15: Always remain objective-focused.
A tsunami of oppressive black mana crashes into [Lord Chaldeas], blotting out all light in the cave. Mash grits her teeth, muscles twitching with effort as sweat pours down her forehead. But the wall holds, at least for now.
"Man, what a greeting!" I say with a faked chuckle. My first command spell flares bright red. "What do you say we answer in kind, Mordred?"
I turn to look at her, expecting her usual predatory grin - but instead…
"...What the hell..?" Her eyes are wide, her face twisted in utter horror and revulsion as she gazes upon the darkness hammering against Mash's shield. "...Just who the hell are you supposed to be..? 'Excalibur Morgan'... what's that supposed to mean, huh?"
Mordred's teeth grind as her mouth is set into a scowl, eyebrows furrowing as indignation and hatred fill her voice. "I'll kill you. I'll kill you! I don't care if you're some secret pawn of Mother's that I never learned of or what; I'll kill you, for daring to taint Father's legacy like this!"
The ground around her feet cracks, stone floating up into the air as her blade begins to crackle with red lightning. "[Clarent...!"
The beam from Arthur's blade dies down, and I can just barely hear her say "-bur…" before Mordred unleashes her own sword beam.
"...Blood Arthur]!"
"...Morgan]!" roars Saber as she fires Excalibur again. Oi, was she planning to just use it immediately after the first one ended?
Crimson and black waves of energy meet in the air halfway between us, smashing together and twisting, mixing together into a helix of mana that erupts vertically into the ceiling. Stone and dirt pours down like rain, followed by trees and plants as the blast opens the cavern to the outside world. Luckily, I have Mash-tan to protect me, so I somehow avoid death by cave-in. Shields are pretty great, huh?
"[Excalibur…"
"She's still going!?" I yell. Damn, and Mash is already getting tired… I'll definitely have to lean on [Cor Leonis] for this fight. I activate it, and exhaustion floods my body, as well as pain, shooting through the space of my consciousness that I learned to associate with my "gate" back when it collapsed - well, they're called Magic Circuits in this world. This is… from Mordred? Does using her Noble Phantasm hurt her body?
Incidentally, thanks to [Cor Leonis], I can track Hanam, who had disappeared at some point, as he emerges from the shadows to Saber's right in a storm of thrown daggers, interrupting her Noble Phantasm as she's forced to deflect the attacks-!
"[Strike Air]!" Yells Saber, and in one swipe of her sword she deflects the daggers in a blast of wind, as well as interrupting Hanam's jump backwards, sending him careening towards the curtain of still falling stone and dirt from the collapsing roof of the cave.
He begins to astralize, attempting to pass harmlessly through the avalanche like a ghost, but with a loud echoing boom, Saber rockets towards him in a pulse of black mana.
Her sword is remarkably silent as she drives it through his ribcage using only her left hand - the sharp clang as she deflects the dagger he thrusts at her throat with the armored gauntlet of her right hand is much louder.
And the pulse of black energy from [Excalibur Morgan] that obliterates most of Hanam's torso is much louder.
"How…?" Hanam coughs out, somehow.
"Your [Protection Against the Wind] was lost when you were blackened. Consider this my revenge, Assassin." Saber speaks - her first words apart from using Noble Phantasms.
Hanam lets out a wet chuckle. {...Seems I miscalculated, Master. In the end… I was just dead weight, wasn't I?}
And then, in a cloud of golden sparkles, he's gone.
"No!" I hear myself scream.
Damn it! If I had reacted faster… If I had used a command spell, or Cor Leonis, then he would still be alive!
"Focus, Natsuki!" Yells Olga Marie, appearing next to me. "We can resummon him later! For now, you need to survive!"
...Huh. That makes things a bit less high stakes, doesn't it?
Anyway... that little bit of time he bought us means that Mordred had time to close the gap on Saber, launching straight at her in a pulse of red light. Their blades meet, sparks flying, red and black bursts of energy mixing together and shattering the earth beneath them.
They're opposed in every way - Mordred continues to scream obscenities at what she insists is a fake King Arthur, while said fake remains completely silent. Mordred's fighting is feral, animalistic, clearly operating on almost pure instinct, while the fake Arthur's style is tight, controlled, with no wasted movements.
Their only similarity is the sheer force of their blows, each clash of blades breaking the stone on which they stand, leaving the ground of the cave-turned-sinkhole pockmarked with small craters.
Mordred's swordsmanship is better. Even a total novice like me can tell that. Despite Arthur's tight, controlled movements, the crimson knight is still running rings around her, because despite her wild, frantic fighting style, Mordred leaves absolutely no openings. A creature of pure instinct, but said creature is an apex predator.
There's just one problem - Arthur keeps exploding.
That is to say, whenever Mordred has her on the ropes, Saber just unleashes a pulse of black mana that forces her back. It's a stalemate - and one that isn't in our favor. After all, I'm gonna run out of mana for Mordred to drain from me eventually, and then she won't have those big red mana bursts to back up her blows.
Arthur, on the other hand, has the infinite mana of the Holy Grail backing her up.
...That's right. The grail. We don't need to kill Arthur. We just need to destroy the grail.
"Oi, Director?" I ask, and her hologram turns her attention to me. "that big stone wall with glowy light behind it… let me confirm. Is that thing the grail?" I ask, smiling.
"Yes. The readings are certain. That thing is definitely the Holy Grail." She says with a nod.
"Perfect. In that case...Mordred! By my command spell, I order you- use your Noble Phantasm and destroy the grail!" I yell.
"Well, I guess that works too, huh!?" Yells Mordred, grinning as she leaps away from the fake Arthur. "[Clarent…!"
"As if I would let you!" Yells Saber, aiming her blade at Mordred. "[Excalibur..!"
"Mash, protect Mordred!" I yell.
"But Senpai, you'll..!" She protests.
"Don't worry! I'm not out of cheap tricks just yet!"
After a moment of hesitation, she nods. "Right. I'll go, then!"
"...Blood Arthur]!" Roars Mordred, and a wave of red tears through the Grail, glowing purple-red gunk erupting through the cleft in the stone wall.
"[Lord Chaldeas]!" Mash yells, protecting both Mordred and herself from the flood of strange liquid, as well as Saber's attack.
Except, Saber's attack doesn't come. Because the moment Mash left my side, Arthur switched targets to me!
She rockets towards me with a speed that I'm pretty sure breaks the sound barrier, aiming to cut me in half in a single blow. I can't dodge it. [Invisible Providence] is too slow to catch the blade. But, like I said, I have one more cheap trick up my sleeve!
With enough mana, anything is possible. So long as you know what the end result looks like, and you have enough mana to throw at making that result reality, you can do it, in this world. That's how the grail works. That's how command spells work.
My final command spell blazes bright crimson. If something like teleportation is within the realm of possibility for the mana provided by a command spell… then faking Beako's half of one of our spells should be within the realm of possibility as well!
"[E-M-M]!" I yell, Avalon flaring with light - and Saber's blade passes harmlessly through me as I phase partially out of existence.
EMM - Emilia-tan Maji Megami. 'Emilia-tan is Seriously a Goddess,' for any foreigners out there. That was the name I gave to the absolute defense magic that Beako and I developed together, which allows us to become completely immune to any attacks until the spell ends. Well, it restricts my movement too, so unfortunately I can't go full Reinhart and throw my weight around as an invincible fighter.
"Hmph. So you weren't helpless after all. Still, how long can you keep something like this up, I wonder?" Asks Saber.
I grin "Not sure. I had to prop it up with a command spell, so I'm not sure if it'll last as long as it used to. But, I know I can keep it up long enough for you to disappear now that the grail is gone!"
"Ah. I see." Says Saber, closing her eyes. "Truly, this would be your victory then - if you were not mistaken about two key details."
Mash screams in agony, and my eyes shift beyond Saber, snapping onto her. The muck from the grail flowed around her shield, reaching the soles of her boots - and that was enough. Black coloration, accentuated with crimson lines is creeping up her legs.
Behind her, Mordred clutches a spreading stain on her left side - a splatter of the stuff had hit her before Mash got her shield in position. Her hand comes away stained with the same spreading blackness, and she can only watch in horror as the taint spreads across her body.
I can't activate Cor Leonis. It doesn't work inside EMM, and I can't deactivate that without getting cut down by Saber.
"Aahhhhhhh! It hurts! It hurts!" Mash continues to scream. The white wall of Lord Chaldeas cracks - and then, it gives way, a torrent of blackish-purple mud swallowing Mash and Mordred in an instant. In the last second before she disappears from sight, I can see Mash's terrified face, staring at me. As if asking me, "Why didn't you save me?"
And then she's gone. The mud swallows them both, and after it levels out at knee-depth, neither Mash nor Mordred is visible.
"Your second mistake was assuming that the wall of Camelot would be enough to halt the grail's corruption." Says Saber coldly. "If the curse consumed me, why would my city be any different?"
"Just disappear already! I hope running out of mana gives you the most excruciating death possible, you bitch!" I spit, as the tears start to roll down my face.
"Hmph. And that was your first mistake." She says with a cold smile, as a golden crystal, emanating enough mana that its mere proximity makes me feel queasy, appears in her hand. "Since when were you under the impression that there was only one grail?"
...Ah, so that's how it was. No wonder she didn't disappear, huh?
"Heh. Heh! Hahaha!" I break down in deranged laughter. "Thanks for telling me, you idiot!"
"And so what? You've got no chance of survival. Once your spell ends, you'll die. I am simply relishing my victory, as is the right of the strong. That's all." Saber replies with an arched eyebrow.
"Natsuki, if you've somehow still got some way out of this, then-!" says Olga. Right, she's still here. I still don't know if the timelines I die in continue after my death, so let's be responsible about this, right?
"[Shamak]." I say as I cancel EMM.
"What? Why did we lose connection now of all times!?" Yells Olga. That's good, it seems to work like expected.
Saber's blade punches through my chest, piercing my heart.
"H-heh. Y-yeah, I'll die for sure." I stammer through the pain, as my nose starts running and tears continue to pour down my cheeks. "However- I return to the past when I die!" I yell triumphantly, a spiteful grin on my face.
"Wha-!?" says Saber, clutching at her chest as blood fills her mouth.
The spiteful grin stays on my face, even as the witch slowly reaches for me, crushing my heart and dragging me backwards in time…
"V-victory!" "Victory!" "Victory!" Yell Mash, Mordred, and Cu Chulainn.
"I sure don't feel victorious…" I mumble, eye twitching.
A/N:
Slightly early. Next chapter Wednesday perhaps?
There are two grails in the Fuyuki singularity - the actual Fuyuki grail, and the one given to Salter by Flauros.
Also, Olga says this chapter that they can just resummon Hanam. Some may question this sudden lowering of the stakes.
I would in turn question why on earth they assume Olga is telling the truth.
REVIEW RESPONSES:
Guest said:
Nice chapter as always. What are the chances of Subaru going insane at least once before the end of the singularities?
Near 100%. There's only so many times one can handle dying to King Arthur.
BlueCore said:
Amazing chapter, but felt a bit rushed.
Yeah, I'm impatient, so I rush things along a bit. Sorry about that.
NoNameAvailable Bis said:
Woo boy. Salter wastes no time, I see. Skipping the customary banter to get straight at it? Rude. You're being a terrible role model to Mordred! I mean, just look at Cu and Emiya! Those guys know how it's done (well, okay, Emiya also opened by firing stuff at people, but... it's just not the same, okay?!).
Salter is 100% maximum no chill.
All in all, really liked this chapter, the personality of each Servant oozes through quite well. Let's see how this final battle go.
lol everyone died again