Chapter 25: Cracks

I do not own Fate/Stay Night and stuffs:

o. o. o.

In the year 2001, there was a rule made between motorcycle producers in Japan and Europe, and later around the world, called "the gentleman's agreement". This general rule was that no matter how powerful or efficient the engine of a production motorcycle got, for the safety of the public to prevent drag racing from becoming a worse issue than it already was, no publicly accessible bike was allowed to physically go over three hundred kilometers an hour. Any that could technically go over this limit was forced to have an electronic device that would prevent it from going over this cap.

In essence it was similar to how the human brain limited how much of the body's muscle potential it could actually use at any given time. The ability to go faster was there, however it was for the safety of the bike itself that it did not go past that level.

The reason why this rule was put into effect was due to the release of the infamous 1999 Suzuki Hayabusa, the only motorcycle that to this day that was legally allowed to go over the milestone three hundred km per hr without alterations being made to its standard design.

While its top speed had long since pushed it to legendary status among collectors, it was far from its only salivating feature. It was balanced. It had good turning. It was sleek. It was efficient. It had excellent acceleration. Its parts could easily be changed and upgraded to the point that it was the standard model to use for anyone who wanted to own a unique customized bike.

In short, if there was ANY series of motorcycles that had the potential to become a phantasmal existence at some point in the future, it was without any doubt the 1999 Hayabusa.

And then six months ago Taiga and the Yakuza in her family got the bright idea of getting one for Shirou.

Granted it wasn't completely their fault. Kiritsugu had before he died simply asked her grandfather Raiga to get Shirou "a good bike" for the war since Saber was good with one. The problem was, things got a bit out of control when word spread around the local yakuza that Raiga was getting one for Shirou. It was somewhat ironic that the teen that had a bit of a hero complex was unusually well liked by one of the darker forces in Fuyuki. The "gentlemen" that the teen had helped out throughout his side career got a bit carried away in chipping in since they all liked the kid for his cheap services. Considering how much he saved them over the years in repair costs, chipping in for the bike was not going to hurt their wallets much.

That and they wanted to see kid sweat bullets while he attempted to learn how to ride a motorcycle on the fastest one on the market. It didn't help Shirou either that in Japan highschoolers were generally not allowed to own cars or motorcycles, nor that he didn't have a license for either as of yet.

After Shirou had managed to overcome his fear of high speed chases and escaped the police a few times for reasons that were clearly not his fault, he had eventually been left alone with his bike and been wished good luck.

And with the newfound privacy, he got to work with the upgrades, both standard and thaumaturgical.

Combining his knowledge and experience from fixing and installing "tweaks" for the Yakuza for years with the tricks he got from the very small motorist club inside the Clocktower (no matter what anyone says or how obsessed they are with the old ways, so long as people have to interact with the modern world and rely on cars to get around, there will always be a population of fans of big motors that make bigger noises), Shirou had turned his Hayabusa into an absolute monster.

It was not without effort obviously. He had worked many hours during his short stays in the Clocktower to earn what he could from the magi there, who of course were extremely reluctant to part with their research. Of course Tracing once more proved itself to be more than invaluable, as its potential to point out any mechanical or physical error almost instantly was met with praises and tears of joy once discovered by the others there. Needless to say the teen soon became a very well liked guest there.

It was still like pulling teeth getting them to spill any of their research though.

Many of the things that others would have done on the bike were beyond Shirou with his abnormal element and origin. Fire based spells used to increase the potency of the fuel. Water based spells used to improve the fuel flow efficiency and oil life duration. Earth based spells to increase the natural physical composition density and hardness. Wind based spells to reduce air resistance and improve the exhaust systems. Ether based spells to enhance the internal systems and link the bike's natural performance to the user and make it a pseudo familiar. All of these were beyond his ability to utilize, so most of what he obtained were basic rune sequences and small normally difficult to produce physical changes that when combined with the right spells would make the bike better in one small way or another.

Granted the real hard part was trying to get as many things working on the bike as possible back home without destroying it. Just because Shirou was given the rune sequences didn't mean that he could use them perfectly right away. Putting in too much, too little, or not the right sequencing rate of prana when activating the arrays could end up causing the markings to blow up with or without the caster. Shirou was pretty good at the fields of spells that he actually practiced frequently, but wasn't Rin. At best he was only a little above average in runecraft, and that was after Sirius had beaten it into his skull when he wasn't focusing on his main line of thaumaturgy.

All in all though, the Emiya could claim that he did a damn good job with what he got. Sure it was nowhere near what Sirius would have done with the thing if it was in his hands, heaven forbid that ever happened, but all in all it was pretty good work done for a six month job.

He still was not going to drive the damn thing in public until he got his license unless he absolutely needed to though. He had enough trouble dealing with half the magical world deciding on whether or not to kill him as it was. He didn't want to add the local authorities on the list as well. They had more important and safer targets to deal with, like armed bank robbers and serial killers.

The engine, gas tank, and tires had been covered in arrays that enhanced each one's capabilities as far as they could without using elemental spells, ensuring unheard of mileage, nonexistent slippage even on ice, stronger frames, and the ability to be ignored by the masses just to list a few of the features. Combined with the slightly modified engines, fuel pump systems, suspensions, and altered outer frames, there was little doubt that the bike would be beyond anything modern science would be able to achieve for a very long time.

So when Saber finally got onto the seat of her new mount and turned it to life between her legs, it was understandable that she was a bit… happy.

Feeling the wind rush by her face as she blazed through the residential area of Fuyuki, dodging the sparse local traffic with inhuman ability, the Servant couldn't help but laugh at the enhanced feeling of nostalgia and adrenaline meshed perfectly in her being. Yamaha V-max? Gordius Wheel? No, she would definitely stick with this magnificent creature with all her might, roaring defiantly through the streets ever faster towards its prey. Yes this powerful metal dragon was certainly a mount worthy of a King such as herself.

She was enjoying the rush so much that she was almost disappointed when she rapidly approached the burning Matou property and saw her ally on a large red bull similar to the King of Conqueror's bulls of Zeus. The hint of prana in the air told her that the woman was indeed paralyzed in place as a small herd of the same breed of creatures charged from the other side of the road. The fact that there appeared to be two enemy servants was of some concern, but irrelevant at that moment.

Revving to the max and applying her prana burst ability to the remarkably sturdy engine, yet still knowing that her precious new mount did not require additional structural augmentation like the V-Max did when pushed to this level. The Servant of the sword roared forward to her ally's aid at speeds well past its original limits, appearing to be nothing more than a blond, blue and dark silver blur in the night to anyone who managed to catch sight of her.

Utilizing her B ranked riding skills to the fullest to achieve a near impossible feat, the servant twisted her mount to the side and skidded sideways past the charging front most fire breathing monsters, right underneath their fronts and giving her the perfect opportunity to slash out their necks with mere milliseconds to escape before she was trampled in the process.

If her knights of the round table each had one of these, oh there would have been so many battles that could have gone in their favor...

"Room for one more?" She asked eagerly, revving a few times for intimidation and certainly not because she was very attracted to the sound itself.

Before either enemy Servant could respond, a blast of fire coming from across the street had the flying one shout in surprise and forced her to move frantically out of the way.

Rider turned briefly to Saber's direction before nodding slightly in approval. Apparently her ally's distraction had given her enough time to cancel out the spell used to hold her down. "Interesting mount."

"Master is very generous." Saber chuckled as she turned her attention to the enemy and more importantly to the burning property. "What of yours?"

"Safe and unharmed." The physically more mature of the pair replied before she readied the reigns of her Noble Phantasm. "I must admit, I was originally quite skeptical of our partnership, however now I can see its benefits for what they are worth."

"Indeed." The blonde nodded as she narrowed her eyes. "Who would have thought that we would not be the only servants to join forces so early on in the war?"

"Oddly enough, they are both Medea of Colchis and of the Caster class." Rider surmised. "Individually there are not too much of a threat, but combined they prove to be rather dangerous. One covers for the other's weaknesses."

" !" The Witch shouted at Saber, unleashing a beam of light that had much like the ones before been a nuisance to her partner. Obviously she had hoped that the conversation would distract the two enough to enable her to get rid of the annoying newcomer.

The blonde did not even flinch as the attack barely reached her before its existence dispersed into many harmless lights in all directions.

"She didn't even try to defend…" The Princess' eyes widened in surprise and some fear as she looked at Saber with a new level of uncertainty. "A ranked Magical Resistance? And a riding skill?"

"There's no doubt about it. She's Saber…" The Witch grunted, clearly not happy with the unexpected turn of events. Save for Berserker, both Casters had been fairly certain that their greatest challenge in the war would be Saber with its naturally high magic resistance, however even they did not expect the one fighting in this war to have said parameter to be an A rank, something difficult to achieve even for those who qualify for the Saber class. To have such an opponent teamed up with Rider, who happened to be Medusa and also possessing a rather strong magic resistance, it was fairly obvious that they were now going to be at a great disadvantage for this battle.

Retreating now was their only logical option, and even that was nearly impossible at this current moment. The enemy was strong and fast enough with their impromptu rides to catch up should they just focus on attempting to run. Regrettably, the Witch's counterpart was not enough of a threat to hold off the enemy long enough to ensure her safe escape. Casters were well known to be the weakest in close combat of the seven classes, and they were fragmented versions of even that. "It appears that the battle is no longer in our favor."

"Interesting." The King of Knights smirked as she rested her invisible sword upon her shoulder and eyed the stunned attacker hungrily. "I do believe that as of now we all have something in common." She revved her bike's motor with her free hand and looked at the servants there. "We all seem to have our own mounts. How convenient."

"It's been far too long since I've enjoyed a good joust."

o. o. o.

For the King, For the King they go.

Countless eyes watched everywhere from the shadows and the walls. Countless paws scampered in the grass, on the pavement, in the sewers, and in the trees. Countless tails swayed as they moved. Their natural survival instincts' influence on their actions reduced as the unbreakable urge of the King's commands held them in thrall. None could fight the King's will. None could struggle against the orders given by the great one himself.

They watched, they listened, they learned.

For King, For the King, For the King.

o. o. o.

Fuyuki City:

Rin was getting frustrated. She had been with Archer for nearly a week now and so far she had yet to get into any fights. While it was a mixed blessing of sorts, seeing as it meant that the other Servants were more likely able to whittle down their numbers for her to deal with easier, the Tohsaka had a Magus' pride. She did not summon Assassin. She summoned Archer, and one with literally an unlimited arsenal of Noble Phantasms and mystic codes at his beck and call! Heck one of which was death incarnate for any master that used thaumaturgy on him! If her targets decided to hide, they could have at least let her have a chance to show off his power first before doing so.

"… Master."

Did any of her opponents even know how tiring it was trying to maintain a normal, albeit high class public appearance during the day while simultaneously fighting a secret war at night? She was never really a morning person, but now she needed at least three times as much coffee as she normally did in the morning to keep her awake till lunch! It was ridiculous! She was going to get premature wrinkles at this rate!

"Master. You might want to look at this."

Sure Shirou, Sakura and Luvia were all masters in the war, but they seemed to know what that meant. They had all pretty much agreed to the situation during lunch. So help her if she found out that those three had been taking it easy and sleeping during the war and playing it safe when she was out trying to be productive, she would murder them, Servants and all. Then she would kill Archer for not remembering that his past self did this.

… Might as well throw in Kotomine into that list of people to kill as well just to finally get rid of the irritating excuse for a priest.

"For the love of… Oi! Rin! The updraft is pushing your unnaturally short skirt up too far much again!"

"WHAT?!" The girl yelled out frantically with mixed amounts of rage and embarrassment. While she did somewhat admit that her skirt was on the short side, she was still very much attached to her sense of fashion and despised it when it was either pointed out, or something happened to prove their statements right and it was noticed. Granted, she had taken some precautions to prevent the latter from occurring with a few well placed runes designed to maintain her modesty, but then again it wasn't as if she had went out of her way to prepare for everything…

Still, the one who had dared to insult her fashion statement was a future version of Shirou. Messed up memories or not, he should know very damn well to never call her out on the skirt. Ever.

"You middle aged pedophile! Just because you probably haven't gotten any since getting on the Throne doesn't mean you can look at anything that passes your x-ray vision! I can't believe you would…" She turned around and was about to remind the poor spirit who was the Master in the group… only to stop in mid rant as she followed her Servant's arm pointing out at the other side of the river…

… Particularly to the area where she lived which clearly appeared to be the location of an uncomfortably large amount of fire, even from their current position from the middle of the city on the other side of the area.

"… Oh."

o. o. o.

Saber knew that she shouldn't be having fun. She had only been summoned for the Grail War not even a day ago, and in that time she had discovered a great deal of things that have weighed down on her conscience to the point that it would have influenced her performance.

The Grail in Fuyuki had been tainted before she had even set her sights on it. Her previous Master had died a slow painful death without anyone listening to his warnings. His broken son, who had a great deal of potential, had been raised to end this debacle had summoned her. The Archer of this war was possibly a cursed future version of her current Master. The bastard Gilgamesh was still alive and had a body. Kiritsugu's and Irisviel's daughter was a Master and the next holder of the lesser grail, meaning she was a sacrifice. A second, lesser grail had been made inside another master that had the potential to make the fallout of the cursed greater grail even worse if left unchecked…

So many variables against her. So many things that could possibly spell the end of the world…

So many things completely disregarded as her mount roared to the world and dodged another fireball that seared a patch of land she had occupied not even a second prior.

It was rather convenient that magi in general tend to be rather pompous individuals that enjoy showing off their wealth. One of the most common ways to do this was to own large pieces of property that all but declared to the world the owner's affluence. These properties in general tended to be located on the edges of the towns they were in. Zouken was not an exception to this rule, and neither was the Matou residence, which was located very close to the southern edge of Fuyuki, bordered by a large forested area.

Einzbern Castle was also located in the forests to the south, but it was on the other side of the river, so the odds of accidentally encountering the massive bounded fields that surround the place were nonexistent.

Originally, when Saber had arrived at the fight, she had come from the north and stopped south of everyone with both Casters at the Matou property on the west side of the road and Rider on the east. Saber's declaration of the desire to joust hadn't gone well with the enemy pair. Of course it wouldn't. They were of the Caster class, they fought with magic and summoning. To joust meant that they would have to get up close and personal with Saber and Rider, the two classes you didn't want to fight up close with when they were on a ride…

So it did not surprise anyone when Rider took the initiative and forced her controlled bull to unleash massive gouts of flames to the road to the north and cut off the Servants' escape route, trapping them between a wall of flames, a burning building, Rider, and Saber…

In all honesty, pretty much all the Servants there agreed in the back of their heads that the safest route for the Casters probably still would have been to go north and through the wall of flames, followed by going through the burning building, even if both inferno were enchanted and enforced by the residual influence of the sun god.

Instead, the Princess had in a desperate move to make an opening ordered her remaining three bulls to attack Saber, forcing her to move out of the way since the fire itself was not a result of thaumaturgy and thus not immune to it, and making and opening for the Casters to escape to the south, promptly followed by Saber and Rider.

And thus the chase began.

Plowing through one of the main and thankfully empty back roads of the forest, nothing was safe. Trees outlining the pavement were blown apart, burned, slashed, and overrun in no particular order. Guard rails might as well have not even existed in the first place. The asphalt of the road was destroyed and warped just from the heat and weight of the bulls that trampled over it, not to mention the craters that the Witch made when she attempted to assault her opponents with mysteries not seen or heard of since millennia ago. Only a madman would ever consider driving a vehicle in such chaos…

A madman, or the legendary King of Knights on a damn good bike…

Weaving between two more fireballs that the enemy bulls had managed to project behind them, most likely due to a direction altering spell made by the Servant riding them, Saber couldn't help but grin madly before popping the front of her bike and using an appropriately timed Prana Burst to jump over a ten meter hole that the Witch had made just moments earlier, and landed cleanly unimpeded before accelerating. The fact that it was night time had no effect on any of the Servants' vision, with both Casters knowing the appropriate spells to accommodate for such conditions, Rider's normal state of being blind, and Saber's Intuition ability.

Then again, with all the fire being thrown back and forth between both parties there seemed to be little need for night vision. Quite the opposite actually.

How long had it been since Saber had felt such a rush like this? Fighting alongside others against an enemy that was equally dangerous while all mounted with untold beasts on their side? Was it when Morgana attacked with her armies and the dragon she had bribed to work with her? Had it been when the Saxtons attacked with their summoned demons? Such nostalgia could not be without multiple sources to come from. Truly there was nothing like mounted combat…

A fireball rushing past her from behind and nearly hitting the Witch seemed to convey the same feelings from Rider as well.

Had she paid attention to her modified speedometer, Saber would have seen that she, and thus pretty much all the other Servants there, was pushing around three hundred and fifty kph. The only reason why she wasn't topping what she had done with the previous war's Rider was because of all the attacks and debris that the Casters were kicking up in an attempt to get away. Unlike Rider, who could just plow through almost everything that was thrown at her due to her massive mount, Saber was forced to dodge and weave around them. The only exception to this for both Servants was direct attacks from the Witch's magic.

The way they all fought, it was pretty much agreed upon them all that should Saber manage to catch up to the enemy party, the fight would pretty much end. Neither Caster would be able to hold off the servant of the sword in direct combat. As such there was little surprise that both opponents in the front focused most of their attention on the blond king, only changing targets when an opportunity presented itself or when Rider got a bit too close for comfort.

This did not deter Saber's excitement of the chase one bit. While she was legendary for her skills with the sword and her sword itself, she was infamous for creating the Knights of the Round Table. Her very legend was saturated in mounted combat and chases all over Britain. Had it not been for the fact that Excalibur's mere existence was so tied to her legend that the pair could not be mentioned without the other, Arturia would have been certain that she could have been able to be summoned as Rider instead of being always being called out as Saber.

Said skills were once more extorted for all they were worth as a small forest's worth of massive trees were ripped out of the ground thrown at her by the Witch, obviously in a new attempt to catch her off guard.

The instant she did so however, Saber instantly foresaw an opportunity to achieve if not victory, than at least a way to gain an additional upper hand upon her prey. As much as this moment reminded her of her ordeal with the previous war's Rider, when he had severed trees with his massive chariot and she accelerated past them so quickly that she had actually lifted onto one wheel in the process, Saber instinctively took a different approach to the issue.

Acting more on reflex than anything, the wielder of the holy sword materialized her invisible weapon with one hand and slashed through each oncoming multi-ton projectile of wood, using her Prana Burst ability once more on each slash to blast apart the tree halves she had made at record speed to leave her path unimpaired. Her god like skill combined with her robust mount enabled her to maintain the insane speed at which they traveled with one hand while the other was used to deter any flying obstacle that might cause her harm without exception. An instant after the last tree had been slashed away, she had dispelled her weapon and grabbed the handles of her bike with both hands once more in order to efficiently weave around another slew of fireballs without sacrificing her speed in the slightest.

Not wanting to feel left out behind Saber, Rider forced her bull to blast the tons of debris that passed by her partner with its own enhanced fire breathing bull, turning the attack back onto the offenders with gusto as the burning trunks flew ahead of everyone like the rain of the apocalypse and landed hard enough to cause the ground to mimic the effects of a minor earthquake. It was a suitable effect considering the nature of the battle taking place, yet one that did not go noticed by the participants.

The scattered droves of bonfires did nothing to deter the Princess from ramming her bulls through them without hesitation, shattering any obstruction in their way like a flaming avalanche that stretched down the road for at least a quarter of a mile. Each monstrous beast had the charging power a dozen times greater than any vehicle their size, so the mere logs did not pose as any significant obstacles; however the wood did slow the beasts down a small amount and distracted her enough to prevent her from launching more fireballs.

Seeing an opportunity, Rider pressed on the attack on the flying Witch to distract her from getting in Saber's way. If the blonde servant could catch up and destroy the Princess, then the battle would be theirs.

Saber saw this as well as she pressed forward, closing the distance on her distracted targets with fire and mythical beasts roaring all around her. Should she push her mighty metal dragon to the limits, she was fairly certain that she could manage to catch up to the monstrous fire beasts just before they could break out of the debris that Rider had launched in front of them all, however just as she was about to throttle the motor, she noticed one of the massive partially burning logs that one of the bulls had rammed out of the way had flown to the side and landed with one end propped up against another log to the side of the road, but lined up so that it was angled slightly towards the middle of the road again. The log itself was conveniently enough burning from the underside and a bit over a meter and a half in diameter. Its round body made is very unreasonable to be used as a ramp for anything even if it wasn't on fire, but its size made it so that it could be done with a two wheeled vehicle.

Saber couldn't help but grin as she not only saw a grand opportunity to take out both of her targets at once, but mused at the irony once more of how similar the setup was to her encounter with the King of Conquers.

The only real difference was that she had no real reason to hesitate at the last second this time.

Turning her bike quickly so that she could angle herself properly, the servant of the sword's grin turned almost savage as she pushed a button under her right thumb, and forced her mount to fuel its speed with the might of nitrogenous oxide, forcing it to roar with an intensity that managed to drown out those of the monstrous beasts it had been pitted up against. Accelerating to its fastest speeds yet, the bike took off like a silver missile towards the makeshift ramp. While the log was not a perfect ramp in that it began several feet off of the ground, it did not matter much to Saber who combined her Prana Burst and Riding abilities to hop the bike the needed height onto the wood seamlessly before traveling up its ten meter length and launching herself up into the sky above both Casters.

At the top of her arc, with her sword already out and her body feeling weightless, the King of Knights silently berated herself. She adored her new ride significantly and had initially compared it to a grand horse, then a mighty dragon… but in doing so she had ignored the bike's very namesake and nature. It was a hayabusa. A Peregrine Falcon, commonly known as the fastest species of bird, if not animal, in the world. It could reach speeds of over three hundred and twenty five kph, and did so by diving vertically through the air.

It was only natural for it to truly show its worth in the sky above its prey.

Both spirit and machine roared victoriously as they plummeted to the earth. Saber swung out with Excalibur as she accelerated at the speed of gravity onto her first target, the Witch. While her prey had been directly in her path, the woman had the advantage of flying backwards to look at her targets the entire time, so while she was surprised she was not caught completely off guard from the insane maneuver her pursuer had just pulled off. Moving away as much as she could while still keeping up with her partner, the Witch managed to avoid a decisive blow but did not come away unscathed as the invisible blade slashed several inches into her side past her enchanted robes and drew an arc of blood into the dark sky and forcing a cry of pain from the crimson liquid's source. Regardless of how well enforced the cloths were through the divine mysteries that Caster had placed on them, they may as well not have been before the might of the Sword of Promised Victory, sheathed or not.

The assault was not done however as Saber had yet to land, and the Princess and her mounts were right in her path. Had everything gone as planned, Saber would have managed to cut out the legs of at least two of the beasts before forcing the battle into close combat, ensuring her victory…

However it was not to be as the Witch's cry of pain and Saber's roar seemed to prompt her secondary target to instinctively force her herd to split up and avoid the worst case scenario. What was supposed to be a decisive blow to the enemy forces merely ended up as a slightly crippling one as the King of Knights only managed to land close enough to one of the unmounted Bulls of Helios and slashed downward with enough force to rip out half of its entire ribcage in a gory spray of blood, muscle and bone.

The unfortunate carcass of the holy beast was completely ignored by the remaining participants as the pressed onwards down the highway relentlessly. It did not matter if they left it alone or not, the body would be dissolved by Gaia as an abnormality soon enough.

Letting up on the throttle a small bit in order to regain her balance from the somewhat hard landing, Saber regrouped with Rider as the Casters pulled ahead a small bit, though not by much as the Witch's injury impeded her speed a small margin. The two stronger Servants looked at one another briefly before sharing a dry grin of acknowledgment and approval of the latest maneuver.

Lancelot may have been the best at mounted combat among the knights including herself, but Arturia would be damned before she agreed that she did not have a few moves of her own.

It was a bit concerning that the Princess managed to get away from her assault with such little sacrifice however. Under most circumstances there should have been no way to maneuver those three bulls away without losing at least two of them in the process. Still, wounding one opponent and taking out one of the bulls had had tipped the scales even further into her favor.

A sudden minor tug at the back of her mind however snapped her out of her euphoria almost instantly. A quick glance at Rider confirmed her suspicions as the gorgon grimly and briefly nodded to her in acknowledgment.

They had been dragging this out for too long. Shirou was starting to suffer from the drain of supporting two servants in the middle of combat.

It was not as if the pair was taxing him significantly at the moment. Saber was relying on her bike and only used prana burst occasionally. All in all she could probably go through this entire ordeal relying on just her massive stored reserves if she wanted to. Avalon certainly helped out with this. Rider, however, had been using her Noble Phantasm for this battle to control the mighty bull which was draining both her reserves and Shirou's, even if she wasn't using her own mount. Then there was Sakura who was still supplying a moderate amount of prana to relieve the stress even more.

Together, Saber and Rider were fighting at the same time in a lengthy battle and thus using up more than enough energy to completely drain a normal magus if they were not careful, which in turn was being replaced by their already significantly drained Master. Had this fight taken place the following night or onward, this problem would not have appeared so quickly.

They would have to end this soon.

o. o. o.

He was tired.

Every cell of his body screamed for rest as he pushed it forward down the empty streets towards the dull orange glow in the distance, more importantly to what had been standing at the source of the glow. Every step sent a shock that echoed throughout his weary being, causing the headache in his skull to pound painfully enough to cause his vision to blur. It would take nothing to just collapse onto the hard ground right now and pass out, but he didn't. There was too much as stake to do something as selfish as that.

He could feel the two weights getting farther and farther away from him now in the same direction, yet still continuously sapping his weakened body without being afflicted by the increasing distance. The brief images he could manage to get from seeing the world through Saber's eyes told him that the enemy consisted of both Casters of the Edelfelts. Thankfully Saber knew better than to kill them, as they needed Rule breaker for later. Still the fact that the enemy was retreating together and acting wildly meant that they did not accomplish their goal. Killing one would drastically increase the odds of the other dying in the war by another Servant's hands.

Good. If both of his Servants were together it meant that they saw no reason to split apart. Either Sakura was with the servants, or she was most likely inside the Matou Catacombs. There was no reason for the enemy to capture her alive, and if she had died his book of false attendant would have fallen apart. It was a morbid, yet useful side function of the fake command seal.

Still, with all the fire there it was like a beacon to the other Masters that something had happened. And Sakura was all alone now. He had to get her out of there first before someone else arrived and capitalized on a golden opportunity.

One jarring step at a time he pressed on forward, ignoring his aching skull. Ignoring his aching body. Ignoring his burning circuits. Ignoring the chilly night. Ignoring the possible chance of encountering death as he arrived at his destination.

However save for his desire to help out in any way he could, there was one set of sensations he could simply not ignore no matter how hard he tried.

He could not ignore the horrifically dry throat in his neck, nor the relentless desire to drink in his entire being…

o. o. o.

Illyasviel sighed as she traveled quickly while being carried by Heracles to the location of where the large fire broke out, certain that she could finally encounter and destroy an enemy servant in the war. It would help distract her from her encounter with Edelfelt earlier that afternoon.

Why had she even bothered to follow her brother's instructions in the first place? Who cares if the sword was cursed a little bit before the park? Who cares if it was made from some random idiot's remains? She was still going to kill him and then sacrifice herself for the Einzbern family. Why did she need to know all these meager details about why her father betrayed her family and abandoned her in the first place? It was meaningless in the end…

No. Not completely she reminded herself. Even if it did not contribute to anything significant, at the very least she would get some form of closure from humoring her adopted brother's wishes. After he spewed out Kiritsugu's worthless reasons and begged for his life, she would kill him and be done with her family once and for all. Allowing himself to die for her was the least he could do for her after all he had done and kept her father away from her. This way she could at least die without any regrets.

A sudden jolt snapped her out of her deep thinking to bring her back to the real world. It took only a glance to tell that she was nowhere near what her original destination was, still being well within the woods to the point that she could only see the glow of the fire in the distance… however it did not take much to tell why her servant had stopped in the first place.

A young looking boy, appearing only to be a year or two older than her own physical state stood in front of her, smiling carelessly in front of the legendary Heracles. Save for his slightly unusual clothing and the odd markings on his hand, and missing left arm, he looked like a completely normal child.

Illya was not fooled. This boy in front of her was certainly not a human, he was FAR too powerful to be one and the feeling he gave off was of an alien like nature. Due to her connection with the Grail itself though, she could tell that he was not a Heroic Spirit either. Still, the fact that Berserker stopped instead of just plowing over the poor fool without blinking was reason enough to be wary of him.

"Hello. You don't appear to be a Servant." She greeted the newcomer curiously. "You don't seem to be a Master either, so I don't think I have any business with you. Can move out of the way and let me continue on forward please? Otherwise I'll have to order Berserker to kill you."

It was a simple and innocent request with even simpler logic behind it. Had it not been for the violent nature of her ultimatum or the presence of her Servant, one would have mistaken her for any normal child that had her physical appearance asking a harmless question that had been asked countless times by countless people.

The boy smiled not with innocence, but without worry or concern, not at all bothered by the insane giant that by all means appeared to have easily been able to just walk on or over him without even noticing. "I'm really sorry, but I'm afraid I can't let you proceed for now. Could you by chance just ignore the war, or at least stay away from this part of the city for the night? Please rest assured I do not intend to make this a repeating event. Encountering the great Heracles in battle is a great honor to have, but not one that most would want repeatedly."

"Hmm…" Illya mused as Berserker gently lowered her down to the ground before standing back up again. The fact that he knew her Servant's identity was interesting, but she was more intrigued with the fact that he didn't seem all that afraid of fighting said servant in the first place. In fact, he seemed confident that he could hold his own, as ridiculous as that sounded. Even if his goal was only to stall, the difficulty of it would still warrant a great deal of fear from a majority of the world's population. "Your request isn't that unreasonable, however I'm afraid that I cannot grant it. You see there are people that I have to kill over there, and I am the kind of person that enjoys taking the initiative on these sorts of things. You understand, do you not Mr. Apostle?"

The blue eyed boy nodded knowingly. "All too well I'm afraid. Many of my old acquaintances are rather obsessed with making the first move I'm afraid. If it weren't for the fact that they were all quite powerful, I am certain that the lack of finesse would have ended their lives centuries ago."

Illya's eyes narrowed slightly at the boy's mention of his age. Older Apostles were stronger Apostles, and if she heard correctly it would not be far off to assume that he was among the oldest. Still, her prey was well mannered and polite, so it was only proper courtesy to treat him in kind as such. "A shame." She curtseyed politely. "My name is Illyasviel Von Einzbern. Homunculus and Representative of the Einzbern family. It was a pleasure speaking to you, as brief as it was."

The vampire bowed as well. "I am Merem Solomon. Twentieth Apostle Ancestor and member of the Church's Burial Agency. But for now I'm just a mere spectator of the war, not an overseer. A pleasure to meet you Ms. Einzbern…" He looked up pleasantly. "Or should I call you Ms. Emiya?"

Illya's eyes widened in shock and for the first time uncertainty as the boy… no… Ancestor identified himself and addressed her by a name she never wished to hear. Taking more than a few steps back, knowing that being this close to the vampire was not a smart thing to do, the girl realized that she might not get to her destination that night after all. However the fact that he had called her by her father's name had instantly put the little blood sucker on the top of her list of targets to kill for the night.

"BERSERKER!"

Merem's disposition didn't change in the slightest as the black mountain in human form charged upon him with the ferocity and roar of an avalanche. "I heard you were rather fond of dogs Heracles." The boy stated calmly as his right leg began to glow. "Please, do tell me what you think of mine."

o. o. o.

"Shit." Rin swore as she skidded to a halt on the edge of the Mion River near the bridge that connected the two halves of the city together. Under normal circumstances, she would not have stopped for anything in order to get to her destination as soon as possible. Unfortunately, what had stopped her apparently fell outside her definition of "anything".

The instant she had originally snapped herself out of her shock from seeing her neighborhood on fire, she had reinforced her body and charged forward towards the nearest skyscraper on the way to the bridge. Leaping with inhuman ability, the girl fearlessly launched herself into the air followed alongside with her Servant wordlessly. Without any commands or instructions, the pair had guided one another over the massive buildings of Fuyuki with frightening ease and familiarity. Above the lights and life of the city, two faint crimson dots streaked across the black sky above them without pause.

Still, the city itself was not as immense and wide spread as it had appeared and the pair was finally forced to travel on ground level a couple of blocks south of the bridge and one away from the river. At that point, Archer had shifted into spiritual form in order to avoid attracting any additional attention to the high school girl in the short skirt running as if the devil was on her heels.

Already running faster than she normally should in public along the border of the river, Rin was determined to make good time while she could. At her current speed, she somewhat certain that she could manage to get back to her home in time to at least manage some of the fallout and divert most of the attention from her home, when a sudden presence made itself known right in front of her and prompted her to stop in her tracks.

The moment she had done so, she felt a bounded field had been set up that prevented anyone without thaumaturgical ability from entering or noticing what was occurring in its area. Considering the fact that the person in front of her didn't seem to do anything, she determined that either someone else had made the field when she didn't pay attention, or the field had already been set up but not activated until she had entered its boundaries…

Noting who was in her path however, Rin reluctantly admitted that it was most likely the latter.

"Shit." She muttered as she took in the sight of Bazett Fraga McRemitz standing in front of her in her trademark business suit and thick combat gloves.

"How odd. You don't seem to have that usual air of confidence Rin." The Irish woman stated in a calm tone. Had both females not known what their encounter would truly entail, one might have assumed that the elder woman's statement was simple friendly banter.

Rin did not blink as she slowly attempted to regain her composure, but her current situation made it fairly difficult for her to do so. "Well, there is a large fire going on in the area where I live. It would be quite foolish to simply ignore the possibility that my house burns down wouldn't it?"

"Hmm. You're quite right." Bazett nodded with her eyes closed. Rin wasn't fooled though. She knew that the enforcer was anything but off guard at the moment. A wrong move could easily get her killed. "You are quite forgetful sometimes from what I've heard. I wouldn't be surprised if you forgot to enact your property's fields or neglected to put ones up that prevented it to catch on fire from natural causes."

"Thank you. You've just given me more of a reason to be cruel to Shirou the next time I see him." The teen growled irritably. She had pretended to ignore her servant shifting slightly uncomfortably out of the corner of her eye. Straightening her posture the girl played with her hair casually. "So I don't suppose you'll just let me pass now will you?"

In response, a servant in blue wielding a wicked looking red spear materialized next to the Fraga, grinning savagely. "She'd have to use a command seal to stop things now girl. I've been itching for a good fight for nearly a week. Hopefully whoever you summoned will put up a good fight."

Rin remained quiet for several seconds before sighing in a defeated manner. She made no further physical indication that she noticed that her own servant took shape behind her, donned in his black armor, red shroud, and black knight helm that covered the entirety of his head. Only his steel grey hawk like eyes were visible through the wide slit that allowed him to see in all directions without issue. All things considered it meshed well with his armor to give him a rather dark appearance. Had it not been for the fact that he was of average height, one would have even risked describing him as ominous. "Tell me, what do you think about our current opponent?"

Archer chuckled lightly, his voice echoing in the helmet he had traced to conceal his identity (and protect his hair from being shaved off by his master). "He is no doubt a formidable fighter, his weapon is certainly not something to ignore either, however he is not something that I cannot handle."

"So long as they don't see some of your more esoteric abilities, do as you wish. I don't want you to be identified so quickly after all. That and the enemy master is a Fraga. She has her own Noble Phantasm that we will have to be wary of obviously." The younger master there sighed aridly, pretending not to notice the slight shift of irritation shown by the other two there.

"Of course." The servant replied in a way that no one doubted that he was smirking under his mask. In an instant, black and white Chinese falchions appeared in his tan hands. "It would of course be foolish to use my stronger moves with a user of Fragarach in the vicinity… though if that is the case, I believe that we should be more concerned with your well being Master. Even without seeing her fight, I can tell that the enemy Master is no novice to combat. Genius or not, I do not believe that you would last long against her."

"You don't say." The native sighed with a hint of sarcasm. She had to hand it to her Servant, he really could play dumb when he wanted to. Still did he have to be so blunt about how obviously unfair this matchup was? Despite her significantly higher ability in almost all fields of thaumaturgy and the dozen jewels in her possession, she knew that Bazett would and could destroy her in any straight up confrontation. Her very job was taking down powerful Magi and Dead Apostles, and the fact that she wasn't dead or even maimed was evidence that she was damn good at what she did. There was a bloody reason why Shirou was terrified of the thought of fighting her. To Rin's knowledge, only Sirius, the Queen, and Merem topped Bazett on the list of those he never wanted to anger under any circumstances. Obviously those like the Beast of Gaia, the Blue, and Kaleidoscope were on the list as well, but for the most part the list was made up of people the teen actually knew. "I know my limits. You don't have to worry about me doing something you would do."

"Heh. She may be a kid, but your master is at the very least pretty interesting." Lancer snorted as he readied his weapon, the tip of his crimson spear pointing down and his body going taught like a bowstring.

"Indeed. Not many would dare call a heroic spirit a middle aged pedophile to their face." Archer offhandedly commented, causing his opponents to momentarily stare disbelievingly at the teen while she glared accusingly at him. "She's quite powerful to make up for her deficiencies, so it all balances out in the end. Though it does appear that your Master has the advantage when it comes to raw combat ability."

"I do hope you don't think I won't remember this, Servant." Rin growled dangerously.

"Eh. She ain't half bad." The blue man smirked. "At the very least I don't have to worry about her getting herself killed while I'm having fun." He paused however as he watched his foe lowered his weapons to his waist in an unnatural stance leaving several openings to be exploited as if taunting his opponent to abuse them. "Oi. Confidence is one thing, but now you're just being rude."

"That stance…" Bazett frowned as she recognized it instantly before disregarding what it could mean and focused on her own opponent. Slowly walking to the side away from her Servant, she prompted the Tohsaka to do the same so that they would both not get caught up in the chaos that was soon to come. As good as either of them were or liked to believe they were, they were nowhere near the level of a fully charged and on guard heroic spirit. "Lancer. Be careful. He might use an unorthodox style..."

"Oh trust me." Rin smirked, deciding to cut off Bazett before she said too much with her extended thumb and forefinger with a sick black looking ball hovering in front of the latter. "I was very surprised when he first showed me his style too. Who knew that someone other than Shirou would be dumb enough to use it?" And with that she fired off curse after curse at her opponent like a machine gun while backpedaling in order to maintain her distance.

That was all Archer needed to know to realize that he should move now before Lancer got a heads up on how he fought and devise a counter strategy. Taking the initiative despite the fact that his style was designed for countering, the man in a blink of an eye threw Kanchou and Bakuya with enough force and speed to turn them into deadly black and white disks that glided and arced through the night towards their target.

Lancer was clearly not expecting his opponent to throw what appeared to be his main weapons at him as an opening move and as such took a fraction of a second more than he normally would have to react to the oncoming blades. Even though he had Protection from Arrows, rendering him immune from most projectiles within his gaze and even those that weren't, the oncoming weapons were clearly Noble Phantasms and so he couldn't simply rely on his reflexes to deflect them. Still, it was not as if the oncoming blades had an overwhelming amount of force behind them and as such he deflected them away from his body with such speed that it looked like to the naked eye that he had hit them at the same time.

With his third strike he blocked the striking Servant that had followed closely behind the thrown weapons and his eyes narrowed. He was not surprised at the fact that his foe had attempted to exploit such an easily predictable opening, nor was he concerned with the man's slightly above average strength, which in a battle between legendary individuals from all over history was not something to write home about.

What got his attention was the fact that he was blocking what appeared to be the black blade that he had less than an instant ago just knocked to the side.

A quick flick of the wrist and a jab flung back the red and black bastard's black sword, but an instant later he had to swing it down an instant later to knock away the thrown white sword that had somehow made its way back into his other hand. The instant he did so, he thrust forward with speed that transcended what humans could comprehend in order to exploit his enemy's chest, only to be deflected once more at the last moment by that damn black blade which had somehow made its way back into its user's hand again.

Feeling slightly annoyed, the spearman increased his speed and ferocity and continued to try and figure out his opponent out or at least force him back. He could feel the smug bastard smirk at him as he always seemed to call back his disarmed weapons faster than he could finally land a significant blow. The seemingly endless pattern of deflecting and disarming the same damn weapons over and over again without gaining any ground on his enemy was quickly getting old and frustrating, despite the sparks and sounds of metal clashing in front of him deafening him to the world…

It was only through his years of battle honed instincts that he realized that something was wrong after he disarmed the bastard of both weapons for about the dozenth time each and instantly jumped up and back with speeds that only belonged to those of his class. Doing so, he barely avoided getting cut into pieces from behind from the flying blades that he had deflected before, perfect replicas of the weapons that were in the hands of the one who had nearly killed him in the process. He did not escape unscathed however as his sides on each side of his body sported an inch deep gash right below the ribs. The wounds were neither fatal nor crippling, but they did damage the hound of Ireland's pride significantly.

"You bastard…" Cu Chulaiin grunted as he looked at the blades that had landed on the ground and realized what had happened. His opponent had not been calling back the swords back into his hands. He had been whipping out completely new copies of them each time he had been disarmed. They apparently also had some sort of boomerang like effect as well since the first pair that had been thrown had obviously returned to cut him down from behind. Being the stubborn bastard that he was, he stayed in place when he realized that he couldn't push the red and black man back, almost falling for his plan perfectly.

Scathach would have murdered him if she had found out that he had fallen for such a simple and basic trick.

Gritting his teeth, Lancer forced himself to calm down. Obviously this guy was the sort that would go for cheap blows despite being good enough to fight up close. He hated the ones like this. They had no pride at all and took the fun out of a good brawl. They also happened to be bloody dangerous if you didn't pay attention to everything they damn well did. "Going straight into battle with a blade but relying on cheap tricks like that to win. How cowardly can you get?"

The annoying Servant chuckled briefly as he took his stance again, a mocking affront to most that knew the complexities and intricacies of weapon based combat that left far too many vital openings for anyone of them to feel comfortable using. "If you have anyone to blame, it would be my wicked little Master. After all, she is the one who summoned me in the first place."

Lancer couldn't help but let out a sarcastic snort. "Can't argue with that. Little shrew does seem like the type to grab a mile when offered an inch."

"If only it were that much." The red sword user sighed aridly, gaining a sliver of pity from his opponent.

The Servant in front of Lancer was clearly not Saber. He did not have the power in his blows to qualify as that class, and the swords he used, while indeed Noble Phantasms, did not have the weight behind them to appear to qualify their user for the class. He had already fought against Berserker and the two Casters who were clearly different versions of the same spirit, and if the guy was Rider he would have summoned his mount by now. If it weren't for the fact that that he had a fair amount of power behind his blows, Lancer would have hazarded a guess and assumed he was an Assassin with the way he tried to use trickery to win and the nature of his swords. Given how he was dressed and his headwear however...

"This is messed up." He snorted and took his stance once more. "What kind of Archer fights up close with swords?"

"What kind indeed?" Archer agreed mockingly, though his humor did not go up to his hawk like gray eyes that were visible through his visor. "Makes you wonder what makes me qualify for my class doesn't it?"

o. o. o.

Matou Catacombs:

Sakura held back a sigh as what seemed to be the thirtieth skeleton familiar fell apart in front of her without putting up a fight. She did not like the fact that she had been forced to hide as she did while Rider fought for her safety above, but in the battle for the Holy Grail, Servants fought Servants and Masters fought Masters. There was no exception to this rule.

Thirty one… or was it thirty two now? The girl shook her head in frustration as she berated herself for worrying about something trivial like how many of these weak things she could kill… no. They weren't weak. She could tell just by looking at them that these things could easily destroy a small group of normal humans with just their raw strength. It was merely that they were horribly mismatched against her.

The Matou's study of "binding onto oneself" was often likened to "absorption", but with a bit of deeper inspection into the subject anyone could tell that the family's way of going through the process was significantly more… aggressive. Zouken, for example, utilized his worm familiars to frequently absorb the energy around them, fattening their already grotesque appearances to the point of bursting before assimilating them with his body to prolong his life. Should his current body begin to fall apart, he would go out into the city, find some poor victim that was isolated from the world, and conduct a ritual to claim the body as his own. If Sakura remembered correctly, it involved having his worms assault the physical body until the mind and soul were thrown into chaos enough for Zouken to force his own decrepit soul into the mix, then using the Matou Thaumaturgy to take what was left in for himself and using his remaining living worms in the corpse to adjust the body to the shape that would match his soul the best and power it with the prana that the worms had gathered previously until it had stabilized.

It was a very crude and disgusting way to prolong one's stay in the living, however it was also quite an ingenious and impressive feat as well. To be able to channel and shift one's soul through worm familiars of all things, the weakest possible familiar one could have, and use them to possess another complete body without losing one's sense of self in the process was a truly significant accomplishment thaumaturgically speaking.

Sakura on the other hand was not capable of such miracles, not that she had any desire to do them in the first place. While Zouken's approach to the family magic focused on the "binding and alteration to the medium's core", or basically how to bind targets to his or another subject's soul, Sakura's was more geared towards "the assimilation of ambient spiritual existences and energies". Essentially, she excelled in draining the energies of familiars, spirits, and mysteries that had no permanent earth based medium. She could sap other mysteries of power as well, but it took longer and more effort to do so. The elder Matou assumed that this preferred approach of Sakura's use of the family's spells was a result of her original element of "imaginary numbers", but all in all he didn't seem that put off by the new turn of events.

The former Tohsaka didn't blink as another pair of skeletons jumped down the stairs of the catacombs in an attempt to assault her and were consumed by a small blanket of shadows where they landed. In less than five seconds, every trace of prana that had allowed the creatures to move had been taken away, forcing the now powerless creatures of bone to dissolve into dust in a sea of darkness.

If it was only a matter of killing the worm familiars tainting her body, Sakura would have offed the lot of them years ago. After training with Rin after the Apostle incident and combining traditional thaumaturgy with the Matou's body triggered thaumaturgy, the girl had long developed her abilities to the point of not worrying about defending herself. Killing the worms in her body was simple, it was getting their bodies out fast enough to not cause issues was the problem. With so many of the familiars inside her bloodstream and in her nerves, she had no doubt that if she attempted to purge herself now, the best she could hope for is a quick stroke as the carcasses clogged up her arteries.

She didn't even want to think about what would happen if the familiars inside her heart and wrapped around her nerves suddenly died.

She only allowed herself to keep a moderate amount of energy she got from the familiars before sending the rest to Rider. She had no delusions that Shirou would be hit hard from the unexpected fighting so soon after taking control of Rider. It was almost ironic. For the first time she was the one donating prana so someone else wouldn't die from being drained from the inside out instead of the other way around. A dark side of her even relished at the sense of power and superiority she had over the one that had kept her sane the past few years much to the guilt of her lighter side.

Sparing a brief glance at her surroundings, she glared at its current unaltered state. Despite the destruction that reigned up above, her personal hell unfortunately remained untouched. Her only respite was that Zouken seemed to have disappeared to some other hole in the ground for protection, taking most of his disgusting worms with him. She could tell that there were still a sickening number of them hiding among the tombs that decorated the walls of the catacombs, but unless they were out, they would do nothing but continue to feast on the bodies and fatten up for when their maker needs more energy.

"Humph. So this is where you were hiding. I must say I am surprised. The conditions of your workshop are far more disgusting than what I had anticipated." Sakura was only somewhat surprised to see Marjatta in her blue and black dress walking down at her with a disgusted sneer on her face.

"For once we can agree on something." The Matou replied calmly from the center of the room. Knowing the blonde's personality there was little doubt that she had come alone, confident that she would be enough to take out the lone "backwater" magus. The few times Sakura had conversed with her were enough for her to tell that the Edelfelt possessed the standard magus ignorant personality, and thus it made her predictable. On the occasion that Shirou actually talked about his work for Barthomelloi, he had explained his methodology and reasoning with dealing with the standard magi.

The first rule in general was that they loved being the center of attention when it was possible and not blatantly suicidal to do so. The fact that the idiot girl went down to the catacombs by herself to get to Sakura instead of just collapsing the ceiling on top of her was proof enough that the blonde was an attention whore. No doubt she would go on some long winded speech about the "vast gap" in their abilities and social statuses now.

"If this is what your workshop consists of, then it is no wonder that your kind trails far behind mine when it comes to capability." The girl continued on as she walked down the long flight of stairs, unknowingly proving Sakura's assumptions correct.

The Matou had a hard time resisting rolling her eyes as she began tuning out her assaulter's speech and began going over what the girl was most likely going to do when the fighting started and how to counter it. Thankfully the Edelfelts were well known to fight with jewels and the Fin curse, fields of thaumaturgy that she was more than familiar with after spending so much time with Rin. Plus it was better for her if the idiot girl made her way all the way to the main floor of the catacombs without bothering to do anything to convince her to.

"If all you have to show for your study of absorption is a basement full of corpses, then I will have to rethink my opinion of how useful the concept is. Don't tell me that your method of research is actually taking prana from these things." Marjatta questioned with a sick look on her face. "I don't even know how it would even be possible for anyone to think properly with this distracting stench. In fact when I'm done here I may have to burn this dress in order to get rid of the smell. I hope you are ready to take responsibility for such a travesty."

"I find that soaking the clothes in water and lemon juice for two days tends to get rid of the smell. It's cheaper and a more reasonable way to deal with the stench." Sakura replied offhandedly, not really paying attention to the fact that the girl was insulting her but instinctively sympathizing with the pain of trying to get horrid smells out of clothing. Shinji was never down here for long when he was alive and aware of this place, and Zouken was not exactly the cleanest Magus on the planet, what being made out of worms and all.

"Hm. No doubt you would know of some cheap common way to deal with the problem. With this being your workshop, you would probably send yourself into poverty if you kept on burning your clothes every time you came down here." The blonde stepped down from the bottom stair and looked disdainfully down at her prey. "You don't have to hide it from me girl. You are on guard yes, but it is obvious that you fear for your life now. Cornered in your little cave with no servant and out of the public eye to excuse you from conflict, what else could you be?"

The word "annoyed" seems to be sticking out the most right now. The Matou mentally grunted while keeping her composure and formulated several quick plans in her head. "Are you done yet? Why don't you just admit that you want to kill me and get this over with already?"

Sakura's dispassionate reply seemed to temporarily catch the blonde off guard, but she quickly recovered and donned a confident and pitying demeanor. "Oh? So impatient for a quick death are we? Well I am sorry to disappoint, but I have different plans for you. Rest assured though, you will scream for it at the top of your lungs very soon."

Sakura wanted to make a comment that she had been wishing for death for over a decade now, but the opportunity to do so was lost as her opponent very quickly raised her two hands at her and fired off an absurd number of fin curses at her at such high speeds that she barely had time to conjure up a weak defense made of shadows. It barely lasted more than a second before it was broken through and she was launched back from the small explosion that the two spells had made.

"Hoh?" Marjatta mused as she casually walked around the catacombs. "How odd. I was sure that what I did was enough to knock you out and keep you down for a while. At the very least you have some good reflexes. Most magi are unable to even react to that opening before they are hit. It speaks well of how strong your coward's instincts are."

The knocked aside girl ignored her attacker's bragging as she slowly picked herself up and focused. "The artists are fools. The rulers are ignorant. The light has forgotten."

The blonde noble sighed and pointed her index fingers at Sakura once more. "Let's try this again shall we? Do try and fall properly this time."

"One cannot stain the shadows."

What appeared to be twice as many fin shots erupted from Marjatta's fingers so quickly that it was impossible for any normal human to see where one began and another ended. Flashing through the dark catacombs the cursed closed onto their target…

… Before another wall of darkness rose in front of Sakura and enveloped all of the curses without a trace as if it was less a barrier and more a doorway into another world.

"What?" The blond girl blinked in confusion as she got a better look at the wall in front of her and noticed that it was littered with blood red veins that pervaded it like the wall was some sort of diseased membrane of some long forgotten cursed mythical beast.

On the other side of the anomaly, Sakura pushed herself up to her feet and breathed deeply, the sickeningly sweet smell of decay in the air did not affect her in the slightest due to her decade of torture in it. The minor bruises and injuries she received earlier were disappearing as quickly as they had come…

"Humph." Marjatta grunted as she pointed her fingers at the wall again, confident that she could break through it. "I must have given her too much time. Obviously this defense can handle more punishment than the last one."

Wordlessly she fired off dozens of more curses in an instant, each at least twice as large as the previous rounds, each at least twice as destructive as their predecessors, and each disappearing into the bounded field without so much as a ripple or sound of impact.

Sakura was now standing up and save for the tears in her clothing she was completely unharmed. Any injuries she should have endured from the initial attack were absent from her body, and soft words of power were slowly making way from her lips. "Left alone it always reigns. Absent with the light's caress. Yet it forever returns…"

"You…" Marjatta grunted as she quietly admitted that her prey actually had some abnormal spells that would take different approaches to solve and as such crossed her arms while still having her fingers out. "Are annoying. Hunt of Nyyrikki!"

Bellowing out the name of the Finnish God of the Hunt, the girl unleashed a wide spray of curses that spiraled in the air around their target like black fireworks rapidly falling towards a single point. Sakura's defense was effective against the Fin shot yes, but it could only protect her from one direction. The assaulting circle from above would no doubt be able to strike her from all the directions the wall didn't reach…

"… Regardless of wishes. Ignorant of miracles."

Or it would have if the wall had not warped itself at the last moment and formed a dome around its maker and silently absorbed all the offending attacks at once without issue before instantly dispersing itself and sinking back into nothingness.

Marjatta, predictably was not enthralled by this as she glared at Sakura. "You are starting to frustrate me greatly girl. Can you only defend yourself like a coward?"

A faint smile made its way onto Sakura's lips. "Maybe. Do I need to do anything else to best you?"

"I will not be looked down upon by a backwater novice." The blonde growled as she straightened her posture and narrowed her gaze and raised only one of her hands this time.

The first three curses went straight at Sakura's head, but were instantly blocked by the return of the black wall. The next two were shot high, but arced down from above and pulsed irregularly. Had they come into contact with any sort of solid or liquid, they would have exploded with enough harmful force to kill a normal human if they hit the right spot, but they too disappeared as the wall shot up from the girl's side and over her head to make contact with the orbs. The same held true with the concussive based variants that shot vaguely past the field and continued on for a short distance before instantly stopping and traveling back towards the girl's seemingly unguarded backside only to also disappear into the sudden wall of darkness.

Sakura frowned as her opponent continued to test her defense sparingly with various forms of the Fin curse that she did not believe were possible until now. Had Rin not taken the time to force her to make her defensive spell, which was nicknamed "the hollow shell", react as quickly as it did to outside magical influences around her person, she would without a doubt have been hit by now. While she was getting a good amount of prana from the attempts to find a weakness, it would be only a matter of time until it was discovered that her defense only worked against thaumaturgical based attacks with no physical medium, and she could not move from her position while the spell was in place.

Shooting the ground in front of her, or the ceiling above her would force her to move and into a significantly worse position. Hell, technically the girl could just walk past the barrier and shoot her point blank if she wanted to. But of course most magi would never think of addressing the issue by doing something as simple as THAT…

She was snapped out of her musings as she observed her shadow defense barely manage to block an incoming salvo of curses that had been moving at a significantly faster speed than the already rapid moving curses. It appeared as if her opponent may be able to force her way through after all.

Wordlessly she channeled the abundance of prana in her body, utilizing the crest that Zouken's worms had long since carved into her very being and gave the power shape and life outside her body through the darkness around her feet. Due to her condition, most of her spells were designed in some way to gain her more prana by some means. Most normal spells would drain her of her Od and risk agitating the worms in her body. The barrier around her followed this rule as it absorbed any metaphysical based mystery that crossed its boundary by, for lack of a better term, "multiplying" its "imaginary" nature to the "real" mysteries that it encountered, thus turning the oncoming spells into that of an "imaginary" nature as well and turning into prana for the girl.

The spell she was using now was no different as the vague human like shape emerged from the floor. Pale, transparent, and only waist high its appearance was odd and unnatural, but not particularly threatening.

Needless to say that when Sakura sent the weak looking familiar out of her bounded field's defenses, Marjatta was less than amused. The shadowy thing was neither fast nor agile as its wide body casually swayed left and right as it moved, swinging its arms as if they didn't have bones, (which in hindsight was fairly obvious just by looking at it). It exerted no offending pressure and it did not appear to have any real combative capabilities. All in all, it looked fairly harmless and useless.

So it was fairly obvious that a proud individual like Marjatta would be pretty damn insulted that it was being used against her in a fight to the death.

"How much longer…" The European grit her teeth in a vain attempt to reign in her temper and pointed an open palm at the small creature, and instantly conjuring up a black curse at the end of each of her fingers pointing at the little familiar. "Do you intend to mock me!?"

Had Sakura not intended to make her shadow familiar the way she did, she was absolutely certain that it would have been destroyed by the relentless barrage of curses fired at it, assaulting her ears as the sounds of the attack tore through the air and hit everything from her new sidekick to the ground to her wall to the area behind her. As much as she didn't want to admit it, her opponent had some serious firepower behind her fingers and was much stronger than she had originally anticipated. If not approached carefully, the Matou would even hazard to assume that Rin would lose against her in a straight up fight…

However Shirou would not. He was too good to fail against this little princess, and she strove to be the same.

"What the hell?" The blonde blinked in confusion, frustration, and a little uncertainty as the dust in the stale air cleared to reveal that not only had the familiar not perished in the onslaught, but that it had somehow nearly doubled in size, now standing roughly a head over her, and still casually lumbering towards her with motions not unlike a zombie from an old horror movie. "This too?!"

Originally Sakura's shadow familiars were indeed just weak constructs that only reached her waist at best, actually they were still that when first created. However their use in combat increased significantly when she managed to gain a stronger grasp on her conceptual based powers and had given them similar natures to her shield. Normally creating a familiar with such a strong concept fused to its very existence was borderline impossible, but Sakura's shadow familiars were already so tied into her nature and element that the effort to add in the extra trait was not that significant. The only difference was that instead of sending her any prana that they absorbed, they converted it to themselves and made them stronger. To Sakura's and Rin's knowledge, there was no limit to how big they could get, but they had managed to get it to grow over twenty feet in height before they were forced to take it out before they gained too much attention.

"Really?" The Matou smiled faintly from behind her familiar. "I thought you would have figured it out by now, being a high born noble and all. Or are my mysteries too simple for you to understand?"

The Edelfelt glared at her opponent and the familiar murderously before she was forced to pay attention to the familiar again as it swung one of is oversized arms at her, forcing the attacker to jump back. One of the first rules about fighting unidentified transparent familiars, puppets, and monstrous beasts was after all to not touch the things unless you were sure that it was safe to do so. You never knew what their existences were composed of and how they reacted to human contact. There were a good few monstrous beasts out there that could fry a person's nerves and circuits with just a brief tap, though they were quite uncommon.

Knowing it was most likely useless, the blonde girl sparingly began to fire off more varied Fin shots at the creature if for anything else to see if she could find something she could work with. As she did so, she also backed away from the creature and kept on moving around Sakura in order to keep her real opponent in sight, just in case the girl decided to make another one of these annoying things. Higher power. Rotation. Higher velocity. Differing impact points. No matter what she used, it was useless. All her attacks just seemed to go into the thing and disappear like they did nothing. Not only that but it seemed like the blasted thing was getting… bigger…

Something clicked in the blonde's head and she nearly swore at her stupidity. "… Absorption… of course… but being able to establish it as part of the essence of a familiar made so quickly?" She turned her attention back onto the creature in front of her and unleashed a handful of curses rapidly at it while backing up and widening the distance between the two sides. Just as she had expected, the curses had disappeared into the familiar and forced it to grow a few more inches.

Backing up a bit more, Marjatta's eyes darted between Sakura and her familiar and occasionally the ground by her foe's feet which held some debris from her earlier rampage before sighing aridly to herself. "What a fool I am. To have fallen for such petty tactics."

Reaching down to pick up a small rock off the ground, the blonde laughed dryly. "I must commend you Matou. You have lasted much longer than I would have expected. In fact you have lasted longer than most of my targets on a job, regardless of your cowardly methods." She paused to throw the rock in her hand at the familiar hard and watched as it hit the creature where its supposed head was, causing it to stumble backwards. "Really, to incorporate a thaumaturgical concept into the very existence of a familiar you just made so easily is quite commendable. My respect for your abilities has increased a small measure…"

A smirk found its way onto the attacker's face as her knees bent and she aimed herself at the off balance creature. "However it is not enough to best me."

Reinforcing her body, the mercenary launched herself forward at the familiar with inhuman speed and unleashed a savage string of blows that she had no doubt spent much time practicing before. Despite the fact that the creature was wider and taller than a normal human, the teen had no trouble stepping in and kicking it hard in its center seeing as it had no legs, before using the same leg to snap a second blow to its head as it came down from the recoil of the first blow. Not stopping there the teen forced down the attacking leg and thrust out with her back fist at the creature's chest right below where the throat would be and struck it hard enough that her fist temporarily found itself inside the creature itself before it was thrown back and collapsed onto the ground. Not completely dead, but now without a doubt a significantly lesser threat if one at all.

Sakura did not smile at the display. Despite being little more than emotionless dolls and knowing that the one she made wouldn't win her the fight, she was rather attached to her familiars when she made them. They reminded her a bit of herself down here under Zouken's thumb, only they were fortunate enough to not have the full range of emotions needed to suffer like she did.

"Now that the distraction is out of the way…" Marjatta grinned predatorily as she turned to her main target again. The tensing in her arms and legs were a clear sign that she was reinforcing them and ready to move. The next instant proved to support that assumption as she charged forward at the purple haired teen. "I can finish educating you on why it is bad to insult your superiors!"

As a member of the Edelfelt family, Marjatta was trained in many ranges of battle, short, medium and long. Unlike Luvia, who preferred to use close ranged combat but was still skilled in medium and some long range, the younger sibling was proud to be exceptional in all ranges, though she preferred medium and long. As such, it should have been no surprise that she was quite adept at performing reinforcement on herself to enhance her combat prowess.

She was confident that her fighting skills were all that she would need as she passed the girl's bounded field unopposed and cocked a fist back and threw it forward at her target's head…

However while her ability in reinforcement was rather high, she had never been tutored by the Magus Killer in it.

"His body is made of blades…" The Matou heir chanted darkly, utilizing a slightly altered part of Shirou's core aria that she had first heard years ago. Allowing her prana to flow into her very body and enhance it, she momentarily enjoyed the sensation and pretended it was her lover's power flooding through her instead of her own. Among the few spells she knew of that did not utilize her family's theme of thaumaturgy, reinforcement was the one that Sakura knew how to use the best, and she was damn good at it too.

Marjatta's eyes widened as her initial attempt to strike her opponent's head was halted by one of the girl's own without any issue whatsoever. Instead of attempting to say anything though, she instinctively knew that something was off and reflexively pointed out her left hand's finger out to fire off a quick spray of curses point blank. The impacts were nearly instantaneous when shot and easily caused more than a few shockwaves to temporarily blind the attacker to the world around her.

Except for the fact that her other hand was still firmly in the grasp of the girl she had shot, and her grip was tightening.

"Release me and fall already!" The Edelfelt grunted in irritation as she quickly lost her temper and opened her free hand to unleash five times as many curses at point blank range at the still shrouded Sakura. The simultaneous impact was so severe that the entire room shook enough to dislodge a fair amount of dust from the ceiling and the catacombs surrounding it.

But Sakura's hold on Marjatta's fist did not weaken or falter in the slightest, and if that wasn't enough of a warning sign to the blonde, then the light laughing that she heard drove everything home.

"Funny isn't it? How suddenly what was assured now appears to be a lost cause?" Sakura's voice whimsically mused in a melodious tone filled with something far more unpleasant. It was almost akin to the sickeningly sweet smell that pervaded the room that they fought in.

The careless tone the Matou used only further infuriated the Edlefelt as she reared back her free hand and engulfed it in a pulsing black sheath, kept in place by a bounded field and unable to harm her due to another. It was one of her personal modifications to the Fin curse that no one had ever attempted to do, and while limited in range it packed at max at least fifty times the potency of the standard variant and was without a doubt lethal on impact. "I said let…"

Snap.

"Go?" The blonde stammered in surprise as what appeared to be a pitch black piece of cloth with red trimmings snapped from Sakura's body and wrapped around her enchanted arm, holding it back and preventing her from utilizing the mystery that she had just prepared. Even without losing focus, she could feel the prana in her body slowly being drained by the cloth, and soon enough the curse around her hand had faded away as if it had never existed.

"Welcome to my parlor said the spider to the fly."

Pain shot through the blonde's body as at least a dozen more of the odd blurred appendages shot forward from her target and grazed her all over. None of the scratches she endured were lethal or even crippling, but they were extremely painful to say the least and given how many there were she would have to heal at least some of them soon or else she might risk bleeding out. Between the cloth around her arm and the remorsefully strong grip on her other limb, the blonde was completely trapped and unable to do anything against the sadistic torture.

It was only when the sadistic cutting stopped and the pain slightly faded that Marjatta managed to see her opponent clearly now, and that she had changed. The girl in front of her was still without a doubt human, but now had a very unsettling alien aura around her that screamed dangerous to the mercenary. The situation only appeared to get worse as she registered the roughly dozen or so black cloths appearing from the girl from various parts of her body much like the one that had ensnared her arm, all moving aimlessly but twitching in a way that made it obvious that they were under their host's control. Obviously they were what had just been tearing her apart, but she had other things to worry about.

Primarily that there was that very too pleased grin on her face, revealing more emotion on it than she had ever seen on her so far.

However, before the trapped teen could say anything about the new situation her lungs emptied themselves rapidly due to Sakura's free fist embedding itself into her diaphragm with her reinforced body performing a textbook straight punch. Had she nor reinforced her body previously, the blonde would without a doubt have received internal damage instead of the major bruising she got in its place.

"Hmhm." The Matou laughed sweetly and laced with addicting sadism as she removed her fist and wrapped another one of her cloth like appendages around the limp arm she had in her grip. "Not bad for girl out of her league, don't you think Edelfelt? Or maybe you simply haven't grasped the capabilities of those around you? Honestly, did you really think that Shirou-kun wouldn't teach me a few things about how he works in order for me to protect myself? How nobles act? What mistakes they make time and time again?"

Marjatta didn't say anything and instead focused on trying to regain control over her breathing again, not that her pride would allow her to say anything even if she could form words. She was disgusted with herself. Sakura's trap, while indeed well thought out, was something she should have been able to see through. The lack of any ranged mysteries and the fact that she was never nervous during the fight were the biggest give away, but like a novice Marjatta had let the rush of battle get to her head. It was inexcusable.

Her thoughts were cut off as she heard a tearing noise and felt air gradually brush against her arms. A quick glance showed her that her captor was tearing apart her sleeves with her bizarre new appendages.

Sakura grinned as she looked at the teen's bleeding right arm, showing the three command seals on the back of her hand. "There we are. The cause of all our current problems. I really shouldn't have ignored the possibility that you were also a master when I saw you at the school in hindsight." One of the black cloths hooked over her shoulders and pointed its unnaturally thin edge at her forearm. "Please do keep still. I've never killed anyone before and I want to keep it that way. Don't think ill of me for doing this. It's merely your bad luck that I don't know how to remove the seals off of others… eh?"

Sakura's positive sounding warning was interrupted as her vision was interrupted by the soles of two high grade combat boots, glittering with dozens upon dozens of small fragmented crystals embedded into them.

"Remove this you hick." The Edelfelt grunted as she kicked out her legs and set off a good quarter of the jewels in her boots right into Sakura's face.

The resulting explosion echoed around the room relentlessly, shaking loose dust from every corner of the catacombs and even knocking a few stones from the ceiling loose. Since the attack was clearly not absorbed like all of the other spells that the blonde had casted so far, the power behind it was allowed to explode as intended and freed the one who set it off backwards in the air.

Flipping backwards a few times for good measure, Marjatta landed with somewhat roughly as the shock of the detonation going through her legs numbed them a good deal. It wasn't often that she needed to use the jewels that she embedded into her boots, but so far every time she had they had saved her life. Many in her family showed disapproval of the unorthodox use of such valuable resources, but so long as her secret weapons got the job done, she was not going to change her habit. As far as mystic codes went, they were pretty crude, but they got the job done in spades. In hindsight, she probably should have taken up her Servant's offer to refine them after all… it probably would have done wonders dealing with the recoil that had shot up her legs.

"… Is she dead?" The blonde breathed heavily as she massaged her legs to get feeling back into them quickly and ignored the painful ache in her stomach where Sakura had punched her. Personally she could go either way at this point. The Matou was a far stronger opponent than she originally anticipated. Not unbeatable, but certainly without a doubt one that she would have to approach with more finesse if she wanted to pull off a win.

As if to answer her question, a silhouette became visible from the dust, soon showing itself to be her opponent pouting childishly with her bizarre appendages halfway wrapped around her body. Given from the way some of them appeared to be torn and twisted in uneven ways, it was safe to assume that they were what prevented the girl from being a red smear on the ground. Still the surprise attack seemed to have done some damage as tears and cuts on her body and forehead were clearly visible. The fact that the blood going down her face and made her look even more deranged than normal would have to be ignored for now. "Now that was just rude. I was trying to be nice by taking you out of the war without killing you."

A subtle shiver went down Marjatta's spine though it didn't show on her face. Something was wrong with the girl in front of her. The sudden change in personality when she materialized those shadows was too big to be considered just confidence. A split personality? An alternate persona? A side effect of her thaumaturgy? Whatever it was, it was clearly destabilizing her in some way, or maybe she had been like this since the beginning? Such phenomena were not unheard of when dealing with more uncommon forms of magecraft. Actually they were more common than what the blonde thought was comforting, but they tended to occur after something usually specific was done.

The girl in front of her had been altered in some way. Her body, mind, soul, or a combination of the three had been pervaded in some form and changed something permanent.

… And considering the fact that she didn't seem to be that thrilled about being a magus in their few heated conversations, it was more than likely that it was done against her will.

"Tch. Great. Just my luck. She's one of those unstable inheritors that were experimented on that went right." Marjatta grunted, not feeling any sympathy for her opponent in the slightest. She was unnerved yes, but only at the realization that her target was unstable and had undergone cruel treatments resulting in very potent mysteries. The unhinging of the girl's mind only made her more dangerous and likely to allow her spells to go out of control. Rampant emotions and magic didn't exactly mix that well after all. Not safely at least.

Sakura had the advantage in close range combat and maybe some mid range as well. Those cloth like appendages were dangerous as hell and could absorb prana. Making matters worse, she was still inside the bounded field that could absorb her curses, so her standard methods of mid and long ranged combat were out. So long as they kept their distance from one another the battle was a stalemate with neither side being able to harm the other, but the Edelfelt would be damned if she just ran away now. Her pride would not allow such a travesty.

"Caster is going to owe me greatly for bringing you to her alive." The mercenary muttered darkly as she ground her boots into the filthy ground and pulled a blood red ruby from one of her pockets, filled to the brim with prana that she and her Servant had stolen from the local populace over the past few weeks.

On the other side of the room, Sakura frowned as she saw her opponent pulling out the gem and instantly responded by shooting out her shadow limbs at the blonde despite the fact that there was at least fifteen meters between them and revealing that her true combat range was far greater than what she had originally portrayed…

It was time to show the hick that she wasn't the only one that knew how to plan a strategy.

"Hissi." She commanded, using the name of the Finnish name for a goblin demon that originally meant "a sacred grove", the teen unleashed all the energy inside the jewel in her hands to manifest a tremendous line of fire that bleached everything white as it spread out in a line that divided the massive catacombs between the two girls and destroyed the oncoming attack. Had the spell not originated from a jewel filled completely with prana, such a fast and massive exercise of spellcrafting would have undoubtedly been considered borderline true magic.

Sakura was clearly not expecting such a feat being performed, let alone the light generated from it and as such was blinded by the mystery. It wasn't that much of a big deal since she was still well within her bounded field so she was not worried about being attacked from a distance, but still being blinded like that unexpectedly hurt.

It started with a single shot coming in from her direct right, and it was so fast Sakura wouldn't have noticed it had her field not reacted and she felt the faint flow of additional prana go into her. Two more shots then came in from her left followed by another two directly from above. At this point the Matou frowned in confusion. Her opponent knew that there was no point in attacking like this. All she was doing was giving her more power…

Twelve more shots raced at her from all over and nearly hit her at once, causing the fire to temporarily be blocked off from her view, and Sakura blinked. It was odd, but it seemed as if she was absorbing less prana from these attacks than the others.

And then the black rain came.

Pelting the dome relentlessly from all angles, the small curses flew like a storm at their target. It did not seem to matter that they were doing nothing but making their foe stronger as they practically carpet bombed the entire area around the shadow wielder without pause. Had it been virtually any other magus stuck in Sakura's position, they would have been destroyed within moments under the unending assault, however the six meter wide empty black shell remained unblemished throughout the entire thing.

"What is she doing?" The target muttered to herself, bewildered in the safety of her field and no longer blinded by the fire that had been in front of her. "Is she trying to escape… or maybe…" Her eyes widened in realization as to what her opponent was doing.

As fast as she managed to try and contort her new appendages to try and defend her body from all sides, she had none the less been too late as Marjatta's body appeared through the black haze and moved at speeds that vastly transcended what she had utilized before with the aid of detonating her crystals in her boots. Doing so, she managed to barely pass through Sakura's second line of defense and virtually embed her fist into the teen's stomach. The blow was so great that both Sakura's lungs and stomach emptied themselves as the fist barely arched up under her ribs to hit more of her organs without hesitation, lifting her up off of the ground in the process.

"Got you." The mercenary grinned savagely as she cocked back her other fist and hammered it into the levitated girl's face and sending her flying to the back of the catacombs before landing with a limp thud onto the ground.

Never taking her eyes off of her downed target, the Edelfelt took the moment of victory to gasp out in pain and hold her stomach. Despite not showing it before, Sakura had at least shown that she could throw a damn strong forward punch if she wanted to. Then there was the fact that she had used up far more of her reserves than she had originally anticipated. When she had first entered the war, she had assumed that the only real challenge she could expect among the masters would be Emiya, maybe even that Tohsaka pretender, though she knew better than to take her Sister's personal target.

Going over the fight, Marjatta couldn't help but shake her head in disgust. She had made far too many mistakes and it had nearly cost her far too much despite the war not truly having started yet. She would have to be more careful from now on. If this worthless girl had proven to be such a dangerous opponent with just some lessons from the Magus Killer, than the real thing would no doubt be on a completely different level.

Without bothering to look behind her, Marjatta killed off the fire that she had created. It was a bit wasteful of her to utilize one of her jewels like that, but it was needed to catch the target off guard. The virtual rain of weak curses was to blind her to her surroundings, using the girl's own shield against her. While firing and controlling that many curses at once was rather straining on her focus, it was not that impossible for her as she had made sure that the curses themselves had the smallest amount of prana in them each in order to get the job done.

After that, it was simply a matter of using some basic fire manipulating thaumaturgy to get on the other side of the inferno she had made and use reinforcement and her boots to launch herself forward as fast as she could for a blitzkrieg like assault to claim the battle.

Walking up to the seemingly unconscious girl, the Edelfelt snorted in disapproval before kicking her once more to make sure she was unconscious. If she woke up from the blow or if she was faking it, she would just kick her again to knock her out again. A gasp of pain followed by coughing and further empting of her stomach told her that the Matou was conscious, but not in any condition to fight anymore.

"I win." The victor stated coldly as she took out a small bracelet and put it around the loser's right wrist, as its hand was where two of her three command seals were clearly visible. The jewelry was made and designed by Caster to prevent the user from utilizing the seals once put on, perfect for keeping masters of Servants alive and captive without further issues. "Huh. How wasteful. You've already used one of your seals… no doubt on something foolish. Probably couldn't have managed your servant without using it."

"I… lo-ost…" The purple haired girl gasped weakly, not having the energy to do anything else but breathe at the moment.

Another kick from Marjatta had her feebly cry out in pain as it collided with her side harshly. If she didn't have any broken bones from the blow, she would at least have a few good bruised ones for a while. "I did not give you permission to speak fool. Only the victor is allowed to talk after a battle."

Sakura blearily turned her head towards the blonde and looked at her in the eyes with an empty gaze, her disheveled hair falling over her forehead and sticking to the blood that was still flowing down it…

And as much as she could with the little permission her ribs and lungs would allow her, she laughed faintly.

Marjatta's instantly felt a shiver go down her spine. She knew that laugh. She had heard it countless times before and it rarely if ever meant good news. It was the kind of chuckle that people had when they knew something important that the people they were talking to did not, right before the latter suffered immensely. "What is so amusing? You said it yourself. I am the victor."

"No…" The girl denied weakly. "I said… I lost. I never said… you won."

It was only then that the sound had reached her ears. It was faint and easily ignored, yet many and coming from all around her, akin to listening to the waves when out at sea. Only instead of the soothing sound of water folding on itself, this was more akin to the wet folds of some base creature writhing in a primal way…

"What the…" The blonde looked around in some disgust and uncertainty, only to pause as she saw that she was surrounded on all sides by the most disgusting sight she had ever seen. Countless bloated worms writhed from the walls and the tombs of the catacombs, wiggling on top of one another endlessly before pooling out to whatever section of floor there was that had yet to be covered by them. Even with little light, Marjatta could see that the disgusting creatures somehow possessed teeth and small tentacle like appendages, giving them an alien and aggressive appearance that would make anyone keep as much distance as possible.

Looking up at the stairs on the far side of the room, the "victor's" face further paled as she saw that even the path out was flooded with the disgusting creatures as they made their way down from the graves that lined the walls of the workshop.

"Grandfather's worms… are very greedy." Sakura continued to laugh between breaths. "Once they detect… an easy meal… they will go for them relentlessly. Only he can control them… when they are like this."

"You… you little stain! You tricked me!" Marjatta yelled in anger and some fear as she fired off a good number of curses at the worms, only to hold back a curse as she saw that it did little to deal with the sheer numbers that she was dealing with. It did not help that her fight with Sakura had managed to deplete her of most of her internal energy, and supporting Caster had also prioritized another vital portion of her power.

"You should have… let me cut off your arm." The Matou replied carelessly. "It would have been… less painful."

Marjatta didn't even bother to listen to her defeated opponent's reply as she attempted to use some of her more explosive curses in an attempt to find a way out of her current mess. Unfortunately, the sheer mass of boneless monstrosities proved too much for her to manage in her current condition. Even if she used her jewels to clear a path to the stairs, there was no way she would be able to do the same thing while going up them.

"You! Tell me! How do I get out! How do you stop these disgusting creatures?!" The blonde frantically turned to Sakura, the oncoming fleshy wave now only a half a dozen meters away.

Sakura faintly laughed in response, draining more color from the blonde's face in the process. "I was told… I screamed for two days straight… when I was first dropped in here… before I finally went silent…."

"How long do you think you will last?"

o. o. o.

South of Fuyuki:

Fire reigned supreme and unrestricted in the burning field near the main road, housing the four heroic spirits as they stared one another down warily with varying levels of stress. In the center of the inferno were the two spellcasters panting heavily with their backs to one another in order to cover their respective blind spots. Blood clearly visible on both of them shined sporadically as the fire around them shone in every direction irregularly and menacingly.

The Princess was on her last bull, having lost her remaining summoned backup ten minutes prior when Rider forced its brethren to blindside and crush its body with a relentless charge. Covered in burns and cuts from her close calls with both her opponents, the princess was no doubt exhausted both in body and in spirit, however she did not take her eyes off of Saber as she was the only one of the pair that could do much to stop her from simply charging in and slashing them to bits.

The Witch was no better as she warily glared at Rider. The broomstick that she was still on had seen far better days as its splintered and burned body struggled to keep her even ten feet off of the ground. It was only due to her inhuman spellcasting and item construction abilities that it had not simply fallen apart from underneath her by now.

Despite how in bad shape the Casters were in, Rider's was only slightly better as her hijacked mount had been injured by one source or another during the entirety of their fight. If things weren't settled within the next few moves, she would have to abandon the creature or it would cost too much prana to force it to stay and keep it around any longer. Combined with the injuries that she sustained from the beginning of the fight and it was fairly obvious that she would be ganged up upon if things got truly desperate. The only reason why the other bull in the battle could keep on going was because its controller possessed healing spells and had been constantly aiding her remaining mount over the past fifteen minutes.

Saber on the other hand was in the best shape of all, as was her bike which save for a few superficial scratches and smears of dirt was in perfect condition. Her absurd magic resistance combined with her rather eccentric bike riding had prevented her from sustaining any real damage throughout the entire ordeal despite the fact that she could not wear her armor while riding her bike.

The blonde servant was slightly conflicted though. She knew that Shirou needed to see the noble phantasm of the Casters in order to ensure that the grail did not inadvertently destroy the world, so she needed them alive for now. But on the other hand, she could not risk letting the other Servants know of her Master's plans just yet, let alone make them suspicious. Simply letting the pair escape after they tried to kill her partner was also not going to happen…

Suddenly, before any of the revived women could decide on their next and most likely final moves, the Witch had instantly disappeared without any warning.

"What the…" The Princess blinked in surprise and fear as her companion's presence vanished.

Rider, now facing an unguarded servant's back, did not look at a gift horse in the mouth and instantly took the opportunity to move with her signature speed. Leaping off of her exhausted mount, her black and violet form bolted at her target with single minded determination. The reason she did this instead of forcing her already collapsing mount to fire another ball of fire at her target was simply because the fire was slower than the Servant. More powerful perhaps, but power was no longer needed to finish off the target now.

By the time anyone had realized that she had moved, the purple haired woman was already almost upon her target and her now freed mount had collapsed due to the lack of supporting prana and the damage it had sustained during the night. The exhausted Princess didn't have a chance to utter a spell of defense as Rider's nail pierced her back from behind and yanked her off her own mount violently in a single violent move.

Saber watched passively as the helpless spellcaster screamed frantically as she was spun around in the air by Rider. It may have been her, but she had a suspicion that the black clad woman was enjoying this odd form of torture too much as she continued to keep her captive spinning for a bit longer than she thought was necessary before the woman threw the weakened Servant in her direction, no doubt setting up for a definitive finishing blow.

The King of Knights frowned at the turn of events as she prepared to attack despite frantically thinking of a way to not kill the woman flying towards her. She couldn't just let Caster go, and she had proven herself to be too good at using her weapon to mess up and give her a mere severe injury. It was part of the reason why the two Casters had even lasted this long in their fight in the first place.

On second thought, maybe she should just let the flying Servant escape without doing anything. If Rider asked, she would just leave it to Shirou to sweat out the details. He had been preparing to deal with the war for several years now with knowledge from potential futures. It shouldn't be too hard for him to come up with something believable…

A flash of light originating from Caster blinded Saber briefly, snapping the blonde out of her thoughts. When her sight returned, her target was nowhere to be seen.

That works too I suppose. The Servant of the sword mentally shrugged while scanning the area for any potential signs that the woman was still around. "Rider, can you feel anything?"

"They are gone." The dark woman stated calmly, not bothering to note that the two fire breathing bulls of Helios had already disappeared from the world in the short time they had been separated from their riders. "Given how they vanished so suddenly, I assume that their Masters used a command seal each to take them to safety…" Her body tensed. "… Or to finish off our masters without issue. Sakura has stopped sending me prana to ease the strain on Master."

Saber's eyes widened in realization before she turned to the heavily damaged road Fuyuki and shivering as she recalled just how far they were right now. At best it would take them a good fifteen minutes to get back to the mansion, and then they had to hope that there weren't any other enemies or civilians that had been attracted by the fires. "Damn it. Rider, get on. I'll try to get us back as fast as possible. You can't summon your mount now or it may kill Shirou. He barely has any prana left in him. I'll power the bike using my reserves only."

"I have A+ riding." Medusa replied. "It would be better if…" She stopped talking as an invisible blade's tip pointed at her chest. Despite being blind, she could see the cold protective look her partner had on her face at the mere thought of giving up her ride to someone else. It would most likely be the same one she would have if someone tried to take Pegasus from her.

"… Back seat it is."

o. o. o.

Matou Catacombs

Sakura's body fell heavily to the cold, hard, wormless ground of the tomb from Marjatta's latest kick.

"To force me to use my command seal for something so trivial…" The blonde growled venomously as she walked slowly to her barely conscious opponent, loathing and frustration pouring out of her in droves. Her boot collided with the girl's side, causing her to scream out weakly in pain before getting sent another half a dozen feet. "Of all the things I had to nearly die from… WORMS! I HAD TO USE A COMMAND SEAL TO SAVE MYSELF FROM THE WEAKEST POSSIBLE FAMILIARS ON THE PLANET! IF I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT WAS TO BECOME OF YOU I WOULD END YOU NOW JUST SO NO ONE WOULD EVER HAVE TO KNOW OF THIS HUMILIATION!"

She rounded herself onto Caster, who while enjoying the show to some degree was more focused on recovering from the wounds she had received from her battle. Despite the fact that the Servant was the sole reason why the familiars had either disappeared or been twisted into a thick paste, her master was well in a poor enough mood to take her wrath out on the woman as well. "And you! Why on earth are you so wounded? You two were only against a single servant and winning when I last checked!"

The spirit showed a mild flash of irritation through a twitch in her mouth before calmly responding. "Our opponent was more connected than we had anticipated Master. Rider happens to be Lady Medusa of all heroes, and as such had an obviously high natural resistance to magic. We were holding the advantage as planned, but just as we were to obtain victory Saber came to her aid. She unfortunately has an A rank magic resistance, so even my strongest spells were of no effect on her. Actually it was a boon that you summoned me when you did. Our counterpart and I were about to make our last stand."

She briefly muttered a few unpronounceable words to clear up the several burn marks on her right arm before continuing. Burns caused by the flames of the Greek god of the sun would not be healed easily through natural means and thus required the extra measure to clear away cleanly. "Hopefully your sibling managed to do the same with my counterpart before the enemy managed to finish her off. Regardless though, neither one of us will be in any condition for combat for at least a day, maybe two in order to restore some of our lost prana and recover." A dry smile made its way onto her lips. "I believe that it is reason enough for us to utilize our contingency plan. Saber is quite a powerful servant. Possibly more so than Berserker. If we cannot control her, we must prepare for her master to come after us for what we are about to do to the girl here."

Marjatta clicked her teeth in irritation. Of all the servants for Rider to secretly be teamed up with, it just HAD to be Saber. "If that's the case, then let's gather the girl and leave then. I wish to leave this hellhole as soon as possible. You can perform your work on her when we are at your workshop."

Caster nodded, standing up tall and for all appearances sake looking like she was now no longer injured, her body and cloak having repaired itself with prana and ancient mysteries enough for them to retain their original outer appearance. Walking calmly to the downed and semi conscious Matou, the Witch reached out her hand to grab her. "I understand completely Master, and thank you. This child will make for wonderful experimenting mater…"

"TRACE. ON."

Caster didn't know what to make of the following instant. She made it a habit to surround her backside with strong barriers whenever possible to prevent potential sneak attacks, so only the strongest silent abilities could pierce through it so quickly. Even then, her clothing, while not armor, was further enchanted to provide a solid measure of protection against any offending forces. Certainly not something a normal human should not be able to do. Even if it was a magus with some ability, she should have been able to sense them from the Od and Prana in their bodies, but her attacker was running on fumes if that, so he didn't even register to her as she focused on her ailing body. By all means, an attack from such a source should be negligible and easily managed by her defenses, even if she was weakened by her recent fight…

The last thing that confused her was that normal humans were not supposed to have Noble Phantasms, yet the single red spear that had pierced through her barrier, her cloak, and her body without any issue was without a doubt one.

Both Master and Servant's eyes widened in shock at the sudden successful attack and turned around to the stairs of the catacombs to its source…

And were met with the sight of the Magus Killer staring down at them with his left hand held up to show his command seals glowing… and his enraged eyes burning a hybrid crimson silver in the darkness.

o. o. o.

Caster

ID: Medea

Alias: The Princess of Colchis

Master: Luviagelita Edelfelt

Alignment: Neutral Good

Strength: E

Agility: D

Mana: A

Luck: D

Endurance: D

Noble Phantasm: A++

Class Skills:

Territory Creation: A

Item Construction: N/A

Riding: B+

Personal Skills:

Divinity: C (B)

High Speed Divine Words: B

Denial of the Fates: B

A heroic spirit that to her very core never wished to follow the path that had been laid out for her by the gods, despite the fact her legend points otherwise. This version of Medea of Colchis has this skill as she has not regressed into the position as the Witch of Betrayal.

All abilities used on or by the Servant that rely on a luck check are primarily influenced by this skill instead of the luck parameter, though having a high luck will increase the chance of the event going even further to the servant's favor. This skill also has the capability to interfere with precognitive based skills such as Intuition and Clairvoyance, allowing the user a greater chance to achieve a different result than the one predicted and aimed for by the enemy. However in exchange, the servant does not enjoy the benefits that their luck rank would normally bring them outside of battle so long as said ranking is equal to or below that of this skill. The higher rank this ability is, the farther the spirit is from being a Heroic Spirit.

At this level, any noble phantasms or skills of B rank or less used against the servant that rely on luck checks or possess precognitive elements have a significant chance of failing, and any over still have a high chance of becoming unsuccessful.

Noble Phantasms:

Aeaea: The Paradise of Repenting: A. Anti-Army.

o. o. o.

A/N:

Thanks Maximorph1 for beting.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the fifth grail war. Where ALL Masters and Servants are certified awesome and chaos reigns supreme.

I would have had this out a week ago, but grad school is kicking my ass and work isn't much better at the moment. Plus hurricane Sandy may or may not have almost pushed a car sized slab of granite and a tree into my porch from a three story cliff right next to my house, and crushed everything underneath it…

You know that my sister and I are alike and close to one another when the very first name we think of to call the giant boulder is "Steve". Steve is also placed perfectly against the edge of the porch, so we're thinking of turning him into a fire pit as soon as we find a solid mason. It will be awesome.

But yeah, I was out of power for nearly a week, my friend was out for two, and people were cold for a while. Even worse, my dad grew up in Rockaway by the water, and for those who don't know, Rockaway was one of the absolute worst places hit by the storm. He went there to help out with the clean up and came back drained and said pretty much that his entire childhood was completely destroyed. The apartment building he lived in. The main street next to it. The beach. The boardwalk. Places he used to go to. All either absolutely destroyed or unsafe to go in. Some of his friends still live in the area, and they are telling us stories about dealing with the looters there. They have to take turns staying by the windows with baseball bats to keep the fucks away otherwise they WILL bust in and try to take everything that isn't nailed down. The news isn't even telling a third of how bad it really is over there.

If any of you guys live nearby one of those hard hit areas, please help out in some way. Donate or something.

A word of advice though? This may be a bit cold, but if you do go and help with the repairing efforts, help out the people that are actually TRYING to put their homes and communities back together and ignore the lazy fucks that are doing nothing but sitting to the side and watching. They want their old lifestyle to go back to normal? Make them work for it a little for once. If they complain about how you are ignoring them, ask them what they've done to help out since the storm hit. I've heard a story about a woman who lost everything in her home and then her husband had a stroke and is stuck in a hospital, and yet she was working hard to manage her home's deconstruction and claim what she could. THAT is who you should be helping out first.

Also another bit of sad news, I'm sorry to say that Uncle Mario died last Thursday. We'll miss you Super Mario. Thanks to everyone that wished him well.

So life's been hectic for me, stuff's been happening around the world, people continue to be violent, stupid, helpful, peaceful, and everything in between, and life goes on regardless.

… Christmas Shopping sucks.

Chapter wise, yeah, there was way more fighting than I had originally guessed, and the Sakura vs. Marjatta fight turned out way more awesome than planned. It's fun to be the first one to write a solid fight with Sakura in it when she isn't (completely) insane and possessed by her own powers.

So to all those who complained about Shirou being nerfed to cannon levels, how did you like the ending? It comes complete with these two birds. I hear they're endangered.

Honestly, given the way the grail war goes, how long did you honestly THINK Shirou is going to manage to keep hold onto the book before something horrible happens?

And oh, there are so many, many more good matchups that I have to make in the future.

Assassin comes in the next chapter, but whether or not I id him is up in the air.

Fun Fact: Marjatta's origin is "Burst".

So that's it my friends. Until next time.

REVIEW! WORSHIP THE LOG! NEVER TRY TO RIDE SABER'S MOTORCYCLE! AND REVIEW AGAIN!