Fate Grand Order is the creation and intellectual property of Nasu Kinoko and Type-Moon.
Still Better than Black Keys: The Series.
Chapter Four: I Left my Heart in (Old) Orleans.
"Now, then, Gilles," Dark Jeanne said, elegantly. "Please bring him here."
The tall but hunchbacked man with greasy skin and bulging fish eyes twirled his hands together and bowed at her. "As you wish."
"I trust you have not harmed him, Gilles?" the woman asked lazily as he moved out of the room.
"No, of course not!" he said, quickly. "Have you considered what you wish done with him?"
She said nothing.
Gilles de Rais stopped by the door. "Oh, my. Do you require suggestions from me?"
Jeanne rolled her eyes. "Oh, you have noticed my distress in your infinite concern for me? Don't be absurd. If you continue this foolishness, I'll kill you, Gilles. When you are eating a meal, do you think about how you use your fork?"
"W-Well, actually..."
"This is the same," she interrupted him sharply. "What I do with him is a matter so trivial, it does not merit any thought."
He nodded and left the room. Shortly after, he returned with a mature man in priestly robes, throwing him at the feet of the woman.
"Wh-What's going on?" asked the priest, crawling across the floor and feeling his way in the dark. "Where am I, and who are you people? Answer me! Are you deaf? You there... Eep!"
He'd just touched the feet of the woman, and looked upside.
She smiled down at him. "Oh, Pierre! Bishop Pierre Cauchon! How I have missed you! A day has not gone by when your face has not crossed the mind of Jeanne d'Arc!"
Quickly, he backed away from her. "It can't be! It can't be, it can't be, it can't be, it can't be! Y-Y-Y-You're–Jeanne d'Arc?! Impossible! This can't be possible! I thought you'd died! I thought I killed you! I thought–!"
" What do you want to tell me? 'That you should be in Hell'? Perhaps I am, Your Grace."
"This is a dream. A nightmare. What else could it be but a nightmare!" the priest said.
Gilles de Rais brought a long finger with a sharp fingernail to his own mouth. "Oh dear, he's started to flee from reality. This won't do at all. We must snap him out of this!"
And he slammed a staff on the other man's back.
"Aiiee! E-E-Eeeee!" Cauchon yelled.
"What will you do, Your Grace?" Jeanne Alter hummed. "Jeanne d'Arc, whom you accused of heresy, stands here before you. Should you not grip your crucifix and offer up a prayer to God? Should you not mock me? Scorn me? Abuse me? Trample me? And tell everyone the wicked Jeanne d'Arc is here!
Should you not roar like the brave lion you are?! Go on, do it! Do it! Do it!"
"Spa–" Cauchon gasped.
"Spa?" she repeated. "S-Spare me. Please spare me," he asked. "I'll do anything. Spare me, I beg of you!"
Jeanne pulled her head back and laughed. "Ha ha ha ha ha! Did you hear that, Gilles? 'Spare me, spare me', he says! This bishop who tied me up, mocked me, and burned me alive! As if that were nothing! The bishop who told me with kind eyes, that I was going to be killed, is now begging for his life! Oh...! The sadness is making me want to cry. After all, that won't save anything."
Cauchon sighed. "I see..."
"Your paper-thin faith won't reach the Heavenly Father!" Jeanne gestured at him. "Belief that is light as a feather won't blossom anywhere!"
"You have a point, I suppose," Cauchon said.
"Please beg more, you will annoy her," De Rais growled to him in a low voice.
But the witch was far too busy ranting to notice. "Someone who has forsaken God, and clings to his life by begging a witch, is unfit to be called a believer! Do you understand, Your Grace? You just gave testimony that you are now one of the heretics!"
"Hmmmm," Cauchon said sadly. Gilles kicked him in the back. "Ah!"
"That is why I'm so sad," Jeanne put a hand to her chest and fluttered her eyes. "I think I might laugh until madness consumes me. Now, think back, Your Grace. You know what sentence awaits heretics, don't you?"
"Well, for starters, we stage a court, and then-"
"Screw your court!" Jeanne punted him in the face. "Execution! You'll be executed!"
"Y-You mean..."
"Indeed! You will be burned at the stake! Shall we start at your feet? If I was burned alive by holy flames... then your body will be consumed by the fires of Hell!" she growled, slamming her standard down on him.
"Nooo! Jeanne d'Arc, listen!" the bishop said as his feet were stabbed, catching on fire. "I will return! I will be summoned as an Avenger and haunt you...!"
"Don't be an idiot, who would ever roll for you!?" Jeanne roared. "Even if you had any merits to be a Heroic Spirit, people would rather roll for Bloodaxe! You aren't even an One Star!"
Pierre Cauchon exploded in a gigantic ball of flames.
"Aaaaaiiiiieeeee...!"
Seconds after, she huffed at the blackened spot where Cauchon had just been.
"Not even the ashes remain, I see. I apologize for taking up your time, Gilles," she told the man in black robes.
The man clapped gleefully. "What do you mean? That was a meaningful punishment, LA PUCELLE...! Now, what should we do with the other clergy?"
She snorted. "Good question. There's no point in questioning them all. Just feed the clergy to the Berserkers."
"About that, La Pucelle... Berserk Rider was defeated and killed by your impostor and her harem of travellers! I'm sorry," he said, cowering immediately.
Against his expectations, she didn't react with any fury, or even annoyance. She only sat back and shrugged. "Good for her. She was spared more pain from serving me. Good riddance to bad rubbish! How close are they?"
"They had left Lyon when I last had news of them, glorious Maid of Orleans..."
Jeanne Alter grinned. "They have made it so far? Interesting."
She stood up and tightened a fist. "Very well. I'll go face them myself!"
Ritsuka and company kept on moving northward, heading to Orleans.
They fought-
"WYVERNS, WYVERNS, WYVERNS!" Ritsuka yelled.
You get the idea.
"Wyverns..." Ritsuka hiccuped and twitched, face down, on the table of a tavern by the roadside.
"Oui oui, there's been lots of those lizards around!" the bartender said, polishing a jar of beer while Mash and Artoria shared a singing duet for the patrons. Jeanne sulked, sitting across Ritsuka at the same table, with Fou sitting on her head. The Joker was drinking himself into a stupor while mumbling about Batman avoiding him for some reason. "All because of that miserable dragon witch! She's worse than the British pig-dogs, I tell you!"
Jeanne sobbed. "Martha...!"
The Joker slammed his emptied jar down on the table. "WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME!?" He began hiccuping, biting on his lower lip. "The way he delivered such dramatic shitty lines, in his overwrought raspy voice...!"
"How can I ever pray to the Lord again, after killing one of His most devoted followers!?" Jeanne wailed.
The bartender raised an eyebrow. "Did you kill a monk or something, mademoiselle? Don't think about it! In this crooked den of hoodlums and ruffians, most of us have killed some clergy at one point or another! Right, garcons?"
"AYE!" the patrons laughed, raising their warm beers.
Jeanne bawled. "This is what my country was reduced to...!"
Ritsuka sweatdropped. "Look at the bright side... Unlike mine, yours will never have two atomic bombs dropped on it..."
Another man entered the bar. He was tall and muscular, wearing a long brown coat over what seemed like a suit of purple and tan tights. Quite unusual clothes for that time period, so Ritsuka and Assassin tensed up, looking at him. He had a thin, curly black mustache, which he twirled around as he announced himself.
"Alors!" the man shouted. "Bon soir, freres! Drinks are on me tonight... again!"
"Ah, bon soir, m'sieu Batroc!" the bartender said happily. "Come here, I'll pour you a special of the day!"
"Ah ha ha!" the man laughed. "Thank you, Jean Paul! But I can't stay long tonight! I've been recalled, you'll see!"
Saber had long stopped singing and now was leaning onto one of the patrons, whispering on his ear. "Who is that person, and what is he doing here?"
The man chuckled. "Who, Georges? He's one of us! He's with the people!"
"Mais oui!" the man named Georges laughed merrily. He lifted the jar of warm beer just handed to him by the bartender, and there were cheers. "Old Georges always sides up with ze little man! Even if all men here are big sons of ze baddest mothers around!"
Loud laughs abounded.
"You are a Servant," Saber said tersely. "The class, I cannot say for sure, but..."
Jeanne stood. "Assassin," she said. "I can't sense Assassins, but I can sense all other classes. For default it's him."
Georges drank his beer and put the jar on the bar. "Congratulations, petites! You are as clever as you are beautiful, non? Berserk Assassin, at your service!"
"Just like Berserker Rider!" Mash said. The Joker looked at his own fingernails, uninterested.
"But there was a Berserk Assassin already!" Ritsuka said.
"Je suis le Berserk Assassin Deux!"
"But you have let all of these people live, and thrive," Joker scoffed, flicking the rim of his jar with a pointer. "Don't you have any shame? What kind of Assassin are you?"
"Ah, mon ami, but as a Servant of assassinations yourself, you know that we aren't supposed to kill everyone around, right? Only ze Masters! Dat's our line of job!"
"And yet," Joker turned around to frown at him, "as a Berserkered guy, you'd be above that and just murder everyone you meet. That's what all other Berserkered morons have been doing. What's your game?"
Berserk Assassin II smirked. "Madness, m'sieu, and I suspect you know that tres bien, is a very variable thing. I'd have to be insane to challenge orders from ze dragon witch and protect ze villagers here, non? And yet I've been keeping them safe from ze-"
"WYVERNS!" Ritsuka shook.
Assassin nodded. Ruler, Shielder and Saber were approaching him slowly, weapons prepared. The patrons rose from their chairs, drawing blades out to defend him. "A remarkable femme, ze dragon witch," he mused. "She sends her regards..." He smiled at Ruler, "Jeanne d'Arc."
The patrons roared and jumped on Jeanne and Saber's backs. The bartender pulled a wooden club out from under the bar and flung it at Shielder, who blocked it with her shield. A second later, the bartender was flying out through a window.
But in the meantime, with a flip of a wrist, Berserk Assassin II pulled a dagger out and threw it into Ritsuka's chest, before she realized what was going on.
Saber, making battered barflies fly in all directions and off her, roared and jumped on Berserk Assassin II, slamming him down on the floor. Jeanne, yelling Ritsuka's name, cut a swath through badly beaten men still rushing her, and ran to the girl's side. Ritsuka had dropped to her butt, gulping for air and clutching a wide bloody gap on her upper torso. The Joker yawned.
Berserk Assassin II kicked Saber upwards, with both feet, and jumped back from her, laughing and pirouetting. "Georges Batroc, Batroc Ze Leaper, dey call moi!" the man boasted. He jumped around while Mash took the last few furious customers down, with suitable brutality. "Remember ze name, ze name of your Master's killer, mon chere! Not for nothing dey call me ze- Woooofff!"
The power gap between them was just too great. Saber had seized him again, pinning him down once more, so powerfully that she shattered his ribcage.
Saber hissed at Berserk Assassin II, bashing him down. "Why!?"
"Ah, mademoiselle..." He smiled almost sadly. "I'm still an Assassin, see? I have ze professional pride of my trade. Insane or not, I'm still supposed to kill ze Masters. It's what Assassins do, ce n'est pas?"
With a paroxysm of anger, Saber brought the invisible blade down, between his eyes. She stood back, turned away from the fading body, and faced her companions. "How is she?"
"Senpai. hold on!" Mash knelt by Fujimaru's side, holding her hand. "P-P-Please, don't die on us! Don't!"
Ritsuka trembled. "C-Cuh-Can't... talk..."
Jeanne was on her knees too, praying, her eyes closed.
"How annoying!" Joker got up and walked over several unconscious bodies. "Move aside, brat," he told Galahad. He crouched down and revised the wound. "The injury itself isn't too big, we only need to patch it up. But the dagger was poisoned, I think. Look at the lovable greenish shade the flesh is gaining, so fast, too!" He gave a short subdued laugh. "But it should be fine as long as I do this..." he added, pulling a syringe full of a clear liquid out.
Mash grabbed his hand. "No!"
He scowled at her. "If she dies before she summons Batman, I'd get nothing from this whole affair but a lot of wasted time with wyverns, wouldn't I?"
Mash blinked behind the bangs. "But..."
"Learn how to trust, brat," Joker said bitterly, rolling Ritsuka's sleeve up and injecting her arm.
Against all fears of Mash, Jeanne and Artoria, the injection didn't kill Ritsuka. They patched her up, let her rest in a nearby cave where they attended to her, and she was more or less fit to travel again in a few days. The girl was remarkably strong, all things considered, surprising even Fujimaru herself.
The Joker did nothing to help during that time. He only sat by a river the whole time, reading books raided from the neighboring villages, never smiling or laughing. Mash was coming to realize he was so much scarier that way. He seemed to be in deep thoughts constantly. That was scary too.
Eventually, they retook their path to Orleans, Ritsuka supported by Mash and Jeanne, each on a side.
At some point, they passed by a tall mountain surrounded by a thick forest of tall black thorns and twisted black vines. There was a large stone fortress at the top of the mountain.
"That looks like it could be the hideout of another Berserk Servant..." Mash cautioned.
Artoria kept on pointing ahead, ever marching. "Remember! We don't have any time to waste on side quests!"
And so Berserk Caster missed her chance at the spotlight. For now.
The pale woman in black armor blocking their way sneered. "Why are you still alive!? Ugh! Berserk Caster was supposed to take care of you!"
"Who?" the Joker asked.
"You know, Berserk Caster!" Jeanne Alter said irritably. "Tall thin woman, all in black, with very long horns, her face looks like yours?"
"We never ran into her," Saber told her.
Jeanne Alter clawed at her own face. "You can't trust Fae!"
"Now there, we can agree," the King of Camelot sagely nodded.
"To think that, out of all of my Berserkers, only Berserk Assassin II came anywhere close to finishing you off! The runt of my litter! Disgusting, so disgusting!" Jeanne Alter said.
"Well, introduce yourself already," the Assassin told her. "Being evil is not an excuse to be rude!"
"Don't you have eyes, jester?" she questioned. "I am Jeanne d'Arc. The saint devoted to France, Servant Avenger!"
"That's me, however," Jeanne said softly. "Maybe we have a misunderstanding of sorts going on?"
"Weren't you a Ruler at this point of the game?" Ritsuka asked Jeanne Alter.
"Adaptation distillation!" Avenger said.
"Why are you attack the country? What did they ever do to you?" Ruler asked her.
"Did they ever try to save me from the English pig-dogs?" Avenger asked back. "Only Gilles ever tried, and they impeded him! They must be made to pay for their sins!"
"Such foolishness!" Ruler huffed.
"You're the fool!" Avenger shot back.
"No, you!"
"No, you!"
"No, you!
"No, you!"
The others rolled their eyes and glared quietly at each other while the exchange went on and on.
"No, you!" Avenger whacked her standard down, over and over. "You, you, you, you, you to the umpteent no backsies! Why do you want to save this country? Why did you ever want to bring salvation to these people? They are the ones who spit on and betrayed us, I mean, me!"
"They can't help being that way, they are French. Please be understanding," Saber said in a placating manner.
"You aren't helping!" Jeanne Ruler told her.
"I will be fooled no longer. I will be betrayed no longer. I no longer hear the voice of the Lord!" Avenger ranted, walking in circles. "The fact that I cannot hear His voice, means the Lord no longer blesses this country! So, I will destroy it, in accordance to the Lord's grief. I will cut away all the bad seeds at the roots!"
"I must say I'm disappointed," Assassin said. "I was hoping you'd be an interesting person to meet, that's why I came all the way here. But you don't accept you're just plain evil and try to hide behind 'muh wrognment' excuses so we feel bad for you. It's like talking to Poison Ivy!"
"I DON'T NEED OR WANT YOUR PITY!" Jeanne Alter said. "The only thing I need is my hatred! As long as the human race exists, so will my hatred. I will remake this France into a land of the dead!"
"No wonder Lancer and Bondage were edgelords. The whole organization is like that," a disappointed Assassin said.
"Yah," Fujimaru agreed.
"That's how I will save this country. By the hands of the new Jeanne d'Arc, reborn through death!" Avenger declared.
"Oh great, now she's Ra's al Ghul too," Joker deadpanned.
"Who?" Artoria asked.
"I suppose you could never understand. Always playing the saint," Avenger told her counterpart. "Impossible for a pretty little holy virgin who pretends not to see hatred and joy and is incapable of human growth!"
"Sister, if someone's incapable of growth here that's you!" Ritsuka told her. "You just admitted that you can't grow past your hatred, ever!"
"No, I'm pretty sure I'm incapable of growth as well," the Joker replied to her.
"There appears to be a noisy fly here. Should I kill it if it's gets too annoying?" Jeanne Alter murmured. Ritsuka yelped, pulling back as the patch of grass before her caught on fire.
"Wait, what!?" Roman said through the communicator. "That Servant can burn her enemies with just a glare!?"
"That's enough!" Avenger said. "Just in case, I won't rely on bumbling attendants anymore. I won't even bother with Berserk Rider II! I will make sure to remove your heads from your bodies, too!"
"Please stand back, everyone!" Ruler stepped ahead of the party. "This is between the two of us!"
Joker turned around and waved his hand. "'kay, bye!"
"You, seriously..." Galahad said coldly.
The Jeannes faced each other. The evil one grinned perversely. "That's fine with me! I will decapitate you with my own hands, impostor!"
"No, you're the impostor!"
"No, you"
"No, you!"
"No, you!"
"No, you!"
"Will you actually start battling already!?" Saber asked them.
Then, a bright voice from above. "This isn't elegant!"
"Huh?" the Jeannes said.
A crystal rose was tossed from above, falling between them and shattering.
"It's that guy from the Sailor Moon anime!" Ritsuka gasped.
The others looked up, seeing a short and beautiful thin woman standing on a small hill. She had long silver hair, a fair condition, and a quite nice big hat. She wore a simple but fashionable red dress and tall boots.
"Neither is what you have done to this country!" the new arrival told Avenger. "Neither is that combat style! I don't like your philosophy or principles either! You're so beautiful, yet you shroud yourself in blood and hatred. For good or for evil, shouldn't a human try to be more free?"
"A Servant?" Avenger blinked. She turned to Jeanne. "Hey, you! You're a Ruler, aren't you! Tell me what class is she!"
"Rider..." Ruler said, dazedly.
"Yes, that's right!" the girl giggled. "I'm so happy to be recognized! So this is what it feels like, when one announces oneself as a hero of justice!"
Joker groaned. "Just great! It's one of those..."
Saber sniffed. "Shirou...!"
"I know who you are, dragon witch!" this girl pouted cutely, pointing at Avenger. "I also know how powerful and terrifying you are. To be honest, I have to confess that I've never trembled in fear more before anyone else. Yet still... If you intend to invade this nation, then I shall face you even if I have to tear apart my dress!"
"This got weirdly sexual of a sudden," Ritsuka said, eyes turning into dots.
A short, finely clothed beauty in white, brandishing a rapier and a wide brimmed blue hat appeared right next to Avenger. This person looked up. "You! You are..."
Rider smiled. "Oh my! So you know my True Name! Have we met before, splendid female knight?"
Berserk Saber choked in saliva. Jeanne Alter frowned. "Saber. Who is she?"
"..." Berserker Saber said.
"Answer me!" Avenger said.
Berserk Saber's head was bowed. "I can tell who she is, even with this murderous rage burning in my heart. Her beauty is unmistakable. The girl they called the Flower of Versailles. She is... my Queen Marie Antoinette!"
"Oh, good, we'll be saved by someone whose claim to fame was to let herself be killed!" Assassin said.
"That's right! Thank you for saying my name!" the Rider said. "And as long as that name exists, I will play my role, no matter how foolish it may be. You! Dragon Witch who's torching my country. It might be pointless, but I will ask you anyway. Are you evil enough to perform your wicked deeds in my very presence? Will you declare yourself a greater fool than I, the queen who failed to stop the revolution?"
Avenger blinked. "What? Are you taking pride in that, for serious? You led a life of luxury in a palace, and died without even knowing what happened! Are you saying you can understand our hatred?"
"Um, actually, Marie Antoinette did die knowing what was happening to her. How couldn't she?" the Joker asked. "She was jailed for months, separated from her family, and starved to sickness! You don't read many books on history, do you?"
"Those events haven't happened yet, how could there be books on them at this point?" Berserker Saber asked in return.
Avenger blinked. "Um!"
"Oh, that's right!" the Joker slammed a fist on his hand. "You couldn't read them, because you are illiterate!"
Avenger shivered. "Don't say that...!"
Ritsuka blinked at Ruler. "You can't read?"
"Why do you think I asked you to read the menus in restaurants?" Ruler asked in turn.
"I thought you needed glasses!" Fujimaru said.
Avenger blushed and stomped her foot. "Shaddap, shaddap, shaddap! Making fun of someone's illiteracy is low! Even for me!"
"One would think that Gilles de Rais would have taught you. Are you certain he cares about you that much?" Artoria asked calmly.
"Shaddap!"
Marie sighed. "Oh, Jeanne d'Arc, beloved saint! All I know is that you're taking your rage out on the innocent. And I don't have the slightest idea why. Everything's disappearing into a haze, like a girl going for a Sunday walk. I've no words for you. What I do know is this. Along with the Jeanne d'Arc over there, I am going to make your heart and body mine!"
"What?" Mash said.
"Uh... huh?" Ruler blurted out.
"Why am I in a story about lesbians?" Joker asked. "I'm changing my agent!"
Marie's cheeks gained an adorable blush. "Oh, my. Oh dear, oh dear! Um, don't misunderstand me. I just meant that as a Queen, I'm going to bring you to your knees!"
Ritsuka's nose turned into a fountain of blood.
"For real, Harley and Ivy would fit in here much better!" the Joker growled.
Battle ensued. Avenger summoned Berserk Assassin (I) and Berserk Lancer. It wasn't very effective.
Avenger summoned wyverns because of course she would.
With help from Caster Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Marie Antoinette, Ritsuka, Mash, Artoria, Fou and the Joker escaped.
Berserk Saber looked after them. "My queen..."
Berserk Assassin (I) approached Saber, dusting herself off. "Well, that was a shameful disaster! Thanks to you, in no small part!"
"What are you implying? That I didn't fight to my best?" Saber asked. "I will obey my Master. If she wishes to end the world, I will help her. And I, too, am under Madness Enhancement. Do not anger me!"
Berserk Lancer smiled. "Never mind the capricious outbursts of Assassin, Saber. However, your reputation would give anyone pause. Chevalier d'Eon. The noble dragoon. And a notorious double agent."
"It must be hard for him, not feeling pity," Assassin mocked. "The Queen he respected, who sent her a dress, is now her enemy!"
"Proper pronouns!" Saber said.
"Regardless of your being a woman or a man, man up!" Assassin said. "That is the fate of a Servant. That is the nature of the Holy Grail War." She turned around and walked the opposite way. "Lancer, let's go. We must search the next city. We are vampires, who must drink the blood of the living. Finding our next meal is a matter of life or death."
Lancer sighed. "None of these meals are satisfactory. But I'll take what I can get. Farewell, Saber."
D'Eon watched them walk away, then angrily kicked a rock downhill.
They sat around a campfire in the woods now. The Joker slept under a tree, or perhaps he only pretended to be sleeping, as his sleep talking appeared to be somewhat scripted.
"N-No... Harley... I don't want to be the bad guy in your lesbian power fantasy..."
"Very well," Mash rasped. "Miss Jeanne? And... Marie?" she began.
The queen perked up. "Marie, did you say?"
"What an unforgivable lack of respect! You should carry yourself properly in front of a queen!" Mozart said, picking his nose.
"Look at what you are doing..." Artoria said.
"Madame, I am a genius! Forgiveness can be given to my eccentricities!"
Mash blushed. "F-Forgive me! Uhhhh... What I was about to ask was-"
Marie giggled. "Don't pay attention to Wolfgang! You weren't being rude! You made me so happy! The way you addressed me was so adorable! Please, splendid foreigner! Would you mind calling me that from now on?"
Mash sweatdropped. Galahad had retreated, since she'd never known how to talk to other women, her King excluded. "Uh, yes... Marie, or Mademoiselle Marie, perhaps?"
"Nope, that won't work at all. Just Marie! Like the sheep!" the queen said.
"I'm pretty sure the sheep was called 'Mary'..." Ritsuka said.
"No, Mary was the shepherd. Her sheep had no name," Artoria corrected herself, helping herself another large piece of roasted wyvern.
"Anyway, Marie," Mash said. "Who summoned you? Doctor Roman says he had no hand in it."
Marie hummed. "Unfortunately, I have no idea. After all, I have no Master. I don't remember seeing anyone before me as I woke up." She giggled again. "In all honesty, I don't even know why I was summoned at all, since, like your court jester said, I don't have the track record of a battling heroine!"
"I'm the same as her," said the ambiguously beautiful man sitting next to her. "It just doesn't feel like I'm a hero. Yes, I'm great, but even so, I'm still just one of many artists..."
Ritsuka frowned towards the Joker. "Being a hero isn't necessary to be summoned, trust me."
"He did save your life, give him some credit, please," Ruler asked her.
Mozart laughed. "Well, I did apply magecraft in my music, but that was only because I was drawn to the sounds played by demons!"
"That got dark awfully fast!" Ritsuka said.
A vein popped on Jeanne's forehead.
"What about the young person who recognized you?" Artoria asked Marie, putting more wyvern on her own plate. "Do you know about them in return?"
"Perhaps she's Chevalier d'Eon? I've no proof, though."
"Who's that?" Ritsuka asked.
"Chevalier d'Eon..." Roman reminisced. "A spy with Louis XV's intelligence agency, the Secret du Roi. She was also a Dragoon, and a plenipotentiary minister..." He paused. "W-Well, I'm calling her a she, but maybe she was a he? There are records of them being unveiled on their deathbed as a man, but they might be faked!"
"That matters little, mage from a distant world," Marie dismissed him. "She was summoned from a different time than me, but her splendid face hasn't changed."
Ritsuka frowned. "How could she recognize you if she was from before your time?"
"Master, please don't pick on what you perceive as plot holes," Shielder said. "There must be a valid lore reason for that."
"Kyuuu!" Fou said.
Roman laughed rigidly. "I, I see...! It would be wonderful if she would join us!"
"That might be difficult, I think" Jeanne said. "I've lost my Ruler ability to see True Names, but there is one thing I could see. I first felt it with Saint Martha, and today's events confirmed it. All of those Servants have been given 'Madness Enhancement', regardless of their alignment or background."
"Kyuu..." Fou said.
"All the same, Your Majesty," Mozart said. "Don't you think you shouldn't have confirmed your identity to them?"
"What's the difference, that now they know her weakness is having her head chopped off?" Joker asked from under the tree.
"Go back to pretending you were sleeping!" Ritsuka said.
Avenger sighed. "So now you get the gist of it," she told the person she had just summoned. "Let's go, Berserk Assassin III, or rather Berserk Assassin Trois, now to be confused with... This is getting complicated. May I use your True Name? Okay. Executioner of the Royalty, Charles-Henri Sanson. Mount your wyvern! I shall lead you."
The sharply dressed young man bowed. He had short white hair and wore a long black coat over his working clothes.
"Of course, Master," he said. "Only I am fit to take the head of the Queen."
"Was this really necessary?" Berserk Saber grumbled. "Hers is a beautiful head, yes, but it's just the same as any other head otherwise. It doesn't need someone in special to cut it!"
"Well, it was turning clear that you aren't going to do it!" Jeanne Alter replied."
"Besides, he wasn't even the one who beheaded Marie Antoinette!" d'Eon said. "That was his son!"
"Oh, don't be such a nitpicker!" Avenger said.
"And why are you telling him to ride a wyvern, he is an Assassin, he doesn't have the Riding skill, I doubt he has Dragon Riding eith-"
"Okay, just for questioning me, you don't get your own wyvern! You'll walk all the way there, smart guy!"
Thiers. This city was even more destroyed than the previous ones.
"It seems there are two Servants in Theres," Roman warned as the party entered the smoking ruins. "Get it? Theres? Because the city is called Thiers..."
"Doctor," Marie said. "I know I'm always chiding Amadeus over his dirty humor, but yours is even worse even though it is family safe. Please don't do that again."
"Yes, you could say that he is a-" Amadeus began, with an amused smile.
"You don't do it either!" Marie said.
A large section of the city ahead of them exploded, going up in flames.
"Wyvern!" Ritsuka cried.
"I'm sure we'd have heard them by now if there were one here..." Artoria said.
"Wyverns, wyverns, wyverns everyhere!" Ritsuka whyverned, that is, whined. Great, now I'm as lame as Roman and Mozart.
"This noise... I hate it!" Mozart shuddered at a piercing sound coming from the flames ahead. "An unprecedented noise, the premonition of an unprecedented demon! Oh, Muses! Please show mercy! My body can't stop trembling from fear."
"It sounds like Negi singing," the Joker said. "You remember Negi's singing, don't you, Sabes?"
"I try not to," Saber stoically said.
Eventually, they made it to a large half collapsed amphiteather, after a long trip through wreckage and Mash holding Assassin back from stabbing Caster in the back for lulz. At the amphiteater, two very young girls were seen fighting each other, but much to Mozart's disappointment, it was nowhere as dirty as that sounds.
"It's my singing stage, you miscreant! Scram! Look for your own venue where nobody can hear you!"
"No, it's my love monologue stage, you tasteless deviant!"
"You! You, you, you! You cheeky squirrel fom the East!" the one with a long spear with a microphone at the end said, whacking said weapon towards the other one.
"Hehehe!" laughed the aquamarine-haired one in the kimono. She waved a fan around, and sent a volley of flames from it and towards the redhead. "Who's the actual cheeky one? Do you really think a failure like you can beat a true Dragon like myself, Elisabeth?"
"Ughhhhh! I'm so upset! I'll deal with Carmilla later, you die first!" the one Ruler was identifying as a Lancer to the party roared. "You creepy stalker!"
"I'm not a stalker. I'm a DEEP LOVER! A devoted bodyguard who acts like a spy!" the other girl spun around with the grace of a traditional dancer. "I, Kiyohime, am a woman who lives for love!"
"Your love violates human rights!" the redhead swung her long sharp tail at her.
"I don't want to hear it from a pervert with a fetish for blood torture!" the second girl scoffed. Her horns were cute. "You're just as bad as Carmilla! No wonder you're the same person!"
"We aren't! I'm a historical figure and she's the lead character in a Sheridan Lefanu novelette!"
"I'm impressed that your literary knowledge goes that far! You don't look like you read anything but cheap erotica!"
"Ahhhhhhh! Shut up, shut up, shut up! I'm going to–kill you!"
"You can't kill me because I'll kill you!"
"No, I'll kill you!"
"No, I'll kill you!"
"No, I'll kill you!"
"No, I'll kill you!"
"No, I'll kill you!"
"Such immature girls," Jeanne said. The others stared silently at her.
Mozart sighed and launched his Noble Phantasm on the combatants. "Requiem for Death."
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" the girls exploded.
Artoria, Mash, Fou, Ritsuka and the Joker began clapping slowly.
It wasn't that hard to befriend Elisabeth and Kiyohime after that, amazingly enough.
In truth, they never fully realized the source of the attack that had struck them. They just kept on blaming each other.
Mash was a bit rattled about traveling with a well known serial killer who liked to bathe in the blood of peasant girls. Ritsuka pointed out that they already travelled with the Joker. Little difference there.
Sanson was dealt with at some point. "I told you so!" d'Eon told Dark Jeanne.
And so, they finally arrived to Orleans.
It was ironically far less destroyed than everything else they'd seen in their travels, if only because it was the fortress of the de facto queen. The restaurant service was much better, too, although by then Ritsuka was as sick of wyvern meat as she was of the wyverns themselves.
"Very well, you asked for it!" the Dragon Witch roared, flames rising all around her. "You have forced my hand! I shall summon the greatest of dragons, my ace under the sleeve, to deal with you forever and ever! Come forth-"
Artoria, invisible blade at the ready, fell into a battle stance before her. "Any dragon you summon will be dealt efficiently by me, madwoman!" she dared her. "I know of all famous dragons through history! None can surprise me! Which one is going to be? Fafnir? Shen Long? Smaug?"
Avenger slammed her standard down, making a huge crack on the ground. "TOHRU!" she called.
"... who?" the Saber asked her.
And a towering reptilian beast flew out of the titanic hole in the backyard of the castle.
It was a huge green dragon of the European variety, with black wings, yellow antlers, and a light green underbelly. It was over five stories high, four-legged, with a tail as long as the rest of her body.
"Is this it? The great fearsome dragon Berserk Rider was so scared of?" Artoria asked. "In truth, it is bigger than Tarasque, but we fought many bigger wyverns along our way here!"
"Size isn't everything, you idiot! HA HA HAH!" Avenger laughed, hopping onto Tohru's back. "Ready to give up, British pig-dog? I'll burn you to cinder!"
Saber smiled. Her left hand joined the right one on the handle of her sword. "Try me."
"Oh, they are so cute when they are pretending to be brave!" Avenger patted the back of her dragon's head. "Kill her, Tohru!"
The dragon spat fire down at Artoria.
"Is it here?" Kiyohime asked.
"That girl-boy said it'd be here," Bathory shruggged.
Kiyohime sniffed the steel door of the cell delicately. "There seems to be someone indeed. But who knows, these gaijin facilities are so stenchful, ugh! Who can say for sure?" She covered her tiny nose with a long sleeve. "I feel sick just from being down here!"
"Hey. Keep on insulting European customs and you'll feel sicker than that," Elisabeth said, casually leveling her spear towards her. "Do you have anything on you we can use to open this door?"
"Why don't you open it the brute force way with that spear, you savage?" Kiyohime asked her.
"Because the door is too filthy, and I don't want to tarnish my microphone through contact with it! I take this thing to my mouth regularly, you know!"
"See," Kiyohime said, "you are acknowledging that your gaijin dungeons are full of filth!"
"Of course they are, that's why they are dungeons! Dirty unpleasant places to keep people you want to be unhappy in! I'll laugh if Japanese dungeons are any better!" Liz growled.
Mash groaned and took the door down with a mighty kick. "We don't have the time to waste with squabbles!" she said, and stomped inside.
Kiyohime and Liz looked at each other.
"What is the problem with her?"
"I don't know, she's just so catty."
"I hate people who are like that."
"Yes, me too."
Kiyohime began walking in after Mash. "Aren't you coming?" she asked the Lancer.
Bathory rasped, hewing and rocking back and forth on her heels. "A true princess like me can't be expected to enter the dungeons of the rabble..."
"Ara ara. Are you claustrophobic, Bathory-san?" the Berserker giggled.
"Shut your whore trap, you jerk!"
Inside of the cell, Mash sighed. She walked towards the prisoner sitting on the floor, at a corner of the darkness.
"Servant Foreigner?" Shielder asked.
The woman she was addressing kept her head low. She was around twenty five years old, Japanese looking with the accent to match. She had a flat, waiflike figure, and her face was obscured by large round glasses. She had pinkish red hair, and wore a modern tee shirt and blue jean pants.
"Who wants to know?"
Mash extended a hand down at her. "Please come with me. We want to bring you with the other half of Servant Foreigner."
The woman looked up at her. "Tohru?"
Saber clenched another hard smile up.
"You make for a worthy challenge, beast!" she told Tohru, as Avenger cackled on Tohru's back. "But alas, I run low on mana and I need to finish you off sooner than I expected!"
She raised her blade at Tohru, and began unlocking its seals. Yes, technically this is from Arthur's case, but it all sounds more epic phrased this way. "Be witness to my Noble Phantasm!"
Avenger's eyes glowed in golden. "Ah! Finally!"
"EXCAL-!-!-!-!-!"
"Tohru!" a voice called from a tower of the castle.
Tohru glanced back, whipping her long neck around, while Saber paused and blinked, shocked.
"Tohruuuuuuu!" Kobayashi waved at the dragon from the top of the tower, with Mash, Kiyohime and Elisabeth standing behind her. "I'm fine now...! You don't need to work for that creep anymore...!"
"K-KO-KOBAYASHI-SAN!-!-!-!-!" the dragon wailed, turning around and flying towards her, dropping Avenger several stories down off her back.
"YOU DAMN DIRTY LESBIAN DRAGOOOOOOOOOOOON!" Avenger swore as she fell, landing on the yard with a huge explosion that sent chunks of stone flying everywhere.
Artoria blinked and lowered Excalibur. "What in the world was that about!?"
"No, no, you've got it all wrong! Confound youuuuuuu!" howled the mad Caster, Gilles De Rais, as he slammed his hands down on the table of negotiations. Explosions kept on rocking the whole black fortress, as the screams of Jeanne and Jeanne at each other kept on ringing periodically. "Of course it is a challenge to God and His heavens, how could you say otherwise! To say blasphemy is a tool of the man towards the man, how positively blasphemous!"
The clown snorted dismissively, now wearing a pair of Groucho glasses and nose, and reading from a copy of Nietzsche. Ritsuka sat next to him, scowling to herself. "I'm sorry, Barney Google with your goo-goo-goo-ga-ly eyes, but it's true, what do you want me to tell you? What you understand as God never existed, at least never the way you wanted Him to. I even know children who could tell you that," he told Caster with condescence. "What are gods but parts of a whole, subject to their own parts in the great, absurd schematics of the universe? More cogs in the machine that happen to be bigger than us! That is the whole! Your God doesn't even care about what you're doing!"
"Silence! Sinner! Loudmouth! Ignoramus...!" the local Caster shook a greasy fist at him, each eye rolling in a different direction like a stray ball careening along. "My mistress' plan is flawless! Through this massacre of His lambs, we will hit Him where He hurts, and nothing you say or do will change thaaaaaaat...!"
The wall besides them exploded from the other side, and in crashed Lancer Bathory, tumbling down the new hole in it and pulling on the hair of Carmilla Assassin, both women sweaty and rolling across the floor, bodies mashing together in a symphony of grunts and violence. Caster, Ritsuka and Assassin briefly dropped the discussion to watch on, fascinated, as they kept on wrestling each other and ripping each other's clothes apart, until they went out through the open door and began tumbling door the stairs noisily.
Only then Assassin resumed the debate as if nothing had just happened. "Despite everything, and for all your protests on the contrary, dear pal, you have to keep pretending that life makes sense. That there's some point to all this struggling. God, you make me want to puke!" he told De Rais.
"No! No, no, I don't!"
"Yes, you do too! You rage against life making sense, against the rules of this God devoted to good, without realizing that you won from the start, and that there was nothing to fight against! That's why your dear Jeanne was burned alive, you idiot!"
"No, no, I won't listen!" Gilles took both hands to his head as small pieces of ceiling dropped on their heads.
" I mean, what is it with you? What made you what you are? Jeannie-baby going the Extra Krispy recipe? That can't be all there is to it! Something must have been broken inside of you long before that! It was just the trigger! And you know how I know that? Hmmmm?!"
"N-No..."
"Because... something like that...happened to me too, you know?" Assassin smacked his lips together pensively. "I'm...I'm not exactly sure what it was, to be frank. Sometimes, I remember it one way, sometimes another... if I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice! Ha hah! My point is... my point is, I went crazy. When I saw what a black, awful joke the world was, I went crazy as a coot!"
"We... We aren't alike at all..." Caster lamented. "Your madness has no point! Mine has!"
"None of ours has one!" the clown insisted vehemently. "But I can admit it! So why can't you!? You're not unintelligent, you must see the reality of the situation! Do you know how many times we've come close to World War III over a flock of geese on a computer screen? Do you even know what triggered the last World War? An argument with Germany over how many telegraph poles they owed their war debt creditors. Telegraph poles!"
Caster blinked. "What... What are telegraph poles? Wait a moment. World War III, you said...?!"
Assassin nodded. "There have been two major brouhahas, rocking the whole big blue ball, sonny boy! Boy, you were born in uninteresting times! Compared to me, you are nothing but a rank amateur in palating the depths of human depravity!"
Caster looked at his trembling hands helplessly. "Sacre merde... I have been like a hermit locked in his cave for his whole life...!"
"It's all a joke! Anything anybody ever valued or struggled for, your Jeannie included, it's all just a monstrous, demented gag!" Assassin taunted him. "So why can't you see the funny side? Why aren't you laughing!?"
Ritsuka sighed. "I should have brought a Game Boy or something..."
She rested on his arms, looking at the sky.
"Hah..." Jeanne Alter said, blood leaking from a side of her mouth. "What? What happened? That... This... This is im-Impossible. Ridiculous. This can't be happening. It's a lie."
Gilles de Rais, monstrous aberration and crime against nature, kissed the forehead of his creation delicately. "Shhhh. Please don't strain yourself. La Pucelle."
"D-Don't tell me what to do..." She tried to get up. She glared at the other Jeanne, who stood there, looking down at her in a mutism full of questions. "I... I have the Holy Grail...! The owner of the Holy Grail knows no defeat! That's how it should be!"
"Oh, Jeanne! Jeanne! What a pitiful sight you are!" the mad Caster hugged her.
"Gilles..." she said.
" You already won. We proved our point. France as we knew it will never exist again," he said. "You can rest. I'll take care of the rest."
"You are a terrible liar," she said.
"I m not lying," he lied. "Look at them, Jeanne! Do any of them look like they won? Do any of them look happy? Well, other than the jester, but he's just like me, La Pucelle...!" Now then, sleep in peace."
"But...I still haven't...I haven't destroyed France..."
"I will take care of that," he promised. "Leave everything to me. Don't worry. You will never die. You're just a little...a little tired."
"That much... is correct. I am... tired," the Avenger breathed.
Thick tears ran down his frog eyes.
Lovingly, he closed her eyelids.
"Close your eyes, and rest. When you awake, I'll have finished everything."
The black Jeanne made a small smile.
"Yes, yes, you're right. Gilles... If you'll fight for me, I can rest, and..."
She blew up in hundreds of tiny black specks that flew up, losing themselves in the wind. De Rais sighed, sounding very old.
"We aren't alike at all, Bluey," the Assassin said with airs of tease and taunting. "I thought we had made that clear already!"
Caster got up, turned around, and faced Artoria, Joker, and Jeanne.
"Jeanne. Jeanne. Jester," he said. The black book flew open in his icy hands. "Are you happy now, after crushing my dream?"
"Actually, yeah, I am!" Joker said happily.
The bulging eyes squinted. "All I wanted was to have you back, Jeanne. But you made me wait. You never came. You never came back! So I had to recreate you Jeanne!"
"Gilles..." the Ruler said. "No. Don't do this to yourself."
"My only real wish was you!" the spell crafter bellowed at her. "Above all things, all I ever wanted was you! But... But it was her, wasn't it? I... I... The Jeanne I wanted, she..."
He paused, failing to grasp the realization, pondering it in a strange way.
"I love you, Jeanne," he said. "Not like a woman, not like a sister, not like a daughter. Not like an ideal. I love you as Jeanne. You are all I ever have loved. But I have to destroy you, just like you destroyed yourself." He glared at Joker. "You, I just hate! You're easy to understand!"
Joker gave him a thumbs up. "Don't complicate your life on my behalf, bud!"
Things swirling and black began sprouting from the book. Saber readied the legendary sword.
"AND I HATE THIS COUNTRY!" Caster screamed. "For you, I made a vow! I will destroy them for their betrayal! You will forgive them, I'm sure. But I never will! Not God! Not the King! Not the nation! I'll destroy them all. I'll kill them all. That is the wish I made upon the Grail! DO NOT GET IN MY WAY, JEANNE D'ARC!"
The creatures hungered. They yelled. They lunged down for the Servants. Saber inhaled, and leapt up to meet them. Slashing and slicing.
Jeanne's standard came down, rupturing the ground. "But I will stop you. As a Ruler, as the judge of the Holy Grail War, I will stand in your way, Gilles de Rais!"
"Then you are my enemy now," he hissed. "Let us finish this Jeanne d'Arc, savior of Franceeeeeeee!
"Let us, indeed!" she said, and raced to him.
Chaldea.
"So, what you are trying to tell me is that you failed to find any traces of Professor Lev anywhere," Da Vinci said, softly tapping her fingers on her desk. "Isn't that correct?"
"They almost killed me, but I solved another singularity, I stopped a dragon witch from slaughtering everyone in France, I somehow held the Joker back from slaughtering everyone in France himself, and I brought a new class of Servant who happens to be a dragon, and yet you're asking more from me!?" Ritsuka sighed.
"Well, Lev is an ongoing threat to Chaldea, and we need to dispose of him as soon as possible," Da Vinci calmly replied.
"So is Beryl Gut, and even so, you haven't unplugged him yet," Mash mumbled.
"What was that, Mash dear?" Da Vinci asked.
"Nothing."
The Mona Lisa sighed. "Listen, Fujimaru-chan. It isn't that we don't value your help and services. Of course we do!"
"You do?" Ritsuka asked dryly.
"Yes, we do!" the woman smiled. "And that's why we are organizing an extra show for you tonight..."
"I don't have a good feeling about that..." Ritsuka said.
"A special thank you concert from your first Lancer, Elisabeth Bathory!" Da Vinci shared happily.
Fujimaru ran out of her office, screaming her head off.
Mash heaved a sigh. "May I ask for an off night, Sir?"
To be Continued.
Author's Notes:
I had to work fast on this one and sum up a lot since my vacations end tomorrow and I won't be able to write as much as I could for a while. I had to finish this before my self imposed deadline! Sorry for cutting so much stuff out! I hope it didn't end up being too bad!
Mostly, I'm sorry I had to hold back from writing more interactions between Kiyohime and Elisabeth. I'd like to give them their own chapter later to compensate.
I also wanted to write a chase/career scene with Dick Dastardly/Berserk Rider II, but looks like that might have to wait for later too.
Be good!