Rust

[Bloble]

This was my entry for the fanfic contest. Posting it here for everyone who didn't see it in the other thread.



Rust

The sky was beautiful.

The smoky grey clouds drifting through the endless abyss. The spots of faint light shining through the thick blanket that coated the world’s ceiling. The soft, cradling openness of it all, leaving behind an idea of freedom.

Those were the boy’s first thoughts. The only emotion he could call his own at that time. All that he was had flown out into that beautiful sky, leaving behind nothing but a soulless shell. An empty person, unable to do anything but appreciate the beauty he would never reach. But for now, he had this one thing. This feeling that the sky could only be called beautiful.

A tear fell from the boy’s right eye, as gravity took hold. It would never reach the ground. The blistering heat evaporated it before it could reach earth. The boy paid it no mind. He had finally found the second thought of his life.

Pain.

The second thought. A cruel, painful thing. The boy didn’t know what to make of it. It hurt. Why did it hurt? What was it?

“Ah.” It was what he would normally call his body. He looked down, and once more a tear fell from his right eye. Why? Why was it broken? Why did it hurt so much?

He raised a left hand that was missing its pinky and ring fingers, and touched it to the place where his left eye should have been.

It wasn’t there.

“Where... where is it?” Where was his eye? Where had it gone? Why had it left behind such a gaping hole inside of him? “Where did it go?”

He looked upwards again. The sky... so it had gone there. Along with his two missing fingers, his left ear, and both of his legs below the knees. All of him would soon follow.

The pain was concentrated in those places where he didn’t have things. Those holes in him hurt, and wanted to desperately fill them up, just to make the pain stop.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t walk without legs. He couldn’t see with only one eye. He couldn’t hold onto anything with those ruined hands of his.

He could only silently shed half tears as he realized that he was flawed. Imperfect. Something inside him was missing. Where there should have been a heart was just another hole. His insides felt mushy, as if they could no longer hold onto their original forms. He had been born wrong. He had been born, to die.

He looked around with his weak vision.

Fire. Heat. Smoke. He saw those things, yet did not feel them. Perhaps it was too late for something like him to feel anything but pain.

Ruined buildings. Great monuments that most likely took hundreds of years to carve crumbled in instants. Destruction was so much easier than creation. Just as giving could be called many times more difficult than taking.

And that was all the boy saw. Things not as they should be. Him, his surroundings, everything.

Except for the sky.

The beautiful sky. It was perfect, he thought. Never to be scarred, never to lose anything, never to feel the emptiness of life.

Thus, he realized it. He wanted, for one moment, to be that sky. So he too could feel free, just like the clouds. He wanted...

“I... want...” He croaked. Even though he couldn’t hear with perforated eardrums, the boy spoke, wishing to the sky for a miracle. “I want to live.” The tears fell freely now, even as the heat made them disappear instantly. “I don’t want to die.”

A curious thing. Why should one such as he wish for life? Why should an imperfect being want to exist? Why should this worthless boy ask such a selfish thing of the world? Why ask for a wish that would never be granted?

Hope.

The boy did not understand, or even realize that he had held on to one thing from the start of his life. Hope. In those few moments since his awakening, the illogical desire to live had instilled in him one last thing. The empty box, cleared of all sins, now only contained a grain of hope.

He wanted to live. He wanted to survive. He wanted... he wanted...

“Someone... save me!” He cried. His hoarse throat tore, and he tasted blood as his vocal chords couldn’t take the strain. He had given it everything. His scream contained all that he was. Every emotion, every thought that he had experienced in his minute of life was put into one plea to the world. His first and only wish.

...

What is the world? It is the ground we walk on, the air we breathe, the animals we kill and eat. It is everything. It has everything. It can do everything.

Yet granting a single wish is something it cannot do. No miracles can be created simply by wanting them. Determination does not lead to magic. A wish is worthless to the world. A useless, pathetic parasite that can never accomplish anything. Wishing doesn’t lead to anything but failure in the eyes of the World.

But for humanity, a wish is pure. It is something that is sought after. People cry for wishes, fight for wishes, and die for wishes.

And they can grant them, as well.

“Boy.” A voice interrupted the boy’s tears. It was deep and rough, like the dirt itself. In that single word an entire story lived, waiting to be told.

Though he could not hear, the boy noticed the voice.

And then he noticed its owner.

The figure standing in front of him, towering over his resting place and piercing the sky. The shape that sliced through the beautiful space. The towering giant.

The man.

He couldn’t see the man’s face. Wrapped in many layers of cloth, the man resembled a tall, dirty hill more than anything. All that the boy saw was the man’s eyes. His deep, grey eyes.

“Do you wish to be saved?” A question, from the mountain to the child. The boy would not be able to hear. He could not; after all, the part of him that could listen had already gone to the sky. But even though he couldn’t hear, the boy answered the hoarse voice with a rough question of his own.

“W-will you free me?”

The man nodded, almost imperceptibly. The tiny motion of his head moving did not go unnoticed, however, and the boy smiled in relief. This emotion was called... happiness? He couldn’t tell. But still, he was glad. He would be saved. His wish would come true.

The folds of the man’s cloak shuffled, and before his very eyes a thick, burly hand snaked out of the mountain. The boy saw tanned skin, marked with countless scars, yet still muscular and strong. The hand of one who had seen many battles.

The hand approached, and as it moved closer to the boy’s head, he saw the man’s hood fall back.

An old face. A thick white beard, messy and rough, had burst from the man’s chin years ago. His hair was white as well, as pure as snow the boy had never seen, and a sharp contrast to his dark, scarred face. But most of all, his eyes captivated the boy. The man’s gentle grey eyes, hardened like the softest metal. Those eyes would never lie, the boy realized. They were the eyes of one who could work miracles.

The kind, compassionate eyes of a hero.

The thick hand covered the boy’s head, and squeezed.

The boy’s head burst, splattering blood and brain matter all about. His battered and broken body stiffened for a moment, then relaxed as it could no longer receive any signals to keep it alive. The boy had died instantly, and painlessly, as a sharp contrast to his birth.

The man straightened, and shook his blood spattered hand, letting the blood of a once living being slide off it and onto the ground. It didn’t evaporate. Tears could fade, but blood would stay forever. The man wiped his soiled hand on his tattered cloak until he judged it to be sufficiently clean. He then brought the hood of his cloak up, covering his emotionless face until once more only his eyes could be seen. Then the hand found its way back into the cloak, and the man became a mountain once more.

He moved on, leaving the boy’s dead body where he had found it, lying broken on the sidewalk next to the crushed bodies of its parents.

Around him, the city slowly died.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


“Next.”

It was a curious scene. In the middle of a ruined city, a group of about 2 dozen survivors had gathered. Inexplicably, they had chosen to come together in the middle of a very large football stadium instead of a safe building. One would normally wonder why they would do such a thing, but after a single moment the reason would become apparent to even the weakest observer.

They were slaves, and this was their proving ground.

“Next.”

Each person there, from the oldest grandmother to the youngest child able to walk, was chained to another person, so that every single one of the 24 people formed a human link, unable to walk or run away without dragging the rest along. Thick, heavy chains of black iron bound them, and instead of manacles each had a cruelly shaped stake rammed through their palms and bound there, so that every single yank caused immeasurable pain.

“Next.”

Their conditions were no better than their situation. Rags, tatters, remnants of old clothes were all they wore, and most of the outfits were covered in dried blood. Time had not been kind to them. Their hair was unkempt, and anyone nearby would remark unfavourably about their harsh odour, the product of not bathing for weeks on end.

“Next.”

One of the smallest, a young girl of barely 7 years idly scratched at the stake in her palm. The surrounding tissue had already hardened and healed some time earlier, but had started itching a few minutes before... She continued scratching, unnoticed by the rest, until her frenzied clawing opened up the wound once more, and her blood spilled onto the dead grass. She stopped, and breathed a sigh of relief as the itching ceased.

“Next.”

At the head of the group of people stood two more people, different from the rest. Unlike the dead eyed people chained up, the man in front wore a fancy suit and tie that didn’t really seem to fit with the image of the ruined town. But no one protested. Behind him stood a short but thin woman with a machete strapped to her hip and a large brown fedora to keep the glaring sun out of her eyes. Her dark skin glimmered with sweat from the sweltering heat.

The man ran a sweaty hand through his gelled black hair and with the other flipped the page over on his clipboard. He retrieved a pencil from behind his right ear (the left was gone, as if it had never been there) and scribbled something on his the lined paper.

“Next.”

As he said those words the line shifted, and the person in the front stepped forward. He was a young man of about 24, and seemed reasonably fit compared to most of his companions, though he shared their empty eyes. The man in the suit looked over him for a moment, before saying something different. “This one goes to the boss.”

The woman behind him nodded, and walked up to the comatose man at the front of the line. “Hands out.” She commanded, and the man raised his chained arms slowly.

Slice!

With a single slash the chains binding him were sliced apart by the woman’s machete, which was already in its sheath by the time the chains fell to the floor. The stakes and part of the chain remained in his hands. The woman sighed and fished around in her pocket for a piece of paper, which she took out and slapped onto the recently freed man’s chest. He stiffened, and then, as the patterns on the paper twisted and turned, he stiffly marched past the duo, and towards the back exit of the stadium. His movements couldn’t be called anything but doll-like.

“Next.”

An old man stepped forward. He was one of the most aged, and couldn’t have been younger than eighty. The man peered at his condition for a moment before shaking his head.

The woman behind him caught the movement and gave a nod. She stepped forward, and with a single swipe of her machete sliced off the old man’s head and hands all within a single second, killing him instantly. The body wavered, but she grabbed it and threw it behind her with a single hand, onto a truly gigantic pile of freshly made corpses. Indeed, if someone entered the stadium the mountain of dead would be the first thing they saw and noticed. Its smell permeated the field, spreading the stench of death. The grass around it was red and slippery with blood, and flies were already flocking to it.

The other prisoners showed no reaction to the old man’s death.

“Next.”

The man sighed again. As the next person, the same young girl who had been scratching at her hands earlier, stepped forward, the man paused. He looked at the clipboard and peered once more at the girl.

“Hey Martha, we’ve got a VIP.” He said.

The woman with the fedora and machete approached, and took a look at the clipboard, before raising an eyebrow. “Huh. Her dad’s pretty famous. How much do you think we could get out of him?”

“At least a million, if not two. It says here that he dotes on his daughter.” The man chuckled. “Well, we can’t get rid of her then. Take her to the...” He pondered for a moment. “Take her to the boss’s pleasure chambers. You know he likes them
young sometimes.” He said with a disgusting grin on his face.

The woman didn’t seem to share his sentiments, and frowned. “Tch. You know I hate that place. Why don’t you go, Rex? I’ll handle the rest here. We’re almost done anyway.”

“No, I’m sending you there precisely because I know you hate the place.” Rex said, and Martha groaned. “Besides.” He added seeing her expression. “I’m Boss’s financial manager. I ain’t paid to do manual labour. Hell, the only reason I’m here is because we were too short on manpower after the last raid. You on the other hand are just one of his four bodyguards. I outrank you. Deal with it.”

“Fuck you Rex.” She grabbed the girl roughly by her long, stringy hair, and started walking away, dragging her captive along. She only got a few meters before Rex decided to speak.

“I know you want to, but perhaps later.” He snickered.

Martha stiffened, and her face curled into an angry expression, but it seemed that she decided to be the better person as she just kept walking, ignoring her partner’s jabs. The girl being dragged along struggled to keep up with Martha’s long strides, but otherwise showed no pain even as her hair was tugged. “I could kill that bastard in a second.” She whispered to herself as she walked, but didn’t act upon her impulses. As much as she hated Rex, she recognized that he was an important part of their group.

Rex turned back to the shrinking group of slaves, and took a look at the clipboard. He crossed off a name, and looked for another, uncrossed name.

“Next.” He said out of habit.

The next man to walk forward was clad in a thick cloak as a contrast to the nearly naked others. He was so covered up by cloth that Rex couldn’t even make out his eyes.

The suited businessman took a look at the slave, and sighed. “Hands up.” He said.

The man didn’t move.

Rex sighed once more, audibly. “Fucking hell. The damn stakes must be defective. Hands up!” He called clearly this time, with greater emphasis on volume. It seemed to do the trick, as the latest man’s hands rose slowly.

“Good, but you’re probably going in the pile. We’ve got too many old men as it is- wait.” Rex blinked as he stared at the man’s hands.

His unmarked, unchained hands.

“Oh shi-“

Rex never got to finish his sentence, as the other man’s right hand suddenly wrapped itself around his throat, cutting off all air, as well as effectively silencing the slave driver.

Rex choked, and clawed at the offending limb with both of his own hands frantically as he realized his predicament. But his hands couldn’t budge the other man’s iron grip. After a few seconds he gave up on that option and tried to call out for help, but instantly realized that he couldn’t even get a single sound out with the other man’s hand choking him.

Rex threw a wild punch born from desperation, aimed towards his assailant’s face. It struck, but it felt to Rex like he was hitting a marble statue. He gasped and sputtered, now desperate for air. He threw out a kick to the other man’s genitals, but once more his opponent showed no reaction.

He couldn’t hurt this man. A human’s blows would do no good.

Rex started to feel faint. His vision began to blur around the edges, and his struggles weakened until he could barely move. As a last ditch effort he drew the knife he kept around his waist, and pushed forward, but the man’s other hand casually grabbed the weapon out of Rex’s hands.

The slave driver blinked slowly as he realized his last lifeline had been cut and finally looked up from the hand choking him to the hidden face of the person who would end his life.

He couldn’t see the man’s face. It was hidden, after all. But in his final moments Rex saw his killer’s eyes.

Steel grey. Harder than the most powerful metal. Like swords, forged in the heated blood of thousands of dead. Those eyes were cold, colder than the deadliest ice storm, colder than the naked outer space.

The cold, cruel eyes of a hero.

His neck snapped, the spine breaking and severing the vital arteries and nerves to the brain. Rex died instantly, but most definitely not painlessly. His body went limp, and all of his previous struggles ceased as his life was ended for him.

The man looked at the dead body in his hands for a moment, and then threw it on top of the pile of corpses with a single hand.

He turned back to look at the slaves, still waiting in line unaware that their captor had been killed. They probably wouldn’t ever notice, considering their lobotomized states.

The cloaked man cleared his throat.

“Next.”


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


The duo trudged through the ruined city. They were a strange pair; a short, brown haired woman wearing a fedora and a dirty young girl with stakes running through her hands. They walked leisurely, in relaxing in the warm setting sun. Or more accurately, the woman was in no hurry to reach her destination, while the girl had no opinion of her own and simply followed the woman.

So they walked.

“It would be nice if I had a car, or a bike.” The woman sighed. “Walking all over is just too damn boring.” She spoke even though the only person who could hear her complaints didn’t have the capacity to answer. “You probably don’t even care, do you girl?” She looked at her companion. The girl’s bare hands and feet were bleeding profusely from walking over sharp rubble, and she left footprints of blood with every step. Still, the girl showed no pain. “Yeah, it would be best for you to just bleed out like that.” Martha snorted. “You’re already doomed anyway.”

No reply. Not that she was expecting one.

“Rex is a dick.” Martha kept talking to the unhearing girl. “Really, that guy always teases me like this. Sending me to do the worst jobs, and then when I’m about to snap and kill him he always finds some way to calm me down.” She took her machete out of its sheath and gave it a few experimental swings. It sliced through the air smoothly, and not a speck of rust impeded its trajectory. Truly, it was a work of art. A fabulous weapon that would never be found in this city anymore.

“The last time I got sick of ferrying people to the Pit for a week straight, and when I was literally in his office, ready to choke him to death... he handed me this machete and told me it was a reward for all my hard work.” She admired the weapon. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

The girl didn’t answer, but Martha didn’t care. She kept talking anyway.

“It was one of the older models, before the Third War. Apparently these were originally used for cutting plants and not people, but Rex managed to get the Boss’s personal magus to enchant it with some really nice effects. This thing is near indestructible, and carries a wind aligned piercing charm that lets it cut through some really cool stuff. And that’s not even half of what it can do.” To demonstrate, Martha snapped her hand to the side, and a nearby car slid apart, sliced perfectly in half. She swung again and a piece of rubble shattered.

She looked at her weapon again. Perfect. Not a single scratch on it.

“Ah, that idiot.” Martha smiled softly. “I’ll have to punish him when I get back-“

A breeze. For the merest fraction of a second a warm wind ruffled Martha’s hair slightly.

She threw herself to the ground, as a screaming piece of jagged metal shot past where her head had been a fraction of a second earlier. At hypersonic speeds it impacted a building a good distance past Martha and the girl, resulting in an explosion that tore apart a chunk of the building several cubic meters large. The groaning and creaking of the building was magnified as it started leaning to the front, having been severed from its most important support columns.

But Martha didn’t even notice any of this. She whirled, just in time to catch an identical arrow on the flat of her machete’s blade. Instead of leaving it to explode, with a grunt she swung, sending the glowing arrow upwards where it exploded again in a conflagration that charred some of Martha’s hat.

“Who-?” She swung again as another arrow approached, and miraculously she managed to intercept the projectile mid flight with her own inhuman speed, sending it to the side, past its intended target. She didn’t even bother looking at the explosion behind her. No, her eyes were fixed on the direction the arrow had come from. She knew that if she looked away even for a single second, it would spell her end.

“An assassin.” She growled. “Or a fool. But those arrows of yours aren’t ordinary ammunition. No, they’re more like missiles.” She rolled as an arrow more powerful than the previous ones shot past her head, neatly severing a strand of hair, and exploding the ground behind her.

“Shit.” Now she was starting to get annoyed. An unseen enemy launching projectiles almost too fast for her to catch? This wasn’t good at all. No, it was the worst possible situation. “Girl, get to a building and hide! I don’t need a useful moneybag dead!” The girl stumbled to one of the sturdier looking buildings, and crawled through one of the broken windows there. Martha breathed a sigh of relief, and grinned.

“Good. Now I can stop holding back.”

As the other projectile approached, she swung upwards, catching the arrow directly and propelling it upwards. As it exploded she rushed forward and inhuman speeds, heading straight for the direction the arrow shots had come from. Though she wasn’t very proficient at long range combat, she knew enough to get out of it.

And her sharp eyes had already caught the slight movement of a cloak in the wind. She had located her would be killer.

Standing on top of a ruined but still solid building a great distance away was a man so wrapped up in various layers of fabric that he resembled nothing more than a greyish mass of dirt in the shape of a human. As usual, all that could be seen of his face was his shining eyes. But one thing was different this time.

The jet black bow clutched in his hands.

He opened his free hand, and spoke in a voice like rocks being crushed to dust.

“Trace, on.”

From a flash of golden light came a sword like no other. It resembled nothing more than a shining example of what all other weapons aspired to become. The leather hilt, the elegantly polished blade, it was perfect in every way.

It glowed, slowly shifting until it was no longer a sword, but an arrow. A glowing silver arrow.

He slowly nocked the arrow and stretched the string of his bow to full capacity. He was ready.

He sighted his target, a woman running directly towards his sniping post. She was at least a kilometre away, but it would take only a fraction of a minute for her to reach him. He’d have time for one more shot before it was too late.

The arrow’s silver glow flared, strengthening as it fed on the man’s prana. He charged it more and more until he knew that it had reached the breaking point.

The woman reached the bottom of the building but didn’t even slow down, instead changing her trajectory from running along the ground to dashing straight up the broken apartment in violation of gravity’s rules. Ridiculous. Such a thing was obviously beyond even an extraordinary human, yet she defied that rule completely.

The man didn’t move. He held his bow ready to fire at any second, even though the woman’s approach drew her ever closer to him.

Time stilled. The man saw in slow motion as his opponent reached the top of the building, jumping straight over the lip of the roof and directly towards him, thrusting her machete out, ready to pierce his heart. He even saw the murderous grin on her face.

She saw his glimmering eyes, staring into her own. She saw his bow, glistening black in the light of the sunset. She saw his fingers relaxing, allowing the bow string to slip from them and launch his arrow even as she approached.

She saw his merciless eyes, and her death.

“Durandal.”

He released the bow string, and his arrow met Martha’s machete.

The enchanted weapon capable of stopping attacks that could destroy buildings cracked, and shattered as the arrow drove straight through it without a pause. Martha’s eyes widened as she felt the projectile pass through her weapon, her hand, and eventually her entire arm.

In a single moment most of her right side had been blown away.

She collapsed onto the roof in front of the bowman’s feet, her sides charred and smoking. If one looked closely they would be able to see some of her organs poking out. Her shoulder and all of her right arm was simply gone, and only luck had saved her head from suffering the same fate.

Behind her, a building exploded as a Phantasm that created miracles detonated. The rumble of the collapsing structure was felt by all within a 5 mile radius, and the noise of it falling went by the two warriors instantly.

“Who... are you?” Martha pushed herself up with her remaining arm, forcing herself to look at the hooded figure. He didn’t respond, except to release his bow, which disappeared into glimmering lights.

He kneeled down in front of the fallen woman, and pushed down his hood, revealing his tanned and scarred face. His pure white beard and shaggy hair revealed just how old he really was.

Martha’s eyes widened as she recognized the face in front of her. “You...” She breathed. “You were supposed to have been killed years ago.” She groaned as she felt her strength fade, and the burns on her right side intensified. “Are you here to free these slaves?” She sneered. “It’s too late. Their will has already been subjugated. You can’t release them just by taking out the stakes.” She coughed, and blood fell from her ruined throat.

“...where is he?” The man whispered to the dying woman in front of him. “Where is your master?”

“Heh. You want to kill him?” Martha chuckled weakly. She pushed with her hand and flipped over onto her back, collapsing and looking into the cloudy sky. She saw the sun slowly falling below the horizon. “It’s impossible.” She said weakly. “Even if you get past the 3 remaining bodyguards, not even you’ll be able to kill him. The master is invincible.”

“That’s irrelevant.” The man said. “Where is he?”

Martha blinked. “The tallest building in the city. You can’t miss it. He’s turned the place into his personal castle. It’s guarded by the remaining 3 bodyguards and every single one of the 25 floors is trapped with highly advanced magecraft. Only the bodyguards and the boss know how to get through-“

“Doesn’t matter.” The man cut her off. “Thank you for the help. You can die now.”

“Is Rex alive?” She asked him, already feeling faint. “Did you get him, too?”

“Yes. He’s dead.” The man said.

“Hm. Thought so. That guy was always one who’d get himself killed one day just from being an idiot.” Martha looked up one last time at the cloudy sky, but there was something in her way.

The man who had defeated her looked down at his prey. His face was empty of all emotion but Martha could still see traces of it in his eyes.

The eyes of a man who had lost loved ones. The eyes of a man who had killed loved ones. The eyes of a man to whom the connections between human beings meant nothing.

The empty eyes of a hero.

She closed her eyes and died in the dark, unwilling to have her last sight be such an empty face.

The man turned his back to the body of the woman he had killed, and started the long walk down the steps of the building he had chosen to attack from. The steps were cracked, but they miraculously held the man’s weight, only to collapse as soon as his foot moved to the next one. As he descended, the twisted staircase collapsed behind him like a burning bridge.

As he left the building, it groaned like a dying animal and slowly fell apart, too broken to sustain itself. The man didn’t even notice as he walked back to where he had originally attacked the woman. From the start his objective hadn’t been to kill, but to save. There was a certain someone who he needed to find…

“Girl, come out.” He commanded when he reached the place that had taken all of his arrows minutes later. His gruff voice swept through the dead city, and he awaited a reply from someone, anyone. “Come to me.”

He turned as he heard the scraping of cloth and skin against stone and metal. From one of the buildings that had been left intact, a skinny young girl exited. She plodded slowly towards him, leaving behind bloody footprints with every step. She stopped in front of the man, and looked up at him with empty eyes, awaiting another order.

“State your name.” The man growled.

“Amelia Hutchins.” She spoke. Her voice, like her eyes, lacked some ethereal property that made it human. It was nothing more than sound produced by vibrating vocal chords, and not speech.

“So you’re the one I’m here for after all.” The man nodded to himself. “Show me your arms, girl.”

She raised her hands. The stakes stabbed roughly through them had caused wounds that wouldn’t heal. They were already festering, and almost certainly infected.

“Hm...” The man went down on one knee to better examine the girl’s limbs. His steely eyes crossed over the stakes with a clinical gaze, not flinching at the brutal wounds they continued to inflict. “Don’t move no matter what until I tell you to.” He finally said.

The girl responded only by stiffening her muscles, locking her shaking arms in place.

The man firmly grasped one of the stakes, and tore upwards.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

The girl’s scream was unexpected, and she flailed wildly as the stake left her hand, almost falling to the ground as her legs lost their power. Her empty scream filled the air, and even the man flinched as he heard her cry of pain. But he had already hardened his heart. He grabbed the second stake, and quickly yanked it out of the girl’s palm, throwing it on the ground next to its bloodstained twin.

Almost as quickly as the scream started, it ceased. The girl collapsed into the man’s arms limply, resembling nothing more than a ragdoll in the shape of a human. He pressed two fingers against her throat, and held his breath, looking for any signs of life.

It was barely audible, and could have been just a trick of the mind, but he was sure that she still had a heartbeat.

“Well, that’s the easy part finished.” He muttered to himself as he examined the girl’s hands now that she had lost consciousness. “At least he won’t get angry at me bringing in a corpse.” He deftly tore pieces of his cleaner inner coverings off, and deftly wrapped them around the bleeding holes in her hands. Strangely they didn’t bleed as much as they should have, and he knew that she’d survive just fine until he could get her to a hospital.

He looked at her feet. They were bleeding almost as much as the hands, and with a sigh he tore off two more strips of his cloak to wrap them up as well. “Really, these guys are supposed to be a threat to the world yet they can’t even treat a hostage correctly. It’s surprising they lasted this long with such inefficient tactics.” He hoisted the still unmoving girl over his shoulder, and took a look around him.

Nothing. No one. Just him, the girl, and the dead city.

He turned, and walked down the street to an unknown destination.

As he strode down the path, he paused for a moment, and then looked up. Through the empty skies flew a single bird, a black crow.

“...so you were watching. Fine then, since you’ve taken the liberty of observing my actions, here is a message for your master.”

He placed the girl on the ground, and in an instant, the man materialized his bow and shot the bird down with an arrow. Despite the sheer impossibility of the task, his projectile struck true, and the avian creature was sent spiralling downwards with a cry of pain. It ended up on the ground, right in front of the archer.

He looked at the dying bird.

“I’m coming for you next. And this time, I won’t make the mistake of sparing your life.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Master, we have confirmed the death of Martha Slipkirk.”

“Oh? She was the best swordswoman of the Guard, if I recall. I find it hard to believe that she could be killed so easily. Does this have anything to do with the death of my financial manager and the disappearance of a half dozen prisoners?”

“...yes, sir. Both the incidents were perpetrated by the same person.”

“Who did it, Fenix? Who is the poor soul that has chosen to anger me?”

“We don’t know, sir. However, we managed to get a recording of the last part of the fight, just as she died. Would you like to see it?”

“Go ahead. I’m interested in what kind of man could kill her.”

“Durandal.”

“AAAAAAAAAAA!”

“I’m coming for you next. And this time, I won’t make the mistake of sparing your life.”

“...heh.”

“Master?”

“Ha! Hahahaha! HAHAHAHAHA! Oh this is just too good! To think that he’d finally come for me! It’s been years since I last saw the fool, and now he’s here in my city, thinking that he can kill me!”

“Don’t worry, Master. We shall kill this interloper before he can reach you. As one of your remaining Guard, I will destroy him and restore the honour that was lost when one of our own fell to an enemy.”

“Fenix, you are a fool.”

“Master, what do you mean?”

“You won’t be able to win against him. He, of all people, is even more cruel and heartless than I am. If I am Evil, then he can only be called the most Pure Evil. You will definitely fail.”

“We shall try regardless, Master. I have analyzed footage of the battle, and have determined some of this man’s abilities. We three remaining Guards shall ambush him all at the same time, and wipe him off the face of this earth for sure. He will not reach you. Did you not say that even you would have trouble fighting us all at once?”

“...do as you wish, Fenix. You may kill the man, and even the girl. She isn’t that important anyway. But if he manages to reach my throne, then do not interfere. I have been looking forward to the chance to kill this man once and for all, and I shall not have you taking it from me.”

“Yes, Master. I shall head out with the rest of the guard now.”

“Wait. Fenix. Before you go, just remember one thing. That man will not bend. He will not hesitate. If he sees an enemy in front of him, he will destroy it without remorse. Do not make the mistake of trying to reason with him or appeal to his heart, for he has none.”

“I thank you for the advice, Master.”

“...and so he’s gone. Ha. Good luck, Fenix. Hopefully your death will be quick. But it probably won’t. He won’t let it be.”

“Isn’t that right, Emiya?”


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


The empty streets of the dying town were graced by the sound of slow footsteps, walking down the cracked and broken pavement and towards the gigantic building at the center of the town. It was tall enough that the skyscraper could be seen from anywhere within the town, like a monument of humanity mocking the gods.

That was his destination. His mission: to slam down the hammer of reality upon the one daring to rise past the limitations of humanity. He would drag down the offender and destroy him before an even greater power interfered.

Behind him walked the girl. Her bleeding hands and feet were bound with bandages, but she was walking by herself, and in a much better condition than she had been moments before. She clutched one of the man’s many cloaks around her body, hiding her nudity from the world.

“Um... where are we going, Mister?” She asked, in a hoarse voice that should not have come from such a young child’s mouth. “And... why aren’t we going away?”

“The tower.” The man responded. “It is my mission to take care of its owner and halt his efforts at expansion.”

“But... didn’t you say your mission was to protect me?” She cocked her head to the side, and nervously rubbed her bleeding palms together.

“That was the secondary objective.” He replied, quickly and concisely. “It just happens that the person who made it possible for me to be here also demanded that I rescue and protect his daughter. You are not my primary objective, merely someone that I must try and keep out of trouble.”

“Why are you taking me with you, then? Can’t you leave me home?”

He paused, considering his answer carefully. When he spoke again it was with even and measured tones. “The trip here was difficult. In the first place, getting past this place’s heavy defenses was too dangerous for me to do alone. I required assistance from my employer just to enter, and leaving will be even more difficult now that they’ve strengthened the guard. Leaving alone will be very hard, but leaving with you is simply impossible.”

Tears appeared in the corners of the girl’s eyes. “Does that mean... I’ll never see daddy again? I’ll never leave this horrible place?”

“No. There is one way to leave this place.” The man responded without a hint of compassion. “I shall destroy the being that controls this city, and free it. Escaping was never an option to begin with, and there is no safe haven here, so having you with me is actually the best way to lengthen your life. If I left you alone in the city, you wouldn’t last a day.”

“Mister...” The girl trembled at the man’s words. “Are you going to kill people? People like Martha?”

“Martha?” The man paused. “Are you referring to the woman who was imprisoning you?”

“Yeah.” Amelia nodded. “I saw it happen. You shot her with some kind of arrow, and her sword broke...” She trailed off, as she suddenly found the man’s eyes glaring directly at her.

“How do you know that?” He growled. “You were under a trance then. You shouldn’t be able to remember anything from that time. And in the first place, you never saw that battle. It was impossible for you see anything from that distance, where even I have trouble hitting accurately.”

Amelia looked down, and shook. “I... see things. I see things that have happened, things that are happening somewhere else, and things that will happen. Daddy says it’s how he became so rich. He asks me a bunch of questions every day, and I try to answer. Daddy is really happy when I can tell him things, so I try to see them. But sometimes I see things by accident. One time, Daddy got really mad when I told him I saw mommy hugging some strange man, and then mommy went away...” She trailed off. Her nervous explanation had turned into a full blown confession. Without even meaning to, she had told the unknown man in all about her ability.

The man paused. “Clairvoyance. So that’s why he was so keen to get you back, and why they decided to let you live...” All the pieces of the puzzle were falling together now. Why he’d been hired by one of the coldest politicians on the planet, why he’d been offered amnesty, and why they had refrained from sending her into the pits with the rest of their slaves. “Girl, do not speak of your ability to anyone we meet.” He said after thinking it over. “It’ll be dangerous if anyone finds out.”

Amelia nodded, but still spoke. “You haven’t answered my question, sir.” She said.

“The one about killing?” The man asked.

“Yes. Are you going to be killing more people now?”

“Only the bad guys.” He said. “It’s necessary to kill the bad people to save the good people.”

“Am I... one of the good people?”

“Of course. If you weren’t, you’d be dead.”

Despite his efforts, the gruff man found himself talking to his young companion more than he’d ever spoken in years. Perhaps it was simply because she was the only one to talk to, or maybe he was just tired after years of only battlefields and fighting. Regardless, the two continued their awkward conversation as they walked towards the monument in the middle of the dead city. It was mostly just Amelia asking questions, and the man giving one word answers, but she was happy just to have someone to talk to.

As they finally neared their destination, however, she suddenly stiffened, and stopped walking, standing in place with her eyes and mouth wide open.

“...what is it?” The man stopped and asked her. A person familiar with his habits would have noticed the slightest tinge of worry in his voice.

“It’s... there are people hiding up in front of us...” She spoke hesitantly. “Three of them, and they’re strong! Mister, they want to kill you!”

“You can tell that much?” The man crouched next to Amelia and materialized his bow. “That ability of yours sure is convenient. Go hide in one of the nearest buildings until I tell you to come out. I’ll take care of this.”

But Amelia shook her head wildly. “No! If you try to go forward, you’ll be killed! I can see it happening!” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I can see it, Mister! I can see you dying! I can see you standing against a wall, and then a knife comes from the wall behind you and goes into... it goes through your head!”

The man narrowed his eyes. “We’ll see then, if your ability is as accurate as you claim.” He said as he looked around, examining what would soon be his battleground. “Regardless, I want you to hide in one of the buildings. If I have to protect you and fight at the same time, I’ll have to lose either you, or the battle. And for me, losing is not an option.”

“M-mister...”

“Go.” The man turned his back on the crying girl and walked continued the walk towards the tower alone, just as he needed to be. Behind him, he heard Amelia’s crying cease, and the soft pitter-patter of her bandaged feet heading towards one of the buildings.

As soon as the noise ended, and he knew his secondary objective was as safe as she’d ever be in the dead city, the man continued on towards the tower. Now it was no longer a landmark to lead him to his destination, but a concrete place that was near enough to walk to. It blotted out the sun, casting blanket of shadow against a part of the city.

Even though it was day, to him it was as dark as evening.

He continued walking for a short while until he reached the front of the tower. From where he was it extended almost endlessly into the sky. The stone and steel walls were like a testament of man’s desire to reach the heavens no matter what, and there was no visible entrance. The entire area around the tower was clear of buildings or rubble for at least a few dozen meters, leaving nothing but dirt and asphalt to traverse.

He stopped just a few feet from the wall.

“Are you going to come out or should I just go in and kill your Master now?” He said.

“That would be a problem.” Out from the wall stepped a man clothed entirely in black. He emerged, not from some kind of hidden door, but from the wall itself, as easily as walking through a particularly thick fog. He brushed off some invisible dust from his shoulder, and observed his opponent. “You must get this a lot, but you don’t look particularly threatening.” He finally said. “I find it hard to believe that you are capable of killing one of our own, even after seeing the recording with my own eyes.” His grin was infuriating, and his face was young yet old at the same time. And he had the eyes of one who enjoyed his opponent’s suffering like a fine wine. His slicked back ebony hair only intensified that feeling.

As he spoke, a different voice responded from a crackling radio receiver attached to his belt. “He looks like someone who’s been living in a dump for a few years. And this is the guy they say offed old Martha? I can’t believe it.” An unmistakeably female voice responded. Unlike the black clad man, who exuded an aura of serenity and calm, the voice was boisterous, and a short laugh barked out of the receiver before the man in black switched it off.

“It matters little, Angelica.” The man in black pursed his lips. “I do apologize for my colleague’s rudeness, good sir. I am Fenix, one of the Master’s four, or perhaps I should say three now, bodyguards.” He punctuated his sentence with a short bow. “It might be a bit of a bother, but could you please die now?”

The cloaked man stiffened, and immediately rolled backwards with a flurry of cloth, just as a bullet soared past where his head had been a moment earlier. The flying piece of metal pierced through his cloak, but he avoided injury, and ended up kneeling on one foot, ready to dash in any direction. His hood fell down, revealing his weary but sharp face. His eyes were already darting around, looking for a hidden sniper.

“Tsk, tsk.” Fenix sighed. “And here I was trying to be polite and end it quickly. It would be easier if you gave up now. Once Angelica has her sights on you, there’s no way to escape.”

“We’ll see.” The cloaked man said, before rushing forward, running straight towards Fenix. With a short dash, he was close enough to strike, and swung at his professionally dressed opponent with a short sword that suddenly appeared in his hands from thin air.

But like the air from which it had appeared, it struck nothing but gas. Fenix had vanished.

“Terribly rude, attacking your superiors.” Fenix’s voice echoed from the monument. “Why, that almost killed me! I didn’t even get to introduce the third member of our little team.”

The cloaked man spun and raised the sword in his hands just in time to intercept globe of darkness aimed at his unprotected back. There was a spark, and he was forced to release the sword, and it immediately decayed to a blackened husk, and eventually disappeared altogether. The globe itself stopped and faded as well.

“...foolish idea.” Behind the man had appeared a third figure, clad in pitch black robes that covered up to its head, and clutching an ancient tome in its hands. It chanted in a distinctively female voice, and two more robes of darkness appeared from within the book, both flying towards the cloaked man.

He bit back a curse, and dodged to the side once more. However, this time it was so easy, and the orbs moved, following his movements perfectly without once slowing down. He desperately drew two more swords from the air and slashed at the orbs, managing to dissipate them again at the cost of his weapons. At the same time, another bullet slammed into the ground inches from his foot.

Fenix walked out of the wall once more, clapping slowly. “So your survival instincts are up to par. Not bad, but I wouldn’t call surviving some test shots very remarkable. I see no reason for Master to be interested in you. Kasumi, if you would please...?”

The cloaked woman raised her book, and began chanting quickly, evidently preparing from a large scale ritual completely different from her previous attacks. Almost a kilometre away another woman another clip into her rifle, holding back a sadistic grin. Fenix himself drew a multitude of audibly sharp knives from his sleeves like a demented magic trick, clutching the lot in his gloved hands easily.

The spectre of death. He was surrounded by enemies on all sides. There was one, unseen yet able to strike with uncanny accuracy, forcing him to keep moving, and another launching deadly magic that he had no choice but to block directly. And yet a third, watching from the shadow, ready to strike if he let his guard down. It was a truly bad situation. It had taken luck and planning to defeat one of the bodyguards, but three at once? It couldn’t be done.

“Hmph. Small fry.” He said.

All three struck at once. Fenix launched a volley of daggers, Kasumi summoned up more blindingly fast seeking orbs, and from a distance away, Angelica let loose an entire clip of .300 bullets in the man’s direction without hesitation.

He spun, and the cloak almost flew from his body.

In such a situation, no matter what he did he could not evade all of the attacks. One attack at most was his limit, and no more. No matter what he chose, he would fall to the other two almost immediately.

Still, in the split second he had before he was struck and killed, he moved.

Two short swords formed in his hands, and he dove forward, towards the direction the bullets had been shot from. He raised his weapons just in time to block the half dozen bullets that thudded into the cold metal. Instead of meeting his head they had met their match in his swords.

The other two attacks fared much better. Instead of missing their target they both somehow corrected their course in mid air, flying towards the man’s back for a killing blow.

He didn’t move.

They were close enough that nothing he did could stop them, so he stood absolutely still. Out of the multitudes of choices available to him, he chose the one with the largest chance of letting him live.

And a miracle occurred. The knives and orbs of darkness had both chosen the same target, and both reached their target simultaneously.

One knife and one orb intersected. In a moment the knife had rusted away then the orb disappeared from the world. Again and again the weapons intersected and destroyed each other, fading from the world before they could reach their real target. Thus, instead of destroying their enemy as they should have, they failed completely.

Fenix and Kasumi both flinched in surprise and even the unseen sniper bit back a cry of denial. The man in the cloak just ran. Before they realized it, he’d already begun running back into the city, towards one of the larger and more solid office buildings.

Fenix growled. “Find whichever building he’s in and seal it with a bounded field! We were too lax this time and ended up hitting each other’s attacks. Call Angelica to set up closer. I’ll handle the rest myself.” He grinned as he silently followed his fleeing prey. “This one is mine.”

“...are you sure?” Kasumi asked. “He... anticipated our homing attacks and... moved in such a way that they... collided. He is... no ordinary man.”

“It matters not. We are the Master’s personal guard. Allowing ourselves to fail is not an option! Together, we can destroy even a Dead Apostle Ancestor!” Fenix and Kasumi both carefully proceeded into the city, and a few hundred meters away, Angelica picked up her rifle and approached her two allies.

In the city, nestled inside one of the shorter office buildings, the man in the cloak breathed heavily, leaning against one of the less broken walls. “This... isn’t good.” He groaned, as he reached back and pulled a knife out of his back. It was slick with blood, but he just threw the offending weapon away. “I’ll have to think smarter for this one. I’m not as young as I used to be...”

But it was enough that he could move. No matter what, he could not afford to lose until his mission was complete.

“Come out. I know you’re following me.” He said.

Despite the room being empty, he received a response. “Ho? Well, I suppose I could grant you your wish, seeing as you have so few moments left to live.”

As Fenix finished his sentence, the man in the cloak choked, and fell to his knees as everything around him suddenly became several times heavier. His breath caught in his lungs, and his muscles desperately tightened as he tried to rise from his position.

“Interesting what magecraft can do.” Fenix said, casually walking out of one of the walls. “Even amplifying gravity isn’t beyond its grasp. Of course, the brilliant part is that Kasumi can chose who this affects. Thus, while this building and I won’t feel a thing, your weight has just increased fivefold.”

He knelt next to the struggling man. “How pathetic.” Fenix remarked. “And here Master was saying that I’d die for sure. He seemed to think you had some sort of power that could stand against us.” Fenix kicked his struggling opponent in the stomach, and with a groan the man vomited up a stream of blood. “No, this is reality. Your life is over. That girl you came here to rescue will not be saved...”

The end of Fenix’s sentence was cut off, as a viselike grip closed around his right leg. He let out an involuntary cry of pain as the man in the cloak crushed his ankle with a single hand. He jumped backwards, nursing his foot and hissing in pain. “So you can still move?” He growled. “Fine, I suppose you’re nothing if not stubborn! Die!” He drew three more knives and threw them at his kneeling opponent with one smooth movement.

All three failed to hit their mark. Two bounced off the steel weapons in the man’s hands, and the third was caught between his teeth.

The cloaked enigma rose slowly, struggling under his weight. But still, he rose. “You... don’t get to tell me... who can’t be saved.” He growled past the metal in his mouth. Once he straightened, he spat the knife out and it clattered to the ground beside its brethren. Then, with a battle cry he lunged forward towards Fenix, swinging wildly with his twin blades.

But once more, the elegant man danced backwards into a wall, disappearing from view. His shattered foot didn’t seem to inconvenience him much, other than a few visible winces and some slightly slowed movements. He was still fast enough to easily dodge his weakened opponent’s attacks.

“Of course, I shouldn’t have expected it to be so easy.” Fenix seemed to speak from everywhere at once. “It doesn’t matter. Even now I can kill you easily any moment.” The cloaked man almost fell again, but managed to keep his unstable footing. “But I won’t risk it. Better to wait for backup than to go when there is even a tiny chance of you managing to hurt me again.”

“How... intelligent of you.” The cloaked man gasped as he tried desperately to get air into his lungs. It was like breathing through sand, or solid stone. He could barely get enough air to survive. “But it won’t save you for very long...”

“Oy, you called, Fenix?” His weak voice was drowned out by a much stronger one. At the other end of the hall stood a figure the cloaked man hadn’t seen before. But he recognized the voice attached to it.

“So this is the guy, huh? He looks even weaker up close.” Angelica attached the rifle in her hands to her back, and pulled out two heavy pistols from the twin holsters she wore. At first glance, she seemed normal, but upon further examination it was apparent that she wasn’t an ordinary woman. Her body was lean but muscled, and although her clothes were limited to a pair of very short shorts and a swimsuit top, she seemed perfectly comfortable walking around half naked.

“Well, I don’t know how he could block my rifle’s bullets earlier, but there’s no way to escape two clips of enchanted ammo from the old Desert Eagles.” She grinned, and raised her guns, holding both at once in a ridiculously inefficient single handed stance. Yet all three of the combatants knew just how deadly those weapons were in her trained hands.

The instant Angelica’s fingers tightened around the triggers of her guns, the cloaked man dived straight into the wall Fenix had entered, slashing at the plaster with his short swords. A flurry of impossibly accurate bullets flew his way, but his move had been unexpected enough that the majority missed. He crashed through the thin wall and into a bare room, giving him a brief respite. He rolled to his knees, and forced himself to run to the only exit, a rotted wooden door. He barreled through, just as another bullet came at him through the hole in the wall.

He ran, through rooms and sometimes even through walls, trying all sorts of tricks to avoid his pursuer. But it was hopeless. He could barely move, and each bullet Angelica sent his way came closer and closer to actually hitting. Just as he bashed open a door and ran into a room, she sent a slug towards his head, and it pierced his hood, luckily not wounding him but coming closer than any of the previous attacks.

“Running isn’t going to do you any good, honey.” Angelica said as she leisurely walked towards her prey, singlehandedly reloading one of her guns while keeping the other ready to shoot. Miraculously her wrists were fine despite her improper method of shooting, and each of her bullets had been on target, if slightly too slow to hit the fleeing man. “Once you’re inside Kasumi’s bounded field, there’s no way to escape.” She pushed open a closed door that had closed a second before.

“Who said anything about escape?” The man’s voice came from in front of her, but he was nowhere to be seen in the dilapidated office she entered. She frowned, and proceeded to the door straight across from her, where she could see a small trail of blood.

The moment she stepped forward, she felt a small string snap, and two curved blades launched themselves towards Angelica from the corners of the room, each perfectly aimed to slice her neck off.

But it was all for naught. Two simultaneous shots deflected the swords off course, and they both buried themselves into the walls on either side of their target. Angelica lowered her Desert Eagles, their barrels still smoking slightly.

“What’s this? Are you actually trying to fight back?” Angelica laughed. “Talk about a weak trap. I could’ve stopped those in my sleep!”

But instead of hopelessness or anger, his reply contained only scorn. “No, you didn’t stop them. You just set them off.”

Angelica took a step back as the two swords began to glow, becoming permeated with bright white light that caused her to close her eyes. She felt the influx of mana in the room, and those weapons were absolutely full of it.

It was then that she realized it. From the start, those weapons had been a completely different trap, and she’d fallen for it completely.

“Are you serious? Turning them into bombs by overloading them with prana? That’s just...” She couldn’t finish her sentence in time, as the two swords exploded with the force of two grenades, forcing Angelica to dive backwards out of the room to escape unscathed. The walls in the room cracked, and the ceiling collapsed, raining down rubble upon the room.

Angelica rose from the dust with only a few scratches signifying her near death experience at the hands of her prey. “So this is what they say about cornered prey being the most dangerous?” She growled. “Well next time I won’t be holding back, whelp.” She emptied her still full clips, and retrieved two more from her pocket. But these weren’t ordinary bullets...

“This time, there won’t be any last minute dodges.” She grinned.

Meanwhile in a completely different part of the building, the cloaked man made his way to the dead end of a hallway and collapsed against the wall. He groaned as he bled from a half dozen bullet holes. “Dammit, she knows how to use those guns...” He observed the damage. Two bullets to the upper right leg, one lodged in his ribs, two more had ripped their way through his body, and one was stuck just above his left hand. None were fatal wounds, but he couldn’t afford to take any more hits.

He closed his eyes once more and focused just on breathing. He could barely move, and was forced to stop every few seconds just to get enough air into his lungs. He could already feel his muscles aching from the strain of operating in the increased gravity, and he knew they wouldn’t last much longer.

“This has gone on for too long.” He muttered to himself. “I need... I need a plan.”

He closed his eyes, and for a few moments he shut out all outside interference. He tuned out the pain in his back, the cold floor, and the slowly approaching footsteps. It was a gamble, but one he needed to take. Fighting on instinct wasn’t how to win this fight, and he knew it. No, he needed a plan, fast. So for a few precious seconds, he left himself completely defenceless.

As he thought, a single sentence came back to him.

“I can see it, Mister! I can see you dying! I can see you standing against a wall, and then a knife comes from the wall behind you and goes into... it goes through your head!”

“So... that’s how it is.”

He opened his eyes, and this time they glowed with tinges of prana. Activating the circuits in his eyes, he saw through the building’s foundation, creation, history, construction, and structure. He saw every flaw in the room he stood in. He noticed every single break and tear in the metal that held the walls together. He saw every crack, every gash, and every bit of damage that the building had sustained over its long life. All was laid bare before his Structural Analysis.

He saw the shape slinking through the walls, approaching him like a spider sneaking p on its prey. He saw Fenix sliding past objects, and passing through others, phasing past the obstructions he encountered.

He saw, but did not move.

Even when Fenix disappeared from sight, he did not move.

And when the knife emerged from the wall behind him, followed by a hand, he moved.

The cloaked man shifted his head to the left slightly, and let the knife pierce his hood. The serrated blade sliced open his cheek and ear, and tore through his cloak’s fabric. It continued on, and stopped abruptly as Fenix realized that he had missed his target. But by then it was already too late.

By all rights, Fenix’s attack should have succeeded. His opponent was tired, and would normally have been incapable of dodging with such little warning. But knowledge of the future is a dangerous thing. If one knows what will happen, then it is possible to bend such an ultimatum to one’s own purposes.

The cloaked man seized Fenix’s hand, and heaved. He pulled forward with all his might, pulling the shadowy assassin forward. Fenix solidified himself, embedding his body into the wall as a last ditch effort to escape, but even then it was too late. The cloaked man used his increased weight to his advantage, letting himself fall and allowing gravity to do most of the pulling.

The wall cracked, broke, and finally collapsed as Fenix was thrown forward, slamming into the floor with a sickening crack. He gasped, but before he could rise the cloaked man threw himself on top of Fenix. The wall crawler screamed in pain as 5 times the weight of an ordinary human being was thrown on him, and he felt several ribs crack. Still, he moved his free right arm and produced a knife. His eyes met with the cloaked man’s own. They both had a weapon ready to strike.

“Go to hell.” Fenix spat.

The cloaked man’s eyes burned. “You first.”


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


“Oy, Fenix?” Angelica called out as she crept through the hallways. “You there, or did that hobo gut you already?” She turned a corner and peered through the gun’s sights as she did so, constantly ready to fire off a round or two in case she contacted her enemy. There was no response. She bit her lip in frustration and continued to creep through the building. All of her senses were on full alert, and she watched for the slightest signs of movement.

Though she had seen countless battles, and possessed the patience and mental strength to lay in wait for days to get a chance to hit her target with her trusty rifle, the creeping silence slowly eroded her mental fortitude. The possibility of an enemy ambush was ever present no matter how many times she told herself that she was fighting someone who could barely walk.

But he had killed Martha. Martha, her only friend in the four bodyguards. Martha, the best close range combatant in the group, whose preferred battlefield was just like the one Angelica was in.

She turned the corner, and froze.

In front of her was the cloaked man, with his back to her. His messy rags were stained with blood, and on the floor she saw a body so bloodstained that it was almost pure red. The face was unrecognizable.

The man turned to face Angelica, and with his hood up all she saw of him was his sharp eyes and the blood dripping from his face, running down the front of his cloak. He took a step forward and almost buckled from the strain. Several holes in his cloak dripped blood, and judging from the volume he had lost, he could barely move. He half growled, half moaned from the pain, and took one painful step towards Angelica, hands outstretched to choke the life out of her.

Her grin fell. “You... bastard. You killed Fenix. You killed him!” Her face twisted in anger, and she immediately raised her pistols and squeezed out two rounds. The twin bangs were almost indistinguishable from each other, and the man stumbled backwards as two new holes in his cloak bled fresh blood. But once more he pushed forward, running empty handed towards Angelica with an almost suicidal fervor.

She shot again, and once more he came close to collapsing, but he inched forward anyway, desperate to reach Angelica.

“Fuck you.” A shot. “Fuck you!” Another shot. “Go die!” Two more shots, and his body was racked with more holes than swiss cheese. “I’ll kill you like you killed Fenix!” She screamed, and squeezed the triggers of her guns. A barrage of bullets sliced through the cloaked man, perforating his battered body and carving more and more wounds into it. An ordinary human would have died from the first shot, but he somehow managed to stay standing.

“This is enchanted ammunition.” Angelica hissed. “It’ll burn you from the inside out, and constantly torment you. There will be no rest. Your wounds will not heal until the bullets have been removed. You’ll feel the pain until the last second.” She shot once more, and kept on shooting until all the ammunition had been wasted in both guns.

The cloaked man had stopped moving. He stood like a ruined tower in the middle of the hall, scant feet from Angelica. She calmly reloaded both guns. He didn’t move. No, he couldn’t move. Even his almost inhuman tolerance for pain could only go so far. It was all the man could do to keep himself standing and alive.

“I made sure to only go for crippling, non lethal wounds.” Angelica remarked. “For maximum pain, of course. You’ll die, but slowly. In fact, I think I can sink at least two more clips into you before you finally croak, old man. So savour these bullets, because each one of them is for you.” She finished reloading her guns, and raised them up once more.

Shots. More shots. Even more shots. Bullets made to kill monsters thudded into the cloaked man’s body like a rhythmic drum beat. His torso became less a repository for organs and more a steel storage. First his stomach, pulped to an unrecognizable mishmash of flesh. Then one of his lungs, leaving the other as barely enough to breath. Next, his hands, each shot in the most painful nerve points that would leave them paralyzed yet still functional enough to feel the agonizing pain. Finally, for no reason other than sick pleasure, she wasted three bullets solely on his gonads, rendering the man unable to breed if he ever did survive the steel rain he’d been exposed to.

And yet, after all those bullets, he still stood. Somehow, despite resembling a pincushion more than a man, he stood. He was unnaturally silent, but Angelica could still hear a strained heartbeat trying to pump whatever blood remained in his body to where it needed to go. Each beat drained more of his life onto the floor, already painted red by the sheer amount.

She dropped her empty gun to the floor, and held the other one in both hands. One bullet left. It was just enough to end it.

The cloaked man twitched, and slowly, moving like a broken puppet, raised his hand, reaching out towards Angelica, though he could never reach her.

“Ah...” He breathed.

“Fall.” Angelica squeezed the trigger.

The slug buried itself directly into the man’s forehead. He spiralled backwards in the air, finally ending up on the ground, unmoving and most certainly dead. His was blown off by the force of the shot, revealing his battered face in death.

Angelica walked over to the finally dead cloaked man so that she could finally see under his hood. It had irked her, ever since she’d heard of his reputation. She naturally liked prying into things, and people who hid their faces were the most fascinating ones to uncover.

She froze.

“No...” She breathed. “This isn’t possible.” She began trembling. “This has got to be some kind of joke.” The Desert Eagle fell from her hands. “I... he was...” A single tear fell from right eye, followed by one from the left, and eventually an entire deluge of them. She cried over the man’s corpse, silently hating herself for every wound she saw.

Fenix’s normally mocking face was twisted into an everlasting grimace of pain.

“I’m... sorry.” She sobbed.

“So am I.” She heard, and then Angelica’s head was separated from her shoulders by a pair of absurdly sharp blades.

The man in red watched the headless body fall limply to the floor with only a clinical curiosity. “That makes three down.” He removed his ragged cloak from Fenix’s body, contemplated taking it, and finally decided that it was too bloody to be of use anymore. “Now there’s one more.” He allowed his blades to disappear into thin air once more, and started looking for the nearest staircase.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Kasumi sighed. It had been almost half an hour since Angelica and Fenix chased the cloaked man into the building, and being forced to wait outside for them was boring. She contemplated going inside to look for them, but almost immediately dropped the idea. “Too slow...” She muttered to herself. If she crossed the boundary of her own boundary field, she’d be forced to take it down, allowing the cloaked man full use of his capabilities. And that was most definitely not part of the plan.

So she waited. She sat on a piece of rubble, and leaned against a broken piece of wall, watching the open entrance lazily. “Stupid...” She yawned. “Can’t even... kill one...”

Just as Kasumi was about to nod off, the sound of gunfire snapped her awake. This was much different than what she had sensed before. Just from the prana she could sense, Angelica was firing off her entire armory of enchanted bullets. Kasumi’s eyes widened. “Did they... reach?” She whispered.

She forced herself to stand, and opened her book to a suitable page for fighting. The gunfire had stopped just as soon as it had begun, and something in gut told Kasumi that the battle was far from over. “Did Fenix die?” She asked no one. “Did Angelica... get killed?” No one would answer her unspoken questions.

“Yes, they’re both dead.” Regardless, even if she hadn’t asked for one, she received an answer. Kasumi whirled, only to see someone she couldn’t recognize.

He was clad in garments of red and black, and stood at an imposing height that towered over her bare 5 feet. Just from looking at the man’s body she knew that he was a force to be reckoned with. Hardened muscles, scars everywhere, and eyes sharp enough to pierce steel. This could only be one person.

“Y-you...” She almost choked. Frantically she spoke a number of eldritch words and balls of darkness appeared in front of her. She gestured wildly with one hand, and they flew towards the man as fast as bullets!

He walked slowly towards Kasumi, and every single attack she sent his way was matched and destroyed by a sword. Sword after sword appeared in the man’s hands, and with each he slashed through one of her attacks. Even as more approached and his swords faded from the world, more and more appeared in his hands. He created and sacrificed a weapon for every blast he had to deflect, yet he was winning. He did not speed up, and merely walked leisurely but purposefully towards Kasumi without hurrying.

“Your question was a good one.” He said. “However, instead of asking whether your allies were dead...” He swung and slashed an approaching dark ball in half, instantly summoning another weapon once his current one faded. “You should have asked ‘Will I be next?’.”

Kasumi screamed. She backpedaled away from the man in red as fast as her legs would move, until her back bumped into the wall of the building, leaving her no place to go but to the side. She lunged to the left, but was stopped suddenly when a falchion embedded itself into the wall, millimeters from her nose. The same thing happened when she attempted to move right.
She was trapped.

“Y-you...” She sank to her knees, trembling as the implacable man in red continued his slow walk towards her.

“Fall!” She screamed again. He raised a hand, and chanted another spell, this one many times harsher than her others. The man halted as he suddenly felt his weight become 5 times more once again.

“So it was you that did this...” With a grunt he took another step forward, seemingly unfazed by the increase in gravity. “You’ll need more than that to take me down, girl.”

“I said fall!” She spoke more words, and the force on the man doubled. His feet sunk into the ground, and he himself collapsed to the dirt, forced to his knees by the weight of his own body. His breathing ceased as his lungs inhale any air. His heart protested the additional force it had to fight against.

“You... will not... stop... me...” He pushed forward, crawling now under the incredible gravity.

Kasumi had tears in her hidden eyes. “Fall, damn you!” She screeched, and her hood fell, revealing disturbingly childish features. The tears in her eyes brought an air of sickening innocent to the whole debacle, but her rage was clearly visible. Once more she chanted the spell, and the force doubled once more.

The man froze. He could not move. If he so much as twitched all the muscles and tissues in his body would rupture. He could already feel his heart slowing down and the world turning black. He had long ago surpassed the limits of Self Reinforcement in an attempt to counterbalance the force of increased gravity, and it had finally reached a level he could not pass.

He opened his mouth, and vomited a stream of blood onto the cracked dirt. His body couldn’t take anymore. The human body was not designed to survive in gravity even a fraction higher than that of Earth’s, and taking 20 times as much would normally have crushed most humans into a fine past.

But the man in red was not most humans.

He choked, and his throat gurgled as he tried to speak through blood. Kasumi heard it, and laughed.

“I-I did it!” She yelled. “They died, but I’ve beaten you!” Still trembling, she stood shakily and laughed weakly. “I’m the best!” She cried. “The best!” She had made an almost 180 degree turn from her previous quiet personality. This was what the happiness of winning could do to a person.

“...r.... n...”

“Eh?” She cocked her head to the side. “What did you say?”

“Tra... n...”

“You’ll have to speak up!” Kasumi laughed. “Or maybe you should just die in the dirt like the filthy mutt you are and save me the trouble of having to listen to your pathetic whining!”

“Trace, On!”

The air around the man in red glowed, and particles of prana freed themselves from his circuits. From nothing, came something concrete. Instruments of war that humanity has been using for thousands of years.

Swords. First two, then four, and eventually a full dozen swords of various shapes and sizes hovered in the air above the man in red. They radiated magical energy, and Kasumi’s next laugh died in her throat as she realized her mistake.

“Sword Bullet, Full Auto.”

They flew. Faster than rounds from Angelica’s sniper rifle, they flew. Shot from the bow that was the man in red, the arrows were perfectly accurate. The multitude of magical swords instantly pierced the flimsy barrier Kasumi tried to put up, and stabbed into her fragile body.

“Gah!” She was thrown back into the wall, pinned to the stone by blades. She screamed once more, not from fear but pain. Her concentration broke, and the spell holding the red man down shattered with it.

In the blink of an eye, the battle had turned from victory to defeat, and vice versa.

The man in red stood once more, shaking. He spat out more red blood, and raised his head to look Kasumi in the eye once more.

“You won’t die.” He said. “Not yet. Not until I’m done with you.” All the swords had pierced non vital areas, yet still caused enough wounds that Kasumi couldn’t summon up the focus to weave a spell. Either way, it didn’t matter, as one of the larger ones had shredded her magical tome, rendering it unreadable. Furthermore, all of her magical energy seemed to fade as one of the smaller swords pricked her skin. “And you won’t escape.” He continued. “Your friends are dead, and no one can save you now.”

“You...” She gasped. “What... are you?”

The man didn’t respond. He simply approached Kasumi’s immobilized body with weak steps until they stood face to face, their positions fully reversed.

“Who is your Master?” He asked in a low voice. “Don’t bother lying. The sword in your right shoulder will force you to tell the truth to the best of your ability, and it’s worthless to try to defy it.”

“I can’t tell you.” Kasumi replied without hesitating. “We all swore on a magical contract that we would never reveal any information concerning the Master.” During the reply, her eyes unfocused, signifying that an external force was controlling the battle. “Thus, I am not capable of telling you.”

“What are your Master’s abilities?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“What is your Master’s name?”

“I can’t tell you.

“What is your Master’s goal?”

Kasumi blinked. “World domination.” She said. “I thought it was obvious. Didn’t you come here to kill him?”

“No.” The red man replied. “I just came here to topple the group that had claimed to be taking over the ruins of this city. I never heard anything about such a silly thing as world domination.” He snorted. “Your Master is probably a fool.”

Kasumi frowned. “It may seem like idiocy, but I’ve seen Master’s plan, and it’s definitely good. I won’t tell you what it is, but Master’s plan will definitely succeed!”

“Fine, fine. I’ll assume the crazy world domination theory is true for now.” The red man sighed. “Now, what is your Master like?” “He continued his questioning.

“I can’t tell you.”

“What is your Master’s favourite food?”

“Rice balls with extra seaweed.”

“...seriously?”

“The Master cares not for trivialities!” Kasumi retorted.

“Hey, Miss, why are you stuck to the wall by a bunch of swords?”

“Because this man is currently in the process of torturing me for information, after which he will most likely violently dismember me and leave me dead in a garbage dump somewhere.”

“...” The two adults turned to look at the newcomer to the torture session. Amelia waved hesitantly at both of them. “Um... was I not supposed to come out yet?”

“Why are you here?” The man said, straight to the point. Behind his snowy beard, both females saw him frown. “I thought I told you to wait and hide until it was safe to come out.”

“But it is, Mister! I saw you walking out here and talking to Miss over here so I knew it would be safe!”

“Kasumi.” The trapped sorceress replied, out of habit.

“You didn’t have to answer the child.” The man growled, turning his face towards his prisoner.

“Sword of Truth.” She replied. “I’ll answer whatever I can until you take it out.”

“That is... remarkably inconvenient.” The man sighed once more. All of a sudden, without his cloak, he looked less like a hardened warrior and more like an old man too old to hold a weapon properly. “It’s never had this effect before... well, at least I didn’t do anything stupid like ask what his favourite television show is, or your three sizes.”

“Neon Genesis Evangelion, and 88/55/81.” She replied instantly. “By the way, you’re not my type at all. I’m not into old men. Perhaps if you were 20 or so years younger I’d think about it.”

The red man sighed and brought both palms to his face. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

Kasumi nodded. Amelia nodded. Were Angelica there and not a headless corpse, she would have nodded as well.

“Fine. I know more than enough anyway.” The man in red sighed and stood up. “Thanks for the help. You can die now.”

Kasumi gulped, but didn’t say anything.

“Mister, are you going to kill her now?” Amelia asked.

“Yeah.” He replied. “Just give me a second... you should probably look away, or this’ll end up scarring you for life, girl.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” Amelia grinned. “Besides, you’re not going to kill her. You’re going to knock her out, tie her up, and hide her unconscious body in one of that building’s broom closets.”

“...that’s seriously what I do?” He asked. “Are you sure you’re not just seeing things that aren’t real?”

“Nope, that’s definitely what happens.” Amelia nodded firmly.

“...”

“...”

“So, what are you going to do to me?” Kasumi asked, still nervously awaiting a sword through the face.

The man in red turned to her. “I’m going to knock you out, tie you up, and hide you in a broom closet until I get you back later. Then I’m going to take you to the authorities and have them interrogate you for information concerning the other cells of your organization.” He said as he materialized a wooden baseball bat in his hands.

“Um... I think I’d rather die.” She confessed.

“Not an option.” He replied, and hit Kasumi in the head with a baseball bat enchanted to put people to sleep for at least 24 hours. She went out like a light.

“You.” He picked up Kasumi’s unconscious body as the swords holding it up disappeared. “No more future stuff. It’s throwing me off. Now you’ll stay here and guard the prisoner until I come back.” He gave the little girl detailed instructions as he entered the building and looked for a free broom closet. He eventually found one that seemed slightly less dusty than the others and dumped his limp hostage inside. He then materialized a tiny dagger and handed it to the little girl. “This will keep you invisible as long as you hold on to it. Stay here and don’t let go.”

As he set out, Amelia called out to him. “Mister! I need to tell you something!”

“No.” He spoke without slowing down or turning. “No more future stuff. I’ve done just fine until now without it, and I’ll continue doing so. Just stay there.”

Amelia obliged, but reluctantly. She bit her lip in frustration. Finally, as she watched the man disappear into the distance, she settled with a simple sentence.

“Don’t die Mister!”

The man in red didn’t respond, but if Amelia was standing in front of him at that time, she would’ve seen the corners of his frowning lips turn up ever so slightly.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


The tower was deserted.

The man in red did not see a single soul in his travels up the Master’s tower. No one opened the previously invisible entrance. No one put up signs telling him to go up the large spiral staircase leading to the top of the tower. Not a single person highlighted the path he needed to take with fluorescent paint.

Yet the tower itself seemed to be prepared to receive him regardless. His path to the top had been opened with the defeat of the Master’s four bodyguards.

The staircase stretched up almost endlessly, and when he had passed the 17,000th step he tried using Structural Analysis on the building just from curiosity. The bright light of the prana infused into the structure of the tower almost blinded him, and he resolved never to try analysing it again.

By the time he passed the 36,000th step, he had removed all of the bullets lodged in his body from Angelica’s gun, and carefully wrapped his wounds with bandages infused with healing magecraft.

At the 59,000th step he decided to trim his beard on a whim, and several snow white hairs began their slow drift towards the ground, along with a muffled curse as he accidentally cut himself when shaving with a European Claymore.

The 66,666th step ended in a heavy stone door.

He pushed it open with a grunt, and it opened to a dark chamber. He couldn’t see the top of it, and there was no light. In the end, the man in red was forced to step out into the room without a single light source.

The door closed behind him, and he soon became painfully aware of his footsteps as they clacked on the marble floor. There was no other noise, but he could sense someone’s presence nonetheless.

“You’re looking awfully old, Emiya.”

The room was suddenly illuminated by light, coming not from the sun or any fixtures, but from the walls themselves, glowing a gentle white. But the man in red didn’t notice that. The second he heard the voice he whipped his head towards it.

His eyes widened. “You... how do you know that name?” He growled.

The man on the other side of the room, sitting leisurely on a golden throne, clad in robes of spun gold and sipping wine from a golden chalice, laughed. “Has it really been so long that you’ve forgotten me?” He took a sip of the expensive liquid from the precious cup, and savoured it for almost a full minute before deciding to speak again. “I haven’t forgotten you, Emiya Shirou. I expected that you at least return the favour, but it seems that I overestimated your memory.”

The red man, no, Emiya Shirou had to hold himself back from charging the man on the throne. He couldn’t recognize him, but that person seemed awfully familiar. The manner of speech, the lavish decorations, and the relaxed posture that treated the one who had singlehandedly slaughtered his elite troops as no more than a bug. That behaviour could only belong to one person.

“You’re not him.” Emiya Shirou said. “You look like him, true, and you certainly act similar enough, but you aren’t Gilgamesh.”

The man on the throne laughed once more. “You compare me to Gilgamesh, King of Heroes?” His roaring laughter slowed to a chuckle after mere seconds, during which time Shirou had crossed half of the vast, empty expanse of the room, moving steadily closer towards the throne.

The man suddenly sneered. “Hah. Don’t be so insulting. I intend to surpass him. I have no need to be compared to a long dead relic. I have, however, learned some of his wiser teachings.” He drank the rest of the wine in one gulp, and set the chalice on the throne’s jewelled armrest.

“...who are you?” Shirou furrowed his brow. “You feel familiar, yet completely different, as if I’ve never truly met you before. How do you know my name?”

“Why wouldn’t I know your name, Emiya?” The man raised a cobalt eyebrow. “I’ve certainly seen it enough in the past that there’s no reason for me to forget it any time soon. In a way, it is, to me, the most important name in the world. Yet you have forgotten me so easily...”

“I don’t make a habit of remembering unimportant people.” Shirou replied. He was most of the way across the room now. The man on the throne was perfectly clear to his reinforced eyes, yet he could not recognize him any further than a very strong feeling of familiarity. It was maddening just looking at the ‘Master’.

“Unimportant?” The Master repeated softly. “Me, unimportant?” He crushed the gold chalice in a single fist. “Yes, I suppose I was unimportant, then.” He admitted. “But not anymore! You can’t ignore me now, Emiya! Not when I’ve surpassed you so completely!”

He stood from the throne and cast aside the crumpled remains of the wine glass. It clattered over the perfectly polished stone floor, echoing into the darkness until only silence remained between the two men. “I’ve been waiting, Emiya.” He strode forward confidently, and Shirou sensed the prana in the building begin to rile up. “I’ve been waiting for much too long.” Out of nowhere, a perfectly groomed suit appeared on the mostly naked Master, along with shoes, and a pair of sunglasses. In a split second he had become fully clothed. With a sigh, the Master removed the sunglasses and threw them aside. “Always had trouble with precision.” He muttered. “And I always forget I’m not outside.”

Shirou stopped. He narrowed his eyes. Those clothes had perfectly materialized. It wasn’t creation, teleportation, or projection. No, this was instantaneous. It had happened too fast for him to notice.

“What did you do?” He asked. “That was...”

“Just a trifle.” The Master replied. “It is nothing to get worried over. It is a part of my power, quite simply. I have learned much since the last time we saw each other. Too much, one might say.” His grey eyes bored into Shirou’s own, not blinking even once.

“And soon, it will be even less.” He continued. “Once I finally get rid of you, the chains binding me to this world will be gone. I’ll be able to accomplish my goal.” In his hands materialized a weapon, a katana to be precise. It was of pure gold, layered with different metals and perfectly balanced. Deep in the center of the hilt shone a tiny gem that glowed in all the colours of the rainbow. Shirou didn’t know why or how such a thing could be created, but he didn’t care. He activated his Structural Analysis and looked into the sword itself, to absorb the very history and creation of it.

He screamed, and fell to the ground, clutching his suddenly burning eyes.

“Tsk tsk.” The Master chuckled. “Did you really think I’d be unprepared for your arrival? I am perfectly aware of your many talents, Emiya Shirou, and have planned accordingly. This entire structure is so densely packed with high energy prana that if you even attempt to analyse anything in here, you’ll effectively be staring into the sun. I’ve made sure of that. I even had several kidnapped magi test this place. I wasn’t satisfied until it could blind 50 of them with less than 5 seconds of exposure.”

“You... monster.” Shirou opened his eyes, and although they were red and shedding tears profusely, he could still see the man he’d come to kill. “Why? Why do you despise me so? I don’t remember ever doing anything to earn your ire before today!” He summoned his best glare, but it fell flat.

“Why?” The Master repeated. “What a ridiculous question. If you do not know that already, then there is no reason for me to tell you. If you cannot remember on your own, then I’ll make your remember with your body!”

He raised the sword and swung it horizontally across, slicing some unknown enemy. It was many dozen meters too far away to hit Shirou, yet the man in red quickly dove to the ground, just as an invisible force passed above his head and crashed into the far end of the wall with a screech.

“What?” He barely had time to realize he was being attacked when the Master swung once more, and Shirou dived to the side to avoid another wave of invisible energy that sliced through the marble as easily as a hot knife cutting butter. Easier, in fact. Where the blast passed, it was as if the ground had simply stopped existing.

“Come, Emiya! If you cannot do at least this much then I will be sorely disappointed!” The Master said, and swung again, three times in succession. Shirou grunted, flexed his muscles, poured prana into his body, and leapt straight up, preferring to avoid the attacks directly instead of attempting a risky dodge. As he reached the apex of his jump, he materialized two more identical short swords in his hands, and threw them both with pinpoint accuracy towards the Master.

“Hmph!” The Master swung as the swords approached him, and they were both instantly swallowed up by another invisible blast of energy. There was no noise or clash; they had simply ceased to exist.

Shirou landed on the ground, and immediately materialized his jet black bow. He fired off a half dozen shots before he had to run to avoid another invisible blast that swallowed each of his arrows up without a sound. He ground his teeth together as he was forced to narrowly avoid another blast by diving forward over it. He saw in slow motion how the slightly different portion of space reached a patch of loose cloth from his clothes, and the cloth simply ceased to exist.

The game of cat and mouse continued for another few minutes, but to Shirou it felt like hours. With each swing of his unusual sword, the Master would produce another almost invisible shockwave that Shirou had to avoid. And every time Shirou decided to go on the offensive the Master would simply swing his sword and swallow up his attacks without even trying. The strength didn’t matter. All of Shirou’s weapons were equally ineffective. Durandal, Hrunting, Tyrfing, he was sure even Caladbolg would fail against the erasing slash. The only positive result in that time had been that it became easier to spot the blast of energy, and it was no longer near invisible.

“Is that all, Emiya?” The Master said after some time. “I could go on like this for days, but I’m wondering if you can. You seem to be getting tired.” It was true. Even five minutes of fighting had taxed Shirou’s prana reserved considerably. Added to the fact that he’d wasted plenty of prana in earlier fights, it wasn’t looking good.

“I’m... just... getting warmed up.” Shirou panted. “That’s a nice sword you’ve got there, but you’re a one trick pony. If I can get past it, you’re dead.”

“You can’t.” The Master remarked. “But I assure you that this isn’t the limit of my power. It is simply what I deem good enough to kill you with.”

“Then you’ll have to rethink that judgement.” Shirou said. “Because I’ve already figured out how to beat it.”

“Hah! Just try it, Emiya!” The sword glowed a bright gold for a single moment, before discharging an exceptionally large slash. Shirou saw it travel through the air in almost slow motion, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to dodge it. And then he noticed something.

It wasn’t scarring the floor. Where the slash impacted the floor, it left it behind exactly the same, unlike the rest of the blasts.

He had a hunch, and nothing else. There was no way to prove his hypothesis, and even if it was true there would be no way to test it other than one.

“I’ll take you up on that offer.” Shirou said, and ran directly into the blast. The last thing he saw was the Master’s surprised face before the twisted space swallowed him up.

His body curved. It went sideways into time, and skipped stones on the river of life and death. He absconded from the fight between good and evil in favour of refereeing the match between Jiminy Cricket and Sherlock Holmes. The sport of Quidditch was interesting, he realised, and he looked forward to surgically removing a pirate’s liver in the future, as long as the blasted thing didn’t decide to sing opera at him. The oblique square that was his heart shriveled with joy as Bertha’s 3.5 dimensional ice pick pierced it. Having 15^50,000 eyes was fun, he decided, and he promptly went off the choo choo train to eviscerate a planet sized muffin with his beaver teeth. The activity was promptly done in only four hundred billion years, and he felt quite full afterwards, although he could have used a spot of tea, by which he meant a bathtub sized pile of mammoth lard, with one teaspoon of Rank B+ Noble Phantasms added for a slight kick. Eventually, however, he decided not to because he really needed to watch his weight. She had always said he would die from sickness one day, and he would definitely tell her how much the whooping, rumbling, and fornicating coughs had affected him for the 8x2 days he’d had them. But until then, he’d settle for going through the unusually brown marshmallow door he saw sneaking up on him. Or maybe he would just look into that spinning, turning and twisting, gyrating, flying, sinking, multiplying, thing. What was it called again?

Ah, right. A kaleidoscope.

He hit the ground running, and punched the surprised Master in the face with his free hand.

The suited man flew backwards, tumbling almost comically head over heels until he collided with the throne that Shirou noted was now silver for some inexplicable reason.

“Get up. This is just the beginning.” Shirou said as he shook off the sudden numbness that had overtaken his body during his passage through the blast. He glanced around the room, and other than the throne everything looked the same. “Or was all your bluster just talk?”

“EMIYA!” The Master stood up, and wiped his bleeding nose with the back of his hand. “How did you survive that?! It’s supposed to be impossible! You bloody fool- Eh?” He blinked. “Hey, Emiya... weren’t your clothes blue? They’re red now.”

Shirou blinked as well. “No, they were always red. But I distinctly recall your throne being gold, not silver.”

“...ah, I see now.” The Master nodded. “Right, could you just run into that blast one more time? There seems to have been a bit of a mix up and I’ll need to correct it before the universe implodes from the sheer paradox of it all.”

“...no.” Shirou said.

The Master sighed. “Fine, we’ll do it the hard way.”

Shirou charged, materializing two more short swords in his hand. Whatever running through the blast had done, it had still brought him closer to his enemy, and that’s all he cared about. The Master flinched, but swung again, launching an identical blast at him, which Shirou promptly dodged with little trouble.

“That won’t work anymore.” He said. “I’ve already learned to see those blasts of yours. Frightening, sure, but they’re too easy to dodge. If you wanted to actually hit me with one of those on purpose, you’d have to ask politely and hope for the best!”

“Damn you Emiya!” The Master screamed, and charge forward himself, meeting Shirou’s twin blades with his own gold one.

Their clash was punctuated by the sound of steel snapping and breaking. The second their swords had met, Shirou’s began to crack apart. The red warrior narrowed his eyes, but just swung towards the Master’s neck and abdomen at the same time.

The Master swung through the lower sword with his own weapon, completely shattering the inferior blade, and against all odds caught the top sword in his teeth. Shirou immediately released the weapon and projected two more swords before swinging again. The Master merely spat out the captured weapon and rejoined the battle.

After enough clashing, one thing immediately became apparent.

They were completely evenly matched.

Shirou’s flexibility allowed him to constantly keep his opponent on the defensive, but he had to spend prana to constantly project new swords with each swing, as the Master’s was too superior, and he couldn’t hope to copy Structural Analysis barred to him.

The Master, on the other hand, was stronger and faster with his weapon, and even more skilled than Shirou at using it. Every strike sent his way was mercilessly deflected and crushed, and Shirou needed both weapons just to stop the Master from attacking. If a single swing was made offensively, Shirou knew he wouldn’t be able to stop it.

The Master swung upwards, shattering both of Shirou’s weapons instantaneously, and then instantly switched his grip and brought the sword down towards Shirou’s head. The red knight pushed upwards and formed two more weapons to stop it, but they cracked and shattered without slowing the golden blade down in the slightest.

Shirou smirked, and danced back, narrowly avoiding the descending sword and receiving a cut down the shoulder for being too slow, but still surviving the deadly slash.

And then he moved forward again. Once more the golden blade flickered, aiming to decapitate the red knight, but Shirou once more brought up both hands and his own weapons stopped the golden sword cold.

No, not weapons. Weapon.

The sword in Shirou’s hands was simple, yet elegant. A two handed European blade, it was light and heavy at the same time, and perfectly balanced. The pure blade and the shining pommel were both forged of the finest materials, and one could not look at it without calling it beautiful.

“Gram.” The Master spat. “So you did take some of Gilgamesh’s things even after all the trouble you went through to kill him.”

“I don’t know how you know that, but I don’t care.” Shirou replied. “If this Phantasm can stop that sword of yours, I’ll use it no matter what the cost.”

“A nice thought.” The Master admitted. “Indeed, I operate upon a similar principle. But unlike you, I do not place too much reliance upon weapons I have not myself created!” His golden sword glowed a bright yellow once more, and too late Shirou realized that he was too close to dodge any blasts.

“Emiya.” The Master said, mockingly. “Would you kindly let yourself get hit by this?”

Shirou jumped backwards, and at the same time the blast surged forward towards him, too close for comfort. As he flew through the air, however, he noticed something unusual once more. Again, the ground was unharmed by this blast, unlike the others.

As it swallowed him up, he remarked that he almost saw a flash of blue appear next to him out of the corner of his eye.

Once more he was led like Alice through the universe’s demented wonder land.

Once more he saw the kaleidoscope.

Once more he tumbled backwards, landing on the cold marble of the Master’s tower.

“Had a nice adventure, Emiya?” The Master remarked, standing in front of his once more golden throne. “I was getting tired of fighting that blue you. He was really quite a bore.”

“Sorry.” Shirou groaned as he stood. “No more distractions.”

“Hah!” The Master laughed. “You’re an idiot, Emiya, but you actually do a pretty good job!”

Shirou froze. “That sentence... it can’t be.”

“Oh?” The Master raised an eyebrow. “Impossible? Is that what you wanted to say? How about you tell me my name instead?”

Shirou coughed, and blood stained the marble floor red. “No, it can’t be. You’re dead. I stabbed you in the stomach myself. I still remember that bloodstained knife!”

“So do I, Emiya.” The Master said. “I remember it every day, because that wound still hurts to this day, even though I’ve already healed from it! But it won’t go away, because of you! Because you still exist in this world I have to bear the fact that I lost to you!”

“It would’ve been better if you had stayed dead.” Shirou muttered.

“Shinji.”

“So you do remember! Finally! I was waiting for you to realize who it was that became superior to you!” Matou Shinji laughed out loud. “Look at you! You’re an old man who can barely fight, and I’ve surpassed you in every possible way! I’m at the peak of my growth, and I’ll stay that way forever!”

Shirou narrowed his eyes. He noticed that the crushed golden chalice had rolled to his feet. He picked it up, and sniffed. “Tch. This wine... it smells exactly like Gilgamesh’s.” He threw the crushed cup to the side. “You stole some of his youth potion, didn’t you?”

“He won’t exactly need it.” Shinji shrugged. “Not where he is, at least. Besides, as his last Master I can take whatever I want without consequence.”

“You... all you can do it steal.” Shirou roared. “Shinji, you haven’t changed since that day! You’re still the same person you were all those years ago!”

“I could say the same for you, Emiya.” Shinji retorted. “No, actually. I stayed the same, but you got worse. The you in front of me is completely different from the Emiya I knew in high school.”

“I’ve changed for the better!” Shirou spat. He charged forward, swinging Gram wildly. Shinji parried the blow with his own weapon, if barely.

“No, you’re worse!” Shinji pushed back his less youthful opponent and swung while the man’s guard was down. Shirou winced as he felt the golden blade scrape his ribs, but he recovered almost immediately and went for a counter attack. “The Emiya I knew wouldn’t sacrifice innocents!”

With their two blades locked together, Shirou raised a foot and kicked out, catching Shinji in the gut and pushing him back.

“It was for the greater good!” Shirou countered. “They couldn’t be saved from the beginning! I did what I had to do, unlike you who only desired the grail for your own selfish wishes!”

Gram began to glow as the red knight poured more and more of his prana into his. It was a risky move, but he had no choice at this point. Shinji’s eyes widened, and he responded in kind, clutching his glowing weapon tighter.

Both fighters distanced themselves from each other as they prepared to bet their lives on one attack. Shirou poured more and more prana into Gram until it almost reached the breaking point, whereupon the heat it exuded was almost enough to burn his tanned hands.

Similarly, the shine from Shinji’s golden weapon went more and more powerful. Instead of a pure white light like the others, this light was simultaneously all and none of the colours. It was formed of every colour of the rainbow, and depending in which direction one looked at it from, it showed different scenes.

Shinji grinned wildly, and Shirou’s furious expression escalated even more.

On some preordained signal, both men swung forward.

The light from Gram was more than that. It was an otherworldly fire, burning anything and everything it touched, even air itself. The bright light was simply a side effect from that. It burst forward, shattering and incinerating the floor as his swing became a harbinger of certain death to all that dared oppose it.

By contrast, the wave of energy that left Shinji’s blade was almost identical to the others, save that it could be seen clearly instead of as a silhouette. The ethereal nature of it was plainly obvious, and it seemed to almost not exist in the material world.

When the two collided, there were no flashy fireworks. No battles of will or screaming occurred. The blast from Gram simply vanished along with Shinji’s blast of energy. Both had been erased.

Shinji stood, grinning wildly, as Shirou panted, trying to regain the stamina he’d lost simply by charging up his fake Phantasm.

Shinji spoke once more. “At least... at least I didn’t kill the girl I loved with my bare hands.”

Shirou froze. “You... how...”

“Don’t underestimate my sources, Emiya.” Shinji said. “I know what you did. I don’t know why, but I know what. It was really very simple, Emiya.”

“...stop it.”

“You went to the church right after my sister was recovering from her operation...”

“Stop it.”

“You brushed past Tohsaka, and Kotomine, heading straight for her room.”

“Stop it!”

“And then, when you saw Matou Sakura, you took a knife, tore her heart out, and stabbed it until there was nothing left but a pile of meat.”

“...”

Shinji shrugged. “What? It’s not like I’m telling you some big revealing thing here. This is old news, isn’t it, Emiya?”

“...”

“After that you betrayed Tohsaka, and went out to fight in the Grail War on your own. I still have no idea how you managed to get so far as to defeat me and Gilgamesh with no Servant to call your own, but it doesn’t matter.”

“...”

“The man I once called my friend died that day, Emiya. Shirou died that day, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell, doing foolish things over and over again. And that’s what you are, Emiya. Empty.”

“...is that it?” Shirou raised his head. His eyes were calm once more. He was perfectly calm. “Is that all you wanted to say, Matou?”

Shinji shrugged. “Pretty much, yeah. Just wanted to remind you that you’re just as evil as I am.”

“No, I’m not.” Shirou shook his head.

“Heh, still refusing to accept the obvious.” Shinji chuckled. “At least that part of you hasn’t changed, Emiya.”

“I’m... a superhero.”

“Keep telling yourself that!” Shinji roared, and raised the golden sword into the air. Once more it glowed with all the colours of the rainbow, and he slashed down, releasing a blast of energy-

No. This was different.

Through a tear in the fabric of reality... emerged something very familiar.

The heat was the same. The light was the same. The same holy energy was exactly the same... as the blast Shirou had fired from Gram earlier.

Shirou’s eyes widened. “So that’s it... you bastard.”

He raised his right hand, and braced it against his left. Prana swirled around him, and the approaching harbinger of death collided-

With a seven petalled flower. The strongest defense Emiya Shirou possessed. His greatest defensive Phantasm.

“Rho Aias!”

The blast from one of the most powerful holy swords in the world collided with the ultimate defense, a seven layered defense with seven fortress walls between death and Shirou.

One petal shattered instantly, and then another.

Two more shattered in a single second.

One cracked, and took longer, but eventually broke as well.

Finally, only two remained. The foremost cracked as well, and agonizingly the blast began to slow down, losing momentum.

Still, that didn’t stop it from breaking through the 6th petal as well.

Finally, one more wall remained between Shirou and his own sword of death. He poured prana into his defense, bolstering it as much as he possibly could.

The two forces became perfectly balanced. Offense and defense. Push and pull. Give and take. The petal fractured but managed to remain whole, and the blast died off completely, leaving the ultimate defense no more powerful than a tissue. But it had held, if barely.

And then Shinji leapt through the air, driving his sword through the shield and into Shirou’s stomach.

“Urk!” The last petal of Rho Aius broke completely, and Shirou collapsed, unable to stand with a sword in his gut. His vision darkened as he slowly bled out.

Shinji withdrew his sword with a sigh, and backed off; looking over his former friend’s torn up body.

“That was... remarkably easy, really.” He said. “I expected more from you, but I suppose aging really does weaken a person.” He turned and walked away, back to his throne. Once he was slumped in the golden chair, he began to speak once more.

“I’m no magus, Emiya.” He admitted to his fallen foe. “I learned over the years that there’s nothing I can do about that, short of turning myself into an undead, which I refuse to even consider. I looked for options. I went to the Association, the Church, and even to ATLAS, but I couldn’t open what wasn’t there in the first place.”

“It almost broke me, Emiya. I refused to believe I couldn’t do something. I thought that with enough hard work I could break past my limits as a person and succeed.” He let out a short, barking laugh. “As if. The world doesn’t work that way. But I did eventually figure out the key to power. Ironically, Gilgamesh had it right all along.”

His grey eyes hardened. “Take. Take everything. Take what you want, and what you need. If you can’t do something, get others to do it for you. I couldn’t be a magus, so I became one who controls magi. I even set myself a goal. To reach one of the True Magics and make it my own. It was a foolish move, but not an impossible one.”

He raised the golden sword into the air, showing off the blade, and especially the multicoloured jewel in the center. “I eventually settled on the second. It would do me well, I decided. Of course, I had no idea how to use it, and I wasn’t foolish enough to get it from Zeltrech himself, so I resorted to a more realistic idea. Tohsaka Rin.”

Shirou twitched. His eyes opened the barest sliver. “I am the bone of my sword.”

“Do you know why she disappeared after the war, Emiya?” Shinji asked, rhetorically. “It wasn’t because she was sickened by what you had become. It was because I captured her. That’s right. Me, of all people, managed to capture and control the prodigy Tohsaka Rin. It wasn’t easy, I’ll admit, but I managed it after ten long years.”

Shirou’s hand twitched, clenching into a loose fist. “Steel is my body, and fire is my blood.”

“I finally broke her, Emiya, and it was beautiful.” A tear rolled down Shinji’s cheek. “Seeing someone as proud as her serving under me was the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life. I had finally taken what I wanted, and it was mine.”

Shirou gasped. His lungs began to breathe slowly but surely. “I have created over a thousand blades.”

“And then I had her make this for me.” He showed off the sword. “I knew that she could do it. I could tell that she was close to achieving the second, so I forced her to work. It took twenty years this time, but in the end I finally received this sword.” He admired it once more. “I call it the Kaleidoscopic Blade. It can slice through dimensions, sending things from this one to another. Those blasts, if they had touched you, would have probably left you in some random alternate dimension where earth or this tower didn’t exist. I don’t know, and I don’t really care. What I do know is that as long as I have this, I’m unstoppable.”

Shirou growled, as his voice returned. “Without mercy and without pain.”

“And that’s that.” Shinji finished. “Tohsaka died right afterwards. She couldn’t take it. But she finished her job before dying, so it’s fine. I got bored of her after the first few years anyway.” He stood. “But now I only have one last thing to do. I have to cut my ties with the past, forever. And to do that, you have to die.”

“No, you die!” “Have become the judge of living and dead, awaiting the final verdict.”

He stood. The wounded red knight stood, pushing his broken body to the limit. Even though he bled from innumerable small wounds and from the one big stomach wound, his eyes still held enough fire to make Shinji take pause. “So you still have some life left in you? Fine. I’ll destroy you for good this time!”

“No, Shinji.” Shirou growled. “This time, I’ll fix the mistake I made all those years ago, and kill you myself!”

“This world was always, Unlimited Blade Works!”

The world twisted.

It groaned.

It shattered.

It reformed.

It became perfect.

“What is this, Emiya?!” Shinji screamed, as he suddenly found himself in a completely different place.

The sky was that of night even though it wasn’t yet evening. It stormed with dark thunderclouds and occasionally flashes of lightning lit it up for fractions of a second. A wet, acidic rain fell constantly into the muddy ground, burning all skin it touched.

The ground itself was littered with debris, and all of it was the same.

Swords. Weapons. Instruments of death. All failed, all broken, and all discarded only to be picked up and kept for all time. Littering the ground were only broken weapons.

But at the same time, the whole weapons stood above. Impaling the ground, stabbing and killing it, were swords. Each a work of art. Each different. Each unique. Each stained with blood.

Shirou walked among them, greeting each as if meeting an old friend. He whispered names under his breath as he brushed past familiar swords. He knew every one of them.

“Emiya, what have you done?” Shinji said, in horror. “What is this?”

Shirou looked up, and in sharp contrast to his previous anger there was only sorrow in his eyes.

“It is death, Shinji. It is the graveyard of swords, where broken weapons go to die. It is where the failures live, where the imperfect dwell, and where all the bloodstained weapons that can nothing but kill wait for their next victim. It is heaven, and hell. It is Unlimited Blade Works.”

“A reality marble...” Shinji whispered. “So this was your trump card.”

“Don’t call it that.” Shirou winced. “This is merely where I bring those that I kill with my own hands. Or more accurately, it is the depths of my heart.”

Shinji nodded. “I see... well, too bad Emiya, because it makes no difference whether you possess a reality marble or not, because I’ve still got the Kaleidoscopic Blade!”

He brandished his sword, and swung it triumphantly-

“What?” The once golden sword had turned a dull colour. It sizzled and melted as the acid rain pelted it. Although the other weapons were fine, Shinji’s sole weapon collapsed under the power of a reality marble. The gem on its hilt broke, shattering with it all hopes of Shinji being able to fight.

“This... this is...”

“May your sword rest in peace, Matou Shinji.” Shirou lowered his head and gave a quick prayer.

“I refuse!” Shinji roared. “I won’t accept this! You can’t just pull some reality marble out of nowhere and win like that! It’s impossible!” He grabbed the nearest blade out of the ground, and hefted it. “I’ll kill you with your own weapons then! But I won’t die! Matou Shinji won’t die like this!”

Shirou sighed.

“Shinji, you’re already dead.”

...

“Eh?” Shinji blinked, and looked down. “...why... why?” The sword clutched in his hands had impaled him, stabbing through his stomach and through his spine. Even as he watched, his own hands pushed it deeper, cutting off his own life with each centimeter. “This is...”

Shirou looked up. “Sayonara.” He said softly.

“DAMN YOU EMIYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Shirou closed his eyes, and the graveyard of swords faded around him along with Shinji’s screams. When he opened them again, he was in the tower again, and Shinji’s body didn’t even resemble something human anymore. It was over.

He walked to the only door he saw in the wall. He pushed it open, and stepped out onto a balcony looking over the city.
It was dying. The buildings were falling apart, and the population was made up of criminals and slaves. There was no happiness there.

The sun was setting in front of him, and for the first time in years, he simply watched it sink below the horizon.

Behind him, Amelia, panting, ran up to him and was about to ask about how the battle had gone when she stopped.

She could see his eyes. They shed no tears, but she could see them nonetheless.

It was as if they were forged of steel once, but had rusted to the point where they could no longer be called sharp. They were hard, yet soft at the same time. Putting up a powerful image of mercilessness on the outside and inside. She saw, saw through those eyes and beneath. She saw the tears that he would never be able to shed for fear of rusting himself further.

He couldn’t cry.

Those eyes couldn’t cry, because they were the eyes of a superhero.

[ZidanReign]

WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE MAKING US FEEL SAD AND DEPRESSED WHILE FEELING GREAT EMOTIONS AT THE SAME TIME

I AM SO CONFLICTED RIGHT NOW

[ItsaRandomUsername]

I thought this one was pretty epic myself. The OCs could have been a little more flesh out, but overall I still thought that the ending was friggin' awesome.

[I3uster]

I absolutely love the beginning of the story.

[one piece of infinity]

At first I thought that was Shirou going through the fire again, then Archer popped up...

Gotta say, I absolutely loved the ending, for some reason it reminded me of Ezio and Altair from the Assassin's creed series when they're both old (must have been the hood)

[ItsaRandomUsername]

The beginning was indeed pretty epic and set the mood right off the bat.

Also, I downloaded the PDF of this, along with my other FF contest faves.

[Brynhilde]

You're the person who wrote this, Bloble?!??!?!

*Bryn worships Bloble*

[Ergast]

It was very good. A pity that you broke the mood with the cross-examination and then the little travel at another dimesion with just changes in color. That completely broke the tension, for me. Until that moment, I could taste the manliness and sheer determination of Old Emiya. After that, it just wasn't the same.

[Laith]

Oh, oh, you wrote this Bloble? I liked this one the most of the Action category!

I mean, I saw coming the twist of who was the bad guy and the whole second magic thing was a bit out of place, but still, it told a story and it was pretty good.

[Larekko12]

I liked shinji in this. I like the duality of their natures in this. How they were both so very grey to dark. Both doing things great and low for thier own veiws. I picked out that it was Shinji at Emiya.

[Mattias]

That was excellent. I suspected it was Shinji from the start but the Evangelion line clinched it. Of course Shinji would love Shinji...

[one piece of infinity]

Interesting...never thought of it that way...