New Year GSSR Gacha saves the day! Brynhildr is in Chaldea now with her husband Sigurd! Now my Fate/Prototype Servants are complete! Now there are a few Servants I'm saving for. Himeko, Castoria, and Muramasa so I'm carefully saving my Saint Quartz this year. Looking forward to a whole new year of new fanfiction updates of my favorite stories and authors!
Orario was damaged in the outer areas. They had managed only to repel the threat, but not defeat it. It was a waking moment for all of Orario as even the Loki and Freya Familia suffered devastating defeats to their pride. Their highest leveled adventurers couldn't even leave a single scratch on War, while only the weaker familia and that included Hestia's managed to land solid blows.
It was a revelation only Hakuno realized that they'd pull off a miracle to repel War. The Horseman of the Apocalypse had anti Demi-Human traits, rendering the top level familia that aren't human to have their strength null and voided when facing this living abomination. It was weak against only humans, one of the two species besides a pallum that were considered the weakest to recruit into a familia. It was thanks to those humans that the Horseman was repelled from Orario for a bit of borrowed time as casualties rose.
It was now that recruiting humans into a familia was on demand, especially since there were now empty slots available to some that had suffered from War's attack.
Amid sighed as she checked her patients, for the medical wards were now filled with more adventurers than ever before. It would be too much for her alone that the Guild started calling in other healers from other familia to aid in healing the injured.
The Dea Saint's top priority patient, Hakuno Kishinami was placed in intensive care at the request of her spouse Gilgamesh. He paid for everything in that room for the best comforts, medicine and foods. Of course, Amid would do her best especially when it revealed that Gilgamesh was a king. He was checking on his beloved queen as she slept in a medically induced coma as the girl suffered a loss few could handle losing. The Holy Witch had lost both arms in that battle, suffered from blood loss, several broken ribs, a concussion, and a hole in her stomach courtesy of a sword impaling her (that Amid healed).
Amid had never met a girl like her that was so stubborn to die or so beloved by the ordinary folk. Time and time again she gets deliveries of bouquets and get-well cards all directed for Hakuno. Visits from her daughter Primo are just as frequent as well.
The poor elf child sat at her mother's side, apologizing for her own carelessness, begging for Hakuno to wake up, and even crying a few times with her visits. Amid tried her best to reassure the child but they fall deaf on ears since this was an emotional ailment. None of her healing spells could work on one's emotional heart as it drove Amid into further resolve into healing Hakuno.
Her husband was willing to provide funds to see his queen healed, and there was no way to restore limbs destroyed beyond her own healing range. So, she'll make prosthetics. There was a kind of prosthetics the Dea Saint wanted to try, one meant for adventurers that fought melee and were durable against the landmass weapons, claws and fangs of monsters. An alloyed metal capable of lasting long in the Dungeon's traitorous caverns. It was a recent discovery amongst the smiths, and it had promising medical usage that she bought some in advance for her research in the medical field.
Her tests showed many positive results so far, and Amid had decided that for the Holy Witch, once she's healed from her other injuries, she'll acquire these new limbs. This was her duty as a healer, and she'll do whatever it took to see her patient fully healed and capable of reuniting with her familia.
*Orario Walls*
Bell slammed into the ground again a quickly flipped back onto his feet to avoid Ais' sheath from stabbing where he was at as the boy tried to even his breath as sweat dripped from every pore in his body. Today's training was intense for a reason, ever since War single-handedly bested Loki's and Freya's top fighters and the revelation that it had special abilities against Demi-Humans and Hakuno's strongest attack revealing it weak to Humans did the stakes go up.
Because most familia have preferred other races than humans or pallums in the recruitments, it came back to bite them hard when every other familia suffered heavy losses due to their species.
They both recalled the gunfire, the smoke, the ash, the blood. It was the definition of Hell itself as people died left and right of them. But their Captain remained steadfast, reassuring and comforting them as she guided their small familia to stop the cannon fire. The untimely appearance of a spherelike weapon Hakuno called a grenade had led to their current predicament.
Hakuno shielded Primo as the grenade exploded, destroying her right arm and her left was reduced to exposed bone, tissue, muscle and sinew as she screamed out in pain. Bell thought that things were getting worse when the minions of War drew closer to their location…only to be impaled by bombardment of weaponry, blazing flames, piercing mana, and demonic thunder.
Gilgamesh, Nero, Gareth-chan and Lucius hand joined and the four had pure fury mark their faces. When they moved, not even Ais could keep up with them. She speculates they were at least Level Nine by how swift and devastating they were as they personally turned the battlefield around in that instant. Then, Hakuno commanded the release of Moon Drive from her familia as the mana of the moon empowered them and Haruhime casting her level up boost spell to give them even more of an advantage.
Primo was the first to act, her spells volleying across the field as she was in-between hysteria and fury, Ais unleashing her winds, dashing at incomprehensible speeds while people compared her rampage to that of a tornado. Lili had taken one of War's cannons and began using it against War's own minions, devastating their own artillery in the long run. Haruhime had stayed by Hakuno's side, trying her best to gauge the injury on her remaining arm while Bell played on the defensive and stood guard over the two.
"…Haru…amputate…arm…!" Hakuno ordered. It scared Haruhime but even she knew her own first aid will not be enough to save the arm and prevent a severe infection in time. They were far away from any healers and the situation was becoming dire. Haruhime complied as she pulled out the first aid kit and got the medical saw, potions, and medical wrappings. "Make sure…Regalia…" Hakuno mumbled before Haruhime made her drink a medical potion to numb the pain as she tearfully began the procedure to remove the damaged limb and securing Hakuno's ring.
Bell felt his face turn green from that scene and was focused on protecting them with Asterion Aias. The shield of light preventing projectiles from reaching the two as the field operation was in way.
What happened after that was Hakuno's retaliation and the true definition of destructive magic. Hakuno had fired her strongest spell [Lordless Camelot] at War. What amazed Bell was despite how much pain Hakuno was in, she willed herself to fight without any arms as she unleashed a maelstrom of darkness in every direction where there was an enemy. Even when a sword pierced her stomach courtesy of War itself did the girl not back down.
The image of fighting an overwhelming foe while at the brink of death engraved itself in Bell's memory as his knives were coated in flames and thunder as the sparring match with Ais escalated. Bell cursed his own weakness, his own cowardice. How could he even become a hero, if he couldn't even protect those he loved? That frustration turned into resolve, and Bell moved faster as he made his decision. He will protect his newfound family with his own might. He will become a hero of the Hestia Familia.
While the Hestia Familia was going through its own emotional crisis with Hakuno's current status, Loki and Freya sat across from each other in a private location in a restaurant. Loki drinking mugs of ale without pause while Freya sipped her wine glass gently. But that was only the façade they held on to say that they were alright. In fact, it was the opposite on the inside. They were frustrated. Frustration ate away at them that their children were bested by this new foe.
But at the same time, it stirred near forgotten memories in the two goddesses with the sight of War. Freya the most of the two because she was felt there was something familiar with War. She was also a goddess of war don't get her wrong, but while her pantheon viewed war more honorably, this entity named War was the nightmares of war.
The sins that all war deities waged as part of their domain in a physical form. The concept of war was beautiful in its own way, but War…War reminded her of a certain pair that demonized it as a source of suffering and pain. Freya didn't understand it at first when those two talked about it to her, but it gave her time to think, especially since her halls in Tenkai were to serve as a paradise for certain warriors and heroes.
When she descended unto the world below, she changed her stance to that of love and beauty, no longer associating herself with her war-goddess self. She focused on finding her beloved other instead and during her time forming a familia and going out on an adventure to find her beloved did she understand the ugliness of war. She recalled the incident with Shalzard and Warusa and the aftermaths of its wars and only did she understand why those two hated wars. War destroyed everything beautiful around it, including the souls of the children she and the gods watched over for so long.
Seeing the Horseman reignited old memories of the duo, and a sense of sadness with it. Elohim and Asherah, husband and wife that worked together on many silly projects before the creation of the first two humans. It was adorable, to create humans in the images of gods while believing in their potential.
Despite most of her hundreds of other adventurers being levels 2 to 3, they weren't all Demi-Humans. She saw potential in the souls of humans as well and she collected them all the same. Now? They were important in defeating this nightmare calling itself War.
With that in mind, Freya looked to her companion Loki who was sulking now. Loki was different in her preference in adventurers. She collects the unusual, strange and beautiful in her familia. She does what she pleases and ignores everything else like the wild woman she is. So, her pride was ruined in a broader sense since she's aiming to surpass the record Zeus and Hera made in dungeon exploration. She only had a few humans in her familia.
Humans…Freya had a feeling that War and Humans were intertwined in some way, but she knows there was a missing clue. Loki never knew Elohim and Asherah like Freya did (the couple prayed she'd find her Odr so that was sweet of them) and had a vision for their creations. But ever since they've disappeared and the emergence of the Dungeon, humans on the lower world, Freya now pondered if there was something of a greater scheme at work, one she's unaware of.
Hakuno was the key, her children had dug into Guild's files about Hakuno's mission that had her travel to investigate something. The Behemoth and Leviathan had temples dedicated to them in places no ordinary person could find and they held secrets only the little witch and Ouranos knew. When the next time Hakuno wakes, Freya will be there for answers.