4th night, Snowfield, show house
The veil of night fell over Snowfield.
It was the time the mages crawled out of their holes.
Sigma was vigilant in worry that any team would take this opportunity to strike, but according to Watcher, everything was eerily peaceful.
"41 hours left..."
Seeing the wall clock's hands approach 11:30 PM, Sigma checked his own wristwatch.
Sigma spent almost 24 hours holed up in this underground show house.
He only left once to procure water and food, which he did following the shadows' instructions to avoid being found by Faldeus.
But remaining unnoticed didn't make Sigma any careless.
It was always possible that the situation would change faster than Watcher can talk.
Therefore, his initial plans of playing the long game and winning a war of endurance didn't come to fruition.
Because the silhouettes informed him that the city would be bombed in two days.
Running away would have been his best option if he didn't have an objective, but he recently gained one.
And to fulfill it, he decided to spend the next twelve hours—the time until the next dawn—gathering information and preparing himself.
"This question is no suggestion or Watcher's will. Just the curiosity of the pseudo-personality allotted to this shadow.", asked the old captain silhouette amidst Sigma's thinking. "Why aren't you booking it? The explosive's gonna grant you your wish to destroy the Holy Grail War. All you gotta do is hypnotize Kuruoka Tsubaki's doctress, jack an ambulance, and get out of town. Pale Rider's hex is a faint vestigial curse at this point. You got the magical energy to deal with it."
"Remember Watcher will leave this sky if the bombs destroy the Greater Grail... or if Prelati's illusions fully conceal it before the strike. So if a special squad chases you after that, you gotta deal with it on your own.", the female aviator took the captain's place to tell Sigma.
Sigma reacted by squinting and telling his reason not to follow their plan of action.
"You're the ones who told me Kuruoka Tsubaki's vital levels were dropping."
In response to his words, the silhouette transformed into the boy with the caduceus and expressed his sadness and frustration.
"...I won't deny. I feel ashamed. If only I was manifest as a Heroic Spirit instead of a crappy shadow... I'd never let her life be in danger. I'd treat her no matter what it took. I'd do anything. My personality would be completely different from my current one, but I'm sure this part would stay the same."
"In your current form, can't you tell me how to treat her?"
"It'd infringe the rules of the shadows. We can tell you anything Watcher observes from this city's skies, but it's a lot harder for us to relay excessive knowledge from our lives. And even if I could, treating her would require my techniques and magical energy. We don't have enough time to teach you medicine from scratch."
"I see..."
(In that case, I really need to prevent the bombing.)
Sigma spent the next few hours studying his possibilities.
Would the upper echelon refrain from pointless sacrifices if the Grail War is settled before the bombing?
The answer is no.
Judging from the intel he got from Watcher, the problem wasn't the Heroic Spirits.
It was the two non-Servant individuals with power equal or greater to a Heroic Spirit.
The boy who introduced himself as Thia Escardos to Lancer in the distant skies.
And the woman who was quite literally modding the forest region in the west part of the city: the Divine Spirit Ishtar possessing the body of the homunculus Filia.
Those two won't disappear once the Grail War is done with.
So the only option the upper echelon is left with is to take them both out in one shot while they still have an attachment to this city.
"...Will it take them out? Your talk made them sound like they could withstand a direct hit from a nuclear missile."
The man with bird wings answered Sigma's question.
"I'm not sure. Ishtar decided that this is where she would build her temple, so I don't see her running away. Thia Escardos is a free man, but
he hasn't been seen in the city after his fight with Lancer. It didn't seem like the Lancer fight reached any conclusive end. He didn't get injured to the point he couldn't move, as far as I know."
"He's still not back?"
Sigma asked a question he had just gotten the answer for.
From what he could see on the show house's TV, the world was in major chaos over yesterday's meteor buzz, but there were no signs of any additional magecraft incidents occurring beyond that.
Naturally, there was a huge chance something did occur and was concealed, but that at least showed that nothing else beyond the scope of the concealment of magecraft happened.
"Honestly, he has no reason to come back.", the old captain shadow answered Sigma. "Though even if he won't come back, you have no way to prove that to the gents wanting to blow up the city, lad. But well, I'm talking only if he's never seen active elsewhere... Either way, there's nothing we can do about what's going on in the western forest, since she's physically and magically altering the land."
"..."
"Lad,
this is another trial. Though can you defeat Ishtar and Thia? That's another story."
The captain continued since his Master was silent.
"You used our power and
learned what you were better off not knowing, lad. That this city is on the edge of destruction. No one'd believe you if you tried to tell the world about it, and even if they got to believe it, the non-mage humans can't escape the curse remains."
"Probably not."
The silhouette became a boy knight and chose his words to test Sigma.
"Looking from another angle, it's a situation where you're the only one who can escape. You just have to choose your own life over Kuruoka Tsubaki's or the citizens. No one will blame you. To face this alone is too tall a hurdle. So..."
"I'm not running away."
"What?"
"I choose... to fight."
As Sigma answered, his eyes were quiet like a soothing night yet still hiding extraordinary determination deep inside.
The words of the nameless Assassin who he contacted a few hours ago resurfaced in his brain. He made a point to go through the holes in Faldeus's observation network despite most of it being still under repair.
X X
A few hours earlier, a back alley in Snowfield
"This city... will be destroyed?"
"If I got my information right, the higher-ups want to wipe the town clean with all citizens in it."
"How... foolish..."
The unnamed Assassin clenched her fist tightly as her face contorted.
Sigma relayed all the information he gained without telling her that his source was Watcher.
He felt bad about hiding his ability. He couldn't tell if he was doing it because the spellcaster mercenary habits drilled into him told him this was information he shouldn't be telling even trusted companions or because he already lied before about "his Heroic Spirit being Chaplin".
"How can we impede this atrocity? Kill all those who ordered-"
"That probably won't stop anything. This could have changed with the times, but when a general dies after issuing march orders, the soldiers keep moving until the next order comes. Besides... this is not a war where the general is the one leading the frontlines. The chain of command is too branched nowadays. Finding and killing the assigned pilot and all spares in only 2 days is an unrealistic expectation."
Maybe Faldeus's Servant, which not even Watcher can properly observe, could do it, but they had no way to contact him.
(Besides... I only have Faldeus's words going for it, but if that Assassin really is Hassan-i-Sabbah, I don't know what effect he could have on the woman from the same Order of Assassins.)
"We don't even know where the commanders are and what base the bomb will fly from, to begin with."
"Then what will you do?"
"I'll look for a way to save Kuruoka Tsubaki even if the city gets destroyed. But as I told you, first I want to find a way to prevent the destruction. If that's an option, it's the best one."
Saving Tsubaki.
Assassin's eyes were colored with relief the instant she heard those words.
"Alright... Tell me if you find the means. I won't spare any efforts to help."
Assassin's nod conveyed to Sigma that she thought this was the best choice, perhaps because she was never after the Grail and because she can't protest against saving the city.
(This Assassin really is a good soul, despite being a killer by trade.)
Calling someone who resorts to assassination "good" is questionable, but since Sigma's subject of comparison was himself, he'd naturally see her as "someone better than him".
Sigma respected her for having the standards he lacked.
But he failed to notice something: that the person he was before participating in the Grail War could never feel what he was feeling.
Sigma was unaware of his constant changes.
"Until you find anything, I'll pursue the hellspawn."
"The vampire?"
"I must eliminate that hellspawn. If the city really is going to be wiped clean, he will try to use his demonic teachings to escape. His kind denies human feats. There is a chance he could negate even the most vicious power, as long as it was born of man."
"Isn't he already out of town?"
Assassin shook her head at the obvious question.
"No... He's still nearby. I can't tell where without using my Noble Phantasm to observe it... but I can confirm I remain sullied by the stain of my connection to him."
After looking at her own hands with repulsion, Assassin remembered the collaborator replacing him as her current energy supplier.
"Tell Ayaka Sajou to leave the city. I don't want her involved in my self-cleansing. I can handle it with only my remaining magical energy."
"Got it. I was planning to contact her tomorrow, so I'll pass your message."
"Also tell her... I'm grateful."
"Copy that."
(Saber is now going for the Grail, but from what I know of their personalities, they wouldn't be okay with the city's destruction.)
"He might be a Dead Apostle, which is a fairly high rank of vampire. Are you sure you can do it alone?"
"That is why I can't let this chance go to waste. He's currently weakened. You need to focus on what you must do."
Assassin closed her eyes for a moment before raising her head and making direct eye contact with Sigma.
"Sigma... You're determined to save a girl. This is your source of faith.", she used his name directly to get the point across. "I am immature by nature, and on top of that, I'm sullied by the hellspawn's ill will, so I cannot be your guide... but you found something worth believing in."
After those final words, she left the back alley.
But the look on her face when she did remained marked in Sigma's brain.
The face she made to Sigma at the end was—
A human smile of heartfelt joy. A smile she never had before.
"I'm glad it turned out to be a prayer for good."
X X
Present time, show house, underground
"To fight or to abandon?"
Sigma monotonously responded to the shadow's question.
"If this choice is a trial, it's the easiest one so far. My life doesn't have much value. So just making the choice is no big deal. The real important trial to me is whether or not I'll manage to follow through with my decision."
"I see, so you choose the path of honorable defeat and no surrender."
"Defeat is not part of my plans. Just because my life is not worth anything, it doesn't mean I want to commit suicide or die in vain.", Sigma gallantly declared to the shrugging boy knight silhouette.
The shadow responded by changing into the caduceus boy with a somewhat sad smile.
"So you're going to defy Ishtar, even if just a vestige of her, confront this unreasonable destruction, fight the manmade systems and the embodiment of gale and thunderbolt made into a beast of calamity... to ultimately overturn a girl's fated death?"
"I don't know if I can overturn it... I just feel like I have to. If I dump everything and run away here... I get this feeling I'll never get a normal night of sleep again. That would be worse than death to me."
"I get it."
Sigma's words made the shadow understand everything.
"If you can topple this
wall... you'll be accomplishing something we couldn't. I'm rooting for you. When you do it, we'll walk away from your life on a literal road of light."
"? What are you talking about?"
"Huh?"
The silhouette was puzzled at Sigma's puzzled reaction.
"We're on a joint operation. When I overcome this wall you're talking about, you come with me... There's no logical reason for the shadows to walk away."
"... Is this your idea of a joke?"
"What part of it was funny?"
Sigma was expressionless as always. The old captain's silhouette returned.
"Lad... Ain't you forgetting we're Watcher's shadows, not yours?"
"Oh...", Sigma awkwardly averted his eyes for a moment. "Sorry, it completely escaped my mind."
Sigma expressed his honest feelings with a bitter smile, something very rare for him.
"Turns out I grew pretty fond of your nagging."
Originally Posted by Arashi_Leonhart
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