บท 7: La Pucelle (1)
Fire was where it all began for him, and now it would seem that fire would once more be where he'd meet his end.
Shirou's pupils dilated as great gouts of flame sailed over him before he dropped to the ground and rolled. Behind him, the sound of smoldering stone gave way to heated embers that mottled the ground with black holes and suffused the air with acrid smoke.
-[Substantial Spirit Origin confirmed]
Chaldea's transmission signal echoed in his ears, all but confirming the identify of his assailant as he planted his feet into the ground and hurriedly leapt backwards. Another spout of flames scorched the spot he was once in followed by revolving black spearheads that aimed to skewer him in place.
"Enemy Servant! This wasn't supposed to happen!"
"Romani what the hell's going one? Where's Emiya?!"
The sound of an urgent transmission from Romani sounded by his ear followed by a transmission signal from Olga, but he was more than preoccupied at the moment to respond. The black spears aimed at him each produced torrents of fiery red flame wherever they touched. He dared not defend against them with his blades as it was more than likely that he'd be burned alive as a consequence.
"Trace. On." Magic circuit patterns flared over his body, creating teal-coloured pathways that traced up to the temples of his face.
If the changes caught his opponent's eyes, she didn't react at all. Instead, the armoured woman with pale features, hair, and a face almost identical to Saber Alter's own disregarded anything he could possibly do to her. This wasn't the product of pride or arrogance, but mere dismissal.
Reinforcement was only going to get him so far. The human body had limits, and he was already doing his best to prevent himself from dying against the capabilities of a Servant. She likely saw him as nothing more than a passing insect, but even insects may be dangerous.
He watched as the enemy Servant's eyes widened when a flurry of swords countered her conjured spears long before they could get anywhere near him. This was the chance he was waiting for.
Circling around to avoid an onset of flames, his right arm raised itself up, glowing with resplendent crimsons light that no Servant would fail to recognize.
The Command Seals on his right hand began to flare. Olga had always been right about Masters and Servants. Servants fought Servants, and it was the duty of a Master to act as their Servant's support.
Through the power of this Seal, time and space are meaningless towards an absolute command. Through the bond coursing from within him, his connection to his Servant flared in response. By the power granted in words, bring forth a miracle that defies all worldly laws.
'Come. Saber!'
The words were intoned within him, invoking the magic of the first seal which began to dim while unleashing its light, waiting for activation through the manifestation of an absolute order.
To give thought into feeling, and conviction into strength was the prerequisite of all Masters. For when their will equals the will of their Servant, the effect of the Command Seal is compounded.
Saber Alter had made a promise, an oath on her honour to be by his side and protect him always, and through their connection, he could sense the weight of her convictions. He need only call out.
"By the power of this Command Seal." His mouth opened, eyes keeping track of the enemy Servant's movements before widening when he realized that she was no longer in the spot she'd once been standing. Shit. "Come Sa-!"
The signal was promptly cut off.
A sword had pierced through his glowing right hand from directly in front of him followed by a heavy knee to the stomach and a bludgeoning swipe from a metal flag banner. For a moment, he could almost hear the desperation in Saber Alter's voice when the command had been interrupted moments before completion.
Kanshou forming in his left hand, he barely raised it in time to block a counter swipe as the enemy Servant withdrew her sword from his right hand and swiped at him.
Metal clanged against metal, producing a shower of sparks that was quickly drowned out by torrents of hellfire that erupted from his opponent's sword. The flames quickly lapped over him. His mystic code supplied by Chaldea began to burn, the skin of his flesh beginning to redden and shrivel.
His muscles groaned in protest, cuts and bruises from burst veins spreading over his body.
He stared right into the eyes of his adversary, and not once did she seem to offer any words to explain why she was trying to kill him. All that he could see was an unspeakable rage and grief marring her features. Now that he looked closer, caught on the lapels of her cape and dark armour were burnt pieces of what looked to be monistic garments worn by priests.
Another glance at the surroundings revealed that he was in the ruins of what had once been a church.
Grunting as the flames climbed to envelope him, he willed a ring of swords to form around the enemy and plunge down.
Glaring upwards, the Servant kicked him flat on the sternum and sent him tumbling away while using him as a springboard to dodge his attack.
Pain erupted from all across his body as he finally slid to a stop after smashing into a piece of the church's stone wall and breaking through it to land outside the structure. His left side was badly burned, his hand holding Kanshou almost entirely charred black and petrified. He could no longer feel it, nor move his fingers to unclasp his sword.
Coughing out blood, he glanced up to stare at the approaching figure of the enemy Servant now surrounded by dozens of wyverns and a large dragon he now noticed was waiting outside.
Well fuck.
He wheezed while sprawled on his back. It wasn't as if he had no options here, but he'd need time to create and use an appropriate Noble Phantasm or call Saber Alter for aid…something the enemy Servant wasn't keen on giving him time to accomplish.
He forced down a scream of pain as a heeled foot suddenly stomped down over his chest before he could even get back up onto his feet. Strength was quickly leaving him as fire began to erupt from the Servant's heel, effectively burning him alive.
It was the Fuyuki Grail War all over again. Arturia had warned him many times that capable as he may be, a Servant would still be too much for him to handle on his own.
'That's why rely on me. I am your sword.'
'I will protect you.'
It was only in times like these that he could see the similarities between the Arturia he knew and the Saber Alter who promised to remain by his side. If he died here, he couldn't even imagine how Saber Alter would feel. Beneath her stern visage, overbearing whims, and selfish conduct, in the end, she was still Arturia. The same woman who to rectify the mistakes of her rule wanted to make a wish to the Grail to overwrite her very legend and existence from human history.
With his right hand, he clasped onto the Servant's boot in a feeble attempt to push her off of him and stave the flames roasting him alive.
The enemy Servant hummed at his futile resistance. No sword that he could trace could be used faster than the Servant could just stomp down and cave his chest in, effectively killing him instantly.
Even so…
He pictured Saber Alter's light hearted expression shifting back into one of devastation and regret as seen in Fuyuki, and he found the motivation to endure even as the enemy Servant clicked her tongue and increased the intensity of her flames.
He had to survive. He had to live. If not just for his sake, but for his Servant's.
Light began to shine. Dim at first, the radiance began to build until it was impossible to ignore, the bruises and cuts on his body fading away under a distant utopia's influence.
Avalon of the Ever-Distant Utopia. It was Arturia's sheath, and knowing that he had it stored within him, the first thing she did was siphon her own magic energy into Avalon.
Even when Arturia wasn't here, she was still trying to protect him.
With a glow purer and holier than any flame could achieve, golden mots abruptly formed and swirled around him, congregating over his wounds and countering the flames in a desperate bid to heal him.
Where burns darkened flesh and seared off skin, light would shine and revert the process.
A chocked gasp entered his ears, and when he glanced up, something had changed in the enemy Servant's expression. Her eyes had widened, and a quiver had formed over her lips. It was as if she was caught off guard, the weight of her foot over his chest leaving in an instant as the golden mots swirled around her. A few had even made their way to the palm of her hand where they glimmered and illuminated her face.
This light was one of reminiscence that only two in this present era had once encountered over the course of the Hundred-Years War.
"It can't be…" he heard the enemy Servant speak for the first time ever since she'd attacked him.
He struggled to set himself free at the unexpected opportunity, however, he soon blacked out from exhaustion.
Saber Alter wasn't going to be happy.
-----------------------------------------
He awoke to the sound of a rat scurrying over the stone floor, and the clanking of chains bound to his wrists and ankles. It smelt rancid as if a person hadn't showered for several days or weeks, but this was the last of Shirou's concerns.
Blearily, he opened his eyes
"I'm alive?" He spoke more to himself than anyone else. Avalon was a top tier healing Noble Phantasm, but it too had its weaknesses. It couldn't repair the brain, and if the fire had continued, surely it would have enveloped him completely. His upper clothing was practically gone, burnt into ashes and leaving his chest bare despite being part of a mystic code.
"Indeed," a voice answered his rhetorical inquiry.
Before him were a set of iron bars that formed a cell a in which the enemy Servant stood on the other side, stone faced and scornful. The metal tiara-like face-plate clinked as she tilted her chin upwards to look down on him.
He was stunned. "You didn't kill me," he said dumbly.
His first impression of this enemy Servant was of a cold-hearted murderer. She hadn't shown any remorse in trying to kill him even now, and she didn't seem the sort for patience either. So why had she spared him at a time where she had the absolute advantage? There was no way it was done out of pity, concern, or a change of heart.
This Servant eerily reminded him of Saber Alter, and if he used Saber Alter as a basis, then there was no way she would be one to show mercy to an adversary.
The Servant's brow twitched irritably at his reply. "I scorched you alive and fried your insides. Anyone else would have died. Keep talking out of hand and I'll see to it that I rectify the mistake," she threatened before crossing her arms beneath her ample bosom, the most glaring difference between her and Saber Alter.
"Hence forth, you are my prisoner," the Servant spoke self-importantly. "You may refer to me as Jeanne d'Arc- The real one," she tacked on for good measure. She laughed darkly out of bitter amusement a second later.
The fact that she gave her True Name without hesitation belied her confidence, but at the same time, stunned Shirou into silence.
The enemy Servant was the Maid of Orleans, Saint of France, burned at the stake in the original human history.
No matter how Shirou looked at Jeanne, the Saint described in legend couldn't be seen…Just like how Saber Alter couldn't be compared to the original righteous King of Britain. They were opposites: Alters.
Jeanne Alter. This wouldn't be the first time he'd seen something like this occur. Blackening then? Was the Holy Grail's tainted mud present here in this singularity as well? No. It shouldn't be possible.
It had been explained to him that the Holy Grail wasn't ordinarily supposed to be tainted. What happened in Fuyuki wasn't a true manifestation of a Holy Grail, a vessel of an immeasurable amount of magical energy able to shift history itself, but a product of happenstance.
The cell's door clinked open as Jeanne Alter walked inside to stare him down face to face, a cruel tilt in her lips. "Scared?" She mouthed while staring him up and down, but frowning when not a change occurred in his expression. "Admittedly, you have more courage than Charles and Pierre Cauchon, but in the end, the both of them still ended up burning to ashes."
The names Jeanne Alter had just listed off went over his head. He'd never been much for history, and it had been agreed that it would be Romani's role to fill in the blanks in a Rayshifted era. Still, the fact that he wasn't getting any transmissions likely meant that the area was magically sealed.
"You won't be as fortunate if I burn you this time," Jeanne Alter stared into his face, searching for signs of unease. However, she didn't find it and glowered at his lack of reaction.
The fact was, he was too busy trying to activate his magecraft to pay too much attention to what Jeanne Alter said compared to readying himself to react to her actions. The problem was, his magecraft wouldn't activate. The pathways were there, and the familiar sensation was also present, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't actualize any mystery nor call upon his Command Seals.
He glanced back up at Jeanne Alter and suddenly noticed her grinning slyly with contempt.
"Gilles set up this dungeon after warning me about some Masters of a place called Chaldea intent on standing against me," She shoved him back, then grabbed his right arm. "From the Command Seals on your hand, I assume you are one of these last Masters of humanity."
There was no denying the statement. There was no way Jeanne Alter would believe otherwise anyway. "You'll have to remind me to thank the fool who would present you right in front of me though."
Shirou knew full well that Romani would rather not meet Jeanne Alter face to face. He would surely already have his hands full trying to appease Saber Alter for the mistake.
"If you're trying to get me to sell out a friend, it isn't going to work," he responded flatly, much to her displeasure. She seemed to have a grudge for the upright sort.
"How noble," she snarled under her breath. "You're all talk. That's what you are. You flaunt your righteousness and honour, but deep inside your all just snakes lying through your teeth while others bleed on your behalf." She laughed fanatically. "The pious pope, the dignified King whose reign marked the end of the Hundred-Years war. Once they sang praises for the pure maid of Orleans, then they crown her a witch and burn her on the stake in the next!"
The heat in her voice was just as real as the unbearable sense of grief and resignation suffusing it. Fury greater than any other soon superseded all else though.
"Are you not any different?" She leveled a disillusioned smile at him, the edges of her mouth not quite reaching her eyes before she narrowed them. "Go ahead and reveal your true self! Sell out your comrades and I'll guarantee that no harm will come to you," she proposed as black embers began to waft off of her.
The fact that he couldn't access his magecraft or even feel out for Avalon within him meant that it was unlikely that he'd have any method of countering Jeanne Alter if she tried to kill him again. However, if she really thought he was the type of man to value his life over the life of his friends and companions, then she mistaken. He was not the man Jeanne Alter assumed he was.
"No," he said without pause or inflection, watching the way Jeanne Alter shut her mouth, but laughed darkly a second later.
"Do you think I would trust the words of a fellow human again so easily?" There was no amusement on her features, her smile fading into a glower. "Truly, the most just and virtuous are merely the best actors, but enough is enough. There's no way a fellow human would ever truly value someone else's life over their own. Maybe I just haven't been persuasive enough? Shall I scorch your limbs black and leave you a cripple before proposing my suggestion again? Surely you won't say that your answer would be the same?"
A torch of red flames hovered over the gauntlets of Jeanne Alter's left hand, illuminating both of their features.
In the face of this threat, he went straight to the heart of the matter after noticing an anomaly.
"Are you trying to convince me, or are you trying to convince yourself?" He said abruptly.
In the first place, Jeanne Alter didn't seem the type to care about whether she got information on Olga and Ritsuka or not. So, what was her goal if not to get something from him or to prove a point out of personal satisfaction?
The flames in Jeanne Alter's hand snuffed out at his unexpected response, her features fading into neutrality.
"Convince myself?" She grimaced, biting down on her lower lip and shifting her weight uneasily. "Do you really think that I'm in need of such reassurances? That I would care to think that some of the lives I've taken may have been innocent and doubt myself? Pathetic."
He looked at her in full, and when he did, he felt neither anger or indignation, but empathy after an image of Saber Alter superimposed over her. Saber Alter was impossibly hard to read, and naturally, so too was Jeanne Alter. However, his experience with one enabled him to perceive certain things about the other.
"Then why do you look so sad?"
She stiffened, her pupils dilating.
"Shut up!" It was like the temperature had just suddenly dropped in the room. She glared, her hands balling into fists so hard that the metal of her gauntlets began to screech. She snarled at him.
"If there is a God, then surely I will be punished."
There was something about the way she said this while staring at him that he found odd. It may have just been for a moment, but there was both longing and envy in her bitter eyes before she shoved him and exited his cell.
"You don't know anything."
The click of his cell's lock was the only noise he heard before she abruptly turned around and left, the tapping of her heels against the ground echoing in the dungeon chamber while her furred mantle billowed over her shoulders.
Something about ending this conversation here felt wrong, so before he could stop himself, his mouth had already opened.
"But I know enough. I can see enough," he called out to her one last time before she left.
She paused by the dungeon's exit, seemingly about to vehemently rebut him, but he watched as her shoulders sagged and she just slammed the door behind her instead.
What he saw was not the overbearing figure of a tyrant, killer, or insidious witch, but a neglected and abandoned individual drowning in the hate and betrayal cast upon her by society.
It was almost kind of sad that she could kill and scorn others without remorse, but still harbour certain doubts. No. It was sad, and that was all that he could tell himself as a stifling sensation welled up from within him. What was justice and what was righteousness for a woman burned at the stake for her own pious and devote beliefs? What was justice if her fury could be justified?
Some are made monsters by choice, but others by circumstance.
He let out a sigh, pushed away from the front of the iron-barred cell, and leaned his back against the far wall.
What was the right decision to make here? At the very least, what was the answer with the least regrets?
One thing was for sure, the troubled frown on Jeanne's face as she'd left didn't suit her, and in the end, isn't this more than enough of a reason? It wasn't like he was going to be going anywhere anytime soon, locked up in an enchanted prison with a Servant as a warden and no way to communicate with Chaldea.
He'd deal with this Singularity, but he'd deal with it in his own way.
Therefore, same old same old then.
She never really did explain why she didn't end up killing him, and perhaps there was meaning there.
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