Hello everyone and welcome back to the start of chapter 108 of the story! As you must've heard by now, both Hakunos have made it into the game because OC3 shennanigans or something. And that's one more protag character added to FGO. It really makes me wonder...I guess that apart from Strange Fake (that I hope it gets the collab event spot next year) all of the protagonists from the different Fate entries of the franchise are all in the game as servants now. Like, I think that must be everyone of them unless there's some other Fate entry that I'm forgeting about.
But anyways, with that said, let's start the chapter!
DISCLAIMER: All of the Nasuverse characters belong to Nasu and are property of Type-Moon with the exception of the OC's that belong to me, the author
"I can't believe this! I cannot believe this!" Cursed Arm grumbled as he was at the front of the party, their way back to the village becoming a very calm and light-hearted return to one of worridness and despair after Touta having pointed out seeing the Eastern Village burning in the distance, under attack. Now they were all running as fast as they could in order to make it in time to save the inhabitants and help Arash. "Hurry! We got to be quicker!"
"The enemy attacked just as we where out of town! They must have waited for us to leave!" Nala speaked, speeding up her pace.
"No. We were an entire day out. If thay happened to be the case, the village would already be completed ravaged by the time we'd return from the shrine!" Mash commented, thinking the enemy hadn't actually waited for them to leave the village lowly protected. "They must have only recently discovered its location! Us not being present was just a coincidental bad luck!"
"Then how did they ended up finding it? We made sure we were not followed when fleeing the fort!" Ritsuka wondered, originally thinking that the location of the Eastern Village was still concealed to their foes.
"I do not know! But we better leave that for later!" Mash replied. "Right now, we must make sure Arash and the villagers are okay!"
"According to the distance showing in the screen, it will still take you ten minutes to arrive!" Romani informed, seeing the progress the group was making, still a bit far from the place.
"We're still a mile or two away!" Nala exclaimed, not liking the sound on how long it would still take for them to arrive.
But Cursed Arm was out-right furious and in a pile of nerves. The more he thought about how much he and Arash fought to protect the village during all these months. How much effort they put on maintaining the villagers survival. How it was a home for him, now at the grasp of being destroyed and lost forever during a moment of absence. To see all those people he cared for dying. Rushd...
It all made the assassin more distressed. "Unacceptable! Unacceptable! UNACCEPTABLE!" With a fierce need to reach to the village already, Cursed Arm proceeded to move faster, beggining to leave the rest of the party behind as he himself dashed forwards.
"Cursed Arm!" Serenity shouted, trying to call him back only to see the other Hassan distance himself from them. "He's really perturbed with this. We have to keep up with him and reach the village immediatly!" She said to the group, wanting everyone to continue nearby to Cursed Arm.
"Copy that!" Ritsuka replied as all the group continued to run, hoping that they weren't too late to rescue the village.
Eventually, after some minutes, the group had catched up with Cursed Arm and reached the village.
"Cursed Arm!" Serenity shouted the other Hassan's name as they entered the village. "You should have-!" Gasping, Serenity stood in shock as she saw the entirety of the Eastern Village up in flames, all of the houses burning down, collapsing into debris as well as the corpses of the dead villagers on the ground, their blood splattered.
"..." Distraught, Cursed Arm didn't even replied, continuing to watch in devastation to the fires of destruction in front of him consuming everything.
"No...Did we arrived too late?" Ritsuka asked in desolation.
"Knights...Knights of the Round Table burning down villages with innocent..." Mash said in a harsh voice, an anger from deep within her soul coming out, the shared feeling she and the unamed Heroic Spirit were having. "This is totally unforgivable! What kind of 'knights' do these things?"
"There's no sign of Arash anywhere which also doesn't make the things look better!" Bedivere speaked as he saw that the persian archer was nowhere to be seen before crouching down to check on a corpse near them. "It seems they tried to fight back but did not stood a chance." The knight commented as he checked the wounds on the body, noticing something in peculiar. "Arrow wounds? But I don't find any arrows on this body nor nearby. Could it be-"
"Halt right there!"
"There's more over here! This way!"
Getting all of the party's attention, a squad of soldier knights appeared behind them, coming from the left, having spotted the group.
"Looks like they haven't left yet." Sanzang said as she and the rest prepared to fight them, turning their mind away from the flames for a bit.
One of the soldier knights stepped forward. "Formation, men! We need to dispose from the re-uegh!"
Suddenly, the soldier knight was cut short as a dagger as fast as thunder was thrown torwards his head, piercing through his helmet.
"You..." Having reached near the enemy in a blink of an eye, an outraged Cursed Arm grabbed the dagger still stucked to the soldier's helmet. "WILL ALL ROT IN HELL FOR THIS!" Yelling, the Hassan pulled out the dagger, immediatly killing the soldier knight before proceeding to kill another two just as quickly.
"He is really pissed with all of this! I think I never saw him that mad before!" Nala commented, seeing how furious Cursed Arm had killed those enemies.
"Can't blame him!" Mash replied, getting her shield ready. "This is irking me too! Master, Nala, we have to make them pay!" She said, sounding more fervent than ever, much to both Ritsuka and Nala's slight surprise. It was rare seeing Mash this upset.
"Sure! Count on us for that!" Nala replied, standing by the shielder's side.
"We can't let this go on without some retribution!" Ritsuka speaked up, sharing the same opinion before giving the orders. "Let's expel them from here!"
Aiding an angry Cursed Arm, the party went almost all out on the squad of soldier knights that tried to stand up to them but were unable to match the group's feeling of indignation and exasperated in the end, the battle didn't lasted that long, being over in under a minute.
"This was the last of them for now!" Touta said as the entire party had reunited after taking down each foe. "There must be more of them scattered around here."
"Then we will take care of those as well." Cursed Arm said deadly.
"And still no sign of Arash." Ritsuka was starting to think the worst had happened to the servant before shaking those thoughts out of his mind. "But we can't for sure think he and the rest of the villagers have been killed! We have to look for them!"
As he was saying that, Serenity was realizing something as she was checking on all the corpses of the villagers around them. "Hmm, now I'm sure the rest of the Eastern Village must still be alive."
"How so?" Nala asked to the Hassan, wondering how she made it to that conclusion.
"Look at the bodies. There's a common similarity they all share with one another." Serenity replied.
"A common similarity?" Mash wondered confused.
"I had taken notice of it too." Bedivere said, about to point it out while staring at the corpses. "They are all of adult men with weapons. People capable enough to try and put up a fight. No other type of corpses found here."
"Which means the children, elderly and women were most surely evacuated!" Sanzang said with an optimistic smile. "Arash must have led them to a save hidden place from here before the Lion King's troops could have breached in."
That credible hypothesis made Cursed Arm hopes get revitalized. "Arash! You magnificent...I hope he's still alive to thank him!"
"Arash truly has the heart of a warrior if he has done that so!" Bedivere replied, assuming that Arash had indeed managed to get majority of the inhabitants to safety. "But then, we need to discover where did he evacuated them now!"
"Is there any secret passage or hidden place where Arash could have refugeed the villagers, Cursed Arm?" Serenity asked to the other Hassan who begun to think.
"Well, there is...the cave!" He exclaimed, remembering it. "It lies just up north the village! It's very purpose was for evacuation situations like these!"
"Let's head there right now!" Ritsuka exclaimed about to go ahead before Touta slowing him down.
"Woah! Easy there! We can't go all there! What if there is some villagers out here who got lost from the bunch?" Touta told him. "We have to at least make sure no one was left behind! Plus, there's definetly more soldier knights that need to be dealt with!"
"What Touta-san is saying is true! There can still be some villagers that are stuck and unable to join the others on the cave! We must rescue them if that's the case!" Mash replied.
"Okay! We will do like these!" Cursed Arm called all of the party's attention. "Let's separate into two groups! One goes to the cave to check on the villagers and the other tries to find any survivors among the wreckage as well as cleaning the area off of enemies!" He proposed the idea before staring at Ritsuka. "Fujimaru, Serenity, Mash and Bedivere. I count on you four to guarantee that the villagers in the cave are save and had indeed evacuated!"
Ritsuka nodded almost immediatly. "Understood!"
Cursed Arm then stared to Nala, Sanzang and Touta. "The rest of you, with me!"
"Don't even have to say anything more!" Sanzang replied. "The time past since our last fight might have been short, but I still have loads of energy to keep fighting!"
"Take care you!" Nala told to Ritsuka and Mash. "We'll see you later!"She said to them as well as to Bedivere and Serenity before going into the other parth of the village alongside the another half of the party, now divided.
"We will! Same for you!" Ritsuka replied back before Nala went away. He then passed the instrcutions to the trio of Mash, Bedivere and Serenity. "Let's hurry to the cave!"
Facing some couple of soldier knights on their way to the cave, the now small party of four was reaching near the destination.
"Look! Over there!" Serenity said, spotting the entry to the cave on top of a natural big rock platform after dispatching of some soldier knight in front of her.
"We just need to get over there! The villagers must be inside alongside Arash!" Ritsuka said as they all took a path upwards that connected to the platform. Now on top of it and in front of the cave, all they had to do was to enter. "Alright! Let's go in!" Ritsuka told them as he stepped forward to enter.
But that was when the Heroic Spirits around him felt something was wrong. Even the hologram of Romani that had appeared, giving a concerned warning.
"Fujimaru! Above you!" He shouted as the sound of an harp played.
"Huh?" Ritsuka could only turn his head around as he saw Mash, Bedivere and Serenity all defending him from getting hit by three projectiles that had appeared out of nowhere.
"This was close!" Mash said as she put herself in front of him. "Are you okay, master?"
"Y-Yeah!" Ritsuka replied, his reaction only coming a bit later due to how quick the servants protecting him had happened in order to register that properly in his mind.
"These attacks...I've seen them before!" Serenity said, remembering of having seen these type of arrow projectiles already.
Same for Bedivere. "The only person I know that could attack with such precision and melody..." Stiffening his stare, Bedivere looked forwards to the red-haired knight coming in their direction, applauding sarcasticaly.
"A display of quality and good skills! Bravo! You reacted to it rather well." The knight said with a normal smile, yet, that felt mocking.
"Tristan!" Bedivere exclaimed, recognizing one of his fellow ex-companions and knights of the Round Table.
"Long time no see, Bedivere. It would seem the rumours of you having gone to the enemy's side were authentic in reality." Tristan replied, not seeming to feel neither happy nor furious to see his old friend again. If anything, he looked quite indifferent and perhaps just a bit dissapointed. "Ah, how sad it is that it comes to the point were I shall have to kill another one of my 'beloved' former companions."
"It's the knight we saw on the wastelands!" Ritsuka exclaimed, remembering of Tristan's face from that time where he and the rest of his team all watched hiddenly Tristan slaughter a fleeing group of refugees and an Hassan without mercy. And being reminded of that resulted in Ritsuka's blood to boil a bit. Seeing him for a second time and up close now, the master of humanity could tell that Tristan's behaviour looked to be one of no care or feelings for others.
"And greetings for you too as well, people of Chaldea." Tristan glanced over to Ritsuka and Mash. "First time I am meeting you. Altough the other way around cannot be applied, can it?"
"..." Mash just resorted to give him a defying glare, repositioning her shield.
Serenity also wasn't giving him the nicest of stares, the way she was captured playing on her head.
"So I assume you were the one who found the village and led a raid to it, weren't you?" Bedivere questioned the other knight.
"It could not have been more evident." Tristan confirmed it. "And I do have to say, I was expecting for such well hiddened village to be heavely protected as well, so imagine my astonishment when we found out all the resistance opposing to us was mere weaponized men and a single trifling archer? Well, I do have to give some credit to that Heroic Spirit for trying to put a stop on us altough his effort ended up being bootless."
"What?" Ritsuka reacted, thinking on what was Tristan even talking about Arash.
"Oh? You do not know of his demise yet?" Tristan said, remembering on how him and his troops managed to raid the village during Ritsuka and the others absence.
Two Hours Ago
"..." Being some hours into the night already, Arash was observin the horizon and landscape in front of him on the lookout post, maintaining his duty of protecting the village while the other were away and had yet to arrive from the shrine of the Old Man of the Mountain. Until now, there hadn't been any signs of enemies or monsters nearby much to his gladness. "So far, so good."
"Oiii, Arash!"
"Hum?" Looking down from above his position, the persian archer saw Rushd calling out for him from below. "Rushd? What do you want?"
"How is everythind doing up there?" Rushd asked to the servant. "Have they returned yet?"
"Nope! Still no sign of them!" Arash replied back, much to the muslim boy's dissapointment.
"Uhm, I see. And monsters?" Rushd made another question to Arash.
"Luckily, no sign of them too- Hey! What are you doing?" Arash asked as he watched Rushd climbed up to the same spot where he was, joining him.
"Just wanna help as well. Four eyes are better than two after all!" He sai happily, thinking Arash cloud need a little aid during his duty.
The Heroic Spirit chuckled a bit. "Hehe, thanks Rushd, but I think I can do it well by mys-"
"It is also my job to protect this village!" Rushd exclaimed, not liking to see Arash turning down his offer. "And I decided to stay by your side to help until the others come back! I know that you probably think it won't add much but I'm not weak!" He protested.
"..." Ceasing his own smile, Arash got a bit more serious as he stared to Rushd. "I know. You have as much right of seeing the others in the village save as I have. I don't think you're weak, Rushd. Not at all. You're very brave actually." He gave a brief smile to the boy." However, it is not about your strength. You're still very young. And type of jobs like this requires experience and skill apart from bravery. A thing usually only older folks tend to have." Arash said, sounding as nice as he could to not hurt Rushd's feelings. "So, maybe when you become older, okay?"
Rushd still tried to insist. "Hum! But Nala-"
"Well, she's an isolated case obviously." Arash replied, very well aware that Nala was far from an average kid. And Rushd was probably aware of it too. "Who knows? When you grow up a bit, you might be just as a fighter as she is! Maybe even like me!" He smiled, patting Rushd's head.
"Hmm, I guess so..." Rushd replied, coming a bit to terms with the reality Arash told to him. "But, deep down, I'm trying to prove myself. Now that my mom's gone...I have to be strong on my own. I have to take care of myself in order to survive." He said with a pain on his voice, starting to feel teary. "I-I promised to my mother that when she died...she wouldn't have to worry about leaving me alone because...because I would become as resilient and capable as the man mom always talked about!"
"And you will one day, Rushd!" Arash told him, immediatly going to comfort the kid, helping clean off his tears. "After all, a mother's know best."
Feeling a bit lifted up by Arash's motivation, Rushd stopped sobbing as he looked up to the archer, forming a smile on his face before nodding with his head. "Hm hm!" The boy wished more people were as understanding and loveable as Arash was with him.
"...You know what? I think I changed my mind a bit." Arash speaked, seeing if this would cheer up Rushd even more. "You can stay up here a little bit watching over the village with me!"
"Really?" Rushd smile brightened up hearing that.
"Yeah. Just promise you will help me with it, understood?" Arash told to the boy.
Rushd agreed. "Yes sir! I'll do my best!" He replied with enthusiasm, pointing at something behind the servant. "I'm already seeing a small fire over there!"
"A small fire?" Raising an eyebrow, Arash turned around in time to see a small fireball flying from the landscape into their direction, getting bigger, resulting in the archer to immediatly act. "Crap!" Shouting, Arash grabbed Rushd and jumped out from the lookout spot just in time as the fireball collided with it and destroyed everything. Falling, Arash made sure to cushion Rushd from the ground as they landed and even use himself as a shield to protect the boy from the falling debris.
"Dammit! That came out of nowhere!" Arash said, having taken a huge scare from the unexpected attack.
"A-Are you okay Arash?!" Rushd asked, worried.
Arash got up from the ground and cleaned some dust from his armour. "Yeah. Nothing too fatal, just some scratches."
"CHARGE!"
"IT'S UP THERE!"
"TIME FOR THE RAID MEN! CRUSH THEM AT WILL!"
Hearing enormous commotion, Arash went over the edge of the narrow cliff path he and Rushd where in, his face transforming into one of terror and panic as he saw several full troops of soldier knights advancing down the path below, heading torwards the Eastern Village's entrance. A full blown out surprise assault.
"It can't be! They discovered the village! We're under attack!" Arash exclaimed out, much to Rushd's horror.
"What?!" It was there when the courage in him had dissipated, going back to be a scared boy who didn't knew how to react properly to such situation but to shake in fear. "W-What do we do now?"
"First, get out of here and back to the village of course!" Arash replied, picking up Rushd as he begun to run fastly torwards the village. "What a luck! They really had to attack us just when all of the others are away! How did the Lion King even managed to find us?" It was a question that was troubling his mind as they were making their way back to the village. "Thankfully, those soldiers will still take some minutes to arrive! That must be enough time to alert and evacuate everyone in the village!" Arash said to himself as more fireballs were being launched into the skies, bombarding the territory around the Eastern Village.
Reaching there, Arash saw the population was already in a state of agitation.
"A-Arash! What is happening!? What are all these noises and earth tremors all of a sudden?!"
"We're under attack! The Lion King's forces have found this village!" Arash immediatly gave the bad news to the villagers. "However, do not enter in hysteria! There is still some time until the knights arrive here! Follow me to the cave's entrance where you shall shelter yourselves during the attack!" Giving the instruction and being the voice of reason in the middle of a sea of chaos, the archer was able to calm down the population as he reunited every single person and led them to the cave's entrance located on the area's outskirt.
Arriving to the place, he guarded and watched over as majority of the inhabitants made their way into the cave's opening, hoping that everyone got deep inside the cave by the time the enemy would arrive. "Everyone who's inept to fight go into the cave and do not stop walking until reaching its far end! All of the rest who are willing and in conditions to fight, stay here and help me held off against the intruders until Cursed Arm and his group return!" He stated, railling up the men who decided that they would be defending their village alongside the servant.
"Will you be okay, Arash? Will the village be saved?" Rushd asked reluctantly, not wanting to leave the persian archer behind but knowing that a mere kid like him wouldn't make a difference. "A-and what about the others?"
"They will come! I'm sure of it, Rushd!" Arash replied to the muslim boy with a smile of bravado. "As for me and the village, we will be okay! Don't think too hard about it! Before you go into the cave, I'll ask you for a favour. Can you do it for me?"
"Y-Yes. What is it?" Rushd asked, seeing Arash crouching down to get on the same height as the boy.
"Those people need someone brave as well right now. Someone to lead them through the cave's long path as well as keep their heads cool. Think you can do that?" Arash requested to Rushd, wanting to at least someone to maintain the scared villagers calm and give guidance to them.
"..." A bit baffled by the request, Rushd quickly snapped out of that state and accepted it, nodding his head. "I will! I'll fulfill my duty as a protector of this village as well! You can count on me, Arash!" The boy replied, much to Arash's satisfaction.
"Good. Now go and do that, Rushd! Be the brave man you promised to be to your mother!" Arash exclaimed, seeing Rushd entering the cave alongside the last fleeing villagers.
"See you later! Good luck, Arash!" Rushd replied back before dissapearing into the cave's dark ambiance, always staring at the valiant and heroic smile on Arash's face before turning around and leaving.
"Eh. See you later as well buddy." Arash whispered before shifting his focus to the men around him. "Okay everyone! All of the inhabitants have evacuated! Now let's go to the village's entrance and show those men of the Lion King what we're made of!" He yelled, leading the charge of the small battalion of people who would try to resist against the brutal attack of their enemy.
With all of them positioning in two lines of defense at the village's entrance, Arash took a path upwards, ending up on a very high spoth near a cliff just to the side of the entrance. That way, he could snipe out the arriving enemies by surprise. Getting in position with his bow, Arash didn't had to wait too much as he saw the giant wave of enemies beggining to appear with their war screams, charging torwards the village, their weapons up high.
That was the signal for Arash.
"Robust Health!"
Casting a skill just for precaution, Arash begun to fire the arrows from his bow, quickly taking out five of the most front soldier knights. Taking out another arrow as quickly, Arash set in position and fired once more, waiting for the same result to happen. Yet, as his shot was doing its trajectory to hit the enemies from below, they strangely missed the targets, much to Arash's shock
"What?!" Grabbing another set of arrows, Arash fired them once again, only to see the same result happening. "H-How is this possible?!" Arash question in dread as he saw the soldier knights eventually arrive to the entrance and clash with the lines of defense, about to raid the place, the confronts and killing having started.
"Tsk!" Not wanting to give it up, Arash tried again and again, all of his attempts ending up with the target being missed over and over. "How can I be missing all of this shots!? It's impossible!" He was starting to get desperate, seeing that he wasn't being of help and his efforts frustrated, about to fire another arrow. "Unless...I'm not missing! Instead..." Getting slowly into the realization behind the truth of his failed shots, Arash fired the arrow, ending up seeing it being twarthed by a bolting red arrow that appeared out of nowhere, clashing with it. "They are being deflected! But by who exactly?"
"Arondight..."
"Hm?" Noticing a bright blue light to his left, Arash could only move his eyes gaze as he saw a shnning sword coming as quick as thunder torwards him. "Wha-"
"...Overload!"
In a quick second, the Knight of the Lake, Lancelot, stepped forward and behind Arash as he brought down his sword onto the other servant, marking him with a blue line across his chest that it then bursted out open with a power of a fatal slice attack.
"Eurgh!" Having been caught off guard by such tremendous hit, Arash just saw mounts of blood flying out from his body as he lost balance and proceeded to fall down from the cliff. "He was...too fast for me...!" Arash gave a glance to Lancelot before getting into a free fall, his body going all the way down from the mountain, the archer having been soundly and fastly defeated without much effort, getting taken out with the same relevance as his legend had in the world of heroes, kings, emperors and gods.
.
.
"So there you have it. Your archer friend was nothing but a mild inconvenience in our way, being dispatched as such." Tristan told them of Arash's presumed 'death', reassuring them that the he had been dealt with for good. "A fitting end if I say so myself."
"KKgh! You...!" Ritsuka tightened up his fists, the way Tristan speaked so condescendent and insensible about someone like Arash while maintaining a perfectly normal yet snobbish smile getting on his nerves.
"So that's what happened to him..." Bedivere speaked, not wanting to believe such a good person like Arash was gone without even having a chance to say goodbye or have more proper talks with. That he was unceremoniously killed just like that. But the knight knew his mind could not be thinking and lamenting about that now. "How did you exactly found this village? We were confident that the location was kept secret from you!"
"Eh. Or so that is what you would love to have surmised, Bedivere." Tristan replied with some arrogance for his ex-fellow knight. "Alas, the blame of the blowup of your base's location cannot be put into none other but yourselves."
"What do you mean by that?" Serenity interrogated, being wary of Tristan.
"That the strings of my bow, Failnaught, can detect various sounds from afar when vibrating. And I, having the eats for details, could not help but regard of a very 'festive' noise that came from the mountains. More specifically, around this area nearby." Tristan revealed, his impertinent smile slightly growing.
"Then you mean..." Mash was in startlement, realizing how Tristan and his troops had located the village.
"You captured and heared the sounds of the celebrstion party we were having on the night we raided the fort!" Romani's exclaimed, spelling it out.
Tristan was a bit delighted by their reaction. "Hehe, surprise? And that wasn't all." He then stared to Serenity. "You also helped us, altough in an indirect manner, pretty flower."
"Huh?" Serenity looked at him, puzzled.
"On our way here, we ended up catching sight of a seemingly toxic liquid residues that formed a trail all the way to the neighbouring village west from here which consequently made us discover this one more to the east. Do you get it?" Tristan moved his arm and raised his finger, pointing at Serenity. "The reason this village is being ravished and your entire operation dismantled, is greatly because of you!" He accused the Hassan, attributing the blame of the place being into flames on her.
And for Serenity, that came crushing down with weight. "Me? I...caused this?" She whispered, about to get conflicted with herself over the feeling of guiltiness, thinking all this trouble and suffering they were going through was really due to how careless she was. "It's...It's my fault. It really is-"
"Don't mess with her, jackass!" Ritsuka shouted to Tristan, defending Serenity. "For a knight, you really like to play low tricks and having kicks about it, don't you?"
"The Sir Tristan I've read about would never resort to be so cruel and dishonest as you!" Mash also replied, scolding the knight of the Round Table. "You must be an imposter, because the real Tristan would look at you with nothing but aversion!"
Tristan just chuckled at that, brushing Ritsuka and Mash's comments to the side. "Ah, how sad it is to be verbally attacked." He mocked before dropping a dead serious face. "How I could care less about how vacuous morons like you perceive me."
"But they're right! You weren't like this, Tristan! None of you were!" Bedivere confronted him, appaled at how callous Tristan had become. "What changed? What made all of you and the king decide to take things to such extremes? I know we as the Round Table were far from perfect, but we were definetly better than this!"
"Oh, Bedivere, ever the so pleading and compassionate knight, always trying to reason with his enemies." Tristan scoffed to the other knight, repudiating his attitude. "How pathetic. It ain't even worth the tiniest of smirks, a stain to our reputation like you." Tristan moved Failnaught, his right arm positioned near its strings. "Maybe that is why the weak can only join forces with other weak."
"Careful guys! Tristan is about to engage in combat with you!" Romani warned the group.
"He can try! I'm more than up to volunteer beating him up!" Mash replied, her shield ready.
"Same here! It's time for payback for what he did to all those people in the wastelands!" Ritsuka added, also wanting to make Tristan pay for it. "And Serenity..." Ritsuka put a hand on the Hassan's shoulder, calling her. "Don't let his words mess with your head. He's just trying to destabilize you!"
That was enough to get Serenity's mind focused on the fight that was about to start. "Right! I won't be listening to a word the enemy says for anylonger!"
"It wasn't of my interests and wishes to ever fight you as my enemies." Bedivere speaked, bringing forth his sword. "Nonetheless, you present me with no other option but to force it!" By now, he was already mentally prepared to fight another one of his ex-comrades despite a part of him would never get used to it, being wholeheartedly against that.
But the feeling wasn't mutual. "Spare me of such balderdash, Bedivere. I on the other hand, cannot wait to finish a traitor like you." Tristan replied before sighing and beggining to lament. "Ah, and to think if we didn't had to wait for such fool like Lancelot, our business in here would already been over. Oh well, the entrance to the cave is right behind you, is it?" He asked to the group, seeing all four of them getting hostile and prepared for combat, his eyes opening up as he gave them an unsettling cold glare. "So that is where I will find the rest of the insects and crush them!"
"Take this!" Nala exclaimed as she swinged her sword at an opponent, still with wearing her ascension armour, bringing him down before dodging the attack of a second one, striking down the other soldier knight shortly after. Her group, on their quest of trying to find for any villager that ended up being left behind, they instead were bumping into groups of enemies, which they didn't mind that much as another of objective of theirs was to fend the soldiers away from the village.
"Kyyah!" From the girl's left, Sanzang had dealt with the last enemy of the squad, the simple power of the contact of her hand palm crushing the opponent's armour, sending him to the floor. "May Shakyamuni be merciful of thee!" She exclaimed, the monk doing a quick prayer. "Any inhabitant you're seeing nearby?"
"No. Not a sign of a single one." Cursed Arm replied, he, Nala, Touta and Sanzang reuniting. "At least I hope it means everyone else in the village made it to the cave and are save for now." He said, thinking in the best of the hypothesis.
"That's for sure! No other bodies than the ones at the entrance! Therefore, we can assume they are all indeed safe within the cave!" Touta speaked. "Now all is left for us to do is to take out the rest of the soldier knights that still remain within the village!"
"There hasn't been any much left since we took down quite the majority of them already." Sanzang replied. "Since we arrived a bit late and the village is partially destroyed, many of the Lion King's troops must have left before we arrived, leaving only a small percent of the army that came here behind."
"True. There isn't as much of them in here as I expected when we saw that the village was under attack in the distance." Cursed Arm commented, cheching his surroundings.
"Then we can assume that our only enemy here will be these soldier knights?" Nala questioned, thinking that the main power of the raiding army had already left, leaving some minions behind.
Yet, a glance from Sanzang could tell the girl was wrong. "It doesn't seem so." She said, staring at a knight coming to their direction, his metallic footsteps getting the group's attention.
"So the intel given to me was right." Lancelot speaked torwards Nala, facing her and the rest of his opponents. "The pure soul that escaped is indeed here."
"Ugh, another one of you with that stupid 'pure soul' topic!" Nala replied, getting tired of everyt time she would confront a knight of the Round Table, they would always point out and name her that, expressing their intentions with her. It was that way with Mordred and Agravain, and now with Lancelot. "If it's about me accepting to surrender and coming with you to the Holy City as captive, then forget it! Better just skip to the part where we fight already!" She exclaimed, putting her sword in position.
"A very straightforward and direct young maiden, I see." Lancelot replied, also wielding his weapon. "Do not fret. I wouldn't exactly try to convince you to surrender as I had been told previously of the failed attempts. So this will rather have to be done by force!" Lancelot leaped forward, skipping the formalities and going right into the fight, heading torwards Nala.
"Come and try it!" Nala replied about to charge as well to attack the Knight of the Lake.
"Bale of Inexhaustibility!"
Coming from behind, Nala stopped her dash as an arrow came passing past her, heading torwards Lancelot, the knight altough surprised managing to parry the unforseen attack, also putting a stop on his run.
"Wait a minute now! Don't think this is going to be a one-against-one fight!" Touta speaked up, stepping by Nala's side. "There is a score I'd like to settle with this guy." The bowman told her, giving a sharp stare at Lancelot.
"Hm? You two have fought before?" Nala asked him.
"Yeah. He's the one that ambushed me and Sanzang when we where on our way to the egyptian desert and made me prisoner of the fort after I stayed behind to give Sanzang an opportunity to escape." Touta explained the correlation he had with Lancelot to Nala, much to Sanzang's slight frustration.
"Hey! W-Was it really necessary to add that last part?! It makes me sound like a coward!" Pouting, the monk lady also stood by her disciple and Nala's side, Cursed Arm doing the same. "Huff, silly disciple! And I thought the very first lesson I gave to you of showing respect to your mentor was made clear in your head. But fine! I'll overlook it as now it's not the time for reprimands!"
"I do remember you as well, Tawara Touta. Despite of being in a numerical disadvantage, you ended up giving quite the harsh fight!" Lancelot replied, remembering well of his fight against the bowman. "A good opponent overall."
"And this time I ain't being held down by having to guarantee someone flees or having to concentratre in more than just a single enemy!" Touta excercised his arms, grabbing an arrow. "Now, prepare for an even harsher battle, Lancelot! You against all of us four!" He declared, all four of the small party about to enter in confront against Lancelot at the same time, who promplty accepted the fight.
Sanzang however gave a piece of warning to Nala and Cursed Arm before they could go against the Knight of the Lake. "Careful! Even if we are four, it is Lancelot that we're going up against! One of if not the most skilled in swordplay of all the Round Table!"
"After all the strong and dangerous enemies I've faced before, I'm ready to fight him anyways!" Nala replied, maintaining a strong grasp on her sword and posture, altough, her vision got a bit blurry for a second, some nausea as well. "Ugh..! It ain't good. I've been in my ascension mode evry since we fought that demonic dragon creature at the shrine. My mana energy must be running low at this point! Yet, I have to maintain on this form just for a little longer!"
"Correct! We have to make all of the knights pay with no exception for the crime they infringed on the village!" Cursed Arm said with anger while eyeing Lancelot, the Knight of the Lake probably being one of the most responsible for the attack.
As for Lancelot, he could tell and feel the sentiment within the Hassan. How the ire for seeing his dear place destroyed with innocent people that lived in there was...understandable. It was a sorrowful anguish that the knight couldn't censor the Hassan for. What he and his companions were doing under the Lion King's rule definetly wasn't right. However... "Orders are orders. And we as knights must simply follow the ones from our liege, wether they are righteous or not! I reckon that the same applies to you and your order of assassins, no?"
"Grr!" Cursed Arm did not liked to hear that comparison. "I am and will always be loyal to the Great Founder's teachings! But the day where our order starts killing defenseless innocents, is the day where I would rather have my head cut off as the order I knew stops existing!"
"So you choose being someone who follows your heart rather than orders..." Lancelot replied, reflecting on where the priorities of the Hassan lied in. "Very well. Show me if you have enough strenght in those hearts to defeat me!" He exclaimed, picking up his sword and engaging the group into battle.
"Transient Wall of Snowflakes!"
Casting a defensive support spell on her teammates, Mash was doing her best in blocking and deflecting Tristan's arrows as she, Bedivere and Serenity were all attempting to attack him at the same time, the knight of the Round Table skillfuly dealing with them without much trouble, avoiding that the three of them all reached close to him at the same time by using the arrows of Failnaught to always keep a distance.
"Shapeshift!"
Putting her legs pace at an incredible speed, Serenity moved and dodged with agility prowess as she reached closer to Tristan, aiming her spell-embedded dagger into a fatal area of the knight's body, on the neck.
Being a bit occupied with Bedivere, Tristan noticed the Hassan approaching by his side, taking quick action about that.
"In Sonorous Praise of Love!"
Activating one of his own skills, Tristan fired an arrow at Bedivere's shoulder, stopping him for a bit as he then aimed his attention to serenity, sending a trio of arrows to rain down on her as the Hassan was a meter away from striking him with her dagger, forcing her to retreat and evade at the same time. The last arrow ending up scrapping on her left leg.
"Ghg!" Serenity flinched a bit hurt as she landed on the ground near Ritsuka.
"Are you alright, Serenity?" Ritsuka went torwards her immediatly, about to cast a cure spell on her but before that could happen, Tristan graciously played the strings of Failnaught again, sending some arrows torwards him.
"!"
"Watch out!" Serenity exclaimed, the adrenaline in her body making her grab and shove Ritsuka out of the danger as she blocked and deflected the blows with precise and highest reaction.
As the Hassan had done that, Tristan turned around to halt Mash's shield as she had tried to sneak on him. "Hmmm, that face. Why does it recalls me of someone?" Tristan questioned as he stared at the shielder before just deciding to push that question to the side. "Whatever. I shall think of that later." He said, doing a step to the side and unmaking the clash, resulting in Mash to unexpectedly lose some balance as she tripped forward and was hit in the stomach by Tristan's knee who then grabbed her by the pulse and threw her where Ritsuke and Serenity were at. "Go join to your friends!"
"Aaah!"
"Mash!" Reacting to Mash's yelp, Ritsuka stood up and grabbed her, preventing his servant from hitting with her back on the ground, taking the fall for her instead.
"M-Master!" Mash didn't lose time in getting out from the top of him, fearing he might have broken some bones. "Are you okay?"
Ritsuka gave a reassuring smile as he coughed a bit. "Y-Yeah! All fine Mash!" He said, having both Mash and Serenity helping him standing up.
"Here. Go play with my men for a little while." Tristan said, a simple gesture of his hands making a group of soldier knights to appear on the plataform they were on, keeping Ritsuka, Mash and Serenity occupied as Tristan stared to the fourth enemy. "As of now, the only one that interests me, is you." Tristan stared to the recovering Bedivere with a soft and yet sadistic smile, seeing the other knight remove the arrow from his shoulder with his bare hands. "Knight of Loyalty, Sir Bedivere."
"Ugh!" His face making an involuntary expression of pain upon the removal of the arrow, the burning ache on his shoulder, Bedivere quickly ignored it to face Tristan. "I'm right where you wanted!" Bedivere replied with a belligerant look as he grabbed up his sword and sprint torwards his enemy, once companion. "Tristan!" Shouting, his sword clashed with the metal part of Tristan's Failnaught, the two knights staring in each other's eyes. "Why? Why follow these orders? What honor is there in hunting and killing civillians?"
Bedivere questioned as the two engaged in close combat, Tristan always blocking Bedivere's blade and countering it with his melodic arrows, to which Bedivere would also block. The two of them clashing and clashing as their bodies moved around. "I thought you were better than this, Tristan! You, the Knight of Lamentation, who would not conform with such sorrow as you could resonate with the people's sentiments! Then what happened? Why does such graceful and comprehensive knight as you commit such heinous crimes? What happened to the person who was once my friend?" Shouting, Bedivere swinged down his sword with agressive strenght, impacting it with brute force against Tristan's bow.
Holding on against the Knight of Loyalty's power, Tristan simply smirked. "He his long gone."
"!" Dazed at such answer, Bedivere let his guard down for a small moment, being enough for Tristan to overpower him, and strike Bedivere on the abdomen, an arrow hitting him on the back.
"Agh!" Bedivere let out a scream of pain as he went on his knees to the ground.
A bit away from the battle, Ritsuka was observing the event while Mash and Serenity were fighting against the soldier knights. "Bedivere is having trouble! How can Tristan be such a great archer despite having his eyes closed!?"
"I think I can have the answer for that!" Romani appeared on his hologram, having some annotations about the Knight of Lamentation. "It's work of Tristan's own personal Gift! It somehow reverses the affinity of his Archer Class to a point where it is at top performance!"
"Huh? Then you mean Tristan's Gift makes him a more skillful archer than he originally is supposed to be?!" Ritsuka replied, thinking if he got it right about the mechanics behind the Knight of Lamentation's Gift.
"Eugh...! Ggghrr...!" Trying to get back on his feet, Bedivere observed Tristan's shadow towering over him as he approached.
"Things change, Bedivere. You were not present in the beggining to know why and how." Tristan said, speaking down on him. "Howbeit, there are indeed things that remain selfsame even on a completly different scenario. One of those being your feeble and redundant compassion. And that our king does not yet understand human emotions. That is why we are ordered to slaughter and genocide all of the opposition, even if they are but a mere child. Because in His Majesty's own logic, the suffering of foreigner people means little to nothing for him, being less than ants on a plate, barely even worthy of being noticed."
"Ah...I get it..." Hearing Tristan attribute the reasons behind the knights of the Round Table's slaughter of innocent civillians on the jarring fact of their king being unable to feel compassion and sympathy for the common people only made the Knight of Loyalty's blood boil. He knew that their king had since long stopped perceiving things the same way a normal human would. That emotions and feelings were casted away in place for a faultless judgement and leadership of a 'perfect' king. Yet, he was certain of one thing. Their king had never commanded them to genocide innocent, no matter if they were part of the enemy's territory or not. That is a line that she never dared to cross and Bedivere knew it. He knew that despite the stoic emotionless up on all the surface of his king's face, Artoria Pendragons still could discern some 'empathy'.
It all only made it clear that the Tristan Bedivere was confronting was indeed no longer the sorrowful but always soothing, heartwarming and lovely knight he once knew as his comrade. Looking at the Knight of Lamentation's ambar eyes, Bedivere could tell there was no true lamentation left in them. Instead, only a cruel and emotionless man who could not feel for the sadness of others.
"You decided to become scum!" Bedivere yelled in rage, fastly getting up from the ground as he concentrated a powerful amount of energy into his metallic arm.
"Airgetlám!"
Activating the magic construct, Bedivere lashed at Tristan who was taken a bit by surprise by Bedivere's moment of rampage, almost hitting him with his Noble Phantasm.
"Have you all forgot what it means to be a knight!? To fight with honor and be just!?" Bedivere yelled.
"Airgetlám!"
He used his Noble Phantasm again right after having used it, the blast launched by Bedivere almost hitting Tristan, wiping out a giant chunk of a mountain nearby them.
"He's upset!" Tristan exclaimed to himself as he saw Bedivere charge at him with the shinning arm of Airgetlám, blocking easily all of the arrows sent torwards him, advancing even more torwards the Knight of Lamentation.
"You sully Camelot's and the entire kingdom's principles with such acts! The true Arthur Pendragon would never accept you as a knight!" In fury, altough not one to the extents of a Berserker, Bedivere hit Tristan's Failnaught with Airgetlám, the smaller to medium sized rocks nearby being fragmented into pieces. "You are the ones who betrayed the king!"
Having finished with the last of the soldier knight's group, Mash and Serenity turned around to see the anger Bedivere was letting all out when confronting the other knight, bewildered by it.
"Bedivere-san is...He's absolutely enfuriated." Mash commented, almost having no words to describe it.
"Seeing him like that seems so...off." Serenity also speaked.
"It really doesn't feel like the Bedivere we know..." Ritsuka replied, also watching Bedivere going all out against Tristan.
"I cannot forgive you! I cannot forgive any of the sins you commited while being my friend!" Bedivere shouted, hitting Airgetlám again on Tristan's bow, the Knight of Lamentation at this point not knowing how he could stop Bedivere's fury. "If the only way to stop you from doing such disgusting acts is to kill you all and the Lion King..." With a burning fury contaminating slowly his soul, Bedivere gave Tristan a gaze full of wrath. "THEN I'LL KILL YOU WITH MY OWN HANDS!"
"Airgetlá-AARGHRR!"
As he was about to use his Noble Phantasm for the third time consecutively, Bedivere was too blinded in anger at that time to realize he was burning excessively a huge part of mana within him by using repeatedly Airgetlám's power, proceeding to feel a shocking pain throghout his entire nerves before falling to the ground in ache.
"Crap! I knew it! Bedivere as abused immensely of Airgetlám's power in such short period that his body suffered a physical burnout!" Romani checked Bedivere's conditions, seeing how badly the knight led himself to pain with the over usage of the Noble Phantasm.
"We gotta help him!" Ritsuka almost shouted, he, Mash and Serenity not wanting to stay still as they watched their companion suffer in terrible agony on the floor, his body contorting from all the pain piercing on his body.
Watching Bedivere writhe in pain, Tristan went from an expression of bother to one of amusement. "Eh. Hahahaha! What's wrong, Bedivere? Eat more than what you could chew?" Tristan mocked him with pity. "Ah, poor, pathetic, miserable Bedivere. How sad that you thought misusing yout trump card against me would result in something. Not the strongest of the table and seemingly not the brightest as well. How inane!" Tristan exclaimed, stepping on Bedivere's hand, adding more pain. Aiming Failnught to the suffering Bedivere, Tristan was about to deal the finishing blow. "But worry not, friend. I shall put you out of your misery!"
But just as he was about to kill the other knight, a dagger went torwards him, almost hitting the Knight of Lamentation's head, forcing him to step back. "!"
"Stay away from him!" Mash yelled, appearing in front of Tristan as she bashed against the knight who had to block it with his bare arms, being pushed away from Bedivere.
"Bedivere! Hang on! We're here!" Ritsuka said as he grabbed the agonized knight and used a healing spell, tranquilizing the pain within Bedivere's body for a bit.
"Intruding on knights matters does not concern you. Are you fool enough to lack the understanding this is supposed to be only between me and him?" Tristan said in displeasure, annoyed that the trio interrupted him from having the opportunity of finishing with Bedivere.
"If you want to harm him, you'll have to get through us first!" Ritsuka responded back to Tristan, he and the two girl servants making an opposition to the Knight of Lamentation.
Staring at them with nothing more but sheer contempt, Tristan was about to make them regret those words when out of nowhere, the skies begun to shine a golden light, getting everyone by surprise.
"Eh? The sky is...shinning?" Serenity asked confused as she saw the clouds more to the west brightening up with a strong yellow light.
"What's happening?" Ritsuka murmured.
"Hm? What a- even my sensors and monitors are going wild here! Whatever magic energy is detecting, its density much be gigantic to cause such reaction!" Romani told them, trying to recalibrate the calculations of the mana detecting sensors with the help of the staff.
As for Tristan, this was all good news for him, a smile showing up on his face. "It's ready."
"Huh? What's ready?" Ritsuka questioned Tristan who just opened up his arms with a delighted smile as the dark night was slowly being replaced by the golden divine light in the skies.
"King's Judgement."
"Precise Stroke!"
"Knight of the Lake!"
Clashing, Nala and Lancelot were having a real tight match, the Knight of the Lake even when fighting against her and three other servants standing on his ground, having sustained nothing but some minor injuries and scratches while his opponents were all more wounded and tired than him.
Stepping away, Nala took some precious seconds to breath and recover a bit of her stamina, the long usage of her armour already weighing on her.
"Hmm..." As all of his opponents were recovering, Lancelot looked to the gauntlent of his left arm, noticing a crack in it done after the clash with Nala. "You are impressive, young lady." The Knight of the Lake told to her. During the fight, despite of the four of them being all formidable adversaries, Lancelot deemed Nala to be the hardest one. The way she moved around nimbly and as fast as almost light itself while attacking from any angle, being from above or even below, made the knight recognize her skills as a swordswoman with great potential, Nala's sword never wavering during their countless clashes, the girl already fighting with the experience of a full grown fighter while also having an absurd power of mana energy that she would use it on majority of her attacks. Some similarities with her sibling's magic as well despite their combat styles being majorily different.
"You...also are really a tough one!" Nala replied, sweating a bit, feeling some blood coming out of her mouth. Sanzang wasn't joking when she had said that out of all knights of the Round Table, Lancelot was the most skillful in the art of the sword. A truthful statement as her armour was looking a bit dirty and damaged after fighting Lancelot with everything she could pull off at the moment, the fatigue in her body not allowing her to push her limits during the combat. Feeling a bit dizzy, Nala for a moment had lost her equilibrium before quickly regaining it. "No! I can't let the transformation end now! I need to stay like this...at least for some more time."
"Okay, I think this was good enough for a break!" Sanzang said as she as well as Touta and Cursed Arm stood back on their feet, regaining some bit of energy back and joining Nala. Lanecelot even if alone, was being a true headache to them. "As hard as I expected. I see that we need to try a different approach to defea-...hm? What's going on with the sky?" She asked the moment she spoted the golden light coming from above the clouds.
In reaction, everyone did the same, seeing the powerful light in the skies as well.
"The sky is...shinning?" Nala said, trying to comprehend what was happening.
"Is this a work of another Heroic Spirit?" Touta pondered.
"I do not know. But I'm with a feeling of something bad just by looking at it." Cursed Arm replied, seeing the higly concentrated golden light gather itself more to the west. "That's...where the Western Village is."
Meanwhile, Lancelot looked a bit agitated as he recognized those golden lights. "The king is...Why now?"
"Where are we going?" Peko asked while being escorted by both Gawain and Agravain on the halls of the palace. It was in the middle of the night when the two knights had entered his bedroom without prior notice, almost catching Peko with Árma Hermes. Thankfully, Peko had heard their footsteps shortly before the arrival, giving him time to hide the disk dispositive as the two knight opened the door and told him to follow them.
"The Young Finsternis will see in no time." Agravain replied, walking ahead while Gawain accompanied Peko by his side. "Pray tell, does thoust have ever peered at a king's might?"
"Huh?" Peko stared confused at Agravain, wondering what he wanted to mean by that but still responding nontheless. "Well...I think I already did."
"Hmm, I see." Agravain replied as the trio walked into a balcony outside. "However..."
"?!" Stepping outside, Peko went agape in terrifying awe as he gazed at a giant beacon of golden light in the skies, far away into the mountains on west from their location. "That's-..."
A colossal golden lance of light, highly concentrated of the most purest mana descending down from the heavens, the clouds parting to make way for the divine sacred lance opening a hole in the sky.
"Has it been anything of this nature?"
On top of the tower of her castle, the Lion King was wielding her mighty lance, once again performing the ritual of her Divine Judgement, about to bring down her punishment on another location and people that had foolishly decided to oppose her. Having got the exact coordinates of the enemy's current villages, Artoria Pendragon executed her Noble Phantasm, invoking it from the skies and above.
"I've expanded the land, built citites,
crossed the ocean, and split the heavens."
Putting the Divine Construct up tall with her arm, the Lion King would chastise another target that tried to defy her ambitions with the power of her lance's purging light.
"All...for what?"
A power so godly and dooming, that a strike of it alone was enough to nuke an entire city, shinning like a second sun. The Lion King's might and severe punishment materialized through the lance that anchored the world's layers.
"Holy Lance, tell me of the end!"
Making it descend like a meteor, the Lion King so delivered it. Her Holy Judgement to the sinful beings that opposed her.
"The Lance That Shines to the End of the World: Rhongomyniad!"
And so, crushing down on the small and innocuous Western Village, the Lion King's pillar of light blew it up with a deafening bang and a light so luminous that it could almost blind anyone who looked at it directly.
.
.
.
"Ggh...!" Protecting her eyes and face from the giant flash bang that erupted the moment it collided with the earth, Nala and the others slowly opened their eyes as they felt the blinding brightness to have passed. And what she and the group would see next, was daunting. "Ah!...T-the...The area of the Western Village." Widening her eyes in total shock, Nala barely could put it into words what had happened to the territory to the west of them where the Holy Judgement had landed. "Half of the mountains are...are gone!"
Eyeing in absolute terror, they all saw a gigantic crater craved into the soil, giant clouds of heat coming out of it. As for the Western Village and big part of the mountainssurrounding it...it was all gone, reduced to ashes the moment the lance of light obliterated the place, leaving no traces that there ever was a village there behind.
"Kkhg...! Ghhg...gghgrrrrrr!" Seeing the tragic fate the Western Village ended up suffering, completly erased from the map, Cursed Arm couldn't help but to lower his head with great anger and frustration. "Hundred Personas...Everyone from there...!" The assassin cleenched his fist so tight that it even drew blood out of it. "Damn you..! Damn you all!"
"So this was the Lion King's Holy Judgement we've heard about before..." Touta commented, a bit stunned by the demonstration of absolute power from the Lion King.
"It's...scary." Sanzang said, a single drop of sweat running down from her face. Despite having been a close follower of Buddha himself, she was astonished on how the Lion King had a power that could be deemed as a very small fraction of the figure she praised.
"..." Lancelot didn't even said a thing, no matter if this wasn't the first time he was seeing it, his eyes never getting used to the vision of his king annihilating hundreads and thousands of lives in a matter of seconds. It just made the questions inside of him ring louder.
"Is this the king you follow?" Nala shouted behind the Knight of the Lake, bringing his attention to her. "The orders you follow? How can you do all of this killing and still think the reason you fight for is a noble one!?" Nala confronted him, hugely indignated. "If so, then you aren't knights! You're all monsters who follow a bigger one who claims to be your king!"
"I..." Lancelot didn't know how to reply to that accusation. Because it was true. It was true and deep down the Knight of the Lake knew it. How long and how much could the 'just following orders' be a justifiable excuse? Perhaps Nala's claim made Lancelot fully take that into account.
That they had long since gone too far.
"The Western Village...was wiped out. Just gone." Mash murmured in a paralyzed shock as she and the others watched the village and the territory around it being vanquished by the giant holy lance that purged them from the skies, having witnessed the Holy Judgement.
"Lion King's Noble Phantasm...I...I can't believe on how absurd these numbers are but..." Seeing the screen, Romani analyzed the data and results he was able to take from the pillar of light before it had collided with the Western Village. "It appears the power levels of this Noble Phantasm's attack was around the 3 million mark, whereas the highest ranked of Noble Phantasms powers only range between 1000 and 3000. Every spiriton that it was composed of being high on energy and mana levels. This...This means the Lion King's Noble Phantasm would probably be on the same tier as Solomon's Rings of Light."
"The same power level as Solomon...?" Ritsuka replied in dread as he felt some small movement from Bedivere, staring at the knight in his arms. "B-Bedivere?"
"You..."
With Airgetlám shaking uncontrollably, Bedivere's face was covered by his other hand as the knight cleenched his teeth, his mind having a hard time to accept and believe in what he had witnessed. "YOU'VE ALL GONE MAD, HAVENT YOU!?" Bedivere shouted torwards Tristan, losing his cool. "Judgement?! You call wipping out innocents and entire towns as 'judgement'? Is the Lion King really the King Arthur we used to follow? Have you all become shameless cowards!?" He accused Tristan and the other members of the Round Table, appaled that the once noble and dignified knights that were his comrades and friends now were indeed commiting genocide, not even wanting to think that the king he served for life was also the one leading all of this.
Not even fazed by the insults, Tristan just gave the other knight a stare of irrelevamce. "Have you gone deaf as well, bedivere? Did you not listen to me saying how the king still denies the comprehension of human emotions?" He said, before opening his eyes and giving the other knight a machiavillian smile. "And emotions cannnot be allowed in order to not cloud one's judgement."
"!" In anger, Bedivere suddenly got up and try to charge torwards Tristan, surprising Ritsuka and the party. "You-ack!?" However, such abrupt movement on his nerves cause the Knight of Loyalty's body to instantly hurt, causing him to fall flat on the ground.
"Bedivere-san!" Mash and the others went immediatly to his aid while Tristan chuckled in amusement.
"Can't even stand on your own now. How humiliating." Tristan said to Bedivere before gazing at the other three. "If I wanted, I could already dispose of you with Failnaught. However, I shall let that work be done by upcoming Holy Judgement."
"What? There will be another one?" Serenity asked in alarm.
"Precisely. In five minutes, a second Holy Judgement will rain down from the sky to blast this village in the east here as well." Tristan gave them the hopeless news. "Therefore, all of the rebels and nasty mountain people will be erased, no longer being a problem or us and our king. And certainly Chaldea too." He smirked, calling for his horse that appeared behind him. "Anyways. I hope you savour well your final moments with one another."
"As if we'll let that happen!"
"!?"
Turning around, Tristan was almost caught from surprise by Nala who had srpinted torwards him, her blade passing centimeters off from his neck, halting the Knight of Lamentation from hoping on his horse.
"Nala!" Ritsuka exclaimed, seeing his frriend arriving to the place with the rest of the party, all together at the cave's entrance.
"We're not going down here! But if we are, we will make sure to bring you down with us!" Cursed Arm told to Tristan.
"Tsk! Why the hell are you here?" Tristan questioned, a bit vixed for seeing more of his enemies appearing. "Where is Lancelo-...Oh, right. The Holy Judgement. He must've already departed. I should also leave already."
"Not without fighting us first!" Nala told him, everyone ready to fight and prevent Tristan from going away.
"..." Giving a glance at Nala, Tristan recognized her as the pure soul that escaped by remembering of her physical description. It made me rethink a bit if it was okay for the Lion King to erase this village as well with her in it. "Hmmmm, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush I suppose." He concluded that having Peko in their grasp was already good enough and so, decided to leave. "Well, I do can give you a fight." He smiled to the party. "But not with me." He added, snapping his fingers, immediatly making more soldier knights appear from behind and shield the Knight of Lamentation, catching the others off guard.
"Where did these ones came from?" Sanzang exclaimed.
"Dammit! Some must have escaped from our search!" Touta replied, having been sure they had dealt with every remaining soldier knight in the village before Lancelot had appeared to confront them.
"Well, this will be my leave!" Tristan got up on his horse, giving a final glance to the party as he smiled with a smug. "Before you perish, let it be known that it was by my hand, Sir Tristan, that conducted this attack which lead all of your aspirations to turn into dust! May this final message be a demonstration to never pester with the Lion King's desires nor His Majesty's knights!" Pronouncing it, Tristan gave one last good look at Bedivere on the ground. "Now may you contemplate your approachings deaths as traitors and rebels of our liege!"
With that, Tristan dashed away from the village with his horse as the soldier knights gave him cover.
"Wait!" Ritsuka shouted as he saw Tristan escaping, getting further away.
"It's no use, master! We have to accept Tristan as fled!" Mash told him, the group now engaging in a fight with the last soldier knights that were left behind as per Tristan's orders. "Now we must defeat these enemies first!"
This particular fight against them wasn't too hard or long, the group being able to defeat the unit of soldier knights in under a minute and half as Ritsuka watched over the limited Bedivere, now recovering from the overusage of Airgetlám. Unfortunately, in this specific situation, a minute and half was deadly for them.
"Done! No more enemies nearby!" Mash announced, lowering her shield as she hurriedly tried to think on their next action. "Now we have to-"
And the skies above turned golden, much to the entire party's terror.
"It's already here!" Romani said in panic, looking at the monitor, the second Holy Judgement having appeared. "You barely have any time left to escape!"
"We still have to go to the cave and rescue the villagers!" Serenity reminded to everyone.
"Right! We cannot leave them behind!" Touta replied.
"But...shit. Shit!" Cursed Arm cursed, realizing something that made this situation all more dire.
"What's wrong?" Ritsuka asked to the Hassan.
"By now, the villagers must be deep within the cave! It would take more than the remaining time to find them, taking them out of the cave and leave the village to somewhere safe! It's literally impossible to do all that in a span of the minute that's left!"
"Then you're saying that there's no way we can save those villagers?" Sanzang asked.
"...No." Cursed Arm responded in defeat. "We could perhaps be able to save ourselves but..."
"If we cannot escape that lance, then we'll destroy it!" Nala exclaimed, coming with a possible solution. "That must be the way!" Grabbing her sword, Nala eyed the giant Holy Lance slowly coming down at them, ready to put her everything in order to destroy it, brightening up her blade. "I'll-eugh?!" But the overlong usage of her ascension state had finalyy took a toll, a sharp pain in her body as Nala instinctively begun to cough blood and lose her energy, about to fall on the ground as her armour dissapeared.
"Nala!" Mash catched the girl in time, holdin her. "You must've already reached your limit! You're porbably way beyond exhausted!" The shielder told her, a bit of Nala's red blood with traits of blue stenched on her hands.
Seeing that Nala wouldn't be available to stop it, Ritsuka tried to see if anyone else could. "Does anyone here has a Noble Phantasm capable of cancelling that out? Any of you guys?" He asked, getting slightly more desperate as the Holy Judgement approached them.
"..." Both Serenity and Cursed Arm got silent in frustration and desolation, being aware that their type of Noble Phantasms wouldn't even itch it.
Touta also didn't had a Noble Phantasm that could do that. He then turned his head around at Sanzang and wondered if hers could.
But by her face, it was clear that not even she was sure that her ultimate Noble Phantasm would be able to repel an attack of such magnitude. Looking back at her disciple with an expression of apprehension, was enough to tell Touta. "I don't think it will suffice." She said sorrowfuly, knowing that saying that was throwing their last hopes in the gutter.
"..." Touta just slightly expanded his eyes before accepting the answer. "Then this is it..."
"You...You can't be telling that there is no..." Romani speaked with panic, seeing that there was no solution to be found.
"We won't survive this..." Ritsuka whispered, the grim realization of that crushing on him. No way to either escape or destroy the Lion King's Judgement. This would be their hopeless ending.
Realizing that as well, Bedivere just gave up alltogether and fell to the ground on his knees. "It's over." He said in regret and anguish, not wanting to conform with his tragic fate that would soon occur. "After all we've been through...Everything we fought for...All of our hopes and goals...It just won't matter at all!" He exclaimed, punching Airgetlám on the ground, fighting the tears from appearing in his eyes, frustrated that he would not be concluding his journey. "After all those years...my promise to the king...it will..." He murmured, staring at the floor in resentment.
"Eh. Why the long faces, guys?"
Fate Grand Order OST- Walk By
"Hm?!"
"What?"
"This voice is-"
Hearing the footsteps, Bedivere noticed a person walking past him, drops of blood falling and stenching the ground.
"Don't give up yet."
"Ah..." Slowly lifting up his head, Bedivere and the rest of the party all saw the bloodied and gravely injured Heroic Spirit walking torwards the edge of the plataform facing up the incoming Holy Lance, still standing despite the wounds.
"A-Arash?" Bedivere said in surprise as the persian archer had appeared, not being dead after all.
"What? Did you all thought a simple fall from a mountain's cliff would have killed me?" He chuckled and smiled happily, looking as joyous as ever. "Altough I do have to say, it was a pain having to climb all the way back eheh."
"Your body is..." Ritsuka saw how heavily damaged Arash was, doubting he would be able to keep going in such state.
"Oh this? I got kinda lucky. If my defense wasn't up I would surely be gone then and there!" Arash brushed his injuries aside. "But now it ain't the time to speak of it." He said with seriousness, his smile going away as he turned around, both bow and arrow in hand, lookink up to the Holy Judgement. "You have to hselter inside the cave and find the villagers. I'll deal with that big light in the skies." He stated, much to everybody's initial surprise.
"You're going to handle it? How so?" Ritsuka asked to the servant.
"Trust him." Cursed Arm told Ritsuka. "Knowing of Arash's Noble Phantasm, it has the might to pull it off. However, in exchange of an high price."
Mash and everyone else comprehended what that meant. "So Arash-san will..."
"Are you going to try and make me change idea?" Arash questioned them, seeing the expression on their faces.
"..." Much to his own grief. He didn't want Arash to go, but if it was the only way... "Thank you for having helped us this far, Arash."
"We make our goodbyes here then." Arash replied. "People of Chaldea, Cursed Arm and everyone else...There's always a way. Go up against the Lion King and show him why we humans fight so fiercely to live." Encouraging the group, Arash sent them one final message. "Now hurry, my friends."
Reluctant but having to accept, Ritsuka ended up heading into the cave with everyone else, helping Mash carry the exhausted Nala, having interacted for the last time with the brave persian archer.
However, Bedivere was still present, getting up from the ground, seeing Arash making aim to the Holy Lance. "But if you use it...Arash. Don't un-"
"One more."
"Huh?"
"You can only use Airgetlám one more time. Better spend it wisely when the situation calls for it." Arash replied, revealing that Bedivere had burned almost all of Airgetlám's power by now.
The knight was left baffled. "How did you knew?"
"Sorry. Should've told you about my Clairvoyance sooner." Arash told him. "It really made me see, how you and I are quite similar. How we both strive for peace...And I'm sure Bedivere...I'm sure that journey of yours...you will finally complete it!"
"!" Bedivere got even more surprised, seeing that the persian archer knew about his mission. "So that's why back when we were about to head to the Shrine you-"
"Eheh. The promise you made to your king." Looking back at the knight, Arash gave him his happy and friendly trademark smile, being the last time Bedivere would see it despite becoming registered in his memory. "I know a knight like you can fulfill it, Bedivere! So go! Go and show me, how much you can protect your loyalty till the end!"
"..." Touching deep in his heart, Bedivere brought his hand close to the chest, Arash having given to him new hope. He didn't wanted him to die, but Bedovere knew Arash wanted him to keep moving forward. "I...I shall never forget you, Arash!" Bedivere replied, despite the burning ache inside, saying farewell to the companion who he shortly spent time with but felt like a comrade for years. Despite seeing himself as a relatively unknown hero and legend, Arash was more striking than he'd led himself to be to the people whose hearts he touched.
"Likewise...Bedivere..." Arash whispered as he felt Bedivere running to the cave's entrance, leaving the persian archer to confront the Holy Judgement alone.
Almost.
"Came here to see how it ends?" Arash asked without looking, feeling Touta's presence right behind him, sitting at the cave's entrance.
"Legendary heroes always need a witness to make sure their stories do indeed become legends and not a passing memory that is soon forgotten in the collective mind of the people." Touta replied, making a prayer. "Do allow me to be your final witness, so that this sacrifice can never be bygone."
Giving a soft chuckle, Arash accepted Touta's justification as he activated his Noble Phantasm, a single arrow on his bow.
"O'Holy Lord of the Sun's rays"
"One who bestow all wisdom, majesty
...and strenght!"
An arrow, that stopped a conflict.
"O'Shining Lord. My heart, my thoughts...
and my acomplishments examined."
An arrow that splited the earth.
"Now, creator of moon and stars...
My deeds, my end. Behold my Spəṇta Ārmaiti!"
An arrow, that required all of the lifeforce of its user.
"As I unleash this Final Arrow, let my very being...
be shrudded into dust!"
"Lone Meteor: STELLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
A lonely and small blue arrow that traveled up like a celestial body, piercing through the gigantic and divine lance, nullyfying its power as the spiritons slowly lost their bright and died off, the Holy Judgement fading away and the clouds cleared from the sky of dawn.
The arrow of the trifling hero that rescued the hopes of his companions.
To be continued...
And that was it for chapter 108!
F in the chat for Arash because he is one that deserves it.
Honestly one of the very first iconic moments in FGO's story. And I think it works because of the fact that is Arash doing it. Because, think with me, you start playing FGO as a newcomer and there is all this characters that are based on mythical heroes, legends, and real life people. And then there's Arash, a low rarity 1 star servant that before getting into Fate you most probably don't know a thing about or that he existed, the general first thought being: 'Oh, it's just one of those characters to help me in the early game and when I want to build a team that doesn't cost much.' A character with some notable skills but that you probably put to the side in favour of more rare and meta servants.
Then you arrive in Camelot in the story, and Arash is there. A Singularity with the freaking Artoria Pendragon, the Knights of the Roundtabble, Ozymandias, First Hassan and then...there's Arash, in the middle of all those big dogs. The servant with most low rarity in that chapter. And you can only think 'Arash is here? What he even gonna do?' Which is why this moment hits so perfectly.
A freaking light nuke is about to wipe out Ritsuka and the party and the village, no way out of it, and then you think. 'How will they stop that? Will Sanzang pull out a buddhist wizardry? Will Mash somehow block it with her Noble Phantasm? Will Ozymandias or Gramps come in clutch?'
NOPE! Motherflipping Arash, surviving a fall and Lancelot's Noble Phantasm, coming back to turn off the nuke with just an arrow, giving his life for the team! Truly, the MVP of Camelot for me. And that's why I think the moment is so memorable. Because it comes from a low rarity servant that you definetly didn't cared that much at the beggining of the game. A guy that he himself knows in a world of other more famous and legendary heroes, kings gods, monsters, aliens and whatnot, he's just a small fry. But when this moment comes up? Pure, total respect! It shows that even the most unknown of heroes and historical characters in Fate still have their own shinning moments, much akin to Charlotte and Mandricardo in Atlantis.
So may Arash rest well knwoing that he died as an absolute legend.
Anyways, that's all I wanted to say and see you next time on chapter 109! Peace!
P.S:
Ritsuka: (Happily walking on the hallways)
Miyamoto Iori: OI MASTER! I'M HERE TO ASK YOU-
Ritsuka: No. How many times do I have to tell you that I won't be calling all of the servants here in Chaldea so that you can fight them all at once.
Miyamoto Iori:...okay...