Capítulo 1048: 62
062 - On trump cards and inconveniently allocated resources
"Well, well… If it isn't the stray!"
I consider myself a reasonable individual who doesn't lash blindly if he can possibly help it, who likes to think before acting and has semi-planned reactions for a bunch of potential sudden developments to avoid getting easily caught by surprise.
Being suddenly transported from the heart of my defenses into somewhere else to find myself alone and face to face with the Golden King of 'OP please nerf' is… not one of those potential developments I had planned for. I didn't even know he could do this, though I can't really say I'm surprised either.
I'd like to think I still react in the only reasonable way I possibly could, considering the circumstances. And with that I mean I blast him in the face.
"[Corrosion]"
… Or rather, try to. Because he effortlessly catches my colorless beam with a single hand, letting it splash harmlessly against his palm until it runs its course, only to dispel the lingering energies with a crushing gesture.
"Was that supposed to do anything, stray?"
Oh, yeah. Incarnated Servant. He has a physical body. One that seems to pass muster in the eyes of Gaia in spite of being blatantly and hilariously inhuman. Somehow.
"Well, I had to try." I shrug with a carefree smile. "Your body was born from a sea of curses, pretty much the coagulated detritus of a supernatural sewer topped up with a blonde hairdo. I thought it might still count."
"Impertinent dog!"
A handful of those damn cool golden portals of his materialize over his shoulders, firing a short barrage of legendary weapons. That's… not very smart of him. Amusingly enough, there's very little difference between the treasures contained within [Gate of Babylon] and the fake Noble Phantasms projected by Haku, as far as my magecraft is concerned.
"[Corrosion Barrage]"
That is to say, they're stubborn to dissipate, but perfectly within my capabilities, provided I actually try.
The blades are caught mid-flight by my invisible lasers. I grit my teeth and increase my output when they don't immediately disappear, (frantically) calmly calculating the speed at which they're losing cohesion as they get closer. (Fortunately) As expected, they vanish into nothingness a good half an inch before hitting me.
Yeah, okay. Maybe a bit more resilient than Haku's creations, but nothing to worry about. Yup, got everything under control. The cold sweat down my neck is due to excitement, nothing more, nothing less.
"Incarnated or not, your treasury is very much a Noble Phantasm still." I taunt with a smile. "It shouldn't be here."
"Is that so, stray?" Gilgamesh answers with a strained smile of his own. "Then you'll have no trouble playing fetch with some more sticks, would you?"
Behind him, the number of glowing portals multiplies.
… Yeah, fucking fun times ahead, I can just tell.
Medea of Colchis
"I swear, I leave my Workshop unattended for twenty minutes and this happens?" I complain with a groan, trying and failing to make sense of the broken up mess of nonsensical information the battered inner wards are trying to notify me of. "What happened, actually? I doubt you collapsed the entrance for the hell of it."
"It's McRemitz-san." Sakura-chan tries to explain. "She's…"
"The woman escaped containment and turned into a monster." Medusa butts bluntly into the conversation. "Anything you want to share?"
I frown at the unsubtle insinuation. Another time, another place, that sort of matter-of-factly accusation would've prompted a swift verbal lashing followed by a carefully crafted and convolutedly designed and undoubtedly petty revenge. Then again, the accusation would've probably been right on the mark, back then.
I bite back my knee-jerk reaction to study the posture of the blindfolded Servant instead. She's hovering protectively beside Sakura-chan, facing towards the collapsed Workshop entrance and leaning slightly forward in an obviously tense manner. Something that happened down there has her shaken and high on adrenaline, so I guess it's not unreasonable that she'd be snippy and a bit irrational.
It falls on me to be the mature one here, so I roll my eyes and let the insult go.
"Nothing I did. Not by a long shot." I defend myself. "I was just keeping her in suspended animation while we cleared the schedule to sink time into properly healing her."
Haku-chan bites her lower lip worriedly. "So whatever it is was already there?"
"Impossible, it would've come up in my scans." I wave off, there's very little in this world that can remain unnoticed when I'm actively looking for it. At most, they'd manage to hide their real nature, but I would still know they're there and– My thoughts stall as I realize there was something that resisted my scans, something I didn't invest much worry on because I was pressed for time and I already had an explanation for. "Unless…"
"…Unless?" Haku-chan parrots in a cute way I'm not really in the right state of mind to appreciate. "Why doesn't that word fill me with confidence."
"[Tradition Carrier]." Her sorcery trait is designed to hide things away, a Noble Phantasm to be precise, but hiding is hiding. Repurposing it to obscure the presence of a creature shouldn't be particularly difficult. "That monster was most likely lurking within her Magic Crest."
"What, like a Trojan?"
"..." I give Haku-chan an unamused glare.
"What?"
"I wish the comparison wasn't so apt." I complain with a sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose as I address Medusa again. "What do we know about the creature?"
"Red eyes with cross-shaped pupils, bone-white flesh. Can take a humanoid shape. It was originally puppeteering the body, but after breaking a hand it replaced it with its own flesh." Medusa explains curtly, most of her attention still on the workshop. "It's also highly magic resistant. [Cybele] stopped it cold at the start, but the thing swiftly developed a resistance."
Well, beyond making me think of pancakes for some reason, those physical traits tell me nothing. If that's some sort of mythical beast, it's not one I've ever encountered before. More worrisome is the recount of the creature's resistance to Medusa's Mystic Eyes. [Cybele] were remarkably powerful even back during the Age of Gods, for something to be initially affected but swiftly overcome its effects…
And isn't that a fun piece of trivia to mull over too? 'Swiftly developed resistance' is not at all how [Magic Resistance] works. There's undoubtedly some sort of mystery at play here, and we'll need to unveil it before it bites us in the back.
Haku-chan muttering a curse under her breath draws my attention back to her.
"Do you have anything you'd want to share, esteemed Head Wife?"
"No! Yes! I mean!..." Haku-chan looks incredibly adorable, standing to attention and blurting excuses on reflex before she stops to take a deep breath and calm herself down. "The human shape doesn't grok, but everything else… Hidden within a Magic Crest, white flesh, red eyes with cross-shaped pupils…"
"This maybe isn't the time for trailing off dramatically, dear."
"Demon Pillar Barbatos, one of the agents of King of Magic Solomon. But it shouldn't even be active now! It was supposed to be defeated by Makiri Zolgen five hundred years ago! It has nothing to do with the Grail War Nii-san knows about!"
Well that's… very much not what I was hoping to hear. The fact that Master didn't expect or plan for this in any shape or forms is worrisome, but I know the only reason Haku-chan could possibly know about what's most likely private magus history from five hundred years ago is by having been told by him, so Masterhas to know something about whatever's going on, even if he clearly wasn't expecting it to surface at this time.
We'd better regroup with him then, and reevaluate our–
That's, of course, when Rin-chan and Illya-chan burst out of the building, slamming the door open to run up to us.
"Emiya-kun vanished into thin air, right in front of me." Rin-chan unceremoniously announces upon reaching them. "What's going on?"
"Isn't it obvious?" I lash without thinking. "We're under attack."
… Alright, maybe I'm a bit snippy and irrational too. In my defense, my carefully crafted wards and defenses apparently mean nothing, and my Master can be stolen right under my nose without me even noticing.
I find myself mentally descending into swearing while Haku-chan and Sakura-chan explain the situation to the newcomers. We have an unknown threat in the basement and Master is missing. Great, just… just great. I can never catch a break, can I? At least my Master/Servant contract still stands so, wherever he is, he's at least alive. I'll have to keep hold of that small reassurance with both hands.
"Alright, there's a monster down there and we have no idea where Emiya-kun is, but we have five Servants here with us." Rin calls out. "That's enough firepower to level a small country, so we should be capable of dealing with the creature, at least."
"Oh, yes. Speaking of that..." I draw everyone's attention again, giving the pair of resident little sisters a pointed look. "Is there any reason our prana supply would've thinned down to a trickle ever since last night? Sakura-chan? Haku-chan?"
"Well… we might have a trump card prepared that took a lot out of Sakura-chan here…" Haku-chan admits sheepishly. "One that we can't really pull off just yet."
"… Marvelous. So everyone plugged into Sakura's prana supply will be fighting at half-power, then." Rin-chan concludes, earning another sheepish nod. "At least you're a good front-line fighter. Your ability to trace fake Noble Phantasms should cover for them and–"
"… Actually…"
"Nevermind." She continues with a sigh. "Archer and Berserker will take care of this while you guys go and… do something unobtrusive."
It's somewhat amusing to watch the girl trying to take control like this. I mean, besides her obvious venting, her assumptions aren't really that off-mark, but she's forgetting something important.
"Yeah, about that…" As I'm considering pointing it out, Illya-chan speaks out first.
"For the Red Lady, what now!?"
"You really should be taking the chance to slip away before the thing gets here." Illya explains. "And focus on that thing."
"What? Why? What 'that thing'?"
"Something only Archer and you can do?" Illya asks leadingly. "Something related to Gilgamesh, the Church and that children-based prana battery hidden in their basement?"
"Oh, shut up! I knew that! I mean… What if Gilgamesh is lying in wait?"
"I'm fairly sure he's facing Nii-san about now." Haku-chan adds with a contemplative expression. "Which is another reason why we should weaken him as much as possible before he… you know. Turns the love of our life into a bloody smear in the ground? Nii-san is good, but not that good. The plan was to pile on the golden dildo, not duel him one on one."
"Yes. Even if he is lying in wait, I have full trust in Nee-san surviving the encounter." Sakura agrees firmly. "She's a first rate born and bred magus, after all."
"Oh, fuck you very much, Sakura!" Rin snaps again. "I've had it with your passive aggressive crap! What crawled up your ass and died? "
"What cr–? Do you really need to ask, Lady Tohsaka?"
Well now. It seems like Medusa isn't the only one tense and irritable. Not that I can't blame them, especially if Master is truly facing Gilgamesh alone. But this really isn't the time for letting old grievances get the better of us.
As I'm about to step in to calm things down, the pile of debris blocking the exit of my Workshop explodes, making way for a vaguely insectoid and admittedly cute abomination to step under the sunlight. Long, slightly wavy hair, chalk-white skin, a petite but clearly feminine figure and bright red eyes sporting very remarkably shaped pupils. Haku-chan and Medusa had called them cross-shaped, but they're more like four-pointed stars, really.
The creature has considerably more than two eyes though. It's also wearing an airy sundress over a somewhat familiar skintight suit, the whole ensemble as white as her skin and hair, but adorned by a tasteful circuitry-like pattern in red all over. Come to think of it, that pattern is a bit more than just 'somewhat familiar.'
"Is that my Mystic Code that thing is wearing?"
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder