“I swear, I don’t know which one of you two idiots is the worse influence on the other.”
Tohsaka Rin was pissed off, plain and simple. Nothing suggested otherwise. Anyone who saw how she incessantly paced back and forth through the hotel room would’ve been reminded of an antsy wildcat stalking about its cage. Further proof of just how angry she was was how she didn’t break eye contact with the ones who drew all of this ire. Her gaze wandered with her troubled thoughts, but she never fully took her sight off of them. She had a mostly unfounded gut feeling that if she stopped reproachfully glaring at them for even a second there’d be even more trouble waiting for her to clean up the next time she looked.
The opening line of dialogue and this paragraph do well to create an initial mood. There is a contradiction between the phrases “didn’t break eye contact” and “gaze wandered with her troubled thoughts, but she never fully took her sight off of them.” It is not possible for her to hold eye contact, during which her attention would need to be directed at their eyes, while her gaze is wandering around. However, the analogy to a caged wildcat is both appropriate and amusing. Overall, this paragraph is an effective opener to the story, setting both the clear indication of the situation’s basis as “trouble” and for positioning Rin as a character in the same perspective as the reader.
It didn’t particularly help. The pair was still uncooperative to various degrees, in their own ways. As for whom exactly these two hellions were that she was forced to admonish-
Since “that she was forced to admonish” is a subordinate clause in this sentence, the subject of the sentence is “hellions” and the predicate “were”. The use of “whom” is incorrect and should be changed to “who”.
Illyasviel von Einzbern boldly locked eyes with Rin in some sort of counter dominance display. Emiya Shirou just looked like he wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. Even so, he still tightly held her small hand.
When Tohsaka saw that she scowled. Illya scowled right back.
Very childishly defiant. This is certainly an appropriate response for Illya, and Shirou as well.
“Do you even understand the gravity of the situation?” Tohsaka asked, “You can’t just do what you did and expect there to be no bad consequences.”
“And what of the good?” Illya countered, “Are you willing to deny the positive effects of our actions?”
Tohsaka pursed her lips. Grit her teeth. “Don’t act like you knew that going in. You essentially threw rocks at a hive because you decided it was your business to see if it had any bees. Only in doing so you inadvertently invaded a powerful micronation and assassinated one of its chief politicians. What were you even thinking?”
This analogy is a bit of a stretch. Vampire’s lair:beehive is functional, but I question the second analogy of Fredensborg:Svelten::Micronation:Politician. Simply from a narrative perspective, this creates a strange impression. Still, I suppose Rin is known for her bad comparisons so this is quite acceptable.
“Life’s just a series of small miracles isn’t it, Tohsaka?” Shirou replied. This comment caused the full brunt of her baleful staring to be directed right at Shirou. His shifted his gunmetal gaze to the side to avoid direct eye contact with the distressed woman. All things considered, her vitriol was justified. Still, he felt that if he didn’t at least do something to deter her attempts to undermine them she’d just lose sight of priorities.
Illya said, “If you want to be technical over analogies we knew full well the hive was active and went in with full intentions. What we stumbled upon was a mutant rogue strain of Africanized bees that boasted a lovely mother lode of honeycomb.
It seems very strange of Illya to compare Enhance and a sturdy boombox to a honeycomb.
“You’re spot on with that micronation bit, though. Kudos to you, Rin,” and finished off with a perfectly cherubic smile.
I am personally in favor of eschewing opening quotes in the case of multi-paragraph dialogue. However, I cannot truly fault you for using it, since it is already convention. Illya’s line fees quite sarcastic, which is a nice reinforcement of her attitude toward Rin.
Being an educated magus, Tohsaka knew full well of the terrible might of cherubim.
“You might be in the right in some capacity,” Tohsaka fully admitted as she collapsed onto a chaise lounge directly across from the loveseat the two shared. She was tempted to break into the bottle of complimentary champagne and drown her bad feelings in the traditional way of her family, but resisted the impulse to imbibe, “Might be,” she sternly elaborated with a tone heavy with real gravitas, “But, the morality of this matter doesn’t mean anything right now. This little stunt marked you as walking blood money.”
Now this is a fantastic paragraph. I had to look up the term “chaise lounge” but I have to admire your use of furniture terminology, mysterious author. One of the lines, “with a tone heavy with real gravitas” is redundant, highlighted in part by the double use of the prepositional phrase. A simplification would work just as well, for example “with a grave tone” but if you want to retain the style of the narration, it might just be enough to omit “real” so that the sentence flows more smoothly.
Whether it was irresponsible or thoughtful of them to do (GRAMMAR ERROR HERE) didn’t matter as much as she made it seem. Tohsaka wasn’t just angry. She was also afraid. Not for herself, though she had a healthy respect for death. Her concern was for the recklessness of the two before her.
“of them to do ___” Dropped a word there. Perhaps you could join “Tohsaka wasn’t just angry. She was also afraid.” into a single sentence, with a semicolon?
“This was all Illya’s fault. I just know it,” The young woman complained out loud and a catty “Hey!” was uttered by the accused party in reply, “Seriously, Emiya, you do something crazy you’ll make the other people in your life sad.” As she warned Shirou, Tohsaka nervously twiddled her thumbs. It was only for a moment. No one else noticed how she made this gesture but her.
“Seriously, Emiya, you do something crazy you’ll make the other people in your life sad.” is a rather awkward line of dialogue. Convention dictates that a conditional statement like this start with an “if” unless the speaker is talking casually. Rin doesn’t seem to be, so it feels inappropriate.
That was her self-imposed duty: to foster as much divergence as possible. She would condemn herself to Hell if she let the future she saw come to pass.
Now this is curious. I would imagine that this predicts his progression to EMIYA.
Difficult things were difficult. She imagined just giving in and letting the icy bubbliness of the chilled drink go down her throat. All she had to do was get that cork off and then this work wouldn’t feel so much like work anymore. Tohsaka put that aside and switched gears to do the comparatively more responsible thing: chew out these two, “You really ought to control your other half better.”
A period would be fine after “chew out these two” as it is a closing phrase for its sentence.
“Why would you say that like it was possible?” Shirou groused empathetically. Illya squeezed his fingers tight enough to make him wince a little. “There’s not much straight thinking between the two of us when we both get riled up, and especially over something that big.”
I laughed here. This is an adorable way to resign.
“Well then,” Tohsaka went on “dare I even ask how this absurdity came to be? If you drop a bomb like this I at least expect that much out of it.”
As she asked this, she gestured to the shadowy man standing passively in the corner. Who had been there the whole time. Who was clearly not human. Who knew better than to get in the way of a scorned woman.
What a fun use of anaphora.
“Umm…” Illya looked at Shirou with an expression that bore an uncertain kind of tautness. Shirou was clearly on the same wavelength as her because he mirrored her wide eyed-ness. “Yeah,” she said, apparently coming to some unspoken agreement, “I suppose there’s a way we can relay to you as much as you need to know in order to get the facts straight.”
Perhaps a comma would be appropriate prior to “because he mirrored...”? It’s certainly your style to omit them, and while that creates a snappier narrative flow, in some cases, it would be better to include it than to not.
‘As much as I need to know?’
The entire sentence ought to be italicized, but it would be better that the quotation marks and the punctuation are not, since the italics do not indicate thoughts, and so should be restricted to the text.
“Yes. There are details that we,” she referred to herself and Shirou, “needn’t share for personal reasons, and we simply can’t speak for some of the viewpoints because we’re not privy to their experiences. We can only tell you what we choose to tell you, and that’s our limitation as storytellers.
“Even so, what happened tonight was definitely caused by the convergence of two stories-”
You cheeky thing.
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He fucked up.
He fucked up real bad this time.
There he was, trapped in absolute darkness, deep within the Frankensteinian hull of the Fredensborg. The ship was so sizable that there was no discernable rocking. There was no distant, mercifully tangible indication that motion existed, a weak but there proof that the world out there actually existed and that it wasn’t always an elaborate hallucination in his head. It was still in his black prison.
This paragraph is a bit repetitive, and not in an effective way. “The ship was so sizable that there was no discernable rocking. There was no distant, mercifully tangible indication that motion existed,” these two can be merged into a single sentence, and “a weak but there proof that the world out there actually existed and that it wasn’t always an elaborate hallucination in his head.” could be reworked into its own sentence. Additionally “that it wasn’t always an elaborate hallucination in his head” would benefit from the pluperfect, into “that it hadn’t just been an elaborate hallucination” simply for the sake of indicating that his observations of the outside world were made prior to his imprisonment. Additionally, the final sentence rings feels like it could have opened the paragraph instead. Perhaps edit it to suggest a continuous state, rather than an instantaneous observation?
The void he was sentenced to was only a facsimile of what a real one could be like. It was produced by human hands. Of course the experience would be a limited one. That was why the original shell was refined upon by the capabilities of once-human hands. That way it was no longer simply limited to be just a void.
The prepositional phrase in the first sentence is a bit awkward. “of what a real one could be like” is a bit heavy handed, and uses a few too many words to say something simple. The last two sentences could be merged, to avoid the rather jarring repetition of “That” as the first word.
Now, it could be something closer to an approximation of Hell.
“could be” is unnecessary. Just say that it is “closer to an approximation of Hell.” which Edgehance doesn’t believe in.
He heard it echo, distorted by the winding hallways. He heard the just out of earshot whispers that drifted from the cracks into his head like lazy blowflies. He heard hushed conversation around him, but even if he knew the original language spoken by the voices he wouldn’t have understood for it was communicated solely through emotional vibes distorted and withered by ages of suffering. The arrhythmic quality of the noise was incessant. The psychic residue left over from the slaves who had been stowed and suffered back in the original vessel’s heyday had festered.
An interesting interpretation of the concept here. It reminds me of the hospital in Kara no Kyoukai. However, the sentences are a bit off in structure. “an echo” would be better for the first sentence, as there’s no antecedent for the pronoun, nor is there any value in the ambiguity. The third sentence reads like a run-on. This is an example of where a comma to break up the clauses would have benefitted the prose.
“Get a grip…” he muttered, “Your bodies were sold off to the New World centuries ago. …why are you even here?”
As for those who had died aboard it, their souls remained slaves to the ship ever since. They were guard dogs stripped of all their humanity, a strong reminder that he was not alone in this closed world.
The physical pain of his captivity was dull and monotonous. Every bone was broken, and every joint and tendon was pierced by a sword. Chains were unnecessary to hold him.
Here, his body impaled so, covered in wounds, with no way for the light of the moon to reach him in these bowels, he had no chance to recover.
This was a prison meant to hold a vampire.
The voices were torturous, the pain was cruel, and the darkness was maddening. That just came with the territory. None of that was meant to be an especially personally tormenting by the design of the creator. One of the few times he was allowed a glimpse of light in his prison had shown to him what exactly had been placed down here to keep him busy.
Personally shouldn’t be in the adverbial. Tormenting is being used as a gerund, so just make it an adjective.
It was a single boom box that played Personal Jesus on loop. Original and covers. Bootlegs and official lives. Parodies and mashups. Drunken Singalongs. Acapella.
Now that, that had been done vindictively.
This appears to break the tone of the entire narrative this far, but I understand that it was my fault for presuming a certain tone from the story. I shall take Depeche Mode into account for the remainder of this judging, and as such, will be looping this song while I write this review.
He’d have willingly barfed up his guts by choice a long time ago if they weren’t pinned in place by the crucifixion. He’d never have pegged Brunestud’s white knight as a closeted rocker, but he supposed a pseudonym like ‘Demon of Stratovarius’ had to mean something.
“Willingly” and “by choice” are redundant. Pick one. Also, Stratovarius, heh.
Or not. He didn’t know. He was too tired to think. But, he was never quite allowed to rest.
Especially not now.
This could do with a bit more detail. The situation seems to imply that his mass impalement prevents him from resting, but it seems understated, for a mass impalement.
The cover of darkness, chatter of ghosts and perpetual music had always obfuscated his arrival until he saw those glowing red eyes turn around the corner and bear right into him. The spirits would be silenced by his arrival. He would then will an old whale oil lantern to light, and approach him, strutting in tune to the music. He had no need for it in order to see in the dark. The reason he took it with him on was that it brought color to a world drenched in black.
Perhaps consider removing “he saw” and restructuring this into “until those glowing red eyes turned around the corner” simply to eliminate the use of a pronoun.
It was purely to stroke his sense of aesthetics.
A good way to begin the establishment of Svelten’s personality.
“Salutations, my dear Enhance,” his captor said with a jovial purr. He pressed a button on the machine and the music was silenced. He took care to not cut it in the middle of a note, though. It was all part of his ritual.
His personality seems absolutely disgusting already. Good job, author. First impressions are quite nicely done.
“…Svelten.” His prisoner wearily addressed the number Eight of the Twenty-Seven Dead Apostle Ancestors.
“You know what?” Svelten asked, “The more I look at you the more I realize just how much of a shame it is that I’ll have to ultimately give you up to m’lady. If you hadn’t been turned then I would’ve surely gleefully drunk you dry. That much is a crying tragedy, to be haunted by such almost near-perfection right in front of you and to not be able to enjoy it how you’d wish.”
Redundancy in dialogue. “almost near-perfection” is likely a mistake, but doesn’t seem like something Svelten would actually say. Omit one or the other.
“First name basis. Sure know how to make a guy feel special.” Enhance said.
Svelten continued to run his eyes over the ruined body of the one the Dead Apostles venomously knew as the Single Edge. There was a time only recently when he too had derided the Knight of Vengeance in conversation using that name.
Svelten as a person with a sense of respect? Alright, that’s a nice bit of detail.
That was before he successfully undertook his operation to capture the heretic. When he had not yet seen how starkly visceral it was the way the traitor charged madly into the ambush, even when pitted against the strength of his vaunted Ghost Corps. and their overwhelming advantage. Before he had seen Enhance up close and personal.
“Enhance” was what he was known as, and from that point on “Enhance” was what he would always be to Svelten.
Re-emphasized here, quite good. Enhance’s attitude toward vampire killing is also implied in this paragraph, so that’s a little more depth.
“Verily so, your words are. That is because you are indeed quite a special oddity, even when compared with the unique existences of the rest of our peers.” He came in as close as the jutting hilts would permit and stared the captive Eighteenth right in the face. “Violet. Such an unusual eye color to be held by a vampire,” he said. This was not the first time he took to admiring this feature of Enhance. Svelten’s particular tastes had earned him much notoriety in the supernatural world as The Bloodsucking Count. He was a connoisseur of boys and men, and the more handsome the specimen the more he was compelled to make them his prey. Beauty nourished him. But eyes, eyes were the one thing he cared the most for. If it was said that his hunger made him lust for men, then it was eyes that fulfilled his soul. When it came to eyes sex didn’t matter to him as long as they were lovely.
A good blend of dialogue and narration here. This section has accomplished two things rather well. Establishing that Enhance is blase toward Svelten’s behaviors, and that Svelten is perfectly satisfied repeating this pattern. If I was looking into it, I’d say that this is a good example of the strong patterns of behavior that the Dead Apostle Ancestors are said to fall into with old age. The contrast is even more effective, as Enhance, who closer to a human, has swiftly grown bored of this.
“Indeed,” Svelten said, “I am not especially looking forward to the day when you change hands from me to the Black Princess. She might just turn you into food for the dog and be done with you. It’s not as if you don’t deserve it. You slaughter your fellow vampires wholesale like animals and you’re fed to the strongest one there is.”
Svelten retreated inwardly to think about this. Hours could have very well passed by in the interim lull.
Another point to his infinite patience.
“Perhaps I could see to it if I could maybe petition her into honoring a request for a co-claim on you. I would compromise on at least that much in this matter. Surely, we would be free to make the beautiful music together like I’d want to.”
The first sentence tries too hard to sound contemplative, and has as a result, experiences a lot of redundancy. “Perhaps I could see to it if I could maybe petition her” has “perhaps” and “maybe” which both express uncertainty. Not to mention “could see to it” and “could maybe petition her” which in the context both mean the same thing as well. Cut this down.
“…pass on that. A psycho-socio carnivore like you gives gays the planet over a bad name.”
“Putting aside the fact that you’d have no choice, you have forgotten.” Svelten was unfazed.
“True enough,” his prisoner conceded. He didn’t have the means or desire to fight back. The wild stallion that he once was had its will broken enough to realize the futility of doing anything in this position.
“I do enjoy these visits of ours, Enhance.”
“Makes at least one of us.”
“Then I suggest you decide soon enough that you like them as well. It is fair to say that I have been rather accommodating enough to you, have I not?” He gave a quick one-over of the thoroughly penetrated Enhance. “…all things considered.
I laughed quite a lot. This exchange manages to be funny without breaking character for either of them.
“The possibility that the transference of ownership of you over to m’lady is a death sentence is a strong one. It makes more sense to enjoy the time you have remaining when faced with uncertainty. I thought that, as the one of us who is closest to humans, you’d fully embrace that line of reasoning now that you have nothing left but me.”
“I’ll think about it.” Enhance said, after a moment.
“In that case, Enhance, I’d like to leave you with wishes for a pleasant evening,” said Svelten as he walked away.
The music came back on. The lantern went out. The red eyes vanished behind the corner. The darkness was back. The ghosts returned.
A purely mechanical gripe. Unless Svelten is backing away into the shadows, Enhance shouldn’t see his eyes at all during this, since he’d be facing away from him.
“As if I’d know,” Enhance growled through gritted teeth when he was left alone one more.
Boy, he really had fucked up.
Effective conclusion to the section.
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‘The difference of ten and two more’s steel will cause night to stay everlasting.’
It was the first time in Svelten’s 942 years that he had heard the fabled Rose Prophecy, and it would be the last. Whether it was the work of a lone sibyl, or instead the collective will of all of the Dead Apostles and their link with the moon as they subconsciously read the flow of fate as it related to their immortal selves, it was a message that all who ranked among the Ancestors received. It urged self-preservation, to designate with one’s own hands a successor to take their place among the Twenty-Seven.
A nice way to work this in with the existing material. The Rose Prophecy is one of the few established things that applies to all Ancestors.
It was a warning of certain death.
There was no voice. It did not have a particular sound or cadence. There was no way for a vampire to prove that those words only meant for him it existed. It was purely an epiphany – the knowledge that this was to be.
“How difficult,” Svelten had merely said to himself at the time he received it. It was accepted as truth. But, during a night with conditions as optimal as these for a vampire he found it hard to believe. Just as it was accepted like how Christianity accepted the word of God, there too were vampires who had turned from the proverbial faith, and as such were unable to recognize its call– in theory. The dead could not speak on their own behalves.
He was a retainer to Altrouge Brunestud, whose court was at the center of the invisible kingdom of the vampires. It was easy enough for him to believe.
He believed, but he could not accept. His was a mission from the Black Princess herself, after all.
All fairly effective at setting up Svelten as a person loyal to Altrouge above all else. “like how Christianity” should probably just be “that Christianity” since “like how” is a bit more crude, and doesn’t fit the structure.
Svelten stood on the deck of the ship, a platoon of his Dead before him, Parade primed and ready to dispense its necromancy. Through his links to all of his work he had complete sight of the surrounding ocean, all the way to the distant horizons.
Let them come from anywhere on the surface, he thought. They'll be taken in an instant.
And he never saw the U-boats coming.
Alright, as the conclusion of this particular section, I’d rate this favorably. There isn’t any wasted narration here. It runs through Svelten’s ideology, his motives, and his preparations quite nicely, and also giving me a good image of him standing impassively on the deck, hands curled around a sword’s hilt.
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“Okay, Shirou, open your eyes now!”
“…wow.” What Shirou saw made his eyes open quite wide.
He was not flying through the sky, but floating. The lights that surrounded him were not stars, but the glow of bioluminescent sea creatures. The liquid moon up above was full and white.
Pretty imagery.
This response quickly turned to “Whoawhoawhoa!” when he saw that they were in a bubble underwater.
Both of these responses pleased Illya. “We’re fine, Shirou,” she said with emphasis and assurance, “If this wasn’t such a sturdy submarine I wouldn’t have even thought of taking you out here. I’ve done all of my homework for this one.”
If all of the unintentional poking around he did during his moment of surprise that hadn’t popped the bubble wasn’t enough, then it was Illya’s calmly confident words that put him to ease. “Okay. Yes, alright. This is wild,” once he regained some of his composure he scanned his surroundings and– more idly and deliberately –prodded lightly at the bubble’s interior, “It feels like just one minute ago we were on the beach, and then the next we’re here.”
First sentence of this paragraph is rather long. Could be broken up into two, especially since the clause “that hadn’t popped the bubble” feels rather awkward in there.
“You did let me hypnotize you, so that’s within expectations. I wish I could’ve somehow given myself a similar time dilation effect during it. I couldn’t wait to show you!” Illya quickly stood up and spread her arms out wide, as if to properly introduce their ride for the night. It wasn’t especially visually interesting. It was just a bubble, after all. The only thing about it that could be pegged as unusual was its diameter of around the size of a wardrobe, definitely comfortably large enough for a pair of passengers.
It’s a little strange to see a wardrobe used as a comparison of size, and in this case, even strange for it to be used as a comparison of diameter. Something easier to associate with internal volume would be a small car, or a bathtub.
That aside I appreciate the mention of hypnosis, just like it was employed in Fate.
“It didn’t move when you did,” Shirou noticed, “So it has some frictional quality to it. On top of that, it’s stable.”
“Gyroscopically stable!” Illya said excitedly, “Both of which are features that can be controlled at the caster’s will,” and demonstrated this with an effortless twirl. The hem of her white, airy sundress tickled the tip of the sitting Shirou’s nose. It was enchanting, until he realized that Illya was getting physical in a small, enclosed space. “Hey. We’re…not going to run out of air in this, are we?”
“There’s no need to worry about that, either. The bubble is designed to let oxygen filter in and carbon dioxide and other things filter out. I did say it was a submarine. It’d be a poor one if it couldn’t even last a few hours.”
“It’s anything but poor. This is impressive. You’ve put so much thought into it that I don’t know what to really say. It’s amazing.” Shirou said with glowing admiration as he once again ran his hand along the inner surface.
He was a grown man, but his reactions were, in a word, boyish.
What a nice way to present his characterization.
She had another word for it: charming. She was reminded of times that, while not necessarily more innocent, were still turning points in their lives, as well as part of a youth to be treasured. Putting aside the fact that they were still young, of course.
“Shirou,” Illya sing-songed, “Do you like touching that bubble so much?”
“Well, I do like beautifully crafted things,” he wryly admitted.
“Then, why don’t you come in close so that you may touch this beautifully crafted thing?” Illya suggested as she scooted up to Shirou. “There’s atmosphere to enjoyed.”
His arm around her was the only answer needed.
While Illya is not featured in any directly erotic material, due to the unique nature of her physical structure, there is an example of her more risque behavior in Fate, and this seems to match that kind of teasing, yet subtly forceful attitude.
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For this part no more details were given than were absolutely necessary to set up their location in this event for the sake of Tohsaka Rin’s information gathering.
“Okay, so why were you underwater, and kilometers off the coast?”
“That’s what we can’t tell you.”
“And why not?”
“I thought the Japanese were supposed to be more modest than this.” Illya bemoaned to herself, though she made no attempt whatsoever to keep her thoughts from Tohsaka. “Don’t you think it’s rather impolite to kiss and tell?”
How excellently devilish. This is a fun in-character moment.
“I never asked for any kiss and tell! And I am too modest enough!” Tohsaka furiously blanched. She looked ready to throw something heavy in Illya’s direction.
“The only thing in this world that could judge anyone doesn’t exist,” the other man said, “There’s no God and the only Hell that exists is the one that people create themselves.”
“Did you actually say something just now?” Tohsaka asked with a raised eyebrow, “And did you just side with these two?” Her shock just as quickly morphed into persecution.
“You suggest that I care what these crazy kids do with each other? Because I don’t.”
Ha ha ha ha ha.
I really do love the way the humor plays into the narrative. It seems like it should be out of place, but managed to be perfectly appropriate.
Violet and azure eyes stared at each other for a few silent seconds. As befitting of a Dead Apostle Ancestor, he dodged that bullet after it was fired. That kind of apathy was something she just couldn’t argue with.
And now we move on. As I’ve said, I adore the humor here, and this is a perfect example of lore being meshed with the scenario to enhance the effect.
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The atmosphere was enjoyed.
“Do you know what would look good right there?” Illya pointed to a spot. It looked like just about how every location of a low-visibility aquatic environment at night looked, but to her this specific spot was the spot. “A castle! With ramparts, and twenty-meter walls, and an elaborate keep with eight spires, one for each possible bearing on a map, as part of a symbolic gesture of our dominion!”
“It looked like just about how every location of a low-visibility aquatic environment at night looked” an immensely awkward clause. Redundancy in “looked like just about how every” contains two words of comparison, adjacent to each other even. Condense to “Looked like every other part of a low-visibility blah blah” or your preferred variation of the same.
“A castle? Underwater?” was all Shirou took from that.
“An underwater castle made of ice!” An enthused Illya refined upon the original idea.
“That’d be too cold to live in.”
“It would not be.”
“You moan at me to bring out the kotatsu every other time you feel a draft. I think it’d be too cold for you.”
“As if! Igloos are warm and I read that in an encyclopedia so it must be true.”
“Who are you supposed to be anyway, the Snow Queen?”
“That’d be ‘Princess,’ to you! “Besides, there’s another Lorelei called Queen, so it couldn’t be me, anyway.”
Well mystery author, if I had an opinion about this part, I think I may have accidentally let it slip out elsewhere. Nice little joke, though.
”Wait, what now?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not important anyway,” she casually blew off the tidbit of information that she herself had shared with Shirou. It sounded like there could have been an interesting story behind that one-off detail, but as it stood Illya didn’t want to talk about it. “Because of how snow works igloos are insulated, so they retain body heat well.”
“A castle is on a completely different level than an igloo. There’s too much space for that method of heating to make a real impact on its temperature.”
“That’s why there’d be snuggling!”
“24/7 snuggling sounds like it’d get old after awhile.”
“You take that back!” she demanded the blasphemer.
Demanded “of” the blasphemer.
The bubble did make for a fine submarine. Illya and Shirou freely lost track of time within its cozy confines, isolated in a world where they were the only two people.
“There’s so many of these little comb jellies. What do you suppose they’re here for?” Shirou asked as he looked on at the glowing blobs that played the role of ever-shifting constellations in the undersea night sky. The way the carefree animals gently strummed in the dark currents was like they were slowly dancing with each other.
“suppose” doesn’t strike me as a word Shirou would use in casual conversation like this.
There was nothing to distract them from the nearby sights.
Illya gently toyed with the stray lock of silver that grew in contrast to the rest of his hair. She twirled it around her finger, made it into a curlicue. She was enamored with it. It wasn’t hard to remember what he looked like before the changes to his body had begun to accumulate noticeably, but Illya still came to adore the way it had made the boyish youth look more and more like a man.
There was nothing to distract them from themselves.
What lovely parallelism.
“That’s a good question because it’s so easy to answer, Shirou.
“They’ve gathered here – to mate.”
I laughed quite hard here.
As she spoke she moved into position on top of him. “What do you think? That all these ctenophora may be brainless, but they have the right idea?”
A single strap of Illya’s dress had already slipped off her shoulder. The moonbeam that shined down lit her figure up like a pale spotlight.
“Illya, did you bring me down here for this?” the look on Shirou’s face gave it away that he didn’t ask a real question.
The use of “it” isn’t needed since the antecedent is stated immediately afterward. Condense to “gave away that he wasn’t asking...”
Illya’s smile as she leaned over him gave a real answer.
Who were they to argue with the call of nature?
The lovers embraced. Their lips met with playful, earnest hunger; they couldn’t imagine not kissing each other during a session. He took her straps, both the one astray and the one that had still kept its “proper” place, and slid the dress down from her chest. Illya really didn’t want to stop touching Shirou at any point, but she found the will to move her arms so that she could help him slide it off. One of his hands went all the way down and past her back. It stopped there. It was joined by his other hand, which also stopped there.
He gave an inquisitive squeeze. She giggled.
“Has your butt gotten bigger, Illya?”
“Whose fault would you suppose that is, Mr. Executive Chef?”
“It’d be the fault of the one who orders that fancy room service in between the meals I take the liberty to prepare in our room’s kitchen, I suppose.”
“And do we have a problem with that?” she asked cheekily.
He cupped it again. “No, we do not.” Shirou reached under her skirt, only to find his hands grasp nothing at the sides of her hips. “No panties?”
“No panties,” she winked. Illya went back, far enough for him to ogle her delicately sized breasts, far enough to unbutton his shirt so that she too could eat up the sight of his bared body with her eyes. She went back even further and did his shorts next. With Shirou’s cock exposed thusly to the air of the bubble, air warmed by his and Illya’s mingled breaths, he was at her mercy.
What excellent, ahem, banter.
The girl brushed some white strands of hair back behind her ear. Now she was ready to let him have it. Illya ran her tongue around the point of his head. She especially liked to do this bit just so- it was like kissing him, but somewhere lower. She savored the slightly bitter taste of his pre-come, which always perked her up, and better than a cup of morning tea ever could. Earl Grey had nothing on Emiya Shirou.
Strong attention to detail combined with an juxtaposition of a person to expensive tea. I find no faults with this.
With her thumb and forefinger gently encircled around his base, Illya brought her hand to in between her legs. The tips of her fingers brushed against a button barely revealed by her folds, and it made her quiver. That was it. She already felt herself get wet. The lovey-dovey atmosphere of this whole venture had proven to be immense. The hours of reading material from both scholarly and trashy genres, of trying to figure out how to optimally mix thaumaturgical with mushy, all to produce an unforgettable night for her and her love: all of the research had paid off. With interest.
“to in between” doesn’t need the “to”. The metaphor is good as well, maintaining the tone of narration.
Illyasviel von Einzbern had decided that she was a romantic genius.
She continued to rub, pinch. Her head dipped further. Down and up. She rolled her tongue around the underside of his tip, rubbed at the soft skin of Shirou’s shaft. The hand that had lightly held him in place now worked Shirou at the same time. Up and down. Down further, up further. Up with a twist, down with a reverse. Down even more, up all the way, so far that her lips almost broke away with a light ‘smack.’
The mechanics are described in exquisite detail, and are all well balanced. The flow of this particular action is excellent. As it is, I find no problems even while Depeche Mode chants on for perhaps the 300th time.
Shirou’s hands tightened with intensity at her devotions. She knew the man was at his breaking point. He’d reach it before she did, but that was fine. That was what Illya wanted. The two of them would be more than happy to arrange something where he would return the favor soon enough. To push him past the point of no return, Illya did-
I question the use of an en dash when an em dash is generally more common in weeb writing, but I suppose it doesn’t matter at all.
-Nothing. Illya froze.
“Ow,” was all Shirou could muster up to say. It actually hurt, the cessation of her ministrations that had denied him sweet, orgasmic relief.
The use of the word “orgasmic” in an actual erotic segment tends to break immersion, but in this case, that seems to be the exact intention. It acts as a proper and useful narrative tool to change the mood of the scene.
“Not a word. Be absolutely still.”
She was deadly serious. Shirou followed suit and grew taut as a pulled bowstring. Her eyes darted back and forth. She scanned the barely lit sub-surface waters. He did just the same in his direction. Even the bubble seemed to have stopped breathing. It became quite cold all of a sudden within it. The bubble had made like a heatsink and flushed all of the warmth it held within to disperse in the nearby water, to camouflage the temperature of its passengers.
The temperature changes in parallel to the mood, and to the attitudes of the characters. With a tactical justification as well, this is a nice little detail.
The moon was gone, and a dark shadow loomed overhead.
Illya and Shirou didn’t have to look very hard or long for the intruder.
It passed by at an almost lazy clip, its shape obscured by the night, but even from their position they could tell it was huge.
“There’s a bounded field,” Illya whispered barely audibly, excruciatingly slowly into Shirou’s ear, “If I hadn’t been here in the water, and if it hadn’t passed right over us, we would have never noticed it.”
”Do we have an idea of what its like?” he asked.
”Yes to invisibility of the highest order. Grade-A wards are a given. It’s the strongest field of its type that we’ve seen. This really is a one in a million chance. We shouldn’t have even been able to see how it blotted out the moon,” Illya said. Not that there was way to know what exactly the bounded fields did without obtaining knowledge of the creator’s mindset and abilities or, heaven forbid it, testing directly, Shirou still implicitly trusted her estimate to be accurate enough to go on.
“What do you think it is?” Shirou asked another question,”A magus, or…?”
“Even if it was perfectly cloaked it wouldn’t have been able to hide the sense of decay associated with it from me.”
Then there was no doubt that it was the lair of a vampire. A strong one.
Yes, it was leagues away from civilization. But, the vampires it housed fed on people. There were few exceptions to this rule. The younger ones fed with rabid abandon. The older ones secretly enthralled entire regions and were a different sort of cancer. Vampires on the whole caused people as individuals to suffer.
To top it all off, there were rumors of the Dead Apostles mobilizing for some cause…
They knew what had to be done about this was obvious. Especially when Shirou donned that look. When he got like that it was like he wore his beliefs on his face, to save all that he could within his sight and to see justice be done. He wanted to make others happy, keep them safe.
A practical use of font size to emphasize volume. While I normally disagree with such things, I don’t particularly mind this. This part of the passage does a good enough job of shifting the tone away from the previous scene.
She was the first one that he had been able to. She who originally decried the ideology, and resisted that aspect of him again and again. But, they continued to be drawn together. There was common ground to be found, forgiveness to be had. After much loss, choices made, things that had been done and said that couldn’t be undone or unsaid, he had been able to save the one he made the decision that he really wanted to more than anyone else. They joined together and somehow made it work when the odds were stacked so drastically against them.
“She was the first one that he had been able to.” could use a verb at the end. Backstory to emphasize current motivation is good, doesn’t feel like it’s there for the sake of it.
In the end, he was still the boy who wanted to save the people. What changed was that as long as the young woman stayed by his side she was the one he always would choose above others. That was the flaw in his lofty ideal, which kept him grounded and made him all the more human.
Aha, nice references to F/SN’s themes.
That was the look that she had learned to see the beauty in. That was the reason Illya chose to be Shirou’s partner-in-crime. It made her heart race, to see that look on his face, to know that she was a part of this as much as he was.
If left to be, someone, somewhere, would be hurt sooner or later. There were vampires, the enemies of humanity, right in front of them. Could the ones who strove for justice simply let them pass by?
“Trace On---” was the only answer needed.
Wonderful ending to this segment. As a general review, I found it enjoyable. The swift transition of the tone from erotic to dangerous was accomplished quite well, along with the reveal of a few key details from the background.
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
Once again, Enhance saw red eyes turn around the corner and greet him in the darkness. The key difference this time was that the height was all wrong.
“Well, aren’t you a pitiful thing?”
It was not Svelten. It was a little girl, no more than thirteen at best. He couldn’t possibly mistake her for a real human. Her features were too ethereal, she carried herself with confidence, and had a mature edge to her being that no amount of precociousness could emulate. A small will-o-wisp also gently floated above her outstretched hand. This orb gave Enhance enough light to see by and take notice of her appearance in the first place. The light also showed to him that she was not alone, for a steely-faced young man followed closely behind her.
“He has no lieutenants that aren’t part of his Parade,” Enhance’s weary mind tried to process this. “Unless you’re independent specters you’re not from around here.”
“How astute for one so brutalized,” she said with an interested expression, “Yes, we here are gate crashers.” The man she was with nodded affirmatively. “We drilled up through the bottom and more or less barreled into you right away.”
“Like a single hole would sink this ghost ship,” Enhance mumbled, “Why do that?”
“There’s a vampire here that needs to be killed, and we’re pretty sure it’s not you.” The man who said.
Last sentence is strangely awkward. It might be an intentional style of narration, but “The man said.” is essentially what you’re trying to go for.
“Not from the Church, then. You acquaintances of Lorelei?”
“Seriously, who is that?”
“Not now, Onii-chan. The vampire’s talking,” she said, “No, we merely happened to be in the neighborhood.”
Breaks the tone of the scene, but I suppose the story’s overall tone remains consistent. It’s a funny little joke to echo like this.
“A couple of freelancers who happen to be out in the middle of the ocean storm the property of a Dead Apostle Ancestor simply because they don’t like it. And here you are, talking to a different Dead Apostle Ancestor just because you can.” Enhance let out a raspy snigger
“I see our presence here has lit your fire,” the girl said. The vampire feebly nodded. “I’ve not felt this good in a long time,” he said.
Paragraph break between dialogue lines.
“Then, if you’re not our target, what crimes have you committed to be interned like this?”
“I kill my own kind. Not for fun and games. I kill to kill.” Enhance gave his reason for living.
“And why do you do this?”
“…because for the Knight of Vengeance, it’s the natural thing to do.”
“Sir Knight of Vengeance, I do believe that there’s something we can do about this situation...”
Comedic and edgy, masked by severity. Everything is building up nicely to a climax.
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
The deck of the Fredensborg exploded like a missile had been shot straight through from the inside into the sky.
The sentence has a terribly awkward second half. I had to read it twice to get the meaning clear, which would have been averted by the presence of a comma. restructuring the end to “like a missile had been shot straight through from the inside.” already cuts down that trouble. Still, an explosive introduction, so not bad.
The Eighth had been attacked from the sea, but not in any direction that he anticipated. That was his error, and he would have to correct it soon.
Svelten turned his head in the direction of the clamor as soon as it detonated. He noted with an emotion not unlike dismay that that was directly over where his prisoner was kept several stories lower. A storm of swords rained down from above and pierced into several of the Dead he commanded.
“not unlike dismay” is a fairly gratuitous use of a litote. Just describe his expression as it is, especially since you want to keep the sentences simple here, for the sake of action.
There were many of those that had missed their mark. That was deliberate.
A pair of figures alighted on the deck, a rumble of impact told of the force they landed with – a man with his arms around a fair child. A field of scattered swords sheathed into the wood lay between them and the bloodsuckers.
It was the full moon. On a night like this even the lowly Dead would have power that neared that of a mature vampire. As soon as the pair landed the Dead flailed towards them with the speed of hunting wolves. They rapidly hobbled and weaved around the swords as they zeroed in on the pair.
That was anticipated, and with flashes of light more swords came down. Not to strike at the familiars, but to embed into deck. A layer of blades encircled them, like a wall. The Dead approached heedlessly.
“Stick close to me. I’m no good without you.”
“That’s an apparent truth, Shirou!”
At this, the cage of swords had become a pillbox. The corpse-bodies that snaked their way into the gaps to get at the intruders within were mutilated. Hot energy and flying steel snaked from in-between the fencepost-like blades and slammed into the encroaching Dead.
What an inventive little plan.
The light of the moon empowered the walking corpses. Any blow that wasn’t a killstrike to the head was mindlessly recovered from and promptly forgotten. Their rate of arrival and their numbers was their advantage. They converged on the pseudo-turret as one, as per Svelten’s orders.
Perhaps you’d want “promptly recovered from and mindlessly forgotten”?
Through centuries of sponsorship by the Black Princess there was no need to create Dead of his own. Svelten was too picky of an eater, too greedy of one as well, to produce children. The slack-jawed visages of the males he once fancied would only have been registered as corruption to his sensibilities. That ghoulish reminder was something he would not allow. The corpse-puppets that had been gathered here were all taken from enemy rivals by means of his own might and magecraft.
Each of his Dead possessed a single spiritual core, a ghost egg. Through these scrapings of Svelten’s venerable soul he was able to exert his parasitic will over tools that were not originally his own.
Alright, this is a plausible mechanism.
Via these nodes, the white knight of the Black Princess ordered his privateers to devour Illya and Shirou.
“Duck and grab on!”
Ten lights screeched forth from within the circle of swords. One Dead for each had their jaws ripped off, their heads cracked. Wings of light shredded into them past the speed of sound.
The cage of swords shattered simultaneously. Shirou spun-swept with a golden longsword that broke the wall of lesser blades in a single blow. The exploding metal dug into the Dead’s faces and chests. Reactionary physics, not concern for their own wellbeings, made the Dead recoil from the force of the biting shards. The precursor sword of Germanic lore was used to split a Dead from collar to crotch, and left in its body. A long-handled sickle turned a Dead into a true corpse due to its concept of immortality revocation, and with it a gap in the line of the lunging Dead appeared. He scooped Illya up with one arm and bolted. His body was reinforced to nearly the breaking point. It’d be cruel if it wasn’t necessary.
The memories of Perseus within the weapon told his body what to do. He ran from the scary monsters and took cheap shots at them when he could until he lost the weapon in one of their heads.
Valid use of an Noble Phantasm that hasn’t been entirely expounded on in canon.
The Dead that could pursue did, while the others who needed to regenerate trailed behind. The claws and teeth of the Dead raked at Shirou. Their strikes went skin deep. Their nails scratched up bloody sparks when contact was made with the swords that grew within him. The visible wounds that the Dead inflicted on him were cosmetic.
But they hit like battering rams. Each strike that connected stirred his insides up. His bones creaked from each bodily tremor.
He’d break down from the inside-out. Or they’d trip up. A tumble to the ground for even just a moment meant that the Dead would pull him apart.
He didn’t care about that. He ran with as much power as he could. He just had to protect Illya from them.
Illya shared this sentiment. She had to protect Shirou from succumbing to the pressure of the horde.
Together, they were an archer and his quiver. With her he could fire unlimited arrows. Without either item to support the other their usefulness was cut by more than half.
A unique way for them to function. I don’t think I’ve seen this mechanic used in quite this way anywhere else.
He struggled to keep the distance he and Illya had on the Dead nipping at their heels. He weaved around and over rubble. He used the leftover swords that remained from the initial assault to swipe at the Dead that got too close. He left the weapons behind when they got stuck in the vampiric puppet’s bodies.
You’ll want a plural possessive on “puppet”.
The lights returned. The maximum number of Illya’s guardians were deployed. Ten wireframe familiars, each aglow from the energy of the independent magical core it possessed. They had the shape of birds and flew in a defensive perimeter around the two. They buffeted any who came close with their razor edges, and fired off salvos of prana at those who were further away.
You’re the only person I’ve seen so far who’s actually written this ability into a story, so bonus points for that.
If she wasn’t an Einzbern homunculus it would have been impossible and dangerous to do. Her neurons would have fried and she would have undergone brain death.
Tension created. Establishing limits for characters is something you’ve done very well over this scene, author.
It was still hard. ‘Shoot that one there, hit that one next to Shirou.’ She acted and reacted at exhausting speeds.
There were less Dead than before. Not by much. Many were partially inhibited with swords stuck in various parts of their bodies. That did nothing to affect their relentless chase, and nothing to curb their appetites for the human beings their master ordered them to feed on.
For the second time that night, a figure leapt out of the crater in the ship’s deck and took the fight to Svelten.
Excitement created.
The moment that Illya and Shirou had been buying time for had arrived: the full moon had replenished the Knight of Vengeance, the traitorous Single Edge, the demon of the Dead Apostles Ancestors.
Enhance had joined the battle. And it was the lyrical stylings of Depeche Mode that heralded his arrival.
My ears feel vindicated.
With a blur of motion he brought the boombox down like a sledgehammer on the Dead closest to Shirou and Illya. Its skull exploded into bony gore.
‘-personal-’ the machine stuttered. ‘-someone-’‘
He swung wide. The chest of a foe became a bloody concave. The crumpled body knocked back into the Dead that followed behind it like tenpins.
‘-hear- prayers-’
Enhance followed through. He didn’t let the Dead regenerate. He didn’t let its fellows that it had been thrown into the opportunity to again chase the humans. He jetted towards them and again swung the boombox.
Change “let” to “give” perhaps.
'-flesh and bone-'
The sounds that followed were the sounds of skulls and its chassis crunching. He spun with monstrous speed and hurtled it at some distant Dead. Many of the mindless zombies tripped over their downed fellow. The rate at which they moved caused their bones to break under their own weight.
“its chassis” created some ambiguity for a moment. It was hard to determine if you were referring to the chassis of the boombox or the bodies of the Dead. Could do with reorganization to correct this.
'-make you a believer-'
The thing was still playing music faithfully. Even though they hadn’t shared the best of memories, Enhance had decided that his begrudging respect for it was well earned.
Again, ha ha ha. The jokes you use here are all set up early, and deliver their payloads further on. It does a good job of holding my interet.
'-reach out-'
Avenger, his now-reclaimed demonic sword, was a dark blur that sliced into the Dead. Gouts and clouds of blood and ash sprayed wherever its harsh edge cleaved through Svelten’s vampires. He took a swing with both hands. A few Dead clustered too closely together were bisected at the same time. He took the legs out from another one. He stabbed it through the heart center and split its chest in two with a horizontal blow.
‘-your own-’
He threw a punch at speeds that parted the faint cloud of debris that had billowed from near the crater. The head came clean off and disintegrated from the force as it sailed through the air. Enhance seamlessly went into a spin that slammed the stock of the shotgun, the property of the Church known as the Holy Crematal Artillery, into the head of another. The force of the blow popped its head off with a twist. With the monstrous momentum of this move, Enhance used it to flick his wrist and bring the shotgun to the opposite side, his finger right on the trigger. He fired. The Dead in his path were utterly blown away by a burst of blessed fire. A single leaf of paper was dispensed where the shell would have been in a normal rifle.
“cloud of debris” is for the purposes of imagery a little bit improper. “debris” implies large particles or broken solids, which doesn’t match the image of a cloud of dust. The action here is fluid, though a bit overdone. “The force of the blow...” and “With the monstrous momentum...” could probably be merged after “with a twist” was removed, to make it smoother. Points for referencing that the shotgun ejects paper like the Seventh Holy Scripture.
He grimaced in pain. With the gun in hand, wisps of smoke rose from his withered arm. Just from using it like this it was like an old man’s arm, wrinkled and leathery. But the moon was full. Instead of letting the hurt he felt limit his actions, Enhance channeled into it. The pain was a metronome he danced to. It was a breakbeat in the most literal of meanings.
A weapon by heretics, for heretics. Amen.
If the casing gets dented Ciel’s gonna throw a fit when she sees how badly I’ve treated this, Enhance thought to himself. He sighed internally even as the chalky, gangrenous brains of Dead plopped onto the deck from each decisive strike.
Hey, if they all died here- quite likely against such a high-ranking Ancestor -at least he’d get out of a lecture. If pain drove him, then guilt was the mind killer, and boredom just as bad.
Establishing characterization even during this, works quite nicely.
‘-personal Jesus-’
Depeche Mode as interpreted by DDYND. Trance beats filled the night air.
He’d let it play.
Normally I’d criticize the use of background music in fanfiction, still, it’s not as if you told me to listen to this.
“Clear!” he shouted to Shirou and Illya. They leapt back; he sent a storm cloud of molten metal at a group of nearby Dead that had been again dogged the magi duo. With that self-contained killing spree, the Dead were gone.
This meant that it was time for Svelten to switch gears. “Give one a miniscule taste of freedom and they indulge in buck wild totality,” he drolly complained as he fingered the brim of his cap. “I of course expected nothing less from you when this series of events came to pass, my dear Enhance.”
“brim of his cap” Well now.
‘-I’m a forgiver-’
“You know what, Svelten? I did enjoy our little talks. Talking with you always pissed me off, and when I get mad it’s easy to turn that to hate. And hatred is where all of my strength comes from.”
Alright, I suppose that this is consistent with the canon descriptions of Enhance, as lacking as they are.
Enhance glowered with black hate. Svelten remained neutral. He did nothing but let the moonlight glint off his armor. He let the world do the work of flaunting his position as the white knight for him.
The last two sentences say almost the same thing. Could be merged.
“It was also way too arrogant to just leave my weapons on the wall across from me. Bastards like you put on a few centuries and then think they’re so above it all.
“That Black Princess of yours will have her turn with me someday, but if she thinks she’ll get to have a leak she’s out of her damn little mind.”
Enhance left the world behind. He surged forward. His curse bolstered his already maxed-out full moon potential. The world he was in now was a world of blurred motion, and he aimed to take Svelten’s head. The memory of his bitter loss against the Eighth did the exact opposite of dissuade him from his course.
Tonight would be different. There was no ambush. It was an enemy he fought before. They were both at full fighting strength.
Svelten invoked the power of Parade that he had allowed to build up all this time. His years of necromancy had ultimately culminated in its development. From soothsaying to bombs powered by the tumultuous feelings of victims of genocide to simple summoning, acts of destruction and creation were things he was capable of achieving in equal measure.
Now this is a curious part. I’ll read on to see how his powers are built up.
The rubble that littered the deck began to slide back in a single direction. Enhance, Illya, and Shirou felt their centers of gravity shift, and it was became harder to stand up straight by the second.
“was became” pick one.
An amorphous giant had risen from the water behind Svelten. He had summoned upon the most numerous dead that the ocean had to offer. The chalky white skeletons of billions of plankton had been unified in death to come together and form a colossus made of sludge-moist diatomaceous earth.
Inventive!
With a pair of arms as thick as semi-trucks and it was tipping the boat over like a child in the bath would.
“and” conjunction is unnecessary.
‘-Jesus-’
The now 50-degree incline put no damper on Enhance’s enthusiasm for vampire killing. He ran. He climbed. He ascended. His talons and his pair of wings took him higher and higher. He didn’t care if a hundred plankton golems were here. Svelten was at the top, waiting for him.
A little weak here. There’s quite a lot of description as to his methods, but it falls flat of delivering a clear image of his movement. Putting things in the active voice or progressive tense might be a bit more effective here, such as “wings beating” or “talons dug into the deck”.
Svelten was waiting for him so he could knock him back down to the depths of Hell.
Ambiguity. Who is knocking who into Hell?
All the while the ship was tipped even more.
We’ve seen that he can manipulate the large mass of earth above water, so it feels a bit strange that such a powerful Ancestor is only using it to tip the boat. This is a personal preference, but if he used it to attack them, rather than simply to drop them into the ocean, the scene’s action would probably be advanced.
When they registered what was happening, Shirou stabbed swords into the wall that used to be the floor before he and Illya fell too far back. The blades and hilts of the many Noble Phantasms that Unlimited Blade Works had in stock were used as makeshift footholds.
“Shirou!”
“Got it!”
Shirou okayed Illya’s plan. His body felt like it was on fire. Like his heart pumped magma, or her nerves were electrical wires. He blazed with the surge of prana Illya sent to him.
Even if their body was a magus’, a human was not meant to hold a fraction of the capacity of the Holy Grail. His body would break apart if he stayed at this level for too long.
A fuse was lit, and he was full of powder.
If his magic circuit was turned into a cannon, then all he’d have to do is fire it.
“I am the Bone of my Sword…”
Excellent little method, but the scene lacks a sense of imminent danger. Svelten is acting very passively, even though it seems that he’s decided to take them seriously.
He was sent into overdrive. He reinforced himself the instant the heat grew thermonuclear. For an instant, Shirou felt what it was like for a Command Seal to be used to push him past his limits.
He had to use this surplus of energy before he collapsed from midnight sunstroke.
Use magic, make more, spend the influx of Illya’s prana. That’s what he told himself.
He would not be blue-balled again, in any shape or form.
Pffft.
‘-feeling unknown-’
Shirou launched sword bullets at the mass of plankton.
His true target was big. Streaks of metal shot past Enhance. The swords split the wet mud. Its arms broke, and its head crumbled where each heroic blade buried into it as the conglomerate of dead essences was slowly overcome by the surplus of spiritually superior weapons.
Plankton cannot speak, but if they did then their death wail was the sound of tons of damp clay collapsing back into the sea it came from.
“if they did” is superfluous, since they are achieving this noise without speaking.
There was nothing to stop the ship from catastrophically falling back down into the sea.
The silver familiars morphed into a safety net that kept the pair from falling away. All Enhance had to do to weather the fall was dig into the deck and tough it out.
Svelten showed no concern for himself as the boat fell. He merely stood as calmly as if he were on solid ground. Instead, he just sort of blinked incredulously as he saw how easily the titan of the Ghost Corps. went down when going against this magus’ weapons. He and the homunculus– he saw her for what she was now –were nearly shredded by his Dead. That was no fluke– he had seen their desperation.
That period after Corps shouldn’t exist.
Was his compatibility against them just that poor?
He never actually did very much with that titan. Assuming that he has free control over its form, parts of it could have been controlled to attack them. While I would give you the benefit of the doubt, this doesn’t feel consistent with Svelten’s personality seen up till now.
If that was so, then he would simply make better use of his resources. It’d be far more satisfying to meet his enemies head on.
With the boon of the moon to bolster the Eight’s fabled skills, his ornate but sharp sword and parrying dagger easily met with Enhance’s Avenger and Shirou’s Kanshou and Bakuya.
Eight’s to Eighth’s.
“I don’t believe that I’ve ever had the amusement of seeing an Enforcer in an Aloha shirt before.” Svelten said as he dished out strikes to his foes, genuinely pleased with at least that aspect of the night’s events.
Aloha isn’t a proper noun. “Dished out strikes to his foes” also doesn’t sound particularly good, as far as fight scene description goes. Svelten’s dialogue is good, a mixture of mocking curiosity and amusement.
“I’m no Enforcer,” Shirou grunted, as he fought to keep the Dead Apostle Ancestor from overpowering him. His arms ached; they were already past their limits, and it was survival instinct and the desire for victory that kept him going. Enhance was a decent partner who helped divert Svelten’s focus, but it wasn’t enough. If the fight continued, he knew he would lose. “-just a concerned guy who you happened to cross paths with.”
The narration insists that Shirou should be struggling, but he’s holding on remarkably well. If I ignored the narration and looked solely at the events, Svelten would appear to be the one being overwhelmed. This scene lacks description, and lacks the necessary description of the terrifying swordfight on the deck.
“Does The Battalion mean anything to you, young man?”
“What ‘Battalion?’ ”
“Of Krom? Lorelei’s Battalion?”
“-Damn. It.” Shirou cursed as that name once again haunted him that night.
Enhance didn’t ask. Sometimes he felt it better to just not ask.
Ha ha ha. Even though the fight feels a little hollow, this dialogue and humor is still stellar.
Svelten jumped away from the brawl. He lazily dodged the thrown swords and sanctified gunfire as he backed away. “Phantom Rondo; slay once again.” the Eight Ancestor intoned. More spirits appeared, this time shoulder to shoulder, rank and file at each of his flanks. He raised his sword; the ghosts did likewise. “Synch rate; bellissimo.” Svelten confirmed his passphrase.
Now I question the use of “more spirits” here, since he hasn’t actually summoned any normal ghosts in this segment. The Magecraft is interesting. Also Eight to Eighth
This was why the Church had named him Svelten. His elegant technique where he perfectly synchronized the moves of his ghosts with himself. The intangibility of his retainers coupled with his grandmaster-tier martial prowess as fueled by his Ancestor reflexes made him a virtually insurmountable obstacle.
A fine bit of detail, but it lacks the backup of the prose. It, again, rings a little hollow because of the absence of description. Even if this is fight is only the framework that supports a punchline,
Rizo-Waal Strout, Neardark; Fina-Blood Svelten, White Knight Vlad. They were the pinnacle of the vampire race for good reason. It was said that victory against them could never be achieved- that all one could pray for was mutual destruction, and even that was a miracle-to-be.
This is all quite true, but again, he simply doesn’t feel that dangerous. It’s a growing contradiction between the events described, and the backstory being told. This problem would be greatly alleviated with the addition of more detail to the fight scene, balancing Svelten’s dominance with Enhance and Shirou’s struggle to hold on.
Deep down, he felt some variety of remorse that he would overcome the Rose Prophecy. Would that be like what humans felt when they lost faith, came upon that which to themselves was irrefutable proof that their God or whomever was a sham?
Good callback to the previous points about his faith in the prophecy.
Or would he instead feel elation? Achieve enlightenment? Be the vampire who broke the chains, and paradoxically the symbol of the divine right of how Altrouge’s court was a dynasty everlasting?
Only time would tell, and he eagerly awaited the answer that awaited.
The conclusion falls a little short, simply because the chapter felt very lacking in detail. Still, the repetition of this aspect of Svelten’s personality plays well with the scene.
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…The fight couldn’t go on anymore like this. He needed to be stopped.
So Illya made a miniature black hole to do the work.
She didn’t care how she did it. She had only read a glimpse about the precise mechanics in a library book and a half-remembered astronomy documentary seen on an outing to a planetarium. But stars were composed of hydrogen, and black holes were collapsed stars, and there were exactly two atoms of hydrogen for every single molecule of water on Earth, and the sea breeze was moist with misty vapor and that was plenty for her to work with. That was more than enough for her full awareness of her wish-granting capacity as a Grail.
Spaghettification occurred. It was a matter of course that Rondo would un-synch. He was pulled like taffy. Svelten let out the kind of horrible sound that no human should ever hear. The grinding of his bones made a makeshift duet with the crackle-pop of unstable time-space.
This is surprising. I’m trying to wrap my head around what’s going on, but I’ll just continue to read.
This unthinkable torture was splitting his head. It was suffering the likes of which he had never imagined the possibility of. Still, he was an Ancestor, and the left hand of the Black Princess. He would solve this problem before he was crushed like a grape.
Second sentence is very wordy. “he had never imagined the possibility of” doesn’t really add anything to the reader’s experience, and should probably be cut down.
“…huh.” Illya said. “So that’s how it looks when a person is pulled into a hole that small.”
A callback to the end of UBW, perhaps?
It was the girl. Of course.
If he killed her, the magus lost support, and this horrible trap would be exorcised from existence. If he could slink away into a hiding place in his ship, he could find somewhere to heal in peace, where he would then proceed to kill the final intruder and once again subjugate Enhance using all of the methods at his disposal. Ancestor or not, he would partake of the Eighteenth.
The second sentence of this paragraph shouldn’t start with “If he” since that isn’t a particularly good form of repetition. “Then” might be preferable.
“I’ll take your face, you processed meat doll.”
In a sudden burst of movement he split his breastplate with his own hands. An oarfish familiar shot out of his chest towards Illya. It was one of his oldest, most precious creations. It was from the Baltic Sea, from the time when the Third Crusade was in full swing. The serpentine beast’s jaws distended wide to show rows of vampire fangs. Already the black hole began to distort the thing’s ribbon body. But it was long, and it would reach, and her head would be gone.
“distended” isn’t a word that can be used to imply jaws opening. It suggests swelling, which isn’t really what you’re going for.
“Bastard-Breaker, draw.”
Avenger throbbed like a phallus and shifted from a mortuary sword to something much larger, with a highly defined spine. The familiar was vivisected from the jaws all the way to the tip of its tail. As the sword penetrated through the now-corpse the scent of fish exploded out.
You may have just wanted “bisected” here, since vivisection implies an examination of the internal structure. Quite ironically, this style of literary criticism can also be defined as “vivisection”. This passage was ridiculous. I’m hardly sure of what I’m reading anymore, but it’s enjoyable. I see why this is under “Unlikely Pairings”.
Enhance took the brunt of the undead fish guts. Not a single drop of rotten slime splattered on Illya.
She peered from behind the vampire to get a better look at Svelten’s last moments. The end would be too interesting to not see.
Well alright, this is rather in-character for Illya.
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Her eyes were red.
Not the kind of red that was swollen with tears. Not the kind of red that were the bloodshot eyes of the exhausted or tripped out. No, red was the color she had been born with. Her eyes were red. Not red like the eyes of his princess. Svelten could go on and on about the minute differences between his beloved Altrouge and this hateful homunculus. The layering of the irises within the sclera, how wide apart they were set in their faces, the shapes, wines and roses and vermilions and carmines and cardinals and cornels and garnets and crimsons. Such wondrous crimson. That color, it stirred his heart the way that few things in the world did. It was a holy color. It was not a dirty red, an ugly scar red. It was a hue of gospel. It was pristine, mighty, something more. A color linked to the wondrous world he wanted to take more in of.
I wasn’t able to find any proof of a “cornel” as a flower or a gem. I did find something called “carnelian” which seems to be what you wanted to type here.
Her eyes were not the eyes of his princess. He could never deny that as long as he lived. He could also never deny that her eyes were just as beautiful as those of the princess he adored so much, for different and innumerous reasons that only mattered to him.
You could have expanded on those reasons, simply to create a stronger tone here. It’s all from his perspective, so there would be nothing wrong with a stream-of-consciousness section here.
The darkness encroached on everything in his sight. Soon there would be no more light to bounce off anything for him to see with. With that, there would be no way for him to see the beauty of the world.
“light to bounce off anything for him to see with” is another exceptionally awkward sentence. It’s a consequence of the prosaic style you employed to write this, but it doesn’t work here, and breaks immersion.
Her eyes were red.
Her eyes were not the eyes of his princess.
But if he forgot all about those important, bothersome little details, then he noticed, with enlightened disappointment and pleasant surprise, that that there was no difference at all.
If those crimson eyes that baptized him with darkness were to be the last thing he’d ever see…………………
He’d be a lot worse off without them.
“M’lady…” Svelten wistfully whispered with a tip of his hat.
Then he was gone.
A wonderful conclusion, though hampered by the content of the section. You’ve done a good job keeping the themes consistent, especially with regards to Svelten’s character.
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The Fredensborg they were on was an existence sustained by Parade. The demise of the Reality Marble’s owner meant that the ship would go down with its captain. With the disappearance of the necromancy modifications made to it, it would return to being a skeleton and would be laid to rest once more on the ocean floor.
Lovely little mechanic.
That was assuming, of course, that it would be allowed such a peaceful and cyclical interment. The small black hole continued to rage as it devoured the rest of the boat, as if it were racing against the world’s corrections now that the prana link had been severed. Steel and wood that felt like it became more brittle with every second wailed and rumbled as it was compressed into the apple-sized vortex.
“Well, then.” said Shirou.
“The guy was a creep and a weirdo. Let’s go.” said Illya
“Best thing I’ve heard all night.” said Enhance.
‘-reach out and touch faith-’ said the boombox.
I’m starting to wonder if the Unlikely Pairing here is Depeche Mode x Nasuverse, which might actually disqualify this story as a crossover.
This is a hilarious ending to the flashback. Shirou’s nonchalance nicely accentuates Illya’s derision, and Enhance’s rather more caustic attitude toward Svelten.
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“If anything’s going to be destroyed, it shall be on our own terms, not because it was the territory of a load-bearing foe.” Illya said with a flash of pride as the abridged recounting of the night’s events was completed.
Joke deivered, wonderful.
“So you just left a black hole in the middle of the ocean?” Tohsaka asked.
“It was a small one.” Shirou said.
“Don’t worry about that,” Illya explained, “Its natural decay rate means that it’ll poof into nothingness on its own. Eventually.”
“You don’t know how a black hole works at all, do you?”
“Can any one of us claim to understand how the deeper mysteries of the universe work, Rin?”
“Black holes are not target selective! That wasn’t a black hole you made at all!”
“It was a small one! That’s why!”
Let it be known that Illya would not moonlight as a theoretical physicist anytime soon.
I see the truth of this story now. It’s all been a framework for these jokes. I love it.
“I still can’t believe you brought a Dead Apostle Ancestor along with you, just like that.” Changing topics, Tohsaka said this incredulously as she once again eyed the dark-coated young man. He didn’t respond. He was too busy idly fussing with a beat-up boom box.
“Can we keep him, Rin?” Illya asked enthusiastically.
The concentration of gags is increasing.
Shirou added, “He did say he’d prefer to keep us nearby as the fallout from this comes to a head because he told us ‘Live bait that can fend for itself is a rare commodity.’ Him staying with us shouldn’t be a problem for you or Fuji-nee this time,” he said with a bit of relief, “For once it’s not a young woman we’d be putting up.”
Sorry at this point I can’t offer any more useful commentary since I’m laughing uncontrollably.
“The gender of the Single Edge is not what I take issue with!” Tohsaka loudly protested. “His name is Enhance,” Shirou said with a bit of an affronted look, but right now she couldn’t care less about his skewed priorities. “The problem is about not a broody man who actually calls himself the ‘Knight of Vengeance’in public. The problem is that you people are nosy and have a death wish!”
Space after “Vengeance”. Also paragraph break in between the alternating dialogue.
“So, Rin,” Illya said, “Does this mean that if you were in our position you would’ve let a craft full of hostile vampires and vengeful spirits roam free as it held a decisive prisoner captive?”
“No. No, I wouldn’t have just let it go. I also wouldn’t have attacked it head-on without any intelligence on what I would be getting myself into.”
“Would you really have?” Illya asked. “If your intelligence had informed you who exactly your foe was would you have still gone up against him?”
If it was just her, Tohsaka Rin alone, would she have taken such a risk? She decided that was doubtful. An upbringing as a magus made her accepting and prepared for death, while at the same time it urged the philosophy of self-preservation. She was a single woman with no successor to pass her Crest on to. If she went, then so too went generations of Tohsaka knowledge. Whether to be left to rot in the middle of nowhere, or stripped from her corpse and taken into Clock Tower storage it would be lost forever. Her things would be hawked by vultures from the Association, and the loss of its Second Owner would cause the power balance in Fuyuki City to shift. Even if the stars aligned and she somehow succeeded in destroying her target, the enemies that this would make her would be too powerful. On her own, Tohsaka Rin wouldn’t have risked it.
But if she had something worthy on the line? Something that she could go crazy for?
“No,” she admitted, “I’m not like that.”
-I’m not like you two, she thought.
Perfect. Nice work keeping Rin’s character consistent.
“You’re right. You’re not foolish like us. It’s nothing to be ashamed of that you can’t care about justice the way we can.”
Because really, what else would you call someone who fearlessly attacks a vampire’s lair without any prior information on it, and especially when it turns out that the vampire in question is not only one of the Dead Apostle Ancestors, but also one of the most powerful ones out there? What would you call it when a victory is achieved against all odds, with not only zero casualties, but the addition of an ally? “Idiots” and “dumb luck” were appropriate.
“And what of your so-called ‘justice?’ Tohsaka asked, “This good deed of yours was inconsequential to your original intentions.”
I feel a joke coming on.
“That can’t be denied,” She admitted, this confession of hers articulated with a matter of fact shrug, “If Shirou and I hadn’t happened to be there we certainly couldn’t be having this conversation.
Decapitalize “She”.
“You’re right, Rin. The only reason that we even got caught up in that watery grave,” Illyasviel von Einzbern looked at Emiya Shirou with a knowing smirk, “was all because we wanted a few little deaths.”
One second, let me Google “little deaths”.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
“For the love of- did you really just say that?” Tohsaka groaned. She slumped so much in her seat that she looked like her true identity was actually that of a previously undiscovered species of invertebrate, beached and trapped by the oppression of the surface world. That only liquid could prevent her sluggish body’s termination by desiccation.
Looks like she’d be nosediving into that bottle of champagne after all.
The humor here really is golden. I can’t fault you for that at all.
Idly she looked to Enhance and wondered if vampires could drink alcohol without, like, suffering a reaction to it.
“Tohsaka…”
“That’s a beer stein you’re pouring that into, Rin.”
“I need this. I need all of this.”
“As I said, the only thing that could possibly judge anyone in this world doesn’t exist.”
Fantastic. Every joke in the story is neatly wrapped up at the end, if not before.
Originally Posted by Milbunk
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