It is said that the definition of insanity is to repeat an action hoping

for a different result. Yet no matter how many times you flip a light

switch, the rock on your cup won't turn into wine. And yet, human

beings are arrogant enough to believe it'll be different if it's me and it

won't happen to me.

And if the average human is arrogant to the point of self-deceit, what

of those with access to unique means and knowledge? Indeed,

Magus have turned arrogance into a way of life, secure in

the knowledge that they and only they can take the flawed knowledge

that led to a failed attempt and obtain the perfect result.

Because surely this time, the rock will turn into wine.

[Saber, have you found her workshop yet?] Shirou asked over his

link with Artoria, easily dividing his attention between it and

scanning his surroundings.

Clarissa Shadehill had stolen the research of a censored magus

family and decided it would work for her. Because of course, it

would! As the heiress of the Shadehill family, she was the ultimate

recipient of nine generations of her family's research, and her Crest

carried dozens of spells crafted by the peerless genius of the

Shadehill family.

How could she find anything but success?

And yet, Clarissa's flawless security measures proved ultimately

insufficient to contain every test subject, with two spiders escaping

their terrarium and jumping onto an unfortunate cockroach, which

fled into the town's sewers and, already half dead, was promptly

cannibalized by its peers.

[No, not yet. Possibly underground?] Artoria sounded calm and

collected on their link.

Soon, large and aggressive mutant vermin swarmed out of the

sewers, attacking everyone and anyone in the little town before

moving to the nearest town, and endangering the secrecy of magic.

And while the Clock Tower didn't care about a few hundred normal

people dying for the sake of Clarissa's research, they at least

understood that thousands of people would be curious about their

fates, a situation that could easily endanger the secrecy of magic.

And that couldn't be allowed.

Of course, Shirou was much more worried about the villagers.

[What about survivors?]

[Unfortunately not.]

Thankfully, while she never planned for her work to get out of

control like this, Magus are nothing if not paranoid and distrustful,

a trait that meant Clarissa was ready to collapse the entrance into the

valley, preventing the ghouls from spreading into the outside world.

Not that it was any comfort for the poor bastards trapped with the

things.

As a ghoul pounced at him from a tree, Shirou spun and cut its arms

off before following the swing and loping off its legs in an effort to

immobilize and study the mad thing.

On the floor, the limbless ghoul continued to twist and contort in an

attempt to reach Shirou with its mouth.

[Found a ghoul. It was smart enough to try and ambush me. Fast

enough to be a threat against civilians, too.]

[Same.]

The sound of a crumbling house told Shirou that Saber had run into a

group of the things. There was simply no way a single ghoul would

force her to collapse a building on its head.

He looked around, half expecting to see a horde of monsters rushing

him now that he had taken down one of their number. Apparently,

that was too much to ask for, and the things were not interested in

avenging their companion, or did not think of each other in such a

way.

With a sigh, he pinned the squirming ghoul against the ground and

immobilized it with a few black keys before attempting to use

[Structural Grasp] on it. Unfortunately, it didn't tell him anything

new.

the ghoul had been male, somewhere in his mid-thirties, and its body

was...

[Uh. They've grown a second brain in the middle of the chest.

Beheading won't be enough to kill them, though it'll be enough to cut

their sight and hearing.]

[Like cockroaches?] Arturia sounded genuinely repulsed by the

news.

[...pretty much.]

[That is absolutely disgusting.]

Despite the situation, Shirou couldn't help but feel the corners of

his lips twitch up a little bit. In the half-decade since the end of the

Grail War, Saber had grown deeply fond of documentaries on all

topics, from history to nature. The thought reminded him of evenings

spent lounging at home, cuddling on the couch with Saber and

Sakura while watching something about penguins.

Or was it about owls? It was bird-related, of that much he was sure.

As if his use of magecraft had rang a dinner bell, ghouls began to

emerge from houses and gardens, crawling or running at him in

whatever position they were likely to have been at the time. It would

have been humorous in any other circumstance, but right now it was

downright bizarre; some of them were trying to run sidewise or

backwards, just as naturally as if they were facing forth. As if the

idea of turning and reorienting themselves towards him was too

advanced a concept for their brains.

He tried, he really tried to push aside the cockroach comment Saber

made less than a minute ago, but knowing that they had an extra bug

brain and seeing them move in such an inhuman manner.

'Well, so much for their humanity.' He thought.

Swords began rushing through the air as soon as they came into

existence above him. It had been years since he needed to hypnotize

himself to do this, a testament to the effectiveness of Rin's genius in

treating and rehabilitation of his once undeveloped magic circuits.

'They're dead already,' He told himself, 'you can't help them, so at

least put them to rest.'

It wasn't just people, either. Cats, dogs, and somebody's pet snake all

came at him, The snake was particularly bizarre, as it moved more

like a caterpillar than a proper snake.

On the plus side, it meant he could still freak out. He was still

human.

Shirou started to move around the town, projecting simple weapons

and shooting them through the head and chest of the rushing ghouls.

No need to trace a powerful Noble Phantasm to take down the

magical equivalent of a violently convulsing corpse.

[Shirou, I found a Bounded Field.] Artoria reported over their link,

and he was happy for the sound of her voice in his head.

It was a clear sign that she may have found Clarissa's home. True, it

maybe a different magus, but the association didn't say anything

about other magus families living in the area.

[Which way? Landmarks?] He asked.

[There's a ...I think it's a school building, just across a plaza from it.

To the east side of the valley.]

[Alright, I'll head over.]

The day should have been clouded, grey, and cold. But no, it was a

sunny, warm day with clear blue skies. Not what anyone would

expect when thinking of a ghoul infestation. Could he have waited

for the night to go into the town? Yes, and if he wasn't looking for

survivors, he would have.

He made his way in as visible a manner as he could, hoping for

anyone to call out to him, yet nobody tried, and he soon joined Saber

at the edge of the Bounded Field.

He actually smiled upon seeing her serious yet beautiful appearance.

It had been years, and the heroic girl had grown into a stunning

woman. Tall and statuesque, with a presence that radiated strength

and femininity in equal measure.

Much to Rin's chagrin and Sakura's quiet amusement, she had filled

up and gained curves in all the right places, making it impossible for

anyone to mistake her for a man. Not anymore.

"Shirou." She greeted him, looking as radiant as the sun, and

effortlessly condemning the butchered corpses of dozens of ghouls

to irrelevant background noise.

He smiled and walked over to her side. "I assume Miss Shadehill

hasn't tried to contact you?"

"No, and I flared enough magic to pull in every ghoul in the area, so

either she's dead, gone, or hoping we'll simply go away if she

ignores us hard enough."

"...I wouldn't be surprised."

He could smell the Bounded Field, and though he couldn't actually

tell what its functions and limits were, he didn't really need to,

anyway.

"Rule Breaker." With those simple words, he projected the colorful,

seemingly useless idea of a weapon, and stabbed the Bounded Field

in front of it.

There was a sound as if someone had sucked all the air in the area,

and the normal-looking house in front of them faded away like a

mirage, replaced by a large manor with at least six floors and three

wings, plus a greenhouse and a gazebo.

Admittedly, most of the manor and all of the gazebo were on fire,

though.

"Do you think she's dead?" Shirou sounded downright hopeful.

"..."

"Yeah, me neither, but I can hope."

If Clarissa Shadehill was already dead, that meant she wouldn't flee

and try the exact same thing somewhere else. If she's still alive

though, then it was Shirou's business to 'fix' that.

A younger, more naive part of him wished he could save her too, but

he had interacted with way too many magus already to remain

ignorant of their ways.

Then, a veritable lance of blue flames burst into existence on the

third floor, flaring upwards for a moment and tearing a long, thin

hole through the outer wall of the manor.

"I didn't think we were getting help on this job." Said Saber while

taking the sight on.

"We weren't supposed to, or at least I wasn't told to expect anyone

else."

Three years ago, Clarissa Shadehill successfully made away with

the discarded notes of an apprentice for the Wizard Marshall. On it,

she found references to a minor ability of the Kaleidoscope known

as 'Plunder'. The ability to bring objects from different worlds. Of

course, the fact said student successfully earned himself a Sealing

Designation after pulling in a Phantasmal Beast that proceeded to

tear apart two small towns before a squadron of Enforcers managed

to bring it down just didn't register with Clarissa. As the genius

daughter of the Shadehill family, she'd make it work.

And up to three weeks ago, it looked like she was right.

Now, in the middle of a ghoul outbreak and with someone having

just popped her family manor's excellent Bounded Fields like they

were nothing but a bunch of balloons, what little subjects she had

retained control over were running free. And that included a very,

very pissed-off caramel-skinned beauty with long pink hair.

As soon as the extremely dense magical field that had kept her weak

and nearly flat on the stone slab her captor decided was a proper

surgical table went away, Ingrid rolled to her left and threw herself

unto the floor, gasping for breath until the world stopped spinning

and she felt strong enough to stand.

Ingrid wasn't hypocrite enough to feel righteous indignation from

being 'merely' tortured or abused. After all, she had done as much to

traitors and betrayers.

No, what pissed off Ingrid so much she skipped over 'angry' and

went straight to 'apoplectic', which was the cold and dehumanizing way in

which her captor had repeatedly cut her open to study her organs for

days at a time, then stitched her back together before leaving her to

rest for an arbitrary period of time before doing it all over again.

There was no anger, jealousy, or even malice. All Ingrid could see in

that woman's face was curiosity and after what felt like several

months, boredom. As if tearing Ingrid apart to examine her organs

was nothing beyond a dull chore, as if Ingrid herself was nothing

more than an old, dull lesson she could learn nothing more from, or

perhaps a worn-off toy.

In all this time, the woman hadn't even bothered to talk to her, let

alone introduce herself!

Thus, it was with more than a little vindictiveness that Ingrid began

tearing through the manor she found herself at the moment she left

what passed for a laboratory in this madhouse.

As soon as she made it into the hallway, a magic construct-looking

like a bear made out of brown wood swung at her, knocking her

along the length of the hallway against the far-off wall before

charging at her. Ingrid raised her head to look at the thing, and even

as she arose to her feet, focused her flame into so dense an edge that

the thing fell apart in clean, coal-black slices that somehow managed

to twitch for several minutes after Ingrid walked past it and further

into the manor, kicking open every door, looking for something she

could dress herself with.

BLAM!

'You cannot be serious.' She thought as soon as she laid eyes on her

sword and part of her clothes, seemingly preserved behind a magical

field similar to the one that had, up to a few minutes ago, kept her

prisoner of the mad witch that owns this place.

The sheer arrogance in keeping a prisoner's equipment right next to

their holding cell was just... mind-blowing.

Ingrid considered the magic field she could feel around her sword. If

it was her, she'd use an impenetrable barrier, or maybe something

that would seriously hurt a would-be thief.

But then she thought about that woman's attitude, about this room's

closeness to her own cell, and decided to gamble on her conclusions

about her captor.

'She's arrogant enough to keep me captive with nothing but

spellwork when a few cuffs and chains would have been a cheap

and easy way to add an extra layer to my imprisonment. Arrogant

enough to keep my sword in the adjacent room. I think... this isn't so

much a security field as it is for preservation. After all, I'm nothing

but a specimen for her.'

With that, she decided that even if she was wrong and she was about

to be fried the moment she reached for her sword, it would still be a

far preferable fate to going back to being that woman's lab rat.

And to her mild surprise, nothing happened to her, though she could

sense a magical impulse race off into the depths of the manor.

'At least she was careful enough to set an alarm. The bitch doesn't

seem to think I could possibly escape her grasp, but I guess she's at

least worried about thieves.'

To be fair, that was a preservation-oriented Bounded Field, as

Clarissa simply wanted to make sure all her precious samples were

in good condition when she studied them, and she certainly didn't

expect someone to just pull a Noble Phantasm out of nowhere and

Rule Breaker her family's Bounded Field. As such, the alarm had

been a secondary thought at best, just something to let her know if

the field failed for whatever reason, such as an earthquake shaking

things up.

'Alright,' Ingrid grinned as she picked up her sword and swung it a

couple of times, then looked around the room. 'where are my

clothes?'

She managed to find her boots and panties, but nothing else. No

matter, she'd fought in less before.

Arturia and Shirou broke in through one of the first-floor walls, fully

expecting the Shadehill heiress to have the actual doors reinforced

or trapped in some way. They weren't interested in the manor itself,

so why bother to keep damage low?

Instantly, they were attacked by an upholster, a small wooden table

and a wardrobe, forcing them to do a double-take at the sight of the

little table dashing towards them while keeping low to the floor in

much the same manner a pouncing tiger would have done, while the

upholster and the wardrobe thundered forth in a much slower but

seemingly irresistible charge.

Of course, it was the weird factor that made them pause. The danger

of hostile furniture, not so much.

After living in the modern world for about six years, and growing

'domestic' to a certain degree, Arturia felt almost guilty as she sliced

the little table in two. To be fair, she wasn't really sure how it would

have actually attacked if it had the chance.

Was it just meant to ram her to death? It would surely prove

somewhat dangerous against a regular familiar, but against an

invading magus, it'd barely be anything but a waste of time.

Shirou was of a similar mind, having a rather frugal lifestyle and

being used to manage their house's finances. In the end, he projected

Gáe Deard, the Spear of Exorcism, and simply tapped each piece of furniture

to break whatever enchantment animated them.

"I thought we weren't worried about property damage?" Arturia

raised an eyebrow.

"If a simple tap is enough to solve the issue, isn't that actually faster

and cheaper than projecting something to smash them with?"

"...Alright, point. Now give me one so I can do the same. No need to

announce our presence with the sound of battle and shattering

furniture if we can just walk down the house."

"I feel like we're cheating." Announced Shirou, even as he complied

and handed the spear to Arturia, then projected another for himself.

Rule Breaker would have been both inconvenient, given its small

size and lack of reach, and gross overkill when all that was needed

was to disable minor enchantments from (admittedly quite a few)

pieces of furniture.

Diarmuid would have still coughed blood out of sheer anger at the

way they were using his Noble Phantasm, but thankfully the lancer

wasn't around to see.

Clarissa cried out in rage and pain. Like every other magus, she was

somewhat connected to the Bounded Fields around her home, and

the sensation of them popping into unreality felt like having a toe

caught in a vault's door.

"Aaagh! Who-!?" She whimpered/cried at the sensation, and had to

catch herself or fall onto the floor.

To be fair, the floor caught her fall. Literally, as her family's

magecraft specialized in manipulating organic material, and thus the

wooden floors in her room and workshop were like fluid extra limbs

she could command at will.

A large, light-brown colored hand of wood rose from the floor to

catch her in a gentle, supportive hold, then sink back onto the floor

as she steadied herself.

Any intruder would have to fight every piece of furniture, statue,

roof beam, and even the flooring itself to reach her. In short, she was

the closest thing to a reality manipulator within her home, as

everything in sight was made from some manner of wood.

And that's why she was completely unprepared for the intruders to

just 'tap' their way through her domain, and her experimental subject

to just incinerate her way to freedom. It's not that she was

incompetent, it was simply the worst match she could ever get.

"How are they doing that?" She could 'see' through the wooden

beams on the hallway roofs, and the ridiculous spectacle of the

statuesque blonde in the armor and the tall redheaded man just

gently tapping their way through whatever she threw at them was

infuriating beyond measure.

So focused was she, that she was caught completely by surprise

when the crowning achievement of her studies into the

Kaleidoscope simply kicked the door to her chambers and looked at

her with an expression that could sour lemons.

Ingrid had blasted through the third floor and upstairs into the

fourth, anger and resentment fueling her failing body as she slashed,

cut, and incinerated her way up the wooden stairs. As a superior

devil, she was capable of sustaining herself on magic for an

indefinite period of time, but that didn't account for a need to

regenerate after being cut open, disassembled, and haphazardly put

back together day after day for months at a time.

Especially considering how mana-starved her new world appeared to

be. In fact, ever since whatever enchantment kept her bound in place

came out, she had to admit it had also contributed to keeping her in

a mana-rich environment she had simply considered natural at the

time.

And after using her flame multiple times and enhancing her body

with what little mana she had left, Ingrid felt as if she had wandered

through the desert for a week.

'It's been barely three hundred feet or so, and I can tell I'm about to

die.' She thought with grim finality. 'But before I go, I'm going to

eviscerate this bitch.'

She laser-focused on Clarissa and charged against her in a straight

line, flames rising to burn through the two titan-sized brown hands

emerging from the floor to get in her way.

She surrounded herself with a ring of blue flame, then stretched and

sharpened it into a fiery chakram, almost instantly setting it to spin

like a buzzsaw around her charging form.

The closest, enormous wooden hand in her way was sliced apart

right in the middle of its palm by the horizontal ring of sharpened blue

flame, its fingers falling back as the half-hand now sported a

perfectly smooth, coal-black surface where it was cut. And yet that

wasn't enough to stop the thing's momentum, and Ingrid had to jump

over it to continue her charge, right into the closed first of the second

hand.

There was a sound like that of a ton of wood impacting a fleshy

body and Ingrid was punched into the wall behind her so fast it

almost looked like she had teleported there. By the time she fell

forth, she had left a bloody imprint on the wall, but still she forced

herself to roll forth in order to dodge the incoming wooden spikes

that her captor had fired at her, seemingly conjuring them out of the

furniture in the room like water from a well.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

The spikes were nothing graceful, but they were clearly dangerous

by how deep they pierced into the wall, right where her head, heart,

lungs and stomach would have been if she remained in place for half

a second longer than she had.

Some part of the Demon Knight noticed that the furniture in the

room seemed deflated, almost melted, but she decided to archive that

in the 'later' section of her mind. Assuming there'd be a later, as she

found herself running so low on mana that she was having trouble

keeping herself from gasping like a fish out of water, desperately

trying to breathe despite being outside the world it had evolved for.

Clarissa noticed, though. How could she not, when she had spent

months studying the Phantasmal across the room?

'It can't survive in our mana-scarce environment. I just need to push it

back for another couple of seconds, and it'll literally asphyxiate to

death. Dammit!' Someone else would have been happy about an all-but-guaranteed win, but all Clarissa could think of was that whoever

the intruders were, they'd basically killed her most prized specimen

when they popped the manor's Bounded Field. 'Normally, connecting

the artificially enriched bubble to the house's supposedly

indestructible Bounded Field would have been the right choice,

but...'

Even now, Clarissa thought of Ingrid as nothing but an 'it', and her

most valuable lab specimen, but nothing other than that. She had

examined, vivisected, and put 'it' back together again in the name of

advancing her research, and that was all that mattered to her.

'If only I had a few more months. I could have learned to manipulate

flesh.' In her opinion, that would have allowed her to 'fix' anything

on her body, extending her life for long enough that her research

would eventually let her reach the Root.

That according to the definition of such things, she'd become

dangerously close to a Death Apostle and earn a Sealing Designation

didn't seem to register with her.

Ingrid gasped and could swear she felt the world robbing her

personal mana out of her breath. She felt as if she was fighting in the

ocean's depths, holding her breath with the weight of the world

above her shoulders, with the surface and its promise for air an

impossible distance away.

'I'm going to die.' She wasn't whining, she was merely upset. As her

lord's blade and as a knight, death on the battlefield wasn't a maybe,

it was a when. Merely a point of fact and an observation.

No, that wasn't entirely true. She did have one complaint. Before her

death, she wanted to kill the bitch, stab her through the head with her

sword, and then collapse over her corpse. 'I have to reach her

somehow.'

To be continued...


Commissioned by Me

Written by Madlad (Maglad)

If you wish to read the rest and the mature scenes please visit

P*a*t*r*e*o*n . com (Slash) SeraphimofScales