Could a bomb kill a Servant?
The wrong question. It depended on the bomb. It depended on the Servant, for that matter. No ordinary explosive would do it, that was certain – as spirits, Servants were immune to harm from all mundane weaponry.
Of course, a canny magus had ways around this.
Serenity saw green off to her right, and made one of her intuitive guesses about where it was moving. She lobbed a grenade one-handed over her shoulder, and rolled behind a fallen tree, keeping her head down; a second later, the blast came, followed by a shriek of pain and anger. She felt the trunk shudder, pierced by a score of pellets. One rolled by her feet, gleaming silver in the moonlight.
Silver was the obvious choice to use as shrapnel – traditionally used for purification purposes, and a perfect medium for magic meant to affect ghosts or spirits. It wouldn't do the job by itself. But in the hands of a magus working with a family of alchemists, even ones whose specialty lay elsewhere? It certainly would.
Serenity tensed as an internal timer hit zero – and she was already moving by the time Archer's kick launched the trunk, as thick around as Serenity's outstretched arms, into the air. Bark, leaves and moss rained around her. She caught a glimpse of Archer's furious snarl, face covered in tiny scratches, and then she was gone, dodging out of sight.
Servants weren't so feeble as to be killed by something like a grenade, of course. Archer had middling Endurance, but shrugging off a modern grenade was trivial. Even if the enchanted silver got past her blanket immunity, that didn't mean it was effective as an actual weapon.
All it really did was make Archer angry. Sometimes, that was all that was needed.
Seething, Archer moved to give chase, having no trouble tracking Serenity's lightning-quick motion, eyes following her target –
– which was when the flashbang Serenity had tossed into the air went off. Serenity had already closed her eyes, and had already blocked her ears, and was already moving away at top speed. Archer had it explode a foot from her face.
The noise was impossible, filling the entire world, a solid wall of sound. The light was blinding – nothing else existed but the new sun at head height.
Serenity sure would have hated to have had enhanced senses right about then.
This was the other method Kiritsugu had prepared. Servants could still hear and see, often much better than humans, so overwhelming their senses should be an option. It still wouldn't hurt them, and they would shake off the effects far quicker than might be hoped.
As a distraction, though? It worked just fine.
Serenity's knives ripped through the air – another flurry, each knife aimed so that it covered the rest and made the combination impossible to block. Parry one, and the next would score a line across your forearm. Block the next, and the third would slice across your hamstring. Every single one was coated in poison, and would bring death with a scratch.
On the assault, Servant Assassin only had to get lucky once. Archer had to get lucky all the time.
So it was downright unfair, in Serenity's opinion, that she had.
Well, calling it luck might have just been bitterness. As soon as the flashbang went off, Archer was in motion, leaping up and backwards. Serenity's knives hit only air, and Archer snagged a branch, flipping round to land in a crouch in a tree.
Her bow was already bent, and Serenity was already moving to dodge. Archer was already compensating for the motion, and Serenity was already preparing a knife to deflect the arrow.
How well they knew each other, after these few short minutes…
In Serenity's mind, Archer may as well have been the only enemy she'd ever faced. She knew everything about her – which way she preferred to dodge first, how long it took her to move her eyes from left to right while scanning for threats, which direction she approached her prey from if she could. That she preferred to chase rather than wait, that given the choice she would escape into tree branches rather than into undergrowth, that she had the patience for no more than eight attempts on her prey's life with arrows before trying to close to hand-to-hand range. Everything.
And, because she knew Archer so well, she knew Archer would be discovering just as much about her.
The next few seconds played out in perfect clarity in Serenity's mind's eye, filling in how the other Servant would act, and react, and act on Serenity's own reactions – on and on.
Here was where Serenity would move to avoid the next killing arrow, here was where Archer would explode from the treeline, claws reaching, here was where Serenity would fling her knives in a fivefold spread to deny Archer the space to manoeuvre, here was where Archer would dive through the knives and deliver a crushing punch to Serenity's windpipe…
… if Serenity didn't, at that point, detonate a cluster of explosives strapped to the nearest tree trunk and escape.
For all that Archer was far more comfortable in forests than Serenity, the fact remained – this was her home ground. She knew where all the explosives were hidden.
And that made all the difference. Here, she could win.
… possibly.
Maybe if Archer got angry enough she would make a mistake?
Serenity fled through the trees – and changed mid-step even as she darted from shadow to shadow. Shorter, smaller, even her clothes shifted with her. Her scent was harder to hide, but her shapeshifting had no weak points, especially ones that could be picked up by someone in… intimate contact.
Then, against every instinct she had, she stepped into the open.
"A-Archer?" said the image of Matou Sakura, voice quavering. She flinched. "Are you… here to take me back?"
Archer skidded into view, appearing in a rush of fallen leaves. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of Serenity. "Sakura…"
The ability to cry on command was not something Serenity had expected to use in the Holy Grail War, but every edge she'd ever learned had come in handy at some point and this was no exception. She made her eyes well up with big, fat tears of pure poison. "Please, Archer… please, please don't make me go back… it- it's scary, and it hurts, and-urk-"
Crack.
Out of nowhere, Serenity's vision whited out with pain as her head hit something hard behind her. She literally couldn't process what had happened for a couple of moments, until the past half-second replayed itself in her memory. There was a brief impression of Archer's furious face, a flash of claws, and a sense of impact.
Ah. That would be why Archer had her by the throat up against a tree, and why the back of her head was embedded a half-inch into the bark.
Serenity's skin was just as poisonous as any other part of her, and physical contact would usually be fatal. In this case, though, Archer was wearing gloves – and being poisonous did nothing to stop Serenity's neck from snapping, or her skull from cracking.
"You must think I was born yesterday," growled Archer. "Sakura, appear out of nowhere in the forest, with no trail? Perfectly clean? Exactly where I expect my prey to be? And don't think I didn't notice gnats and moths steering clear of your breath, either. I'm genuinely insulted." She took a deep breath, crushing Serenity's head further into the tree. "Where is Sakura?"
Serenity's mind raced. Archer was willing to talk? There were ways to use that.
"Sakura?" Serenity said. "Safe. For the first time in years…" Archer's grip tightened round her neck, and she gasped in pain.
"How dare you," seethed Archer. "You think I didn't know what was happening to her? You think I didn't care?! Matou Zouken is a monster, and Sakura should be a hundred miles away from him, but it is not that simple! There are safeguards, and traps, and spells, and a hundred other things that mean that the only way Zouken will ever give her up is if we do as he says and bring him the Grail." Desperation warred with rage in Archer's eyes – briefly, before rage won. "Oh, what do you care? If you really wanted to help-"
Serenity did not care to hear how she could help. When people were talking, they weren't paying attention – and that was the perfect moment to strike.
She opened her mouth to spit, not as a gobbet but as a spray. Serenity hadn't just been squirming and gasping in pain during Archer's interrogation – she'd been building up saliva. Delusional Poison Body would cover everything in front of her, in droplets so fine that no amount of armour was any use. Yet another disgusting skill Serenity had been forced to master, yet another skill she couldn't deny had come in useful.
This time, however, she had barely pursed her lips when Archer's gloved hand slapped across her face, turning her head sideways and crushing her cheek against the tree. Toxic drool dribbled down her chin, and she fought against Archer's grip.
"We know about your poison, too, obviously," said Archer. She didn't even have the grace to sound smug, just coldly furious. "You did a lot of damage to Zouken, but he was still able to warn my Master, and my Master warned me in turn."
Serenity cursed inwardly. One by one, her secrets were being exposed. She'd started this War with no-one knowing what she could do or even what she looked like. She could be anyone, go anywhere, smuggle poison into any other Master's food or drink and have them collapse minutes later with no-one the wiser as to how it had happened. Her greatest advantage had been secrecy.
Archer could not be allowed to survive this fight.
Knives flashed as Serenity abandoned Sakura's form. One lashed out to score across Archer's wrist where she held Serenity at arms length – the other was hurled down to impale her foot.
Neither got anywhere near. Archer did… something complicated with her arms that sent Serenity's first knife flying out of her grip into the darkness and left her elbow braced painfully across the tree. Archer's foot skipped back to let the knife drill into the ground, then her knee drove into Serenity's stomach.
Things broke.
Serenity coughed up blood, and Archer skipped back to avoid it before launching forward in a vicious kick. This time, the tree trunk was among the things that broke, and as it collapsed Serenity collapsed with it to roll sideways. Her instincts screamed in her mind of incoming danger – yet another of Archer's arrows. She shifted to avoid it…
… and her body refused to obey her fast enough.
Her torso, utterly ruined by Archer's blows, lit up in agony as Serenity tried to force it to move past its limits. Slowly, so slowly, she moved just far enough that the arrow didn't take her through the heart, as Archer had planned.
Instead, it ripped through her upper arm.
Serenity used what little momentum she had to half-lunge, half-roll into the shadows, and fled as best she was able. Her arm wasn't responding, and dangled limply at her side. Worse, it was bleeding. Even severe wounds as a Servant would heal in minutes… but it had been less than five since Serenity had fled into the wood. Both she and Archer were too fast – one way or another, this battle would end before her arm healed fully.
The more immediate problem, however, was that all her attempts at stealth just became useless. She risked a look behind her.
Archer was there – literally on her trail, as Atalante the Huntress followed the scent of blood and the droplets Serenity left behind. Some instinct told Serenity that this was it, that they were done with the cat-and-mouse game. This wasn't about flushing the prey out any more. Archer wasn't going to stop, or break off, or even slow down now that blood had been spilled. All that was left was to run her down until the hunt was over.
But damn if Serenity wasn't going to make Archer work for it. She accelerated, ignoring the pain from her broken body.
A trio of grenades went behind her, and Archer simply outpaced them. A pair of fixed pipe bombs went off as Serenity passed, to catch Archer with the shrapnel as she followed not a half-second later. Bombs, grenades, Serenity gave it everything she had. At the speeds the two Servants were moving, they served as area-denial more than anything else, clouds of shrapnel almost frozen in mid-air and forcing Archer to manoeuvre round them.
Flashbang after flashbang was primed and tossed and rolled and placed – an observer, high above, would see them going off one after the other, lighting up the forest like some crazed festival. Shadows danced, flickering strobes fooling the eye. Still Archer tracked her prey.
Serenity exploded into a clearing. The ground was covered by grass, and by leaves blown across from the forest. The sky was clear here, and the moon shone down to illuminate everything in a soft silver glow. No place in the Einzbern forest was truly beautiful – but if it was to be found anywhere, it was here.
For an Assassin, it was the worst possible ground, and Serenity felt a crawling sensation between her shoulder blades. This had been where Archer had been herding her, she knew it. Whether she'd glimpsed it through the trees, or had her Master survey the area, or even just looked at a map – somehow Archer had known this place was here, and decided this was where it would all end.
Serenity had barely been keeping ahead of Archer, even with the cover and shadows provided by the trees. Without it…
Arrows thudded into the soft earth, one after the other, each one closer and closer to the jinking, darting shadow that was Serenity. More than one scored lines across her flesh, and her tainted blood dripped freely over the leaves. One slammed into her shoulder blade, making her stumble, but she kept on, weaving an erratic path across the clearing.
Eventually, a trio of arrows dropped from the sky just in front of her, and Serenity came to a stop and turned, cradling her ruined arm. Archer was there, on the other side, emerging from the trees, bow aimed. Slowly, now – she had Serenity dead to rights, and they both knew it.
In an open area like this, there was no escape. Every trick Serenity had tried up until now had only worked because she hadn't needed it to do so for more than a couple of seconds – even if Archer could guess at where she'd gone when she disappeared into shadow, that slight uncertainty gave Serenity just enough of an edge to keep ahead.
Serenity had just one chance.
"Killing me won't save Sakura," she tried. "If you need to win the Grail… you'll need all the help you can get against Lancer."
Archer scowled, stalking forward. "Lancer is… formidable, but of all the Servants, I am the best suited to attacking their Master from afar. All that is required is a distraction – and there are far better Servants for doing that than you."
"Saber?" Serenity guessed. Given that Matou Kariya had just been a guest at the El-Melloi apartment, it was the natural conclusion. If he'd only stayed there, Kiritsugu could have detonated the bombs at the Hyatt and killed Archer much more easily… although her Independent Action could have made things tricky.
Archer's eyes narrowed. "I have no need to explain myself to you."
"So, yes, Saber then." Serenity nodded. "You may be the best Servant to attack Kotomine Kirei from outside Lancer's sensory range… but Archer, you realise that the Servant best suited to killing Masters is me?" A little further, a little more time… Serenity would have said anything at this point.
"I would never work with someone who would threaten a child!" Archer snapped. The fury in her eyes was sudden, and genuine. "We are warriors. Any underhanded cheats in battle, any subterfuge to gain an advantage – I hold no grudge over any of that. I would respect you even less if you hadn't fought with every trick you had. But Sakura is not a part of this War! No child should ever be involved in such slaughter!"
"Naïve." Serenity couldn't help it, the word just slipped from her lips, dripping as much venom as… well, anything else that came out of Serenity's mouth. How could someone so pragmatic in everything else have such a… soft spot? How could she possibly fail to realise how the world was?
Where had she been when Serenity was growing up?
"Perhaps," said Archer. "I know the world is not perfect. But heroes create the world they wish to see, and so shall I. If I can't save one girl, there is no point to me." She stopped, bow tensing once more. "I won't ask you where Sakura is. I couldn't trust anything you said. So I will give you one last moment to offer any prayers you might have, and then I will kill you and find Sakura myself. You ran well… but this hunt is at an end."
"Yes," said Serenity. "It is." With her good arm, she thumbed the last detonator she'd picked up on the way here.
All thirty-three of the landmines hidden under the clearing exploded.
All thirty three, of which Serenity had managed to bleed on over half while evading Archer's arrows.
Archer leapt, releasing her arrow, but it was too late. The mines were all around her, and in this clearing there was no cover for her either. Shrapnel filled the air, and hairline scratches appeared all over Archer's skin.
Could a bomb kill a Servant? If it were covered in the deadliest poison the Order could produce, if it were detonated soon enough that the mechanisms wouldn't degrade from the corrosive toxin, if that poison were introduced to the bloodstream by a hundred tiny cuts, if it managed to do all that… oh, yes.
Archer hit the ground, and collapsed to one knee. Her face was flushed, her limbs trembled, and her claws scrabbled in the dirt, trying vainly to work through the agony.
Delusional Poison Body wasn't immediate, especially for Servants. But it was fatal, always, once enough had entered the system. As part of her hideous transformation, Serenity had suffered the effects of a thousand and one poisons, and she remembered what this one was like. The victim's body would feel like it was burning from the inside, a heat that rose without limit – past discomfort, past pain, past endurance, past sanity, and eventually past survival. It was one of the worst ways Serenity could think of to die.
In her life, she had inflicted this living hell – briefly-living, anyway – on people beyond counting. Now, Archer writhed on the ground, trying and failing to hold in her gasps and whimpers of pain. Her bow was held in loose, spasming fingers. She was no threat.
Just a few more, Serenity thought to herself. A few more to die, and then no-one ever again. As soon as Kiritsugu gets his wish, it can all stop.
Out loud, she said, "Archer, if you wish this to stop, I can do that for you. And, as an apology…" She weighed up her options. Odds were good Matou Kariya was listening through his Servant. It was possible that misunderstandings could happen if he were left alone, and there was no chance he would be able to recover Sakura. Given that, there was no harm in letting him know where she was. If he wanted to have it out with Tohsaka Tokiomi, he was more than welcome.
Serenity made her choice. "… Sakura has been left with her birth family. With luck, she will be safe there."
Archer fixed her with disbelieving eyes. Through them, Serenity felt the shock and rage of both Master and Servant, aligned as one. Then, Archer's body flashed red. Her shaking fingers stilled, and gripped her bow with mad strength, and her rictus of pain became a feral smile of spite and triumph.
A Command Spell?! Serenity backed up, knives held in front of her. It would take something truly special to force Archer's body to fire a last spiteful attack with anything resembling accuracy with all the poison in her system, but she knew enough not to underestimate Command Spells.
Archer knocked two arrows, and raised her bow to aim at Serenity… then higher. Her lips moved, mumbling something. Serenity started walking closer, straining to listen.
"…divine protection of the Sun god Apollo and the moon goddess Artemis…"
Serneity's blood turned to ice. From her one good hand, four knives whipped out – one to cut the bowstring, one to take Archer in the throat, and two sent with a prayer to Allah, hoping against hope that they would not be necessary.
She wasn't fast enough.
"Phoebus Catastrophe!"
The knife aimed for the bowstring missed, an instant after it was released. The second slammed home, and Archer fell back, throat cut – silent, but still not quite dead.
And the last arrows Atalante fired climbed high, high into the sky, carrying the prayer letters of complaint to Apollo and Artemis. Whether the gods would rain down their destruction on Serenity herself or on the Einzbern castle didn't matter – Serenity would be just as dead either way.
All she could do was watch, and pray.
In the sky, the specks of green continued to rise – and were met by two barely-visible smudges of white.
Serenity had been intercepting Archer's arrows throughout their entire fight. Her little knives couldn't match the force put out by the divine bow, and could only shift them an inch when she needed it most. But Serenity didn't miss. Not even like this.
Her last two knives neatly sliced the letters off the arrows.
The sky remained dark. Archer slumped back, entirely spent.
Serenity breathed out a sigh of profound relief. Whether it had been her knives cutting the letters off, or the poison on them ruining the sanctity of the prayer, or even divine intervention by Allah to protect His servant from the wrath of pagan gods… however it had happened, she was safe.
"Assassin…" croaked Archer, on the ground.
Serenity approached, carefully. Archer must be spent by now, surely… but she didn't know if Matou was insane enough to try to use his last Command Spell for revenge. She stopped, just out of reach.
Archer was breathing heavily, sweating, and twitching erratically, but was clearly fighting to keep herself under control. When she spoke, her voice rasped around the throat wound Serenity had given her moments before. "Assassin… you… took Sakura. That makes her… your responsibility… make sure she is safe."
Serenity looked down at the hero. "I never wished her any harm. I won't go out of my way to hurt her… but I'm already under contract to protect Emiya Kiritsugu. I can't protect one child as well."
The hate in Archer's eyes could have boiled iron. "You… owe me this…"
"I do not." Serenity crouched. "Archer, I said this before, but if you wish this to end, say so. I will make it quick. That, I do owe you."
Archer stilled, and Serenity thought she might have finally succumbed, before she gave a bitter smile. "No… I think… I'll make you stay here… and watch what you've done."
Once, Serenity might have. Watching as those she'd grown close to suffer and die was a kind of twisted penance, although she'd grown numb to even that as the years wore on. She'd wept over the bodies of kings and generals, because if their killer didn't, who would?
But now… now she had other obligations.
With a sigh, she flung a last knife, which buried itself into Archer's heart. Serenity waited until she saw the first green motes, before turning on her heel. She shot, a silent and dark figure, towards the Einzbern castle, where her Master was keeping El-Melloi and his Servant busy.
She'd prevented it from being brought down around their ears. Now she just needed to make sure Kiritsugu lived through the night.
