"They fly towards grace." Rider spoke with a smile on his face, a small dose of contentment.
The pair sat on the roof of the Mackenzie's home, watching Waver struggle with bringing Valentine's luggage into the home, the boy couldn't even use magecraft to expedite the process of moving the luggage as the Mackenzies had come back home. Rider had insisted that every courtesy be extended his counterpart, citing that it was a 'King's duty to look after their guests'. If only the conqueror would realize that he didn't exactly have any slaves to order about, except of course, his 'Master'. Valentine had offered to pay a honest price in order to rent out a room; but Rider wouldn't hear of it, and when the elderly couple who actually owned the house had come back, they had quickly brushed off any mention of money, extending her hospitality to the former President in a heartbeat.
"What do you mean, Rider? The birds or the planes?" They were looking at the afternoon sky, black shadows of seagulls and buzzards painted against the purple sky, soaring high above Fuyuki City Municipal Dump in the distance.
"The planes. Could you even have imagined it during your life? The men and women of today could circle the world and count the days on one hand. During my campaigns, it took me years to cross just a fraction of the globe. And here it is commonplace. Humanity's collective achievement. Greater than any magic or deed of Hero. The world is in their hands."
"We're just as alive as any of them, Rider. Have we not bodies? Can we not think and eat as we did in our lives? Having been summoned here was for the best. Us Servants are the greatest individuals humanity had ever produced. It seems fitting that our shells match our characters. No real need for rest or waste or any other the other inconveniences that humans must deal with."
Rider cupped his head wistfully and sighed. "And yet, we are tied to our 'Masters'. Dependent on them to stay grounded in this world. A King should be beholden to no man," he turned his head towards Archer, staring, questioning. "How did you do it? You killed your Master and yet you don't seem worried at all. I know the Archer class tends to have the ability of Independent Action, but the duration that a Servant can stay separated from a source of mana is typically very brief unless they are in some way divine."
Valentine closed his eyes and placed a hand on his chest. Over his Heart.
"I haven't told you of the service I will be asking of you as per our agreement, correct? I yield the Grail and you assist me in searching for something… The agreement where we decided that we are equal representatives of our respective countries."
"That is correct. I have been curious for a some time now; what could drive a man to simply yield the opportunity of a lifetime to another? You don't seem like the type to be playing a game of tricks and cunning, Valentine. You have honor. You are a man of your word. I know that our agreement is not a ploy so that you may seize the Grail for yourself. You're uninterested, or at the very least, not as interested in victory as you could be… and I believe it has to do with why you're able to stay materialized without a Master."
The president nodded and tightened his tie. The truth about his goals would have to be said at some point. He would have prefered to keep the Corpse a secret, even from Rider, his ally, but it was unavoidable. To gain the Iskander's trust and assistance in the War and life afterwards, a degree of openness was needed.
"What I search for Iskander, is a Corpse. The body of a Saint, preserved for two millennia. I have collected nearly half the body so far, but the other Parts elude me. The Heart, the Ears, the Legs, the Ribs," Valentine touched the points of his body as he listed the Parts in his possession. "The rest has been scattered around the world for me to find."
"A dirty business. Whose Corpse is it that you're looking for, and why?" Iskander crossed his arms and frowned. The idea that a human Corpse be treated with nothing less than dignity was almost insulting to him. There was that age old story where Achilles had dragged Hector's corpse around the walls of Troy. This was similar, and felt almost sinister that Valentine be searching for the remains of a human being, no matter whom it may be.
For a long time Valentine didn't speak. There was a smile playing around his lips and Waver called angrily that he was finished with his task. "You spoke of divinity earlier."
"I did. Are you saying that the Corpse you are searching for is that of a God?"
"You're close."
"The descendent of a God? They may be rare, but they do happen…"
"The Corpse is God. The Corpse is Justice and Goodness and Fortune and Fate… and it will be mine, as it was before I passed."
Saber flinched as she stepped out of her bed. The soles of her feet had been burnt off during her encounter with Caster. The flames had heated her armor to such temperatures that the metal had been glowing as if it were made of star plasma, red and gold and eerie shades of green, burning away at the heavy cloth that made the armors dress and her clothes underneath. Once her skin had come in contact with that sort of heat… even the magical protections afforded to her as a Servant couldn't save her. The only consolation was that Caster had been terribly injured by Lancer…
She grunted and finished dressing herself manually. Doing so magically would likely have sent her into shock, her skin was so sensitive, newly grown and soft as baby flesh. It was like feeling the world for the first time. All so clear.
Her intuition told her that Master were home, likely sitting in a rare moment of relaxation if her intuition was to be trusted. She made her way to the dining hall, each step a burden as her clothes shifted against her skin, causing lances of pain and phantom burns to crawl through her twitching muscles. She remembered Irisviel who had been shot thrice in the chest, almost certainly dead before Avalon had healed her… she hoped the girl was okay, they had grown close in their time together and Caster's raving demands had implied that he would be gunning for Irisviel instead of the other Servants. Dishonest and even less honorable. She hated that man, Caster. For fooling her and for defeating her and because he put the War at risk with his foolish arsons and kidnappings of young girls. His callous hatred of humanity and strange demeanour… how was that man even considered a Heroic Spirit?
"Master." Saber nodded respectfully towards Kiritsugu, not showing an ounce of reluctance. "Might I ask where Irisviel is?"
The Magus Killer didn't even look up from his newspaper. "She's in her room."
"And Miss Hisau?"
At this Kiritsugu did look up. Saber saw the sorrow on his face, the face of a man torn between love and duty. She had seen the face many times in the mirror…
"I don't know. She hasn't come back yet." There was more emotion in that moment than Saber had even seen the man express. "Do you… what happened yesterday, Saber? With Maiya and Irisviel and whoever attacked you, how did everything go so wrong?"
'Why weren't you there to protect her?' Went unasked.
"The plan that Irisviel thought involved the three of us splitting up to find the intruder faster. I don't know what happened with the other two, but I can tell you what I encountered."
Kiritsugu nodded silently for her to go on.
"After a while of searching I met a man whom I believe to be Caster. I quickly defeated him, he proved be of no match for me in combat, but when I drew closer to execute him… he caught me off guard. Some sort of spray he had with him summoned insects all over me to bite and sting."
"Insects you said?" Kiritsugu went back to his newspaper in a rush. "I suppose that confirms it then. Caster is responsible for the kidnappings as well as the arsons," Kiritsugu handed Saber the paper, an article reading that twenty people, all of them either gradeschoolers or girls between the ages of fifteen and nineteen, had been kidnapped over the past two days. Their families found either burned alive or stripped to the bone, not even blood left behind. "I know you've suspected for a while now, but this confirms it. Insects could have done this, but your magic is likely the reason why you haven't suffered the same fate as his other victims."
"Then our course of action is to remove Caster then? The mediator—"
Kiritsugu shook his head. "The mediator has given us an opportunity to make a decisive move towards victory. Caster and the Command Spell being offered as reward for removing him will serve as bait. Leave Caster be, the other Servants and Masters will flock to him, and we will strike then. Don't try and take out Caster alone. He's too dangerous as it is."
Saber ground her teeth. The idea of letting that madman prance about and do as he pleased didn't sit well with her. Caster was dangerous. And left to his devices would likely grow into an even bigger threat, and that wasn't counting the huge body count the Servant seemed to be leaving behind. Her duty as a King was to protect the people, her honor demanded it. Yet here her Master was, sitting in his castle, unwilling to put a stop to the senseless violence, the killing.
"Have you no conscience? You will leave dozens to die at the hand of a mad man?"
Nothing.
"Families like your own are being targeted and you will do nothing?"
Silence.
"Children as young as your daughter—"
"That's enough, Saber. If you have time enough to make moral judgements, spend it protecting Irisviel instead. Don't let her get into dangerous situations." Abruptly Kiritsugu stood to leave the room but the sound of a slamming door echoed through the empty house. "Looks like Maiya's back. Keep Irisviel busy for a while. I need to talk to my student in private."
Saber, wanted to say more to try and convince her Master to allow her to go after Caster, but obeyed nonetheless. She trod up the stairs quietly, intent on hearing from Irisviel what had happened to her, and most importantly; who had shot her.
Maiya Hisau fell to the floor. In her right hand, the one still serviceable, she held a bloody scrap of flesh and skin complete with five nails, still attached to their cuticles. Her left hand… it was bare. The skin and flesh over the bones had been shorn off in one clean piece. The scrap of flesh she held in her right was the covering of her hand, bloody and empty, turned inside out. A degloving injury. A huge avulsion of flesh against flesh. Stripped and flayed from the wrist down. The bone showed and whenever her left hand twitched in pain, the tendons and ligaments, white ropes shiny and greasy against the crusted wasteland of her bare, bloody hands, jumped and flinched.
A pattering of steps and a concerned yelp came from the main stairway. Tired and distracted by the aching of her naked left hand and the squishy horror in her right, she only gasped out her teacher's name. "Kiritsugu…"
Kiritsugu cursed and grabbed Maiya by the shoulders, preventing her from collapsing. His eyes grew wide at her injury, but he had seen worse and gone through worse. She wouldn't die; Avalon was with Irisviel and could be used to heal the limp remains of her hand. But before that came business…
"Kiritsugu, please. Help me. My hand. I had to—"
"Tell me what happened Maiya."
"My hand. Please."
"Later Maiya," a part of him felt guilty at withholding treatment from his own student, but it had to wait. Irisviel had been certain that Maiya was the one to have shot her, and Irisviel had no reason to lie. His wife didn't know everything about he and Maiya after all… "Just tell me what happened first."
And Maiya told her story…
Perhaps half an hour after separating with Irisviel and Saber, she heard a rustling in the bushes, too loud to be from anything other than a human sized animal. Quickly, she leveled her gun and prepared to shoot, calming her breathing and steadying her nerves, fighting the twitchy energy that the adrenaline was affording. The visibility was remarkably bad. Sparse moonlight was mostly blocked by the fog, and the little light that did manage to shine through was weak and sent weak shadows, entire forests of incorporeal tree branches scattered through the forest. The world seemed blue and ghostly. Her finger on the trigger…
Saber stepped out of the bushes, looking haggard and worn. "Maiya?" She asked in confusion. Her invisible sword was drawn and the Servant seemed tense. "I thought… have you seen a man pass through here?"
Maiya sighed in relief. It was just Saber.
"What did he look like? I haven't seen anyone pass through, but I'll make sure to be on the lookout."
Saber hardened her eyes, looking every bit the King she claimed to be. "A bit taller than you. He had a mask on his face and wore a suit. We fought for a little so I know he has a knife and a gun… I think he's a Servant."
The description dug up memories that were not quite fresh and not quite old and buried, but ones that Maiya remembered very well. That night on the rooftop, after she and Kiritsugu had had those wonderful moments together… they had been watching the battle between Saber and Berserker, scoping the scenery, hoping to be able to snipe one of the Masters and remove them from the War early on. Yes, that night had been wonderful until the Masketta Man came…
"He's Assassin. Kiritsugu and I were attacked by him the night you fought against Berserker." The man had put a knife down her throat ever so delicately, just a slight twitch of the hand would have killed her then and there.
Saber nodded and sheathed her weapon. It was strange to watch an invisible sword sliding back into its scabbard, and even stranger to hear the slide of metal on metal. "If Assassin is that dangerous, we should regroup." The Servant motioned Maiya over. "Come, let's find Irisviel."
Through the dark forest full of creeping things and the slow chirps of grasshoppers, dazed by the approaching cold of winter, Arturia and Maiya searched for Irisviel. There was a killer in the woods and it would be best to be careful.
"From what Kiritsugu and I know, Assassin seems to have the ability to make himself invisible. That's probably why you weren't able to track him." Maiya spoke quietly to break the silence. "Coupled with his Class Skill of Presence Concealment, it's no wonder that he managed to evade you."
Saber turned and a heavy, gauntleted fist impacted against Maiya's face, causing the woman to crumple to the ground, unconscious. Quickly the Servant patted Maiya down, pilfering her pockets of anything helpful, knives and gun and cellphone. A cloud of smoke, tinted red and charged with electricity grew around Saber and obscured her for a moment.
"We meet again Miss Hisau." The voice coming from the cloud of smoke was smooth and sly and male. Familiar and French and full of danger. A suited figure stepped from the smoke cloud, unmistakable for anyone besides the Servant Assassin. From his pocket he took a pair of handcuffs, steel and gleaming dully in the faded moonlight. One ring was clasped around Maiya's limp wrist tightly enough to cut circulation. Even if she broke all the bones in her hand, the woman would not be able to take the cuffs off.
Assassin stood, propping the woman up with one arm, and with the other, he attached the other end of the handcuff to a thick tree branch some seven feet off the ground. Fraxinus lanuginosa, the Japanese Ash tree; they make baseball bats out of its wood… she wouldn't be getting free anytime soon, not without external help or rather drastic measures.
The pain woke her from her stupor. Assassin let her body go limp and she jerked a short distance before the short metal chain of the handcuff went taut and the cold lip of the cuff began to dig into her skin, bruising and cutting. Maiya screamed. Her feet were a good foot and a half off the ground and the only thing keeping her up was her hand and the firebrand of pain circling her wrist.
"Saber? What just—" her stomach dropped and for the briefest of moments the pain in her hand was forgotten in lieu of complete and utter terror. "You, you're that man from before… Assassin." It was strange how much fear the Servant's Class title could inspire, but Maiya had met this man before and she knew how dangerous he was…
"The Servant of the Assassin class, also known as Spy, at your service." The Servant lit a cigarette and made a theatrical bow. "I apologize for the deception, but my Master was insistent that I cause as trauma as possible today. I usually don't take jobs to harm women and children… but that is because they are usually harmless. You are not harmless." Spy grabbed Maiya by the hips, ignoring her flailing kicks and her cruelly toward the ground. The handcuff bit in even deeper and the flailing stopped. There came only pained gasps now.
"Why… why are you here? Why haven't you killed me?"
"I know it's unprofessional, and believe me, I hate being unprofessional; but my Master wanted me to do this. Can't say I don't enjoy fooling people though…" Spy reached up with his cigarette and put it out against the tender skin underneath her eye. The ember and ash smoked as her flesh burned away in a small, dirty circle. "My Master is quite the character. He doesn't know it, but he's a sadist of sorts. He's looking for the other girl right now… neither of us are looking forward to fighting Saber tonight, but Lady Einzbern should be an easy kill. Naive and far too trusting. Even a woman as yourself, a hardened killer, was fooled."
Maiya wrenched her head downward and spat a thick globule of phlegm at the Servant, scoring a clean hit on his forehead.
"Fuck you." She said with uncharacteristic vehemence. "You're—"
Spy punched with considerable force, cutting Maiya off mid sentence and winding her. The impact pushed a bit, and she began to swing back and forth, the handcuff biting deeper every moment, touching bone now, cutting through muscle and gristle.
"Think about it Miss Hisau. Isn't this the best possible outcome for you? I will kill Irisviel von Einzbern and if somehow you manage to get free before the birds come and peck out your rotten eyes; you will have Kiritsugu Emiya to yourself. Surely he won't refuse you with his wife out of the picture… perhaps I'll ruin that for you as well. Emiya wouldn't accept you if he thought that you killed his wife, would he?"
He let out a peal of cruel laughter and disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving Maiya alone in the forest, handcuffed to a tree with no tools or hope of getting free. The only thing that Spy had left her was a choice between waiting for help or escaping to potentially save Irisviel. A part of her, a dark, jealous part of Maiya's psyche whispered that it was for the best if she waited. That Irisviel could take care of herself and that if she died, nothing of any real value would be lost. Kiritsugu would be saddened of course, but once Maiya got free, she'd be there to comfort him…
No, despite how badly she wanted her teacher for herself, she wouldn't damn Irisviel to die early. It would disrupt Kiritsugu's plans, but even worse it would hurt the man in a fundamental way. She couldn't live with that. To hurt the one you love in order to be with them… it wasn't worth it. Not to Maiya.
She kicked her legs out and bit back a scream of pain as her rocking, swinging motion caused the handcuff to shift and cut even deeper. Perhaps half an hour later she swung again and this time blood began to trick down her arm, soaking into her sleeve, warm at first, and then dry and cold as it clotted in the air. She tried again, this time putting all her weight on her wrist. She fell half a centimeter closer to the ground and began to cry. Not out of pain, but as a bodily reflex to the damage she was doing to herself. The adrenaline coursing through the branch like arteries and veins of her bodies, fueling her conviction and dulling her nerves focused her mind as sharp as any knife or arrow. The totality of her being was focused on getting clear of that handcuff. Even as the flesh surrounding the bones of her hand peeled in one huge, glove like piece and blood dripped from her upraised hand down her arms and into her face only to dry into a hard crust of red powder, Maiya persevered.
Five hours later, dazed by blood loss and the loss of adrenaline, Maiya had a centimeter left to go before she would be free of the hand cuff. She hand dropped down millimeter by millimeter and the cuff was firmly stuck behind the ridge of her knuckles now. The bony protrusions of her carpal bones had been shorn away by the hard steel of the handcuff, now colored an angry shade of red. She was so, so tired… One final kick of her legs and she was free. The tatter of flesh left on her injured hand slipped in one smooth motion and was pulled completely off by the force of her falling to the ground. Her nails were no longer on her hand. Her hand was no longer on her hand. Just bone and raw flesh, pearly white ligament and tendon. Maiya shuddered and steeled her mind and took tottering steps in the direction of her salvation…
Risei was frowning. His son looked far too calm, too composed at the news.
"Did you hear me correctly, Kirei? Tokiomi is dead."
Kirei sighed. His expression was steady and unflinching and slowly turned into one of loss and sadness. "I heard you father. I just… don't know what to feel. It's surreal to think that he's gone so soon."
"And what's stranger is that Valentine is nowhere to be found. His presence still lingers, and he is a participant of the War, but I do not know his exact location."
"If Tokiomi-sensei's Command Spells are still around, we can use them to summon Archer, can't we?" Truthfully, Kirei didn't feel much towards his teacher's death. Only a slight disappointment that he hadn't been there to watch.
Risei nodded. "We could… but the Command Spells have been destroyed. Even Tokiomi's body is gone. As Mediator of the War, I can sense how many Command Spells are left, and Tokiomi's are not among them. They are lost for good."
"Then what would you like me to do?" Kirei asked his father, doing a fine job affecting the emotions of drive and righteous purpose that would have been missing in his tone otherwise. It was important to seem interested and well-adjusted, if only for his father's continued support.
"For now, we will keep this information between the two of us. If his wife and child were to find out, they would almost certainly want an investigation done. As cruel as it sounds, we cannot afford to waste time worrying about this. Caster has been much to active recently. A dozen odd people died yesterday and I'm having to work tirelessly to make the deaths look more mundane… and even that doesn't stop the newspapers from exaggerating or sensationalizing the deaths." The priest began to speak as if he was preparing to bestow a great honor, and took a deep breath. "Kirei, I know that we agreed that Tokiomi would win the War… but with him gone, you need to take his place. The other Masters are too erratic, their wishes will tear this world apart. Can you do it?"
He most certainly could.
"Well done, Pyramid Head…" Kariya stepped into a huge chamber, strangely clean and dry and smelling just fine, even though he was currently dozens of feet underground, exploring the Fuyuki City Sewer system. With the bounty placed on Caster's head, Kariya was determined to win the Command Spell. He only had one left, after all. Ordering Berserker was a difficult thing to do. The Servant hardly seemed to notice Kariya unless the Command Spell was used or threatened to be used, but since he only had one left, the threats were growing weaker and had less weight to them.
Still, Berserker had done a admirable job so far. Kariya had told the Servant to "find Caster" and the Servant had obeyed, leading Kariya on a multi-day, city wide search leading from the beach, where Berserker had destroyed a beach house and uncovered a pit full of human corpses while Kariya had been doing his own searching. And now Berserker had led them into the sewers and to this underground chamber.
"I won't pretend to know how you did it… but good job finding this place." Just hours ago, after filling a bag full of supplies and food, Kariya ordered Berserker to find Caster, and the command seemed to have worked well. Berserker had led him straight to the underground chamber, a laboratory of sorts; and although it was empty, there was a huge magical signature in the air, so heavy and strong that even a novice Magus like Kariya could feel it. No other Servant could muster such a presence. This had to be where Caster was staying.
He coughed and spat blood. Zouken had told Kariya that the Crest Worms would boost his magical strength at the cost of his health, but Kariya had been expecting much more pain. Ever since that terrible dream he had the week before, the one of the town of Silent Hill, where the Sakura in his dream had been skinned alive by his own Servant; the Crest Worms stopped hurting. There were certainly negative health effects the Worms caused such as internal bleeding, but no pain.
It seemed that Pyramid Head had already anticipated Kariya orders. The crazed Servant had begun to trash the chamber, knocking over shelves of expensive looking ingredients, labeled in minute chicken scratch scrawl in French and Latin. All sorts of strange apparati, colanders and distilling pots and things that Kariya couldn't even begin to name were destroyed by the broad arm strokes and knife swings that Berserker seemed to favor. It sounded like a ceiling of glass falling to the earth when the shelves fell and the glittering pots and flacons of crystal broke like a new winter's snow. It would have been beautiful if it didn't smell so damn much…
"Berserker! Come here," Kariya waved his arms and threw a loose brick at his Servant to draw attention. Most times the hulking Pyramid Head didn't even turn at his Master's words unless something more drastic was done to get his attention. "Open those crates. I want to see what's inside of them." It was potential information on what Caster was planning after all. No stone left unturned.
Pyramid Head grunted and walked over to the wooden crates. With a careless flick of his arm, his great knife was embedded into the old brick floor. A second later the boxes were broken open by Berserker's massive strength and bodies, dozens of bodies spilled to the floor.
From one box issued a stack of corpses, the bodies of children. Young children. Boys and girls still in grade school. Not yet old enough to have had their first kiss or to know how to tie their shoes. The type of children who still needed chaperones to walk home and wore bright yellow slickers on rainy days so that cars could see them better. Small children around the age Sakura was.
The next box held girls, all of them remarkably beautiful in an austere sort of way. Every inch of their bodies had been shaved down to the fragile skin and they were marred in no way. If it weren't for the slight smell of corruption that issued from the pile, Kariya would have thought them to be sculpted of marble. What the hell was going on…
Kariya thought back to the message that the Mediator had sent to him, to all the Servants. He was here because Caster was a menace to the mundane society in addition to the participants of the War. He had thought that Caster's crimes would have ended with arson, as the letter had stated, but it seemed that the Servant was far more unstable, more dangerous than he had anticipated. Mass murder. Infanticide was the wrong word, but it was the first to come to mind. The children had all been brutalized, torn apart and beaten into bloody, dirty messes. A stark contrast from the young women who seemed so perfect that they might have been frozen in sleep.
His Servant seemed to be overjoyed. Growls of happiness echoed in the vast underground room and he took up his knife once more, smashing bodies apart with the blunt blade. A giant cracking bones to make his bread, like that old fairy tale…
"Stop it. Berserker, stop it!"
The Servant didn't stop. Again and again the knife came down and old, thick blood spattered against the walls and Berserker's dirty smock. It dotted his arms and bare chest. More like jelly than any liquid and it stank of something rancid and dark.
"Berserker!" Kariya picked up another brick and threw it at his rampaging Servant, almost falling to the floor as the world seemed to tremble under Pyramid Head's ungodly strength. "Fuck!"
The brick left his hand, and for a frozen moment Kariya watched the red stone fly its arc and hit Berserker in the head.
Pyramid Head turned with such vigour that a wind began to whip around the room, knocking shards of glass and broken stone and bone fragments and mists of blood into the air in a strange and morbid haze. The knife was in his hand and Berserker swung with the force of a hurricane and narrowly, purposely maybe missed Kariya's head by perhaps a half a foot, sending stone and floor bricks flying.
"Fuck!" Kariya flinched and scrambled to his feet, running toward the wall. "Alright, alright! Just calm down!" He ducked under Berserker's flailing limbs and dove for the ground. "Please just listen for once!"
A hitching sort of snort issued from behind Pyramid Head's mask, and the Servant turned back to the pile of bodies, continuing to butcher them, rip them apart and fill the room with the stench of corpse rot and the grooves of the brick floor to run with old blood sludge. Soon enough, once the cadavers looked little more than ground beef or shredded lunch meat, the Servant stopped and stood stock still, staring at this Master who seemed ready to retch.
"God, why'd I get stuck with something like you… why not someone who actually listens to me?" Kariya grasped at his head in frustration. "That was completely unnecessary! I know I told you to trash this place, but those corpses used to be people… they're just kids, man. Their mothers and fathers are probably looking for them, worried out of their minds! Everytime they turn on the television or read a newspaper they're going to hear about the sick fuck who's been doing this and they're going to wonder: where is my child?"
Berserker kicked forward a human skull with surprising grace. It rolled to a stop at Kariya's feet. It was unrecognizable with blood and much of the face was missing, cut away by Berserker's knife…
"Is this supposed to be some sort of peace offering?" Kariya asked sarcastically. "You're not making things much better, Pyramid Head. This is totally fucked up."
Berserker stepped forward and shouldered his knife, showing that he was finished and ready to leave. He really was like a huge, violent kid… if that kid happened to have a terrible anger problem.
Kariya sighed and stepped into circular passageway that he had entered from. It led back into the convoluted web of pipes that made up the sewer system, but he wasn't worried about getting lost. Berserker would make an exit if he couldn't find one.
Rin had been confused for a long time, and for many reasons. She had to move, change schools and live with her grandparents. She and her mother had been sent out of the city by her father, something about some War that he needed to fight in.
The second reason being that the Arm she dug up the other day had gone missing. She didn't remember dropping it, and even after retracing her steps she hadn't found it. Had she imagined it? Had she been robbed without even noticing it? No, Rin knew better than that. The only possible explanation had been that the Corpse had simply disappeared. And she had been so looking forward to showing her mother…
The third reason for Rin's confusion was something more sinister. During the brief time at her new school, she had made many friends; among them a girl named Kotone, who she was particularly close with. But they were gone now… the teachers sounded scared and worried but they tried not to mention the missing children, and Rin felt lonely on the playground where now only a handful of children played. There was no one to push her when she wanted to swing. No one to watch and laugh with as they played on the seesaw. Rin was… alone. Her father had left her to fight in some strange War and now, her friends, her best friend Kotone was gone too. There had been talk of a child-killer-arsonist-kidnapper terrorizing the streets of Fuyuki City but surely that couldn't be the case?
But strangest of all was the ghost who had been haunting her for the past few days. A strange figure colored pink and covered in golden damask filigree. The head was that of a wolf, a snarling animal covered in thick growths of coarse fur, frozen in a perpetual expression of hatred. The body was that of a man, or Rin thought it was that of a man. She knew all about the differences between boys and girls, but the ghost didn't seem to have any visible parts to tell otherwise. No one else seemed to be able to see it. And since it wasn't hurting anyone, Rin didn't want to cause a fuss. She assumed, rather astutely for a eight year old, that only magical persons, like her father and herself, would be able to see and interact with the ghost.
The ghost was the only exciting thing to be happening in her dull life. School was boring, easy even, and Rin had nothing to do. No friends to play with and no father to learn from. Homework could be done in a matter of minutes, the hardest part was moving her hand to write the characters needed to answer the basic questions. Most days she just sat in her room, giggling as she watched her ghost dance about in silly ways, even responding at times to her requests. For such a scary looking guy, the ghost sure was friendly…
Rin stood in her room and opened the chest in the corner, bringing out the trinkets and magical artifacts that her father had given her. After that incident where arms had come out of a book and grabbed her, she had been a bit tentative to experiment with magic, but she was bored. A fate much worse than death.
In her hand she held the magical compass that her father had given her. The ghost stood to her side, an ever present, ever silent companion that Rin was quickly growing fond of. She was going to find her friends.
Grenouille had regressed to working out of a backpack once more. His previous hideout by the beach had been destroyed by Berserker, and while he had managed to escape unharmed, it had been shown that his perfumes had no effect on the crazed Servant. Grenouille had been perfectly countered, and could do nothing about it.
So he was working out of his backpack as he had done during his life. All of his innovative perfuming techniques were forgotten and his lab abandoned except as a place to store ingredients and corpses. His old method of slathering fat on cloth and covering his specimens to steal their scent wouldn't yield as much essential oil, nor would it be as high quality, but it was faster; and that was what Caster needed. Speed. No more distractions and experiments and having fun with his Master; even the scentless girl had been put on the backburner. Now was the time for his genius to shine through. It was time to make perfume!
He only needed to find five more girls and it would be over…
AN: Next chapter: Servant meetings, Rin vs Uryuu, and more. Expect the next chapters to be full of action now that all the preparation is done.
Rin has unlocked her [Stand] through the blessing of the Left Arm! More details will follow.
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