Author's Note: Covid has infiltrated my household again. Read, Review, Favourite, Enjoy AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS WRITTEN STOP GETTING SICK PEOPLE!
Chapter 101: Battle With the Phoenixes Part 2
Byakuya looked on with concern at another crack in the core of their world formed, the very soul of their host and goddess Kuro, quickly another splash of soul healing water was thrown on top in order to try and fix the crack, luckily a piece hadn't broken off again, nailing the soul back together with swords did as much harm as good. Then an unexpected figure appeared, bringing with him two more unexpected figures.
'Byakuya can't talk to The Gate of Babylon right now. Byakuya is trying to keep the Heroes Soul from shattering.'
A single moment of lost concentration and another piece broke off.
'The Gate of Babylon has brought individuals better suited to this task than Byakuya.'
Kiritsugu Emiya, ironically enough is the biological father of one Illya Einzbern, which also makes him Kuro's biological father as well. They looked like each other too, having white hair and tanned brown skin, eyes were different though, darker and emotionally dead inside. In life he too wielded a Reality Marble, where as his son and daughter use it as a forge to make weapons with he used it to create a bubble of altered time around him that could be used to increase his movement speed to super human levels, or in this case speed it up until the rest of the universe was standing still.
'Phantasm Punishment will prevent the Inner Demon from causing any more harm.' The Noble Phantasm in question held his hands up and created a bubble of isolated time around Kuro's soul.
'Tsumukari will repair the damages then.' Senji Muramasa was one of the greatest blacksmith's in Japan's history, and also an ancestor of Kuro's adoptive brother Shirou which is why he bares a resemblance to him before he started tampering with his body with red hair and white skin. 'Tsumukari is thinking The Hero will make a nice Damascus.'
With Kiritsugu's time bubble Muramasa could work at lightning speed, firstly he applied fire, heating the entire soul until it became soft and pliable enough to have its shape deformed. From there Muramasa started to twist the mass of metals together until they had formed a solid massive rod, then he followed that up by taking that rod and using a hammer to beat it flat and fold it in on itself, expelling impurities from the blade, manifesting coal and oil to feed the fire and quench the blade respectively, the materials having a strong earth element in order to strength the metal root to it's limit. For the finishing touch, Muramasa coated the cutting edge of the blade with clay before using a torch to blue the spine of the weapon, softening it for shock absorption while keeping a hard cutting edge.
'Finished!' Muramasa exited the bubble of isolated time and Kiritsugu dropped the time field, revealing a soul that had been forged into a Odachi. At once the blade started to rampage, spinning around, moving at lightning fast speeds, slashing and countering hundreds of attacks against the soul that was being launched by the inner demon.
'The Hero is safe now.' Kiritsugu stated as he turned around and prepared to leave. 'Phantasm Punishment is going to go hunt down the Intetsu now.' Hunt down the monster that had nearly shattered his daughter's soul.
Rat was personally overseeing the process of hoisting the Phoenixes onto the Kaiser's under carriage. There were reincarnated nearby, and they had a vulnerable Directional Beast, at least one of them needed to focus on getting the phoenixes to safety.
"I might not be a front liner, but I'm not that easy to sneak up on." Rat stated to the white haired woman behind her. "You look like the Sowing Kit Hero. Wherever she's run off to."
"We're sisters." The new woman stated with a shrug of her shoulders. "Call me M'yne."
"Cute. Enemy or ally?" Rat asked folding her arms together.
"Hmm. Good question." The woman looked up to the air and held her chin in her hand as she thought about the question for a few moments. M'yne was fast, but Rat was faster. In the moment that M'yne moved to deliver an upper cut to Rat the chain that was sitting on Rat's thigh accurately pierced M'yne's chest and flung her away.
"Chain of Nemesis." Rat stated simply as she shrugged her shoulders. "This thing has a mind of its own, and is more than willing to lash out on my behalf." Rat honestly couldn't have asked for a better sacred gear if she tried.
"Good to know." Suddenly the Chainmail armour that M'yne was wearing turned into the Chains of Nemesis. At once the two weapons flung themselves at one another tangling up with each other until they couldn't move independent of one another anymore.
"Oh damnit!" Before Rat could change out her weapon M'yne yanked her and her weapon towards herself and slammed her fist into Rat's face with enough force that teeth shattered and her bones cracked.
Needless to say Rat was rendered unconscious after that. Don't get her wrong, Nemesis was a great weapon but for this occasion she wanted something a little more aggressive. Osiris was one of the oldest of the Egyptian gods, the god of magic itself, and his weapon of choice was a nine tailed flail. Striking with the weapon, plants emerged from all around the phoenixes digging into their bodies as they both let out a screech, and then BANG!
Katarina stared in horror as she saw the explosion in the distance go off and quickly put two and two together.
"You two were a distraction!" Katarina snapped as she got ready to attack with her spear. "You wanted us away from the phoenixes so that you could-!"
Directly counteracting Katarina's assertions Ikki appeared in front of her and slammed his foot directly into her stomach and sent her flying through the air like a football. At once Midori and Fohl were already on top of him, hitting him with their own weapons but sadly, not fast enough to actually hit him. Katarina summoned Galleon and the Dragon caught her and lowered her to safety as she looked at the damages. Two massive birds, their necks snapped by strangling vines, and the one responsible wiggled her fingers at her in greeting.
"Drop me!" Katarina acted at once, landing on one of the phoenix's bodies as she absorbed it into her spear. "Do you remember how Maple made her sacred gear?" Katarina asked her weapon.
'Yes.'
"Do it!" At once the spear went to work, the Phoenix's soul was combined into the Spear of Loyalty, the massive corpse broken down into dozens of individual weapons, reinforced and then sacrificed. While that process was going on Katarina was keeping her eyes locked on the woman responsible for killing the Phoenixes. "Looks like you just about have a complete set there." M'yne stated letting out a small whistle of impressed.
"Kuro has a lot of weapons." Katarina replied as she wasn't able to see any hostility on the woman before her.
"Oh don't get me wrong, I wasn't impressed with you. After all he has spent a very long time building up this little armoury of his." M'yne stated letting out a cheshire smile.
"Does that include me?" Katarina asked as she tightened her grip on her weapon.
"What do you think?" M'yne's eyes lit up with glee when she looked at the spear hero.
Katarina's weapon let out a notification that it had finished with the construction of her Sacred Gear. Suddenly Katarina could feel something click into place inside of her, like some long forgotten piece of a puzzle had just finished settling itself into place filling a gap that Katarina didn't know was there.
"Spear wall!" At Katarina's command three hundred spears appeared in the air behind her. "Change Spear: Spear of the Western Witch!" Sixty of the weapons in the air transformed into the newest, a long spear decorated with feathers and tipped with the talon of a great bird. "Change Spear: Sitera Stone Combat Shovel!" The second group of sixty made itself known, a large pink shovel made out of stone. "Change Spear: Gungnir!" The third group of sixty turned into metal spears that would hit their target with absolute certainty. "Change Spear: Ocean Master Spear!" The fourth group of Sixty took the form of an ominous double headed axe wrapped in the tentacles of a monster from the deep, formed from the welding of two lesser sacred gears. "Change Spear: Sera Lumina Spear!" The final group of sixty took the form of a spear carved from the branch of a great tree with pink petals. Suddenly a new notification appeared in Katarina's line of sight and she spoke the name like she was possessed. "Spear Formation: Falling Starry Night!"
"I might be in trouble." And yet M'yne made no effort to save or protect herself.
At once three hundred spears moved in concert with one another to form sixty stars in the sky, each of them repeating a pattern of a line of fire connecting to a line of earth, connecting to a line of metal, connecting to a line of water, connecting to a line of wood connecting back to a line of fire. At the same time a line of fire crossed with a line of metal, crossed with a line of wood, crossed with a line of earth, crossed with a line of water, which crossed back over a line of fire. Through this a pattern of strengthening and repulsion was formed inside of each star rapidly building up energy that was gathering into the centre of each of the sixty stars. Suddenly, as one, the sixty stars in the sky began to spit out spears of mixed elemental energy and detonating them with a bang.
"Reflect Chain: Nemesis Chain!" Suddenly the beaded whips on the end of the flail were replaced by nine chains of Nemesis which swung around knocking aside the spears of energy, each hit knocking aside three or four of the incoming spears.
But so what? M'yne had nine chains and Katarina had sixty stars firing this energy out, there was no need to say who was at a advantage here, not to mention the fact that Katarina was absorbing the spewed energy back into her body once it had detonated and recycled that energy back into the formation. She would win the battle but the war was long over, The phoenix's were dead and the tiger would be waking up in a few hours, the energy that the phoenixes had absorbed wasting away. At the very least though, she would stop this woman from interfering with them any longer. The howl of a wolf echoed out as a one giant acid spewing monster fought with another, the white wolf having whipped out a spear to clash with Midori who had already activated his balance breaker to fight back. At the same time Trash and his water spirit was clashing against the man in black, whom it was becoming rapidly apparent the longer the battle wore on the less human he really was, each blow having away more of his flesh to reveal the blades beneath. If it was just about killing Trash then he would've done that by now but instead the man in black was being tag teamed by Fohl as well.
"Why!" Yet another of Fohl's attempts to 'Boost' had been interrupted by getting tapped on his shoulder by the man in Black. "Won't!" A tap that had shaved off another hundred levels on the weapons Fohl was allowed to wield. "You!" How powerful was this guy that a single love tap was powerful enough to shave off levels in the triple digits? "GO DOWN!?" Fohl attempted to use absorb to counter the guy more than once already but every time he did he seemed to hurt the water elemental more than what he did the man in black, and Trash needed that while he focused on keeping Kuro safe.
"Temper temper!" The man in black waved his finger at Fohl as he flicked his finger and sent Fohl flying backwards. "I do admit my curiosity, you two have had those things for what like three months by now?" The man in black asked as he walked forward. "That has been enough time to unlock Balance Breaker a few times already. So why aren't you two using it?"
"Sorry to disappoint you." Trash stated a he prepared to drop a bomb on this lunatic. "But if you want information you must first give information. What did you do to the sword hero?"
"I let her see my device." The Man in black stated as he flicked his wrist and held out a black blade. "It's the manifestation of my soul's power, or to put it another way it is all of me, everything that I am. And I've been through a lot." Then it isn't much different from the hammer that Kuro made from Edison, or at least it shouldn't be. "Tit for Tac old man."
"We have been working on it. Most of those who've unlocked balance breaker have gone to confront the tiger. Of the ones here who have unlocked they are her..." Trash tapped Kuro with his staff. "... and the other one should be..." The clouds in the sky darkened. "Ah. That would be her now."
Rishia had a lot of time to prepare. Three hundred javelins, three hundred frisbees, and one million throwing blades were all fired into the sky, and each of them were now collectively raining down hundreds of bolts of lightning on the battlefield explicitly targeting the three enemy combatants that the group had been struggling with. "Wow that is impressive." The man in Black sounded sarcastic. The White wolf looked up to the air, growled, before suddenly the lightning started to gather into a ball above her head, and she reached up on her hind quarters and ate the ball. "Hey how'd it taste?" The man in black asked looking amused.
"Tingly." And then the demon dog went back to trying to eat Midori.
"Glutton." The man in black stated as he shrugged his shoulders.
"I believe it is my turn now." Trash stated as he smoothly redirected the subject away from their air born sacred gear user and the 'tingly' attack that was just neutered. "Who or what are you that just glancing at your history was enough to give Kuro a inner demon?"
"That's two questions old man." The man in black gave a bow and introduced himself at last. "Ikki Kurogane, also known as Intetsu the broken blade." The black bladed 'wings' flapped as if drawing attention. "And I am completely and entirely human."
"I sincerely doubt that." Trash stated making his doubts known. "Are you going to say the same thing about her?"
"It's not that I am not human, it's just that your definition of human is wrong. A Dog is a type of wolf, but a wolf is not a type of dog." 'Ikki' stated as he bowed to Trash. "And that's three questions, if you want me to answer anymore then you'll have to answer some of mine old man!"
"Very well." Trash had to concede to that point. "Ask your questions then creature."
"What kind of face do you think you'll make if you met the one who murdered your daughter?" Trash tightened the grip on his staff.
"Which one?" The man who is king of Melromarc asked as he got ready to unleash something very powerful.
"The eldest of course." Ikki replied as if this was an obvious question.
"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Under the right circumstances I might even be grateful that I don't have to do it myself." Trash couldn't say anything more to that. What was wrong with this situation that he just learned his first born had been killed and his only response is relief.
"Then I'll give some free advice: Wash your pots when you get home." Ikki stated as he let out a smile. "Next question. What about your niece?"
Suddenly Ikki blurred and disappeared, making a rhino-esque charge with his blade as he prepared to run Atla through. A loud clang sound echoed out as a wall of blades suddenly appeared around Kuro and Atla and blocked Ikki's strike.
"I owe you a great deal!" Kuro growled through clinched teeth, her eyes had turned yellow and dragon like. With blood poring out of her eyes constantly her body was working over time to heal them, rather than make blades grow out of her face her sacred gear instead created 'Dragon Emperor Eye' swords and used that to replace the damaged parts of Kuro's eyes. "Because of you, my swordsman ship has greatly improved, my Sacred Gear has unlocked all of my swords, and my soul has dramatically, stupidly improved in quality!" Those same draconic eyes showed not one hint of gratitude in them, just sheer bloody murder. "Let me show you just how grateful I really am!" Kuro held up her weapon, the Forger of the East, and unleashed her power. "Balance BREAK!"
All around them the space distorted as hundreds of blades stabbed through in clusters, as if something made out of swords was trying to stab it's way into existence. Before Kuro could only manifest up to seven of the Heroic Spirits from inside of her world at a time, now though? Well like she said her Sacred Gear has improved by leaps and bounds, now ten, a hundred, maybe even a thousand such individuals were not beyond her abilities. A pair of blonde haired women one in blue armour and the other in red, a black giant of a man wielding a stone sword, a black haired woman with the lower body of a dragon. It was as if everyone who had ever wielded a sword or could ever wield a sword had been gathered here and all of them were facing one direction. A white haired brown skinned man dressed as an assassin threw a broken, black creature made out of blades at the feet of the man who had shoved it into her.
"RIP! HIM! APAAARRRTTT!" Kuro screamed, howled like a monster gone mad as she unleashed a tide of her own power and at one her army unleashed their rage with her.
We aren't swordsmen? We are all amateurs? There are some things that once said cannot be forgiven. This man had trampled over their pride, all of them, and he would not be allowed to leave here until he's answered for what he's done.
"Somehow I think I've overstayed my welcome." Ikki had a giant fist slammed into his face sending him flying backwards.
Like that a swarm of blade wielders made out of blades came down on him, the red and blue combo worked in flawless synchronicity as if they had been fighting together for thousands of years in a dance of blades with the man in black. Giants wielding blades came up to him and slammed their weapons down on his head repeatedly. From afar two men, one dressed in gold and the other in black and red, opened gates to another dimension and unleashed a storm of blades from within firing them like projectiles from a cannon. He was the greatest swordsman who has ever lived, even against these numbers his only response was to smile like he had been given the greatest gift possible.
"Sounds like they're just finishing up over there now." Midori stated as he readied his own weapon to release his wrath down on the foe before him. "Balance Break!" Midori unleashed his power, and all around them space was warped, stretched, twisted, bent, poisons of different kinds were coming out from every pore of his body as he glared down at the woman before him.
"I have more poison in my pinky toe then you have in your-"
"Detonate!" Midori commanded the poison that the enemy had been breathing in to explode, not only damaging her in the process but also warping and distorting space inside of her body. "Wow you are durable. But Like you said already, you've got a lot of poison!"
The fights lasted for hours, the man in black slayed thousands of heroic spirits before he went down, Midori had detonated gallons worth of the poison blood inside of the white wolf's veins before she went down. The bodies of both of the enemies were dragged in front of the group side by side.
"Feel better now that you've vented?" Atla asked Kuro who was rubbing her face. "My eyes hurt, but yes." Katarina came by a few moments later, notably without her opponent, probably explaining why she looked so depressed, she was however dragging along Rat who had fallen unconscious.
"Kuro, everyone, I picked up materials from the Phoenix already, hold out your weapons." The group performed the usual exchange of materials. "I tried to stop her but..."
"We know Katarina." Trash stated in an understanding tone of voice. "We know." Once Kuro was finished with Katarina she walked over to the body of the man in black and grabbed him by his scruff.
"Why did you do it!?" Kuro snapped as she glared at the man in black, the one who wasn't displaying reincarnated like regeneration. Ikki in turn stuck up a single finger to the sky.
"She's up there right now." Kuro didn't look at the sky where the heavens had been shaking. "She means to take this world and squeeze it like an orange. If you lot succeed in awakening the Directional Beasts and putting up a barrier she'll retreat for another thousand years and send another wave of minions here. We can't wait any longer."
"WHO IS WE!?" Kuro snapped while she shook Ikki. "WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR!?"
"You lack commitment!" Ikki stated making his disapproval known.
Suddenly a splat echoed out everyone looked in direction, Kyurie had been standing behind Atla, when the white wolf released a projectile of some kind that had punched through both of them. Kuro immediately dropped Ikki and ran over to them, already Kuro was trying to whip out her healing and resurrection type Noble Phantasms trying to heal them but it wasn't working. She instead tried divine magic but to the same effect, time, metamorphosis, spirit nothing was working.
"Curses are a powerful thing!" Ikki stated in no uncertain terms. "But you already know how to bring someone back from the dead now don't you?"
"RRREEEAAAGGG!" Letting out an animalistic screech Kuro swung her sword and took both of the enemies heads off.
"Kyurie! Kyurie!" Katarina was shaking her friend but Kuro tuned it all out, Katarina's tears, everyone's panic, her own weapon notifying her about the curse series that was blossoming in her heart. Atla already had the Assassin Artoria card, for Kyurie... Dracula Caster will do. Next Kuro absorbed both of their bodies into her weapon.
"No time to talk. Saving our friends!" Kuro dismantled the bodies into individual swords.
Already Kuro was tracing new forms into existence using Atla's and Kyuries souls as the cores, shaping them with the class cards stored inside of her and filling in the details using blades made in their likeness. They had new forms but it wouldn't last for long. Kuro traced a new sword into existence as she cast the magic. Creation to bind the magic to worlds, gravity to link them together, time and space to build the corridor, metamorphosis to protect the body while spirit protects the soul and Evolution to pull it all together.
'Weapon Copy Activated: Blade of the Rainbow Bridge unlocked. Equip Bonus: World Walk'
"I, The Demon of the Sword, have read and understood the origins of power!" To say that Kuro chanted the spell would be the deepest inaccuracy. "Rip down and remake the principles of Heaven and clear a path for my ascent!" She snarled like a vicious broken thing that would tear down all obstacles in her path between her and her objective. "Sacrifice Path of the World!"
Around Kuro a massive amount of power shot into the sky like a mighty great sword cleaving through the brush. In the void between worlds the creature formerly known as Fitoria suddenly moved aside as a powerful beam like a rainbow bridge was shot through the void, slamming into Medea and bisecting her at the torso before then being followed up by being hit by a massive amount of force like a speeding truck. Like that the world that goddess was planning on invading struck her before she could even step foot on it. On the ground level, nothing was left of the entire area not the monsters that they had fought against, nor the six heroes who had done the fighting, not even the phoenix who was supposed to be the star of the show.
Author's Note:
RonaldM40196867: True. True. Tiger. The Army will be bigger but it won't be theirs.
Captain Imaginat: I have no plans for Wyndia. I imagined her as a brunette but the Light Novels say she's blonde, you can go with whatever works for you.
Dakota Bruder: Spoiler for the Light Novels. Fitoria was born from a fragment of one of the soul of one of the previous shield heroes, as was her sisters, there are more than one Ziz flying around as a result. I said it would be more effort than it's worth, getting the benefit of the two requires switching between one power set to another and it is not a good experience for either Deperado or weapon. I have a few.
coolkid0806: The Man in Black is Ikki, his entire thing is spotting the flaws in other people's swordsmanship and correcting them, couple that with being a desperado and this happens. How do you think the gods got where they are?
Nightshadegirl: Gold star for you.