5: Flame Contaminated City - Fuyuki
"Please wake up, Senpai!" says Mash, and my eyes immediately snap open to see her standing above me, wearing an outfit that could be called armor, if one was feeling extremely charitable. Is this that rumored Servant transformation of hers? I can feel the telltale connection of a contract between us, so that seems to be the case. Regardless, it's apparently healed what were almost certainly going to be lethal wounds, so I'm not complaining.
Although, speaking of wounds, the injuries I sustained from [Cor Leonis] and the penalty for using two invisible hands aren't here either? Was it the rayshift that healed us? Gingerly, I attempt to sit up, and then to stand up.
"Huh. I'm not injured. Did you heal me or something, Mash-tan?" I ask, rubbing the back of my neck.
"Um, no, you were like this when I woke up. But that's not important right now! First, we need to deal with these guys!" she says, addressing the four skeletons that appear to be surrounding us, wielding medieval weapons.
"Mm. Yeah, those are definitely enemies. I've never fought skeletons before, and I don't have my weapon of choice on me, but I'll do my best!" I say. One rushes me with a spear, but before I can even react, Mash is in front of me, bludgeoning it with a large shield forcefully enough to shatter the spear and the skeleton's arms in a single blow. "...Or you could take care of it. Hey, Mash-tan, could it be you're actually some kind of top-secret experimental super-soldier?"
"Despite our shared choice in weapons, I am not Captain America." She says with a straight face. "This is just the result of the Demi-Servant transformation - I'm not normally this strong."
"...G-good to know, I guess." I reply, caught off guard at the utterly serious way she delivered the first part of that response. "You know, the way you explained it earlier I was thinking the Demi-Servant thing was supposed to be more along the lines of possession - but it seems your personality is intact."
"Mm. Shielder - that's his class, apparently - said that he was giving me his power, and then left," Mash says with a small frown even as she annihilates another two skeletons in a single blow of her shield. "Sorry, but I won't be as useful as a full servant."
"No, I think you're doing just fine." I say with a nervous chuckle as the final skeleton is reduced to a fine white powder. "Mash-tan is probably cuter than some stuffy knight anyway, so this is actually the ideal result."
"I feel like cuteness shouldn't be relevant when calculating combat effectiveness, though…" Mash says, a light dusting of pink on her cheeks.
"Nope. Cuteness is extremely important! I won't be able to fight to my best if all my allies are stuffy old men, you know?" I say, nodding sagely.
"No, Senpai, you're the Master, so you shouldn't be fighting in the first place..."
Before I can retort, a blue hologram appears in between us. "Alright, I got through! This is the Chaldea Command room. Do you read me?" Says Dr. Roman through brief bursts of static.
"A-Team auxiliary support, Mash Kyrielight. I've completed the shift to Singularity F, accompanied by Natsuki Subaru. Both of our minds and bodies are intact. Rayshift and Master compatibility are both satisfactory, so please register Subaru as an official researcher."
"So Subaru is there as well, huh? I'm glad neither of you 'lost your existence'." Romani says, nodding to himself. "However… Mash! What's up with that outfit? It's shameless! I didn't raise you to dress like that!"
"Oh for the love of… Romani, get out of the way! Isn't it obvious she's become a Demi-Servant?" Director Olga Marie yells, shoving the Doctor out of the camera.
"Director! You shouldn't be active right now! You just lost a lot of blood, so-!"
"Shut up, Romani. I'll rest when I can be sure everything is under control." She snaps back, before turning her attention to me. "And you, the one who wasn't paying attention during my speech! Of course it's you we've got to work with. How did you manage to form a contract with Mash? Only a top tier Magus should be able to do something like that on the fly!"
"If you're talking about the contract itself, I'm pretty sure it was Mash who formed it. It was in place when I woke up." I say with a shrug, and the Demi-Servant gives a small nod in response. "As for actually maintaining it, I've got a high affinity for Spirits, and I'm still full on MP, so it's not that surprising."
"MP..." the director says with a scandalized look. "Our only hope is someone who refers to his mana reserves as 'MP'..."
A few minutes of briefing later, we discovered the connection was cutting out, and Mash and I were sent to go secure a nearby leyline so we could summon another Servant. Slowly, we made our way through the smoldering ruins of Fuyuki.
Fuyuki isn't a city. Cities are places where people gather, where commerce takes place, where men and women live their lives. Cities are places where children are born, where animals are raised as pets, and where NEETs go out at two AM to buy cup ramen.
Fuyuki isn't a city. There aren't people here. There aren't streetlights, or cars, or trains - or at least none that are still functional. The only living souls here are myself, Mash, and the occasional band of roaming skeletons.
...I really hate places like this. This empty ruin, filled with suffocating silence apart from the omnipresent crackling of flames. I can tell, after all - that there's a reason we haven't heard a single scream in a disaster zone that should by all rights be full of screaming civilians.
Everyone here is already dead. And considering how much of the former city is still actively burning, it probably wasn't the fire that killed them.
The leyline site is pretty nondescript. Just down the street from an intersection, a few meters away from the center of one of the many craters pockmarking the ground in this city. There were a few more skeletons wandering around the place, but they're no match for Mash.
"Can't say I've got any experience with summoning rituals like this, so you're going to have to walk me through it," I say.
"Right. Luckily, I was trained to memorize the summoning procedures, so that shouldn't be a problem." Mash replies, and slowly we construct the summoning circle.
"Alright. That should do it. We'll need a catalyst, though… my shield will have to do." Mash mutters to herself, moving to lay down her shield in the center of the circle.
...I've got a bad feeling about this. "Is that a good idea? Your shield is our only weapon after all. We'll be sitting ducks during the summoning ritual."
"You're not wrong, Senpai. But the only enemies we've met so far are skeletons, and I should be able to fend them off with my fists for the five minutes the ritual takes." She replies.
I'm still uneasy, but I nod silently. She puts her shield down, positioning it along several expertly drawn lines in the circle.
"Right. Repeat after me. Let silver and steel be the essence…" she starts, and then pauses.
"..." I gurgle. Something thuds into the ground to my left, and as my eyes move towards it, I see that it's a small throwing knife, pinning a small scrap of red flesh in place.
As Mash's eyes widen in horror, my hands shoot to my throat. The front half is missing, warm red liquid oozing out from beneath my fingers. Finally, the pain hits, but I can't scream out in agony with my voice box pinned to the ground several feet away from me.
Mash runs towards me- stop! The shield! Grab the shield!
And then, he's upon her, a hunched figure in a black cloak, lunging for her throat even as three more daggers - when the hell did he throw those? - embed themselves in Mash's body.
She blocks the attack, his dagger impaling the palm of her left hand. A fierce kick is delivered to the attacker's solar plexus, sending him flying.
(As this occurs, I'm already collapsing to the ground, my vision fading as warm blood fills my lungs.)
But even as he is knocked back, something explodes out from beneath his cloak. An oversized crimson arm, some two to three times longer than the man is tall, lunges towards Mash-
Faintly, I hear him whisper, "[Zabaniya]."
The hand only brushes against her chest, a single fingertip making contact. She goes for the shield, preparing to deflect another volley of knives.
Only, the next attack doesn't come. Because the fight is already over. Clutched in that crimson hand, against all reason - he only brushed her, how the hell? - is a still-beating human heart.
He crushes it, and Mash drops, clutching her chest.
Finally, darkness claims me. I feel a strange sense of being pulled, and then...
A/N:
Cursed Arm was camping the leyline. What a cheater.
Me, a week ago: "Next chapter by Friday hopefully."
lol
(A homework assignment snuck up on me.)
Aiming for this Friday again, but this time I have literally zero commitments, so it should be easier.
REVIEW RESPONSE TIME (Unmarked spoilers for Re:Zero LN may follow):
Zennishi said:
On a side note, so... judging by his self characterization, this Subaru is the canon one. Huh, that's nice, for a second i was worried he was another Subaru from an alternative Bad End timeline.
Though... i do wonder how he got back on Earth, as well as what happened to the main cast: Satella, Emilia, Puck, Rem, Ram, Beatrice, Petra, Roswaal, Reinhard (i don't suppose he can be summoned as a Heroic Spirit? :P), Julius, the other royal candidates, Shaula etc.
What of Echidna, or the Witch's Cult, such as Pandora...?
Technically he is from a bad end timeline, albeit one very similar to canon. The difference here is that he got "erased" by Pandora post Pleiades watchtower, kicking him back to Earth. Some people from Lugnica can and will be summoned on earth as heroic spirits, but it's not necessarily the people you'd expect.
Did he met Volcanica or Satella and got some answers for his presence in her world, as well as his connection/'love?'?
Nope. he's still got no clue what was going on there.
Also, is the Re Zero World a Lostbelt?
No. If the lostbelts are "branches pruned from human history" then Lugnica is "a separate tree of the same species"
And last, but not the least, i wonder how is Suffaru going to tackle the certain singularities like the Camelot Singularity - the infamous story arc where many players get crushed by the difficulty - God, if it was difficult for us [Players] then i don't want to imagine how much worse it is going to be for Subaru.
Well, you know what they say. "Let us not go to Camelot. 'Tis a silly place."
On a side note, looks like Echidna was right... different timelines do exist, courtesy of the Second Magic. Shit, does that mean Subaru might encounter one of those Bad End timelines personally down the line? If so, he might just suffer another mental breakdown. Ouch. Honestly, it's like she derives joy from making others uncomfortable.
*Laughs villainously*
NoNameAvailable Bis said:
I'm not sure how I feel about Roman having a premonition of what's about to happen. Mostly because it makes his reaction - namely, hiding in a room far away from any danger - look kind of really really bad. In canon, when he did get a premonition of Humanity's incineration, it drove him into a frenzy that basically defined the rest of his life, so this here seems strangely passive coming from him.
Romani knew that there would be a disaster in 2015, but not the exact day and time. He just picked up on what Subaru was saying real fast. I guess it does seem a bit vague, though. I'll try to remember to go in and fix that at some point.
Guest said:
On a side note is "Hundred Gauntlets" abandoned?
That fic is not dead. I'm super writer's blocked on it, that's all.
Zennishi said:
Subaru's finally managed to get past the Tutorial. Now the Prologue begins... "Blackened Servant despair feels intensifies"
"What happens after the suffering?" Mash asks me.
"You don't know?" I reply with a wry grin. "That's when the suffering begins."
Assassin: "Assasinated"
lol
Also, is it possible Subaru might summon someone he knows as a Heroic Spirit? Maybe Satella or the Witch of Envy as Foreigner, or Beast, Julius as Saber, Reinhard as Grand Saber etc.
Currently the plan is that all servants from Lugnica are going to be shoved into the foreigner class, by virtue of being literal aliens.
There are no non-canon Grands planned to make an appearance at the moment (no one from Lugnica qualifies anyway. They have to be "humans" (Quirinus being explicitly listed in canon as an exception because he was once human, and because he was so important to human history), and humans from another world don't count).
Icantfindagoodusername said:
Will technically zelretch can travel to different world. In fgo/kledic liner event that mentioned that illya and miyu were from different earth with diff. Rules aka completely diff. Tree of time(another world) and Kelido stick open a path back to world without any problem.
To be clear, Miyu's world would count as a "parallel" world, because it's derived from Earth. Lugnica is "another" world, because it isn't derived from Earth. It doesn't share history (as far as we know), so it's on a different "tree".
Amatsumi said:
Is the A team still injured as a backup rather than most of them dead?
The A team is in roughly the same spot as canon, because subaru only blocked the blast in the command room.
Roman is still a medical officer of the staff so it is his job to know who alive and dead rather than Subaru to so you don't have to mention it since this seems to written in Third Person POV.
Not sure what this means. The story is written in first person. If you're saying I slipped into third person at some point, I'm looking over it and I can't see it. I'd ask you to copy and paste the specific segment so I can see what you're talking about, but ffnet has weird anti copy/paste measures so it may not be possible. Sorry about that.