章 1034: 48
048 - Meanwhile, everywhere else… (I)
Tohsaka Rin
I'm dying.
Archer and Berserker are very careful to deny Lancer any straight lines towards Illya and me that he can leverage his explosive speed for a cheap move on us, but I'm dying all the same.
Even weakened by our recent defeat, this is still a two on one situation and Lancer isn't exactly in top condition either, with his Noble Phantasm still under the effects of Archer's [Civilization Corrosion] and his anti-projectile skill weakened by whatever Emiya-kun did to him. Our Servants have the upper hand, but I'm dying all the same.
My eyebrow twitches as I hear Lancer's cackling laughter as he kicks Archer's stomach with enough force to send her flying before lunging for Berserker. This man is a lunatic, a combat-obsessed moron who cares for nothing beyond the fight!
And, while it's true that he's slowly -oh so slowly- losing ground, he's not making any big mistakes that can be exploited to deliver a decisive blow. This is taking too long. At this rate, I'll die first!
Because they're fighting inside my house!
A stray shot hits the expensive chandelier on the living room, which had miraculously survived longer than any of the windows in the whole house, or half the furniture in the second floor, and I feel another bit of my soul shrivel up and die.
By the time they're done, the Tohsaka Mansion will be a smoldering crater!
This is torture, death by a thousand cuts. I can practically feel the bills flying out of my bank account.
Finally, as I watch Berserker getting launched through a load-bearing column and causing an entire wing to collapse on her, my already frayed composure finally snaps.
"Einzbern!" I call out, reaching for the unholy abomination in my pocket that we had been saving for Caster. "We're pulling it off now!"
"Wah– Calm down, Tohsaka!" The girl tries to be the voice of reason, the hypocrite. "We don't even know if it'll work on Lancer at all!"
"It's not your family's fortune and legacy that's crumbling to dust in front of you here!" As if to emphasize my words, a piece of the ceiling moulding chooses that precise moment to fall right between us. "You don't get to tell me to calm down!"
"He has [Magic Resistance], you idiot! You'll waste our trump card for nothing!"
"There isn't enough [Magic Resistance] to keep him safe from this!" I retort, maybe a bit too hotly. It's true that I wouldn't try this against someone with an A-Ranked [Magic Resistance] skill, but Lancer isn't quite there. "At worst, he'll break free before Archer can prepare her strike, but Berserker is much faster."
"Fine, fine…" She has the gall to look put-upon, but at least she gets ready without protesting any further. "At the count of three?"
That's, of course, a pre-arranged signal, we're not going to give a damn Servant a chance to predict our moves.
"Three!"
"[Storch Ritter]"
Two of Illya's bird-like wire familiars take flight towards Lancer. The first is an obvious feint, unwinding into a mass of grasping tentacles designed to play into his expectations after our conversation about him 'breaking free' and is immediately handled.
It's somewhat awe-inspiring to watch the countless threads, supposedly hard to deal with using a spear, be torn to shreds in a matter of an instant. As expected of a hero of legend, I guess.
It still gives the second bird the chance to fly above him and me the time to pull off the real trump card. An egg-shaped amalgamation of jewels bigger than my own fist, specifically containing my family's most powerful prana sources and some very carefully crafted control gems.
Then I give it my best pitch towards Lancer's punchable face.
"[Tohsaka - Rin Sokubaku (Tohsaka - Dignified Fetters)]"
Of course, Lancer immediately focuses on it, no doubt getting ready to intercept it mid-flight. Fun thing about magecraft? Things like 'perception' or 'attention' or even 'focus' can be used as triggers for additional effects. In this case, Lancer focusing on the projectile is enough to make it explode into a burst of light and sound.
Which means I can't see or hear what happens next, but sharing senses with Illya's second wirebird familiar allows me to more or less follow the action. After the explosion, the egg-shaped mass has disintegrated into a series of individual gems that are still flying towards lancer. The surviving familiar unwinds from above Lancer like the first one did, countless white strings reaching towards the incoming gems. Even blind and deaf, Lancer also manages to cut those down.
I wince as the shared senses transmit the closest thing to pain that the strange familiar can feel, but I don't really worry. Gritting my teeth, I push through the uncomfortable sensations to shift my perspective to that of Archer's, who already knew what was going to happen and managed to protect her senses enough for me to see how things play out.
This development fits me just fine, since those were a feint too. The gems aren't flying at random, they are already headed exactly where they need to land. The five control gems land in a circle around him, forming a perfect pentagram, while the mana-bearing gems gather on top of him, where the familiar was just a moment ago and Lancer himself so kindly moved out of the way.
Then, right before the formation activates and because of course Lancer is more dangerous than I could plan for, he still manages to lash out a last time. So I feel my heart jump out of my throat when, with eyes still closed and blind but a smirk on his lips, he tilts his body to throw his (rainbow dildo) spear towards the cluster of mana gems that should be right outside his reach.
An arrow of hard light impacts against the spear at the very last second, throwing it off course right before it can snatch our victory and ruin all our efforts. When this is over I'm going to do something very nice for Archer.
The fun thing is, this last-minute save would've never worked if Lancer's [Protection from Arrows] was still functional. Looks like I owe Emiya-kun another one. How obnoxious. But it's over now.
Once deployed, the containment field has two functions. The first one is supposed to sap the strength of the target and I doubt it's doing much through Lancer's Resistance, the second one causes the air within the bound area to act with equal force and in direct opposition to any action the target tries to make, perfectly locking it in place.
This little trick is optimized to use against a Caster, so it relies on tightly bound functions as close to impossible to hijack as humanly possible. The air resistance part doesn't even have moving parts, the functionality is directly carved into the control gems and does exactly what it does and nothing else.
In theory, it can only be brute-forced. Which means it would be a perfect containment for a Caster, but that the superior stats of a combat-oriented Servant like Lancer would run the battery gems empty sooner rather than later.
Still, we don't need much.
"Illya!"
"Right!" Illya nods, taking a step forward to point dramatically. I can't really begrudge it. "Go, Berserker!"
Berserker, who has taken the opening made by half my home collapsing to get some distance, starts a mad charge towards Lancer. Arrows of ominous purple light materialize behind her but, rather than shooting out toward the prey, they merge with Berserker, causing her to burst into flames of the same color.
Her charge doubles in speed, a dangerous glint in her eyes as she takes a leap to clear the last metters with a devastating pounce.
"[The Arrow that Eclipsed the Somber Sky (Tauropolos Skia Thermokrasia)]"
Turned into a living arrow, Berserker collides with the immobilized Lancer, blinding and deafening us all again with the raw power unleashed on impact.
… And there goes the rest of my home. I'd cry if I wasn't so done with everything. At least we're finally done here.
"Ah… Finally a no-holds-barred fight to the death with fellow heroic spirits!" A demented voice that I had hoped to never hear again echoes in the night, making me freeze in horror. "It really gets one's blood pumping! This is what I came here for!"
"Still alive?" Illya mutters by my side, swiftly retaking a combat position. "What a monster."
When the dust cloud dissipates, it reveals Lancer's form. Short on breath, slouched against his spear, bleeding from countless wounds and honestly looking like a mess, but still standing. Atalanta lies on the floor a handful of feet away, struggling to stand back up.
Reaching this point, I might as well use up a command spell to make Archer's Noble Phantasm instantaneous, because I can hardly see what else we have to throw at this monster. Irish Herakles indeed. I hate to admit it, but the Child of Light really lives up to his name.
"No, you've pretty much done me in already." The infuriating man admits easily, taking a careless step away from Berserker and allowing his infuriating smirk to return to his lips. "I'm literally working on fumes."
"Then?"
"Oh, I just thought you deserved some answers, girlie." He shrugs cheerfully. "Because Master is playing you like a fiddle and since I'm going to die anyway, I figured I'd stick a last one on the cowardly little shit. You see, he's–"
But whatever he was about to say gets lost when he cuts himself mid-sentence, eyes widening in shock as his mouth clicks close, seeming by itself.
"!"
With nary a pause for me to process what's happening, his whole body tenses, hands gripping on his spear as the tip gets slowly, robotically drawn closer and closer to–
"Archer, he's trying to kill himself!" I cry out as soon as realization hits. "Stop him!"
She doesn't hesitate, shooting an arrow as she breaks into a run, intent on knocking the spear away for long enough for her to physically reach the man. It would've worked too, had Lancer's motion remained slow and ground out. Unfortunately, whatever is causing him to act this way -I have a fairly good idea of what- doesn't react well to the prospects of being interrupted, causing Lancer to dodge with his usual grace and promptly stab himself through his throat and all the way up to the back of his skull.
A clean and immediate death, without much margin for us to do anything about. He immediately starts disintegrating into golden motes of light.
"And that's how the Lancer of this war falls." I mutter incredulously. "Not to the blade of an enemy but by the hand of his own Master."
"By the hand of…" If Illya seems a bit slow in the uptake after pushing through two flashbangs, I can hardly blame her. Hell, I'm barely faring any better myself. "He was Commanded to kill himself?"
"Not… quite." I lean on a piece of wall that seems to have more or less survived the fight, blinking stars from my eyes and feeling weakness creep up my legs now that the crisis is over and the adrenaline rush is winding down. "He was Commanded to be silent and to kill himself… two Command Spells. Added to the forced recall when Emiya and I first encountered him. This mysterious Master has run out of both Servants and Command Spells. For good or worse, he should be out of the war."
"Should?"
"Lancer warned us that whoever his Master was, he is playing us like a fiddle." I reply tiredly, raising a hand in front of my face and frowning when I count ten fingers. "I doubt whatever grand plan is, he'll be content with causing his own Servant's death and then call it a day. There's something we're missing here."
Illya walks up to me, letting her back fall on the same wall I'm resting on and looking every bit as done with the day as I feel. "You don't suppose it was secretly Onii-chan?"
"I find that… unlikely." With all the effort he's devoted into bringing us over, trying to have us killed on the sly seems… lame. "But that's a worry for tomorrow. For now let me… Hide all this mess from prying eyes."
Illya takes a glance around before wincing in sympathy. "At least the outer Bounded Field survived the fight?"
"… Don't even joke about it." It's my turn to wince, if I had to raise a new Bounded Field from the ground up… I might've broken up in tears for real. "It won't be half an hour and then… Then we'll have to pay for a hotel room or something, because I'd kill for a shower about now."
Illya sends me an odd look, as if I'd said something terribly stupid. "I still have a mansion, you know?"
"… Oh, yeah." Looks like Illya is not the only one slow in the uptake right now. "You think your maids will be up to carrying me there? Just this once, I won't mind it even if they do so by dragging me by a foot."
"Afraid they're the ones who need the carrying." She says with another wince. "Berserker can do that for us, but we'll have to go by foot."
"Sometimes I hate my life."
"I'd agree but…" Illya closes her eyes and lets out a long, looong sigh. "Too tired to complain."
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