Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One: The Rudest Awakening
Chapter Two: A Noble's Prerogative
Chapter Three: Children's Quarrels
Chapter Four: How to Deal With Your New Haircut
Chapter Five: Another Side, Another Mess
Chapter Six: The Aristocrats
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The monster’s body was intricate, standing several stories tall and dozens of meters wide. In terms of sheer size it eclipsed most houses easily, rivaling even a mansion in size. Scaled tendrils extended from a central body, reaching out to catch and devour prey. The creature would strike fear and more into the hearts of any who looked at it. It was a one of a kind being of pure destruction and hatred that could only appear once every thousand years.
A girl with short blond hair and pointed ears knocked on one of the tendrils with her knuckles and felt only solid stone. The monster was merely a statue. She frowned. “Are you sure it’s dead?” she asked. “This thing looks untouched, even after all those cuts I gave it. And I don’t really trust your spells to take down something this big without blowing it to pieces.”
“It’s dead,” her slightly shorter companion chirped happily. “Or close enough to dead that it doesn’t matter. I’m not really sure about how it works, but it won’t be able to wake from that state on its own.” The man, who could easily be mistaken for a boy if not for his faded white hair and dark robes, was overwhelmingly cheerful, and thus also the complete opposite of his companion.
“On its own?” The girl narrowed her eyes and drew a polished sword from the scabbard at her back. “If there’s someone who can revive this monster and bend it to their will, we should just end it here and now.”
“Relax, Sasha! You’re being too serious,” the young looking man said. “You’d need a wizard of my calibre to at least attempt such a thing, and those simply don’t exist!”
“The elves might have one,” Sasha retorted, but sheathed her sword again. “In fact, I’d go so far as to say they definitely have a few people who can match you.”
“Hm, that’s worrisome indeed,” the man admitted. He drew his long robe around himself and smiled again. “But that’s why I have you to protect me, my familiar!”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Sorry, sorry!” The man’s eyes suddenly became serious. “But really, it coming back to life is impossible. What I’m more worried about is where this thing came from. I’ve never seen nor read about anything like it. According to the survivors from the village, it suddenly appeared out of nowhere. If there are more like it…”
“Three villages,” Sasha said after a moment of silence. “It took out anything that stood in its way, be it elf or man. Their weapons bounced off its skin and it ripped through the strongest magic with ease. How many Explosions did you give it?”
“A half dozen,” the man admitted. “I probably could have destroyed it though. Eventually.”
“You don’t sound very sure.” Sasha smiled suddenly. “Is this big bad Brimir afraid he’s losing his touch? Maybe you should retire already and spend the rest of your life reading books or something.”
“Nope! Not while the human race is being threatened. I still have plenty of work to do.”
“Like getting rid of this thing, for example?” Sasha whacked one of the stone tendrils with her sheathed sword, and Brimir winced. “You can’t just leave it like this. It’s in the middle of a village for crying out loud! Just blow it up so we can haul the pieces off to some ditch.”
“An elven village.” Brimir said. “And no, I’m not breaking it. It- no, she’s still alive.”
“It’s a girl now!? Come on, what’s with you? This thing mercilessly slaughters anything it meets and you want to give it mercy, but you’re planning out on wiping out my people completely? That’s hypocritical, no matter which way you put it.”
Brimir sighed. “Sasha, please. We can talk about the… elf thing later. For now, this thing is what we should be worried about. And in this state, she’s harmless. I felt some of her thoughts as we fought. Suddenly thrust into a strange world, forced to feed on humans just so she could survive past a few seconds… she’s someone to be pitied, not hated.”
“So you want to spare her? So that one day she can wake up and kill more people again? This is a monster, Brimir! Worse than any dragon or other creature I’ve met! I doubt even Vindalfr could tame it.” Sasha unsheathed her sword and climbed onto one of the tentacles. “I’m sticking my sword in its eye, and that’s final.”
“I’ll seal it.”
“Hm?” Sasha paused.
“I’ll seal it,” the boy repeated. “So that no one can touch it. It’s not a monster, just a statue that’s unbreakable and unmovable. Nothing will even disturb it, unless it’s powerful enough to break through my magic.”
“…so you’ll damn it to an eternity of torture?”
Brimir smiled again. “Not torture. Sleep. The rest that she deserves. And if it ever wakes, it shall only do so to aid others, not destroy them. For that, you have my promise.”
Sasha paused. She cursed, then cursed once more, but she also came down from the statue’s tendrils. “You’re an idiot,” she said. “One day, you’ll realize just how much those thoughtless actions of yours have screwed up the world. But until then, I suppose I’ll have to keep following you to make sure you don’t do something even more stupid than usual.”
“Love you too, Gandalfr.”
“Shut up.”
Sasha watched as Brimir chanted a sealing spell, and sighed once more. It was a familiar feeling, that annoyance. Accepting that wizard’s pact had been the worst decision she’d ever made. He was the kind of person who would commit genocide just to save his people, but refuse to destroy a monster that had slaughtered hundreds. Every single thing he did felt like it was designed to infuriate her.
“Done!” he chirped, then did a little dance to celebrate.
Sometimes Sasha had a hard time believing the tiny man had managed to father three children, master magic beyond mankind’s wildest dreams, and wipe several armies off the face of the earth.
As the two companions walked away from the ruined village and the statue that stood there as the final testament to the destruction it had caused, only Sasha looked back. Her hand went to her blade, which trembled in her grasp, but she let go of it quickly before it could do anything. She glared at the one eyed monster and restrained her urge to kill it again, before turning and following Brimir.
As they walked, Brimir’s smile slowly became a frown.
“Sasha?” Suddenly, he spoke.
“Hm?”
“Have you ever heard of something called a Holy Grail?”
More than six thousand years later…
“Is it dead?”
In the centre of the clearing, the aftermath of an explosion resolved itself. A rather short girl stood in the middle of an expanding cloud of smoke, her heart sinking to her feet like a stone as she tried to deny the reality before her. Even as she tried to peer through the temporary fog, the buzz of whispers built up around her.
“She killed her familiar? The Zero?”
It was unmistakable. The smoke cleared away in mere seconds courtesy of a hasty wind spell, revealing the crime scene and the girl’s miserable expression to the crowd, as well as the mutilated body that lay in the center of the blast’s radius.
He was certainly a mess. The boy’s strange uniform was all torn up and bloodied, the scent of burnt flesh was already permeating the air, and the girl noticed his right arm was definitely bending in the wrong direction. More importantly, though, he wasn’t moving. Amidst the shrieks of several startled students, the tiny blonde standing before the dead body dropped to her knees, not comprehending what had just happened.
“Zero’s a murderer!”
“I knew she’d snap eventually.”
“She’s started killing commoners… how barbaric.”
Tears appeared at the corner of the girl’s eyes, poised to fall. She opened her mouth, perhaps to defend herself, and then closed it again without saying a word. There was no way she could deny what she had done, even if she had no idea how. The Springtime Familiar summoning ritual wasn’t supposed to give this kind of result!
“Miss Vallière…” As his words trailed off, a balding man in dark robes strode past his almost crying student. “Step back, please.”
Vallière stood and took a few shaky steps back as her professor knelt by the boy and put an ear to his chest. The entire crowd went silent, even the variety of beasts and monsters floating around. One, a large dragon, seemed like it was about to squeak, before its Master, a petite blue haired girl, stopped it with a tap of her staff to its neck.
A full minute passed before the professor straightened and stood up.
“He’s alive,” he said with a frown on his face. “Barely, but alive. Miss Vallière, finish the contract and take him to the infirmary immediately.”
“Huh?” The teary eyed girl looked up, not understanding his words.
“The contract, Miss Vallière. Finalize it so we can accept this boy as your familiar and treat him.”
“What?” She blinked and rose to her feet, wobbling like a broken bobble head. “But he’s a human! No one’s ever contracted with a human before. And he looks like he’ll die any second.”
“So she’s contracting with a half dead commoner?”
“He’ll be a skeleton in a month!”
“Hey, skeletons are cool. Too cool for the Zero!”
“Quiet.” The professor’s voice was uncharacteristically hard compared to his usual demeanor, and the shock of hearing him talk that was enough to shut up the students, if only temporarily. “Miss Vallière, we don’t have time to argue now. You summoned this boy for Springtime Familiar Summoning, so he’s your familiar, dead or not. Now hurry up so we can get his wounds treated, unless you want his death on your conscience.”
Vallière opened her mouth to reply, but after hearing a pained groan from the wounded boy, she closed her mouth again without complaint. Apparently debating something, she took a few tentative steps towards her familiar. His eyes fluttered open as she knelt by his side and her gentle hands encircled his face.
Lilac. His eyes were lilac, like the flowers in her mother’s garden. Eyes that stared into and through the girl’s own. He looked almost peaceful, yet his pulse was weak and fluttered irregularly. He unconsciously opened his mouth and took a weak, rattling breath.
The girl decided.
She whispered: “My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière. Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers; bless this humble being and make him my familiar. Please.”
The first thing the boy saw as he opened his eyes was the blurry face of the girl showing an expression of absolute despair as their bodies became closer and her lips touched his. It was only a moment, but the kiss felt like it lasted an eternity.
An eternity long enough for the boy to recognize just a few things: that the girl kissing him was quite small, her eyes quite large, and that her hair was shining bright white thanks to the sun at her back. Oh, and the sudden burning pain in his body, concentrated in his left hand, that made getting pummeled to death seem like a good way to go.
He screamed.
Louise jumped backwards as the boy’s howl startled (closer to terrified, really) her. She fell backwards, wincing as her derriere struck the blasted, barren ground.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!”
The circle of students recoiled at the noise, and it was instantly joined by shrieks and yells.
Despite his broken, burning body being particularly uncooperative, the boy somehow managed to get himself moving. He stumbled drunkenly, feeling as if he had simultaneously been burned, shot, mugged, and given a terrific beat down all at once, with the actual reality being not far off. The burning sensation faded after a moment, though, and with it the volume of his screams died down, until he collapsed and fell to his knees, supporting his broken body with his one good arm while keeping his broken one limp.
“W-what do you think you’re doing, commoner?” Unlike the other students, Louise recovered almost instantly. “If you’re well enough to be awake, then don’t scare me like that!”
“Aaaaaah.” The boy clenched his teeth and suppressed the pain in his limbs and arm. Even though he felt as if he’d been through a tornado, he forced himself to look up again, his eyes darting around, looking for the white haired girl and seeing only different coloured blurs.
“Vallière, give him some room to breathe.” The balding professor said, but he was relaxed now that he could be sure the familiar wasn’t on the brink of death. “He looks well enough, if a bit shaken. He’s probably disoriented from the summoning. Oh, and congratulations on succeeding with ‘Contract Servant’ on your first try.”
Louise nodded, biting back another biting remark. But just as she reasserted her self control, the students decided that there was no danger, and their bravery returned along with a bunch of crude remarks involving ‘Zero’, ‘commoner’, and several words too rude to list.
She ignored them, too focused on being annoyed at the bloody boy for stealing her first kiss like that. Or more accurately, forcing her to give it up. “I… don’t suppose I can get another one, Professor Colbert?”
“Not unless he dies,” the professor said. He looked at the kneeling boy. “But he’ll live, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with him for now. I do suggest you see to his wounds though, Miss Vallière.”
“I will, I will.” She bit back a retort and looked at her familiar once more. He was taller than her, definitely, but otherwise seemed like an ordinary commoner, although she had a hunch that his face would be fairly pretty without all the blood covering it. “Familiar!” she called out. “Your Master is over here. Come!”
The boy swiveled towards the source of noise and locked his eyes onto the pale haired girl. He took a few shaky steps forward, until he was standing only a few feet away, looking down at her tiny form.
“Alright, back to class, everyone. Miss Vallière, you are excused so you can take care of your familiar. Go ask a teacher to heal him. I’ll handle the payment for the reagent since I was in charge of the summoning.” Colbert spun in place and floated gently in the air, followed by the rest of the class. Students all rose, defying the laws of physics in the process. All save Louise, who stayed on the ground looking at her tattered familiar.
“Well? Are you going to say anything?” she asked, irritated now. On top of her messed up robes, she tasted blood as well, making her first kiss most unsatisfactory. “I hope you feel happy for successfully embarrassing me in front of the class. Not that it makes much of a difference.”
“…”
“Nothing? Can you even speak, familiar? Or did that explosion rattle your mind, too?” Louise was tempted to simply blow up her familiar for disobeying her orders, but upon looking at its frankly pitiful form, she decided to stick to displaying her anger vocally until he- it was healed. But after more silence, she began to get worried. “Um. Are you okay?”
“You.” Suddenly, he spoke. Louise watched his face moved, like a car slowly starting up after years of disuse. He cycled through a myriad of expressions, and Louise was stuck watching him, strangely fascinated by the sight.
First there was fear, again. Merely an echo of the scream that had earlier sent him reeling, but it was still there. But why would he be afraid of her?
The fear was soon replaced by bewilderment. It was as if he had no idea what was going on. The boy frowned, evidently thinking very hard about something Louise couldn’t quite pinpoint.
And then in quick succession, realization, anger, and finally a hint of glee. Somehow those emotions fit together, and seeing a twisted, maniacal grin suddenly appearing on her familiar’s face gave Louise pause. Suddenly, the boy before her wasn’t a half dead animal, but a wounded dog that could rip her throat out without provocation.
She took a step back, but the boy’s good arm shot out, grabbing her shoulder. Louise raised her wand to scream and blow him away for touching her, but hesitated as she saw his wounds. No, any more punishment and he’d be killed.
“I’ll kill you,” he growled. His grin was gone, replaced by a mask of hatred. He was clearly furious, yet his voice was perfectly calm, almost unnaturally so. “You should have let me die. But now that your Servant is gone, there’s nothing that can protect you. So I’ll kill you, Illyasveil von Einzbern. I swear it. You will regret the day you let Matou Shinji live.”
And with those words, the boy’s sudden burst of strength disappeared. His eyes rolled up into his head, and he collapsed, falling like a puppet cut from its strings onto the grass.
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So yup. This is happening.
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Originally Posted by lantzblades
