I run. I can only run. There is no other option but to run.
This is my choice. There is no fear, or much of anything else. I run because it is what I have chosen to do and what I believe I must do. There is no longer room for hesitation. It has to end, today. Before Tohsaka or the Einzberns or the people from the Clock Tower make it here, we must put a decisive end to this.
The last Command Seal on my hand will be the weapon that ensures this.
Ayaka…I have to catch up to Ayaka. There is no way she can stop her sister on her own!
I cannot waste time looking back. I have to ignore the chill in my heart after leaving Masamune alone to fight Saber. I can only hope Caren…
“It will be fine,” I hear myself murmuring even as my reinforced body darts past the trees. “Everything will be alright—”
“Oh, please allow me to disagree.”
I urge my body to stop, and it responds with frightening celerity, as if terrified of the consequences of taking too many steps to come to a halt. My heart beats painfully quickly, and it is no longer the demands of long-distance running.
This feeling…! My body, it’s already shivering!
This person! Why is this person here!?
“In fact, I would say things will be as far from alright as possible. For you, I mean.”
Its form glides along the fallen leaves, never making a sound. He emerges from behind a tree, and its lean and disturbingly pale appearance can only make me feel disgust and horror.
This thing, this thing, this thing, this thiiiiiiiiiiing!!!
“RIDEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRR!!!”
“Indeed. Truly, your perceptive capability deserves utmost commendation.”
Everything, everything, everything in this world! I would give everything in this world to remove that smirk off his disgusting face!
I’m afraid, and I have every reason to be afraid, but this time the fear can’t overcome this unstoppable anger…! This monster, this monster that calls itself a Servant, is the reason behind everything…!
But, this monster was supposed to be dead…!
“Why…why are you still here, Rider!? How can you be still alive!?”
He chuckles, with that dastardly voice of his that give me the creeps. Damn it, I don’t want to even look at him…!
“The Grail, Emiya Shirou. The Grail wishes for my existence.” His disgusting smirk grows wider and wider, wider than ordinary facial muscles should allow. It’s utterly disgusting. “It wants to pour its contents throughout the world, Emiya Shirou! It’s the ever-flowing chalice of earthly delights! The plentiful womb that wishes to give birth! And I am its envoy!”
“Damn you, Rider…!!!”
“Rider, Rider, Rider…” It sighs, sounding almost disappointed. “I believe Lancer told my true identity, did he not? Before he died, that is.”
Bastaaaaaaaaard…!!! Lancer died…! Lancer died before my eyes because…!!!
“You…you killed Luvia, you bastard…!”
“I killed an enemy Master or two, yes.”
How dare he!?
This feeling….! This burning feeling in the corner of my eyes! These are tears of rage, Rider! These are the depths of my anger! Never…! Never have I hated another person the way I despise you…!
“Sakura…! How will you justify Sakura…!?”
“She was in the way. She and her pathetic grandfather. Tch, tch, tch, really; that family was beyond pitiful.”
It has to stop. His mockery, his callow dismissal of the lives he has taken so brutally…!
“Then, Berserker…?”
“Getting rid of the remaining Servants for me as we speak, of course.”
I feel myself gritting my teeth with rage that must be contained. I cannot act recklessly before this monster. Even as he mocks me with his disgusting smirk, I can feel the expanding presence of his prana enveloping the place, and his right hand effortlessly holds that massive mace, blacker than any shadow. He is ready to fight, and he wants to kill me as much as I want him dead.
Damn it, if only I knew what Caren is up to…!
…no.
Regardless of the circumstances, there is not really a choice for me to make.
I want to fight.
Even if it’s ridiculous, a human against a Servant, I want to fight this monster! This is the extent of my hatred!
“It’s your fault…Luvia is dead…”
“Yes, yes, we already went through that.”
Shut up.
“And Sakura…”
“…and that too. Hard to believe as it is, your mind is actually slower than usual today, Emiya Shirou.”
Shut up…
“And Ilya…”
“Now, now, the homunculus is alive. She is needed to manifest the Grail, after all.”
Shut. Up.
“And because of you, Masamune’s fighting her own Servant right now…! She’s fighting, with tears in her eyes…!”
“That she is. Really, I wish I could be there. To see the look on her eyes when she realizes her words will never ever reach him again.” A calm chuckle. “From personal experience, that single, definite realization of hopelessness…” His nostrils expand as he dramatically and exaggeratedly inhales, as if relishing in oxygen that is wasted on him. “…you just cannot get tired of it.”
“SHUT UUUUUUUUP!!!”
I am only vaguely aware of the swords coming into shape in my arms. I cannot think of nothing else but to attack the one before me like I have become some sort of rabid beast.
My reckless, suicidal charge ends before it can even start.
It comes out from the ground under his feet. Hideous beyond compare, grotesque beyond words.
I have seen them before; the worms in the basement of the Matou residence. But the one in front of me eclipses them all in both size and grotesqueness! It could barely fit in the dojo at my place!
So this is it! The reason he is “Servant Rider”!
“This is my ‘mount’, Emiya Shirou,” he says, smirking as ever only now on top of the most disgusting and bizarre of dais. Countless tendrils of black flesh swirl around the monstrosity’s phallic form, each of them ending in a spear-tip. This monster is no mere prana leech; Rider’s mount is a true killing weapon.
“Consider it my final gesture towards the victor of the fifth Heaven’s Feel,” Rider declares before a round of low-pitched chuckling.
He does not need to bring this thing out to kill me, of course. Still, I must survive. I must find a way out of this situation. With everything on the line, I must make it past Rider…
Wait for me, Ayaka!