Edit: Table of Contents:
Chapter one: Below
Chapter two: Pg. 15
Chapter three: Pg. 20
Chapter four: Pg. 26
Chapter five: Pg. 27
Chapter six: Pg. 29
Chapter seven: Pg. 31
Chapter eight: Pg. 31
Chapter nine: Pg. 32
Chapter ten: Pg. 32
Chapter eleven: Pg. 33
Chapter twelve: Pg. 33
Well, here is the completed chapter of my Astolfo fic I posted earlier. Thanks to qsurf I changed the first part a bit to smooth it out. The second (new) part remains unchanged from my rough-draft so if you spot any errors let me know. I hope copy-pasting this from word didn't mess with my formatting...
Warning: This is absolutely crack. Traps abound. Oblivious Shirou...abound.
The Three T’s of Victory: Terror, Triumph, and…Trap?
The moon was beautiful tonight.
Even as I crashed through the shattered mess that used to be a window of my house, my mind was working in overdrive.
Mother did once warn that if I stayed out too late I might end up being chased by a strangely dressed man trying to pierce me with his veiny, throbbing, and engorged spear. Admittedly that was after she tried to send me to school in a ballroom gown that one time, something I could never quite live down, but the point still stood.
Somehow Iri was always right…at least when she wasn’t using me as a dress-up doll. Despite being dead for years I can still vividly imagine her telling me “I told you so~” with her beatific smile. And now all because I stayed late to help out a friend at school some crazed superhuman was trying to kill me.
Again.
I should probably reconsider my list of friends should I somehow survive all of this.
My back hitting the lawn stopped these thoughts in their tracks; I instinctively curled up and rolled in an attempt to lessen the damage from the impact. Without sparing even a moment for my spine to stop hurting I turned and swung the shinai held in my grasp in a wide arc behind me.
A loud noise indicating the clash of metal rang throughout the otherwise silent night. The bamboo of the shinai I had grabbed to fend off my attacker split open to reveal a dense metal pole underneath.
Yet more proof that Taiga, the owner of this thing, was insane.
After deflecting his thrust my assailant hesitated just long enough for me to turn and dash the twenty meters towards the shed that had become my workshop. There had to be something there that would allow me to combat this creep.
Mother always told me that there was nothing worse than a persistent man. I was beginning to see what she meant.
“Fly.”
The man quickly executed a roundhouse kick that impacted my back and sent me flying. The angle of the kick flipped me over in the air, my head facing the ground. My back impacted a hard concrete wall, knocking the breath out of me and forcing me to drop my improvised weapon. It seemed that, despite the rough trip, I managed to make it to my destination; the shed.
Through my blurred vision I saw the strangely-clad man casually walking towards me, lance in hand. His seeming lack of care about this situation would have been insulting, had I not been in such pain.
This was it. I was definitely going be killed if I didn’t do something. I was probably going to be killed even if I did do something. Damn it. I couldn’t, wouldn’t die now…I had a promise that I had to keep at all costs.
Without warning the lance thrust toward me at a terrifying speed. Luckily for me my knees decided to give out at that very moment, my body hitting the ground with a thud. The spear went over my head and blasted the shed doors open instead of impaling me like a Shirou-kabob.
Taking the chance this presented to me, I gathered up all my energy and dashed through the doorway into the shed on all fours, hoping against all chance one of my miscellaneous alchemical projects could somehow help me. Desperate times called for desperate measures, no?
“Here, this is it!”
The man clad in blue grinned savagely as he thrust his lance toward me once again. This time I had no way of escaping. My hands blindly grabbing for anything to help, I ended up grabbing a stoppered beaker full of a purple viscous liquid. Without thinking twice I swung it towards the incoming weapon, hoping for a miracle.
The ensuing explosion nearly ripped the spear from the man’s hands, causing him to stagger backwards. The sheer force of it also flung me to the far wall, as well as embedding shards of the glass beaker in my right arm.
Of course, despite saving my life – at the cost of nearly ending it – the sudden conflagration didn’t exactly boost my confidence in my alchemical skills, considering that nothing in the shed was supposed to be volatile after the stray dog incident last year. Taiga very nearly forbade me from coming in here ever again after that fiasco.
After getting my bearings I looked up at the man, I discovered that he had recovered from the explosion and was grinning at me. Pointing his spear at me, the blue-clad man seemed to chuckle.
“Checkmate. That was a pretty surprising move there kid.”
My consciousness began to blur, I guess it had to be the blood-loss from the glass in my arm. The man began saying something that I couldn’t quite make out. But I didn’t hear. I didn’t care. I was going to die; there was only that one truth. The spear honed in on my heart, in my eyes it was nothing but a red streak in the air. I couldn’t hope to counter what I couldn’t properly see.
I will die.
But there was no doubt that I would perish here, in this ramshackle shed, without accomplishing anything. This I could not accept. Not only dying, but dying twice in one day…I could not accept this as truth. I would not accept this as truth. This abhorrent fate, I would crush. Someone like you…would not kill me!
A clash of metal followed by a blinding white light stifled my thoughts. A figure standing in front of me, sword in hand, had blocked the spearman’s blow. The man exclaimed his surprise, but the words were lost in the swirling winds caused by the figure’s appearance.
The person, I assumed it was a girl, had a head full of pink hair, save for a single lock of white upon her forehead, which went down her back in a long braid held together by a black ribbon. From the angle I sat I was able to see that she was wearing a lustrous white cape, fur lining the neck, which hung down to her thighs. A shifting of the cape afforded me a glimpse of silver plate armor on her hips, with a short chain mail skirt sticking out from underneath. A white scabbard hung from her belt, obviously meant for the blade she was holding, with what looked like a black ram’s horn adorning the opposite side. Her hands were sheathed in a pair of bright silver gauntlets trimmed in gold, while the sword held within their grasp had a guard that resembled a bird in flight.
It was a stunning sight.
The clash of weapons sounded in the shed once more, the sparks lighting up the night. The spearman jumped out of the shed, reeling in shock at the sudden appearance of my savior. Upon seeing the enemy retreat the figure turned to me, sword still in hand. As I slowly raised my head, the first thing that caught my attention was the silver eagle buckle on her belt, followed by the golden lion (or was it a griffon?) inscribed on her breastplate.
Upon reaching her face, however, all those previous observations became meaningless. The skin was without blemish, the eyes a pale blue-green. Her round cheeks gave a feeling of youthful impishness, and yet I could sense steel behind that expression. With a grin the girl asked me a question that would change my life forever.
“Hey, are you by any chance my Master?”
…Huh?
Before this astounding question could even sink in the armored girl continued.
“Well, I suppose you have to be. You are the only one here after all. Not counting the, erm, pervert in the cat suit over there.” With that said, she turned to face said ‘pervert’. “In fact let’s not count him at all, he is probably compensating for something with that spear of his. It even has veins on it! Gross. Who would make such a weird thing? Wait, I take that back. I really don’t want to know. Its creator is probably another weirdo in a skin-tight outfit. Encountering one of those tonight is far more than enough.”
W-who was this… this person? She was undoubtedly the same type of being as the one outside…yet her attitude was completely different.
Ignoring, or probably just oblivious to, the slowly rising levels of anger in the spearman the girl placed a hand on her hip while pointing her sword at him. “I am Servant Rider, and you obviously must be Servant Lancer. Shall we begin?”
What had I gotten myself into?
The Three T’s of Victory
Without hesitation the girl leaped out of the shed towards the spearman, the force of her takeoff stirring up the dust and debris on the floor. Using the momentum of her flying body Rider (that was a name, right?) brought her sword down in an overhead swing, attempting to cleave newly identified Lancer’s head in two. The blow was easily deflected by the spearman, but his immediate counterattack was deflected just as easily.
The two super humans seemed evenly matched. Lancer was faster to be sure, but Rider kept on dodging the blows just at the right moment, as well as taking advantage of any openings the spearman had. It seemed like any time Rider was about to be impaled Lancer would seemingly stumble on an otherwise unnoticeable part of the terrain; something I doubted was normal considering his skill. Was it just really good luck on Rider’s part, or was it some kind of magecraft?
Despite this happening right in front of me I simply couldn’t believe it. Just…what were these people? Their movements were way beyond what a human can accomplish. First there was the man in red fighting this Lancer at the school, and now this Rider girl joins in. Their armor and weaponry looked like something straight out of one of the historical dramas that Sakura was so fond of, yet this was so much more…authentic? Real? Life threatening?
Definitely all of the above.
Sparks lit up the clouded night once more. The clashing of weapons reverberated throughout the otherwise silent yard. Despite both fighters exerting what must be a vast amount of energy it seemed like the fight was getting more intense by the minute, each blow more powerful than the last. But even with both fighters giving it their all, they both only managed to inflict relatively minor wounds on the other. A gash to Lancer’s forearm, a cut on Rider’s leg, and so on…it just kept going. Yet they all still looked to be only flesh wounds, none of them hindering the combatants’ form one bit.
I couldn’t help but wonder if any of the neighbors were hearing this…
Somehow the petit girl managed to put the Lancer on the defensive, driving him, slowly but surely, into a corner. Agitation was clear on the man’s face, his teeth grinding against each other.
“You think your tiny sword can stand up to my lance? You are not even of the Saber class.” The man in blue gestured his head towards my position in the shed. “Besides, your master appears to be as thick as manure and only half as useful. He’s just sitting there with his jaw open like a fool, after all. You can’t be getting a lot of prana from him; he even summoned you through some sort of fluke!”
T-that was totally uncalled for!
“Don’t insult my Master like that!”
Immediately after coming to my defense Rider increased her pace, her thin sword becoming a blur as it attempted to perforate the spearman. Under the unexpected assault Lancer was forced to jump back in retreat, landing a few meters away. After recovering from the strain the man relaxed his stance, leaning upon his spear as if it were a walking stick he addressed Rider casually.
“How about this, do you want to call it even?”
The unexpected question stopped Rider in her tracks.
“It’s not a bad deal, right? Your Master is hopelessly lost and it so happens that mine is a coward. I think it would better for both of us if we hold off on this match until we are better prepared.”
Rider stroked her chin in thought. Taking a sidelong glance at me she answered the spearman hesitantly.
“Though you have gravely insulted my Master and my own skills…I am forced to accept your proposal. I am still disoriented from my own summoning and my master appears to be unknowledgeable of his role here.” Waving her sword at the lounging Lancer, Rider started fuming, her now cherry-red face seemingly glowing with embarrassment. “D-don’t get me wrong, I am only letting you go because you gave me a good fight! W-we will have our rematch, and I will come out victorious! You will grovel at my feet, you overcompensating pervert!”
Lancer snorted, his shoulders shacking with poorly concealed laughter. “I’m looking forward to it, boya.” Before Rider could get a word in edgewise the spearman vanished over the wall in a leap, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.
The girl sheathed her sword with a clack. “Tch, he has Disengage. How…unexpected. I was hoping to get the general direction of his base, but that is not to be I suppose.” Rubbing her head in agitation, she turned to me. And in a blink of an eye Rider was in my face, patting my body down for injuries.
“Master, are you okay? Did he hurt you? Are you in any pain? How are your prana levels? How many fingers am I holding up? Are you hungry? Are-”
I sat there amazed. This was simply too much to take in all at once. The warrior girl’s questions went right over my head, only her concern for my safety managed to pierce my addled brain. That, and the fact that she saved my life from the blue spearman known as Lancer, was the only thing that kept me from freaking out at her sudden proximity.
“Ah! Your arm’s bleeding! Look at all that glass! Can you feel your fingers? Ho-“
I placed my hand over her mouth to stop her questions; my experience in dealing with Iri taught me that if I didn’t she would probably continue on endlessly. “I’m…fine, just confused. And anyway, shouldn’t you be more concerned about your own injuries? We need to-huh?”
Wait…they’re gone! The wounds were gone? I did not see her cast any healing magics, and yet those wounds just vanished. Her white cape, which was once in tatters, is whole again…along with the rest of her outfit. How did this come to be?
Everything about this girl was absurd. She was a dangerous existence. Iri did warn me that if I ever saw medieval knights running around the city that I should steer clear, but I always thought that it was simply one of her jokes. I never could have imagined something like this.
“Just who…are you?” Even while saying that I slowly started reaching for another beaker just in case this ‘Rider’ turned out to be hostile. I could admit the possibility of that was quite low given her concern for my well-being, but Mother always told me to never take any chances. Though a repeat performance of what happened with the spearman would probably end up doing more damage to me than this girl would.
I just never learned, did I?
She must have found my befuddled expression humorous as laughter resembling chiming bells rippled from her throat, shocking me out of my thoughts. “I am a Servant, these wounds were quite minor and it took naught but a moment to regenerate. Now to answer your question,” she coughed into her fist, clearing her throat in an overly dramatic manner, “I am Servant Rider, summoned forth to fight in the Holy Grail War. The details are a little hazy, since the summoning was apparently, well, botched. But I do know the winner gets a wish. Although this kind if a start is far from ideal…you’re my Master and we will fight together in this battle royale, yes?”
…Servant Rider? Master? Wish? The Holy Grail? And what was this about a war? What was she talking about?
I was about to vocalize my questions when Rider stiffened and glanced over her shoulder at the yard’s dividing wall. “It seems like the rest of the formalities, such as asking your name, will have to wait, we have visitors.” Her formerly jovial expression shifted into an emotionless mask, completely unsuitable for a pretty girl like herself if I could say so. “Two enemies, one Servant accompanied by what is most likely its Master. In my current condition I should have no problem dealing with them.”
She stood up and unsheathed her sword once more, after making a few practice swings she dashed out of the shed and disappeared over the wall.
There were enemies outside, not a good scenario for sure. That girl just fought that monstrous spearman moments ago and now she was going to fight again? Her saying that she was unharmed was a blatant lie. With that limp, it was obvious to anyone that she was favoring her left leg. She was probably far more powerful that I would ever be, but I couldn’t just let a girl run off and get herself killed. I may not have been a hero, but there were a few things that I simply couldn’t overlook.
A girl in trouble was definitely one of them.
Ignoring the pain in my arm, I ran to the gate at full force. After a few moments of fumbling with the lock, I wrenched it open and sprinted out onto the street. Panting in an attempt to catch my breath I stared at the scene in front of me, my mind not processing what I saw.
The man in red who was fighting Lancer at the school was now fighting Rider, their swords nothing but streaks in the night. The swordsman was slowly gaining ground on Rider, whose leg caused her to stumble under an overarm strike from the opposing Servant. However, the swing left a split second where there was an opening in the man’s stance. In that instant Rider managed to get inside that man’s guard and swung her sword at his exposed torso, surprising even me with the sudden burst of speed.
A powerful spell was cast; the man vanished before the sword could eviscerate him, Rider’s blade passed harmlessly through the empty air. This did not seem to faze the armored girl as she just continued onward towards the second figure.
The magus.
While I may not have been a magus myself – strictly speaking I was an alchemist, and we didn’t rely on magical circuits to do our works – I was well aware of the danger they posed. Yet I somehow had a feeling that whatever power the magus held would fall short of what this girl, my supposed ‘Servant’, had.
A spell was fired, but before it could make contact Rider pulled out a book from somewhere and swung it at the black sphere. The book, a leather-bound thing with western-style letters inscribed on the spine in a language that I knew wasn’t English, easily deflected the spell, sending it flying off into the night sky. The whole thing reminded me of a baseball batter hitting a home run.
“It isn’t the proper way to use this…but I like hitting things better,” said Rider with a smirk.
Such a high-level spell cast in a mere instant, not even a first-class magus could accomplish that…and a book deflected it. Rider merely swatted something that would likely kill many a man away as if it were a mere annoyance. The natural order of things had been thrown all out of whack.
The figure of the magus stumbled backwards after seeing its spell fly off into the sky, falling to the ground with an audible thud.
Rider continued on towards the magus; hand on the pommel of her sheathed sword. I was about to call out to her when I saw something that made me freeze. The moon came out from behind the clouds once again, lighting up the scene. The figure of the magus lying on the ground, in what I suppose is a state of shock, was one I recognized very well.
Rin Tohsaka.
She was the school’s idol…along with being someone that I simply could never get along with. Her actions always seemed too practiced, too calculated to be natural. And no one who willingly wore a skirt that short could have anything good planned for the rest of the world. In the end, she always had something hidden that constantly set me on edge…so I guess I knew what that was now. She was a magus. Issei would never know how close he was to the truth when he called her a witch earlier today.
I could appreciate the irony, even in a situation like this.
While I sat there, frozen in a stupor, Rider had covered the distance between the two of them and prepared to swing her weapon. I was going to yell at Rider to stop, but my voice stuck in my throat. All I could do was brace myself for the inevitable bloodbath.
And then head met book.
Rider thwacked Tohsaka over the head with the heavy-looking book, knocking her out. The once proud girl crumpled to the ground, lying there in a heap.
Just…what?
Oblivious to my incredulous gaze Rider pointed at the unconscious body of Tohsaka and grinned, obviously quite pleased with herself. “To the victor go the spoils!”
Oh, why me?
[Break]
Yes, Shiou does have a bit of a mother-complex. Who wouldn't with Iri raising them? I am also messing with the effects of Astolfo's magical book, customizing them for my own needs...mostly for comedic purposes.
Originally Posted by Komrade Kwestions
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