A/N: So, a new chapter and the longest one yet. I hope you like it.
A warning for you, there is death in this chapter. Not of a major character, or even likable ones and it's not graphic, but it is there nonetheless and it's not especially pretty.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or the Nasuverse. Those belong to J.K. Rowling and TYPE-MOON and Kinoko Nasu, respectively.
By the time that Semiramis arrived outside the warehouse in a swirl of purple-black un-light, the clear weather of the afternoon had soured. Grey, tired clouds had trudged across the sky as the sun sank below the horizon and a chill drizzle floated down. No stars could be seen between the colourless blankets which covered the sky.
The tarmac was slick and wet beneath the queen's shoes as she strode purposefully towards the building's door. The spells she had prepared on the Gardens hummed gently against her skin, the Dragon Tooth Warriors ready to congeal into being from their unnatural mists. With her Item Creation Skill, the legendary poisoner had treated the familiars' blades with a powerful paralytic neurotoxin, designed specifically to render the kidnappers immobile while simultaneously igniting their nerve endings and preserving them for later use.
A quick death would be far to merciful a fate for these mongrels.
Of course, she didn't intend to leave them to the familiars alone. For all their virtues, the Dragon Tooth Warriors were fragile at best and she suspected that they would not last overly long. After all, for all that they were little better than worms, her opponents were either wizards or magi - as indicated by the faint traces of prana which had tainted the ransom note - and it would not do to underestimate them.
Besides the familiars, the ancient sorceress had prepared a battery of curses and maledictions to launch at the kidnappers. None would be fatal, of course, but they would be far from pleasant. After all, all that she required for what she had planned was that they survived. The loss of a limb or four would pose no problem to her designs.
Confident in her preparations, Semiramis allowed her clothes to sublimate into a crumpled business suit, which was swiftly darkened by the soft rain. Allowing an expression of intense worry and distress to take over her features and grasping the handle of the empty briefcase in her right hand, the ancient queen eased open the warehouse door.
Inside, the room was dominated by monolithic cargo containers and stacks of crates, stretching like strange sarsens towards the harsh light of the fluorescent tubes which hung from the far-distant ceiling, swinging gently. From around the pinnacles came the sound of men talking, although the exact words were too faint to make out. She deliberately allowed her shoes to clack against the concrete floor, dispelling any illusions that they might have had that she intended to sneak up on them.
"I have the money," called the Servant, taking care to inject a faint tremor into her voice, "What should I do?"
A pause, and then a shouted reply: "Bring it here. No tricks, or your boy will find himself with an impromptu head piercing."
The Servant followed the voice, resisting the temptation to let loose with her magics in the name of ensuring that her son was safe from whatever retribution that the kidnappers might exact, should he still be in their custody when she launched her attack. Turning a corner around a dull red container, she came across her foes.
They were a professional-looking bunch, dressed sharply in suits and trousers. On their necks, the multi colored shape of a draconic claw could be seen, marking them as Yakuza members. Wizards, then, as no magus would lower themselves to working in a mundane syndicate. Their faces were concealed by a mask of shifting shadows, through which the suggestion of features could be seen, but no details.
Of the four, two held a pair of ofuda each, while a third grasped an ornate fan. The fourth held a black, short-barrelled pistol to the head of an unconscious Asharu, who was propped up on a wooden chair. A wooden ring adorned the index finger of his right hand, the one splayed open towards her.
The gun-user spoke. "Put the briefcase on the ground. Keep your hands on you head once you've done that. No sudden moves."
She did so, setting the case down and sliding it over with her foot. The gunman made a quick series of motions with his free hand and case lifted from the floor, floating gently over to the group. One of the ofuda-users grabbed it out of the air, opened it and looked inside. Apparently satisfied by the illusion of stacks of yen notes which he found there, he turned to the gunman and nodded. He made a similar series of motions to that he had used before, except that this time it was Asharu who lifted from the ground and levitated towards his mother. As the child neared her, she pulled him from the air and into her arms.
"There. That wasn't so hard, was it?" said the gunman, whose weapon was now directed at the Servant. "Now, if you could just leave quietly, our business will have been concluded."
Semiramis made to turn and then, as if changing her mind, faced them again. Allowing the facade of worry to fall from her features, she fixed the group with a smile that had all the warmth and merriment of a shark's.
"Actually, I think you owe me something. You stole my son. A little chastisement is in order, I think."
Even as she spoke, the resurrected sorceress allowed the cuneiform symbols of a protective spell to fade into existence before her while the purplish mists that were the beginnings of the Dragon Tooth Warriors flowed up and out of the cracks in the concrete. Skeletal shapes began to coalesce from the vapours, crude swords grasped in fleshless hands.
"Want your money back, do you?" asked the gunman, clearly the spokesman of the group. He seemed less sure of himself than a moment before, but his voice nevertheless remained solid.
"Of course not," replied the queen, "I want… you."
With those words, the mist surged out and the battle began. It didn't last long.
Tides of skeletal warriors surged from the smog, which hung low to the ground like some great serpent coiling about them. One of the ofuda-users swiftly pulled out a while flurry of talismans and flung them into the air with a shouted "Shoheki!", establishing a barrier against their foes while the others launched a flurry of curses and offensive magic towards the familiars. Against human foes, it would have been a daunting position to challenge, a combination of impressive offense with an equally powerful defense. These mongrels had clearly been well-trained to work together.
It was a pity for them that neither she nor her troops were human.
For every warrior their curses brought down, three more joined the horde beating at the barrier, which shimmered and flickered a little more with each impact. Holes made by blasting curses were quickly filled in with more bodies, while any spells which made it through the horde merely splashed harmlessly against her defenses.
Raising a hand, Semiramis calmly began a to bring down their shield, not bothering to use Divine Words or a swifter magic.
"Waters beat at black stones, wearing them down to dust," she muttered, as a crushing purple light began to gather about the yakuza's barrier. "All things beneath the waves return to silt and sand."
With the last word, the magic broke upon the shield like a wave upon the shore and its light faded, taking the wizards' protection with it.
The fan-user was the first to fall to the familiars' blades, a scratch on his arm from a swiftly-dispelled warrior introducing the poison to his body. A few seconds passed with no perceptible ill effect, before his rapidly-beating heart carried the venom around his body and it began to take effect. A strangled scream split the air and Semiramis smiled coldly as he fell to the floor in the foetal position, eyes rolling madly but the muscles of his throat too constricted to cry out further. The others followed swiftly, the gunman emptying the last of his clip before finally falling atop his fallen comrades.
The familiars relinquished their weapons and most faded into mist again, save for the eight that set down their weapons and hefted the kidnappers, carrying them out to the van which the sorceress had hired, ready for transport back to the Gardens.
The Servant laid her unconscious son in the passenger seat of her car and purred away from the warehouse. Driverless, the Transit followed behind, its controls operated by the phantom threads of prana which trailed from the window of the Jaguar.
It was almost midnight by the time that Semiramis had placed her son safely in his bed on the Gardens. The drizzle which continued unabated below held no dominion there above the clouds. The moon's silver light splashed against the equally pale marble walkways of the floating Phantasm and flung the sharp-edged shadows of her small entourage of Dragon Tooth Warriors and their human burdens on the towering columns which lined the walkways. She was not done with the kidnappers of her child and she would make sure that they served her purpose in the end. It was only right that reparations be owed to the wronged party, after all.
The little procession wended its way into the depths of the Gardens, to the throne room that was its heart. There, a golden throne stood proud in the centre of a room whose floor was inscribed with an impossibly complex matrix of jewelled magic circles, channels of frozen mercury and veins of silver, all set in place to provide the perfect environment for the casting of High Thaumaturgy, magecraft might enough to verge upon the realms of Magic. The sorceress-queen set herself upon the throne, making herself the centrepiece of the miracle of arcane engineering. Power flowed into her, burning through her veins in a tide of frozen fire. It was intoxicating as always, the heady knowledge that, here, marvels which rivaled the very gods themselves could be worked.
With the merest suggestion of a commanding thought, the Dragon Tooth Warriors relinquished the kidnappers into the hold of the restricting magics which had sprung into existence with a muttered Word of Binding. Here, there was no fear of overusing her Divine Voice. The Gardens themselves would sing her will, if need be. A second Word, Cleansing, purged the venom from the bodies of the unfortunate wizards. A few seconds, perhaps half a minute, passed before they seemed to reclaim their senses and awareness from the haze of pain they had existed in since the poison had first been introduced.
"Wha- what is this? Where are we? "
"What is this place?!"
"This is my Garden, mongrel-san. What do you think of it? Beautiful, no? It should be. After all, they say that the best things cost the most, and the price for this perfection was a steep one. After all, it was not until after I died that I was able to see its beauty."
"I don't know what you're on, lady, but if you think you can hurt us and get off with nothing, think again. The Namikawa family's not just a street gang. We've got the contacts to pull down anything you've ever built and crucify you in the ashes."
The young man looked pleased with his tirade, and his comrades seemed to regain some measure of their composure as well.
Semiramis savoured their hope. So adorable, that they thought their petty mortal organizations could threaten her, a daughter of the goddess Derketo. A word, and the speaker's bindings constricted, pressing the skin tight against his ankles and wrists. The pop of a dislocation could be heard, alongside the pained "Aarghh!" that squeezed itself from his throat.
"Wha-what do you want?" asked one of the other kyodai*, bravado once more absent.
"I want you to pay the debt you owe me." stated Semiramis, languidly lounging on her throne and swilling a flute of fine, blood-red wine which had been delivered only a moment ago by one of the Dragon Tooth Warriors. "You stole my precious son, and so I demand blood-payment, which I shall exact in the form of your knowledge and your magic cores. Your lives as well, in all likelihood, as I have never before had the opportunity to extract a full magic core from one of your kind."
"You think you can get away killing us off? You think the Family doesn't track us and our state? These tattoos aren't for nothing."
"Silence." All sound within the throne room vanished, save for the ominous finality of the sorceress' pronouncement and the whisper of her dress as she drew herself up, straight-backed and proud. "I can assure, you, no magic that your kind could achieve could pierce my protections, mongrel-san. I am orders of magnitude above your pitiful practitioners." She lit her eyes with her Divinity and silently delighted in the immediate reaction on the faces, the instinctual fear that was bone-deep within the lineage of humanity, the ancestral recollections of ancient abuses and utter helplessness in the face of a superior being.
"Now, for your defiance, you shall be the first to pay your toll. Be good, now, and I might allow you a quick death."
It was almost morning when the queen emerged from the throne room again. Behind her, four prismatic orbs of light, each trailing kaleidoscopic energy like the tail of a comet, orbited the throne. On the floor, the last of four corpses vanished into purple motes of light, fading from existence.
The darkness was a cloak, lying heavy and soft against the ground. The night sky was hidden behind a veil of low-hanging cloud and even the screech-owls kept their silent peace. A pall was on the land, an unnatural silence which caused more than one peasant in the city below to lock the doors of their clay-brick huts and pray to the distant gods that no demons would creep in with the shadows and snatch them away.
In one place, though, the silence was banished by loud, boisterous laughter and the dark was chased away by a profusion of oil-lamps and witch-lights. The king's court made merry in the dark of the night, celebrating his marriage to his new queen, not three days past. She was as beautiful as Ishtar herself, he boasted to his councilor for the fourth time that evening, and twice as flexible in their wedding bed. In fact, claimed the king, he thought he'd partake again.
Downing a horn of wine and climbing to his feet, the king Ninus strode over to where the new queen - his mother, Asharu realised - lounged on a divan, surrounded by the prettily giggling forms of her courtiers. They parted before him like waters before the keel of a ship and he leant down to whisper something in the ear of the young queen. She propped herself up and whispered something back, prompting the king's boisterous laughter to split the night. He led her out of the great feasting-hall and into the labyrinth of the palace.
Behind them, the party wore on into the night, the atmosphere slowly quieting as the guests succumbed to the embraces of wine-sodden slumber and the silence reclaimed its domain.
In the morning, the king's illness was written off as merely the aftereffects of his indulgences the night before. It was not until that afternoon, as the sun reached the horizon once more and the periodic vomiting had not stopped, that the court began to worry. Healers, doctors and priests were called, but none could divine a cause for the illness beyond the king's aging body and too much alcohol. That night was devoid of revelry, for the king had determined that if he was to be denied wine, so would his court.
He woke twice more before the end. On the third night, the new queen awoke in bed with a cold corpse.
Doves winged their way to the temples of the undertakers and the funerary priests, carrying the news of the king's death.
King Ninus was entombed with all splendour and the young queen knelt beside his mausoleum with tears tracking down her face.
One who knew her well, though, might have seen the flash of triumph in her yellow, slitted eyes.
The yellow-orange luminescence of the setting sun grew to encompass his sight, drowning out all detail, before it receded again.
In its wake, the world was transfigured.
Now, the yellow light emanated from the sodium streetlamps which the car passed under, first growing into dazzling brightness before receding again into the vast nether expanses of the world behind the vehicle. He was in the back seat squashed between two burly, suited men, while another, similarly-dressed pair sat in the front of the car, conversing.
Asharu didn't care to hear what they were saying, though. He was conscious of little but a soft, all-consuming contentment and could not bring himself to think of anything in particular. Indistinct, fuzzy memories floated around in his skull, recollections of Gardens and magic and Mother, but none of it mattered...right now.
The car pulled up abruptly outside a large warehouse - idly, Asharu recognised it as being by the harbour - and the men climbed out of the car. A soft voice in his head asked if he would climb out of the car and he did so, gladly. After all, what harm would it do, and it was the same voice which had brought the warmth and happiness.
The voice came again, asking him to go around to the boot of the car and take out the shopping bag there. He did so, reasoning blearily that he'd done this sort of thing loads before at the Dursleys. It was just sensible, wasn't it?
He followed three of the men into the warehouse, carrying the bag in both hands, while the fourth took the car around the back of the grey building. The black-haired child set the bag on one of the lower crates and, at the urging of the voice, separated out the boxed meals it contained. Each of the men took their share, although there was a small squabble over one of the packs of sushi, and settled themselves on various crates.
The child sat himself down likewise and sat quietly, as the voice said. The men ate quickly and quietly, only a few terse words shared between them. Eventually, one made a series of quick mudras with his beringed hand and the voice vanished, just in time for blackness to claim Asharu's vision.
Asharu awoke, a rasping gasp tearing itself from his lips as he sat up in his bed, coming face-to-face with the lurid green snake which hung from the ribs of the trellis which passed for a ceiling.
Its tongue flickered out, then in again as the image made its way through the groggy brain of a just-woken 7-year-old. Then he reacted.
"Ahh!"
Hissing laughter followed him as he flung himself back onto the bed.
§Young-hatchling-speaker is slow to wake.§
§How would you like it if someone was leaning over you when you woke?§ retorted the young wizard as he pulled himself up again. §Do you know when I got back? I just remember going back to the school, and then...§ He broke off, disjointed images haunting his psyche.
§Mother-two-leg laid you on the white-soft-night-stone when White-Nestsister-of-Sun was high in the sky two turns-of-the-sun ago,§ the serpent answered, oblivious to the child's distraction. §Mother-two-leg took two-times-two two-legs to the golden-room. Mother-two-leg waits outside for your awaking.§
Used to the odd manner of speaking which attended the use of snake-speech, Asharu distracted himself with decoding the snake's remarks. Numbers were always strange, as snakes seemed to like counting in twos. "Because of the forks of our tongues", Seru had once told him when he had asked. So he'd been asleep for two days? What happened?
"Ummu**, I'm awake," he called.
The doorway darkened with the silk-garbed shadow of Semiramis as she swept into the room.
"Are you well, Atmu?" asked the magus, her hand reaching over to cup Asharu's cheek as she often did when she was concerned for him.
The flashing images returned, streetlamps and delirious happiness burning behind his eyes. He hugged his arms tight around himself, pushing them from his mind. "I'm f-fine, Ummu. What happened? I just remember leaving the focus shop, walking back towards the school a bit, and then it's just kinda... blank."
The Servant paused dubiously before answering. When the words came they were clipped and clinical.
"You were kidnapped. They were yakuza, and wizards, and asked for money."
"D-did you give it to them?" asked the green-eyed child, hugging himself tighter. The idea seemed fantastical, something which happened on the news and in the red-light quarters, not in the middle of the wizard's district.
A vicious smile spread across Semiramis' face.
"Of course not. You know what I am, do you not? The were merely modern wizards, no match for me."
"What did you do to them?" he asked, innocently.
"I can show you, if you would like. Before that, though, I have something to give you. Something to stop something like this from happening again."
The sorceress reached into her dress and withdrew a short, thin object. It was twice as long as her hand, and wrapped in a purple cloth such that only its outline could be seen. Almost reverently, the black-haired Servant peeled back the wrappings to reveal what lay beneath.
The knife was simple-looking, a plain handle and unadorned guard leading up into a blade shaped like an elongated teardrop. The metal was of dark bronze with a slight greenish tint. The only visual indicator that it was more than it seemed were the angular cuneiform symbols inscribed on the flat of the blade.
"This is Ša Imti, a Mystic Code I made myself for you. Its blade bears a conceptual venom, a poison which will corrupt and destroy all magecraft and wizardry, save yours and mine. The blade is made of bronze cooled in my own blood and the venom of the Bashmu-serpent. Take it."
Tentatively, he did so, wrapping his right hand around the hilt of the dagger. The moment he did so there was a burning sensation on his palm, the glyphs flared turquoise and the knife dissolved into blue-green motes of light. The particles whirled in place for an instant, before surging into his hand. By the time they had vanished, the same symbols which were inscribed on the dagger were emblazoned upon the young wizard's palm.
"You will be able to recall it to your hand with but a thought. If it is ever stolen, you can do the same. Promise me, though, that you will be cautious with its use. It is a powerful weapon and its abilities should not be made known."
A little overwhelmed, Asharu nodded.
"You asked, before, what punishment I levied to the men who stole you. Can you walk to the throne room?"
In answer, the black-haired child slipped out of the bed, placing his feet on the cold floor. He pulled himself upright, then took as step, wobbled a little, then folded towards the floor as his legs, weak from days lying still, betrayed him. Semiramis caught him before he hit the floor.
"I'll take that as a no, then."
She held him while he worked some strength back into his limbs, with the help of a minor healing magic. The actual walk was little more than a minute or so, punctuated by the black-haired child practicing the summoning and dismissal of the knife, until the pair stood at the entrance to the circular chamber where the throne of the Gardens stood.
Suspended in the air hung four multicoloured orbs, scribing slow, deliberate circles around the throne like planets orbiting a sun. Their mingled light threw a tableau of shifting hues against the floor of the throne room, reminding Asharu of the light on the ceiling of the indoor swimming pool that they sometimes visited in Fuyuki. That room had always felt odd to the young wizard, perpetually charged with the coppery taste of Semiramis' magic. Now, though, there were other, fainter flavours mixed in, a hint of peppermint alongside the taint of woodsmoke.
"Those are the magic cores of the curs which kidnapped you," declared the queen, startling the young wizard from his wonderment.
He looked at her in surprise for a moment, before what she said really sank in. Those were magic cores, the same things which let wizards do their magic and without which, they could not live. Suzukaze-sensei had told them so in Basic Arcanoanatomy. The dots connected and Asharu took a small step back.
"They're dead." he stated in a small voice.
Semiramis looked down at him, the subtle signs of confusion playing out across her face.
"Yes. Are you not happy that your tormentors are gone, that they received their just punishment?"
Asharu reflexively wound his arms around himself, pulling his hand from his mother's grip. He was silent as her expression fell, from confused satisfaction to worry. Then, almost inaudible, even to a Servant's senses, he replied.
"I don't know."
*Upper-class enforcers in the Yakuza, trusted with the more delicate missions than general leg-breaking. Like kidnapping, for instance.
**An informal version of 'mother'. Basically 'mum'.
A/N: And there's another chapter.
I've been getting a number of questions from various people (notably Paxloria) about things like what class Semiramis is, what her Noble Phantasm does and so on. Short answer: look her up on the TYPE-MOON wiki. Long answer: she's Assassin, with the Double Summon skill which gives her many of the abilities of Caster. Her Noble Phantasm, which bears more resemblance to Laputa from the Studio Ghibli anime than anything else, amplified and strengthens her magecraft to the point that she can replicate aspects of the True Magics while within its bounds. She does have a wish for the Grail, but that is something you'll have to wait to find out. It won't be that long.
To the reviewer Space BB, who annoyed me by asking a whole bunch of questions on a guest review, so I couldn't answer them: First, thank you for the kind compliments (alliteration intended). This universe includes both the TYPE-MOON universe and the Harry Potter one. They kind of co-exist in a semi-peaceful, semi-ignorant state. For the rest, I'm afraid you're going to have to wait and see. The only hint I'm giving is that Harry's not going to attend Hogwarts properly. A visit, yes, attending, no.
And to those who misunderstand, Sa Imti can corrode all mortal magecraft and wizardry. Existences like Noble Phantasms, Heroic Spirits and the like are beyond its abilities to destroy. It simply lacks the Authority to do more than inhibit them. Quite apart from that, its effects take time to manifest, although it would be utterly devastating if used directly on a wizard or magus, as it would corrode away their Magic Circuits or Core. Extremely painfully, over the course of a few days.