Hello and welcome to chapter 3! I know it may be difficult to keep track of everyone in this story, but hang in there! We'll try our hardest to make sure your time pays off!
The world was covered in shadows, writhing and rotting within a boundless void of nothingness. The darkness stretched on without end, occasionally seared by faint beams of sunlight. There was nothing resembling warmth in this space, and there was no tranquility in its thundering silence.
In the middle of this desolate void, sat a single girl.
Dressed in filthy, tattered rags, the child shuddered as sunlight seeped through the openings in the wood. Her snow-white hair brushed against her ear at that simple movement, making her flinch. Splattered with mud and rainwater, her tiny frame edged away from the light, as though fearing it may somehow hurt her.
Within the dank confines of a single barrel, the sounds of terrified sobbing could be heard.
Trembling fingers gripped the solid rags, shifting them about in an attempt to cover the body they were too small for. Her voice, shaky and muffled, escaped from her lips only to be swallowed up by the silence. She was helpless, she was weak, and the world seemed to be relishing that fact.
Without warning, the barrel's lid was removed, and white-hot light gushed into the space to burn away the darkness. The shadows faded, and the cold vanished, exposing her fragile frame to a harsh warmth that seemed to incinerate her skin. Cowering in fear and shielding herself with her arms, the white-haired child let out a pitiful whimper.
A hand reached into the barrel, its slender fingers brushing her shoulder-
Shizuku Otonashi opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He was no stranger to weird dreams, at least not since he was exposed to anime, but the dream he had just had was something else.
There were very few females in Shizuku's life, possibly due to his anti-social tendencies. In fact, besides his friends' family members and his mom, he only knew two: Slut and…
Caster. If he were to dream of a white-haired girl in his sleep, it would without a doubt be her. While it looked like the logical answer – and probably the only possible one – he just refused to believe it had been Caster in that dream.
"Master," Caster's voice called from the other side of the door. "Are you awake?"
"Don't come in," Shizuku said immediately, sitting up on the bed.
"Fine," Caster said. Shizuku was willing to bet his Magic Crest (it was not worth much, but still) that she was pouting right then. "The family we hypnotized is coming back right now. Seems like the spell wore off."
"Got it," Shizuku replied. It was nothing to fret over; he had plenty of backup locations already decided and memorized by heart for moments like this. "We'll move out in ten minutes."
The image from his dream returned. It was unnecessarily lucid, adamantly refusing to leave his mind no matter how hard he tried to push it out. There was something in that dream which he could not ignore – something that hit a little too close to the chest.
Don't think about it, he told himself firmly. You're in a battle with your life on the line right now. Stay focused.
But like everything else related to Caster, the more he tried to ignore it, the more it refused to go away.
Kenichi lay on the dusty old bench, stifling a yawn as he proceeded to do absolutely nothing. The first night of the Holy Grail War had turned out to be rather uneventful, and while that meant less work for him, it also made his job as a mediator exceedingly boring.
"What are you doing?"
"Taking a nap," Ken replied, not bothering to hide his irritation. The young kid – Kirei, as he recalled his name was – had been here since the previous night observing the War with him, if sitting around waiting for updates could be called that.
The kid was, if anything, brilliant. Ken did not use that term lightly, and Kirei Kotomine was by far one of the smartest people he had ever met. Whatever the subject, the boy was so well versed in everything he brought up that Ken was sure the brat was faking his age.
"Why are you here?" he asked. "There's nothing for you to do."
"I am here to observe," Kirei replied. "Even if you are not an official member of the Church, the role of the mediator is one that will unavoidably affect the image of the Church depending on the actions taken. I believe it is my duty to see this through."
"On whose orders?" Ken questioned, raising an eyebrow.
"It is my judgement, and mine alone," Kirei stated plainly. "As the son of a devout priest, it is my responsibility to uphold his teachings as well as the good name of the Church and Christ."
"How noble," Ken chuckled. "And if I fail to make the grade, what will you do to stop me?"
"Should the situation arise, I will eliminate you," Kirei replied flatly. There was not a single hint of humor in his tone. "Should you prove incompetent in carrying out your role, I will exercise my right as an Executor to remove you."
Ken actually burst out laughing at that.
"Right, right," he said. "An Executor. You. A what, ten-year-old? Executor? Right."
Kirei did not reply, nor did he correct Ken's words. Instead, he walked over to the podium in the front of the church, and stared intently at the markings engraved on it.
Ken had told him those were the Command Seals in the current Holy Grail War. Whenever a Command Seal was used, the corresponding mark would glow on the altar. With five extra seals given to the mediator, a total of forty seals rested on white marble. They looked perfectly ordinary, with one mark – Rider's – glowing faintly as it had last night. There was nothing wrong with them, no matter how he looked at it, but there was something unnerving about the lifeless podium that bothered Kirei.
For reasons he could not explain, Kirei believed that the marble altar was, somehow, alive.
Caster was bored. It might not have been appropriate, given how she was in a seven-way battle royale to the death, but she was just so bored.
Shizuku, as usual, was completely oblivious to her suffering. He had been talking on the phone since they moved into this new base, and did not seem to be stopping anytime soon.
She considered startling him with sudden loud noises, or even dumping a carton of milk over his head, but those ideas were rejected quickly; Shizuku was talking to his friends, and she was not in favor of finding out what he would do when he was really pissed. For now, she would just stick to being moderately annoying.
"Shizuku~" she sang loudly, causing her Master to shudder. "Put the phone down already~ I'm cold without my clothes on~"
"No, that's not what you think it is," Shizuku said hastily into the receiver. "No, she's not- No, don't you dare. I will kill you, Aka. I swear, if you even- hello? Hello?"
With an expression that suggested his life was over, Shizuku finally put down the phone.
"Thanks, Caster," he muttered. "You've just killed me."
"You're welcome!" Caster beamed. "What were you guys talking about?"
"Hide-and-seek locations," Shizuku replied, somewhat lamely. "We used to play it when we started learning magecraft to escape lecturers whenever we skipped classes. Not that they ever chased after us, though."
"What on Earth for?" Caster asked incredulously.
"I thought maybe it'd give me some hints," Shizuku shrugged. "With this little to go on, it may just help us locate another Master and their Servant."
"Aren't you the leader of your little group?" Caster inquired. "Shouldn't you be smarter than all of them?"
"You don't need to be smarter to lead," Shizuku said. "And besides, I was forced into it; I didn't become the leader by my own choice."
"Do you not like being a leader?" Caster asked, her tone changing a little. "Do you hate being relied on?"
"To be honest, it's a pain," Shizuku replied. "I never asked to lead; I rather not take care of them and-"
"What's wrong with being relied on?"
Finally catching on to Caster's change in tone, Shizuku turned to face his Servant. The young, white-haired girl stared back at him, her eyes evidently holding back a sheen of tears. What was unclear to Shizuku was why exactly she was acting like this.
"What do you mean?" he asked calmly.
"You should be happy that they're relying on you," she said. "You should be happy that they believe in you so much! Why would you think of their trust as a pain?"
"Maybe because I don't want to rely on them like a little kid."
Caster flinched. Shizuku froze.
Those words had just escaped his lips before he knew it, and as a result he had unintentionally lashed out at her. There had been nothing wrong with her words, nor her outburst due to a lack of knowledge of his past, but he had retorted all the same. Why was he of all people getting so riled up over something like this?
"We're… leaving," he declared, standing up and walking towards the front door. "There's something I want to inspect."
Wordlessly, Caster followed after him.
Shizuku inspected the demolished construction site with mild interest, walking past craters and other marks of violence and destruction as he looked around. Thanks to Archer and Berserker, the entire space had been reduced to nothing but piles of rubble, and one very peculiar mark carved into the ground.
"What do you think of it?" he asked, kneeling down next to the last magic circle Archer had carved in his battle against Berserker.
"I can't be sure," Caster said without looking at him. "It's definitely not something belonging to this era, but… I don't know. I'm not that knowledgeable about spells and magic."
"He left this here on purpose," Shizuku hypothesized. "Should be a trap."
"What makes you say that?"
"He was exceedingly well-prepared," Shizuku elaborated. "He prepared this place, gained the initiative by luring other Servants in, and managed to repel even that Berserker. I doubt he'd be careless enough to leave a trump card here for anyone to use."
"He was prepared to use this against Berserker," Caster pointed out. "It must have some incredible attack power."
"Erase it," Shizuku ordered.
"Mind if I ask why?" Caster asked candidly, still not looking at him. "I'm a Caster; I should be able to hijack his spell without much hassle."
"In that situation, he couldn't have been setting up a bluff," Shizuku said. "And yet, he didn't erase it. If it was something anyone could use without repercussions, he would've erased it before leaving so no one can use it against him. That means-"
"That it's something only he can use," Caster finished for him, somewhat impatiently. "I got it already. Stand back."
Walking up to the magic circle, Caster slightly raised one foot and stepped down on it. A sharp 'clack' sounded as her heel touched the asphalt, echoing briefly despite her not putting much force into her foot.
Immediately, the magic circle on the ground glowed, but ultimately nothing happened. The faint light lasted no more than a few seconds, then died down just as gradually.
"What's wrong?" Shizuku asked.
"It's not your run-of-the-mill spell," Caster replied. "It's going to need something a little… stronger."
Without waiting for Shizuku to say anything else, she raised her foot and stomped onto the magic circle. As the magic circle started glowing again, she lifted her other foot, stepped, and then stepped again with the first foot. Repeating the actions like some kind of tap dance, Caster clicked her heels across the magic circle, causing its glow to flicker irregularly.
With one last, loud stomp, a sharp 'clack' reverberated across the space. As the sound dissipated, the magic circle's glow also began to fade, eventually losing its light and crumbling on itself. When it finally vanished, all that was left was a circular dent in the ground.
"Done," she told him plainly. "What now?"
Shizuku looked around. There were few buildings in the area, and only one had any decent height. Archer might have picked somewhere difficult to spy on, but it was not a perfect location. Not that Shizuku minded, since it made things simpler for him.
"We'll check that building," he said, pointing to it (though Caster was not looking). "Probably nothing there, but worth a shot. I don't expect there to be a hideout or anything, but maybe a clue."
Caster nodded.
"Whatever you say," she sighed. "Boss," she added with a tinge of sarcasm.
"How's it looking, Assassin?"
Assassin did not reply immediately, instead looking at his body as though it was not his room.
"Fully charged," he said with great satisfaction, a wide smile tugging at his lips. "Sorry it took so long, Master."
"Naw, it's fine," Hiro replied. "Though at one point I did wonder if you were tricking me just so you could kill more people."
"Well," Assassin said playfully. "I admit that the last one may not have been necessary… But draining that extra bit of mana was good too. Whatever the case, now that I'm at maximum capacity, shall we search for a new hideout?"
"Yes, let's," Hiro nodded. "The old one was starting to feel dull."
Their old hideout – one of the upper-floor apartments in a building next to the construction site Archer fought in – had been something decided on the spur of the moment. While the tenants had managed to supply Assassin with mana, the location became somewhat boring after a night. And maybe a little messy.
"And let's get some food along the way," Assassin suggested.
Something told him that 'food' was not referring to a sandwich or sushi or something like that, but Hiro still nodded; Assassin just made him feel so at ease that he did not bother thinking too much about it. He just could not bring himself to mind whatever it was that he did.
"Lovely," he said, smacking his lips.
Shizuku climbed the stairs slowly, collecting his thoughts as he ascended. Caster followed behind him, still adamant on ignoring him. At least that made things quieter.
The first floor had been a miss as expected, and the second floor as well. The third floor was the last before the roof, and he was expecting something out of this one.
Thinking back, he should have observed this building more during Archer's fight. While familiars were fine and all for watching, if a Master wanted to send their Servants into the fray, they needed a good vantage point. This building would have been the only option, though Shizuku was starting to suspect Archer had picked the construction site precisely because of it – so that Archer himself could keep an eye on whoever might have been watching. If he had really managed to plan that far, that Servant needed to be eliminated immediately.
"Stop," he said, staring at an empty corridor." Boundary field. Erase it."
Without a verbal reply, Caster complied, and a dry 'clack' rang through the building. Nothing seemed to have happened, but Shizuku nodded. Walking to the nearest door, he unlocked it with a simple spell and walked in.
A Hell of dripping, pulsating scarlet made his blood run cold.
Waves of scarlet flooded the floors and walls, slithering along the surfaces with an agonizing crawl. Lumps of something – something soft and wet – littered the furniture and floorboards, soaking up the vibrant crimson hue and emanating a rancid stench. And at the far end of the room, sprawled on the floor almost comically, was a woman. Or, at least, whatever was left of her that had not been thrown around everywhere.
In the bloodied mangle of what was supposed to be her limbs, was the body of a small child.
The silence was deafening, broken only by the occasional sounds of liquid dripping onto more liquid. Every individual drop crashed ruthlessly into Shizuku's consciousness, constricting him with the foreboding aura of Death. He knew he had to escape, to leave this place, to forget all this, but he was too rooted with fear to move.
"Master," Caster's hollow voice rang. "Let's go."
Shizuku did not reply. More accurately, he could not reply. Assassin' and Hiro's little personal 'museum' had robbed him of all ability to think or speak, and Caster was sure his sanity itself was falling apart. Shizuku was, in the end, just a kid; regardless of what he had said, he was a complete stranger to death, and being a Master did not help matters.
"Master," Caster said, much more firmly this time as she dragged him by the arm. "We're leaving."
Shizuku gripped his shirt, desperately trying to stop the violent shakes assaulting his body. Lurching forward, he threw up again, and the action, along with his shaky limbs, would have made him fall to his knees if not for Caster supporting him.
Jumbled thoughts and panicked cries filled his mind, creating a maelstrom of chaos and pain that threatened to tear his brain apart. The excessive shock of witnessing that grotesque scene had sent Shizuku into such a state of consternation he could hardly think straight. It would not have been strange if he had decided to just drop out of the War entirely at that point.
And he might have, if not for a sudden thought surfacing in his head.
"Aka," he muttered, sprinting for the nearest telephone booth.
"Ishida residence."
"Aka!" Shizuku almost yelled.
"Um, Shizuku-san?" Akari's voice asked. Understandably, she sounded both confused and a little scared. "Tsuki-nii is sleeping right now; he has a fever-"
"Could you get him on the phone?" Shizuku cut across her. "It's urgent. Please."
"O-okay…" Akari said apprehensively. "Please hold on."
Minutes later, Akatsuki Ishida hobbled down the stairs, his misery and discomfort evident on his face. His fever was one thing, but the biggest issue was with his own mind.
Last night, he had ordered Berserker to retreat, going as far as to cut off his prana supply to the Servant to achieve it. He had not been unsure about his chances of victory – Berserker had more than enough power in its Noble Phantasm to wipe out all the other Servants alongside the entirety of London (and he would have let it, if not for the collateral damage) – he had been unsure about whether it was the right thing to do.
Aka was not the most gentle of people, but even he abhorred the idea of killing. When he realized that Berserker could kill, could really kill, he had hesitated.
Why had it bothered him so much? Servants were just familiars, taking the form of human beings. One way or another, they were going to disappear by the end of the War. Considering collateral damage, as long as he could somehow get all the Servants in the same room, Aka could have made Berserker destroy all of them in one go and emerge victorious. They were not even living things,, so there should have been no reason to hold back. And yet, he had.
God, I'm such a wimp, he chastised himself mentally. Now Berserker's going to be treated like some wimp too, or worse yet, they'll come gunning for me because I'm clearly limiting him, and taking me out would take him out… Wait; since I fled from Archer, he could be coming after me! What if he's found out where I live, and he blows up my house just to kill Berserker? Because of me, my family-
He did not get to finish that thought, owing to his brain bursting with pain mid-sentence. Paranoia and fevers, it appeared, did not go well together.
"Hello?" he asked, picking up the phone.
"Aka," Shizuku's voice said. He sounded oddly agitated, which was exceedingly rare for him. "I need you to answer me something honestly. No jokes, no nonsense. Okay?"
"… Alright," Aka replied, leaning against the wall. Shizuku almost never used that tone with anyone before.
"Your fever," Shizuku went on. "Is it an illness caused by some bug, or is it mana deprivation?"
"I- How did you-?" Aka stammered. "Wait, Shizuku, where is this coming from?"
"Answer me, Aka," Shizuku said. "Please."
"… Yes, it's mana deprivation," Aka replied truthfully. "I'm-"
He suddenly froze, unable to say a single word beyond that point. He had had no intention of stopping himself, and had realized it far too late, but his mouth had prevented him from saying those words regardless. It was clearly unnatural, and it was definitely a foreign form of magecraft.
Aka's thoughts drifted to the parchment he signed at the start of the War. There did seem to be a clause that prevented him from saying anything to anyone about the War he was in, now that he thought about it. Such a pain the Clock Tower was.
"I was, er, drained a little too much," Aka went on. "Why? What's wrong?"
"I see," Shizuku replied slowly. "Aka, for the next few days, don't leave your house. Just stay at home, alright? I'll explain when everything's over."
Without waiting for his reply, Shizuku hung up, leaving Aka to ponder what those words meant.
"What was that about?" Caster demanded.
"Aka had a fever," Shizuku replied. "His house was pretty close to the construction site, so I feared as much…"
"What are you talking about?" Caster asked, raising her voice a little.
"Berserker was injured last night," Shizuku said. "That… scene we saw at the apartment was probably Berserker's doing in an attempt to heal up. It just went to the closest sources it could find, and it must've found Aka and drained him. He survived, but he's not safe; if Berserker's Master finds out he's alive, he'll die for sure. We have to stop them before that."
"Wait a minute," Caster said. "You're out for Berserker, fine, but you're doing it because it might attack your friend, and not because of the horrible things it's already done?"
"Of course that's also a concern," Shizuku replied, somewhat halfheartedly. "Either way, Berserker's a dangerous element. Our main priority's to destroy it. Any questions?"
"None at all," Caster replied curtly. "So long as you can focus on the battles ahead, I don't really care."
"What's wrong with you?" Shizuku asked, his frustration finally getting to him. "You've been acting weird ever since we left the hideout. And back then, when you saw that… that scene, you barely even twitched. Are you even human?"
"No, I'm not," Caster replied swiftly. "And you shouldn't be surprised, either; you summoned me. I'm the Pied Piper of Hamelin, the psychopath who bewitched and killed one hundred and thirty children in cold blood. What sort of humanity were you expecting from an abomination like me?"
Shizuku opened his mouth to reply, only to shut it almost immediately. The sight which had caused him to stop, was the expression on Caster's face.
Two glistening trails blazed down her cheeks, dripping onto her dress as she glared defiantly back at him. Despite everything she said, her face told an entirely different story altogether. It was, regardless of what she said, extremely human.
That was when Shizuku understood. The feeling that had attacked him after that dream had been unclear before, despite its clarity, and he had thought he would never figure it out. The feeling, painful and nostalgic, was something that he had believed to be a thing of the past for him. Looking into her eyes and seeing the same expression he, too, had once wore, Shizuku finally knew what he had felt in that dream. In that helpless scene where a young child had been abandoned by the world.
It was, without a shadow of doubt, the feeling of solitude.
