VI.
Camille drew the sword from its sheath and with the tip of the naked blade pointed to where the other sword lay. Louise, who was still somewhat stunned by her sister's words, paused before she did as Camille indicated and approached the table.
Camille's Servant had, during his Master's speech, started to drift slowly further away from her to the right. Rider had not lost track of the enigmatic being and had detached himself from Louise's side and matched the other Servant's direction. The robed being's voice came out like a raspy hiss as it passed through the mask's metal slit. "Do you not think it somewhat unwise to follow me and part from your Master? I could be intentionally leading you astray."
"It is possible." Rider replied, casually shrugging up his shoulders. "In fact I think it's incredibly likely."
"And yet you follow me anyway. How imprudent of you."
"Surely you are not surprised." Rider said as he lowered his hands onto the grips of his pistols.
"Indeed." The other Servant replied, his one visible hand resting slightly inside the folds of his robes.
"You've been quite keen to spy on us for some time it seems, and that means you've had plenty of time to observe me. I had my suspicions raised by the garb worn by your soldiers and, judging by your manner of dress, I'm quite certain as to how to address you, Cardinal Richelieu." Rider did not at all try to hide the emotion in his voice as he pronounced the name, a mixture as it was of admiration and contempt.
"My Master has only called me Caster up to this point, but you seem very sure of my true identity. I had my suspicions about who you were, but I suppose I can be just as sure of who you are as you are of me, isn't that right, d'Artagnan?" Caster's tone was even the entire time, his words as carefully chosen with Rider as they were with his Master.
"We seem to know each other well enough. Funny then how the three of us were all brought together for this little contest." Rider continued, shaking his head lightly.
"How the three of us?" Caster asked.
"You have spent this Grail War being the universally informed man you always were in life, surely you saw our little confrontation with Assassin." Rider's hands tightened on his pistols.
"I did, yes, it was quite an entertaining show." Caster's hand slowly raised into the air, his first two fingers extended as if primed to give some sort of signal.
"And yet," Rider mumbled to himself under his breath, "you have nothing to say on the appearance of Milady deWinter." The pistols flashed from Rider's belt and immediately discharged their deadly projectiles towards Caster. The opposing Servant's hand came down and in tandem with one another a barrier of red lightning shot up from the ground to intercept the bullets, and more than a dozen of the armored phantasmals rose from beneath the tables throughout the ballroom.
The bark of the pistols were like a starting signal for both Louise and Camille as well. Louise scooped the sword from the table and just as quickly the blade flashed from its sheath and she held it extended towards her sister. Louise was confident that her combat acumen was slightly higher than that of Camille and knew that she might be able to end things quickly if she could swiftly close the distance.
Camille knew this was the case as well and had planned for it. The moment Louise had stepped forward to take the sword she activated the trap she had prepared. A gesture from her free hand and several catalytic words were all it took for the magic circle planted beneath the table to light up and a blinding barrier of energy to shoot up around its circumference. White lines of magic traced across its surface ensnaring everything that was making contact with the floor.
And it happened exactly as Louise had hoped it would. The moment she heard Camille speak the activating words she called out to her Servant. "Now, Rider!"
" Infini Cheval Poste de Cent Quatre Lieues!" Rider called out, activating his Noble Phantasm exactly as Louise had instructed, as he dodged projectiles fired by the robed soldiers and parried the pole arms of others.
A phantasmal horse sprang up beneath Louise just as the magic barrier closed in and immediately ensnared the poor equine beast. Losing no time, and not wanting to find out if the ensnaring magic would spread from the horse to its rider, Louise used the animal as a springboard and launched herself out of the ring of light.
Louise loosed several charged stones midair which all detonated around Camille, shattering the multitude of glasses and dinnerware that were arranged across the table. Louise, landing on top of another table, saw her sister raise her hand into the air, another white magical circle spinning into existence above her outstretched finger.
"Don't you think that's a bit much?" She asked, trying to hide her uneasiness as she recognized the destructive spell Camille was about to unleash.
"Right from the BEGINNING!" Camille yelled the last word as she lowered her hand in Louise's direction, a blindingly bright spear shaped projectile exploded out of the center of the circle that continued to hover over her and screamed toward her sister. Louise jumped to another table to her left, only barely dodging out of the way of the destructive projectile as it obliterated the entirety of the table and its surrounding chairs.
"You were always just slightly BETTER!" She raised her hand which set the circle spinning once more and then aimed it again at Louise, hurling another bolt towards her. "It's like he KNEW!" Another bolt fell, and Louise made yet another narrow escape. "Like he picked you just to be better than ME!" Three more bolts fell in rapid succession, the third one Louise was not able to clear quite as quickly, and the shockwave sent her rolling across the floor.
Camille raised her hand again, letting the circle spin and charge longer than it previously had. "He gave you to me, let me love you. But really he was just planning to discard me!"
She lowered her hand again to direct the shot, but before she had fully leveled it at Louise she heard Maria who, until then had been content to calmly watch the battle unfold, cried out. "Camille!"
The moment's distraction was only just enough. Her hand stopped centimeters from where she had intended to lower it as a shot from Rider's pistol cut through the space it would have occupied. The charged bolt of magical energy screamed once more from above her and arced too far over where Louise lay and detonated several meters away from her.
"Good enough I suppose." Rider said to no one in particular as he withdrew his outstretched hand that held the still smoking pistol. He had saved Louise, but his distraction from his own opponent had not been without consequence. Caster had conjured a host of floating rifles that rotated behind him like threatening satellites caught in his orbit, the fusillade from which had taken all of Rider's concentration to avoid. With his attention momentarily turned towards Camille it was an obvious consequence that a bolt would cut through his forearm. He was rather grateful that the wound hadn't been more severe or hit him in a more vital location.
Louise had already recovered her footing and, the sword still firmly in her grip, charged in the direction of Rider where he was still being assailed by the soldiers. -"Tag out."- Louise mentally pulsed to her Servant as she drew a bundle of chains from her leather jacket.
Rider, happy to take what he considered a bit of a reprieve from the more demanding part of the combat, fired several shots meant to do little more than distract Caster and then leapt across the theater of combat in the direction of Camille.
Before Caster fully comprehended what had happened, Louise had leapt and, sliding across the surface of one of the tables, immediately intercepted the soldiers who were turning to follow her Servant. Having charged the blade with her own mana, an extension of the technique she usually employed, she cut down a pair of the phantasmals, the assault momentarily bewildering the remaining foes.
"I do not mean to belittle the sister of my most esteemed Master," Caster said, halting his own attack for the moment, "but what do you hope to accomplish against a Servant?"
"Just enough, hopefully." Louise replied, and flicked her wrist which sent the chain spinning around in the air before it wrapped itself around her wrist and the sharp barbs across its surface dug into her skin. Immediately warm blood began pouring down her arm and she felt an aching pain pulse through her body. It was a momentary ache, however, and passed as quickly as it had come.
Caster, unsure of what exactly the point of the maneuver had been, waved his hand to command his soldiers to attack their new target, himself leveling his rifles at her. If the enemy Master was going to be this foolhardy, he would capitalize on her hubris and eliminate her on his own terms. Six of the phantasmals immediately swarmed Louise, but just as quickly as their halberds had sliced down on her, they were shivered to ribbons by her mama-enhanced sword.
Louise, with a speed she had never before exhibited, deftly maneuvered between the ranks of the oncoming soldiers and, displaying a strength that seemed on par with a Servant, sent three of them barreling through the air as her sword cleaved through them.
Caster, unsure of how she had acquired such unprecedented strength, resumed his own attack, dozens of bolts lancing out from the rifles floating behind him. Louise dodged between the shots as easily as she had avoided the attacks of the soldiers, and was closing the distance with Caster with alarming rapidity.
Camille, unlike her Servant, had immediately recognized the method her sister had employed. "The curse of the Great Wolf. You've put yourself on borrowed time, Louise." She mumbled to herself as she turned her attention on Rider.
"It is not, nor was it ever, my intention to replace you!" Louise shouted to her sister as she cleaved a soldier in half, still continuing her advance towards Caster.
"You think I don't know that!?" Camille shouted back as a barrier she had conjured pulsed outwardly towards Rider, deflecting a shot from his pistol as she simultaneously fired one of the burning lances towards him. "You think my anger is for you? That I hold this resentment for my dear sister?!"
Louise, the blood pouring quickly down her arm in a boiling torrent, nimbly leapt between the burning fire of Caster's barrage with all the ease her borrowed powers allowed. "It certainly sounds that way, yes."
"Then that is your folly!" Camille's own attacks had forced Rider further back than he would have preferred and she used the time earned by the distance to change the facing and orientation of the magical circle, which now hovered above her like a rapidly expanding halo. A high-pitched whine echoed from within the ring's rapidly spinning form before a shockwave that shattered Camille's own barrier burst forth. The blast rent the room asunder and knocked both Servants, Maria, Louise, and the few remaining soldiers to the ground as it shattered every dish, glass and window into scattering shrapnel. Caster's floating rifles distinguished as he tumbled to the floor with all the rest.
Camille stood panting for a moment, the magic circle still suspended above her, its swift revolution having slowed to a sluggish rate. "Our father is the one to blame. He saw fit to pit us against one another. His reasons be damned, it is inexcusable." She stepped down from the stage and started to cross the room, now littered with shattered glass and splintered wood, towards where Louise lay. "And he will be the one to pay." Camille raised the sword before herself, half in salute to Louise, from whom she was now only a few meters, and half in the threatening gesture of readying herself to strike. "I will win this War, and with the power of the Grail I will burn the Saint-Hermine family to the ground, and rebuild it as I see fit." Camille lowered her blade towards where Louise lay, the tip of it less than an arms-length from her. "And in order for me to do that, you cannot stand in my way."
Camille, with her free hand, indicated where Rider had risen from the ground and the magic circle turned to face him as its rotation once again increased in speed. "Stay where you are Servant. If you are the chivalrous man I take you for, and you value your Master's life, do not move. I do not wish to hurt Louise, but if you will not die in her stead, I will remove her from the Grail War however I must." Camille's threat was enough to give Rider pause, whether he thought she was capable of killing her sister with so little hesitation was not something he would be quick to put to the test.
Louise, her face twisted into a grimace by the combination of her burning emotions and the equally searing pain the curse was now causing to flow through her, had raised her sword to meet Camille's, the blades just lightly touching each other.
"The Curse of the Great Wolf is still tearing through you. I'd say you have a minute or so more of its strength to borrow before you face backlash you can't recover from. You could easily kill me at this range with that sort of power." Camille's features were rigid and Louise could see her inflexible desire to either win now or die.
Louise, however, had reached an equally unflinching resolution. "Neither one of us will die here." She said sternly.
"Then he shall." Camille turned to look at Rider and, leveling her gaze and gesture towards him, made ready to release one of her deadly projectiles.
"Forgive me." Louise said in a low voice, almost more to herself than to Camille. Her energized blade, with all the strength the curse could give her, struck outward, seeming to cut the very air in twain with how quickly it sliced past. The nearly silent strike came and went before Camille had fully comprehended it even happening and, more curiously to her, her bolt of energy did not fire towards Rider, there no longer being an arm to direct its course.
Camille's arm fell with a wet thud into the shattered glass at her feet, the many fragments of which scattered about like tiny pebbles in the wake of the impact. Louise had no time to spend apologizing to her sister, despite her ardent desire to do so. She had exchanged a look with Rider as she had struck the crippling blow, and he had understood it well. He had begun his advance with an utterly trusting lack of hesitation, safe in the knowledge that Louise would prevent the danger that had been imminent from reaching him.
Both Master and Servant, as it finally dawned on Camille what had happened, were already closing in on Caster who, while still recovering from the earlier blast had lapsed into a false sense of security, was not prepared for the duo's precipitous assault. He vainly raised a magical barrier, though the lack of time spent casting left it quite weak, and Louise's enhanced abilities allowed her to immediately shatter the paltry defense.
Louise drove her sword deep into Caster's chest, pinning him to the ground with a sickly sound. The moment she was convinced she had fully run him through, and saw Rider bearing down on him as well, Louise messily ripped the chains from her arm, skin and blood both spraying away from the hasty removal in a gory shower. The boon of the curse lifted, she was immediately assailed by the cost it had wrought, and collapsed almost powerless to the floor.
Rider, for his part, was standing over the prostrate Caster and, leaning one hand on Louise's sword which still pinned the other Servant to the ground, used his own to cut deep gashes across the arms of his opponent. "You dared to claim the name of the great Cardinal." Rider scoffed as he spoke. "Had he really been my opponent I know we would have needed to exercise at least twice as much effort to secure victory, had we even been able to at all. Who are you then? Mazarin, perhaps?"
Rider, with the tip of his blade, flicked the metal mask from Caster's face and sent the featureless covering rolling across the floor. The face that was revealed to him was older than he was expecting. A long aquiline nose stuck out from a pale and almost orange face, deep set and intelligent eyes glowering down its length. The fluffy white hair that ran down the length of the man's face was thin, but plentiful, almost giving the impression of a wiry-haired dog. "Who ARE you?" Rider asked quizzically.
Caster opened his mouth to speak, to let some proud and defiant words rain down on his opponent, but only a hoarse gasp and a spray of blood that colored his white mustache escaped. Louise's final strike had been far more true and lethal than she'd realized, or perhaps even intended, only striking out to incapacitate her opponent in any manner she could as quickly as she could. Caster's eyes rolled back and his body soon started to dissipate into the same glittering golden specks of light that had followed the death of the other Servants.
Rider could only shake his head with confusion and a small bit of disappointment. He drew the sword out of the floor where it now stood alone, its victim having disappeared, and stepped over to where Louise lay on the ground. He held up her arm and examined the carnage from the sudden removal of the chain and offered her a look that seemed to say, "You know Grimaud will blame me for this right?"
The entire time Camille had been nearly stunned. Her magic had dissipated shortly after her hand had been severed, and it had taken several moments more for her to fully comprehend what had happened and become aware of the excruciating pain that was now flowing through her. "AAAAAHHHH!" Her scream echoed through the ballroom and resounded in the yards beyond, the shattered windows giving her cry full vent to mix with the night air.
As she collapsed to the ground, cradling the stump that was the remainder of her left arm, Maria was dashing across the room to her side. The Juge slid through the broken glass and shattered furniture as she dropped down to where Camille lay, the pool of blood slowly expanding around her, and immediately sent the buttons of her shirt clattering into the other debris as she tore it off just to have something to try and slow the loss of blood.
Louise, who was also laid out on the floor, could hear her sister crying out from across the room. As Rider, who had momentarily looked over towards Camille, turned back to Louise he could see that with one hand she was pulling something from the inner pocket of her jacket, and with the other seemed to be calling his attention to it.
"No need to look so concerned." Louise's voice was just barely above a whisper as she consoled her partner. The genuine smile she offered, weak as it was, reassured Rider that she was not in much immediate danger. "Here. I brought it for when the Curse of the Great Wolf had finished with me but," Louise handed a small crystal vial that was filled with a transparent green liquid to Rider, "I want you to give it to her."
Rider opened his mouth to object but Louise shook her head with an expression that was a combination of a relieved smile and disappointment. "I'll be fine. I have more I can use to get myself back on my feet at home. She needs this now. Please, we already won. And even if I lose my sister, I don't want her to die."
Rider nodded his head with a heavy smile of his own. "I understand, Master." The cavalier took the vial and rushed across the room to where Maria sat holding Camille against her body, having just finished tying the shirt off around the wound. As he approached, the Juge pulled her gun from its holster with one hand while she kept the other wrapped protectively around Camille. Rider held his hands up defensively, showing the vial in one of them. "I'm not here to fight anymore, Madame Juge. I come bearing something from my Master for her sister, I believe it should help the wound."
Maria looked with some confusion across the room to where Louise still lay. She opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by Camille who shouted through her pain. "It's not enough that you beat me?! Now you must humiliate me with some act of self-centered pity?!"
Even had she wanted to reply in that moment, Louise lacked the strength to raise her voice loud enough to be heard, she could only lay there and stare past the destruction that separated her from her sister. Her eye swam with so much regret, so many apologies, all of which she desperately wanted Camille to discern in her look. Louise just wanted her sister to know how genuinely sorry she was for what it had come to.
"Why?" Camille, tears streaming down her face as she pressed it into Maria's chest. "Must the two of you strive to leave me with absolutely nothing? Can't you at least let me die now, now that I have nothing left?"
"That is enough!" Rider's words cut through Camille's tears, freezing her in place. His commanding tone, born of so many years leading the King's Musketeers, could demand anyone's attention when he so chose. "This, right here," He said holding up the vial, "You think it is my Master's pity? Do not disgrace yourself and her with such stupidity. This is the ultimate self indulgence of a great mage." Rider turned to look at Louise as he continued. "And a great Master. You do not bear her mercy, you bear her respect and her love." Rider took a confident step forward and held the vial towards Maria and Camille with an outstretched hand. "Did you not vow to face each other in honorable combat? Is that not precisely what has come to pass here? You have the chance to live. Are you truly defeated when you yet live? Do you really," Rider's eyes turned directly towards those of Maria, "Having nothing left?"
Maria dropped her gun and snatched the vial from the Servant's hand. Pulling the stopper from the opening with her mouth she pushed the container towards Camille. "You heard the man, drink it. You really wanna die here? For what? For the bullshit HE put you up to?!"
Camille raised her eyes to look at Rider, but he had already turned away and was returning to Louise. She stared once more towards her sister, silent and frozen, her vision beginning to swim from the blood loss.
"Drink it, Camille!" Maria yelled, a note of genuine fear and concern in her impatient tone.
Camille only paused for a second more before accepting Maria's offer of the vial and its healing draught. The bitter liquid soon gave way to a cooling sensation that spread through her whole body that, while at first soothing, generated a sharp stinging agony as the flesh of her stump arm messily stitched itself back together in what could only be described as a hasty attempt to close the wound and stem the bleeding. Camille could only grit her teeth and muffle her scream by pressing her face back into Maria.
Rider, having reached Louise, scooped his disabled Master up into his arms and began to carry her back towards the exit.
"Did I do the right thing, Rider?" Louise asked quietly.
"I believe you did, Master." He replied with a sad smile as they passed through the door that led out of the ballroom.
"Will she ever forgive me?" Louise continued.
"I can't say." Rider, though listening intently to the weakened words of his Master, seemed distracted by something.
As they reached the entrance Rider shattered the chains holding it closed, as well as most of the door itself, with a single kick. At first Louise felt rejuvenated by the harsh, frigid night air, the cold almost shocking her weakened body back into a more capable state. However as they left the quiet and empty hotel driveway behind, something else on the night air caught her attention. There was the smell of burning wood floating towards them from off in the distance, as if someone had lit a campfire a block or so away. But as she scanned the rooftops, the plumes of smoke that rose in the distance were more than only a few blocks away, and they were far too abundant and far too black and billowing to be anything as mundane as a campfire.
Louise turned to look at Rider and, seeing his hardened features, understood why he had seemed so preoccupied before they had exited the hotel. He had already smelled the smoke and been aware of what was waiting for them outside.
"We need to return to Grimaud's. Now." Rider said flatly, his words not inviting discussion or debate.
"But the scooter..." Louise contested weakly.
"If we're able, we will return for it. You're in no state to drive and I can travel faster than it anyway." Rider summoned his post horse as he spoke.
"But-" Louise was not able to finish the argument, Rider had already leapt into the saddle and, pressing her against his body with one arm, snapped the reins with the other to send the steed galloping on its way.
"I just pray whatever it is hasn't gotten there before us." Rider murmured more to himself as he spurred the horse more and more, pushing it for ever greater speed.
Camille had eventually regained most of her composure, the painful effects of the rapid healing having subsided, and was for several minutes just laying in Maria's arms surrounded by the results of her own destructive efforts. She soon pushed herself slowly away from the other woman and rose to her feet, Maria's hands floating in a sort of concerned manner as she did so, the Juge unsure of what to do for the injured mage.
Camille slowly turned and scanned the room, as if looking for something that was no longer there, before her eyes came to rest on the shattered windows. Beyond the darkened rooftops of Paris there was a pale orange glow, a foreboding halo in an otherwise unlit night, smoke rising like towers before joining with the blackened sky and melting into the void.
"What do you suppose that is?" She asked out loud, though not necessarily of Maria, her voice hollow and monotone.
Maria directed her own gaze in the same direction as Camille's and her eyes widened in horror at what she saw. "Son of a bitch!" The Juge wrenched her work phone from her pants pocket and turned it on, it being her habit to keep it off at all times unless she was officially on duty.
As the Juge dealt with the storm of notifications she was getting from her coworkers and members of emergency services, Camille recalled what Caster had told her of the enemy in the catacombs, of what his spy network Noble Phantasm had uncovered.
"I see. She and I both chose the same night, that's all. Well, that hardly matters for me anymore." Camille stood, transfixed by the sight of the spreading flames as the smell of the burning city washed over her.