As they trudged across the snowy forest, Patxi had to admit Mash was right: this landscape really was a lot nicer than the one he'd grown up in, as it was both warmer and, on account of the sun, a great deal brighter. The idea of a 'clear day' was something that was almost completely alien to a Yaga, what with the unending blizzards and all, and it had been rare to even get an hour without at least a little snow falling. It was actually kind of a pleasant walk, if Patxi was being honest with himself. Or at least it would have been, if not for the fact that there had been a few bright and warm days like this back in Russia, the memory of one in particular surfacing rather unwelcomed for the first time in years.
Patxi had only been six years old at the time, and still far too young to understand how Yaga civilization really worked. At the time he'd had this friend - what was his name? Patxi thought to himself. Anatoly? That sounds right - that had lived a few houses down. Their dads had struck up a hunting partnership of sorts, and so Patxi and Anatoly had spent a good bit of time playing together. They'd had all sorts of fun, pretending to slay Demonic Beasts left and right (really snow drifts) one day and making a great journey to the lair of the blizzard monster (a cave that was home to an oddly-shaped rock) another.
But then came one horrible day, a day when a break in the snow had briefly threatened to create an actual gap in the clouds and the weather was actually fairly warm, a day that two young Yaga intended to use to have a proper forest adventure. Their dads had gone out for an early morning hunt, and once breakfast had been eaten Patxi and Anatoly had promptly scurried out as well and made for the tree line. Ordinarily their dads hunted north of the village, so in order to best stay out of trouble Patxi and Anatoly had gone south. For the first couple hours, all had been well: the snow on the trees had almost glistened in the light of the not-quite-visible sun, the wind was calm, and the absence of Demonic Beasts meant that the tranquil forest was disturbed only by the shouts of two little Yaga boys dashing from tree to tree in search of the buried treasure that was surely lurking just around one bend or another.
Then they heard gunshots and the telltale roars of a Demonic Beast. Pulling Anatoly down and behind a large tree stump, Patxi had peered out to see the unexpected sight of their fathers locked in combat with a massive Krichat'.
"What are they doing over here?" Anatoly had whispered.
"Dunno. Maybe the hunting's not good enough where they normally go today?"
The two had watched, transfixed. Neither of them had been allowed to tag along on a hunt before, and the fight between hunter and prey was infinitely more exciting than their treasure hunt had been. But with all their attention focused on their dads, neither Patxi nor Anatoly had registered that someone else was sneaking up on them until…
"Well now, what have we here?" A high, cold voice had spoken as the two were roughly yanked off the ground. "Looks like two little boys wandered a bit too far from home today!"
It had been a group of four or five mean-looking Yaga from Smolensk, ones that Patxi's mom had always strongly cautioned to stay away from. "Are those your fathers out there?" One of them asked.
Anatoly, like the naive child they both had been, had defiantly answered "yeah, they are, and if you don't let us go they'll shoot you all dead!"
The only answer had been a round of laughter from all the Yaga. "Oh really?" The one holding them had said, "Then I guess we'd better take you to them!" And so they'd been roughly dragged forwards, still held by the backs of their necks, as their captor continued to speak. "It's actually good that you're both here. See, your fathers are making life difficult for the rest of us with their little pair hunts, taking too much game and all that, but you're going help us even the score."
Patxi and Anatoly's dads had managed to kill the Krichat' by the time the other Yaga were close enough to be noticed, and Patxi had seen their fleeting expressions of joy get wiped away and replaced by ones of sheer terror.
"Pitulay," Patxi's dad had asked, "What do you want? Surely you're not just coming to say you found our sons." Even at six, and still blissfully ignorant about the ways of the world, Patxi had been able to hear the sheer terror in his father's voice.
"I'll keep it simple, Grishin. And this applies to you too, Feodor." Pitulay had given Patxi and Anatoly a rough shake. "The way we all see it, it's not fair that you two get to be so successful together while the rest of us are stuck fighting by ourselves, so let's make a little deal: one of you for these two." Suddenly deposited on the ground, Patxi and Anatoly had found themselves staring down the blades of four machetes. Too terrified to speak, all they could do was listen to their dads shout, curse, and finally beg to no avail.
Then, with no other options, Anatoly's father had stepped forwards. "Take me, just - just don't hurt them."
"Smart man." Pitulay had smiled and raised his gun. A shot rang out, then another and another, and then Anatoly began to scream.
"No, dad! NO!" He'd charged at Pitulay then, shouting, and after that it was pandemonium. Somewhere along the line Patxi's dad had tackled his way into the mess and began pulling the two away, but just before they got to the safety of the trees Anatoly had broken out of Grishin's grip and ran back to his father's body, sobbing.
"Damn you! I'll kill you! I'LL KILL YOU!" He had grabbed his dad's gun, and was struggling to load it and bring it up to shoot Pitulay when -
Another chorus of gunshots had pierced the air. Patxi had been forced to see Feodor die, but his dad had shielded him from seeing Anatoly's death, instead choosing to sprint back through the forest as fast as he could, holding his sobbing child tightly against his chest.
Looking at Mash and Fujimaru excitedly running from one discovery to the next, Patxi was unable to escape the memory of his and Anatoly's own exciting journey through the woods and the price it had brought.
They came to a stop at a cliff overlooking a massive valley below them, and in the distance there was a range of tall, icy mountains jutting up towards the sun. The mountains themselves were mostly white, but a good way up each one was an odd flickering blue, one that looked strangely like...
"Is that fire? " Fujimaru asked as the three of them studied the scenery.
"I think so." Mash nodded. "But I can't make out what it'd be burning since it's well above the treeline."
"It's probably magical, then." Fujimaru looked upwards. "Just like whatever's making the sun so big."
Not really having a frame of reference as to what the sun normally looked like, Patxi instead continued to focus on the flames wreathing the faraway mountains. Ok, that's weird - not only isn't there something burning, but it doesn't look like they're even touching the mountains at all.
"Hey guys?" He asked. "Is it a thing in your world for fire to just kinda float in the air like that?"
"Very astute observation, Patxi." Holmes' hologram popped into view right next to Fujimaru. "In fact, no, that is very much abnormal in our world as well, and most likely comes either from this Lostbelt's Crypter or a local servant."
"And is the sun the same as well?" Mash asked.
Holmes nodded. "Potentially. After all, if our sun were to be that size normally this landscape wouldn't exactly be inhabitable. So, whatever the cause is, it's magecraft, although I must admit - and da Vinci could correct me on this - I do not recall any of the Crypters as being skilled in pyromancy."
"Pyro-what now?"
"He means magic dealing with fire." Da Vinci's own hologram appeared in front of Patxi. "And nope, not a single one. My bet's personally on it being a Servant."
"That may be, yet I did not find any kind of figure capable of distorting the sun like this in my research into Scandinavian legends."
"Maybe you missed something? Think about it." Patxi held up his right hand and lifted a finger. "Iv - the Tsar was a Lostbelt Servant based on a guy from your world." He lifted a second figure. "So was Anastasia." A third went up. "And I think the priest had something to do with Russia too, didn't he?"
Da Vinci and Holmes looked at one another. "It certainly bears looking into, I suppose." Holmes shrugged. "Perhaps you three would be willing to help me search? I feel we've got enough of a lay of the land to know that it's safe enough to rest here for a while."
"Affirmative. Master, Patxi, let us head back to the Shadow Border .
When the three of them were partway through the forest, Patxi's ears perked up and twitched just as they had back in Void Space. Dropping into a crouch, Patxi unslung his rifle from his back and loaded a round. "Both of you, stop. I hear something off in the distance. It sounds like footsteps."
"Maybe it's people?" Fujimaru suggested.
"No." Patxi shook his head. "It's too deep." In fact it was uncomfortably close to the sounds Ivan the Terrible had made with his own footsteps, but Patxi tried to put that thought out of his mind. "Whatever it is, I think it's bigger. A lot bigger."
"Understood." Mash stepped in front of Fujimaru and Patxi and raised her shield. "I'll move to engage and stop their attacks. Master, back me up. Patxi, take them down before they get too close."
"Right," they both answered. Tense, preparing for a difficult fight, the three of them listened as the deep thunder of footsteps drew ever closer, eventually joined by a series of long, low growls.
With a roar loud enough to shake all the snow off the trees, their opponent emerged from the brush. It was like some misshapen parody of a human, blue-skinned, a good fifteen feet tall and with a mask on its' face, wielding an enormous club that Mash charged to intercept. As she did so Patxi raised his gun to the giant's mask -
And immediately froze as the giant roared again. Impossibly, somehow the forest morphed into the ramshackle buildings that had made up Yaga Moscow, and the giant was gone, replaced with Ivan himself, striding forwards and glaring at Patxi with such intensity that he nearly turned and ran.
"Ah...ah...ah…" All Patxi's plans left his head and he stood frozen in place. No. You're dead. I saw you die. I saw you bleed out, it can't be you.
Ivan strode forwards all the same. Patxi tried to fire but his hands refused to pull the trigger, leaving him unable to move, staring at Ivan, completely helpless -
"Patxi!" Fujimaru's voice cut through the air, and suddenly Patxi was back in the present. "Shoot it now!"
Patxi obliged, firing madly, randomly, constantly, not caring where he hit so long as he hit something on the giant, hoping and praying that it would just stop roaring and die already , until finally it kneeled over and fell head-first into the snow.
Only then did Patxi realize how hard he was breathing.
"Um, are you alright?" Mash looked at him, concerned.
"Yeah." Patxi lied. "Just a little winded. Don't think my body's used to all this excitement again yet."
Mash and Fujimaru looked at each other. Fujimaru gave a miniscule shrug, as if telling Mash to drop the subject, before contacting Holmes again.
"All that I can confirm with the analysis," Holmes explained after they informed him about what they'd fought, "is that it was undoubtedly something native to Scandinavia - a Frost Giant, or Jötunn, straight out of Norse Mythology."
The following discussion was almost completely alien to Patxi, something about 'The Age of Gods' and 'Mana traces in the snow', and Patxi wound up just tuning the entire thing out and trying to listen for approaching giants. Mercifully there didn't seem to be any, and after a few minutes' more walking while Chaldea continued to discuss whatever was going on the three of them had arrived back at the Border. Crossing the threshold, Patxi realized he'd never thought he could be so relieved to get inside somewhere.
"Welcome back, you three!" Da Vinci hopped out of her chair and ran over. "The Director's taking a little nap right now, but don't worry - he's just exhausted after worrying so much over you all."
"Even me?" Patxi doubted it.
"Of course." Da Vinci gave him an odd look. "Why wouldn't he? But on another note, you guys really had a tough time out there, didn't you? Giant's aren't anything to sneeze at. Good job taking one down, but don't forget to write all of it up in your reports." Now the look she was giving Patxi was that of a stern parent catching their child misbehaving. "Especially you, mister; Gordy's getting pret-ty annoyed that you've yet to turn in a single one."
"Yeah, well, about that," Patxi stammered, suddenly embarrassed. "I, uh, let's just say I can't exactly…" He trailed off, not wanting to finish.
The warning alarm suddenly went off, making all of them jump out of their seats.
"Aww, come on!" Meuniѐre groaned. "What now? Another giant?"
Holmes looked over the radar and immediately turned a pale, milky white. "No, the readings of magical energy are far too strong. It's not a giant, and it's not a Demonic Beast. It's a Servant."