[FF] Phantoms (by Burnout)

[ItsaRandomUsername]

Except Lancer isn't Cuchulain this time around. :X

[Burnout]

The veil of the world parted, the edges of the cut drawing back like a curtain – Taking us from the frost-cracked ground of the Association’s manor to a pitch-black field in a single stride. Reality had worn thin, thin like bleached and ancient cloth, when we stepped through; It was impossible to tell where the rolling blackness of the earth ended, and the twisted darkness of the sky began.


The Cloth of Matthew fluttered as I knelt, stiffly, sinking my fingers into the powdery earth. Behind me, the angular shape of his rifle cradled in his arms, Assassin scanned the shadows with professional caution – Just a blurred shape against the pall of night, his watchful silhouette never straying from my side.


Around us, the skeletal shapes of buildings rose up like the bars of a cage. The hollow shells of abandoned houses and faded storefronts stood at crooked angles to the winding streets: As if they’d been sketched into being by a palsied hand, then left to decay. Here, though, there was only the blank expanse of open field, where black sky met blacker earth.


“Do you know where we are, Assassin?” I asked. There was a bitter stench to the air, a wretched ash-and-bone reek; it suffused the burnt field, with a foul, hanging odor like charred meat, always on the very edge of perception.


Assassin shrugged. “Somewhere bad. Someplace burnt.” His opera cloak fluttered, as a cold wind rose from the west, gusting dust across the empty expanse. “-What is this place, Master?” I could hear the unease in his voice – The strange, unsettling atmosphere preying on him, too.


“This,” I said, letting the dust trickle away, powdery white ash swirling on the moaning wind, “-this is where the Fourth War ended.”


In the end, it’d come down to the two of them, in one of Fuyuki’s most sacred sites. Just two men, in the place where the Grail was unleashed:


The Magus Killer, who cast aside everything.


The Executioner, who lived for nothing.


A final duel between Masters – A battle to the death, beneath the pitiless eye of the black sun.


In an eyeblink, the old world had been swept away, as the familiar town turned to ashes, as fire and death raced through the streets –






“This is where it all began,” I murmured, reverently – Thinking of a small figure, lost and wounded amid the flames. Stumbling, falling, rising again; Tempered by fire, hammered by the black earth...


-Forged into something to enforce the ‘common sense’ of the world.


Like me, I thought. Like me.





**********************


“What’s your name?”


“----- ----------“


A gesture, as if snatching a fly. The red lady opens her hand again, and shakes it as if brushing cobwebs from her fingers.


“-I see. I’ll take it from you, and give it back changed.”


In the flame-light of the burning mansion, her black hair flutters like a living thing. The woman’s hands are cold…But her voice is soft, and her smile is warm.


**********************


Wrapped from wrist to shoulder, my left arm ached. Beneath layers of swathing bandages, discolored striations marked my flesh: Raised veins and swollen capillaries forming a circuit-pattern under the skin, throbbing faintly in time to the beat of my heart. I exhaled, trying to ignore the unwelcome sensations – adjusting my stance to shift Tyrfing’s case closer within reach.


The graft had taken, with tenacity instead of grace; the angry red swelling already beginning to recede, though it’d be a while yet before it took root. The discomfort was a constant, scratchy pain, and I felt the skin crackle each time I flexed my fingers – But all-in-all, it was settling far better than I’d expected.


A Corpse Crest is a necessary barbarity, for the Association. Magicians die all the time, heirless or far from home – Rather than let the accumulated knowledge be lost, a Crest can be extracted, restored...


-Stolen.


It’s a simple procedure, but all the more dangerous because of it: In most cases, unless certain steps are taken, the host’s soul rejects the transplant, with crippling consequences.


In most cases, of course.


I hadn’t lied when I told Kazuya that my gift was a common one…But I’d never met anyone with quite the same ability. It’d been an unclean, squamous feeling, all the same, when I laid hands on the cold, dead form; The stark lines of the Crest sinking into my arm like barbed fishhooks, just vague, inky lines as they clawed their way up slowly – agonizingly slowly – through my flesh…


I rose, dusting myself off. It didn’t bear thinking about, not now; Not with more immediate problems at hand. We hadn’t emerged here by accident; It was the sense of wrongness that’d drawn us, a foulness alien yet achingly familiar at once-


-The stench of the wolf-things we’d killed. The taint of the Shadow.


It’d had been here before us. The ground had been made unhallowed, the stink of wormwood and placenta still fresh – A smell far worse than the charred slopes and blackened rocks of the blasted field. Two of Fuyuki’s sacred sites despoiled, in as many nights…First the temple, now here.


The logic of it eluded me. Tainting Fuyuki’s leylines was a pointless action; the cycle of mana had already reached a natural peak, and cutting them off wouldn’t impede the Grail’s function. (Or so I’d been told.) But someone had expended considerable effort to poison the well – Leaving only the question…


-What kind of Master would do this?


In the distance, dull flashes flickered behind the clouds, rumbling sounds echoing through the night. Far away – My guess was to the north – there was a glow, as if something big on the other side was burning…Big like a skyscraper, or an entire city block.


“They’re really going at it,” I muttered, trying to peer through the blanket of debris fog. Except for the guttering light, it was eerily tranquil – A calm that recalled the stillness of death.


Assassin had gone perfectly still, reporting in taut, tense tones: “There’s a crater where Berserker and Saber used to be. And…Caster is fighting something, further north – Something that looks like a Servant, but…” He shook his head, the light in his eyes fading in and out. “I can’t be sure, Master. More of those things are joining the fight – Their numbers are quite substantial.”


“And Kazuya?” I urged – “Assassin, do you see Makiri Kazuya?”


There was a long, damned pause – And at last, he shook his head. “No.”


I drew Tyrfing underhand, rotating the blade to free it from the sheath, catching it full grip in a smooth, humming slide. “Then this is our chance,” I mused, as tendrils of mist curled away from the black steel. “Get your phantoms to their places, Assassin…We’ll be joining them soon.”


Assassin frowned; “I don’t understand, Master. Our chance to do what?”


“-Don’t you see, Assassin?” My lips peeled back from my teeth, in a mirthless grin. “We're going to kill Caster.”

[ItsaRandomUsername]

Burnout is back. And awesome as ever.

"Squamous." I just learned a new word today.

[Kieran]

New to me, too. It's always fun running across those.

So, a little bit of history, a little bit of setup - I look forward to seeing what happens when the dominoes start falling . . .

[Burnout]

Going from the blasted devastation of the open field to the twisting maze of streets was like stepping from one world to the next. The hazy glow of the flames cast hectic, jumping shadows, warring with the wan orange light of crooked streetlamps, the eerie illumination of flickering neon signs, still shedding their ghostly radiance.


The air was thick with smoke, the sky blacked-out beneath a hanging pall. Dust sifted through the uneasy breeze, the odd patch of snow gone from white to grey – Closer now, I could see the skeletal frame of a half-built skyscraper, now listing to the side; Fire squirmed in the upper levels, the black ribs of half-melted girders starkly silhouetted against the noxious blaze.


We found the first bodies in the shadow of the leaning tower; Heat-shrunken forms, locked in fetal curls, with scorched skulls too long, too canine to be entirely human. This close to the crater, the air felt strangely charged, bruised by a Noble Phantasm’s release - It felt like the aftermath of some terrible, seismic disaster, picking through the remains of the tattered and disfigured dead.


“Look at that,” I remarked, eyeing one of the misshapen fossils, tarry black residue still clinging to the bleached bones. The shaft of a red-fletched arrow protruded from one eye socket; Like quills, more bolts stippled the blistered flesh, driven cleanly through – staking the wolf-thing to the ground. “It seems like we’re not the only ones out hunting…I wonder what did this?”


They’d been fired with tremendous force; Striking hard, each broadhead point gouging deep into the ground underfoot at the same acute angle. Odd, that – The shuttered buildings on both sides rose too sharply for a clear shot, though the bodies made a jagged, uneven line – Shot down in rapid succession, one after another…


I turned, abruptly. Paused.


“What?” Reiji asked. “What’s wrong?”


I wasn’t sure. I opened my mouth to reply-


There was no warning, none at all; Just a flicker of intuition, come far too late.





It was a crimson streak, comet-bright and lightning-swift – A star of ill-omen so brilliant, so fast, I only saw the flash. The furious light slashed through a tottering storefront, through brick and concrete and rebar – Fired from above, slamming into the cracked pavement-


The air turned to light and flame. The surface of the street peeled away in a blizzard of cobblestones, the ramshackle buildings shredded, and everything turned white. The shockwave pelted me with a hailstorm of spinning debris and whirling fragments, plumes of white-hot shards – accelerated into flesh-flaying shrapnel, into lethal sprays of flechettes – blasting forth; I had time for a single step back, the dome of expanding radiance, red and angry, eye-searingly bright, sweeping towards me…


The world lurched, my feet pulled from the ground in a single swift surge. There was a dizzying lurch of motion, as I was wrenched up and into the air; The wind howling in my ears, plucking at the Shroud of Matthew, whirling me through a whistling arc-


Momentarily blinded, I hit the ground hard, with bone-rattling force; A thumpingly unceremonious landing, that sent me bruised and bouncing along a cluttered rooftop. Just when I hit the slope and began to slide, Assassin’s free hand lashed out with effortless accuracy, and latched around a cornice – His other, still locked on my belt, brought me to a stop facedown over a five-storey drop, hauling me back up.





The breath punched from my lungs, I gasped into the swirling winds, trying to stand…Only to feel his gloved hand on my back, pushing me down. “Stay down!” Assassin snapped, glancing up and away; “Don’t move, Master. Don’t even breathe.”


“What is…?”


“Sniper.”


A cold chill gripped my guts. “-How can he see us…?”


“He can’t.” He was hunched down, his grinning skull-mask belying the tension in his words. “He’s using something else, some kind of-”


This time, we saw it coming.


Assassin swept the folds of his smoke-cloak around me, as the glare lit up the world. The rooftop vanished in a spray of fire, gouting forth from the place we’d been – A blizzard of sparks flurrying up into the sky, hurled forth by the spear of matter-annihilating radiance. Windows shook in their frames; Streetlamps popped and exploded, the concussive ripple blasting forth a hailing shower of glass.






Shaken violently, suffering the awful turbulence of the blast, I was semi-conscious when Assassin let go; He’d taken us to the next building in a single bounding leap, flakes of drywall and pieces of strut wrenched away by the rushing wind. Wheezing for breath, I clawed at the concrete floor, dry-retching – Somehow, with a gut-wrenching effort, I managed to roll onto my side, too weak, too concussed to even think of standing.


“Stay low,” Reiji ordered – He looked back in the direction we’d come from, and swore. “-As I thought; He’s hunting by sound. The explosion covered us, but he’ll get the trail again, soon.” He worked his way to the edge, leaning into the gale; “I’m going after him, Master; Don’t wait for me.”


“-And since when do I take your orders?” I gasped, scrambling to my feet; I got as far as my knees, before dizziness overwhelmed me, my legs threatening to buckle.


Assassin threw me a glance. For one brief instance, he smiled – His face lighting up behind his mask, a grin sunny and insolent at once. “Watch your head, Master.”


“What?”


It wasn’t a kick, not really – More like a sudden, unexpected shove that sent me sprawling, folding me through a service hatch I hadn’t even seen. It slammed shut, hard, as I hauled myself back up. "Reiji!"


The hatch's manual dogs had unaccountably locked in place - They didn't budge when I wrenched at them, snarling; I almost used Tyrfing, but it occurred to me that if the sniper killed Assassin – Most of him, anyway – drawing attention would be an excellent way to make myself the next target.


I spared one last look up, flinching back as the hatch rocked; Plaster dust trickled down the walls, an ominous groan of tortured metal informing me that I wasn’t remotely safe. I couldn't stay here, either way - I had to get away, and trust Assassin to handle it.


Trust. The very thing that'd brought me so much grief; It would've been funny, if it wasn't so grim.


“I hope you know what you’re doing, Reiji,” I muttered – As close to a goodbye as I would allow myself.


Then I ran like hell.

[Kieran]

Trust you to get things restarted with a bang.

[Dantalion]

Still in total awe of Burnout's action scenes.

[warellis]

Are we soon going to see Archer and Ichiro's reaction to seeing him?

[Burnout]

He is reborn in blood and terror, and his Master’s voice fills his world.


Archer, you must survive.


Archer, you must not be defeated.


Archer-


-And the rest is lost, in the surrusation of insect wings and the frenzy of the devouring swarms.


The jewel’s radiant form lights his way.


**********************


Before him, the city stretched forever.


Like all cities, it was a vertical place, with towering spires straining ever-skyward, their shadows lost in the squalor below. The wind howled mournfully through the empty frames of half-finished towers, swirling around his limbs – His pulse coming slow and heavy, as if cold liquid metal ran in his veins, his form rigidly still in the cold air.


The city's name really wasn't of consequence; Each one was just a new place to get into, then get out of, once the job was done. He'd long since stopped worrying about the names - These days, it was often a struggle to remember where he was.


When he was.


Still. Loyal and weary and compelled, he'd been tasked once more.


Best to get on with it, then - It was long past nightfall, and it felt like time was running out.


**********************


In the weird light, the edges of his battered lamellar armor gleamed silvered-black. Beneath the lacquered breastplate, intricate knotwork spidered across the supple grey leather encasing his lean, rangy form. Furrowed lines sketched out the tendons of his limbs, the taut musculature of his chest, the sinews of his throat – The effect stark, morbid, like an anatomist’s study…Or a flesh statue, poised atop a barren roof.


Around him, a significance, a realness gathered - a vivid crimson intensity that eclipsed all else, the hard-edged light somehow only growing brighter when reflected. It matched the ruby gleam of his pendant, a tiny teardrop of blood-red color against his drab form…


-the exact same shade as the gnarled, twisted horror of his left arm.


In the eerie glow, it resembled a grotesque carving, only the slight twitch of misshapen claws betraying its animation. There was no disguising the limb’s warped inhumanity; the flesh had the crumpled, scaly quality of a hawk’s skin, the outside fingers of the executioner’s hand fused into lean, mobile claws. Overlapping plates of dark, pitted cartilage sheathed raw, flayed muscle - The nails curved into talons, hooked and cruel.


The rolling thunder of the distant explosion had yet to fully fade, the peal of the blast still dispersing into the night; He could hear the rush of displaced air, the reverberating groan of girders sagging back into shape – So very like the crash of waves against the hulls of the Taira fleet, churning through roiling black seas.


At maximum extension, the great sweep of his bow was nearly half-again his height, recurve arms crowned with antlered tips; But he took aim with a smooth, even draw that quite belied the monstrous strength behind his pull, the bow’s bone-ivory and horn limbs shivering with pent-up force.


A red-fletched arrow was already nocked - the killing point shaped and finished from a single, iron-hard scale, barbed like a backward-slanted comb. It smoked with seething hell-light, as Archer focused – Listening for the harsh clatter of footsteps, the hiss of labored breath…


-the click of a falling hammer-


Calmly, and without any particular haste, he took a single slow step as the crack of a heavy round split the air. The bullet merely scorched his temple, instead of blowing his brains out through his eyes; A spray of splinters puffed up behind him, chips blasted from the stone as he swung round...


-And let fly.


His answering shot howled away with a piercing shriek, the sound swooping from high pitch to low.


In the distance, the top half of a water tower vanished in a bloom of black-threaded flame. The metal struts ripped away and buckled, with a groan: Still smoking, it sheared clean off its mounting, toppling beneath its own weight. Cables snapped, with the sharp noise of gunshots, pylons splintering with the awful screech of twisted steel. The juddering crash made the ground shake, dust roiling up in a fuming plume.


“-And so it goes,” Archer murmured, with a philosophical shrug; Predatory yellow eyes narrowed, a clutch of arrows gripped between his fingers. His drawing hand nocked another, as he pulled the bowstring back – This time, intending to be absolutely certain-


The shotgun’s blast caught him in the back.


The hammer-blow impact smashed him through the guardrail, in an expanding cloud of buckshot - His body tumbling over the raised block of the roof, great craters of flesh gouged from his limbs. His masterfully crafted armor had held; the flechettes hadn’t penetrated, but the sheer concussive force sent him reeling away in a gouting spray of crimson.


It felt like his back was broken, as he went skidding across blood-slick tiles. It felt like his organs were pulped, but Archer hurled himself sideways as the shotgun thundered again, shattering the ceramic flooring to flinders. The Mossberg racked, the bore levelling as Archer reeled to his feet; Clotting blood already filling the cavities of his wounds, closing with sickening slowness-


He glimpsed the leering skull-mask, the ragged grey cloak that trailed like torn sails. Iron-headed darts spat from Archer’s bow in a sizzling red-streaked salvo – The masked killer throwing himself into a full-length dive, his shotgun’s muzzle lipping a spear of flame –


This time, Archer was already turning, left arm interposed, the great bow raised like a shield. A storm of wide-bore pellets ripped across him; Buckshot flaking off his dented armor in a shower of sparks, deflecting off plates of chitin. The dull concussion rang in his ears - Pain flaring in his legs, his shoulder, his skull…


It occurred to him, belatedly, that he'd forgotten how much this could hurt.


It'd been a while.


Charged with impossible force, Archer’s arrows hissed out – So fast, so brilliant, they were mere lines of light, zipping across the distance faster than the eye could track. His fire rate was ferocious; Drawing and releasing with blurred speed, heedless of the curtain of fire bracketing him -


The first two missiles punctured brick, shattering concrete with grinding cracks of impact. The third went through the eyeslit of that ivory mask, and another hit him in the ribs. The fifth punched entirely through his torso, and embedded itself in the wall behind him.


The masked killer crumpled, without a sound. He lay where he’d fallen, face-down, opera cloak in tatters.


Archer straightened, with a grunt, as his flesh reknit; His bleeding slowed, his messy, gouging wounds shrinking into long, ragged smears of scar tissue. It didn't stop wires of agony from ratcheted his ribs together, thick, clotting blood rolling down the back of his neck; He kept his elbow against his right side, willing it to close as he stood motionless, head cocked, listening to the singing silence.


A second ticked over. Another.


Still stiff, he limped forward, his body protesting with every step. As was his habit, his flesh hand rose, to touch the ruby teardrop at his chest, making it sway on its thin silver chain.


“You’re a really inconvenient person,” Archer drawled, voice tight with strain – Though his angular features crinkled in a wry smile, one that shone through the infinite weariness of his words.


This one had been a good shot, though. He'd be feeling that for a while to come.


Why didn’t he run? Archer wondered, the toe of his heavy boot hooking in the fallen figure’s shoulder. As the limp form rolled over, the odd weight made his drawn, lean features furrow; Why didn’t he…?


There was a click.


The expanding blossom of yellow flame mushroomed into the sky, and it rained burning ash for two blocks to come.

[ItsaRandomUsername]

Oh hell yes.

Also, it helped that I was listening to Search and Destroy as BGM for this particular fight.

[Dantalion]

So many hints for Archer's identity... But I have no idea what it is. ;_;
Still not sure what Assassin's "split" does... He's not just Zwei, is he?

[Burnout]

Assassin's Noble Phantasm is that he's the Phantom - All of them, simultaneously.

And all of them are him.

Spoiler:

[Kieran]

Have you ever considered writing action movies? You've got a heck of a knack for this stuff.

[Burnout]

It’d occurred to me, at some point during my descent, that office buildings were designed by sadists; I’d been climbing for what seemed like forever, and I still was no closer to the end. Halfway down the winding, endless stairs, bathed in the dim green light of emergency lighting, I stopped at the landing - Gripping the handrail for support, as I struggled to catch my breath.


The elevators were out, of course. Somewhere in freezing night, all power had been cut – Every door had sealed, and I wasn’t about to use sorcery until I was safely out of range. Being trapped was bad enough; being trapped in a burning, collapsing building didn’t bear thinking about.


I’d glimpsed two explosions, on the way down – The first had been a great, shuddering detonation, a distant thunderclap that’d ended in an earth-shaking crash. But the second one, though…There’d been a bright flash, bright enough to hurt, an expanding halo of flame searing the air. That had been the last one; an eerie quiet had descended, an ominous silence that didn’t reassure me in the slightest.


For what seemed like the thousandth time, I shot an uneasy glance at the Command Mantras: They’d flared, briefly, shedding enough light to cut through the murk, and had been glowing ever since. To the best of my knowledge, that meant Assassin was still alive.


Or at least, I hoped he was.


It was then - just then - that I heard the noises coming from below - Voices, made faint by the distance, but clear. Cautiously, I crossed to the nearest window, and shoved the lower edge until it came loose with a rusty squeal. There, in the alley beneath: The frantic clatter of footsteps, a figure running at full pelt into a dead end-


And I thought – Kazuya…What did you do?


Sharp-slanting moonlight illuminated his fleeing form, as he backed up against the far wall – His arms splayed against the cracked brick in the instant before he turned, labored breath smoking in the cold air. In the dim pulse of fireglow through the window, I could make out the way Kazuya clutched his right arm to himself, rivulets of red staining the tattered sleeves of his white shirt; “-why you’re doing this,” he was saying, voice clenched and tinny with pain. “-re’s no reason-“


A slight noise, before him – A metallic clank, a series of soft whirrs – and the shadows wreathing the mouth of the alley became a tall, severe beauty, the patient click of her heels striking sparks from the cobbles. Lucca’s skirts rustled, her pale porcelain face composed as angular shapes fanned out to either side; Each one swathed in the folds of shapeless black robes, moving with mechanical precision, blank silver faceplates catching the light.


Their weapon-limbs were armed and engaged, slicing edges hissing lightly through the air. Between them, the four Automata had eight double-edged, razor-sharp blades.


As they stalked towards him, Kazuya released his arm, to hang loose; A seething sphere of multicolored flame bubbled above his open palm, spontaneous frost blistering his skin. Cornered, he hunched down, squaring up like a boxer – His gaze darting back and forth, trying to watch all angles at once.


“Come on – come on, then-“


He was hurt, weak, vulnerable, his breathing fast and ragged. Alone, he might’ve managed one – Maybe two. But all four?


“It’s not my problem,” I muttered, though I couldn’t look away. “It’s not my problem.”


I knew then, right then, that I was glimpsing what was likely to be the last few seconds of Makiri Kazuya’s life. All I had to do – All I had to do, to remove Caster from the cold calculus of the War – was stand back and watch.


Let it happen, I told myself – It’s not your problem, just *let it happen*-


But I had made a promise.


A single indrawn breath summoned the power from within; The fatigue-blurred edges of the world snapping into sharp focus, as Enhancement sorcery seethed through my nerves. New vitality shuddered through me, flooding up through my veins, setting my muscles afire – coming to rest in my lungs like hot embers, radiating spikes of heat.


I backed up, to get a running start for the leap, and launched myself forward. The crimson shroud of the Sacred Cloth billowed around me, the edges flapping in the gusting wind as I fell; Dropping down, down, down, turning myself into a spear with Tyrfing for a blade-


-Until my flight ended, with the abrupt shriek of grinding metal. The black sword plunged through an Automata’s spine, as I smashed down on it from behind – The momentum driving the whirring golem to the ground, the edges of the cut glowing brightly as I wrenched the sword free.


They were fast, these clockwork soldiers: Already rotating to face the new threat, as I ploughed into them, Tyrfing scything out in savage cuts. The first stroke hacked under an Automata’s guard, a sweeping slash that sliced it entirely in half – It was still falling when I leapt past the dead machine, bringing the black sword up and around in a ferocious backhand, cleaving through a faceplate as I whirled to face the last.


It came at me in a skittering rush, blade-limbs rotating and scissoring, metal legs churning with the hammer of pistons. I ducked, under the lunging blades; Tyrfing sizzled upward in a massive upswing cut, carving a great gash across the thing’s torso – A hard kick pitched it to the ground, gouting plumes of sooty smoke as it thrashed in mechanical convulsions, too damaged to right itself.


In the space of five breaths, the alley wall had been sprayed with tarry black oil, gears and priceless sprockets crunched underfoot. With a sweep of my wrist, I brought Tyrfing up to guard, aware of the pale figure silhouetted against the mouth of the alley; Lucca hadn’t moved, not once, as I’d dismantled her puppets – Not even as their gutted forms completed the slow process of collapse, dead metal powering down and locking up.


She'd been watching me, of course. Studying my frenzied swordwork - Cycling through every possible combination of feints and parries I could use, holding them in readiness. I couldn't possibly hope to take her by surprise, now I'd revealed myself - And so I didn't even try to.


Kazuya stared. “You…?” he began, disbelieving – Even as I nodded, without turning, never taking my gaze off her. From the corner of my eye, I could make out his expression, transforming into relief tinged with awe, gathering dismay as he realized it wasn’t over.


Not yet.


The beginnings of a smile tugged at my lips; A perverse amusement gnawing at my heart, as I levelled Tyrfing’s point at Lucca’s throat.


Once – Once, a long time ago – I’d loved a woman with the same face. The shade of her hair (Pearlescent, rather than honey-blonde) – the luster of her eyes (Steel-grey, not stormy) – were different…But the dissimilarities made her more alike, somehow, not less.


It was her composure, of all things, that spoiled the illusion; Elise had always been vital, her joys and sorrows writ large. She’d been so passionate, so fiercely alive, that turning that life into death had very nearly ended me, too.


I grinned, all the same, squeezing Tyrfing’s hilt until the blade snarled to life in my hand. The hum made my teeth buzz, a coppery taste flooding my palate – A phantom ache knotting my guts, as I sighted along the shimmering length.


"If only you knew,” I said softly, my words addressed to Kazuya, to Lucca, to myself - But mostly to the midnight-black steel, lifted now in hungry anticipation: "-How much I'm about to enjoy this...”

[Kieran]

As described, Elise's colouring sounds familiar . . .

[Dantalion]

I don't really recognise it... Storm grey eyes and honey blonde? I can feel a trap, here, somewhere... Burnout, is Ichiro ever going to get a break?

[Burnout]

I can feel a trap, here, somewhere... Burnout, is Ichiro ever going to get a break?

But that would be telling!

Still, this situation isn't that bad for him.

[Dantalion]

I keep getting the feel that this is where he loses Tyrfing... Maybe you're just teasing us.

[Kieran]

I don't really recognise it... Storm grey eyes and honey blonde? I can feel a trap, here, somewhere... Burnout, is Ichiro ever going to get a break?

I got more white-blonde out of the description. Add that to grey eyes, and who does she remind you of?

[Burnout]

Swiftly, but without haste, I lifted Tyrfing above my head – my limbs warmed by embers of Reinforcement-fuelled heat, stinging with strength. Mist rose with each exhalation, as I faced Lucca down; My grin fixed, keeping my weight perfectly centered as I stared into those dull grey eyes-


Like a tableau, the scene was frozen in time, locked in the amber of Reinforced senses: A tiny, calm corner of my mind gauging the distance, making my final estimates as I breathed myself into calm.


-There was just one last, tiny detail...


“Where’s Schneider?” The words came out toneless, flat, tight with concentration - an empty question, to fill the breathless instant before contact.


She smiled, full lips parted over polished teeth. It was a chilling sight; Lovely, yet utterly inhuman, with the stilted precision of a dollmaker’s hand. Those eyes seemed to recede a little – But I could feel the smoke of hate in her affectless voice, as she shaped her answer; A single murmured word, rich with contempt.


“Near.”


My right foot swung forward in a single long step, and I moved. Reality bulged – The pent-up energy of Enhancement discharging, in a space-warping dilation that carried me across the distance in a fencer’s lightning-quick lunge.


Twenty meters, in a heartbeat. In a blurring, fathomless rush.


Tyrfing swept down, in an unstoppable stroke-


Lucca wasn’t there. Steel hissed crosswise – carving through the alley wall, in a screech of sundered brick and flaring orange sparks. A single strand of white-blonde hair sifted through the air with languid slowness as I spun, wrong-footed; Tyrfing slicing free from the stone, humming with frustrated agitation…


Kazuya’s voice rose in a tight murmur. “Tanaka, behind you-!”


She’d leapt. A breath ahead of Tyrfing’s sizzling arc, she swooped through the air, soaring with the effortless ease of a hunting eagle. Lucca banged down on the roof of a parked car, both feet planted, denting the metal; It jolted beneath her, soaking the impact as she flicked her wrist, a silvery flash unfurling in a speeding, humming blur-





Tyrfing swept across, and I smashed the missile aside. The collision jarred through my arms, with the doleful tolling of a struck bell; the force behind the blow had been simply appalling, enough to check me in step. I caught a fleeting glimpse of an almost-sphere ricocheting away, blades snickering back into cunningly-fashioned housings – It chimed, bright and lethal, as it glanced off the cracked street.


Some kind of chain weapon. Assassin had mentioned it, in passing, but I hadn’t expected something quite so intricate. It was already whipping back in wide arcs, a sinuous ripple of internal motion; I had to dodge to the side, ducking to avoid the hissing chain. Before she could reel it in, before she could cast again, I surged forward-


-And like a trained falcon, the arcing links looped around my left wrist, cinching tight. A single hard pull sent me reeling forward, all balance gone; I slammed into the car’s side with bruising force, my legs buckling beneath me as Tyrfing’s point jarred along the frame.


Lucca kicked me in the face.


The impact was a blast of white fire, sending the breath whooshing from my lungs – I lashed out, swinging wildly, and the links fell away, sheared through. I felt my cheekbone gape, sliced to the bone, as I stumbled back; Only distantly aware of the burning ribbon of pain blossoming across my face, warmth pattering serenely into my collar.


And I thought: How…?


Her boots. Her boots were edged in metal, honed to a sharp cutting edge.


Lucca raked her skirts back, and lashed out at my head; I slipped past the blow, narrowly, the razors in her soles slicing only air. Still dazed, I slashed at her with Tyrfing, one-handed - She kicked my hand away, leaving an angry crimson slash across my knuckles. Her knifelike boot sliced my leg, a white line on my thigh turning into a long red gash-


To hell with this-


Cut, bleeding, I snapped my left arm out, like a whip. The loops of loose chain splashed across her face, and I heard a distinct crack – Tiny flecks of something spinning aside, like shards of precious stone. Automata or not, she staggered back; In that precious half-second opening, I raked out with Tyrfing-





And sheared half her face away.


It was a wild, ill-timed blow – A desperate slash that caught her just above her left eye. It carved down, through her scalp, her skull; slicing away her cheek and ear, peeling the flesh back to reveal the sculpted metal of her bones.


If Lucca hadn’t been reeling away, it would have most assuredly killed her; But then she was clutching at her face, bewildered by the shock, the disorientation, her eyes – One set in ivory-rimmed sockets, the lens cracked, the other entirely human – wide with agony.


She screamed. A monotone, howling wail – spiraling upward into a shriek of suffering and sorrow, and raw, heart-rending pain. It was a Doll’s scream, a high, sobbing note of absolute anguish as quicksilver welled up between her grasping fingers -


Tyrfing circled, coming across for the deathblow…


-And for one terrible moment, I saw Elise again, crimson breath wheezing through the tattered shreds of her throat. I was too slow; I couldn’t strike her, not now, not when I had to look into those eyes, seeing neither hate nor rage, only stark agony-


A wide kick kept me at bay, for just long enough. Before I could close, she lurched away with a machine’s jerking gait; Lucca’s limbs twitching like a crushed spider’s as she fled blindly, without grace. Below, the orphaned sphere of her weapon rattled with a mindless click-click-click, cycling up in a snickering rush…


“Down-“


Kazuya shoved me, *hard*, and I fell.


The air filled with scything metal, rotating fragments hurled forth by a sharp, tinny bang; Crescent splinters riddled the walls, and the car’s windows shattered – Shards of safety glass clattered on the cold stone, as if to punctuate the end of the brief, savage fight.


But for the first time in a while – In a very long while – I felt...


I felt...


-ashamed.