Chapter 3
Part 3
Within the misty forest, I could see the sky beyond the fog was a deep red.
The colour of twilight. Passing through the gaps in the branches and trees, the evening light cutting through the fog brought to mind the similar colour of blood I had seen a few hours earlier. Holding my hands to my chest, I felt the pounding of my own heart help to draw me a little bit closer to reality.
Caules was still with Olgamarie.
My master and I had come alone to the deck of the train's final car.
"This is where they wanted to meet us?" I said, looking around.
Behind the locomotive of the Rail Zeppelin were two more cars, followed by the Dining Car and the Lobby. After that were five guest cars, with the end of the train consisting of two more freight cars.
We decided to pass through the freight cars as well.
The cars themselves were mostly empty, only housing a few wooden boxes and bags. Compared to the other cars, it was surprisingly plain, but that was probably because guests weren't supposed to enter them in the first place. Or perhaps the Manager of the Rail Zeppelin just felt like adding a section that seemed more third-class.
This was the place the letter indicated.
Standing on the deck, the cool breeze washed over us as my master watched the tracks behind us disappear into the distance. At this point, there was no impression that anyone was coming to meet us. Though keeping my attention focused on the surroundings, I quietly spoke again.
"Will Olgamarie be okay?"
"Murder is a common occurrence within the Clock Tower. Even more so if you are associated with the Lords. But even then, I doubted she expected fate to come for her like this," he said, his voice bitter.
"Even if we can give her the time she needs, whether she processes it well comes down to her."
Most magi hearing my master talk like that would probably think him too soft.
Just like Olgamarie said, this was a prime opportunity to rack up debts. The risk wasn't particularly large, but the price one would pay for that sense of security couldn't be underestimated. My master must have understood that, so the reason why he didn't take advantage of it...though he said it was an issue of principles, I felt like it was connected to something much deeper than that.
My master was one who well understood the ethics and morals of both magi and ordinary people.
Holding both of those ethical standards and ideals, he always sniffed out the culprit, resolving the case.
But of course, my master had his own rules that he followed. Whydunnit. Why did the incident occur. Probably, the core of his personality had been formed in the Fourth Holy Grail War.
But.
I felt like there had to be something more to it.
I felt like the rules he operated under, his own whydunnit, had a depth that I had yet to understand. Though if I had to explain it out loud, I couldn't give any more than that vague summary.
"...with this, I guess we can't escape outside," my master suddenly muttered.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm talking about this place," he said, pointing at the mist-clad forest around us.
"It was the same when we stopped before. Within this fog is like a different world. Both getting out of it and infiltrating into it would be rather difficult. Trying to board the train or get off of it outside of the ordinary times permitted for proper guests would be a challenge even for a magus."
"You mean, we wouldn't be able to escape even if we jumped off flew away?"
"I wouldn't say it's impossible. But flying away as a single person is already difficult on its own."
At my master's words, my brow furrowed slightly.
Though I wasn't a magus, I still took lectures at the Clock Tower. One particular memory of those lectures stood out.
"...but, isn't something like floating through the air simple enough? They teach it in Basic Fundamentals, after all."
"Hmm. Your lecture was with Professor Craig, right? He must have left something out, thinking it was obvious enough it didn't need repeating. Certainly, the spell itself is simple enough. That presumes a constant flow of magical energy though."
"Magical energy?"
"If you wanted to suspend a small stone, for instance, that spell would work fine. But, as the size and mass of the object increases, the amount of magical energy required increases exponentially. Floating something like a human body would be a much different task. Of course there are exceptions out there, but in general it's pretty uncommon in magecraft."
"Exceptions?"
My master nodded.
"Of course, you must have heard of witches flying around on brooms, right? That stems from an old form of Magic Foundation, a kind of Black Magic. By rubbing a witch's ointment on someone, you could make it so a person's feet would never reach the ground."
A Foundation is usually engraved into the land itself by the faith and logic of the people.
Within that territory, certain kinds of magecraft would become more powerful, or possibly weaker. I remembered learning that in my lectures.
"So, umm, that means a female magus would be able to fly?"
"In a way. But even in that situation, keeping one's mind clear while doing so is a challenge. After all, a witch's ointment is a kind of narcotic. I'm not sure about under normal circumstances, but trying an extended flight in this kind of closed world would be effectively suicide."
"...I see. That's why it's impossible here..."
To escape from this fog, one would likely have to go a considerable distance.
I was starting to understand what my master was saying. It was like I also heard in my lectures at the Clock Tower. Even if magecraft is omnipotent, the people using it are still limited.
"There are Mystic Codes that allow floating like that for extremely limited amounts of time. And there are low level spirits that could be summoned to help one glide. But in the end, long distance flight is something that's basically impossible in the modern era. If you try to push it anyways, it would take the equivalent magical energy of a Brand-level magus using the entire supply of their own territory to sustain it. And even if you attempt to follow a leyline as you do it, they aren't built in a way that is easy for people to draw energy from. It isn't reasonable to try and draw that much magical energy out of them on the fly."
...well, that's why things like Touko Travel are considered cheating, he said with a mutter. His lack of forthcoming explanation must have been because there was no need to discuss it here. With such a broad range of things that magecraft was capable of, just flooding me with that information would do little more than make my head spin.
With a bitter smile at my master's kind restraint, I looked up at the sky.
"...it seems the clouds are moving in."
Though it was difficult to see through the mist, the sky above was filling with dark clouds.
The bright red sky from before was being dyed black. The change in colour didn't help the memories of blood. Though it was certainly a bright colour while within the human body, once it was spilled, the oxygen in the air quickly began to change the blood to black. As if the fragments of remaining life were melting away, the bright red sky gradually turned dark.
-no way, I felt like saying.
As I was just looking casually at the scenery going by, a light met my eyes.
"...what, is...?"
"Gray?"
"Master, something is coming...!"
Likely, if one wasn't on the rearmost car of the train, they wouldn't notice it.
It was still far away. I couldn't see it well from where we were. As I looked around for a better vantage point, a roaring sound filled the air.
"-lightning?!"
There was no way natural lightning could appear so suddenly.
I remembered Atram Galiasta's Weather Manipulation that I witnessed at Iselma. But even his magecraft took dozens of people working for a long time to prepare, and all it did was create slightly better conditions for a storm. No matter how skilled a magus, creating lightning like that in what my master said was a closed off world shouldn't have been possible.
"Here!"
Jumping up to catch the ladder, I climbed to the top of the train car.
My master followed soon after. No doubt his ability to stay stable on the swaying train car was due to some sort of Strengthening magecraft he was using on his legs.
Lightning struck again.
It was so close as to completely blind us. The impact stunned me completely. Standing between the strike and my master to cover him, I instinctively covered my ears.
My master had said before.
Even for a magus, a person flying through the air would be difficult. With his explanation, I had come to agree.
If that was the case though, then where did this person come from?
After a short pause, they lifted their head.
"-ah, you actually came."
A dignified voice reached my ears, just now regaining their sense of hearing.
It was a beautiful woman.
She looked to be around twenty years old.
And rather tall. Not just her height, but the way she stood so effortlessly on the roof of the moving train car made her look larger. Her black hair fluttered in soft waves in the wind of the moving train, and her eyes were each a different colour. Her slim figure wore plain looking leather underneath metal armour, and she had a simple, easy to use short sword on her hip.
"Should I look down on you for coming here, even knowing it might be a trap? Or should I praise you for having the fortitude to come even with so little strength? Which do you think?" she said, looking at us.
Though the way she spoke gave no impression of hostility, the way her strange eyes peered into the depths of me had me stuck firmly in place.
More than anything, more than any of the dozens of magi I had met, she seemed entirely out of place in this era.
(Almost like...)
Almost like, she had jumped out of a fairy tale...
"Hm? What's wrong? You should be able to understand me. Did I use some archaic phrase or something?"
Shaking my head, I drove the unnecessary thoughts out of my head.
Right now, I didn't need that kind of thinking at all. What I needed was a straight, clear shot at the problem.
"...are you the one who stole from my master?"
I said nothing of the relic. If she was the culprit, she would understand. And if she wasn't, she had no need to know. Whether she understood my thinking or not, her face broke out into a wide smile.
"Hahaha, yes, that's correct. I am a follower of said thief," she laughed cheerfully.
When a beautiful woman laughed, people often likened them to flowers, or jewels. Some might prefer a comparison to art, or fruit.
But for this woman, I saw only iron. Iron, rusted over with blood. A woman clad in the scent of iron was a rare thing. Whether it was by sword or armour or shield, it was the scent of someone who vied for supremacy on the battlefield.
"Then, give it back-!"
Stepping forward, my right shoulder tensed. Ready at any moment to draw my weapon.
"Gray."
But before I could, my master called out to stop me.
Normally, my master always looked deeply to discern the strengths and weaknesses of our opponent. No matter how berserk I had gone, he would always act as the stopper, pulling me back when it was necessary.
But this time, something was wrong.
His voice was a little higher than usual, his breathing rough.
Since he saw that woman. For a moment I wondered if it was a familiar face, but his next words put that idea to rest.
"Who, are you?" he asked.
The armoured woman sighed.
"...what an unpleasant face."
She raised a finger. Her tanned leather gauntlets seemed designed not to impede the movement of her individual fingers, allowing her to raise them one after another.
"Shabby. Fussy. Dark, obstinate. Bad at waking up. Someone who only reads moldy old books. Proud despite his own menial nature. And despite wearing the face of someone whose suffering from their circumstances, you're the one causing all of those circumstances. How about that? It's all true, isn't it?"
I was at a loss for words. It was like she was listing off each and every tiny detail about his life.
Though she was right about everything, she clicked her tongue as if she was the most troubled by it all.
"I don't like it. I don't like it at all. I was sick enough of seeing a face like that on Eumenes, but it's followed me all the way to this era, too?"
"Eumenes?" my master repeated the name.
No, at this point it would be more accurate to say he had gone stiff.
"They said he had served under you for a time, so I wondered what kind of magus you were. But this? No, comparing you to Eumenes doesn't do it justice. Not even a bit. Of course I didn't expect anything like Ammon's priest or Aristotle, but at this rate it would be better to scoop out what little brains you have and feed them to the wolves."
My master stood in shock.
His face looked like he would have preferred to have been struck by that lightning earlier. As if he had just come to realize some truth that would single-handedly take away his happiness.
I swallowed.
"You...!"
"You finally noticed? Even if you've lost your ability to see their abilities that you had as a Master, are you sure your intuition hasn't gone dull? The reason I called you forth was just a whim of mine. But I guess it wasn't worth the effort. Man, what a complete waste of time. I never thought you could have been so disappointing," She continued to rail against him.
But before I could give voice to my anger at that, she acted.
"So die."
With that, she kicked off the roof of the train car.
With a single step, she had reached my master standing behind me. I was shocked - her physical ability exceeded even mine after I had collected the surrounding magical energy. Closing the distance between them in an instant, she drew her sword.
"Master!"
Turning around, I also stepped toward him, throwing out my right hand.
"Ihihihihihi! This is just too much of a development, isn't it?!"
In an instant, the hook on my right shoulder released, and Add expanded. His Rubix Cube-like exterior span rapidly, settling into the shape of a scythe in my hands.
A hard sound filled the air.
The scythe caught her sword.
"Oh?" the woman said with another smile.
"Impressive. You blocked it head on, did you? It seems you're better than the soldiers of Persia."
"Who, are you....?!"
A grinding sound filled the air as her blade pressed down on my scythe.
Though her weapon was sharp, it didn't seem to have any special properties as a Noble Phantasm or Conceptual Weapon. But as she swung the blade around, it was clear it was no ordinary blade.
"Remember this. Having skill in combat does not make one a soldier. Such a becoming is a question of body, mind, and spirit."
I had forgotten that we were on top of a moving train.
This woman seemed so out of place, so separated from the present, it made me feel like I was standing on some ancient battlefield. As if being surrounded by magi on the Mystic Eye Collecting Train wasn't outlandish enough, this woman had an overwhelming sense of the supernatural that set her completely apart.
(What, is this-?!)
Inside my head, the warning signals were blaring.
Don't touch. Don't approach. Don't associate. Even showing interest will be the end of you. Even when confronting the Grand ranked magus, Touko Aozaki, that warning had only been a soft insistence. Now, it was a violent scream, pleading with me to run away.
But retreat wasn't an option.
Once again, the woman's sword came down on my scythe.
(So, strong...!)
Her speed and accuracy were terrifying. But more than that, the weight of her repeated strikes was simply unnatural. The shock of the impact travelled straight through the scythe to the bones in my arms. Each and every swing came with the intention of killing.
Soldier, she had said.
Not just an issue of skill, but of body, mind, and spirit.
Then, she must have been...
"...a Servant!"
The answer came from behind me.
That pained shout came, as if he had to wrench out his insides to do it.
"Gray! That woman is a Ghost Liner - the manifestation of a Heroic Spirit from Humanity's history!"
"Haha, a little late, isn't he?" the woman laughed.
As she laughed, she threw her sword into a horizontal slash.
This time, collecting as much magical energy from the area as I could, I kicked off the roof. Matching my timing to the swaying of the train, I slipped through the gap made by her ever so slightly slowed blade, flipping backwards.
As I landed, I stumbled backwards.
Even with that, her blade still grazed my legs.
"Well now. That's an interesting trick. You absorbed a bit of my magical energy just now, didn't you?"
Looking down at her blade, the armoured woman lifted her shoulders, amused.
"A perfect technique to use against me as I am now. Too bad, though, the scope is just too small. Even if you're a cat, you can't catch a mouse a hundred times your size. I imagine it would be good enough to wipe out a ghost outright, too."
As soon as she mentioned ghosts, a chill ran up my spine.
But for the first time, my fear of the person in front of me took precedence. Gritting my teeth, trying to ignore the cold sweat breaking out, I put power into my legs again. If I hadn't, I would certainly have collapsed. By dropping my focus just a bit, I could feel a sensation like my insides flipping upside down.
With that sword, she would have no problem cutting me cleanly in two.
"Ah, the master seems hopeless, but the disciple isn't so bad. You seem the type to stay in the kitchen even when you can't handle the heat, but you're holding up quite well. If we hadn't met like this, I might have enjoyed training you myself, but I guess that's that."
The woman's lips curled.
"As a reward, I'll show you something interesting."
She didn't move.
All she did was look at me.
Heterochromia. Her right eye was as dark as night, while her left was as blue as the daytime sky. As I noticed that, I felt my mind being sucked in by that brilliant blue light.
No unnecessary movement. Single Action.
My body clumsily turned to the side. I could only watch dumbfounded as I saw my arms lift my scythe in the air, pointed toward my own master.
"Mystic...Eyes...?!"
"I guess you people would call it a Noble Colour of Compulsion. A fitting end to a fight on this stage, don't you think?"
Her shimmering blue eye seemed to laugh.
"My god prizes madness. The comedies and tragedies caused by intoxication and drunkenness are to be enjoyed. I had thought watching the master and student slay each other would be entertaining, but...looks like one of you has some irritating equipment. It seems the magi of this era are well prepared."
"...you..."
Pressing his glasses to his face, my master stumbled.
It seemed the Mystic Code he had prepared for the Rail Zeppelin was enough to defend against this woman's Compulsion.
But that was no reason to feel relieved. My body was still being perfectly controlled. My previously clumsy movements were gradually becoming smoother, and the distance between my master and I was shrinking.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey Gray! Are you serious?! What are you doing?!"
The scythe came down.
On the roof of the train car, red filled the night air.
Slicing through only a single layer of leather on my master's shoulder, the scythe spun in an arc aiming for the woman's throat.
"-well, that scythe is quite versatile," she said, seeing right through me as her sword intercepted the blade coming for her.
With the magical energy expelled by the scythe forcibly running through my magic circuits, it flushed the effects of the Mystic Eyes from my system. Even then, it was a desperate maneuver, and had it been even a few moments late, I would have taken my master's head right off his shoulders.
"I guess there's nothing else to do, then. I had hoped to let you two settle things yourselves, but I guess not."
Taking a large step back, the woman gave a small sigh.
She then raised her sword to the dark clouds above. Though it seemed like she acted so arrogant as to think she could cut the sky with her own weapon, the unusual magical energy flooding the blade was impossible to ignore.
I jumped forward.
"I won't let you-!"
"Too late," she said, bringing down the sword with its enormous amount of magical energy.
From the empty space before her, something expanded.
It looked like she had cut open space itself. Though it seemed that way, it was probably more like materializing a spiritual entity, or some similar phenomenon. Whichever the case, the appearance of the object pushed aside the air in its place, creating a powerful shock wave that threw me backwards.
A stinging pain covered my skin.
It was the first time I had felt that. My body was starting to reject the enormous amount of magical energy I had absorbed.
"Ihihihihi! No, no, no, no, no! That's not allowed, Gray! Anything but that! Even if it's us, this isn't an opponent we can beat!" Add shouted.
Lightning struck once again.
Lightning from the dark clouds overhead repeatedly struck around the armoured woman, as if in blessing.
The lightning-clad form was that of a two-horse chariot. It wasn't a weapon of the modern age. It was an ancient symbol, a vehicle pulled by horses or something similar, running across the battlefield trampling all underfoot.
"-what?!"
I heard a stunned voice.
Of course, that was to be expected. The creatures pulling the chariot were made entirely of bone. And though they were only skeletons, the lizards had powerful looking wings. Were they small dragons? With no forelimbs, they looked like the long extinct Wyvern, a phantasmal species.
Watching that chariot drawn by dragons of bone, my master's expression continued to twist.
"...but, that..."
"Master?"
But I understood.
This was a Noble Phantasm. The same as the holy spear hidden within Add. A weapon that surpassed human intellect. But thanks to its terrible nature, I could predict what type of Noble Phantasm it would be.
Before coming to the Rail Zeppelin, Reines had told me.
'...he was said to have two Noble Phantasms.'
'-One, the chariot dedicated to the Gordion Shrine, the
Heaven's Wheel
Gordius Wheel
.'
"My name is Hephaestion!" the woman roared. "The closest friend of the greatest King of Conquerors in history, Iskandar!"
The woman - Hephaestion leapt up onto the chariot, took the reins, and the chariot lifted into the air.
With a figure that seemed taken straight out of myth, she brought the chariot around in an arc, charging directly toward us. With each step of the skeletal dragons pulling it, lightning boomed. Each strike was as powerful as the lightning that had struck before. A human struck once would, without a shadow of a doubt, be killed instantly.
"Master!"
Grabbing a hold of him, I jumped.
As we fell to the roof of the train car, I felt a burst of energy pass over my back. The storm trampled down the world. After passing us by, that manifestation of destruction plowed through the forest, throwing trees this way and that as if they were no more than pencils.
(It's not stopping-!)
There was no way it could be stopped.
If there was a way, there was only one.
As the chariot came around in a wide arc, I slowly lifted Add up from where I was sitting on my knees. The numerous eyes adorning the scythe opened. The magical energy in the atmosphere was enough. Full throttle. The time to activate its true function was now.
"
...
...
...
..."
"No, Gray!" my master shouted.
"If you use it in such an unstable place, we won't make it out either! And she hasn't even released its True Name yet!"
"But...!"
The chariot gradually gained speed, heading toward us.
I could no longer - no, at this rate, I wouldn't have made it in time anyways.
Slowly, my master stood. He drew out the knife he always used to cut his cigars. I couldn't imagine he hoped to fight a Heroic Spirit using something like that, but either way I went stiff as I watched him.
"Hahaha, suicide is it?!"
"...no way..."
As my master stepped forward, the small blade glimmered.
His thin frame was drowned out in the chariot and its lightning. The bright lightning was enough to cast out the night. And as powerful as the roaring thunder, a battle cry.
"AAAALaLaLaLaLaie!!!!"
Fate was decided.
The lightning pouring out to the sides of the chariot was unstoppable. Trampled down by dragons of bone, torn apart by the chariot that followed, not a shred of his original form would remain. The force it brought to bear wasn't just an Anti-Personnel weapon, but was in the range of an Anti-Army Noble Phantasm. Even a fully equipped modern army would be annihilated by a single strike.
A deafening roar. Like the rampage of a god, the word 'destruction' seemed insufficient to describe it.
And in the next moment, that attack blew us away.
With my vision narrowed down to focus on one single point, everything seemed to move in slow motion.
The door to the freight car opened. At last, I realized we had been knocked down to the side of the freight car.
"Professor! Gray!"
"Caules...!"
From that open door, Caules reached out to us.
As we fell, my master and I reached desperately for that hand. As his Strengthened hand caught my weight for a single moment, I threw myself into my master. A moment later, I did a half spin, jumping into the freight car.
My eyes immediately snapped to the window, where I saw the woman and her chariot flying off into the distance.
"...she's not...chasing...?"
"...if she hit us here, that would be a declaration of war against the Rail Zeppelin itself, after all... I don't know why, but...I guess at the least, her Master isn't interested in doing that. That must have been why they picked such a place," my master muttered weakly as he leaned against the wall, sliding to the floor.
He then raised his head with a small smile.
"Good timing, Caules."
"I was worried. I felt some sort of magical lightning earlier, and when I came to check, you were facing down some sort of monster chariot."
"Ah," I suddenly realized at that moment.
Thanks to his research into Primeval Batteries, Caules must have become sensitive to the flow of electricity. Though I'm sure even my master never would have assumed such a thing would happen.
"...thanks, you really saved us," my master said with a ragged sigh.
A small ceramic jar was lying at his feet. Already laced with cracks, as it rolled across the floor, the cracks spread throughout until it fell apart.
"...I wonder...if it hadn't been a direct hit, would the Primeval Battery have survived?" he gave another deep sigh.
At that, Caules blinked in surprise.
"Did you cut your hair?"
Though it was just a single lock, it seemed some of my master's hair was missing.
Finally I realized the knife earlier hadn't been for fighting the enemy, but for cutting his own hair.
"...it's a trump card normally used by female magi. If you fill your hair with magical energy, it functions well as a catalyst. After all, I don't have many advantages with this body. There's no point in decking myself out with Mystic Codes, but I figured one or two secret weapons would help."
Hold on.
Was that the reason he had grown his hair out so long?
Amplifying the magecraft of the Primeval Battery, he misdirected the force of the lightning. But no matter how much lightning he was able to redirect, the difference between him and that chariot was just too much. We had been blown away just by the wind coming off it, before it even hit us.
The fact we survived that could be nothing less than a miracle. If those skeletal dragons had struck us with a single step, we both would have died.
"...it seems she took it easy on us. If she had really intended on killing us, something small like this wouldn't have made a difference. ...but how did she summon that thing...? Why...was there a friend of the king...I had never seen...?"
"Professor-?"
Trying to help my master to his feet, Caules' breath caught.
The back of his coat had been thoroughly scorched. That was probably a result of us being blown away. My master must have Strengthened his entire body as I had, but there was an insurmountable gap between our capabilities to do so. And if he had been using his magecraft to redirect the lightning, there was no way his arms or Magic Circuits could have been fully operational for that.
"Please keep it quiet...from the staff..."
With a faint moan, he began to sway.
"Master!"
"Professor!
Our shouts didn't reach him.
Just like that, his swaying body collapsed, falling forward.
Originally Posted by Dotelias
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