Chapter 18
Sisters I
They gathered in the nearest secured building, fifteen magi in all, dirty and injured and exhausted. Their success was marred by the loss of five others: three had died of wounds from exorcist blades and crossbows, one had a snapped neck, and one had been rendered into an unrecognizable mass by means unknown. Yet they could count it a success: the device Fiore held to her chest the most obvious sign, the fact that the remaining Church members were dead or driven off such that they encountered no pursuit. The largest threat currently to them was the occupants of the four-bedroom house they occupied waking from their spelled slumber.
Fiore could not stop shaking.
Shishigou nodded to himself when he noticed. He was not exactly surprised as Fiore did not have the air about her that included bloodstained hands. For all her skill and talent with magecraft, direct combat had to have been laboratory theory up until now. Often magi of her caliber and isolation simply did not engage in violence—even if they were trained for it—because it was not necessary for their day-to-day lives and research. It was people like Shishigou who had to immerse themselves in bloodshed that often ended up with a corpse before them. People like him were used to it.
Of course, not even those immersed in it were always completely efficient at it. Ellis Jane had to be cut out of a Church weapon that had entangled him from head to toe.
“And you call yourself an Enforcer, to get tripped up so easily,” Shishigou jabbed. “They don’t make ‘em like they used to.”
“The cloth was a conceptual weapon that inhibits a target,” Jane said. “Single action. I was expecting to dodge and block swords and arrows and the like.”
Actually, Shishigou suspected something else entirely from this Enforcer. Most in his profession would be upset by such a defeat—their jobs as combat mages and professional bounty hunters did not suffer defeat well, since it normally meant death—but Jane looked preoccupied, his gaze elsewhere, his expression overly focused.
“Whatever the case is, Emiya did make an attempt,” Shishigou said. “Showed his hand, but I had to show mine in turn. We’re going to need to rework our strategy for him. But your objective was achieved, it looks like.”
As if to assess the location they had just vacated, Fiore had turned away from the gathered, her shoulders rising and falling in obvious rhythm. Having returned to her wheelchair, she now looked like a tiny, vulnerable woman rather than a monstrous artificer. Shishigou took the time she used to compose herself to compose himself with a smoke. His eyes drifted up to the house’s smoke alarm, which they had not disabled upon entry, wondering if it would go off to punctuate this mess of a night.
Shishigou considered what his next battle would be like. His fight had not concluded ideally either, having revealed his most dangerous asset, a poisonous knife, without actually landing it. He had gained quite a bit of information on Emiya’s fighting capabilities and instincts. He really wished he could have also garnered some information on the others that accompanied him, those freelancers that seemed to be his apprentices, so he could plan for their inevitable interruptions as well. Shishigou had a feeling that if he engaged Emiya once more, the man would bring in some kind of outside influence to tip the scales and eliminate any advantage Shishigou had from preparations.
“I’m not sure how well everything went, honestly,” Jane said. “I had the feeling throughout that we were being watched. By a third party, not just those in the Church.” Jane’s abilities, although not entirely known by Shishigou, included scrying abilities. It was possible his attunement toward such magic gave him insight into when others were using it on him or others around him.
“If we brought in more of Frain’s golems,” Shishigou offered.
“No.”
They all turned their gaze to Fiore, who was looking to the block in her arms.
She held up the board for the rest to see. Even in the dimly lit room, the other magi could clearly see it: beneath the words “Assassin” and “Saber” was a blank space for a defeated Servant. That was followed by a space that appeared as if embers to a small fire burned beneath the surface. “They need to keep observation duties. We need to get into position as well. It appears as if another is being called.”
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The flow of magical energy was apparent enough that Rin could feel it building up within the apartment complex. Much like a gas stovetop burner, power gathered around and permeated the empty spaces until all it needed was an igniter to go up. Unlike the ceremony to call a Servant, however, it felt like a ritual created by a magus rather than the way summoning was mostly handled by the grail system.
But she could not discount it. After all, ten years ago, she had poured much of her own magical energy into the summoning in the hopes of forcing a superior Servant to manifest. It was entirely possible Johanne Einon had a similar idea in mind.
Rin broke through a rear window with a spell meant to melt down glass, making a nimble jump through and sweeping up and down the room like a heroine in a police procedural or action film. Luvia entered behind her at a far less excited pace, watching Rin’s actions like an annoyed parent.
The apartment complex was oddly shaped, much like a Japanese quotation mark, with two lengths converging at a 90 degree angle. The main entryway was where they joined and each level held two apartments, one for each lengthwise portion of the building. After having Hakuno scope out the building for heat signatures, Rin had decided to break in on the first floor into one of the apartments that was unoccupied rather than enter directly through the front door or an anteroom window.
“This is a very strange building,” Luvia said, quiet enough that Rin could barely hear her. She peered down the long hallway to the apartment door and frowned. “Although I can certainly see why it was chosen.”
“There’s a ghost story to this building,” Rin said. “Even better for any boundary field they set up.”
Their target was three stories up; the only location that had four heat sources to one apartment. Right before entering, Hakuno had confirmed that one of those heat sources was generating far more energy than anyone else in the building: a magus with their circuits active. Unfortunately they could not simply blast their way up three stories—or at least, Rin was unwilling to, as there were heat sources between here and there. So they made their way into the lobby, careful to avoid the front door and windows where extra alarms could be placed.
“Elevator or stairs? Both have to have something on them.”
In one of the few cases where Rin would actually defer to Luvia, the blonde witch considered. Rin, while experienced in the Holy Grail War, for the most part only had the Holy Grail War as a life-or-death matchup. Luvia had more battle experience in general, especially when facing off with other orthodox magi.
Rin simply neglected to point out that having more people want to kill you was not exactly a great reflection on Luvia’s situation or character.
Luvia decided on opening the elevator doors manually and ascend without taking the car, which looked to be on the uppermost story. The duo cast spells to lighten their bodies and ascend like masterful parkour practitioners. “Just like a gorilla,” Luvia said under her breath. Rin shot her a glare but continued her acrobatic bounding of the stories to reach their destination. She filed it away for future punishment.
Room 301 was their target, appearing as inconspicuous as any other apartment in the building. The swirl of magical energy was heightening as they approached, very much giving off the feel of a grand ritual in scope.
“On three,” Luvia said. “One, two—”
“Who goes high, who goes low?” Rin hissed.
Luvia gave the slightest tilt of her chin up at that. “Obviously I go high, you go low!”
“Obviously?!”
“You’re a—I’m taller.”
Rin did not miss the direction Luvia was going to take initially. “I’m what? A lowly barbarian?”
“Well, if you must know, I was going to say poor commoner, so it is natural to bow your head, but if you insist—”
“And you’re only taller because of the fuff from that head of yours! Das schließen. Vogelkäfig. Echo
Closing. Cage. Echo.
!”
Simultaneously, Rin cast a spell and Luvia kicked the door in. Surrounding the area with a soundproof field, the door flying off its frame made no noise at all.
A long hallway greeted them, its distance feeling far more imposing than it ought to. Like an Alfred Hitchcock vertigo shot, peering across the distance was disorienting, like the hall itself would suck them in.
Rin crouched. Luvia stood. They both sent gems into the space before them, and like the disorientation promised, the jewels seemed to implode upon themselves as if sucked into some unseen dimension at the center of the hall.
“Rand verschwinden
Boundary disappearing
!”
Unfortunately for the Einons that had constructed the field, it was meant to suck in the magical energy attacks of a Gandr or temporarily entrap a magus that stepped into it. Twin A-ranked spell blasts completely overwhelmed the trap, filling the imaginary space with an overwhelming amount of imaginary volume.
The narrow hall obscured their view into the main living space, but Rin could see a spell shield go up. Rin supposed it would shield the caster or casters from any grenade-like spell thrown into the room. Undoubtedly they would be lying in wait just around the corner, ready to shoot down anyone that came around the corner.
A gesture and a glance between Rin and Luvia had the plan in hand. They would walk right into the trap.
Luvia sent another gem into the room like a grenade. It exploded with both concussive force and a bright flash of light.
Then Rin threw the crushed remains of a gem into the air like glitter. “Ein körper ist ein licht
A body is a light
.” The dust then shot forward, coalesced, and appeared as if Rin had created a perfect doppelganger. The fake blitzed right into the room and lights started to splash the walls.
Rin followed into the room, keeping low, body spelled stronger for close-quarters combat, ready to tackle multiple targets; Luvia was better one-on-one. The image she had generated now stood amidst the living room, spinning in place and executing a kick to an opponent: the willowy blonde Johanne Einon. Johanne Einon, the only person in the room.
Where were the others? Rin had no time to contemplate on that. As her doppelganger went for a phantom kick up high, Rin charged in, rolled past the spell shield, and kicked low at Einon’s planted legs. Set up to defend against phantom-Rin’s nonexistent physical strike, the sweep struck home and was successful in sending Johanne tumbling. Too successful—the blonde magus threw herself into the direction of the fall, rolling up to the wall, and quickly made three distinctive taps with her foot against the floor.
Not entirely a slouch when she knew something was up, Rin was already drawing back when the floor beneath her feet exploded. So too did the floor beneath the illusionary double that she had created. The wood floor splintered as gunshot-like blasts flew upwards. Curses given form not unlike her own Fin Shot. Her instincts to draw back saved her from all but one, which knifed up through the side of her foot—
Johanne was on her feet and following through. The moment the spell-shots ceased, she was darting forward, fists raised, smashing a flurry of strikes into Rin, who managed her own arms up in defense. The blows carried the Japanese witch back into the far wall, making it shake with her impact.
It also left Johanne’s flank exposed to the long hallway. With a clear vantage point of the strikes made against Rin, Luvia could make out the Chinese style associated with the straight line attack Johanne had made. Luvia leapt into the fray, moving as laterally as the confined space would allow, circling around to Johanne’s blind spot behind her shoulders before a return defense could be raised, catching her beneath the arms and rolling them both up over Luvia’s left shoulder.
“Accipere introrsum
Take within
!” Johanne shouted, even as she crashed into the floor.
Like she was scalded by hot water, Luvia let go of her opponent with a yelp, pulling herself up onto her feet and drawing back, ready to fire a Gandr at Johanne. Rin, also recovering, did the same, wincing as she put weight on her injured foot. They refrained from firing, however, as Johanne held her own hands before her, already glowing with a sickly yellow light of a curse. She had internalized the spread of the curse momentarily to force Luvia to let go, else risk contamination—now the curse remained in her body, ready to discharge with another strike.
The respite gave Rin and Luvia time to quickly assess the room. The furniture had been shoved to one end to make space, although set atop what would have been the dining table were a trio of lanterns. Rin wanted to smack herself in the head when she realized that the three prana lanterns were roughly equivalent to a standard magus in output each, explaining their three phantom heat sources in the room. Johanne was otherwise alone—Rin thought her co-conspirators were on the level below and were tracking the movement above them by sound—yet the spell-circle to one side of the room remained empty. Completely empty: there was no relic upon it either.
“Your traps failed…” Rin said, but trailed off.
Were they really in time to stop any ritual? This was already some minutes after the hour they had crashed in on the Einons before in the dead of night. Magi who did not have peak magical energy then would usually not have it at some other random hour and the next closest common peak time would be much closer to dawn. And they had felt the magical energy emanating from this level.
Rin glanced to the spell shield, now standing useless to one side of the room, then to Johanne and the dangerous way she had contained spellwork within her own body. Both were complex, high-level works that would take more than just a single bar of incantation and, unless Rin herself used a handful of gems, would have taken her a good long while to enact.
Johanne let a small smile slip at the look of realization that must have creased Rin’s face.
“That’s—” Luvia seemed to catch on as well, her eyes widening. But her words were cut off as a small chime sounded from the furniture in the room—a forgotten clock, still diligent in reporting the change in hour.
“It appears you are too late,” Johanne said, grinning. Her gaze drifted upwards.
Involuntarily, both Rin and Luvia’s eyes followed. Although they could see nothing with their eyes, both could feel the surge of magical energy that came from above.
“The real trap is letting you think I would be foolish enough to do the same thing the second time around.”
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From the outside it looked innocuous enough. The lights to the apartment were on, but no noise or signs of anything other than a night-owl occupant could be found. If there were others living in the apartment complex, they would not have known a battle was occurring next door.
Saber could feel the magical energy moving about, discharged as curses and protective wards as should be common of magi of the era. If it continued to escalate, the quiet night would be broken.
“It feels like a typhoon,” Sakura said. There was no awe to her voice, however, as she actually looked closer to crawling out of her own skin.
“There is a lot of magical energy there,” Hakuno said. She was peering through one of her rifle’s attachments.
“Can you disable it?” Saber asked.
“Shooting it would be like spitting into the wind. If I could hit all four cardinal directions on the building, maybe it would help, but…” Disrupting rituals such as that required more than simply negating an area of magical energy—one had to disrupt the very earth the spell was drawing from.
Saber considered. “I could take you and leap far above the building. You would have to make all four shots very quickly, however, and while moving.”
“I don’t know if I could do that. Make that kind of shot, I mean. I’m getting better, but I rely on the area-of-effect a little too much on this, so—oh, balls.” Hakuno’s voice drifted off into the strange phrase and she squinted into her scope.
Even Saber thought it was strange for the little Japanese girl to say such a thing. She exchanged a look with Sakura, who held a mirrored expression of mild surprise on her face.
“I think it was a feint,” she continued on. “Whoever or whatever Rin and Luvia were engaging, that…yeah…they’re going to another floor—”
The girl adjusted her scope and slowly tracked upwards, then flinched. Saber’s eyes narrowed as well: there was a bright flash of light on the level parallel to their rooftop vantage, up multiple stories from where Rin and Luvia were supposed to be.
Hakuno rubbed at her eyes. “They’re not gonna make it, and I’m getting a new heat reading that wasn’t there just a second ago. You’d better go.”
Saber nodded. She took a single step before leaping clear across the expanse, diving straight for the window that had flashed, wrapping Caliburn in Invisible Air as she did so.
The window shattered as she crashed through and made ready for a quick strike. Grimacing, Saber spotted the magus summoner, cloaked in some kind of black cloak—someone Hakuno had not counted when reporting off readings from her position, somehow concealed from view. With no time to spare, Saber lashed out, driving the sword point for the neck of the young woman.
Steel met steel and Saber’s strike went high. A figure in red and gold moved in, and Saber came to know how it felt to be at the other side, attempting to strike a Master only for a Servant to materialize just at the right moment.
“Servant Archer has appeared in response to your summons. Master, your orders.” The speaker was a tall, athletically-built woman. She stood in a spell circle etched out on the floor, the summoning ring made out of stone dust, no less. There was little space to maneuver in this bedroom, even with all furniture removed. That would hopefully be an advantage for Saber, who eyed her opponent like a cornered animal: at its most vulnerable and yet most dangerous.
“Take her out!” the female magus said. Saber recognized her from one of the files Shirou had passed around—the younger Einon sister.
Hefting a one-handed sword, Archer nodded once, her gaze sharpening on Saber. “Of course.”
The slash that followed would have blown out the windows had Saber not already crashed through them. Saber blocked the strike and, with a quick jet of wind from Invisible Air, whipped herself around in return and slashed in a mirroring strike. Archer slipped just out of the way, below the swing rather than away from it, clearly unwilling to risk misjudging Saber’s invisible reach.
“Withdraw from this battle, Servant Archer.” Saber maneuvered herself so as to kick off the wall but did not make for another immediate strike. She poured as much conviction she could into her tone. “The artifact that has summoned you is a tainted device that must be destroyed.”
Archer did not listen. The woman’s hair followed like a billowing flag as she swept in for a quick jab. Saber avoided the blow by kicking off the wall as planned and came down at Archer’s backside, but the Servant caught the blow with a twist of her arm and a flick of her blade, shielding her back and turning the blow away from her shoulders harmlessly.
Much as the previous Archers she had engaged in battle, this Servant was not clearly an Archer upon first glance. Tall and red-haired, she was reminiscent of warriors from the region Saber had known in her lifetime, although matching none of their specific descriptions. A lamed armor cuirass and leaf mail chausse protected her not unlike the armor Saber herself wore. There was a quiver of arrows at the small of her back and a matching longbow hung sideways across it, shaped like wings sprouting from her spine. Yet she did not wield it at the moment, instead deflecting Saber’s blows aside with a sword a hand span shorter than Caliburn, not unlike a certain other red-clad knight from times past.
Unlike the previous Archers, however, her sword style was refined and deft, entirely beyond the diffident melee abilities of the Tohsaka Servants. Saber’s quick jabs were turned aside; a slash that cut right through the wall and accelerated toward Archer’s neck was blocked head-on without hesitation. Saber forced them back into the narrow hall and sped up the wall at an angle, driving with the force of her entire body down at Archer, who parried aside enough of the charge to just avoid being skewed, the wood and plaster of the wall and flooring exploding from the pressure instead. A return series of thrusts had Saber likewise avoiding the strikes by a hair, the shorter sword too fast to parry in such close quarters.
Saber drove them out of the apartment and into the lobby, aiming strikes for Archer’s legs as she did. She had a feeling that Archer wished to move their battle as well, putting distance between Archer’s Master and the danger Saber represented; Saber knew that if Rin and Luvia recovered fast enough and there were no Servants in the way, they could potentially corner the enemy Master themselves.
Nevertheless while she could force the change of venue, her strikes were not getting past Archer’s defense. Much as her fight with Assassin ten years prior, Saber was certainly more powerful and had many advantages, yet her opponent was just skilled enough to make up for the difference.
Saber could not push through with brute force either. Although Caliburn did not draw upon her own stores of magical energy, evoking its name would surely shatter the illusionary nature of the projection and without Shirou present she would be left weaponless. Even with the defense of Avalon, defeat would only be a matter of time—or, worse, they would be free to move on to Rin and the others.
It seemed as if they were at a stalemate, however. In these close-quarters, Archer could not gain the distance that would be necessary to utilize ranged attacks. Too, if her Noble Phantasm were overly destructive, it could pose a problem that her Master was still within the vicinity. Yet if this was Archer’s capacity in melee, Saber found herself actively concerned over what they were capable of at range.
“Once more, I ask that you withdraw, Archer.” Saber did not think her opponent would change their mind so easily, but there was little else that she could think to do. “This is not a contest for a true wish-granting device. No matter who wins, it will be those in the present that suffer for it. If you seek a wish, it will not avail you.”
“And I believe you.”
For a moment the blunt assertion was enough to stun Saber such that, when she recovered, she realized had left an opening wide enough that a modern pilot could fly a passenger jet through it.
Archer’s expression did not lose its combative edge, but her voice came as thoughtful. “You are Saber, that much is clear. Your bearing and gallantry are certainly that of a knight. While I feel no less than a match for a Saber in melee, it is clear to me who is the better of us. To Heroic Spirits, that alone tells what needs to be said. Might is our truth, like words once carried absolute authority in days long gone. We exist as an extension of our power.”
Saber’s lips pursed. Even if it was true, she did not like it said in such a fashion. “Then, why—?”
“Why will I not withdraw? I have already entered into a pact with one living in this era.” A swing of the sword came with the declaration, forcing Saber to block. “Perhaps I will see for myself this corruption you speak of. Perhaps I am the one to deal with it if it is as you say.”
Why were Archers so personally infuriating?
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Four simultaneous shots went off as Rin and Luvia both fired their curses and Johanne responded with her own. The blasts all collided between them, temporarily concealing both sides from the other.
Johanne apparently had no intention of delaying them further. There was another explosion and Rin felt the floor shake. When the dust settled, a human-sized hole had formed where Johanne had been and there was no sign of the enemy mage.
“Forget her!” Luvia said, already moving to one corner of the room.
Unlike the levels below—which Rin realized in hindsight that they should have shot up through if Johanne’s allies were in the floor below—the levels above their heads had fewer people. While still risky, the fact that a Servant might be on its way or already present meant they were left with little choice. They had to catch the Master if they were going to contribute at all.
Luvia raised a hand and pointed straight up from where she stood. Unlike Johanne’s explosive exit, Luvia’s spell formed a perfect lance of ice that pierced the ceiling into the next floor, and by the sound of it, into another level after that. The marks of her Magic Crest glowing, she activated something else and the ice immediately shattered, spreading diamond dust all about the room.
Rin didn’t say anything, once again relying on her spell-enhanced body to dart over and up, clearing both levels in one bound. Now on the fifth floor, she did the exact same thing, carving out a hole above her head as Luvia brought herself up.
They leap-frogged up like that until they reached the eleventh floor on Luvia’s turn to take the lead. Upon making it up, she could hear and see the destruction being caused as the two Servants fought, but the only one in the room was a lone figure wearing a black mantle that was long enough to drag on the floor. Beneath the hood was Johanne Einon’s younger sister Fayden.
Luvia wasted no time, firing Gandr at the young woman as fast as a machine gun. Fayden was already on the move, however, ducking down the long apartment hallway before Luvia had a clear shot.
Rin had just clambered up in time to see Luvia take off, her own spelled body launching itself using the back wall as a springboard. They made it out into the lobby but had to halt, finding Saber there engaging a tall, redheaded woman adored in medieval mail. Rin could not see Saber’s face, but she could make out in the body language that the Heroic Spirit was aware of what was going on and had chosen to disregard the enemy Master in favor of making sure the enemy Servant did not counterattack any pursuit.
The door to the stairwell creaked closed, closer to Rin and Luvia than the Servants or the elevator. Luvia did not make a move for it, her gaze still on the Servants. Rin, however, was not so conservative, making for the door and shouldering it open.
Instead of the sight of a fleeing Fayden Einon, she was met by a bug. It looked like a giant metallic centipede the size of a human leg and scurried in that eerily similar way, its legs moving so fast it appeared to almost float. It scampered up the stairway from below and up to the open doorway, then made a single, musical chirping noise.
“You idiot!” Luvia shouted. Despite her words, she dove for Rin, tackling the Japanese witch to the ground while palming something in hand.
The device exploded like a shaped charge, appearing less like an open explosion and more like an oversized gunshot. The blast surrounded the witches but did not smash them to bits as a partially opaque shield protected them from all sides.
Another mechanized centipede scurried up the staircase. Lifting the shield like it was a physical object, Luvia shoved it into the open gap, replacing the destroyed door with the membrane-like material. Another explosion went off, muffled by the wall and new protective coating on the door and did not penetrate into the lobby space.
But another glimpse through the membrane showed more of the centipede-like devices making their way up, stalling for the escaping Master.
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The Servants were still busy engaging one another, the clash of steel and shaking of the room telling the story without the need to even look. But Saber had driven them back and away from the elevator, deliberately placing herself between Archer and the magi, hoping it would give Rin and Luvia time to catch up with the fleeing Master.
As Luvia maintained the shield to protect them from the enemy constructs, Rin pulled the elevator door open and glanced up into the space beyond, apparently checking for the location of the car. She then motioned to Luvia, and the both of them performed spells before leaping down the shaft.
Archer suddenly maneuvered and Saber realized they were in trouble.
The blow Archer made was for Saber’s invisible sword. It caught the blade and forced both weapons downward into the floor. Normally, from such a position, Archer would be expected to then attempt to slash while the enemy’s sword was hung up, although Saber was confident she could avoid such a blow. Instead, however, Archer leaned her entire weight into that blow and momentarily inverted over it, gaining a clear angle over Saber’s shoulder. With her free hand, Archer drew a trio of arrows and in a single motion sent them flying up at an angle above the elevator door. Although it was not fired from a bow, the darts pierced right through the modern materials like a laser.
Even without seeing it, Saber knew they would be aimed at severing the cable and safety latches on the elevator car.
Without any preamble, Saber leapt after the arrows, prana visibly flying everywhere as she slammed her entire body into the elevator door. She thrust Caliburn into the elevator shaft beyond just as the elevator car came crashing down overhead, driving them both downward. While it was entirely possible that Rin or Luvia could have made it down to ground level, if either had been off by just a split second, not even a reinforced body could necessarily survive the eleven-story drop of the car crashing down on them.
Saber held the elevator car up with her body as it descended, though far slower than it would have otherwise in freefall. She could see Rin and Luvia, some ways already down, falling far slower as well, though now they were looking up. Noting what was occurring, they focused on getting down to the third floor where they had left that floor’s door open, allowing Saber to jump in after them and let the elevator fall the remainder of the way.
“Stay here,” Saber said. She did not want Archer to have further open opportunities—although she felt this was not the reason for the previous action. She could feel Archer’s presence having followed her Master, and now she thought that in the time it had taken to ensure Rin and Luvia’s safety, the enemy might have already cleared the building.
Returning to the elevator shaft, Saber bounded down and back out on the ground level in a flash, heading for the main entrance. A glance to the stairwell door showed it unhinged—clearly Archer and her Master were in a hurry—and so Saber made it to the front door, sword at the ready.
The shots came as expected. Saber deflected the blows aside but had to dig in to do so, briefly concerned as to whether Archer would evoke her Noble Phantasm. Already a good hundred meters away on a rooftop a block further back from where Hakuno was set up, the Servant already had a clear vantage point from which to snipe the front door. Saber could just make out Archer’s Master alongside, black cloak fluttering. In the time that Saber had taken to help Rin and Luvia, Archer had taken her Master and achieved the space that gave her the advantage.
At this distance, she could possibly still strike back with Caliburn, at the extreme end of her range—but if it failed, she would be open to counterattack. At such a range with an Archer, her instincts told her it would be an unwise decision.
Her battle earlier with Lancer had fallen in Saber’s favor. This looked like it would go to Archer.
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“Here,” Fayden Einon said.
Archer complied, carrying the young magus to the top of a skyscraper. It was a hotel that had signs of recent damage, with windows covered by plastic that could not quite conceal signs of burn scoring along the edges.
They waited in silence there, Archer with her gaze to the apartment complex they had evacuated from, watchful of any pursuit from the enemy Servant or signs of enemy activity that could mean impending attack. The only signs she seemed to receive were positive, as the neutral look upon her face did not change.
It was nearly an hour later that Fayden motioned down at the street below. Archer obliged and carried Johanne, Rodrigue, and Talburn up to the roof in turn.
“So you are not Egil the bowman,” Johanne said right off, circling around Archer and observing her carefully. “That was the plan originally.”
“As you created the spell circle out of the remains of our castle, it fell upon me. That was how the castle was constructed in the first place, by a spell circle I created.” Archer in turn addressed the younger Einon, as if it had been Fayden that had voiced the comment.
They had built their summoning circle out of the powdered remains of a castle foundation stone thought to have been used by Egil. If it were true that Egil’s lover—sometimes depicted as a valkyrie—had created the castle with an ancient art, then the circle had been used as its own catalyst, just not in the way as intended.
If Archer was a valkyrie, then perhaps they had even gained a better Servant than desired. Forms of Divinity were often thought to be beneficial in the case of a Heroic Spirit.
“Fayden,” Johanne addressed her sister.
Fayden immediately knew what was to happen. She nodded as Johanne moved to her and worked a spell—a spell that shared one’s senses with another. Usually used on a familiar, it would allow Johanne to both see from Fayden’s perspective. Additionally, with the bond they already shared, it might work to grant Johanne the eyes of a Master, gaining information on Servants that Fayden looked upon.
“What is the plan, Master?” Archer asked.
Again, she addressed Fayden, who looked a little lost at the attention. Fayden in turn looked to her sister, who merely smiled. “Tell us your goals and desires, why you would seek the Holy Grail,” Johanne said.
“I am but a servant to those that would dedicate themselves to such a goal,” Archer said. “I myself am no hero; I am to be at the side of those that are. You, my Master, are certainly worthy.”
Fayden looked mildly uncomfortable, her gaze anywhere but the Servant.
“And since Fay is with me, that is not a problem,” Johanne said. She too turned her gaze back in the direction of their opponents. “What was your opinion of their Servant?”
Archer gave a slow, deliberate look to the younger Einon, then returned her gaze back to the city. “A proud and honest knight. A warrior that would certainly have the best of many even among Heroic Spirits. I do not know her identity, but I have my suspicions. There are only a handful that match her kind of prowess.”
Johanne’s expression sharpened and she looked askance at Archer. “It sounds like you admire her.”
“It would be the same admiration I have for any other summoned to this battlefield. It is in my nature.” She smiled. “Do not mistake it for a weakness. Heroic Spirits are already dead and gone to this world, and that is how it should be. I am more interested in the living.”
The Einon sisters glanced to one another, both with slight skeptical expressions.
“And I wish to see what path it is my Master will choose.”
[]==|{::::::::::::::::::::::::::>
The apartment tenants would not have been happy. It looked as if a rabid animal had been through the building, with slash marks everywhere, furniture upturned, and debris laying about. The elevator was of course completely wrecked. There were blown-out walls everywhere on the level where Archer had been summoned. Holes and leaking pipes where Rin and Luvia had ascended.
“At least no load-bearing walls went down,” Rin said. “Everything is salvageable.”
“I’m sure that’s a comfort to the people living here,” Hakuno said, on her knees where the trap field had been deployed on the third story. She had joined up with them to investigate the remains of the hideout; Julius had followed after their human opponents in an attempt to track them.
Despite Hakuno’s words, the other tenants would not be disturbing them. The majority of them had been hypnotized so deeply asleep that nothing from the battle had woken them. Only the groundskeeper had been left alone, but only because it was clear they had been murdered sometime earlier, left with a snapped neck in the small ground-level office.
Rin worked to fix the building; with the Church in peril and the Association working at ends to them in general, they could not be certain that a representative from either would be able to conceal the situation and do repairs. It was her charge—as Luvia had put it, she was the one to foul up, so she would be the one to make amends.
They had recovered three of the centipede explosives after the fact, with Hakuno shooting them dead of the magical energy necessary to power them. While they had no direct information on them before hand, they appeared to be similar in design to the device that Johanne Einon’s apprentice Talburn Meyer used. With Waver elsewhere, they would have to carry the things with them and dissect them elsewhere.
“Shirou’s on his way back,” Luvia said. Rin felt a twitch to her cheek—it all but confirmed that Luvia mispronounced his name on purpose—but she said nothing about it. “The Church is a loss. He did not sound happy, so I assume there were casualties.”
“Anything on Lord V?” Hakuno asked.
Both girls looked ready to beat the mousy girl over the head at calling Waver such a thing. “Nothing,” Luvia said. “And we might not wish to stay here too long. That Servant could move in for a counterattack if they’re feeling particularly aggressive.”
“Yeah, but Saber…” Hakuno started, then seemed to consider. While Saber remained outside on watch for that very threat, she had seemed somewhat distracted. Her gaze, oddly, had gone to her sword, a frown on her lips.
“We will be at a disadvantage regardless,” Luvia said. “For all we know, Assassin was watching the entire thing and is also waiting for the go-ahead to strike. That would only spell doom for this one, the way she charges headlong into trouble.” She held a hand out toward Rin, as if weighing something in her palm. “Meaning dead, since it would be against a Servant.”
“I’ll remember not to extend any courtesy to you the next time you mess up,” Rin said.
“In this line of work, such a mistake may cost me my life in any case. I do not expect such courtesy. You should operate with more caution. Sometimes, it pains me to say, you seem as if you believe you are a first rate.”
“I’m going to—”
Hakuno wondered if the frown Saber was giving her blade was out of a desire to silence their companions.