The Princess and the Witch
“Are you prepared to kill?”
Saber’s disinterested voice and the very fact that he could ask her something like this so casually, made Ayaka drop the pen held in her trembling hand. Or maybe it was just the fact that her Servant had brought up something she didn’t want to think about at all. After all, it was a killer’s guilt that made her become a Master in the first place- and the bespectacled girl had sworn to herself that her victory wouldn’t be at the cost of more lives.
Whatever happened-
-She wasn’t going to trample on the dreams of others, deny them their goals for forever by taking their very lives and chances for success, just because she had a dream of her own.
Hiding her eyes under the fringe of her black hair, the teenage girl mumbled something incoherent and silently picked up her pen to resume scribbling various notes on whatever meager magical knowledge she had. Her opponent was certainly a tough one- and her only chances of coming out of that scuffle alive were either a miracle or not fighting at all. But still, under the artificial light of her desk lamp, the bespectacled girl read over and over every tidbit of magecraft info she had acquired over the years. Sadly, none seemed to mention a surefire way to defeat an experienced electro-mage.
“Why?” suddenly asked the black knight in his usual emotionless tone. The girl knew he was most likely scrutinizing her under his cold gaze from behind that ominous helmet of his but she didn’t dare look. She could only determine that he was currently casually leaning on the doorframe with hands crossed with her peripheral vision.
Frankly, she was surprised at his question. Ayaka had expected yet another dry quip or a witty jab at her complete lack of understanding of what it was to be a mage. But no, all her Servant apparently wanted to know was why his Master had taken such a decision. In a way, she preferred to be belittled by him than to be forced to put her feelings into words. All her life, the bespectacled girl had preferred to keep such things to herself- she felt somewhat safer that way, not giving the others the chance to pity her when they should actually despise her. And then Saber had come along and started asking such questions in a tone one would usually use to dictate a shopping list.
“Well, I…” the girl paused, unsure what to say to him. Ayaka knew Saber would never accept the answer of someone ‘weak’ and he could probably easily tell if she lied just to please him. So, in the end, the black-haired teen settled on answering more or less sincerely. “I think that those who are… really strong can defeat an enemy without killing him. It’s not just a weakness to let a deadly enemy go it’s just that… only the strong can afford to show mercy, right? By sparing your opponent you aren’t being any less strong, but quite the contrary- you are showing the enemy you are strong enough not to care if he comes after you again.”
“Interesting theory,” said Saber after around half a minute of silently staring at his Master and making her feel like being inspected under a microscope. “But as interesting as it is to hear your theories on psychological warfare and the right of the strong, Master, I doubt things will be any different. Whether you are willing to kill this Meissa or not, the end result will be the same. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try… you stand virtually no chance against her.”
Ayaka realized all too late that she was actually staring at her Servant agape due to the sheer shock. After asking all those questions, after making her open up to him… he went and outright told her she was going to certainly lose. The bespectacled girl, her cheeks flushed both because of anger and embarrassment, opened her mouth again to retort to Saber’s comment but the black knight cut her off before she could even utter a single word.
“There is as much as sense in getting angry at the truth as there is in trying to fight her head on. You have to understand, in life you are going to meet both enemies weaker than you, enemies you are roughly evenly matched against and enemies that hold a difference in power over you that is insurmountable. Power is power, you can’t change that. No one can.”
At a loss of words once again, the girl turned her back to Saber and hugged her knees. ‘At least some support would have been nice,’ thought Ayaka.
“So,” continued the black knight, his cold gaze drilling a proverbial hole through his Master’s back. “You just have to found a way to turn your loss into a victory.”
“Saber, that’s just nonse-“
“Do you know how one defeats a superior swordsman, one your techniques and strength and speed can never match up against?”
Once again having been rather rudely cut off, the girl just shook her head.
“You let him hit you. You take the hit from his blade and, as you swing your sword with all your strength, you pray his sword would be stopped by some bone or would just hit a non-vital area. Because, when the difference in power is too great, that’s the only way. To allow yourself to get hurt to hit back.”
“So,” Ayaka began and turned around meekly, still too angry at her Servant for his usual uncaring behavior. “You are saying that I’ve to let her strike and then knock her out?”
“Impossible,” declared Saber. Ayaka’s spirits once again reached an all-time low. “The only types of magecraft you are familiar with are Formalcraft and Witchcraft and none of them are meant to be used offensively in a head-on battle anyway. You can slow her down, I guess, but nothing more.”
“Then how-“
“Do you have any knowledge about Ahriman?” shot off Saber, as if they had been discussing this topic since the beginning.
“About Ahriwho?” echoed the girl and raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
“About Zoroastrianism as a whole?”
“Uhm, no, can’t say that I do,” admitted Ayaka, wondering if her Servant had suddenly lost it.
“Have you practiced Persian magecraft before?”
“No, I’m sure I would’ve noticed if-“
“Then what about the bounded fields around the house?” asked Saber, continuing his investigation like it was a natural thing to do in such a situation.
“Oh, those diagrams!” exclaimed Ayaka and tapped her lips to help herself remember faster. “Well, Jed actually showed me how to draw them. That was before I had gotten that old grimoire and he had taught me how to transmute elements successfully before that so I thought they would work. But I haven’t actually had any chance to try them out yet,” admitted the girl rather reluctantly, making sure not to make eye-visor contact with her Servant.
“And who exactly is this ‘Jed’ person, if I might ask, Master?” inquired Saber in a way that clearly conveyed Ayaka had no right to refuse an answer.
“A… friend of mine. He is a mage, too… at least I think he is. Jed seems to know more about magecraft than me but he always claims he can ‘slide between dimensions’ or something-“
“So let me summarize things a bit,” said Saber as he raised his hand to cut her off. “Your ‘friend’, who claims to be a practitioner of the Second Magic, taught you how to assemble bounded fields built around a two-and-a-half millennia old Zoroaster curse?”
“I didn’t know it was actually that old,” admitted the girl and wondered what other kinds of ancient esoteric knowledge Jed kept stored inside that crazed mind of his. She made a mental note to ask him next time they talked. “Now that I think about it, those runes did look vaguely Middle Eastern-“
“Take off your top,” said Saber without even the slightest change in his usual disinterested voice.
“WHAT?!” Ayaka’s yelp, which had come out more like an outright shriek, echoed in the scarcely-lit room.
Saber’s tendency to jump from one topic to another and disregard her completely along the way had been annoying but this new subject certainly put all the rest of the black knight’s seemingly nonsensical statements to shame. Ayaka instinctively hugged her knees even closer, trying to cover herself up despite knowing full well she was clothed completely. Her tired mind unconsciously recalled Assassin’s quips on what blacks knight usually did to young women… but Saber just stood there, leaning on the doorframe and being seemingly as bored as always.
“Just do it,” ordered the black knight once again. “I can’t inscribe the circle through your sweater, unless you want your clothing to do the fighting for you.”
And with that he was gone, leaving behind one very confused teenage girl. Due to the understandable bewilderment, Saber found his Master the same way he had left her when he returned- fully clothed and trying to make herself look as small as possible. The black knight set down the first aid kit and one of the sharper kitchen knives at her desk and just loomed silently over his Master.
“It’s disinfected,” pointed out Saber as he somehow managed to deftly twirl a bit the kitchen knife between his fingers despite having his bulky black gauntlets on. The black knight either didn’t care or chose to ignore on purpose why precisely the teenage girl before him was reacting like that.
“But you are a knight, not a mage,” meekly countered Ayaka in a vain attempt to dissuade her Servant.
“I was raised by a very experienced mage,” countered Saber. “Although she was abysmal at the actual ‘raising’ part. Besides, this kind of magecraft doesn’t require the one making the circle to be the one actually using it. All you need is a ‘focus’ for the spell. The circle I’ll add to the original one will just allow a one-time connection to the bounded fields around the house. But if you can think of any other way, feel free to tell me. I’m all ears, Master.”
“Can’t you inscribe it on my hand or something?” almost pleaded the bespectacled girl.
“I don’t know if you have noticed lately, but I’m a knight. I wield swords. Using a kitchen knife to carve your back is my limit, anything smaller and it would be like telling me to sew up my armor with a needle and a thread.”
After half a minute of tense silence, at least for Ayaka, the black-haired girl let out a weary sigh and took off her sweater. Covering herself up with her hands, she turned around and tried to hide her blush. Saber remained as still as a gothic statue brought to life. Letting out another sigh, the girl took off her bra as well, trying as hard as she could not to show to the black knight more than he needed to see.
“Lie down.”
“W-what? But-“
Alas, despite her protests, the bespectacled girl found herself pushed onto her bed as Saber pinned her down. Her blush only got stronger but her Servant really did seem interested only in what was the most efficient way to apply the diagrams to her body. To his credit, the black knight really did try to be as gentle as possible- but pain was pain and every time the blade cut through her tender skin Ayaka had to suppress her yelps. In the end, she found herself biting her crumpled sheets in a vain attempt to vent off. As the time passed and the thin streaks of blood poured down her pale body, Saber just kept on talking- about how the spell was going to work in what kind of situation, what she needed to do to activate it, when it would be the best moment to do so…
The black knight just droned and droned in that same bored indifference he usually showed to her. After some time, Ayaka chastised herself for actually being somewhat disappointed he didn’t at least comment on her body. It was a strange kind of feeling, somewhat both anxiety at being stuck in such an embarrassing situation and annoyance her Servant didn’t even bother to treat her as a woman. But then again, he had quite some trouble treating her as an equal human being in the first place.
But, after all, Ayaka still had some vanity as a girl- while not as slender as that blonde mage for example, the bespectacled girl somewhat prided herself on being way more endowed than that flat-chested Master. For a moment the amateur mage asked herself whether her Servant preferred the same sex… but stereotypical as it may have sounded, she imagined he would had been a somewhat happier or at least a bit nicer person if that was the case. The thought of Saber being secretly a woman under that armor also crossed her mind… but the black knight’s voice was way too masculine to be that of a woman, no matter how butch she tried to sound.
It was more like… she had seen him bleed, she knew he was flesh and blood and yet- Saber acted much more like a machine than anything else. Just like a robot made out of flesh and blood, all he could show to the world of the living was cold indifference.
Then, trying to escape as far away from the pain as possible, her thoughts wandered in a different direction. Like what would her parents do if they saw her in that particular moment. Mr. Millsbury getting a heart attack was the most likely outcome but since the chances of her parents barging into her room after suddenly coming back from Miami a month earlier were slim to none, Ayaka didn’t bother worrying. All in all, it was far more likely Jed to jump in through the window than anything else. After the blond lunatic had entered the house through the chimney last Christmas, dressed as some weird mix between a leprechaun and the Easter Bunny, Ayaka was rendered unable to be surprised by anything he ever did anymore.
A sudden yell echoed into the room as the cold blade bit harshly the girl’s skin.
“Why did you do that?” Ayaka cried out in pain.
“You were unresponsive when I asked if you were listening. I thought you might have lost consciousness because of the blood loss so I applied more pressure to wake you up,” Saber lied without even the slightest change in his tone.
The black-haired girl could only let out yet another scream when she noticed she had instinctively gotten up to shout in Saber’s face and was now giving the black knight an eyeful of the gifts Mother Nature had bestowed on her.
“Just finish it,” muttered Ayaka ashamedly as she pressed her body against the mattress and glanced at the clock on her nightstand.
The time to her fateful first duel in this War was drawing awfully near.
As the main tourist disembarking point of the Montressor Harbor, Pier 51- otherwise known as ‘The Sparrow’- rarely got to see much work during the autumn and winter months. While during late spring and the whole summer it was easily one of the busied places in Hartcroft, rivaling both Little Vegas and the business district, during those two rather cold and tourist-repellant season it was more akin to a ghost town than anything else. Since the warehouses were empty and no ships were actually docking in the harbor, the guards- who were few and far between in the first place- had chosen to just be as lazy as possible and even sleep on the job.
It was in one of those empty warehouses that the mismatched duo of Master and Servant were waiting for their enemies. The night was fairly clear- the waning moon was in plain sight with the lack of the usual veil of clouds that had hid it those past few days. The distant rumble of the waves crashing against the shore was the only sound that accompanied their waiting. Both of them were too deep in thought to bother actually talking with each other. Ayaka was rather prone to unneeded fidgeting as the anxiety ate her up from the inside- and it certainly wasn’t helping that the carvings on her back ached painfully after even the slightest of moves.
Midnight eventually came and went. The bespectacled girl started wondering if by some heavenly miracle her opponent was unable to show up or if they had just went to the wrong spot. Alas, Meissa did show up- albeit twenty minutes later.
“So you really are dead-set on getting embarrassed, huh?” drawled out the blonde as she twirled a lock of her wavy hair around her slender finger. “I decided to be generous and give you a chance to give up since you are obviously new to this and all but apparently my generosity is wasted on you.”
Meissa’s face was now adorned by a rather knowing smirk and her posture and attitude were more akin to a cruel bigger sister bullying a younger sibling than that of a deadly mage about to fight another Master. The blonde was dressed as provocatively as always, seemingly not caring about the chilly night weather. Meissa easily reached the lower level of a pile of stacked boxes and plopped down at the top. Her icy gaze bore into Ayaka’s uncertain black eyes, as if waiting for her opponent to just turn tail and run. To her credit, the black-haired teen found the strength to glare back.
“And here I thought you had gotten scared and hightailed it out of here,” drawled out Saber in his usual bored and indifferent tone. “How silly of me, my lady. Normally I would feel obliged to apologize but I’m afraid currently I just don’t… how was the saying again? Ah, yes. ‘I don’t give a damn’.”
Meissa clicked her tongue in annoyance but chose to just wave off Saber’s comment.
“The supposedly mighty Saber resorting to shallow verbal retorts? Hah, pathetic,” Meissa said dismissively. She opened her mouth to say something else but the turn of events that followed silenced her quickly.
The air in front of Saber grew think and heavy as some kind of impregnable black mist formed out of thin air. Suddenly, the mist had taken the form of another black knight- one currently in mid-motion of slashing horizontally with his spear at Saber. Ayaka’s Servant jumped back, possibly in the last possible second, as the tip of the spear actually managed to hit that tiny crack between his helmet and his breastplate and nearly sliced through his neck. To the bespectacled girl’s horror, there actually was a thin stream of blood along the edge of the newcomer’s spear.
“Tzk, too shallow,” muttered the other black knight in conclusion to his surprise attack.
While both he and Saber were apparently those warriors one would call ‘black knights’, there were quite a few noticeable differences between them. The spear-wielding Servant had no helmet and apparently didn’t bother to reveal his face. He was clearly middle-aged, at least in appearance, and yet his wild disheveled white hair, sunken eyes and pale slightly wrinkled skin clearly indicated he was old far beyond his natural years. And while Saber’s armor was threatening but rather clean, akin to a set of tournament gear, the other Servant’s black armor was covered in rusty, suspiciously crimson-colored blotches and spots. A tattered red rag of a cape was hung over one of his shoulders.
“Lancer?” asked Saber, clearly surprised. Ayaka’s Servant’s next words were far closer to his usual quips, tho. “And here I was, thinking they only admitted honorable fighters in the three knight classes.”
“Honor?” echoed Lancer in a hoarse, ominous voice. “Honor?! You, whose own holy blade was tainted by your actions, dare accuse me of being dishonorable?! Let me tell you something, kid, those like us don’t talk about honor. Honor is something those clankers in shining armor live by. Us two… we’ve thrown our honor to the dogs long, long ago.”
“I’d be rather thankful if you didn’t include me in that little one-man group of yours just because of lack of members,” retorted Saber as he gripped the black-and-crimson blade that appeared out of thin air right into his waiting hand. “I have standards, you know.”
“Lancer!” bellowed out Meissa, seemingly angry at her Servant for some reason. “I told you ‘no sneak attacks’! What’s the point in proving our superiority if we do it by stabbing them in the back?”
“And what’s the point in being superior if you are dead?” shot back Lancer. “Fallen knight or not, he’s a Saber. I can’t afford the carelessness of giving him a fighting chance. All’s fair in war, Meissa, so next time you want me to play by the rules of a duel, use a Command Spell.”
“What now, when your little scheme has failed so spectacularly?” asked Saber and readied his tainted blade.
“My, my, for someone who nearly got his throat sliced just moments ago you sure are confident, aren’t you?” retorted Lancer, the spear in his hand now nothing but a blur as he twirled it around in his hand fast enough to make it seem distorted.
Suddenly, in all the time it took Ayaka to blink once, the spear was thrown at her Servant with blinding speed. This time she really felt the prana siphoning out of her as Saber borrowed some of her energy to counter the attack. The red burst of prana was the only thing that moved his sword in front of the spear in time for the attack. Both blades clashing, they froze in mid-air in a vicious battle for superiority as the spear tried to keep going forward and skewer Saber and the black knight tried to push it away. Like a never-ending rain, sparks flew out from the point of impact and the air swirled around the crashing blades. In the end, backed up by a crimson burst of prana, Saber’s sword won the vicious clash and shattered Lancer’s spear in hundreds of tiny pieces that just melted into the air.
Seizing the opportunity, Saber dashed forward and covered the distance between him and Lancer in a single leap. His sword cut through the air with enough force to send a shockwave through it… but Lancer just ended up materializing a different spear and literally swatted away the tainted blade instead of blocking the vicious hit. Turning the tables around, Lancer flashed a knowing smirk and used his and Saber’s momentum to swipe at Ayaka’s Servant with the other end of his spear, force him to do a complete one-hundred and eighty and then send him flying back from where he had darted from.
Saber skidded to a stop several meters in front of Ayaka. Both Servants stared down each other, seemingly satisfied with the initial probing exchange of attacks.
“Hey, Meissa,” Lancer called out to his Master. “Don’t underestimate the opponent just because she is inexperienced, understood? Don’t hold back on that girl’s account.”
“Okay, okay,” hastily replied the blonde and bridled up. “I knew that already! Just try not to get beaten, ‘cause I’ll never forgive you that.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” replied the older knight and readied his weapon.
“And you try not to get killed,” said Saber loud enough for only Ayaka to hear as he stepped forward to resume his own battle.
When their eyes met, almost like they had appointed it as a signal beforehand, both black knights darted towards each other with inhuman speed. Lancer’s spear disappeared in a flurry of vicious jabs and Saber’s tainted sword became nothing but a blurred whirlwind of destruction to the untrained eye. Soon enough, both Servants bolted out of the warehouse, exchanging blows all the while, in search of a battlefield where they could employ their more destructive skills without worrying for their Masters.
And the Masters themselves remained rooted at their spots, each of them waiting for the other to make the first move. Their reasons for waiting, however, were as different as night and day. Ayaka was trying to restrain her shaking as sweat trickled down her spine and she clenched and unclenched her trembling hands again and again to handle the pressure. Meissa, on the other hand, was merely giving the black-haired girl the opportunity to do first move out of pity. It was painfully clear that the blonde was way more than certain in her superiority by the way she just idly dangled her legs and waited for her amateur ‘colleague’ to start their duel.
Ayaka had no hope for a last second miracle. She knew what kind of a mage she was facing and what the difference in their respective levels was. In a way, it was like trying to outshine a stage light with a candle. The bespectacled girl knew it, Meissa knew it and even Saber had flat-out admitted he was certain his Master would fail… and yet, despite the plan they had concocted, the black-haired girl didn’t want to give up just yet. Deep down, even though she knew she wasn’t the type upon whom Lady Luck smiled, Ayaka wanted to at least try and put up a fight. Because the girl who wanted her miracle so much… she wanted to be the one to earn it as well.
Just like Ayaka knew that only erasing her mistakes from all those years past wouldn’t be a payback enough for her betrayal to her parents, the bespectacled teen also knew well-enough that she wouldn’t be able to look them in the eyes if she earned back their lives through dishonest means. ‘Saber is going to be so mad at me,’ admitted the girl bitterly to herself.
And yet her hand seemed to have stopped trembling on its own. Raising it, she pointed at her expecting enemy and the name of the spell rolled out naturally off her tongue. The tiny black sphere, a concentrated form of malice and ill intent befitting of a witch like her, shot out from Ayaka’s finger. Almost as if she had decided to brave the curse head-on, Meissa remained at her spot until the last moment. But then, the darkness around her was illuminated by a lone blue flash of lightning that engulfed the blonde’s body. As if being there the whole time, Meissa appeared right in front of her startled opponent and slashed horizontally at Ayaka’s throat.
Just like her Servant earlier, the black-haired girl managed to narrowly escape a slit throat by jumping backwards. Alas, being nowhere near as athletic or experienced as Saber, Ayaka ended up falling back onto the hard floor. A thin stream of blood oozed from the shallow cut across her pale neck. Mirroring it, small crimson droplets were now dripping down from the tip of Meissa’s blade, still mounted below her wrist. Apparently, despite Lancer’s warnings, the blonde wasn’t even going to use her magecraft against Ayaka.
And despite being ashamed of apparently not being worthy enough to be fried with lightning by the blonde, the black-haired girl didn’t lose any resolve. On the contrary, she took it as an opportunity. Even if her only way to victory was defeating an opponent not even trying to fight seriously, Ayaka was going to accept such a win if it was earned with her own sweat and blood. Thankful that she had swapped her usual attire with a track suit for that night, the bespectacled girl rose shakily to her feet and tried to ignore the burning pain coming from the cuts on her back.
Meissa just smirked even more, apparently happy that her opponent was at least showing some spunk, and took a step forward…
Only to end up frozen in mid-motion, as if the very air around her had suddenly turned into stone. Realization settled in the blonde’s widened blue eyes when she noticed the faint glow of the ritual circle etched into the ground finally revealing itself upon activation. It had been another suggestion of Saber’s- to use whatever spells and curses Ayaka knew just to make her opponent think that the black-haired mage really was fighting desperately to win. Arriving earlier than the two Masters had agreed upon, or rather –earlier than Meissa had ordered her to be there- the amateur mage had used whatever time she to spread around the warehouse as many ritual circles as she could make.
Their initial purpose may have been misdirection, but now Ayaka was going to try and make use of them as much as she could. Despite the fact that even holding the knife given to her by Nia made her want to puke, the black-haired teen flicked the blade open and darted towards her opponent. Meissa all but laughed at the sight of her charging peer. Her smile and disdainful look clearly showed that the binding circle was nothing more than a minor inconvenience to her. Once again arcs of blue lightning shined brighter than even the moonlight as they covered the blonde’s body. With the sound of breaking glass, the seal around her feet was shattered in an instant. As if teleportating, the lightning-mage disappeared for a single instant, which to Ayaka seemed to last as long as eternity.
And then she felt the cold steel bite her side as Meissa once again slashed at her. But one hit turned into two and two turned into four and more as the barrage of strikes came from seemingly each and every direction. Covered in cuts and bleeding from at least a dozen different places, the black-haired girl fell to her knees, the knife falling off her wounded arms.
“Give up,” plainly stated Meissa. “Between someone like me and the likes of you, the difference is measured in light years. Just give up your Command Spells and walk out of here no more hurt than you already are.”
No words left Ayaka’s throat. She knew the blonde would never understand her reasons and, besides, the combined pain of all the cuts- both old and new- was starting to make her dizzy. Her yellow track suit was gradually getting redder by the minute. And still, she picked up her dropped weapon and rose up slowly. Her free hand clutched the one holding the knife, both to steady it and to make sure her Command Spells were still there. The black-haired teen’s quivering lips moved quickly, weaving together a spell heard only by the one casting it.
That amateur tactic was her only hope of standing even a ghost of a chance against Meissa. A lone candle had no chance to outshine a stage light. But if enough candles were lit, their collective light just might be the one thing leading her to victory.
With the knife held firmly in her hands, Ayaka once again charged at her much more experienced opponent head-on. Meissa was now beginning to look more annoyed than anything else and this time chose to just sidestep away and counterattack with yet another vicious slash. Expect this time, the blade she wielded passed only through thin air.
“An illusion?!”
The blonde blinked in surprise but it was too late for realization to settle in when she saw the glint of the reflected moonlight coming from the blade rapidly nearing her from the side. Caught off guard and unable to activate on time whatever spell she had used before to move so quickly, Meissa could only hold up her hand and defend herself from the knife with it. Her distorted expression showed not only pain but anger at being caught off guard by an amateur- hers was the face of someone dead-set on not playing nice anymore.
But before the blonde could even word a single spell, Ayaka had ran off in the distance after only a single slash, which had only gotten the blonde’s hand anyway. Running frantically between the meters-tall piles of boxes and crates, the bespectacled girl fought for every single breath of air as her burning lungs struggled to keep on working. The blood loss was finally starting to get to her and the world seen through Ayaka’s eyes became blurred and distorted. The bespectacled girl stopped seemingly at a random spot and fell down on her knees, trying to catch her breath.
“Found you!”
Not even a second later, the lance of lightning ploughed through the pile of crates at the end of the row and darted straight towards the gasping teen. Once again the whole warehouse was illuminated by the bright blue light but for all its beauty, the blue beam was as deadly as they came. For a second, all seemed lost- and then the lightning-enhanced blade changed direction for some unknown reason. The lightning lance veered off completely from its initial course and ended up bulleting through the roof.
Surrounding Ayaka, another magical circle now glowed faintly into the moonlit night. The distorted air, which formed a small dome around her, clearly showed that whatever magecraft construct it was, it was certainly defensive in nature.
“Another one?” asked rhetorically Meissa as she came into view, walking out of the wreckage her attack had left behind. With a loud buzz, the wire retracted the blade back to its original place below her wrist. “It must be surely tough for third-rate mages like you, having to rely on such pre-made amateurish traps merely to survive.”
An almost sincere smile appeared on the blonde’s face.
“Well, no matter. It’s a wonder it actually repelled it, tho. Want to see if it can take a second hit?”
Before even the last word had come out of her mouth, the lightning-blade flew once again. Once more it struck the shield head-on. But this time, instead of bouncing off, it kept on pushing forward and sent ripples of electricity running over the transparent dome. Ayaka could barely even think anymore. On top of her physical pain she could feel her prana being siphoned out more and more- Saber was either in dire straits or maintaining a Servant’s fighting prowess while fighting yourself was really that taxing. Still, she had to try. She had to push on because that was the path chosen by her and even if her body betrayed her, even if her mind gave up on her… she had to keep on.
Whatever happened.
It wasn’t merely a frightened, battered girl that stood up. It was a mage, fully aware of what was at stake. With an empty expression, the most determined look she could actually manage while being in so much pain, the bespectacled girl slowly licked Meissa’s blood off the blade. The words of the spell flowed out easily and Ayaka could only pray she had enough time to finish the curse. Just as the last whispered word left her lips, her shield broke into millions of tiny pieces which melted into the chilly night air. Meissa retracted the blade and flashed her a knowing grin.
“I guess the third time will be the charm, ri-”
The look of horror on the blonde’s face spoke volumes. With eyes widened in shock, the blonde tried to stop her arm from moving but her struggling was in vain as her body was forced to obey. Mirroring Ayaka’s actions, the arm bearing the blade turned on its owner and headed slowly towards her slender neck.
Witchcraft was inherently a type of magecraft that required specific conditions. The ability to cause greater harm with small efforts was one of the main points of this system of spells- making up for lack of natural talent by using something to ‘focus’ your magecraft on and enhance the effect of the curse. That kind of body-controlling magic required a physical part of the victim- like hair or blood- and something human-shaped, like a doll, to act as the ‘focus’. But since none of Ayaka’s skills included on-the-spot doll-making, she was forced to improvise.
Looking back, that was perhaps the only true talent she recognized as her own. The ability to understand the meaning behind a spell’s construction, to read the ‘cause’ of a curse and not only see its ‘effect’. Maybe that was why she had end up delving into precisely those two kinds of magecraft. Because, like a child playing with Lego blocks, whatever spell Ayaka came across, she could dismantle and reinvent it. And so, with nothing even remotely-doll like on hand, the bespectacled girl was forced to turn her own body into her ‘focusing point’. A living voodoo doll whose movements the opponent was forced to mimic.
That kind of magic was not without its drawbacks, though. First of all, the spell’s effect grew stronger the closer the caster was to the victim. Plus, there was a reason an inanimate object was needed in the first place. Moving her arm and making Meissa’s do the same was beyond excruciating. It felt like her muscles and tendons refused to move and instead they ended up being torn apart by her own bones, themselves ready to snap at any second, as she tried to forcedly move her arm. Both girls refused to look away. During that agonizingly long minute on that fateful night, nothing existed in their worlds but each other. Lightless black and icy blue pierced through each other, both mages finally understanding that the point of no return was finally being crossed.
And when her own blade finally touched her exposed neck, Meissa stopped holding back.
A single word, a single spell. The only one she actually bothered using every time she fought.
But this time, instead of being channeled through the wire and into the blade or being harnessed by her own body, the electricity flooded out of her system in a torrential surge. The raging arcs of lightning turned everything around her into splinters and Ayaka was sent flying backwards by the aftershock of a lightning whip which crashed into the ground and barely missed her. The curse was broken and, losing all control, the bespectacled girl was left only with the pain that increased tenfold upon her rather gruesome landing.
Ayaka, lost between reality and unconsciousness, could barely recognize the distorted image of Meissa looming above her. The blonde was telling her something but the black-haired girl couldn’t make out any of her words. Ayaka’s ears were ringing and even the gleaming blade pointed at her face meant little to her. She tried to laugh bitterly but her throat was too sore and too damn tired to make the effort. Finally admitting defeat, Ayaka barely managed to whisper those two words, the single spell that ensured her defeat would mean denying her opponent’s victory.
A two-and-a-half millennia old curse waved into a bounded field.
A circle inscribed onto her bruised, battered and bleeding back meant to allow a one-time connection to it and turn Ayaka herself into the ‘focusing point’ for that bounded field.
A link between her and her enemy- the link which could transfer directly each cut and every bruise, every bit of pain she had experienced up until now to the enemy caught up in the field.
And those two words.
“Verg Avesta.”
At first, nothing happened. Meissa just kept looming over the bespectacled girl without even flinching. And then, with a half opened mouth that was unable to even let out the blonde’s blood-chilling scream, the lightning mage fell down next to her enemy and lost consciousness as her mind turned off in an attempt to protect itself from the invading pain.
Ayaka just stared at the twinkling stars visible through the hole in the roof and wondered whether that was a false victory or just a shared defeat.