Okeanos , November 25, 2017
The Golden Hind raced across the endless ocean, splitting the waves into spray before it. At the prow, Drake spun the wheel and laughed like a madwoman. Even with the crew below decks, the ship still seemed to leap to turn for her, sails and yards adjusting themselves as it made a broad turn around what was left of the Argo . She might not be a Servant, but whatever she'd done with the Grail had made the Hind was more than a simple ship.
Balanced atop the Hind's rail, Ushiwakamaru leaned into the turn as she severed the wrists of yet another Dragontooth Warrior while it attempted to clamber aboard. The splash from its fall was lost in the churning seas. She'd lost count of how many she'd destroyed; there weren't enough of them to take part of the deck, but they showed no signs of stopping. They were just distractions, she knew.
She raised her eyes to look at the real foe. A hundred meters across the water, a waving tendril of armored, purple flesh studded with eyes stretched from sea to sky. The obscene thing didn't so much ride upon the Argo as engulf it. Only the curving prow and a few yards of the rear deck extended beyond the roots it had wound through the ship. Its discordant church-organ roars shook the air as it salvoed bolts of fire at Drake's ship. Dragon-tooth soldiers tore themselves from its roots by the dozens and flung themselves into the ocean to splash awkwardly toward the Hind.
Until a few minutes ago, the thing had been Jason, leader of the Argonauts, but some rite of his young wife had transformed him into… that. From the little Ushiwaka had seen of him, she considered it an act of expedited karma.
Luckily, the Hind was packed with Archer-class Servants from across the Singularity, and most of the incoming magic was picked off by counter-fire. The projectiles colliding and detonating overhead sounded like constant, rolling thunder. The Archers weren't accomplishing much against the Pillar itself, though, thanks to the young Princess Medea drifting in the air beside it. Occasionally, the girl would lash out with a volley of sorcerous beams, but most of her effort seemed to be on maintaining some sort of field around the Pillar that bathed it in what looked like cycles of dim and bright moonlight. Each time the light faded and started to brighten again, the wounds the Archers had inflicted on the pillar had vanished.
"Medea! Ushiwaka! Over here!"
At her lord's call, Ushiwaka scanned the rail for more boarders, found none for the moment, and hurried to where he and his Servants huddled in the lee of Kyrielight's shield.
Their Master looked exhausted. No surprise there; half an hour ago he'd been running from a berserk demigod. "Okay, we've got to end this." he said, looking over each of his Servants. "Roman says that thing's not going to run out of steam before we do. No matter how well we're holding out now, we'll get whittled down eventually, but we're not making any headway like this. Medea, do you think you can break that field the Princess put up?"
Medea sniffed. "If I can get close, I can undo anything that poor innocent fool has made. Someone may have to play the sacrificial lamb for me to reach it, though. My wings won't get me through this firefight."
Lord Fujimaru shook his head. "Let's not. Kotarou, can your ninjutsu cover her?"
Next to him, the Assassin gave a nod that was almost a bow, red hair bobbing over his eyes. "I vow she will get there, Lord Fujimaru. If my skills fail, then I shall be the lamb she requires."
Medea gave Kotarou an amused such-a-sweet-boy look, but Lord Fujimaru was having none of it. He shook a finger at both of them. "No, no lambs! Get Medea in, get both of you out, that's the job." Both of them gave very different nods of assent. "Okay, then. Drake's steering the ship, her crew's hiding because they're smarter than me, and the other locals are giving covering fire, so that leaves us. Ushiwaka, see if you can hold the boarders coming up the right side, but -"
"Starboard, Senpai," Kyrielight interjected quietly, angling her shield. One of young Medea's long-range beams struck it and deflected away with a sizzling sound.
Fujimaru went on without missing a beat. "Thanks, the starboard side, but don't let them pin you down. When you hear Medea do her thing, hit that pillar with everything you've got as fast as you can."
"Watch me, my lord," she said, bobbing her head and smiling.
Fujimaru's mouth twitched as though he wanted to laugh but couldn't spare the time or energy. Then he was on to the next Servant, as preoccupied as before. "Sanson, take the lef… port side, and keep all the bones occupied after Ushiwaka makes her move so Mash can pay attention to those beams. Mash…" He made a sound between a laugh and a weary exhalation. "You know what to do. Don't let me die, please." Kyrielight hefted her enormous shield as if in demonstration; another barrage of beams spattered off of it. "Any objections?"
The Servants were silent.
Lord Fujimaru looked pale, but his voice was steady as he nodded. "Okay. Here we - "
There was another dead-whalesong bellow from the tower, the kind which by now Ushi knew presaged a serious bombardment. "Incoming!" Kyrielight yelled, leaning into her shield. Ushi crammed herself in close behind with her lord and the other Servants. There was a shrieking whistle, and something hit the shield so hard the Shielder's feet cracked the deck beneath her. Kyrielight let out a grunt through gritted teeth, but held steady as a wash of noxious wind and purple fire blew past around them.
Before the blast had settled, Fujimaru shouted, "Go!" over the noise. The Servants went, bursting through the remaining wisps of foul-smelling flame. Waving the fumes away from her face with a sleeve, Ushi spotted a group of boarders coming over the rail her lord had charged her with guarding. Before they could organize themselves, she leapt among them.
Battle was where she lived. It wasn't just the excitement she craved, but something else she found there that she had no name for, that time when all the parts of her finally aligned, and she could stop reining herself in from moment to moment. Once swords were out, there was no more impatience, no more aimless longing or frustration. There was only herself, her goal, and the path she would cut through the world moment by moment to reach it.
Her sword Usumidori flashed green as the spring leaves it was named for as she dove through the first rank of the skeletal warriors, taking a leg from the one on her left and an arm from the one on her right. Then she was past them, another slash forcing one back over the rail before it was halfway up. One cut at her from behind, and she vaulted up and back to remove its head from above.
Movement was the key, as always. Enough of these clattering things around her might drag her down - not that she'd let that happen! The shame of being bested by mere conjured minions would be too much to bear. Survival meant keeping her foes off-balance and being aware of everything around her. For half a minute, she darted in and out, keeping them contained and focused on her, but only tearing into them when she could bring all her skill and attention to bear on one or two of them.
Thunder pealed over the water. She heard the sorceress shout, too far off to grasp the words, but she'd been with this crew long enough to recognize the cadence of Medea invoking her Noble Phantasm. The field of moonlight around the pillar cracked like an egg and started to dissolve, letting the sunlight illuminate the disgusting Pillar more clearly.
Ushi narrowed her eyes. Time to show her lord what she was made of.
Her blade took the head of one last Warrior as it tried to bar her way, and she leapt to the rail of the ship, perching on it like a crow. She leaned forward until she had to catch herself with one hand, aiming herself like an arrow. Ushiwakamaru spoke the name of her legend and felt the World's attention fall upon her.
"The Wandering Tales of Shana-O, Act Four: Dan-no-Ura Eight-Boat Leap!"
The rail splintered behind her as she leapt almost horizontally toward an overturned jolly-boat that had fallen from the deck. Landing lightly, she took two blurred steps along its length and leapt again. She skipped toward the Argo across the water, finding footholds where none should exist, on torn-off planks and floating wreckage, on the very surface of the water when there was nothing else to use. Every step increased her speed instead of spending it. Reality tried to assert itself, to remind the World that physics didn't work that way, but for these few moments the World was blind to anything except the tale of her excellence.
One last vault off of a piece of flotsam sent her arcing high above the ocean toward her target. At the peak of her leap, she felt a surge of power in her limbs, reinforcement from her lord's Mystic Code. He was paying attention! Good, just in time to see what she could really do.
With crystal clarity, she watched the Demon Pillar rush toward her. Inevitably, the monstrosity saw her coming, too - it could scarcely not, with all those eyes - and spewed a salvo of firebolts to stop her. Too focused to scoff at the attempt, Ushi twisted in midair and let the turbulence corkscrew her a few feet to the side. The spells scorched her sleeves but missed flesh, and a twist the other way set her back on course.
She passed the Pillar close enough to brush it with her shoulder if she wished, and Usumidori flared green in her hands as she struck. That ancient blade was never one to be deterred by a monster's hide; she felt the familiar, faint resistance of her blade shearing through flesh and gristle, and then it came free, completing the arc of her swing with another flash of green.
Then she was skidding across the few meters of open deck past the tower of flesh, geta digging furrows into the Argo 's planks as she came to a halt. The world's sensibilities closed around her again, and once more she was merely superhuman instead of superlative. She whirled into a fighting stance facing back the way she'd come, ready to strike again. The heaviness of her limbs told her that her magical energy was low, and she hoped she wouldn't need to follow up, but while she'd never admit it, she wasn't entirely confident she'd finished the thing off.
With a soggy crunching sound like a rotten tree toppling magnified a thousand times, the pillar sagged and fell sideways. The Argo tilted crazily with the unbalanced weight, and Ushiwaka caught hold of a shattered post to hold herself in place. Just before the falling Pillar struck the ocean, its substance burst into foul smoke and cinders that began to rapidly dissipate. The ship swayed back, righting itself. As the fleshy stump of the pillar dissolved, it revealed a drained, dazed-looking Jason of Iolcus. He lay on the shatteeed deck, coughing fitfully on the fumes of his own undone transformation.
Ushiwaka smiled and nodded firmly to herself. A job well done -
"I wish you hadn't done that," said a calm, sweet voice overhead.
Reacting without conscious thought, Ushiwaka leapt to the side. Not a heartbeat later, a dozen beams of energy lanced through the place she'd been standing, scorching the planks behind. One clipped her leg, sending her tumbling, but she ignored the burning pain and righted herself in mid-air to land on the Argo 's rail, and readied her sword again in time to deflect one last beam.
Dress billowing in the wind, young Princess Medea hovered above Jason, too far up to be in convenient reach - not that that would stop Ushiwaka for a second, once she found a way past those spells. "I'm not sure what your name is, Miss Servant, but I hope you had a plan to escape afterwards."
"There's no need to plan for a retreat if you aren't going to lose," Ushiwaka replied, unfazed.
Medea sighed. "I really envy your confidence." A broad wave of her staff overhead called up a complicated, glowing circle in the air behind her, which unleashed another spray of beams at Ushiwaka.
The strangest part of the Princess' behavior was how sincere she sounded. "…I cannot tell if this is banter or not," Ushiwaka said, dancing between the beams.
"Not at all. I think it must be nice to have so few doubts." Before Ushiwaka found an opportunity to close in, the Princess lowered her staff mid-cast and looked to the side. Her eyes widened. "Oh, my goodness, that seems like overkill."
Ushiwaka followed her gaze. The Golden Hind was sailing straight at them, a fleet of dozens of translucent ships-of-the-line assembled around her. Drake stood dramatically on the bowsprit of her ship, leveling her pistol at the Argo, a wild grin on her face. An ominous, rapidly-growing light shone from the muzzle of her pistol, as well as the mouths of every cannon in the ghostly fleet.
"It was a pleasure meeting you," the Princess said politely.
Without bothering to reply, Ushiwaka leapt over the opposite rail into the water. Behind her, the Wild Hunt swept the deck of the Argo clean with thunder and flame.
It seemed no one had informed Jason that there was such a thing as dying with dignity. He slumped on the deck of the Hind where Lord Fujimaru's Servants had dumped him, moaning and cursing his friends and wife for failing him. Ushiwakamaru averted her eyes in disgust. This worthless infant was what was left of the mightiest foe she'd ever faced? She would almost have preferred the Demon God back. From the look on her lord's face, he felt the same.
On the other hand, the scorched and bleeding Princess of Colchis next to him remained serene as she spoke to him. "Even now, the memories of Princess Medea are coming back to me," she said, almost intimate, as if they were dying alone instead of surrounded by foes. "Even if she was betrayed, even if she was cursed at, even if she'd been deceived from the very start, she truly, truly adored her Lord Jason. You had been given divine power, yet… You were endlessly innocent, like a child excited over receiving a paltry treasure. Hopelessly cruel, and completely innocent. Despite your weakness, you attracted others and inspired loyalty. That's who you were, Jason. That was her first love. But you were so quick to betray everything. That's the only way you knew how to live."
Ushiwaka shivered, unasked-for memories rising up in the back of her mind.
Princess Medea shook her head sadly as she went on. "If so, isn't it easier to sink along with the world, so that you won't be betrayed?" Not the slightest hint of vindictiveness tainted her voice as she delivered a verdict that had been decided before Chaldea had ever arrived. "You were never supposed to return to your kingdom."
"Damn… Witch! You treacherous damned witch!" Ushiwaka averted her eyes as Jason snarled his response, his hands curling into impotent claws. "Die! Die and be damned to hell!" Strength spent, he slumped, still muttering curses. His outraged eyes stayed fixed on the Princess until the last of his form had burned away in golden light.
Archaman began urging Lord Fujimaru to question Medea about the Singularities, but Ushi was already striding off as quickly as she could without making a scene, her throat tight. Her lord could pay attention to this dramatic maundering if he must; he seemed to have a high tolerance for idiocy of all sorts. Fortunately, she wasn't in charge here and didn't need to listen. It had nothing to do with her.
"Even if she was betrayed, even if she was cursed at, even if she'd been deceived from the very start…"
Be quiet, she thought, though she knew the words had only been repeated in her mind. Head down, she brushed past Servants and crew to take the steps up to the sterncastle, as far from the Princess as she could get without climbing the masts. At the top, she stopped short when she saw the elder Medea already there. Only her cloak and the fall of indigo hair were visible as she stood facing the sinking Argo , her back pointedly towards the rest of the ship. Ushi hesitated, then moved to lean against the rail away from her, taking care not to be so rude as to catch sight of the sorceress' expression.
"She truly, truly adored her Lord…"
Far below the sterncastle, the same waves that were dragging down the fading Argo broke against the Hind's hull. She hadn't known until she'd arrived here how tall a deep-water ship would be. Up so high, the wind and the waves drowned out whatever the Princess of Colchis was saying now down on the deck, but it seemed like Ushiwaka could still hear snatches of her gentle condemnation in that innocent, forgiving voice.
"You were so quick to betray everything. That's the only way you knew how to live…"
Ushiwaka remembered her confusion and disbelief as she read her brother's edict banning her from his new capital in Kamakura, and the increasingly anguished letters she wrote to him without response. She remembered the moment of cold acceptance when she realized what Yoritomo had decided to do with his dangerous liability of a sister. She remembered the knives in the night, and the years in exile, and -
" ...Isn't it easier to sink along with the world, so that you won't be betrayed?"
She glared down at the waves and wished there were someone left to fight. The battlefield was where she was most at home. Victory had always been a fickle friend to her.
A different voice spoke in her memories. "My sister is matchless, is she not? Born for the battlefield! She is more at home there than in our peaceful halls! Truly, I wonder what Yoshitsune will do with herself after this war is won."
Ushiwaka grimaced, ignoring the pain that twisted in her gut like a knife. Hadn't she made her peace with this long ago? Jason was a pathetic excuse for royalty and a treacherous user of people with nothing to offer himself, nothing like her brother. Yoritomo had only done what was necessary. When the time came for peace, a sword that could not be sheathed had to be discarded, and any questions about who was to lead the MInamoto had to be put to rest. The responsibility for her story's tragedy could be laid at her own feet. If she'd simply died instead of allowing her retainers to convince her to flee, it would have been a simple matter, over swiftly.
She'd accomplished so much in her brother's name. The only thing she'd failed at was mastering her impudent heart.
A change in the sounds around her made her look up. The wind was dying, and the sails above the ship were going limp and empty. Out to the horizon, the endless waves subsided, each one shallower than the next until they were gone. In less than a minute, the ship was left rocking on a flat, mirror-perfect ocean. It was profoundly unnatural, and strangely familiar. In the sudden, eerie stillness, the only thing louder than the creaking of the ship was alarmed voices coming from the main deck.
"Hey Chaldea, gather up! We've got what we came for, and this place won't last much longer!" Her lord's voice rose over the others. "If you want to say your goodbyes, now's the time to do it!"
When Ushiwaka looked back from the sea, Medea had half-turned to regard her. The sorceress' lovely face was stony and unreadable. Ushiwaka held her gaze silently and wondered how much Medea knew about her life. The silence stretched out until she dropped her eyes and leapt down to the main deck, not bothering to take the stairs.
Some wounds were better left untouched.
Trying to focus on the present, she made her way past the celebrating (and rapidly-inebriating) crew of the Hind , fended off an overly-friendly David with a brief glare, and found her lord standing next to Kyrielight near where Jason and Princess Medea had lain. Lord Fujimaru turned to her as she drew near and smiled despite his obvious exhaustion. "Hey, Ushiwaka. Nice work out there."The compliment drove a crack into her melancholy, and she bobbed a quick bow. "I told you I wouldn't let you down, my lord. Congratulations upon your third successful campaign."
"Thanks," he said. "Three down, four to go, or at least that's what Roman tells me. Not counting whatever that nonsense was with Nobunaga last month, at least. God, I really hope that was a one-time thing."
"I'm sure we ended that for good, Senpai," Mash said confidently.
Fujimaru nodded hopefully. "This one went better than last time, that's for sure. The Pillar in Rome was a catastrophe. The only reason we survived was because it summoned an even worse catastrophe and pissed it off. Fucking Flauros," he ended with a mutter that couldn't hide the sudden intensity of his curse. Ushiwaka didn't miss Mash's matching grimace at the name.
Ushiwaka tilted her head. "Whoever or whatever 'Flauros' was, relying on summoning a greater power that it couldn't control doesn't seem like a sound strategy."
He stopped glaring into space and snorted a laugh. "Well, I'm doomed."
"I'm sure you can control your Servants perfectly well, my lord." Fujimaru raised his eyebrows at Ushiwaka, who cut her eyes to the side. "...when it matters, I mean."
"If you say so." He sounded dubious. "I guess it's worked out so far. You all don't need a lot of direction, anyway. Rule #3: Don't get in your Servants' way," he said, almost as if he was quoting.
"Rule number three?"
"Ritsuka keeps talking about making a list of rules for Masters," Kyrielight said, then gave him a perturbed look. "I'm not sure how serious he is, or what other Masters he intends to tell about them."
"Totally serious," Fujimaru said, in a not very serious-sounding way. "Still working on them, though. I'm trying to list them in order of importance. Not sure if that's going to stay Rule Three."
Ushiwaka tilted her head, curious. "If that was number three, what is the first one?"
He chuckled. "The first rule for Masters is to never go anywhere without a Servant."
"Sensible. My lord should be attended at all times. Not to mention…" She stopped and grimaced, not sure how to politely phrase 'you would be utterly helpless against any danger worthy of the name'.
Fujimaru smiled. "It's okay, you can say it. Masters are easily breakable, or at least this one is." Ushiwaka shrugged, privately glad that they were his words and not hers. Before she could come up with a reply, a brassy voice shouted, "Ritsuka! Blast it, boy, if you take over my ship and lead me on an adventure, you're not allowed to just disappear without a word when it's all over! Come on, we've still got time to toast our victory!" Drake clapped him on the back, nearly knocking him over, then dragged him off to say goodbye to the rest of her crew, some of whom were already fading to translucency.
Kyrielight turned to her. "So, what do you think of your first campaign with Senpai?"
Ushiwaka paused to consider. On the one hand, they'd been successful, and Fujimaru's ability to draw in allies was truly remarkable. On the other... She watched Drake laugh as Lord Fujimaru tried unsuccessfully to squirm out of her headlock, and wasn't sure whether it was acceptable to be amused at the indignity. "I think that being sworn to a lord like this one is going to take some getting used to."
Author's Notes:
The theme for this chapter is 'Light Wind', by Keita Haga and Ryo Kawasaki.