Chapter 4:
Backstage Alliances
Terrifying.
Deadly.
Unreal.
Ayaka knew of no words capable of describing the emotion that was now gripping her heart to the brink of bursting. Deep inside, she even doubted such words existed at all. The feeling that was threatening to make her go insane with fear wasn't of this world- how could one expect someone to describe it in an Earthly language then? Like miasma, the dreadful promise of destruction spread throughout the whole forest in the matter of seconds. There was no animal that didn't sense it- and there was no animal that didn't flee. The sensation that had sent such a chill up her spine, of ice so cold that it actually burned, was an omen.
An omen of the arrival of a beast so deadly, it existed only in legends.
Maybe it was only her imagination, brain already hallucinating after nearly being rendered catatonic just by the sheer proximity to the beast, but Ayaka could have sworn that the land really shook when his roar echoed into the night.
Leaning on his tainted sword, her knight had managed to stand up despite his gruesome energies. But that thing there, that thing with the two burning red eyes, like blazing rubies, staring at them through the visor of his helmet? That wasn't her Saber. Couldn't be him. And yet, no matter how much she tried to deny it, it was, in a sense, undeniable. The black knight was now both Saber… and something else completely.
Once again, he bellowed out. Once again, the roar travelled to the farthest ends of the forest. And just like that, as the crimson prana started seeping out from every crevice, every joint and crook of his armor and swirling around him like a bloody ethereal vortex, the fiery blades driven deep into his body melted.
"Assa-!"
An unholy mix between a roar and a lisp, the mad knight bore his blazing eyes into his prey. Assassin didn't waste any time with Ayaka anymore. It was painfully clear that to her, the teenage girl didn't even exist anymore. All that mattered to the fiery-haired Servant was the beast now staring down at her. And if Ayaka, nothing more than an amateur magus, could sense his overwhelming presence so clearly, she shuddered at the thought of what must have been the feeling now gripping Assassin's mind. Once again, the black fire morphed into a pair of twin scimitars right into the woman's waiting hands. But even to Ayaka, half-mad and half-conscious and not even able to see the eyes behind that bleach-white skull mask, it was painfully clear. Assassin wasn't looking for an opening to win anymore. Drowning in clearly evident desperation, all that mattered to the other Servant now was escaping with her life intact.
"ASSA-!"
With a blood-chilling roar, the mad knight lunged at his prey. Compared to his previous speed, compared to even the insanely agile Assassin, that speed was something else. All Ayaka could see was a crimson and black blur- one moment it had been away and then next- swinging his tainted sword at Assassin. A second after he had passed over it, the land crumbled into nothing, indicating his destructive path. Assassin dodged miraculously, once again predicting where her opponent would strike. But even without touching her, just by being near that tainted crimson prana and by the aftershock of the swung blade, the woman's side became scorched and torn apart. Her fiery black hair enlarged and sizzled, melting into thin air and taking its owner along with it.
But as if he could sense where Assassin would reappear, the mad knight lunged in a seemingly random direction. The last dozen or so meters he took in a single leap and rose his tainted blade high above his head. Assassin blinked in an out of existence for a single second, disappearing immediately after she had noticed the blur darting towards her in mid-air. The black flames burst out of nothingness right behind Saber and Ayaka instinctively found the strength to shout a warning. But the mad knight either couldn't hear her or just chose to ignore the cry of the bespectacled girl. Without even looking back, he proceeded to plunge his sword deep into the ground.
And the prana surge that erupted from the epicenter uprooted every tree in a twenty meter radius, the ground itself crumbling to dust as the crimson wave washed over it. The shockwave sent Assassin flying backwards. The fiery-haired woman's limp body crashed through several trees before skidding to a halt. Unsatisfied yet with the damage done to his prey, the mad knight pulled out his sword.
And as if a crimson star had been born right then and there, in the dark and chilly autumn forest, his tainted blade shone in a bright and sickly light. Every bit of blazing prana was absorbed into it, the red glow making it seem like Saber had compressed that tainted star into something one could actually touch.
"ASSASSIN!"
And then Saber swung his blade. He didn't change his position, didn't dash forward, didn't even seem to aim. He just swung the tainted crimson star at Assassin and the pent-up prana erupted in one last surge, obliterating everything on its path. The lance made of light connecting Saber and his prey lingered into the air for a second, illuminating the forest…
And then all hell broke loose as the lance of light exploded and the wall of wind made probably every tree in the forest bend over. When the hurricane finally died down and Ayaka's ability to see clearly returned, there was a five-meter wide ditch in the scorched ground all the way from her Servant to some faraway centennial tree that had somehow managed to survive, despite ending up snapped virtually in two. There was no sign of Assassin anywhere.
With the night once again having gone silent, Ayaka clearly heard the metallic sound that accompanied her Servant's fall on the ground. Despite the lingering memory of the dreadful feeling that had encased her heart in fear, Ayaka stood up on her wobbling feet. The black knight didn't even move a finger when she neared his body, sprawled on the destroyed ground like a marionette with its strings cut. Gone was the cloak of raging prana seeping out of his armor or the mad crimson eyes that had burnt a proverbial hole into her soul.
The black knight, her Saber, just lay there unmoving.
"Yo! Did the party start without me? Fret no more, peepz, 'cause the fashionable hero was just fashionably late!"
The shout of the young man echoed inside the moldy hall, an artificial and spacious cavern connected to the web of underground passages running under the whole of Hartcroft. The citizens of the city had dubbed it 'The Undercity', but those aware of the arcane part of the city knew well enough that there were far more dangerous things prowling down there than the giant spiders most urban legends claimed to have made their nests in the spider-web of ancient corridors. But the five people gathered in the gloomy darkness of Hartcroft's Undercity weren't afraid of whatever failed experiment had made its home and set its traps in the rat-ridden underground corridors. Or rather, whatever creatures lurked down there, they should have been the ones afraid of those five.
The proclamation of the man in the Hawaiian shirt was met with either cold indifference or outright hostility. It didn't take much for someone to guess his 'teammates' weren't happy to see him in the least.
"Go crawl somewhere and die," said the girl with short and shaggy blonde hair and glared at the newcomer.
"Didn't the Cardinal send you to battle a little girl, Cyrus? I assume you have managed to complete this arduous task since you are here. A pity," calmly stated the man in the ridiculous getup, a strange combination of a jester's suit and a priest's frock. His face, hidden under the ever-frowning red mask, couldn't be seen but it was obvious he, too, was looking down on The Cyrus.
"As hypocritical as it may sound- gosh, you are so immature," said the little boy after letting out a tired sigh. He was dressed quite strangely as well- his black uniform of some fancy prep school contrasted sharply with the heavy chains hanging from the shackles around his ankles, wrists, neck and that metal blindfold that always covered his eyes.
In contrast to the rest of his 'teammates', the hulking man in the immaculate business suit remained silent. And yet, out of all other reactions, it was his steely gaze that made The Cyrus let out a sigh of defeat and slump against the nearby column, ready to listen. The bald broad-shouldered man contrasted sharply with his companions. Even though they were all dressed strangely, their attire had one thing in common- be it the masked jester's robes, the short-haired easily-angered girl's frock or the little boy's uniform of some Catholic school, the only thing that showed the bald man's allegiance was the tiny cross hanging off his thick neck.
Of course, The Cyrus's attire didn't fall in any sane category whatsoever.
"Now that we're all finally gathered here-" began the broad-shouldered man and 'just business' attitude oozed off his every pore. Alas, he ended up immediately cut off.
"Oi, Kane, what about Mikey and the psycho bitch?" lazily said the man in the Hawaiian shirt and pushed his tacky sunglasses up his nose.
"Miss Adams is already fulfilling her duties as our mission control. As you have seen, her abilities proved incredibly useful in learning about the appearance of the Grail beforehand," said Kane with an even voice and cleared his throat before continuing. "Mr. Norcroft has ran into some trouble while transferring Abdiel into the country. Many of the factions in this city would like to get a hold of it- but why they would bother themselves with some old archaic piece of metal instead of with some of the newest optic-enhanced railgun shotguns is beyo-"
Once again Kane was cut off, this time by a rather fake cough which had come from the direction of none other than the jester-priest clad in black and crimson. The broad-shouldered man promptly stiffened his posture and resumed the lecture he had barely began beforehand.
"As I was saying, now that we have eliminated the potential 'oddity' in the Grail War, we should set our sights on the Masters and their Servants proper. But before that, I would like to remind you all of something-"
The hulking man's steely gaze grew fierce and he seemed to almost get even bigger, like a bear rearing up on its hind legs.
"Per Head Cardinal Alterigia's explicit orders, we are on our own here. From the moment we set foot in Hartcroft, the probability of us being discovered rocketed sky-high. Any contact with the Church outside Hartcroft is forbidden. Any contact with our Church representatives here is forbidden as well- our position of power in Hartcroft is shaky as it is. As the only member part of the original Burial Agency, I am in charge of this operation. Any disobedience that has the potential to endanger our mission will be gravely sanctioned. Of course, that doesn't mean you should agree with any contradicting, strange or outright idiotic orders of mine. First of all, imposters are a constant danger and I am willing to hear your opinions on our modus operandi at any time. But we are, for all intents and purposes, trapped here until we succeed. No matter how much you dislike each other, no matter how much you want to strangle the one next to you, we will work as a team in the name of our mission. If we fail, the Church is going to deny any connection to us and all the blame is going to be shifted on me, the renegade Burier who recruited you from the list of potential Eights. If we fail, we die. The more we try to bite our throats off, the chance of failure gets higher. Understood?"
A small chorus of mumbles of agreement echoed in the spacious underground hall.
"Thanks to Mr. Cyrus here, who tracked down and eliminated our first target-" said the hulking man. He gave a curt nod of acknowledgement to the blond man but was cut off rather rudely once again.
"-Yo, I told you already, dude, it's The Cyrus!"
The Cyrus was promptly ignored by his leader, who just continued speaking as if nothing had happened.
"-We are free to move on to our next target. The man in question, a mage 'archaeologist', has a workshop nearby the Caspar Bridge in Crestford. The information we have indicates that he is the one in possession of the Berserker class card, thus making him potentially the deadliest opponent, rivaling whoever is Saber's Master. Since the Berserker class is known to live up to its name, I am making its and its Master's elimination our first priority. Coincidently, our target fell off the radar the day our… sources confirmed that the Servant Berserker has been summoned."
The small crowd in front of him listened intently and even The Cyrus seemed interested a bit.
"Since this opponent will be unlike anything you have faced before, three of you will be tasked with bringing it down. I will begin investigating the whereabouts of Saber's Master, Miss Adams will keep her role as mission control and the other two will search for the rest of the Masters independently. Any information we discover will be relayed to the others via three separate channels- first you inform me, then you inform Miss Adams and then one of the others at random. That way we can quickly discover potential traitors messing with our information and guarantee that at least one of the called can relay the information to the rest."
Once again, the small 'team' nodded in agreement.
"Hellequin, as the second in seniority after me, you will be in charge of hunting down Berserker and its Master. Feel free to choose the other two," concluded Kane and glanced at the jester-priest in wait for his answer.
"Gideon and Lucinda," immediately answered the Executor. His voice remained as calm and even as ever. "I'm going to need a lot of fire-power against Berserker and I'm also going to need someone to control Gideon if he goes out of hand."
The two chosen didn't look surprised in the least by their senior's decision. They only followed the jester-priest down the nearest tunnel. With a cruel expression on her face, barely able to wait for the upcoming slaughter of mages, the girl with the short blond hair impatiently yanked her hand forward, as if to drag the little boy closer.
The heavy chains in her hand appeared seemingly out of nowhere, connecting to the ones hanging off the boy's shackles and nearly making him fall over when he almost ended up being literally dragged along. A bestial hiss was clearly heard into the moldy hall when the boy bared his sharp fangs at the teenage girl.
The Cyrus up and left not too long after, apparently unsatisfied with the lack of proper greetings and the general reactions at him being present there. The broad-shouldered man was left alone in the darkness of the haunted Undercity. It seemed that he was waiting for something or someone- but for what remained a mystery at least until his cell phone rang.
"You must have quite the advanced technology to boost the signal all the way to the Undercity, Miss Smith," said Kane upon picking up. "You are quite the strange mage."
"Don't bother yourself with flattery, dear," answered Nia's cheerful voice from the other end of the line. "It won't get you any discounts. Besides, you are quite strange yourself, conspiring with mages behind your partners' backs. What would that brave noble knight in your group think of your betrayal, hm? And that angry blondie will probably sick her vampiric beastie on you. Not to mention, that circus-escapee would probably want nothing more than have your position."
"I see you are well-informed on things you shouldn't be," calmly replied Kane. "And I don't see where is the conspiracy in using you to gather information on the mages participating in the Grail War. If anything, you are betraying your kind."
"Who is using who, I wonder?" shot back Nia. A faint giggle could have been heard from the other end of the line. "Did you put the information I gave you about Berserker's Master to good use?"
"None of your business. And who knows how accurate it is when you couldn't find that potential 'oddity' in the War."
"That girl was an… irregularity," said Nia and her voice sounded obviously less than cheerful. "Anyone and anything else, I can dig dirt on. That's why I'm both so loved and hated, dear. Nothing escapes my eyes and ears."
"You better hope you are right… for your own sake. Any information on Saber's Master then?"
Only silence could be heard from the other end of the line, as if that devil of a woman was weighing her potential rewards for divulging the information.
"A powerful mage, male, middle-aged," eventually sing-sang the woman.
"You just described half of the mages in Hartcroft. How is that of any help to me?"
"It isn't. That's just the outer 'package', the details on the 'insides' you will get after merely one teeny-tiny transaction."
A tired sigh escaped Kane's lips. The hulking man wondered how much this whole stupid War was going to cost the Church.
The air from inside the young man's lungs came out in short, tattered breaths. The Japanese's raven-black hair was gleaming with sweat, some of it even falling down onto the blindfold covering the man's eyes. His usually immaculate dress shirt and pants were now in a noticeably bad shape and even the katana in the young man's hand was somewhat loosely held.
In short, Shinosuke was at a total and absolute loss.
He hadn't been surprised at being faced with that wraith made out of pure fire. Slaying it had been tricky but manageable. He hadn't been surprised when that man had conjured a golem made out of stone. Beating that one had been somewhat challenging. But countering each and every one of his techniques? Dodging strikes that were virtually impossible not to hit the target?
Surviving 'that' move?
The man before him, the one currently looking down on him with that half-smirk playing on his lips, was like no other opponent Shinosuke had faced in his life so far. Hell, he had barely moved from his spot, letting his… summons or whatever the hell they were do his work for him. But the man in the red trench coat had managed to summon and control them and that only served as proof of the man's strength in Shinosuke's eyes. The heart of the young man almost fluttered, ecstatic at having finally found such a strong opponent. Finally facing someone he could afford to go all out against, Shinosuke prepared to take off the blindfold-
"Not so fast, Hasegawa," said calmly the long-haired man. Like on cue, two razor-sharp water whips stopped right in front of Shinosuke's eyes. But instead of despairing, a twisted yet sincere smile appeared on the young man's lips. The battle really was proving to be a challenge.
"I'm listening," finally said Shinosuke and let his hand fall down. "But do make it quick if you please, I can't wait to see whether you are going to kill me or I am going to strangle you with your own intestines."
"I'd prefer to take the third option," replied the long-haired man and shrugged nonchalantly. The decorated Zippo lighter in his hand was switched on yet again- but this time instead of conjuring a fire wraith the man just lit up the thick cigar in his mouth.
"Which is?" calmly said Shinosuke, trying to be as polite as always in such a cathartic to him situation.
"You want to fight strong opponents, right? I can help you face off against such people. I have around five of them in mind-"
"Let me guess," cut him off Shinosuke. "The other Masters beside us?"
Several seconds passed, both men staring each other down despite their nonchalant and polite behavior.
"Wrong. On the contrary, you are to leave any and all Masters and those connected to them alone. In exchange, I will provide you information on people trained to kill the toughest foes possible- the Burial Agency. And it just happens that there are Buriers here in Hartcroft. Seven in total, but one is a non-combatant and the other you will stay far away from unless you want to end up as a museum exhibit. Alive. Forever."
Almost like making a favor to an old friend, the long-haired mage took out an envelope from within his trench coat and threw it casually at Shinosuke.
"All the information you need is here. You will stop attacking non-combatants and you will rein in Berserker. I'll overlook that 'battery' of yours so just keep Berserker feeding solely on it. And when you eliminate those Buriers, you will give up your right of being a Master."
"And do so kindly inform me why precisely I should do that?" asked Shinosuke and tilted his head slightly in curiosity. That man may had been strong but he was wrong if he thought Shinosuke was going to bow down to him.
"Because if you do that I will grant you what you came here for?"
It was worded as a question, as if the long-haired mage wanted to taunt Shinosuke. Finally angered enough to give him a piece of his mind, Shinosuke opened his mouth… and just froze in place when he heard what the mage said next.
Two single words that summed up Shinosuke's every desire. And there was no chance in hell anyone short of a mind-reader could know that. Hisgrip on the katana tightened, betraying the young man's true feelings hidden behind his calm words.
"You seem to know about a lot of things no one should possibly know about."
"Oh, Hasegawa," said the man with a bitter smile. "You'd be surprised how much I know and want to forget about this War."
"How can I be sure you can keep your promise?"
"None of your speed and strength matters in a fight against me because my summons derive their prana from the surroundings. I just provide the 'spark' and the 'leash'- it would be like fighting against Nature itself and she can never tire out. My… teacher originally came up with the concept of giving semi-sentience to an element, I just… modified it, actually. Take my water shield for example. A limited source of water on me, like a bottle, and the moist derived from the air is enough for the shield. It can become vapor, ice or liquid. The oscillation rate is high enough to cut through solid concrete and scatter almost any attack. And the fluctuations of the water can even bend light, thus rendering any Mystic Eyes seen from behind the shield obsolete."
The words were cryptic and seemingly out of context, but to the two men who knew Shinosuke's sole desire, they were more than enough to seal the pact. Sensing his victory, the long-haired mage turned to leave- but not before giving one final instruction.
"Some of your targets will be at Persephone's Grove Park at around 4:45 this morning. Be there. And remember, Buriers only. Attacking Masters or anyone else is out of the question."
After a short pause, Shinosuke nodded. The long-haired mage smirked in return, something that probably passed as a half-genuine smile to him. After a casual wave of his hand for goodbye, the man shoved his hands into the pockets of his red trench coat and walked casually away.
"Oh, and Hasegawa? The name's Velvet. Waver Velvet."