Chapter 2, Part 3
Conversation on Death
fangs

[ [ March 15
[ [ 17:13

"I'm Sofie, by the way."
"Ren."
The girl had picked an alleyway, apparently at random, and then sat herself down on a crate.
Since the boy had nothing to sit on, it felt a little awkward, doubly so since she was already tall enough to see the top of his head. He suspected that was the point.
"And this," she said, gesturing to the air next to her, "is Saber."
On cue, the figure of a man shimmered into existence, the magical energy coalescing into a proper form. He was leaning against the wall, arms folded, an expression on his face where boredom and displeasure mingled: standing in a way to encompass standoffishness.
What stood out more than that, however, was his clothing. Lancer had been dressed in a fairly ordinary outfit - albeit one that made her seem more like a wealthy foreigner than a regular person - but Saber was the exact opposite. The reds and browns of his overclothes opened to reveal a white hakama underneath, and jagged pieces of iron armour were strapped to his limbs. Bandages wrapped his body, concealing anything that might have been underneath, leaving only his face exposed.
Like Ren, he was also clearly albino, but his eyes were visibly abnormal - winter cherries engulfed vertical pupils, burning into him.
"Mystic Eyes?" Ren asked tentatively. He had heard of some Guardian Spirits developing them if they possessed a form that would allow for it. Saber seemed to have a material corpus, so there didn't seem to be any obstacles in the way of developing them.
"Something like that," he replied gruffly. "Ask me again in a different class."
"...Class?"
He didn't respond any further, so Sofie sighed and cut in herself.
"Saber is a Servant class," she said. "Well, more specifically, it's a Saint Graph Designation, but the difference probably doesn't mean much to you."
"I know what a Saint Graph is," Ren replied.
He wasn't all too familiar with their Designations, but what he had inherited dealt in spirits first and foremost, so he understood the underlying principles of their genotypes. His own Magecraft typically fell under what was apparently designated as Caster, but there were exceptions among his spells, and he could assemble them in such a way as to produce unfamiliar ones that he didn't know the proper terms for. His perception of them resembled colours and shapes more than it resembled values and names, after all.
So this one was called 'Saber'. 'Lancer' seemed like another. How many of these spirits were there? Was there also a Caster Servant?
He shook his head. Too many questions, and all of them were tangents. There was something specific he came to ask.
"Well, with introductions handled, what are you two doing here?"
Sofie frowned, tilting her head a little. "You must have some idea, right? You're… a Magus? No, maybe just a regular person who knows a few things you shouldn't, since your magical energy is…"
"I'm a Spellcaster," he replied. "Just not a very strong one."
It seemed like the most accurate assessment of himself. He couldn't call himself a Magus in good conscience. He knew techniques, not the way of life.
She grinned. "Huh. I like you better already."
He wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, but silently urged her to answer the question.
"You seriously don't know what put Fuyuki City on the map?" she raised an eyebrow.
"I know about Inou Tadataka."
"Is that not an expression in Japanese?" she muttered. "Doesn't matter. If you've never heard of the Holy Grail War, then…"
He shook his head. This was… certainly a new combination of words.
"Is this something to do with the church on the east side of town?"
If that place had anything magical about it, then it had certainly escaped his notice… but then again, he had never been into a church before.
"Yes, actually," Sofie confirmed. "You know the new priest?"
"No."
"Oh, wow, okay," she said. Her voice was getting increasingly dry. "You're, uh… We should… I'm just gonna take you to church, I think. I feel like there were supposed to be negotiations with the locals. It'd be kinda, uh, fucked up if they didn't even ask the Magi. Who owns this land?"
"That'd be this Tohsaka lady, I think," Ren replied, "but she hasn't been in this country for about ten years or something. I don't know her."
Sofie frowned. "There should be someone she left it in the hands of, at least…"
"Sofie," Saber cut in irritably. "How long is this going to take? Do I need to be here?"
She turned her gaze to him, raising her eyebrows. "What, d'you have something better to do?"
"Don't you?"
"Okay, fair point," she conceded. "But escorting a noncomba―"
The world stopped. Silver flashed.
A splatter of red bloomed across the ground.

About a kilometre away, there was a clear view into the alleyway from the rooftop where Nils Herydir-Dragilaz was sitting. It was a little beyond the reach of any naked human eye, but Magecraft more than qualified as clothing.
He was watching the exchange between the dark girl and the light boy with curiosity at first, but his eyes were currently on the Servant that had appeared by the former's side.
"Oho… So that's Saber…" he nodded. "He's no joke, is he?"
The crow circling overhead responded with silence. That he is not. That man is… How to put it…
There was something mixed in with the telepathic correspondence that made Nils uneasy.
"You know this guy?" he asked. "Well, I guess he's visibly Japanese. It'd be hard for anyone from Japanese history to escape your notice."
I did not make any attempt to deal with him personally, thank the gods, she replied, but I knew those who did, and they universally failed. That man is possibly the single worst calamity that this country has seen since the serpent god.
She paused.
No. More than even that. At the very least, that serpent was a simple predator. Eagles do not hunt hares because they hate them, but rather because they love them, so they would never entirely exterminate them. In that sense, the threat posed by that man during his lifetime was even more severe. You understand?
It was kind of a stilted metaphor, but he basically followed.
"You're saying to stay on my toes then."
Saber is your strongest opponent. I have no doubt whatsoever. I cannot fathom a more dangerous Servant to have manifested for this battle.
Nils pulled his legs back up from the edge of the roof, vaulting over to the side of the railing it was supposed to keep him on.
"I don't suppose I could just snipe him from here? Because I've got an anti-materiel rifle in my pocket. Hey, it's not a war crime if it's a Servant, right?"
No. You are not strong enough to survive even five seconds against him as you are now.
He stopped, and nodded slowly. That was phrased like hyperbole, but he knew full well that Mishima was a little too literal for that.
"So… why did you call me up here, then?"
I want you to watch. You are about to witness the prowess of your enemies for yourself, she replied. Carve it into your mind so that you don't forget the power you must amass to be victorious, Caster.
He shrugged, leaning forward with his arms folded over the railing, and waited for the show.
"Who's he up against?"
Archer, nominally.
"Nominally?"
This will be over quickly.
A quiet instant passed. The next, magical energy surged.
It passed like a flash of light. The process was too quick to truly appreciate. Nils had gained the speed of a Servant, but it was beyond even his ability to keep track of so quickly.
Only the result was visible.
"...What the hell?"
Was he dead? It was impossible to say, but a mortal wound had certainly been inflicted in the blink of an eye.
"Mishima, what the hell was that?"
Overhead, Mishima continued to circle, changing trajectory just slightly to get a better look.
…I… don't know. That… isn't what I….

The world had almost stopped, but not quite.
It rarely entirely halted. This was the closest Ren had even been to a true exception.
And yet, Saber was still moving. In his hand was a huge silver sword, teal light adorning its blade: one with an ancient form that he vaguely recognised. His movements were sharp, powerful, aggressive; an obvious warrior even to those who had never seen one before. But to Ren, they were at a speed that he would have most closely associated with someone getting out of a chair and walking across the room.
That alone was insane. It defied comprehension. The world was going slower than he had ever seen. The only thing he could tell was moving at all was Saber. That meant that Saber was the lynchpin of the slowed world - or rather, Ren's own accelerated perception.
This was Magecraft, of course. It was entirely internal to its user, but his left eye was of tremendous acuity all the same. This was not an unfamiliar sensation to him. The constellation of Capricorn was associated with intellect, and so his perception would accelerate to understand what he was seeing so long as it dwelled within his eye.
But that did not extend to the rest of his body. He could understand what he was seeing, and he could even react to it, but his synapses could only fire so quickly. He could measure the rate of acceleration fairly intuitively just by waiting to see how long it took his body to react to his will.
It had not even started. No, perhaps it had, but he had yet to witness it.
Saber was moving at such a speed that it appeared to Ren as though he himself was frozen in time.
He lifted the sword up to his head, as though moving to block some kind of invisible blow.
A moment later, that invisible blow arrived.
A stream of bright light suddenly appeared - still as instantaneous as ever. It was as though a torch had been switched on. It was full of bizarre angles, flashing around the alley in all directions before suddenly turning toward Saber. It reflected off the shining blade in his hand, dissipating into dozens of dimmer rays as it did.
The magical energy from that light was overwhelming. The heat had not arrived at Ren's body yet, but he could tell it was searing. If that beam had actually contacted Saber's head, it would probably have blown it away completely. At the same time, it was a genuine beam of light. How had he managed to react to that? Even if he had broken the laws of physics, moved faster than light somehow, he would not have been able to perceive it until it had already reached him.
Precognition of some kind, perhaps? It seemed like the only explanation.

Something else moved in the corner of his eye.
…That should not have been possible, but he saw it all the same.
Something else was moving in the world of godspeed in which mere perception was not enough.
There was a shadow behind Sofie, raising a blade no larger than a knife. He could not describe it as anything more substantial than that. This was not the same kind of shape that Saber took before he had materialised his body. This was something even thinner, no more tangible than a fingerprint in water. If not for Capricorn's concept of understanding, Ren probably would not have even comprehended its presence. That was how much nothingness there really was in its form.
But a wetted finger could pierce through paper. This was no exception. It seemed almost like it was about to pierce through as though from the other side of a page.
He had seen this before. He recognised Imaginary Numbers when he saw it.
It was obviously going to kill Sofie. There was no other reason for it to raise its blade to her. The moment it reached here, this side, she would be pierced through the left temple by a knife faster than a bullet and die instantly.
That wasn't his problem. This whole affair was none of his business. That was the proper train of thought for a Magus.
We're talking about a body count in the hundreds, maybe thousands.
She, a stranger to this town, a participant in this ritual, would become one of its casualties, and it would be entirely her own fault for picking this fight.
Saber was deflecting a lethal attack of his own. He could not turn to save her from the shadow if he wanted to survive the blazing light. Ren doubted he had not noticed it, but there was very little he could do about it.
That meant that the person who was going to save her was none other than Ren himself.
It went without saying, didn't it?
After all, he was here to at least try to stop people from dying because of this. That was the reason he had chased after this stranger in the first place and left Sato waiting for him. He wasn't going to watch someone die in front of him and then go back to her like nothing had happened.
He wasn't a proper Magus, after all.
So what was he going to do about it?
He had to think quickly. The knife wasn't getting any slower, and he wasn't getting any faster either. He mentally ran through his options. He needed to use Magecraft - his body wasn't fast enough.
His magical energy reserves were… frankly pathetic. He could cast perhaps a single spell, maybe two. No, he didn't even have time for two.
Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpius, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Hebitsukai-Za…
The immediate thought was a barrier, some kind of armour to prevent the knife from piercing. Aries could take care of that. It encompassed the concept of protection, after all.
No, that would be worthless. His own paltry magical energy, even if he used all of it, was not going to be enough to protect from a blow so powerful that it could move in this realm of speed. A spiritual armour would simply not be strong enough. Even if it also encompassed the self-enhancing concept of kingship, that enhancement would probably not hold.
Taurus, then? It was a more generalised reinforcement, using the concept of order that it had taken from the god Jupiter. The establishment of order was essentially the same thing as reinforcement, so it could even enhance his own body's speed to reach this realm as well… No, even simpler than that, he could simply draw on Jupiter's lightning to strike at the shadow itself with tremendous speed of his own…
It wouldn't work either way. He couldn't attack once and then simply let it be. He didn't have the stamina for a protracted battle, and if this thing was like Saber and Lancer - a Servant - then he obviously wouldn't be able to win in the first place even if he had all the mana and od in the world.
The knife was already millimetres away from its target. He couldn't afford a plan longer than a single step.
Gemini… Entanglement, duality, overlap. This was it. He had to use this one. A bargain with the stars of Castor and Pollux could do the trick somehow. He could exchange Sofie's concept for another, and exchange her position in turn.
But he would be exchanging it with his own.
Maybe there was a better way.
I don't have time for a better way.
It was fine. If Sofie died, then he probably wouldn't find a way to save anyone. He doubted that the other participants were as open to him as she had been.
If Ren died…
Well, better to save one person for sure than have a good chance to save absolutely nobody.
Ren was never a fan of the trolley problem anyway.
His flesh burned. His muscles tightened, and pain shot through his body as he made his decision.
Open, he commanded his Magic Circuits, and the world turned on its axis.

Assassin's kunai pierced deeply through something she hadn't expected, and she stopped it the instant she realised.
Too late. The boy opposite her target was here. The Master of Saber had fallen to the ground where he had been standing a moment ago, staring in shock.
Magecraft, was it? He had thrown himself in front of the knife and taken a blow meant for a stranger.
So it wasn't her fault. She couldn't have done anything about his stupid decision.
Brushing it aside with that logic, she pulled the knife out of his throat, and let the warm body fall to the pavement. A small red splatter bloomed on the ground from the hole she had made. No noise. He couldn't cry out in pain with a hole through his windpipe, after all.
Still, she hadn't killed him immediately. He would suffocate, but she had intended to give a quick death. But her target had been sitting, he had been standing, and the two were facing in opposite directions. When they swapped positions, her knife had found the wrong part of his body.
"That's unfortunate," she commented. "Hold still. I can put you out of your―"
"Hey," the Master spluttered, grabbing the boy's arm. "Hey! Hey! What did you do?!"
Assassin shook her head, brandishing her kunai. "It's polite to thank your rescuer, but worry about yourself first so that his kindness doesn't go to waste."
She said that, but it was too late now. Her kunai descended once again――

――and she was struck by a blast of invisible force.
Assassin's side scraped across the ground as she flew, but she barely managed to reorient herself, landing upright. Wound was superficial. Nothing to worry about on its own.

The swordsman approached.
One step. Two steps.
"I agree. Worry about yourself first," he said.
A wide smile lacerated his lips, and his eyes burned with killing intent.
His knuckles whitened around his sword.
That sword…
That sword was――
"You've got guts," he laughed. "A human-killing abomination showing her face around me like that? Are you stupid? Too illiterate to know who you're dealing with? Or are you just mocking the meaning of 'Yamato Takeru', oni?"
Everything went ice cold. Even her bones shuddered.
"Master, I need a Command Spell."
What? came the reply. What do you need a boost for? You have him outnumbered two to one.
"No, that's not it," she begged, "please, I need you to call me back!"
"Your voice is annoying. Shut the fuck up," snarled Saber.
What's gotten into you?
"Master, I'm serious, get me out of here right n―!"

The snake sprang forward.