Chapter 14: Servant's Battle (Part 1)
"So what happened to lancer?" I asked as I sipped on the tea Aisha had provided for Manaka and I.
"Being that she was a former goddess, she was a bit more difficult to crack than I initially expected, however, after becoming an Alter, she has calmed down a bit." Manaka replied while taking a sip herself.
(Brynhildr Alter)
"That so?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, I guess we've had enough fun here. It's time to deal with the last few servants at hand." I said, putting down my teacup and standing.
"If that is husband's wish," Manaka stated as she sighed to herself. In truth, she really wanted to keep having the tea and talking about small nothings forever with her husband, but it wasn't meant to be.
"Assassin, you ready?" I asked as I walked out of the small room that Manaka, Aisha, and I were enjoying our time in.
Serenity materialized behind me after a moment, kneeling and awaiting my orders. "Yes, master".
"Good. Rider and his master will be attacking Berzerker later. I already sent Elza and Archer there to delay Rider. While their battle is going on, I want you to kill every member of the Isemi family in their compound." I stated with a cold voice.
"I understand," Serenity said as she immediately took off towards the western part of Tokyo.
'Well, that's taken care of. I wonder if I should have had her spare the women and children?' I thought before walking down the halls towards the exit.
We were both currently in Manaka's father's estate. My father had reluctantly agreed to allow me to participate in the war when I mentioned to him that if I didn't go out, then the other masters would simply attack our mansion. Because that wasn't a fantastic prospect for him, he relented, but only if I brought Aisha along. He had personally been sparing with Aisha a lot and was surprisingly able to defeat her once in every three times, though he won less and less often as they trained more and Aisha mastered more Magecraft techniques and refined her battle style.
As I walked outside and into the backyard, I was stopped when I noticed Hiroki Sajyou attempting to teach Ayaka basic reinforcement magecraft in the garden. He was using a rudimentary puppet he had made out of straw and cloth. Ayaka was meant to use reinforcement on her body to endure the hits of the doll and dish out counterattacks. It was honestly quite genius. The doll was soft enough that Ayaka wouldn't actually be hurt when receiving the attacks but heavy enough to knock her over if she didn't reinforce her body. Furthermore, the doll was made of materials that had a lot of give to them, so she would have to hit them harder than a normal person was able to in order to damage the doll.
'Not a bad strategy, tough to Ayaka it probably isn't too fun' I thought as I saw the mediocre girl knocked onto her butt by the doll.
"Lord Arcana" I heard from the front. I turned forward and looked towards the one who called me. It was Saber.
"Hello, Saber. Is there something I can do for you?" I asked.
"No, it's nothing, it's just that... I wanted to ask you if you could speak with Manaka on my behalf." He asked a bit hesitantly.
"Still upset that she interrupted your duel with lancer?" I asked
"No, it's not that. I won't lie and say that it didn't upset me, however, the benefit of doing so was worth it. Master was able to receive Lancer as a Servant which would serve as a major benefit when facing off against other masters and servants. However, the method she used to... corrupt Lancer is detestable." He said with a bit of venom in his voice which he tried his best to suppress.
"Hmm... So what is it that I can do for the King of Knights then." I asked a bit seriously.
"I know that Manaka and you are lovers and neither of you is willing to kill the other for the grail and will just have us Servants fight at the end for the wish, however, I want you to ask Manaka to allow me to end Lancer at that time." He said with conviction.
"I see," I said.
Saber was convinced that Manaka and I were simply allies that would clear out all of the other servants before having our own servants fight one another over the grail. I knew for a fact that Arthur had a similar personality to Artoria, and in one of the bad ends of fate, Artoria kills Shirou for the Grail, so if we told him we weren't planning on allowing it to activate in the first place and that we were going to essentially 'deconstruct' the Grail without allowing it to make any wishes, then I'm sure he would betray us, especially since his 'master' isn't exactly the most noble character around.
To keep him on our side, which really wasn't necessary, we fed him this lie. The only reason he is still around is to give hope to Manaka's father Hiroki. While Manaka doesn't particularly care about him and neither do I, Ayaka, who is going to be my future sister in law would be devastated. Essentially, I was keeping Saber alive because I was feeling generous and pitied Ayaka who would suffer if we killed him via Hiroki's anguish at the betrayal of his daughter.
"You don't like what Lancer has become and want to be the one who ends her yourself then?" I asked, looking into his eyes.
"Yes, master."
I sighed a bit before walking past him and waving my hand. "Sure, why not. Not like it'll matter anyway. I have no wish for the Grail anyway." I said as I opened a portal to another location and walked through. Aisha, who had silently followed behind me the whole time, stepped through as well, leaving a grateful former British King behind.
Poor poor Arthur. It seems he'll have to meet his end in an 'accident' during his fight with Rider, as I can't be having his killing a waifu my other waifu went out of her way to collect for me.
...
*BOOM*
Saber had just cut down the fourth of the Sphinx that was summoned by Rider, who was currently sitting on a throne in the center of a large park. Ozymandias had summoned forth part of his Noble Phantasm Mesektet to sit on while the other Servants battled it out. Saber, Lancer Alter, Archer, and Berzerker were all fighting off the legion of Sphinxes that Rider continued to call forth.
Brynhildr Alter was a sight to see, though. Despite the fact she was a Lancer, she fought more like a Berzerker. Her shift in personality was also something fitting that I found amusing. Basically, where in her normal form she revealed heroes and knights or warriors who fought with honor, now she loathed them. She became more pragmatic too, admiring people who fought dirty and used trickery to win.
If I were to make a wiki entry for her, it'd probably be due to how she did nothing but faithfully serve the gods only to be betrayed by them, then falling in love with Sigurd, who betrayed her love again. She loathes 'warriors' now, which is nice because the efficient and honorless ways in which Manaka and I do battle would keep her happy.
Every now and then, whenever Brynhildr got close to Arthur during the skirmish, she might throw a half-hearted jab or try to trip him with a scowl on her beautiful face. She really despised the poor saber and made his fight a little harder than it needed to be. She also became a rue 'war goddess' and was looking like she was in bliss killing the sphinxes.
Meanwhile, Berzerker was barely hanging on and had to be rescued a couple of times by Arash, who was playing mostly a support role for the whole team. I'm sure if he used his noble phantasm to change his personality into the Hyde varient, he would do much better in this setting, bt I think he is worried about what impression it'll give off to his master.
Oh yeah, Tatsumi Kitano is here too. He is currently rolling around on the floor in agony after Rider ripped out his Mystic Eye. He used it to stop Rider's movement for a brief moment when the battle first began and Egyptian Gilgamesh never forgave him for that, ripping out his eye and throwing it away.
"It looks like they are in trouble," Aisha said with indifference in her voice.
"They'll be fine. Believe in Assassin and let her do her work. In the meantime, Manaka, have you located Shizuri?" I asked.
"Who do you think I am, husband. Of course, I have!" Manaka said with a pout.
"Sorry sorry. I knew you would be able to do it." I said, rubbing giving her a headpat while she smiled happily with a blush. 'Shouldn't the six-year-old be the one getting headpats from the twelve-year-old?" I thought before quickly shaking my head.
"Hehe... The old man is on the building over there. He's maintaining the bounded field that keeps people away." Manaka pointed to a 16 story building on the other side of the park. I had to reinforce my eyes a bit, but I definitely was able to see a strange sight over there. Shizuri was invisible, however, his invisibility was closer to something out of a videogame, where the space he inhabited was slightly distorted. Only people who weren't paying close attention or those far away, like me, wouldn't be able to see him.
"Ahh, so that's it. Aisha, if you would be a dear and go kill that pest." I said.
"As you wish," Aisha stated with a short bow before disappearing to finish off the master.
This whole set of events led me to believe that Kiritsugu had the right idea the whole time during the Holy Grail War, targeting masters as they focused on their Servant's battles rather than in open combat. Aisha will only take a few moments to deal with him, while Assassin wipes out the Isemi clan and removes Rider's mana supply.
"Now then, I guess I should go and collect that Mystic Eye before it is destroyed in the chaos down there," I said, stopping my patting of Manaka's head and walking towards the edge of the building.
"Yeah right. Even if it was turned into mush, with Temporal Magecraft, you can just revert it to its pristine state can't you?" Manaka asked, slightly annoyed.
I looked back at Manaka before giving her a wink. "Yeah, but that won't be as much fun," I stated cheekily before diving off the building.
"I don't think I'll ever get used to the young master." Elza, who was third-wheeling the entire time said to herself.
I landed, doing a super-hero landing on the concrete at the base of the building. I was still quite far from the actual combat, however, there were multiple stray shots coming from Arash every now and then as they passed through the flesh of the Sphinxes, so I couldn't walk casually over there and I had to keep up my guard at least minorly. I crossed the street, making sure to look both ways, despite the fact that the bounded field made sure no one was around and made my way into the park.
I walked past the area they were all fighting in and neared a small pond where I found the dirty eyeball, complete with stem. It was kinda gross to be honest and I saw a bunch of ants and a few flys had already descended on it, preparing to eat away at the organ.
I pulled out a glove and picked it up, staring at it for a moment while activating my mystic eyes. The eye quickly began to bubble and pop before degenerating into jelly.
"Supposedly this stuff is quite good on toast but I don't want to be a cannibal today." I chuckled to myself before dropping the ooze. "Guess I'll go show off to Lancer and Manaka."
I said as I walked towards the battle area.
A few moments passed as I emerged from the treeline into a wide-open space. Rubble and cobblestone were cracked and thrown about all over the place as I looked at all the Servants who stood before me. There weren't any more Sphinxes, but judging from the shit-easting grin on Rider's face as he looked down at the exhausted bunch, it wasn't because he was out of mana yet.
"How amusing! All of you have served as excellent entertainment for me tonight, however, I cannot forgive your transgressions against me." He said, his voice slowly going from cocky taunting to sinister.
"Rejoice, for I shall permit you all to die at my-"
"Dude, why do all the cocky villain types always monologue to the heroes? All your doing is giving them time to recover their stamina by catching their breaths." I said aloud, drawing the center of attention to me.
"A child?" Berzerker asked aloud.
"Kid! Get out of here! Its too dangerous!" Tatsumi yelled at me. I guess even when he is on the verge of passing out, his hero complex is still as strong as Shirou's.
'Should I introduce them? I could go around collecting all of the goody-two-shoes guys and hero-wannabes and make them into some sort of justice league in the magecraft world. It'd probably be pretty funny and Tatsumi might even become a counter guardian like Shirou does... Nah, I wouldn't wish that fate upon anyone, and one edgy archer is enough.' I thought while looking over everyone.
"Hump. You may be a child, but interrupting the Pharaoh still warrants a death sentence." Rider said to me while waving his arm and summoning another Sphinx, this time directly in front of me.
I simply looked up at the Divine Phantasm that all of the other Servants had to try so hard to defeat as it lunged at me. Its massive paws extended as if to slash me to ribbons under their sharp claws. I heard Tamaki yell something to Berzerker, probably asking him or even using a command seal in an attempt to save me. It was cute, however, the fact that Rider had only sent a beast of this level at me was kinda insulting and I wasn't able to keep my inner voice to myself as I looked at it.
"Pathetic," I said as the creature suddenly exploded into hundreds of small cuboid chunks of flesh and evaporated into particles of mana.
The Servants all looked stunned, however, no one was more stunned than Rider. I simply used Spatial Magecraft to sever the Sphinx in front of me into tiny pieces, as though it just went through an egg or cheese slicer. Despite it being considered a Divine Phantasm, it was actually downgraded from its original A rank to B rank due to Rider summoning them outside of his Reality Marble.
"Now then. Shall we begin?" I asked with a smile.
Oh yeah, I was definitely going to have fun with this... and dad is definitely going to ground my ass.
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A/N: I could not, for the life of me, catch a break. Friday night, I have to stay late at the office to finish uploading a project at the last minute before I'm dragged to a hockey game I didn't really want to go to. I somehow am able to weasel my way out of it because I forgot my covid-19 vaccination card and they won't let me in without it, but on the way home I almost get into an accident when there is a car parked in the middle of the fast lane and I swerve to not hit it.
I'm fine, I didn't get hurt, but now there is a scrape along the side of my car and my insurance company wants to raise my rates. Jeez.
Anyway, today's recommendation is "The Most Powerful Quirkless (Completed Story)." by gglhbjkyyj.
It's a story where the MC reincarnates as Deku and still becomes a hero, however, he isn't a dumbass and the story is actually pretty dark. The protagonist is the type of guy who will burn down the entire world to accomplish his goal, but his goal is world peace. It's really good, and its sequel is good too, however, I think it was dropped after the OG author got into a motorcycle accident.
How topical.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Golden_Slime
Golden_Slime The next chapter is going to be Rider getting his sh*t kicked in.
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