C243: Beginning of The End Pt:1
Alt title Teaser: A Great Brawl
Date published: 7/31/2025.
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"It seems I must reclaim my title as Martha the Dragon Rider once more, taking up the mantle to defeat another dragon. I shall now witness your growth, here and now, prepare yourself." Martha raises her staff to lunge at Washio, sweeping it towards him as her former master stomps his back foot as he enters a pseudo horse stance as he raises one of his arms up to block the cross staff.
Bang
The staff quickly collides with the arm, the force of which creates a small boom between them, yet it is only the ground which was harmed. Washio himself remains in place and not even perturbed from the impact that before he would have found painful and complained even if he had dragon scales on.
"I'm sorry" Washio states while Martha has a confused expression as Washio grabs onto the crown of her staff, preventing her from pulling away as his other hand jams into her gut. "Eeeh" Martha lets out a small surprised squeak as Washio lets go of the staff, allowing Ruler to go flying off and crash into the already present ruins of the temple home.
She comes out a second later, swinging her staff, enhanced with her mana, towards Washio's leg in an attempt to shatter his footing or knock him off balance. The attempt works as the floor partially crumbles under the previous force of Washio's stomp as well as the attack now. The crumbling causes the boys weight to shift toward and down.
Martha capitalizes on this fact by embedding her staff into the ground to pull herself forward and unleash a kick to her former master's chest, sending him now flying back into the ruined temple walls surrounding the estate.
Washio takes a bit longer than Martha to come back out as he thinks of his next approach as compared to his reckless behavior fighting against Assassin a few days ago.
BANG BANG
Elsewhere, Rin begins her fight against her Homeroom teacher by chucking fireballs at them. Caster's master accelerates out of the way as he watches his pupil. Spotting what looks like an opening to the former assassin, he 'Accels' forward to punch at Rin who gets hit but only dissipates into a body of water.
He soon spots the high school student a few feet away, she has a cheeky smile on her face as she states, "The first thing my teacher ever taught me after getting the basics of true magic was to run away. I still get angry when I remember it but I long understood that he cares about us"
Rin explains her thought process and showcases her knowledge with the same smile as she waves her hand to create multiple illusions of herself around the assassin as she then waves her hand again. This time spikes of earth sprout out of the ground, not letting the man know who the real Rin is as he is forced to dodge in quick succession until he is close enough to the first nearby Rin, which he punches and it just dissipates into smoke akin to a mirage.
It has to be noted that Caster's Master, Souichirou Kuzuki, is in fact not a mage. He is an assassin but not mage. All his magical abilities are derived from the mana that Caster, his servant, had provided him from having herself act as a conduit for the temple's leylines energy supplied into him. While an amateur mage, his skills as a former assassin are noteworthy as he knowing that he might have to face off against capable foes, he brought weaponry.
Swish swish
Knives and daggers go flying out from him as they pierce a few more mirages, leaving only 8 more but the ones taken down could be remade by Rin. he does not have high hopes for his current situation as he is thoroughly outmatched. Yet when fate looks dark for Kuzuki Souichirou, his shining grace finally arrives to turn the tide.
This tide comes in the form of a magic circuit forming above the duo and a [Rain of Light] comes shooting down. The beams of purple energy crash through multiple mirages and Rin herself has to dodge whilst bringing up a barrier of pure mana. Caster pulls her master away as she takes his place. "Little girl, you know some impressive tricks for a modern magus…" Caster begins to speak, her shrouded self displaying a nightmarish atmosphere yet her words are interrupted by Rin.
"Well thank you but I know more than just a few tricks." She waves her arm again as she unleashes lightning this time around. No magic circles, circuits or floating runes. While the lightning bolts were released from near Rin, that is the only deficit she is facing in her studies as extending her mana outward is still fairly difficult for her without an intermediary spell to extend the casting center away from her.
BOOM Caster quickly summons up her own protective spell. Specifically the enhanced version of it named [Argos]. The barrier blocks the lightning as Caster then unleashes [Atlas] and [Aero] in quick succession. [Atlas] condenses the air pressure around Rin to stop her movements all together, only to fail as the current Rin collapses into a puddle of water once more. Caster quickly turned around and cast the 2nd spell to unleash Plague Winds to shred the space around herself and her Master.
It is revealed that Rin had actually been behind them the whole time or maybe had used her own high speed movement technique to bypass the duo and continued manipulating the water clone. Rin's illusion technique collapses under the cutting air blades as another set of [Rain of Light] falls upon her.
BOOM
Another tremor is made where Rin is, only for the dust to settle, revealing a Nubian maid, in one hand is an incense burner releasing billows of smoke while the other hand is directing the smoke upwards where it blocks the magic attacks.
The maid looks at Rin with her own smile while Rin's now falters. "It seems you are not yet ready for professional combat if you lose your composure just because you were found out. I'll have master double your training when we get back. Teehee" A shiver runs up Rin's spine as she envisions how many headaches and body aches she will have to experience to fix her mistakes. Washio's seemingly hardcore training will pale in comparison since her sister will likely have to heal her repeatedly.
"Please Sheba don't, I'll pay you to keep quiet"
"Too late dear, Master has been watching over this fight the whole time." Sheba's words make Rin fall to her knees as simply envisioning what she will have to go through. Thankfully her mind did not fully collapse as she realizes that she still has one last saving grace, Washio. She can plead with him to save her.
Thinking of this, she rushes off to help Washio against Ruler and thus makes a very selfish request for her own mental and physical wellbeing.
Sheba alone soon stands across from Caster and her master Kuzuki. "Do you truly believe that you alone can handle me"
"Yes, afterall, you have already been caught." Sheba retorts as Caster soon notices that small puffs of smoke had already been encircling her. She quickly summons more Light Rain as well as [Aero], disrupting the smoke but it quickly reforms as it is afterall, just smoke.
Caster and Kuzuki are forced to repeatedly retreat as Caster analyzes Sheba. One thing she does easily notice is the Incense Burner in Sheba's hands. How it emits heavy amounts of smoke and that is transformed into the other Casters own weapon. The very smoke that is harassing them.
To turn the tables, Caster has to use some of saved up items. She throws out a bundle of two different items. The first being a set of strange teeth that dig into the ground and then sprout as Dragon-tooth soldiers. The ancient magical soldiers begin to rush at Sheba but the smoke slaps them away towards Washio's direction. Sheba has an idea and it seems to pass as the dragon tooth soldiers instinctively sense the premise of Washio's draconic energy, they move to investigate, even as caster hopes to pull them back, they resist their creators wishes as their natural born desires pull them away.
Then there is the second item, Caster's talismans. Originally, she had given one to her Master to alert her if he was ever in danger but she also made more for combat. These were made in preparation for intensive combat situations where she wanted to save her energy or outlast her enemies.
Releasing fireballs, blades of wind similar to [Aero] as well as sizable stones towards Sheba, they are all primarily blocked by the smoke constructs that form giant teddy bears. Though of course, the few that pass and strike Sheba don't even do anything as Sheba is still a servant and her class skill makes her impervious to A grade and lower magecraft. These talismans fall under this grade as she simply focuses her efforts to trap Caster until the rest of the servants have finished their fight.
Squelch
While Sheba was dominating Caster, she suddenly found her back being pierced by a shadow that had bypassed her enchanted sight. The shadow reforms to reveal a familiar face covered in dark tanned skin and black swirling symbols on their body. A cocky grin on his face as he begins to let black mud flow from his body into Sheba's
Moments prior, Angra Mainyu continues his fight against Archer as he has reached a point where he can perfectly copy Archers blades but to amuse his current host, he shifts them into gun blade as Archers techniques are passed down his combat skills to his younger self but altered version.
As the fight progresses, the alter gets more cocky and takes bolder actions that put the Archer class servant on the backfoot. Archer considers unleashing his noble phantasm but gets a strange feeling from his many years of experience as a Counter Guardian that this would be a bad idea. He eventually retreats to utilize his bow once more but what he doesnt realize is that the corrupted fighter had wished for this to happen as he too runs off a long distance away.
Archer realizes his mistake pretty quickly and gives chase but while they undergo a game of tag, Angra Mainyu takes in the whole situation. Saber being outnumbered 3 to 1, Assassin already fallen, Archer chasing him and then finally Sheba fighting Caster along with Rin and Washio combating Ruler with the situation quickly turning towards their favor.
'I need something that can change the flow, something no one else will expect. Hehe'
The situation leads back to Angra reaching both Caster's location and with his darkness, cloaking himself momentarily from both Casters before plunging his hand into Sheba's back and attempting to corrupt her. Sheba was able to originally stop the corruptive invasion but as she still has to split her attention to combat Caster who is capitalizing on the situation. Sheba realizes that the situation is not looking good for her, so she stops. Solidifying a barrier around herself to stop Casters attacks, she has a light cheerful smile on her face as she looks Angra in the face.
"Master, did you know…Im pregnant" her words almost no more than a whisper as the black veins of corruption spread around her body.
WOOM
A sudden pressure encompases the entire temple area as all fights stop, dreading the sensation they feel. This is especially so for Angra mainyu who feels it the most as his black mud is being forced out of sheba due to an overwhelming amount of mana that is now flowing through Sheba's body.
He eventually pulls his arm out in hopes of retreating but the leaking mana simply binds him in place. Fearing for his life, Angra Mainyu activates his power, [Verg Avesta], a mimicry of the original Avesta's power that grants any being written inside the books pages to gain the 'free' property.
As he transforms, he finally spots…him…Axel Gram has joined the Battle.
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Word count: 2089
Drop a comment if you wanna judge my writing or the story. I'll try to respond, especially if you're confused or anything.