After a thorough interrogation.
"So, there is a corrupted Archer, Lancer, Rider and Berserker," I concluded while dragging him along by his robe, a smear of blood stretching across the road behind us. "And finally, Saber, who started it all."
"Ye—cough—Yes!" Cursed Arm choked out, crimson spilling from his mouth in rivulets, chest wheezing in desperate pulls of breath. "And there is an untainted C-Caster roaming around!"
As I tilted my head, a rope of warmth passed right beside my cheek, tracing a line of red across it, arcing further behind. Assassin's singular working eye snapped wide, his whole body quivering like a leaf. "M—Master, forgive me for this—"
"You're dying," I commented after a glance down at the dagger buried in his heart, still scraping him along, grinding his shins against the asphalt.
"I know. I know." His words were strained beneath the visible effort it took to get them out, hands spasming until they dangled at his sides.
My free palm dropped, fingers closing around that dagger's hilt mid-stride, eyes still fixed ahead. "Do you want to live?"
Cursed Arm nodded in jerks, no longer having the strength left to speak, head lolling sideways, his working eyelid drifting downward.
I wrenched the weapon in my grip, and steel tore free of his heart with a squelch. Before more blood could erupt, silver threads crept along his chest, slicing past his cloak and diving into the open wound there, stitching raw skin back together.
"Hhk—ghk—!" Assassin thrashed for two breaths, and then my silver threads plunged deeper, crisscrossing his heart wound from edge to edge, sealing it shut with a tug.
Hands shooting up on their own, he clawing at his neck, mouth opening, closing, then opening again; chest convulsing thrice, and Assassin's body gave out, collapsing like a marionette with its strings cut.
Suspended animation. I looked down and shook my head. A live heart surgery is still too much for a Hassan.
Flicking the dagger sideways, all blood covering it splashed on the ground as I loosened my hold on Cursed Arm's cloak. His body fell back-first onto asphalt, hands spread, working eye clamped shut inside the skull-mask.
I crouched beside him, pressing both palms over his heart, fingers interlocking, and pushed once, twice, his frame jerking with each pump.
A minute passed where I kept at it, adjusting the angles of my wrists, observing his reactions and synthesising an approach that best suited his physiology.
He remained unresponsive, blood leaking from his eyes, nose and ears, painting the inside of his mask in red, giving it a metallic scent.
This approach would take longer, so I pointed a finger at his heart and tapped there. At that motion, silver extended from the stitches, winding across his ribcage right above it, curving into a miniature magic circle that settled in place with a click.
Mana blazed along its silver outline, rotating once. A precise shock of electricity slammed into his heart, his spine arching up on its own.
Two rotations. Three.
And at that exact moment, my knuckles drove into the small space beside his sternum, dust flattening behind his rising back in a crescent.
For a moment, nothing. Then Assassin gasped, eye splitting open, torso swaying sideways, hand tipping his mask up, and he spat a mouthful of crimson mixed with chunks of organs on the road.
I unfolded to my full height, stepped over his legs, and resumed my walk in Fuyuki's direction.
Barely three steps later, another pair of footfalls echoed right behind mine, and a voice followed. "Forgive me for that unsightly display, Master."
"Your heart still works like it used to, but my threads are interlaced with it now. You should know what that means." A single swipe, and the wave of skeletons clustering ahead split into two down the middle, bones, rusted weapons and torn clothing all cleaving in a cloud of dust that raced from me to the bridge's edge.
"Master doesn't have to threaten me, being close to you feels like home after being affected by your ability." Assassin rasped, his back hunched. "You can stop my heart right now if you'd like and I won't resist."
Instead of replying, I asked. "Do you know any Servants that might be lingering close by?"
Sweeping his gaze around, Assassin considered, then replied. "From my reconnaissance, both Lancer and Caster seem to be lurking around this area, Master."
"Tell me everything you know about them," I said, throwing the dagger over my shoulder without looking back.
"I don't know much about them, Master..." Catching his blade, he flipped it in his grip until it was held in reverse, hilt first, the blade stretching along his forearm. "Just that Caster has blue hair, and Lancer is a samurai with mastery over different weapons."
"I see. We need to hunt them first to gather more information—"
A scream cut me off.
"Lev! If you can hear this—Lev, please—" A woman's ragged and desperate voice. "I know you'll come. You always come. So, where are you right now, LEV!?"
Glancing back, Assassin and I exchanged a look, his injured eye still weeping.
"There shouldn't be any humans alive, from what I've confirmed, Master."
"Lev! LEV! LEVV!"
I shifted my direction and moved. "We're checking it out."
"As you command."
...
..
.
A ruined park sat surrounded by buildings with shattered windows and whole floors ablaze, enormous trails of smoke and dust climbing skyward from them, veiling the moon behind a curtain of grey.
Deep inside that park, particles coalesced into a feminine silhouette with long hair, two stakes held over her chest, chains connected to their tail ends clinking behind her. In a short while, Medusa materialised fully, her blindfold swirling around to take in her immediate surroundings.
Trees with shattered bark and charred trunks lay in patches around her, roots torn from soil and pointing at the sky.
Trenches ran across the ground in deep, uneven stretches, soil there still orange and heated, vapour trails pouring off the edges of each trench. Craters wove between them, the ground cracked and caved downward, ash packed into every fissure.
Medusa strode forward, bending into a low stance, muscles coiling on instinct. Her chains dragged with her, catching over a fallen tree, and where they touched wood, it crumbled to powder.
A crunch from nearly a hundred meters away broke the silence, and Medusa's head whipped that way.
Crr. Crr.
Something enormous scraped across uneven ground in an unbroken rhythm, dirt parting in furrows around it.
Then he emerged from behind a cluster of burnt foliage and smoke.
A black giant, easily three heads taller than her, shoulders wide enough to cover a line of burning buildings behind him. His frame was etched with the same wounds as the land around him. Gouges ripped along one arm deep enough to show bone, a chest wound stretching from his shoulder to his thigh, but none of it slowed his walk.
He dragged a blade longer than a grown man with a single hand, bicep muscles flexing, not out of any struggle to lift it, but by choice.
His eyes found her across the ruined park, unfocused, reminiscent of a beast running more on instinct than thought.
Medusa's grip tightened around the weapons in her hands, chains hissing in preparation.
"...Heracles."
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[15 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Olga Marie Animusphere]: Think "boss lady who inherited the job before she was ready to inherit anything." Director of Chaldea, daughter of the last guy who held the title, and she knows everyone's silently comparing her to him every single day. Reaction? Bite first, ask questions never. She snaps at basically anyone who so much as breathes wrong near her authority, because deep down she's terrified someone's gonna clock that she's winging it.
But, and this is the important part, she's not actually a jerk under all that. Just really, really bad at showing she cares without it coming out sideways as an insult. And Lev? Lev's her one exception. The guy she actually leans on and trusts to have things handled.
... Which, again, given recent car-related events... Yeah, not looking great for us.
...
[Author's Thoughts]
Heya, everyone! Another chapter's out, but honestly what's been eating at my brain is this: how would Olga react if she found out Izuru just full-sent a car into Lev at over 500 mph, launching him straight into a chain of natural disasters that he was partly responsible for orchestrating?
My honest guess is instant faint. Full system shutdown, no warning, just thud. Then she wakes up, sees Izuru's face hovering there like nothing happened, and somehow that's worse, she goes pale all over again and drops right back out. Poor woman gets sent back to the dream realm twice in one scene and Izuru's just standing there like "was it something I said?"
Hahaha... Have a fabulous day!