45: Vampire Body
This is bad. Without a doubt, this is a bad situation we've found ourselves in. The Assassin servant - "Blood Countess", Dracula called her - is blocking the road towards the exit. And even if we wanted to flee deeper into the city - a dubious prospect at best - Dracula is blocking the road. Are we seriously going to all die again!?
Calm down. Calm the hell down, Natsuki Subaru. You've been in tighter spots than this.
I breath in, slap my cheeks, and reassess the situation.
Jeanne was busy dealing with my shock, so she hasn't had a chance to get into the fight, but as far as the others go… it seems Mash is fighting the Countess, and Mordred is fighting Dracula. Both of them seem to be losing fights, too. But with Jeanne and I free, we can even the odds… but how?
Let's go over what I know right now. Who are we facing here, and what can they do?
First, there's the "Blood Countess". She's… an Assassin class, using what looks to be an Iron Maiden. Her staff seems to be shooting spikes made of blood, too. In short… she seems like someone who specializes in torture, but that's all. That's the extent of her ability, a history of tormenting those who can't fight back. Putting on top of all that her saying she wasn't a Vampire in life, but got assigned the role after death...
"That'd make you Carmilla, right? Or rather, that Batho-something-or-other that was the model for the character." I announce, pointing at the Countess.
Of course, it's a total fluke that I even know of that legend. Sure, the name gets tossed around here and there in games like Castlevania, but the only reason I know enough about the story behind it is because of some research I did on whim, thanks to her sharing a name with the Witch of Lust.
"Carmilla, Elizabeth Bathory… it doesn't matter much to me which name you scream." Her reply oozes out. As she says that, she flickers past Mash's shield, scratching her cheek with sharp fingernails before the Shielder forces her back with another swipe of her weapon. "So long as I draw one or the other out of you, I'll be satisfied." she concludes, licking the blood from her fingers in a strangely sensual display.
She's fast. She's unbelievably fast. But again, that's all she is. Considering how long I was out of it… the fight has been going on for twenty seconds or so? And in that time, all she's managed to deliver are a few scratches and stabs, nothing that Mash can't shrug off. Contrasted with Heracles, or the corrupted Hanam, who would have ended the fight three times over by now, Carmilla's speed feels more like a crutch that she's reliant on to not lose the fight instantly. That Iron Maiden looks nasty, but it doesn't seem to be able to fit Mash's shield inside itself. That might change if she actually invokes the thing's true name, but she's been reluctant to do that so far… probably because she knows Mash's Noble Phantasm will just deflect it anyway.
With all that in mind, the real threat here is the other one. Dracula. The pop-culture king of vampires, Vlad III Tepes. Even without the whole Dracula mythos, he'd qualify to be a reasonably strong Heroic Spirit, thanks to his history as a particularly accomplished and cruel medieval warlord. In comparison to Carmilla, who is 'just' an expert torturer, Tepes is also an expert strategist, not to mention a competent duelist.
He's a monster, each thrust a gale that tears up the environment around him. His stomps against the ground are earthquakes, tearing up the cobblestones and endangering Mordred's footing. Of course, I saw her fight with Arthur, so I'm not actually all that worried about her getting off balance - those two were basically flying at the end there.
The Saber is pulling her weight, of course. Each blow Vlad delivers is expertly dodged and countered with a slash of her own. But she's fighting with a handicap - she has to protect her sword. The [Azoth Longsword] isn't a Noble Phantasm, and that makes it undoubtedly more fragile than Dracula's spear. She's being forced to dodge his thunderous, madness-enhanced blows, rather than parrying, meaning she's forced to yield the pace of the fight to the Vampire. As it stands, I don't see any way for her to land a decisive-
A mistake. Vlad III overcommits to a thrust towards Mordred's ankle. He expects her to dodge, probably intending on a follow-up upwards swing. Instead, the Saber raises her boot, ablaze with red mana, and stomps the spear into the ground with meteoric force.
"[Azoth…" the Saber intones, sword crackling with lightning.
Second mistake. Vlad III does not let go of his weapon in time, instead getting pulled off balance, staggering and barely avoiding falling prone. He raises his left hand to block the incoming strike, but it's too late. Mordred's sword punctures his outstretched palm effortlessly, and continues onwards through his eye and out the other side of his head.
"[Kazikli-!" The Lancer swirls with mana, invoking his Noble Phantasm, but-!
"...Blood Arthur]!" Mordred roars, and a wave of red mana vaporises his upper body before he has a chance to use it. For a moment, his legs stand there, teetering back and forth as blood and pus oozes from what's left of him - everything above his waistline having been obliterated.
I breathe a sigh of relief as a solid two thirds of the tension bleeds out of my body. She pulled it off. With that, all that's left is-!
"-Bey]!" Vlad III's cauterized waist bubbles, his flesh popping as a geyser of blood bursts forth, splitting into three distinct streams, razor sharp, converging on Mordred.
-right, Vampire!
Steel boots spark on cobbled stone as my Mystic Code's [Emergency Evade] yanks Mordred out of the target location, where the blood tendrils smash into each other in a macabre splatter of red.
The tide of blood swiftly recedes into Dracula's body, as the ash and spattered chunks of his head float back into place like a video playing backwards.
The [Curse of Restoration] that all Vampires in this world are afflicted with… unlike that resurrection trick Vampires in the other world had, this one won't conveniently run out if we kill him enough times. The only way to kill this guy is to annihilate the body in its entirety, or to remove the Curse itself and then kill him. And considering that the [Azoth Longsword] can't really go much harder than what it just displayed… we probably have no chance of killing Vlad for the foreseeable future.
On the other hand, Carmilla mentioned she couldn't create animated corpses, so it's possible she doesn't have that particular trait. Any way you look at it, the best option is...
"...Jeanne, go help Mash. I'll cover Mordred." I mutter. "That Assassin is the weak link here. If you guys can kill her, we can probably escape. Be careful, though."
"I was about to suggest the same thing. You've got that [EMM] spell, so you'll be safe, right?" She asks.
"Exactly. So hurry up and kick her ass, would you?" I conclude, and Jeanne shoots towards Carmilla, flag aimed for her throat. The Assassin barely blocks, getting what looks like a broken wrist for her trouble. A counterattack with her coffin is attempted, but Mash deflects it - between the two of them, there's no way she'll be able to keep up, right?
Dracula chuckles darkly as he finishes regenerating. "Hah... So you've realized it, then. This fight became a tactical blunder the moment our ambush failed. To start a fight with a Saint and two unknown Knights, with only the smoke of this burning city to protect me from the sunlight… as a strategist, I'm quite embarrassed." The Lancer shakes his head, with a mocking shrug and smirk. "But alas, I was summoned as a monster, not as a strategist. My call is to descend upon this nation with beastly depravity, and so I shall strategize as a beast does."
"...So it's malicious compliance again, huh?" I mutter. Like the Fuyuki Archer, this guy's not actually pulling in favor of his boss? He outright told us that if we can get him out from under this smoke, it'll help...
"-No, you've got it wrong, Master." Mordred mutters. "It's not on purpose or anything. That's just the form his Madness Enhancement takes. Otherwise he wouldn't have gone for that ambush in the first place, right? He's being forced to self-sabotage by the circumstances of his summoning, not by any desire to be defeated."
"But why tell us-?" I start, but she cuts me off with an eye roll.
"He just wanted to bitch about his handicap." The knight deadpans.
"Must you say it in such a crude manner?" The Vampire sighs. "But it is true that I wished to maintain as much honor as possible, even in this form. To explain why I could not best you as a man - ah, if only I had not been summoned in this manner. It's absolutely abhorrent. Do you realize even my Magic Resistance has been sealed by this Vampiric nature of mine?"
"Cry more, ya damn leech." comes Mordred's pitiless reply.
"I could not not best you when fighting as a man. So now, I shall fight as a demon does!" A smile splits his face as he throws his arms wide, and a new wave of pressure slams against the holy shroud wrapped around my neck as his features change. His canines quiver, growing longer, and the skin on his hands and face shrinks back against his bones to give him an almost skeletal appearance. His hair seems to spiderweb outwards from his head, suspended in the air like Medusa's famous snake hair. And then, Vlad III roars his Noble Phantasm's name once more, and his form twists even more. "[Kazikli Bey]!"
Vlad III becomes a forest. There's no other way to describe it, as his body twists into a mass of bloodstained wooden stakes. Hair, nails, skin , muscle, bone, and blood, all morph into impaling instruments. Like a human sea urchin, or a mass of wood chips glued together. Through it all, tortured screams rip free from his body, even as his vocal cords twist themselves apart into additional weapons. And around him, the mess scattered around the city street shudders, the blackened bones, corpses, and embers in his immediate vicinity also changing shape into crimson spears.
For one second, he stands there. A few droplets of blood fall from his mess of a body, plopping against the ground like a summer shower. Mordred grits her teeth, and her boots scrape against the stone ground as she adjusts her balance slightly.
And then, with a howl, Berserk Lancer explodes into motion. Spears erupt from his shell, trailing blood behind them as they arc towards Mordred from a dozen different angles, while the main body still scrambles towards her in a mad dash. Like the Yamata no Orochi, or the Hydra of Greek myth, crimson snakes seemingly without end tangle and encircle the Saber, each spear packing a deadly bite.
Mordred doesn't hesitate to leap into action as well, firing a pulse of energy into the ground using her sword - the earth erupts, a storm of stone and earth interposing itself between her and Vlad's attack. Naturally, she's not satisfied with just that, rocketing to the left and into a nearby ruined building, which finds itself even more ruined as Mordred starts kicking chunks of its walls into the oncoming horde of stakes.
Still, it's a losing battle. Even abusing the environment to her advantage, spamming mana burst to move around like a ballistic missile, and flailing a full-charged [Azoth Longsword] like a flyswatter, a few spears start to find their mark. One to the calf, one to the stomach, one to the elbow - they're going to limit her movement. She's going to be caught, like a mouse dropped into a nest of snakes.
Berserk Lancer is absolutely transfixed by the sight. He hasn't so much as glanced at me, his eyes far too busy boring a hole in Mordred's wounds. From his mouth, a waterfall of saliva drips on the cobbled streets. Watching as Mordred charges one last attack in a desperate attempt to beat back the storm of spears encircling her.
{Right, he's totally ignoring me, so I'm gonna go ahead and use it now.} I tell Mordred telepathically.
{Oh go ahead, take your time. I'm doing just fine up here.} She deadpans in response as I begin to pull mana from my Mystic Code.
"[Murak]!" I shout, and bean Vlad III in the noggin with an anti-gravity spell. A spell quickly followed by- "Mordred, by my Command Spell, teleport down here and clobber this Vampire into the stratosphere!"
"-Blood Arthur]!" she finishes as she materializes next to me, a crimson beam of light slamming into Berserk Lancer and propelling him into the sky.
"Home ruuun!" I cheer, applauding the Saber's swing. With that, we can-!
"Fool! As if that would work on me!" Vlad roars as his body bursts into a swarm of bats, flapping ferociously towards us. Tiny jaws chitter menacingly, and hungry, beady eyes bore into me. A death of a hundred bites approaches, a black cloud blotting out what little light was making it through the plumes of smoke.
EMM can delay my death here, but it won't stop it. Plus, I'd be leaving Mordred to be eaten alive by those small creatures. I can't do that. There's no way I can do that. What do I do? What do I do?
"[Kazikli Bey]!"
About five meters away, he changes again, each bat collapsing into a bloody pulp, a hail of blood spears bearing down on us. With that, there's no way we survive. If he had stayed as bats, we would have been alive for a little longer and maybe found a way out, but like this-!
(Even still, I can't help but feel relieved. Because at least it will be over soon.)
Three meters. Two meters. One meter.
"[Lord Chaldeas]!"
A/N:
This chapter is named Vampire Body, because Mash and Jeanne bodied Carmilla offscreen in the span of like two minutes. She's just not a match for both of them at once lol.
Anyway, it's been a while. I meant to have this out on April 1 for Subaru's birthday, but I got wrecked by a particularly nasty case of Strep throat. I actually still haven't quite kicked the cough it gave me. Finally managed to finish it tho. Next chapter hopefully sooner.