Loop 27
Day 2
Emiya Residence・Start of Night Things to do
Night・Streets at night (battle)
Night・2 Confrontation
―――I had the feeling.
That by doing this, things could finally begin.
...I am walking up this familiar hill.
Looking up at the sharp moonlight, I'm almost blinded.
It might be because the stars are dark tonight, or maybe the moon just happened to be close.
Below the tranquil empty sky, so close that I could touch it if I stretched my arm out, two silhouettes await our arrival.
“―――A Servant―――”
Saber reacts instantly. She runs out in front to guard me, and raises her invisible sword. I-
“We meet again, Saber.
―――No, this would be the first time for you.”
I stare fixedly at the magus, utterly stunned.
“...Were you the only one to come? I have no idea of your intentions, but dealing with one Servant is all the better for us.
The other Servants have already been defeated. Now, I shall defeat you and check the king.”
“!”
Sparks run through Saber's body.
Her fighting spirit has flared up. She must know that what this magus says is true.
“You... defeated the other Servants?”
“...No. You and your Master, as well as the Einzbern Master and her Servant, still remain.
Once I defeat you, I will attack the Einzbern castle and obtain the Holy Grail.”
Saber's readiness to fight has changed to open hostility.
She sees the woman before her as nothing but an enemy, and is now waiting for me, standing behind her, to give the order.
―――Namely, "destroy our foe."
But surprise has forced the gears in my head to a standstill.
Forgetting even to breathe, I take in the scene before me.
So there really was another Master nobody knew about.
So there really was someone trying to continue this war.
So―――she really was in this city.
She definitely isn't an illusion.
But it doesn't make sense for her to not be. This doesn't add up. There are too many contradictions.
Yes, that's right, and furthermore―――if that woman really exists, then standing beside her...
“...Finally my turn to shine, huh?
Time for a rematch. Let's give it everything we've got, Master.”
―――would be the eighth Servant.
“Wha―――you, are you... a Servant...?”
Saber's surprise is warranted.
The Servant that appeared isn't a somebody, but rather a "something."
Its presence is unnaturally powerful, and its reality is unnaturally lacking.
...Just looking at it is revolting.
To speak to that "thing," to be together with that "thing," much less trust in that "thing," isn't humanly possible.
“Allow us to introduce ourselves.
I am the Master dispatched by the Association, Bazett Fraga McRemitz.
And this is my Servant, Avenger.”
The faceless, featureless silhouette grins.
Even without a face, the expression of his emotions is clear.
“So a mano-a-womano fight it'll be. Don't get in the way, Master.
I've got good chemistry with Saber. I can handle this all on my lonesome without your support, thanks ever so much.”
“―――Very well, but be sure to pull back when the time is right. It is impossible for you to finish off Saber. Give me a good fight. At the very least, get her to the point where she has to use her Noble Phantasm.”
A thunk resounds by Bazett's feet.
She dropped the bag she was carrying,
and a leaden sphere rolled out.
That thing, which I couldn't see as a weapon no matter how I look at it, floats off the ground and into a diagonal orbit around Bazett.
Should we take it for some type of defensive Mystic Code against Servants?
The crystal circles around Bazett as if to protect her, glowing with a dim, sluggish light.
“Let the battle commence. Ready your sword, Saber.
This time, my Servant and I will defeat you.”
Leaving her Servant to the front line, Bazett steps back.
“―――Huh?”
That's not right.
Her combat style isn't supposed to be like this―――
“―――Hold on. Saber, that's...”
“HAH. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
As if to obliterate the sound of my voice, no, to do exactly that, Avenger rends the air with an exaggerated war cry.
Holding a pair of brutish swords in a reversed grip, he rushes at us.
“...! I'm moving in, Shirou! Stay back...!”
Saber responds to the charge of the silhouette.
With no time to stop them, the battle between the two Servants begins.
Saber and Avenger.
The struggle between the two is more like watching a warrior grapple with a beast than the elegant meeting of blades.
The warrior is Saber. The beast is Avenger.
A battle without Noble Phantasms or magic, where pure physical attack and defense would determine the victor.
The short swords Avenger holds are closer to fangs than blades.
They are a pair. The two weapons, so great the variance in their size and shape, press in on Saber.
“Sha, haaaaaa―――!”
A furious, whirling dance of swords, where blows fly like shrapnel.
For every hit that Saber lands, Avenger makes three or four. The beast, unable to match her strength, compensates with its speed.
A uniquely bizarre and haunting scene.
Avenger's speed is far from slow.
His footwork is dizzyingly nimble and quick as he unceasingly swings the pair of fangs he holds.
As though delirious from fever, he fights, his only purpose to attack.
He's more than fast enough for her already.
But then comes the next attack, and the next after it, and I see Avenger raise that speed.
“Haa, haa, haa, ha―――!”
His eyes are bloodshot. His breath comes in ragged pants from the lack of oxygen. His body veritably screams that anything more than this will be impossible.
And yet Avenger ignores it all completely and immerses himself in the battle.
Stronger. If she blocks this attack, he has to hit her even stronger.
Faster. If she can throw that strike aside, he has to do it faster.
His body is without limits. No, it's just that he doesn't care about the limits.
He is...
...A beast, stricken with a madness that drives him not to heed the exhaustion searing his brain.
“―――――What?”
I rub my eyes.
...That's this Servant's style, huh?
...Murderous rage seethes from him like vapor, turning his physical outline vague.
Something distorts and inflames his desire to kill until it becomes a mirage that envelops his entire body.
“Ha, ha, ga, hahi, hi, ha―――!”
The speed at which Avenger's short swords strike their foe has already increased countlessly, a hundredfold or more, since the battle began.
A ceaseless torrent of swords rains upon his foe. However...
Saber's blade deflected them, each and every one.
Ordinarily, no human can stand up to a huge carnivore.
But in this case, the tables have been turned.
The human, Saber, is the one with the overwhelming advantage.
No matter how fast Avenger goes, his swords won't reach Saber in the end.
From the start, the gap between their raw abilities was too wide.
To Avenger, Saber is as impregnable as a man-made fortress.
Even with the excessive speed he wagered his life for, Avenger doesn't stand a chance against Saber.
“GA―――AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!”
The beast roars.
Knowing that he won't reach her, that he's no match for her, he continues his charge toward destruction.
Saber was kept on the defensive not because she was waiting for Avenger to burn himself out, but to see how he would play his hand.
...There is a purpose to this rampage.
Our enemy is also a Servant. If his basic stats are low, what we need to watch out for is his Noble Phantasm. Knowing that, she was gauging Avenger's power, but that too is now at an end.
Judging that Avenger has no trump card, Saber begins her counterattack.
...But what interests me is the Master.
She's monitoring the fight from a distance, just like I am.
She's an excellent magus.
There are plenty of ways she could be supporting her Servant, so why is she only looking on?
What―――is that sphere floating behind her?
“Ha―――!”
Saber's sword flashes.
With one swing of her sword, she would perform the last rites to end this rampage.
And as she brings it down, the malformed blades of his short swords catch it.
“...A swordbreaker...!?”
Short swords like those are usually used for that purpose.
A weapon designed not to rend, but to stop the blade of the attacker's weapon.
“Ha, you finally took the bait, you moron―――!”
He laughs derisively at the game that has just entered his trap.
Avenger, whose left dagger halted Saber's sword, brings its mate up from the right to cut Saber...
“―――, ha?”
The fangs are pulverized, shattering without a trace.
The lefthand sword that held hers,
and the righthand one, aiming to slash at her armor,
Saber obliterated them both in the blink of an eye.
“――――――”
Saber's sword descends.
“WHAT THE―――what kind of a bullshit magic burst was that, you bitc―――!!”
He jumps back, shrieking in anger, but all too late.
“Gi―――!”
Even after being dealt a mortal wound, the beast sneers.
Her last blow laid him open from his right shoulder to his waist,
a wound that would bring him to the verge of death, rendering him completely incapable of further combat...
“Gya, gaa, HIA, AAAAAA!――――――!”
"VERG"
“A―――Gi, GI GI, HI HAHAAHAHAHA HA HA HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...!!”
"AVESTA...
And activating his Noble Phantasm.
“...!? Ha, gu...!?”
As she cuts down Avenger, Saber crumples to the ground.
...Like mirrors facing one another.
Saber, without a single visible wound, clutches desperately at her torso in the very same place where Avenger had been cut―――!?
“This... is a curse―――a primal curse of shared pain!”
Saber struggles to stay on her feet.
“Hah. Just what I'd expect from a prim and proper lil' Heroic Spirit like you. Not too slow on the uptake, are you.
As you've surely deduced by now, this here's the most simple curse in the whole wide world. All it does is take the wound you gave the other guy and throw it right back at ya.
I call it "Verg Avesta." A third-rate Noble Phantasm worth the equivalent of shit that can't do anything until I eat damage.”
“Avesta...? Using the Book of Zoroaster as a Noble Phantasm...!?”
“Oh no no, just a worthless copy, ma'am.
...Eh, it's not near as great as one of those damage-multiplying scriptures, but I have to admit that it has its advantages.
Get what I'm saying, Saber? That wound's written on your soul. Your standard oh-so-proper healing won't do a thing to it. Until my wound heals, your pain isn't going anywhere.”
The silhouette snickers.
Bearing his fatal wounds, the Servant, his life reduced to the span of a few minutes more, moves away from us.
“Then again, thanks to you, I've only got a few more minutes left, tops.
On the other hand, you're not going to bite the dust from the likes of this. You'll be A-OK, so long as you don't move until after I die... but―――”
Bazett, who'd been watching the whole time, makes her move.
With a spare efficiency in her movements, she slips both her hands into leather gloves.
“―――You don't exactly have the time to stand around catching flies, either.
If I were you, Saber, I wouldn't hold back. My Master's not the forgiving type where her job is concerned. She'd even step over little kids and cute puppies, y'know.
...So once you're dead, the kid over there is next. You get me?”
Strength returns to Saber's body.
It might have been Avenger's taunting that did it, or maybe it was because she noticed me trying to run towards her.
“―――Do not underestimate me. Do you really believe a wound like this would be enough to stop me, Avenger?”
Saber's sword reveals itself.
Her enemies number only two. The distance between them is sufficient.
From this position, the church would also be mowed down along with them, but she already has confirmed that no people are inside.
“Shirou, I request permission to use my Noble Phantasm―――!
Please hurry, the enemy Master is making her move...!”
The sphere floating behind Bazett is being charged with electricity.
I don't know what she's trying to do, but that magus looks like she's going to attack Saber from over there.
―――But, with that?
That's something like using a pebble to attack a tidal wave.
“―――Saber, it's up to you...! Just try to limit the output as much as you can...!”
The activation itself happened in an instant.
She has to hold back the output as well, but the deployment of the Noble Phantasm doesn't even take a second.
Once activated, its speed and power are unrivaled by any other.
In a contest of pure power between Noble Phantasms, only Ea, the Sword of Rupture held by the King of Heroes, can match Saber's holy blade.
Having been struck directly by that sword, no human magic, whatever the kind, can hope to match it―――!
“"Ex―――”
The golden sword she raises above her head.
In the face of its radiance,
“"Answerer"”
The magus let out a breath against her right fist, as if whispering to it.
“―――calibur―――!"”
A sword of light that bisects and vaporizes all it touches.
And with that head start, though it obviously came later...
“"Fragarach―――!!"”
Bazett Fraga McRemitz's Noble Phantasm is activated.
The clank of falling iron rings out.
Saber is still standing.
But the landscape around her, which should have been reduced to embers, is still standing as well.
“―――――――――”
Saber, her sword still held as though she'd just brought it down in a strike, glares savagely at her distant enemies.
...No promised victory meets her eyes.
She stares up in blank amazement at the dark expanse of the empty sky.
A single hole had been opened in her armor.
With all energy focused into it, the smallest possible fatal wound.
A wound no greater in diameter than a pebble, like a cigarette burn on a reel of film.
That was the wound that killed Saber.
“kh, hot―――”
...My gaze returns to the enemy Master.
The attack had burned her leather gloves away. Grimacing in pain, the magus licks the back of her right hand.
Probably because the sphere was a single-use weapon, it had lost its gray color once fired.
―――Fragarach.
The short sword of the war god Lugh, told of in Celtic mythology.
The legend tells of a sword that would launch itself from its sheath without its user having to touch it, and cut down all opposing it before their swords could be drawn.
Saber's Noble Phantasm, which had struck first, and the sword of light which followed it.
The victory ought to have been Saber's.
But Fragarach was fired at a speed even faster than that of Excalibur, and didn't just defeat Saber, but canceled Excalibur's light.
...Unfathomable.
Whatever magic theory could craft this miracle is far beyond human understanding.
Only one thing is clear.
That Mystic Code is a match for the Noble Phantasm of a Servant, able to cut them down head-on, the ultimate counter Code―――!
Without a single wound, no, with only a single wound, no more than a pinpoint... Saber's body disappears.
...The magus is walking over to me.
I am―――too filled with regret over the loss of Saber to move.
The enemy is right in front of me.
Hoping at least to land one final blow on her before I die, I ball my hand into a fist, and,
“Huh?”
The female magus strides right past, as if she has no interest in the likes of me.
“Wha――――――”
I turn instinctively.
And there,
“Howdy, loser.”
the black Servant is standing.
The first slash ripped me open at the shoulder. Then the blade swung back to its original position, severing my neck with it.
The sound of something rolling on the ground enters my ears.
The earth's surface nears me, and then I tumble, rolling and rolling and rolling, over and over again.
“Pick a different partner and try again.
Next time, try to get someone that knows this fellow's trump card a little better.”
The black Servant didn't speak in mockery. His words were straightforward advice.
It was as if he really wants to kill that female magus.
......Aaah, I'm blacking out.
The moon is revolving like a skull.
And thus, the error-riddled Heaven's Feel,
without ending, sends out the next runner.