille took care and reached for his belt. It was awkward to do so with his non-dominant hand, and he had to reach across his body in an strange manner, but he pulled free his perfume of hiding.

In the background, Saber had vomited an impressive mass of insects and could be heard gagging and spitting and snorting, quite unbecoming of a monarch, as she tried to clear her mouth and nose of the insects.

"Ah, mister Caster… I'm an artist as well." Lancer gave a complicated twirl of his spears and inwardly Grenouille smiled. The air currents caused by the movement would likely disturb the perfume further and shorten the time it took the other Servants to smell the spilled perfume. "Most warriors are; and I'm one of the best!" Lancer's voice took a strong pitch as the Servant leapt forward, spears pointed on either side of Grenouille so there would be no escaping injury.

He tried to dodge, but the blade of the yellow, golden spear caught him on the right shoulder. The injury was heavy, and Grenouille could smell corruption in it, as if the spear blade had been poisoned or cursed.

Caster bit back a gasp and pulled the insect perfume from his belt, his aim was off because he had to use his off hand, but the general direction was correct, Lancer would almost certainly be caught in one of the clouds and then he'd be crippled as Saber was—

Two huge gusts of air came from behind Lancer and blew the clouds of perfume away. Saber was standing now, face swollen and disfigured with insects bites and breathing heavily, pointing her sword, the invisible one in Caster's direction.

"Lancer," she panted, "don't ever let him hit you. Whatever he's spraying is dangerous. Don't even breathe it in!"

Lancer nodded and stepped backwards. He stabbed his golden spear in the ground and hefted the red one, twisting backwards and launching the weapon forward at incredible speeds. A cone of air appeared for one brief moment at the spearhead and broke, caused a deafening boom. It caught Grenouille on the thigh, running straight through and cutting deep into the bone. Blood spilled on the forest floor and Caster wheezed.

"You're dead, Caster. Gae Dearg can nullify any magical protection you may conjure up. Gae Buidhe here," Lancer picked up the second spear, the legendary Golden Rose of Mortality, and hefted it as he did the first. "Gae Buidhe's injuries can't be— what's that smell?"

Finally, disturbed by the sonic boom from Lancer's spear throw, the perfume was disturbed enough, had dissipated enough for the Servant to notice. His leg was on fire and Lancer smelled the acrid odor of burning leather, not just burning but boiling first from the heat. Everything was forgotten save the heat and lick of the flames and the Servant just barely noticed Saber shouting as well. Behind him, the puddle from Caster's broken bottle, had caught aflame and was quickly spreading, spreading faster than fire had any right to spread in all directions. The air itself began to burn and even the ground bubbled as if the hell flames were trying to melt a path back to their home.

Gae Buidhe fell to the ground as Lancer's hands went to his leg. He fell to the ground and rolled, patting at his legs and driving dirt and earth to the flames in hopes of putting the fire out. They burned along with the flesh of his legs. Down to the bone. Man came from ash and to ash he will go. Diarmuid, the veteran of a hundred battles, had known no pain such as the pain of fire.

Behind him, hidden by the all consuming curtain of red and gold and orange flickering, madly flickering flames, Saber burned as well. She had tried to make it past the flames to put an end to Caster herself, thinking that her magical armor would protect her, but it had caught just as everything else had. Her left arm, the one that had been injured by Gae Buidhe, then by Pyramid Head, was up to the shoulder in flames and was quickly spreading, burning, burning. The stench of fire and heat and of metal and cloth and flesh turning to smoke was almost too much.

Caster gasped as he pulled Gae Dearg from his leg. He let it clatter to the ground as he began to hobble away, leaking blood but still alive. He had been meaning to bring a girl home that night, for his perfume, but decided against it. He was behind on his progress of Bottled Love, but he was too injured to do much else but dispel himself and float back home.

"I've got to thank you, Spy. That moment in the forest…" Kirei stared almost lovingly at a photograph showing the startled face of one Irisviel von Einzbern. Betrayal written in the permanent lines of the face, the way the mouth opened dumbly and the eyes stared with fish-like anger, still unfocused and in shock. Spy apparently had some sort of hidden camera in on his clothes that allowed him to take photographs at any time. "That was beautiful. Some of the other Masters might say that Assassin is the weakest of the Servant classes; but they'd be wrong. What you did there was utter genius. Amazing." For the first time in his life, Kirei was truly happy and satisfied that he could say what was on his mind without fear of judgement from his father or teacher.

"Imagine the expression on her husband's face when he finds her body." Spy had opted to simply smoke instead of drink. "Imagine the anger, the sorrow. And her daughter too… her daughter will grow without a mother." Unlike Kirei, Spy didn't seemed overjoyed, merely calm and speculative. There was no guilt. In the Servant's mind, Irisviel was just another target, and the way that he had disguised himself to pull off the assassination was routine.

Kirei painted the scene in his head. Einzbern's pale body in the shimmering in the early morning light. Still warm to the touch but noticeably colder than a human being should have been. Her Servant and husband searching all throughout the night, calling for the woman to come back home, their desperate prayers for her safety and wellbeing. Their expressions of hurt and dismay and sorrow as they, one after another, stumbled upon the corpse. Saber would be first, and Kirei liked to imagine the King of Knights crying out of shame and guilt. Then Kiritsugu would find that copse of trees and his Servant crying over the body of his dead wife. He'd see the bullet wounds, and he'd assume the worst. His student perhaps? Had Maiya grown so jealous of the homunculus, so loving of Kirei that she couldn't bear to see his love with another woman? Would that be the explanation Kiritsugu would conjure? Would he then hunt down his own student, and in anger and cold sorrow, would the Magus Killer gun down his own student, thinking that she had been the murderer? What other participant in this Holy Grail War would stoop to use such mundane weaponry?

It was a beautiful dream that Kirei had.

"Master?"

"Yes, Spy?" The Church Executor responded with a dreamy tone, one that didn't fit his usually somber image.

"Why would you allow Tohsaka to win the War? Why ally yourself with him? Why bother with your father? Surely you understand now that you and I could take this War by storm. We could win it all and accomplish any dream…" Spy spoke seriously, but there was no judgement in his voice. It was a simple question, but one that Kirei had no real answer to.

"I don't really know. I suppose it's because I've accepted what my father and teacher had told me for so long." Kirei took a long drink from his glass of beer and reached over the bar to pour himself another one. "Part of it is because I have no real wish for the Grail. The ability to empathize maybe…"

Spy snorted and put his cigarette out on the ashtray. "For your wife and children maybe, but for the rest of this world… You are heads and shoulders above them, Kirei. Empathizing with the rest of the trash would lower you to their level. No matter what this world may say about men like us; we will exist."

Yes… Kirei would exist, he had done it for some twenty odd years now, and showed no signs of stopping. He was well practiced in the art of existence, and like a hidden tick, he had escaped the scrutiny of society; even his father and teacher hadn't begun to suspect the secret darkness in the Executor's heart.

"Why do you want to win?"

Spy's mouth opened and closed. "I'm not naive enough as to simply wish my clone away. I have great respect for myself," the Frenchman chuckled at his own joke. "But, you wouldn't understand Kirei. When I found that I had been cloned, I realized that something had been taken from me. The uniqueness of a human being had been erased, and my name ceased to mean me. It was a plural. That is the greatest insult a human being can ever face, the loss of uniqueness. I wish to make it so that my uniqueness is returned. Whatever I might have lost when that clone was made, I want it back."

"What about after all of that?"

"I'll go back to work. Sell my services to the world. I used to be the greatest killer of all time, you know. Presidents, kings and queens, Arabian sheikhs surrounded by their oil and harems. No one was out of my reach. The truest power is the power over life, is it not?"

Kirei thought hard about his own future. Spy seemed so certain, so ready to face the world and take back his own life. Was power how his Servant found meaning in his meaningless existence? His father, his daughter. The Church. Kirei knew his future and wanted only to run…

His wounds had healed save for the one on his shoulder, the golden spear had left that one, and Grenouille assumed that some sort of magic was keeping it from healing as the rest of his body had. Even the deep hole and shattered bone in his thigh had closed.

He winced as he wrapped his shoulder in tight layers of wispy, stretchy gauze. The mobility in his dominant arm was compromised, but still serviceable. Really, other than the injuries, the worst part of his night was the fact that he hadn't found where the scentless girl lived. And he was now even further behind on his Bottled Love. One girl out of twenty five. He had gotten too distracted with his new capabilities and the powers granted by magic and the Spine. He'd have to hurry now and gather more specimens for his perfume, perhaps even expand his arsenal so the other Servants wouldn't be able to defeat him. He materialized in the living room of the beach house and was quickly greeted by his Master thumping down the hallway out of a rather large storage room.

"Caster! I have a surprise that I think you'll love." The orange haired serial killer was all grins, even if his eyes were a bit baggy from lack of sleep. "It's great, man. Totally cool."

Grenouille sniffed at the air. His preoccupation and worry had caused him to ignore the world around him for a while, even the things he smelled passed his notice as he planned for the future. But now, taking time to take in his surroundings, Grenouille realized what his Master had done and quickly followed.

"Incredible," he said breathlessly. "Well done, Master. You," Grenouille stopped to take a deep breath of the air. "One's still alive, but the rest of them… there's no smell of fear on the rest of them." Grenouille bent down over the plastic wrapped bodies and pulled back a corner of the covering. A girl stared at the ceiling with fish eyes. Dead, but calm as a Hindu cow. Two, three, four; and the last one was still alive, still struggling with her bonds. Unlike the four corpses, she was simply gagged and had her hands and feet bound. Grenouille beamed. He'd be able to use these girls for his perfume.

"Yeah, I realized that you hadn't brought back a girl in a couple days, and since you've been such a good friend, I thought I'd help you catch up! Bagged five of them tonight, but I guess I screwed up on the last one. I was sure that she had been dead…" Uryuu scratched his head sheepishly and grinned happily.

""No… Master… you've done so much already. Four is more than enough for me. The last girl can be yours to do with whatever you like. I'm not sure if I can process more than four at once anyways." Yes, four would be more than enough, and with the new process that Grenouille had thought of for extracting scent, he'd probably be done within the next couple hours.

"Anything? Really?" Uryuu smiled and jumped like an excited little boy. The girl bound and trussed in the corner had evidently heard and her struggles grew more frantic. Even through the gag Grenouille could make out hate laden invectives and curses.

Grenouille thought for a while and inspiration struck him. "No, not anything…" The girl was angry right now, so angry that her fear had been forgotten. A fierce girl with black hair. "Make sure she's scared. Put her in her place." With his strength enhanced by magic, Grenouille pulled the four corpses from the room and allowed his Master some privacy.

In the space that had once held a sofa, Caster had built a large cedar tub with an accompanying lid that was lined with rubber to make a powerful seal. In the center of the tub a was a huge metal screw shaft, positioned so that it would line up perfectly with the hole in the lid. He unwrapped the bodies which retained little heat, stripped them of their clothes and placed them gently, reverently in the cedar cask. All the while he could hear the girl screaming and yelling. His Master must have taken the gag off. Heavy, thumping blows and stinging slaps thudded dully through the walls of the house.

He filled the tub and bathed the bodies in warm mineral oil and runny animal fat and sealed the cask with the heavy lid, screwing it down with a huge wingnut fitted to the screw shaft. It was difficult with a bum arm.

Usually he preferred complete silence during his perfume making, but somehow, the screams that filled the house didn't bother him; he actually found himself enjoying the noise…

*rape scene

"If you bite me, I'm going to pull out your teeth." Uryuu had a claw hammer in his hand and tapped it lightly against the girl's forehead. "Do you understand?" With the girl's stiff nod, Uryuu smiled and tugged her gag off.

"Fuck you, you limp dicked—" The hammer hit her head lightly, but the metal head was more than enough to leave a bruise, even with a soft hit. Her head went reeling and tears born of anger and stress and pain filled her eyes. "You didn't have to do that you prick…" she couldn't even cradle her head her hands were still bound behind her back.

"First off, what's your name?" His voice was filled with false kindness and understanding even as his eyes roamed cruelly over the girl's beaten body. "I'm Uryuu Ryuunosuke."

"Harumi Tachibana… what— what are you going to do with me?" Her question was half-yell half-snarl.

"You know what I'm going to do." The psychopath ran a hand through his orange hair, totally self-satisfied. "Why don't you say it? Tell me what I'm about to do to you." His grin grew wider for he knew that the feelings of anger and helplessness were turning to the highest peaks of apprehension and resignation. "Tell me what I'm about to do. Make a guess. See if you can tell the future."

"Fuck you," the girl spat. There was a distinct sheen of terror in her eyes now, almost as if Uryuu's comments had caused her to have a premonition of her doom. "You're not going to do shit, cause I'm going to fucking kill you. Just try and touch me."

"It sounds like you know what I'm going to do. But you don't really understand…" The psychopath's hand cracked forward in a lighting strike movement, slapping Harumi's face into the plain concrete wall. It bounced a little against the hard stone, almost like how a fruit will slightly jolt when dropped. "You're going to understand though."

Bloody spittle drooled from Harumi's mouth and her pretty face was swollen and red from the strike. Her eyes had rolled back, half conscious from her impact with the wall. Still, she was able to moan her displeasure when Uryuu's roaming hands came to caress her body, crawling and pulling at her dirtied clothes like a pair of huge spiders.

"Don't touch me… don't you fucking dare."

"You're really pretty you know, like you have a nice body."

"Shut up…" Her voice quavered as cold flames settled in her stomach and her eyes closed tight as if ignoring the world would stop the horrors from descending. What was about to happen was unthinkable, yet it was all she could think of. A wet, hot thing trailed on her neck leaving tailings of sticky, fetid dampness. "Please stop."

"Open your mouth." The claw of the hammer slowly eased itself in between Harumi's tightly pressed lips and knocked against her teeth. "Open your mouth." This time the command came more insistently, although Uryuu never lost that playful tone. Harumi did as she was bid and slowly her humiliation spilled over her eyelids and trailed down her cheeks. The long, fat organ, stinking of sweat and the stench of man entered her mouth and sat heavily on her tongue, imparting a taste of rancidness, a feeling of violation. She cried.

"Remember not to bite. And use your tongue." Uryuu was quickly growing impatient and grabbed the girl's black hair, pulling and thrusting at the same time, causing the girl to gag and heave against the fleshy intruder currently rubbing against the inside of her mouth. She had never been with a man before and hadn't been expecting her first time to be like this…

Soon her vision grew hazy as her airway was blocked and unblocked in repeated, boring motions and the pace grew more and more frantic as Uryuu neared release. Harumi vomited continuously, a little dribble of hot, slimy sludge and half digested food. Disgusting and visceral for a while until her tormentor finally pulled her close, choking her on semen and her own vomit and the thick, log like organ halfway down her throat. Pure despair filled her as she felt warmth trickling down her throat, sticking to it and coating it in squirming ropes of thickness.

She was pushed back against the wall, crying and panting and so, so scared of what was to come next.

"Lick me clean. Get me hard again. I'm going to fuck you now."

The meaty rod, stinking of Harumi's vomit and salty excretion, rubbed against her face, half-flaccid. She shied away at first, crying and shaking her head in childish rejection until a hand grabbed her by the hair and pulled cruelly, shoving her into the wall and knocking her head about.

"I'm seriously going to hurt you if you don't play along."

She was scared and so she obeyed and while she cried and sucked and licked she turned her mind to heaven and prayed as she never had before.

'Help me God, I'll do anything. I don't want to die. It shouldn't have been like this.'

Her clothes, skimpy, sheer nightwear that looked like it was woven of unicorn hair gossamer and bits of stardust. Uryuu ripped them off cheerfully and stepped forward even as the girl's breath hitched and she scrambled backwards until finally finding herself cornered and unable to run, too scared to fight back; her earlier bluster forgotten for unassailable terror. The type of fear that comes only with the knowledge that there is nothing to be done about a future that only promised pain and humiliation and the worst violation of all.

Hands still bound by rough lengths of yellow nylon rope, those happy colors taunting her, she couldn't even struggle as her captor grabbed her by the throat and pinned her to the ground. She hardly felt it at first, the whole of her body seemed to be numb with shock and terror and the phrase 'it's not happening' raced through her mind in a never ending sequence of denial. Then she spasmed and her body betrayed her. Uryuu shoved her face onto the cold concrete floor, growing wet with blood and saliva and sweat from Harumi's crying face. Knees under her, bound by the ankles, too terrified of punishment to kick out.

She couldn't concentrate on hating him, there were too many emotions to focus on just one. The unbidden feelings of lust, a physical reaction to her situation that could not be dispelled no matter what she screamed or thought or did. Humiliation unparalleled; she had been a model student, the love of the school… boys had chased after her and girls had been jealous, but now she was in a strange place bound against her will in intimacy with a stranger, hateful stranger.

She felt herself tearing and a warmth spreading from her core to the rest of her body. God it hurt. But there was nothing she could do to stop it. Acceptance was key but who could accept violation like this? Uryuu's hands grabbed her by the waist and flipped her over, pushing her tightly bound legs almost parallel with her body and thrusting deep, eliciting shameful moans from her mouth and keeping her legs pinned down with the weight of his body.

He was handsome, she realized. Her captor with orange hair and smiling face was handsome in a plain sort of way and she hated him for it. She hated so much while she was stuck there on the floor, writhing in unwanted pleasure and disbelieving shock. She prayed. She begged for mercy and for her parents. And when she came, she cried harder than she thought possible and lie there curled up, prone and completely still save for her heaving sobs, leaking tears from her eyes and semen from her vagina.

"Bring her out, Master," a voice from outside, far away called. "A new perfume that I thought of…"

Somehow, those quiet calls scared Harumi more than anything Uryuu had said or done. Something worse was about to happen…

A little girl with black, almost brown hair sat outside and dug at the ground with a little stick. Rin was lonely, but more pressingly, she was bored. There was depressingly little to do without her friends, and so far away she was from her father that she couldn't even pester him to teach her magic. Still, she found ways to occupy herself, as small children do.

She had been exploring the area around her grandparents' house that morning and stumbled across a small protruding, something, that poked out of the ground. It wasn't a twig or stone or root; it felt dry, but supple, almost like beef jerky or some similar dried meat. So, the curious child she was, she went home for a small snack and a gardening spade.

Humming to herself a song she had learned in school, a small folk tune as old as human memory, she dug and imagined herself to be a paleontologist. She had wanted to watch that dinosaur movie that came out last year, but her father had refused and Rin had only her imagination to serve her. She was digging for bones, and after a while of digging she found that the mystery object was the left hand of a human being, mummified and desiccated but unmistakably familiar.

Her thoughts of dinosaurs shifted to Egypt now. She fancied herself a famous archaeologist exploring the tombs of kings long since crumbled to dust, the bones of an empire once feared the world over. A cramped series of tunnels filled with deadly booby traps and false endings until she finally came to the treasure room filled with burnished gold and star-like jewels just like the ones her father used in his magic. And under the heavy sarcophagus face would be the mummy, a forgotten ruler of the ancient kingdom…

There was a hole through the palm. Perfectly circular. Stigmata the Christians call it. Holy Wounds.

She panted as she tugged on the arm, holding by the hand and wrist with her grubby, child hands stained brown with dirt and the juices of the decaying autumn leaves or red and gold. Perhaps half the mummy's forearm had been uncovered and digging deeper was growing quite difficult, roots of trees and stones blocked her spade and her little muscles could hardly muster the strength to cut through the thick tubers or push aside the deeply embedded rocks.

"Yes! I got it!" Rin stumbled backwards and steadied herself, marveling at her discovery. A human arm, old and dry and twisted. It looked more like a gnarled tree branch than an arm, but Rin knew better. Something about the arm, the strange hole through the palm perhaps, or maybe the unshakable aura of awe surrounding it; she knew it was special. Something amazing. "I can't wait to show mom!" And perhaps she'd even be able to show her father!

The girl smiled, and ran home carrying the arm in both hands with unconscious reverence. She didn't even notice it begin to disappear…

AN:

Since the TF2 comic is not complete at the time of writing, Spy's biography is just headcanon.

A note about Caster's powers. I wasn't sure if it was explained well enough in the text so here I'll elaborate and make it as plain as possible.

Caster's perfumes have been augmented by the power of the Holy Spine. They used to smell so realistic that one whiff could give people hallucinations depending on the scent. Now the smell of the perfume is so hyperrealistic that smell the perfume makes any person who smells it to believe that the perfume is actually what smell it's mimicking. The perfume for fire that Caster made smells like fire, so people believe there is a fire. But due to magic and Holy Corpse and Stand bullshit, the belief that there is a fire translates into fire existing in the real world and being able to affect it. This sort of fire needs no fuel as long as people smell the perfume and believe that it's real. They smell burning so whatever smells like burning, whatever has the perfume on it, must be burning, right? More than the control of smell, Caster's power is the ability to make people's beliefs come true.

Everything disappears once the smell is gone.

RED Spy

Class: Assassin

Master: Kirei Kotomine

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Height: 180 cm

Weight: 80 kg

Armament: Cloaking watch, butterfly knife, revolver, various spy equipment

STR: D

CON: D

AGI: C

MGI: C

LCK: C

Noble Phantasm: B

Biography

Almost nothing is known about Spy, not even his closest allies knew his true name, and neither does anyone in the Holy Grail War. He can be said to be French because of his accent, but there is no record of him anywhere. Only a trail of bodies and money. He's a ladykiller (it's an expression) and a widowmaker (literally). He doesn't like to kill women and children, but will do so when pushed.

Earlier in his career he was coerced into working for RED, an extremely wealthy company, to commit industrial sabotage against BLU, a rival company. He and his comrades were either cloned by RED to defeat BLU's original mercenaries, or BLU cloned RED's originals to counter. No one knows which side is the original.

Later in life, Spy and his allies helped defeat the Administrator, their former employer, and destroy all the Australium, a mysterious material with amazing capacities for lengthening the human lifespan, by removing it from the earth. He was raised to the Throne of Heroes for sacrificing himself to make sure that the Australium would be destroyed.

Tactics

Spy is skilled in close quarters combat, but is no match for the other Servants besides Caster. Instead he works from the shadows to cripple his foes and their Masters either through blackmail or through assassination.

Class Skills

Presence Concealment: A

Spy can hide his presence from other magically sensitive individuals with this Class Skill. His natural abilities as a hitman lend him to be well-versed in the methods of hiding and his technology only furthers this.

Personal

Reading: C

Spy has spent much of his life dealing in secrets and can quickly find someone's weaknesses and psychological faults just by speaking to them. This allows him to prevent his enemies from fighting to their full capacity by pre-emptive sabotage.

Surprise: B

Spy's attacks on an unexpecting enemy ignore any magical resistances. A stealthy backstab or headshot will leave his foes with significant damage.

Noble Phantasm

Disguise Kit: B

Spy can change his appearance by disguising himself and can mimic the speech and mannerisms of others to incredible accuracy.

The Dead Ringer: B

A cloaking watch in form of an old, ornate pocket watch. The Dead Ringer doesn't allow Spy to cloak normally, but upon receiving damage, Spy can activate the Dead Ringer to cloak and leave behind a fake corpse to fool his opponents. While he can't cloak normally with The Dead Ringer, he can use his normal watch to overcome his weakness, something that wasn't possible with the limitations of the RED vs BLU combat.

Your Eternal Reward: B

A huge knife of Middle Eastern design. Your Eternal Reward vanishes the victims for a short while after their deaths and allows for Spy to instantly take their appearances without having to bring out his disguise kit.

Enforcer: B

A snubnose revolver. When disguised, Spy does significantly more damage to his opponents per shot.