The sword struck with dazzling speed and deadly might, each strike bearing lethality. The moist forest ground was gouged and carved with each vertical blow, and the horizontal slashes felled trees and split the air, creating muted percussion and grievous howls. Fallen leaves were scattered along with the scent of morning dew, creating an artistic backdrop to the dance of blade versus musket.
Yes, her own weapon was a musket, humble in comparison and utterly outclassed to the point its worth had reduced to that of a makeshift parrying stick.
The fifteenth broke, split in half like a worthless twig. She Projected the sixteenth—no, it wasn’t really Gradation Air. A musket simply manifested in response to her wish for a weapon.
She sought the second enemy Servant with her mind more than with her eyes—no, her eyes were fixated on the almost-unbearably-Nordic shield-maiden trying to split her in two. The second one—Rider, she remembered—lurked behind trees and bushes, constantly seeking her blind spot. Stealth was not Rider’s forte—it was, in fact, her own—, but it was not necessary when she could not take her attention off the vastly superior opponent that was Saber.
The sixteenth broke. Out the seventeenth.
She desperately needed to put some distance between them, but moving at the speed of reflexes, turning lethal strikes into glancing blows, that was the most she could achieve. Sooner or later she would fall to Saber’s metallic blue blade, or Rider would catch her unaware and deal the treacherous blow. Was she going to lose without firing a single shot?
No way in—ah, the seventeenth broke. Reworking her tactics, she waited for the right moment to deploy the eighteenth. She focused on dodging, moving backwards and in a circle to keep Rider looking for that one chance. And then she ducked, to dodge the blade poised to behead her, and the duck turned into a forward roll, conjuring the new musket midroll and firing it while upside down. The ball bounced harmlessly off Saber’s shield, but it created the moment of stillness she needed to leap away and to the nearest tree branch.
“Don’t let her get away!”
“Get out of my way and stay quiet!” Saber roared with unexpected anger. She added it to her profile of her sudden opponent; she could use it. Time to experiment.
“Wait, who exactly gives the orders in that relationship?” she taunted amidst continuous musket fire, conjuring the next weapon at the same time she fired the one in her hands, using the recoil to feed the leap to the next branch.
“Nobody tells
me what to do!” Saber roared and split the trunk vertically with a single blow. She had already switched trees by that time, of course, constantly firing lead balls. The only exposed part of Saber’s body was her head, and the shield-maiden knew how to protect it.
“Stop making things harder for yourself, Assassin!”
“Oh, so you know my class!” retorted the musketeer. “And here I thought you were just a psychopath couple assaulting random people in the Black Forest!”
“Like I would make that weakling my bride!” The mannish Saber spat back, the swings of her blade blowing scattered leaves off her fair blonde hair.
“Be quiet, you arrogant she-ape!” Rider retorted as she darted out of the bushes, her voluptuous body scantily clad in the veils of an exotic dancer. Blowing a kiss in Assassin’s direction unleashed a pulse of air pressure that would have knocked her off the tree had she stayed in the same place for more than a second.
“I told you to stay out of my way!” Saber leapt after Assassin with a ferocious war cry, but the musketeer let gravity pull her down, dangling from her legs while striking Saber’s chin with a well-placed bullet. Rider fired some more air bullets, but Assassin fell into hiding amidst the bushes.
“I know a lot more than your Servant class, Assassin!”
It took a lot from her not to jump out of hiding.
That woman, Rider, was implying she knew her true identity.
The one thing Assassin herself did not know.
But that still did not explain why they ambushed her without warning. However, she was fairly sure she would get nothing by asking nicely.
“Come on, little girl!” Saber was mowing bushing and felling trees like a child bully tearing down a sandcastle. “I came here looking for a good fight! I’m not leaving without satisfaction!”
Neither had shown signs of having detection Skills. Thanks to her own Stealth-skill, it was very unlikely she would be found unless she let them find her. She could probably just get away, but…
She moved silently, slowly, keeping a constant distance to remain undetected while listening to their exchange. Hoping they would inadvertently reveal something useful.
And then she found the human. And she screamed.
It came out something like “farranyaaah!”
She had no memory of ever meeting the young man, but she somehow knew he was the Master of Chaldea.
“Shhh—ow!” the Master rubbed the nose she had just punched. Assassin wasted not an instant picking him up like a newlywed bride and taking to the tall branches. An instant later, a barrage of Rider’s air bullets carpet-bombed their former spot.
“You broke my nose!”
“Oh, don’t be such a wuss; if I had punched you seriously you’d be dead.”
“Found you!”
She heard his choked gasp. She just moved, turning around to come face to face with Saber exactly in the posture she had predicted. Planting her foot on Saber’s right forearm stopped the shield-maiden from bringing her mighty sword down, and gave her the footing to launch herself away and back to ground floor, where of course Rider was already expecting her.
“Now what is this—wait, is that a—no, it’s Chaldea’s!”
Assassin ran and jumped her way from the thunderous barrage of air bullets, but the felling of trees did not smother Rider’s uproarious laughter.
“This is rich! You’re protecting him! How does that feel, little girl? Must be tearing you inside, huh?”
That was the proof Assassin needed: Rider definitely knew her true identity. It was the only way to explain how she knew what she was feeling in that very moment.
Holding this young man in her arms, looking at his startled and blood-soaked face; simply being in the presence of this human filled her with apprehension.
“I know!” insisted Rider, who by now was just firing haphazardly, having probably lost Assassin’s position. “It’s hatred at first sight, isn’t it? Then do the right thing and drop him! Drop him and come with me! We don’t have to fight if you agree to come, little girl!”
“Calling me ‘little girl’ doesn’t do you any favors,” murmured Assassin, and the Master barely caught the words.
“Where the hell are your Servants, anyway?”
The young man, apparently alone in such a dire situation, maintained a composed face even while carried bridal style and bleeding from a broken nose
“Do you want to beat those two?”
“I just want to be left alone!”
The Master glanced away for a moment, thinking to himself before looking back up at Assassin’s grey eyes. Assassin stayed on the move, all for the purpose of remaining outside Saber’s line of sight.
“Fair enough. Get further away from Saber.”
Assassin did not argue with his tone. If he had a plan, then it was better than nothing. And the plan was executed abruptly, flashily and loudly. She
did not remember meeting the young Master before, but the plan’s utter lack of subtlety did not surprise her at all.
“
Rhongomyniad
The Spear that Shines to the Ends of the Earth
!”
The line of dark energy ripped through the forest like divine castigation, gouging the softened soil and devouring the plant life in its path. Assassin’s mind was filled with confusing imagery—a memory? She
did not remember.
A cave. Fog. A storm, a dark place, the Wild Hunt.
She had to shake the disjointed imagery away. While a powerful Noble Phantasm, the attack was simply too obvious, its trajectory too linear. Rider disappeared from her sight, but she had definitely leapt away in time. While Rider disappeared, Saber jumped into the vast clearing created by their earlier battle, littered by trees felled by Saber’s weapon.
“The hell? That was…King Arthur’s—!”
Of course, the Master of Chaldea was not a complete idiot. The trap was obviously two-layered.
“
Golden Wild Hunt
The Night of the Golden Hind and the Storm
!”
Assassin was admittedly amazed at the feasibility of delivering a surprise attack with a galleon’s frontside deployment, on land. The massive cannons—no, the magnificent ship as a whole—levitated above the forest canopy, and they rained vast destruction upon the clearing, engulfing Saber in flames and explosions.
The Lancer-class Servant, Arturia Pendragon (Alter), stepped into the clearing atop Llamrei. Francis Drake bounced off branches to reach solid ground. Assassin remained hidden, and in fact tightened her grip on the man in her arms.
“Um, we don’t need to hide anymore.”
“Um, you haven’t realized you just became my hostage, have you?”
“…ah.”
Assassin stepped out slowly, using the Master of Chaldea as a shield. By that time the smoke from Drake’s cannon fire had dispersed, and Saber sat on the devastated ground with a sour expression. Surrounded as she was, she did not seem nearly as alarmed as Assassin expected her to be.
“Aaah, curse that Rider. But I guess that’s the kind of villain she is, running away at the first sign of trouble.”
Alter and Drake were more interested in their Master’s situation, and Assassin was weak against the voiceless pressure in their stares. Even if they had supported her against Rider and Saber, there was no way she could be comfortable surrounded by Servants vastly more powerful than she.
“Um, really, I just want to be left alone, so, um, I’ll let go of this guy, and then I go my own way, okay? Here.”
“Ow! You just dropped me like that!” The boy complained at Assassin’s feet.
“I really don’t like you.”
“Straightforward honesty; that’s good!”
The young man returned to his allies’ side, creating a three-pronged lull in the midst of the manmade clearing. Saber was by far the calmest, her laissez-faire attitude tinged with resignation. Assassin tried not to look like a bundle of nerves, but her small body and overall frail appearance did not help the projection of strength and confidence she would have liked to show.
“Really, that rayshift was a mess,” Drake commented lackadaisically.
“Tell me about it,” replied the young Master. “But let’s focus on figuring out what’s going on.”
“I know nothing!” Assassin quickly blurted out. “Those two whackjobs attacked me all of a sudden!”
“I regret nothing.”
The tip of Rhongomyniad was poised on the seated Servant.
“Right, what Alter means to say is that it’s time you tell us what your deal is.”
Saber snorted at the pirate before shrugging and slowly getting back on her feet.
“Hmph, I’m already bored. Might as well talk to pass some time.” Saber spoke with bored resignation, half-heartedly pointing in Assassin’s direction. “Long story short, the one who summoned us sent us to bring her that little one over there.”
“I’m sure you can be less pointlessly ambiguous than that.”
Saber laughed at the Master’s audacity.
“Nice, nice! But I don’t really know that much. Look, this Servant lady summoned me and a bunch of other Servants. Most of them are busy attacking Rome, but Rider and I were dispatched to find this little one and take her with us.” She shrugged. “Look, you really won’t get anything from me. I know nothing, because I didn’t give a shit. I just wanted a good fight, and I didn’t even get that. You want to know what’s going on? Travel south and see it by yourselves.”
Her easygoing attitude was quickly replaced by a stony mien.
“Just, really, think twice before opposing that woman. She’s bad news.”
“Explain.”
Saber winced at the edge in Alter’s voice, but answered nonetheless.
“It’s, well, you know that our forms as Servants are not the same as how we were in life. We are…adjusted, diminished, to fit our Saint Graphs.”
At the nod from her attentive audience, the shield-maiden mirrored the gesture and continued.
“That Servant is different. I looked at her and felt it made no difference.”
Saber clenched her hands as if to stop them from doing something unsightly like trembling.
“I saw a person with the power to destroy the world.”
The Norse warrior paid no heed to the frowning looks on their faces.
“Trust me on this: that person is no ordinary Servant.” She then turned to Assassin. “Funny thing is, I was convinced she was Assassin until I met you here.”
“This is not a conventional Grail War,” pointed out the young man from Chaldea. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’re repeats.”
“Hmm, true enough.” With that, Saber stretched and yawned unabashedly. “Alright then, now that I’ve said my piece, let’s just get this over with.” Shrug. “A hopeless three-versus-one is not my idea of glorious battle, but what can I do? It’s better than nothing.”
Assassin looked up and down at the easygoing woman in her bulky armor. Saber had recalled her sword and shield, and was clearly intent on making a pointless last stand. Looking at the young man, she saw in him no intent to fight, nor any hostility towards Saber. His Servants were, of course, more than poised to respond to any aggression from Saber. Letting Saber go…was not really an option, was it?
What she, Assassin, should do was not important at this juncture. She delved into her mind and pondered: what did she
want to do?
The answer, it appeared, was obvious. It made her crunch up her nose and wonder just what kind of stupid person she was in life.
“Wait.”
Taking a step forward, Assassin projected a musket in her hands and a second floating in the air over her right shoulder. She made a shooing gesture towards the trio from Chaldea, which was of course not heeded.
“Let’s do this one-on-one. You and me.”
It was her turn not to pay attention to the looks on their faces after her proposal. Except Saber’s, who was all smiles.
“Seriously? Grea—ah, um, now that I think about it, perhaps not; I mean…”
Assassin crossed her arms defiantly.
“You have taken moderate damage; I’m weaker than you. I’d say it’s about even. Are you refusing me?”
That was no longer possible to the likes of Saber.
“Don’t get in the way,” the Norse warrior hissed at the Chaldeans. Sword and board were ready.
“What she said,” added Assassin, once more pointedly ignoring the looks she was getting. The unvoiced question was obvious, but it was not time to give answers. Saber was ready, and she had the decency to wait for her. “One way or another, this won’t take a minute.”
“Damn right you are, little girl. Let’s have a good fight,” said the enthusiastic shield-maiden. Assassin could not tell whether the gleam in her eyes was gratitude or simply the eagerness to shed blood. At this point, it was not really important.
“I cannot promise anything, but I will endeavor to live up to your expectations.”
“What am I doing?”, she thought. She had just willingly stepped into a deathmatch against a vastly superior enemy. It was illogical, but it was the choice she had made by being true to herself, whoever herself was.
“One thing, Saber, if I may ask. Do you know who I am?” That the words concealed her growing trepidation was an added bonus.
“Eeh, you mean your true identity? No clue,” answered the big woman before pausing as a new thought struck her mind. “Ah, yes, Rider sounded like she knew, that cocky bitch.”
Assassin nodded.
“One more thing. That…woman, the one who sent you after me. Did she tell you where I was? Where to find me?”
“Yes. Don’t ask me how she knew; no idea.”
“I see. Thank you, Saber.”
A vivid smile from the beautiful Norse.
“Don’t mention it. You’re pretty great.” Assassin felt herself evaluated like a piece of meat by Saber’s clear eyes. “Not quite wife material, but I’d gladly take you as a concubine.”
Assassin rolled her eyes, but there was an awkward smile on her face.
“I’ll take that as a compliment, your Highness, King Thórberg.”
“Eh? How did you—?”
Saber sidestepped in an instant before a lead ball broke his face. It was the instant Assassin needed to reach her favored treetops and unleash gunfire from above.
The dance began anew, with Saber on the ground chasing Assassin as she jumped from tree to tree, mowing down trees to limit the possible paths of escape and eventually force the stealthy Servant to return to ground level. Yet impatience was superior, and Saber launched himself as if rocket-propelled, making the air explode as it was cut. The squeaking Assassin had all but scampered out of the way, but Saber was now airborne and above her, ready to fall like a bird of prey with a longsword instead of talons.
“Was that Mana Burst!?”
“Nope!”
“Then you’re just that insane!?”
The diving slash cleaved through the canopy as if delivered by a blade thrice as large. Assassin gasped as she jumped out of the way, never having ceased her gunfire for even a second. She gasped again at the sight of the devastation unleashed. The trees that were not crushed or uproot were coated in a layer of frost.
“God in Heaven!”
“Ahahaha, you’re cute, little girl!”
It was an incessant and lethal game of tag, in which Assassin desperately struggled to stay out of the reach of Saber’s sword of frost. The trees made for poor cover, but she used them nonetheless, sometimes twirling around them like a snake to seek Saber’s backside. Assassin constantly aimed for a higher position, her countless missing shots scattering grass, leaves and wet ground to the point that tree roots were uncovered.
“You little wench…” Saber’s words were not nearly as threatening when delivered with a full-teethed grin. “You have some sort of prediction Skill, don’t you?”
Of course, it was not like they stopped to talk, and Assassin’s response was almost drowned by the incessant firing of musket after musket.
“I didn’t intend to keep it a secret for long. I am fighting a strong Servant, after all.”
Saber licked his lips in response to Assassin’s catty wink.
“Well thank you. Now, my dear little girl, if you really want to beat me, you better do it fast!”
Saber kicked it up another gear, closing into Assassin’s personal space with barely an instant to react. The lightning succession of three strikes drew a triangle in the space in front of Saber; Assassin dodged them with the elastic movements of a contortionist, not a warrior. Rolling out of the way was interrupted into a mule kick to Saber’s wrist, to once again stop a cleaving strike. A musket slid past Assassin’s side, but Saber’s shield easily protected his face. The second attack on the upside-down Assassin was parried with that same musket, which shattered on impact. But Assassin planted both feet on the ground and for once was the faster attacker. Her shot bounced off Saber’s heavy armor, making him stumble a single step backwards. Assassin used the chance to put some distance again.
“That was your opening, little girl. You lost your one chance.”
“I’m not so great a warrior to be able to exploit such a tiny gap.”
“Huh. Makes sense, I mean, with that frilly dress and those horns. What kind of Heroic Spirit are you supposed to be?”
Assassin could only shrug at that.
“Wish I had an answer to that.”
Assassin could tell Saber was confused, but she said no more. Rather, she truly had no more to say.
The three from Chaldea had watched quietly and attentively, of course. Assassin guessed they considered the possibility of the victor effectively turning into their next enemy.
“Yeah, that little one’s peashooter’s only doing scratch damage,” Drake commented. “She can’t win like that.”
“No,” firmly refuted the Lancer Artoria. “From the first second, Assassin has been in control of the engagement.”
“Oh, you noticed, Alter?”
Lancer Alter froze her Master with a blatant “who do you think you’re talking to?” look.
“…I fight on horseback.”
“Ah.”
Assassin nodded her agreement, secretly glad she had set up things so that the distance prevented Saber from listening to the peanut gallery.
Indeed, for a mounted warrior, her mount’s footing was of critical importance. And Saber insisted on the same mistake he had been making even before those Chaldeans showed up.
He did not pay enough attention to the effects their combat had on their surroundings.
The musket was already prepared for the critical shot, and the
bumps and holes on the ground made by Assassin’s failed shots made the ground uneven enough to have an infimal effect on Saber’s dizzying speed. It was infimal, indeed, but in a fight between legendary warriors, it was significant enough to ensure Assassin’s survival for long enough.
Furthermore, when Saber’s charge was abruptly interrupted by her stumbling on
the root Assassin had unearthed moments earlier, their sheer difference in specs became irrelevant. She, who had set everything up for this very moment, was ready to push her musket on Saber’s unprotected neck.
“Ah.”
“Yup.”
Eloquence had no place in a battle with your life at stake.
The back of Saber’s head literally exploded as the critical strike forced its way through, and the bigger and mightier Servant stumbled haplessly into Assassin’s arms.
“I’m sorry,” Assassin confessed, hoping her voice properly projected her sincerity. “I cannot be the mighty warrior you hoped for.”
“No, no,” Saber’s hoarse voice came out of a destroyed throat. “’tis the way the weak must fight. Do not dishonor…the name of King Thórberg. Be proud of this, your victory.”
The two feel on their knees, one no longer unable to use his legs, the other struggling to bear with the former’s weight. Saber chuckled, staining Assassin’s dress with the blood spilled from his mouth.
“It was…a magnificent battle.”
And with that, the princess-turned-king-turned-queen was no more. Assassin closed her eyes, taking the burden of that life claimed unto herself.
“It was…a good hunt,” she concluded before getting back on her feet. With a deep sigh, she turned her attention to the Master of Chaldea.
“Uwah, I’m looked at with disgust straight away!”
“Ahaha, you cannot be loved by everyone, my gigolo Master!”
Lancer Alter harrumphed at Drake’s mirthful comment.
“So, you people coming?” Assassin said as she began her march out of the devastated forest.
“Huh? Where to?”
“Rome, it seems. If this woman Saber mentioned has some way to know where I am, then there’s no point in running away or trying to hide. Might as well see what her deal is. And I take you are coming because that is kind of your job.”
“She got us there, Cap’n,” Drake jokingly admitted.
“I don’t like your guts, but I am not stupid enough to reject the advantage of numbers, and trust your goody-goodness enough to not fear a stab in the back, at least for now.”
“I’m a corsair and Lancer here’s an Alter, yet she calls us ‘goody two-shoes’. I blame you for that, Master.”
“That’s not what she called us.”
“Name’s Assassin!” The yell already came from quite some distance away. “Don’t ask for my true name; can’t give you what I don’t have.”
Originally Posted by Daneel Rush
I hope you enjoy reading them:
, a few people
, most people were
. I remembered the line from the Nasu scripture, the Fate/Complete Material... "Now, I am become Death, the derailer of threads."
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