It had already stopped raining.
It was late at night, but early in the morning.
It was by chance that a fiercely blowing amethyst wind had chosen that route.
In the darkness of a corner in the downtown high rise area.
At the base of Sunshine 60 which was a prominent Tokyo high-rise building that soared beside the Shuto Expressway overhead structure a little bit separate from the JR Ikebukuro Station, in a plaza that was comprised with several loose stairs.
Like a park built with fake bricks.
Like some counterfeit ancient items, you could well meet some subtle fakes in this far eastern city.
Championing the cause of the sacred chalice, or was it a gloomy cauldron?
A hero that wasn’t a hero.
Another person who resembled her beloved well.
And, a woman who had appeared in this alien world, having died whilst living in a world where she was a god and a person once.
The thing that was a wind changed into a shadow that carried a large lance in her hand.
Its feet stopped.
The shadow was a woman.
Lancer.
A Servant.
The entire gross weight of the lance on this occasion was 2400 kilograms.
The lance had been altered/changed/evolved until it was at a state where its units should’ve changed into tonnes.
If she tried to turn it twice with just small movements of her wrist and fingers, spinning, and spinning, then the tip of the huge lance could easily tear through space.
The vacuum generated from this space not the atmosphere that’s suddenly generated, would blow away all of the earth from each of the thick surrounding trees, and pulverise the street lamps that have just finished being repaired.
Lancer: “…….haha.”
Lancer smiled.
It must've been her mouth that was charged with some sort of delight, but it was terribly, warped.
Whether it was an expression that was guided by some kind of emotion, it was very difficult to recognise.
She was crying while smiling, angry whilst crying, smiling whilst being angry.
Animosity, hatred, resentment, it was both near to it.
But it was also far from it.
Sorrow, grief, regrets, it was both far from it.
But it was also near it.
If I were to speak frankly――――
This woman, was now, definitely breaking right from the inside.
There weren’t just flames in her heart, the core that formed herself could be marked the same as her spiritual core.
Lancer: “heehee, hahahaha.”
With her deepening smile.
The flames enveloped her surroundings.
The flames that burned her soul was flowing out of her body, being exercised with the name called the “Prana Burst” skill.
The abnormal prana flames were like a sacred flame from the Age of the Gods, as they continued to burn by ignoring the laws of physics.
Suddenly, the area around the base of the Sunshine 60 building was engulfed by a sea of flames.
The glass of the uninhabited stores that faced the stairs were melting in 2 seconds.
Lancer: “It’s burning, burning, ahh…….”
Lancer smiled.
Whilst reflecting on memories of her distant days, in her eyes.
Her own self continuing to sleep in a hall of flames.
There, magnificently, a lone hero was entering without suffocating or having any sign of fear.
Whoever it was, he is dear, dear, dear to―――――
???: “How pitiful, Lancer. You’re causing your own collapse.”
A calm voice resounds, through the night sky.
The presence of ice that was mixed in his words resembled the athymia of Nigel Sayward’s.
The flames, disappeared.
The atmosphere that was scorched by the prana flames, had been quickly cooled by a single word of his continuous spell chants.
Heat control.
High speed chants.
Did he invoke a great magic of the 4 main elements with an utterance that was close to a single action roughly, or was he a magus from the age of the gods?
If so, then the voice’s owner was a magus that greatly loved his gadgets.
Lancer: “Let’s, see?”
She tilted her head with an fwah――――
Or, perhaps Lancer was looking, while bending at such an angle that it seemed like she was breaking.
Looking up.
She could see that the voice’s owner, was a magic user.
Lancer: “……..hah, I found you. I found you. Heh I see, you can fly in the sky, can’t you?”
There was one, no two shadows in a place about 80 metres in the sky above her.
The black haired male who wrapped his body in a long, white robe, was Caster.
The masked female who wrapped her body in black silk, was Assassin.
In this era, people weren’t granted the ability to walk through the skies.
If so these two could be seen as being suspended in space by some type of levitation magic.
If it was in a time where she had lived as her father’s daughter she would’ve also owned a Mystic Code that she could conquer the skies with, however as Lancer’s body had materialised as a Servant’s one, some scheming was required if she wanted to try the same deed,
It wasn’t impossible.
In other words, she could kill them without a problem if she underwent a process like her enemies in the sky did.
Lancer: “I, must kill Saber from here on. Don’t stand in my way.”
Caster: “I see.”
Caster nodded.
Lancer: “I take it that you understand?”
Caster: “Yes I do. But, you’re being too hasty if you want to win your way through the Holy Grail War. Shouldn’t you wield your Noble Phantasm, against the last remaining Servant by using it efficiently?”
Lancer: “Ahh……”
Caster was right.
Surely, it’d be easy to imagine that Nigel was being especially strategic like that too.
But, Lancer couldn’t truly grasp his words thrown at her.
She wanted to hurry back to her beloved’s side.
She wasn’t going to take a break.
Her own mark on calling the Holy Grail her own had already vanished.
Her orders came flying at her telepathically and with no reinforcement from a Master’s Degree, from her Master who was still seated in his base in Akihabara, but she was repelling all of them.
To she who was smeared by her mad love which even had conscious regrets and atonement towards her lord, to she who had resolved herself by manifesting all of her abilities, it could be granted.
Let’s state it clearly.
She wasn’t omnipotent, but you could say that her current state having released the functions that restricted her was all-around almighty.
Lancer: “……..I, can also, fly in the sky too!”
By putting just words on the ground.
Lancer emerged at a spot 80 metres in the air.
She was fast.
It was a high speed combat action that she brought about by temporarily amplifying her parameters.
Her figure was there at Caster’s back, brandishing her great lance.
She was setting up an all-out attack on the presumption that he would invoke a defensive barrier.
The super high speed 5 lance strikes that she carried out with her exceedingly heavy lance, probably could quickly pierce through the physical defences brought by his magic circles――――as well as the Sunshine 60 high rise building that stood before her.
She’d mow them down.
She started her attack.
Caster and Assassin shattered instantly.
They weren’t the real ones.
They were virtual images.
However it was of no concern to the huge lance whatever the target of destruction was.
It only just gouged them.
It would equally hit the magical images, as well as the high rise building that had been constructed to attract the best of modern civilisation.
???: “O’ Heavenly Stars, Macro Cosmos”
A voice came, from further above her.
Just now when she had pierced the Sunshine 60 with an attack that resembled a “gigantic claw” with Lancer’s 5 swinging lances, 5 shining flickering colours covered the surface of the wall.
An instantaneous activation by just one count.
The fivefold barrier derived from the 5 elements that included aether in the 4 elements of earth, wind, fire and water, completely dispersed the kinetic energy created from the super heavy weight of her lance and her ultra-high speed movements.
On the plane of the faint prana “wall” made by the barrier, a ripple like power scattered.
Caster: “Good grief. Even though all things in this world must be Manaka’s property no matter what. It’s not good to easily smash it according to your whims as such, Lancer.”
Lancer: “heehee, ahahahahahahaha!”
She was laughing loudly.
Laughing loudly.
Laughing loudly.
Lancer: “So you were further above me!”
Like she was flying through the air, she soared by kicking her way through the atmosphere.
Lancer resumed her movements without hesitation, approaching the real Caster who remained at his spot in the air.
Accelerating.
Accelerating.
This time it was an attack stance.
Still preparing her huge lance which reached 4 metres in overall length if she included the blade, she changed itself into a superior blow.
Assassin: “I won’t let you――――”
The white death mask pulled out a dagger.
Lancer: “You’re in the way!”
She lightly kicked, Assassin who had commenced with a drop attack to intercept her.
For Lancer who had continued to stare at the skills of the many heroes as a Valkyrie, there in her short fencing and her very refined martial arts, was just one of the foreign skills recorded on tens of thousands of battlefields.
While avoiding the clash first, in the air, all of the attacks that had been manoeuvred back and forth as they passed each other at high speed were being handled with one arm and both legs.
Next, she waved her hand blade.
Assassin whose brown left arm had been severed, tragically fell.
The dark fresh blood that burst forth from it, if some of it happened to fall on her by chance it might’ve brought some sort of effect onto her, but since the high heated flames that were pouring out from inside of Lancer were functioning as a passive defence, all of the fresh blood evaporated before even one particle reached her.
Lancer: “hah, you’re next.”
Ca ster: “Aqua.”
It was a chant that was being spun like her obstructing smiling words.
The ones that were guided, and appeared from it were giant elementals that resembled humans.
Its attribute was water.
Whilst shining like gems, they increased their mass by absorbing the moisture in the air bit by bit, pressing down from right above Lancer.
It was similar to not being impacted by its weight, but water was formless.
She warded off every attack making them ineffective, snatching at them――――
If they were a creature, they’d be finished if she caught them.
Servants were not proper beings, but they could carry out pulmonary respiration as a land type endoskeleton life form.
Therefore they were magical beings who do not get energy from oxygen, and probably could endure more than a human, but since they can obtain a form similar to a life form that can inhale air, they can halt their prana cycle if they’re suffocating.
Eventually they’d reach their limit because they were made into a substance.
Lancer: “Pwahh…….! Ah, it feels so good, heeheeheehee, haha!”
A splash scattered across the skies of Ikebukuro.
Lancer slipped out, with a pop, from the Undine’s body.
If she was completely drowning then she shouldn’t have be able to leave through the surface of the elemental crystal barrier twice, could it have been made ineffective by her having a compositional strength that is suitable for an endurance type Servant?
How did she do it?
She just, drew something with her fingertip like she was carving it――――
Caster: “Are those runes?”
Lancer: “Hahaha, I wonder……..!”
She swung her lance mid-air, along with her laughing voice.
As expected, he couldn’t understand how she could cut through the intangible water being as it shouldn’t mean anything even if she cut it.
As for, Caster who had sensed some sort of crisis transformed its shape into an all-out attack stance.
He didn’t use magic.
And it didn’t take one decimal of a second.
The water mass that had already increased its volume to 5 metres in size, had further doubled, swallowing up Lancer whilst expanding to 10 metres in overall length.
Given the Undine’s attack form, it wasn’t having a slow death along with the failing functions of its internal organs.
It froze for a moment because it had captured its target.
If it was a creature, it would’ve forcibly, stopped all of the moving molecules in its cells.
Was it a so called water casket?
If it dragged her in, then she’d just attack her unescapable death from 360 degrees.
Lancer: “………!”
He didn’t know what kind of words Lancer gave off.
But a roaring sound occurred at the same time.
It was a world-destroying conflagration.
The fire which was due to her Prana Burst skill had unimaginable sweltering heat, as it completely erased the crystals.
The light of the flames coloured a portion of the Ikebukuro skies.
It was a reproduction of a myth.
With fierce flames.
Laughing loudly while still gently floating in the air Lancer’s chest, had one light seal.
If she revealed her power perfectly, then her rune magic which is what modern mages use could reach it millions of times roughly!
Caster: “The Rune of Origin――――”
Caster’s voice was coloured by unease.
Lancer: “Haha, ahaha! Yes that’s right, this is the skill passed down to me from Odin!”
Lancer told him proudly.
The one here wasn’t the woman who was just solely insane.
It was a mad demigoddess.
In the previous era where the laws of physics controlled the world, they were a pillar of old ones that controlled the world like it was them themselves, as a concept, as nature.
She was one of the Valkyries a chooser of souls who waited for the time of destiny, and was even a daughter of Odin who was spoken of in Norse myths.
Originally, elegantly fallen, divine spirits couldn’t be summoned as Servants.
Certainly it was――――
???: “Brunhilde. You’re so strong, aren’t you?”
A voice.
Words.
It was a sound that gave of an impression of a clear gentle breeze.
The calm person that let you feel warm, had no cold ice in there.
Even so.
Lancer felt chills until they were fierce.
Her eyes that should’ve been dyed with perfect insanity, open widely, in that instant.
Focusing on a part of the roof of the Sunshine 60 building, a high rise that boasted a surface height of approximately 240 metres.
She could see a small shadow of a girl, standing beside a metal lightning rod.
Born as a human, it, had the shape of a lovely girl.
Lancer: “A Drachen.”
*Drachen is German for dragon.
Her lips, leaked the description of a dragon that spread controlling a life or death struggle with her beloved.
She had never seen one before.
However, certainly at first she couldn’t recognise that her huge presence rivalled a dragon’s that reigned over the earth with its evil, as she was paralysed.
But.
Even so.
Lancer changed her trajectory towards the girl by automatically kicking the sky halfway.
――――While at the end of her madness, she cried with what was left inside her.
It was a fragment of her remaining consciousness at its very end.
This fragment that barely stopped at, that, was her pride as a supporting heroine――――
She recognised in that moment the possibility of a “tragedy” being carried out in modern-day Tokyo.
7 Servants and Masters.
The Underground Greater Grail said to exist somewhere in Tokyo.
The Cardinal.
The Holy Church.
Wishes.
Feelings.
With a vortex the fragile and fleeting thoughts of people, were being gathered into the Holy Grail.
What was the thing sleeping at the end of that?
The thing that was sleeping, dozing, and awaiting the time of its awakening.
Lancer: “A, ah…….”
Why did father’s rune activate before, or, was it no more than chance that it happened?
Lancer, was clearly cognisant in her madness about whether she herself who wasn’t even an anti-hero or a proper hero had chosen to be in this Holy Grail War, or why?
At this moment.
Was it her father’s divine protection, or a curse, or was it because of her atonement for the many sins that she had her built up during her lifetime?
At any rate.
There was one thing that she had to do.
As the wife of a proud hero, as the daughter of a great god, she absolutely couldn’t overlook it.
The wicked dragon that had the form of a girl, was here――――
――――She had to slice it in two.
If she did that then, ah, Saber, I won’t have to kill you!
The Gnome instantaneously called out to Caster who was just with his dangerous Master, as she severed the magical shield and its physics which boasted the strength of a diamond without mistakenly aiming twice.
Severing roughly everything the huge lance which had now reached 3000 kilograms, had continued to complete its transformation, enlarging itself while working together with her flames of love that had risen in heat by getting excited about her chances,.
But.
But.
The huge blade of the Noble Phantasm wielded by Lancer, couldn’t take the girl’s life.
Girl: “Too bad, it looks like it’s a little too light.”
It was just one fingertip.
The girl’s white finger, stopped, the tip of the lance.
If she shook it at an opponent that she deeply loved, her lance of destiny would give off a shot similar to a disintegration ray, her Noble Phantasm would also show its effectiveness as a super heavy armament to an opponent that she shallowly loved, but, there was nothing but the soul of a silver devil there in this place!
Girl: “Is it possible…….that you don‘t like me?”
The girl smiled.
Girl: “You love heroes. The water, the earth, you love Tokyo too. But you don’t like me. If that’s the case, then it’s no use. I can’t even feel the weight, of your Noble Phantasm.”
She was similar to a brilliant flower.
Girl: “But, you’re amazing. You feel so much for him. If that’s so….”
She was a single beautiful flower, that mustn’t show itself in the hall of warriors.
Without being burnt even as she scattered flames.
Without wilting as it gulped down water.
It wouldn’t break even as it got caught in the winding wind.
A flower, that’d bloom proudly, even as the earth dried.
Girl: “Just for a bit longer, I’ll let you love him okay?”
――――As she said it.
The girl smiled at her pale self, from beyond the blade.
(To be continued)
Originally Posted by asterism42
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