Chapter 14:
Under Fire
It took a certain mindset to hunt Dead Apostles, he thought. Some did it for revenge, some for misplaced piety- others just sought an acceptable target to vent their own murderous urges. He fancied himself just a freelancer with a contract a bit more permanent than most, but doubts had the most traitorous habit of creeping into your mind at the most inopportune of times. Not during working hours of course, heavens forbid. Such fanciful distractions would have spelled death eleven times over. But in those small hours when he wasn't emptying armories against blood-sucking terrors, the Burier wondered what had truly made him to pick that particular line of work. The conclusion he reached more often than not was quite the simple one.
No matter what his dysfunction was, he paled in comparison to the menagerie of supernatural asylum escapees that were his 'colleagues'.
A statement he found perfectly applicable even to this batch of New World 'Buriers' he had been invited to oversee. But, speaking of mindsets, there was one in particular that left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Some genius of reasoning, somewhere long ago, had convinced the world that the only way to fight the preternatural was to throw more of said preternatural at it. And even now, literally a thousand years since humans had first started to hunt whatever went bump in the night, the same mindset was seemingly the only one. If your enemy has a hammer, send a guy with a bigger one to get him. And where his fellow Buriers had always picked the hammer, he had always braved the night armed with only a proverbial needle.
Because a wasp can sometimes bring death where even a dragon cannot.
Indeed, in a way, with his way of thinking, Kane was a heretic among heretics. Perhaps that was his dysfunction. Perhaps the insanity that plagued his mind was the delusion to think humanity could stand up to nightmares of flesh-and-blood with nothing but the prizes of their craftsmanship. But that was neither the time, nor the place, for such philosophical musings.
The charges had gone off without a hitch. The Burier had rendered several months of some bleeding-heart artist's work null and void in seconds. With the roar of a waking dragon, the painted ceiling of the Escalus' entrance hall had been reduced to smithereens and left to rain upon the unsuspecting duelists below.
The Burier checked his protective gear one last time- goggles in place, air filter on. Kane stepped out of his hiding place with nary a care in the world, unholstering his favored Sherry. Sherry was the pride and joy in his collection, his trump card and final ace. Perhaps some would have called her weak when compared to the abilities of his foes. Sure, Sherry didn't impose some vague Concept into his enemy's chakra or whatever the hell kind of weapons his colleagues used. Sherry didn't bend reality around him to suit his whims. But Sherry was a Smith and Wesson .500 Magnum, and even the oldest of Death Apostles he had met had trouble regenerating with six eight-inch white phosphorus rounds lodged in their cranium.
The building had actually turned out sturdier than the Burier had expected. The whole roof was currently chunks of debris littering the entrance hall from one end to the other, but both the grand double staircase and the second floor pathways still stood more or less intact. Kudos to the architect, the Burier thought. During his rather frantic preparations two hours ago he had hardly had the time to bother with the finer details of explosive placement. If that damn informant of his had wasted a bit more time before giving him the location, he probably would have been forced to call the hunt off.
Never go in battle unprepared was a basic guideline of his. And speaking of basic guidelines…
The wheezing grunt was quick to get his attention. It amazed him, in a way, how the raven-haired swordsman was still breathing after all he had endured, Ancestor's Egg shoved into him or not. Half-buried by rabble, blood gushing out from his severed arm and with his chest half-open, Shinosuke Hasegawa was still trying to dig himself out. The Burier wasn't even sure if the former Master could even comprehend what he was seeing, or even see at all- eyes hidden behind his bangs as they were. But as much as he could respect a plucky youngster in any given match, a job was still a job. Sherry roared thrice and the rubble surrounding the swordsman grew redder. Two to the chest and one to the head.
The Mozambique drill was as basic a guideline as they came. Particularly when you didn't want to turn your back only to have some rotting corpse's teeth digging into your neck. Kane barely had any time to check off the quasi-vampire off his mental list when, with a loud rumble, Albus Grimaldi erupted from beneath the wreckage. Unimpressed by flying debris, the Burier shot the largest piece careering towards his head in smithereens. As his eyes met the eerie green of the New World's resident terror lord, Kane wanted to imagine he was seeing a kind of monster in turn. It wasn't about the mask, with the glowing red visor and the wheezing breath because of the filter. It wasn't about the fact that he carried half an armory's worth on his person.
No, the Burier wanted the creature to see nothing but a human, but still find inside him the fear humanity could represent for the supposedly superior magical kind.
"Now there's a brave man," drawled out the mage and cocked his head to the side. Kane had to admit, the lidless eyes were truly unnerving. "Blowing up unsuspecting victims. But I guess such is the way of a weakling. Insects have only two ways of defeating their superiors after all- overwhelming numbers and underhanded tactics. But I frankly expected better from one of the renowned Burial Agency."
"So you've heard of me," replied Kane and made a point of keeping his voice even and calm. If he had had a dime for every time that particular speech had been thrown at him… "I'm honestly surprised. We didn't exactly announce our arrival in Hartcroft."
"Oh, I have my little birds and scurrying mousies," said the mage without sparing the Burier a second glance. The Grimaldi was too busy admiring the Command Spell etched onto his left arm. "I would love to waste more time in trifling chatter with you, Mr. Burier, but, alas, I have some matters to attend to. Fortune seems to truly favor the bold because here I am, Master before I had even intended to be one. I have a Grail War to win now and an understanding with your dearest Head Cardinal to be left alone for a while, so if you don't mi-"
The bullet struck the mage dead-center, ripping through skin and flesh alike and sending a spiderweb of cracks through the solid ribcage. Albus Grimaldi let out a shriek, sounding more indignant then in pain, as the white phosphorous burned through flesh and tissue and made the wound sizzle.
"Oh, I'm sorry," said the Burier. "I thought you had finished. Got anything more to say?"
The mage glared furiously at him, just about growled and pointed an accusing finger in his direction. A bullet flew out of Sherry before any curses, mundane or magical, were able to fly out of the mage's mouth. This time the Grimaldi reacted on time, materializing a single bone-feathered wing to shield himself with. Sensing a good opportunity for retaliation, the mage flapped his wing furiously and sent said razor-sharp feathers flying in the Burier's direction. Kane holstered Sherry back, cylinder out and prepared for reloading. One hand conveniently free, he drew Marian and sent a volley of bullets to intercept the spikes. An ordinary Uzi's bullets may have not been up to the job, but quicksilver-tipped rounds were explosively effective enough.
Two bullets reloaded.
Arms covered into grotesquely oversized claws of bone, the Grimaldi dashed forward, fully intent on vivisecting him on the spot. The Burier wasted no time, quickly shouting commands into his earpiece.
"Vulcania-on. Sector 4, target- preprogrammed 1. Fire."
There was, after all, more than an egotistical attempt at a grand entrance behind him blowing up the ceiling. The whole rig was a favorite tactic of his- and he could only hope there wouldn't be any SWAT teams called in to dismantle the remote-controlled gatling gun atop the nearby hotel before he was finished with the assignment. It was such a chore to calibrate it for such a distance after all.
Four bullets reloaded.
Needless to say, the mage was more than surprised at the hail of bullets raining on him from above. The kinetic force of the rapid fire pushed him off-course, sending him careering into the rubble. In the matter of seconds, a veritable armor of bones grew around the Grimaldi's body, shielding him from top to bottom. The Burier let out a low whistle as he watched the mage withstand the tank-shredding barrage with just his arms crossed protectively in front of him. After a minute or so, the makeshift turret finally overheated, letting the Grimaldi's cracked arms fall off to the sides. The opaque face turned to the Burier and fixed him with an all-too-accurate eyeless stare.
Six bullets reloaded.
The armored mage dashed forward with surprising agility for his encumbrance, clawed hands spread wide. Revolver ready, Kane took aim- and pulled the trigger with Albus Grimaldi a mere two feet from him. Half the bone-plate actually shattered as the bullet struck it, shredding the eye and the face underneath. The Burier ducked beneath a swipe that could've easily bisected him and threw his grappling hook at the second-floor railing. The welcoming snap of the hook securing itself was all the invitation he needed. Assisted by the retractor, he was up by the time the mage had regrown his face and its protection. Old Albus was upon him in an instant, scaling the support column like a spider and vaulting over the railing. Vision apparently wasn't his only way of orientation.
The two grenades bounced harmlessly off the armored mage's head but a couple of bullets from Marion were enough to excite them prematurely. The white phosphorous turned the air into glassy mist. The Burier tried to be as silent as possible as he stalked towards his prey. Keeping careful watch on the disoriented mage, the Burier removed the M79 from his back and took aim. Not that he could miss with a grenade launcher from that distance.
The blast from Gretchen sent the Grimaldi reeling back, shattering around half his armor. The white phosphorous was quick to work its own magic on the naked skin. Before the mage could react and begin regenerating, Kane had drawn both Marion and Mary-Ann. The staccato of the alternating Uzis filled the air as the Grimaldi was pelted with bullets. Flesh exploded into chunks and blood started pooling around him, the mage unable to concentrate enough to retaliate.
"Don't be surprised I got the drop on you," shouted the Burier over the roar of the gunfire. "White phosphorous scrambles even infrared."
Both guns finally clicked on empty and the Burier didn't even bother reloading. Throwing them away, he unholstered the Desert Eagles from his waist and resumed the barrage. It was apparently time to try the depleted uranium shells. Good thing he had modified Elizabeth and Patricia's clips to hold more- he needed every bullet in cases such as these. The mage was proving surprisingly resilient actually, for all the punishment he had taken head-on. "It must be maddening for him", Kane thought, "To be unable to counter with your true force".
Albus Grimaldi's power was his greatest enemy in their fight. With a body so unstable, any of his higher tier spells were too risky to execute, forcing him to rely on the barest of modifications to his body and close quarter combat. His regeneration was still the new Master's greatest strength- but his host could be healed only so many times. Their fight was nothing more than a particularly persistent wasp attacking someone blind and deaf, capable of only swinging his arms around in a frenzy and hoping to swat it away. Kane didn't care for a fair fight, unlike some other Buriers. He didn't see it as cheating, just as… playing to his advantages, of sorts. Although facing Grimaldi on the latter's better day would have meant having an excuse to bring out the thermobaric cannon.
His second set of guns clicked empty as well. Albus Grimaldi was currently a vaguely human-shaped pile of well-ventilated meat drowning in his own blood. Throwing away the Desert Eagles, the Burier slowly drew Sherry once more-
-And was barely able to dodge the tendril of blood attempting to pierce through his skull. Vaulting back several meters, the Burier skidded to a halt and prepared to fire, only for more tentacles to shoot out from the pool of blood. Kane rushed in the opposite direction, sliding under tilted columns and jumping over dilapidated walls. The blood-tendrils, hot on his heels, seemed all too keen on finishing up the destruction he had started. Twenty meters later, finally reaching their limit, the tentacles retracted, now content to just circle around the mage's regenerating body. The Burier prepared to take aim, only for the blood to form into football-sized spheres which blitzed towards him.
Another mad dash later, with ruble raining on top of him, Kane took cover behind a large chunk of the former ceiling, halfway embedded into the floor. On the other side, Albus Grimaldi had just about healed his wounds. Wounds which the Burier had tediously inflicted and wasn't all too keen on seeing erased from existence. Not one to test his luck, he flicked a shell outside his cover—
-And watched whatever was left of the second floor wall disappear as a blood sphere cannoned through it in an instant.
"Artillery for long range offense, razor tentacles for short-to-medium range defense and no prospect of him keeling over from old age in the middle of the fight," mumbled Kane under his breath. "Yeah, I should've just brought the thermobaric cannon."
Letting out a sigh, the Burier pressed a finger to his earpiece.
"Vulcania-on. Sector 7, target- preprogrammed 1. Fire."
Spheres and tendrils melted into one single shield as the far-off roar of the gatling gun resounded once again. The Burier rolled out of cover and was treated to the sight of the blood-shield somehow holding up the barrage, despite all the ripples dancing on its crimson surface. Well, it was meant as a distraction anyway. Repetition speeding up his actions, Kane removed the pieces of the railgun rifle from his back and got to assembling it before Vulcania overheated again. The modified Barrett XM109 had originally been conceived as merely 'anti-materiel', but after a bit of tweaking the Burier was sure his own little 'Noble Phantasm' was at least 'anti-building' when it came to piercing force. It was a piece of cake aiming at that distance, considering his target was rendered immovable as well. The one thing that could possibly sour his day was the shield somehow withstanding the shot.
The Burier took a deep breath and held it in. Time always seemed to slow down in those moments- not that it allowed him to move faster or anything. No, his body moved at a steadier flow as well, with only his own thoughts racing ahead of time and perceiving his surroundings on a much larger scale. Kane could swear he could distinguish the individual ripples over the blood-shield, as they exploded by the dozens under the incessant barrage of the gatling gun. His finger squeezed the trigger with a bit more force than necessary. Like lightning, the bullet erupted from the rifle in a shower of cobalt sparks. The crimson shield of his opponent exploded in an instant and for a moment Kane could see the surprise in his opponent's viridian eyes. And then nearly half of Albus Grimaldi exploded as the shot tore through him and took out the majority of the wall behind him.
The blood hovering into the air dropped to the ground like rainfall, mirroring the collapse of its owner. Vulcania, far out of sight, overheated once again and ceased with her unyielding barrage of bullets. Wary of any surprises, Kane rose slowly, ready to jump to cover with each step taken. But all the mage did was keep on bleeding profusely, slumped in a pile of half-scrunched bullets. The Burier drew Sherry once again, taking careful aim at the suspiciously unmoving corpse. Ten meters away from the War's newest Master, Kane stopped to have a good look at his opponent.
Right hand and half a torso missing, Albus Grimaldi stared somewhere in the distance with unblinking, disturbingly green eyes. Not one to take chance, the Burier shot. His heart almost burst when the corpse sprang back to life and the Grimaldi, void of any other ways to stop it, actually caught the bullet between his teeth. The mage's neck audibly snapped under the full brunt of the kinetic force of the shot, a Glasgow smile now adorning half the Master's face where the bullet had still managed to rip into it before being stopped. The Burier's finger began squeezing the trigger on instinct-
- Only for a tentacle with bulging veins to sprout from the Grimaldi's wounded side and find its way around the Burier's neck. Sherry stumbled out of his weakened grip and Kane himself was hoisted up into the air, hands clawing at the semi-regenerated flesh currently crushing his windpipe. Albus stood up slowly and spat out the bullet. The Burier didn't know why, but the sound of it hitting the ground was deafening. Maybe it was just the blood rushing into his ears.
"You know," drawled the mage, still missing a good chunk of his body. "If you had actually hit the brain or the heart, I wouldn't have been able to survive without using the Command Spell. I applaud you for that cur, but," the tentacle suddenly unhanded the Burier- only to pierce through his chest and ram him into the far wall as he fell. "You have put me in a rather precarious situation. I hoped to be able to go without such time-consuming distractions, but this host body of mine won't be able to last the War anymore without replenishing its… resources. And feeding is such a chore. But needs go before wants as we know. Speaking of which, care to venture a guess who is first on the menu?"
The Burier could only hope his hateful stare was actually visible from behind his visor. His lip was just about torn from the force he had clamped down onto it to avoid screaming in pain as the tentacle writhed around his insides.
"Normally, I'd give my generous benefactor the courtesy of waiting his heart to stop before feeding," said the Grimaldi, unnaturally long tongue tracing along the edges of his lipless mouth. "But I do not think someone as rude as you deserves such a favor. Any last words, Burier? A heartfelt eulogy for your empty grave perhaps?"
"Vulcania-on. Sector 6-"
There was no edge of fear, nor of anger, to the Burier's tired voice. Inwardly, he had to admit, such an ending was what he had always expected. The details and circumstances may have been different, but at its core, this was the only ending Kane could see for himself. He didn't see it as pessimistic or needlessly melodramatic. To him such an expectation was merely realism, merely estimation for the odds of an ordinary man who hunted nightmares for a living. In a way, it was an acceptable ending, even if he would have much preferred having an entourage to escort him to Hell. What he couldn't accept however, was a death not on his terms.
It was arrogant, perhaps, in some twisted way- but the Burier couldn't accept any other man than himself being his killer.
"-Target- preprogrammed 0… Fire."
To claim that the entrance to the old castle in Persephone's Grove looked like a war zone would have been an understatement. The very building itself seemed… wounded somehow, as if its very foundations had been twisted and eroded. The autumn sun shined unobstructed upon the sea of debris. Chunks of stone and marble of varying shapes and sizes made up the majority of the landscape. Like grotesque exotic columns, spikes of sharpened bones jutted out here and there. The largest pieces of the collapsed ceiling still stood out with their murals, but the majority were hidden behind either dirt or copious amounts of vividly red blood.
The Cyrus climbed atop one of the larger rubble piles with a hop and a skip. Humming idly some semi-forgotten tune from a past life, the blonde slicked back the bangs of his unruly hair and removed the obstructive sunglasses. Many would have said he was dreadfully out of place in such a scene, with his ankle-length cargo pants and loose Hawaiian shirt. And The Cyrus would have seen it as nothing but a compliment to his ability of fooling the prying eyes around him. Everyone suspected the quiet, sulking ones. No one paid any heed to the jester, unless to bark at him to shut the hell up.
After a minute or so of searching amongst the debris, his pale violet eyes finally settled on the unmoving body of his Eastern counterpart. Shinosuke Hasegawa, or rather- his corpse, lay half-buried beneath the wreckage, brains scattered at a varying degree in the vicinity. The Cyrus shook his head in sympathy and held the unmoving gaze of the corpse's Cybele. There was an odd sense of camaraderie somewhere within- be it because of the Egg or their shared circumstance. Different as night and day they might have been, but The Cyrus would've preferred to see his fellow carrier dying in combat, rather than executed in a weakened state whilst unable to even move. Not that he would've obliged to face him in battle- oh no.
The Cyrus wasn't one for head-on clashes, unless absolutely certain he could best his enemy. Or when that stupid Head Cardinal forced him to.
"Well, RIP in peace or whatever," muttered the blonde as his form of eulogy and shoved his scaled hand into the already half-open chest of the corpse. His eager, prying fingers soon felt the smooth surface of the oval black stone. The Burier ripped the Egg out and held it to the Sun to admire. Blood trickled off it and down onto his face.
"And here's number Twelve!" gleefully announced the blonde and shoved the oval stone down his throat. He just about choked on it a second later.
"Fancy meeting you here, Burier."
Trying to suppress his fit of coughing, fist bumping his chest, The Cyrus looked around in panic. A vaguely human creature was perching atop one of the larger chunks of wreckage, lipless mouth stretched in a parody of a smile from ear to ear. Its pearly teeth gave off a dangerous glint. Only the eerie green eyes condescendingly looking at him from above alluded to the identity of the creature.
"We meet again it seems," answered the blond and tried to meet the mage's eyes with his Cybele. A pair of brille immediately shut off any potential eye contact.
"Now that's just plain rude," said the Grimaldi in a mockery of a hurtful tone. "I merely want to talk business with you, Burier. And I think it's in your best interest that you stay put and listen to my proposition."
The creature extended an arm, as if offering a deal. At the center of his palm, six tiny bones jutted out and opened up a hole, only for an eyeball to crawl out. The viridian orb fixated on The Cyrus, unhindered by his Cybele- and sprouted a pair of beetle wings to hover into the air. The Burier tried not to gag.
"I'm listening," said the blond and put his arms behind his back, ready to pull out his Sacrament in a moment's notice. He needed to wait until the next full moon to regain his full power as the Twelfth Dead Apostle Ancestor, true. But with the Grimaldi in this weakened state…
"Oh, it's mostly mutually beneficial," said the mage and shrugged his shoulders. "I need to win this Grail War but, sad to say, I've seen better days. Facing all of the Master and Servant duos would be too much for this host body of mine, even if I feed regularly. So here is where you come in: kill a Master or two for me and I will refrain from revealing your true colors to my dearest friends in the Church. Further services may be required," tacked the mage on at the end, with the voice one would use to recite a shopping list.
The Burier pulled out the book, its pages coming alive as if blown by a hurricane. The Grimaldi snapped his fingers… and the flying eyeball darted away through the open roof.
"What say you?" asked the mage with the slimiest of smiles plastered on his face.
"Agreed," grunted The Cyrus, failing to keep his voice even. His Sacrament snapped shut with an irritated 'thud'.
"Just bear with him until the full moon," grimly tried to cheer himself up the Burier as he sulked out of the ruined hall, defeated in the moment of his long-awaited victory.
The stench permeating the air around him was an offense to his nonexistent nostrils. It was hypocritical perhaps, coming from him, but in spite of the gruesomeness of his magecraft, Albus Grimaldi was a man who valued aesthetics. And the swordsman's hideout, dark and dank like a freshly unearthed grave, was the exact opposite of 'aesthetic'. The monotone dripping of water from the cracked pipes above him was like clockwork. Only there wasn't one clock or two or three. It was a cacophony of droplets drumming above him, grating on his nerves as much as the scared rats scurrying around his feet. But as the mage reached the bottom of the dilapidated stares and his viridian eyes met the beady ones of the Servant hidden in the dark, the Grimaldi reconsidered his feelings on the situation.
The Servant's diluted blue eyes went wide when it failed to recognize the newcomer. Letting out a roar that made the very ceiling shake and rain debris below, Berserker stood up in all his gruesome glory. He was truly a beast of a man- or was it the other way around? The Grimaldi couldn't really tell. Berserker's body was disproportionate. Legs too short and weak carried a gargantuan torso ripped with muscles. The hands were of different sizes, with the right three times as large as the left, ending up with curved clawed fingers. The Servant's head looked too small for his body, halfway hidden by the locks of lifeless, once-blonde hair.
Albus had feared he had acquired a mediocre Servant, an Assassin or a Caster perhaps, unfit for his plans for the War. But Lady Luck seemed to have truly smiled upon him to bestow him with such a high-class Servant. The mage looked around, unimpressed by the warning roars of his new tool, and his eyes eventually settled on the still form of a body tucked away in the nearby corner. The mage covered the distance with reinvigorated steps. He wasn't familiar with the face of the comatose man, his body lacking all limbs but one. Curious, Albus kneeled to inspect it. The single Command Spell next to the clay-filled wound was a perfect match for the one on his left hand. So that was the enthusiastic mage Alterigia had hired to get them the pieces of the Grail. Or what was left of him anyway. Well, waste not, want not, as they always said.
Albus pressed a long pale finger to the Command Spell and the ink seemingly came alive, crawling up his finger and joining the one on his forearm. Satisfied with having a full set- more or less- the mage stood up and faced the still growling Berserker. The Grimaldi lifted his left arm for the Servant to see the Command Spells engraved onto it, vaguely resembling a winged serpent or, perhaps, a dragon. It didn't have the desired effect.
Berserker stomped the ground with enough strength to make a crater around him, shaking the foundations of the whole building. Barely regaining his balance, the mage shouted an order at the raging monstrosity before it could attack him.
"Obey!"
The burning sensation of a Command Spell wasting away left a bitter taste in his mouth. Berserker froze in place, his body contorting as if bound by invisible chains. The Servant's eyes radiated hatred as he bore them into the viridian ones of his new Master. Reaching forward with his oversized arm, Berserker took a single, painful step. And then, accompanied by an earsplitting roar, another. The Grimaldi grit his teeth in annoyance. Was that the reason the swordsman hadn't even bothered calling for his Servant? Was Berserker that uncontrollable? Or maybe it was loyalty towards his former Master which fed the hate towards his new one? Either way, Albus Grimaldi had no use for a disobedient pawn.
"I ordered you to OBEY!"
It was astounding that even with his magical potential it took such effort for the Command Spell to instill obedience. Albus could only hope Berserker was worth the hassle.
The snake's second wing faded out fully as Berserker crashed down on his knees.